The Inquisitor looked at him. ‘She goes tonight?’

‘As last night, and the night before. They have prodigious appetites.’

‘Good.’

‘And your brother?’

‘He waits in the north.’

‘Splendid.’ Ducos stood. ‘I wish you joy of it all, father.’

The Inquisitor stared up at the subtle, clever man. ‘You will have your letters soon.’

‘I never doubted it.’ Ducos smiled. ‘Give Helene my regards. Tell her I trust her marriage will be long and very happy.’ He laughed, turned, and went from the room.

This night the Inquisitor arranged a marriage. Soon La Marquesa would wear, on her left hand, a wedding ring. She would not marry some Grandee of Spain, but a man who had been born in humble circumstances and lived a life of poverty and struggle, She would become a bride of Christ.

She was rich beyond avarice, yet the Marques’ will had contained one small and not uncommon stipulation which had not escaped the Inquisition’s notice. If his widow took her vows as a nun, then the Marques’ wealth reverted to the church.

To which purpose she would be taken to a convent in the north country, a far, hidden, remote convent, and there she would be buried alive in the silent loneliness of the sisters while the Inquisitor, on behalf of God, took her inheritance.

It would be legal, there would be no scandal, for who could argue with a woman’s decision to take the veil? Father Hacha felt the beauty of the scheme. It could not fail now. The Marques was dead, his only legatee would become a nun, and the Inquisition would survive.

That night a carriage left Burgos at nine o’clock. It was drawn by four horses whose trace-chains were of silver. The horses were white. The carriage was dark blue, polished so that it reflected the stars, and its elegant outline was traced with lines of silver paint. Its windows were curtained.

Ahead of the carriage went four grooms, each holding a lantern. Two more lanterns were mounted high on the carriage itself. The postilions carried loaded guns.

The coachman paused at the city’s edge and looked down at the Lieutenant who commanded the guardpost. ‘All well ahead?’

‘How far are you going?’

‘Two villages.’

The Spanish Lieutenant waved the coach on. ‘You’ll have no trouble.’ He looked at the intricate coat of arms painted on the carriage door and wondered where La Puta Dorado went this evening. Only an hour before an Inquisitor had passed the guardpost and the Lieutenant toyed with the fancy that she was selling it to the priests now. He laughed and turned back to his men.

The moonlight showed the road as a white, straight ribbon that lay across the plain until it came to a village just a mile from the city. There the road twisted between houses, crossed a ford, before running straight towards the lights of the cavalry outpost.

The carriage moved swiftly, each wheel putting up a plume of dust that drifted pale in the night. The lanterns flickered yellow. The smell of the town was left behind, the thick smell of rotting manure, nightsoil, horses and cooking smoke. Instead there was the scent of grass. One curtain of the carriage was pulled back and a face pressed white against the glass.

La Marquesa was angry. Pierre Ducos had refused to issue the passport that would release her wagons. He claimed it was a small thing, a clerk’s mistake, but she did not believe that any clerk’s mistake would deter Pierre Ducos from achieving what he wanted. She suspected he planned to take them and she had written as much to the Emperor, but it could be weeks before a reply came, if any came at all; weeks in which the wagons could disappear. This night, she decided, she would persuade General Verigny that he must steal the wagons back. He must defy Ducos, go to the castle with his men, and drag the wagons out. She knew that General Verigny, for all his medals, feared Pierre Ducos. He would need persuading and she wondered whether a hint that perhaps marriage was not so unthinkable after all might work.

The carriage slowed at a crossroads, bumped over the transverse wheel ruts, then passed a house, its windows broken and doors missing. She heard the brake scrape on the wheel rim and she knew that they approached the ford where the road snaked between houses.

The brake scraped and the carriage shuddered. She heard the coachman shouting at the horses as the carriage swayed, slowed, and halted. She frowned. She tried to see through the window, but the lantern blinded her with its flame. She lifted the leather strap and let the window fall. ‘What is it?’

‘A death, my Lady.’

‘Death?’

She leaned out of the window. Ahead of them, just where the road twisted down to the shallow stream, a priest carried the Host for the final unction. Behind him were two altar boys. The soldiers who guarded this place had their hats off. She noticed that they were Spanish soldiers loyal to France. ‘Tell him to move!’ She said it irritably.

‘There’s a carriage coming the other way. We’ll have to wait anyway, my Lady.’

She pulled on the strap, slamming the window up, and muffling the sound of the other carriage that rattled towards her. She settled back on the velvet cushions. God damn Pierre Ducos, she thought, and God damn Verigny’s reluctance to oppose him. She thought of King Joseph, Napoleon’s brother and the French puppet king of Spain. If the treaty was signed, she reflected, then Joseph would lose his throne. She wondered whether, by betraying the secret to Joseph, he might reward her by ordering the wagons released; if, that was, even King Joseph dared to defy his brother’s loyal servant, Pierre Ducos.

The other carriage stopped. She heard the shout of the coachman and she presumed the soldiers wanted to search it. She smiled: no one dared search her carriage.

Then the door opened, she turned, one hand clutching her cloak to her neck, to see a priest climbing into her carriage. ‘Who are you?’

She had a pistol beneath the cushions. She pushed her right hand towards it.

The man took off his broad hat. The shielded lantern within her carriage showed a huge, strong face with eyes harder than stone. ‘You are La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba?’

‘I am.’ Her voice was like ice. ‘You?’

‘Father Hacha.’

She could see men outside the coach, their shapes dim in the moonlit street. She looked back at the priest and saw that his clothes were finer than those she would have expected on an ordinary parish priest. She sensed this man’s force, his strength, and his hostility. It was a pity, she thought, that such a man should give up his life to God. ‘What do you want?’

‘I have news for you.’

She shrugged. ‘Go on.’

The Inquisitor sat on the seat opposite her. He seemed to fill the small carriage with his huge presence. His voice was deeper even than Pierre Ducos‘. ‘Your husband is dead.’

She stared at him. She said nothing. At each ear hung a diamond cluster. Her cloak, though the night was not cold, was edged with white fur. At her throat, where her left hand held the fur collar, were more diamonds.

‘Did you not hear me?’

‘I heard you.’ She smiled. ‘You want to be rewarded for bringing me the news? The coachman will give you a coin.’

The Inquisitor’s face showed nothing. ‘Adultery is a sin, woman.’

‘And impudence is bad manners. Leave me, priest.’

He pointed a strong, dark hand at her. ‘You are an adulterer.’

She rapped on the window and shouted at the coachman to drive on. The carriage did not move and she angrily jerked the strap from its hook so that the window crashed down. ‘I said go on!’

The Spanish soldiers, uncomfortable but obedient, surrounded the carriage. With them were men in long, dark habits. She fumbled in the cushions for the pistol, but the strong hand of the Inquisitor reached for her wrist and pulled it clear. ‘You are an adulterer, woman.’