Sharpes Devil   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

Besides, what can a woman do against the intransigence of soldiers?"

Lucille shot an amused glance at Sharpe, then looked down again at her sewing.

"The army has told you nothing?" Sharpe asked in astonishment.

"They tell me Don Bias is dead. They cannot prove it, for they have never found his body, but they assure me he must be dead." Louisa said that the King had even paid for a Requiem Mass to be sung in Santiago de Compostela's great cathedral, though Louisa had shocked the royal authorities by refusing to attend such a Mass, claiming it to be indecently premature. Don Bias, Louisa insisted, was alive. Her instinct told her so. "He might be a prisoner. I am told there are tribes of heathen savages who are reputed to keep white men as slaves in the forest. And Chile is a terrible country," she explained to Lucille, "there are pygmies and giants in the mountains, while the rebel ranks are filled by rogues from Europe. Who knows what might have happened?"

Lucille made a sympathetic noise, but the mention of white slaves, pygmies, giants and rogues made Sharpe suspect that his visitor's hopes were mere fantasies. In the five years since Waterloo Sharpe had met scores of women who were convinced that a missing son or a lost husband or a vanished lover still lived. Many such women had received notification that their missing man had been killed, but they stubbornly clung to their beliefs; supposing that their loved one was trapped in Russia, or kept prisoner in some remote Spanish town, or perhaps had been carried abroad to some far raw colony. Invariably, Sharpe knew, such men had either settled with different women or, more likely, were long dead and buried, but it was impossible to convince their womenfolk of either harsh truth. Nor did he try to persuade Louisa now, but instead asked her whether Don Bias had been popular in Chile.

"He was too honest to be popular," Louisa said. "Of course he had his supporters, but he was constantly fighting corruption. Indeed, that was why he was traveling to Puerto Crucero. The Governor of the southern province was an enemy of Don Bias. They hated each other, and I heard that Don Bias had proof of the Governor's corruption and was traveling to confront him!"

Which meant, Sharpe wearily thought, that his friend Don Bias had been fighting two enemies: the entrenched Spanish interest as well as the rebels who had captured Santiago and driven the Royalists into the southern half of the country. Don Bias had doubtless been a good enough commander to beat the rebels, but was he a clever enough politician to beat his own side? Sharpe, who knew what an honest man Don Bias was, doubted it, and that doubt convinced him still further that his old friend must be dead. It took a cunning fox to cheat the hunt, while the brave beast that turned to fight the dogs always ended up torn into scraps. "So isn't it likely," Sharpe spoke as gently as he could, "that Don Bias was ambushed by his own side?"

"Indeed it's possible!" Louisa said. "In fact I believe that is precisely what happened. But I would like to be certain."

Sharpe sighed. "If Don Bias was ambushed by his own side, then they are not going to reveal what happened." Sharpe hated delivering such a hopeless opinion, but he knew it was true. "I'm sorry, my lady, but you're never going to know what happened."

But Louisa could not accept so bleak a verdict. Her instinct had convinced her that Don Bias was alive, and that conviction had brought her into the deep, private valley where Sharpe farmed Lucille's land. Sharpe wondered how he was going to rid himself of her. He suspected it would not be easy, for Dona Louisa was clearly obsessed by her husband's fate.

"Do you want me to write to the Spanish authorities?" he offered. "Or perhaps ask the Duke of Wellington to use his influence?"

"What good will that do?" Louisa challenged. "I've used every influence I can, till the authorities are sick of me. I don't need influence, I need the truth." Louisa paused, then took the plunge. "I want you to go to Chile and find me that truth."

Lucille's gray eyes widened in surprise, while Sharpe, equally astonished at the effrontery of Louisa's request, said nothing. Beyond the moat, in the elms that grew beside the orchard, rooks cawed loud and a house-martin sliced on saber wings between the dairy and the horse-chestnut tree. "There must be men in South America who are in a better position to search for your husband?" Lucille remarked very mildly.

"How do I trust them? Those officers who were friends of my husband have either been sent home or posted to remote garrisons. I sent money to other officers who claimed to be friends of Don Bias, but all I received in return are the same lies. They merely wish me to send more money, and thus they encourage me with hope but not with facts. Besides, such men cannot speak to the rebels."

"And I can?" Sharpe asked.

"You can find out whether they ambushed Don Bias, or whether someone else set the trap."

Sharpe, from all he had heard, doubted whether any rebels had been involved. "By someone else," he said diplomatically, "I assume you mean the man Don Bias was riding to confront? The Governor of, where was it?"

"Puerto Crucero, and the governor's name was Miguel Bautista," Louisa spoke the name with utter loathing, "and Miguel Bautista is Chile's new Captain-General. That snake has replaced Don Bias! He writes me flowery letters of condolence, but the truth is that he hated Don Bias and has done nothing to help me."

"Why did he hate Don Bias?" Sharpe asked.

"Because Don Bias is honest, and Bautista is corrupt. Why else?"

"Corrupt enough to murder Don Bias?" Sharpe asked.

"My husband is not dead!" Louisa insisted in a voice full of pain, so much pain that Sharpe, who till now had been trying to pierce her armor of certainty, suddenly realized just what anguish lay behind that self-delusion. "He is hiding," Louisa insisted, "or perhaps he is wounded. Perhaps he is with the savages. Who knows? I only know, in my heart, that he is not dead. You will understand!" This passionate appeal was directed at Lucille, who smiled with sympathy, but said nothing. "Women know when their men die," Louisa went on, "they feel it. I know a woman who woke in her sleep, crying, and later we discovered that her husband's ship had sunk that very same night! I tell you, Don Bias is alive!" The cry was pathetic, yet full of vigor, tragic.

Sharpe turned to watch his son who, with little Dominique, was searching inside the open barn door for newly laid eggs. He did not want to go to Chile. These days he even resented having to travel much beyond Caen.