Бернард Корнуэлл: Sharpe's Honour

‘Stolen, Pierre? It all belongs to me and my dear husband. I merely thought that while Wellington threatens to defeat us I would remove our few household belongings into France. Just think of me as a simple refugee. Ah!’ She smiled at Ducos’ aide who had brought a tray on which stood an opened bottle of champagne, a single glass, and a dish of white grapes. ‘Put it on the parapet, Lieutenant.’

Scowling, Ducos waited till his aide had gone. ‘The property is loaded on French army wagons.’

‘Condemned wagons, Pierre.’

‘Condemned by General Verigny’s Quartermaster.’

‘True.’ She smiled. ‘A dear man.’ ‘And I will countermand his condemnation.’ She stared at him. She feared Pierre Ducos, though she would not give him the satisfaction of showing her fear. She recognised the threat that he offered her. She was running from Spain, running from the victory that Wellington threatened, and she was taking the wealth with her that would make her independent of whatever tragedies befell France. Now Ducos menaced that independence. She plucked a grape from the bunch. ‘Tell me, Pierre, do you order your breakfast with a threat? If you want something of me, why don’t you just ask? Or is it that you want to. share my plunder?’

He scowled at that. No one could accuse Pierre Ducos of greed. He changed the subject. ‘I wanted to know how you felt about your husband returning from America.’

She laughed. ‘You want me to go back to his bed, Pierre? Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough for France?’

‘Does he still love you?’

‘Love? What an odd word from you, Pierre.’ She stared up at the tricolour. ‘He still wants me.’

‘He knows you’re a spy?’

‘I’m sure someone’s told him, aren’t you? But Luis doesn’t take women seriously, Pierre. He’d think I was a spy because I was unhappy without him. He thinks that once he’s back and I’m neatly tucked up beneath his glass dome then everything will be all right again. He can grunt all over me and then weep to his confessor. Men are so stupid.’

‘Or do you choose stupid men?’

‘What a boudoir conversation we are having.’ She smiled brilliantly at him. ‘So what do you want, Pierre?’

‘Why has your husband come home?’

‘He doesn’t like the climate in South America, Pierre. It gives him wind, he says. He suffers from wind. He once had a servant whipped who laughed when he broke it.’

‘He’s gone to Wellington.’

‘Of course he has! Luis is Spain’s new hero!’ She laughed. Her husband had led a Spanish army against rebels in the Banda Oriental, the area of land north of the River Plate. The rebels, seeing Spain humiliated by France, were trying to wrest their independence from the Spanish. To the Marquesa’s surprise, indeed, to the surprise of many people, the Marques had defeated them. She flicked a grape pip over the parapet. ‘He must have outnumbered them by a hundred to one! Or perhaps he broke wind in their faces? Do you think that’s the answer, Pierre? A grape?’ She smiled at his silence and poured herself champagne. ‘Tell me why you summoned me here with your usual charm and consideration.’

‘Your husband wants you back?’

‘You know he does. I’m sure you intercept all his letters. His lust exceeds his patriotism.’

‘Then I want you to write a letter to him.’

She smiled. ‘Is that all? One letter? Do I get to keep my wagons then?’ She asked the question in a small girl’s voice.

He nodded.

She watched him, suspecting a bargain so easily made. Her voice was suddenly hard. ‘You’ll let me move my property to France for one letter?’

‘One letter.’

She shrugged. ‘You’ll give me papers?’

‘Of course.’

She sipped the champagne. ‘What do I write?’

‘Inside.’

He had written the letter and she had only to copy it onto the writing paper that bore the crest of her husband’s family. She admired Ducos’ efficiency in stealing the paper so that it was prepared for her. He gave her the only chair in the room, a freshly cut quill, and ink. ‘Do improve the phrasing, Helene.’

That won’t be difficult, Pierre.’

The letter told a harrowing tale. It replied to a letter from the Marques and said that she wanted nothing more than to join him, that her joy at his return had filled her with longing and expectation, but that she feared to come to him so long as he was under Wellington’s command.

She feared because there was an English officer who had pursued her most vilely, insulted her and her husband, who had heaped every indignity upon her. She had complained, she said, to the English Generalissimo, yet nothing could be done because the offending officer was a friend of Wellington’s. She feared for her virtue, and until the officer was removed from Spain she feared to come to her husband’s side. The officer, she wrote, had already attempted to violate her once, in which attempt he had been defeated only by his drunkenness. She did not feel safe while the vile man, Major Richard Sharpe, lived. She signed the letter, carefully dabbing drops of champagne onto the ink so that the writing appeared tear-stained, then smiled at Ducos. ‘You want them to fight a duel?’

‘Yes.’

She laughed. ‘Richard will slaughter him!’

‘Of course.’

She smiled. ‘Tell me, Pierre. Why do you want Richard to kill my husband?’

‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’

If her husband, a Grandee of Spain and a sudden, unlikely hero, was killed by an Englishman, then the fragile alliance between Spain and England would be stretched dangerously. The alliance was one of expedience. The Spanish had no love for the English. They resented that they needed a British army to expel the French. It was, true that they had made Wellington the Generalissimo of all their armies, but that was a recognition of his talent, and the necessity of the act had only made their need of him more apparent. She watched Ducos dry the ink with sand. ‘You do know that there won’t be a duel, don’t you?’

‘There won’t?’ He shook the sand onto the floor.

‘Arthur won’t allow them.’ ‘Arthur’ was Wellington. ‘What will you do then, Pierre?’

He ignored the question. ‘You know this could be Major Sharpe’s death warrant?’

‘Yes.’

‘It doesn’t worry you?’

She smiled prettily. ‘Richard can look after himself, Pierre. The gods smile on him. Besides, I’m doing this for France, am I not?’

‘For your wagons, dear Helene.’

‘Ah yes. My wagons. When do I get my pass for them?’

‘For the next convoy north.’

She nodded and stood up. ‘You really believe they’ll fight, Pierre?’

‘Does it matter?’

She smiled. ‘I’d rather like to be a widow. A rich widow. La Viuda Dorado.’

‘Then you must hope Major Sharpe obliges you.’

‘He always has in the past, Pierre.’ She filled the room with her perfume.

He folded the letter. ‘Are you fond of him?’

She put her head to one side and seemed to think about it. ‘Yes. He has the virtue of simplicity, Pierre, and loyalty.’

‘Hardly your tastes, I would have thought?’

‘How little you know my tastes, Pierre. Am I dismissed? May I return to my pleasures?’

‘Your seal?’

‘Ah.’ She took off a ring that she wore above her lace glove and handed it to him. He pressed it into hot wax and gave the signet back to her.

Thank you, Helene.’

‘Don’t thank me, Pierre.’ She stared at him with a slight, mocking smile on her face. ‘Do you open the Emperor’s letters to me, Pierre?’

‘Of course not.’ He frowned at such a thought, while inside he was wondering how Napoleon sent such letters so that they avoided his men.