Absolute Honour (32 page)

‘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.’

He studied Jack, Jack studied the gun. A pocket pistol, a woman’s toy really, similar to the one Letty had had in Bath. But
as Red Hugh’s confederate had discovered there, it was a toy that could still kill. He lifted the bottle. ‘Do you not want
this?’

‘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.’

‘So your loyalty is only to yourself?’

‘The only King left. The one you now threaten.’

He shifted the gun again and Jack’s grip tightened on the knife, watching the man’s eyes, not his finger. The eyes would give
it away and Jack would have to take his chances and strike. He had the speed of youth. But the old drunk had gunpowder. Then,
as he watched, something seemed to sag in Pounce’s face.

‘You spoke of a choice?’

Jack breathed out. ‘I can prevent the letter being sent. And I will not reach London for months perhaps. You have time.’

‘Time for what?’

‘Time to disappear.’

The eyes narrowed, almost vanishing into the fleshy face. Then Pounce sighed. ‘I have indeed grown to suspect that I am too
old for all this. I have even begun some plans, a villa in the hills near …’ He focused on Jack. ‘What would I have to do
in return for this temporary silence?’

Jack’s fingers relaxed slightly on the knife’s hilt. ‘Get me out of Rome.’

This silence was shorter. ‘And if I did this? I could not expect you to conceal anything from Colonel Turnville. You are still
young enough to believe in your duty. But will you swear, on something you truly believe in, that if you do meet him again,
you will say nothing of my aid to the Irishman? He would be displeased, to say the least. He would find me, or have others
do so, however well I hid. And
I
have not saved his life.’

Jack took a step forward, his empty hand outstretched. ‘I will swear it on my honour. And that, as the Irishman will discover,
is something I never compromise.’ He still saw the hesitation in Pounce’s eyes, even if the pistol point was tipping away,
coming to rest on the table. ‘You need not fear him, Watkin. For I will be after him, and when I next see Red Hugh McClune,
he will be dead. For I am going to kill him.’

‘That would indeed be a feat.’ Pounce studied him for a long moment. ‘Your honour demands it?’ On Jack’s nod, he continued.
‘Well, I hazard I know the cause. Laetitia, the Countess di Cavalieri. Née Fitzpatrick?’ Jack stayed silent. ‘She married
in great splendour, did you know? King James was there, risen from his sick bed. His cardinal son Henry officiated.’

‘I did not know.’

‘And it is said she is now carrying an heir to the house.’

‘Indeed.’ Jack had almost reached the table now. ‘Are we agreed?’

There was a final moment of hesitation, a last search of Jack’s eyes. Then the pistol was laid down. Jack placed his knife
beside it.

‘Agreed,’ said Watkin Pounce, eyeing the blade with a shudder. Heaving his bulk from the chair, he said, ‘Arrangements must
be made, certain people suborned. Do you have any gold?’

‘I gave you fifty
scudi
to hire horses. Where is it?’

‘Here,’ said Pounce, rubbing his belly.

Jack reached for his fallen satchel. ‘Then I will divide what I have left with you.’ He counted. ‘There’s near twenty apiece.’

‘Twenty?’ The disappointment was pronounced. ‘Not much, is it?’

‘Twenty and my silence, Watkin. Remember that.’

‘True.’ With the coins in his hand, Pounce’s excitement seemed to banish his drunkenness and he started for the door. ‘I’ll
get to it. The fellows who will help us do not keep regular hours.’ Looking back, he said, ‘And one will know if there is
a ship at Civitavecchia bound for Lisbon.’

‘Lisbon?’ said Jack, surprised.

‘Well, did you not say you would be after McClune?’

‘I did.’

‘Then you will find him in Portugal. All communications are to be forwarded to a certain house in Lisbon. Perhaps I should
not have told you that.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Though
he
will not be there himself, of course. Besides, do you not read the newspapers?’

Jack grunted. ‘The Inquisition is lax in providing them.’

Pounce gestured to the foot of the bed. ‘There’s one from London. Quite recent, only took five weeks to get here. I always
believe a young man should attend to the affairs of the world.’ Then he was gone.

The paper referred to, the
London Advertiser,
was dated 15 June 1762. Pounce had circled a section in pencil.

With regard to the late compact between the Bourbon tyrannies of France and Spain and the King’s declaration of war against
the latter, a strong force is being dispatched to aid our doughty ally the King of Portugal and his noble people. Under the
command of the illustrious Earl of Loudoun will be the 3rd, 67th, Boscawen’s and Crawford’s regiments of Foot together with
those Hibernian hammers of the French, the regiments Armstrong’s and Traherne’s …

Jack paused. Irish regiments could be trouble. One was never sure where their loyalties lay. The French had several battalions
in their own army ever delighted to fight the British. And there was always something a-stir in their homeland. He read on.

In addition, and fresh from winning laurel wreathes in the late action upon Belleisle, two troops of the 16th Light Dragoons
have joined the other four direct from Portsmouth to present, under their noble Colonel, John Burgoyne, the most fearsome
aspect of cavalry the Spaniard has ever had to face.

Startled, Jack read the same sentences again and again. The whole of the 16th – the comrades he’d left training in London
when he’d been sent as King’s Messenger to Quebec three years before – were engaged in this campaign. And somewhere nearby
– concealed, no doubt, by a new name and uniform – was an Irish Grenadier Jack particularly wanted to meet again. What had
he said at their last encounter in the prison? That he was always looking to do something ‘spectacular’? Something even greater
than the killing of a King? Scanning the column again, Jack could have no doubts: McClune would be seeking that opportunity
in Portugal.

‘So,’ Jack said aloud, reaching for his glass of wine, raising it before him, ‘it appears it is time for me to rejoin the
regiment.’

‘You are dead, Cornet Absolute.’

Jack made no reply. It didn’t do to contradict one’s superior, especially on one’s first day back with the regiment. Besides
even Captain Onslow – who Jack now remembered was referred to by all the junior officers during training as, simply, ‘Slow’
– would eventually figure it out.

He had some way to go yet. ‘Says so here, d’ye see?’ The man spun a sheaf of papers around. ‘ “Missing, presumed dead. September
seventeen fifty-nine.” One is only presumed dead for so long, Absolute, until one
is
dead, hmm?’

Jack sighed, less at the man’s blockheadedness than at the conspiracy that had written his epitaph. In September 1759 he’d
been captured by the Abenaki at the end of the first battle before Quebec. He
had
been thought dead then. But General Murray had used him as a spy in the subsequent campaign and then Turnville had also sent
him to Rome in the same role.

‘Did Colonel Turnville not inform you, sir, that I had been transferred, temporarily, to his command?’

‘Turnville? Never heard of him. Sounds like a Frog to me.’ Onslow puffed out his cheeks, perhaps in imitation. ‘What regiment?’

‘I am not sure. He was in charge of some intelligence matters for which he—’

‘Intelligence?’ The Captain had thrown himself back in his chair as if the word were a pile of ordure Jack had just dumped
upon his desk. ‘Don’t much like “intelligence”, man.’

‘That’s obvious,’ Jack muttered.

‘What’s that?’

It had long ceased to surprise Jack how many officers considered intelligence to be like a sneaky ball in a game of cricket.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘Colonel Turnville said that he would inform you of my return and my transfer to his operation. That he did
not may suggest the delicacy of that mission?’

The words, their quiet delivery, had the desired effect. ‘Ah, yes, quite, quite!’ Onslow flapped his hands as if waving away
flies, which he might well have been as the room was so full of them. ‘Less said, eh?’

‘Yes, sir. But, as you see, I am not, in fact, dead. Indeed I am quite fit and ready for active service.’

The captain took out a handkerchief and wiped sweat from his brow. Portugal was held in a terrible heatwave and the Dragoon
uniform, despite the earliness of the hour, only magnified its effects. Jack, in a linen sailor’s shirt and trousers of brown
Osnaburg canvas, was a cool contrast.

His superior was now eyeing these distastefully. ‘Active service, eh? Well, I suppose we
do
have a uniform for you, since poor old Peers got his brains blown out on Belleisle. And his death did cause a vacancy at
captain of the third troop. Lieutenant Crawford is moving up to that. But Cornet Stokey was to occupy the lieutenancy, with
young Worsley made up from the ranks. We were only waiting for Colonel Burgoyne to arrive for his final approval.’ He started
flicking through some other rolls. ‘What date was your commission, d’ye happen to remember?’

‘Fourteenth of June seventeen fifty-nine,’ Jack said.

‘And Stokey’s was … the nineteenth of June.’ He grunted in disappointment. ‘So you are senior.’

‘And a lieutenant already, sir. General Murray was so good as to appoint me—’

‘A brevet promotion, unconnected to the procedures of the regiment!’ Onslow glared. ‘Still, you are senior, so,’ he sighed,
‘I suppose you must have the lieutenancy. I can tell you now, though, it will not be popular. These men have all served together
on Belleisle. They wanted one of their own.’

Jack shrugged. That was their problem, not his. He’d earned his lieutenancy and the perks that went with it.

Onslow still looked dubious. ‘Speaking of serving – are you up with the latest drills?’

The man had obviously not taken in what Jack had just told him. ‘I have been unable to keep up, sir, being with—’

The hand flapped again. ‘Yes, yes! Well, you will have to be taught, sirrah. Can’t have someone who doesn’t know how to dress
his ranks, hmm? And have you ever been in a charge?’

‘Actually, sir,’ Jack thought back to Quebec, his seizing of the Frenchman’s horse, his pursuit of the enemy that day, ‘I
did—’

‘Never mind. You will just have to learn. Since the vacancy is in the third troop, you will report to Sergeant Puxley. He’ll
put you through it, never fear.’ He wiped his brow again. ‘You may go.’

‘Yes, sir. Uh, where, sir?’

‘See my clerk out there,’ the man almost shouted. ‘We officers mess at the Praho Taberna. Be there at eight tonight. Don’t
be late! And shave, for God’s sake, man. You look like a Dago wagon driver!’

A shaken handkerchief dismissed him. As Jack shut the door, he scratched his chin beneath the full growth. He supposed he’d
have to trim his hair also, now halfway down his back. He’d let both grow to aid his escape from Rome, as
he’d remained in the city for two weeks while the hue and cry abated and the Inquisition thought him already gone. He’d kept
the look in case of pursuit and because it suited his guise as a Languedocian cod trader, returning to his base in Portugal.
But now that he was at his destination, the regimental base in the town of Abrantes, he supposed the look would no longer
do. Not in the Queen’s Light Dragoons.

Jack stared at the stains. When Captain Onslow had told him that the officer he was to replace had had his brains blown out,
he’d neglected to mention that so many of them still remained on the man’s uniform. While the rest of the wardrobe was acceptable
– the late Sir William Peers being of a similar height and chest to Jack, though the jockey boots were a snug fit – this short
coat clearly was not. He could not appear with such an obvious reminder of recent tragedy. It would spook the men. Ecod, it
would spook him! The brains must be removed. And since the troop was out watering the horses, there was no one to hire as
a batman. He would have to do the cleaning himself.

A Portuguese groom fetched buckets of water and a bar of lye soap to an empty stable stall. The terrible mid-morning heat
and the vigour with which he was forced to scrub the coat made him sweat in profusion. Taking his shirt off, he set to again,
gratified to see progress. He began to hum an Iroquois battle chant.