Sharpe had edged down the top stairs, stepping at the side of the treads, going very slowly. Vicente was behind Harper, his rifle pointing down into the hall while Joana was in the bedroom door, her musket at her shoulder. Sharpe reached Harper's side. He could hear voices now. Someone was angry. Sharpe cocked the rifle, flinching at the small noise the mechanism made, but no one below heard. He pointed to himself, then down the stairs and Harper nodded.
Sharpe took these stairs even more slowly. They were strewn with pieces of balustrade and littered with crystal drops and he had to find a clear space for his foot with every step and transfer his weight gently. He had got halfway down the flight when he heard the footsteps coming from the passage at the bottom of the stairs and he crouched, brought the rifle up, and just then a man came into view, saw Sharpe and gaped at him in astonishment. Sharpe did not fire. If Ferragus had come back then he did not want to alert him, and instead he gestured at the man to drop onto the floor, but instead the man twisted away, shouting a warning. Harper fired, the bullet blasting over Sharpe's shoulder to catch the man in the back and send him sprawling onto the hallway floor. Sharpe was moving now, taking the stairs four at a time. The wounded man was scrambling down the passage. Sharpe kicked him in the back, jumped over him and a second man showed in the dark entrance to the kitchen and Sharpe fired, the flame of the rifle flashing bright in the dim passageway before the smoke filled the space. Harper was downstairs now, the volley gun in his hand. Sharpe leaped down the few steps to the kitchen, found a body at the foot of the steps, ran to the back door and threw himself backwards as a man fired at him from the yard. Harper ran to the back door, did not pause, but just raised his empty rifle and the threat was enough to send whoever was there running. Sharpe was reloading. Joana came into the kitchen and he took her musket, gave her the half-loaded rifle and ran back up the passage, jumped over the dead man and over the wounded man and pushed into the parlor because its window overlooked the yard. The sash, the broken glass glinting at its edges, was raised and Sharpe ran to it and saw no one beneath him. "Yard's empty," he called to Harper.
Harper appeared from the kitchen door, crossed the yard and closed the gate. "Plunderers?" he asked Sharpe.
"Probably." Sharpe was wishing he had not opened fire. The menace of the rifles would have been enough to frighten off plunderers, but he supposed he had been nervous and so had killed a man who almost certainly did not deserve it. "Bugger," he said in self-reproof, then went to collect his rifle from Joana, but Sarah was crouching beside the wounded man in the passageway. "It's Miguel," she said. "Who?"
"Miguel. One of Ferragus's men."
"You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure."
"Talk to him," Sharpe said to Vicente. "Find out where those damn brothers are." Sharpe stepped over the wounded man and fetched his rifle. He finished reloading it, then went back to the passage where Vicente was questioning Miguel.
"He won't speak," Vicente said, "except to ask for a doctor."
"Where's he shot?"
"The side," Vicente said, pointing to Miguel's waist where the clothes were darkened by blood.
"Ask him where Ferragus is."
"He won't tell me."
Sharpe put his boot on the blood-soaked patch of clothing and Miguel gave a gasp of pain. "Ask him again," Sharpe said.
"Sharpe, you can't… " Vicente began.
"Ask him again!" Sharpe snarled and he stared into Miguel's eyes and then smiled at the wounded man, and there was a wealth of meaning in the smile. Miguel began talking. Sharpe left his boot on the wound, listening to Vicente's translation.
The Ferreira brothers reckoned Sharpe was probably dead, but also that he was unimportant so long as they reached the army first and gave their version of events. And they were trying to reach the army by crossing the hills, going towards Castelo Branco because the road to that city would be free of the French, but they planned to cut south as they neared the river. They wanted to get to Lisbon, because that was where the Major's family and fortune had found temporary refuge, and they had left Miguel and two others to watch over the property in Coimbra.
"Is that all he knows?" Sharpe asked.
"It is all he knows," Vicente said, then moved Sharpe's foot away from Miguel's wound.
"Ask him what else he knows," Sharpe said.
"You can't torture a man," Vicente reproved Sharpe.
"I'm not torturing him," Sharpe said, "but I bloody will if he doesn't tell us everything."
Vicente spoke with Miguel again, and Miguel swore on the blessed Virgin that he had told them everything he knew, but Miguel had lied. He could have warned them about the partisans waiting in the hills, but he reckoned he was dying and, as his final wish, he wanted death for the men who had shot him. Those men bandaged him, and promised they would try to find a physician, but no physician came and Miguel, abandoned in the house, slowly bled to death.
As Sharpe and his companions left the city.
The bridge was unguarded. That astonished Sharpe, but he sensed that the French garrison was tiny, which suggested the enemy had decided to throw all their troops into an assault on Lisbon and risk leaving Coimbra barely protected. Folk on the street told them the convent of Santa Clara was full of troops, but it was easy enough to avoid, and by late morning they were well south of the town on the road to Lisbon.
The verges were indeed strewn with discarded plunder, but scores of people were raking through the leavings and Sharpe did not have time to search for clothes and boots for the women. Nor could he stay on the road, for it would lead only to the French rearguard, and so, when the sun was at its height, they struck eastwards across country. Sarah and Joana, neither of whom had robust shoes, went barefoot.
They climbed into steep hills. The few villages were deserted, and by mid-afternoon they were among trees. They stopped to rest where a great outcrop of rock jutted into the valley like the prow of a monstrous ship, and from its summit Sharpe could see French troops far below. He took out his telescope, found it was undamaged after his adventures, and trained it down into the shadows of the valley where he saw fifty or more dragoons searching a small village for food.
Sarah joined him. "May I?" she asked, reaching for the telescope. Sharpe gave it to her and she stared down. "They're just pouring water onto the ground," she said after a while.
"Looking for food, love."
"How does that help?"
"Peasants can't carry their whole harvest off to safety," Sharpe explained, "so sometimes they bury it. Dig a hole, put the grain in, cover it with soil and put the turf back. You could walk right across and never see it, but pour water on the soil and it drains faster where it's been dug."
"They're not finding anything," she said.
"Good," Sharpe said, and watched her, thinking what a fine face she had, and thinking, too, that she was a spirited creature. Like Teresa, he reflected, and wondered what the Spanish girl did, or whether she even lived.
"They're going," Sarah reported, and collapsed the telescope, noticing the small brass plate attached to the biggest barrel. "In gratitude," she read aloud, "AW. Who's AW?"
"Wellington."
"Why was he grateful to you?"
"It was a fight in India," Sharpe said, "and I helped him."
"Just that?"
"He'd come off his horse," Sharpe said. "He was in a bit of trouble, really. Still, he got out safe enough."
Sarah handed him the glass. "Sergeant Harper says you're the best soldier in the army."