Absolute Honour

by C. C. Humphreys

  She rose in her turn, alarmed. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘My lodgings.’ She gasped. ‘Do not fear. We still have time. If you will wait by the horses—’

  ‘You cannot go!’ she cried with a force that startled him. ‘Hearken to the band, sir. They are getting closer. The crowds may prevent your swift return. There can be nothing of such importance—’

  It was his turn to interrupt. ‘Forgive me, but there is. I have another uniform there. Still poor,’ he added hastily, ‘but better than this horror. And now I remember, my sword is with it, necessary for the dangerous road.’ He pulled away, began to move towards the gate. ‘Do not fear. I will not go through the crowds. The park takes me around the back of the Circus.’

  She seized his hand. ‘I beg you. Do not leave me. I feel sure all will go amiss if we do not leave now!’ The force of her declaration, the tears again in her eyes, made him hesitate. She saw, drew close to him again. ‘Please, Beverley,’ she said her tones softer, that husk coming into them. ‘Please.’

  She had pressed herself into him. Her dress was not the swathes of cloth she wore to the Assemblies. It was more like the linen shift he’d watched her emerge from the water in, clinging to her shape. That shape pressed against him now, into him, at distinct points.

  ‘My love,’ he murmured, his timbre matching hers.

  She raised her face to him. He looked into those eyes, thought, as ever, how he wanted to drown himself five fathoms deep in their greenness. He bent, kissed the lids that closed, and when his lips moved downwards, there was no holding back as there had been even in the kiss at the Spring Gardens. Her lips parted. He was lost.

  Somehow they walked backwards, his hands up and cupping her face, hers reaching back. Her knees collided with the bench and she guided him down, the kissing frantic now, a jumble of give and take. When he ran the tip of his tongue along the roof of her mouth, she gave a cry that turned swiftly to a laugh. He threw her hat to the side, thrust his fingers into her piled-up hair.

  Her mouth was close to his ear. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes?’ Confirmation came in her sigh, in the way she suddenly pushed herself up off the bench and into him as she had before. His hands moved down slowly, fingers stroking from her neck, running around and then over each breast, pressing through the material, circling, feeling a firming there. ‘Yes?’ he asked again, the last question he thought he’d ever ask. For she didn’t reply in words, just took one of his hands, kissed it and pushed it lower.

  There was a moment perhaps when he still could have stopped, before the world became blurred by linen rising, flung aside, by cotton shifts furled like sails, by scent and sight and the sudden surprise of her thigh against his cheek. He rose up and her hands were steady at his breeches’ buttons, where his fumbled. A slight pain came as his knees ground once more into the gravel of the garden; pain swiftly supplanted by sensations of a better kind, as he ripped the last of his buttons away, moved clear, moved inside her. A moan, but not of pain, swept the last cautions from his mind, as did her movements beneath him, not holding him off, guiding him, her legs so wrapped around him that he could not move if he’d wanted to, which he didn’t; content to stay like that until … until that band, getting ever closer, played in tune at last. Which would be never.

  He lifted and turned her so he was sat upon the bench and she upon him. The rain rolled off the bare shoulder thrust from her shift, fell onto him, cooling him but only a little as breaths came shorter, his matching hers, faster now, faster. Groans replaced breath, somehow they’d moved again and he was on top of her on the bench and the moment came when he could hold off no longer and she managed the impossible, pulling him even deeper inside, holding him there while all their moans passed, all their shudders subsided.

  ‘Stay,’ came the whispered order, and he obeyed, shifting only enough to take his weight off her, and to reach for his crumpled cloak to cover them both. They lay there, her eyes closed, his open so he could study a little pulse in her neck, fluttering like a moth trapped behind glass.

  ‘Letty,’ he whispered, and she wriggled into his chest. He stared up into the Judas tree that part-sheltered them, amazed that he’d never noticed before just how intense was the purple of its flowers …

  He woke with a start, arm pressed between her body and the bench. He thought it was the pain that woke him, not the tuneless band that was now considerably nearer, was probably close to entering the Circus itself. When he moved his arm, she gave a little whimper but slept on. He watched her for a moment, then shivered. The rain was still falling lightly and if he was cold, he was sure she must be, too. For a moment he thought of waking her; but she looked so beautiful he didn’t want to disturb her. She hadn’t slept in a week, she’d said. Mrs O’Farrell would, surely, be gawking at the King. He could allow her a few minutes more. He just needed something to keep her warm. Another blanket would be useful for the journey too.

  The rear door of the house was locked, her bags for the elopement outside it; mercifully few, he noted approvingly. She may have been a romantic but she was no fool. He stepped back, looked up to the first level, where the drawing rooms would be. A window was open a half inch. Between the pediment of the rear door and the window sill there was a six-foot gap.

  The sill was a little slick with rain. But the exterior covering of the joist, a small metal shield, was not quite flush to the wall, giving him enough of a foothold to perch on, reach a hand, grip the underside of the window itself. With a heave he was balanced on the sill, then shoved the window up and was through it.

  He was at the rear window of a drawing room, the one where Letty said Mrs O’Farrell would obligingly doze while her niece walked alone in the garden. Thus Jack expected a chair to be placed there, was surprised when there was not one; a surprise swiftly surpassed when he realized that not only was there no chair, there was no furniture in the room of any kind whatsoever.

  He moved into the hallway, as cheers exploded below, and the band increased the discordance of their playing. The King was entering the square just as Jack entered the second drawing room to find it as barren as the first. As with the other room, it was clear that it had not been recently emptied of furniture. There had simply never been any furniture in it.

  ‘No,’ he said aloud, not believing. ‘Oh no.’

  A sprint to the top floor, to bedrooms devoid of beds. As he stood there gaping, even above the music from the street, he heard her cry.

  ‘Beverley! Beverley! Where are you?’

  He was down to the drawing room in a moment. ‘Here,’ he called, appearing at the window before thrusting himself through it, lowering himself to the hand- and footholds, reaching the ground, turning to her. She was standing by the bench, still beneath the Judas tree.

  ‘What were you doing?’ she asked as he moved to her.

  ‘Looking for something to cover you up. I didn’t find anything.’

  Now he was close, he could see fear in her eyes. Not in her voice though. ‘I’ve a cloak in my bags.’

  ‘No,’ he said, just holding back the anger. ‘I didn’t find anything. The house has not been lived in.’ Suddenly he shouted, ‘What is happening here?’

  She flinched but did not recoil. ‘I was going to tell you. My aunt decided to leave Bath. That is why we had to flee today. We …’

  She stopped. Something in his face made her stop.

  ‘You kept me here,’ he said, gesturing to the bench. ‘Isn’t that what you did? Seduced me to keep me here.’ He moved close, grabbed her arm roughly. ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ she cried, ‘I swear it, Jack, I …’ He let go of her arm. ‘What?’ she said. ‘Why do you look at me like that?’

  ‘Because you called me Jack.’

  It was all he could do not to vomit. He felt as he had aboard the ships he’d voyaged in, sick in his stomach, the ground shifting beneath him. ‘You called me Jack,’ he repeated softly.

  ‘Yes
,’ she shrugged, her eyes downcast. ‘Jack.’

  And suddenly it came, in recent voices, echoing.

  You’ve the finest view in Bath.

  I’ll tell you how it all turns out.

  And further back …

  I used to be a dangerous man. Not any more.

  And even longer ago … Men chasing a naked Irishman down to the dock at Newport, yelling a word after him, a word Jack hadn’t quite been able to hear because the wind had changed suddenly. He’d thought they shouted, ‘Trader!’ and considered it odd at the time. Traitor – not trader.

  ‘Your cousin, Red Hugh McClune,’ he said softly. ‘The traitor.’

  ‘No, Bev … Jack, no, you must—’

  He brushed her hand aside, turned and sprinted for the gate. Her cries after him blended with the shouts from the Circus and the tuneless French horns. Surprisingly, though, at last he could detect a rhythm.

  ‘One elephant,’ he muttered. ‘Two elephants.’

  The long way would be the quickest. The short route across the Circus would be blocked by people hailing the King.

  A rough path paralleled the circle within. Part gravel, it often gave way to stretches of mud, sticky and thick after the day’s downpours. He crossed two stable lanes that serviced the buildings, storage for carriages, stalls for horses. At the end of the second row of these structures, he glanced into the Circus itself. The platform in the very middle now swarmed with people. The bands had ceased and he could hear someone speaking poetry. As at Queen Square, there was another glimpse of that wig.

  Three horses were tied up behind his lodgings, like the three he’d left at Letty’s, equally laden. The door to the kitchen was open, and renewed cheering from the street covered his climb past the parlours and on up to the bedrooms. He stopped, listened. Under the noise from outside he could detect sounds in his bedroom, something heavy being dragged across the floor. Quietly, he slipped into the other room, the one he’d used for storage. The uniform he’d forgotten still hung from one bedpost. Ignoring it, he reached under the bed for the second thing he’d forgotten in his haste. Drawing his small sword, he moved again onto the landing and across to his bedroom door, put a hand on the doorknob, took a breath …

  He’d expected Red Hugh to be by the window, grenade in hand. In fact, the Irishman was stretched upon the bed, hands behind his head, though he moved fairly quickly when Jack came through the door; off the bed, into the corner with an indistinguishable yell.

  ‘Jack,’ he cried, clutching at his ribs. ‘You near made me shit my breeches! I thought you were the Watch, so I did.’

  Jack moved into the room, sword raised before him, his arm straight. Behind its guard he looked around swiftly, saw the things he expected – a chair by the window, a Dragoon pistol hanging in a holster from it, three grenades bunched on it, a fuse cord draped over it, glowing.

  ‘You bloody traitor,’ Jack whispered as he looked back.

  Red Hugh shook his head. ‘To whom? I serve the true King, that’s all.’

  ‘Actually, McClune, I meant a traitor to me.’

  ‘No, lad, I—’

  Red Hugh had come forward and Jack flicked the sword point at him, making him halt. ‘All your reluctance to introduce me to Letty? A stratagem. You baited a hook for me, your friend …’ He was finding words hard to come by, till his fury made him shout it out. ‘You used your cousin like a whore, to seduce me.’

  Hands came up in protest. ‘What are you saying? I did no such thing, I swear it. Was I not wanting a good match for my lovely Laetitia? And did I not know of your dealings with women so far? Sure, I caught two hussies fighting over you like cats in the Llandoger Trow. You’d left that widow in Newport, an actress in London—’

  Jack, staring over his blade, couldn’t understand how, at this moment, they were discussing his liaisons. ‘My ambitions for your cousin were always honourable while you …’

  Another huzzah came from the Circus and both men glanced, glanced back swiftly. Red Hugh spoke again. ‘Jack, I just assumed that what you came by too easily you would esteem too lightly. You’d have been off and straying in a year, with my cousin walled up in Absolute House or some such.’

  ‘Can you think so little of me?’

  ‘I think so little of all young men. I was one myself.’ He lowered his hands, stretching them out towards Jack in appeal. ‘So I made you take a little test.’

  It was almost plausible. But the grenades did not allow Jack to believe even for a moment. ‘You used me,’ he swallowed, trying to contain his anger, ‘to keep these rooms for you. And you couldn’t afford two houses on the Circus, as you’d spent all your prize money on Letty’s three dresses. Hence the nightly charade over there; courting her in the garden, never seeing her enter the house.’ He waved beyond the music. That brought it back to him. ‘By God,’ he murmured. ‘You have used me as a cover so you can blow up the King.’

  ‘Now that’s an entirely separate matter,’ the Irishman said. ‘I don’t interfere in your politics and you should have the courtesy not to bedevil mine.’

  Jack gaped. ‘Separate? You have dragged me into your conspiracy, linked the name of Absolute with your treason, compromised my honour with your cousin, and her honour – if she has any – with me!’ The sword point, still thrust forward, was beginning to waver with his rage. ‘The lengths you were prepared to let her go to …’ He choked on the memory. ‘Well, I realized in the nick, did I not?’

  ‘Did you, lad? Did you now?’

  They had circled as they spoke, Jack moving past the window, the Irishman climbing over the bed. It was the suddenness of the music – the brass refrain loud, its contrast to the gentle Irish voice – that made Jack’s eyes jerk to it and back only in time to see the other man reach into the corner there and produce a sword of his own, swiftly cleared from its scabbard. ‘Now, lad,’ Red Hugh went on again in the same quiet tone, ‘let’s be having no more nonsense, shall we?’ His sword made a pass at the window. ‘For haven’t I got things to be getting on with?’

  ‘Not while I stand here, you haven’t,’ Jack replied.

  ‘Ah, it would hurt me to hurt you, boy. Put up. You know you cannot beat me.’

  ‘Now why would I be knowing such a thing?’ Jack said, mocking the accent, coming forward.

  They fought in the narrow space between the bedposts and the window, as wide as the usual space between fighters in a salle, not as long. Red Hugh’s sword was in his left hand as always, thus coming at Jack from the brightness of the window.

  Jack had attended the fencing school in the Haymarket since the age of eleven. Lately, he’d been using other weapons – the heavier cavalry sabre, the Iroquois tomahawk – but the small sword was what he was trained in, the combination of wit, suppleness and strength of wrist what he loved.

  He attacked, a feint to the open chest, the blade removed as the parry came across seeking metal, meeting air because Jack had flicked it under again, a slight withdrawal, a hard jab at the parrying hand. He missed, but only just, Red Hugh dropping hand and blade away, stepping back as he did. He brought his own weapon up and across to halt Jack’s next lunge, a lunge he was not going to make. He merely took the space gained with a step forward and waited.

  ‘Now, aren’t you the prize cockerel?’ Red Hugh smiled. ‘I always knew I was fond of you, lad. I didn’t know how much till I just saw you crow.’ He gave a swift salute with his sword. ‘Though I must ask you one thing before we recommence: the missing sleeve? Is it an English swordsman’s thing?’

  Jack grunted, came again, taking a high guard, his left hand reaching out far before him. Red Hugh stepped away, keeping the distance but leaning far forward, his long arm reaching so his own blade was advanced enough to take Jack’s, lift it, keeping it there as each watched the other’s eyes for the shift that would betray the next move. His blade holding Jack’s up, the man could strike down – if he had the speed. But Jack would bet he didn’t, not any more, and with a circle of the wrist
to direct the weapon away, his own riposte would have his opponent too spread to protect himself. The fight would be over.

  Red Hugh’s eyes shifted, Jack dropped his blade, circled, missed metal, circled quicker, still missed it, stepping back. Something dazzled from the light of the window and he thought he caught it. He didn’t. It caught him. The Irishman did have the speed after all.

  Red Hugh had followed close, brought the thicker end of his weapon, the forte, tight into Jack’s, forcing the younger man’s blade down, pulling it slightly off the wrist. Then, with a sudden hard flick, it was gone, sailing across the bed, flopping into the pillow. And the point of the Irishman’s weapon was pressed, lightly but distinctly, into Jack’s throat.

  ‘Now, now,’ he said softly, just as he’d said to Captain Link before he rendered him nauseous aboard the Sweet Eliza. ‘Now, now.’

  Jack swallowed, the motion of his Adam’s apple pressing the point a little harder into his skin, nicking him there. ‘Are you going to kill me?’

  ‘Kill my friend? How could you think me so uncivil? I am only here to kill a king.’

  Jack, still looking in the Irishman’s eyes, saw them move on something behind him. He turned just enough to see a man with a cudgel coming up behind him, just quickly enough to recognize him as the footpad who had attacked Letty and Mrs O’Farrell, not quickly enough to prevent the cudgel falling.

  – FOURTEEN –

  Percussion and Repercussion

  Jack knew a little about clubs. He had knocked out his cousin Craster with one in Montreal and the brute had not woken for six hours. He had himself taken a blow from an Abenaki war hammer that had him unconscious for near a day; nauseous and half-blind for three more. There were those who knew how to strike but not kill, and those who didn’t.

  The footpad didn’t. There was pain and a little blood, but the unconsciousness must only have lasted a short while. The increasingly discordant music from the street that had merely annoyed before now physically hurt. The various musicians were now attempting ‘Rule Britannia’. Once he realized he was awake to be pained by it, he knew he was awake.