Deluded Your Sailors (20 page)

A very pretty rescue.

Plaindeal and obey. You understand. Aye, you know how Reynolds lied. For a start, his true name was Phillip Runciman.

14)
RARA AVIS
, COMMON CURS
M
ARCH
1722, P
ORTSMOUTH
, E
NGLAND
.

In the private home of Captain Sir Alexander Dunton, a visitor from London peered through the curtains, tugged them shut, and snorted. Dunton winced as his friend, Phillip Runciman, swallowed wine and bile. Runciman felt grateful to Dunton for hosting this private meeting, this tiresome reprimand, but he cursed Dunton's presence in the room. Runciman's humiliation here stained them both.

—Shall I explain again?

The visitor, a royal advisor and Runciman's superior in the intelligence service, pretended to make a toast. —I beg you, Mr Runciman: make the attempt.

Runciman lifted his own glass. So did Dunton.
To hour three.
—My plan, or my ‘wisdom,' as you kindly termed it a moment ago, depended on one simple courier job. On the advice of my colleague, Captain Dunton, I tasked one Lieutenant William Cleasby to carry a message and money to a contact a child might have spotted. Instead, Mr Cleasby announced himself to another man, presuming this man to be correct simply because he expected him to be. Mr Cleasby has difficulty separating desire from truth.

Sir Alexander Dunton studied his wine. He'd recommended Cleasby, under pressure from a commodore who seemed overly concerned about the undistinguished lieutenant's career.

The royal advisor poked spots on the tablecloth as though they were places on a map.

—Then we should fear for the navy. Your underling's failure means some local sheep-shagger now owns the cipher key and the gold, while the real man now stands unprotected and impotent! And how, sir, shall he get to Benvolio now?

—If I may point out, sir, the real man missed the sailing, and the rendezvous with Lieutenant Cleasby, of his own negligence.

—Indeed he did, sir! Truck with Irishmen and boys and bankrupt gentry. Do you see why I despair? Two of your men, each failing, Cleasby even giving away codes and cash.

—Cleasby fouls everything he touches, I grant.

—And Benvolio. We've not done discussing His Majesty's interests on that fair isle. And you sent an Irishman. No word for months?

Runciman shook his head, mouth tired and sore with
No, sir.

—Michael Farr, another Runciman man entrusted large amounts of money, not to mention the hotter currency of intelligence. Do you think him killed?

—It would be easier, sir, to kill a kraken. I've got reliable sightings. Of Farr.

—Mr Runciman, I must ask: for whom does your exceptionally well-trained, well-paid and well-stocked Michael Farr work? And precisely what does he work at? Can you answer me?

Runciman almost traded
No, sir
for
Not at this time.
—He works for me, and I work for His Majesty.

—Yet you've lost contact with him. Do you control none of your agents, sir?

—Intelligence, my lord, is not got freely as fish in a basket. It needs worrying. I am confident that Michael Farr – —What words might he trade for food?

—I do not know.

The royal advisor leant forward, knocking over his wine. It flowed rapidly toward Runciman, dripping off his end of the table and onto his breeches.—Retrieve your man Farr from Benvolio, or stop his mouth. The precise methods, sir, I leave to your discretion. Then, perhaps, we may salvage your position.

Light thinned and shadows grew as Phillip Runciman strode over a muddy common, and a flea leapt from his collar to edge of his ear. Wreckage of a day – fuckery, Michael Farr would call it. Not that Runciman could claim the reprimand surprised him. Between Farr and Cleasby and two lesser cock-ups, he looked laughably incompetent. And he'd not got much means – or time – to fix this. His prestigious task, the supervision of Benvolio and the Genoan interference there, was a test. European politics in the Mediterranean dearly mattered to England, and Farr's handy, if nominal, Catholicism justified the means of using him. But if Runciman failed this test, he would progress no further in the service. He might even meet with an accident; failed spymasters knew too much.

Michael Farr would be masterless. So he thinks. Let him starve a
few mercenary years, and then he will come rapping on my door.

The flea leapt into Runciman's ear and bit him. Runciman kicked a bony dog, not caring that it snarled.

Retrieve Farr, oh, easy. My best agents already tasked, and most
overseas. Headaches of foreign policy. Migraine preyed on Elizabeth's
spymaster, Sir Robert Cecil – small wonder.

One of Runciman's predecessors had died of a stroke; Runciman had reported to his office, found the man insensible and bleeding from the ear. Quiet and middling deaths for some spymasters. Cecil took several days to die, wracked with pain and guilt, apologizing over and over, begging for mercy...

Death – ha, death. Not the issue. Not my death
.

Send whom?

The flea jumped further into Runciman's head, stopped at the eardrum, leapt out.

Overhead, a kittiwake called. Runciman stared up at the belly of the bird; behind him, something snuffed.
A final tempering.
Black lips, grey teeth and slobber, growl expiring on a high note beneath Runciman's hands. Throwing the strangled dog's carcass to his left, the permanent observer in him noting the speed of his own pulse, Runciman sighted five other dogs, one of them dirty white, the others grey and brown, waiting. They stood as if balanced on the edge of something Runciman could not see.

The dead dog's fur stirred in the wind.

The white dog growled.

Dusk took the light, and Kit's eyes burned. Portsmouth muttered beneath the window; somewhere, dogs barked. Belly cramps clenched her. Kit scowled and wrote the date –
Thirtieth
of March 1722 –
the quill wretchedly delicate. Kit preferred to mark paper with sharp lead, annoying Runciman one day with a series of big-eyed caricatures. —Is this gratitude? How many of your station learn to read and write, and you would draw me a fool?

Runciman's displeasure was a short path to exile past his doors. Never back to sea, no. The street – again? Squatting to shit out rotten scraps of food, or relishing the bursts of fat and meat in her mouth from Runciman's plates? So, please him: study, clean, draw, recite, wait. Venture out with older agents and learn how to listen and how to hide. Dread Runciman's moods.

Outside, men yelled, and dogs howled.

Kit sprinkled sand on the wet ink of a chart drawn from memory: the Mediterranean Isle of Benvolio. Teeth clenched, fists right, Kit struggled to keep her anger pent. Being angry with Runciman made no sense; she paid him nothing. Runciman kept his promise, no usage, and he sheltered, fed, taught and studied her. Kit the gift. Thin, even bony, hair tied at the neck with a new black ribbon, hips square with her waist, broad shoulders, heavy forehead, green eyes feverish and raw. An enticing accident, he once said, drunk. A freak prize, a gift. Blurred roughwork of God.

Telling Runciman of her early life, Kit had put words in her dead mother's mouth.

—She said to Robert Pike, ‘Take her from this trade. Teach her something else.' Maybe he loved my mother. Maybe he owed her something. I owe him. Another girl born to be split for pleasure, and he tried to keep me from that. Warned me about bawds and how kind they might be, because the shaking virgin could bring in good money.

Kit would feel rage, some greasy fire that and hissed and flared. Sometimes she ignored it. Other times, it took command. She'd yell. Kick the wall. Throw the ink. Gouge the floor with her knife.

Runciman would observe these outbursts carefully.

Kit shook the paper clean and placed it on the far side of the desk, where it joined earlier work: England, Ireland, more Benvolio, the New England coast, Newfoundland. Then she laid her head down on the desk and closed her eyes.
Kitchen-maid late
with the bread and cheese?
Runciman had forbidden Kit and the maid to speak to each other, but sometimes they stole conversation. A scrap such as
Good morning
packed a potent thrill. Once, Kit's hand brushed the maid's, and each hesitated before drawing away.

At the moment Kit noticed her absence, the maid, a five-minute-walk away, was babbling for her mother. A handsome bird-monger who often called on Runciman's kitchen buttoned his breeches, glanced round for witnesses, kicked the maid in the pelvis, and rejoined the marketplace traffic. He nearly turned and ran when he saw Runciman himself hurrying towards him, clothes askew and dirty; instead, he walked normally, eyes down, brushing Runciman's elbow. Runciman irritably flinched and strode faster.

Kit dreamt of correcting charts and needing more light. A hand bore a candle –

Eyes suddenly open so wide they hurt, she leapt up, knife ready. Lamplight flickered onto Runciman's hard face beneath his wig.

—Easy, easy. Tis only me. Breathe slowly, slowly. And put down that knife before you do me a murder. I just beat off stray dogs with a stick; do not inspire me to repeat that. My aching head. I must review your sea-charts. England and Ireland are passable. Coastal Massachusetts is excellent. This peninsulaed rhombus – quite unrecognizable, new-found-land indeed. Draw Benvolio again. Tomorrow, mushbrains. Now I'd have recitation; give me Rochester. Stand up. Are you ill? Blood? Oh, God, this day! I may tell you now what a woman once told me, she carrying much extra cloth for such times, and within that, on my behalf, cloth packets of letters. She bled two or three days and was done. Some bleed a week. Sshh. For a woman I could trust who might teach you better – Kit, for the love of Christ, settle down. Tis just blood. But we must hide it. Do not get splenetic with me. I'll have you go about my tasks as a young man or not at all. Later, when – starve, then. Go. You are free of me. Be used, be fucked and be killed – wait. Stay, my useful one, my
rara avis
, stay. Stay. Where would you go? I'll get you cloth. I've new breeches and a shirt for you. We've each need of the other. Wait. Wrap this between. No little wonder females wear so many layers; you lot must hide so much. Ridiculous, aye, but you were so born, not me. New breeches, black, hide all manner of dirt. Turn. Bind those down. When came this new growth? Luckily they're still small. Wind the linen so. Tis good linen. I bought it years ago to use as my gravecloth. Shirt. Turn. Turn again. Good.

Runciman stepped back, his gaze threaded not with desire but evaluation.

—Give me Rochester, ‘The Maim'd Debauchee,' from ‘bearing arms'.

Breeches too large, shirt untucked, confused, Kit recited lewd verse. It helped her master think.

I'll tell of whores attacked, their lords at home.

Bawds' quarters beaten up and fortress won,

Windows demolished, watches overcome,

And handsome ills by my contrivance done.

Nor shall our love-fits, Chloris, be forgot

When each the well-looked linkboy strove t'enjoy

And the best kiss was the deciding lot:

Whether the boy fucked you, or I the boy.

With tales like these, I will such heat inspire–

Runciman held up his hand, smiling.
An Irishman and a boy.
Now all I need is the bankrupt gentlemen. Matthew Johnson.
—That slut of a serving girl is not coming tonight. We must find supper elsewhere.

—The blood, sir. Is it an old wound just now cleansing itself?

The dull light did not warm Runciman's face; it only emphasized his pallor and bones.

He glanced once more at Kit's seacards of Benvolio and Newfoundland, tucked the awkward islands into a warped drawer and then walked around the desk.

—No. All females bleed. Eventually you may work for me as a female. A woman can transport quite a few documents within stockings and skirt. For now, we'll work with your young man's body and young man's story. Who are you?

—I am called Christopher, sir, or Kit for short. No parentage to speak of. I did be stolen off the street, sir, and hard used, and afterwards traded to a papist priest, with whom, as servant, I crossed the sea to Barbary. There we made to ransom and rescue a French hostage, but our mission stumbled. Soon we found ourselves muted by unknown language and unknown faith. In Barbary, men must go circumcised. I, sir, being a young boy and frightened, jumped and screamed, and – I still feel the slice, the stab. The knife slipped and took far more than intended. My wounds refuse to heal. My voice remains trapped.

Phillip Runciman took Kit's hands in his to rub them warm.

—I must send you out. Away. You'll travel with an agent of mine, Matthew Johnson, to – aye, Benvolio – and find for me that which is lost, a man called Michael Farr. I will give you orders that you must pass only to Farr. Mind he sees them.

And should you come to be harmed, I'll see Johnson fucked with
a spike.