Looking for a village half a day’s ride from the Marquess of Wellington’s winter headquarters in Portugal, I landed on Almeida. What a find! This medieval fortress village is amazing. I’ve been through it by Youtube clip, read several travel accounts, been awed by its resilience to one siege after another, and noted that it has been taken by assault only once, when a stray shot fortuitously blew up the armaments store in the medieval castle along with the castle itself and part of the village. By the way, in one of the Sharpe book’s, the explosion was caused by Sharpe. I love when an author takes a real historic incident and repurposes it for the story.

In my story, Almeida is mentioned only in passing. My brigade is camped in the fields below the hill that contains the village, though they do have a couple of guard posts up on the outer defenses. But wow!