Sharpe countered desperately, knowing that the speed had beaten him, but with a luck he did not deserve he felt the Marqués’s blade-tip lodge in the tassel hole of his sword’s hilt. It seemed to stick there and Sharpe wrenched his weapon, forcing it towards the Marqués, hoping to break the man’s slim blade, but the Marqués turned, drew his sword away, and the cheers of the spectators were louder. They had mistaken Sharpe’s desperate counters as a violent attack.
The sun was in Sharpe’s eyes. Fluently, easily, the Marqués had turned him.
The Marqués smiled. He had the speed and the skill of this Englishman, and all that mattered now was to choose the manner of Sharpe’s death.
Sharpe seemed to know it, for he attacked suddenly, lunging at the big man, using all his own speed, but his blade never struck home. It rang against the slimmer blade, scraped, flashed sunlight into the spectators’ eyes, and though the Marqués went back on quick feet, he was having no trouble in avoiding the attacks. Only once, when Sharpe pressed close and tried to ram his sword into the Marqués’s eyes, did the Spaniard twist desperately aside and lose his composure. He regained it at once, elegantly parrying the next thrust, turning Sharpe’s blade and counter-attacking from his back foot.
The counter-attack was quick as a hawk, a slashing stab of steel as the Marqués went under his guard, the point rose, and Sharpe swept his enemy’s blade aside, his hand providentially moving in the right direction, but he was regretting he ever chose swords because the Marqués was a fencer of distinction, and Sharpe lunged again, hit nothing, and he saw the smile on the Marqués’s face as the aristocrat coolly parried the attack.
The smile was a mistake.
God damn the aristocracy, and God damn good manners, this was a fight to the death, and Sharpe growled at the man, cursed, and he felt the anger come on him, an anger that always in battle seemed to manifest itself as cold deliberation. It was as if time slowed, as if he could see twice as clearly, and suddenly he knew that if he was to win this fight then he must attack as he had always attacked. He had learned to fight in the gutter and that was where he must take this big, smiling aristocrat who thought he had Sharpe beaten.
The Marqués came forward, his blade seeking to take Sharpe’s sword one way so that he could slide the steel beneath the Englishman’s guard and finish him.
‘She calls you a pig, Spaniard.’ Sharpe saw the flicker of surprise in the Marqués’s face, heard the hiss of disapproval from Mendora. ‘A fat pig, out of breath, son of a sow, pork-brain.’ Sharpe laughed. His sword was down. He was inviting the attack, goading the man.
Captain d’Alembord frowned. It was hardly decent manners, but he sensed something more. Sharpe was now the master here. The Marqués thought he had the Rifleman beaten, but all he had done was to make the Rifleman fight. This no longer looked like a duel to d’Alembord; it looked like a brawl leading to slaughter.
The Marqués wanted to kill. He did not understand why the Englishman’s guard was down. He tried to ignore the insults, but they raked at his pride.
‘Come on, pig! Come on!’ Sharpe stepped to one side, away from the sun, and the Marqués saw the Englishman lose his balance as his boot struck a large stone in the path. He saw the alarm on Sharpe’s face as he flailed his sword arm to stay upright and the Marqués stamped his right foot forward, shouted in triumph, and the sword was piercing at Sharpe.
Who had known that the pretence of losing his balance would invite the straight lunge and who beat the sword aside with a shout that sounded in every part of the cemetery. He brought up his left knee, shouted again as the Marqués squealed, and punched the heavy guard forward so that the steel thumped into the Spaniard’s breastbone, threw him backwards, and the next scything blow of the sword ripped the Marqués’s blade clean from his hand and Sharpe, the battle anger seething in him, brought the huge, heavy sword back for the killing blow. The shot sounded.
The Marqués knew that death was in the bright, sun-blazing steel. He had never faced a force like this, a sheer animal force that snarled at him and he shook his head and wondered why the great blade did not come. For a second, as he felt his legs shaking, there was the wild hope that the Englishman was going to let him pick up his sword that had been forced out of his hand when the cavalry blade had struck the slimmer sword’s ornate guard.
Then he saw the Englishman lower his sword. Saw him step back and suddenly heard the rush of hooves. The cheers about the cemetery wall had faded. The echo of the pistol shot died into silence.
Four horsemen had ducked under the gate. Now they rode towards the place where the paths crossed in the cemetery’s centre. In the lead was Colonel Thomas Leroy, the inevitable cigar clenched in his mouth. In his hand was a smoking pistol. Behind him rode two Provosts, the army’s policemen, and a Spanish officer.
‘Major Sharpe!’ Leroy’s voice was harsh.
‘Sir?’
‘You choose an odd place to practise your sword arm.’ Leroy swung from his horse and tossed the reins to d’Alembord. His ravaged, burned face made the Marqués frown with distaste. Leroy jerked his head. ‘Come with me, Sharpe.’
Sharpe hesitated, but Leroy ordered it again, his voice more savage still, and Sharpe, his sword in his hand, followed his Colonel up the northern path between the intricate gravestones. ‘You are a goddamned bloody fool, Sharpe.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Christ in his benighted bloody heaven!’ The American seemed lost for words. He took the cigar from his lips, spat a speck of leaf onto the gravel, and stared at his Major. ‘I’ve seen an eight-year-old with more damned sense! What in hell’s name are you doing here?’
‘A matter of honour, sir.’
‘Honour!’ The scarred face twisted in rage. ‘Don’t talk of honour, Sharpe. You’re here because you’re a fool!’ He looked left. ‘Captain d’Alembord?’
‘Sir?’
‘You’ll oblige me by bringing your horses.’
Sharpe frowned. ‘Sir!’
Leroy swung back on him, the cigar jabbed at Sharpe’s face. ‘Quiet! You’re under orders!’ Leroy saw that the Rifleman was about to protest and he jerked his head at the Provosts behind him. ‘And if you disobey orders, Sharpe, I’ll have you arrested. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Fetch your jacket. You’re going.’ Leroy shook his head in frustrated bitterness. ‘I can’t leave the goddamned Battalion for one day!’
‘Señor!’ It was Major Mendora, a sneer on his face, coming on catlike feet towards Leroy and Sharpe. ‘There is a delay?’
Leroy turned to the white-uniformed man, and Sharpe saw the Spaniard recoil from the bubbled, stretched scar tissue. Leroy was trying to govern his anger. ‘Major?’
‘Major Sharpe cannot fight? He is afraid, perhaps?’
Leroy pushed Sharpe aside. He stared with his ravaged face at Mendora. ‘Listen, you son of a whore, you prinked-up bastard. There was no duel, there is no duel, there never was a duel! This was a friendly piece of sword practice! Do you understand me?’
Mendora understood. In the face of the American’s rage he simply nodded. He said nothing as Leroy tartly ordered Sharpe to follow him.
The Spanish soliders jeered as Sharpe left. They accused him of cowardice, of lacking manhood, of being afraid to fight. It was gall to Sharpe, a shame he had to endure until Leroy had led him out of earshot. Leroy scowled at him. ‘Never again, Sharpe, understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Remember you owe me a career now.’ Leroy was grim. ‘One more goddamn mistake