Kit (44 page)

From Mezzanotte she had received the congratulations and embraces so markedly lacking from his lover. Dinner was relaxed and the three of them talked easily of anything but the approaching siege. Kit told herself that this must be because Mezzanotte was present, but she did not wholly believe it. Ormonde had always shared his secrets with the castrato.

Still, she waited till Mezzanotte had begun to sing, before she questioned Ormonde. Her voice hung in an odd limbo between the countess and Kit. She no longer knew who she was, her accent odd; now Poitiers, now Dublin.

‘Where is Marlborough at present? How quickly could he get to Turin with his forces?’

‘Very quickly, if he was so minded. He is on the Superga hill, overlooking the city, taking command of his latest mistake: the general retreat to the Po valley.’

‘I see.’

‘What do you see?’

She was silent.

‘We do not need to put away our candour,’ he said, ‘now that our mission is ended.’

‘I understand why you are manifesting little urgency. If Marlborough is already sitting on top of the city he can reinforce it as soon as he may.’ It was all right. Ross and the dragoons would be safe.

Ormonde ran his finger around the rim of his glass. ‘Kit. I am not going to tell Marlborough.’

‘Not?’

‘No.’

‘Someone else, then? Panton? Tichborne? I understand you don’t want to hand the credit for the salvation of Turin to your enemy, but …’

‘Kit,’ he said again. ‘I am not going to tell
anyone
. Not a single member of the Alliance forces. Not a general, not a dragoon, not a foot soldier, not a drummer boy.’

She listened to the exquisite song, her world crumbling. ‘Why?’

‘Come, come,’ said Ormonde, drumming his fingers gently on the linen tablecloth. ‘You know why. I have taught you well. You tell me.’

‘Because,’ she said slowly, ‘if the Alliance has no warning, the French will take Turin.’

‘And then?’

‘Marlborough will be blamed.’

‘And?’

‘Relieved of his command.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Then you will petition the queen, and take his place as commander-in-chief of the Grand Alliance.’

Ormonde sipped his champagne, his eyes veiled. ‘A very interesting conjecture, Kit. I cannot, of course, confirm these fantasies.’

‘But they are true, are they not?’

He regarded her. ‘Think, Kit. Do you really want me to say yes?’

She did not. She didn’t want to know such dangerous information. She was reminded of Atticus Lambe, in the hospital dungeon of Riva del Garda, revealing his addictions and peccadilloes. Suddenly afraid, she rose from the table, and opened the double doors, Mezzanotte’s heartbreaking aria pursuing her.

As she left the salon she felt a prickling at her back, the prickling of Ormonde watching her, convinced that his comfortable candour was derived from his certain knowledge that she would not leave the palace alive.

She shivered under the coverlet, her teeth chattering. She was cold with horror and dread. The thought of Ross, of all the dragoons, those good men, her friends, defending the citadel of Turin alone, sickened her. She could see them in her mind’s eye, surprised by attack, fighting valiantly, failing, falling, cut down by the French. Another crushing defeat that made the ground slippery with blood; another Aughrim, another Mantova. Sean Kavanagh. Richard Walsh. Enough.
You don’t have to wait to be rescued
, Aunt Maura said in her head.
Go and rescue him.
And this time it was Captain Ross that she meant.

Kit got up and lit her candle, and, in the warm light, she dressed herself as best she could. Now unused to the task, her shaking fingers fumbled with her lacings. She needed elegance but also practicality; so she chose a brocade carriage dress in saffron velvet, and a heavy travel cloak. She had no time to dress her hair, so she scraped her own clean hair back and chose a powdered wig from her wig stand. She fastened the diamonds at her ears, wrists and throat, for her credibility would depend on her magnificence, and besides, they were rightfully hers. Rapidly, remembering the artistry of Livia Gonzaga, she made up her face with white alum, with ceruse on the lips and cheeks. There was no time for a patch. She picked up the fan that had been her prop and stay, and set it down – it was useless to her now. She wished she had a sword instead. She wished she had her uniform again. She had dissembled every day that she wore it, but now that suit of clothes seemed more honest than a gown. She longed for her heavy felted coat, for the facings and lacings and boots. The wish reminded her.

She fell to the floor and looked beneath the bed. There they were – her dragoon’s riding boots, which had been waiting there, patiently, for her to remember them. She pulled them on gratefully and they were well hidden beneath her skirts.

There was a faint knock at the door. She froze for a moment. ‘Just a moment!’ she called breezily, as she threw her heavy cloak behind the bed, tore off the wig, hauled the coverlet over her pack and threw her night chemise over her travel clothes. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door a crack.

It was Lucio Mezzanotte. He walked in and took her by the shoulders. ‘Christiane. Kit. You should leave this place.’

She stripped off the chemise.

‘Ah.’ Mezzanotte closed the door behind him, and sat down on the bed. He watched her as she replaced her wig and collected her cloak. ‘You have anticipated me. Christiane … forgive me. Kit.’

‘It does not matter what you call me,’ she said, her voice hard. ‘Whoever I am, I am not a fool.’

‘He is going to kill you,’ said the castrato.

Kit stopped packing. Started again. ‘I know.’ But still it was chilling to hear it stated like that.

‘Where will you go?’

Kit fastened her pack, hesitated. How much should she tell Mezzanotte? ‘I don’t know.’

She turned back to him – he looked at her, amused. ‘Take this.’ He waved a silver flask at her. ‘It can get cold on the mountain, and it might take you some time to find Marlborough.’

She stepped forward and took it gratefully. ‘And what will
you
do? Surely you must leave him now?’

Mezzanotte looked up, his eyes enormous in his long pale face. ‘Why? I love him.’

Kit shook her head. She could not articulate the reasons, if he did not know them already.

‘He has done worse than this,’ said Mezzanotte. ‘Before I even met him. I always knew what I loved.’ He fingered the Prince Rupert’s drop about his neck, the glass greedily imprisoning the lamp flame. ‘He told me once that when he was a young general in Ireland he fought the Jacobite infantry for King William.’ Kit leaned back against the door, suddenly weak. She fixed her gaze on Mezzanotte where he sat on the edge of her coverlet, just as Maura used to do when telling a tale. ‘He had the rebels completely exposed and surrounded. The Jacobites surrendered, and they started to run. They threw away their weapons in order to run faster. But Fitz fell upon them with his cavalry and slaughtered them all as they tried to get away. He said the grass was slippery with blood. He said that, to this day, this place is known locally as the “Bloody Hollow”. All because of him.’

Kit went still. ‘Where was this?’ but she knew the answer.

‘Oh, I don’t remember. Some hill near his estates in the east. Some funny long Irish word.’

‘Killcommadan?’

‘That’s it.’

Kit closed her eyes, feeling the ridges of the door against her back. Ormonde. Ormonde had killed her father. Sean Kavanagh had been one of those fleeing Jacobites. His sword – her sword – was one of the weapons that was thrown down in surrender. Sean Kavanagh’s blood had made the grass slippery in the Bloody Hollow. Was that why she had met Ormonde on Killcommadan Hill that day, when she was little more than a child? Now she understood too that his infernal parrot had, all this time, been repeating his master’s boasts.
Damned Jacobites. Like rats in a trap
.

She could not speak for her white-hot anger. But Mezzanotte did not seem to notice. ‘Fitz said he made his fortune that day,’ he went on. ‘He says if he had not done what he did, he would not have been brought to court, and he would not have been at the opera with the queen, and he would never have met me.’ Then the castrato registered Kit’s expression. ‘He is not a bad man.’

She pushed herself away from the door and grabbed her pack. ‘I am going. Let him try to stop me if he will.’ She felt as if she could kill him with her bare hands.

‘He will not even wake.’

His voice, weary but certain, stopped her in her tracks. ‘How do you know?’

‘Juice of the poppy. Opium. I told you they fed it to me in Florence when they took my manhood. I have been using it ever since.’ She turned to look at him and saw an expression she recognised in his eyes. His lids were heavy and hooded, his pupils enormous. She had seen that same look on Atticus Lambe. ‘It has been my constant friend,’ confessed Mezzanotte. ‘And tonight, it is his. Fitz sleeps in a poppy field. You have until dawn at the least.’

Kit’s simmering anger abated somewhat. ‘What will he do to you?’

‘I? I know nothing of your flight. I will wake beside him, none the wiser.’

Kit could not leave Mezzanotte like this. ‘Tomorrow he may spare you. But he will smash you one day,’ she warned. ‘You’ll shatter under his hand, like that drop you wear.’

Mezzanotte grasped his pendant. ‘I know. But I would rather die under his hand than live under someone else’s.’

Kit tiptoed down the great stone stair, and past the parrot’s cage. In the dark he was just a grey parrot, the gaudy feathers leached of hue, dreary and dun; headless at present – his head tucked under his wing. She thought she had got past without a final insult but the bird took his head from under his wing and screeched, ‘Damned Jacobite!’ She winced, hoping the screech did not penetrate the sleep of the poppy. ‘And proud of it,’ she hissed.

She walked past, then stopped and turned. On a sudden whim she twisted the gilded catch of the cage and the door swung open. ‘Go on,’ she said. The parrot gave a throaty chuckle and cocked its head at her, fixing her with eyes like black beads. It shifted its ugly clawed feet, but made no move to fly. She regarded it for a moment, then understood. ‘Not you too,’ she said. ‘Well; please yourself.’ And she shut the cage door again.

For we were the lads who would give them hard clouts …

‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)

Superga hill. Superga hill. Superga hill.

Kit repeated the direction to herself over and over, in time with Flint’s hoofbeats, like a litany.

She had expected a slight incline, a little rise in the terrain, but when she and Flint finally reached it they found themselves toiling up a vast and looming mountain. Mare and rider were exhausted beyond measure, having already ridden for a night and a day. Flint had had no nourishment save some wayside grass and water, and Kit’s only sustenance had been periodic nips from Mezzanotte’s flask.

Their climb was not made easier by a red river flowing down the green hill – hundreds upon thousands of cavalry and foot, in their red coats, pouring down the slope like a cataract, in retreat. They seemed in spirits, these men, swaggering and joking; some doffed their hats to her, some sang a catch, some whistled. She loved them, these soldiers, really loved them. She wanted to shout at them all,
Turn back!
But she had no authority – she must find Marlborough, had to find Marlborough.

As she climbed, the view unfurled beneath her like a Turkey carpet and she realised her adventures had come full circle. She had begun this coil by rolling down a hill on Ormonde’s orders; now she climbed a hill against them. She kept her eyes high – the climb, the climb was all – she would not fall again.

At the crown of the hill stood a marble mausoleum, eerily reminiscent of the one in Mantova where she had laid her counterfeit husband. She thought fleetingly of him. Had the French dug him up by now, and thrown him in a pauper’s grave? Or had they let him lie?

At the little chapel she slid from Flint’s back, and rested her head for a moment on her sweating lathered neck. She breathed the sweet smell of hay and horse, and tied the mare to the wrought-iron gate of the tomb. There she read the names of long-dead Savoy princes, a roll call of skeleton emperors and bone kings. But beyond the white tombs was a collection of red tents, brave and warm and alive, their fabric walls moving with the wind, as rosy and animate as the tombs were pale and dead.

Marlborough’s tents.

Kit threw back her cloak so that the diamonds at her ears and throat caught the sun, pressed her lips together, pinched her cheeks and straightened her wig. The current Prince of Savoy was probably between his silken sheets in the white palace below, the palace where she’d celebrated his name day. If she failed today, he might soon be laid to rest here in this cold stone bed.

Kit walked forward to the fluttering tents. Their pennants were blowing in an easterly, in the direction of the doomed city, pointing in warning. In the centre of the circle of red sat two men at chess. At first she did not recognise Marlborough, for he was jacketless, his red coat laid beside him on the grass. His opponent was in a like state of undress, in his shirtsleeves, his coat laid aside. He too was unfamiliar at first, but when he looked up she could see that it was Lord Mark Kerr, a commander she had seen at the castle at Rovereto, and again in the lines at Luzzara. Both men watched her approach, and, she noted with relief, both got to their feet. She must, even after the ride she had undertaken, still look like a lady, if not a countess. She did reverence to Marlborough first, then Lord Mark, but spoke as she curtsied, mindful of pressing time.

‘My Lord Marlborough, I have some vital intelligence for your ears. The French intend to take Turin by surprise, and use the city as their bastion to take the rest of the peninsula, and annex it to France.’