Wicked by Design Page 10

  ‘Where are they all?’ Kitto said quickly. Pearls of sweat stood out on his forehead; his hair was sodden with it. ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Ke dhe dre!’ Crow said in a burst of furious Cornish, all his anger rising like a wave and crashing over Kitto. ‘Go home. I told you not to come. Do you think I have time now to deal with an insubordinate child?’

  ‘What, you want to be shot down by Wentworth’s men in a blaze of glory all your own? Is that what this is all about?’

  If they had been standing and not on horseback, Crow would have struck him, and they both knew it. ‘You are my heir.’ Crow spoke with furious cold enunciation. ‘Without you, it like as not all ends today, the entire Lamorna line. Go to Petersburg and back to your regiment. Go now, and you won’t be tainted by what happens.’

  ‘I won’t leave you,’ Kitto said, so headstrong and steering so hard to his own course of action, however thoughtless, that one wanted to shake him.

  ‘If you want to be a hero, protect my wife and child, not me.’ And even as Crow spoke, he felt the cobbled streets of Newlyn tumble away beneath his feet, and that he had made the most profound mistake of his life in leaving Hester and Morwenna, because they and the stubborn fool mounted beside him were all that mattered. And yet he held in his hands the lives of so many others who also depended on him. Kitto stared at him with a look of agonised indecision, but even as he did so, the low, pure note of Cornish plainsong rang out – men and women’s voices, raised in praise, the sound drifting from the lane that ran parallel to Fore Street. Even though the music was familiar and eerily beautiful, cold fear slicked down Crow’s back. Without discussion, they both dismounted, looping the reins around one of the railings outside the Gwyn cottage, Ann Gwyn’s neat herb garden spangled with dew-covered spiderwebs. In silence, they walked side by side down the deserted street, past shuttered houses, turning left off Fore Street and on to Barrack Lane until finally they reached the long, low bulk of the meeting house itself. Captain Wentworth’s men clustered around the entrance, a shock of red jackets against weatherworn granite and the mud and straw of the narrow street of beaten earth; they were unable to surround the building entirely, because at the back it abutted on to the fish house on Fore Street where the women gutted and salted sardines on long, stone-topped tables. Kitto said nothing, but Crow knew he was trusting in him to act. He could see Wentworth among the Northumbrians, a little behind the men nearest the broad oaken front door of the chapel. They were going to storm it – unwitnessed, or so they thought: it would be easy to say they had been suppressing insurrection on the streets when it had been no such thing, a sure route to that promotion Wentworth so clearly longed for. If Crow had his way it would be a sure route to a court martial, nothing more.

  ‘Ready, men!’ Wentworth called out, his voice ragged with anticipation, and Crow watched as if in a waking nightmare as the Northumbrians cocked and raised their bayonets – bayonets in a chapel.

  ‘He’s going to charge the meeting house,’ Kitto said, his voice cracking in disbelief. And the singing continued, a low, sweet melody rising and falling. The narrow muddy lane now seemed set in aspic, the bright scarlet of Wentworth’s men’s jackets frozen in time against the granite walls of the meeting house. Wentworth himself turned with animal alertness, shifting in the saddle, his ruddy, good-humoured face spattered with flecks of mud, his eyes empty of emotion.

  ‘Charge!’ Wentworth’s voice rang out.

  Crow hesitated for a bare half-moment; then, and without looking at Kitto, he spoke to him in rapid, quiet Cornish. ‘Get around to Fore Street and open the door at the back of the fish house – Wentworth’s men won’t know it’s there, and it’s always barred from that side. Get as many of these people out as you can.’ Kitto nodded, silent, and Crow went on. ‘Halt! Hold your fire.’ The men closest to him responded to the habit of command in his voice, lowering their bayonets immediately, turning to stare, and Wentworth turned, too, his face twisted with fury in a way that would have been comical in any other scenario – he looked like a thwarted child denied a paper bag of barley-sugar twists. Crow was just aware of Kitto’s absence: he had gone, exactly as ordered.

  ‘Charge!’ Wentworth shouted again, and his men ran at the doors, which burst open inwards, and for a sickening moment the singing didn’t even falter; and then someone screamed, and the screaming didn’t stop. It was all Crow heard as he primed his pistol, raised it, and fired at Captain Wentworth.

  16

  Market-day was always busy in Hugh-town on St Mary’s, the largest island of the scattered archipelago thirty miles across the Cornish sea from Penzance. Baskets of smoked mackerel were piled high alongside rickety stalls displaying glistening, silvery heaps of pilchard, hake and sole, rings of dried apple hung in net bags, and the spicy scent of warm saffron buns mingled with the sharp salt air. With Morwenna heavy in her arms and Catlin at her side Hester edged along the great stone quay, through a crowd that stretched from the cobbled street outside the Dolphin tavern and all the way along to the customs house. Every bone in her body ached after the twelve-hour crossing from Penzance, she and Catlin taking turns at the tiller or clutching a wriggling Morwenna, arguing listlessly about how on earth they would ever arrange recompense for the dinghy taken from the Trewarthens’ mooring back in Lamorna Cove without incurring the very real risk of giving themselves away to the English. If Hester never had to leave dry land again, she would be only too happy, but the filthy crossing to Scilly and the heart-stopping wait for a ship was only the start. There was the Channel to face next, and then Saint-Malo. Men and boys she half recognised were still unloading the Curlew as she rocked alongside the quay, and it would be half an hour yet at least before they boarded. France was a horrific danger, true, but in Breton quarters they could speak Cornish and blend in, and would be shielded by the Breton, Hester was sure. It was their best chance of safety, however imperfect.

  ‘Lord, don’t you wish we could just take the mail-boat to Bryher?’ Catlin said, picking up the salt-stained skirts of her gown as she stepped over a straw-filled puddle. ‘It’s that strange to be so close to home and yet not able to go back.’

  ‘I know, but how can we? It’s the first place they’ll look for us.’ Hester bowed her head, breathing in the scent of Morwenna’s lace-trimmed cap, still redolent of the lavender laundry soap they made in the stillroom at Nansmornow. The child shifted, squalling and wriggling, and Hester could see that the Curlew was still frustratingly low in the water – her cargo of wool and wine not even half unloaded. She had no notion what had happened to Crow, or to Kitto, and there was no possible way of finding out without giving herself away.

  ‘I think the maid’s thirsty,’ Catlin said, with her stolid ability to pay heed only to practicalities. ‘She does look hot.’

  Hester cast a look up and down the crowded quay. ‘I can’t feed her here.’

  Catlin sighed. ‘Here, I’ll take her if you want to fetch a cup of small-beer from the Dolphin.’

  ‘Small-beer instead of milk?’ Hester said, kissing her daughter’s rounded cheek. ‘My God, Morwenna, your papa would not like that.’

  ‘I shouldn’t give her milk,’ Catlin said briskly. ‘Not from the Dolphin. How should we know that it was kept fresh or what ailments might be festering in it? Small-beer might not be for gently reared children, but at least it won’t make the maid sick.’

  Hester surrendered Morwenna to her and glanced up at the seagulls buffeted in the wintry sky above, white scraps against angry grey cloud, hoping that the crossing to Saint-Malo wouldn’t be too stormy. When she turned back, the crowd on the quay had surged again, and she could only just make out Catlin’s pale green cap – she was almost indistinguishable with her red hair braided and tucked away beneath it.

  The hum of voices in the Dolphin enveloped her as she walked in: she would have to be both quick and careful. Hester and Catlin had been brought up together here, milk-sisters known by everyone on the islands, but until today, she
hadn’t set foot on Scilly for nearly two years. Even so, both she and Catlin were so well known there was no telling that people wouldn’t talk, even to the English. She pulled the hood of her cloak down low over her face and left the coin for the small-beer lying on the bar, swiftly whisking herself away with the little tin mug of ale splashing over her wrists. If Morwenna was content before the voyage, they stood a chance of a peaceful crossing and perhaps rather than tottering up and down the deck putting everything into her mouth the maid might even sleep, heavy in Hester’s lap: there was something about Morwenna’s boneless weight when she slept that reminded her irrevocably of Crow on the rare occasions when he slept deeply, untroubled by his dreams. She grieved his loss with the force of a physical blow. Waiting behind a gaggle of Irish seamen in wide-legged striped culottes, Hester sensed what felt like a sudden hush descend, even though the babble of voices continued unabated – it was all the tension of a sudden silence, without the silence itself.

  ‘Fucking English,’ one of the Irish sailors said in front of her. ‘No more than fucking trouble. When they ask questions it’s the gallows rope for someone.’

  Hester’s breath seized in her chest, her gaze sliding towards the side-door that led out from a side-parlour into the narrow alleyway between the Dolphin and the chandlery shop next door, and from there down to the quay. Quickly, quietly, she moved towards it. Now the entire tavern really did fall silent. Inside the small parlour, she pressed herself against faded flowered wallpaper, listening to what was said in the bar. Everyone else had fallen so quiet that she heard quite easily as an English voice spoke her own name.

  ‘We’re looking for Lady Lamorna and her quadroon brat. The bluey bitch shouldn’t be that hard to spot, should she, such a fine exotic lady?’ There was a pause, a hush, and Hester imagined the English – soldiers or whoever they were – looking around at the gathered crowd, assessing those most susceptible to the promise of blood-money. ‘There’s a reward offered for her capture. Lord Lamorna and his young brother we already have; it’s just the woman we want – it’ll be pretty to watch them all swing together.’

  In the silent, deserted parlour, Hester pressed both hands to her mouth. Surely Crow was not in prison? Surely, surely he could not be blamed for the chaos Lord Castlereagh had stirred up in Newlyn? But of course he would be. That was precisely how Castlereagh operated, how those opposed to reform had always operated, ever since Hester had been old enough to really understand what she read of politics in the Morning Post.

  ‘Lord Castlereagh’s soldiers, are they now?’ some unseen person asked quietly. ‘Used to be the king’s men, did our army, not the cursed prime minister’s.’ A bare half-moment later, a pistol shot rang out, followed by depthless silence. Hester closed her eyes. They were looking for her. Englishmen were looking for her and they had just shot a man for questioning the authority of Lord Castlereagh, here in the Dolphin. She had been a fool, a cursed fool to come to Scilly when it was the first place she would be sought out. They would find her, and Morwenna too. Mustering all the nerve she had left, Hester fled through the alley door and ran pell-mell down to the quay, searching for Catlin in a breathless panic so acute that it set up a harsh whining in her ears and she felt as though her heart would burst; her hands shook uncontrollably. Was everyone watching her? Was the crowd wordlessly moving to conceal her as she stumbled across the cobbles, or had she imagined that? She found Catlin at last, crouching on the ground with Morwenna, sorting stray shells into a pile, and Catlin only had to look at her once before scrambling to her feet with Morwenna clutched to her hip, crying and reaching for the shells. Hester snatched up the cockles and passed them to her daughter, holding the half-empty cup of small-beer to her rounded lips. Catlin said nothing at all, letting Hester speak, allowing her to come to the inevitable conclusion by herself.

  ‘They’ll find me,’ Hester said, knowing one of them would have to say it aloud, ‘no matter if people here try to shield us, they’ll find us sooner or later. I’m too distinguishable, Catlin – I’ll lead them straight to you and Morwenna.’

  Morwenna sucked on her shell, content, blissfully unaware. Catlin only nodded.

  ‘Cat, you must take her by yourself. She’s light enough that she might be anyone’s child, not so obviously mine. But if I’m with you, we’ll all be found. You must take her—’ Hester broke off as streaming tears slipped between her lips, salty and hot. Without a word, Catlin slipped Morwenna into Hester’s arms, allowing her to hold the child one last time, even as the purser aboard the Curlew began the call for everyone to board.

  ‘Be a good girl, Morwenna.’ It was all Hester could say.

  17

  At Bodmin gaol, the condemned cell was illuminated only by what daylight penetrated the narrow, barred window. The dank room was crowded; men sat in rows along the walls, heads bowed, waiting as day slipped into day. The air was thick with the stink of unwashed bodies, human waste and a palpable sense of despair that made Crow long to bend the iron bars at the window. Every man in the cell tensed as the sound of approaching footfalls grew louder, the soles of heavy boots scraping against damp, puddled flagstones. It was otherwise quiet. When Crow was a boy, crowds of thousands would gather in the fields beyond the gaol to watch a hanging. No one came any more: hangings had been ten a penny since the French Occupation. Water dripped, somewhere out of sight, and Crow thought of how when the little maid was fretful, her cries shook through his skull and he would silently curse Beatie and Hester for not quietening her, and the silence in the cell crushed his chest. He thought of Kitto, still his ward and his heir, infuriating in his total lack of regard for self-preservation. Kitto would be Lord Lamorna soon, but for how long would he survive without being implicated in this? At least the boy had got well away before Crow himself was surrounded by Wentworth’s men. He couldn’t bring himself to think of Hester at all.

  The cell door opened inwards and there was nothing to breathe. The guards were both English, not local men. No one in Cornwall would work at Bodmin gaol now, and nor would a Cornishman be trusted here. They read out the name on their list with merciful speed.

  ‘Nathaniel Edwards.’

  Nathaniel got to his feet, visibly shaking. ‘Not me,’ he said, ‘not me. I’ve got a woman at home, and my little maids to feed. Not me. Have mercy.’

  ‘It’s not our choice, man.’ The first guard spoke with a complete lack of expression. ‘Should’ve thought of that before you started a riot.’

  ‘My lord!’ Nathaniel dropped to his knees as he passed Crow. ‘My lord, don’t let them do it, don’t let them hang me.’

  Crow got up. ‘Take me instead, and do it now.’

  The guards stared at each other, expressionless. ‘Can’t do that. We don’t choose the name on the list. It’s not for us to say.’ As one, they both turned back to Nathaniel, who was shaking and silently praying, tears streaking his weatherbeaten face. ‘Come on, man.’

  ‘I said, take me,’ Crow demanded, forcing himself not to think of the gallows step, the rope.

  The taller of the two guards turned on him, suddenly out of control like a baited bull terrier. ‘Shut up, or it’ll be all of you that gets it, here and now, understand?’ Spraying Crow with his own spittle, he gestured furiously at the rows of men in the cell. ‘Any heroics and we’ve orders to string up every last one of you bastards, understand?’

  Crow faced him in silence, knowing that this was likely the truth, and shame washed over him because, despite everything, despite who he was, who he had been, he could do nothing to stop this. Instead, he took Nathaniel’s hands in his own, speaking in Cornish. ‘Na ellam aga stoppya, I can’t stop them, not now. But you go well, do you understand me?’ Nathaniel’s thin fingers were trembling; it was like holding a moth or a butterfly.

  The younger guard glared, disgusted. ‘Can’t you talk English?’ he snapped. ‘Fucking savage. That’s against the law now, that is, talking in that savage tongue—’

  Crow simply looked up and s
tared at him until the man stopped talking, trailing off into silence, before continuing in Cornish. ‘You go well, Nathaniel, and if I can’t look after your wife and your daughters then I will make sure that Lady Lamorna does, do you understand? They’ll want for nothing.’ He didn’t know where Hester was, if she was even still alive, but he would give hope to a dead man in his last half-hour. He released Nathaniel’s hands, taking in every detail of his starved, underfed face, red-rimmed eyes, overgrown beard, his lined forehead flecked with freckles that would have multiplied in the sun when Nathaniel sat to smoke his pipe on the stump of an oak tree outside the count house at Wheal Boscobel, lifting his cap whenever Crow rode by.

  Crow forced himself to watch Nathaniel walk away, stumbling between the two guards; he watched until the door had closed, leaving the men in darkness again. There was quite a long period of tense quiet before the screaming began. Some men went quietly to the gallows; most didn’t. Nathaniel had managed to wait until he reached the foot of the stairs that led up to the yard, closer to daylight. When the sun had risen above the rooftops of Bodmin and the hills beyond, he would be dead at the end of a rope. The gallows weren’t quite visible from the narrow cell window, but the men had no choice but to listen as Nathaniel shrieked his wife’s name, his daughters’, and to hear the scrabble of his footsteps as he was dragged up the worn wooden steps, the low mumbling of the priest, and then silence.

  It was over now until tomorrow. For the past week, the guards had taken one man every morning, one after the other, as if the waiting should be part of the punishment, part of the deterrent to others. But now he could hear more footsteps, the soles of hobnail boots striking wet flagstone again, again, and again. The surviving men shifted uneasily. No one spoke. The air was too thick with hopelessness and despair for any unnecessary conversation. In here, all conversation was unnecessary. The door swung open again, and the guards stepped in, two different men this time. They looked around the cell, and then one of them spoke with a sneering curl to his lip.