The Prince, his eyes more bulbous than ever, had seized Webster's arm. "You see that girl? Do you know her?"

"Lieutenant Webster," the Duke's voice was as cold as a sword in winter, "four horses instantly to the Prince of Orange's carriage. Your Highness will return immediately to your headquarters."

The Prince blinked in surprise at his Commander-in-Chief, then offered a small laugh. "Surely it can wait till - ,

"Instantly, sir!" The Duke did not raise his voice, but there was something quite terrifying in his tone. "Your corps will concentrate on Nivelles now. Go, sir, go!"

The Prince, aghast, stayed a half-second, then fled. A thousand eyes had watched the brief altercation, and now the whispers began in earnest. Something must have happened; something alarming enough to send the Prince scurrying from the ball.

The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond sought an answer, but the Duke of Wellington merely smiled and blithely proposed that the company should proceed to supper. He offered the d.u.c.h.ess his arm and the orchestra, seeing the gesture, stopped their playing to allow the Highland pipers to begin their sword dance.

The pipes wailed and squealed into life, then caught their air to fill the room with a martial sound as the company, two by two and slow as an army's progress up a country road, went in to supper.

There were quails' eggs served on scrambled eggs and topped with caviar which the d.u.c.h.ess's chef obscurely called les trois oeufs de victoire. They were followed by a port-wine jelly and a cold soup.

The Duke of Wellington was happily seated between two attractive young ladies, while Lucille found herself between d'Alembord and a Dutch gunner colonel who complained about the victory eggs, refused the soup, and said the bread was too hard. Lucille had seen the Prince's arrival and hasty departure, and had resigned herself to Sharpe's absence. In a way she was glad, for she feared Sharpe's violence if he discovered Lord John Rossendale at the ball.

Lucille, a Norman, had been raised on stories of the merciless English pirates who lived just across the Channel and who, for centuries, had raided her homeland to kill and burn and plunder. She loved Sharpe, yet she saw in her lover the embodiment of those ghouls who had been used to scare her into childhood obedience. In the last few months, as the soldier had tried to become a farmer, Lucille had tried to educate her Englishman. She had convinced him that sometimes diplomacy was more effective than force, that anger must sometimes be tamed, and that the sword was not the clinching argument of peace. Yet, Lucille knew, he would remember none of those pacifist lessons if he saw Lord John. The big sword would sc.r.a.pe free. Peter d'Alembord, who shared her fears, had promised to restrain Sharpe if he appeared.

Now, it seemed, he would not be coming, for the Prince had fled the ball. No one knew why, though the Dutch gunner Colonel opined that the reason for the Prince's hasty departure could not have been of great importance, or else the Duke would surely have left with the Prince. The most reasonable a.s.sumption was that the French had pushed a cavalry raid across the frontier. "I'm sure we'll discover the cause by morning," d'Alembord said, then turned to Lucille to offer her a gla.s.s of wine.

But Lucille had gone quite white. She was staring wide-eyed and frightened at the supper room's open doorway which, like a proscenium arch, framed the Highland dancers and, quite suddenly, now also framed her lover.

Sharpe had come to the ball after all. He stood, blinking in the sudden candlelight, a shabby Rifleman among the dancing Scotsmen.

"Good G.o.d Almighty!" D'Alembord stared in awe at his friend.

Silence spread slowly across the supper tables as the hundreds of guests turned to stare at the Rifleman who, in turn, searched the supper tables for a particular person. A woman gasped in horror at the sight of him, and the pipes groaned a last uneasy note before the dancers froze above their swords.

Sharpe had come to the ball, but drenched in blood. His face was powder-stained and his uniform darkened with gore. Every other man in the room wore white breeches and silk stockings, yet here, looking like the ghost in the Scottish play, came a soldier from a battlefield; a soldier bloodied and marked, grim-faced as slaughter.

Jane Sharpe screamed; the last sound before the room went wholly silent.

Lucille half stood, as if to reveal herself to Sharpe, but he had seen the Duke and, seemingly oblivious of the effect his entrance had caused on the ball's guests, now strode between the tables to the Duke's side.

Wellington's face seemed to shudder in reaction to the stench of powder, blood, sweat and crushed gra.s.s that wafted from Sharpe's uniform. He waved the Rifleman down to a crouch so that their conversation could be more private. "What is it?" the Duke asked curtly.

"I've just come from a crossroads called Quatre Bras, sir. It's north of Charleroi on the Brussels road. The French attacked there at sunset, but were checked by Saxe-Weimar's men. Prince Bernhard is certain the enemy will make a much stronger attack in the morning." Prince Bernhard had said no such thing, but Sharpe had decided it would be more efficacious to a.s.sign the opinion to the prince than to confess that it was his own view.

The Duke stared at Sharpe for a few seconds, then flinched at the blood which was caked on the Rifleman's jacket. "Are you wounded?"

"A dead Frenchman, sir."

The Duke dabbed his mouth with a napkin, then, very casually, leaned towards his host. "You have a good map in the house?"

"Upstairs, yes. In my dressing-room."

"Is there a back staircase?"

"Indeed."

"Pray let us use it." Wellington looked to an aide who was seated a few places down the table. "All officers to their regiments, I think." He spoke quite calmly. "Come with us, Sharpe."

Upstairs, in a room filled with boots and coats, the two Dukes leaned over a map while Sharpe amplified his report. Wellington moved a candle across the map to find the village of Fleurus where the Prussians now faced the French. That had been the first news this night had brought the Duke - that Napoleon's army had branched off the Brussels road to drive the Prussians eastwards away from the British. That news had been serious, but not disastrous. The Duke had planned to a.s.semble as much of his army as possible, then march at dawn on to the French flank to help Blucher's Prussians, but now Sharpe had brought much worse news. The French had closed on Quatre Bras, effectively barring the Duke's planned march. Now, before he could help the Prussians, the Duke must thrust the French aside. The gap between the British and Prussian armies was still very narrow, yet Sharpe's news proved that the Emperor had his foot between the two doors and, in the morning, he would be heaving d.a.m.ned hard to drive the doors apart.

Wellington bit his lower lip. He had been wrong. Napoleon, far from manoeuvring about the Duke's right flank, had rammed his troops into the seam between the allied armies. For a second the Duke's eyes closed, then he straightened up and spoke very quietly. "Napoleon has humbugged me, by G.o.d! He has gained twenty-four hours!" He sounded astonished, even hurt.

"What do you intend doing?" The Duke of Richmond had gone pale.

"The army will concentrate on Quatte Bras," the Duke of Wellington seemed to be speaking to himself as though he groped towards a solution of the problem Napoleon posed, "but we shan't stop him there, and if so," Wellington's gaze flicked across the map, then settled, "I must fight him," he paused again to lean over the map for a few final seconds, "here." He pressed his thumbnail into the map's thick paper.

Sharpe stepped a pace forward to look down at the map. The Duke's thumbnail had forced a small scar into the map at another crossroads, this one much closer to Brussels and just south of a village with the odd name of Waterloo.

"He's humbugged me!" the Duke said again, but this time with a grudging admiration for his opponent.

"Humbugged?" Richmond was worried.

"It takes our armies two days to a.s.semble," Wellington explained. "They're not a.s.sembled, yet the Emperor's army is already on our doorstep. In brief he has humbugged us. Sharpe." The Duke turned abruptly on the Rifleman.

"Sir?"

"You might have dressed for the dance." It was a gloomy jest, but softened with a smile. "I thank you. You'll report to the Prince of Orange, I a.s.sume?"

"I was going back to Quatre Bras, sir."

"Doubtless he'll meet you there. I thank you again. And goodnight to you."

Sharpe, thus dismissed, made a clumsy bow. "Good-night, sir."

The Duke of Richmond, when Sharpe had gone, grimaced. "A menacing creature?"

"He came up from the ranks. He saved my life once," Wellington somehow managed to sound disapproving of both achievements, "but if I had ten thousand like him tomorrow then I warrant we'd see Napoleon beat by midday." He stared again at the map, seeing with sudden and chilling clarity just how efficiently the Emperor had forced the allied armies apart. "My G.o.d, but he's good," the Duke spoke softly, "very good."

Outside the dressing-room, Sharpe found himself surrounded by anxious staff officers who waited for Wellington. The Rifleman brushed aside their questions, going instead to the main staircase which led down into the brightly lit chaos of the entrance hall where a throng of officers demanded, their horses or carriages. Sharpe, suddenly feeling exhausted, and reluctant to force his way through the crowd, paused on the landing.

And saw Lord John Rossendale. His lordship was standing at the archway that led into the ballroom. Jane was with him.

For a second Sharpe could not believe his eyes. He had never dreamed that his enemy would dare show his face in the army, and Lord John's presence seemed evidence to Sharpe of just how the cavalryman must despise him. The Rifleman stared at his enemy just as many of the crowd in the entrance hall stared up at the blood-soaked Rifleman. Sharpe translated the crowd's atten-tion as the derision due to a cuckold and, in that misapprehension, his temper snapped.

He impulsively ran down the last flight of stairs. Jane saw him and screamed. Lord John turned and hurried out of sight. Sharpe tried to save a few seconds by vaulting the banister. He landed heavily on the hall's marble flagstones, then thrust his way through the press of people."

"Move!" Sharpe shouted in his best Sergeant's voice, and the sight and sound of his anger was enough to make the elegant couples shrink away from him.

Lord John had fled. Sharpe had a glimpse of his lordship running through the ballroom. He ran after him, clear of the crowd now. He dodged past the few remaining couples who still danced, then turned into the supper room. Lord John was hurrying round the edge of the room, making for a back entrance, but Sharpe simply took the direct route which meant jumping from table to table straight across the room. His boots smashed china, ripped at the linen, and cascaded silver to the floor. A drunken major, finishing a plate of roast beef, shouted a protest. A woman screamed. A servant ducked as Sharpe jumped between two of the tables. He kicked over a candelabra, upset a tureen of soup, then leaped from the last table to land with a crash in Lord John's path.

Lord John twisted round, running back towards the ballroom. Sharpe pursued him, kicking aside a spindly gilt chair. A group of scarlet-coated cavalry officers appeared in the supper room entrance and Lord John, evidently encouraged by these reinforcements, turned to face his enemy.

Sharpe slowed to a walk and drew his sword. He dragged the blade slowly through the scabbard's wooden throat so that the sound of the weapon's sc.r.a.ping would be as frightening as the sight of the dulled steel. "Draw your sword, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d."