Pumphrey said nothing. Sharpe was watching the dark archways, but it was impossible to tell which cavern Montseny was speaking from. The echo blurred the sound, destroying any hint of its source.
“You will put down the gold, my lord,” Montseny said, “then pick up the letters and our business is concluded.”
Pumphrey twitched as if he was going to obey, but Sharpe checked him with the rifle barrel. “We have to look at the letters,” Sharpe said loudly. He could see the package was tied with string.
“The three of you will examine the letters,” Montseny said, “then leave the gold.”
Sharpe could still not determine where Montseny was. He thought the packet had been thrown from the passageway nearest the other flight of steps, but he sensed Montseny was in a different chamber. Five chambers. A man in each? And Montseny wanted Pumphrey and his companions in the center of the floor where they would be surrounded by guns. Rats in a barrel, Sharpe thought. “You know what to do,” he said softly. He lowered the flint so the rifle was safe. “Pat? Take His Lordship’s arm, and when we go, we go fast.” He trusted Harper to do the right thing, but suspected Lord Pumphrey would be confused. What was important now was to stay away from the packet of letters, because that was in the lit space, the killing place. Sharpe suspected Montseny did not want to kill, but he did want the gold and he would kill if he had to. Fifteen hundred guineas was a fortune. You could build a frigate with that money, you could buy a palace, you could bribe a church full of lawyers. “We go slow at first,” he said very softly, “then fast.”
He stood, walked down the last step, looked as if he was leading his companions to the package in the floor’s center, then swerved left, to the nearest passageway where a burly man stood just inside the masonry arch. The man looked astonished as Sharpe appeared. He was holding a musket, but he was plainly not ready to fire it, and he was still just gaping as Sharpe hit him with the rifle’s brass butt. It was a hard hit, smack on the man’s jaw, and Sharpe seized the musket with his left hand and wrenched it away. The man tried to hit him, but Harper was there now and the butt of the volley gun cracked on the man’s skull and he went down like a slaughtered ox. “Watch him, Pat,” Sharpe said, and he went to the back of the chamber where the passage linked the separate crypts. Some small light filtered back here and a shadow moved. Sharpe hauled back the rifle’s flint and the sound made the shadow move away.
“My lord!” Montseny said sharply from the dark.
“Shut your face, priest!” Sharpe shouted.
“What do I do with this bugger?” Harper asked.
“Kick him out, Pat.”
“Put the gold down!” Montseny called. He did not sound calm now. Things were not going as he had planned.
“I must see the letters!” Lord Pumphrey called, his voice high.
“You may look at the letters. Come out, my lord. All of you! Come out, bring the gold, and inspect the letters.”
Harper pushed the half-stunned man out into the light. He staggered there, then hurried across the chamber into one of the far passageways. Sharpe was crouching beside Pumphrey. “You don’t move, my lord,” Sharpe said. “Pat, smoke balls.”
“What are you doing?” Pumphrey asked in alarm.
“Getting you the letters,” Sharpe said. He slung the rifle and cocked the captured musket instead.
“My lord!” Montseny called.
“I’m here!”
“Hurry, my lord!”
“Tell him to show himself first,” Sharpe whispered.
“Show yourself!” Lord Pumphrey called.
Sharpe had gone back to the dark passage leading around the outer rim of the chambers. Nothing moved there. He heard the click of Harper’s tinderbox, saw the flame spring up, then the sparking of the fuse of the first smoke ball.
“It is you who want the letters, my lord,” Montseny called, “so come for them!”
The second, third, and fourth fuses were lit. The worms of fire vanished into the perforated balls, but then nothing seemed to happen. Harper edged away from them, as if fearing they would explode.
“You wish me to come and fetch the gold?” Montseny shouted, and his voice reverberated around the crypt.
“Why don’t you?” Sharpe shouted. There was no answer.
Smoke began leaking from the four balls. It started thinly, but suddenly one of them gave a fizzing sound and the smoke thickened with surprising speed. Sharpe picked it up, feeling the warmth through the papier-mâché case.
“My lord!” Montseny shouted angrily.
“We’re coming now!” Sharpe called, and he rolled the first ball into the big chamber. The other three balls were spewing foul-smelling smoke now and Harper tossed them after the first, and suddenly the big central crypt was no longer a well-lit place, but a dark cavern filling with a writhing, choking smoke that obliterated the light of the dozen candles. “Pat!” Sharpe said. “Take His Lordship up the stairs. Now!”
Sharpe held his breath, ran to the crypt’s center, and scooped up the package. He turned back to the steps just as a man came through the smoke with musket in hand. Sharpe swept his own musket at him, ramming the muzzle into the man’s eyes. The man fell away as Sharpe ran to the steps. Harper was near the top, holding Pumphrey’s elbow. A musket fired in the crypt and the multiple echo made it sound like a batallion volley. The ball clipped the ceiling over Sharpe’s head, striking off a chip of stone, and then Sharpe was up the steps and Harper was there, waiting for Sharpe, and there were two men with muskets halfway down the nave. Sharpe knew Harper was wondering whether to attack them and so escape out of the cathedral’s main doors.
“Ladder, Pat!” Sharpe said. To go down the nave would be to allow Montseny and his men to fire at them from behind. “Go!” He pushed Pumphrey toward the nearest ladder. “Take him up, Pat! Go! Go!”
A musket fired from the nave. The shot went past Sharpe and buried itself in a pile of purple cloths waiting to decorate the cathedral’s altars during the coming season of Lent. Sharpe ignored the man who had fired, shooting his captured musket down the crypt stairs. Then he took the rifle off his shoulder and fired that as well. He heard men scrambling in the smoke below, heard them coughing. They expected a third shot, but none came because Sharpe had run for the scaffold and was climbing for his life.
CHAPTER 7
SHARPE SCRAMBLED UP THE ladder. A musket fired from the nave, its sound magnified by the cathedral walls. He heard the ball crack on stone and whine off into the transept. Then an enormous crash prompted a shout of alarm from his pursuers. Harper had thrown a block of building stone into the crossing and the limestone shattered there, skittering shards across the floor.
“Another ladder, sir!” Harper called from above and Sharpe saw the second ladder climbing into the upper gloom. Each of the massive pillars at the corners of the crossing supported a tower of scaffolding, but once the four flimsy towers reached the arches spanning the pillars the scaffolding branched and joined to encompass the walls climbing to the base of the dome. Another musket fired and the ball buried itself in a plank, starting dust that half choked Sharpe as he climbed the second ladder that swayed alarmingly. “Here, sir!” Harper reached out a hand. The Irishman and Lord Pumphrey were on the wide stone ledge of the tambour, a decorative shelf running around the middle of the pillar. Sharpe guessed he was forty feet above the cathedral floor now, and the pillar climbed that far again before the scaffolding spread out beneath the dome. There was a window high in the gloom. He could not see it, but he remembered it.
“What have you done?” Lord Pumphrey asked angrily. “We should have negotiated! We didn’t even see the letters!”
“You can see them now,” Sharpe said, and he thrust the packet into Pumphrey’s hands.
“Do you know what offense this will cause the Spaniards?” Lord Pumphrey’s anger was unassuaged by the gift of the packet. “This is a cathedral! They’ll have soldiers here at any moment!”