Kit

by Marina Fiorato

  This was not the red tide she had seen marching up the Prospect road that day, but a blue tide, closing in on Turin like a tidal wave. For a moment she could not tear her eyes away. Then she dug her spurs into Flint, hard, and rode like the devil down to the plains.

  From then on it was a desperate race. The French outriders had already closed with the standing cavalry, the red coats fighting with the blue. The plain was now flooded with bluecoats, surging forward on the city, an awesome, terrible sight – so this was what forty thousand men looked like – more souls than she had ever seen gathered in one place. In despair she spurred Flint harder – she had to find new reserves of energy, to press forward; she had to find in that thundering desperate race the soldier within her, under the petticoats and layers of silk and lace. The red ribbon around the walls shredded, entangled with the blue, was trodden down. She felt sick as she saw the red horsemen fall. Not him, she prayed, let it not be him. Where, in God’s name, was Marlborough?

  And then a miracle: a trumpet sounded from Superga hill; and a red wave gathered at the skyline, swelled and broke. And front and centre, there was Marlborough, his blond wig streaming out behind him, thundering down the hill on his white charger. There was a leader, first into battle. I require none to go where I will refuse to venture, he’d said. There was a general, not a man like Ormonde who would skulk in his palace, like a cat upon his cushion. The French turned in confusion, turned and fought. The dragoons, let be, streamed inside the gates.

  The French, pinned between the English and the river, fought like cornered rats; as Kit approached, some of them ran and jumped into the river, to be swept to death or safety. But she had eyes for nothing but the crumpled red coats lying on the battlefield. She urged Flint across the river, then slid from the mare’s back. She stumbled forward and breathed again the scent of death. Aughrim, she thought. Mantova. Da and Richard. Once again she looked into each dead face, turned each lifeless body with her boot; a dozen, two dozen. Some faces she recognised, some she didn’t.

  She carried on her dreadful task as the crows wheeled overhead, as the battle raged on the other side of the river; this time there was no scavenging. Likely the searchers watched, greedy eyed, from the city, waiting for the English to retreat so they could pick at the corpses. Just one redcoat, in the far distance, bent over the bodies.

  Kit straightened up, but then she saw him not probing pockets or slitting stomachs for coin, but pressing his ear to each chest searching for the greatest treasure of all – a heartbeat. And if he did not find one, gently closing unseeing eyes with his long fingers. As she watched he straightened up; only one man of her acquaintance was so tall and straight and had a fall of hair so dark. Only one man she knew wore Sean Kavanagh’s sword.

  She walked to him as if she strode through water. He looked up, as if he had dreamt her.

  ‘Christiane? Comtesse? What do you here?’ He ran to her, half angry, and gave her a little shake. ‘Comtesse? Come to shelter. Here’s no place for a woman.’

  She wanted to protest. But it is. A battlefield – why not? Every place is a place for a woman. She knew then that it was not the soldier in her that had made her ride so hard, it was the woman, Kit Kavanagh, a woman just as strong as the dragoon she had been. Women were not soft and weakened creatures fit only for decoration and gentle pastimes. They were Maura, running an alehouse while dying of a lump in her breast, they were Bianca, raising a child in a town that thought her a whore, they were Kit Kavanagh, riding into battle to save a man she thought might love her.

  Unable to answer his question, unable to speak from relief, she went to him, took his warm face in her cold hands and pressed her lips to his, as hard as she could, needing to feel that he was alive, that he breathed.

  For a moment, he kissed her back, just as hard. Then he drew back. ‘This is folly,’ he said, and she did not know whether he meant the embrace, or the place in which she’d chosen to bestow it. ‘Come.’ He took her by the arm, and pulled her with him, stumbling to the postern over and around the red bodies. She pulled back. ‘What of the dragoons?’ she asked.

  ‘Safe inside,’ he replied, ‘I was looking for survivors.’ He hammered on the city gate and shouted the words: ‘Nemo me impune lacessit!’ The gates opened before them, and he took her hand and pulled her through them.

  Inside the citadel, the scene was scarcely calmer than outside. Foot soldiers ran hither and yon, cavalry trotted back and forth, artillery carts brought ammunition to the already loaded barbican. Every coat was the red of the English or the bronze and black of the Hessians. The battle raged outside the walls, but here Kit was among friends.

  In the middle of the chaos, she stood facing Captain Ross holding both of his hands as if they were at the church door. She could think of nothing sensible to say. ‘You stayed alive.’

  ‘I told you I would try. As did you.’

  ‘And I found you.’

  ‘As you said you would.’ He shook his head, incredulous, as if waking from a dream. ‘I have so much to ask you.’

  She laughed, shakily. ‘And I have so much to tell.’

  She stepped forward to kiss him again, but felt, all of a sudden, other eyes upon her.

  ‘Comtesse!’

  She turned to see Brigadier Panton pushing through the press of red coats towards her, a Hessian guard at each shoulder.

  ‘Comtesse Christiane Saint-Hilaire de Blossac,’ he barked, ‘you are under arrest, in the name of the queen, for infiltrating Her Majesty’s army as a spy for the French.’

  Chapter 40

  Now mark what followed and what did betide …

  ‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)

  As Kit languished in jail, for the second time in her life, she was not, to begin with, unduly concerned. Ross was alive, she knew that Turin was safe, she knew that Marlborough was her ally. There must have been some misunderstanding. Panton had said she was a French spy; he meant, of course, a spy for the English upon the French. He of all people knew how hard she had travailed in the English cause – had he not placed her in a carriage with a dead man, and shot at her, to see her through the gates of Mantova?

  She remembered the report of the musket, snapping from the mountains, as she rode to Turin the previous day. Someone shot at her. Her mind slowed, clockwork wreathed in treacle, sticking, juddering, gathering pace again.

  Slowly, shivering with something other than cold, she pieced it all together. Ormonde, once he found her gone, had her followed by Panton, his lapdog, with instructions that she was not to reach Marlborough. But Panton had failed to catch her, and then failed to stop her reaching Turin. Now she was in company he could not kill her in cold blood, she must be silenced in another way. Ormonde always had a contingency plan. She was to be captured, her story twisted, her word tarnished. Ormonde’s own words came back to her, as clear as if he was in the cell with her. If you are discovered, I will wash my hands of you.

  By the second day she knew that no one was coming for her. That was the day she took the diamonds from her ears and wrists and throat and pushed them deep into her bodice. She thought of Ormonde. Now the cat had woken, and stretched and tempered his claws.

  On the third day the door was thrown open, and she dared to hope her salvation was at hand; but she was merely taken from her cell and bundled into a barred wagon. Her pleas to send a message to Marlborough and Ross fell on deaf ears. She shifted her bruised body and repeated her message in English and French, and even the Florentine of Mezzanotte, but to no avail – she was in the belly of the Empire now, and she had no German.

  Blinking in the daylight she could see from the slabs of daylight between the bars that she was being taken from the rearward gate of the city out into the mountains. She held the bars and breathed the air, inhaling cold terror. God forbid she was being taken back to Ormonde.

  The reality was no less frightening. The barred wagon stopped at a vast stone monastery. As she was dragged out of the carriage the wind whipped about her skir
ts, rooks rose and cawed from the numerous dark towers above, and a flurry of snow whirled about her head. As she pulled her travel cloak close she thought that it must be a year since she had huddled in the mountains above Rovereto, with her head on Ross’s chest, lulled to sleep by the beating of his heart.

  She was taken across the courtyard, a guard at each arm, and into a cavernous room with an altar at one end. Rows of soldiers sat upon pews as if she was to serve mass.

  ‘Pray stand for our honoured judge; Johan Wilhelm, Elector Count Palatine of Neuberg, Duke of Ulich and Berg.’

  This was not a church; this was a courtroom. She scanned the crowd for Ross, or even Marlborough. There were plenty of English and Imperial uniforms but she could not see a single dragoon. Kit set her mouth in a grim line. She had worked in an alehouse long enough. She knew a stacked deck when she saw one.

  Kit sat where she was bidden between her two guards, on a raised bench in full view of the court. She watched the very grand figure of her judge enter the chamber.

  The Elector Palatine was a man of middle years and middle height; he wore a silver wig which curled about his long, lupine face. An ermine robe peeped from beneath his ochre cloak, as if indeed he were a wolf beneath his clothes. He seated himself at a high bench behind a lectern, and spoke in a growling voice, his tones carrying up the pillars to the cross-ribs of the ceiling, rolling around the church like a thundercloud. Kit felt, as she had so many times in the past year, that a storm was coming – but this day the rain would rain on her alone.

  ‘Let me see the accused.’

  Kit now stood as all others sat, clasped in a bruising hold about her upper arms by her two guards. She wondered how she looked to them all – her gown travel stained, her wig disarranged, her make-up streaked.

  ‘I see you have many names,’ said the Elector. ‘Christian Kavanagh. Kit Kavanagh. Kit Walsh. La Comtesse Christiane Saint-Hilaire de Blossac. How is this court to address you?’

  Kit raised her chin. She was finished with aliases. When she spoke it was with her full-throated breathy Dublin brogue. ‘Kit Kavanagh will do me very well, my lord.’

  ‘You call me “Honoured Judge”. Place your hand on the Bible, and swear to tell the truth in God’s name.’

  She put her hand on the cool leather binding of the volume that was handed to her. It could have been any book; for all she knew it was a collection of the tales Maura told her. ‘I do so swear.’

  ‘Kit Kavanagh, you stand accused of spying for the French, to the detriment of the cause of the Grand Alliance. You will hear the case against you, and then you will be given the chance to speak to the charges. You may sit.’ Kit sat down, heart beating rapidly. She genuinely had no idea what to expect. How could Ormonde indict her without implicating himself? ‘A true bill has been entered against you by one Brigadier Panton on behalf of the English Army. You are accused of spying on the command of the Grand Alliance on behalf of the command of the Franco-Spanish army, and to further their nefarious efforts to infiltrate and overwhelm the citadel of Turin. How do you plead?’

  Kit was silent – she had never been inside a courtroom, did not know the form of words; she had not, in all of Ormonde’s assiduous tuition, been prepared for an eventuality like this.

  The Elector sighed faintly. ‘As the defendant, you plead guilty or not guilty.’

  ‘Not guilty, Honoured Judge.’

  ‘The first witness shall be called.’

  Kit sat down heavily on the hard pew, waiting for the inevitable. She knew who the first – perhaps the only – witness would be, but was still not wholly prepared to see him again. When Ormonde entered she hardly recognised him in his army uniform. His coat was as red as blood, his buttons gleaming gold, his facings as white as the snow that fell softly against the stained-glass windows. But he did not make the mistake of looking as if he’d had a new uniform tailored for the occasion. His breastplate bore the scars of battle, his scabbard was scuffed. He had judged it perfectly – the sybarite had stayed at home, and the general had come to court. She hated him at that moment.

  Then she wondered – her greatest secret, concealed and untold, kept even from Ormonde himself, when should she reveal it? She had worn a uniform with more glory than he, she had been in the heat of battle, not watching from the crown of the hill as the Jacobites slipped on their own blood. Surely her service, in the Alliance’s cause, would put her loyalty beyond doubt? She watched Ormonde as he looked about the court, serious, unsmiling, and she kept her counsel. Her military career was the one card she held, and she’d watched enough card games in her time to know how the game was played. He would not know yet, from her lips, that she had changed his queen for a knave.

  It became evident that she was not required to tell her story. Ormonde would tell it – as a nobleman his account would necessarily be deemed more believable.

  ‘My lord duke,’ began the Elector, ‘the court thanks you for your testimonial.’

  Ormonde inclined his head. ‘I will do any office, great or small, in service of my country,’ he said nobly, hand upon his sword.

  Except fight like an honest man and a soldier. Kit pressed her lips together with an effort and kept her peace.

  ‘Would it please you to tell the court where you first met the accused?’

  Kit thought that she could see a chink in the clouds. What would Ormonde say now? What could he say? If he admitted that he had created the perfect spy, to undermine Marlborough and put himself at the leadership of the Alliance, then he must admit his own treachery. What confection would he create for the court? That he had taken a poor girl into his house? That he had felt sympathy for one of his countrymen, marooned in a foreign land?

  ‘I met her at the port of Venice.’ Ah, thought Kit, then it suits you now to forget our meeting on Killcommadan Hill. ‘She was trying to board a ship to leave that state.’

  ‘Was she successful in this endeavour?’

  ‘No: she did not have the money for the passage.’

  ‘How did you come to speak to her?’

  ‘I beckoned her over to my carriage.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I was taken by her.’

  ‘By her beauty, I suppose,’ said the Elector, as one who is tone deaf might speak of music.

  The men barracked and Ormonde half-smiled. ‘I will not perjure myself – by her beauty, yes; but by something else.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘She spoke perfect French. It seemed to me that she would be ideal for my purposes. I offered to stand her dinner in Venice, and become better acquainted with her.’

  ‘You discovered she had a French mother?’

  ‘Yes, Honoured Judge – from Poitiers in the Vienne.’

  ‘Is this true?’ The Elector turned at last to Kit.

  There was little profit in denying it. ‘Yes, my lord.’

  The Elector took up his quill. ‘French mother,’ he said aloud, as he wrote. He looked up again, this time at Ormonde. ‘And where had the accused been immediately prior to your meeting?’

  ‘She told me she had been at Rovereto, in Trentino. She believed her husband was stationed there, and she had followed him thus far from Ireland.’

  The Elector turned back to Kit. ‘Did you seek your husband at Rovereto?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘But you did not find him?’

  Kit thought about the little house at 17 Via Ranier, and Richard sitting hand in hand with his widow, a jug of wine between them, the little white dog at their feet. Then Richard, dead and cold with the same white dog howling on his grave. What use was it now to besmirch his memory with the stain of bigamy? He was dead, let him rest. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No sign of him.’

  ‘So, my Lord Ormonde,’ said the Elector. ‘You bought the accused dinner.’

  Yes, Fitzjames, thought Kit. What will you say now? The cat is in a corner. She felt confident for the first time. She had something to hold over him. She could tell the court that he
had recruited her as a spy, to overturn Marlborough – he would be disgraced. She would be freed.

  ‘And?’ prompted the Elector.

  ‘I made her an offer,’ said Ormonde.

  The soldiers jeered again, and Ormonde’s face was suddenly still. Aye, my lord, thought Kit, they would not treat Marlborough thus. The Elector held up one hand. ‘Am I to understand, my lord, that you solicited Fraulein Kavanagh for bedsport?’

  Ormonde smiled now. ‘No, my lord. I am a married man.’

  ‘The brothels are full of married men.’

  ‘Perhaps I should have said, then, that I am a man of honour. I made her quite a different offer.’ The court was now silent – you could have heard the drop of a tailor’s pin. ‘I asked her to become a spy.’

  Kit looked up, mouth agape.

  ‘A spy for the Grand Alliance?’

  ‘Of course. I was of the opinion that the war in these lands had reached a stalemate, and I decided that I would aid my noble successor the Duke of Marlborough.’

  Kit snorted, and earned herself a stern look from the Elector.

  ‘How did you plan to aid the duke?’

  ‘By gaining certain information that would further his cause. I was always fighting the war, always in my own way.’

  Kit could remain quiet no longer. She leapt to her feet. ‘Lies!’ she shouted. ‘Ormonde was working against Marlborough all along – he wants to be commander-in-chief of the Grand Alliance and works only for Marlborough’s disgrace! Ask him! Ask him!’

  She was wrestled back to her bench before she could say more, and the Elector fixed his sea-grey gaze upon her. ‘Fraulein Kavanagh. If you cannot keep quiet during the testimonies, then you will be returned to your cell and the trial will take place in your absence. You will have a chance to speak in good time, but by God, if you do it out of turn, I will take that chance away.’

  Kit sat back, her heart racing. Truth is the best falsehood indeed. Ormonde had followed his own motto – he had told the truth as far as it went but with a vital twist – he had claimed to be fighting for Marlborough, not against him. And for that one crucial detail, it was his word against hers.