‘Or tonight, sir.’
‘I’ll stop it, Harry.’
‘I hope you do, sir.’
‘Have you seen Lucille, Harry?’
‘She’s fine, sir, not far behind us. And …’ he paused.
‘And?’
‘Major Morris has been paying her attention, sir.’ Price grimaced. ‘Unwelcome attention, sir.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He can’t take his eyes off her, sir, and thinks she’ll welcome his company.’
‘But nothing—’ Sharpe began asking, then stopped.
‘Nothing at all, sir. Of course not, sir!’
‘You heard all that, Sergeant Harper?’ Sharpe asked.
‘Every word, sir.’
‘Have you ever seen a Major flogged?’
‘Not had that pleasure, sir.’
Sharpe touched Harry Price’s arm. ‘I’ll see you soon, Harry.’
Sharpe let the rest of the battalion march past him, then greeted the wives who drew up the rear just behind two baggage wagons. He was still talking to them when a rough-coated dog sped up the avenue and leaped at his chest. ‘Nosey!’ The women laughed to see their Colonel being assaulted by the big dog, who was finally calmed as the Dowager Countess Mauberges’ carriage rolled to a stop. Sharpe bowed to the women in the carriage, then climbed to join them while Harper pulled himself up beside the coachman on the box. ‘Keep going, Pat!’ Sharpe called. ‘Stay with the battalion.’
‘All the way, sir.’
‘Richard!’ Lucille reached for him. ‘Thank God.’
Sharpe embraced her, suddenly feeling tears in his eyes. ‘I hate this city,’ he said.
‘But it’s beautiful!’ Lucille protested.
‘Now you’re here, it is.’
‘We’ll go home soon.’ Lucille smiled.
‘Can’t be soon enough.’ Sharpe nodded to Sally Clayton, who was holding the baby, Patrick. ‘How’s the boy, Sally?’
‘He’s your son, Mister Sharpe! He’s boisterous.’
‘There is my house, Colonel!’ the Dowager said brusquely, wondering why the carriage was not turning into the entrance.
‘And we kicked out the men who invaded it, milady,’ Sharpe said, ‘and it’s been cleaned up, but forgive me, I really need to stay with the battalion for a while. We’ll come straight back.’
The Dowager sniffed disapproval, but silently yielded and the carriage followed the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers past the monstrous arch that the Emperor had ordered built in the Champs-élysées. There had been no time to make a proper arch from stone, so a wooden frame had been made, then covered with canvas painted as stone. ‘It celebrates the Emperor’s victories,’ the Dowager said proudly. Torn scraps of canvas fluttered in the fitful wind and birds nested at the arch’s top. ‘You have nothing like it in London?’
‘Can’t build an arch big enough,’ Sharpe said, and was rewarded by a dig in the ribs from Lucille.
‘There is news of the Emperor, perhaps?’ the Dowager asked.
‘I’m told he’s abdicated, milady, and no one is sure where he is. And Paris has surrendered to us.’
That news was greeted with another disapproving sniff. ‘So no more war?’ Lucille asked.
‘It’s over, thank God,’ Sharpe said. ‘All the French troops in and around Paris have been ordered to withdraw beyond the Loire. Only allied soldiers here now.’
Though that was not quite true. He had spent the last three days watching the Delaunay mansion and had seen that the soldiers camped inside the warehouse had stayed. He had looked for Lanier, but had not seen the Colonel, only his men, who now mostly wore civilian clothes, though the sentries at the house still retained their uniforms. The walls beyond the house were unmanned, a place now for civilians to walk whenever they wished. Sharpe had strolled the length of the wall behind the house and had seen no soldiers on the ramparts, but plenty of evidence that the battalion of Light Infantry was still occupying the vineyard. He had used the telescope to gaze at the tavern beyond the wall, but the man he thought was Lanier seemed to have vanished. ‘Will you really shoot him?’ Harper had asked one evening.
‘Those are my orders.’
‘But would you?’
Sharpe had shrugged. Alan Fox seemed convinced that any danger posed by la Fraternité had evaporated with General Delaunay’s death, yet insisted that Lanier must follow the General into oblivion. Sharpe instinctively disliked the order. Lanier was a soldier, and, if his reputation was accurate, a good one. Fox had admitted as much. ‘He was the hero of Marengo, Sharpe!’
‘Hero?’
‘The battle was lost, Sharpe! Austrians were advancing everywhere, and Lanier’s men made a last stand which they turned into a rout. Broke half the Austrian army and turned defeat into victory. Splendid stuff! It was a makeshift battalion too, but the Emperor called them his devils!’
And Sharpe reckoned such a man deserved better than a rifle bullet fired after peace had been declared. He had carried the rifle to the vineyard every evening, but had been happy that Lanier had not shown his face. On their most recent visit to the wall above the vineyard, Sharpe and Harper had seen the smoke of the British campfires to the south-west of the city, and Sharpe had reckoned there were fewer soldiers in the courtyards behind the Delaunay house. Maybe most of the battalion had retreated beyond the Loire as the agreement between the allies and the French had demanded? And perhaps Lanier had retreated with them.
The land around the shabby arch was scrubby and dotted with crudely built shelters which made it look like an army’s encampment, except there were no sentries, and too many of the folk crawling in or out of the shelters were women. ‘They’re taking refuge here,’ the Dowager lamented. ‘Deserters and frightened folk! They should be cleaned out!’
The same sad shelters were built in the Bois de Boulogne, a half wooded area that lay beyond the Champs-élysées and in the embrace of a sharp curve of the River Seine. Harry Price came back from his company. ‘We’re to billet here, sir,’ he called up to Sharpe.
Axemen were already attacking trees to make shelters. The Dowager sighed again. ‘This was a royal hunting preserve and rather beautiful. I suppose that ghastly fat man is on his way back?’
‘He is the King,’ Sharpe said.
‘He is a gross disgusting creature, Colonel. He wobbles when he walks! He’s a sack of offal on legs the size of tree trunks! An offence to the eye.’
Harry Price had led a work party that was struggling great canvas bags from the supply wagons. ‘What are those, Harry?’
‘His lordship likes to sleep in a tent, sir.’
‘His lordship?’
‘Bloody Morris, sir. Best not watch them unpack his tent.’
‘Not watch?’
‘The boys like to piss in the bag before they unpack it, sir, so it stinks.’
‘Carry on, Captain,’ Sharpe said very formally, then walked towards the growing encampment.
He found Morris sitting on a fallen tree trunk from where he contemplated the growing shelters. The Major stood as Sharpe approached. He looked nervous. ‘Are you resuming command, Colonel?’ he asked.
‘I never relinquished it, Major,’ Sharpe said. ‘How are the men?’