There was a brief conversation. "She says Senhor Luis is staying here for the moment," Vicente said, "but he is not here now."
"He's living here?" Sharpe asked, then grinned and took a piece of chalk from a pocket and scrawled SE CO on the polished blue door. "Tell her an important English officer will be using the house tonight and he wants a bed and a meal." Sharpe listened to the conversation between Vicente and the gray-haired woman. "And ask her if there's stabling." There was. "Sergeant Harper?"
"Sir?"
"Can you find your way back to the quay?"
"Down the hill, sir."
"Bring the Colonel here. Tell him he's got the best billet in town and that there's stabling for his horses." Sharpe pushed past the woman to get into the hallway and glared at the man who backed still farther away. The man had a pistol in his belt, but he showed no sign of wanting to use it as Sharpe pushed open a door and saw a dark room with a desk, a portrait over the mantel and shelves of books. Another door opened into a comfortable parlor with spindly chairs, gilt tables and a sofa upholstered in rose-colored silk. The servant was arguing with Vicente who was trying to calm her.
"She is Major Ferreira's cook," Vicente explained, "and she says her master and his brother will not be happy."
"That's why we're here."
"The Major's wife and children have gone," Vicente went on translating.
"Never did like killing men in front of their family," Sharpe said.
"Richard!" Vicente said, shocked.
Sharpe grinned at him and climbed the stairs, followed by Vicente and the cook. He found the big bedroom and threw open the shutters. "Perfect," he said, looking at the four-poster bed hung with tapestry curtains. "The Colonel can get a lot of work done in that. Well done, Jorge! Tell that woman Colonel Lawford likes his food plain and well cooked. He'll provide his own rations, all it needs is to be cooked, but there are to be no damned foreign spices mucking it up. Who's the man downstairs?"
"A servant," Vicente translated.
"Who else is in the house?"
"Stable boys," Vicente interpreted the cook's answer, "kitchen staff, and Miss Fry."
Sharpe thought he had misheard. "Miss who?"
The cook looked frightened now. She spoke fast, glancing up to the top floor. "She says," Vicente interpreted, "that the children's governess is locked upstairs. An Englishwoman."
"Bloody hell. Locked up? What's her name?"
"Fry."
Sharpe climbed up to the attics. The stairs here were uncarpeted and the walls drab. "Miss Fry!" he shouted. "Miss Fry!" He was rewarded by an incoherent cry and the sound of a fist beating on a door. He pushed the door to find it was indeed locked. "Stand back!" he called.
He kicked the door hard, thumping his heel close to the lock. The whole attic seemed to shake, but the door held. He kicked again and heard a splintering sound, drew back his leg and gave the door one last almighty blow and it flew open and there, hunched under the window, her arms wrapped about her knees, was a woman with hair the color of pale gold. She stared at Sharpe, who stared back, then he looked hastily away as he remembered his manners because the woman, who had struck him as undoubtedly beautiful, was as naked as a new-laid egg. "Your servant, ma'am," he said, staring at the wall.
"You're English?" she asked.
"I am, ma'am."
"Then fetch me some clothes!" she demanded.
And Sharpe obeyed.
Ferragus had sent his brother's wife, children and six servants away at dawn, but had ordered Miss Fry up to her room. Sarah had protested, insisting she must travel with the children and that her trunk was already on the baggage wagon, but Ferragus had ordered her to wait in her room. "You will go with the British," he told her.
Major Ferreira's wife had also protested. "The children need her!"
"She will go with her own kind," Ferragus snapped at his sister-in-law, "so get in the coach!"
"I will go with the British?" Sarah had asked.
"Os ingleses por mar," he had snarled, "and you can run away with them. Your time is done here. You have paper, a pen?"
"Of course."
"Then write yourself a character. I will sign it on my brother's behalf. But you can take refuge with your own people. So wait in your room."
"But my clothes, my books!" Sarah pointed to the baggage cart. Her small savings, all in coin, were also in the trunk.
"I'll have them taken off," Ferragus said. "Now go." Sarah had gone upstairs and written a letter of recommendation in which she described herself as being efficient, hard-working, and good at instilling discipline in her charges. She said nothing about the children being fond of her, for she was not sure that they were, nor did she believe it part of her job that they should be. She had paused once in writing the letter to lean from the window when she had heard the stable-yard gates being opened, and she saw the coach and baggage wagon, escorted by four mounted men armed with pistols, swords and malevolence, clatter into the street. She sat again, and added a sentence which truthfully said she was honest, sober and assiduous, and she had just been writing the last word when she had heard the heavy steps climbing the stairs to the servants' rooms. She had instantly known it was Ferragus and an instinct told her to lock her door, but before she could even get up from behind her small table Ferragus had thrust the door open and loomed in the entrance. "I am staying here," he had announced.
"If you think that's wise, senhor," she said in a tone which suggested she did not care what he did.
"And you will stay with me," he went on.
For a heartbeat Sarah thought she had misheard, then she shook her head dismissively. "Don't be ridiculous," she said. "I will travel with the British troops." She stopped abruptly, distracted by gunshots coming from the lower town. The sound came from the rifles puncturing the first of the rum barrels, but Sarah could not know that and she wondered if the noise presaged the arrival of the French. Everything was so confusing. First had come news of the battle, then an announcement that the French had been defeated, and now everyone was ordered to leave Coimbra because the enemy was coming.
"You will stay with me," Ferragus repeated flatly.
"I most certainly will not!"
"Shut your bloody mouth," Ferragus said, and saw the shock on her face.
"I think you had better leave," Sarah said. She still spoke firmly, but her fear was obvious now and it excited Ferragus who leaned on her table, making its spindly legs creak.
"Is that the letter?" he asked.
"Which you promised to sign," Sarah said.
Instead he had torn it into shreds. "Bugger you," he said, "damn you," and he added some other words he had learned in the Royal Navy, and the effect of each was as though he had slapped her around the head. It might well come to that, he thought. Indeed, it almost certainly would and that was the pleasure of teaching the arrogant English bitch a lesson. "Your duties now, woman," he had finished, "are to please me."
"You have lost your wits," Sarah said.
Ferragus smiled. "Do you know what I can do with you?" he had asked. "I can send you with Miguel to Lisbon and he can have you shipped to Morocco or to Algiers. I can sell you there. You know what a man will pay for white flesh in Africa?" He paused, enjoying the horror on her face. "You wouldn't be the first girl I've sold."