Black Wreath

by Peter Sirr

  James gave it up. What did it matter? It was not as if he might send out a signal to the butchers of Ormond Market to let them know where he was. Still the carriage kept hurtling on, out of James’s map of the city. When eventually it stopped, he calculated that they must be deep in some country place full of fields and trees. Well, they could provide cover enough for escape. Wherever they were bringing him, they would not succeed in keeping him long, he would make sure of that.

  ‘Journey’s end,’ Grady announced, pulling a black cloth from his pocket and binding it with unnecessary force across James’s eyes so that he could see nothing. He felt himself being manhandled roughly out of the carriage and carried into some building. Then his stomach lurched as he felt Grady descend a flight of steep steps. Cold, damp air filled his nostrils, reminding him of Newgate. He could hardly …? But no, they had travelled too far for that. He was set down on a cold stone floor and heard the clink of a chain as his left hand was grabbed and shackled. His gag was removed, and Grady gave a snort of pleased laughter as he looked down on his handiwork.

  ‘Can’t you at least remove the blindfold and unbind my arms?’ James said, and immediately regretted it.

  ‘Poor diddums,’ Grady said. ‘Aren’t you comfy?’

  He found this so funny he almost choked on his laughter before James heard the sound of a heavy door closing.

  * * *

  John Purcell tried to console his daughter. ‘He can’t be far away,’ he said, though in his heart he knew James didn’t have to be very far away to be entirely out of the reach of his family. But he knew his daughter, and knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with general remarks.

  ‘I’ll find out,’ he said. ‘Someone must have seen something, and the city is full of wagging tongues. I’ll start in Queen Street.’

  ‘Let me come with you,’ Sylvia said, and Purcell nodded. It was better that she be out doing something than fretting at home.

  * * *

  The door opened. James heard footsteps approach. He steeled himself for a blow, but none came.

  ‘Wakey, wakey’ came the voice of the thug as he pulled the blindfold off and removed the gag. Finally, he unbound James’s arms and removed the shackle.

  ‘Where am I?’ James said.

  ‘Hell,’ Grady said as he grabbed him by the collar of his coat and dragged him up the steps.

  The cellar steps led up into a kitchen and James was amazed to see Mrs Rudge and Smeadie standing in front of him.

  ‘The poor creature,’ Mrs Rudge said. ‘What have they done to you?’

  Smeadie contented himself with a non-committal nod.

  ‘Haven’t you work to attend to?’ Grady barked, pulling James out of the kitchen.

  They entered a wide, stone-flagged hall. A few paces down, they came to a high double door. Grady knocked and James heard his uncle’s mild voice commanding them to enter.

  He was standing in front of a blazing fire. Miss Deakin sat in a chair beside the fire, her small eyes fastened on James.

  ‘Nephew,’ Dunmain said. ‘Welcome to our house. How was school today?’

  ‘What am I doing here?’ James asked, ignoring the taunting civility.

  ‘Your mouth has brought you here,’ Miss Deakin hissed from her chair.

  ‘What do you mean?’ James said.

  ‘Running around the city telling every ragamuffin and fishwife that you’re the real Lord Dunmain,’ she said.

  Dunmain raised his hand. ‘We mustn’t quarrel,’ he said.

  ‘Is it the fact that I say it, or that it’s true that grieves you?’

  ‘Do you hear the boy, Richard, how impudently he addresses me?’

  Dunmain sighed. ‘Understand this, James: while I live you will never be Lord Dunmain.’ The civility was gone, his voice now pure steel. ‘Surely that much is obvious? You’re a clever boy, after all.’

  ‘Not just while you live, either. The boy will never come into the title.’

  Dunmain frowned impatiently at this intervention.

  ‘I plan to remain alive for some time yet,’ he said.

  James still couldn’t see what he was doing there. Unless … No, he pushed the thought away. But it wouldn’t go away.

  ‘Do you plan to kill me then? To get me out of the way of your plans?’

  James realised that this would be the perfect solution. Was this to be the end, then? His heart raced, and he saw that his hands were trembling. He didn’t want to die.

  Dunmain eyed James, as if considering this possibility carefully. ‘It would be one solution, wouldn’t it, James? And it would be hardly noticed. Do you know how many boys die in this city every week, every day even? Typhus, pox, fever, starvation, falling under the wheels of a carriage … You could spend your time going to their funerals.’

  ‘The Purcells would notice. The Ormond Market butchers would notice …’

  James found it hard to believe he was even having this conversation. For the first time he had a clear realisation of just how much danger he was in. More than any displays of fury or violence, it was his uncle’s calmness that disturbed him. He seemed to be the kind of man who could contemplate anything without flinching, without so much as raising an eyebrow. He thought of Sylvia waiting for him at the Haymarket. He felt a sharp stab of pain when it came to him that he might not see her again.

  ‘Yes,’ he heard his uncle saying, ‘your butcher friends are a slight nuisance, but a band of Popish troublemakers will not cause as much difficulty as you might think. Death is not an unreasonable, or even an unusual outcome.’

  He let the words sink in. ‘As it happens, it is not entirely necessary.’

  James had no idea what he meant by that.

  ‘The world is a big place, and great distance can easily achieve what only death might once have done,’ Dunmain said.

  He examined James’s school uniform. ‘I hope you made the best of your scholarship,’ he said. ‘For your school days are over now. It’s time for new horizons. Isn’t that right, Grady?’

  James had forgotten that Grady was in the room. He turned around to see the grinning thug coming straight towards him. James instinctively put his arm up, but the blow had connected before he saw it. He felt his head spin around and the image of Miss Deakin’s widened eyes flashed into his brain before the room exploded with bright lights and then he saw nothing more.

  Twenty-Four

  The Crossing

  The room was dark and was pitching around violently as if some malevolent creature had grabbed the house and was now tossing it as hard as he could from one hand to the other. James felt his whole body revolt against the movement and suddenly, as well as retching, he felt a sharp pain as his head banged against the wood that lay behind him. He was now fully, sickeningly awake. In the dim light he could make out other shapes, also retching and reeling, and emitting low desperate groans like him.

  ‘What Hell is this?’ James found himself asking, convinced that he must have died and woken up in a dark and unforgiving underworld.

  The shape nearest to him turned its head in his direction. ‘A stormy Hell,’ the voice croaked. ‘Let’s hope this cursed ship can take it, or we’ll perish in the freezing ocean.’

  James looked at him with horror. Ship? Freezing ocean? The salty smell of the sea water leaking through the deck into the hold hit his nostrils. So his uncle had put him aboard a ship. He tried to remember what had happened but all he could see was the sneering face of his uncle telling him the world was a big place. So that was what he was thinking. How long had he been unconscious? His head ached horribly where his uncle’s thug had stuck him. They must have bundled him straight to the docks and into this ship, or maybe they slipped him a potion to keep him asleep for days. He had no idea how much time had passed since he stood in his uncle’s house. His head felt as if it belonged to someone else, someone much slower and heavier.

  ‘Where are we bound?’ he shouted as the vessel lurched in the swell.

  It was some time
before he heard an answer. ‘The New World.’

  The voice that spoke didn’t carry much hope, as if the New World was not likely to be a great improvement on the old one. The dark hold plummeted into a deep trench, leaving their insides somewhere above them, then as quickly rose again, throwing the crowded bodies against each other. The smell of frightened flesh and vomit-drenched clothes caused James’s stomach to rebel again; he produced sounds he never knew his body was capable of and felt his throat burning. Those who could speak began to pray and, hearing them, many other voices followed until the hold was filled with the sound of low desperate praying.

  Then the hold shifted again and James closed his eyes, as if by refusing to look he might somehow make the situation more bearable. There seemed to be a multitude in this cramped and filthy space, and he was amazed to see many young children, but he had no curiosity about them now, no inclination to ask any further questions. He touched the tender spot on the back of his head and winced in pain. Then he slumped back into the darkness he had recently woken from.

  When he came to again, the storm was still raging and the chorus of low prayers could still be heard. Some of the children were crying with fear, and it was all that James could do to stop himself joining their lamentations. He caught the eye of the man nearest to him.

  ‘What kind of journey is this?’ he asked him. ‘And why are there so many of us crammed in here like fish in a barrel?’

  The man looked at him strangely. ‘Do you really not know? Or did a spirit lure you?’

  ‘A spirit?’

  ‘Yes,’ the man said. ‘The spirits often lure the young ones, filling their heads with all sorts of stories and giving them fruits and sweetmeats. Children make good servants, and fetch a good price in the New World.’

  James stared at him blankly. ‘Servants?’ He looked as closely as the light would allow at the people around him. He noted the poor clothes, the worn faces, the eyes that seemed to hold a hundred miseries.

  ‘Indentured servants,’ his neighbour said. ‘A few years’ slavery for the chance of freedom in a new land. It pays for the cost of our passage too, and for the little food we’ll get here and beyond, if we make it that far.’

  ‘If it keeps on like this, the sea will get all our servitude.’ The speaker was a burly man, wider and stronger than James and the other man put together.

  James was still trying to take in the information. ‘Not everyone here is a servant, surely?’

  The burly man looked at James and raised his eyebrows. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Some of us is princes, and some of us is fancy quality just wantin’ to see how others live before we get back to our riches and our burstin’ tables. Like you, by the cut of your jib.’

  ‘I’m no rich man, as you can well see,’ James said hotly. ‘But I’m no servant either.’

  ‘You are now,’ the first man told James as the ship again lurched in the swell. ‘However it happened.’

  The labouring of the ship was too violent for the conversation to continue and James was thrown back against the side of the hold. He didn’t try to get up again, but crouched where he lay, thinking of what he had heard. He knew he should not be surprised that his uncle’s treachery would have stretched to this, but he could scarcely believe what was happening to him now. It seemed too much like a nightmare to be true, but he knew that if he blinked or shook himself the foul world of the hold would still be there. The wailing of a child reminded him that the nightmare wasn’t only his. Everyone in this place was suffering terribly, yet a great many had come here willingly. The world was a pitiless place, but there was no comfort to be had in that thought.

  For another whole day the storm pummelled the ship and tossed the occupants of the hold from side to side like shoals caught in a swinging net. When finally the weather settled down and the ship’s progress through the waves was a little steadier, a crewman came below and barked out an order to go on deck.

  The passengers shuffled awkwardly up out of the purgatorial hold into the cold shock of the wind-lashed deck. James tried to steady his footing but fell forward twice before reaching the side. He stared down at the churning sea and retched yet again.

  ‘Not got yer sea legs, sonny?’ one of the crew laughed.

  ‘It’s a mistake,’ James said as he tried to straighten up. ‘I’m not supposed to be here. I’d like to speak to the captain immediately.’

  ‘Immediately, would yer? And who might you be, if I may be so bold as to ask, begging yer pardon like?’

  ‘My name is James Lovett,’ James said.

  There was little point adding to that information now. One of the other crew members was shouting at them to get back down into the hold.

  The crew member James had spoken to was bowing in mockery. ‘I shall inform the captain immediately, yer honour, and sooner if I can manage it.’

  They were ordered to line up on deck and an officer stood back from them, as if in extreme distaste, and shouted that they would now be given their fortnightly ration. ‘And God help anyone that doesn’t make it last,’ he said. ‘Because there won’t be another scrap given out before two full weeks have gone by, even if you’re at death’s door itself.’

  The crew began to distribute the rations, and if the officer’s words had made James think they would be receiving a large hamper of supplies, the meagre fare that was being given out chilled him. A large loaf of bread, some rotten biscuits, and water that hardly seemed fit to drink – it didn’t seem enough to keep body and soul together a week, let alone two. As soon as the food was distributed, James found himself bundled back down into the stinking hold with his companions. He tore a piece of bread from his loaf and sank his teeth into it. It was hard enough to pull the teeth from his head. But the bread reminded him that he hadn’t eaten for days, and the hunger that had been kept at bay by the storm and the filth of the hold now came back with a vengeance. He tore another piece off and ate ravenously.

  A strong arm pulled at his elbow. ‘Mind how you go,’ the burly man said. ‘Don’t give in to hunger if you want to live. Remember what he said above. He meant every word of it. They’d rather let you die than give you an extra morsel.’

  The man’s name was Reilly and he was a cooper, he told James. The first man was a tailor called Byrne and he nodded now in agreement.

  ‘It’s their profit,’ he said. ‘They won’t give a crumb more than they have to.’

  Reluctantly, James set aside his loaf and took a slug of dark water, wincing with distaste as he drank.

  Some days later, when he was back up on the deck, one of the crew approached him.

  ‘Are you the one they call Lovett?’

  James nodded.

  ‘Yer to follow me,’ the sailor said, and led James towards the quarterdeck where a door led down into the captain’s quarters. James could hardly believe the space he now entered was in any way a part of the same ship in whose foul belly he lay cooped up. The captain’s cabin was neatness itself; painted a light pea green with gold beading, it was elegantly fitted out: with a bed and curtains of the richest Madras chintz, a fine dressing table and a beautiful bureau and book-case. It was as if he had stepped into another, altogether more pleasant domain, though the motion of the waves reminded him that he hadn’t after all escaped the ship or his unexpected journey. That, and the eyes of the captain boring into him.

  ‘You were asking for me, I believe.’

  The captain looked at him evenly. He was a neat man, as carefully arranged and tidy as his room. James could see neither kindness nor malice in the eyes that examined him, just a mild curiosity that, in its way, was more frightening than a threat. The man didn’t seem to attach any great importance to James or his plight.

  ‘I don’t know how I got here,’ James began, ‘but I have a pretty good idea that it was my uncle’s doing. You must understand that I don’t belong on this ship.’

  The captain pointed at the large charts spread out on his table. ‘I understand these,’ he said. ‘I kn
ow how to plot a course. I know how to make provisions for a voyage. I understand a little of business and the markets. Other things don’t concern me much.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m kept busy enough.’

  ‘Has my uncle paid you off, is that it? Have you been paid to deliver me into slavery?’

  ‘Hardly slavery,’ the captain said mildly. ‘Indentured servitude is a respectable business.’

  He seemed to soften a fraction. ‘What’s a few years to a boy like you? You’ll still be a young man when you get your liberty; you just have to work hard and please your master.’

  ‘I am my own master!’ James was indignant. ‘My father was Lord Dunmain, and I am heir to his title, and no servant to any master.’

  The captain’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s all as may be,’ he said, ‘but it’s no concern of mine.’ He looked at his charts again. ‘If you would be so kind as to excuse me, I must return to my navigation.’

  James began to shout. ‘But I have been kidnapped. I must return to Dublin!’

  But the captain was already rapping on the cabin door and two of his officers came in immediately. ‘This conversation is over,’ he announced. ‘Take the boy below.’

  James was manhandled and quickly despatched back down to the hold, still protesting. The other passengers looked at him curiously, but James would look at no one. He sat down, put his head in his hands and would neither speak nor be spoken to. He felt hunger gnaw at his belly, but in a strange way he relished the pain since it expressed perfectly what he was feeling. Why should he let himself be taken across the ocean against his will, as if his life was of no account? He might as well be at the bottom of the sea as living the life of a slave in some godforsaken wilderness. At least his body was his own; no one could stop him controlling that. And so, for two more days James ate not a morsel of his ration, contenting himself only with sips of foul water.