Author: Bernard Cornwell
Category: Historical
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“Why wear that uniform?” he responded to her question. “Because you will find it easier to ride a horse wearing breeches, because the uniform becomes you, because it reassures our French friends that you are not an enemy, and best of all, my dear one, because it would please me.” And that last reason, of course, had been the one that convinced her. “You really like the name House Beautiful?” he asked her.
“I’m used to it.”
“Not attached to it? It’s not a matter of faith with you?”
“Faith?” Kate, in a white linen dress, frowned. “I consider myself a Christian.”
“A Protestant Christian,” her husband amended her, “as am I. But does not the name of the house somewhat flaunt itself in a Romish society?”
“I doubt,” Kate said with an unexpected tartness, “that anyone here has read Bunyan.”
“Some will have,” Christopher said, “and they will know they are being insulted.” He smiled at her. “I am a diplomat, remember. It is my job to make the crooked straight and the rough places plain.”
“Is that what you’re doing here?” Kate asked, gesturing to indicate the city beneath them where the French ruled over plundered houses and embittered people.
“Oh, Kate,” Christopher said sadly. “This is progress!”
“Progress?”
Christopher got to his feet and paced up and down the lawn, becoming animated as he explained to her that the world was changing fast about them. “ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth,’ ” he told her, “ ‘than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ ” and Kate, who had been told this more than once in her short marriage, suppressed her irritation and listened as her husband described how the ancient superstitions were being discredited. “Kings have been dethroned, Kate, whole countries now manage without them. That would once have been considered unthinkable! It would have been a defiance of God’s plan for the world, but we’re seeing a new revelation. It is a new ordering of the world. What do simple folk see here? War! Just war, but war between who? France and Britain? France and Portugal? No! It is between the old way of doing things and the new way. Superstitions are being challenged. I’m not defending Bonaparte. Good God, no! He’s a braggart, an adventurer, but he’s also an instrument. He’s burning out what is bad in the old regimes and leaving a space into which new ideas will come. Reason! That’s what animates the new regimes, Kate, reason!”
“I thought it was liberty,” Kate suggested.
“Liberty! Man has no liberty except the liberty to obey rules, but who makes the rules? With luck, Kate, it will be reasonable men making reasonable rules. Clever men. Subtle men. In the end, Kate, it is a coterie of sophisticated men who will make the rules, but they will make them according to the tenets of reason and there are some of us in Britain, a few of us in Britain, who understand that we will have to come to terms with that idea. We also have to help shape it. If we fight it then the world will become new without us and we shall be defeated by reason. So we must work with it.”
“With Bonaparte?” Kate asked, distaste in her voice.
“With all the countries of Europe!” Christopher said enthusiastically. “With Portugal and Spain, with Prussia and Austria, with Holland and, yes, with France. We have more in common than divides us, yet we fight! What sense does that make? There can be no progress without peace, Kate, none! You do want peace, my love?”
“Devoutly,” Kate said.
“Then trust me,” Christopher said, “trust that I know what I’m doing.”
And she did trust him because she was young and her husband was so much older and she knew he was privy to opinions that were far more sophisticated than her instincts. Yet the following night that trust was put to the test when four French officers and their mistresses came to the House Beautiful for supper, the group led by Brigadier General Henri Vuillard, a tall elegantly handsome man who was charming to Kate, kissing her hand and complimenting her on the house and the garden. Vuillard’s servant brought a crate of wine as a gift, though it was hardly tactful, for the wine was Savages’ best, appropriated from one of the British ships that had been trapped on Oporto’s quays by contrary winds when the French took the city.
After supper the three junior officers entertained the ladies in the parlor while Christopher and Vuillard paced the garden, their cigars trailing smoke beneath the black cypress trees. “Soult is worried,” Vuillard confessed.
“By Cradock?”
“Cradock’s an old woman,” Vuillard said scathingly. “Isn’t it true he wanted to withdraw last year? But what about Wellesley?”
“Tougher,” Christopher admitted, “but it’s by no means certain he’ll come here. He has enemies in London.”
“Political enemies, I presume?” Vuillard asked.
“Indeed.”
“The most dangerous enemies of a soldier,” Vuillard said. He was of an age with Christopher, and a favorite of Marshal Soult. “No, Soult’s worried,” he went on, “because we’re frittering troops away to protect our supply lines. You kill two peasants armed with matchlock guns in this damn country and twenty more spring up from the rocks, and the twenty don’t have matchlocks any longer, instead they have good British muskets supplied by your damn country.”
“Take Lisbon,” Christopher said, “and capture every other port, and the supply of arms will dry up.”
“We’ll do it,” Vuillard promised, “in time. But we could do with another fifteen thousand men.”
Christopher stopped at the garden’s edge and stared across the Douro for a few seconds. The city lay beneath him, the smoke from a thousand kitchens smirching the night air. “Is Soult going to declare himself king?”
“You know what his nickname is now?” Vuillard asked, amused. “King Nicolas! No, he won’t make the declaration, not if he’s got any sense and he’s probably got just enough. The local people won’t stand for it, the army won’t support it and the Emperor will poach his balls for it.”
Christopher smiled. “But he’s tempted?”
“Oh, he’s tempted, but Soult usually stops before he goes too far. Usually.” Vuillard sounded cautious for Soult, only the day before, had sent a letter to all the generals in his army, suggesting that they encourage the Portuguese to declare their support for him to become king. It was, Vuillard thought, madness, but Soult was obsessed with the idea of being a royal. “I told him he’ll provoke a mutiny if he does.”
“That he will,” Christopher said, “and you need to know that Argenton was in Coimbra. He met Cradock.”
“Argenton’s a fool,” Vuillard snarled.
“He’s a useful fool,” Christopher observed. “Let him keep talking to the British and they’ll do nothing. Why should they exert themselves if your army is going to destroy itself by mutiny?”
“But will it?” Vuillard asked. “Just how many officers does Argenton speak for?”
“Enough,” Christopher said, “and I have their names.”
Vuillard chuckled. “I could have you arrested, Englishman, and given to a pair of dragoon sergeants who’ll prize those names out of you in two minutes.”
“You’ll get the names,” Christopher said, “in time. But for the moment, Brigadier, I give you this instead.” He handed Vuillard an envelope.
“What is it?” It was too dark in the garden to read anything.
“Cradock’s order of battle,” Christopher said. “Some of his troops are in Coimbra, but most are in Lisbon. In brief he has sixteen thousand British bayonets and seven thousand Portuguese. The details are all there, and you will note they are particularly deficient in artillery.”
“How deficient?”
“Three batteries of six-pounders,” Christopher said, “and one of three. There are rumors that more guns, heavier guns, are coming, but such rumors have always proved false in the past.”
“Three-pounders!” Vuillard laughed. “He might as well chuck rocks at us.” The Brigadier tapped the envelope. “So what do you want from us?”
Christopher walked a few paces in silence, then shrugged. “It seems to me, General, that Europe is going to be ruled from Paris, not from London. You’re going to put your own king here.”
“True,” Vuillard said, “and it might even be King Nicolas if he captures Lisbon quickly enough, but the Emperor has a stableful of idle brothers. One of those will probably get Portugal.”
“But whoever it is,” Christopher said, “I can be useful to him.”
“By giving us this”—Vuillard flourished the envelope—“and a few names that I can kick out of Argenton whenever I wish?”
“Like all soldiers,” Christopher said smoothly, “you are unsubtle. Once you conquer Portugal, General, you will have to pacify it. I know who can be trusted here, who will work with you and who are your secret enemies. I know which men say one thing and do another. I bring you all the knowledge of Britain’s Foreign Office. I know who spies for Britain and who their paymasters are. I know the codes they use and the routes their messages take. I know who will work for you and who will work against you. I know who will lie to you, and who will tell you the truth. In short, General, I can save you thousands of deaths unless, of course, you would rather send your troops against peasants in the hills?”
Vuillard chuckled. “And what if we don’t conquer Portugal? What happens to you if we withdraw?”
“Then I shall own Savages,” Christopher answered calmly, “and my masters at home will simply calculate that I failed to encourage mutiny in your ranks. But I doubt you’ll lose. What has stopped the Emperor so far?”
“La Manche,” Vuillard said dryly, meaning the English Channel. He drew on his cigar. “You came to me,” he said, “with news of mutiny, but you never told me what you wanted in exchange. So tell me now, Englishman.”
“The port trade,” Christopher said, “I want the port trade.”
The simplicity of the answer made Vuillard check his pacing. “The port trade?”
“All of it. Croft, Taylor Fladgate, Burmester, Smith Woodhouse, Dow’s, Savages, Gould, Kopke, Sandeman, all the lodges. I don’t want to own them, I already own Savages, or I will soon, I just want to be the sole shipper.”
Vuillard took a few seconds to understand the scope of the demand. “You’d control half the export trade of Portugal!” he said. “You’d be richer than the Emperor!”
“Not quite,” Christopher said, “because the Emperor will tax me and I can’t tax him. The man who becomes impressively rich, General, is the man who levies the tax, not he who pays it.”
“You’ll still be wealthy.”
“And that, General, is what I want.”
Vuillard stared down at the black lawn. Someone was playing a harpsichord in the House Beautiful and there was the sound of women’s laughter. Peace, he thought, would eventually come and maybe this polished Englishman could help bring it about. “You’re not telling me the names I want,” he said, “and you’ve given me a list of British forces. But how do I know you’re not deceiving me?”
“You don’t.”
“I want more than lists,” Vuillard said harshly. “I need to know, Englishman, that you’re willing to give something tangible to prove that you’re on our side.”
“You want blood,” Christopher said mildly. He had been expecting the demand.
“Blood will do, but not Portuguese blood. British blood.”
Christopher smiled. “There is a village called Vila Real de Zedes,” he said, “where Savages have some vineyards. It has been curiously undisturbed by the conquest.” That was true, but only because Christopher had arranged it with Argenton’s colonel and fellow plotter whose dragoons were responsible for patrolling that stretch of country. “But if you send a small force there,” Christopher went on, “you will find a token unit of British riflemen. There are only a score of them, but they have some Portuguese troops and some rebels with them. Say a hundred men altogether? They’re yours, but in return I ask one thing.”
“Which is?”
“Spare the Quinta. It belongs to my wife’s family.”
A grumble of thunder sounded to the north and the cypresses were outlined by a flash of sheet lightning. “Vila Real de Zedes?” Vuillard asked.
“A village not far from the Amarante road,” Christopher said, “and I wish I could give you something more, but I offer what I can as an earnest of my sincerity. The troops there will give you no trouble. They’re led by a British lieutenant and he didn’t strike me as particularly resourceful. The man must be thirty if he’s a day and he’s still a lieutenant so he can’t be up to much.”
Another crackle of thunder made Vuillard look anxiously to the northern sky. “We must get back to quarters before the rain comes,” he said, but then paused. “It doesn’t worry you that you betray your country?”
“I betray nothing,” Christopher said, and then, for a change, he spoke truthfully. “If France’s conquests, General, are ruled only by Frenchmen then Europe will regard you as nothing but adventurers and exploiters, but if you share your power, if every nation in Europe contributes to the government of every other nation, then we will have moved into the promised world of reason and peace. Isn’t that what your Emperor wants? A European system, those were his words, a European system, a European code of laws, a European judiciary and one nation alone in Europe, Europeans. How can I betray my own continent?”
Vuillard grimaced. “Our Emperor talks a lot, Englishman. He’s a Corsican and he has wild dreams. Is that what you are? A dreamer?”
“I am a realist,” Christopher said. He had used his knowledge of the mutiny to ingratiate himself with the French, and now he would secure their trust by offering a handful of British soldiers as a sacrifice.
So Sharpe and his men must die, so that Europe’s glorious future could arrive.
Chapter 5
THE LOSS OF THE TELESCOPE hurt Sharpe. He told himself it was a bauble, a useful frill, but it still hurt. It marked an achievement, not just the rescue of Sir Arthur Wellesley, but the promotion to commissioned rank afterward. Sometimes, when he scarcely dared believe that he was a King’s officer, he would look at the telescope and think how far he had traveled from the orphanage in Brewhouse Lane and at other times, though he was reluctant to admit it to himself, he enjoyed refusing to explain the plaque on the telescope’s barrel. Yet he knew other men knew. They looked at him, understood he had once fought like a demon under the Indian sun and were awed.
Now bloody Christopher had the glass.
“You’ll get it back, sir,” Harper tried to console him.
“I bloody will, too. I hear that Williamson got into a fight in the village last night?”
“Not much of a fight, sir. I pulled him off.”
“Who was he milling?”
“One of Lopes’s men, sir. As evil a bastard as Williamson.”
“Should I punish him?”
“God, no, sir. I looked after it.”
But Sharpe nevertheless declared the village out of bounds, which he knew would not be popular with his men. Harper spoke for them, pointing out that there were some pretty girls in Vila Real de Zedes. “There’s one wee slip of a thing there, sir,” he said, “that would bring tears to your eyes. The lads only want to walk down there of an evening to say hello.”
“And to leave some babies behind.”
“That too,” Harper agreed.
“And the girls can’t walk up here?” Sharpe asked. “I hear some do.”
“Some do, sir, I’m told, that’s true.”
“Including one wee slip of a thing that has red hair and can bring tears to your eyes?”
Harper watched a buzzard quartering the broom-clad slopes of the hill on which the fort was being made. “Some of us like to go to church in the village, sir,” he said, studiously not talking about the red-headed girl whose name was Maria.
Sharpe smiled. “So how many Catholics have we got?”
“There’s me, sir, and Donnelly and Carter and McNeill. O
h, and Slattery, of course. The rest of you are all going to hell.”
“Slattery!” Sharpe said. “Fergus isn’t a Christian.”
“I never said he was, sir, but he goes to mass.”
Sharpe could not help laughing. “So I’ll let the Catholics go to mass,” he said.
Harper grinned. “That means they’ll all be Catholic by Sunday.”
“This is the army,” Sharpe said, “so anyone wanting to convert has to get my permission. But you can take the other four to mass and you bring them back by midday, and if I find any of the other lads down there I’ll hold you responsible.”
“Me?”
“You’re a sergeant, aren’t you?”
“But when the lads see Lieutenant Vicente’s men going to the village, sir, they won’t see why they’re not allowed.”
“Vicente’s Portuguese. His men know the local rules. We don’t. And sooner or later there’s going to be a fight over girls that’ll bring tears to your eyes and we don’t need it, Pat.” The problem was not so much the girls, though Sharpe knew they could be a problem if one of his riflemen became drunk, and that was the true problem. There were two taverns in the village and both served cheap wine out of barrels and half his men would become paralyzed with drink given half a chance. And there was a temptation to relax the rules because the situation of the riflemen was so strange. They were out of touch with the army, not sure what was happening and without enough to do, and so Sharpe invented more work for them. The fort was now sprouting extra stone redoubts and Sharpe found tools in the Quinta’s barn and made his men clear the track through the woods and carry bundles of firewood up to the watchtower, and when that was done he led long patrols into the surrounding countryside. The patrols were not intended to seek out the enemy, but to tire the men so that they collapsed at sundown and slept till dawn, and each dawn Sharpe held a formal parade and put men on a charge if he found a button undone or a scrap of rust on a rifle lock. They moaned at him, but there was no trouble with the villagers.