Sharpe had crossed to one of the tall windows where he was staring out into the wet darkness. „What are my duties?” he asked.

Lord Pumphrey poured himself a liberal glass of wine. „Not to put too fine a point on it, Richard,” he said, „your duty is to find Mister Christopher and then… „He did not finish the sentence, but instead drew a finger across his throat, a gesture Sharpe saw mirrored in the dark window.

„Who is Christopher, anyway?” Sharpe wanted to know.

„He was a thruster, Richard,” Pumphrey said, his voice acid with disapproval, „a rather clever thruster in the Foreign Office.” A thruster was a man who would bully and whip his way to the head of the field while riding to hounds and in doing so upset dozens of other hunters. „Yet he was thought to have a very fine future,” Pumphrey continued, „if he could just curb his compulsion to complicate affairs. He likes intrigue, does Christopher. The Foreign Office, of necessity, deals in secret matters and he rather indulges in such things. Still, despite that, he was reckoned to have the makings of an excellent diplomat, and last year he was sent out here to determine the temper of the Portuguese. There were rumors, happily ill-founded, that a large number of folk, especially in the north, were more than a little sympathetic to the French, and Christopher was merely supposed to be determining the extent of that sympathy.”

„Couldn’t the embassy do that?” Hogan demanded.

„Not without being noticed,” Pumphrey said, „and not without occasioning some offense to a nation which is, after all, our most ancient ally. And I rather suspect that if you despatch someone from the embassy to ask questions then you will merely fetch the answers people think you want to hear. No, Christopher was supposed to be an English gentleman traveling in north Portugal, but, as you observe, the opportunity went to his head. Cradock was then halfwitted enough to give him brevet rank and so Christopher began hatching his plots.” Lord Pumphrey gazed up at the ceiling which was painted with reveling deities and dancing nymphs. „My own suspicion is that Mister Christopher has been laying bets on every horse in the race. We know he was encouraging a mutiny, but I strongly suspect he betrayed the mutineers. The encouragement was to reassure us that he worked for our interests and the betrayal endeared him to the French. He is determined, is he not, to be on the winning side? But the main intrigue, of course, was to enrich himself at the expense of the Savage ladies.” Pumphrey paused, then offered a seraphic smile. „I’ve always rather admired bigamists. One wife would be altogether too much for me, but for a man to take two!”

„Did I hear you say he wants to come back?” Sharpe asked.

„I surmise as much. James Christopher is not a man to burn his bridges unless he has no alternative. Oh yes, I’m sure he’ll be designing some way to return to London if he finds a lack of opportunity with the French.”

„Now I’m supposed to shoot the shit-faced bastard,” Sharpe said.

„Not precisely how we in the Foreign Office would express the matter,” Lord Pumphrey said severely, „but you are, I see, seized of the essence. Go and shoot him, Richard, and God bless your little rifle.”

„And what are you doing here?” Sharpe thought to ask.

„Other than being exquisitely uncomfortable?” Pumphrey asked. „I was sent to supervise Christopher. He approached General Cradock with news of a proposed mutiny. Cradock, quite properly, reported the affair to London and London became excited at the thought of suborning Bonaparte’s army in Portugal and Spain, but felt that someone of wisdom and good judgment was needed to propel the scheme and so, quite naturally, they asked me to come.”

„And we can forget the scheme now,” Hogan observed.

„Indeed we can,” Pumphrey replied tartly. „Christopher brought a Captain Argenton to talk with General Cradock,” he explained to Sharpe, „and when Cradock was replaced, Argenton made his own way across the lines to confer with Sir Arthur. He wanted promises that our forces wouldn’t intervene in the event of a French mutiny, but Sir Arthur wouldn’t hear of his plots and told him to tuck his tail between his legs and go back into the outer darkness whence he came. So, no plots, no mysterious messengers with cloaks and daggers, just plain old-fashioned soldiering. It seems, alas, that I am surplus to requirements and Mister Christopher, if your lady friend’s note is to be believed, has gone with the French, which must mean, I think, that he believes they will still win this war.”

Hogan had opened the window to smell the rain, but now turned to Sharpe. „We must go, Richard. We have things to plan.”

„Yes, sir.” Sharpe picked up his battered shako and tried to bend the visor back into shape, then thought of another question. „My lord?”

„Richard?” Lord Pumphrey responded gravely.

„You remember Astrid?” Sharpe asked awkwardly.

„Of course I remember the fair Astrid,” Pumphrey answered smoothly, „Ole Skovgaard’s comely daughter.”

„I was wondering if you had news of her, my lord,” Sharpe said. He was blushing.

Lord Pumphrey did have news of her, but none he cared to tell Sharpe, for the truth was that both Astrid and her father were in their graves, their throats cut on Pumphrey’s orders. „I did hear,” his lordship said gently, „that there was a contagion in Copenhagen. Malaria, perhaps? Or was it cholera? Alas, Richard.” He spread his hands.

„She’s dead?”

„I do fear so.”

„Oh,” Sharpe said inadequately. He stood stricken, blinking. He had thought once that he could leave the army and live with Astrid and so make a new life in the clean decencies of Denmark. „I’m sorry,” he said.

„As am I,” Lord Pumphrey said easily, „so very sorry. But tell me, Richard, about Miss Savage. Might one assume she is beautiful?”

„Yes,” Sharpe said, „she is.”

„I thought so,” Lord Pumphrey said resignedly.

„And she’ll be dead,” Hogan snarled at Sharpe, „if you and me don’t hurry.”

„Yes, sir,” Sharpe said, and hurried.

Hogan and Sharpe walked through the night rain, going uphill to a schoolhouse that Sharpe had commandeered as quarters for his men. „You do know,” Hogan said with considerable irritation, „that Lord Pumphrey is a molly?”

„Of course I know he’s a molly.”

„He can be hanged for that,” Hogan observed with indecent satisfaction.

„I still like him,” Sharpe said.

„He’s a serpent. All diplomats are. Worse than lawyers.”

„He ain’t stuck up,” Sharpe said.

„There is nothing,” Hogan said, „nothing in all the world that Lord Pumphrey wants more than to be stuck up with you, Richard.” He laughed, his spirits restored. „And how the hell are we to find that poor wee girl and her rotten husband, eh?”

„We?” Sharpe asked. „You’re coming too?”

„This is far too important to be left to some lowly English lieutenant,” Hogan said. „This is an errand that needs the sagacity of the Irish.”

Once in the schoolhouse, Sharpe and Hogan settled in the kitchen where the French occupiers of the city had left an undamaged table and, because Hogan had left his good map at the General’s headquarters, he used a piece of charcoal to draw a cruder version on the table’s scrubbed top. From the main schoolroom, where Sharpe’s men had spread their blankets, came the sound of women’s laughter. His men, Sharpe reflected, had been in the city less than a day yet they had already found a dozen girls. „Best way to learn the language, sir,” Harper had assured him, „and we’re all very short on education, sir, as you doubtless know.”

„Right!” Hogan kicked the kitchen door shut. „Look at the map, Richard.” He showed how the British had come up the coast of Portugal and dislodged the French from Oporto and how, at the same time, the Portuguese army had attacked in the east. „They’ve retaken Amarante,” Hogan said, „which is good because it means Soult can’t cross that bridge. He’s stuck, Richard, stuck, so he’s got no choice. He’ll have to strike north through the hills to find a wee road up here”-the charcoal scratched as he traced a wiggly line on the table-”and it’s a bastard of a road, and if the Portuguese can keep going in this God-awful weather then they’re going to cut the road here.” The charcoal made a cross. „It’s a bridge called Ponte Nova. Do you remember it?”