14.

Where is the Prince?

Inside the cabin of the brig, a small, rather cramped room with an overhead skylight, a long table firmly screwed down to the deck and two long benches likewise fastened, Grey, Perkins and Trask were examining the signed indentures which were spread out on the table. Trask, at the far end of the table, was noisily gurgling down the remnants of a bottle of wine.

'There, sir,' said Perkins, 'duly signed and attested; it just wants your signature.'

Grey nodded a little grimly. 'Not before time,' he said.

He dipped a quill pen in the ink pot that Perkins brought out of his invariable leather portfolio, and started signing the doc.u.ments.

Trask rose to his feet a little unsteadily, turned, opened a cupboard set in the side wall, and from a well-filled wine rack carefully selected another bottle of red Burgundy. He turned back and waved it in front of Grey. 'A little wine for your cold heart, lawyer?'

Grey looked up, an expression of distaste on his long face. 'I never mix strong liquors and business. I would advise you to do the same, Mr Trask. You sail with the morning tide, if you remember.'

Trask sat down again and poured himself some wine.

'Happen it's too foggy to sail,' he said expansively. 'What then?'

Grey leaned forward, his eyes piercing. 'You sail, Mr Trask,' he said, 'fog or no fog.'

'Aye, and crash' he slapped the table 'this old girl's timbers on Chanonry Point.'

Grey leaned back, his tone heavy with sarcasm. 'I took you for a seaman.'

Trask gave him a lopsided smile, revealing a row of blackened, broken teeth. 'Why that I am, good sir. Trask will get your cargo of little beauties to Barbados, never fear.' Then, suddenly irritated by the lawyer's contemptuous manner, he pointed a stubby finger across the table. 'That's what really counts, lawyer, not those dried up bits of parchment of yours.'

'Without these bits of parchment,' said Grey, 'we'd all be sailing afoul of the King's law.'

'Law? Huh,' Trask gave a hoa.r.s.e laugh. 'What does the law, or anyone, care for these Highland cattle we carry?'

Grey raised his eyebrows. 'Nothing,' he said. 'But to take these cattle fresh to the slave plantations before their health has been sapped by His Majesty's prisons that takes skill and preparation.'

'And what would happen to you if this trade were to be discovered by the Duke?' Trask's dark face had grown sly, his eyes glinting across the table under their bushy black brows.

Grey paused, felt in his pockets for his snuff box, and before answering opened it, placed a little on his thumb and took a delicate sniff. 'It will never happen, Trask.

There are only three of us privy to the secret. I can answer for myself and for Perkins, eh?' He turned to Perkins quickly.

Perkins nodded hastily. 'Oh yes, yes sir, indeed you may answer for me.'

Then Grey turned back. 'You, Captain, must answer for yourself.'

Again Trask saw that he had pushed this calm, unsmiling man opposite too far. He shrugged his shoulders, trying to bluff his way out of the situation. 'All but in jest. You know me, Solicitor, I'm your man.'

Grey nodded. 'Aye,' he said. He took another pinch of snuff. 'And you'll remain so, Mr Trask.'

Inside the barn, the four fugitives had just finished a meal of stew, bread, tea and cold beef.

Ben was dressed, a little self-consciously, in knee breeches, ruffled shirt, waistcoat, and the long embroidered jacket of the period.

'Cor,' he said, 'that's better. Never thought I'd live to see a meal like that again.'

Polly turned to him, a little puzzled. 'How did you manage to get loose?' she asked. 'Underwater, too?'

Ben inflated his chest a little. He always enjoyed showing off for Polly; the opportunity for it came all too rarely. 'The old Houdini trick, d.u.c.h.ess. You flex your muscles when they tie you up.' He showed them by wrapping a piece of rope around his biceps. 'Then, when you're ready, you let your muscles relax, like this.' Ben exhaled the air from his chest and let his muscles relax, and the rope fell off. 'See? You're half the size you were before. Get it?'

'Nay,' said Kirsty, puzzled.

Polly looked at him a little suspiciously. 'And that's all there is to it, Ben?'

'Almost all,' said Ben.

'Huh,' Polly sniffed. 'I bet.'

They turned as the Doctor emerged from one of the stalls, now dressed in his own clothes again. He was brushing at his coat a little anxiously, obsessed by a couple of new stains that had appeared on the already well worn sleeve.

'Oh, you got your own clothes back,' said Polly.

The Doctor nodded, indignantly. 'Can you imagine! I found them thrown out on the rubbish heap behind the inn!'

'Yeah,' said Ben drily, 'amazing, ain't it.'

Polly smiled slyly and winked at the others. 'I liked you best in your dress, Doctor.'

The Doctor turned and clapped his hands, calling them around him. 'Now,' he said, 'do we all know what we've got to do? Ben?'

Ben nodded. 'I take you out to the ship in the rowing boat, paddle around the other side and, while they're sorting you out, I hand in the weapons through the porthole.'

Polly frowned and shook her head. 'While Kirsty and I just sit here waiting for you to get back if you ever do?

Nothing doing!'

'Aye,' said Kirsty, and the Doctor noted with amus.e.m.e.nt she was picking up some of Polly's independence, 'we've done enough waiting.'

'It may be dangerous,' said the Doctor, 'they may not swallow my ploy.'

'Aye,' said Ben, 'and they may stop me in the boat, even with this on.' He pulled a large tam-o'-shanter from the clothes pile and pulled it over his head. It covered most of his face as well. The others laughed.

'There,' said Polly, 'you'll get into terrible trouble without us, eh Kirsty?'

Kirsty nodded firmly. 'Aye, terrible.'

The Doctor looked from one to the other. 'All right,' he said, giving in, 'you and Kirsty come with us in the boat.'

He looked at Kirsty. 'You could be rather useful at that.'

'What do you want me to do?' said Ben.

'I've got a better idea for you,' said the Doctor.

In the hold there was one dim lantern containing a single candle, throwing out a faint light that hardly penetrated over the sleeping Highlanders to a small group at the far end by the porthole.

Colin, w.i.l.l.y and Jamie were still very much awake and conferring while their fellow prisoners slept.

'I canna believe it,' said w.i.l.l.y in disgust. 'They played right into Grey's hands. My own crew amongst them.'

'Ah, can you blame them,' said Colin. 'A poor choice the gallows or the plantations. A man will clutch at any straw to save his neck.'

'What will they do with us?' said Jamie.

Colin sighed. 'I'm afraid they'll make an example of us.

Like that poor deserter friend of yours. Once Trask gets away to sea '

w.i.l.l.y broke in. 'He'll no let me live, that's aye certain.

Ah wheel, better a fast death than a slow lingering one under the overseers. I've nae regrets, ye ken.'

'If I could but see my Kirsty again, I'd die content,' said Colin. He leaned back against the porthole, his eyes closing, the wound still throbbing in his shoulder.

In the cabin, Grey and Perkins were completing their final accounts in a black leather-covered ledger.

'That makes a total of three and a half thousand guineas.

You'll collect it in gold on delivery of the prisoners, and render strict accounting to me,' Grey turned to Perkins. 'Is that quite clear?'

Perkins nodded, rubbing his hands. 'Yes, Mr Grey sir, very clear. You may trust me to the death, sir.'

Grey pulled out a watch from his waistcoat and looked at it. 'It's very late,' he said, 'I must return ash.o.r.e. I shall expect you in London by the end of October.' He rose.

'Keep a close eye on our Mr Trask, I do not trust him.'

As he spoke, there was a sudden commotion on the deck over their heads a stamping of feet, and Trask's rough voice calling out some commands.

The next instant, the cabin door creaked open and Trask entered, followed by two sailors holding the Doctor by the arm.

Trask turned to the solicitor. 'We've got company, Mr Grey. Caught him coming over the side bold as a Welsh pirate.'

The Doctor bowed. 'Delighted to meet you again, Solicitor.'

Grey stared over at him, and smiled grimly. 'You may not be as delighted when we part company this time, Doctor.'

The Doctor grimaced. 'If you'll tell these good fellows to let go of my arms, I have a small token for you.'

Grey leaned back in his chair on the bench. 'I haven't forgotten the last one.' He turned to the sailors. 'All right, let him go.'

Trask, meanwhile, had been looking from one to the other, trying to make out what was going on. Now he intervened. 'Let me have him. I'll soon change his tune.'

Grey turned. 'Silence!' he said, sharply. Then, to Perkins, 'Perkins, shut the door.' He turned back to the Doctor. 'Well, go on.'

The Doctor carefully smoothed his shabby coat down and winced slightly as he rubbed his arm, now free from the rough grasp of the sailors. He then slowly patted his pockets in turn. 'Now, let's see,' he said, 'where did I put it? Uh... not this one' he felt his top left-hand pocket 'I think I transferred it to this one...' He felt on the right side.

'Ah, no... no, no, that one.' Eventually he dug deep down into his right-hand tail pocket, and with triumph brought out something in his closed fist and held it out. As his fingers extended, Grey, Perkins and Trask, who had leaned forward to see the contents of the Doctor's hand, saw a conker. 'Here,' said the Doctor and then looked at it in dismay. 'Oh, no...'

Trask leaned forward, seized the Doctor's lapels, and lifting him off his feet, held him against the bulkhead.

'Why, ye scurvy bilge rat.'

Grey, also rose, his eyes daggers. 'I suggest you find whatever you're looking for, Doctor, before I leave you to the tender mercies of Mr Trask.'

The Doctor, meanwhile, had his hand in his left-hand tail pocket, and nodded, frightened. 'I've got it, got it,' he said.

Trask released him, and the Doctor brought out Kirsty's ring and placed it on the table.

Grey glanced down at it. 'If this is another of your humours, Doctor...'

'Look at the seal,' said the Doctor.

Closely watched by Perkins and Trask, Grey held the ring up under the suspended cabin lantern, then reacted in surprise. 'The Stuart arms!' he said.

'Well, Mr Grey?' said the Doctor.

'Where did you get this?'

The Doctor drew himself up proudly. 'From the hand of Prince Charles himself.'

There was a gasp from the other three men in the cabin.

'Where?' said Grey.

'In prison,' said the Doctor.