JК
Sharpes Sword :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 76 из 213Sharpe stood upand walked on.
The balcony turned to the right and Sharpe stopped at the corner. The rush mats on the new stretch were overlaid with rugs and there were doors, shut and shuttered, that led into the Palacio’s interior. At the far end, hard against a blank wall, Sharpe could see a table that was set with food and wine. The crystal and china winked with the reflected light of a single candle, shielded by glass, that stood in a niche of the wall. Only two chairs stood by the table, both empty, and Sharpe felt the stirring of his instinct, of danger, and he wondered why he had been invited to what looked like a very small party indeed. It made no sense, despite Spears’ explanation, for La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba to invite Captain Sharpe to this private, expensive, and luxurious balcony.
Halfway down the balcony a huge brass telescope was mounted on a heavy iron tripod. Sharpe walked to it and pushed open a lattice door next to the instrument and saw, as he had guessed, that it pointed toward the night’s battlefield. The wasteland was pale in the moonlight, the fortresses dark, and Sharpe could see the ravine clearly that ran between the San Vincente and the smaller forts. There was the glow of fire tingeing the roofline of the San Vincente’s courtyard and he knew the French were celebrating their victory around the flames, but fearing, too, the next assault. There were other fires, small torches that were hand-held in the wasteland where men searched for the wounded and dead. The French ignored them. Sharpe suddenly shivered. For no reason he remembered the burning of the dead after the assault on Badajoz just a few weeks before. There had been too many bodies to bury so they had been stacked in layers, timber between the stripped corpses, and the fires had burned darkly and he remembered how the corpses on the top layer had sat up in the heat, almost as if they were alive and begging for rescue, and then the corpses below had also begun to bend in the great fire and, as if to blot out the vision, he pulled shut the lattice door with a loud click.
“What are you thinking?” Her voice was husky. He turned and La Marquesa was standing by the table, by a door that had opened silently, and a woman servant was in the doorway offering a shawl. La Marquesa shook her head and the servant disappeared, shutting the door as noiselessly as it had opened. La Marquesa was light in the darkness. Her golden hair seemed glowing to Sharpe, spun with gossamer fine radiance, and her dress was a brilliant white.
The balcony turned to the right and Sharpe stopped at the corner. The rush mats on the new stretch were overlaid with rugs and there were doors, shut and shuttered, that led into the Palacio’s interior. At the far end, hard against a blank wall, Sharpe could see a table that was set with food and wine. The crystal and china winked with the reflected light of a single candle, shielded by glass, that stood in a niche of the wall. Only two chairs stood by the table, both empty, and Sharpe felt the stirring of his instinct, of danger, and he wondered why he had been invited to what looked like a very small party indeed. It made no sense, despite Spears’ explanation, for La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba to invite Captain Sharpe to this private, expensive, and luxurious balcony.
Halfway down the balcony a huge brass telescope was mounted on a heavy iron tripod. Sharpe walked to it and pushed open a lattice door next to the instrument and saw, as he had guessed, that it pointed toward the night’s battlefield. The wasteland was pale in the moonlight, the fortresses dark, and Sharpe could see the ravine clearly that ran between the San Vincente and the smaller forts. There was the glow of fire tingeing the roofline of the San Vincente’s courtyard and he knew the French were celebrating their victory around the flames, but fearing, too, the next assault. There were other fires, small torches that were hand-held in the wasteland where men searched for the wounded and dead. The French ignored them. Sharpe suddenly shivered. For no reason he remembered the burning of the dead after the assault on Badajoz just a few weeks before. There had been too many bodies to bury so they had been stacked in layers, timber between the stripped corpses, and the fires had burned darkly and he remembered how the corpses on the top layer had sat up in the heat, almost as if they were alive and begging for rescue, and then the corpses below had also begun to bend in the great fire and, as if to blot out the vision, he pulled shut the lattice door with a loud click.
“What are you thinking?” Her voice was husky. He turned and La Marquesa was standing by the table, by a door that had opened silently, and a woman servant was in the doorway offering a shawl. La Marquesa shook her head and the servant disappeared, shutting the door as noiselessly as it had opened. La Marquesa was light in the darkness. Her golden hair seemed glowing to Sharpe, spun with gossamer fine radiance, and her dress was a brilliant white.