„No, sir.”

„That way.” Hogan pointed eastward. „Four country miles.” He pushed his right boot into its stirrup, then lifted his body to flick out the tails of his blue coat. „With luck you may even rejoin us tomorrow night.”

„What I don’t understand… “ Sharpe began, then paused because the front door of the house had been thrown open and Mrs. Savage, widow and mother of the missing daughter, came into the sunlight. She was a good-looking woman in her forties: dark-haired, tall and slender with a pale face and high arched eyebrows. She hurried down the steps as a cannonball rumbled overhead and then there was a smattering of musket fire alarmingly close, so close that Sharpe climbed the porch steps to stare at the crest of the hill where the Braga road disappeared between a large tavern and a handsome church. A Portuguese six-pounder gun had just deployed by the church and was now firing at the invisible enemy. The bishop’s forces had dug new redoubts on the crest and patched the old medieval wall with hastily erected palisades and earthworks, but the sight of the small gun firing from its makeshift position in the center of the road suggested that those defenses were crumbling fast.

Mrs. Savage sobbed that her baby daughter was lost, then Captain Hogan managed to persuade the widow into the carriage. Two servants laden with bags stuffed with clothes followed their mistress into the vehicle. „You will find Kate?” Mrs. Savage pushed open the door and inquired of Captain Hogan.

„The precious darling will be with you very soon,” Hogan said reassuringly. „Mister Sharpe will see to that,” he added, then used his foot to close the coach door on Mrs.