Hooves clattered on stones and a group of horsemen entered the plaza. They wore long, dark cloaks, broad-brimmed hats, and Sharpe could see the outlines of muskets and swords. Partisans. He felt an obscure, unfair anger. The Guerilleros were the men and women of Spain who fought the 'Guerilla', the 'little war', and they were achieving what the Spanish armies had failed to achieve; they were pinning down thousands and thousands of Napoleon's troops, troops the British would not have to face, but somehow the presence of the Spanish horsemen in the plaza of Ciudad Rodrigo annoyed Sharpe. These partisans had not fought through a breach, had not faced the cannon, yet here they were, come to pick like vultures at a carcass they had done nothing to kill. The horsemen stopped. They stared at the French prisoners with a silent menace.
Sharpe turned away. He drank again and stared into the white-heat where the house had collapsed into a furnace-like intensity. He thought of Badajoz, waiting to the south, Badajoz the impregnable. Perhaps the pox-scarred Whitehall clerk could write the garrison a letter, telling them their presence was 'irregular', and Sharpe laughed at the thought. Damn the bloody clerk.
There was a shout behind him that made him turn round. A single rider had left the group of horsemen and was walking his horse along the front row of prisoners. The French squirmed back, fearing the revenge of the Spanish, and the British sentries tried ineffectually to force the horse away. The rider spurred into a trot, into a canter, and the snow spurted from the hooves that crashed on the cobbles beneath. The rider's face turned towards Sharpe, the heels slammed down, and the horse came towards the lone Rifleman in the light of the burning house.
Sharpe watched the man come. If he wanted drink, then he could find his own. There were sparks from the cobbles as the horse was reined in and Sharpe found himself wishing grimly that the beast would slip and tip its rider into an ignominious heap. So the man was a brilliant horseman, but that did not give him the right to disturb a man who had deserved a quiet drink. Sharpe turned away, ignoring the dismounting Spaniard.
'You've forgotten me? Sharpe heard the voice and the drink was forgotten. He spun round, standing up, and the rider took off the broad-brimmed hat, shook her head, and the long dark hair fell either side of a face that was like a hawk.
Slim, cruel, and very, very beautiful. She smiled at him. 'I came here to find you.
'Teresa? The wind snatched snow from a rooftop, whirled it crazily above the sparks of the burning house. Teresa? He reached out for her and she came to him and he held her as he had held her that first time, two years ago, beneath the blades of the French lancers. 'Teresa? It's you?
She looked up at him, mocking him. 'You forgot me.
'Christ in heaven! Where have you been? He began to laugh, his misery banished, and touched her face as if he wanted to prove it was her. 'Teresa?
She laughed, too, with real pleasure and put a finger to his scarred cheek. 'I thought you might forget me.
'Forget you? No. He shook his head, suddenly tongue-tied, though there was so much to say. He had hoped to find her the year before when the army had marched to Fuentes de Onoro just a few miles from Ciudad Rodrigo. This was Teresa's country. He had thought she might look for him last year, but there had been no sign of her, and then he had gone to England and met Jane Gibbons. He pushed that thought away and looked instead at Teresa and wondered how he could have forgotten this face, the life in it, the sheer force of her presence.
She smiled and jerked her head at the rifle on her shoulder. 'I still have your gun.
'How many have you killed with it?
'Nineteen. She made a grimace. 'Not enough. She hated the French with a pure, terrifying hatred. She turned in his arms and stared at the prisoners. 'How many did you kill tonight?
Sharpe thought of the fight in the casement. He shrugged. 'I don't know. Two maybe, three?
She looked up at him again and grinned. 'Not enough. Did you miss me?
He had forgotten how she would mock him. He nodded, embarrassed. 'Yes.
'I missed you. The statement was said matter-of-factly, almost flatly, that gave it a ring of absolute truth. She pulled away from him. 'Listen. She jerked her head at the other horsemen. 'They are impatient. Are you going to Badajoz?
He was confused by her sudden question. 'Badajoz? He nodded. It was an open secret. Nothing had been said to the army, but every man knew that both fortresses must be "taken. 'Yes, I suppose so.
'Good. Then I'm staying. I must tell my people. She turned to her horse.
'You're what?
'You don't want me to? She was mocking him again, and laughed. 'I will explain, Richard, later. Do we have somewhere to stay?
'No.
'We'll find somewhere. She swung herself on to the horse and nodded again towards the Partisans. 'They want to be on their way. I'll tell them they can go. Will you wait here?
He saluted her. 'Yes, ma'am.
'That's better. She smiled at him, dazzling him with her beauty, with the joy on her face, and then she spurred back across the slush.
He grinned and turned back to the fire, facing its warmth, and felt a vast relief that she had come. He wished she would never go. Then he wondered at her words, hearing, distantly in his mind, the faint alarm at the very mention of the name. Badajoz. Tonight was a victory, but it led only to one place, to the place where the British, the French, the Spanish; to where the gunners and the infantry, the cavalry and the Engineers, all marched.
And now, it seemed, the lovers were marching too. To Badajoz.
They found a house, hard by the walls, that had been used by French gunners. There was food in the kitchen, hard bread and cold tongue, and Sharpe lit a fire and watched Teresa as she stabbed the loaf with her bayonet and ripped the blade downwards. He laughed. She glared at him. 'What's funny? 'I don't see you as a housewife.
She pointed the blade at him. 'Listen, Englishman, I can keep a house, but not for a man who laughs at me. She shrugged. 'What happens when the war ends? He laughed again. 'You go back to your kitchen, woman. She nodded, sad at the thought. She carried a gun, as other Spanish women carried guns, because too many men had shirked the role, but when peace came the men would be brave again and push the women back to the stoves. Sharpe saw the wistfulness on her face. 'So what must we talk about? 'Later. She brought the plate over to the fire and laughed at the unsavory lumps of food. 'Eat first.
They were both ravenous. They washed the food down with watered brandy and then, beneath blankets that had once graced the backs of French cavalry horses, they made love by the fire and Sharpe wished he could trap the moment, make it last for ever. The quietness of a small house in a captured city; the only noises the calls of sentries on the wall, the barking of a dog, the dying crackle of the small fire. She would not stay, he knew that, to be a camp follower. Teresa wanted to fight the French, to revenge herself on a nation that had raped and murdered her mother. Perhaps, he thought, he could not expect, could never expect this happiness to be for ever. All happiness is fleeting and his mind shied away from the thought of Lawford lying in the Convent. Teresa would go back to the hills, to the ambushes and torture, the harried French in the rock landscape. If he had not been a soldier, Sharpe thought, if he had been a gamekeeper or a coachman, or any one of the other jobs he might have found, then he might have found, too, a settled existence. But not like this, never as a soldier.