Crossed Bones (31 page)

Rumours as to the fate of those who had disappeared that cruel July morning from the church in Penzance had flown around West Cornwall like bats chased out of a belltower. Some had blamed the Devil, others the hand of the Lord after the rantings of mad Annie Badcock; but Andrew Thomas shamefacedly admitted to seeing the marauders putting in to Penzance Harbour when he should have been at church, having stayed away with a pounding ale-head after too late a night at the Dolphin. At the time, he’d thought the drink had tainted his senses; but when the hue and cry was raised he realized that his vision of a band of dark-skinned, turbaned, scimitar-wielding raiders arriving and then shortly departing with a large number of his fellow townsfolk in captivity, including the Mayor and the Alderman, had been no alcohol-induced haze but the very truth. Three ships, he had reported to the town council, weeping and shaking and wringing his hands. One fine caravel and two foreign-looking vessels carrying lateen sails and open decks. He knew them as xebecs, though it was a long time since he had traded in Mediterranean waters, where last he had seen such things. It was this detail, and his description of the vessels’ crew, which suggested the identity of the raiders: pirates of Barbary, famed for their boldness and the violence they used towards their captives, who were most likely bound for Argier or Tunis, maybe even thence to the court of the Grand Seigneur, the Great Turk, in Constantinople.

When word of Cat’s letter reached Rob, he had been standing in the farmyard at Kenegie, staring at a piece of harness that he held in his hands without the slightest idea of why he had taken it from the barn or what purpose he had meant to put it to. George Parsons had come upon him in this unusual state (for Robert Bolitho was known as a practical man who applied himself with thorough attention to his work and was ever quick and alert). He had to repeat his name three times before Rob replied. Ever since the raid Rob had found himself thus distracted: all he could think of was Cat and whether she was still alive. He existed in a sort of limbo, living from day to day, waiting to discover where she might have been taken, waiting for the time when he might decide on a course of action. Rob was not a man much given to introspection, so the effect that Cat’s theft had upon him was a shock in itself. He found himself dithering over the most ordinary and automatic task, his mind wandering in the middle of a sentence; he woke at odd times in the night, not knowing who he was, or where, or why. He was beset by nightmares, for a time even thinking himself haunted by some angry spirit, before he realized it was his own guilt which plagued him. His thoughts swung wildly: the raiders should have taken him, not Cat. He should have stayed with her at the chapel to defend her from the barbarians, instead of riding away to Gulval because of a sharp word or two. Had he so little determination? He had not even managed to persuade her to take his ring, which he now regretted with real force, as if somehow it might protect her, mark her as his own, even magically bring her back to him.

‘Rob, Rob! Robert Bolitho – the Master’s calling for you. In the parlour, now.’

His head had come up slowly, as if he rose through the deep waters of a dream. ‘Beg pardon, George, what did you say?’

‘There’s a letter come from Catherine.’

A letter? How could that be? Letters were civilized communications undertaken by educated folk and men of business, not from the squalor of a foreign pirate vessel sailing in who knew which godforsaken waters.

Even so, he found his feet making his decision for him.

Arthur Harris had been sitting at the parlour table, a ragged sheet of paper in his hands. It was the quality of the missive which struck Rob at once, for it looked at once well travelled and authentic, and the paper on which it was written was thicker and more yellow than the paper they used at Kenegie.

‘This has arrived by various convoluted means from Catherine, or so it seems. Is this her hand?’

He flourished the letter at Rob, who stared at it as if it might contain the very secret of the universe, which in that moment, for him, it did. He blinked, then nodded. ‘It is, sir.’ His knees began to wobble; he leaned forward to let the table take his weight.

‘Sit down, Robert. A messenger brought it this morning from Southampton.’

Rob’s heart had at that moment leaped up. ‘She’s in Southampton?’

The Master of the Mount held up a hand. ‘No, no, Robert, let me finish. He brought it from the offices of a shipping company there. The captain of the
Merry Maid
delivering his cargo to his masters in that harbour told how he was intercepted by a merchantman sailing under the protection of the Porte, who had it from a Turkish trader out of Barbary.’

‘Barbary?’ echoed Rob, his heart sinking as rapidly as it had risen. It seemed his worst fears had been realized, and his face must have betrayed his horror, for Sir Arthur nodded grimly.

‘And not merely Barbary but the town of Sallee, which is, I have heard, a veritable nest of sea-devils, home to the most fanatical of pirates and scavengers. There have been some hundreds of fishermen and merchantmen taken from our seas to the Barbary shores, but they say no Christian ever comes back alive from Sallee. Many of them are tortured into apostasy and succumb to Islam out of fear for their flesh, if not their souls.’

Rob had closed his eyes. It was not only the fate of Cat’s soul he feared; the thought of her tortured and ill used made him groan aloud. The content of the letter had not reassured him. Eight hundred pounds? Where could he ever raise such a sum? Already, he was calculating wildly: advances on his wages, the sale of his few worldly goods, a loan here or there, some charity. He might raise, what? Fifty pounds with great good fortune. Some part of him knew he should care for the fate of the other captives so cruelly taken – for Cat’s mother and uncle and aunt, for the death of the little nephews, for Matty and Jack and Chicken and the others – but all this was just a distraction from the one thing that really mattered: that Cat was alive, at the time of writing, at least. If he could sell his soul to redeem her, he would.

That day he completed his chores in record time and with massively increased efficiency. He then begged audience of Lady Harris, whose heart, he thought, might prove softer than her husband’s, and felt sudden wild optimism when she immediately waved him into her sitting room. Unfortunately, he found Sir Arthur had already talked with his wife, and when he raised the subject she pursed her lips.

‘I am sorry, Rob. I know you were set on making her your wife. But such an immense sum! Were she the worthiest young woman in Penwith, I’d still have the same answer for you. Eight hundred pounds is the ransom of a queen, not a little jade like Catherine Tregenna. Better you settle your heart elsewhere and find yourself an honest wife from an honest family. Besides, there is not only Catherine to consider, but our fellow townspeople: we cannot be seen to favour one above another.’

Colouring furiously, he had pressed her again until at last she said wearily, ‘If you are so determined to save the girl, you had best seek out her father.’

Rob’s brow wrinkled in consternation. ‘Madam, he is dead these past many seasons.’

‘Would that were true. Poor John Tregenna: a stolid man and not greatly to Jane’s taste; but he did not deserve to give his best years to raising a whelp that was not his own only to die early of the plague. If you would ransom Catherine, you had best visit Sir John Killigrew at Arwenack.’

A hard knot formed in his throat, and he could not speak. An hallucinatory image of the two flame-haired figures standing too close in the courtyard earlier that summer came to him suddenly, and he knew at once that Lady Harris spoke the truth. But how could John Killigrew not take one look at the girl who carried his blood and not know her for his own?

‘Here.’

He looked up. Margaret Harris was holding something out to him. His fingers closed around it before he realized that it was a pouch of coins.

‘Don’t tell anyone I have given you this. For all her faults, Catherine is still dear to me, and if there is any chance of saving her and Matty, I hope that you will do your best to redeem them. You are a resourceful young man: maybe you will be able to find a way of using this small token on their behalf. The thought of two young girls in the hands of such wicked heathens is too much for me to bear.’

She turned away; but Rob had seen the glitter of her eyes.

The meeting of the town council, chaired by Sir Arthur in the absence of Mayor John Maddern, came to no useful conclusions. There was much recrimination. Why had the lookouts not seen the ships sail in? Why had the guns of the Mount not defended the town? Why had the Vice-Admiral of Cornwall not foreseen the danger if there had, as had been reported, been a dozen and more attacks up and down the coastal waters before the attack on the church? Why were there rumours that the Lord High Admiral, the Duke of Buckingham, was sending English warships to assist Cardinal Richelieu of France against the Huguenots, rather than policing the West Country seas? And what was the point of all this talk of war with Spain if there was already a war on their doorstep, a war against terror from the sea? Did the new King not care about his own citizens? More than one voice declared grimly that Cornwall was too far from the heart of things for anyone to care overmuch about their fate.

Two hours were wasted thus before anyone got to the nub of the matter: whether there was any way to raise the demanded three thousand, four hundred and ninety-five pounds, and, if there was, whether they could obtain any assurance that the captives were still alive and would be returned. Town funds were negligible; and that was before the next letters arrived from Salé demanding ransoms for Mayor Maddern, Alderman Polglaze and their wives.

Petitions were circulated and collections raised. Penzance and Market-Jew, and the outlying communities of Sancreed and Madron, Newlyn and Paul, contributed what they could, right down to Widow Hocking with a single penny, and blind old Simon Penrose with two groats. Even after seven hundred and eighty people had made their contribution, the total raised was little more than forty-six pounds, and that included five pounds from Sir Arthur and ten from the Godolphins.

‘We must petition the sovereign,’ Sir Arthur sighed. ‘Though I foresee no success in doing so. Parliament has been dissolved, and I do not know when they will sit again, so mistrustful of them is King Charles. The only man he trusts is Buckingham, and I have no way to Buckingham. All we can do is to make public the plight of our captives and hope that some pressure can be brought to bear. But whether any funds will be forthcoming seems unlikely: the treasury is tight-fisted, and war against Spain will cost heavily. I have been begging the Crown’s aid in rearming our defences these past years with little joy. Perhaps our patron the Earl of Salisbury may be of some aid, though he has not the air of a serious man, for all his heritage and education. Henry Marten might know of a way to the King: he is considered the most influential of our local men.’

‘And Sir John Killigrew?’

‘Why ever should Killigrew concern himself with this affair? Penzance means nothing to him. You may try him of course, but I have never heard that man risk effort or money on behalf of any but himself.’

‘I will ride over to Arwenack this evening.’

His master snorted. ‘The Master of Pendennis is not at home. He’s investigating some new business venture up in London with the Turkey Company or suchlike. When I saw him last week he tried to persuade me to put in with him – as if I had spare capital to burn in one of his wild schemes!’

It was found that even though Parliament was not convened, Sir Henry Marten was in London, where plague had that summer struck hard, taking with it several of his wife’s relatives and leaving their estates in some state of confusion. It was decided that Rob should make the trip to London without delay, bearing letters of recommendation and petitions signed by the relatives, neighbours and friends of the captives. He set off an hour later with a string of three horses, and had ridden one lame even before he reached Gunnislake.

London was a noxious place. Rob had thought Bodmin on market day bad enough, with its roaring mongers, rattling carts and cacophony of creatures both four- and two-legged, but London was unimaginably worse. He was so unprepared for its immensity, its sights and its fumes that had he not been compelled by his mission, he would have turned and run the three hundred and more miles back to Cornwall on his own two feet without a backward look. The owner of the first inn he stopped at took one look at him and turned him away: he’d been sleeping in barns and under hedges all the way from Cornwall to save every penny of the money Sir Arthur had given him for his expenses; and the horses were in no better fettle. Fear of plague was still rife, and strangers were not welcome. The next inn was so raucous and stank so badly that he took no more than one step over the threshold before turning and fleeing. At his third stop, the innkeeper recognized his accent as ‘that of an honest man’ and let him kip down in the stables for the night, and one of the maids took pity on him, for the sake of his big blue eyes, as she told him till he blushed, and took away his shirt and breeches for washing. When she slipped beneath his blanket as he slept, he awoke with a start, shouting, and she put her hand over his mouth. ‘We ain’t got no cat,’ she said perplexed. ‘Now shut your noise and buss me.’

He left before dawn, at speed and still dressing, feeling dirtier than ever, for all that his clothes were fresh.

When he asked for directions to the address of the residence he sought, most people laughed heartily. ‘Someone’s having you on, lad,’ one man said. ‘Such folk never open their doors to a tyke like thee.’ But when Rob showed him the letter he carried, he became more respectful and at last indicated the road he should take. ‘Best visit a barber before thee goes a-calling on a lord,’ the man’s wife advised.

Rob felt his chin. In his rush he had brought no shaving gear with him, and he could feel how the hair had sprouted haphazardly in a week on the road, over his lip, down his jaws: he would have mutton chops in no time. The thought repulsed him. He remembered how Cat had poked fun at George Parsons, at the way his facial hair grew out in bright ginger bushes despite the thinning grey above, and resolved to put himself in the hands of a barber forthwith.