‘I will, sir. Now go!’
Sharpe went. Fox had commandeered the carriage with its plush bench-seat where he was snoring loudly, so Sharpe settled for a straw bed. And slept.
Fox had vanished again by the time Sharpe woke. ‘He said he was going for a bath, sir,’ Charlie Weller told him.
‘In the house?’
‘No, sir. He said Paris was full of public baths. He said we should all go.’
‘Bugger that.’
‘He said some are full of naked women,’ Weller said coyly.
‘You can go, Charlie, but I’ll tell Sally.’
‘I’ve never had a bath, sir. Too late to start now.’
‘Women are strange about taking baths,’ Sharpe said, ‘Sally would probably like it if you were clean.’
‘She might, sir,’ Weller answered uncertainly.
‘There’s a pond in the grounds here,’ Sharpe said. ‘Have a swim and a good scrub.’
Damn Fox, he thought. The man had gone off alone again! Then Sharpe would go too.
He left Charlie Weller with his men and with orders to stay hidden in the stables, while he and Harper went back to the east of the city, both covering their Riflemen’s jackets with coats, which looked strange on what was proving to be a hot day. Sharpe carried a pistol, but no other weapons, while Harper had his rifle’s sword-bayonet hidden under his coat. ‘I’m tired of this, Pat,’ Sharpe said.
‘I know you are, sir.’
‘Fox is like a bloody child! Needs a clout around the head.’
‘He seems a nice enough fellow,’ Harper said, ‘you know his father is a bishop?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘He told me, said he was supposed to go into the church himself, but preferred dabbling with pictures.’
‘And that’s what he is,’ Sharpe said vengefully, ‘a dabbler. I had words with him yesterday.’
‘Words?’ Harper sounded amused.
‘I told him he’d had life too easy. He thinks everything comes easy, and it doesn’t. Now the bugger’s gone off on his own again!’
‘You think he’s really gone for a bath?’
‘He’s gone to look at naked women if what he told Charlie is true.’
‘Lucky man. And what are we looking at?’
‘I want to know what’s going on at that vineyard.’
‘And they might be expecting us,’ Harper pointed out, and proved to be right because as they walked up the Rue de Montreuil Sharpe saw that there were now infantrymen guarding the stone-pillared gate.
‘Keep walking,’ Sharpe said. One of the city gates was ahead, but just before they reached it Sharpe saw a footpath between two houses that seemed to lead towards the vineyard. He followed it to find a gate in a wooden fence. The gate was not locked, and they went through to find the city wall rearing up to their right and the rows of vines stretching ahead. ‘Keep low, Pat.’
There were soldiers on the wall, though none seemed to notice as the two men crawled between the vines. Sharpe had his telescope, not the fine one that had been a gift from the Duke, but a cheap replacement he had bought in Normandy, and he aimed the glass at the ramparts and saw that the blue-coated infantry had red collars and were armed with short swords as well as muskets. ‘Light Infantry again,’ he muttered to Harper.
‘Buggers will see us, sir.’
‘Not if we stay low.’
They crawled up the row of vines, reaching a high spot from where Sharpe could gaze at the house. He saw the sentries on the forecourt. Four men. Two at the pillared porch and two pacing up and down the forecourt. There was a second large stone building beyond the house, one without windows, and Sharpe assumed it was a warehouse or maybe where the wine was made and, as he stared, he saw the big doors open and a wagon being hauled into the sunlight by a pair of horses. ‘Fox says he saw eleven men yesterday,’ Sharpe said, ‘but there has to be more.’ There were guards on the gate, at the house and on the wall behind the house.
‘We only saw a half-dozen.’
‘There’s more than that on the wall right now,’ Sharpe said, glancing up at the ramparts, then pausing. He turned awkwardly and trained the telescope on the wall beyond the gate, where it curled away to the south. ‘That’s odd.’
‘What?’
‘It’s just a wall, Pat. No firestep. But up here?’ He looked again at the wall behind the Delaunay estate and saw that the firestep was made of timber and reached by stout wooden steps.
‘They didn’t build the wall to defend the city,’ Harper said, ‘just to raise taxes.’
‘And I’m guessing the General wanted to see over his part of the wall,’ Sharpe said, ‘so he built his own firestep.’
‘A military man might do that.’
They waited as the sun moved around the city. Harper fell asleep mid-afternoon, and Sharpe let him doze while he continued watching the house through the clumsy glass. By evening, he thought, the sun would reflect from the glass and he would have to collapse it. The sentries were changed in the late afternoon and he saw how the men going off duty went to the warehouse. Others came from the same big doors, four to take over guarding the front of the house, four more to watch at the gate on the Rue de Montreuil, and a dozen who climbed to the city wall.
‘Seeing anything?’ Harper woke up.
‘Bugger all, just a sentry change.’
‘And horsemen,’ Harper said.
‘Horsemen?’
‘Look at the drive.’
Sharpe turned the glass left and saw six horsemen trotting towards the house. All were in uniform, all officers, judging by the glint of braid on their blue uniforms. Through the glass they appeared to be laughing as they spurred up the drive, and one kicked his horse into a canter. Young men, Sharpe thought, in high spirits. Servants came from the house to hold the horses, and the widow Delaunay appeared in the porch to welcome her visitors.
‘Sir,’ Harper said.
‘What, Pat?’
‘Look at the wall.’
A group of men and women were walking on the timber ramparts behind the General’s house and more were joining them. Children ran there. A few of the women carried parasols against the setting sun, others led dogs. ‘It looks as if anyone can stroll up there,’ Harper suggested. ‘So maybe we can too?’
‘Looks like it,’ Sharpe agreed. He collapsed the glass. ‘Let’s try.’
The guards at the city gate were there to enforce the tax laws and took little notice of the two men following other civilians up the timber steps onto the wall’s broad walkway. ‘It’s permitted?’ Sharpe asked one of the guards.
‘You’re allowed till sunset.’
They climbed the stairs and ambled north along the wall’s wide top. The Delaunay vineyard lay to their left, while beyond the wall to their right was a rough-grassed slope leading to a scatter of houses, a church and, next to the church, a large building with a garden where folk were sitting at tables. ‘Lot of infantry down there.’ Harper was looking at the same building.