Absolute Honour (23 page)

He left the cell, reading as he went. Other men came in, collected the chair and papers. The last to leave was Dawkins. ‘You’ll
be mine, shit-sack,’ he hissed. Jack was almost ready for the blow that came, taking it at least part on his shoulder. It
still hurt. Growling, the man departed, leaving Jack to a rare prayer. Not to God, but to Fanny.

The little light faded, indicating night, yet no one came. Jack’s thirst went from craving to torment; he was certain that
if he did not drink soon, he would die. He disdained the bed – the lamplight before had shown stains Jack did not want to
get near – and folded himself into a slightly less noxious corner. There, an approximation of sleep came, filled with brief
dreams of snow, of water bubbling under ice, of Até offering him a drinking skin filled from a cool forest stream. He’d jerk
awake, always just the moment before he drank. Once, he ran to the door, beat upon it till his palm was raw. There was a little
barred window, a wood panel beyond it, and he put his lips to it, shouting for water. No one came. He’d sunk into the corner
again, vowing to own the name of Monaghan next time. It might get him a drink.

He awoke to a little light and footsteps. His throat by now would not allow him to make words. But he began to crawl toward
the door, just as the inset window opened and a face appeared for a brief moment. Then the panel was slammed shut, but not
before he heard a woman’s sob.

‘Fanny?’ he tried to croak.

Footsteps faded again and he fell back into his corner. If he’d had any moisture in his body he was sure he would have wept.

How long it was before someone approached again he did not know. Nor did he move, not even when the bolts were thrown, a key
turned and the door swung open. A man he’d never seen before came in carrying a bucket and a plate. Another stood behind him
in the doorway, holding keys and a cudgel. The bucket and plate were put down on the floor and Jack saw liquid slop over the
lip. Then the men left. Jack crawled slowly forward. The bucket was filled with … well, he supposed it was water. It did not
occupy its receptacle alone. But if it had been taken direct from the King’s Bath after a full day of scrofulous bathers,
Jack would still have drunk it dry.

He’d gulped about a quarter before he was sick. After that, he took it more slowly, sipping little and often. Gradually the
terrible throbbing that had held his head for an eternity began to decline. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten,
and though he had no appetite, he consumed the slab of dark bread down to the last crumb. With his immediate physical problems
fading, his mind began again to function. He almost preferred the nothingness.

What kind of a stew am I in now? he wondered.

He had been in some before – too many! It seemed to be his nature, frig the thing. But this was serious. The man questioning
him obviously believed Jack to be part of the conspiracy to kill the King. Looking at it from their side, they might assume
that the grenade had gone off prematurely and Jack and McClune’s cohort were victims of their own weapon. And yet, surely
they’d have seen that the fellow was shot? They would not be able to explain that. Jack could explain it for them. After all,
hadn’t he spoilt the plot? Saved
the King? He was the hero, damn their eyes! How dare they treat him like this?

His anger lasted mere moments. He was no hero but a fool, blinded by love, charmed by friendship. He’d known Red Hugh was
a Grenadier. Known he’d chosen the house next to the one to be presented to the King, shown up the day before the event, battered,
bleeding … what had Turnville said? Something about Dawkins hating the Irish even more because of what one of them had done
to his comrade? Of course, Red Hugh had no creditors. He’d fallen in with these men and killed one of them.

Jack had ignored everything obvious, so focused was he on the game of love. Still, they couldn’t hang him for a being a fool,
could they?

A little laugh came, as bitter as the taste lingering in his mouth. Half the men who danced the Tyburn jig were just and only
that. It would appear that his Absolute luck, which had carried him through slavery, war and a dozen close rendezvous with
death, had finally run out.

The footsteps came again.

A key turned, the bolts were shot. The two men who had brought him sustenance now brought in that same table, chair and lamp.
Only when these were arranged did Turnville appear, Dawkins a step behind. He sat, shuffled a thicker sheaf of papers before
him. The other men left, the door closed. For a long while there was silence, as Turnville read documents and Dawkins just
stared. Jack’s earlier panic had not allowed him really to study his interrogator. He saw him now, a man he suspected was
in his fifties, though the face seemed younger, the skin pale, as if the Colonel did not spend much time in the field. Yet
there was nothing soft in the grey eyes, split by a line that ran between the brows, straight down like a knife cut.

The eyes came up. ‘Jack Absolute.’

He felt a little of his rigidity slip. It was a start. ‘Mrs Harper told you?’

‘She did. Though we nearly didn’t find her since she now lives under the name of Scudder. Fortunately for you we are diligent.’
He reached into his sheaf, pulled out a page. ‘Jack Absolute,’ he said again, reading it. ‘You have had quite the life, have
you not?’

‘It has been … eventful.’

A snort came, humourless. ‘An understatement. We have here a copy of a letter sent by General Murray in Quebec to the Secretary,
William Pitt.’ He scanned it. ‘It seems you have a talent for disguise which proved useful to the General.’

‘I made some contribution, yes, I—’

‘He also says that you are ill-disciplined, insubordinate and prone to violence. True?’

‘I do not consider myself especially … violent. I—’

Another page was pulled out. ‘This report comes from London. It tells how you were involved in the assassination of Lord Melbury.’

Jack gasped. ‘The report is wrong, sir! It was not political. Lord Melbury died in an honest duel with …’ He hesitated.

‘With your father. A fugitive now, gone to fight in Germany, though …’ a scrap of paper was raised, ‘we have a sighting of
him at a tavern here in Bath a few days ago.’ The note was laid down. ‘So we have the King’s minister killed, an attempt made
on the King’s life and Absolutes everywhere we look.’

‘It is not what it appears to be, sir.’

‘No?’ Turnville leaned forward. ‘Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me, then, what it
is
.’

Jack frowned. ‘It is a, uh, complicated story, sir. It will take some time.’

Turnville sat back. ‘We have that. Years in your case,
perhaps. Wait!’ He leaned back, called out, ‘Holla!’ The door opened. ‘Send in Tully.’

Another man, smaller even than Turnville, bespectacled and hitherto unseen, entered. ‘Sir?’

‘A confession, Tully. Be so good as to bring your pencil.’

The man left, returned with a lap desk and his own chair to set up just behind the other. When he was ready Turnville waved
at Jack. ‘You may begin.’

Jack did, as near to the beginning as he could manage, from his father’s duel with Lord Melbury. Occasionally, the Colonel
displayed impatience with too much detail – he seemed distinctly uninterested in the various uses of a bear to survive a colonial
winter, for example. Mostly he just sat and stared and, for a good hour, the only sound, other than Jack’s voice, was the
scrape of pencil on paper.

Jack told the whole truth – nearly. He didn’t see that Letty’s being Red Hugh’s cousin was relevant, so he tried to reduce
her to an anonymous woman the Irishman had encouraged him to pursue. He hoped it might shelter her from enquiry. But it provoked
the only interruption to the flow of narrative.

‘If you are referring to Laetitia Fitzpatrick,’ Turnville said, ‘she is not the innocent you claim her to be. Just seventeen
and already a veteran traitor. Quite the player herself. Seems she was claiming an affiliation to the Earl of Clare, drawing
half the eligible young men in Bath to seek her hand and bring their fortunes to the Jacobite cause. When in fact her only
known relative is that impoverished rogue McClune.’ He lifted a quill, tapped the feather against his teeth. ‘We found her
nest, a lodging house in the Lower Town. Long since deserted. It seems her cousin went and fetched her before he fled.’

This was a blow Jack tried to keep from his face. There was the slimmest hope that, if he could talk his way out of this,
he could find Letty to confirm Red Hugh’s words: that she loved
Jack, beyond the conspiracy. He’d been sure the Irishman would have no choice but to flee, unencumbered by women. He’d underestimated
him again.

‘On,’ Turnville said, rapping a knuckle upon the desk.

The rest took little longer. Though Dawkins shook his head in obvious disbelief at the tale of Jack’s thwarting of the assassination
– and the clerk seemed to catch something in his throat when Jack mentioned elephants and had to scratch it out three times
– the Colonel merely stared on impassively.

Finally, Jack’s tale petered out. He had told them what had happened, why he had been so gulled. He realized how ridiculous
it made him look. But ridiculous men could hope to leave a gaol. The guilty could not.

Turnville continued to study a point on the wall above Jack for some time. ‘Quite the story. But I have a different version
for you. Simpler. Far shorter.’ He held up his fist and began to tell out his fingers. ‘You are lying. You are guilty. You
were turned. You are a Jacobite. You are no longer loyal to King George.’

‘I am not a Jacobite. I have not been turned. I am guilty of nothing but stupidity. And,’ he rose from the bedstead and Dawkins
instantly stepped toward him; Jack looked at him – he would not let this man hit him again without a response. Then he looked
down at the Colonel. ‘And I assure you, sir, I am no liar.’

Turnville studied him for a long moment. Then, waving his man back, he stood, nodded. ‘Well, that we shall soon verify. And
God have mercy on you if you are proved false, because Dawkins won’t.’

Then he was gone, the clerk following, the other men coming in to clear the room. When the last had left, Dawkins turned again.
He stopped when he saw Jack had placed his back against the wall. And that he had the empty bucket in his hand.

‘Yes?’ asked Jack, and the man looked as if he was going to
come. Then Turnville called from the hall and, with a last growl, he too was gone.

Jack sat, his legs suddenly unsteady. He could not remember all he had said. He just knew it was the truth, most of it. His
only hope now was that it would be enough.

When the door opened on what Jack thought was the fifth day of his captivity – time was hard to track in that near lightless
world – he assumed it would be as every previous visit had been: a man bringing in water and some unidentifiable food once
a day, another man warding him with cudgel or gun. But this time was different.

One of them stood in the doorway. He crooked a finger. ‘You. Now.’

Jack, who had been standing on his hands against the wall in an effort to alleviate the boredom, dropped onto his feet. ‘Where?’
he asked apprehensively. He wasn’t sure he would get a trial. He suspected that many who came into Turnville’s orbit didn’t.

The man just crooked the finger again. Another man, the one with the cudgel, stood behind him. Jack had no choice. ‘Delighted,’
he said.

The room three floors above was hardly ornate, simply an ordinary drawing room fitted out as a study. Yet the green of the
patterned wallpaper was almost sickeningly vibrant after the cell. And though he could see rain falling through the tall windows,
the day still appeared brighter than any summer he could remember. He stood there blinking, first at that light, then at the
man behind the huge oaken desk.

Dawkins was also there, and he and the cudgel man stood behind Jack at the door. Turnville was writing. ‘Get him a chair,’
he said quietly, not ceasing his scratching, not looking up. One was brought, and Jack was forced roughly onto it. The men
returned to their post. Silence, save for rain and the moving nib, lasted minutes. At last, Turnville looked up.

‘I have your confession here,’ he said, spinning a paper around, dipping and then holding out the quill to Jack. ‘I have most
of the details, I believe. Treason, murder, conspiracy. Usual stuff. Just sign at the bottom.’

Jack made no move forward. ‘Why would I do that?’

‘Because it will save your life, boy.’ The goose feather was still held out. ‘His Majesty has decided, based on your military
service, your youth and your family’s formerly good name, to spare you the noose. You will be transported, of course. To the
Indies probably, where, if the fever doesn’t get you and you live ten years, they may make you a free man again.’

Jack had experienced slavery with the Abenaki and fever aboard the
Robuste.
He wanted neither experience again. But the noose? In life, at least there was hope. He leaned forward, read: ‘I, Jack Rombaud
Absolute, do hereby confess to be a foul traitor to England and her glorious King George …’

He shook his head. ‘It’s a lie. I cannot sign it. Hang me for a fool, if you must. But I will not live as a slave and a traitor.’

The Colonel sighed. ‘Are you quite sure?’

Jack felt his throat tighten – perhaps in anticipation. While he could still speak, he said, ‘Quite.’

‘Good lad,’ said Turnville. Lifting the paper, he ripped it swiftly from end to end. ‘Would have been very disappointed if
you had.’

A signal was given, a man approached from the back. A crystal glass was held out, the scent of sherry rising from it. He quickly
gripped it with two hands, did not lift it so they would not see his shakes. ‘What … what is happening?’

Turnville sipped from his own glass, put it down. ‘I’d like to offer you employment.’

Jack was not certain he’d heard correctly. He lifted the liquid to his lips, took half at a gulp. ‘I beg your pardon?’