A Falling Star, page 54
part #3 of Wintercombe Series
Suddenly, as the news spread, mercy seemed to be a commodity in very short supply. The judges continued to Salisbury, and then to Dorchester. Here, thirty rebels unwise enough to plead not guilty were convicted despite their denials, and sentenced to hang two days later. As the executions outside progressed, slowly and gruesomely, and the air of Dorchester filled with the stench of burning bowels and boiled meat and the cries of the men who waited their turn, those prisoners still to be tried, who had intended to plead their innocence, rapidly changed their minds. More than a hundred and seventy were brought before the court in the space of two days, tried in batches of a dozen or more, and almost invariably sentenced to death. Only the rebels who had especially distinguished themselves, however, were singled out for execution. The King had already told Jeffreys that those who had come with Monmouth from Holland, those who had known of the invasion beforehand, and those who had accepted commissions in his army, were to be shown no mercy.
Dorchester was already festooned with the heads and quartered bodies of the first men to be executed. Accordingly, the further seventy selected for death were despatched to the principal towns around the county, to Lyme and Sherborne, Weymouth, Poole and others, to meet their ends and to exhibit to the cowed populace the full force and dreadful might of the King’s justice. Then their mutilated remains were distributed among the surrounding villages, a ghastly warning against rebellion.
*
‘Your name?’
The question was said briskly, but received no answer. The assize clerk, quill poised over the paper, looked up irritably. ‘Are you deaf? Or have you forgotten it? Your name!’
‘Abraham Loveridge,’ said the prisoner, after a pause. Like all the other rebels who had been brought for interrogation, he was filthy, gaunt and louse-ridden, his face grey and grimy after the weeks of sunless confinement, and his clothes hung on him in ragged folds. The clerk wrote briefly, and snapped his next question. ‘Age?’
‘Twenty-one.’
‘Place of residence?’
‘Taunton.’
‘Your trade?’
‘Bookseller.’
After the procession of wavers, combers, husbandmen, yeomen and serge-makers, this was something different. The clerk, interested, studied the young man in front of him. A handsome boy, or had been once, before privation, dirt and illness robbed him of his looks. The shirt and breeches, though now only fit for burning, were of good cloth, and the hands bound before him had never known manual labour. ‘A bookseller, eh?’ he said, tapping the end of the quill against his nose. ‘What sort of books?’
‘All sorts. Divine works, histories, poems, songs, essays, romances…’ Bram stopped himself before his tongue could run too free, and added, ‘I help my father. He has a shop in Fore Street.’
‘And do you also sell seditious pamphlets?’
He had been expecting that question, and a look of pained surprise crossed his face. ‘No, of course not.’
‘Taunton and these parts are full of them — they must come from somewhere,’ said the clerk suspiciously. ‘So — your father sent you off to join the rebels, did he?’
‘No,’ said Bram, with some vehemence. ‘No — he didn’t want me to go. In fact, he locked me in my chamber so that I couldn’t, but my sister found the key and let me out.’
‘A misguided action, which she probably now bitterly regrets,’ the clerk commented. ‘So — you joined the rebels, where? In Taunton?’
‘Yes.’
‘The foot, or the horse?’
‘The foot at first. Later, they gave me a horse because I could ride.’
The quill scratched its way to the end of the line. The clerk looked up, and his face became more grave. ‘You have been told, I take it, of His Majesty’s graciousness and mercy, even to such as you?’
‘I have.’
‘And you understand that if you are honest in this enquiry, and confess truthfully all that you know, without falsehood or omission, then you may be confident of the King’s forgiveness and favour?’
‘I do.’ Bram stared at him, his mind already wandering again. Since an attack of fever, almost three weeks ago, he had found it difficult to concentrate on reality. It was so much easier to turn away from the stinking, overcrowded prison, the groans and cries of his suffering fellows, and the hideous future that awaited them all, and to return to the love and laughter of his family, and the sweet, calm, golden days before Monmouth landed at Lyme.
And in those daydreams, Ben was still alive, and his terrible death, that Bram had failed to prevent, had never happened.
He had no great faith in the King’s mercy or justice. It was already common knowledge, amongst the prisoners, that those who had been officers in the rebel army could not expect reprieve. Since everyone had been encouraged, at these interviews, to confess everything concerning their own part in the rebellion, and the involvement of their fellow-prisoners, it must already be known that he had been a cornet in Captain Hucker’s troop. And since he was therefore marked for death, he would not abandon what remained of his self-respect, and betray his comrades.
‘And in what capacity did you serve in the rebel army?’
‘In the horse, after Glastonbury,’ Bram said. His fatal commission might already be known to this repellent man, but he had no intention of incriminating himself unnecessarily.
‘Our information is that you carried a colour. Is this true?’
There was little point in denying it. ‘Yes.’
‘So, you accepted a commission from James Scott, late Duke of Monmouth?’
‘Not formally. There was nothing written down. Somebody gave me a colour, and I carried it.’
‘Who? Who was your captain?’
Bram looked at him guilelessly. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘Your lapse could have very serious consequences for you,’ said the clerk, his tone suddenly sharp and much more hostile. ‘Make no mistake, you have admitted to being an officer in the rebel army, and His Majesty will have no hesitation in recommending that you suffer the ultimate penalty. But he has also stated that even those who might otherwise expect to die may still be saved if they make a full and repentant confession of all that they know.’
Bram stared down at the desk in distress. He thought of his parents, their visits, the money he would not accept, their grief and fear that filled him with such guilt, the anguish they would suffer if he were executed, their bewilderment if they realised that he could have saved himself, even by betraying his friends. And then, hard on the heels of these thoughts, the vivid image, all too explicit, of the death he would die: the hanging, the butchery, the agony, the stench, watching his comrades suffer while waiting his turn…
He thought he knew himself, but who could predict how they might behave in such a ghastly situation? Could he face such a dreadful end? More, could he subject his parents, and his sisters, and perhaps others of his kin, to the ghastly privilege of watching him die in such a manner, his body dismembered and his head and limbs hung on poles or gallows in Taunton, or distributed in the villages around?
But was his life worth such tainted coin? Sick at heart, the choice impossible, he closed his eyes. Nausea rose in his throat, and he felt his balance going. From a very great distance, he heard someone saying something, and then there was nothing.
‘All right, lad?’
It was one of the other rebels, a kindly, middle-aged man called Jacob Powell. Bram opened his eyes and saw the man’s concerned face bending over him, and behind him, the cob-webbed ceiling of the cell where they, along with several score others, had been imprisoned for the past four weeks.
‘I — I think so,’ he said. He felt light-headed and a little strange, but this was not unusual: that bout of fever had left him seriously weakened, and such moments of faintness were quite frequent.
‘I’ll tell you something, lad,’ Powell said quietly, putting his face closer. ‘You may think you’re doing us all a favour by keeping your mouth shut — oh, yes, I know, so do we all, you can’t keep anything secret in here — but it makes no odds in the end, you know. If we all kept silent, perhaps it might make a difference, but since all the rest of us have told all we know, in exchange for a reprieve, what does it profit anyone if it’s just you who is obstinate?’ He gave a bleak smile. ‘I followed King Monmouth too, but I’ve learned my lesson — I wouldn’t do it again, not if he went down on his knees to me. Would you?’
Bram looked into his soul, and knew the truth. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘No, I don’t think I would.’
‘Then don’t throw your life away, lad. I’ve seen your mother, and a lovely lady she is too — I’ve seen her care for you. Do you want to put her through the agony of watching you die that death?’
Bram closed his eyes. The spectre of the gallows, the knife, the fires and the cauldrons and pitch, rose up again to haunt him. He said, very softly, ‘No.’
‘Then for God’s sake tell ’em,’ said Powell, with brisk common sense. ‘Don’t make a martyr of yourself. It’s not worth it.’
He was summoned again that afternoon, to the same small room, to face the same clerk. Whatever he did, his conscience would torment him, but in the end, Powell’s arguments had won. What was the point in holding out and keeping faith, when almost every other man in the gaol had made his confession without compunction? And, if the choice must be made, he would rather betray the men who had been his comrades for a scant three weeks, than the parents and sisters who had given him a lifetime of love and happiness.
Anyway, Captain Hucker was already in another cell in the castle, and so were many of the other men with whom he had served. His obstinate silence would not protect them, for other tongues had already been busy. He himself had evidently been the subject of talk. Why hold out any longer, for conscience’s sake?
So when he was asked about the other men in his troop, he gave names — those of men he knew to be dead, or already imprisoned in Taunton. He knew that he was only doing what almost all of his comrades had done, and that he was following the wisest course. But it did not make him feel any less like a traitor when he saw the clerk’s neat old-fashioned hand making a careful note of every detail. And when he was returned to the squalid, packed room — though not so packed as it had been four weeks ago, before the fever epidemic — and chained again to the wall between Powell and a young carter called William Leigh, he sat for a long time, lost in thought, trying to accept what he had done.
*
On the seventeenth day of September, the Lord Chief Justice and his train entered Taunton, and the two months of waiting that the rebel prisoners and their families had endured was at an end, for better or for worse.
For Bram, unwell, demoralised, still haunted by Ben’s death and his own understandable but reprehensible betrayal of his friends, the arrival of Jeffreys was a blessed relief. Whether he lived or died — and after these months of privation and misery, he had almost ceased to care very much either way — at least, in a few days, his punishment would be known, and he could prepare himself for his fate.
Talk, of course, was rife within the prison, and rumours circulated and flowered to monstrous proportions as those whose friends had passed on various items of news from outside told the less fortunate what was likely to befall them.
Jeffreys had possessed an evil reputation before this circuit, and the recent carnage which he had perpetrated in Dorset only served to increase his menace. Bram knew that, realistically, he could not hope for a reprieve: his transgression had been too great. He only hoped, for his parents’ and his sisters’ sake, that the ghastly penalty for treason would be commuted, and it often was, to transportation. True, slave labour in Barbados or Jamaica was very often equivalent to a sentence of death, and there would, even in the best case, be small chance of ever seeing England again. But at least he would be alive, for a while, and they would not have to watch him die.
For the Loveridge family, the probable end to their son’s suffering was also a relief. But they knew, too, that while he remained in Taunton Castle, even in those miserable conditions, he was still alive, and they could, after a little bribery, see him, and speak with him, and try to bring him comfort, both material and spiritual.
As the date for the assize drew close, Tabby wrote to Wintercombe. It was a slender chance, but perhaps, if Bram were sentenced to die, the money and influence of his cousin might effect a reprieve. Although she had not seen Alex for several years, she remembered him as a clever, subtle and competent man of the world. She and Jonah were small fry, their wealth comfortable but limited, and they were well known to favour the Dissenting faction. According to her mother, Alex had taken up his inheritance with capable efficiency, and it seemed, improbably, as if he might indeed have left his wild and irresponsible days behind him. The intercession of a man of such significantly high standing might well impress the petty officials and pardonmongers who infested Taunton, eager to wring what they could from the anxious and desperate relatives of the prisoners, now gathering in the town.
There was no reply to her letter, and she wondered, bleakly, if it had gone astray, or if Alex had chosen to ignore it. And then, late on the Wednesday afternoon, the day before Jeffreys and his entourage were expected, there was the sound of a coach drawing up outside, and a knock on the door.
She opened it, and saw a very tall man standing on the step in travel-stained clothes, his hat in his hands and a very attractive smile on his face.
There was no mistaking him, for her dear dead half-brother Nat had possessed those eyes, and the splendid smile was inherited from Patience, who had been like an older sister to her. Tabby gave him her own smile of delight, and held out her hands. ‘Welcome, Alex — and thank you so much, for coming.’
‘I could do no other,’ he said, his face suddenly serious. ‘Although whether I can actually be of use to you I don’t know. And since Bram is dear to all of us, I have taken the liberty of bringing a coachload of assorted St Barbes with me — I hope you don’t mind? Charles has gone to bespeak chambers for us at the Three Cups, so we will not be imposing on you.’
‘The town is very full — I hope that there is room,’ said Tabby. The coach, plainly painted and probably hired, was disgorging its passengers. She saw the familiar, stylish figure of Louise, and the dowdy black of Alex’s sister Phoebe, being helped, stick in hand, from the coach by a maid. Sue and Hannah appeared, with cries of delight, to welcome them, and there was the usual flurry of greetings. Then Charles arrived, to inform them that the landlord of the Three Cups, after a little persuasion, had agreed to provide them with two chambers, and a parlour between, on the first floor.
Tabby remembered Charles very well, as a rather quiet but pleasant young man who had made himself extremely useful at Wintercombe as her brother Nat’s health declined. She was profoundly shocked by the change in him. Once stockily built, he had lost a great deal of weight, so that his good dark green suit no longer fitted him, and he looked ill, his face pale and drawn, his eyes creased and shadowed, and new deep lines running between his brows, and from mouth to nose. Nor did he join in the general talk and welcome of the rest of the family, but stood to one side in the upstairs parlour, hat in hand, looking as if all the burden of the world’s cares lay on his shoulders. Concerned, she seized the opportunity to speak briefly to Phoebe, who also sat a little apart, obviously very tired from the journey. ‘Whatever is the matter with Charles?’
Her niece glanced up and shrugged in characteristic fashion. ‘I don’t know. He’s been moody and uncommunicative for months now, but much worse during these past few weeks. He and Alex don’t get on, and there’s been much ill feeling, but nothing to explain this.’
And she could hardly ask him directly, as she would her own son. She had not laid eyes on Charles for well over a year, and although he was her nephew, he seemed now like a stranger. Perhaps, she thought charitably, Bram’s plight is preying on his mind.
It was dark before all the news had been exchanged. Once the initial pleasure of meeting had worn off, the real purpose of this visit rose once more to the forefront of everyone’s mind, and the company became more serious. Sue and Hannah sat together on the window seat, and watched gravely as the six adults pulled up their chairs and began to discuss what might lie in store for Bram. The cat, Jezebel, spoilt for choice of laps, decided on the most familiar, and settled sleek and purring on Tabby’s knee. Her furry, affectionate warmth was a source of considerable comfort, and Tabby stroked her, feeling her fears soothed a little as her hand settled into the gentle rhythm.
‘All of the prisoners have been assured of the King’s mercy if they will assist the officers of the law in their enquiries,’ Jonah was saying. ‘Bram has said very little to us, but we understand from the friends and relatives of other prisoners that they have been told this.’
‘Does this mean that he has confessed to treason?’ Louise asked.
Phoebe gave a dry laugh. ‘Taken in rebellion, he could hardly plead other than guilty.’
‘Which is just as well,’ Alex said. He had stretched out his long legs to the fire — it promised to be a clear and rather chilly night for mid-September — and was sipping a glassful of Jonah’s best claret with remarkable restraint for one of his reputation. Tabby glanced idly at Louise, and saw the look, secret, longing, unmistakable, that passed at that moment between her and Alex.
So Mother’s fears were justified, she thought, with resignation and some misgivings. If Louise has succumbed to his advances, it will hardly be so easy, now, to find her a suitable husband.
But that, at the moment, was the least of her worries. She returned her attention to what her nephew was saying.
‘From what I’ve heard about the proceedings at Dorchester, if a rebel pleads innocence, he’s as good as dead. All the prisoners have been encouraged to admit their guilt, as you said, Uncle, under the promise of mercy. After all, there are more than a thousand prisoners, all over the West Country, and the King surely cannot be so thirsty for vengeance as to hang every one of them. Besides, I’ve recently heard it said, with what truth I do not yet know, that His Majesty has now resolved to recoup a little of his expense in crushing the rebellion by selling the prisoners to his courtiers for transportation to Barbados.’
