Sharpe 21 - Sharpe's Devil (14 page)

“I want to write to my Consul in Valdivia. He'll reward you if you bring me paper and ink.”

“Please don't speak, senor, when I am shaving your neck.”

On the fifth morning, under a sullen sky from which a sour rain spat, the Espiritu Santo had appeared beyond the northern headland and, making hard work of the last few hundred yards, beat her way into the outer harbor where, with a great splash and a gigantic clanking of chain, she let go her two forward anchors. Captain Ardiles's frigate, like the American brigantine which still lay to her anchors in the roadstead, drew too much water to be safe in the shallow inner harbor, and so she was forced to fret and tug at her twin cables while, from the shore, a succession of lighters and longboats ferried goods and people back and forth.

The next morning, under the same drab sky, the Espiritu Santo raised her anchors and, very cautiously, approached the stone wharf which lay at the foot of the citadel's crag. It was clear to Sharpe that the big frigate could only lay alongside the wharf at the very top of the high tide, and that as a result Captain Ardiles was creeping his way in with extreme caution. The frigate was being towed by longboats, and had men casting lead lines from her bows. She finally nestled alongside the wharf and Harper, leaning as far out as the bars would allow him, described how the contents of a cart were being unloaded by soldiers and carried on board the frigate. “It's the gold!” Harper said excitedly. “They must be loading the gold! My God, there's enough gold there to buy a Pope!”

The frigate only stayed at the wharf long enough to take on board the boxes from the cart before she raised a foresail and slipped away from the dangerously shallow water to return to her deeper anchorage. “Lucky bastards,” Harper said as the rattle of the anchor chains echoed across the harbor. “They'll be going home soon, won't they? Back to Europe, eh? She could take us to Cadiz, we'd have a week in a good tavern, then I'd catch a sherry boat north to Dublin. Christ, what wouldn't I give to be on board her?” He watched as a longboat pulled away from the frigate and was rowed back toward the citadel's steps, then he sighed. “One way or another we've made a mess of this job, haven't we?”

Sharpe, lying on one of the mattresses and staring at the cracks in the plastered ceiling, smiled. “Peace isn't like war. In wartime things were simpler.” He turned his head toward the metal-studded door beyond which footsteps sounded loud in the passageway. “Bit early for food, isn't it?”

The door opened, but instead of the usual two servants carrying the midday trays, Major Suarez and a file of infantrymen now stood in the stone passageway. “Come,” Suarez ordered. “Downstairs. The Captain-General wants you.”

“Who?” Sharpe swung his legs off the cot.

“General Bautista is here. He came on the frigate.” The terror in Suarez was palpable. “Please, hurry!”

They were taken downstairs to a long hall which had huge arched windows facing onto the harbor. The ceiling was painted white and decorated with an iron chandelier under which a throng of uniformed men awaited Sharpe's arrival. The crowd of officers reminded Sharpe of the audience that had watched Bautista attending to his duties in the Citadel at Valdivia.

Bautista, attended by Marquinez and his other aides, was again offering a display of public diligence. He was working at papers spread on a table on which rested Sharpe's sword and Harper's seven-barrel gun. The strongbox was also there. The sight of the weapons gave Sharpe a pulse of hope that perhaps they were to be released, even maybe allowed to travel home on the Espiritu Santo, for Captain Ardiles was among the nervously silent audience. Sharpe nodded at the frigate's Captain, but Ardiles turned frostily away, revealing, to Sharpe's astonishment, George Blair, the British Consul. Sharpe tried to cross the hall to speak with Blair, but a soldier pulled him back. “Blair!” Sharpe shouted, “I want to talk to you!”

Blair made urgent hushing motions as though Sharpe disturbed a sacred assembly. Captain Marquinez, as beautifully uniformed as a palace guard, frowned at Sharpe's temerity, though Bautista, at last looking up from his paperwork, seemed merely amused by Sharpe's loud voice. “Ah, Mister Sharpe! We meet again. I trust you have not been discommoded? You're comfortable here? You find the food adequate?”

Sharpe, suspicious of Bautista's affability, said nothing. The Captain-General, plainly enjoying himself, put down his quill pen and stood up. “This is yours?” Bautista put his hand on the strongbox.

Sharpe still said nothing, while the audience, relishing the contest that was about to begin, seemed to tense itself.

“I asked you a question, Mister Sharpe.”

“It belongs to the Countess of Mouromorto.”

“A rich woman! But why does she send her money on voyages around the world?”

“You know why,” Sharpe said.

“Do I?” Bautista opened the strongbox's lid. “One thousand, six hundred and four guineas. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Sharpe said defiantly, and there was a murmur of astonishment from Bautista's audience as they translated the figure into Spanish dollars. A man could live comfortably for a whole lifetime on six and a half thousand dollars.

“Why were you carrying such a sum in gold?” Bautista demanded.

Sharpe saw the trap just in time. If he had admitted that the money had been given to him for use as bribes, then the Captain-General would accuse him of attempting to corrupt Chilean officials. Sharpe shrugged. “We didn't know what expenses we might have,” he answered vaguely.

“Expenses?” Bautista sneered. “What expenses are involved in digging up a dead man? Shovels are so expensive in Europe?” The audience murmured with laughter, and Sharpe sensed a relief in the assembled officers. They were like men who had come to a bullfight and they wanted to see their champion draw blood from the bull, and the swift jest about the price of shovels had pleased them. Now Bautista took one of the coins from the strongbox, picked up a riding crop from the table, and walked toward Sharpe. “Tell me, Mister Sharpe, why you came to Chile?”

“To collect the body of Don Bias,” Sharpe said, “as you well know.”

“I heard you were groveling in General Vivar's grave like a dog,” Bautista said. “But why carry so much gold?”

“I told you, expenses.”

“Expenses.” Bautista sneered the word, then tossed the coin to Sharpe.

Sharpe, taken by surprise, just managed to snatch the guinea coin out of the air.

“Look at it!” Bautista said. “Tell me what you see?”

“A guinea,” Sharpe said.

“The cavalry of Saint George,” Bautista still sneered. “Do you see that, Mister Sharpe?”

Sharpe said nothing. The guinea coin had the head of the King on one side, and on its obverse bore the mounted figure of Saint George thrusting his lance into the dragon's flank. The nickname for such coins was the Cavalry of Saint George which, during the French wars and in the form of lavish subsidies to foreign nations, had been sent to do battle against Bonaparte.

“The British Government uses such golden cavalry to foment trouble, isn't that so, Mister Sharpe?”

Again Sharpe said nothing, though he glanced toward Blair to see if the Consul planned any protest, but Blair was clearly cowed by the company and seemed oblivious of Bautista's jeering.

“Afraid to send their own men to fight wars,” Bautista sneered, “the British pay others to do their fighting. How else did they beat Napoleon?”

He let the question hang. The audience smiled. Sharpe waited.

Bautista came close to Sharpe. “Why are you in Chile, Mister Sharpe?”

“I told you, to collect General Vivar's body.”

“Nonsense! Nonsense! Why would the Countess of Mouro-morto send a lackey to collect her husband's body? All she needed to do was ask the army headquarters in Madrid! They would have been happy to arrange an exhumation—”

“Dona Louisa did not know her husband was dead,” Sharpe said, though it sounded horribly lame even as he said it.

“What kind of fool do you take me for?” Bautista stepped even closer to Sharpe, the riding crop twitching in his hand. His aides, not daring to move, stood frozen behind the table, while the audience watched wide-eyed. “I know why you came here,” Bautista said softly.

“Tell me.”

“To communicate with the rebels, of course. Who else was the money for? All the world knows that the English want to see Spain defeated here.”

Sharpe sighed. “Why would I bring money to the rebels in a Royal ship?”

“Why indeed? So no one would suspect your intentions?” Bautista was enjoying tearing Sharpe's protests to shreds. “Who sent you, Sharpe? Your English merchant friends who think they can make more profit out of Chile if it's ruled by a rebel government?”

“The Countess of Mouromorto sent me,” Sharpe insisted.

“She's English, is she not?” Bautista responded swiftly. “Do you find it noble to fight for trade, Sharpe? For cargoes of hide and for barrels of tallow? For the profits of men like Mister Blair?” He threw a scornful hand toward the Consul who, seemingly pleased at being noticed, bobbed his head in acknowledgment.

“I fought alongside Don Bias,” Sharpe said, “and I fight for the same things he wanted.”

“Oh, do tell me! Please!” Bautista urged in a caustic voice.

“He hated corruption,” Sharpe said.

“Don't we all?” Bautista said with wonderfully feigned innocence.

“Don Bias believed men could live in freedom under fair government.” It was an inadequate statement of Vivar's creed, but the best Sharpe could manage.

“You mean Vivar fought for liberty!” Bautista was delighted with Sharpe's answer. “Any fool can claim liberty as his cause. Look!” Bautista pointed at the hugely flagged American brigan-tine in the outer harbor. “The Captain of that ship is waiting for whalers to rendezvous with him so he can take home their sperm oil and whalebone. He comes every year, and every year he brings copies of his country's declaration of independence, and he hands them out as though they're the word of God! He tells the mestizos and the criollos that they must fight for their liberty! Then, when he's got his cargo, he sails home and who do you think empties that cargo in his precious land of liberty? Slaves do! Slaves! So much for his vaunted liberty!” Bautista paused to let a rustle of agreement sound in his audience. “Of course Vivar believed in liberty!” Bautista interrupted the murmuring. “Vivar believed in every impracticality! He wanted God to rule the world! He believed in truth and love and pigs with wings.” The audience laughed delightedly. Captain Marquinez and one or two others even clapped at their Captain-General's wit, while Bautista, delighted with himself, smiled at Sharpe. “And you share Vivar's beliefs, Mister Sharpe?”

“I'm a soldier,” Sharpe said stubbornly, as though that excused him from holding beliefs.

“A plain, bluff man, eh? Then so am I, so I will tell you very plainly that I believe you are telling lies. I believe you came to Chile to bring money and a message to the rebels.”

“So you believe in pigs with wings too?”

Bautista ignored the sneer, striding instead to the table where he opened a writing box and took out an object which he tossed to Sharpe. “What is that?”

“Bloody hell,” Harper murmured, for the object which Bautista had scornfully shied at Sharpe was the signed portrait of Napoleon that had been stolen in Valdivia.

“This was stolen from me,” Sharpe said, “in Valdivia.”

“At the time,” Bautista jeered from the window, “you denied anything more was missing. Were you ashamed of carrying a message from Napoleon to a mercenary rebel?”

“It isn't a message!” Sharpe said scornfully. “It was a gift.”

“Oh, Mister Sharpe!” Bautista's voice was full of disappointment, as though Sharpe was not proving a worthy opponent. A man carries a gift to a rebel? How did you expect to deliver this gift if you were not to be in communication with the rebels? Tell me!"

Sharpe said nothing.

Bautista smiled pitifully. “What a bad conspirator you are, Mister Sharpe. And such a bad liar, too. Turn the portrait over. Go on! Do it!” Bautista waited till Sharpe had dutifully turned the picture over, then pointed with his riding crop. “That backing board comes off. Pull it.”

Sharpe saw that the stiffening board behind the printed etching had been levered out of the frame. The board had been replaced, but now he prized it out again and thus revealed a piece of paper which had been folded to fit the exact space behind the board.

“Open it! Go on!” Bautista was enjoying the moment.

At first glance the folded paper might have been taken for a thickening sheet which merely served to stop the glass from rattling in the metal frame, but when Sharpe unfolded the sheet he saw that it bore a coded message. “Oh, Christ,” Sharpe said softly when he realized what it was. The-ink written code was a jumble of letters and numerals and meant nothing to Sharpe, but it was clearly a message from Bonaparte to the mysterious Lieutenant Colonel Charles, and any such message could only mean trouble.

“You are pretending you did not know the message was there?” Bautista challenged Sharpe.

“Of course I didn't.”

“Who wrote it? Napoleon? Or your English masters?”

The question revealed that Bautista's men had not succeeded in breaking the code. “Napoleon,” Sharpe said, then tried to construct a feeble defense of the coded message. “It's nothing important. Charles is an admirer of the Emperor's.”

“You expect me to believe that an unimportant letter would be written in code?” Bautista asked mockingly, then he calmly walked to Sharpe and held out his hand for the message. Sharpe paused a second, then surrendered the message and the framed portrait. Bautista glanced at the code. “I believe it is a message from your English masters, which you inserted into the portrait. What does the message say?”

“I don't know.” Sharpe, conscious of all the eyes that watched him, straightened his back. “How could I know? You probably concocted that message yourself.” Sharpe believed no such thing. The moment'he had seen the folded and coded message he had known that he had been duped into being Napoleon's messenger boy, but he dared not surrender the initiative wholly to Bautista.