Beneath the altar and above the crypt where the saint lay buried, the opened strongbox stood before the altar.
From the top of the dome which covered the meeting of transepts and aisle, a great silver bowl hung from ropes. It smoked with incense that filled the huge church with a sweet and musty smell. A thousand candles added their smoke to make the shrine a place of mystery, scent, shadows and hope; a place for a miracle.
Two hundred people knelt in the transepts. There were priests and soldiers, monks and merchants, scholars and friars; the men who could carry a message throughout Spain that Santiago Matamoros lived. They would tell an invaded people that the due obeisance had been made, the proper words said, and that the great gonfalon, which had once flared above the massacre of pagans, had been unfurled again.
It was as if Drake’s Drum was at last beaten, or the soil of Avalon erupted in a violent darkness to release a band of woken knights, or as if Charlemagne, roused from his sleep of centuries, drew his battle-sword again to drive away the enemies of Christ. All nations had their legend, and this night, in the great ringing vault of the cathedral, Spain’s legend would be stirred from a thousand years of silence. The candles shivered in a cold wind as the robed priests bowed before the altar.
As they bowed, one of the cathedral’s western doors banged open as though a violent wind had snatched the wood and crashed it against stone. Feet pounded on paving. The soldiers who knelt before the altar twisted towards the sound and reached for their swords. Louisa, kneeling veiled beside Bias Vivar, gasped. The priests checked their words to see who had dared to interrupt the invocations.
Vivar stood. Sharpe had burst into the cathedral and now appeared beneath the Gate of Glory. The Spaniard ran down the long nave. “Why are you here?” There was outrage in his voice.
Sharpe, wild-eyed, did not reply. He stared about the cathedral as though expecting to find enemies. He saw none, and turned back to the western doors.
Vivar reached out a hand to stop the Rifleman. “Wh| aren’t you at the barricades?” /
“He was holding his sabre in his right hand!” Sharpe said. “Don’t you understand? His right hand! Colonel de l’Eclin’s left-handed!”
Vivar stared uncomprehendingly. “What are you talking about?”
“There are three hundred of the bastards out there,” Sharpe’s voice rose to echo from the tall stone of the nave, “only three hundred! And none to the south. So where are the rest? Did you look behind the sacks in the cellars?”
Vivar said nothing. He did not need to.
“Did you search the cellars?” Sharpe insisted.
“No.”
“That’s why your brother’s there! That’s why they wanted a truce! That’s why they saved the supplies! That’s why they had the place prepared! Don’t you see? De l’Eclin is in the palace! He’s been there all day, laughing at us! And he’s coming here!”
“No!” Vivar’s tone did not imply disagreement, only horror.
“Yes!” Sharpe pulled himself from Vivar’s grasp. He ran back through the Gate of Glory, oblivious of its majesty, and tore open the cathedral’s outer doors.
A shout of triumph and a trumpet’s peal of victory turned him back. Sharpe saw, dim through the smoke and incense, a flag unfurl. Not an old, threadbare, motheaten flag which crumbled to the air, but a new and glorious white banner of shining silk, crossed with red; the gonfalon of Santiago, and as it spread, so the bells began to ring.
And, at the same instant, the sledgehammers drove down the planking which had locked the French into the palace. The bells rang for a miracle, and the French, as they had always intended, broke their truce.
French Dragoons attacked from either side of the palace. They must have come from the rear gates of the building, where the stables lay, and as the infantry debouched from the central door, the horsemen burst into the western plaza. The only obstacle to their charge was the low barricade where a handful of dismounted Cazadores fired a ragged volley, then fled.
“Sergeant! Caltrops!” Sharpe shoved Harper towards the cathedral’s southern flank and, seizing two of the sacks himself, shouted at his men to follow him to the northern plaza.
Cavalry could not climb the intricate flights of steps at the cathedral’s western front. Instead the Dragoons planned to surround the shrine, so that no one inside could escape. “Rifles! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Sharpe knew there was no point in wasting a volley. Instead the caltrops must hold up this first French onslaught.
It was a threateningly high jump from the platform on the cathedral’s facade to the plaza, but Sharpe had no time to use the steps. He jumped, falling so heavily that a stab of pain shot up from his left ankle. The pain had to be ignored for defeat was as close as a Dragoon’s sword reach. His men followed him, grunting as they dropped to the flagstones.
Sharpe dragged the sacks north. He could see the horsemen to his left.and he knew he had only seconds to spread the vicious spikes across the gap beneath the bridge which led to the bishop’s palace. “That way! Wait for me!” he shouted at his Riflemen, then swung the first sack so that the caltrops clattered and fanned across the narrow space. “Join me, Sergeant!” Sharpe shouted at Harper, but his voice was drowned by the shouts of the French and the scream of their war trumpets. He seized the second sack and shook it loose. The metal spikes rolled and fell, scattering to block the narrow passage.
Harper had disappeared. Sharpe turned and ran after his men. The bells were clanging overhead. A trumpet was shrieking its defiance at the sky. He did not know if the Sergeant was safe, or whether he had blocked the entrance to the plaza at the cathedral’s southern flank.
“Form line! Two ranks!” Sharpe shouted at his desk. Beyond them, in a tumble of panic, men fled from the cathedral’s western transept.
The first horse pierced itself on a spike. The iron went into the frog of its hoof, and then more horses came. They reared, screamed, and lunged in desperation from the pain. Men fell from saddles. A horse, made frantic with agony, bolted back across the plaza. Another reared so high that it toppled backwards and its rider shouted as he fell under the horse’s collapsing body.
“Hold your fire!” The Riflemen had formed a line fifteen yards short of the caltrops. It was a race now. The French infantry would be climbing the western steps to flood into the cathedral. It would take at least a minute for them to reach the door from the transept and erupt behind Sharpe’s back. Some of them, seeing the agony of the horses, had come to kick the iron spikes away. They were led by a Sergeant. “Hagman?” Sharpe said. “Kill that bastard!”
“Sir.” Hagman knelt, aimed, and fired. The Sergeant somersaulted backwards in a jet of blood from his chest. The infantry noticed the Riflemen for the first time. “Fire!” Sharpe shouted.
The volley was small, but it drove more chaos and pain into the narrow space. “Reload!” There was no point in shouting at the greenjackets to hurry. They knew as well as Sharpe how fragile was the balance between survival and death in this darkening city, and to shout them to speed would merely fluster them.
Sharpe turned. The last of Vivar’s congregation was running down the steps. A Spanish officer carried the gonfalon that had been hastily drawn into shining loops. Two priests gathered up their skirts and ran eastwards. Louisa appeared on the steps and Sharpe saw two Cazadores bring her a horse. Vivar pulled himself into his own saddle and drew his sword. “They’re in the cathedral!” he shouted at Sharpe.