In which Pierre Ducos, the French super-agent, tries to end Sharpe’s life and the series, but doesn’t succeed. Ducos does succeed in having the Marguesa imprisoned in a convent, and he almost frustrates the Duke of Wellington’s ambitious campaign that will end in the astonishing victory at Vitoria where Sharpe and the British capture the greatest treasure ‘since Alexander’s Macedonians plundered the camp of the Persian King.’ Somewhere along the line the Spanish Inquisition and a partisan leader called The Slaughterman get involved.
