Sharpe's Assassin (Sharpe #21)

‘It skipped my mind, Fox.’

‘Well, we’re going now.’ Fox strode down the garden, through the gate, and followed the path southwards. Sharpe followed, but when he reached the Dowager’s house he called out to Pat Harper. ‘Come with us, Pat! We’re going to look at art.’

‘Oh joy,’ Harper said. He hefted his volley gun.

‘You won’t need that!’ Fox insisted.

‘I never leave it behind, sir,’ Harper said, ‘on account of this town being full of Crapauds.’

They followed the river eastward, past the élysée, the Tuileries gardens, and so to the Louvre. ‘It was a fortress once,’ Fox said, ‘then became a palace, now it’s a museum.’

‘Musée Napoléon,’ Sharpe said, reading a sign on the wall.

‘We’ll change that soon enough.’

They climbed steps to a grand pillared entrance hall and Fox led them confidently on into the museum, then abruptly stopped in front of a statue. ‘Isn’t that sublime?’ he said in awe. The statue showed a woman sitting with her young son standing between her knees. She had a long, sad face.

‘Looks like a mum and her son,’ Harper said. ‘Pity she couldn’t afford to buy him any clothes.’

Fox ignored the remark. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is the Madonna and child by Michelangelo.’

‘Who?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Michelangelo. Surely you’ve heard of him?’

‘Never,’ Sharpe said.

‘I have,’ Harper said proudly.

‘Good man,’ Fox said enthusiastically.

‘Who is he?’ Sharpe asked.

‘You must remember him!’ Harper said. ‘Spanish lad who joined the second battalion of the Rifles after Talavera. Miguel Angelo.’

‘Miguel did that!’ Sharpe gazed at the statue. ‘Bloody hell! He was a damned fine shot, I do remember that.’

‘Poor bugger was gut-shot at Salamanca,’ Harper went on, ‘and died. And by Christ he could use a chisel!’

‘Michelangelo,’ Fox said patiently, ‘was an Italian genius of the Renaissance. He painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.’

‘So not the same man, sir?’ Harper enquired.

‘Not the same man, Sergeant. And the statue will have to be returned. They stole it from a church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.’

He paced on, making notes as he went and calling out enthusiastically to Sharpe. The names meant nothing to Sharpe. Caravaggio, Titian, Rubens, but Fox became ever more excited. ‘Look at that!’ he said, stopping in the largest exhibition hall and pointing up to a vast painting. ‘Raphael!’

‘Is he the one at the top?’ Sharpe asked, gazing upwards.

‘That is Christ, Sharpe,’ Fox said, still patiently. ‘Raphael was the painter. It shows the Transfiguration.’ He gazed up at the canvas in rapture and Sharpe suddenly understood that this was the task that truly interested Fox. La Fraternité was doubtless important, but had distracted Fox from his real passion. Was that why he had insisted la Fraternité no longer existed?

‘She’s got a great bum.’ Harper was gazing at a woman in the lower part of the painting.

‘Bit too big for my taste, Pat,’ Sharpe said.

‘You always did like them skinny, sir.’

‘That might well be the most famous painting in the world,’ Fox pointed out indignantly.

‘And no wonder!’ Harper said reverently.

‘And it was stolen, from Rome.’ Fox waved a hand around the immense gallery. ‘Half of these works are stolen, and they all have to be taken away and sent back home.’

‘The Frogs won’t like that,’ Sharpe said.

‘They will not, which is why your battalion will guard the work.’ Fox walked to the massive Raphael and fingered the frame. ‘Bolted to the wall. We’ll need ladders, trestles and tools. I’ll find the workmen, Sharpe, and you protect them.’

‘Might need more than one battalion,’ Sharpe commented. ‘It’s a bloody big place, and has a lot of entrances.’

‘The Duke will provide,’ Fox said airily, then turned as an indignant man with a beard strode towards them.

‘Weapons are not allowed in the galleries!’ the man shouted.

Harper unslung his volley gun and pointed it at the approaching man. He might have spoken in French, but his tone was unmistakable. ‘Don’t shoot, Pat,’ Sharpe said quietly.

‘You will leave.’ The man confronted Fox. ‘Now!’

‘Barrez vous!’ Fox retorted. ‘You are no longer in charge of this museum. I am!’

The loud voices had attracted a small crowd, who started shouting encouragement to the bearded man who was insisting that the English soldiers leave the gallery. Sharpe unslung his rifle and, during a pause in the argument, cocked it. The sound echoed from the high stone walls. ‘You,’ he spoke to the bearded man, ‘will do what he says. Foutez le camp!’ He rammed the rifle’s barrel into the man’s belly.

‘What are you doing here?’ the man asked, but in a quieter tone.

‘Looking for stolen art,’ Sharpe said.

‘Dear God, this is the greatest collection of art in the world! It is civilisation! You cannot spoil this …’

Sharpe prodded the rifle. ‘We can do what we like. We have the guns, you don’t.’

‘The art belongs here.’ The man was almost in tears. ‘Paris is the centre of civilisation, monsieur! It is only right that the world’s greatest art should be assembled—’

‘Should be returned to their rightful owners,’ Sharpe snarled. ‘Now bugger off!’

‘I must protest—’

‘Pat! If he says one more word,’ Sharpe was speaking in French, even though Harper would not understand, ‘put seven bullets into that woman’s bum.’

‘Sir?’

‘Sharpe!’ Fox protested.

‘Aim the volley gun at her bum,’ Sharpe said in English.

‘Sir!’ Harper grinned and turned the gun to the enormous painting, and the threat was enough to make the bearded man back away. The growing crowd pressed forward, but Harper’s size and Sharpe’s face held them at bay.

‘Go!’ Sharpe snarled at the bearded man. ‘Go! Now!’

‘We should go too,’ Fox said as the indignant man beat a hasty retreat. ‘Lunch, I think.’

‘You’re finished here?’ Sharpe asked.

‘For the moment.’ Fox plainly feared the crowd’s hostility. Sharpe did too, but the threat of the cocked rifle and Harper’s volley gun kept them away. Some followed the three soldiers as they left the museum, shouting that the artworks belonged in France.

Fox led them east, stopping shortly after they left the museum to point at a great stone arch that stood on the far side of an open space. ‘Bonaparte’s arc de triomphe,’ he said.

‘I thought he was building that in the Champs-élysées?’

‘That’s a new one. Twice the size of this one. See the four horses on top? They were stolen from Venice and have to go back there. We shall be busy!’

Sharpe gazed up at the four horses. ‘What are they made of?’

‘Bronze. And they’re ancient.’ Fox strode off, forcing Sharpe and Harper to follow him. ‘The Venetians stole them from Constantinople,’ Fox called back.

‘Why don’t we send them back there?’

‘Because we like the Venetians and we don’t like the Turks, of course. Lunch!’

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