Kit

by Marina Fiorato

  The first time she caught him at this, he’d held a little green bottle aloft, as if drinking her health. ‘The Greeks again, you see,’ he said, drily. ‘They gave us all the greatest elements of our civilisation. Socrates gave us philosophy. Hippocrates medicine. And Paracelsus gave us laudanum.’

  Reality dawned. All those men he’d treated, he’d cut open with only a leather strap to wring in their hands and a stick to bite in their teeth. The limbs he’d taken with his saw, the musket balls he’d dug from sinewed flesh, the incisions he’d made; all with no relief from the pain, because Lambe was feeding his terrible addiction. ‘You have been keeping it for yourself,’ she breathed.

  Lambe turned his head, very slowly, and focused his eyes on her. The pupils were huge again. ‘No,’ he said, forming the words carefully, hissing like the torches. ‘Not all of it. I gave some to him. My love cannot suffer pain.’

  She had to ask. ‘You really think Ross is of your … persuasion? That he loves like the Greeks?’

  Here Lambe blinked and frowned. ‘I think he would. I think I could make him love me – but you have been turning his head. But soon you will be gone,’ he said. And she knew then, he would never let her leave his dungeon.

  Getting dressed was the most painful process she had ever had to endure. She could barely lift her right leg into her breeches, for the hip joint seemed to have no power, and her wound began to bleed again, an ugly dark stain soaking through the bandage. She could not face strapping on the silver prick, so tucked it in her saddlebag. She leaned on her sword as a crutch. This time she would not skulk out of his hospital – oh no. She must see Lambe’s face. For she had a deal to make.

  He came down in the evening as ever and saw her dressed and sitting on the bed. He paused for a moment, but said nothing, setting his torch in the sconce as he always did. He turned and she rose to face him.

  He raised his chin. ‘You walked out of my care once. You will not do it again. You will stay until you are well, and when you are well, I will have you discharged. You will be shipped home to whatever little province you hailed from.’

  ‘I am going,’ she said measuredly, ‘to walk up these stairs and out into the world. I will commend your care and rejoin the dragoons. I will leave you to your devices and you will leave me to mine.’

  He stared at her, his pupils angry black pinpricks. She could not be sure that he had heard her. ‘I am going now,’ she repeated. ‘And you will not prevent me.’

  ‘No!’ he shouted, his voice booming about the dungeon. She turned, painfully, leaning on her sword. ‘You will keep my counsel, and I will keep yours.’ Her voice sounded weak, and her accent very Irish, as it always became when she was tense. ‘For if I have a secret, you have one too. Your secret lives in a bottle, and it keeps you alive. You cannot be without it.’ She stood as straight as she could bear. ‘I have the ear of the Duke of Marlborough himself. What will he say, I wonder, when he knows you have been leaving his men in pain to feed your wants?’

  Atticus Lambe drew back his lip. ‘The duke will not listen to a woman! He will not give you an audience when he knows how you deceived him!’

  ‘Except he does not know, does he?’ she whispered. ‘I do not think you have told anyone. I think you have given it abroad that Private Walsh is gravely injured, but not that he is female. I think you were purchasing time, deciding what to do, deciding if you could bring yourself to kill me.’ She moved closer to him, so they were almost nose to nose. ‘There is no reason why you may not kill me now. I am too weak to resist you. You could restrain me easily, stab me with one of your instruments; pretend I have died of my wounds. I am in my uniform. You wouldn’t even have to go to the trouble of dressing my body.’ She shook from the effort, steeled herself to look into the pale eyes. ‘You cannot do it, can you? You cannot take a life. You are too good a doctor.’ She spoke calmly. ‘If you’d been there with Ross’s wife and babe, you would have saved them, would you not, though it ruined all your hopes?’

  Almost imperceptibly, he nodded, his eyes blinking once.

  ‘Return to your profession,’ she urged gently, ‘and I will return to mine.’ She held his gaze.

  He dropped his pale eyes first. ‘I have patients to attend to.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Lambe.’ She held out her hand, the hand he had stitched. ‘And thank you for your care of me. I hope not to trouble you again.’

  He took her hand with no pressure, his fingers limp and clammy. He met her eyes with a brief flicker of a glance. ‘Goodbye, Mr Walsh.’

  It would do. Kit walked up the stone stair, painfully, into the light.

  Chapter 19

  And he pays all his debts without sorrow or strife …

  ‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)

  Ross and the dragoons welcomed Kit back warmly; Sergeant Taylor alone stood apart. She had been gone for almost three months. Captain Ross had been told, on repeated enquiry, that she was gravely ill and on the brink of death, and could have no visitors because of the risk of infection. When the captain restored her matchlock musket to her, she carefully carved four score notches on the stock – another eighty days without Richard – while she listened to the regiment’s news. Luzzara had been a victory for the Grand Alliance, but the French had had their revenge at a skirmish at Cassano, on the Adda river close by Milan, and that battle had claimed a nobler casualty than she. The Prince of Savoy himself had been injured and had returned to Austria for treatment. ‘He’s been abed as long as you have, Walsh,’ said Hall. ‘The leech loves royal blood too.’ Now the prince was back in the saddle – his recovery keeping pace with Kit’s – the dragoons were to rejoin him back at Rovereto to launch their next offensive: the capture of Mantova. ‘Furious as a wasp in a bottle, is the prince,’ said Southcott, ‘and determined to have Mantova back from the French.’ When Kit asked Captain Ross whether Atticus Lambe would be travelling with them, he told her that he would be staying at Luzzara with the injured until they were well enough to travel, but would join them for the next engagement. ‘You owe him a great debt,’ said Ross.

  ‘I do indeed,’ said Kit grimly

  As she rode away from Lambe’s clutches she thought, almost incessantly, of her conversations with him. While in his dungeonhospital she had thought only of getting out alive, of seeing Ross again, of finding Richard. But now she was safe, she returned again and again to the revelation that she would never bear a child. Sometimes she wondered whether he had lied to her to play games. But when she thought of the rest of their discourse she was as sure as she could be that he had never lied to her about matters medical. The body was his only truth – he could not harm, only heal. He had spoken of Ross’s wife and child, and the particulars of their deaths, with dispassion; there was no reason to suppose that his assessment of her own injuries was anything other than cold fact.

  She had never particularly wanted children; when newly married she had assumed, without much excitement, that children would one day follow; children who, in her idle daydreams, wore her face or Richard’s like little mummers’ masks. She had only really wanted to share her life with Richard. But now she felt she had truly lost something. And now she was a man again, breasts bound painfully once more, the silver prick resting uncomfortably on her scars, and under it a ruptured, useless womb, completing the strange hybrid she had become.

  She watched Ross constantly. He was solicitous, ever present, he smiled, his gaze lingered on her a little too long. She asked herself whether he perhaps saw her as a son, but their ages were not so different for this to be plausible; and she began to be convinced that it was Lambe’s sickness that ailed him. That Ross loved her as a boy thrilled and disgusted her, but just as much, she questioned her own feelings. Was it possible to love two men? Did she still truly love Richard? And if she did, why could she not remember his face?

  As they neared Rovereto it was coming to high summer. The trees had cast off their white capes to show green leaves, the sky was blue instead of silver. She marked
a momentous notch on her musket; three hundred and sixty-five days without Richard; an entire year. It had been summer when he’d left Kavanagh’s, and it was summer again. But the sun and the mountain air were good physicians – every day she became stronger. Her hip still pained her, especially at night, but every day she would walk on it for a league or two, leading Flint, to strengthen her wasted limbs.

  On their last night in the mountains before descending into the town they came to the very spot where she had slept in Ross’s arms on that deep midwinter night. Now she sat a little apart from him when they ate their mess of stew. Hearing of their approach, camp-followers had joined them from the town, and a dragoon called Foreshew was reunited with his local love. Soldier and lady announced their intention to have a ‘camp marriage’ and Ross, as the captain of the troop, was to officiate. He conducted the mock ceremony in good heart, and watched the couple share a shortbread and jump over two crossed swords, but as the newlyweds kissed, Kit read in his face some indefinable pain.

  After the wedding Ross sought her out, sitting beside her on a fireside log. There was an odd silence, but she knew how to break it.

  ‘Who was Achilles?’

  He looked surprised. ‘Achilles,’ he said, recovering quickly, ‘was a hero of the Trojan war. He slew his enemy Hector at the gates of Troy. Then he himself was killed when Hector’s brother Paris shot him in his heel.’

  His heel. Kit chilled, remembering what Lambe had called her.

  ‘Legend had it that he was invincible everywhere on his body except at that point. You see, when he was a baby, his mother Thetis dipped Achilles in the River Styx, a river that was supposed to afford invulnerability. But she held him by his heel, and the magical waters did not touch that point.’ He stretched long booted legs before him. ‘Christ, I have not thought of such things since I was in my Greek tutor’s rooms at the House. I remember …’ There was a pause. Would he say more? Would he talk of that tutor’s daughter, that tutor’s grandson? But he stopped himself with a little laugh. ‘Such stories have little relevance to you, I suppose.’

  She wanted to say, Not at all, I am living it, we all are. The siege of Cremona, the siege of Mantova, the siege of Troy. Instead she said: ‘An uncomfortable position to be in. You feel safe, but you are not.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not safe at all.’ He looked at her intently, in a way she wished he would not. She wished his features were ugly; his cheeks marked with pox, his manner brusque, anything that would make what she must do easier.

  She rolled in her blanket next to him. They did not touch; she was close enough to him to feel the warmth radiating from his body but they had never been farther apart. Nearby the newlyweds shared a rug and she had to listen, wide awake, to their amorous groans and soft laughter, knowing Ross heard them too. Did he truly want her that way, believing she was a man?

  She turned on her back, her hip shooting with pain, plugged her fingers into her ears and made a vow by the stars. She would be a good wife, in her heart as well as her deeds. She resolved, when back in Rovereto, where the whole regiment were to be billeted until the upcoming siege of Mantova, that she would find Richard at last. Now she admitted to herself that she had not tried as hard as she might – she had loved the army for itself, loved being a soldier, loved the adventure she had once craved on a quiet Friday in Kavanagh’s bar. And had she loved Ross a little? Lambe’s accusations rang in her ears with the distant bells of the mountain church.

  But that was past. Now she must do what she should have done months ago. The following morning, as soon as they reached Rovereto, she would go to Richard’s captain, to Tichborne himself. Those months gone by shamed her, and she dared not question too closely why she had not gone to Tichborne before.

  However, the next morning, she had no sooner thrown her pack down on her tick mattress in the covered market before Tichborne’s aide came to her and summoned her to his master. Kit’s hands shook as she buckled on her sword. Had Mr Lambe told Tichborne her secret? As she walked the well-remembered path through the marketplace, still with a slight limp at her hip, she racked her brains to think what else the most senior of captains could want with her.

  Captain Tichborne had taken over an office in the silk market, and was writing at his desk with his adjutant at his shoulder. He was hatless, and his bald pate had turned rosy with the sun. Kit was reminded of the moment in the Golden Last, over a year ago now, when she had signed her life away to join the army. Then, as now, a bottle and two glasses stood by for a toast. Must she drink to the queen when she ended her army career, just as she had when she’d started?

  But when Tichborne looked up he smiled.

  ‘Well, Mr Walsh,’ he said comfortably, laying down his quill. ‘I am glad to see you returned to us, and well mended, it seems.’ He nodded at her leg. ‘It falls to me to give you some good news. Your captain has recommended you, for your actions at Cremona, in his and the late Colonel Gossedge’s cause, for a promotion. It is my pleasure, therefore, to confer upon you your sergeant’s stripes.’ He laid four little stripes made of plaited brocade on red felt on the top of his open ledger. ‘Find some good woman of the town to sew them on for you. Most ladies will do as much for a kiss, eh? What?’

  Kit stared at the little stripes. ‘Your health, Sergeant.’ The adjutant poured two glasses, and jumped back. ‘The queen!’ said Tichborne, and Kit downed her tot for courage. ‘Captain Tichborne?’

  ‘Sergeant Walsh?’

  Her new name would take some getting used to. ‘Could I ask you about a man of yours? His name is Private Richard Walsh.’

  Tichborne’s pale brows lifted. ‘A relative?’

  ‘My brother, sir.’

  ‘A brother!’ He was all pleasantness. ‘Well now. We’ll take a look at the muster. Adjutant!’

  The adjutant sprang forward once more, with a scruffy scroll. Tichborne spread it on his ledger and pointed down the column of names with a stubby finger. ‘Walsh, Walsh, Walsh.’

  This is it, thought Kit, her blood thrumming in her ears.

  ‘Yes, he’s here,’ he said.

  She swallowed. It could not be so easy. ‘Here in Rovereto?’

  ‘Yes. He came back with the rest after Luzzara.’

  ‘And where do your men stay?’ she asked breathlessly.

  ‘Some are at the castle. But many are billeted on private houses now – they have been in the town for many months. Their time is largely their own until we lay siege to Mantova. All I can tell you is that he’s …’ he checked another manifest, ‘not on the watchlist tonight so he is free to roam the taverns.’

  ‘But … which ones?’

  ‘Sergeant Walsh,’ said Tichborne, leaning forward conspiratorially. ‘I am not your brother’s keeper. What!’ He shouted with laughter. ‘Not your brother’s keeper!’ He waved her away, still laughing.

  Kit wandered into the late afternoon sun, dazed, the little brocade stripes lying limp in her hand and her belly warm with grappa. She wanted to run straight to Ross to thank him, but she knew she must not. The taverns were not yet open, so there would be no seeking Richard until sundown. She had no need to find a seamstress to sew on her new stripes, for she’d been sewing for her mother since she was a child. But Tichborne’s suggestion had put her in mind of Bianca Castellano. Surely there could be no harm, now, in a visit after all this time? The girl’s misplaced passion for her must have been transferred to some other likely fellow. But still she tucked the little stripes in her pocket, for a sergeant was a better prospect for marriage than a private, and she had no wish to raise the girl’s hopes again.

  She walked steadily in the direction of the church and came at length to the house she remembered so well. The door was opened by a tall, shambolic figure who stepped blinking into the light.

  It took Kit a number of heartbeats to recognise Signor Castellano. She remembered Bianca’s father all those months ago – groomed, fleshy and florid, his attire costly and correct in every detail. Now he was th
in and gaunt, his skin had a grey pallor, his hair was unpowdered and greasy, escaping from his pigtail. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheek unshaven. When he recognised Kit his eyes narrowed with fury.

  Kit’s insides shrivelled with misgiving, but she made her enquiry. ‘Grussgott, signor. Is Signorina Bianca at home?’

  Signor Castellano breathed as heavily as a squeezebox. ‘There is no one here by that name.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I know no one of that name.’

  Kit took a step back. Had Bianca died? ‘My condolences, sir, if you have lost …’ Castellano reached out and grasped her by her stock, knocking the breath from her. He pulled her close to his face and she could smell his sour breath. ‘I told you once,’ he hissed through yellow teeth, ‘that I would cut you. Now get you gone from my door before I fetch my knives. I will chine you like a boar and sell your pluck in the market.’ He threw her into the street, and slammed the wooden door shut before she could say more. As she picked herself up and dusted down her uniform, she felt the strong instinct, born from months in the army, that she was being watched.

  Perplexed and unsettled by the encounter with Castellano, she set out to trawl the taverns. There she was greeted by her fellow dragoons, who had been given the news that she was to be a sergeant. The approval was universal; to a man they believed her promotion would free them from the tyranny of Sergeant Taylor. They pounded her on the back, shoving a bottle of grappa under her nose. Kit downed glass after glass, and by the time all her fellows had bought her a drink, she was warm with happiness and hope. Then the thought that the last time she’d been in this tavern, nine months past, she’d stumbled across the nasty little scene played out between Sergeant Taylor and Bianca sobered her suddenly. A lovely young woman, too young to die.

  Just then, the door opened and Kit looked up as a beggar woman entered, cradling a bundle. The landlord went to shoo her away and Kit turned back to her companions. But the beggar began to shout and claw at the landlord, pointing over his broad shoulder at the table of dragoons. She broke free from his burly grip, rushed over to Kit and thrust her rags under her nose. ‘This is yours!’ the woman cried, and dumped the bundle in Kit’s lap.