My apologies for the long delay between chapters – RL beat my muse to a bloody pulp and danced on its grave. All dodgy Portuguese translations from http/babelfish. Four: Quiet Conversations
Sharpe swallowed his tea convulsively as he considered his reply. The two girls were obviously lying, or mad, and he needed to get his men moving in order to make up for the time lost in yesterday's pursuit. He frowned, and threw the rest of the dregs from his cup onto the ground before standing.
"Patrick. Ready to move?"
The big Irishman struggled to stand, brow furrowed in pain.
"Aye sir. Just let me stand up here."
"Don't be foolish, man. I know the pony is hardly a battle charger, but it will do in the meantime!" Sharpe replied, grinning slightly. The grin disappeared when he turned to the two women.
"We move now. I will place Sergeant Harper in your care until we stop again."
He looked over to where Perkins was once again preparing the reluctant pony, then back at the two strange women in front of him. They were tossing their dregs onto the ground in imitation of his impatient gesture, and looking as though they were preparing to move. Their motions were uncertain and he wondered why. The story was far too preposterous to be the truth.
He strode over to his men and gave the orders to get them moving.
"So you are from the Americas," Harper had prompted when the two women became quiet and the story, scarcely started, had lagged and paused
Buffy sighed, and mentally cursed Andrew's insistent little voice in her head.
"Prime Directive be damned," she muttered, and shrugged.
Faith seemed mildly scandalized. "I can't believe you just said that, B," she commented, and Buffy made a face at her.
"Andrew's in your head too, huh?" she asked.
Faith chuckled.
Sharpe looked from one to the other, a bemused expression on his features. They were, Buffy realized, rather nice, masculine features, although his hair was kind of fluffy after being wet and dried in a barn. She squinted and saw he had a small piece of straw stuck in the hair at the base of his neck. She also saw that the bemusement was quickly changing to a frown again. His moments of good humor last night were forgotten, it seemed, and so she continued.
"Yes, from the Americas. Although, in our time, its just … America."
"In your time?" Harper queried. Faith sighed. She had had a conversation much like this one with Harris the previous night.
"Yeah," she replied, irritated and bored. "Our time. The future."
Neither man said anything for a moment.
"It gets better," Buffy added. "Much much better."
"It's puzzling now," Sharpe answered.
Buffy took a deep breath.
"I know this isn't going to make much sense to you. I barely understand it myself. I had it all explained to me using cakes and string, but that's just too confusing to go into right now," Buffy started. Sharpe and Harper exchanged glances that clearly told Buffy that she was sounding like a crazy person.
"Okay," she started again, a little more cautiously. "Let's try it this way. Faith and I have been sent from the future to save someone in this time. I know it sounds crazy," she said, holding up a hand to stall any comment from Sharpe, whose mouth was half open to interrupt, " but just lets imagine, okay?"
"Okay?" he asked, sounding puzzled by the use of the word. Buffy rolled her eyes.
"It means… very well. Fair enough."
"Oh." He subsided and had another swallow of tea, gesturing for her to continue. "Okay," he added.
"Right then. So Faith and I are from the future, sent back to protect someone. We don't really know who yet, except that this someone is very important to Faith's future. And maybe the future of the world."
Faith nodded.
Buffy continued.
"Those things that we fought at the farm, the men that killed your soldier. They weren't men. They were demons. Vampires. In our own time, Faith and I are vampire fighters. We kill them." She was trying to simplify things a little for these guys. Sharpe looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or curse, and Harper was staring intently into his tea.
"Demons is it?" he asked.
"Vampires," Faith answered. "Blood suckers, vampyrs, or whatever you guys call them in this time."
Buffy saw the confusion and had a thought. "I don't think that people have heard of vampires in this time, Faith," she said, shaking her head slightly. '"Remember Giles going on about how vampires protected their secrets – "
"Yeah, until Dracula got antsy for some free publicity and that Stoker guy obligingly started licking his… quill… pen..." Faith trailed off with a wicked grin.
"Except for the Council. And probably places like Transylvania", Buffy added. She glanced over at Sharpe and Harper, who wore twin expressions of being not at all impressed.
"Vampires are demons in human bodies, who drink blood to survive," Faith supplied.
"It's a mad tale," Sharpe said after a moment. "I've little time for tales today. Who are you really? Why were you at the farm? Where are you headed?"
"I don't know where we need to go now, but we'd like to stay with you for the moment," Buffy answered, attempting to stare him down.
It didn't work.
"Demons?" Sharpe asked quietly, glancing at his men. "You want me to believe that demons killed Oliver Purefoy… and that you are from the future? What year?"
After a pause, Buffy told him.
And she knew that she had lost him.
Sharpe strode away, grim faced, to get the men up and moving, as Harper was unable to do it. The big Irishman stared after his friend. This had been a very strange mission, very strange to come so soon after Theresa's death. He worried for Richard. The hard expression on his normally open features had become commonplace since the loss of his wife. As Sharpe approached the men, they rose and began to gather their gear. Harris swung his pack into place, and turned to exchange a questioning glance with Faith, who shrugged.
Harper wished he could walk so that he could walk right over to Harris and bloody his face until he admitted what was going on. If Sharpe were himself, he would have had Harris talking in no time without raising a fist.
If Sharpe were himself.
Harper turned to the two women with a sigh. The blonde one was leading the pony over. The brunette was staring steadily at him. He refused to let it unnerve him.
"Who's Ramona?" she demanded suddenly.
"My woman," he replied, stifling a yawn.
"Oh, am I boring you?" she asked tartly.
"Blood loss," he said, indicating the bloody dressing on his leg. "You say you are a fighter, and you don't know that?"
She shifted into a slightly more defiant stance.
"You have a problem with me being a little woman?"
Harper shot a glance toward Sharpe and was surprised to feel a small pang of grief himself.
"No. I've known a woman who fought. She was an excellent woman."
He looked again toward Sharpe who, ever aware of these things, was pressing a coin into the hands of the old woman for her food. Faith followed his gaze.
"Was?" she asked with a sudden understanding. Harper caught her tone.
"Aye," he replied. "Theresa Moreno, a partisan. Major Sharpe married her. She died in the winter just past."
The defiance left her stance, and she seemed to relax a little. The blonde one, Buffy, approached leading the brown pony and Faith took what looked like an involuntary step backwards away from it. The beast was not an attractive one. It was starting to lose its shaggy winter coat in great tattered patches. One ear looked like it had been chewed by a larger animal, and hung lower and slacker than the other. A few ribs were clearly visible, and its left eye rolled and settled slightly askew from the right one. It shifted from one leg to another and twitched its hind quarters to shake off an insistent fly.
"I've named it Glory," Buffy announced. "I think it suits her." Glory belched.
Faith snorted and laughed. Abruptly she turned to Harper.
"So, who's Ramona?"
"Good Lord above, I've told you. She's my woman." He grunted in pain as he half stumbled back to avoid Glory's sidestep. Faith ducked behind him to help him. He frowned, partly out of humiliation at being propped upright by an annoying woman half his size. He blanched and bit back a groan as the two women helped him mount the unwilling pony.
"This was a lot easier when you were unconscious," Buffy grunted as she steadied him. He clutched at Glory's matted mane as he braced himself against the dull agony that ran up and down his wounded leg.
"Don't throw up," Buffy warned him. He got her meaning, even if the terms were unfamiliar. He hoped he wouldn't, but could make no guarantees.
"Of course not," he replied, trying to sound confident.
Perkins approached.
"I'm to lead the pony, Sergeant Harper."
"My mount is named Glory, Perkins."
Perkins looked at the pony's twisted mangled ear and wall eye.
"Of course it is. Come on then Glory, come on."
He took the lead rein from Buffy, who relinquished it gratefully and with a smile.
Sharpe kept the men in a tighter formation than last night's wet and confused dash for the farmhouse, Buffy noticed. Everyone was watchful for the previous day's French patrol. Little wonder since the French guy on a horse now knew who they were and where they were - and that they were currently horribly vulnerable. Buffy was unhappy about the way that encounter had gone. She was vastly unhappy about being stuck in a warzone in 1813 with Faith, a bleeding Irishman, the enigmatic Richard Sharpe and Glory the pony for company for a start, but last night's encounter had left a fluttery discomfort in her stomach that told her that all was not right with her current predicament. (But since when did the word "predicament" mean hugs and kittens anyway?)
There was a sharp awareness in the French Colonel's gaze, a sudden interest, when he had watched Buffy and Faith walk away.
Too many people knew about them, and the one who needed to know didn't believe them.
She just hoped that this Wellesley guy that Harris had talked about could help them.
There was still the issue of finding Faith's great, great whoever and keeping them safe from the Irriaks as well. That added to her unhappiness a little. Thinking of that, she glanced across as Faith, who was carefully avoiding walking too close to Glory's hooves, and shooting the occasional question at Harper and Perkins. Harper was leaning down a little toward her, and she was smiling at him. Grinning at him, actually. And he was sort of smiling back. Buffy wondered what they were talking about and how Faith had managed to find herself a man so quickly, in Portugal, one hundred and sixty nine years before she was born.
"So she's your woman?" Faith was asking. "What does she do, clean your rifle and darn your socks?"
"And other things besides," Harper replied. Without missing a beat, Faith looked him up and down and commented, "I can imagine."
Harper looked at her askance and began to laugh - then swear as laughing made his leg hurt more than riding did.
Buffy looked up as Sharpe fell into step beside her.
"So how are we doing at being sneaky?" she asked before he could say anything. He looked surprised.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you said that you were meeting these partisans or whoever to the west of where you picked us up. Only, we aren't going west, are we?"
He looked vaguely impressed.
"No, we aren't." He looked her up and down, a considering expression on his face. "Although we are heading west in a manner of speaking."
"Only more creatively?" Buffy offered. He grinned, and she was glad that he did. It made him considerably more appealing.
"He's a clever fellow, Major Richard Sharpe," Patrick said above her. Both Buffy and Sharpe twisted upward to look at him. "We'll be heading proper west once we clear those hills, meeting the partisans a little further on."
"It seems my sergeant is a clever fellow as well," Sharpe commented dryly to Buffy. Harper grinned at him and returned his attention to Faith.
Sharpe and Buffy walked together.
"I'm worried about that guy," Buffy said quietly after a minute.
"What?"
"That French guy we ran into last night. He's hiding something. He knew… about the vampires. He knew they were there. He probably sent you right to them."
Sharpe's tone was wary as he replied.
"He is an unknown danger. He knows where we are, even now, I'll wager. And yet he doesn't move to attack."
"Too much sunlight," Buffy replied without thinking. "His vamps would burn like firecrackers, if he has any more." She grinned briefly, fiercely, and squinted at the sun, tilting her face toward it.
Sharpe sighed and shifted his rifle to his other shoulder. He did not reply, but it was clear that he was annoyed by her reference to vampires. His face was closed and his gaze everywhere but on her. She shrugged inwardly. The solid looking sword at his waist caught her attention.
"Nice sword," she commented. "Looks heavy."
He glanced at it. "It is. It's a dragoon sword."
She waited for him to elaborate. He didn't.
They cleared the hills after a half day's walk, and changed direction by degrees. The landscape became rougher, rockier, with small sudden outcrops and low vegetation. The men became silent, their formation tighter, their rifles tilted ever so slightly toward an expected ambush. The sky was clear, and the sun was warm. Buffy and Faith kept good time with the riflemen. Sharpe was a little surprised by this. They appeared to have had a privileged upbringing – well fed, smooth skin, smooth hands, smooth hair – and he had not expected them to be able to keep up - but they had. He caught himself scrutinizing them more than once as they walked, and once he had dropped back to walk beside Buffy briefly. She spoke with conviction about the existence of these things, these demons. As she had spoken, the sun had crossed her face and her hair and he had found her attractive.
Just for a moment.
Richard Sharpe was not a man who questioned his nature. He liked women, as companions as well as lovers. The last time he had seen Theresa, before he had held her cold body in the snow last Christmas, he had been following his nature, flirting with the lovely Josefina, betraying his wife with every glance and every morsel from Josefina's fork.
And again, he had betrayed her memory with a single flash of attraction to this small, strange woman.
Richard Sharpe was not a man who questioned his nature, but he was a grieving man and for the moment that was enough. After one more brief exchange, he left her side and moved back to the head of the group.
Faith's stomach was rumbling by the time Sharpe motioned a halt.
"Oh good," she sighed. "Lunch."
"No," Harper replied from above her, "not lunch." He craned his neck but saw nothing up ahead. Faith peered up at him.
"You look like shit, buddy," she commented brightly. He frowned at her, conscious of the sweat on his brow and the slight buzz behind his eyes.
The land around them was mostly uneven sandstone dotted with large boulders and creased with eroded gullies.
"Ambush central," Buffy muttered, coming to stand beside Faith and looking around them. Faith nodded.
Harper saw both of them shift into a defensive stance. Sharpe had allowed them to keep their tiny axes, and they each grasped one now, looking around warily. He was, frankly, surprised. He hadn't seen them fight at the abandoned farm, and he hadn't believed the men when they had told him of it, but they seemed to know what they were about with those axes. His hands itched for his Nock, or even a Baker, but instead they clutched at Glory's mane.
"Cumprimentos major, eu acredito que você nos esperava."
The speaker emerged from behind a boulder further up the trail, and took three steps down toward Sharpe. He was a short, Portuguese man, shabbily dressed in practical clothes that had seen a lot of weather. He held his hands out in the universal gesture of surrender, but a knife blade flashed at this belt and a rifle hung at his back. From their position in the column, neither Slayer could clearly make out his features, but they could see Sharpe slowly lowering his rifle, and extending a hand.
"Cumprimentos, Rosario. Eu estou contente de vê-lo", Sharpe replied and shook the man's hand.
The newcomer squinted at the small group and spat something brown and repulsive looking onto the ground at his side.
"You're late, Major. We expected you yesterday. It is fortunate that we decided to look for you rather than leave."
He turned and let loose a long, loud whistle. It startled Glory, who snorted and shifted sideways, almost standing on Buffy. The movement drew the strange man's gaze and he gestured and said something quietly to Sharpe, who shook his head and replied with a smile.
"My men are gathering in our camp up ahead, Major Sharpe," Rosario said more loudly, glancing once more at the Slayers. "Come, and we will go with you to Santo Bernardo."