Absolute Honour (26 page)

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. He 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’.

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.

It was the fifth day when, in longing rather than in any hope, he walked past the house again as the bell rang eight. And
there it was. He kept straight on, disdaining the safer, circuitous route, even cutting through the Piazza di Spagna and straight
past the Caffe degli Inglesi with his hat brim down. No countryman hailed him and he was soon in the park, swiftly at the
tree. A paper was there, not the three sets of numbers he knew now would condemn him still to wait and watch, but a whole
series that he did not recognize. Eagerly he rushed back to his lodgings, took the crib from its hiding place, translated
the phrase. The first four words thrilled: ‘We take them tonight.’