Parker stared worriedly at Sharpe. “And you, Lieutenant? What is your intention?”
“I can hardly depend on French forbearance, sir.” He smiled. “No, we’re going south, sir. We’d hoped to take the road from Santiago de Compostela, but since the bast — since the French are there, sir, we’ll cut across the hills.” Sharpe slapped one of the muddy wheels of the big coach. “No chance of that thing going with us, sir, so I fear you’ll have to ask French permission to cross their territory.”
Parker had been shaking his head for a few seconds. “I do assure you, Lieutenant, that my wife and I have no intention of humbling ourselves before the enemy so long as there is a viable escape for us. We shall travel south with you. And I can further assure you that there is a perfectly good southern road from this town. There!” He pointed to the bridge. “Just the other side of the river.”
Sharpe’s astonishment made him silent for a second. “There’s a road that goes south from here?”
“Precisely and exactly so? Otherwise I would hardly have dared come here for my testaments.”
“But I was told…“ Sharpe realized abruptly that there was no point in retelling Vivar’s assertion that no such southern road existed. ”Are you sure, sir?“
“I travelled it but a month ago.” Parker saw Sharpe’s hesitation. “I have a map, Lieutenant. You wish to see it?”
Sharpe followed Parker into the bookseller’s house. Mrs Parker, sitting massively by the fire, offered the greenjacket a suspicious glance.
“All the testaments are safe, my dear,” Parker said meekly, “and I wondered if we might peruse the map?”
“Louisa?” Mrs Parker demanded of her niece. “The map.”
The girl obediently crossed to a leather valise and searched among the papers. Sharpe deliberately kept his eyes away from her. Louisa Parker, from the glimpses he had already caught of her, was disturbingly pretty. She had a tall and slender grace, a brightly inquisitive face, and a clear skin unscarred by hardship or disease. A girl, Sharpe thought, to make a soldier twitch in his dreams, even if she was a God-damned Methodist.
Louisa brought the map to the table. George Parker attempted an introduction. “Louisa, my dear, you have not been named to Lieutenant…“
“Louisa!” Mrs Parker, evidently well aware of the dangers that soldiers presented to young girls, interrupted. “You will come here and sit!”
Sharpe unfolded the map in the ensuing silence.
Tt isn’t a very accurate map,“ Parker said humbly, as if he was personally responsible for its vagaries, ”but I assure you the road exists.“ He traced a thin black line which meant little to Sharpe who was still trying to find just where he was on the ill-printed sheet. ”The road meets the coastal route here, well south of Villagarcia,“ Parker continued, ”and I was hoping we might find a vessel here, at Pontevedra. I believe the Royal Navy patrols this coast and, God willing, perhaps a friendly fisherman can be persuaded to take us to one of their ships?“
Sharpe was not really listening. He was staring at the map, trying to discover the tortuous route he had followed with Vivar. He could not find the exact course of the journey, but one thing was very clear: in the last days, he and his Riflemen had passed at least two southern roads. Vivar had told Sharpe again and again that there was no southern road, that the Riflemen must go to Santiago de Compostela before they turned towards Lisbon. The Spaniard had lied.
George Parker mistook Sharpe’s grim expression for pessimism. “I do assure you the road exists.”
Sharpe was suddenly very aware of the girl’s gaze on him, and all his soldier’s protective instincts were warmed by that examination. “You say you travelled the road a month ago, sir?”
“Indeed.”
“And a coach can manage it in winter?”
“Indeed it can.”
“Do you intend to fritter away this whole night?” Mrs Parker stood threateningly. “Or do British soldiers no longer care for the fate of British womanhood?”
Sharpe folded the map and, without permission, thrust it into his pouch. “We can leave very soon, ma’am, but first I have business in the town.”
“Business!” Mrs Parker was clearly stoking the fires of her awesome wrath. “What possible business can a Lieutenant have, Mr Sharpe, that will take precedence over our safety?”
Sharpe pulled open the door. “I shall be a quarter of an hour at the most. You will do me the kindness, ma’am, of being ready in ten minutes. I have two wounded men who will need to travel inside your carriage.” He saw another protest boiling up inside her. “And my men’s packs will travel on the roof. Otherwise, ma’am, you can find your way south without me.” He offered a trace of a bow. “Your servant, ma’am.”
Sharpe turned away before Mrs Parker could argue with him, and he could have sworn he heard an amused chuckle from the girl. God damn it! God damn it! God damn it! He had enough to worry about without that perennial soldier’s problem. He went to find Vivar.
“Good news!” Vivar greeted Sharpe the moment the Rifleman appeared in the alcalde’s house. “My reinforcements are a mere half-day away! Lieutenant Davila has found fresh horses and fresh men! Did I tell you about Davila?”
“You didn’t tell me about the road, did you?”
“Road?”
“You told me we had to go west before we could go south!”
Sharpe had not meant to speak with such anger, but he could not hide his bitterness. He and his men had crossed a cold country, clambering wet hills and struggling through icy streams, and all for nothing. They could have headed south days ago. By now they could be across the Portuguese border. Instead they were within a few hours’ march of the enemy. “The road!” He slammed George Parker’s map onto the table. “There’s a road, Vivar! A God-damned road! And you marched us past two other God-damned roads! And the God-damned French are just a day’s bloody march away. You bloody lied to me!”
“Lied to you?” Bias Vivar’s anger flared as fiercely as Sharpe’s. “I saved your miserable lives! You think your men would have lasted a week in Spain without me? If you’re not fighting amongst yourselves, you’re all getting drunk! I’ve brought a pack of useless drunkards across Spain and I get no thanks, none. I spit on your map!” Vivar seized the precious map and, instead of spitting on it, tore it into shreds which he tossed onto the fire.
The alcalde, together with a priest and half a dozen other elderly and serious men, watched the confrontation in perturbed silence.
“Damn you!” Sharpe had grabbed at the map a second too late.
“Damn me?” Vivar shouted. “I’m fighting for Spain, Lieutenant. I’m not running away like a frightened little boy. But that’s the British way, isn’t it? One setback and they run home to their mothers. Very well! Run away! But you won’t find a garrison at Lisbon, Lieutenant. They’ll have run away too!”
Sharpe ignored the insults to ask the question that boiled indignantly inside him. “Why did you bring us here at all, you bastard?”
Vivar leaned over the table. “Because for once in your benighted life, Lieutenant, I thought an Englishman could do something for Spain. Something for God. Something useful! You’re a nation of pirates, of barbarians, of heathens! God alone knows why He put the English on this earth, but
I thought, just once, you might do something of use to His creation!“
“To protect your precious strongbox?” Sharpe gestured at the mysterious chest which stood against one wall. “You’d have lost the bloody thing without us, wouldn’t you? And why, Major? Because your precious Spanish armies are bloody useless, that’s why!”
“And your army’s broken, beaten, and gone. It’s less than useless. Now get out! Run away!”
“I hope the French get your bloody box.” Sharpe twisted away, then heard the rasp of a sword being drawn. He whipped back, scraping his own sword quickly from its mended scabbard as Vivar, blade already flickering in the candlelight, came towards him.