Absolute Honour

by C. C. Humphreys

  As the dog’s yelps began to subside, Jack sat on the bed and unfolded the piece of paper. A series of numbers, in groups of three, were scrawled upon it. Prising up a floorboard and pulling his copy of Herodotus from the hole, he began to decode them. It was the simplest of codes, but impossible to crack unless you had this particular edition of ‘Lame’ Littlebury’s translation, which only he and his scoutmaster did. Then it was simple. The first line of numbers read: ‘323 122 896’.

  Jack flicked to page 323, found line 22, and, ignoring the first two numbers of the last group, counted six words in. The word he landed on was ‘stag’. He wrote it down, then went on to decode the rest in the same fashion until he had the whole message: ‘Stag leaves Paris twenty-seven.’

  ‘Stag’ was their quarry, Red Hugh McClune. So he’d left Paris on 27 June, three weeks ago. If he came directly through France, he would probably take a felucca from Nice to Genoa. But Turnville had said there were other courts he could visit en route, other people from whom to collect donations to bring to his King in Rome. If he was in Bavaria, he would come through the Tyrol and over the Brenner Pass. If via Vienna …

  It doesn’t matter, Jack thought suddenly. He couldn’t guess which route the man had taken nor how soon he would be there. He’d been told that travel through Italy could be swift enough if you were lucky with postillions and horses. Many weren’t. He couldn’t know, as he’d taken the sea route via Gibraltar to Leghorn, his passage there, and on through Tuscany and into the Papal States, remarkably easy. But the journey wasn’t the import of this message. Red Hugh was on the move, that was all that mattered. Besides, whoever had brought the news had reached the city in three weeks. And if they could …

  Jack looked up, out of the window, into the sky. He could be here already. She could be here.

  Taking his flint and strike light, he dropped sparks into a little copper bowl of dried leaves. The paper with the code caught fire easily and he held it, enjoying the flames, till a little pain came and he dropped it. The smoke rose before him but he did not notice it, looking once again into an orange Roman noon, wondering if she were looking at it as well.

  ‘Letty!’ He breathed her name out, as he’d done in Bath, as he continued to do every day. If it did not conjure the pleasure it had when first he’d uttered it, if it carried a weight now, compounded of the lies they’d both told each other, the shock of their revelation, the pain of her disappearance, what of it? Jack had had plenty of time on his journey to remember each touch, each word. He had been sent to Rome to identify Red Hugh, the enemy of England; but he had also come to discover if Laetitia Fitzpatrick still loved him as much as he still loved her.

  Jack peered down from the uppermost gallery of the Teatro Argentina. He thought his nose might commence bleeding. Not even an amply provided spy could secure a ticket in the pit or boxes; they were the prime places in Rome to observe and be observed. The audience did not draw attention to themselves, as a London crowd would, by their wit; they relied solely on their person. Jack had been very pleased with his own ensemble of dove-grey suit and emerald waistcoat. The buckles on his gleaming shoes shone, the horsehair wig was exquisite. Yet he would have been drab down there, not only in cloth but because he sported no jewellery. The huge chandeliers, which made the ones in the Assembly Rooms in Bath seem like reed candles, reflected their thousand flames off a dazzling array of decorations and medals on the men, while the women glimmered in diamond tiaras, topaz rings, sapphire brooches. Their hair was piled up to extraordinary heights, which must have required the sacrifice of a horse apiece for their glue and the attentions of coiffeurs from dawn. They towered, and that was presumably why everyone sat so still. More than mild applause would have set up a vibration that may have brought an edifice crashing down; and if one fell, no doubt all would, one into the next, like a row of dominoes in an English county tavern.

  The immobility was aped on the stage, where singers as well dressed as their audience faced front and warbled. Their voices were fine, undoubtedly; even Jack, who preferred songs in plain English and preferably accompanied by a dance, could tell that. But there was little drama. And as for anything alluring, well, female singers were not allowed in the Papal States and men dressed as women, howsoever fine their voices, did not stir him. He knew how those voices had been produced, and it gave him the wrong sort of feeling in his groin just watching them.

  Two galleries of boxes were below him. Jack had squeezed onto a bench-end at the extreme left of the house and so was able, by craning around and over, to watch the three central boxes. These had been described for him by Watkin Pounce but there was no mistaking them anyway. The crest of the House of Stuart and the royal crest of Britain sat in two immense gilt shields.

  ‘Alas for you, our King just yesterday removed himself to his villa at Albano to avoid the summer heat,’ Pounce had said. ‘But he leaves his boxes to those who, of necessity, must stay in the city. A reward for their services. You may see some of the most ardent defenders of the Cause there each night.’ The fat man had sighed. ‘I was invited once but alas …’ He’d gestured down at his coat, so stained and patched, and sighed again.

  Jack looked now. The Old Pretender’s supporters, men and women, did not look any different from the rest of the gilded crowd. It vaguely disappointed Jack. He was no Jacobite but surely they could have maintained a more British decorum?

  A drop of sweat ran from beneath his wig. Wiping it away, he tugged his lawn shirt from his neck. It was damned hot. In the boxes, the female peacocks fluttered their fans like feathers. And then, almost as one, they stopped. Jack looked to the stage, though he hadn’t seen action there halt the constant flapping before. But no, the performers were still absent, the stage bare. Everyone had turned to something occurring in one of the boxes just out of Jack’s vision. He leaned further out, inducing again that sense of vertigo. What were they looking at?

  Not what, of course. Whom. And he understood why everyone had ceased to do anything but look. It was the contrast that held them at first perhaps, the simple elegance of her dress, the naturalness of her red, red hair, falling, not rising, falling in waves around her bare shoulders; the single ruby that hung just above her cleavage. Perhaps it was that – skin revealed in a place where nearly all was concealed, skin that spoke of coolness in the bagnio-like heat – that stopped the fans. And, looking at Laetitia make her entrance, Jack remembered that he had seen her first in just such a manner, walking into the Orchard Street playhouse in Bath. An English audience had paused just like this Roman one did, equally dumbstruck.

  It could not last. A fan rose to shelter a cruel comment, others fluttered, heads turned away. Only those to whom Letty was introduced stayed facing her, men bending over her hand, lingering there in the most obvious manner. Beside her stood Mrs O’Farrell – Bridget O’Doherty, as Turnville had told him she was truly called, and McClune’s wife – dressed more in the Roman manner, hair high, jewels prominent. A man made the introductions, but it was not Red Hugh, for this fellow was short and aged. Jack scoured the box on the off-chance that the Irishman would have felt safe enough to appear. But his tall frame was nowhere in sight. Jack was not surprised. Even in Rome, where the State openly supported the Pretender and his Cause, Red Hugh would not show himself – Hanoverian agents were nearly as present in the city as the men they watched. Jack had wondered if his own scoutmaster was in the audience. No, just as in Bath, Red Hugh would skulk under an assumed name in poorer quarters – assuming he had not sent his women ahead.

  His women. As the performers took again to the stage, as chatter, even in the Jacobite box, diminished and the newcomers were shown to their seats, Jack leaned back. He brought out a handkerchief, wiped away what had become rivulets of sweat, not all of it caused by the Roman summer. Despite uttering her name each night like a prayer, he’d known he’d have no certainty about his feelings until he’d seen her again. Now he had – and he knew. Though everything had changed, nothing had changed. H
e still loved her, passionately, intensely, certainly. He just had to ascertain if she felt the same about him.

  Shortly before the final act concluded, he took up a position opposite the front entrance to the theatre, behind a column of a loggia. When she appeared, shepherded by the small man and Bridget O’Doherty, he did not rush up to her, as an impulse dictated he should, and beg her to kill him or set him free. He waited, until the coach they all entered had fought clear of the mob; then he followed it, at the slow pace it was forced to take, through the streets of the city, back towards the area of the Palazzo Muti, aware of strange echoes, certain that there would be no false footpads this night. The carriage passed through the piazza that contained the Fontana di Trevi and stopped shortly afterwards before a grand-looking palazzo. When it did, Jack drew into the shadows, watched that same man hand the ladies down and follow them through the front door.

  He waited, unsure what to do, unwilling to leave. Their appearance guaranteed nothing. The stag could be in the city or still on his way there, collecting favours and gold along the road. Turnville had been certain that Red Hugh would make for Rome, but surely someone so experienced would eschew the obvious? Perhaps he had sent the ladies ahead as distraction. Perhaps he had already returned to England for further plotting or to Ireland for recruits.

  There was but one thing Jack could do for now.

  Reluctantly, he turned his back to the building where Letty was preparing for sleep. There was little for him. Even though scouring Herodotus for the correct words to compose his message took but an hour, afterwards he could not shake the image of her. Dawn came before his eyes closed and he was awake again soon after. He had to be at the gardens on Monte Pinchio when they opened.

  His message dropped in the tree trunk, he returned to some sleep at last, making sure he was called at three. At exactly four he passed beneath the window on the Via Columbina but no striped sheet hung. He contrived to pass again at the quarter and the half. Nothing. He waited at a nearby tavern. It was only when the bells sounded the hour that he turned the corner into the street in time to see the striped sheet drawn slowly into the attic room. He was tempted to stay, meet his contact. Prudence told him otherwise. There was good reason no one knew anyone in this game of spies. If one was caught, he could not betray another – whatever the methods of coercion. Suddenly, the singing castrati came to mind. Swallowing at this painful thought, Jack made, once more, for the park. No one walked the avenue, a relieving rain having driven most indoors. But a slightly damp paper met his fingers.

  Back in the attic, the old Greek writer revealed only one word: ‘Watch’.

  – TWO –

  The Watching

  It was different from the scouting and spying he’d undertaken in Canada the previous year. Yet, despite the urban setting, it was almost the same. He stalked individuals, rather than bodies of troops, noting their movements, observing patterns. He casually conversed, not with Iroquois warriors or French farmers, but with servants and coachmen, though the currency of coercion was usually the same: liquor, liberally dispensed. He knew only that the plan was to take the Irishman when – if – he appeared. But the taking of such a dangerous man was always going to be a difficult thing. His role, as he saw it, was to gather information about the only weakness this enemy displayed: his love of his women. A truly careful man would have left the two of them in Bath and fled on his own. At considerable risk, McClune had not. It was a mistake, yet one he was likely to make again.

  Jack watched. Laetitia and Bridget O’Doherty’s movements were based on a triangle – from the Palazzo Cavalieri to the Palazzo Muti to the opera house and back. A coachman told Jack that ‘la più bella’ was dutiful in her religious observations, attending, each day, the Protestant service in the King’s palace. Jack, of course, had seen her do the same in Bath but he’d assumed that was because it was on ‘the circuit’, a place to see and be seen after the waters, before the ball. As a devout atheist, he found it hard to fathom true faith in anyone else and had also been surprised that someone aligned to the Jacobite cause was not a Catholic like their King. But Red Hugh had told him once that most supporters of the Cause were Protestant. Indeed, almost every Scottish clan that rose in ’45 were Presbyterian of the most fanatical nature, and many in Ireland, too. Hence this chapel in Rome. James sent out a message of religious tolerance. On his restoration, all would be free to worship as they chose.

  For two days, Jack watched all hours and barely slept. But exhaustion overcame both his excitement at being this close to her again and his desire to spot Red Hugh the moment he appeared. When he awoke, slumped in the doorway of the abandoned house opposite the Palazzo Cavalieri with a child going through his pockets, he knew he had to alter his habits. The Irishman was not someone to confront when tired. And Jack knew that the man, howsoever bold, was not going to appear in daylight. Not with all the spies in Rome. Night was his time, so Jack contrived to sleep at least some of the day, to be in position outside the opera when she attended and follow her carriage back, to maintain his vigil at the palazzo through the night and leave at dawn. He was awake again to walk by the house on the Via Columbina, but no striped sheet appeared and he left no messages himself at the tree on Monte Pinchio. He and his scoutmaster had nothing to say to each other until Red Hugh came to Rome.

  And then he did.

  On his fourth night of watching, Jack used a knife to push open the shutters of the abandoned house, force open a window and shimmy inside. The family who owned it, like so many Romans, must have fled the city heat for the hills. All their furniture was covered in sheets and on the first floor Jack found an armchair that he dragged to the window. His knife was put to use again, prising slats out of the shutters to create a narrow gap at the perfect height for his eyeline when his head rested against the chair back. On a table beside him he set up a flask of Orvieto wine – it was not as strong as the red Montepulciano and had a refreshing quality he much enjoyed – together with some bread, slices of vitella mongana – the best veal he’d ever tasted – and figs. Then he sat back and stared at the palazzo opposite.

  He jerked awake, panicked at the sound of voices, until he realized they were not within the house but outside it, and that they were not speaking, but singing. Nearby was the Convent di Seruiti, and the nuns within were obviously about some observations. Cursing himself for his negligence – he noted that his resolution to only sip the wine had been ignored, for the flask was two-thirds gone – he rubbed his eyes, leaned forward …

  Someone emerged directly below him; must, indeed, have been standing in the same doorway Jack had previously occupied. The figure was cloaked and hatted, an unusual sight in the summer heat. Indeed, as Jack watched, the figure removed the hat, a handkerchief rising to wipe his forehead and neck. Suddenly, there was movement opposite, a door opening in the palazzo. The hat was replaced. But there was near a full moon that night with no cloud, and the man had tilted his head for a brief moment before he disappeared from view again into Jack’s doorway. There could be no doubt. Though his hair was cropped, though half his face was covered with a scarf and his clothes by the cloak, the man now sheltering a few feet below Jack was undoubtedly Red Hugh McClune.

  Jack waited, almost not breathing, certainly not moving, the tip of his nose an inch from the slats. From the palazzo doorway opposite a squealing cat was hurled onto the cobblestones. Protesting, it slunk away, leaving the singing nuns as the only sound in the square.

  He waited. Below him, nothing stirred. A minute, two, five. The voices ceased. All was quiet. Then the figure stepped out again, moving swiftly to the door that had opened before. It must have been left unlocked deliberately, the disgruntled cat a pretext, for the Irishman was inside in a moment.

  Jack sat again to his watch. Despite his thirst, he did not lift the wine flask. Thus he was awake when the first light was in the sky and the same cloaked figure emerged from the doorway. There was a pause, a woman’s hand briefly kissed before it withdrew
and the door was shut. Then the man crossed the street swiftly. McClune tipped his head again as he wrapped the scarf around his face, and Jack stepped away, but not before he’d taken note of a black beard, spectacles upon the nose, a white cravat at his neck. Turnville had said that their quarry had taken ship at Southampton posing as a Methodist minister. It appeared that he maintained that disguise still.

  Jack heard footsteps recede. When they vanished, he finally reached for the wine flask. ‘Welcome to Rome,’ he said, and drained it.

  His note, informing his scoutmaster of the stag’s arrival, was answered the same day, with the same, frustrating word: ‘Watch.’ Now that the man was here, should not plans be made to take him? He had understood the need not to know anyone before, but surely he needed contacts now, a gathering of men in the Dawkins mould to whom he could point out the Irishman? What if the previous night was to be his only appearance? They could not rely on him lingering too long, however devoted. He would soon be about another mission, another assault upon Britain and the King. But there was little he, Jack, could do alone. Even if he could cudgel him in the dark, where would he imprison him, what would he do with him there? Cursing, Jack knew he could only obey the single word of his command.

  That night, the nuns were again at their devotions when the Irishman appeared. No cat was thrown out, but otherwise the actions were just the same – the figure emerging from below him, the door briefly opened, then opened again to discharge him in the first of the dawn’s light. He reported the pattern, but no striped sheet appeared to summon him. He returned again to the house, watched Letty in, waited, watched Red Hugh come and go, his frustration growing ever stronger. That morning he forsook sleep to wrestle longer with Herodotus, composing a message reporting the pattern but stating his fear: their quarry could leave at any time; why did they not act? But still no sheet hung.