Kit (9 page)

Still vomiting seawater and swear words, blinded by the stinging brine and the Spanish sun, Kit let herself be towed like a tug. The dragoon and the tide combined threw her on to the shingle. Where she lay, gasping, facing seaward, cheek to the salty stones. She could see the other soldiers, most of them having shed their clothes, disporting themselves in the sparkling waves, and she envied them. Naked and carefree, they were splashing each other, swimming easily and slapping their sodden red coats on the water in play. Kit rolled on to her back, gasping like a landed fish, her soaked uniform clinging to her, the silver prick standing forth like a poker. She sat, hurriedly, to conceal it, wondering uncomfortably whether her saviour had felt it dig when she’d clung to him in the sea. She looked sideways at him with stinging eyes. The dragoon, breathing heavily from his exertions, watched the soldiers disporting themselves, flicking the sodden hair from his eyes. He glanced at her, then spoke to the playing soldiers. ‘That’s quite a vocabulary you have for one so young,’ he said. ‘But as you were under certain … duress, and as it was so early in our acquaintance, I feel it would not be the act of a gentleman to put you on a charge.’ He had the clipped tones of a nobleman, a man born to command. He could not be farther from the Black Irish she’d taken him for. She was so filled with a mixture of curiosity and resentment that she did not at once register what he had said.

‘A charge?’

‘For swearing at your superior.’ He shot her a direct blue gaze from beneath dripping slabs of hair. ‘I am Captain Ross, the commanding officer of the Scots Grey Dragoons.’

‘Oh.’ She scrambled to her feet, dripping everywhere, face scarlet. ‘I … beg your pardon, I’m sure.’

He squinted up at her.

‘Let us say no more about it. Let us rather call it a strangely worded paean of gratitude for my saving your life.’ He waited.

A sulky pause. ‘Thank you for saving my life,’ mustered Kit.

‘There. Much better.’

Captain Ross stood, and such was his natural authority that the eleven other men scrambled to the shore to form a semicircle around him.

‘Now that you have …
bathed
, we are going to march in an orderly fashion to the Palazzo Reale, where you will be given your uniforms and your mounts.’ There were delighted murmurings among the men. ‘That is correct, I said mounts; for unlike your unluckier brethren from the good ship
Truth and Daylight
, you will be
riding
into the mountains while they
walk
.’ Ross began to walk about them, weaving in and out, his wet boots squelching on the shingle. ‘Your officers on board ship have seen something in you which has marked you out as sheep from goats, Jews from Samaritans, wheat from chaff. I myself have not yet perceived your qualities, but hope to learn of them soon. Mr …?’ He spun quickly and turned on Kit.

‘Walsh,’ supplied Kit.

‘Mr Walsh, perhaps you ride better than you swim.’

In this she was confident. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Fall in.’

There was to be no talking in the ranks as the dozen men returned to the city proper, but by the time they had gained the palace Captain Ross seemed to know the names of every one of them. Kit’s thoughts pattered nervously, keeping step with her marching pace. She had told no lie – she had been riding since she was a babe, for there had always been horses on the farm. Richard had been no rider, he had ridden nothing but the drays from the brewery, so she would wager he had remained in Tichborne’s company of foot. She had a better chance of catching up with him on horseback – but she must not make any more mistakes.

Ross led the company through a white arch into the courtyard of a great palace and dispatched them to a long room where bales of clothes waited. Once again Kit was given a uniform. The coat was yet again red but instead of the cheap felting of her old coat she noted the bright brave scarlet of the dye and a better class of fabric. It differed from her old suit of clothes in several particulars, and all of them an improvement; royal blue facings instead of white, denoting the royal status of the regiment following the late king’s inspection. There were wide blue turned cuffs fastened with three gold buttons apiece. She noted with relief that, the coat being cut for riding, there was a wider, almost circular skirt to it, which would conceal her calls of nature even more effectively.

She saw with great relief that she must change only her overclothes in the company of the other men, so she donned her smart new coat first, removing her damp breeches under the cover of the long flared skirt of the coat. Her fresh attire pleased her. The new cross-belts helped to flatten her bound breasts. The breeches were snug as they were made for riding, but, as they were cut for a man, made enough room for her new appendage. The boots were long and supple with an ample handspan of turned-over leather at the top, to protect the calves when riding. She crammed the new tricorn on her red locks and went to line up in the courtyard with the others.

Ross was there, impatiently tapping a riding crop on his boots. ‘Much better. Now you look like dragoons. But can you ride like them? There is only a handful of you, and with good reason – you’ll be joining the elite of the queen’s cavalry. It is true that we are in somewhat of a hurry. Events are marching forth in the mountains. But as we will travel faster than the general regiment of foot I am going to beg one week of your time to train you in the very basics of our craft. For no man of mine will go into battle without training.’

A week! Another seven days without Richard seemed a cruel delay. That would take her to seventy days without him. Kit could almost wish herself back among the foot soldiers; at least they would march right away. She stood impatiently, shifting her weight from foot to foot, while an ostler walked out half a dozen grey horses and led them round the courtyard. The mounts stood reluctantly, dipping and tossing their heads in turn.

‘These are all quarter horses,’ announced Ross, ‘donated to our cause from our friends at the Dutch Horse Guards.’ Kit could not divine, from Ross’s sardonic tone, whether the Hollanders were allies and had given this fine horseflesh as friends, or whether the English had stolen them from their enemies. Ross walked to the horses and looked from them to the men, as if mentally pairing them like tricks at the whist table. ‘Shadow to Mr Locke. Ghost to Mr Southcott. Pewter to Mr Book …’ He rolled off every name until at last he said, ‘… and the mare, Flint, for Mr Walsh, as he is a slight fellow.’

Kit walked over to take the head collar and ran a practised eye over her mount, doubtfully. Handsome the dozen greys certainly were, and finely matched, but were they warhorses? Her mare had strong slim legs, but seemed full of nervous energy, skittish and highly bred from velvety nose to quivering fetlock. Kit eyed the mare, and the mare eyed her back, rolling the whites of her eyes in warning.
Flint indeed
, thought Kit.
One spark and there’ll be trouble.

Once the new dragoons were mounted, Ross had them canter in a circle, and rode around correcting their seats. Kit kept her eyes on the grey mane before her, short as a bottlebrush, cropped to avoid catching in the swipe of a sword, listening to Ross criticising the others, hoping she would not come to his notice.

‘You’re riding like a laundress, man. Sit up, sit up.’

‘Heels down, lad. You’re not dancing a morris.’

‘Back straight. You are made of bones not macaroni.’

She rode self-consciously, attempting to relax in the saddle, not trying too hard, letting her muscles remember riding every nag and shire and unbroken foal on the farm. Flint skipped around, napping at the bit, skittering sideways, her hooves striking sparks on the pavings. But Kit knew these tricks of old and pulled the mare up sharply. Back on the farm she’d spoken softly to the difficult horses, whispering in their twitching ears. She leaned forward now to put her lips to the feathery grey ear. As soon as she heard Kit’s voice so close Flint brought up her head smartly, hitting Kit in the nose, causing a stinging pain and a gush of blood.

Tears sprang involuntarily to her eyes, but she swallowed them down, concentrating on wiping the blood away with her fingers, reminding herself that a man would barely even notice such a trifling injury.

Ross tossed her a kerchief from horseback. ‘Don’t bleed on your coat, Walsh,’ he said, not unkindly, ‘that is only permitted in battle.’ She caught the neckerchief and mopped her swelling nose. Furious, she dismounted, walked round to Flint’s head and held the horse’s bony velvet cheeks firmly in her hands, making sure she had the mare’s attention. Then she drew back her right fist and punched the horse as hard as she could on the nose. Flint stood stock still, stunned, shaking her head as if trying to shift a bothersome fly, not at all sure what had just happened to her.

‘Aye, now you’ll listen,’ said Kit softly and dangerously, her accent suddenly very Dublin. ‘Don’t try any more shenanigans, miss. I know them all.’

Then she gathered the reins and mounted; the horse stayed meekly still. She pushed Flint into a canter to rejoin the exercise. The horse obeyed without demur. Ross caught her up.

‘Where did you learn that trick?’

‘I was raised on a farm, sir.’ Kit spoke the words defiantly, for she knew how lowly this must sound to a man of his quality. But he merely nodded without comment, and later, when he rode around to watch her exercises, he said, ‘Far from bad, Mr Walsh, you have a good seat,’ and somewhere under her gilt buttons her heart swelled with pride.

For a week they trained and Kit and Flint both champed at the bit. Kit was careful to conceal her impatience, and had to concede that she had much to learn. She learned to ride her grey without the reins, directing the mare with only the slightest pressure of her knees. Then she learned to use the reins only, taking her feet from the stirrups. She learned to use her horse as a shield, swinging one leg over the cantle to ride in the lee of her mount, before swinging herself back into the saddle and riding on. She learned to give Flint a signal to rear on to her hind legs, hooves flailing, while she rained blows from her father’s sword upon an invisible enemy. She even learned to ride blindfold, as the dragoons were trained to ride their horses hard at the palace wall and check and turn before impact. She learned, in this heart-stopping exercise, to read Flint, to feel through her legs and seat the horse’s fear, to feel the stutter of the hooves as the wall approached, and to yank the reins at the last moment. She began to trust the mare, and Flint learned to trust her.

Each morning, as Kit rose from her straw pallet, every muscle ached. Her legs and seat, arms, shoulders and back throbbed as if she had been flogged, and her sinews screamed as she tried to walk. There was to be some respite from riding, though. On the fourth day, in the cool shady arches of the loggia, Ross was joined by his deputy, an English sergeant called Taylor, a red-headed, stocky bulldog of a man. Taylor’s function seemed to be to save Ross the trouble of shouting, for all he did was to repeat his captain’s instructions at a bellow, the exertion of which made his face as red as his hair. Ross directed Sergeant Taylor to hand out an armful of long-muzzled guns. ‘This is a matchlock musket,’ the captain announced. ‘This fellow will be your dearest friend. If you look to the right of you, and to the left, one or both of these men may not be riding with you at the war’s end. But your musket should be your constant companion.’

Kit soon realised they were to take the captain at his word – they were to keep their muskets with them at all times, even at night, when they must cradle them like sweethearts – wood and metal in place of flesh and blood. Each dragoon marked his initials on his own, and more; little carvings appeared to reflect the manner of the man that carried the gun. A heart for a romantic soul called Hall, cleft with an arrow and carved with the initials of him and his lady, as if the musket grew in the greenwood. A cock and balls for Taylor. Kit looked at the broad, smooth stock and knew straight away what to carve – she made sixty-four neat marks in a long book-keeper’s tally – one notch for every day she’d been without Richard.

The next several days were devoted to musket training. Kit rested the heavy gun on her collarbone as she was shown. She learned to lift the thing to her shoulder, lay her chin along the cool barrel, suck in her cheek to protect her side teeth, close her right eye. She learned to know the tinder-strike of the spark, to recoil from the punch of the discharge, not to cough from the tiny cloud of acrid smoke that rose from the lock. She learned to load, fire and reload at tethered scarecrow dummies which were shot repeatedly until they lolled at their stakes and spilled their straw entrails over the palace paving. The killing done, she would blow the grit of gunpowder from her nose, and beat at the lines of grey dust that mapped her palms. The dragoons were directed to dismantle and clean the guns, then reassemble them, firing once more to check their workmanship. Kit could not get the trick of it and was made to stay at the loggia until her task was complete, under the impatient eye of Sergeant Taylor, the most disagreeable man she had yet met. She was still there when the moon that had been stalking her since Dublin rose to mock her. Ross watched her for a time, sighing periodically, until at length he took his leave. ‘You’ll excuse me,’ he said, mock-courteous, ‘but I have a dinner to attend.’ And he strode off across the courtyard, leaving her to the tender care of Sergeant Taylor.

She watched him walk across the courtyard, and enter a door to the family quarters of the palace. She struggled on with the gun in her lap, her fingers sore and sweaty with effort, while from inside the palace she heard the clash of crystal and the tinkle of laughter. She imagined Ross charming the ladies with his short vowels and his tall stories. She imagined them lowering their fans, rapt, to show painted faces and wine-sparkled eyes. So she was not allowed to swear at him? She cursed instead the stubborn mechanism of the musket. ‘You piss-burned shitsack,’ she told the gun. ‘You turd-eating cunt-bitten dandy.’ For a moment her fingers slackened on the gun as she imagined herself out of the heavy uniform and clothed in cool beaded silk, her copper hair grown again and scented and piled high with jewelled combs. She’d wear a little rouge high on her cheeks, and a patch and a little coral salve to redden her lips. She’d walk into the room and stand under that chandelier, the brilliants of which she could just see from the loggia. She’d just stand there and stand there and the room would go quiet and then he’d turn and she’d dazzle Mr high and mighty Captain Ross, so he couldn’t even see those simpering Spanish misses any more … Mary and Joseph, she’d knock his eyes out of his head! Perhaps a green satin gown … she’d always worn green for Holy Days … yes, a green Rockingham mantua costing thousands of golden guineas … She would—