Sharpe took out his telescope and examined the house. The windows were shuttered and the only signs of life were some men repairing a terrace wall in one of the many vineyards that covered the nearby slopes and another man bending over a furrow in a kitchen garden that lay beside the Guadiana. He edged the glass sideways and saw what looked like a boathouse on the riverbank. Sharpe gave the telescope to Harris. “I’d rather go to the town,” he said.

“Why’s that, sir?” Harris asked, staring at the house through Sharpe’s glass.

“Because that house hasn’t been plundered, has it? Kitchen garden all nice and tidy. What does that suggest?”

“The owner has shaken hands with the French?”

“Like as not.”

Harris thought about that. “If they’re friends with the Crapauds, sir, then perhaps there’s a boat in that shed by the river?”

“Perhaps,” Sharpe said dubiously. A door in the courtyard by the old castle ruin opened and he saw someone emerge into the sunlight. He nudged Harris, pointed, and the rifleman swung the telescope.

“Just a frow hanging out the washing,” Harris said.

“We can get our shirts laundered,” Sharpe said. “Come on, let’s fetch the brigadier.”

They walked back across the high hills to find Moon in a triumphant mood because Sergeant Noolan and his men had failed to return.

“I told you, Sharpe!” Moon said. “You can’t trust them. That sergeant looked decidedly shifty.”

“How’s your leg, sir?”

“Bloody painful. Can’t be helped, eh? So you say there’s a decent-sized town?”

“Large village anyway, sir. Two churches.”

“Let’s hope they have a doctor who knows his business. He can look at this damned leg, and the sooner the better. Let’s get on the march, Sharpe. We’re wasting time.”

But just then Sergeant Noolan reappeared to the north and the brigadier had no choice but to wait as the three men from the 88th rejoined. Noolan, his long face more lugubrious than ever, brought grim news. “They blew up the fort, sir,” he told Sharpe.

“Talk to me, man, talk to me!” Moon insisted. “I command here.”

“Sorry, your honor,” Noolan said, snatching off his battered shako. “Our lot, sir, blew up the fort, sir, and they’ve gone.”

“Fort Joseph, you mean?” Moon asked.

“Is that what it’s called, sir? The one on the other side of the river, sir, they blew it up proper, they did! Guns tipped over the parapet and nothing left on the hill but smitherings.”

“Nothing but what?”

Noolan cast a helpless look at Sharpe. “Scraps, sir,” the sergeant tried again. “Bits and pieces, sir.”

“And you say our fellows are gone? How the hell do you know they’ve gone?”

“Because the Crapauds are over there, sir, so they are. Using a boat. Going back and forth, they are, sir, back and forth, and we watched them.”

“Good God incarnate,” Moon said in disgust.

“You did well, Noolan,” Sharpe said.

“Thank you, sir.”

“And we’re buggered,” the brigadier said irritably, “because our forces have buggered off and left us here.”

“In that case, sir,” Sharpe suggested, “the sooner we get to the town and find some food, the better.”

Harper, because he was the strongest man, carried the front end of the brigadier’s stretcher while the tallest of the Connaught Rangers took the rear. It took three hours to go the short distance and it was late morning by the time they reached the long hill above the big house and the small town. “That’s where we’ll go,” Moon announced the moment he saw the house.

“I think they might be anfrancesados, sir,” Sharpe said.

“Talk English, man, talk English.”

“I think they’re sympathetic to the French, sir.”

“How can you possibly tell?”

“Because the house hasn’t been plundered, sir.”

“You can’t surmise that,” the brigadier said, though without much conviction. Sharpe’s words had given him pause, but still the house drew him like a magnet. It promised comfort and the company of gentle folk. “There’s only one way to find out, though, isn’t there?” he proclaimed. “That’s to go there! So let’s be moving.”

“I think we should go to the town, sir,” Sharpe persisted.

“And I think you should keep quiet, Sharpe, and obey my orders.”

So Sharpe kept quiet as they went down the hill, through the upper vineyards and then beneath the pale leaves of an olive grove. They maneuvered the brigadier’s stretcher over a low stone wall and approached the house through wide gardens of cypress, orange trees, and fallow flower beds. There was a large pond, full of brown leaves and stagnant water, and then an avenue of statues. The statues were all of saints writhing in their death agonies. Sebastian clutched at the stub of an arrow piercing his ribs, Agnes stared serenely heavenward despite the sword in her throat, while next to her Andrew hung upside down on his cross. There were men being burned, women being disemboweled, and all of them preserved in white marble streaked with lichen and bird droppings. The ragged soldiers stared wide-eyed and the Catholics among them made the sign of the cross while Sharpe looked for any sign of life in the house. The windows remained shuttered, but smoke still drifted from a chimney, and then the big door that opened onto a balustraded terrace was thrown open and a man, dressed in black, stepped into the sunlight and waited as though he had been expecting them. “We had best observe the proprieties,” Moon said.

“Sir?” Sharpe asked.

“For God’s sake, Sharpe, gentry live here! They don’t want their drawing room filled with common soldiers, do they? You and I can go in, but the men have to find the servants’ quarters.”

“Do they drop your stretcher outside, sir?” Sharpe asked innocently, and thought he heard a slight snort from Harper.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sharpe,” the brigadier said. “They can carry me in first.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sharpe left the men on the terrace as he accompanied the brigadier into a vast room filled with dark furniture and hung with gloomy pictures, most showing scenes of martyrdom. More saints burned here, or else gazed in rapture as soldiers skewered them, while over the mantel was a life-size painting of the crucifixion. Christ’s pale body was laced with blood while behind him a great thunderstorm unleashed lightning on a cowering city. A crucifix made of a wood so dark it was almost black hung at the other end of the room and beneath it was a private shrine draped in black on which a saber lay between two unlit candles.

The man who had greeted them was a servant who informed the brigadier that the Marquesa would join him very soon, and was there anything that his guests needed? Sharpe did his best to translate, using more Portuguese with the servant than Spanish. “Tell him I need breakfast, Sharpe,” the brigadier commanded, “and a doctor.”

Sharpe passed on the requests, then added that his men needed food and water. The servant bowed and said he would take the soldiers to the kitchen. He left Sharpe alone with Moon who was now lying on a couch. “Damned uncomfortable furniture,” the brigadier said. He grimaced from a stab of pain in his leg, then looked up at the paintings. “How do they live with this gloom?”

“I suppose they’re religious, sir.”

“We’re all bloody religious, man, but that doesn’t mean we hang paintings of torture on our walls! Good God incarnate. Nothing wrong with a few decent landscapes and some family portraits. Did he say there was a Marquesa here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well let’s hope she’s easier on the eye than her damned paintings, eh?”

“I think I ought to make sure the men are properly settled, sir,” Sharpe said.

“Good idea,” Moon said, subtly insinuating that Sharpe would be happier in the servants’ quarters. “Do take your time, Sharpe. That fellow understood I need a doctor?”

“He did, sir.”

“And food?”

“He knows that too, sir.”