Birds of Prey (51 page)

‘Why did you do that?’ Hal protested. ‘I could have killed the swine.’

‘To no purpose,’ Daniel told him, with compassion. ‘You cannot save Sir Francis by killing an underling. You would sacrifice your own life and achieve nothing by it. They would
simply send another to your father.’

Manseer brought Sir Francis up from the dungeons. He could not walk unaided on his broken bandaged feet, but his head was high as they dragged him across the courtyard.

‘Father!’ Hal screamed, in torment. ‘I cannot let this happen.’

Sir Francis looked up at him, and called in a voice just loud enough to reach him on the high wall, ‘Be strong, my son. For my sake, be strong.’ Manseer forced him down the steps
below the armoury.

The day was long, longer than any that Hal had ever lived through, and the north side of the courtyard was in deep shadow when at last Slow John re-emerged from below the armoury.

‘This time I will kill the poisonous swine,’ Hal blurted, but again Daniel held him in a grip that he could not shake off as the executioner walked slowly beneath the scaffold and
out through the castle gates.

Hop came scampering into the courtyard, his face ghastly. He summoned the Company surgeon and the two men disappeared once more down the stairs. This time the soldiers brought out Sir Francis on
a litter.

‘Father!’ Hal shouted down to him, but there was neither reply nor sign of life in response.

‘I have warned you often enough,’ Hugo Barnard bellowed at him. He strode out onto the boards and laid half a dozen whip strokes across his back. Hal made no attempt to avoid the
blows, and Barnard stepped back astonished that he showed no pain. ‘Any more of your imbecile chattering, and I will put the dogs onto you,’ he promised, as he turned away. Meanwhile,
in the courtyard, the Company surgeon watched gravely as the soldiers carried Sir Francis’s unconscious form down to his cell. Then, accompanied by Hop, he set off for the Governor’s
suite on the south side of the courtyard.

Van de Velde looked up in irritation from the papers that littered his desk. ‘Yes? What is it, Dr Saar? I am a busy man. I hope you have not come here to waste my time.’

‘It is the prisoner, your excellency.’ The surgeon looked flustered and apologetic at the same time. Van de Velde did not allow him to continue but turned on Hop, who stood nervously
behind the doctor, twisting his hat in his fingers.

‘Well, Hop, has the pirate succumbed yet? Has he told us what we want to know?’ he shouted, and Hop retreated a pace.

‘He is so stubborn. I would never have believed it possible, that any human being—’ He broke off in a long, tormented stammer.

‘I hold you responsible, Hop.’ Van de Velde came menacingly from behind his desk. He was warming to this sport of baiting the miserable little clerk, but the surgeon intervened.

‘Your excellency, I fear for the prisoner’s life. Another day of questioning – he may not survive it.’

Van de Velde rounded on him now. ‘That, doctor, is the main object of this whole business. Courtney is a man condemned to death. He will die, and you have my solemn word on that.’ He
went back to his desk and lowered himself into the soft chair. ‘Don’t come here to give me news of his imminent decease. All I want to know from you is whether or not he is still
capable of feeling pain, and if he is capable of speaking or at least giving some sign of understanding the question. Well, is he, doctor?’ Van de Velde glared.

‘Your excellency,’ the doctor removed his eye-glasses and polished the lenses vigorously as he composed a reply. He knew what van de Velde wanted to hear, and he knew also that it
was not politic to deny him. ‘At the moment the prisoner is not
compos mentis
.’

Van de Velde scowled and cut in, ‘What of the executioner’s vaunted skills? I thought he never lost a prisoner, not unintentionally anyway.’

‘Sir, I am not disparaging the skills of the state executioner. I am sure that by tomorrow the prisoner will have recovered consciousness.’

‘You mean that tomorrow he will be healthy enough to continue questioning?’

‘Yes, your excellency. That is my opinion.’

‘Well, Mijnheer, I will hold you to that. If the pirate dies before he can be formally executed in accordance with the judgement of the court, you will answer to me. The populace must see
justice performed. It is no good the man passing peacefully away in a closed room below the walls. We want him out there on the Parade for all to see. I want an example made of him, do you
understand?’

‘Yes, your excellency.’ The doctor backed towards the door.

‘You too, Hop. Do you understand, dolt? I want to know where he has hidden the galleon’s cargo, and then I want a good rousing execution. For your own good, you had better deliver
both those things.’

‘Yes, your excellency.’

‘I want to speak to Slow John. Send him to me before he starts work tomorrow morning. I want to make certain that he fully understands his responsibilities.’

‘I will bring the executioner to you myself,’ Hop promised.

O
nce more it was dark when Hugo Barnard stopped work on the walls and ordered the lines of exhausted prisoners down into the courtyard. As Hal
passed his father’s cell on the way down the staircase, he called desperately to him, ‘Father, can you hear me?’

When there was no reply, he hammered on the door with both his fists. ‘Father, speak to me. In the name of God, speak to me!’ For once Manseer was indulgent. He made no attempt to
force Hal to move on down the staircase and Hal pleaded again, ‘Please, Father. It’s Hal, your son. Do you not know me?’

‘Hal,’ croaked a voice he did not recognize. ‘Is that you, my boy?’

‘Oh, God!’ Hal sank to his knees and pressed his forehead to the panel. ‘Yes, Father. It is me.’

‘Be strong, my son. It will not be for much longer, but I charge you, if you love me, then keep the oath.’

‘I cannot let you suffer. I cannot let this go on.’

‘Hal!’ His father’s voice was suddenly powerful again. ‘There is no more suffering. I have passed that point. They cannot hurt me now, except through you.’

‘What can I do to ease you? Tell me, what can I do?’ Hal pleaded.

‘There is only one thing you can do now. Let me take with me the knowledge of your strength and your fortitude. If you fail me now, it will all have been in vain.’

Hal bit into the knuckles of his own clenched fist, drawing blood in the vain attempt to stifle his sobs. His father’s voice came again. ‘Daniel, are you there?’

‘Yes, Captain.’

‘Help him. Help my son to be a man.’

‘I give you my promise, Captain.’

Hal raised his head, and his voice was stronger. ‘I do not need anybody to help me. I will keep my faith with you, Father. I will not betray your trust.’

‘Farewell, Hal.’ Sir Francis’s voice began to fade, as though he were falling into an infinite pit. ‘You are my blood and my promise of eternal life. Goodbye, my
life.’

T
he following morning when they carried Sir Francis up from the dungeon Hop and Dr Saar walked on either side of the litter. They were both
worried men, for there was no sign of life in the broken figure that lay between them. Even when Hal defied Barnard’s whip, and called down to him from the walls, Sir Francis did not raise
his head. They took him down the stairs to where Slow John already waited, but within a few minutes all three came out into the sunlight, Saar, Hop and Slow John, and stood talking quietly for a
short while. Then they walked together across to the Governor’s suite and mounted the stairs.

Van de Velde was standing by the stained-glass window, peering out at the shipping that lay anchored off the foreshore. Late the previous evening, another Company galleon had come into Table Bay
and he was expecting the ship’s captain to call upon him to pay his respects and to present an order for provisions and stores. Van de Velde turned impatiently from the window to face the
three men as they filed into his chamber.

‘
Ja
, Hop?’ He looked at his favourite victim. ‘You have remembered my orders, for once, hey? You have brought the state executioner to speak to me.’ He turned to
Slow John. ‘So, has the pirate told you where he has hidden the treasure? Come on, fellow, speak up.’

Slow John’s expression did not change as he said softly, ‘I have worked carefully not to damage the respondent beyond usefulness. But I am nearing the end. Soon he will no longer
hear my voice, nor be sensible to any further persuasion.’

‘You have failed?’ van de Velde’s voice trembled with anger.

‘No, not yet,’ said Slow John. ‘He is strong. I would never have believed how strong. But there is still the rack. I do not believe that he will be able to withstand the rack.
No man can weather the rack.’

‘You have not used it yet?’ van de Velde demanded. ‘Why not?’

‘To me it is the last resort. Once they have been racked, there is nothing left. It is the end.’

‘Will it work with this one?’ van de Velde wanted to know. ‘What happens if he still resists?’

‘Then there is only the scaffold and the gibbet,’ said Slow John.

Slowly van de Velde turned to Dr Saar. ‘What is your opinion, doctor?’

‘Your excellency, if you require an execution then it should be carried out very soon after the man is racked.’

‘How soon?’ van de Velde demanded.

‘Today. Before nightfall. After racking, he will not last the night.’

Van de Velde turned back to Slow John. ‘You have disappointed me. I am displeased.’ Slow John did not seem to hear the rebuke. His eyes did not even flicker as he stared back at van
de Velde. ‘However, we must do what we can to make the best of this whole sorry business. I will order the execution for three o’clock this afternoon. In the meantime you are to go back
and place the pirate on the rack.’

‘I understand, your excellency,’ said Slow John.

‘You have failed me once. Do not do so again. He must be alive when he goes to the scaffold.’ Van de Velde turned to the clerk. ‘Hop, send messengers through the town. I am
declaring the rest of today to be a holiday throughout the colony, except for the work on the castle walls, of course. Francis Courtney will be executed at three o’clock this afternoon. Every
burgher in the colony must be there. I want all to see how we deal with a pirate. Oh, and by the way, make certain that Mevrouw van de Velde is informed. She will be very angry if she misses the
sport.’

A
t two o’clock they brought Sir Francis Courtney on a litter from the cell below the armoury. They had not bothered to cover his naked
body. Even from high up on the south wall of the castle, and with his vision blurred by his tears, Hal could see that his father’s body had been grotesquely deformed by the rack. Every one of
the great joints in his limbs and at his shoulders and pelvis were dislocated, swollen and bruised purple black.

An execution detail of green-jackets was drawn up in the courtyard. Led by an officer with a drawn sword, they fell in around the litter. Twenty men marched in front, and twenty followed behind,
their muskets at the slope. The tap-tap tap-tap of the death drum set the pace. The procession snaked through the castle gates, out onto the Parade.

Daniel placed his arm around Hal’s shoulder, as the boy watched, white-faced and shivering, in the icy wind. Hal made no move to pull away from him. Those seamen who had coverings for
their heads removed them, unwinding the filthy rags and standing grim and silent as the bier passed beneath them.

‘God bless you, Captain,’ Ned Tyler called out. ‘You were as good a man as ever hoisted sail!’ There was a hoarse and ragged cheer from the others, and one of Hugo
Barnard’s huge black hounds bayed mournfully, a strangely harrowing sound.

Out on the Parade the crowd waited around the gibbet in tense and expectant silence. Every living soul in the colony seemed to have answered the summons. Above their heads Slow John waited high
on the platform. He wore his leather apron, and his head was covered with the mask of his office, the mask of death. His eyes and his mouth were all that showed through the slits in the black
cloth.

Led by the drummer the procession marched with slow and measured tread towards him, and Slow John waited with his arms folded over his chest. Even he turned his head as the Governor’s
carriage came down the avenue through the gardens, and crossed the Parade. Slow John bowed to the Governor and his wife as Aboli guided the six grey horses to the foot of the scaffold and brought
the vehicle to a halt.

Slow John’s yellow eyes met those of Katinka through the slits in his black headcloth. He bowed again, this time to her directly. She knew, without words being spoken, that he was
dedicating the sacrifice to her, to his Goddess Kali.

‘He has no reason to act so grand. The oaf has made a botch of the job so far,’ van de Velde said grumpily. ‘He has killed the man without getting a word out of him. I
don’t know what your father and the other members of the Seventeen are going to say when they hear that the cargo is lost. They are going to blame me, of course. They always do.’

‘As always you will have me to protect you, my darling husband,’ she said, and stood up in the carriage to have a better view. The escort stopped at the foot of the gallows and the
litter with the still figure upon it was lifted high and placed at Slow John’s feet. A low growl went up from the watchers as the executioner knelt beside it to begin his grisly task.

A little later when the crowd gave forth a lusty roar, made up of excitement and horror and obscene glee, the grey horses shied and fidgeted nervously in the traces at the sound and smell of
fresh human blood. With an impassive face and gentle hands on the reins Aboli checked them and brought them back under control. Slowly he turned away his head from the dreadful spectacle taking
place before his eyes and looked towards the unfinished walls of the castle.

He recognized the figure of Hal among the other convicts. He stood almost as tall as Big Daniel now, and he had the shape and set of a fully mature man. But he has a boy’s heart still. He
should not look upon this thing. No man or boy should ever have to watch his father die. Aboli’s own great heart felt that it might burst in the barrel of his chest, but his face was still
impassive beneath the cicatrice of tattoos. He looked back at the scaffold as Sir Francis Courtney’s body rose slowly in the air and the crowd bellowed again. Slow John’s pressure on
the rope was gentle and sure as he lifted Sir Francis from the litter by his neck. It required a delicate touch not to snap the vertebrae, and end it all too soon. It was a matter of pride to him
that the last spark of life must not be snuffed out of that broken husk until after the drawing out of the viscera.