"I've heard of Loup," Garrard said. "He's a right bastard."

"Nasty as hell."

"And you think he's coming here?"

"Just an instinct, Tom."

"Hell, ignore those and you might as well dig your own grave, eh? Let's go and see the Colonel."

But Oliveira was not so easily convinced of Sharpe's fears, nor did Juanita de Elia help Sharpe's cause. Juanita and Lord Kiely had returned from a day's hunting and, with Father Sarsfield, Colonel Runciman and a half-dozen of the Real Companпa Irlandesa's officers, were guests at the Portuguese supper. Juanita scorned Sharpe's warning. "You think a French brigadier would bother himself with an English captain?" she asked mockingly.

Sharpe suppressed a stab of evil temper. He had been speaking to Oliveira, not to Kiely's whore, but this was not the time or the place to pick a quarrel. Besides, he recognized that in some obscure way his and Juanita's dislike of each other was bred into the bone and probably unavoidable. She would talk to any other officer in the fort, even to Runciman, but at Sharpe's very appearance she would turn and walk away rather than offer a polite greeting. "I think he'll bother with me, ma'am, yes," Sharpe said mildly.

"Why?" Oliveira demanded.

"Go on, man, answer!" Kiely said when Sharpe hesitated.

"Well, Captain?" Juanita mocked Sharpe. "Lost your tongue?"

"I think he'll bother with me, ma'am," Sharpe said, stung into an answer, "because I killed two of his men."

"Oh, my God!" Juanita pretended to be shocked. "Anyone would think there was a war happening!"

Kiely and some of the Portuguese officers smiled, but Colonel Oliveira just stared at Sharpe as though weighing the warning carefully. Finally he shrugged. "Why would he worry that you killed two of his men?" he asked.

Sharpe hesitated to confess to what he knew was a crime against military justice, but he could hardly withdraw now. The safety of the fort and all the men inside depended on him convincing Oliveira of the genuine danger and so, very reluctantly, he described the raped and massacred village and how he had captured two of Loup's men and stood them up against a wall.

"You had orders to shoot them?" Oliveira asked presciently.

"No, sir," Sharpe said, aware of the eyes staring at him. He knew it might prove a horrid mistake to have admitted the executions, but he desperately needed to persuade Oliveira of the danger and so he described how Loup had ridden to the small upland village to plead for his men's lives and how, despite that appeal, Sharpe had ordered them shot. Colonel Runciman, hearing the tale for the first time, shook his head in disbelief.

"You shot the men in front of Loup?" Oliveira asked, surprised.

"Yes, sir."

"So this rivalry between you and Loup is a personal vendetta, Captain Sharpe?" the Portuguese Colonel asked.

"In a way, sir."

"Either yes or no!" Oliveira snapped. He was a forceful, quicktempered man who reminded Sharpe of General Craufurd, the Light Division's commander. Oliveira had the same impatience with evasive answers.

"I believe Brigadier Loup will attack very soon, sir," Sharpe insisted.

"Proof?"

"Our vulnerability," Sharpe said, "and because he's put a price on my head, sir." He knew it sounded feeble and he blushed when Juanita laughed aloud. She was wearing her Real Companпa Irlandesa uniform, though she had unbuttoned the coat and shirt so that the flamelight glowed on her long neck. Every officer around the fire seemed fascinated by her, and no wonder, for she was a flamboyantly exotic creature in this place of guns and powder and stone. She sat close to Kiely, an arm resting on his knee and Sharpe wondered if perhaps they had announced their betrothal. Something seemed to have put the supper guests into a holiday mood. "How much is the price, Captain?" she asked mockingly.

Sharpe bit back a retort that the reward would prove more than enough to hire her services for a night. "I don't know," he lied instead.

"Can't be very much," Kiely said. "Over-age captain like you, Sharpe? Couple of dollars maybe? Bag of salt?"

Oliveira glanced at Kiely and the glance expressed disapproval of his Lordship's drunken gibes. The Colonel sucked on a cigar, then blew smoke across the fire. "I have doubled the sentries, Captain," he said to Sharpe, "and if this Loup does come to claim your head then we'll give him a fight."

"When he comes, sir," Sharpe insisted, "can I suggest, with respect, sir, that you get your men into the gatehouse?"

"You don't give up, do you, Sharpe?" Kiely interrupted. Before the Portuguese battalion's arrival Sharpe had asked Kiely to move the whole Real Companпa Irlandesa into the gatehouse, a request that Kiely had peremptorily turned down. "No one's going to attack us here," Kiely now said, reiterating his earlier argument, "and anyway, if they do, we should fight the bastards from the ramparts, not the gatehouse."

"We can't fight from the ramparts—" Sharpe began.

"Don't tell me where we can fight! God damn you!" Kiely shouted, startling Juanita. "You're a jumped-up corporal, Sharpe, not a bloody general. If the French come, damn it, I'll fight them how I like and beat them how I like and I won't need your help!"

The outburst embarrassed the assembled officers. Father Sarsfield frowned as though he was looking for some emollient words, but it was Oliveira who finally broke the awkward silence. "If they come, Captain Sharpe," he said gravely, "I shall seek the refuge you advise. And thank you for your advice." Oliveira nodded his dismissal.

"Good night, sir," Sharpe said, then walked away.

"Ten guineas to the price on your head says Loup won't come, Sharpe!" Kiely called after the rifleman. "What is it? Lost your damn nerve? Don't want to take a wager like a gentleman?" Kiely and Juanita laughed. Sharpe tried to ignore them.

Tom Garrard had followed Sharpe. "I'm sorry, Dick," Garrard said and then, after a pause, "Did you really shoot two Crapauds?"

"Aye."

"Good for you. But I wouldn't tell too many people about it."

"I know, I know," Sharpe said, then shook his head. "Bloody Kiely."

"His woman's a rare one though," Garrard said. "Reminds me of that girl you took up with at Gawilghur. You remember her?"

"This one's a bitch, that's the difference," Sharpe said. God, he thought, but his temper was being abraded to a raw bloody edge. "I'm sorry, Tom," he said, "it's like fighting with wet powder, trying to shake sense into this bloody place."

"Join the Portuguese, Dick," Garrard said. "Good as gold they are and no bloody over-born buggers like Kiely making life hard." He offered Sharpe a cigar. The two men bent their heads over Garrard's tinderbox and, when the charred linen caught the spark to flare bright, Sharpe saw a picture chased into the inner side of the lid.

"Hold it there, Tom," he said, stopping his friend from closing the lid. He stared at the picture for a few seconds. I'd forgotten those boxes," Sharpe said. The tinderboxes were made of a cheap metal that had to be protected from rust by gun oil, but Garrard had somehow kept this box safe for twelve years. There had once been scores like it, all made by a tinsmith in captured Seringapatam and all with explicit pictures etched crudely into the lids. Garrard's box showed a British soldier on top of a long-legged girl whose back was arched in apparent ecstasy. "Bugger might have taken his hat off first," Sharpe said.

Garrard laughed and snapped the box shut to preserve the linen. "Still got yours?"

Sharpe shook his head. "It was stolen off me years ago, Tom. I reckon it was that bastard Hakeswill that had it. Remember him? He was a thieving sod."

"Jesus God," Garrard said, "I'd half forgotten the bastard." He drew on the cigar, then shook his head in wonder. "Who'd ever believe it, Dick? You and me captains? And I can remember when you were broken down from corporal for farting on church parade."