Absolute Honour (27 page)

At last! It was going to happen. The waiting was ended. Almost too excited to try, he none the less decoded the last two words.

‘Return home.’

Jack sat there, staring. Return home? He was not even to be there at the kill? That was beyond disappointment, it was an insult.
Without him, they would not have Red Hugh McClune. And now they were dismissing him?

It did not take him long to realize that this was an order he would not, could not obey. They did not know how he watched
from his eyrie in the closed-up house. The least he
would do was see the man taken. And then he had business of his own to conclude. For if they thought he was leaving Rome without
seeing her …

His hand shaking, Jack reached for his strike light and flint, his bowl of leaves. The dog on the floor below had begun its
high-pitched yapping. As the paper caught alight, his eyes fixed on the insulting six words: ‘We take them tonight …’

Them?

‘Shite!’ he muttered aloud, reaching burnt fingers to his mouth. He picked up the crib and, even though the letter was ash,
turned to the page, tracked the line, found the word. There was no doubt.
Them.

Turnville was not just taking Red Hugh. He was going to take the whole Jacobite brood. He was going to take … Letty!

Jack stared ahead, his mind swamped, the barking below filling it, shutting out all thought. He had previously summoned a
host of huge rough men to guarantee the taking of the Irishman. Now he saw that same man seizing Letty, throwing her into
some foul cell, a man like Turnville coming into the room, signalling his man to begin …

It could not be allowed to happen.

The sudden hammering on his door seemed monstrous, accompanied by an upsurge in yaps and what sounded like groans beyond the
wood. Shocked, Jack seized the bowl, ran to the window, tipped the still-smouldering ashes out. The sounds at the door were
loud enough to make him fear that it would soon be burst in so there was no time to replace the Herodotus in its hole. Flinging
his coat over it, he unsheathed his sword, crossed to the door, turned the key and flung it open.

Watkin Pounce fell into the room. Hanging off him by its teeth was a small creature. ‘Save me,’ he gasped, ‘Hotspur has me
by the throat.’

The dog was, in fact, joined to the fat knight at the knee end of his breeches. Jack’s shod toe caused it to release and run
yelping out of the door.

Pounce had fallen onto the bed, which groaned but did not collapse. ‘That cur! I did nothing but enquire of it the way to
your room.’ His breaths were coming in great heaves, pushing out the huge cheeks. He looked like a goldfish jerked rudely
onto a riverbank. ‘How do you live so high up? I do not think I have climbed so since … ever.’ A fat wrist flapped. ‘Have
you no refreshment?’

Jack sheathed his sword with a grunt. ‘Do you not think, Watkin, that this is an early hour, even for you?’

‘I will alleviate your concern, sweet wag, by saying that I do not seek the first of the day but the last of the night.’ He
smiled. ‘Is that an Orvieto I spy in the corner? Why, ’tis barely wine!’

Jack shook his head and went to the rope-wrapped bottle. He had two mugs and filled one. Then after only a moment’s hesitation,
he filled the second. ‘Your health, sir,’ he said, handing one across.

‘And yours.’ Pounce drank half the mug. ‘You still look feverish, though, and have lost weight. Are you not recovered?’

Jack had sent word that a fever had taken him to excuse his absence from the Angelo and Pounce’s company. ‘Nearly. It was
virulent, whatever took me.’

‘The marshes of the
campagna
spread contagion into the city. Those who can, leave Rome for the summer months. Those who must, stay.’ He sighed, drained
his mug, held it out to Jack, who dutifully filled it. He sipped now, studying Jack as he did. ‘But there’s something else
in your eyes, lad, beyond a sickness. Or is it another kind? The effects of Cupid’s arrow?’

Jack looked at the man sprawled on his bed. In a strange way, he was the closest thing he had to a friend in Rome and
though he had deceived him about who he was, and what he was about, he had largely confessed the truth about Letty. ‘I am
still hard struck, it is true,’ he said, hesitantly, ‘the worse because … because the lady in question has now appeared in
Rome.’

‘No!’ Pounce raised himself on one elbow. ‘Tell me all.’

Jack adapted the story to a circumstance that did not include Jacobites. He spoke of seeing her at the opera, of following
her, of how his feelings were as strong as ever. The knight nodded and sighed. Finally, with a great effort, he sat up. ‘You
know what must be done.’

‘What?’

‘You must carry her away.’

It was Jack’s turn to sigh. ‘How?’

‘How? What sort of word is that for a lover? The only words that need concern you are when and where! Establish those and
how will resolve itself.’

‘But to approach her will be nigh impossible.’

‘Another craven word. Where does she stay?’

‘In the Palazzo Cavalieri.’

Pounce whistled. ‘I know it. Di Cavalieri’s one of the richest families in Rome. The aged count himself lives there and if
she is under his protection …’ He shook his head. ‘You must not attempt those walls. Is she never alone?’

‘I do not think so. She goes from the house to the chapel then back to the house then to the opera, always accompanied, always—’

‘Which chapel? Where does she worship?’

‘She’s Protestant, so—’

‘So she goes to the Palazzo Muti. My boy!’ Pounce actually levered himself up to sitting in his excitement. ‘There is your
opportunity. None of di Cavalieri’s servants will accompany her into that chapel. Papists to a man!’

‘But how do I get in there?’

‘Why, Pip,’ he replied, ‘you have the token still, do you
not? The silver token that gains you admittance? Do you mean to say you have not used it?’

Jack thought. He had not followed Letty into the chapel for fear of being spotted by her. He got up now, searched through
his various pockets. At last, in a waistcoat he had not worn in a week, he found it. ‘Here it is,’ he said.

‘Will her aunt accompany her?’

Jack shook his head. ‘She’s always alone, except for servants, who wait at the gate.’

Pounce beamed. ‘Then it should be easy enough for you to seize a moment with her. Enough to pass her a note at least, arrange
a further rendezvous. And that’s where you will carry her off.’

Jack thought about what the note had promised for the evening. We
take them tonight …

‘It would have to be today, this afternoon, and …’ Then he remembered one of the few other places he knew well enough in Rome.
‘I suppose I could get her to meet me at the gardens on Monte Pinchio.’

Pounce snapped his fingers. All effects of drunkenness seemed to have left him. ‘Excellent! So many entrances. Do you know
the cart track beside the Palazzo Barberini?’

‘I do.’

‘Good! I will rendezvous with you there at four in the afternoon, shall we say? With horses, laden with enough to get you
to Civitavecchia. From there, a felucca to take you to Genoa. If Neptune favours lovers with a fair tide, you would be out
of the Papal States in a day.’ He frowned. ‘Alas, though, I am afraid I will need, uh, a little gold to do this for you.’

Jack stared at him. This was madness! He had attempted exactly the same thing in Bath not two months previously and had failed.
Yet, how could he not try? If she felt about him as he did about her, perhaps she
would
just come away with him. Especially as he would be saving her from Red
Hugh’s capture and fate. As he would save her later from a charge of treason. For they would not condemn their own spy’s wife,
surely? ‘By God, sir,’ he said, thrusting a hand forward to be shaken, ‘I will do as you advise.’ He reached into the hole
under the planks that usually contained the Herodotus, pulled out his purse. ‘Would forty
scudi
be enough?’ he said, counting coins.

Pounce dabbed sweat from his forehead. ‘Fifty would secure it, and a dozen bottles of the Montepulciano to accompany you.’

Jack handed the coins over. ‘What time is the service?’

‘Eleven.’

Jack looked at his pocket watch. ‘But that’s less than an hour.’

Pounce rose, swayed, settled. ‘Then I suggest we should be about our business. You to the chapel. Me to the farrier.’ He reached
forward, took Jack’s hand. ‘I will see you with the horses. And I will weep as I watch you ride off for I will then remember
too clearly how I missed my chance to do the same. What might I have been if I had, eh? What might I have been?’ A tear ran
down his cheek, he waved a hand and was gone. His shouts and the dog’s yaps faded, accompanying Jack’s scribbling upon a scrap
of paper.

It was only when he was on his way to the Palazzo Muti that Jack realized what this would mean if all his hopes were gratified,
if Letty did indeed love as he loved and would give up everything, risk all these dangers, for that love. He would not be
there at the taking of Red Hugh McClune. He would, with luck, be on a felucca bound for Genoa.

What is revenge, he thought, compared to love? With a chuckle he realized that he was obeying his orders, those of his scoutmaster
to return home. Yet nowhere did those orders say he had to return home alone.

Though he could have visited the Palazzo Muti before, Jack had shown little desire. As King James III had already left for his summer villa, those few who remained in Rome to endure the swelter were the obvious face of Jacobitism
– courtiers and administrators, part of whose labour was to cultivate those who visited and try to turn them to the Cause.
Jack had had enough of that at the Angelo.

Yet he cursed himself now for not taking the opportunity, because then he would not be lost! His token had gained him admittance
at the main entrance where the porter had gestured vaguely through another and muttered,
‘Cappella.’
But the door had led to a courtyard, a colonnade around it, doors leading off. The three he tried opened onto empty rooms,
furniture shrouded and windows shuttered. At last he found a stair that took him up but the corridor there was equally deserted
and the one serving girl he found had no English and his careful pronunciation of the word
‘cappella’
produced no response. He strode along, barely glancing at the portraits that hung every few feet, Stuart kings, princes and
their consorts gazing down upon lost kingdoms. A clock had struck eleven when he questioned the maid. He was, as ever, late.

Then he saw it, and only because it was just closing, the door no more distinctive than most of the others. Close to, he observed
a small stone cross on the pediment, wreathed in Stuart oak leaves. The hand was still on the knob the other side as he jerked
it open and a man stumbled out.

‘Scusi, signore,
is this …
cappella?’
And then he saw that it was, not needing the man’s whispered Italian jabber to confirm it. The hand guided him inside, the
door closed behind him.

It was dark in the royal chapel, and cool, for the interior seemed to be all marble, floor to ceiling, the light coming mainly
from candelabra, though in the roof he could see two small windows that admitted a little sunshine and air. The casements
were the plainest things on display for though he knew that the service to be held was Protestant, the chapel certainly wasn’t,
for it served the Catholic king as well. Statues of angels and the beatified gazed to heaven; the small choir was carved from
mahogany, rococo angels clutching lyres over clouds and stars. Though incense did not burn now, its stale musk clung to the
pews and the statuary. It was not a large space, no bigger than a small parish church in Cornwall, and thus overcrowded, claustrophobic.
Jack stood for a moment to let his heart settle and his sight adjust.

It took him some moments to find her. When he did, he moved immediately to the right aisle. She sat on the extreme end of
the pew, gazing up to the altar. The Rector was just commencing the service. There was hardly space in the pew behind her
but Jack created some, forcing a large woman to gather her bulging dress and slide along. Movement rippled down, people adjusting
with whispered protests.

Her head did not turn to the slight commotion, her gaze remaining fixed on the vicar. He could only see that small part of
her but it was enough to make his breathing shallow, for he had not been this close to her since their parting in the
garden in Bath. He saw the same neck he’d kissed, the wave of finest down rising up at the back to the hair; saw the edge
of the ear he’d run his tongue along, making her laugh, then making her sigh. Saw the nose, one cheek, both powdered now,
not then, for the rain had washed it off in the garden, leaving him to marvel at the tracery of freckles scattered on her
skin like stars across the sky.

He couldn’t help the moan that memory brought; and the vision before him instantly changed. A flush ran up the neck, into
the hairline; the head began to turn. He leaned forward. ‘Hush,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Do not cry out.’

A scolding ‘Shh!’ came from the woman beside him, a louder gasp from the one in front. Then both were fortuitously drowned
by the first notes of the organ introducing the hymn. All rose, though Jack had to grab Letty’s elbow to support her. She
steadied, as the singing began.

The verse was not loudly sung, the largely English congregation displaying the usual national restraint. Only the woman beside
him truly raised her voice. It was not tuneful, but it gave Jack the chance to lean in again.

‘Do not turn around,’ he said, ‘but it
is
I, Jack. I have come for you.’ Letty half-turned, her lips parted in shock, not song. ‘Jack,’ she mouthed. ‘How … ? Oh, Jack.’

He found that he had no more words. The singing continued, a murmur further off, a roar nearby, yet even that dissonance seemed
fitting somehow, a reminder of a world out of harmony. Something he was there to set right.