He was not a praying man but he prayed then, even as he tried to swing his legs towards the sill. But as he did, the shutter lurched outwards and he looked up to see one of its hinges coming away from the wall. He stopped moving, kept praying, stared as if sight could force screws back into stone. For a moment, the shuddering of the shutter stopped. And then, beyond the rushing blood in his head, he heard another noise – someone was opening the outer door of the courtyard, coming in.
‘Shite,’ he muttered, looking again to the screws, then over the top of his shoulder to the sound of the door being opened, shut and relocked, and footsteps moving across the courtyard toward the main building – the man’s route bound to take him directly under Jack.
There was a muttering, but the words were drawled; the man was obviously drunk. Jack reached out a toe to the sill, felt the shutter shudder again, saw another screw pop out. He froze, looked between his feet …
The man was just passing the fallen sheet. He even took a step beyond it. Then, with the slowness of the drunk, he looked at it, then away, then back again. His head began to tip up …
The screws came loose. The top half of the shutter ripped away from the wall, the bottom half following fast. Jack fell, heavier than the shutter so slightly faster. His feet struck the man as if he were trying to land on his shoulders, and he had the absurd impression of some Italian acrobatic act he’d seen in the theatre, one man leaping to stand upon another. But the man below him was no acrobat for he collapsed with a sharp cry, Jack smacking into the stone a moment after, the shutter striking both of them as it landed.
They lay there, the Italian groaning, the Englishman with not enough air to. When he could breathe, Jack lurched up, kneeling beside the man whose eyes popped wide, panicked. Reaching, Jack found the set of keys, just as he heard another one turning in the internal door of the courtyard. Up and staggering, he made for the outer door, praying again that he chose the correct key of the five on the link.
The door behind opened, a man stepped out, clutching a lantern. Lorenzo’s slurred voice came. ‘Who’s there? What’s happening?’
The first key was wrong! Jack fumbled out another, as the drunken guard moved into the yard, shouting at the figure he’d now seen upon the ground. Since both the man’s collar bones were obviously snapped he couldn’t point, but Jack saw him move his head towards the outer door just as the lock gave. He wrenched the door open, as Lorenzo ran at him, shouting. Jack was out in a moment, all his instincts urging him to flight; but his mind held him, because he knew he couldn’t flee, not yet, not without more air and until the agony in his legs diminished. Between a drunk and him he’d favour the drunk in a foot race; a yelling drunk, too. Jack’s plans for a quiet escape would be drowned in hue and cry. So he stepped straight into the shadow of the wall beside the door and, when Lorenzo rushed through, pausing to seek the fugitive, Jack hit him on the side of the head. It was not a strong punch, he had not the strength to deliver such a one, but it turned the man to the threat, his arms rising up to protect himself. Stepping between them, Jack used a different blow needing precision rather than strength, bringing his forehead hard down on the bridge of the man’s nose in what, in his youth, he’d known as a Cornish kiss.
If the delivery smarted Jack, it poleaxed the guard, who collapsed back onto the cobbles with not even a groan. Bending swiftly, Jack saw that Lorenzo was indeed unconscious, blood gushing from a wound at least an inch wide. His breath was coming through liquid and Jack pushed him onto his side. It was barely a kindness. His own returning breath was bringing thought and he knew that if he were caught, as was still the most likely consequence, he was in enough trouble without having also drowned a man in his own blood.
Jack stepped back into the shadows of the wall, glancing up and down the street. Nothing stirred, but moans and shouts were coming from the courtyard behind him, the volume growing. He lurched from the shadows and ran.
Just before eight in the morning, from the shelter of a loggia, Jack watched the angry mob at the Porta del Popolo. Word of his escape had preceded him, for the number of guards had been tripled and everyone desiring entrance or egress was being thoroughly and slowly checked. Jack could see that not even the usual bribes were speeding things along. They would be taken, of course, but papers were still scrutinized, not usually a necessity after gold, so Jack’s last scudi were now useless. Before he could probably have exited the city with coin, no papers and a wink. Not today.
Jack turned away with a sigh. The walls of Rome were crumbling, and he’d been told of places to scramble over for those without papers or bribes. Except Jack was fairly sure those obvious ones would be watched and he didn’t know any others. But what was his choice? Every moment he remained in Rome was one of danger. He had to get to Florence, to the British Ambassador there, Tuscany having an embassy that the Papal States could not, due to their support of the Jacobite Cause. He’d thought of sending word via one of the many young Englishmen on their Grand Tour and had gone to the Piazza di Spagna to find one. But the square was full of watchful men in black cloaks and Jack had passed through without speaking to anyone.
His route now was purposeless, meandering. His mind turning, his eyes unfocused, he suddenly realized that somehow his feet had fallen into a familiar track. For he was on the corner where the Via Columbina began, with the house of the hanging sheet less than a hundred yards round the bend. Having nowhere else to go, he headed towards the familiar. There would be nothing there. Red Hugh had told him that the Jacobites had exposed all his connections in Rome. Indeed, he’d probably been watched from his very arrival. So much for Jack Absolute, master spy! he thought, slouching along.
And then he stopped dead. Hanging from the window in the attic of a house – the house – was a striped sheet.
Jack immediately stepped into a doorway, disturbing a scavenging cat, who snarled and sloped away. He looked up and down the street, saw nothing except Romans about their tasks; which did not mean there were not others about theirs, looking for him. Indeed, the hanging sheet seemed nothing more than a lure. Rush up to the house, to the only contact he had had in Rome. Be arrested immediately. And yet, who else did he know in Rome, aside from Jacobites, who would betray him instantly? Perhaps his scoutmaster did not know that his whole network had been destroyed. The sheet would seem to indicate that. Then was he perhaps still using the tree at Monte Pinchio? If so, Jack must disabuse him and get help at the same time. It was a chance, howsoever slim, as good and as risky as any he had that day in Rome.
Swiftly climbing through the plantation of pines in the gardens, he found a vantage point just three trees away. They were not the easiest things to climb, their branches too close, too thick with needle, but the one he chose was dying and he managed to force himself a little way up to concealment. He’d already noted that a letter did indeed await. Someone would be by to collect it.
Someone was. A young man, perhaps a little older than himself but not by much, slinking up to the hole, snatching what was there, replacing it with something of his own. He passed directly below Jack, muttering, ‘Damn! About time!’ Jack smiled at the phrase, the impatience displayed, smile turning to frown when he remembered that this circle of spies was compromised, that this young man would be betrayed, like Jack had been, as soon as his usefulness was past.
It could not have been more than an hour before he heard someone else approaching. This person – unlike the new agent, unlike Jack – made no attempt to tread softly, pine cones crunching underfoot, branches snapped. Above these sounds there was another, a hum Jack soon realized was a tune, notes turning to words as the man came off the main path and approached the tree.
‘We’ll pull down usurpation,
And, spite of abjuration,
And force of stubborn nation
Great James’ title own.’
Jack closed his eyes, had no need for sight. He knew both the voice and the song.
Watkin Pounce leaned against the pine, his
head bent. Taking deep breaths, he mopped his face with a handkerchief. Then he reached up, took the letter, tapped it once against the trunk, tucked it inside that same ragged black suit he always wore, turned and retraced his steps. The humming recommenced as he came onto the central avenue and headed toward the main entrance of the park.
Watkin Pounce. As Jack scrambled down from his perch, he shook his head in bewilderment. Watkin was the scoutmaster, Turnville’s man in Rome. And yet the man was also an acknowledged Jacobite. But of course that was his protection, allowing him access to those he spied upon. He laboured for both sides but owed his loyalty only to …
To whom? Jack stopped. For some reason, something Red Hugh had said all those months ago, almost the last thing he’d said, came to Jack. He’d disregarded it then, so great was his fury, his hurt. What was it? That Letty … Letty had not betrayed their rendezvous because she loved him, wanted to tell him that before she said goodbye.
Jack started forward again, slowly, Pounce still often enough in sight. This was what Até had taught him: how to pursue an enemy silently, unnoticed. And the reverse, being able always to spot any pursuit. So, even half blinded by love, would he not have known he was followed that day? And if he hadn’t been and Red Hugh had spoken the truth – and why should he lie with his enemy now a prisoner – then it wasn’t Letty who had told where Jack could be taken. Indeed, she’d begged him to fly without her. Only one other person knew of their rendezvous. The man who’d suggested it. Pounce.
Jack stopped. He knew where to find him. But how he dealt with him would depend on whether the man really was his betrayer, and there was one quick way to prove it.
Turning left, Jack cut down through the pine trees. The scent of the trees, the cones and browning needles underfoot reminded him of the previous year in Canada, a simpler time, with the enemy clear, and Até by his side. After all the lying, the betrayal of both his love and his friendship, how he now wished he’d accepted his blood brother’s offer, resigned his commission and gone to live the life of an adopted Iroquois. They knew more about honesty than Jacobites or Hanoverians between them.
He came out close to the cart track that ran up beside the Palazzo Barberini. Vaulting the fence, he ran the few paces down to the cypress tree.
At first he didn’t see it, so thick had the branches and needles grown during his incarceration. Then he did.
His satchel was still where he had wedged it. If he’d been followed that day, it would not have been.
He took out his knife, began cutting towards the bag. As he cut, he imagined each branch as one of Pounce’s pudgy fingers and remembered how, in the play, John Falstaff owed God a death.
There was a small taverna almost opposite Pounce’s lodgings. He had mentioned it as beneath contempt but another Jacobite had confided that the man was banished from the premises for various crimes, including the inevitable severe drunkenness and the less likely groping assault upon the innkeeper’s daughter. When he went there at sunset, Jack found a pleasant enough place, with a room he was able to commandeer at the front, its snoring occupant ejected on the waving of one of Jack’s gold scudi. This brought the best the house could offer, which was a serious improvement on prison fare.
Jack over-indulged in everything but the wine. The food he did not deny himself, reasoning that when he finally did escape the city he was likely to be travelling as a fugitive with little opportunity for feasting. So a spicy soup of livers and gizzards was followed by three pigeons, wrapped in tripe and dressed in oil, then some small toothsome squares, filled with cheese and herbs, called ‘ravioli’. He declined the sheep brains on the grounds that they reeked of garlic. But figs and an excellent Parmesan cheese concluded the meal well. Then he settled himself in the window of his room, with a flask of the light vino bruscio, and waited.
Two hours later he saw the unmistakably portly figure shambling down the cobbles. Slipping quietly out of the tavern’s door, Jack crossed the street swiftly, coming up as the man swayed before the door of his lodgings.
‘Still have that bottle to share, Watkin?’ Jack said softly.
Pounce turned, with the elaborate slowness of the drunk. Then his movements became suddenly very fast. He staggered back, flushing pale, nearly falling, hands flapping before him. ‘P … P … Pip? But I thought you were …’ He swallowed. ‘By the stars, ’tis you? Faith, I was sure … sure that you’d … you’d … left Rome nine months ago!’ He swayed backwards, looked as if he were going to fall, then leaned as far the other way, which seemed finally to unbalance him. He slipped backwards, sitting down suddenly upon the step. ‘Come,’ said Jack, reaching forward to grab an arm. ‘Let us go inside.’
Pounce responded by heaving himself up and stumbling through the half-opened house door. ‘Shh,’ he said, to himself, since Jack was making no sound. His door creaked open and he largely fell through it, continuing his stumble toward a large, low chair beside a table on which glowed a lantern. He waved towards the armoire in the corner. ‘That bottle, Pip. I’ve saved it for you. Hoping you might return. Fetch it here, sweet wag.’
Jack found a half-empty bottle of Montepulciano and two glasses. He extracted the cork with his teeth as he walked over. The wine did not smell of the freshest but he poured two tots anyway.
Pounce grasped one, raised it to eye level before him. ‘To the Cause!’ he cried.
‘Which one?’
The question halted the movement of glass to lip. ‘Eh? Why, the King across the water.’
Jack tipped his head to the side. ‘Well enough – if the water’s the Channel and the King’s name is George.’
Pounce had the look of a frog unable to snag a mayfly. ‘Eh?’ he said again.
Jack pulled up a second chair. ‘I know, Watkin.’
‘Know what?’
‘Know that you are my scoutmaster.’
The resemblance to an amphibian only increased as his mouth opened and closed repeatedly, the wobbly cheeks filling with and emptying air. The eyes dropped, noticed the glass, still suspended, and drained it in a shot. He held it out and Jack dutifully refilled it. The liquor brought a little steadiness to voice and hand.
‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘shall we then toast Colonel Turnville?’
‘Gladly.’ Jack raised his glass but still did not drink. ‘Once you have told me why you betrayed both him and me.’ A sound came from the other man’s throat – denial, protest. Wattles shook. Jack forestalled him. ‘It could only have been you, Watkin. You sent me to that rendezvous. Which means that the Colonel is not your sole employer, is he? Perhaps not even your main one.’
Instead of replying, Pounce drained the glass, then reached forward for the bottle. Only a few dregs remained. ‘Fetch another, Pip – Jack – there’s a good lad. Over there.’
Jack went where he was directed. Amidst a heap of empty bottles he found one full. He turned – to Watkin sitting more upright, with a pistol in his hand. His voice, when it came, was still a little slurred yet not nearly so much as it had been before.
‘How did you discover me?’
‘I saw you on Monte Pinchio,’ Jack replied quietly, not moving. ‘Which told me something else as well.’
‘What, pray?’
‘You thought I was dead. Your reaction when you saw me outside confirmed it. Because you didn’t bother to change your modus operandi. The same sheet, the same hollowed-out tree.’
Pounce grunted. ‘Sheer laziness. I am getting too old for all this.’ He glanced at the gun. ‘Well, perhaps not too old. And yes, the Irishman told me you’d been dealt with. I thought he meant in the usual fashion.’
‘He imprisoned me in the Palazzo Millini. I escaped last night.’
‘From the Inquisition? So the hue and cry is for you? He shook his head. ‘I am curious as to why the Irishman spared your life?’
Jack shrugged. ‘I saved his, once.’
‘Is that all?’ Pounce snorted. ‘Fellow’s gone sentimental in his old age.’
‘I do. But I want even more for you to put it down and place your back against the door,’ he said, motioning slightly with the muzzle.
‘Why, Watkin? Are you going to deal with me, as Red Hugh failed to do?’
‘Do I have a choice?’ He sighed. ‘If I let you live, and if you, by some miracle, elude the Inquisition, who seem most anxious to have you back, you will eventually report to Turnville. My livelihood would end and, I suspect, my life would soon follow.’
‘Well.’ As he leaned against the door, Jack reached behind him to the small of his back. The handle of his eating knife in one hand wasn’t much, but it was something. ‘I believe you do have a choice. Especially when killing me will achieve nothing.’
‘It will achieve your silence. Unless …’
‘Unless I have a letter written and in safe hands, only to be sent if I do not appear at a certain time and place.’
Pounce stared at him for a long moment. ‘I wonder if I believe you.’
Jack smiled. ‘I wonder if you dare not.’
A longer silence came then. Pounce moved only to rest his arm upon the chair, shifting the muzzle slightly off centre, Jack only to adjust his grip on the knife behind his back. At last he spoke again. ‘I was curious as to when you first turned traitor.’
A shrug. ‘To be a traitor you have to believe in something. I don’t.’
‘Not the King across the water?’
‘No longer. That cause died on Culloden Moor. The corpse just refuses to lie down.’
Absolute Honour Page 24
