„More than I ever learned,” Sharpe said.

„You are not the daughter of a wealthy port merchant,” Kate said with a smile. Behind her, in the shadows, the cook knitted. Kate, when she was with Sharpe or Vicente, always had one of the women servants to chaper-one her, presumably so that her husband would have no grounds for suspicion. „My father was determined to make me accomplished,” Kate went on, looking wistful. „He was a strange man, my father. He made wine, but wouldn’t drink it. He said God didn’t approve. The cellar here is full of good wine and he added to it every year and he never opened a bottle for himself.” She shivered and leaned toward the fire. „I remember it was always cold in England. I hated it, but my parents didn’t want me schooled in Portugal.”

„Why not?”

„They feared I might be infected with papism,” she said, fidgeting with the tassels on the edge of her shawl. „My father was very opposed to papism,” she continued earnestly, „which is why, in his will, he insisted I must marry a communicant of the Church of England, or else.”

„Or else?”

„I would lose my inheritance,” she said.

„It’s safe now,” Sharpe said.

„Yes,” she said, looking up at him, the light from the small fire catching in her eyes, „yes, it is.”

„Is it an inheritance worth keeping?” Sharpe asked, suspecting the question was indelicate, but driven to it by curiosity.

„This house, the vineyards,” Kate said, apparently unoffended, „the lodge where the port is made. It’s all held in trust for me at the moment, though my mother enjoys the income, of course.”

„Why didn’t she go back to England?”

„She’s lived here for over twenty years,” Kate said, „so her friends are here now. But after this week?” She shrugged. „Maybe she will go back to England. She always said she’d go home to find a second husband.” She smiled at the thought.

„She couldn’t marry here?” Sharpe asked, remembering the good-looking woman climbing into the carriage outside the House Beautiful.

„They are all papists here, Mister Sharpe,” Kate said in mock reproof. „Though I suspect she did find someone not so long ago. She began to take more trouble with herself. Her clothes, her hair, but maybe I imagined it.” She was silent for a moment. The cook’s needles clicked and a log collapsed with a shower of sparks. One spat over the wire fireguard and smoldered on a rug until Sharpe leaned forward and pinched it out. The Tompion clock in the hall struck nine. „My father,” Kate went on, „believed that the women in his family were prone to wander from the straight and narrow path which is why he always wanted a son to take over the lodge. It didn’t happen, so he tied our hands in the will.”

„You had to marry a Protestant Englishman?”

„A confirmed Anglican, anyway,” Kate said, „who was willing to change his name to Savage.”

„So it’s Colonel Savage now, is it?”

„He will be,” Kate said. „He said he would sign a paper before a notary in Oporto and then we’ll send it to the trustees in London. I don’t know how we send letters home now, but James will find a way. He’s very resourceful.”

„He is,” Sharpe said dryly. „But does he want to stay in Portugal and make port?”

„Oh yes!” Kate said.

„And you?”

„Of course! I love Portugal and I know James wants to stay. He declared as much not long after he arrived at our house in Oporto.” She said that Christopher had come to the House Beautiful in the New Year and he had lodged there for a while, though he spent most of his time riding in the north. She did not know what he did there. „It wasn’t my business,” she told Sharpe.

„And what’s he doing in the south now? That’s not your business either?”

„Not unless he tells me,” she said defensively, then frowned at him. „You don’t like him, do you?”

Sharpe was embarrassed, not knowing what to say. „He’s got good teeth,” he said.

That grudging statement made Kate look pained. „Did I hear the clock strike?” she asked.

Sharpe took the hint. „Time to check the sentries,” he said and he went to the door, glancing back at Kate and noticing, not for the first time, how delicate her looks were and how her pale skin seemed to glow in the firelight, and then he tried to forget her as he started on his tour of the picquets.

Sharpe was working the riflemen hard, patrolling the Quinta’s lands, drilling on its driveway, working them long hours so that the little energy they had left was spent in grumbling, but Sharpe knew how precarious their situation was. Christopher had airily ordered him to stay and guard Kate, but the Quinta could never have been defended against even a small French force. It was high on a wooded spur, but the hill rose behind it even higher and there were thick woods on the higher ground vhich could have soaked up a corps of infantry who would then have)een able to attack the manor house from the higher ground with the idded advantage of the trees to give them cover. But higher still the trees;nded and the hill rose to a rocky summit where an old watchtower crum-jled in the winds and from there Sharpe spent hours watching the coun-:ryside.

He saw French troops every day. There was a valley north of Vila Real de Zedes that carried a road leading east toward Amarante and enemy irtillery, infantry and supply wagons traveled the road each day and, to keep them safe, large squadrons of dragoons patrolled the valley. Some days there were outbreaks of firing, distant, faint, half heard, and Sharpe guessed that the country people were ambushing the invaders and he would stare through his telescope, trying to see where the actions took place, but he never saw the ambushes and none of the partisans came near Sharpe and nor did the French, though he was certain they must have known that a stranded squad of British riflemen were at Vila Real de Zedes. Once he even saw some dragoons trot to within a mile of the Quinta and two of their officers stared at the elegant house through telescopes, yet they made no move against it. Had Christopher arranged that?

Nine days after Christopher had left, the headman of the village brought Vicente a newspaper from Oporto. It was an ill-printed sheet and Vicente was puzzled by it. „I’ve never heard of the Diario do Porto,” he told Sharpe, „and it is nonsense.”

„Nonsense?”

„It says Soult should declare himself king of Northern Lusitania! It says there are many Portuguese people who support the idea. Who? Why would they? We have a king already.”

„The French must be paying the newspaper,” Sharpe guessed, though what else the French were doing was a mystery for they left him alone.

The doctor who came to see Hagman thought Marshal Soult was gathering his forces in readiness to strike south and did not want to fritter men away in bitter little skirmishes across the northern mountains. „Once he possesses all Portugal,” the doctor said, „then he will scour you away.” He wrinkled his nose as he lifted the stinking compress from Hagman’s chest, then he shook his head in amazement for the wound was clean. Hagman’s breathing was easier, he could sit up in bed now and was eating better.

Vicente left the next day. The doctor had brought news of General Silveira’s army in Amarante and how it was valiantly defending the bridge across the Tamega, and Vicente decided his duty lay in helping that defense, but after three days he returned because there were too many dragoons patrolling the countryside between Vila Real de Zedes and Amarante. The failure made him dejected. „I am wasting my time,” he told Sharpe.

„How good are your men?” Sharpe asked.

The question puzzled Vicente. „Good? As good as any, I suppose.”

„Are they?” Sharpe asked, and that afternoon he paraded every man, rifleman and Portuguese alike, and made them all fire three rounds in a minute from the Portuguese muskets. He did it in front of the house and timed the shots with the big grandfather clock.