“I don’t believe a bloody word of it,” Sharpe said.

“The Major said you wouldn’t, sir,” Williams said respectfully.

“Did Harper see these jewels?”

“That would mean bad luck, sir.” Williams had his answer ready. Tf the chest is opened, like, without all the family’s permission, then the bad spirits will get you. Understand, sir?“

“Oh, entirely,” Sharpe said, but the Sergeant’s belief in the jewels was beyond any of Sharpe’s ironic doubts.

That afternoon, in a flooded field that was pitted with rain, Sharpe saw two gulls fly down from the west. The sight, even if it did not promise journey’s end, was full of hope. To reach the sea would be an accomplishment; it denoted the end of the westward march and the beginning of the journey south, and in his eagerness he even fancied he could smell the salt in the rain-stinging air.

That night, an hour before dusk, they came to a small town built about a bridge that spanned a deep, fast river. An old stump of a fortress dominated the town, but the stronghold had long been abandoned. The alcalde, the mayor, assured Major Vivar there were no Frenchmen within five leagues, and that assurance persuaded him to rest in the town. “We’ll make an early start,” he told Sharpe. Tf the weather holds, we’ll be in Santiago de Compostela this time tomorrow.“

“Where I turn south.”

“Where you turn south.”

The alcalde offered his own house to Vivar and his stables to the, Cazadores, while the Riflemen were billeted in a Cistercian monastery which, sworn to offer hospitality to pilgrims, proved equally generous to the foreign soldiers.

There was freshly killed pork, with beans, bread, and skins of red wine. There were even black bottles of a raw and fierce brandy called aguardiente, offered by a brawny monk whose scars and tattoos made him look like an old soldier. The monk also brought a sack of hard-baked bread, and intimated by dumb show that the food was for their march on the morrow. The monks’ generosity convinced Sharpe that, after the cold horrors of the last weeks, he and his Riflemen would truly reach safety. The danger of the enemy at last seemed far away and, relieved of the need to set picquets against a night’s alarms, Sharpe slept.

Only to be woken in the very depths of the night.

A white-robed monk, holding a lantern, searched among the dark forms of the Riflemen who slept in a cloister’s arcade. Sharpe grunted and propped himself up on an elbow. He could hear noises in the street outside; the rumble of wheels and the crack of hooves.

”Senor! SenorT The monk beckoned urgently to Sharpe who, cursing his broken sleep, scooped up his boots and weapons and followed the monk across the frosted cloister to the monastery’s candle-lit hallway.

Standing in that hallway, with a handkerchief pressed against her mouth as though she feared a contagion, was a woman of fearsome size. She was as tall as Sharpe, as broad in the shoulders as Harper, and as large about the waist as any wine-tun. She wore a multiplicity of cloaks and capes that made her bulk seem even more massive, while her small-eyed, thin-lipped face was surmounted by a tiny bonnet of ludicrous delicacy. She ignored the importunate monks who clamoured at her in pleading tones. The great doors of the monastery stood open behind her and, in the light of torches bracketed in the street, Sharpe could see a carriage. As he arrived, the woman pushed the handkerchief into her sleeve. “Are you an English officer?”

Sharpe was so astonished that he said nothing. It was not the demand that surprised him, nor even the stentorian voice in which it was made, but the fact that the huge woman was clearly English. “Well?” she demanded.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I cannot say I am glad to find an officer who has sworn allegiance to a Protestant King in such a place as this. Now put your boots on. Hurry, man!” The woman shrugged off the monks who tried to attract her attention, much as a massive milch-cow might have ignored the bleating of sheep. “Tell me your name,” she ordered Sharpe.

“Sharpe, ma’am. Lieutenant Richard Sharpe of the Rifles.”

“Find me the most senior English officer. And button your jacket.”

“I am the senior officer, ma’am.”

The woman stared with malevolent suspicion at him. “You?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You will have to suffice, then. Take your filthy hands off me!” This was to the Abbot who, with an exquisite politeness, had tried to draw the woman’s attention by a tentative hand placed tremulously on the edge of one of her voluminous cloaks. “Find me some men!” This was to Sharpe.

“Who are you, ma’am?”

“My name is Mrs Parker. You have heard of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker?”

“Indeed, ma’am.”

“He was my husband’s kinsman, before God chose to translate him to glory.” Having established that she outranked Sharpe, at least by marriage, Mrs Parker returned to her more vituperative tone. “Hurry, man!”

Sharpe, pulling on his torn boots, tried to make sense of an Englishwoman appearing at the dead of night in a Spanish monastery. “You want men, ma’am?”

Mrs Parker looked at him as though she would wring his neck. “Are you deaf, man? Touched? Or merely witless? Get your Papist hands off me!” This last admonition was again addressed to the Cistercian Abbot who, as if stung, jumped backwards. “I shall wait in the carriage, Lieutenant. Hurry!” Mrs Parker, to the evident relief of the monks, stalked back to her coach.

Sharpe buckled on his sword, slung his rifle and, without bothering to fetch any men, went out to the street which was crowded with wagons, coaches, and horsemen. There was a feeling of panic in the crowd, engendered by people who knew they must be moving, but did not know where safety might lie. Sharpe, sensing disaster, went to Mrs Parker’s coach. Its plush interior was lit by a shielded lantern which showed a tall and painfully thin man trying to assist the woman to her seat.

“There you are!” Mrs Parker, succeeding at last in twisting her vast bulk onto the leather bench, frowned at Sharpe. “You have men?”

“Why do you want them, ma’am?”

“Why do I want them? Did you hear that, George? One of his Majesty’s officers discovers a defenceless Englishwoman, stranded in a Papist country and endangered by the French, and he asks questions!” Mrs Parker leaned forward to fill the open carriage door. “Get them!”

“Why?” Sharpe barked the word, astonishing Mrs Parker who was clearly not accustomed to opposition.

“For the testaments.” It was the man who replied. He peered around Mrs Parker to offer Sharpe a very tentative smile. “My name is Parker, George Parker. I have the honour to be a cousin to the late Admiral Sir Hyde Parker.” He said the last in a weary tone, revealing that whatever glory Mr George Parker might have achieved in this life was due solely to the reflected lustre of his cousin. “My wife and I have need of your assistance.”

“We have Spanish translations of the New Testament,” Mrs Parker interrupted, “hidden in this town, Lieutenant. The Spanish confiscate such scriptures unless we hide them. We require your men to rescue them.” Such an explanation clearly constituted a conciliatory speech, and one that her husband rewarded with an eager nod.

“You want my Rifles to rescue testaments from the Spanish?” Sharpe asked in utter confusion.

“From the French, you fool!” Mrs Parker bellowed out of the carriage.

They’re here?“

“They entered Santiago de Compostela yesterday,” Mr Parker said sadly.

“Jesus Christ!”

The blasphemy had the happy effect of silencing Mrs Parker. Her husband, seeing Sharpe’s shock, leaned forward. “You haven’t heard of the events at Corunna?”

Sharpe almost did not want to hear. “I’ve heard nothing, sir.”

“There was a battle, Lieutenant. It seems the British army succeeded in escaping to sea, but at the expense of many lives. Sir John Moore is said to be dead. The French, it seems, are now masters of this part of Spain.”