Sharpe 3-Book Collection 6: Sharpe’s Honour, Sharpe’s Regiment, Sharpe’s Siege. Bernard Cornwell

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      Wellington stared at him with cold, blue eyes. ‘It’s an execution, Stokeley, not a goddamned christening.’

      Stokeley decided it would be best not to mention that in his family refreshments were served for both functions. ‘Very good, my Lord.’ He decided he had never seen his master in a worse temper.

      Nor had he, indeed. The damage that could be done to the tenuous alliance between British and Spanish was immense. No Spanish soldier, so far as Wellington knew, had any love for the Marqués de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba, but his murder had transformed him into a martyr of Spain. The damned churchmen had been quick off the mark, as usual, preaching their anti-protestant diatribes, but Wellington prided himself that he had been just as quick. The culprit had been tried, a hanging would take place, and all before the sun that had risen on the murdered man would set. The Spanish, ready to mount elaborate protests, had found the wind taken from their sails. They declared themselves satisfied with his Lordship’s swift retribution.

      The Spanish soldiers who were marched into the plaza of the small town were glad of the break in their routine. They had been training hard, marching long days and waking with aching bones to face more hard training. Yet this afternoon it was like a fiesta. They were marched into the plaza, Battalion after Battalion, to witness the death of an Englishman.

      The gibbet was made from an army wagon that was parked against the limewashed wall of the priest’s house. There was a convenient hook high on the wall. An English Sergeant, sweating in his Provost’s uniform, climbed a ladder with the rope that he looped onto the hook. The square was thick with Provosts. There was a rumour that men of the South Essex, together with some Riflemen, planned to try and rescue Richard Sharpe from the gallows. It sounded an unlikely threat, but it was taken seriously. The Provosts carried their short muskets tipped with bayonets and watched the alleys and streets that led into the plaza.

      The first Spanish officers came to the headquarters. They seemed subdued. Most tactfully avoided the windows that faced the square, but Major Mendora, his bright white uniform bearing a black crepe band on its right sleeve, watched the Sergeant hang the rope in its place. Lord Stokeley wondered if the Major would care for a cup of tea? The Major would not.

      The Provost Sergeant, safely off his ladder, pulled on the noose to make sure that the hook was secure. It held his weight. The rope, released from his grip, turned slowly in the small breeze.

      Father Hacha, his black priest’s robes stained white with dust from the square, pushed through the officers to Mendora’s side. ‘They should have handed him to us for punishment.’

      The Major looked at the harsh-faced priest. ‘Sir?’

      ‘Hanging’s too quick.’ His deep voice dominated the room. ‘Spain won’t be happy, gentlemen, till these heathens are gone from us.’

      There were some murmurs of agreement, but not many. Most of the Spaniards present were glad to serve under the Generalisimo Wellington. They had learned from him how to organise an army, and the new regiments of Spain were troops that any officer could take pride in. But no one, not the most fervent supporter of the British alliance, was willing to cross an Inquisitor. The Junta might have abolished the Spanish Inquisition, but until it finally disappeared, no man wanted to have his name listed in its secret ledgers. The Inquisitor stared at the rope. ‘They should have garotted him.’

      Some of the Spanish soldiers in the square would have agreed with the Inquisitor. Hanging, they said, was too quick. They should have brought one of the garottes that travelled with the Spanish army, sat the Englishman in its chair, and slowly, slowly tightened the screw that would break his neck. A good executioner could draw a garotting out for an hour, sometimes relaxing the pressure of the thread to give the victim false hope, before finally turning the screw and breaking the neck as the doomed man’s head snapped backwards.

      Others said that a hanging could last just as long. It all depended, they said, on the drop. If the man was simply hanged, without a drop, then he could last half a day. Whatever, it was better to be in this dusty square waiting for a hanging than to be training in the hills.

      ‘La Puta Dorada,’ a Spanish Colonel observed, ‘is now a very rich widow.’ There was laughter at the thought.

      ‘How rich?’ an artillery Major asked.

      ‘Christ knows how much he was worth! Millions.’

      ‘She won’t get the land,’ someone observed. ‘She won’t dare show her face in Spain once the French are gone.’

      ‘Even so,’ the Colonel shrugged. ‘She must be worth a few hundred thousand in coin and plate. What happens to the title?’

      Major Mendora, embarrassed by the conversation, coldly named a Duke, a cousin, to whom the title reverted. He refused to give an estimate of his dead master’s fortune.

      The Inquisitor listened to the talk, hearing the greed and jealousy. He turned to the window and looked at the makeshift gallows on which an innocent man must die. That was regrettable, but the Inquisitor was satisfied that the Englishman, Sharpe, was a sinner whose death would not distress the Almighty. The hanging rope cast a sharp, black shadow on the limewashed wall.

      The death of the Marqués was more distressing. The Marqués, at least, had been a Christian, though a weak man. Now he was in heaven where weakness was a virtue.

      He had died quickly, hardly a flutter on his face as the Slaughterman, with a strong hand, had sliced his throat. The Inquisitor had prayed as his brother killed, his words soft, committing the soul to heaven as the knife cut through the tendons and windpipe and muscle and down to the great artery that had gouted blood as the Marqués’s body gave one desperate heave. The man had hardly woken as he died. El Matarife had eyed the golden crucifix greedily and been hurried from the room by his brother.

      The Marqués’s death would save Spain. It released his fortune that would go to the Church. These officers who discussed his will did so in ignorance, for now, with this one death behind him, the Inquisitor would legally take the fortune that was embarked on the Marquesa’s wagons. Three hundred thousand dollars worth of fortune there alone, with millions more in land and property. He smiled.

      The Inquisitor’s family had been impoverished by the war, and now, with this fortune, it would rank with the greatest in Spain, which was only fitting for a man who intended to be the leader behind Spain’s weak King. With the fortune of Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba behind him, the Inquisitor knew, he would rise to be a bishop, then an archbishop, and finally a cardinal. He would stand behind the throne and before the high altar. He would be powerful and Spain would be great. His ambitions, not set for himself, but for the Church and for the Inquisition, would be realised, and all for the price of one death.

      And now that the Marqués was dead the Inquisitor would give to Major Ducos the assurances of support that would convince Ferdinand VII to sign his name to the secret treaty. The British would go from Spain, the French would leave peaceably, and Spain would be strong again. Its empire would be restored, its King would be glorious on a throne, and the Church would take back its power. All that for one small death. One death to give his family the money that meant power, power that would be used for God’s glory. The Inquisitor forgave himself the death; it had been for God.

      A murmur came from the throng of soldiers who packed the plaza. It rose, became an excited shout, and the noise coincided with the door opening into the large room where the Spanish officers gathered. Lord Wellington, grim-faced, came into the room. He frowned at the assembled men, nodded coldly, then looked through one of the windows. His aides СКАЧАТЬ