Sharpe's Sword Part 43

The Kligenthal felt good. He gave two short, hard strokes that loosened his wrist, and he felt the shock of the blades' meeting, and then he settled into a rhythm, probing the Rifleman's weakness, letting the Kligenthal tease the older blade to one side in preparation for the lunge. The point always beats the edge.

Sharpe went backwards, letting Leroux get out of the corner, and Harper rode alongside just as if he were the referee at a prize fight. Some of the French shouted for Leroux, but not many, and some of the Germans came to watch.

Sharpe watched Leroux's pale eyes. The man was strong, and faster than Sharpe remembered. The blades rang like anvils. Sharpe was content to let his long, straight sword do the work for him, he let its weight soak up the attacks, and he planned this man's death. La Marquesa, Leroux's sister, had asked him once if he enjoyed killing, had even accused him of enjoying it, but that was not true. Some deaths a man can enjoy, the death of an enemy, and Sharpe was paid to have enemies. Yet he did not wish death on the French. There was more satisfaction in seeing a surrendered enemy, a defeated enemy, than in seeing a slaughtered enemy. A field after battle was a more horrid place than anything the people in England, who would soon celebrate Salamanca, could imagine. Death stopped war from being a game, it gave it glory and horror, and soldiers could not be squeamish about death. They might regret the moment when rage conquers fear, when it banishes all humanity and makes a man into a killer, but that rage could keep a man from being dead and so the regret was mixed with relief and a knowledge that, to be a good soldier, the rage would one day be back.

Sharpe parried a lunge, twisted his sword over the Kligenthal so the blades sc.r.a.ped, and lunged himself, checked, lunged again, and he saw the pain in the pale eyes as Leroux was forced onto his back foot. Sharpe would kill this man, and he would enjoy it. He would enjoy the retribution as a man could enjoy the death of a child-murderer at Tyburn, or the shooting of a deserter after battle. Death was sometimes public because people needed death, they needed retribution, and Tyburn's gallows gave more pleasure than pain. That might be bad, but that is the way of people, and Sharpe's sword tip hit the guard of the Kligenthal, forced it wide, came free when Leroux's arm was off balance and Sharpe brought the blade scything back so it cut across Leroux's chest, then back again so the sword cut Leroux's forearm, and Sharpe knew this man would die.

He would die for McDonald, for Windham, for the unnamed Spaniards, for Spears, for El Mirador, for Sharpe himself, and Leroux knew it, for he became desperate. His right arm was wounded so he held his wrist with his left hand and scythed the Kligenthal in a glittering, air singing blow and Sharpe stepped back, let the blade pa.s.s, and then shouted his exultation as he lunged forward, picking his spot, and he did not hear Hogan shouting at him, nor Harper's cry of acclamation, for the blade was going into Leroux's body at the exact place where Leroux had wounded Sharpe, and Leroux let the Kligenthal go, his mouth opened, and his hands clutched at the blade that still pierced him, a flesh-hook that tortured him, that went through skin and muscle and tore the scream from him.

He fell. He was not dead yet. The pale eyes were wide. He drew up his legs as Sharpe had drawn up his legs, he gasped air into his lungs so that the scream could fight the pain that he had made Sharpe fight for two weeks, and then Sharpe twisted the sword free, held the point above Leroux's throat, and finished him off.

He left his sword swaying above the lifeless Frenchman and stepped back. Leroux was dead.

Hogan had watched Sharpe's anger. He rarely saw the Rifleman fight. He had been awed by Sharpe's skill, troubled by the turbulence of his friend, and he saw the distaste that crossed Sharpe's face when it was all done. Leroux was no longer the enemy, no longer Napoleon's man, he was a pathetic, cringeing corpse. Hogan's voice was mild. "Wouldn't he surrender?"

"No, sir." Sharpe shook his head. "He was a stubborn b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Sharpe picked up the Kligenthal, the sword he had wanted so much, and it could have been made for him. It settled in his right hand like a part of himself. It was a beautiful and deadly weapon.

He undipped Leroux's snake-clasp belt, tugged the sword slings free from the body, and strapped the scabbard over his own scabbard. He pushed the Kligenthal home. His Kligenthal.

Leroux's black sabretache was spotted with blood. Sharpe lifted the flap and there, on top, was a small leather notebook. He opened it, saw a star chart surrounded by a strange language, and tossed it to Hogan." That's what we wanted, sir."

Hogan looked at the dead in the valley, at the prisoners, and he looked at the survivors of the King's German Legion Heavy Dragoons who walked their horses back from the unsuccessful attack on the remaining two French Battalions. The Germans had won a great victory, at great price, and the valley was stinking of blood. Hogan looked at the book, then at Sharpe. "Thank you, Richard."

"My pleasure, sir."

Sharpe was taking Leroux's overalls. He had worn overalls exactly like these until the fight in the Irish College. Now he had killed another Cha.s.seur Colonel. Leroux's overalls still had the silver b.u.t.tons down their legs and Sharpe grinned as he held them up. He wiped his sword clean on them.

Leroux's sister had once asked Sharpe if he enjoyed killing and he had given her no answer. He could have replied that sometimes it was terrible, that often it was sad, that usually it happened without any emotion, but that sometimes, rarely, like this day, there were no regrets. He picked up his own sword, the crude sword that had won the fight, and smiled at Harper. "Breakfast?"

EPILOGUE.

Salamanca was honeyed gold in the sunlight. A city built like Rome on hills above a river.

The morning sunlight slanted the shadows long in the Great Plaza. The wounded, two days after the great battle at the Arapiles, still died in the hospital.

Sharpe stood on the Roman Bridge and stared down at the sinuous green weeds. He knew it was foolish to be here, maybe a waste of time, but he waited.

A company of Spanish soldiers was marched across the bridge. The officer grinned at him, waved a cigar. The men looked curiously at the two swords that hung by the grim Rifleman's side.

A farmer drove cattle past him. Two priests went the other way, arguing violently, and Sharpe paced slowly behind them, stopped at the small fortress arched over the roadway, and walked slowly back.

The clock on the hill struck ten.

A cavalry Sergeant drove a dozen remounts into the river. They drank while he rubbed them down. The edge of the river was very shallow. Children played there, running easily to a small island, and their voices carried up to the bridge.

She might not even come this way, he thought, but she did.

Two liveried servants first, mounted on horseback, then the dark blue coach with its four white horses, and after that another coach that he presumed was for luggage or servants.

He pushed against the stone of the parapet, watched the servants ride past, then the four white horses, and then the barouche, its cover up, was opposite him.

She saw him.

He had to walk a few paces to where the barouche had stopped. He looked up. "I tried to see you."

"I know." She was fanning her face.

He felt awkward. The sun was hot on the back of his neck. He could feel sweat trickling below his armpit. "Are you well, Ma'am?"

She smiled. "Yes. I find myself temporarily unpopular in Salamanca." She shrugged. "Madrid may be more welcoming."

"You may find our army in Madrid."

"Then I may go north."

"A long way?"

She smiled. "A long way." Her eyes dropped to the two swords, then back to Sharpe's face. "Did you kill him?"

"In a fair fight." He was embarra.s.sed again, as he had been at their first meeting. She seemed no different. She was still beautiful, unbearably so, and it seemed impossible that she was an enemy. He shrugged. "Your horse died."

"Did you kill it?"

"Your brother did."

She half smiled. "He killed very easily." Her eyes went back to the sword again, then back to Sharpe. "We were not very fond of each other." He supposed she meant she and her brother, but he could not be sure she was not talking of himself. She shook her head. "Did you wait for me?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Why?"

He shrugged. To tell her he missed her? To tell her that it did not matter that she was French, a spy, released only because she was a Spanish aristocrat and Wellington could not afford the scandal? To tell her that amid all the lies there had been some truth? "To wish you well."

"And I wish you well." She mocked him gently. To Sharpe she seemed untouchable, unreachable. "Goodbye, Captain Sharpe."

"Goodbye, Ma'am."

She spoke to the coachman, looked back at Sharpe. "Who knows, Richard? Maybe another day." The coach lurched forward, the last he saw was her golden hair going back into its shadows. He thought to himself that he had nothing of hers to remember her by, only memory which was the worst souvenir.

He felt in his new ammunition pouch and fingered the message that had been delivered that morning from Wellington himself. It thanked him. He supposed that Napoleon would have written similar messages to Leroux and La Marquesa if Sharpe had not taken the notebook from the shattered squares at Garcia Hernandez. After the battle they had found that was the name of the village near to the hill and the valley.

Major Hogan was expansive at lunch. Sharpe was to stay in Hogan's old lodgings, to be fed well by the landlady, and Hogan drank well before he left. "You're to stay and recuperate, Richard! General's orders! We want you fully strong again."

,Yes, sir."