Perkins gingerly extracted the short sword from Juanita's slings, then Sharpe released his grip on her. "My apologies for manhandling you, ma'am," he said very formally.
Juanita ignored the apology. She stood straight and stiff, keeping her dignity in front of the foreign riflemen. Dan Hagman was coaxing the mule out of the street corner where it had taken refuge. "Bring it with you, Dan," Sharpe said, then led the way up the street towards the house Juanita had vacated. Harper escorted her, making her follow Sharpe into the yard.
The house must have been one of the largest in the village for the gate led into a spacious courtyard that possessed stabling on two sides and an elaborately crowned well in its centre. The kitchen door was open and Sharpe ducked inside to find the fire still smouldering and the remains of a meal on the table. He found some candle stubs, lit them from the fire, and placed them back on the table amidst the litter of plates and cups. At least six people had eaten at the table, suggesting that Loup and his men had left very recently. "Look round the rest of the village, Pat," Sharpe told Harper. "Take half a dozen men and go carefully. I reckon everyone's gone, but you never know."
"I'll take care, sir, so I will." Harper took the riflemen out of the kitchen leaving Sharpe alone with Juanita.
Sharpe gestured at a chair. "Let's talk, my lady."
She walked with a slow dignity to the far side of the table, put a hand on the chair back, then suddenly broke away and ran for a door across the room. "Go to hell," was her parting injunction. Sharpe was encumbered by the furniture so that by the time he reached the door she was already halfway up a dark flight of stairs. He scrambled after her. She turned right at the stairhead and ran through a door that she slammed behind her. Sharpe kicked it a split second before it would have latched and hurled himself through the opening to see, in the moonlight, that Juanita was sprawled across a bed. She was struggling to free an object from a discarded valise then, as Sharpe crossed the room, she turned with a pistol in her hand. He threw himself at her, slamming his left hand at the pistol just as she pulled the trigger. The bullet cracked into the ceiling as he landed full on her. She gasped from the impact, then tried to claw at his eyes with her free hand.
Sharpe rolled off her, stood and backed to the window. He was panting. His left wrist hurt from the impact of striking the pistol aside. The moonlight came past him to silver the haze of pistol smoke and to shine on the bed that was nothing but a raft of straw-filled mattresses on which a jumble of pelts provided the covers. Juanita half sat up, glared at him, then seemed to realize that her defiance had run its course. She let out a disgruntled sigh and collapsed back onto the furs.
Dan Hagman had heard the pistol shot from the courtyard and now came pounding up the stairs and into the bedroom with his rifle levelled. He looked from the woman prone on the bed to Sharpe. "Are you all right, sir?"
"Just a disagreement, Dan. No one hurt."
Hagman looked back at Juanita. "A right little spitfire, sir," he said admiringly. "She probably needs a spanking."
"I'll look after her, Dan. You get those panniers off the mule. Let's see what the spitfire was taking away, eh?"
Hagman went back downstairs. Sharpe massaged his wrist and looked about the room. It was a large high-ceilinged chamber with dark wood panelling, thick ceiling beams, a fireplace and a heavy linen press in one corner. It was obviously the bedroom of a substantial man and the room that a commanding officer, quartering his men in a small village, would naturally take as his own billet. "It's a big bed, my lady, too big for just one person," Sharpe said. "Are those wolf skins?"
Juanita said nothing.
Sharpe sighed. "You and Loup, eh? Am I right?"
She stared at him with dark resentful eyes, but still refused to speak.
"And all those days you went hunting alone," Sharpe said, "you were coming here to see Loup."
Again she refused to speak. The moonlight put half her face in shadow.
"And you opened the San Isidro's gate for Loup, didn't you?" Sharpe went on. "That's why he didn't attack the gatehouse. He wanted to make sure no harm came to you in the fighting. That's nice in a man, isn't it? Looking after his woman. Mind you, he can't have liked the thought of you and Lord Kiely. Or isn't Loup the jealous kind?"
"Kiely was usually too drunk," she said in a low voice.
"Found your tongue, have you? So now you can tell me what you were doing here."
"Go to hell, Captain."
The sound of boots in the street made Sharpe turn to the window to see that the men of the Real Companпa Irlandesa had arrived in the street below. "Donaju!" he shouted. "Into the kitchen here!" He turned back to the bed. "We've got company, my lady, so let's go and be sociable." He waited for her to stand up, then shook his head when she obstinately refused to move. "I'm not leaving you on your own, my lady, so you can either go downstairs on your own two feet or have me carry you."
She stood, straightened her uniform and tried to rearrange her hair. Then, followed by Sharpe, she went down into the candlelit kitchen where El Castrador, Donaju and Sergeant Major Noonan were standing by the table. They gaped at Juanita, then looked at Sharpe who did not feel inclined to offer an immediate explanation of the lady's presence. "Loup's gone," Sharpe told Donaju. "I've got Sergeant Harper making sure the place is empty, so why don't you have your lads man the defences? Just in case Brigadier Loup decides to come back."
Donaju glanced at Juanita, then turned on Noonan. "Sergeant Major? You heard the order. Do it."
Noonan went. El Castrador was watching Hagman unpack the dismounted mule panniers. Juanita had gone to the remnants of the fire where she was warming herself. Donaju looked at her, then gave Sharpe an inquiring look. "The Dona Juanita," Sharpe explained, "is a woman of many parts. She's Lord Kiely's betrothed, General Loup's lover and an agent of the French."
Juanita's head jerked up at the last phrase, but she made no effort to contradict Sharpe. Donaju stared at her as though he was unwilling to believe what he had just heard. Then he turned back to Sharpe with a frown. "She and Loup?" he asked.
"Their love nest's upstairs, for Christ's sake," Sharpe said. "Go and look if you don't believe me. Her ladyship here let Loup into the fort last night. Her ladyship, Donaju, is a goddamned traitor."
"Hymn sheets, sir," Hagman interrupted in a puzzled tone. "But bloody odd ones. I've seen things like it at church at home, you know, for the musicians, but not like this." The old poacher had unpacked the panniers to reveal a great pile of manuscripts that were lined with staves and inscribed with words and music.
"They're very old." Donaju was still dazed by the revelations about Juanita, but now moved across to examine the papers unearthed by Hagman. "See, Sharpe? Just four staves instead of five. They could be two or three hundred years old. Latin words. Let's see now." He frowned as he made a mental translation. " 'Clap your hands, everyone, call unto God with a voice of victory. The psalms, I think."
"She wasn't carrying the psalms back to our lines," Sharpe said, and he seized the top manuscripts off the pile and began sorting through them. It took only seconds to find that there were newspapers hidden beneath the disguising manuscripts. "These, Donaju" — Sharpe held up the newspapers — "these are what she was carrying."
Juanita's only reaction to the discovery was to start biting one of her nails. She glanced at the kitchen door, but Harper had come back to the house and the courtyard was now filled with his riflemen. "Place is empty, sir. Bugger's gone," Harper reported, "and he left in a rare hurry, sir, for the place is still stuffed with plunder. Something drove him out in a hurry." He nodded respectfully to Captain Donaju. "Your fellows are manning the defences, sir."