Kit

by Marina Fiorato

  At the height of their drama a woman was led from the crowd; she was an ordinary lady of middle years, not notably handsome or voluptuous. She did not look like a strumpet, nor did she look like a dangerous felon, yet she was bound hand and foot and obliged to shuffle forth to her penance. At her appearance the crowd bayed louder, rattling the cookpots and pans they had brought with them. Some struck their vessels with wooden spoons in a deafening kitchen cacophony that would almost have rivalled the battery of the dragoons.

  Now a little gate was opened in the railings of the machine, and the lady was pushed inside and forced to sit on a stool. Two burly townsmen began to tug on two heavy hempen ropes, and the round cage began to spin like a child’s top. The unfortunate woman gripped the seat of her wooden stool as the heavy grey sky began to snow, tiny flakes falling like ash. She cried out as the contraption began to spin faster and faster, her face thrown against the wooden railings from the force of each turn, her skirts bellying and snapping like sails. She groaned as she emptied her stomach; her vomit spraying about her like a Catherine wheel as the crowd squealed and sprung back in delight. By now the woman had fallen, collapsed between the stool and the railings. Her flesh had a greenish tinge, her skirt was rucked up to show her smallclothes and a shadow of dark hair. One breast had fallen from her bodice. Still she turned, her humiliation complete.

  Despite all she had seen in the last several days, Kit almost had to look away. She relived again the night she had spent in Ross’s arms; oh yes – it had been innocent and chaste; how could it be otherwise? She had been as close on her left side to another fellow as she had been to Ross on her right, Ross thought she was a boy; and yet, and yet. She, a married woman, had spent the night in another man’s embrace, just like this adulteress. Chastened, she swore that she would dedicate her every moment to finding Richard. Eighty days since she last laid eyes on him. It was enough.

  Kit turned to Van-Dedan.

  ‘Which is her seducer?’

  The trumpeter pointed. ‘There he sits.’

  The man was a scrawny specimen with thinning hair, who sat a little distance away, unable to watch, his feet in a pair of stocks and his head in his hands.

  Kit snorted. ‘He comes off easy.’

  She watched as the adulteress was released from the machine, to collapse immediately to the floor. She was gathered up by a group of women from the crowd, who were pelted with rotten vegetables for their pains. Kit refrained from any further comment, for she could see that most of the dragoons considered this good sport.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Van-Dedan, watching the sorry stumbling figure. ‘She will not find a husband now.’

  ‘Wait – she is unmarried?’

  ‘Yes. He is the one who is wed.’

  ‘And yet she is the adulteress?’

  The trumpeter shrugged, his attention elsewhere; Ross was back in the square with Captain Kavanagh and another captain in tow. Kit fixed her eyes on the little man walking in Ross’s wake – this must be Captain Tichborne, Richard’s commander. Richard was here in Rovereto!

  The dragoons rode in a swirl of snow to an ancient covered market with a timbered roof. Ross rode ahead with the officers, and Kit sensed, with a plunging heart, that she had been merely a distraction along the road, in preference to the crude society of Sergeant Taylor. Now better company was at hand. Ross was to dine and sleep with Tichborne, Kavanagh, the errant Gardiner, who, despite his transgressions in Villafranca, had beaten them there, and a new addition to their company.

  A field surgeon by the name of Atticus Lambe, lately come from London in the company of the legendary Marlborough himself, stood a little apart – he was a chilly fellow with a young face but silvering hair, a tailcoat of greenish black Shadwell, and pince-nez set upon his nose. Mr Lambe gravitated at once towards Captain Ross and the two were soon deep in conversation. Another educated man, thought Kit with a curl of her lip; and wondered how long the surgeon would have lasted on the mountain. Then she scolded herself – she did not need Ross’s friendship any more; for she now had a task in hand. Having secured her tick and bolster in the old covered market, collected her rations from the quartermaster, and her pay from Tichborne’s ensign, she had a full belly, her pay in her pocket and was ready for the evening. This time she would go out on the town like the others. Most certainly. But she would be going to find Richard.

  Rovereto was a very pretty mountain town, and in the benign evening it was hard to believe that they had had such an ugly introduction to the place. Though it was bitterly cold, candlelight streamed welcomingly from windows, and music could be heard leaking from the shutters of the taverns and eating-houses as the soldiers rid themselves of their pay. At every corner and in every red coat she passed, Kit expected to see Richard’s sweet and shining face, and she trembled with cold and anticipation, but as the night wore on her hopes began to fade. Rovereto was a labyrinth of streets, and Kit found herself wandering aimlessly, afraid to take the plunge into the noise and light of the taverns. But as the bells reproachfully chimed the quarters, chiding her, she took a breath and opened the studded doors of a tavern called the San Maurizio.

  Through the candle smoke and the red coats of the company of foot, Kit spotted two fellow dragoons. Mr O’Connell and Mr Southcott were a couple of jorums ahead of her, and were happy to toast their ‘pretty dragoon’. She took it well enough, and stood the two gentlemen another round, but took her tankard to a neighbouring table, where some of Tichborne’s men were drinking. Kit toasted the company of foot, then asked whether anyone had seen or heard of her brother.

  ‘Richard Walsh,’ said one, downing his tot. ‘I think I remember him.’ Kit’s heart beat slow and painfully. ‘’Nother jigger might jog me memory.’

  Kit raised her hand for another bottle and poured it round. ‘Yes,’ said the fellow, licking his lips. ‘Blond fellow. Short. Lazy eye.’

  Kit, sighing, got up and moved to the next table. There she heard that although no one knew of a Private Richard Walsh, there was a gang of Irish boys who had formed their own little unit. ‘Regular band of brothers,’ said one. ‘Good little sappers. Tichborne left them at Cremona to dig a tunnel under the barbican.’

  Kit’s spirits plummeted. ‘Where is Cremona?’ she asked.

  ‘Good bit down the river,’ said the first fellow. ‘Two days’ march.’ Kit gulped down her drink. How was she to find Richard if he’d broken from the main company? She could not tramp around the countryside as she pleased, and to desert would expose her to dreadful punishments.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said the second redcoat. ‘Tichborne took the Irish up the castle above the town.’ This sounded more hopeful, but the foot soldiers did not seem certain and began to argue among themselves, about Cremona, the castle, Marlborough, and a jumble of other unfamiliar names.

  Kit emptied her tankard, and rose unsteadily, for she’d had to drink a skinful in the course of enquiry. She walked unsteadily to the door and had just laid her hand on the latch when she felt a tap on her epaulette. ‘I say, horseman.’ She turned to see the small rat-faced foot soldier she’d seen at the first table. ‘Try the Gasthof by the church. Lots of the Irish lads drink there. Turn left out the door, and up the hill.’

  She thanked him, opened the door into the night, breathed in the sobering cold, turned left into a narrow alley and was met by a disturbing sight. A man and a maid struggled together in the dark shadow. At first Kit thought to pass by, but she realised that this was no willing coupling.

  The girl was defending herself but she was no match for the brutal bulk of the man. In the scuffle the girl’s lace cap had fallen to the gutter, and her dark hair tumbled down almost to the pavings. There was a ripping sound as the man rent her clothes to reveal a white crescent of her back like a sliver of moon. Now he had her turned around and folded over like a page as he bunched her skirts around her waist and fumbled with his own breeches.

  As Kit hurried closer she realised that the aggressor was a dragoon. She reme
mbered Maria van Lommen’s words: I would never seduce a woman who does not want me – which is more than I can say for men.

  Kit reached for the scruff of the cur’s neck. She pulled him off the girl with a strength she did not know she possessed, and threw him against the wall of the alley. It was only then that she recognised the bullish features of Sergeant Taylor, and by that time it was too late.

  ‘Look away, Walsh,’ he spat. ‘This is not your quarrel.’

  Kit gathered his uniform in a bunch at his throat. ‘I see no quarrel, for that word has too much honour in it for what plays out here. I see a boorish man insulting a lady.’

  ‘She’s a dago slut, a macaroni. What do you care?’

  What to say? That she could not bear to see another woman hurt today? Kit cast about for her riposte, and found it in the uniform they both wore.

  ‘It was Captain Ross himself who said that if you dishonour the dragoons’ coat then your actions are the quarrel of every man in this regiment. If I’m to be included in this insult, then I’m damned sure I’m worthy enough to chastise you for it.’

  Now Taylor took her by the stock and pushed her to the opposite wall. ‘You little fucking prick. You prodigal, shit-mouthed cunt.’ Taylor’s broken-nosed brutal bulk was considerable; he was a barrel of a man and she could feel the strength in the fist under her chin all but lifting her slight frame from the ground. His victim had picked herself up and was retreating into the shadows. From the other direction the door of the tavern opened, light streamed into the alley, and Southcott and O’Connell stumbled out. Kit heard their piss slap on to the stones and saw the steam rise. She punched Taylor’s hand away.

  ‘I leave,’ said Kit, quoting Captain Ross again, ‘Billingsgate language to women and cowards. I have no wish to tongue-battle with you, Sergeant Taylor, but if you wish to use swords in place of words, I am your man.’

  Taylor raised his fist, flicked a look to the dragoons by the alehouse door, and turned the fist into a finger, pointing, threatening. ‘You invoked the regiment, boy, but you’ve no idea of what you’re yapping about. If you did, you’d know that you may not challenge one of my rank. You like fancy fucking officer language? Very well, you have already transgressed by striking a superior.’

  Kit, heart beating wildly, had no idea where her words were coming from. She spoke to Taylor, to the cooper on the cart, to every man who thought they could take a woman’s most precious possession.

  ‘Superior in rank perhaps,’ she retorted, ‘but in no other regard. I might venture to say that the Duke of Marlborough had too good an opinion of you when he took his livery off your back and gave you the queen’s.’ Kit knew Taylor had been footman to Marlborough, for he never ceased to talk of it, and she could see this last stung him to the quick. Southcott and O’Connell, who had relieved themselves and were now standing easy in the doorway listening, sucked in their collective breath. Taylor’s face grew red as boiled ham. ‘By God, I’ll have you on jankers for the rest of your days,’ he spat. ‘Expect your arrest at dawn. These men are my witnesses,’ He swung his arm drunkenly towards Southcott and O’Connell, where they lolled in the doorway looking on.

  Kit looked to them in appeal; they were not long friends, but had been through much together in a short time. Taylor was unpopular, pursuing his paltry feuds and exacting petty punishments, and the dragoons had a code of loyalty to each other. Kit had fought well at the monastery of San Columbano, she had run towards Ingoldsby when everyone else had run away, and she had bandaged Southcott’s hand with her own stock. She could only pray they remembered her good offices now. Southcott and O’Connell looked at each other and then at Taylor, wide eyed. ‘I didn’t see anything. Did you, Mr O’Connell?’

  ‘No, Mr Southcott, not a thing. Truly, the streets are very dark after the bright lights of the tavern.’

  Taylor looked from one to the other. Southcott’s merry face was serious for once, and O’Connell, the towering Irishman, stood with arms folded across his massive chest. Taylor looked back at Kit, his bluster gone, his malice redoubled. ‘I’ll cool your courage soon enough, boy.’ Then he spat at Kit’s feet, and stumbled away down the little alley.

  Kit slumped with relief. ‘Thank you,’ she said to her fellows, heartfelt.

  ‘He’ll be on your back now, Walsh,’ said Southcott, patting her shoulder.

  ‘And ours,’ said O’Connell.

  ‘When isn’t he?’ rejoined Southcott. ‘Come on, you great mountain; let us have another drink, and Walsh can pursue his amours in peace.’ He nodded to the shadows, where Kit could see the girl in white still cowering. Taking his fellow by the arm, Southcott turned O’Connell round and back through the door into the welcoming light.

  Kit walked hesitantly to the girl in the shadows, hands held out before her to show that she was no threat. The girl had covered herself up as best she could, and now looked up at Kit with trusting eyes. Kit stooped to rescue the sorry lace cap where it lay in the gutter, but it was ruined and she let it be. She turned to the girl and performed a little pantomime of pointing and shrugging, saying slowly; ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘I understand you perfectly,’ said the girl in a pretty accent. ‘I am schooled in a little English, and your regiments have been in our region for years.’

  ‘Then tell me where you live and I can escort you home.’

  ‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘You must not tell my father. If it becomes known that that man even laid his hands on me I would be forever tarnished.’

  ‘But you were entirely innocent in the case! I can explain the particulars …’

  ‘Explain what?’ said the girl with some heat. ‘That I was passing by a tavern late at night? That I stopped to speak to a soldier? Even such small sins are enough to damage my reputation. One day, I want to be well wed.’

  Kit shook her head. ‘Very well. But let me at least escort you home. And for God’s sake take my jacket.’ Kit unbuttoned her coat and wrapped it like a cape about the girl’s naked shoulders.

  She shrank from the heavy felt as if it burned. ‘What kind of figure will I cut in such a coat? I would look for all the world like a soldier’s doxy.’

  Kit buttoned on her coat once more, and they walked through the little streets garlanded with flower boxes. It was hard to believe that Taylor’s brutal attack could have taken take place somewhere like this.

  ‘What is your name?’ Kit asked.

  ‘I am Bianca Castellano. And you?’

  ‘I am Christian Kavanagh. Kit.’

  ‘And you are not English, are you, Kit? You do not sound like the rest of them.’

  ‘I am Irish.’ There was pride in Kit’s reply. A thought struck her: if this girl could detect her accent, would she know whether other Irish had been billeted on the town? She postponed the question for a better season. They walked on until they reached a grand house; the best on the street, perhaps in the town. Candelabras lit the windows and a hurricane lamp burned in the doorway, swinging like a pendulum from left to right, scanning the street. ‘My father,’ said Bianca.

  Kit straightened. ‘Leave this in my charge.’

  A tall white figure held the lamp, a man who wore a nightcap like a candle snuffer and a nightgown down to his feet.

  Kit doffed her tricorn. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘I have the honour to restore your daughter to you. She stumbled in the street and became a little disarranged, but was not much hurt.’

  The man lifted his lamp to look in Kit’s face. Beside her, Bianca was holding her breath. Kit kept her gaze straight and felt a gradual lessening of tension. At last the lamp was lowered, the nightcap nodded, and Bianca released her breath in a low rush. ‘I thank you, sir,’ said a gravelly, heavily accented voice, ‘for bringing my daughter home. I bid you goodnight.’

  Bianca was bundled in the door, the lights were extinguished one by one, and Kit went back to the silk market. The Gasthof would be closed by now, and she was too tired for further excitement.

  Chapter 12<
br />
  Out for recreation we went on a tramp …

  ‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)

  Nothing happened.

  The one requirement placed upon the dragoons was that they collect their rations each day from the quartermaster at the silk market. They were paid and victualled properly for the first time; five farthings a day for tobacco, a pound of bread, a pint of wine, and clean bedstraw each night. Kit tried to smoke as she thought the habit would add to her male credentials, but found it unbearably bitter. The soldiers wanted for nothing but occupation; they kicked their heels about the little mountain town, and of course, there was little to do but drink.

  Kit did not see Ross, as he was closeted with the captains at the castle above the town. Nor did she see Taylor, and for this she was grateful, for in the cold light of day she regretted the events of that first night – not her actions, but the words she had chosen, words that seemed calculated to inflame Taylor and make him her implacable enemy. Happily, Taylor was also kept busy with some business at the castle, business of which he boasted often but simultaneously insisted was deadly secret.

  Orders were handed down from Tichborne’s ensign, and those orders were always the same, day after day. Wait. Just wait. Eighty-three days without Richard. Eighty-four. Kit, twitching with impatience, continued her search about the town, and heading off on goat tracks in the direction of Cremona, but each time returning by nightfall without reaching it. She had tried walking up the hill towards the imposing castle, but she had been turned back on the path by guards wearing a uniform she did not recognise.

  Although Kit had friends among the dragoons, Southcott and O’Connell and the others were happy to pass the time in the taverns with their backgammon and tobacco. On the third day, a mizzling, freezing rain set in and Kit, sick of taverns and mountain walks, decided to visit Bianca Castellano and see how she did.

  She ran splashing through the streets, the rain filling up her tricorn, till she came to the street where she’d left Bianca three nights past. She knocked on the door of the painted house, and a neat maid answered it.