Knowles's men crowded into the gateway, jeering the departing enemy, and one of them seized a torch from its bracket. 'Permission to go, sir? The flames lit the eager, hungry faces that watched Knowles. 'Go!
They cheered, ran whooping into the streets and Knowles laughed for them, hefted his sabre, and followed Teresa. He ran into the dark streets, the doors bolted, the ground-floor windows covered in intricate iron bars and he was soon lost, alone, in the tangle of streets. He stopped at a crossroads, listening to the screams up and down the hill, and then guessed that he should follow the street with the richest houses. A man pounded past him, uphill, and he saw the distinctive crossbelt of a French soldier. The man was armed, his long bayonet gleaming, but he did not stop, just kept running, his breath coming in rasping heaves. Knowles ran downhill, his boots echoing from the dark houses, and then the street stopped, opened into a big plaza and there, above him, was the cathedral.
There was panic in the plaza. The last French had gone, escaping north, but the people of Badajoz had not gone with them. Those that were not in their houses were here, struggling up the cathedral steps, crowding its doors, hoping for sanctuary. They ran past Knowles, barging into him, ignoring him, and he looked wildly around him. There were so many streets! And then he saw, dark behind the cathedral, a small alley with balconied houses and he ran, staring up at the buildings and then he stopped, turned, and he saw two trees, a recessed frontage, and he pounded on the closed door. Teresa! Teresa!
Hakeswill had taken the right-hand street that led up from the small plaza and, sure enough, the women had run ahead of him to the Cathedral. He slowed to a walk, chuckling to himself, and then he heard the shouts, very close, and his first instinct was that Sharpe had reached the house first.
'Teresa! Teresa! That was not Sharpe's voice! An officer, by the sound of it, but not Sharpe, and Hakeswill flattened himself against the opposite wall and watched the dark shape pounding at the door. 'Teresa! It's me! Robert Knowles!
A shutter opened on the first floor, seeping dim candlelight, and Hakeswill saw a woman's shape, slim and longhaired. It must be her! He felt the excitement inside him, shifting restlessly, uncoiling, and then she called down. 'Who's that?
'Robert! Robert Knowles!
'Robert?
'Yes! Open up!
'Where's Richard?
'I don't know. I wasn't with him. Knowles was standing back, staring up at the narrow balcony. The screams were coming nearer, the musket shots, and Teresa looked down the hill at the first flickerings of burning houses. 'Wait! I'll open up! She banged the shutters close, latched them, and opposite, in deep shadow, Hakeswill grinned to himself. He could rush the door as she opened it, but the officer, he could see, was carrying a drawn sabre and he remembered that the bitch herself carried weapons. He looked up to the balcony. It was not high and, beneath it, the groundfloor window was barred with a lattice of black iron. He waited.
The front door opened, creaking on hinges, and he saw the girl silhouetted in the gap for the brief instant it took for Knowles to enter. The door shut and Hakeswill moved, surprisingly fast and soft for such a man, straight to the barred window that gave such easy footholds, up till he could reach back to the balcony's base and then the strength was all in his arms. He paused briefly, his face suddenly twitching, but then the spasm passed and he pulled, the powerful arms making it easy, hand over hand till his feet caught on the balcony and he climbed over the rail. The shutter was wooden, gapped for the night air and he could see the empty room. He pushed at the shutter. It was locked, but he pushed again, increasing the pressure, and the wood creaked, bent, and then splintered inwards. He froze, but the noise of the city's sack was covering his own noise, and he moved again, into the room, and the bayonet whispered from the scabbard.
A cry: he turned, and there, in a wooden cot, was a baby. Sharpe's bastard. He cackled to himself, crossed the room and stared down. The child had cried in its sleep. He took off his hat and held the hat over the baby and talked to the hat. 'Do you see? There it is. Like I was once? Is that right, Mother? Like me. The child moved and Hakeswill crooned. 'Sleepibubber, sleepibubber. You remember saying that, Mother, to your Obadiah?
A footstep on the stairs, another, the creak of wood, and voices outside. He could hear the girl and the officer and he dropped the hat, on to the baby, and pulled the pistol from within his jacket. He was still, listening to her voice, the bayonet in his left hand, pistol in his right, and the baby cried again, in her sleep, and Teresa opened the door and spoke to it in gentle Spanish.
And stopped.
'Hello, missy! The face twitched, yellow in the candlelight, the mouth grinning, black teeth showing on rotten gums, and the raw scar on the ungainly neck, twitching with the head. Hakeswill laughed. 'Hello! Remember me?
Teresa looked at her child and the bayonet was just above Antonia's cot and she gasped. Knowles pushed her aside, brought up the sabre, and the pistol flared, waking the child, and the bullet threw Knowles backward, backward through the door to fall with Hakeswill's cackle the last sound in his life.
Hakeswill kept the bayonet above the baby and pushed the pistol, still smoking, back into his jacket. The blue eyes turned to Teresa, her own gaze fixed on the bayonet, and he grinned at her. 'Didn't need him, missy, did we? Only takes two to do what we're going to do. He cackled, a mad sound, but his eyes were level and his bayonet steady. 'Shut the door, missy.
She swore at him, and he laughed. She was more beautiful than he remembered, the dark hair framing the fine face, and he bent down and put his right hand beneath the baby. It was crying. She moved towards it, but the bayonet flickered, and she stopped. Hakeswill picked the child up, bedclothes bundled, and he held it awkwardly in his right arm and his left was held out and bent back so that the needle-pointed bayonet was at the tiny, soft throat. 'I said shut the door. His voice was low, very low, and he saw the fear on her face and his desire was heavy, so heavy.
She shut the door, slamming it on Knowles's dead feet, and Hakeswill nodded at it. 'Bolt it. The bolt slammed home.
The hat was still in the cot and Hakeswill regretted it because he would like his mother, whose likeness was in the crown, to see this, but it could not be helped. He walked slowly towards Teresa, who backed away, back towards the bed where her rifle was laid, and he grinned at her, twitched, and the triumph was in his voice. 'Just you and me, missy. Just you and Obadiah.
CHAPTER 29
'Which way?
'God knows! Sharpe searched frantically for a main street. The central breach faced a tangle of alleys. He chose an opening at random and started running. 'This way!
There were screams ahead, shots, and bodies lying in the alleyway. It was too dark to tell if the corpses were French or Spanish. The alley stank of blood, death, and the night soil thrown earlier from the upper windows, and the two men slipped in their haste. Light came from a cross-alley and Sharpe turned instinctively, still running, with a huge bloodied sword held like a lance.
A door opened ahead and spilt men into the alley, blocking it, and after them came wine barrels, huge tins, that they hammered with their musket-butts until the staves burst and the wine cascaded on to the cobbles. The men dropped, put mouths to the gushing liquid, scooped at it, and Sharpe and Harper kicked them aside, pushed past, and came out into the small plaza. One house burned, throwing the light that had attracted them, and in the blaze they could see a mediaeval depiction of hell. The people of Badajoz suffered the torments of red-jacketed devils. A naked woman wandered, sobbing and bloodied, in the plaza's centre. She was too hurt to feel any more, too abused to care, and when new men, fresh from the breach, grabbed her and threw her down she made no protest, but sobbed on, and all around it was the same. Some women struggled, some had died, others had watched their children die, and around them the victors capered, half dressed, half drunk, lit by the fire and festooned with their loot.