“They would, sir, if they double-charged them.”

“Double-charged?” Lord Pumphrey inquired delicately.

“Twice as much powder as usual, my lord. It will throw the shell much farther, but at the risk of blowing up the gun. Or perhaps they’ve found some decent powder, sir? They’ve been using rubbish, nothing but dust, but a barrel of cylinder charcoal powder would increase their range. Most likely that, sir.” Sharpe uttered this nonsense in a confident voice. He was, after all, the only soldier in the room and the man most likely to know about gunpowder, and no one disputed his opinion.

“Probably a mortar, then,” Wellesley suggested, and the diplomats politely accepted the fiction that the French guns had destroyed the newspaper. It was plain they disbelieved the story and equally plain that, despite their indignation, they did not much care. They had protested because they had to protest, but they had no future in prolonging an argument with Henry Wellesley who, effectively, was the man who funded the Spanish government. The fiction that the French had contrived to extend their mortars’ range by five hundred yards would suffice to dampen the city’s anger.

The diplomats left with mutual expressions of regret and regard. Once they were gone Henry Wellesley leaned back in his chair. “Lord Pumphrey told me what happened in the cathedral. That was a pity, Sharpe.”

“A pity, sir?”

“There were casualties!” Wellesley said sternly. “We don’t know how many, and I daren’t show too much interest in finding out. At present no one is directly accusing us of causing the damage, but they will, they will.”

“We kept the money, sir,” Sharpe said, “and they were never going to give us the letters. I’m sure Lord Pumphrey told you that.”

“I did,” Pumphrey said.

“And it was a priest who tried to cheat you?” Wellesley sounded shocked.

“Father Salvador Montseny,” Lord Pumphrey said sourly.

Wellesley twisted his chair to look out the window. It was a gray day and a thin mist blurred the small garden. “I could, perhaps, have done something about Father Montseny,” he said, still looking into the mist. “I could have brought pressure to bear, I might have had him posted to some mission in a godforsaken fever swamp in the Americas, but that’s impossible now. Your actions at the newspaper, Sharpe, have made it impossible. Those gentlemen pretended to believe us, but they know damned well you did it.” He turned back, his face showing a sudden anger. “I warned you that we must step carefully here. I told you to observe the proprieties. We cannot offend the Spanish. They know that the newspaper was destroyed in an attempt to stop the letters being published, and they will not be happy with us. They might even go so far as to make another press available for the men who have the letters! Good God, Sharpe! We have a house burned, a business destroyed, a cathedral desecrated, men wounded, and for what? Tell me that! For what?”

“For that, sir?” Sharpe said, and laid the copy of El Correo de Cádiz on the ambassador’s desk. “I believe it’s a new edition, sir.”

“Oh, dear God,” Henry Wellesley said. He was blushing as he turned the pages and saw column after column filled with his letters. “Oh, dear God.”

“That’s the only copy,” Sharpe said. “I burned the rest.”

“You burned”—the ambassador began, then his voice faltered because Sharpe had begun laying the ambassador’s imprudent letters on top of the newspaper, one after the other, as if he were dealing cards.

“These are your letters, sir,” Sharpe said, still in his sergeant’s tone of voice, “and we’ve ruined the press that printed them, sir, and we’ve burned their newspapers, and we’ve taught the bastards not to take us lightly, sir. As Lord Pumphrey told me, sir, we have frustrated their knavish tricks. There, sir.” He laid the last letter down.

“Good God,” Henry Wellesley said, staring at the letters.

“Dear Lord above,” Lord Pumphrey said faintly.

“They might have copies, sir,” Sharpe said, “but without the originals they can’t prove the letters are real, can they? And, anyway, they don’t have a way of printing them now.”

“Good God,” Wellesley said again, this time looking up at Sharpe.

“Thief, murderer, and arsonist,” Sharpe said proudly. The ambassador said nothing, just stared at him. “Have you ever heard of a Spanish officer called Captain Galiana, sir?” Sharpe asked.

Wellesley had looked back to the letters and seemed not to have heard Sharpe. Then he gave a start as if he had just woken. “Fernando Galiana? Yes, he was a liaison officer to Sir Thomas’s predecessor. A splendid young man. Are those all the letters?”

“All they had, sir.”

“Good God,” the ambassador said, then stood abruptly, took hold of the letters and the newspaper, and carried them all to the fire. He threw them on the coals and watched them blaze bright. “How—” he began, then decided there were some questions better not answered.

“Will that be all, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“I must thank you, Sharpe,” Wellesley said, still staring at the burning letters.

“And my men, sir, all five of them. I’ll be taking then back to the Isla de León, sir, and we’ll wait there for a ship.”

“Of course, of course.” The ambassador hurried across to his bureau. “Your five men helped?”

“Very much, sir.”

A drawer was opened and Sharpe heard the sound of coins. He pretended not to be interested. The ambassador, not wanting his generosity or lack of it to be obvious, wrapped the coins in a piece of paper that he brought to Sharpe. “Perhaps you’d convey my thanks to your fellows?”

“Of course, sir, thank you, sir.” Sharpe took the coins.

“But you rather look as if you should go back to bed now,” Wellesley said.

“You too, sir.”

“I’m well awake now. Lord Pumphrey and I will stay up. There’s always work to do!” Wellesley was happy suddenly, suffused with relief and the realization that a nightmare was over. “And of course I shall write to my brother commending you in the very highest terms. Be certain I’ll do that, Sharpe.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Good God! It’s over.” The ambassador stared at the last small flames flickering above the blackened mess of the papers lying on the coals. “It’s over!”

“Except the lady, sir,” Sharpe said, “Caterina. She has some letters, doesn’t she?”

“Oh no,” the ambassador said happily, “oh no. It really is over! Thank you, Sharpe.”

Sharpe let himself out. He went into the courtyard where he sniffed the air. It was a dull morning, exhausted after the night’s rain. The weathervane on the embassy’s watchtower betrayed that the wind was from the west. A cat rubbed itself against his ankles and he leaned down to stroke it, then unwrapped the coins. Fifteen guineas. He guessed he was supposed to give one each to his men and keep the rest. He pushed them into a pocket, not sure whether it was a generous reward or not. Probably not, he decided, but his men would be happy enough. He would give them two guineas apiece and that would buy them a lot of rum. “Go and find a mouse,” he told the cat, “because that’s what I’m doing.”

He walked through the archway to the smaller courtyard where servants were sweeping steps and the embassy cow was being milked. The back door to Lord Pumphrey’s house was open and a woman came down the steps to fetch milk. Sharpe waited till her back was turned, then ran up the steps and through the kitchen where the stove had just been relit. He took the next stairs two at a time and opened the door at the top to find himself in a tiled hallway. He climbed more stairs, these deep carpeted, past pictures of Spanish landscapes of white houses, yellow rocks, and blue skies. A white marble statue of a naked boy stood on the landing. The statue was life-size and had a cocked hat on its head. A door stood open and Sharpe saw a woman dusting a bedroom, which he supposed was His Lordship’s. He crept past and she did not hear him. The next flight of stairs was narrower and led to a landing with three closed doors. The first opened onto another stairway, which presumably climbed to the servants’ quarters. The second was the door to a box room that was heaped with unused furniture, valises, and hat boxes. The last door led into a bedroom.