Kit (27 page)

‘Not my brother,’ she said. ‘My husband.’

And you dare not change them one night …

‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)

Kit had told Bianca all. Of Kavanagh’s and Maura, and her marriage, and the night when Richard was pressed. Of the inn of the Golden Last, the wrong Mr Walsh. Of the voyage, of Genova, of the Madonna della Fortuna, of Maria van Lommen, of Captain Ross’s training. The journey to the mountains, Cremona, Luzzara, and her trials at the hands of Mr Lambe. Then her return to Rovereto, all in search of her husband.

There was long silence, then Bianca uttered the first words she’d spoken in an hour. ‘I hope,’ she said bitterly, ‘that he is worthy of such love. To transform yourself, to come all this way, to put yourself in harm’s way; it is extraordinary.’

Kit smiled briefly. ‘I know why you would ask such a thing. But some men are honourable,’ and it was Ross that she meant. ‘Can you get a message to Richard?’

‘I had another notion,’ said Bianca. ‘You go to him yourself.’ She held Kit’s gaze, her eyes glittering with meaning.

Kit understood. ‘No.’

‘Listen to me. There are two maids in this room. Will that dolt on the door know which one leaves?’

‘
No
,’ said Kit firmly.

‘It is the only way, and you know it. You escape your sentence and you find your husband.’

‘Bianca. Think. What will happen to you if they find you here in my stead?’

‘I told you – I am nobody now. A beggar. You can tie me up; I will say you overpowered me. They will kick me out of doors, that is all.’

Kit looked at her, and saw how much the girl needed to help.

‘Kit. Let me do this. My tale did not end happily. Yours can.’

She nodded briefly. ‘Very well.’

Bianca glanced up at the high door in the wall, and the grille that was closed at present. ‘What about the guard?’

‘He never comes unless he’s called, or he has food for me. And that won’t be till dawn. What time did you come?’

‘After the tavern. Midnight.’

‘Then we have time enough.’

In the light of the candle and the lamps, Kit and Bianca changed clothes. A soldier and a maid became a soldier in a shirt and a maid in a petticoat. Then, for just an instant, two naked women; the same; not the same. Kit picked up the warm unfamiliar garments from the floor – the petticoats, the stockings, the camisole and corset. Her fingers fumbled on the clothes hurriedly – a prurient guard could see them half dressed without suspicion, for he expected them, she was sure, to be in the act of love; but two naked maids would require explanation. The clothes seemed strange to her – so many strings and ties and buttons, so many ways to deceive even in a simple sprigged peasant frock – a stomacher to narrow the waist, a stuffed roll to fan out the skirts, a laced corset to keep the breasts high, in its own way as restrictive to the breath as her own wrappings about her bosom. And for Bianca, the bandeau about the breasts, the waistcoat padded about the waist and the curious silver prick were just as unfamiliar.

There was a difference in height so Bianca was a little swamped in the uniform, while the skirts of the sprigged muslin were a little short for Kit and the bodice a little low for decency; but these, said Bianca, were all faults on the right side. Shoes were a problem; while Bianca could fit her narrow feet easily into Kit’s long cavalry boots, Kit struggled with Bianca’s button boots – they pained her feet but they must be worn, as the skirts rode high above her ankles.

There was no looking glass so they became each other’s lady’s maid. Kit braided Bianca’s long hair and tucked it into the regimental collar, winding the dirty white stock around the plait. No artifice could make black hair red, but the candlelight confused all colours well enough. There was the tricorn of course, but to wear it inside would excite more suspicion than it suppressed.

The power of costume was amazing – Bianca looked, if nothing like Kit, utterly convincing as a man – her gaunt little face and huge eyes appeared youthful but not feminine. ‘Now you,’ said Bianca.

She seated Kit on the broken chair and worked by lamplight. She loosened the leather tie on Kit’s hair and ruffled it loose. She combed it with her fingers, and cracked the candle wax off the strands. Kit felt the unfamiliar silky weight about her bare neck and shoulders. The curls, remembering, sprung up about her collarbones – she had not realised how long her hair had grown in its tight queue, all those months that she had been imprisoned by Mr Lambe. It was near as long as Bianca’s and had retained its fiery colour – glowing with a copper sheen in the lamplight. It was, all of a sudden, a woman’s hair again.

Bianca seemed to think so too. ‘I will fasten my combs into the crown,’ she said, ‘but leave the long lengths falling about your bosom.’

It seemed odd to be spoken of in these feminine terms, but Kit sat patiently. Bianca’s practised fingers twined the top section of her hair into curlicues and puffs to be secured with the simple tin combs still warm from her own head. Bianca seemed happier – she had an explanation, now, for her rejection. At last she stood back. ‘Pinch your cheeks,’ she commanded, ‘and press your lips together.’ Kit obeyed, and Bianca was silent for a moment.

‘Is it all right?’ asked Kit, impatient. ‘Will I do?’

‘Yes,’ said Bianca, wondering. ‘More than that. You are beautiful. How did I not know? How could I not have seen?’

Kit laid a finger over her lips. ‘If you did not know, then, God willing, nor will anyone else.’

Kit tugged at her bodice; Bianca slapped her hands away smartly. ‘No; leave it,’ she said. She knew too well, now, what could distract a man.

‘The musket must stay behind,’ said Kit. She’d made a last notch on the stock – three hundred and seventy days without Richard – but had no further need of her calendar; tonight she would see her husband again.

‘And what of the sword?’ asked Bianca, dangling it from her hand, unaccustomed to its shape and weight. ‘
You
cannot wear it.’ But Kit took it from her, gripping it firmly – the sword which was the only legacy of her father – the only thing remaining in her world that she and he had both touched. The sword she had brought with her to Kavanagh’s and hung over the bar in temporary retirement, only to see battle again at San Columbano, Cremona, Luzzara. Yet Bianca was right – it did not fit; what, was she to carry it in her ribbon sash? Or conceal it somehow under her skirts? Escape would be difficult enough without such an encumbrance. No: she now had to be as convincing a woman as she had been a man – swords were not for maids. One hand under the haft, one under the blade, she handed it, almost with ceremony, to Bianca. ‘Please, if all goes well with you’ – she did not need to elaborate on what this meant – ‘see this conveyed to Captain Ross of the Scots Greys. He was my commander, and showed me great … kindness.’

Bianca looked at her swiftly but said nothing; she merely repeated the name, nodded and hung the blade awkwardly in her buckler. ‘I will write you at the Gasthof,’ promised Kit. ‘I meant what I said about Christiana, she is mine, and will always have my support.’

Bianca waved her hand. ‘Christiana and I will be well, never fear. Now heed; I have written down the direction for you. Your husband is living in the Santa Maria quarter in a private house.’

‘In a private house!’ That explained why Kit hadn’t found him, nor would she have, for however long she trawled the taverns. Kit took the direction, neatly written on a scrap of paper, and tried to push it into a pocket which wasn’t there. Then, in a gesture that seemed a world away, she tucked the paper into her bosom. She embraced Bianca and kissed her firmly on the cheek. ‘I have a sister,’ she said. She blew out every candle but one – and tied Bianca loosely to the chair with her back to the door. In the low light she hoped the guard would simply see a figure in a dragoon uniform slumped in a chair in a hopeless attitude, and not look too closely at the figure in the sprigged gown who needed his hand to climb the rope ladder.

Her heart thumping, Kit called for the guard, and heard the scramble and slap of the rope ladder being thrown down. Kit had to remind herself, as she climbed, not to be agile; she forced herself to take his grubby hand to help her up. He hauled her up to the doorway and set her on her feet. She thanked the guard, low voiced, trying to avert her eyes; but as if drawn she looked him, fatally, in the face. He looked at her intently and she thought she was lost – but all the time he was looking at her chest. The bodice of Bianca’s dress strained tight, and her bosom was bolstered almost to her chin. The breasts that had been her biggest liability were now her greatest asset. The guard actually licked his lips. ‘Lucky bugger,’ he muttered under his breath.

She swept past him hastily, as a shy little miss might, and scuttled up the stone staircase and through the courts she had last seen as a prisoner. Being a woman felt so different – she felt lighter by the weight of her uniform, had not realised what ballast she had been carrying for the last year. Below her waist she felt remarkably free – between petticoats and stockings her legs were unencumbered and she felt the relief of being without her silver appendage. Her gait was different, and she realised her deception had made her walk differently – maybe all men walked so to protect their member. But above the waist she felt constricted, by the tight lacings pressing her chest so between the corset and the fear she could scarcely breathe. She felt colder too – Bianca’s cloak was light, and with her hair swept high and her bosom exposed, the mountain breeze was fresh about her throat and ears.

At every gate she expected to be stopped; she wanted to shrink into her cloak and pull her hood close over her head, but she knew Bianca’s instincts were right; she should keep her assets on show. Every guard opened his door for her, or lifted his pike to his side; some even bowed, or paid her compliment, and all of them raked her with their eyes. She felt fearful of those glances – she was afraid of being Kit again. No one, now, would challenge her to a duel, or call her out, or swing a sword at her, but those glances meant she was prone to other dangers, the kind of dangers that had beset Bianca Castellano.

One more gate to go; she even recognised the guard on the postern gate, but he too looked no higher than her bosom. She passed under the portcullis, every nerve tingling, expecting the heavy iron teeth to fall upon her and slice her in two. But she was across the moat and away into the night. The constant moon shone down knowingly, witnessing her escape, betraying her by lighting her figure for all to see. Then the little alleyways claimed her with their friendly shadows.

She was Mistress Kit Walsh again, and she was free.

He always is blessed with a charming young wife …

‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)

Kit crossed the Forbato bridge, the bridge where she had fought the very duel with Taylor which had seen her imprisoned. At the centre of the bridge, with the River Leno whispering beneath her, and the fall thundering at the river’s bend, she took the paper from her bodice and paused in the moonlight to read it: Via Ranier, 17. Her heart thumped; her palms were damp though the night was chill. She stood still, and breathed deep, and something shrivelled within her with misery. This was not how she should be feeling, but how could you teach yourself to be joyful?

She hurried across the Leno before she could turn back, and walked along the bank, reading the street directions painted on the huddled houses. There: Via Ranier. The white houses huddled on the bank of the river; had Richard looked from the window of his lodging house at dawn three days past, he would have seen his wife, in dragoon’s clothes, duelling with her colour sergeant.

At number seventeen Kit raised her fist to the door, but her hand fell – she could not knock, not yet. There was a light at the window, despite the lateness of the hour, and she pressed up to the cool glass.

It was a perfect domestic scene. A man and a woman sat at a small scrubbed table. Between them stood a candle, a jug and two tankards. The table was small, but it was as if even this distance was too great for them to be apart, for they joined hands across the table. The woman was of middle years, handsome, plump; she smiled into the man’s eyes and laughed softly at his remarks. A little dog sat at his master’s feet, white and scruffy, wagging his stumpy tail, wearing an expression of adoration akin to his mistress’s. The man was younger, plump too, and not wearing a uniform. Kit’s heart leaped – it was the wrong house. Richard wasn’t here at all. But she peered again, and something caught the corner of the man’s eye and made him turn.

She leapt away, and pressed her back to the plastered wall, breathing heavily. She wanted to run. But there could be no running now. To go to that door, to knock and seek entrance, was the hardest thing she had ever had to do.

When he opened the door he knew her at once. In her head she still looked like a soldier, but to Richard she must look as she’d always done. He stood back as if slapped, his countenance white as paper. ‘Kit!’ he stuttered, and her name sounded strange at his lips; so familiar, yet not. He drew her in over the threshold, the first time he’d touched her in over a year. ‘What are you doing here?’

I came to seek you.
The words rolled around her head, but she could not speak. His accent was just the same, so like her own, and it sounded to her like home. The room was warm but she was shaking. She could not take a step – and it was the woman who rose and helped Kit to her own stool.

Kit could see now that the woman was a good many years older than she – that she had a pleasant open face, a florid complexion and glossy black curls falling from her lace cap. She frowned and her fingers pleated the rough silk of her skirt. The expression of worry sat oddly on her; she had a face made for smiles. As if in a dream Kit heard a murmured intimate conversation: ‘
Who is she,
amore
? – It is my sister from Ireland.
’ His lie was a sibling to hers; my brother, my sister. The lady’s smiles returned, she made some polite greetings which Kit heard not at all, bobbed a curtsy, and tactfully left the room to prepare some refreshment.