“So do your miracle, and run.”
Vivar shrugged. “I’m waiting for some churchmen to arrive, and I’ve sent men to destroy the nearest bridges over the Ulla, which cannot be completed till late this afternoon. I don’t really see that haste is so very feasible. We should be ready in the cathedral by sundown, and we can certainly leave tonight rather than tomorrow, but I do think we must be ready to defend the city against de l’Eclin, don’t you?”
Sharpe tipped the whore’s face to his own and kissed her. He knew he was behaving boorishly, yet the hurt was strong and the jealousy like a fever.
Vivar sighed. “If Colonel de l’Eclin has failed to take the city back by nightfall, then he will be blinded by the darkness and we shall simply walk away. That’s why I think it best to wait till nightfall before we leave, don’t you?”
“Or is it so you can unfurl your magic banner in the dark? Miracles are best done in darkness, aren’t they? So that no one can see the bloody trickery.”
Vivar smiled. “I know my magic banner is not as important to you, Lieutenant, as it is to me, but that is why I am here. And when it is unfurled I want as many witnesses as can be assembled. The news must travel out from this city; it must go to every town and village in all of Spain. Even in the far south they must know that Santiago has stirred in his tomb and that the sword is drawn again.”
Sharpe, despite all his scepticism, shuddered.
Vivar, if he saw Sharpe’s betrayal of emotion, pretended not to notice. “I estimate that Colonel de I’Eclin will be here within the next two hours. He will approach from the south of the city, but I suspect he will attack from the west in hope that the setting sun dazzles us. Will you undertake to conduct the defence?”
“Suddenly you need the bloody English, do you?” Sharpe’s jealousy flared vivid. “You think the British are running away, don’t you? That we’ll abandon Lisbon. That your precious Spain will have to beat the French without us. Then bloody well do it without me!”
For a second Vivar’s immobility suggested a proud fury that might snap like Sharpe’s temper. The whore shrank back, expecting violence, but when Vivar did move it was only to reach across the table to pick up Sharpe’s flask of wine. His voice was very controlled and very placid. “You once told me, Lieutenant, that no one expected officers who had risen from the ranks of Britain’s army to be successful. What was it you said? That the drink destroyed them?” He paused, but Sharpe made no answer. “I think you could become a soldier of great repute, Lieutenant. You understand battle. You become calm when other men become frightened. Your men, even when they disliked you, followed you because they understood you would give them victory. You’re good. But perhaps you’re not good enough. Perhaps you’re so full of self-pity that you’ll destroy yourself with drink or,” Vivar at last deigned to notice the straggly-haired girl who leaned against the Rifleman, “with the pox.”
Throughout this lecture, Sharpe had stared at the Spaniard as if wishing to draw the big sword and slash across the table.
Vivar stood and tipped the wine flask to pour what was left of its contents onto the floor rushes. Then he dropped it contemptuously.
“Bastard,” Sharpe said.
“Does that make me as good as you?” Vivar again paused to let Sharpe reply, and again Sharpe kept silent. The Spaniard shrugged. “You feel sorry for yourself, Lieutenant, because you were not born to the officer class. But have you ever thought that those of us who were so fortunate sometimes regret it? Do you think we’re not frightened by the tough, bitter men from the rookeries and hovels? Do you think we don’t look at men like you and feel envy?”
“You patronizing bastard.”
Vivar ignored the insult. “When my wife and children died, Lieutenant, I decided there was nothing to live for. I took to drink. I now thank God that a man cared enough for me to give me patronizing advice.” He picked up his tasselled hat. “If I have given you cause to hate me, Lieutenant, I regret it. It was not done purposefully; indeed you gave me to believe that I would not cause any bitterness between us.” It was as near as Vivar had come to a reference to Louisa. “Now all I ask is that you help me finish this job. There’s a hill to the west of the city which should be occupied. I shall put Davila under your command with a hundred Cazadores. I’ve reinforced the picquets to the south and west. And thank you for everything you have done so far. If you had not taken that first barricade, we would now be fleeing in the hills with lancers stabbing at our backsides.” Vivar stepped free of the bench. “Let me know when your defences are in place and I shall make an inspection.” He disdained any acknowledgement, but merely strode from the wineshop.
Sharpe picked up his winecup which was still full. He stared at it. He had threatened his own men with punishment if any became worse for drink, yet now he wished to God that he could drown his disappointment in an alcoholic haze. Instead he threw the cup away and stood. The girl, seeing her earnings lost, whimpered.
“Damn them all,” Sharpe said. He tore at two of the remaining silver buttons on his breeches, ripping a great swatch of the cloth away with the buttons which he dropped into the girl’s lap. “Damn them all.” He snatched up his weapons and left.
The tavern keeper looked at the girl who was re-lacing her bodice. He shrugged sympathetically. “The English, yes? Mad. All mad. Heretics. Mad.” He made the sign of the cross to defend himself from the heathen evil. “Like all soldiers,” the tavern keeper said. “Just mad.”
Sharpe walked with Sergeant Harper to the west of the city and forced himself to forget both Louisa and the shame of his behaviour in the tavern. Instead he tried to judge what approach the French might choose if they attacked Santiago de Compostela.
The Dragoons had gone to Padron, and the road from that small town approached Santiago from the south-west. That made an attack from the south or west the likeliest possibility. De l’Eclin could emulate Vivar and make an assault from the north, but Sharpe doubted if the chasseur would choose that approach because it needed surprise. The ground to the city’s east was broken, and the most easily defended. The land to the south was hedged and ditched, while the ground to the west, from where Vivar believed the attack would come, was open and inviting like an English common field.
The western open ground was flanked to the south by the low hill which Vivar wanted garrisoned and on which Sharpe’s Riflemen now waited for orders. The French, knowing the value of the hill, had chopped down most of the trees which had covered the high ground and made a crude fortification of brushwood jammed between the fallen trunks. Further west was dead ground where de l’Eclin’s Dragoons could assemble unseen. Sharpe stopped at the edge of that lower ground and stared back at the city. “We might have to hold the bloody place till after nightfall.”
Harper instinctively glanced to find the sun’s position. “It won’t be full dark for six hours,” he said pessimistically, “and it’ll be a slow dusk, sir. No damned clouds to hide us.”
“If God was on our side,” Sharpe essayed one of the stock jokes of the Regiment, “he’d have given the Baker rifle tits.”
Harper, recognizing from the feeble jest that Sharpe’s grim mood was passing, grinned dutifully. “Is it true about Miss Louisa, sir?” The question was asked very carelessly and without evident embarrassment, making Sharpe think that none of his men had suspected his attachment to the girl.
“It’s true.” Sharpe tried to sound as though he took little interest in the matter. “She’ll have to become a Catholic, of course.”
“There’s always room for another. Mind you,” Harper stared down into the dead ground as he spoke, “I never thought it was a good thing for a soldier to be married.”