Now a true husband and wife sat here, at either side of the jug and the candle, but with none of the affection that had warmed the former tableau. The scruffy white dog settled himself on Richard’s feet and stared at Kit with naked hostility, growling.
Kit looked at her husband for a long moment. He was stouter, and his hair was longer and tied at his nape in the army style, a style that did not suit him. His features were a little blurred, his jawline softened into jowls. His green eyes were the same, if set a little deeper, and he looked prosperous, guilty; cornered. Not at all a ravenous battle-ravaged foot soldier, but rather a wealthy urban burgher. She surveyed the topography of his face coldly – he had been living here in comfort with his frau while she had suffered on a snowy mountaintop and in a dank hospital in Luzzara and in a dungeon at Rovereto? She wondered how she looked to him.
There was so much to ask. But now she had found him, she had just one question. ‘Who is she?’
He sighed, and she hated him then. ‘Chiara Anselmino. She is a widow, of good standing in the town.’ He had always had a fondness for respectability – he would not even kiss her in the churchyard until they had passed the lychgate – and she could see that he was wondering how the sudden appearance of a wife would affect his standing.
‘Did you ever love me?’
He did not answer her directly. ‘Kit – I did not think to ever see you again. And I am changed – from top to toe. I am a different man. I am a soldier now. Every campaign I fight might be my last. Death is everywhere, and when you don’t fight, you want something to love, something to live for. And now, I’m to head to Mantova under Brigadier Panton, perhaps never to return. Battle – it’s a dreadful thing – you don’t know, you can’t know …’
‘Battle!’ she interrupted. ‘Don’t speak to me of battle. I know it better than you, for it has been my constant companion these twelve months.’
She told her story for the second time that night, leaving aside all references to Captain Ross except in passing. The other thing she left out of her incredible tale was her barrenness. Whether it was true or not, she did not want to seem less of a wife to Richard – she did not want to compete with that ample frau in the pantry who could doubtless have a litter of babies if she wished.
Richard listened to her at first open mouthed and then, as she talked about the army, began to interject. ‘Ah, Gardiner. I served under him at Chiari.’ ‘Don’t tell me about the Spanish musket. I know its little ways. The flintlock always sticks on the third fire.’ ‘Riva del Garda – I took a fever there myself.’ They were almost, almost, friends again; unthinking, she drank from the goodwife’s cup, once she even laughed. As if he detected a distant call of truce, Richard said, hesitantly: ‘Kit, I must ask you. How did you find me? Is our … relationship … generally known?’
She looked at him, scorn reawakening. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I gave it abroad that you were my brother. But know this – if you are living with that dame as man and wife you are guilty of bigamy.’ He looked towards the parlour door and she knew the truth. He was married. ‘One word to Tichborne and you will be discharged directly.’ She spoke harshly. Ever since she’d taken that first step over Kavanagh’s threshold to follow Richard into the army, she’d looked upon their marriage as a Holy Grail, and all the time he’d been living here, sipping quietly from a clay cup.
He went whiter than he’d been when he’d first laid eyes on her. And then she could see exactly what this life meant to him – this house, this jug of wine, this dog. This woman. Their marriage had been an illusion. This was real.
‘Did you even write?’ she asked, plaintively.
‘Kit,’ he said, shaking his head a little, the smallest smile playing at his lips. ‘You know I have never been one for letters.’
And there it was. That one sentence: the useless, don’t-blame-me defence, the things-just-happen-to-me attitude, told her then of the magnitude of her mistake. Was this what she had followed across oceans and mountains and plains? She looked in his green eyes, searching. She tried to find her Richard in there – the Richard who had first kissed her when she was making a bed in Kavanagh’s, who’d chased her about the dining board, and tickled her until she screamed, the Richard who had taken her virginity in their marriage bed. He dropped his eyes and she knew the truth. She could not find him – her Richard was not there.
Suddenly she was blindly furious. She could have hit him then – not a fishwife’s slap but a blinding swinging cut with the blade she no longer owned – the blade she had taken up for him and then given up for him. Instead her fist landed on the table; the cups and jug jumped, the candle guttered, and the dog began to bark. The woman came back into the room, brow furrowed under her lace cap. Richard sprang up, hands outstretched, soothing her, encouraging her out of the door. The intimacy of that little conversation was the final straw for Kit. For the first time since Dublin she dropped her head on her crossed arms and wept. All the time she sobbed, Richard sat across from her, shifting awkwardly like a stranger. He had no comfort to give her, not even a pat such as he gave his dog.
At length she raised her face, and dried her cheeks. She was surprised to find she felt better; despite what she’d been through, she still had herself. She looked at Richard. There was no accusation in her gaze now, just curiosity. ‘What happened to you after that night at Kavanagh’s? I want to know.’
His tale mirrored hers – he’d gone to the Golden Last, then Genova, then the mountains. It transpired that they’d passed by each other several times: Richard had been in Villafranca where Lieutenant Gardiner had fallen in the castle’s fountain, drunk. He’d been in Rovereto when Marlborough had come to town, and he’d been, as she knew, in Luzzara. And he’d been with the sappers to undermine the bridge in Cremona. ‘I did not think I would come back from Cremona,’ he confessed. ‘It was only after that siege that Chiara and I became serious. Conflict instructs you in what counts the most.’ He’d forgotten to whom he spoke, his eyes shining. ‘Until then it was just dalliance.’
‘I could put her on the turning stool, you know,’ Kit said. ‘Spin her until her guts spill out of her mouth. I could cut her so you wouldn’t want her any more. Take her nose, like they do to the whores. I know how, I know how to use a blade.’ She was crying again, ugly sobs, as ugly as the words that spilled unbidden from her mouth. ‘You are not married in truth,’ she said. ‘Not married in the eyes of God. The priest – did your widow pay him well to perjure himself?’
‘You are right,’ admitted Richard. ‘But what I have here has more substance than our union, even though we were blessed by God. I believe, Kit, I truly believe that I will love Chiara for all of my life, and therefore God, at the end of it, will forgive me.’ He sounded more definite about this than in any pronouncement she had heard him make in his life, including his wedding vows. For a moment, Kit did not know what to say. His words stopped her in her tracks. He pressed on. ‘Kit,’ he said gently. ‘We did not know each other really. Did we? We were the youngest creatures in our house – a beautiful colleen, a likely young chap, under the same roof. We united because it made sense. You always took the lead. Chiara and I, we are more like partners.’
She had not known he had seen so much. How strange that he’d found happiness with a foreigner – home-loving Richard, who’d never been outside Dublin. She used to speak French to vex him, and he would pin her down and kiss her till she stopped. And now he was married to a Roveretani, and would likely never go home again.
‘How is Maura?’ he asked, as if catching her thoughts.
‘She told me to come.’
‘Did she!’ The first real smile.
With the smile, he was once again her old Richard, and she loved him again. She was suddenly terribly sad, awash with self-pity. What a waste. ‘Such hardships,’ she said. ‘Such hardships I have endured. I near drowned, many times. Froze my very marrow on the mountain. Almost lost a finger, took a musket ball in the hip …’ She could not go on, could
not tell him what else that shot had done. ‘What did I do to deserve this? Have I not been dutiful? Have I not done everything that could be asked of a wife?’
Richard dropped his head. ‘And more.’ He looked about him, sadly. The little house, the glazed windows, the widow’s homely alpine furniture. And above his head, through the wattle and plaster of the ceiling, a comfy bed with linens and a tick mattress and stuffed pillows. His marriage bed. His home. ‘Is it your will,’ he said, ‘that I return with you to Ireland?’
They looked at each other. Here was Kit, there was Richard, sitting across the cups and the dying candle. All fury spent, all passion long gone. Kit did not want to be this woman. She’d only just begun to be who she could be. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I will keep your secret.’ She sat a little straighter, straight as she’d sat in the saddle as a dragoon, and dried her tears. ‘Commend me to your wife,’ she said, ‘and say I had to be on my way.’
At the door he touched her arm. ‘Is there anything you need?’ he asked.
There were so many answers she could have given.
‘You need money?’
‘No!’ She spoke vehemently. She did not want to take anything from him.
‘What will you do?’ It was the first flicker of interest he had shown in her future.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Kit,’ he said gently. ‘I did love you. Once.’
She closed the door on him. She would rather not have known.
Chapter 24
Intending no harm but meant to pass by …
‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)
Kit spent the rest of the night on the Forbato bridge, watching the scene played out in the lighted windows of 17 Via Ranier close by.
She saw the widow return to the table, distressed, and sit down. Kit could imagine her words. Who was that dame? She is no sister of yours. She saw Richard, lying easily, making conciliatory gestures, palms down; the widow shaking her head, crying. Kit watched him placate her, in a way she knew well. His desire for an easy life had always made him persuasive when he was in the wrong. He came to Chiara, kissing her gently like a child, touching her constantly as he had not dared to touch Kit.
She grew angry again. Richard was fighting for this marriage – should she not have fought for hers? She had spent the last year fighting. How could she walk away now? If she could take him home, in time she would feel once again the feelings that dragged her over oceans and over mountains. She would return tomorrow and drag him before a tribunal – stake her claim and let the officers deal with him. Let them have one more night together, she thought. Tomorrow, we’ll see.
Richard was on his knees now, contrite. Forgive me, forgive me, she means nothing. The little dog, adoring, jumped at him, covering his face with fond licks. The dog was a powerful ally; he carried the action; for both lovers laughed, and when they sobered, the day was won.
The widow looked down at Richard doubtfully, then fondly, wanting to believe his love. He got to his feet again and held out his hand. She, too, got up, hand in the small of her back, wincing, arching her body, eyes screwed tight, belly out-thrust.
Kit’s world stopped. Started again.
Pregnant. The widow was pregnant.
Now Kit felt the cold. It was in her bones, her eyes stung with it. A baby. There was to be a baby at 17 Via Ranier. Another soldier’s bastard. Chiara was a ‘respectable woman’ – she remembered Richard’s odd insistence. Now she understood. He had known Chiara was with child. If she let them be, the soldier’s bastard would be a legitimate child, born, for all the world knew, in holy wedlock. By walking away she would save another babe, another Christiana, from the mountainside. Kit could find it in her to take Chiara on in a fair fight, but she could not destroy a family. At 17 Via Ranier the candle, carried by some careful hand, left the lower room dark and in a moment warmed the upper window of the bedchamber. The dog, abandoned by his beloved master in a darkened room, pierced the night with a heart-rending howl. Kit turned away and walked across the bridge.
Now she wanted to go to Ross. She wanted to steal into the officer’s rooms above the silk post, wake him from his sleep. And tell him what? What did Captain Ross want with Mistress Kit Walsh? A bedraggled, half-frozen grubby woman with lank candle-fat hair, sitting on his coverlet and telling him a fantastical tale. How would such a woman compare to Kit Walsh, Ross’s brother in arms, his battle-fellow and partner in war? What could a woman offer to a man who loved men? She must concede and stand aside. And even if Atticus Lambe had been wrong about Ross, even if the captain could love a woman again, Kit was still married in the eyes of God. Those saints of the mountain did not mean so little to her that she could disregard their almond gaze.
She could not go to Ross but she needed a friend. She tore a handful of bitter grass from the verge as she went, and in the bleak half-light made her way to the regimental stables.
Here her luck turned: for the dragoon guard at the door who sat musket at shoulder, was, in fact, fast asleep. She crept closer; she recognised the man, a fellow named Fulford who had twitted her several times about her red hair.
There he sat, stockinged feet crossed, as if he were at his own fireside. Why, she thought, would Tichborne give Fulford the dead watch anyway – it was the time at which the most stalwart man was most likely to tire, and Fulford was no stalwart. Thinking like a soldier gave her courage. She took the private’s musket from his limp hand, and butted the stock into his temple just above his ear. She felt no guilt; she was saving him from a flogging.
She stepped over the unconscious soldier, relishing the familiar smell of the stables; the warmth, the steaming flanks, the shifting hooves. She knew Flint’s hocks at once. Placing her hand on the grey coat, she trailed her fingers from tail to nose, whispering the mare’s name. Flint turned with a delighted whicker, tossing her head with a keen look in her liquid eye. Kit allowed herself a moment to lay her cheek on the warm neck. Flint knew her at once, despite her strange attire, and mouthed at the clump of grass in her hand.
She took Flint’s rope head collar and led her past the unconscious guard. The sight of his boots, down at heel and leaning together by the door jamb, made her pause. Of all the accoutrements of a man she missed her boots the most. When Richard had asked her what she’d wanted she had not thought to ask him for the boots from his feet. But here were a pair of army-issue boots, down at heel, leaning together at the doorpost. They fitted remarkably well. She thought of leaving Bianca’s button boots in their place, picturing the foolish Fulford’s face as he groggily tried to push his toes into them; but she did not want to jeopardise her flight. The jest cheered her though.
To take the horse and the boots gave credence to the story of her desertion – Dragoon Kit Walsh, who escaped a flogging by dressing in the clothes of the mother of his child, and stole his grey and a pair of boots to aid his flight. Once safely outside the stable she mounted Flint with some difficulty, but once she dug the scuffed heels into Flint’s sides, they were away, and nothing had changed. She galloped across the Forbato bridge for the last time and, without turning to look in Richard’s window, threw Bianca’s shoes in the river.
It was nearly dawn. In her cell, Bianca would be thrown her breakfast at the change of the dawn guard, and taken up for her flogging. ‘I hope he is worthy,’ Bianca had said of Richard. Had she, too, seen Richard with his widow? Had she changed places with Kit not so that Kit could achieve her happy ending, but break with a man who was not worthy?
Guilt sat like a stone weight in Kit’s stomach. In her hurry to get to Richard, she had not thought enough of what would happen to Bianca. What if the soldiers kept her as a plaything to be passed around the castle? Kit could not betray Bianca’s sacrifice by putting herself in danger again, but as dawn broke she rode across the river and up the hill above the castle. There, sheltered by trees, she watched two of Captain Caradew’s men enter the castle to collect her from her cell. Then a general commotion, a ringing of bells, and suddenl
y Bianca was at the gate. Holding on to her gaping uniform, she was flung into the dirt by two guards, followed by a gob of spit.
Kit waited until Bianca had picked herself up, and hurried, head down, into the same alleys that had hidden Kit the night before. Bianca was free too. Then Kit turned Flint’s head down the valley, kicked her sides and galloped away from Rovereto and Richard.
As she rode away from the camp, she began to relax. She had no real idea in what direction she was going, and seeing a cart approaching on the winding road ahead, she started to slow down to ask. But soon, far sooner than her eyes could make out the features of the figure on the box, she knew the driver. He was wearing a grey hurricane cloak and a slouch hat, and his pale hands held the reins of the black coach pair like the figure of death himself. Dr Atticus Lambe.
The road clung to the vertiginous mountain. Lambe could not turn at all in his bulky medical cart and she could not turn back now without drawing attention to herself. She rode on, drawing her hood over her eyes. As they grew closer, closer, she could not help seeking out the grey pale eyes with the black pin pupils that she had looked into so often.
But Atticus Lambe’s eyes swept over her without a flicker of recognition. She was a woman, and she was beneath his notice.
She breathed out with relief. She was a free woman and could ride wherever she wanted. She was truly alone for the first time in her life, and she didn’t think she had ever been quite so unhappy.
PART TWO
The Fan
Chapter 25
Kit Page 22