“You were in love with her?”

“Yes,” Sharpe said.

“That’s nice.”

“Tell Lord Pumphrey that if he wants to live he should pay you a thousand guineas. Ask for two thousand and maybe you’ll get it.”

“What if he doesn’t pay?”

“Then I’ll slit his throat.”

“You’re a very nasty man,” she said, putting her left thigh across his legs.

“I know.”

She thought for a few seconds, then made a rueful face. “Henry likes having me here. He’ll be unhappy if I go to the Isla de León.”

“Do you mind that?”

“No.” She looked searchingly into Sharpe’s face. “Will Pumps really pay a thousand guineas?”

“He’ll probably pay more,” he said, then kissed her nose.

“So what do you want?” she asked.

“Whatever you want to give me.”

“Oh, that,” she said.

THE FLEET left, all except the Spanish feluccas that could not beat against the monstrous waves that were the remnant of the storm, so they returned to the bay, pursued by the futile splashes of the French mortar shells. The larger British ships drove through the heavy seas and then went south, a host of sail skirting Cádiz to disappear beyond Cape Trafalgar. The wind stayed in the west and the next day the Spaniards found kinder seas and followed.

San Fernando was empty with most of the army gone. There were still battalions on the Isla de León, but they were manning the long defense works on the marshy creek that protected the island and the city from Marshal Victor’s army, though that army left their siege lines two days after the Spanish feluccas sailed. Marshal Victor knew full well what the allies planned. General Lapeña and General Graham would sail their troops south and then, after landing close to Gibraltar, would march north to attack the French siege works. Victor had no intention of allowing his lines to be assailed from the rear. He took most of his army south, looking for a place where he could intercept the British and Spanish forces. He left some men to guard the French lines, just as the British had left some to protect their own batteries. Cádiz waited.

The wind turned north and cold. The Bay of Cádiz was mostly deserted of shipping, except for the small fishing craft and the mastless prison hulks. The French forts on the Trocadero fired desultory mortar shells, but with Marshal Victor gone the garrisons seemed bereft of enthusiasm. The wind stayed obstinately north so that no ships could sail for Lisbon. Sharpe, back on the Isla de León, waited.

A week after the last of the allied ships had sailed, and a day after Marshal Victor had marched away from the siege works, Sharpe borrowed two horses from Sir Thomas Graham’s stable and rode south along the island’s coast where the sea broke white on endless sand. He had been invited to ride to the beach’s end and he was accompanied by Caterina. “Put your heels down,” she told him. “Put your heels down and hold your back straight. You ride like a peasant.”

“I am a peasant. I hate horses.”

“I love them,” she said. She rode like a man, straddling the horse, the way she had been taught in Spanish America. “I hate riding sidesaddle,” she told him. She wore breeches, a jacket, and a wide-brimmed hat that was held in place by a scarf. “I cannot abide the sun,” she said. “It makes your skin like leather. You should see the women in Florida! They look like alligators. If I didn’t wear a hat I’d have a face like yours.”

“Are you saying I’m ugly?”

She laughed at that, then touched her spurs to the mare’s flanks and turned into the sea’s fretted edge. The hooves splashed white where the waves seethed up the beach. She circled back to Sharpe, her eyes bright. She had arrived in San Fernando the day before. She had come in a coach hired from the stables just outside the city, close to the Royal Observatory, and behind the coach three ostlers led packhorses piled with her clothes, cosmetics, and wigs. Caterina had greeted Sharpe with a demure kiss, then gestured at the coachmen and ostlers. “They need paying,” she said airily before stepping into the house Sharpe had rented. There were plenty of empty houses now that the army was gone. Sharpe had paid the men, then looked ruefully at the few coins he had left.

“Is the ambassador unhappy with you?” Sharpe had asked Caterina when he joined her in the house.

“Henry is quiet. He always goes quiet when he’s unhappy. But I told him I was frightened to stay in Cádiz. This is a sweet house!”

“Henry wanted you to stay?”

“Of course he wanted me to stay. But I insisted.”

“And Lord Pumphrey?”

“He said he would bring the money.” She had given him a dazzling smile. “Twelve hundred guineas!”

Sergeant Harper had watched Caterina’s arrival with an expressionless face. “On the strength is she now, sir?”

“She’ll stay with us awhile,” Sharpe said.

“Isn’t that a surprise.”

“And if that bloody priest shows his face, kill him.”

Sharpe doubted Montseny would come near the Isla de León. The priest had been beaten and if the man had any sense he would give up the fight. The best hope for his faction now was that Marshal Victor would beat the allied army, for then Cádiz must inevitably fall and the politicians in its walls would want to make peace with France before that disaster occurred.

That was other men’s business. Sharpe was riding on a long sea-beaten beach. To his east were sand dunes and, beyond them, the marshes. To his west was the Atlantic and to the south, where the beach ended at a river’s mouth, were Spanish soldiers in their sky blue uniforms. From far off across the marshes came the grumble of gunfire, the sound of French cannons bombarding the British batteries guarding the Isla de León. The sound was fitful and faint as distant thunder.

“You look happy,” Caterina said.

“I am.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s clean here,” Sharpe said. “I didn’t like Cádiz. Too many alleys, too much darkness, too much treachery.”

“Poor Captain Sharpe.” She mocked him with a brilliant smile. “You don’t like cities?”

“I don’t like politicians. All those bloody lawyers taking bribes and making pompous speeches. What’s going to win the war is that.” He nodded ahead to where the blue-coated soldiers labored in the shallow water. Two feluccas were anchored in the river’s mouth and longboats were ferrying soldiers to the beach beyond. The feluccas were loaded to the gunwales with baulks of timber, anchors and chains, and piles of planks, the materials needed to make a bridge of boats. There were no proper pontoons, but the longboats would serve, and the resultant bridge would be narrow, though if it was properly anchored it would be safe enough.

Captain Galiana was among the officers. It was Galiana who had invited Sharpe to the beach’s end and he now rode out to greet the rifleman. “How is your head, Captain?”

“It’s getting better. It doesn’t hurt so much as it did. It’s vinegar that cures it. May I present the Señorita Caterina Blazquez? Captain Fernando Galiana.”

If Galiana was surprised that a young woman would have no chaperone he hid it, bowing instead and giving Caterina a welcoming smile. “What we’re doing,” he said in answer to her first question, “is making a bridge and protecting it by building a fort on the other bank.”

“Why?” Caterina asked.

“Because if General Lapeña and Sir Thomas fail to reach the French siege works, señorita, they will need a bridge back to the city. I trust the bridge will not be needed, but General Lapeña thought it prudent to make it.” Galiana gave Sharpe a rueful look as though he deplored such defeatism.

Caterina thought about Galiana’s answer. “But if you can build a bridge, Captain,” she asked, “why take the army south on boats? Why not cross here and attack the French?”

“Because, señorita, this is no place to fight. Cross the bridge here and there is nothing but beach in front of you and a creek to your left. Cross here and the French would trap us on the beach. It would be a slaughter.”