Read Online Sharpe's Enemy by Bernard Cornwell - Free Book Online

in there, sir. When it was a convent, that is.’
    Sharpe pressed his face against the cold bars. The chapel ran left and right, altar to the left, and as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he saw that the chapel had been defaced. Blood was splashed on the painted walls, statues had been torn from their niches, the light of the Eternal Presence ripped from its hanging chains. It seemed a pointless kind of destruction, but then Pot-au-Feu’s band was desperate, men who had run and had nowhere else to flee to, and such men would wreak their vengeance on anything that was beautiful, valued, and good. Sharpe wondered if Lady Farthingdale was even alive.
    Horses’ hooves came faintly from outside the Convent. The two Riflemen froze, listened.
    The hooves were coming closer. Sharpe could hear voices. ‘This way!’
    They moved quickly, quietly, out into the cloister. The hooves were closer. Sharpe pointed across the courtyard and Harper, astonishingly silent for a huge man, disappeared into the dark shadow beneath the arches. Sharpe stepped backwards, into the chapel, and pulled the door close so that he and his rifle looked through a slit onto the entrance tunnel.
    Silence in the courtyard. Not even a wind to stir the dead leaves of the hornbeam on the green and yellow tiles. The hooves stopped outside, the creak of a saddle as a man dismounted, the crunch of boots on the roadway, and then silence.
    Two sparrows flew down into the raised pool and pecked among the dead weeds.
    Sharpe moved slightly to his right, searching for Harper, but the Irishman was invisible in the shadows. Sharpe crouched so that his shape, if seen through the crack, would be confusing to whoever came out of the dark tunnel.
    The gate creaked. Silence again. The sparrows flew upwards, their wings loud in the cloister, and then Sharpe almost jumped in alarm because the silence was shattered by a bellowed shout, a challenge, and a man leaped into the cloister, moving fast, his musket jerking round to cover the dark shadows where assailants might wait, and then the man crouched at the foot of a pillar by the entrance and called softly behind him.
    He was a huge man, as big as Harper, and he was dressed in French blue with a single gold ring on his sleeve. The uniform of a French Sergeant. He called again.
    A second man appeared, as wary as the first, and this man dragged saddlebags behind him. He was in the uniform of a French officer, a senior officer, his red-collared blue jacket bright with gold insignia. Was this Pot-au-Feu? He carried a cavalry carbine, despite his infantry uniform, and at his side, slung on silver chains, was a cavalry sabre.
    The two Frenchmen stared round the cloister. Nothing moved, nobody.
    ‘Allons.’ The Sergeant took the saddlebag and froze, pointing. He had seen Harper’s bag beside the pool.
    ‘Stop!’ Sharpe yelled, kicking the door open with his right foot as he stood up. ‘Stop!’ the rifle pointed at them. They turned.
    ‘Don’t move!’ He could see their eyes judging the distance of the rifle shot fired from the hip. ‘Sergeant!’
    Harper appeared to their flank, a vast man moving like a cat, grinning, the huge gun gaping its bunched barrels at them.
    ‘Keep them there, Sergeant.’
    ‘Sir!’
    Sharpe moved past them, skirting them, and went into the tunnel. Five horses were tied outside the convent beside the three he and Harper had brought and, having noticed them, he pushed the Convent door shut, then went back to look at the two prisoners. The Sergeant was huge, built like an oak tree, with a tanned skin behind his vast black moustache. He stared hatred at Sharpe. His hands looked large enough to strangle an ox.
    The man in officer’s uniform had a thin face, sharp eyed and sharp featured, with intelligent eyes. He looked at Sharpe with disdain and condescension.
    Sharpe kept the rifle pointing between them. ‘Take their guns, Sergeant.’
    Harper came behind them, plucked the carbine from the