Jack Frake (34 page)

“What about Trott, and Rudge, and the others?” asked Leith timidly.

“I’m feeling generous, Mr. Leith. They may remain at liberty. When Skelly’s gone, they’ll get their just desserts. They’ll just have to give the Crown its due.” The Commissioner grinned. “That’s all, Mr. Leith. I have a busy day ahead of me. Seems the constable and a riding officer in Styles have seized a sloop belonging to Mr. Skelly. The pilot and most of the crew
escaped, but they were able to nab one of the mates. I’ve got to think of a way of impounding that vessel before too much time passes. Any ideas, Mr. Leith?”

“No, sir,” replied Leith, blinking.

“Well, then, a very good day to you,” said Pannell. “Thank you for coming.”

“The boy?” ventured Leith, afraid even to say good day lest Pannell take the envelope from him. “Was he injured? I heard talk in town.” He paused. “His mother might want to know.”

“Master Frake?” chuckled Pannell. “Not permanently. But he’ll dangle with the other two when the time comes. Very unfortunate business, that, but he is of age.” He smiled pointedly.

Leith nodded his head, then took his leave. Outside, before he descended the steps, he tucked the envelope deep in his coat pocket, afraid that someone in town might see it and know what it was. He wondered now how to hide it from his wife.

* * *

Falmouth, situated in the crook of the Cornwall coast as it angled sharply to the south, was a larger version of Gwynnford. A “new” town, it occupied both sides of its arguably larger river, the Fal. A century before there were only a handful of sedate villages on its site, guarded by the wedding cake mass of Pendennis Castle, which sat at the end of the peninsula overlooking Falmouth Bay. In 1688 Falmouth became a Packet Service station, the first and last port of call for mail packets on their journeys between England and the North American colonies, and it had boomed. Its chief exports were granite, china clay, copper ore, rope, and fish. It had a customs house, a courthouse, and the King’s Pipe, which was an ever-busy chimney in which seized contraband tobacco was burned.

Vessels entering the Fal from the harbor, said to be the finest natural harbor in the land, first passed the busy quay, then a collection of warehouses and commercial buildings, next a smoky graving dock holding boats of all sizes whose bottoms were being cleansed with fire, then the Chrysalis Academy for Boys, then a convent, and finally the mayor’s palace. Across a neat square from the latter was the courthouse. On the square was a long, raised structure that looked like the frame of one side of a house under construction. This was the Falmouth gallows.

Skelly, Redmagne and Jack Frake were no strangers to the seaport. They were obliged to walk from the dock where the coaster that brought them here put in, as there happened to be no carts for hire at the hour. They were taken to the jail behind the courthouse, a fairly new building of green-painted brick with white granite Doric columns supporting a portico. The jail itself was a separate granite structure in the rear of the courthouse surrounded by a high wall. It had individual cells and a large area enclosed by iron bars in which as many as fifty prisoners could be kept. This pen was already noisily crowded with prisoners and their families; it was the practice then to allow a man’s family to live with him while he awaited trial.

Pannell persuaded Humphrey Grynsmith, the Sheriff of Falmouth, to prevail upon the bailiff to remove prisoners from the cells to make room for his three prisoners. This was done. The cuffs were removed from the prisoners’ wrists, but their legs remained in irons. Each was given a straw mat and a blanket. Usually a prisoner had to pay a jailer for these amenities. Pannell paid for them, as he did not want these particular prisoners to perish from the cold which swept through the iron-barred windows high above them. It was also the practice for prisoners to pay a jailer for food fit to eat. Pannell gave this man money to keep his prisoners well-fed. “I shall have these men checked regularly,” he told the obsequious functionary. “If I do not see rose in their cheeks, I’ll know that you’re shorting them of victuals. Do not cheat me, sir, if you value your job.” He asked the jailer to let him know if one of his prisoners wanted a woman, or asked for a letter to be posted, or expressed a wish for anything else. He instructed the jailer to let the prisoners stretch their limbs and partake of fresh air in the prison yard, but only under guard and without removal of their leg irons. He did not explain to the jailer or the bailiff why he wanted these things done. When he finished making these arrangements, he left with his men and took rooms in the Pennycomequick Inn three blocks away.

Neither Skelly nor Redmagne knew what to make of these arrangements, for Pannell had not spoken a word to them, neither in Gwynnford, nor on the coaster, nor in the Falmouth jail. The only personal attention the Commissioner paid them was when, outside the cell in which he was to be detained, he returned Skelly’s bullet-damaged copy of
Hyperborea
, and said to Mr. Fix, “Remind me to get him some candles.”

Four days later, Jack Frake was removed from the jail and installed in a cell of his own in the Falmouth Parish workhouse across the Fal River. He was not given a chance to talk to Skelly or Redmagne. Pannell gave him the
suit of clothes he had worn to London in July, and made similarly thoughtful arrangements with the warden of the institution. “You’re not to be worked here, Master Frake, as are the other poor devils in this place. The warden even has a library, and was pleased to learn that you can read. He’s willing to lend you whatever you like.”

“Why am I here?” demanded the boy.

“You are being considered for special treatment by the court, because of your age. For this reason, you will not be charged with the others. So you will not be incarcerated with them. They’re doomed. You needn’t be.”

“Why?”

“That remains for you to see.”

“I want to die with them!”

“With dignity?” chuckled Pannell. “There’s nothing dignified in hanging from a gallows, Master Frake. Why, I’ll even persuade Sheriff Grynsmith to let you watch, so you may judge for yourself.”

“Take me back to my friends!”

Pannell shook his head. “Enjoy your stay here, Master Frake.” He turned and walked out. An assistant warden swung the oaken door shut.

When Skelly and Redmagne learned that Jack Frake was not being returned to the jail, they demanded an explanation. The jailer delivered this demand to Pannell, who went to the jail and told the men, who had been strolling together around the prison yard, “The boy has a chance to live, if he cooperates on an altogether different matter. And he will cooperate. That is all I can tell you.” He smiled. “Incidentally, Mr. Skelly, I have had your sloop,
The Hasty Hart
, impounded. Your pilot has eluded capture. You may take some consolation in that. But it is a fine vessel. As you were the only actual owner, you have forfeited title to it. The registered owner, a Mr. James Grier, I learned, was an alderman in Marvel who died some years ago, and who had never been to sea in his life.” Pannell smiled. “I must compliment you on your sense of humor in that regard.” Then he assumed his usual doleful look. “There are no other claimants to the property to be fined and punished. I will convince the Customs Board not to order its dismemberment, as is the current policy with seized vessels. It would make an excellent patrol craft and a valuable addition to our pitiful Customs fleet. I have recommended that it be renamed
The Spectre
.” He paused. “Otherwise, sirs, how is Mr. Binns, the jailer, treating you?”

“We’ve no complaint but one,” said Redmagne.

“I must insist on the leg-irons,” said Pannell.

“No, the complaint is that you did not assault the caves two weeks earlier, on the 25th of October — St. Crispin’s Day. We would have appreciated the honor and the irony.”

Pannell squinted in bafflement.

Skelly said, “What he means, sir, is that you denied him the chance to deliver Henry the Fifth’s speech to our late colleagues. It was a speech they well deserved to hear. Mine was a poor substitute.”

Pannell screwed up his face in disgust. “Is nothing exempt from your mockery?”

“We are very much in earnest. You saw that in Marvel,” said Redmagne. “But, as to complaints, were we emissaries of the King, we could not expect better treatment.”

“Not ‘our’ King, Mr. Smith?”

“Not mine,” quipped Redmagne. “Not anyone’s, in fact. There are those, however, who feel the need of one. They have our compassion.”

This answer caused Pannell to turn to Skelly and ask a question he had not wanted to ask. “You had opportunity to escape from those caves, Mr. Skelly. You and all those others. Why didn’t you?”

Skelly answered with a deceptively serene smile. “The Crown robbed me once, with ease. It proposed to rob me again, and running suited neither me nor the others.” Skelly paused. “I wanted to protect my property, that’s all, Mr. Pannell.”

Pannell involuntarily scoffed. “You knew what the outcome would be. You could be dead now, as the others are. What would have been the point of protecting anything then?”

“I’ve lived fully and freely as a man, sir. It was time I risked dying like one.”

“That makes no sense,” said Pannell with a superior air.

“What he means, sir,” said Redmagne, “is that it is often preferable to die, and thus give one’s life and possessions meaning, than to run, or submit, and render one’s life and possessions meaningless.” He paused, then mused, “To live free, or die.”

“That would have made an appropriate motto for Ambrose’s colors,” remarked Skelly sadly, “where he had painted out the King’s arms.”

“Thank you. It could be taken in one of two ways: as a warning, or as a final, personal set of options.”

The two prisoners wandered away from Pannell, talking. The Commissioner pursed his mouth contemptuously and watched them. He felt
slighted by having been forgotten, but could not decide whether his sense of oblivion stemmed from the slight or the men’s words. “Oh, you’ll die, all right!” he muttered to himself. “You may be sure of that!” Then he turned and walked back into the prison.

A
GRAND JURY WAS CONVENED IN
D
ECEMBER ON THE ORDER OF
J
AMES
Wicker, Justice of the Peace and chief magistrate of Cornwall, much to the consternation of the jurors, who were preoccupied with holiday concerns. The jury met in Falmouth, and Wicker presided. The accused were not present during the proceedings, at which evidence of the Portreach run was presented by Simon Haslam, the prosecutor, and closely examined. Redmagne and Skelly were brought into the courtroom only to hear that the grand jury had returned an indictment for smuggling, resisting arrest, and complicity in the deaths of deputized soldiery in the pursuit of their duties, and that the magistrate had endorsed the summary indictment as a true bill. There was the matter of the deaths of two Revenue officers during the raid on Skelly’s hideout in Fowey in September 1740, but the magistrate set this aside until witnesses and evidence could be secured.

Skelly did not seek an attorney for the grand jury or the trial. He agreed to allow Redmagne to act as counsel. Redmagne, with some legal training in his past, claimed the right to represent himself and his fellow prisoner in court. This right was recognized by Wicker. When asked by the magistrate to answer the indictments, Redmagne stepped forward, the iron chain linking the braces around his legs clanking on the bare floor. He said, “We plead self-defense, milord.”

The prosecutor, the clerks, the jurors, and the bailiffs all stopped what they were doing or thinking, and stared at Redmagne. Henoch Pannell, sitting alone in a spectators’ gallery, gaped at Redmagne with astonishment. This was an unexpected ruse. He glanced anxiously at Wicker.

Wicker blinked, twice. “Excuse me?” he asked, not certain that he had heard the words. A plea of guilty would have resulted in immediate judgment and sentencing. A plea of not guilty would have meant a trial. Wicker had never before heard this particular plea in his thirty years on the bench.

“We plead self-defense. We were assaulted by agents of the Crown, and we resisted.”

The prosecutor, his mouth open in near speechlessness, was outraged, and recovered from his shock enough to begin assailing Redmagne with some well-chosen, ungentlemanly epithets, but Wicker waved him down. “Even if the court recognized so ludicrous a plea, Mr. Smith,” he said, “it would hardly apply to the smuggling charges.”

“Begging your pardon, milord, but, yes, it would. The taxes which we sought to avoid violate our Constitutional rights to property and the freedom to trade that property without hindrance or penalty.”

Wicker sat back and frowned in tentative amusement. “Explain that, please, Mr. Smith.”

“All taxation is assault. It is merely a more efficient, insidious form of theft, but essentially the same as that practiced by highwaymen. We smuggled our goods past the thieves. The thieves, however, found us out, and assaulted us. We fought back, as is our right.”

Wicker shook his head once, and wagged a finger. “’Tis
not
your right, sir, and the Constitution is not an issue here. You must answer the charges of the indictment. Guilty, or no?”

Redmagne glanced at Skelly, who stood behind a railing surrounded by bailiffs, then shook his head. “We do not recognize the legitimacy of the charges as they stand, milord. We have written
ignoramus
over that bill. Our Constitution is the only one in Europe which protects one’s property and freedom to trade.” He smiled with a wickedness that chilled Wicker to the core. “Either that means something in fact, or it is a cruel fiction amended at the caprice and convenience of the Crown.” He stood and waited for the magistrate to reply.

Wicker asked again, looking past Redmagne at the man in the dock, “How do
you
plead, prisoner?”

Skelly said, “Counsel speaks my mind, milord.” Redmagne smiled
again, bowed, and stepped back to rejoin his friend.

Wicker would not recognize the plea, and at first thought of treating Redmagne and his co-defendant as standing “mute of malice,” since Redmagne refused to answer now. In earlier times, within Wicker’s own memory, a refusal by a defendant to answer an indictment was interpreted by the court as standing “mute of malice” or as “visitation of God,” and the court would order an inquiry to determine which was the case. If a prisoner was found to have stood “visited of God,” a trial was ordered. A finding of standing “mute of malice,” however, resulted in the prisoner being compelled to undergo
peine forte et dure
, or ordeal by pain, to establish his innocence or guilt. But this was no longer the practice; that finding also meant trial by jury. It was a significant advance in jurisprudence.