She was more beautiful than a dream, more lovely than the stars in winter, softer than light. She kissed him, her lips warm. ‘Come to me when it’s all over.’

‘Come to you?’

She half smiled. She was heart-breakingly beautiful, and she whispered into his ear and her cheek was warm on his. ‘I love you, Richard. Do this for me and come to me.’

There was a knock on the door. She shouted at them to wait and dragged a hand over her hair. ‘Will you come to me?’

‘You know I will.’

She gestured at the parole. ‘Then sign, Richard. For both of us! Sign!’ She smiled at his nakedness, motioned him to stand behind the door, and then was gone into the night.

Sharpe drank steadily, his mood worsening. He was thinking of honour betrayed, of a woman who had promised herself to fulfil his wildest dream, of a treaty to expel Britain’s army from Spain. He had pulled on his overalls and jacket, lit more candles, and still he had not signed the parole.

He decided he was too drunk to sign the parole. Since Helene had left he had finished two bottles of wine.

He went to the table, amazed that he could stand upright, and took two bottles back to the window, reasoning that by carrying two he would save himself another complicated journey across the room when he had finished the first. The reasoning struck him as extremely clever. He was proud of it. He rested his head on the window bars. Somewhere a woman laughed, a low sound of pure pleasure, and he was jealous.

‘Helene.’ He said it aloud. ‘Helene, Helene, Helene.’

He drank more, not bothering with the glass. If he was to sign the parole, he thought, then he would be with her for a few days. Verigny could not be there all the time. They could make love in her carriage, the curtains drawn.

He would break his honour. He would break his parole. There would be no honour left to him if he did that, none.

Yet he would save Britain from defeat at the price of his honour. He could make Helene rich for his honour. And, by forcing failure onto Ducos, he could disgrace the man, maybe even, as Helene had said, have him stood against the wall and shot. All at the price of his honour.

He thought of Ducos and lifted the bottle against the night. ‘Bastard.’ He yawned hugely, drank more, and tried to concentrate his vision on a lit window of the keep, but it kept sliding diagonally up to the right. He frowned at it. Perhaps she meant it, he thought, perhaps she did love him. He sometimes thought she was a treacherous bitch, beautiful as hell, but even treacherous bitches had to love someone, didn’t they? He wondered if love was a sign of weakness, and then he thought that it was not, and then he could not remember what he was thinking and he drank more from the bottle.

He wondered if Antonia would like to have a French aristocrat as a stepmother. He drank to the thought. He drank to lark pate and honey and white wine and her body in his arms and her breath in his throat and he wished she was still here and he drank more wine because it might take away the loneliness because she had gone.

Beyond the window, to the north west, it seemed as if there-was a glow in the sky. He noticed it, frowned at it, and thought the glow in the sky might like to be toasted. He raised the bottle and drank. He felt sick. He thought he might feel better if he was sick, but he could not be bothered to go to the bucket that was decently hidden behind a wooden screen made from an old packing case. They had all laughed when Montbrun had used the bucket and had seemed to piss forever. He laughed again now. She loved him. She loved him. She loved him.

He closed his eyes.

Then he jerked his head up, eyes open, and stared at the great red smear in the sky. He knew what it was. It was the camp fires of an army, seen far off, reflected on the clouds that threatened rain. The British were to the north and west, close enough for their fires to be seen on the clouds, close enough to be forcing a further retreat from this French army, this walking brothel. He laughed and drank again.

He threw the empty bottle into the courtyard, hearing it smash on the stones and provoke a shout from a sentry. Sharpe shouted back, ‘mignon! Mignon!’

He picked up the next bottle. ‘You shouldn’t drink it,’ he told himself, then decided that it was a terrible waste if he did not. He thought he might drink it in bed and stood up.

He held onto the wall. It all suddenly seemed clear with the marvellous prescience of the drunk. King Joseph and Montbrun wanted him to escape. Montbrun was a courtier. Montbrun knew more about honour than Sharpe, so it would be all right to break his parole. He would escape. He would go to the British army and he would be rich and he would marry La Marquesa when the war was done because even treacherous bitches had to love someone and he could not bear to think of her loving anyone else. He drank to the thought. Lark pate and honey, he thought, and wine. More wine. Always more wine, and then he pushed himself off the wall, aimed for the bed, and collapsed just short of it. He managed to save the bottle.

He sat by the narrow bed where he had loved her just this day. ‘I love you,’ he said. He pulled the blankets about his shoulders, and drank some more. It was all so easy. Escape and victory, marriage and riches. Luck was with him. It always had been. He smiled and raised the bottle.

He drank more wine, just to prove that he could do it, and then, when he was solemnly thinking he ought to work out a detail or two of the decisions he had made, his head went back onto the bed, the bottle dropped, and he slept the sleep of the drunk.

Morning came like a sad groan. He was still tangled in blankets beside the bed. The dawn light was depressing.

He swore and closed his eyes.

Someone was using a sledgehammer within the castle, the blows were ringing through his skull.

‘Oh God.’

He opened his eyes again. A bottle of wine lay close to him on the floor, the wine trapped by the bottle’s neck dark with sediment. He groaned again.

He leaned his head on the bed and stared up at the whitewashed ceiling. The hammering seemed to be coming from the very walls of the room. He could not believe it was possible to feel this ill. His eyes felt as if they were trying to burst from his head, his mouth was fouler than the cell Ducos had first put him in, his stomach was sour and his bowels were water. ‘Oh God.’

He heard the bolts on his door shoot back, but did not turn round. ‘Bonjour, m’sieul’ It was the cheerful young guard.

Sharpe turned slowly, his neck hurting. ‘Jesus.’

The guard laughed. ’Won, m’sieu. Cest moi.’ He put the bowl on the table and mimed shaving. ‘Oui, m’sieu?’

‘Oui.’

Sharpe stood up. He staggered on aching legs, and wished he had stayed on the floor. He held a hand up to the guard. ‘A minute! Wait!’ He went to the wooden screen, held it, and vomited. ‘Jesus!’

‘Afsieu?’

‘All right! All right! What time is it?’

‘Afsieu?’

Sharpe tried to remember the word. He snapped the fingers of his left hand. ‘L’keure?’

‘Ah! C’est six figures, m’sieu.’

‘Cease?’

The soldier held up six fingers, Sharpe nodded, then spat through the window.

The young guard seemed happy to shave the English officer. He did it skilfully, chatting incomprehensibly and cheerfully as he lathered and scraped and washed and towelled. It occurred to Sharpe that he could elbow the boy in the belly, take his musket, shoot the man outside, and be in the courtyard within ten seconds. There had to be a damned horse there and, with luck, he could be through the gates and away before the guards knew what was happening.

On the other hand he did not feel up to morning mayhem, and it seemed distinctly churlish to attack a cheerful man who was shaving him with such skill. Besides, he needed breakfast. He needed it badly.