Kit

by Marina Fiorato

  ‘Go on, my lord duke.’

  ‘I offered Miss Kavanagh a deal – I would educate her, feed her, clothe her. She would assume the persona of a French countess, and infiltrate the French court at Mantova to discover the strategy of the Two Crowns. If she did this for me – and for Marlborough – I would free her with a fortune.’

  ‘Is it your belief that when you first recruited Fraulein Kavanagh she had every intention of doing what you asked?’

  ‘I believe she wanted to make her fortune. So yes, I believed she would follow my orders as far as they went.’

  ‘And it is your belief that, after a time, she changed her allegiance from the Alliance to the Two Crowns?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘In your opinion, when did that happen?’

  ‘She left my care briefly, just after the siege of Mantova. Information from one of my deputies, Brigadier Panton, led her to believe that her husband may have died at the siege. She left my house that night, against my wishes, to seek him on the battlefield.’

  ‘And did she find him?’

  Ormonde blinked twice and looked down with respect and regret; the consummate actor. ‘Regretfully, I believe she did.’

  ‘And yet she returned to your house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What change had her dreadful discovery wrought within her?’

  ‘I believe a very great change. She was out of sorts, hostile where she had once been amicable, full of malign humour.’

  ‘And did her character remain fixed in this attitude?’

  ‘No. She then became tractable once more, and we resumed our studies.’

  ‘To what reason do you attribute such behaviour?’

  ‘I believe now that that is when she had decided that she would change sides. I think she felt that her husband had been let down badly by the Alliance’s strategists, and that her own journey and her travail had come to naught. I believe she decided that she would revert to her mother’s blood and throw in her lot with the French.’

  ‘When she saw her husband’s body at Mantova?’

  ‘Precisely then, my lord.’

  ‘When she returned to your house, were you angry with her?’

  ‘Very, my lord.’

  ‘Did you take any action against Fraulein Kavanagh that you think may have hardened her position against you and the Alliance?’

  Ormonde hesitated. Now, thought Kit, now he will lie.

  ‘Yes, Honoured Judge. I freely admit that I beat her for her disobedience.’ Ormonde looked at his beringed hands where they lay in his lap, the hands that had struck her. ‘I see now that I should have treated her with kindness. I was just so angry.’ He drove a fist into his palm. ‘I felt she’d jeopardised an opportunity to break the dreadful stalemate in the peninsula, and that more men, men like these’ – he gestured about the court – ‘would perish because of her.’ There was a sympathetic murmur from the assembled soldiers, and Kit felt their ranks of hostile eyes upon her.

  ‘I think we can all sympathise with your position, my lord,’ said the judge. ‘You had the greater good at heart.’

  ‘Always, Your Honour,’ said Ormonde, sincerely.

  ‘To recapitulate,’ summarised the Elector, ‘your contention is that you trained Fraulein Kavanagh to spy for England, and after her first visit to Mantova and the discovery of her husband’s body she decided to spy for France.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What next, my Lord Ormonde?’

  ‘I decided to take her to the name-day ball of Prince Eugene of Savoy, at the Palazzo Reale in Turin.’

  ‘An odd place to take someone who is a friend of France.’

  ‘Forgive me, Honoured Judge, I was not clear – these events have only become crystallised in my reflections in recent days – if I cast my mind back over our whole acquaintance, I can only see now how and when the change was wrought.’

  ‘I see. So you took Fraulein Kavanagh, in her alias as the Comtesse Christiane Saint-Hilaire de Blossac, to the prince’s ball.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now tell me – and I want you to think very carefully about your answer – was she in your employment that night?’

  Ormonde frowned slightly. ‘I do not understand the question.’

  ‘I am happy to elucidate,’ said the Elector benignly. ‘In fact it is my duty to ask you this question with great care for your answer will be germane to this case. Did you charge Fraulein Kavanagh, that evening of the prince’s name day, to work for you at that ball; was she told to gather any information that night?’

  ‘No,’ replied Ormonde. ‘Why would she? All those gathered were our allies; the Prince of Savoy and his noble deputies. It was, more than anything else, a practice; a mere outing for her persona, if you will.’

  ‘Let us have clarity – all those gathered were allies.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kit heard the emphasis with misgiving – where did such pointed questions tend?

  ‘We now come to our first piece of evidence; and now I believe I must offer a little explanation to the court.’ The Elector held up an object with the air of a conjuror completing his trick. ‘This fan was found in your cell upon your arrest.’

  Kit looked at the fan and her heart gave a leap.

  ‘No … no … that’s not right,’ she protested. ‘I left it in my chamber in the Palazzo Borromeo – upon the dressing table …’

  ‘So you admit it is your fan?’ asked the Elector.

  ‘It is the fan that was given to me by the Duke of Ormonde.’

  ‘Let the court understand that I have it upon the testimonial of two Imperial guards that the fan was found on the floor of the prisoner’s cell.’

  ‘It must have been planted there! I swear that …’

  The Elector interrupted loudly, talking over her. ‘You have already sworn once and once will be sufficient. Remember you are constrained to tell the truth in the name of God. Please limit yourself to answering my questions and my questions only. Look at the reverse of the fan.’

  Kit’s heart began to thump with dread.

  ‘Is this your writing?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was a whisper.

  ‘Would you please read to the court, loudly and clearly, what is written on the reverse of the fan, beginning from left to right?’

  She held the fan before her face in order to read the faint pencil scrawl. In the language of fans that Ormonde had taught her, she was telling the observer that she was being watched. And she was – every eye was on her, every ear straining to hear what she would say. Her hand shook, fluttering the fan slightly. Reluctantly, but in a clear voice, she read what was written there.

  ‘Victor Amadeus of Sardinia – Became Duke of Savoy aged nine. Remodelled the Palazzo Reale. Put down his rebellious citizens in the “salt wars”. Persecuted the Vaudois (Savoyard Protestants). Married to Anne Marie d’Orléans.’

  ‘Go on,’ urged the Elector.

  ‘Prince of Anhalt Dessau – ninth of ten children, introduced the iron ramrod to the Prussian corps, married to Anna Louise Fohse, an apothecary’s daughter from Dessau.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Count Wirich Philipp von Daun – born in Vienna, son of Field Marshal Wilhelm Graf Daun, one son named Leopold.’

  ‘That will do.’

  She folded the fan slowly, handed it back to the clerk and glanced murderously at Ormonde. What a quicksilver mind he had! How clever he’d been to find the fan in her chamber and use it against her! He sat forward, feigning shock; his fingertips pressed the corner of his kerchief to his mouth, a waterfall of lace falling to his lap.

  ‘My Lord of Ormonde, you knew of this writing?’

  ‘No,’ he said, wide eyed. ‘Not a word.’

  ‘Can you think of a reason why Miss Kavanagh would have collected information on Alliance generals, rather than the French?’

  Ormonde spread his hands wide, one of them still clutching the lace kerchief.

  ‘Lies!’ shouted Kit. �
�You tutored me like a schoolmaster and they were my subjects. I learned about the Alliance generals as a practice – you said so yourself! You said that if I was safe at Turin I would be safe in Mantova.’

  The Elector brought his hand down upon his lectern. ‘The accused shall stay silent unless directly addressed, or she shall be clapped in chains.’

  Kit sat down, her heart racing, her blood boiling.

  ‘So,’ continued the Elector, ‘after Fraulein Kavanagh had passed the evening in Savoy’s company without detection, you thought she was ready to enter the French court.’

  ‘I did think that, yes, Honoured Judge.’

  The Elector raised his hand – a paper fluttered in the fingers. ‘I have here a signed and sworn testament from the aforementioned Brigadier Panton. He writes of a visit to the Palazzo Borromeo immediately following the siege of Mantova. He says that following the failure of that siege and the heavy losses sustained by his men, he agreed to help you to feed Fraulein Kavanagh into the French court. He details the somewhat unorthodox’ – he spoke the word fastidiously – ‘method of infiltration, which involved a corpse playing the part of the Vicomte de …’

  ‘Not a corpse!’ Kit interjected. ‘He breathed right enough before Panton killed him.’

  ‘Fraulein Kavanagh, for the last time, there will be no interjections from the accused. Your turn will come.’ Then the Elector checked himself. ‘You are suggesting that an officer of the crown murdered an innocent in your cause?’

  ‘Not in my cause, Honoured Judge. But in Ormonde’s, of that I am sure.’

  ‘It is true the unfortunate man was very lately dead, my lord,’ interjected Ormonde smoothly. ‘He was an English foot soldier, who had been killed by a French outrider that very morning.’

  ‘An Englishman, you say?’

  ‘Yes, Honoured Judge. We could not risk a French body, lest someone in the French court of Mantova recognise the man.’

  ‘Did this poor unfortunate have a name?’

  ‘I’m sure he did, Honoured Judge, but I never learned it.’

  Kit snorted. So this man, her counterfeit husband, who had made the supreme sacrifice for Ormonde’s cause, was to remain nameless.

  ‘But Fraulein Kavanagh, you actually believe that a brigadier in the English Army would murder one of his men in cold blood?’

  ‘I know he did,’ said Kit stubbornly.

  ‘Did you see this dreadful crime committed?’

  Her colour rose. ‘I, that is, not directly,’ stammered Kit. ‘Panton had pinned me in the carriage and was blocking the window with his back.’

  ‘Then I suggest you do not pursue this matter further, unless you want to compound your charges by accusing the brigadier of murder?’

  Kit’s heart sank. Everything she had planned to say, about Panton and the corpse, had already been supplied. Ormonde and his creature had well and truly stolen the wind from her sails. She pursed her lips and shook her head.

  ‘And now to Mantova. And here, I suppose, we must hear from the accused. Fraulein Kavanagh, is it the case that during your stay at the court there, you discovered the French plan to lay siege to the city of Turin?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, beginning to see a way out.

  ‘And what did you do with such information?’

  ‘I escaped, placing myself in great danger, and conveyed the information to Ormonde, as I was instructed.’

  The Elector turned to Ormonde. ‘My lord?’

  Kit also turned to the duke, one eyebrow raised. Now what would he say?

  ‘She arrived at my house dressed as a coachman. But it is my opinion that the French let her go, knowing she would come to me with whatever they had schooled her to say.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘She told me that the French were retreating to the Po valley, under the Duc de Vendôme.’

  ‘Lies!’ she shouted. ‘I told you the French were to attack Turin, and you refused to warn Marlborough, so I did it myself.’

  Ormonde shook his head, sad and sorry. ‘Poor lost child – she lies like the devil. It is no use, Kit.’ He addressed her directly for the first time. ‘We know the unhappy sequel to these events.’

  ‘What did happen next?’ asked the Elector.

  ‘She escaped from my house again, and was next seen by Panton at the gates of Turin. The city was virtually undefended, watched only by a single regiment of dragoons. She exhorted those men to open the gates, so that the French could walk right in.’

  ‘How would she do that?

  ‘She is acquainted with one of the captains. His name is Ross.’

  ‘How would she know this gentleman?’

  Ormonde looked directly at Kit with his hooded eyes, of indeterminate colour, his expression eminently readable. ‘She danced with him at Prince Eugene’s name day.’

  The Elector glanced at his clerk. ‘Call the captain to appear tomorrow.’

  He shuffled his papers together efficiently. ‘We will conclude our business for today and take the prisoner back to custody until tomorrow, when we will hear the testimony of Captain Ross.

  ‘My Lord of Ormonde, I see no need for us to trespass on your time tomorrow. You are excused, with the thanks of this court. Have you anything further to say?’

  Ormonde turned to the judge and spread his hands, his eyes wide, his expression guileless. ‘Only this, my lord: that I sheltered this poor slut, and made her into a lady. I gave her a priceless Rockingham mantua which I have never seen again. The fan, also of great price, she defaced, as you have witnessed, and,’ he looked directly at her with eyes like awls, ‘a coffer of diamonds disappeared on the same night as she.’

  Kit froze.

  The Elector nodded to her guards. ‘Has anyone searched the prisoner?’

  ‘Not yet, Honoured Judge,’ answered one.

  ‘Then do it.’

  She stood, helpless, while the rough hands tore at her bodice. She had wondered, in her cell, why she had not been searched; now she knew why. Ormonde was orchestrating this – he had waited for this moment – the audience all seated and the torches lit, ready to oooh and aah from their benches and boxes at the climax of the impresario’s drama. The guard’s meaty fist emerged from her lacings, dripping with diamonds, and the audience gasped, just as she’d known they would.

  Chapter 41

  Oh me and my cousin, one Arthur McBride …

  ‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)

  Alone in her cell, the diamonds she’d rightfully earned returned to Ormonde’s pocket, Kit thought of the following day.

  Whatever came to pass she would see Ross again, even if it was to be for the last time.

  She asked for some water and some tallow soap and some oil of olives – and the guard complied with a readiness that made her afraid. She took the wig from her head, put the sorry thing on the floor and shook out her own hair, caked in powder, grey as a crone’s about her shoulders. She washed her face of every trace of powder and paint and patches; she would greet Ross clean and fresh faced, as he had seen her every day on the campaign – the ‘pretty dragoon’ who could not yet coax a beard. After an hour the guard took the candle away and even its small warmth was denied her. She let her hair dry unbound – her scalp chilling in the dank winter dungeon, the hair turning into whispering snakes as it froze. As she shivered, curled up in a ball under her travel gown and cloak, she clamped together chattering teeth and thought of Maura’s stories – the princess in the dungeon, with hair of ice.

  Anxious to get to court in the morning, she had been waiting since the grey dawn crept like a spectre through her barred window. She wanted nothing else but to get warm. She had tucked her shining hair into the dreadful wig, to keep her only card in her sleeve, for now; and she was grateful for the horsehair, as good as a hat. All through the night, when her cheek froze to the cold stone floor, only her heart had burned within her, holding in the deepest core of its fires the thought of Ross and the last piece she had to play, a last gambit on t
he chessboard.

  She was taken to her seat in the hallowed courtroom, her fingers and toes thawing painfully. Almost at once she saw Ormonde seated in the crowd – so he had come to court a second time; no doubt to see her safely condemned. Then Captain Ross was called and walked into the great chamber in answer to his name; and she forgot Ormonde.

  He sat opposite her – and looked about him with the confidence that had been bred into his bone. Not for him the fallen glances of Ormonde. He looked at her directly with the hostile blank stare of a raptor, as if he did not know her. Dear God, thought Kit, what have they told him of me?

  In all other respects he was absolutely correct – his uniform neat, his dark hair dressed and tied, his cheek clean shaven. With a strange sense of pride, she thought as she had before that he was any man’s equal; and even the Elector seemed to detect his quality, asking for his name and his oath with something akin to deference. Kit could hear the familiar cadences of her captain’s voice, but his words were indistinct to her – he might have been speaking another language for at his side – she took a breath – hung her father’s sword. The blade gave her courage.

  ‘Captain Ross,’ the Elector began. ‘Do you know this lady?’

  Let him not be another St Peter. ‘Yes.’ Kit felt an irrational relief.

  ‘Where did you first see her?’

  At the lighthouse in Genova, thought Kit. He pushed me into the ocean because I stank like a civet after a fortnight at sea.

  ‘I met her at the Palazzo Reale in Turin, at the name day of Prince Eugene of Savoy.’

  ‘And how much time did you spend in each other’s company?’

  ‘Perhaps an hour? No more.’

  ‘And how did you spend this hour?’

  ‘As most guests at a ball spend their time. We had a conversation of no consequence and we danced.’

  ‘How did she introduce herself?’

  ‘As a French countess. I know now, of course, that that was not true.’ His blue gaze went through her like a sword.

  ‘You said your conversation was of no consequence.’

  ‘Light acquaintances in company talk of small things.’