Black Wreath (23 page)

‘My God,’ Harry said, holding onto a barrel on the deck. ‘No one told me the sea moved so much. Do you think we’ll ever see land again?’

Sylvia tried to steady him, but she had barely found her own sea legs. The churning waves splashed over the side and soaked the deck.

‘I’m sure she will,’ she said, though her voice had to work hard to reach Harry’s ears through the din of the waves and the wind.

‘I wish I had learned to swim!’ Harry shouted.

Swimming would be no use in these waters, Sylvia thought. If you didn’t perish of the cold, some awful watery beast would be sure to devour you, but she said nothing. Her father was
below, heaving with sea sickness. Many had warned her of the terrors of the journey, but she had pushed the warnings aside. She knew now she would need every bit of her courage if she was to make it to the other side of this great ocean. And if her sufferings were bad, what must James’s be like? What terrors must he be enduring now? And yet, even if the thoughts were full of fears, just thinking about him gave her strength.

‘Come on.’ She grabbed the shivering Harry by the sleeve of his coat and they made their way below.

The morning after his capture, James found himself before the court with the three haggard conspirators. The business proceeded swiftly, since Black, Charlotte and the servant readily admitted the charges. All three swore that James had nothing to do with the affair, being merely an accidental travelling companion. When he was questioned, James maintained that he had never been in the town, or anywhere near it before, and had been making his way, by slow degrees, to Philadelphia, where he sought to be apprenticed to a printer. James wouldn’t have believed himself and didn’t expect the judge to be taken in, but whereas in the case of the other three all the particulars were known and admitted, in his case there no evidence of any kind. They could hardly have been in the building three quarters of an hour before the judge came to the sentencing.

James was shocked to hear the sentence of death pronounced
on his three companions. Surely the judge could not mean it? Charlotte gave a little cry; Tom Black and his servant stared blankly. When it came to James’s turn, the judge said that although his story wasn’t convincing, there was nothing, for the moment, to connect him to the other miscreants.

‘It is therefore my decision that you remain in the town gaol until further notice, and that each day you be exposed in the marketplace at noon. If any should recognise you, or possess any information that connects you to this town or to Thomas Black, you shall suffer the same fate. Take them away.’

Back in his cell James lamented the fate of the others. He could not understand the cruel vindictiveness of Charlotte’s husband or the judge. The husband was clearly a potent force in the town, for James couldn’t imagine any unbiased judge pronouncing a sentence as harsh as that. The crime after all was driven by love, but even if it was a mighty force in the affairs of men, love was a small power in the law. The powerful always got their way, James knew that much. If ever he had power, he thought, he wouldn’t use it so vindictively.

Every day, at ten minutes before noon, the gaoler came to take him out to the marketplace. There he was shackled to a post and around his neck a sign was placed, ‘If anyone knows this boy, let it be known at once to Judge Williams.’

The first day, many came to inspect him curiously, and some of the town boys jeered him and threw fruit at him until they were shooed away by the traders. Once the novelty passed, no one paid much attention to him and he seemed to be as much a part of the market as the fruit stalls or the
haberdashery. He even began to look forward to his sessions in the square, since it was his only break from the monotony of the gaol. In its peculiar way it was a kind of freedom, and the town, even though he was a prisoner in it, was at least preferable to hacking down trees on a dreary plantation. And the day would surely come when they got tired of exposing him in the marketplace and would let him continue on his journey to real freedom.

Thirty

Lost Property

S
o this is Philadephia, Sylvia thought as she, Harry and her father walked through the crowded streets near the wharf. It was big, like Dublin, but it seemed to have been designed by a professor of mathematicks, someone very particular and precise who loves straight lines and right angles. She thought of the twisting lanes and alleys of her own city, a labyrinth that had to be learned by its citizens, as if the city wanted to hide itself from those who would know her too well. This, on the other hand, was like a toy town, though its people were vivid and real enough. She heard English, though not like any she had heard before, and another harsh-sounding language that her father said was German. The shock of this new place filled Sylvia with panic and made her yearn for her mother. She closed her eyes now and thought of her, as if she could send a signal to her mother from this strange new world, to let her know that they had made the crossing and
were still strong. Then she opened her eyes again to fix them on her surroundings.

From the mayor’s office they had been able to obtain the address of the planter who had hired James, but right now they needed somewhere to rest and prepare themselves for the journey. After much searching, they found a place they could afford and settled themselves there. As Sylvia tossed and turned in bed that night, she felt through her exhaustion a strange absence she couldn’t explain until it came to her: the eerie silence of the night, where not a single steeple rang the hour. The bells of Dublin were so familiar to her that she hardly even registered them, but she wished she could hear them now, in the hush of this city whose stillness failed to provide much comfort.

She was not sorry to leave Philadephia the next day. They set out on one of the roads that led out of the city. It took many days to reach the district where James’s master lived. This country was vast, and much of their way was through thick woods, which greatly frightened Sylvia. John Purcell did his best to calm her, but it wasn’t easy. They managed to get a lift from a German family on the back of their small cart a small part of the way and eventually they reached a small town not far from Mackenzie’s plantation. Since, by then, they were thoroughly exhausted, they found an inn where they could recover themselves.

‘Pretend to be my son,’ John Purcell said to Harry. ‘It will avoid awkward questions.’

Harry nodded, trying to take in his surroundings as if he
was used to staying in inns. I’m a raggy sort of son, he thought to himself, but I’ll prove what I can do when the time comes.

Early the next morning, having inquired the way from the innkeeper, they set out for the plantation.

‘I don’t know how anyone can find anywhere in this country,’ Sylvia said as field and woods blended into each other with barely a sign of human habitation. ‘Why don’t they put their houses where a person could see them?’

‘Probably because they need water,’ her father said with his usual practicality. ‘I know I would. It’s not like a city, where everything is near at hand.’

‘It’s a wilderness,’ Sylvia said. ‘How can anyone want to be here?’

John Purcell thought of the determined settlers he had encountered on the ship. They were men of God, determined to worship and cultivate their land without hindrance, and he didn’t think they would be put off by a few trees. He was not so attached to his own life in Dublin that he couldn’t imagine the possibilities this colony seemed to offer. For now, though, he had other business to attend to.

Eventually, some time after noon, they came to the farm, which was entered by a long twisty path that brought them to the farmstead, a very ordinary building which had no smell of great wealth about it. It looked like the kind of place a man would sweat hard in, Purcell thought as he looked around. He heard the sounds of labour before he saw anyone. A man was splitting logs in the yard, and as they approached the house a servant, who had spied them from within, came out.

Amelia looked closely at the strangers. They didn’t seem to be vagrants, but they had neither horses nor carriage. She had never seen visitors arrive on foot before and wondered if they had been robbed.

‘Is everything alright?’ she asked as she came down the steps.

‘We’re looking for Master Mackenzie,’ John Purcell said. ‘Are we at the right place?’

Amelia immediately recognised from his accent that he was not from these parts.

‘This is the place,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell him you’re here.’

‘Please, miss, can you tell me if James is here?’ Sylvia couldn’t wait any longer.

Amelia looked at her in amazement.

‘James? He is, or was here–’ She was prevented from going into any more detail by the appearance of Mackenzie at the top of the steps.

‘Who are these people, Amelia?’ he asked gruffly, assuming, as she had when she’d first seen them, that they must be vagrants looking for work or alms.

John Purcell didn’t much like the look of the man regarding him coolly from the steps. There was a roughness about him, the arrogance of one used to getting his own way with very little opposition.

‘We are friends of James Lovett, whom I believe is an indentured servant here,’ Purcell began.

‘Wrongly indentured,’ Sylvia added, but Purcell held her arm.

‘What’s this?’ Mackenzie shouted. ‘You’re here to see the
boy? By what authority?’

‘No authority, sir, but friendship. The boy was taken from his native city and sold into servitude by his uncle–’

‘That old story,’ Mackenzie interrupted. ‘What makes you think I want to hear a lot of cock-and-bull stories?’

‘But it’s true!’ Sylvia was not to be held back. ‘It’s no story but the plain truth. He’s not a servant but a born lord.’

Mackenzie brushed her interruption aside.

‘I’ll tell you what he is,’ he said. ‘He’s mine, bought and paid for with good money. If you found me, you know that.’

‘We don’t dispute that,’ Purcell said. ‘We know you acted in good faith–’

‘Do you now?’ Mackenzie said. He spat the words out. He was still at the top of the steps, looming over his visitors. ‘Well, I’ll tell you something, I mean to get my value out of him no matter who he is, and no pair of Irish tramps will persuade me otherwise.’

John Purcell had to restrain himself. If someone spoke like that to him in Dublin, it would be last thing he did. But he held his tongue.

‘May we speak to him?’ Sylvia said. Seeing this man made her fear for James’s safety.

Her request was met with a grim smile.

‘Well, you may at that,’ Mackenzie said, ‘but you’ll have to find him first.’

‘What do you mean?’ Purcell said.

‘I mean that the worthless slave has run away,’ Mackenzie replied. ‘A temporary inconvenience, let me assure you. And
when he comes back, when I bring him back, then he shall learn the real meaning of servitude.’

John Purcell and Sylvia received this news in silence. Harry stood back a little, scanning the land as closely as he could, as if James might sense their presence and make a sign that would allow them to find him. Sylvia didn’t know whether to be horrified or relieved. She was bitterly disappointed that she couldn’t see James, but if this was his master then his escape was a cause for relief. However, her heart sank at the thought that he might fall into this man’s hands again. If only they could find him before that happened. They had come all this way; maybe it might still be possible to find him and bring him back safely to Dublin. She lurched between hope and despair. The land was so vast and so full of danger: how could she possibly think they might find him? Mackenzie, on the other hand, had the force of law on his side and a knowledge of the territory. The country was teeming with those who would be only too glad to return his property to him. And then – she shut her mind to what might happen then.

She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder.

‘There’s no use continuing here,’ her father said. ‘We’ll go back to the town and see what we must do.’

As they walked down the long drive, Amelia darted out from a little stand of trees.

‘Quick,’ she said. ‘Over here.’

Once they were all safely hidden in the trees she spoke. ‘James is in great danger,’ she said. ‘If he is caught, it will go hard with him.’

‘Is this the first time he has escaped?’ Sylvia said.

‘Yes. He tried to send a letter before to his friend from Ireland, but he was caught and beaten?’

‘What friend?’ John Purcell said.

‘I do not remember any name,’ Amelia said. ‘He lived with him in a big college once. That is all I know.’

‘The Liberty Boy!’ John Purcell said.

‘James told me about him,’ Sylvia said. ‘James saved his life. He went to live in America. Maybe he could help us.’

‘If we can find him,’ John said, without much hope in his voice. ‘This is a big country.’

‘You must try to save the boy,’ Amelia said. ‘He will die here otherwise.’ And she slipped through the trees and was gone.

The gaoler led James to his accustomed post. James felt like a circus animal being led out to perform its turn.

‘How much longer will this go on?’ he asked the gaoler.

‘Till we get sick of the sight of you,’ the man replied. ‘Maybe when they’ve hanged the other three, they’ll turn their attention to you.’

This was not a comforting thought to James; nor was it intended to be. He felt it would take the death of all four of them to satisfy the gaoler’s sense of completion. James took up his usual position and gazed out over the stalls. It was quiet enough at this hour, but as the morning wore on the place began to fill up. This was a market day, when the small town
swelled with the influx of farmers and trusted servants from the outlying districts. In spite of the added attention they brought, these were the days James liked best, when he could survey the great bustle and let his eyes wander among the crowd, picking out those he thought looked kindly, and those whose faces were cruel, whose hands he could easily imagine applying a rawhide. He looked, too, at the young girls in the excitement of their day out, imagining Sylvia might be among them. Occasionally, one or two of them looked at him curiously, and he managed a weak smile before they quickly turned away.

Today the town was the most crowded he had seen, which puzzled James until he saw the construction on the far side of the square. A platform had been built, on which stood two upright beams and a cross bar – the unmistakable form of a gallows. Then they meant to go through with it, and this was the day chosen for the purpose. He looked at the miserable spectacle and at the crowds slowly gathering round it. A festive excitement began to charge the air as food hawkers shouted their produce, and knots of townspeople and visitors stood around. It reminded James of execution days in Dublin, although here the atmosphere was more restrained, with none of the baying bloodlust of the Dublin crowd.

James was glancing idly from group to group when suddenly he froze and the blood drained from his face. There was Mackenzie, on the other side of the square, deep in conversation with another farmer. James quickly averted his eyes and prayed that Mackenzie – for it was indeed him – wouldn’t
look across. He might as well have prayed for the sun to disappear from the sky. Even on a day like this, eyes would still be drawn to the stranger shackled in the marketplace, and it was only a moment before James felt the gaze of his master turn on him. Mackenzie was at the post in seconds, looking his property up and down and laughing softly.

‘So this is where you got to, this is your lordship’s new demesne?’

James didn’t reply; there was no point in it, Mackenzie would have his pleasure. Mackenzie indeed looked like a man bursting with barely contained pleasure. He announced his find to all who could hear him. Even in his distress, James was pleased to note that at least some of the stallholders did not look entirely happy at the discovery. Mackenzie went to find an officer of the law to claim his property but found that no one would be available until after the execution. So James was obliged to stay in his position and watch the town gaoler hang first Tom Black and then Charlotte. Many in the crowd wept, though many others were greatly amused. James retched violently at the scene, and Mackenzie whispered into his ear.