Kit (25 page)

Now she must speak. ‘Yes.’

Ross shook his head as if reeling from a blow. ‘You disappoint me, Walsh.’

She swallowed the lump in her throat.

‘In my mind there is a healthy case for your stripes to be taken away, before they are even sewn. But I am told I am in a minority – I am told that these things happen in the army, to likely young fellows such as you, when a large number of young men are billeted on a town. And I am sure you did not mean to compromise the lady?’ There was a question in the statement – a plea for her to mitigate her behaviour, to absolve herself.

She was silent – there was nothing she could say.

‘I must say, Kit, that your silence does not become you. I say again – you have disappointed me; you have disappointed me gravely. I know you have no father to teach you better, but I had thought – hoped – that I myself had given you some guidance.’ Kit shifted her feet. This was horrible. ‘I assume you intend to support the child?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you offered the lady marriage?’

‘No.’

‘I see. Well, I cannot guide you further. You are a grown man. Have you considered the lady and her position? Do you have any notion of what life holds for her now?’

She could not be angry with him for his defence of Bianca and his censure of the careless young buck that had ruined her bound her to him more than he could ever know. She was mortified that they must now be so estranged. ‘You have a shining army career ahead of you, if you will grasp it. I will say only this by way of advice. A wife does not have to be a burden. A wife can be the greatest blessing ever afforded to a man.’ His voice broke a little; she made the mistake of looking at him now, and for the desolation of his expression she bled for him.

‘I cannot offer her marriage,’ she whispered, ‘however much I wish to.’

‘I see.’ His face was stone. He pulled his coat straight. ‘Well, then, there is nothing left to say. You are dismissed.’

There was nothing she could say. She had agreed to support Christiana, and that was that. Let Ross detest her; it was better that way; as soon as she found Richard she would be forced to desert her post anyway, and would disappoint him even more gravely. But the disapproval in the blue eyes brought tears pricking at the back of her own. She swallowed hard, and went to seek Sergeant Taylor.

She found him at the Gasthof, washing his breakfast down with a drink. She watched him for a moment through narrow eyes. He ate and drank with relish, like a man with nothing on his conscience. He wore an eyepatch now, to cover the injury she had given him, and it added to his air of menace. He drained his cup and banged it down, resting his arm along the table. Kit walked forward, drew her dagger and stabbed it down into his sleeve. The drinking hand was now trapped. Taylor looked at the dagger and slowly, slowly up at Kit. ‘Walsh,’ he growled. I’m celebrating. Won’t you join me?’

‘I am certain,’ said Kit coldly, ‘that no actions of yours deserve such celebration. Unless you plan to acknowledge your responsibilities, and the blessings of a new life?’

‘Ah, so she brought her whelp to you. Clever little bitch.’

‘Do not,’ said Kit though her teeth, ‘describe Signorina Castellano in such terms.’

‘Well, she is clever,’ protested Taylor equably. ‘The red poll gave her the idea, I suppose. Besides, the brat could easily be yours – you were sniffing her skirts last winter, as I remember. And you owe me something; your handiwork ruined my beauty.’ He indicated his missing eye. ‘The jades are more reluctant to lie with me now, but the little Castellano will always be grateful.’

‘Stand up,’ said Kit, yanking her dagger from his sleeve. ‘Stand up, damn you.’

Sergeant Taylor stayed where he was but swivelled on his stool, regarding her with his single eye. He bared his teeth and barked like a dog.

Through the long interrupted night while Christiana had keened and cried, and slept again, Kit had imagined how Taylor would react to her challenge, but had not once imagined him barking at her.

‘As a child in Manchester,’ he began in his flat North Country voice, ‘for years I could not sleep for the neighbour’s talbot. It barked from dusk till dawn, from one year to the next. My dad was a grocer, had a keen knife, and one night I could take it no more. I got up and slit the dog’s throat, and threw the body in the Irwell.’ He spoke to his half-full glass, never once looking up. ‘I wouldn’t have been more than eight. I’ve slept well ever since, until you came along, Walsh. You bark around my feet wherever I go like a little talbot pup. No – for that’s a good English breed; a little Irish terrier, that’s you. Now give me your message and be gone.’ He swallowed the last of his drink with relish, and held the glass high for another.

‘I bring you a challenge, and nothing else.’

‘You really are a tiresome cur, for we’ve had this conversation before. You may not challenge a superior.’

Kit pulled him to his feet with an effort – he was a stocky, solid fellow. She shoved her shoulder, with the stripes upon it, in his face. ‘That may be; but I’m damned sure that Sergeant Walsh may challenge Sergeant Taylor.’

Taylor eyed Kit’s stripes. A fiendish grin spread across his face. ‘Ah,’ he said, bowing as one would to royalty. ‘I did not know. I congratulate you.’

‘Save your compliments,’ hissed Kit. ‘Just name your time and your place for us to meet.’

Taylor spat and kicked his stool away. ‘I’ve always thought the day would come when I must shut you up. I’ve nothing better to do now,’ he said, ‘and I’ve had my breakfast.’ He retreated into the snug for a while, and spoke low voiced to some of his fellows.
Arranging his affairs, no doubt
, thought Kit, twitching with impatience, and wishing she’d done the same. She had given Bianca her purse, so she and Christiana would be well for a twelvemonth or so; perhaps she should have left instruction for her coin, and her sword, and a letter to Maura, and something to tell Richard. But she wished also, with a tiny pang, that if she had indeed spoken her last words to Captain Ross, they had not been in anger. ‘Come on,
Sergeant
Walsh,’ said Taylor, almost genially. ‘Time to silence the barking.’

Duelling was not against the law of the army, but it was frowned upon. So Kit and Taylor headed tacitly to the accepted place where duels were fought. The Turk’s house was an ornamental eastern palace left over from Venetian rule, with pointed windows and delicate traceries, and its own slim stone bridge across the river. The Forbato bridge, which connected the Santa Maria quarter of Rovereto with the Venetian quarter, was always quiet except on market days, and because it was outside the bounds of the city, did not fall under the laws of the
comune
.

Kit and Taylor walked in an odd, almost companionable silence. It was too early for many folk to be abroad; only the birds were waking, the morning mist creeping up the mountains, the gilded peaks still crowned with summer snow.

The Forbato bridge was a delicate thing, and it was hard to believe that it had carried all the soldiers that had ever come and gone from the town. It formed an impossibly high pale arch that spanned the gorge.

Having no seconds, Kit and Taylor drew and presented their own swords, exchanged them for examination, swapped them back. They took off their red coats and left them at either end of the bridge.

At the coin toss the queen’s shilling tinkled high in the air, shining and spinning as it fell, and Kit chose the city side of the bridge. She was defending Bianca, the princess and her citadel, against an incursive ogre. Kit took her stance; weight spread, legs apart, knees bent, sword in hand. Taylor stood at the other side of the bridge like a squat troll. She would save this rare place from the likes of him. On that summer dawn Rovereto, with the bridge and the gorge and the snow-capped mountains and the blue cypresses and the cascade and the castle above, was the most beautiful place in the world, and he had despoiled it. With a roar of a beast he ran at her; she ran at him and they met in the middle of the bridge with a clash.

It had never once occurred to Kit that she would lose the duel with Taylor – she was shimmering with anger on Bianca’s behalf. She had almost forgotten that deadly figure she had seen from the cathedral in Cremona, cutting through every Frenchman in his way. But she remembered him with the first strike of his sword. She almost sank to her knees with the force of it. He was not a sergeant because he could shout, or because the men feared him; he had risen because he was a good fighter. Kit imagined him on those Manchester streets, so rough that even the dogs got their throats cut, scrapping his way to the top of the dung heap that had birthed him. Each subsequent ring of his sword on her father’s blade told her the same thing.

Desperately, breathlessly they fought; their swords speaking for them as they hacked and slashed. She had not picked up her blade since Luzzara and her unpractised muscles were slow to remember their skill. If she had thought that Taylor’s faulty sight would affect his swordplay she had been mistaken. She got one lucky strike to Taylor’s sword hand and he dropped his weapon, stumbling to one knee – but at once he grabbed the blade of her sword to help himself up and yanked it from her hand. Pouncing, she picked up Taylor’s blade from the ground and weighed it in her grasp – now she must fight with his heavier, regimental blade while her own father’s sword shone wickedly in Taylor’s meaty paw.

Round and about, tiring, her hip pained her; she stumbled once, and it was enough – following up his advantage he was upon her at once, crushing her sword hand on the balustrade of the bridge – the regimental sword hanging over the abyss and the jade-green River Leno far below. Her hand drained of blood, grew limp, opened; and Taylor’s sword fell into the void. The combatants locked eyes, both taken aback, long enough to hear the sword plunge, many heartbeats later, into the Leno with a faint splash.

Just as Taylor raised Sean Kavanagh’s sword high, the sun rose over the mountains. Blinded, Taylor stepped back, mistimed the kill-stroke and hit the stone balustrade of the bridge, the blade sparking and shuddering from his grip. He shook his stinging hand, cursing, and Kit moved at once, grabbing the haft of the sword as it fell. The blade calmed in her hand –
a sword that cuts you once can never hurt you again
. She took up her father’s blade, and now she was above and Taylor below. She plunged it through his shoulder and into the timbers of the bridge – nothing fatal, but enough to pin him like a moth upon a card. ‘Yield,’ she said, low and hard.

Taylor squinted up at her with his one eye, breathing through the pain and the defeat. And yet he smiled. He seemed disinclined to rise, so, as honour dictated, she took her sword from him and gave him her hand. But still he lay there, saying nothing, and smiling. He seemed to be waiting. She backed away from him, breathing hard, with a strong sense of foreboding. There was a shout, and footsteps boomed over the bridge. Then Taylor’s face crumpled theatrically and he clasped his shoulder, groaning. Kit turned, too late, for she was already surrounded by half a dozen men, the men Taylor had spoken to in the Gasthof. They had her arms and her throat. ‘Sergeant Christian Walsh, you are under arrest for causing injury to your superior officer.’

She struggled like a tiger. ‘Unhand me,’ she cried. ‘I am a sergeant in the dragoons, his equal in rank.’

Taylor rose, breathing hard, his bleeding teeth bared in a smile. He shrugged as best he could. ‘Ah, Walsh, forgive me. I did try to tell you that I was celebrating, did I not? You see, I too was decorated, for my bravery at Luzzara. You see, while you were being coddled in a hospital bed, I fought through the French lines. So you,’ he swaggered despite his wounds, ‘just fought a duel with Sergeant
Major
Jebediah Taylor.’ He took a pair of epaulettes from his pocket and waved them at Kit. ‘Haven’t had a chance to get ’em sewn yet. Was going to ask a local woman. Know anyone, Walsh?
Know anyone?
’ He laughed, and coughed, and laughed again, holding his shoulder, but more in mirth than pain. Kit lunged for him, but Taylor’s cronies were upon her, forcing her down until her knees cracked. Heavy irons were clapped upon her wrists and ankles.

As she half-walked, half-stumbled back to town between her captors, her irons trailing and sparking on the rocky path, she could hear Taylor shouting from the bridge, his voice echoing through the valley.

‘By God, I’ll sleep well tonight, Walsh!’ He barked twice, as he had done in the Gasthof, and then howled, his eerie cry echoing about the valley, a dog unmasked as a wolf.

If you do you’ll be flogged in the morning …

‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)

Kit was imprisoned in the dungeons of the north tower of Rovereto castle, where the miscreants of the regiment rotted until their punishments could be carried out.

She walked about her new home like a caged lion, her fingers trailing the damp walls, a journey that took her just ten heartbeats. She fell over a little table and two crippled chairs, both missing a leg. At night – she guessed it was night – she slept on the floor, shivering. Presumably outside it was still summer. But in this pit winter had taken up camp, crouched in the old stones, and never left. She was alone, for most men were too canny to be sent to prison when there was a siege to lay and booty to be collected. She wondered whether she would still be here when the dragoons marched to Mantova. The thought depressed her spirits almost more than anything else.

There was no prospect of escape. The only door in the dungeon was set high in the wall to be reached only by a rope ladder, which had been removed as soon as she had climbed down it. The circular chamber was entirely dark, with slick, damp walls growing with some type of moss and lichen. She thought of herself as some sort of maggot or caterpillar, living in the dark, waiting for her change.

The court martial had been brief, and presided over by a Major Caradew, an officer Kit did not know. Tichborne and Ross were nowhere to be seen. She thought she knew the reason for their absence – Tichborne had just shown the ill-judgement to promote a private with criminal tendencies, and Ross … well, Ross had made his feelings about her very clear.