Kit by Marina Fiorato Page B

the lakes and then to the mountains, the fairytale landscape took on the dark hellish shadows of conflict. Now the ugly face of war leered at her from all sides. As they rode, Kit saw burning villages, homeless, grubby families wandering the roads, who, upon meeting the dragoons, would bleat ‘ pane, pane ’ in unison like so many goats. They would stare with eyes blank with hunger, and hold out their hands in pleading supplication. Kit did not understand this word she heard so often, until Ross ordered the bannermen to give out the crusts from the bread wagons. These crusts, so hard they would break teeth, were devoured at once; and members of the same family would fight each other for the privilege of eating them. Again, Kit learned to turn her eyes away.
    At sundown they reached the town of Villafranca. ‘City of the French,’ translated Ross grimly. ‘I hope we beat them here.’ But the first coats they glimpsed in the town were red. The better part of Gardiner’s company of foot from The Truth and Daylight had scattered themselves about the little town under the lengthening shadow of a crenellated red castle. As the dragoons rode up the main thoroughfare, they saw the windows and doors of the houses pushed open, with painted women lolling from the casements. One foot soldier stood against a wall with his whore, locked in an embrace like mating curs. Another openly fondled a woman’s naked breasts. Kit glanced at her commander but Captain Ross held his tongue, the muscles of his jaw quilting with the effort of silence. Gardiner’s men were carousing as if the day had been won; but their celebrations seemed curiously joyless. Ross kept his peace until they happened upon several foot soldiers drunk and wearing half a uniform. Ross stopped three of them in the street by merely holding up his hand; his pristine presence, together with the hundred horse at his back, sobered them abruptly. ‘Where’s your hat, soldier? And your friend’s coat? And this third fellow seems to be missing the full complement of boots. Taylor.’ The red-headed sergeant was at his elbow at once. ‘Put these men on a charge. You. Where is Lieutenant Gardiner?’
    The hatless man, who seemed less jug-bitten than the others, said meekly, ‘Directing operations from the castle, Captain.’
    Captain Ross nodded curtly. ‘Taylor, with me. Also Walsh, Ingoldsby, Irwin.’
    Night was falling fast, and the advance party rode swiftly to the castle, skirting the disused moat. A horse stood at the brink of the trench, its lip curled back above yellow teeth, while a dame held it by the head collar, her apron thrown over her head, as if there was something she did not wish to see. A redcoat stood on the high bank, breeches by his ankles, his face working with pleasure, his hands holding the horse’s wiry tail high, his loins thrusting at the glossy hindparts.
    Ross acted at once. He dismounted and clubbed the man on the back of his head with the stock of his musket, dropping him to the ground. ‘Taylor,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘when this man awakens he should find himself in irons.’ Then, without hesitation, he shot the horse through the temple, took a purse from his belt and handed the money to the dame under the apron. Kit had to use all her skill to stop Flint from bolting at the noise and the sight of the mountain of horseflesh collapsing to the pavings. Ross spurred his mare to the drawbridge and she followed, sick at heart. Maria van Lommen had left this most detestable sin out of her roll call of sexual peccadilloes, and Kit wondered to what hell she had descended.
    In the red courts of the castle Ross found Mr Gardiner. The ensign was sprawled drunk at the base of a fountain, his coat open at the throat and one sleeve in the water. When he saw Captain Ross he lifted his hand out of the water and fluttered it at him, in a half-wave, raining droplets on his breeches. ‘We met the French at Mantova,’ he slurred. ‘They’ve