Buccaneer

Ringrose nodded. 'I am Basil Ringrose.'

'You are to accompany me to London.'

'By whose authority?'

'I am a marshal of the court.'

'This is preposterous.' Ringrose's eyes flicked towards the gangway but he could see that there was no escape in that direction.

'He's taking only those who held some sort of rank on our expedition,' Jacques whispered to Hector.

Bradley folded up his paper and replaced it in the satchel. Turning towards Ringrose he announced, 'We leave for London in an hour's time by coach. Bring only essential personal possessions with you.'

'Am I under arrest?' demanded Ringrose.

'Detained for questioning.'

'And what am I to be questioned about?'

'His Excellency the Spanish ambassador has brought several complaints to the attention of the Court and demands redress. The charges include murder on the high seas, robbery and assault on Spanish possessions in contravention of existing treaties of friendship.'

'His Excellency the ambassador,' mimicked Jacques in the marshal's tight voice, but speaking softly, 'wields a broad brush. Where's that bastard going now? I doubt he's just getting himself out of the rain.' Bradley was following the captain towards his cabin.

'Probably off to inspect the ship's manifest,' said Dan, and was proved right when some minutes later, the captain's steward came over to where Hector was still standing with his friends. 'The marshal's asking for you by name,' the steward said, then added in a lower voice, 'He's a right puritan, that one.'

'I'll be there in just a moment,' Hector assured him, and as soon as the steward was out of earshot he turned to his friends. 'Get off the ship as soon as you can, and disappear! Take my sea chest and my prize money. Anything that may connect me with the Trinity.'

'You'll need to keep some money by you if they're taking you to prison, to sweeten the gaolers,' Jacques said.

'I've a few coins in my purse. Enough to see me through. I'll contact you when I know what's happening. Where will I find you?'

'In Clerkenwell,' said Jezreel at once. 'I'll take Dan and Jacques there and find lodgings for us. Ask for "Nat Hall" or the "Sussex Gladiator" in Brewer's Yard behind Hockley in the Hole. That's the name they would know me by from the days when I used to perform the stage fights. It's a rough part of town where few questions are asked. Also it's full of foreign mountebanks who perform in the sideshows when there's bull and bear baiting.'

As Hector turned to go, Jacques clapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Keep your wits about you, Hector, and rejoin us soon. Otherwise Jezreel will have me performing conjuring tricks, and Dan put up on display as a painted Indian.'

Ducking in through the low door to the captain's cabin, Hector came face to face with the marshal.

'Your name is Hector Lynch?' Bradley asked. He had taken off his hat, revealing that he wore his straggly grey hair long and tied back in a queue.

There was no point in denying it. That was the name Hector had used when buying his passage, and it was entered on the ship's passenger roster.

'You speak Spanish?'

The question took Hector by surprise. 'My mother was Spanish. Why do you ask?'

'My instructions are to detain one Hector Lynch, but the name appears on a separate warrant and no physical description is given. Only that he speaks good Spanish. It is important that I make the correct identification.' The marshal had the list of wanted men in his hand. 'His Excellency the Spanish ambassador has particularly requested that you be brought to justice promptly.'

Hector was thunderstruck. "Why have I been singled out in this way?'

'That I am not at liberty to say,' replied the marshal stiffly. He gave a small, brittle cough. 'Please be ready to leave within the hour.'

During the long, slow and muddy journey to London in the coach provided for their transport, Hector and Ringrose talked much about the marshal's watch list. When Hector told his companion about the interview with the lieutenant governor of Antigua, Ringrose gave a snort of disgust.

'The greedy swine! He didn't have enough men to seize Trinity so he took his bribe. Then the moment we were gone, he informed on us. There was plenty of time for his message to get here ahead of us in that tub of a merchantman, and have the marshal waiting on the quayside.'

'Do you think that Sharpe, Gifford and the others have been picked up as well?' Hector asked.

Ringrose looked thoughtful. 'Probably not Sharpe. He's astute. He told me he was going to Nevis before finding a ship bound for England. He must have suspected that vessels arriving direct from Antigua would be watched.'

The coach gave a sudden jolt on its unsprung axle as a wheel dropped into a rut. Both men had to hold on to their wooden seats or be thrown to the floor.

'Lynch, how is it that marshal's list is so accurate? He even had my physical description.'

'Maybe Henry Morgan had a hand in it. A poacher turned gamekeeper never relents.'

'But I've never met Sir Henry so he could not know what I look like.'

Hector watched the drenched countryside drag by and did not answer. He had his own suspicions of the informer's identity, but he was far more perplexed that the Spanish ambassador should be showing such a special interest in him. He could think of no reason why the ambassador was so anxious to arrange his prosecution.

Finally, after six days of sluggish progress, the coach deposited him and Ringrose at the destination that Mr Bradley had arranged — the Marshalsea Prison in Southwark. Despite brick walls topped by revolving iron spikes and a massive entry gate plated with iron, the Marshalsea proved much more comfortable than Trinity s dank and rat-infested accommodation. They were shown to a set of well-appointed rooms and told that their meals would be brought in from the outside.

'Tomorrow morning, Mr Lynch, you are required to attend a preliminary assessment of your case,' Bradley told him in his punctilious manner. 'Customarily the High Court of Admiralty deals with matters of prizes taken by sea. It decides their legitimacy and value and awards portions. But there are new procedures to adjudicate on matters which might normally be dealt within a criminal court . . . that is to say, you will be appearing before a Court of Instance not a Court of Prize. Mr Brice, an attorney to the court, has been appointed to determine how your case should be dealt with.'

Mr Brice proved to be a man so unassuming and nondescript that for a moment Hector mistook him to be an under-clerk. The attorney was waiting to interview Hector in the prison governor's office next morning. Of middling height and indeterminate age, Brice's pallid features were so bland that Hector would later have difficulty in recalling exactly what Brice looked like. His clothing gave no clue to his status for he was dressed in a suit of plain drab whose only effect was to make him even less obtrusive. Had it not been for the gleam of penetrating intelligence when he caught Hector's eye, Brice would have seemed a very ordinary person of little consequence.

'My apologies for disturbing you, Lynch,' Brice began in an affable tone. Various legal-looking documents and scrolls were spread on the governor's desk and Brice was leafing through them casually. 'I need to ask you a few more questions in relation to a charge arising from information provided by our lieutenant governor in Jamaica. Namely, that you were an originator of an illegal scheme to despoil the territories of a ruler in treaty and friendship with our king.