He raised the gun. His right hand shook slightly. Sharpe had made no move to defend himself, neither by flight nor by drawing a weapon of his own. Rainwater beaded the gun’s barrel. Its blade foresight wavered. Lord John tried to remember his tuition. He must not be tense. He should take a deep breath, let half the air out of his lungs, momentarily hold his breath and, at the same instant, squeeze the trigger gently.

Sharpe urged his horse forward.

The sudden movement disconcerted Lord John, and the gun shook in his hand as he tried to follow Sharpe’s advance. Sharpe seemed utterly oblivious of the pistol’s threat, as though he had not even seen the weapon.

Lord John stared into his enemy’s eyes. He knew he should pull the trigger, but he was suddenly paralysed by fear. He could hear voices not very far off in the wood and he felt a dreadful fear that the murder might be witnessed, and Lord John knew it would be murder, and he knew the only mercy shown to him as a lord would be that he would be publicly hanged with a rope made of silk instead of a rope made from hemp. He wanted to pull the trigger, but his finger would not move, and all the time the hooves of Sharpe’s horse slurred through the thick wet leaf mould until the Rifleman was so close to Lord John that the two men could have shaken hands without even leaning from their saddles. Sharpe had not once taken his eyes from Lord John’s eyes even though the pistol was now just inches from his face.

Very slowly, Sharpe raised his right hand and pushed the pistol away. The movement seemed to startle Lord John from his trance, and he tried to pull the weapon back, but Sharpe had gripped the barrel firmly and now twisted it from Lord John’s nerveless fingers. Lord John, expecting death, shivered.

Sharpe made the gun safe by lowering the hammer onto the percussion cap. Then, holding the barrel in his right hand and the curved stock in his left, he began levering the weapon apart. It took all his strength, but suddenly the wooden stock split away from the barrel pins and, when the trigger assembly had been wrenched loose, Sharpe was holding the gun in two useless halves which, still without a word, he dropped into Rossendale’s lap. The expensive barrel slid down to thump on the leaves, while the torn walnut stock lodged by his lordship’s topboot.

Lord John quivered and shook his head as Sharpe reached towards him, but the Rifleman just took hold of Lord John’s sword hilt then, quite slowly, scraped the polished and engraved blade free. Sharpe looked up, thrust the narrow blade into the fork of a branch, and snapped the precious sword with one brutally violent jerk. Nine inches of steel was left with the handle, the rest of the blade slid down to the ground.

“You’re not worth fighting.” Sharpe still held the broken sword hilt.

“I-„

“Shut your bloody mouth.”

„I-„

Sharpe’s left hand slapped hard across Lord John’s face. “I’ll tell you when to speak,” Sharpe said, “and it isn’t now. You listen. I don’t care about Jane. She’s your whore now. But I’ve got a farm in Normandy and it needs new apple trees and the barn needs a new roof, and the bloody Emperor took all our horses and cattle for his Goddamned army, and the taxes in France are bloody evil, and you’ve got my money. So where is it?”

Lord John seemed unable to speak. His eyes were wet, perhaps from the rain or else from the shame of this meeting under the trees.

“Has the whore spent it all?” Sharpe asked.

“Not all,” Lord John managed to say.

“Then how much is left?”

Lord John did not know, because Jane would not tell him, but he guessed that there might be five thousand pounds left. He stammered out the figure, fearing that Sharpe would be angered when he realized how much Jane had squandered.

Sharpe did not seem to care. Five hundred pounds was a fortune that would have restored Lucille’s chateau. “Give me a note now,” he told Lord John.

Lord John seriously doubted whether a promissory note with his signature had the legal force to produce the money, but if it satisfied Sharpe then Lord John was happy to write a thousand such notes. He snatched open the gilded flap of his sabretache and took out a leather-bound notebook and a pencil. He scribbled the words fast, the pencil’s point tearing the paper where the rainwater dripped from his helmet’s visor onto the page. He ripped the page out and handed it wordlessly to his tormentor.

Sharpe glanced at the words, then folded the paper. “Where I come from,” he said in a conversational tone, “men still sell their wives. Have you ever seen it done?”

Lord John shook his head warily.

“Because the poor can’t afford a divorce, you see,” Sharpe continued, “but if everyone agrees, then the woman can be sold. It has to be done in the market place. You put a rope round her neck, lead her there, and offer her to the highest bidder. The price and the buyer are always fixed in advance, of course, but making it an auction adds a bit of spice. I suppose you prinked up aristocratic bastards don’t do that to your women?”

Lord John shook his head. “We don’t,” he managed to say. He was beginning to realize that Sharpe was not going to hurt him, and the realization was calming his nerves.

“I’m not a prinked up bastard,” Sharpe said. “I’m the real thing, m’y lord. I’m a whore’s bastard out of a gutter, so I’m allowed to sell my wife. She’s yours. I’ve got your money,” Sharpe pushed the promissory note into his pocket, “so all you need is this.” He fumbled in a saddlebag then drew out the scruffy piece of rope that was Nosey’s usual leash. He tossed the dirty scrap of sisal across Lord John’s saddle. “Put the noose round her neck and tell her that you bought her. Among the people I come from, my lord, such a divorce is as good as an act of Parliament. The lawyers and the Church don’t reckon it is, but who gives a turd about what those greedy bastards think? She’s yours now. You’ve bought her, so you can marry her, and I won’t interfere. Do you understand me?”

Lord John tentatively touched the rope. He knew he was being mocked. The poor might sell their wives, but no respectable man would ever so contract into a woman’s second marriage. “I understand you,” he said bitterly.

“But if I don’t get the money, my lord, I’ll come back for you.”

“I understand.”

Sharpe still held the broken sword. He held it hilt first towards Lord John. “Go away, my lord.”

Rossendale took the truncated blade, stared one more time into the dark eyes, then spurred his horse forward. He fled from the trees, the rope still trailing from his saddle, and burst onto the road where the last of the guns were rolling northwards.

Sharpe waited a few moments. He swore silently to himself, for there had been no joy in humiliating the weak. But at least he considered he had made a good bargain. A new roof for the chateau in return for a faithless wife. He patted the pocket where the note was folded, then turned his horse. He was still somewhat shaken for, until he had actually taken the pistol from Lord John, Sharpe had not realized that it was a rainproof percussion weapon. Otherwise he would never have ridden so slowly to its black muzzle.

Harper waited for Sharpe on the high road. He had seen a shaken Lord John Rossendale burst from the trees, now, with a bemused Doggett beside him, the Irishman watched Sharpe urge his horse up to the paved surface. “So what happened?” Harper asked.

“He pissed himself, then bought the bitch.”

Harper laughed. Doggett did not like to ask for any explanation. Behind them a gun fired a shell at the threatening Lancers, making Sharpe glance south at the pursuing French.

“Come on.” Sharpe lifted his face to the cleansing rain, then spurred his horse northwards.

Just twelve miles south of Brussels the highway to Charleroi and France became the wide main street of the village of Waterloo. South of the village the road threaded the forest of Soignes where the villagers grazed their pigs and chopped their firewood.