by Robin Blake
A civilian came for me eventually, a pasty-faced middle-aged fellow, very small in stature.
‘I am the Duke of Perth’s clerk,’ he said and beckoned me to follow him.
TWENTY-TWO
The Duke was a tall man of about thirty years. He wore a black velvet cap on his head, which gave him a brigandish appearance, and over the back of his chair (to reinforce this impression) hung his sword, a long, curved weapon with an unusual pommel, rolled up like a scroll. I had never seen such a sword before, though now I suspect it was a Turkish scimitar.
‘Who is this man?’ the Duke enquired.
‘County Coroner, my lord,’ said my escort.
‘I have no idea what that is.’
‘I look into doubtful deaths, my lord,’ I said. ‘In Scotland the same job is done by the Procurator Fiscal. In England it is a separate office.’
‘I see. And your name, Mister County Coroner?’
I told him.
‘Cragg! You are that prisoner who escaped from us at – where was it? Macclesfield?’
‘It was Wigan,’ I said.
‘You escaped from us at Wigan after you had been sentenced to be shot. You killed my young emissary William Sinclair and his comrade.’
‘No, my lord, I didn’t. I—’
The Duke held up his hand.
‘You will have a chance to speak in time. But first let us see what we already know about you, monsieur.’
He spoke with a curious accent, and the way he ordered his words suggested someone for whom English was not quite his mother tongue.
He turned to a large leathern chest that stood beside his table with its lid thrown open. It contained several ledger-like volumes. He selected one of these and, laying it on the table, started to leaf through it, licking his thumb to catch up each page.
‘Capthorne,’ he murmured. ‘Castleton … Chapman … Clayton … ah! Here we are. Cragg, Titus, lawyer of Cheap Side, Preston. Husband of Elizabeth (RC). Is that you?’
‘It is. How do you know my wife’s religion?’
‘We always are on the – how would you call it? – the qui vive?’
‘The look-out?’ I suggested.
‘Yes, the look-out for possible sympathetic people. Catholics are always a little bit more possible. I am one myself, you know.’
He turned back to his book and read some further information on me.
‘It seems you have a life of adventure, sir. Sometimes arrested, many arguments with the authorities of your town. Yet you are not known as a Jacobite. Hmm.’
He now untied the ribbons of a document file and sorted through the contents until he came to a small bundle pinned together. I noticed my name on the top page, but the Duke was more interested in one of the pages below it. He read from this paper aloud.
‘“I am it must be admitted the man who ordered the killing of the two Highlanders … this-and-this-and-this … signed Titus Cragg.” Is this your signature, Mr Cragg?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Then I cannot see why we don’t shoot you. These men you killed … William Sinclair, and Jock MacNab to mind him, set out with letters from the Prince to certain Catholic landowners in this county. Not only did you kill them, but you cut off their heads. That was barbarous of you.’
He made a downwards chopping motion with his hand on to the table surface and looked at me angrily.
‘William Sinclair was a sweet youth and a faithful servant of the cause. I loved him dearly, and so did His Royal Highness. His death was shocking for us. Jock also. He was famous among his fellow clansmen. He was a man as strong as stone and immovable as a mountain. Why did you do it, Mr Cragg?’
‘I didn’t, my lord.’
‘Major-General MacGregor of the Clan MacGregor told me you did and that he ordered your death when you were tried at Wigan. You then escaped. Why should I not carry out your punishment now that I have you back again?’
From his point of view it was a good question and, as an insurance policy, I had furnished myself with our filed copy of the Ribchester inquest report I had delivered to Lord Derby. I now drew it from my pocket and handed it to the Duke. His eyes drifted over the words until they came to the final page, when they lit up again.
‘Here it is again! Your confession and your signature.’
‘If I may, my lord.’
I leaned over the table and swivelled the report so that we could both see it. I turned to the penultimate page and pointed to the last line: no one is likely to be more surprised than
I then turned the page and showed the continuation: I am. It must be admitted the man who killed the two Highlanders, and all of that, would be the essence of villainy etc etc.
‘Do you see? There is a full stop after “I am” and a comma after “and that”. You need this punctuation to get the correct sense.’
The Duke shifted the cap to the back of his head and rubbed his forehead. He looked tired.
‘Well, I’ve met a few Jesuits in my time, but this is equivocation to beat any of ’em.’
‘No, damn it!’ I said in a sudden burst of outrage. ‘What prevents you people from understanding? It’s the truth.’
Suddenly, Perth hammered the tabletop with his fist.
‘Mr Cragg! I have Mrs Morag Sinclair to account to. William’s mother entrusted the boy – he wasn’t much more than a boy anyway – to me. I chose him to carry this letter and therefore she will accuse me of sending him to his death. All I can hope is that I can tell her what happened – exactly what happened – to her child and, if it is in my power, punish his murderer. The clan headed by the MacGregor naturally want the same for the killer of their man. Do you understand now why it would be very expedient for someone to die for this, Cragg? Not only me, but an entire clan wants the killer dead. And at this moment that means you.’
‘My lord, if you read that report all the way through, you will understand why I must live. I can provide you and Clan MacGregor with the names of those who really did do this.’
The Duke slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes.
‘Very well, I will read it, but not now. Later. I will see you when I have done so, but I advise you to spend the meantime saying your prayers, Mr Coroner.’
He snapped his finger at the soldier that had brought me in.
‘Take him down to the cellars, will you? Lock him up.’
The White Bull’s cellars were, in happier times, happier places: brick-vaulted caverns pleasantly spiced with the scent of wine butts and ale firkins. Five or six of the cellar bays, which contained bottles of the more valuable old ports and clarets, were equipped with barred gates that could be locked to prevent pilfering. They made perfectly serviceable prison cells, and it was in one of these that I was locked. There was nothing in there except a bucket, a pile of sacks in one corner, a quantity of sawdust covering the floor and a pitcher of small beer with a pewter cup. I poured some of the beer out and tasted it. It was sour.
But someone – having, I guessed, been asleep – had heard the chink of jug on mug and the liquid pouring.
‘Who’s that? Who’s there?’
The voice was calling, though it was more like croaking, across the cellar.
‘Water! Is that water? I can hear you drinking. Bring me something to drink, for pity’s sake!’
In the space between us was a table on which stood an oil lamp, of exactly the kind so hated by Jonathan Parkinson. By its light I could see the bars of another of the bays opposite mine, from where the voice was coming. I could see the white hands of the prisoner holding the bars. And I knew the voice well.
‘Hours since I emptied my jug,’ Oswald Mallender was saying. ‘Hours and hours. I am thirsty. Confounded thirsty. How long are they going to keep me here? Meanwhile, will I die of thirst?’
‘I haven’t any water,’ I said. ‘Just beer, and it’s no good. It’s turned.’
‘Give me some!’
‘I don’t see how, Mallender. We are locked up.’
‘I am. Are you? They manacled me – me! – and threw me in here. They captured me on the road. I was on my way to … somewhere. Did they manacle you, whoever you are?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘They didn’t manacle me. But I am locked in.’
‘We can expect no better from them. Savages. But give me a drink, I beg you.’
‘If I could.’
He fell silent and I took a tour of my cell, during which I prodded my toe into the heap of sacking. It met something hard, which clinked. I pulled the sacking away and found that it hid some bottles of wine, overlooked when the bay was cleared. Picking one up, I read the affixed label: Douro red port wine. Messrs Clark, Thornton and Warre, Importers.
‘I’ve found some wine in bottles,’ I said. ‘I might perhaps try to roll one over to you.’
‘Yes! Anything! Anything!’
I took one of the bottles back to the front of the cell and laid it down on its side on the flags outside. If my aim could be made true, I could roll the bottle right across the cellar to Mallender on the other side.
The first bottle started in the appropriate direction, but I hadn’t put enough force into it, and it stopped somewhere underneath the intervening table. The second deviated from the start and ended out of reach of Mallender’s desperate grasp. The third, like a perfect shot at bowls, ran straight and true and pulled up a few inches in front of Mallender. His face was still shadowed but I heard the rattle of a chain and saw his manacled hand reaching out, snatching the bottle up and drawing it in.
‘Got it!’ he croaked. ‘You are a lifesaver, whoever you are.’
‘Cragg,’ I said. ‘Titus Cragg. The County Coroner. Remember?’
‘Ah! Cragg! So it’s you.’
There was a long pause.
‘How in thunder do I open this?’
There was another extended pause.
‘Have you got a corkscrew?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘A knife?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll smash the top off it then.’
I heard the heavy jingle of Mallender, in his chains, moving round the cell, then the shattering of glass and the gulping sound of the wine flowing out. He must have broken off the neck of the bottle but not wanting to drink directly through the jagged neck was decanting the wine into his jug. Finally, I heard his throat gulping down the wine, and gasping between gulps, like one in the water learning to swim.
I kept an eye on my watch. It was almost three o’clock. At ten minutes past, Mallender asked me to roll another bottle across, in which I obliged him. By half past he was growing bumpsy and singing snatches of song, in between cursing the rebels.
‘What do they think you have done, Mallender?’ I asked.
‘It’s not what I’ve done. It’s who I am.’
‘The Sergeant of Preston?’
‘That, of course, but, even more importantly, it is my connection! Or one of my connections, to be precise. Look, Cragg, I wouldn’t want this to get around. May I rely on your honour as a gentleman?’
‘Implicitly, Mallender.’
‘There is an actress, Fanny Mallender, who is – ahem! – a distant relation of ours.’
‘I remember her. She is your brother’s child.’
‘My, er, niece, yes. A distant niece, you understand.’
‘And Fanny is an actress in London?’
‘Just so. But – and here is the significance – she is friendly with the Duke of Cumberland.’
‘Friendly?’
‘Oh, yes. She is very friendly. With the Duke himself.’
‘Do you mean she is his mistress?’
He did not react to this word but carried on in tones I can only describe as pleased. Drunken, but pleased.
‘Fanny is accompanying His Royal Highness on campaign. And because of their close, close friendship, you see, the rebels may therefore put me – her uncle, you see – up as a hostage. My exchange value is high, sir. High as the sky.’
‘The Mallender family must be very proud indeed of Mistress Fanny. Who will they exchange you for?’
‘Oh, it will be a very important person. A titled person, no doubt of it. No doubt at all. And then I will be out of here at last.’
Silence fell between us, until Mallender began humming. I sat on one of the sacks and thought about my own situation. How, and when, was I going to get out of there? My own ‘exchange value’ was a pittance, at best, unless I could persuade Perth that my information on Barrowclough was worth the purchase of my life and freedom.
Then I heard Mallender’s curious flat and dirge-like voice coming from across the cellar. He had started to sing a common ballad.
Old Dancy was a Lord
A Lord of High Degree
All mighty with the sword
As he was thought to be …
The broadside ballad is the lowest debasement of literature, in my opinion. Not only is the so-called poetry lame but the ballad’s stock-in-trade is often the trivial and salacious treatment of violent human nature. And ballads will run on and on – and on – a rule to which Mallender’s was no exception, though he appeared to recall every word. Lulled by the continuous, almost tuneless droning of his voice, I fell into a reverie while idly listening. I may even have been briefly asleep.
A count from o’er the water
To Dancy Castle came (I heard)
Black-hearted was his nature
And Blackheart was his name …
The words started faintly to tickle my interest, though the tune was indifferent and the poetry was dross. But some of its verses were another matter. They had me stirring, and then sitting up, and listening.
The Lady Elinor Dancy
She had a beauty rare.
Count Blackheart took a fancy
To have her, then and there.
Could Mallender be singing this particular song on purpose? Could he possibly know what had happened at Cheap Side and was in some way mocking me? However it was, as the ballad advanced, it became more and more painfully pertinent.
He went into her chamber
Where she lay fast in bed
And straight away did blame her.
‘I am bewitched,’ he said.
‘Your beauty makes me do this.
Your beauty makes me sin.
It’s you that drives me to this.’
And straight he did begin.
‘Mallender! Mallender!’ I shouted, feeling horribly distressed by the story the ballad told, but powerless to stop it. ‘What is this? Do you do this by design, you blackguard? Stop your mouth! Stop now!’
But Mallender, in his drunkenness, sang obliviously on and, if anything, more loudly.
But now the door did open
Lord Dancy strode inside,
saw Elinor’s honour broken
and heard how Elinor cried.
‘Oh foul and fell Blackheart,’
He said, ‘unclasp my wife
And come with me apart,
For I must take your life.
Black your blood will flow.
Black will be its clots,
And black will be the crow
That on your gibbet squats.’
Was I going mad? The song was too hard, too close – not just the rape of the wife, but the crow and the gibbet that I had seen in my dream. I clamped my hands to my ears, thinking only of Elizabeth now. Perhaps I was imagining this. Perhaps I really was becoming mad. But gradually, increasingly, I became convinced of this ballad’s malign power over me. I was receiving a message through the drunken mouth of a man who did not wish me well. A man who had always been my enemy in Preston.
‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘Enough, Mallender, enough of this!’
The light was becoming dim. The oil was low in the lamp. Soon it would run out entirely and we would be in the dark. I did not think that Mallender was paying any heed to my shouts; more likely, the wine was overpowering him at last. Before he reached the end of the song, his singing dwi
ndled and finally lapsed into silence, and then, soon, into snoring.
I slept myself then, deeply, and was awoken – I don’t know how much later – by the door banging and men coming into the cellar with lamps. There was a confusion of voices. I got sleepily to my feet and went to the bars of my cell.
‘Where is the man?’ someone said.
‘Not that side.’
‘Who is this, then?’
‘That’s the fool Mallender. Look across from him.’
‘Here?’
The lamp had a shiny metal disc behind the flame, which reflected the light forward, directly into my eyes. It was held steady for a few moments but, of the men behind it, I could see only looming ghostly faces, without features.
‘Yes,’ said a voice, a light and vaguely familiar voice, it seemed, though I could not place it. ‘Yes, indeed, this is the man. This is Cragg. Do you not know me, sir?’
‘I might,’ I said, ‘if I could see you.’
The man stepped forward and the lamp illuminated his face.
‘My God!’ I said. ‘Is it? Is it Mr Burnet? What the devil brings you here?’
Another voice growled from the darkness in Scottish accents.
‘You’re impertinent, man. Don’t you know who you’re speaking to?’
‘Oh, yes, I do,’ I said. ‘It is Mr Burnet, my acquaintance from Manchester, whom I met last year. I hope, sir, your awkward difficulties at the time you left the town were soon solved.’
Burnet laughed.
‘No, no. They are still not entirely solved.’
I had not thrown off the effects of sleep. My understanding was misted over, as one looking through a window in winter.
‘But I still don’t understand how—’
‘Oh, you will, soon enough,’ said Burnet. ‘Now, you men. Allez vite! Let’s get this good gentleman out of here and across to my lodging, where we may talk with him of old times.’
Burnet moved away and headed for the stairs, while the rough Scot stepped forward and keyed the padlock open, releasing the cage door.