Sharpe nodded. 'Captain Sharpe. South Essex.'

The German officer's eyebrows went up; his face split into a smile. 'Captain Sharpe! Talavera!' He pumped Sharpe's hand, clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to shout at his men. The blue-coated cavalry grinned at Sharpe, nodded at him. They had all heard of him: the man who had captured the French Eagle at Talavera.

Sharpe jerked his head towards Patrick Harper and the Company. 'Don't forget Sergeant Harper, and the Company. We were all there.'

The German beamed at the Light Company. 'It was well done!' He clicked his heels to Sharpe and gave the slightest nod. 'Lossow. Captain Lossow at your service. You going to Celorico?' The German's English was accented but good. His men, Sharpe knew, would probably speak no English.

Sharpe nodded again. 'And you?'

Lossow shook his head. 'The Coa. Patrolling. The enemy are getting close, so there will be fighting.' He sounded pleased and Sharpe envied the cavalry. What fighting there was to be had was all taking place along the steep banks of the river Coa and not at Celorico. Lossow laughed. 'This time we get an Eagle, yes?'

Sharpe wished him luck. If any cavalry regiment were likely to break apart a French battalion, it would be the Germans. The English cavalry were brave enough, well mounted, but with no discipline. English horsemen grew bored with patrols, with picquet duty, and dreamed only of the blood-curdling charge, swords high, that left their horses blown and the men scattered and vulnerable. Sharpe, like all infantry in the army, preferred the Germans because they knew their job and did it well.

Lossow grinned at the compliment. He was a square-faced man, with a pleasant and ready smile and eyes that looked out shrewdly from the web of lines traced on his face by staring too long at the enemy-held horizons. 'Oh, one more thing, Captain. The bloody provosts are in the village.' The phrase came awkwardly from Lossow's lips, as if he did not usually use English swearwords except to describe the provosts, for whom any other language's curse would be inadequate.

Sharpe thanked him and turned to the Company. 'You heard Captain Lossow! There are provosts here. So keep your thieving hands to yourselves. Understand?' They understood. No one wanted to be hung on the spot for being caught looting. 'We stop for ten minutes. Dismiss them, Sergeant.'

The Germans left, cloaked against the rain, and Sharpe walked up the only street towards the church. It was a miserable village, poor and deserted, and the cottage doors swung emptily. The inhabitants had gone south and west, as the Portuguese government had ordered. When the French advanced they would find no crops, no animals, wells filled with stones or poisoned with dead sheep: a land of hunger and thirst.

Patrick Harper, sensing that Sharpe's mood had lightened after the meeting with Lossow, fell into step beside his Captain. 'Nothing here to loot, sir.'

Sharpe glanced at the men stooping into the cottages. 'They'll find something.'

The provosts were beside the church, three of them, mounted on black horses and standing like highwaymen waiting for a plump coach. Their equipment was new, their faces burned red, and Sharpe guessed they were fresh out from England, though why the Horse Guards sent provosts instead of fighting soldiers was a mystery. He nodded civilly to them. 'Good morning.1

One of the three, with an officer's sword jutting from beneath his cloak, nodded back. He seemed, like all of his kind, to be suspicious of any friendly gesture. He looked at their green Riflemen's jackets. 'There aren't supposed to be any Riflemen in this area.'

Sharpe let the accusation go unanswered. If the provost thought they were deserters, then the provost was a fool. Deserters did not travel the open road in daylight, or wear uniforms, or stroll casually up to provosts. Sharpe and Harper, like the other eighteen Riflemen in the Company, had kept their old uniforms out of pride, preferring the dark green to the red of the line battalions.

The provost's eyes flicked between the two men. 'You have orders?'

'The General wants to see us, sir.' Harper spoke cheerfully.

A tiny smile came and went on the provost's face. 'You mean Lord Wellington wants to see you?'

'As a matter of fact, yes.'

Sharpe's voice had a warning in it, but the provost seemed oblivious. He was looking Sharpe up and down, letting his suspicions show. Sharpe's appearance was extraordinary. The green jacket, faded and torn, was worn over French cavalry overalls. On his feet were tall leather boots that had originally been bought in Paris by a Colonel of Napoleon's Imperial Guard. On his back, like most of his men, he carried a French pack, made of ox hide, and on his shoulder, though he was an officer, he slung a rifle. The officer's epaulettes had gone, leaving broken stitches, and the scarlet sash was stained and faded. Even Sharpe's sword, his other badge of rank, was irregular. As an officer of a Light Company he should have carried the curved sabre of the British Light Cavalry, but Richard Sharpe preferred the sword of the Heavy Cavalry, straight-bladed and ill balanced. Cavalrymen hated it; they claimed its weight made it impossible to parry swiftly, but Sharpe was six feet tall and strong enough to wield the thirty-five inches of ponderous steel with deceptive ease.

The provost officer was unsettled. 'What's your Regiment?'

'We're the Light of the South Essex.' Sharpe made his tone friendly.

The provost responded by spurring his horse forward so he could see down the street and watch Sharpe's men. There was no immediately apparent reason to hang anyone, so he looked back at the two men and his eyes stopped, with surprise, when they reached Harper's shoulder. The Irishman, with four inches more height than Sharpe, was a daunting sight at the best of times, but his weapons were even more irregular than Sharpe's big sword. Slung with his rifle was a brute of a gun – a seven-barrelled, squat menace. The provost pointed. 'What's that?'

'Seven-barrelled gun, sir.' Harper's voice was full of pride in his new weapon.

'Where did you get it?'

'Christmas present, sir.'

Sharpe grinned. It had been a present, given at Christmas time, from Sharpe to his Sergeant, but it was obvious that the provost, with his two silent companions, did not believe it. He was still staring at the gun, one of Henry Nock's less successful inventions, and Sharpe realized that the provost had probably never seen one before. Only a few hundred had ever been made, for the Navy, and at the time it had seemed like a good idea. Seven barrels, each twenty inches long, were all fired by the same flintlock, and it was thought that sailors, perched precariously in the fighting tops, could wreak havoc by firing the seven barrels down on to the enemy's crowded decks. One thing had been overlooked. Seven half-inch barrels fired together made a fearful discharge, like a small cannon's, that not only wreaked havoc but also broke the shoulder of any man who pulled the trigger. Only Harper, in Sharpe's acquaintance, had the brute strength to use the gun, and even the Irishman, in trying it out, had been astonished by the crashing recoil as the seven bullets spread from the flaming muzzles.

The provost sniffed. 'A Christmas present.'

'I gave it to him,' Sharpe said.

'And you are?'

'Captain Richard Sharpe. South Essex. You?'

The provost stiffened. 'Lieutenant Ayres, sir.' The last word was spoken reluctantly.

'And where are you going, Lieutenant Ayres?'

Sharpe was annoyed by the man's suspicions, by the pointless display of his power, and he edged his questions with a touch of venom. Sharpe carried on his back the scars of a flogging that had been caused by just such an officer as this: Captain Morris, a supercilious bully, with his flattering familiar, Sergeant Hakeswill. Sharpe carried the memory along with the scars and a promise that one day he would revenge himself on both men. Morris, he knew, was stationed in Dublin; Hakeswill was God knows where, but one day, Sharpe promised himself, he would find him. But for now it was this young puppy with more power than sense. 'Where, Lieutenant?'