Tregarthur's Prisoners: Book 3 (The Tregarthur's Series)

by Alex Mellanby

  I saw Sam get the message and watched as he tried to roll his shoulders and look tough. He might not be the round fat faced school kid anymore but toughness didn’t come easily to him. At least my question had stopped the big man.

  One of the guards who’d been watching, probably hoping for a bit of fun, lent against the bars and called out, ‘It’s the Carter gang.’

  More gasps.

  ‘We’re famous,’ I said in a whisper aside to Sam.

  ‘Oh good.’ But Sam didn’t look as though it was good at all.

  ‘Sorry Mr Carter,’ said the big man and he moved away.

  I knew it wouldn’t last. This man wasn’t going to take the put down for long. I had to sit or my legs were going to give way. I went down on the hard floor and tried to keep the stony glare on my face, the one Dad used when things went badly.

  Every so often the guards came to pull someone from the cell. Some came back, others didn’t. From their talk I heard that there was some sort of court going on. And soon it was our turn.

  Justice

  -2-

  The jail was an uproar of clamouring, wailing, crying voices. We were led out, pushing past people who seemed to have no business other than watching. Down a long stone corridor Sam and I clunked with our manacled chains chaffing at each step. We were famous and that made the jeers even louder.

  We only just got out of our cell in time. The big man who felt he owned the place made it clear he was fed up believing he had to be nice to us. We definitely did not look scary. Sam tried his best and failed. Me too. I’d had enough, I couldn’t fight this much more. Whatever Miss Tregarthur had in mind for us I couldn’t see us getting out of it again.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d wanted my family around me, even the bad ones, actually especially the bad ones. And as for Mum, well there was no chance of finding her again even if she was alive, she’s stuck in some caveman world. I was in a bit of a trance thinking these thoughts and hadn’t noticed we’d stopped at the base of a flight of stairs.

  Jenna and Ivy came down and joined us. I tried to look hopefully at them, but it was a waste of time. Ivy never managed to look hopeful and it felt like a black thunder cloud always lingered over her head. Much worse, Jenna looked wrecked, her shoulders slumped and she barely noticed me.

  Our guards were shouting at the crowd which became even larger and noisier as we went, along with calls for our death. A woman prodded Jenna but she didn’t react.

  ‘Get your hands off.’ One of the guards pushed the woman away. ‘Nothing like a death sentence to bring out the worst of them,’ he laughed to another.

  A cold wet shiver slid down my neck. We were marched on and out through an open space surrounded by high walls. Ivy let out a shriek. I turned, wondering what had happened. I suppose the guards did it on purpose, letting us stop there, just in front of the scaffolding.

  ‘It’s a gibbet,’ whispered Sam.

  I wondered how he knew what it was called. I didn’t know the name but it was obvious that the wooden frame towering above us was used for hanging.

  ‘On with you,’ prodded the guard. ‘Soon see enough of that,’ he laughed again and the crowd joined in.

  We passed through a stone arch with the sign ‘Courts’. This wasn’t like courts I’d known before and I had been to a few. It was not like the sort of place I’d been to when Dad or my brother had been arrested, nothing was like this court. This was more like a market. People selling all sorts of stuff – food, drink, even chickens, kids pinching things, men offering to be your lawyer.

  One of those men grabbed me, ‘Mr Carter. I think I can help you.’ He said it in a loud whisper, no confidence in his voice, just suspicion. He didn’t look like he would help anyone.

  The guards let him get on with his business for a moment, must have been something in it for them. Eventually one called, ‘Not got all day.’

  ‘Just a few pieces of silver and I’m sure we can sort out this mess for you.’ His voice changed to a greasy slimy pitch which he let the guards hear.

  ‘You’ll be lucky.’ The guard started to push the man aside.

  I looked at Jenna. Her face said nothing good, no fight left, nothing of my Jenna, she just stared at the ground.

  Did we have any money? Jenna didn’t have the backpack anymore that Mary gave her before we went into the tunnel. The guards must have taken it. I did have the belt that I’d been given – a reward for saving the king from the Black Death. The gold belt. It was too small to go round my waist, so Jenna persuaded me to wrap it round my arm, under the tunic. Maybe it was worth a lot. Letting this man see it couldn’t be a good idea, especially out here with so many people around.

  The man’s eyes followed me as we were pulled away. ‘See you later,’ he mouthed as doors closed behind us. I had no idea what that was about, there was something very odd about that man, almost familiar. We were pushed onwards with no time to think.

  As we neared the actual courtroom the corridors became even more chaotic. Lawyers with dirt stained wigs and grubby suits held bundles of papers and shouted, trying to get attention while officers and prisoners all shouted back. We were shoved through, under an arch and pushed into one of the courtrooms. Tiers of benches faced me, crowded benches, people searching for space, staring at us.

  The room was full and as we entered the noise stopped, until someone whispered: ‘The Carter Gang.’

  That caused the shouting to erupt. I heard more calls for our death. I looked up, not easy to make out faces in the steamy jostling mob. At the top, surrounded by uniformed lackeys, sat the person who would judge this court. He banged his gavel onto the bench and one of uniformed men screamed, ‘Silence.’

  I recognised the slimy face of the person in the judge’s seat.

  ‘Zach,’ I called, and his smile reminded me so clearly of yet another rat.

  I looked around and there she was, Demelza, smirking in the gallery, looking like she lived here, waving a dainty fan. I don’t suppose it really came as much of a surprise to see Zach sitting as the judge. This had to be Miss Tregarthur’s doing, nobody in any right mind would appoint Zach as a judge. Apart from anything he’d only just left school back in our time.

  I didn’t expect what happened next. Sam was up and at him. He leapt from our guards and despite his manacled legs wriggled up the rank of desks and was about to hurl himself at Zach until one of the officers clubbed him with a long black truncheon and Sam fell to the floor.

  Zach smiled again. Demelza smirked again.

  A thin faced man in a slightly grubby jacket stood up and coughed, not loud enough to get anyone’s attention. The noise didn’t stop until another man in some sort of uniform shouted, ‘Quiet, anyone talking will be taken down to the cells.’ Even that threat only caused a brief hush while grubby jacket started to read.

  ‘You four, known as the Carter gang,’ he paused and looked down at us, ‘are charged with larceny …’

  The crowd gave a loud, group, ‘Oooh.’

  ‘… rustling …’

  ‘Aaah.’

  ‘And murder.’

  ‘Hang them,’ they screamed from the gallery.

  It was just like the court in the Black Death village. Zach had someone identify us, say how many sheep we’d stolen, and how many men had died. Demelza gave a little wave. She looked happy to see us in this mess. Oddly I was wondering what larceny was, in the list of crimes, and how bad was it?

  ‘Theft,’ Sam groaned. ‘It’s just theft I suppose …’ He stopped with no more words.

  Jenna managed to pull herself together a little more and started shouting at Zach without any effect. I thought the truncheon man would hit her as well so I moved between them. I wanted to get angry but I had nothing left. I wanted to give up, just let them get on with it.

&nb
sp; Zach smashed his gavel down again.

  ‘Silence,’ shouted the uniformed man once more.

  Just like the so-called trial before, when we’d been convicted as witches, we were asked if we had anything to say and no one let us speak. Sam was now lying groaning on the floor, Ivy had slumped down, Jenna’s brief spark had gone out and she turned away. I had nothing to say, no one would listen, they’d made this up and they weren’t going to hear the truth from me. Not that I had any idea what had happened. Where had the idea about the Carter gang come from? We’d only just arrived in the tunnel – not enough time to steal sheep, let alone murder people.

  ‘How do you find?’ The grubby man shouted to a group of people on the benches in front of us. I realised they had to be the jury. Didn’t look like a jury, more like a band of paid thugs, mostly drunk.

  One of them was asleep and snoring, a difficult achievement in all that noise. Someone poked him and he jumped up, shouting, ‘Guilty, guilty,’ before folding back into his seat. The rest of the onlookers took up his chant, along with ‘hang them, hang them’.

  Jenna was doing her best to prop Ivy up and hold her. It didn’t feel real at all but it did feel final. I wasn’t sure that we’d get out of the courtroom alive and even if we did we weren’t going to last long. The court was full of roaring, spitting, howling people, now standing, and they wanted us dead.

  Zach was scribbling something onto paper, difficult for him to do at the best of times, even harder with an ink quill. He looked up, picked up his sheet of paper, checked it, bent down under his table and came up wearing a black piece of cloth over his head.

  The crowd went into some even higher level of madness. ‘Black cap, black cap,’ they yelled. ‘Black cap, death for the Carter gang.’

  Zach started to read and there was too much noise to hear what he said but everything went quiet as he came to the end: ‘… taken from the cells and hanged by the neck until dead.’ He finished with a little wave and a bow.

  Jenna flared again in the moment of quiet, ‘Why? What are you doing? You can’t hang us.’

  ‘Not you,’ Zach sneered. ‘Not the hanging for you, just Mr Carter and that snivelling little creep with him. Not you two girls – it’s the boats for you. Transportation. Now lead them away.’

  We struggled, tried to talk, yelling against the noise, to tell the court that it was all made up lies, but no one was listening. Zach left the courtroom by the back door, Demelza followed, and surely I wasn’t mistaken, was that wild looking woman who left by the same door someone I recognised? Someone who had caused all this trouble. Her eyes caught mine just before she left and that snarl crept back onto her face, the snarl I’d seen before on the moor. The face of Alice Tregarthur, who had led us into this mess and wanted us dead.

  Two new guards appeared and seized Jenna and Ivy. I was held back.

  ‘Alvin,’ screamed Jen as they dragged her off. I rammed my guard in the stomach, pushed forward and held on to her. There were no words to say and we were pulled apart, no tears could show my feelings at that moment. Life was at an end. It had never really changed from the time I had set out on the school hike. My life was heading into a fatal pile up even then, to be thrown out onto the streets if I ever did get home. We had fought back, twice we had survived Miss Tregarthur’s awful plans. Now it was all over. Jenna’s head turned back to me once more as she was pulled away. Her face blank and hopeless.

  Sam was at my side. Once he would have dissolved into a shivering mess. His life, perhaps more awful than my own with both his parents dead. Despite that he had grown to fight his demons. Now that would be over too. We were both for the ‘drop’, both to end our lives hanging in that courtyard with mocking shouts the last words we would ever hear.

  My guard repaid me for the blow. Sam and I were pushed off. Another cell. The two of us alone. Condemned persons had the luxury of seclusion. And no longer in manacles. That didn’t stop the queue of gawping people paying the guards to take a peek at our misery as we sat in dampness; luxury didn’t extend to comfort.

  A man came in to see us, a smiling red faced man with a cheerful voice. Was he here to tell us it was all a mistake and we were to be released? No he had come to measure us for the coffins.

  ‘After the gallows,’ he said with another grin as he held up a measure.

  ‘When?’ Sam asked for an answer I didn’t want to hear.

  ‘Soon enough,’ said the man as though it didn’t need saying. ‘You in a hurry?’ His face twisted in a vicious smile. ‘I’ll ask if they can do it today.’

  Sam couldn’t hold his bravery any longer and dissolved into sobs.

  I sat with my head in my hands. I wished I could see my wonderful Jenna once more, but she was gone. I was done for, it was over, why had I ever thought I could change anything, change myself? I was stupid and soon I would be stupid and dead.

  Death Row

  -3-

  Eventually the onlookers merged into people selling food or drink or copies of the bible, offering to read special texts, offering medicines which would take away the pain of hanging.

  ‘No money,’ I mumbled at them and I could see they didn’t believe me.

  ‘Carter gang must have it stashed away,’ one of them shouted.

  I tried to ignore them. At least the bars on our cell kept them back, although they all pushed forwards when the guards threw in some bread and a jug of water, both of which smelt foul.

  I still had the gold belt, wrapped round my arm. If it was worth something we might be able to at least get some food. But one thing I had learnt from my family was not to give away anything until you had a clear idea of the dangers. And the lot outside our cell were dangerous. These law courts and prisons attracted many of the sort of people I’d met back home.

  ‘How long …’ murmured Sam. He got up and walked to the wall, as far away as he could get - it wasn’t far enough. ‘Go away, get lost, leave us alone,’ he shouted and the crowd outside our cell just laughed.

  Sam slid down with his face to the wall. I’d had practice at waiting to die and this was Sam’s first experience. He hadn’t been with us when the villagers were set on burning us to death. But practice hadn’t given me any clue on how to handle it. I just stared at the ground, the noise from outside faded in my mind.

  Slowly the light darkened, there were no lamps in our small space, just a dim glow out in the stone corridor which ran past all the other prison cells. With the fading light sounds faded too and it became a restless quiet occasionally broken by sobs from further away. We weren’t the only ones waiting for the drop.

  A rat ran across the floor. It stopped to look at me. I didn’t move. Were rats as dangerous here as before? Really I couldn’t be bothered. I saw that the animal was after our hunk of bread. It might be stale but it was all we had so I dived and grabbed it. The rat hissed at me. I aimed an ill-timed kick and slipped painfully to the ground.

  ‘You won’t get rid of them like that, won’t get rid of them at all,’ said a man standing in the shadows outside our cell looking from side to side as though he didn’t want to be heard.

  Where had he appeared from? Slowly he came forward and even in the dim light I recognised the podgy man who had approached me outside the court.

  ‘I said I’d see you again,’ he said and sounded even more nervous, looking round as though one of the guards might come back. I tried to make out his face without success. He kept himself hidden, which didn’t make him any more hopeful. Why would I expect there to be anyone who could do anything to prevent our execution?

  ‘Who are you?’ Sam roused himself and walked to the bars. ‘Please, can you help?’

  ‘You can call me … Hugh,’ he said in a less than believable way, although something made me feel it probably was his name and he hadn’t been quick enough to think of another one. ‘I
can help … you’ve got to make sure no one hears.’

  ‘We haven’t got any money,’ Sam cried.

  I could see he was going to start begging for help. I didn’t want that. There was no need to beg this man at the moment. He’d come for something. He was going to tell us when he wanted to.

  ‘Leave it Sam,’ I said as firmly as I could. ‘Hugh, or whoever he is, is going to tell us what he’s after even if we don’t want to hear it.’

  Hugh didn’t reply, he was getting even more jumpy.

  Sounds came from further down the corridor. Clanking of chains, more prisoners, or did they hang people at night? I was wondering if they had a torchlit execution. Bizarre, the thoughts that go through your mind when you’re waiting to die.

  Hugh fidgeted with something in his pocket, looked behind him again and said, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’ And he looked as though he was going to run.

  ‘Will we still be here?’ Sam called for him to stop.

  ‘Yes, they won’t send for you for a few days yet. But I’ve got to go,’ Hugh twitched.

  ‘What are they waiting for?’ My voice cracked with anger.

  ‘The hangman isn’t here. He’s a few days away.’ Hugh turned away again. ‘Really must go now.’

  ‘Wait.’ I grabbed the bars and tried to reach through to hold him. ‘What about Jenna and Ivy? Have you seen them?’

  Hugh’s shoulders slumped. ‘Nothing I could do. They’ve put them on the Lady Maun.’

  ‘The what?’ Sam picked up. ‘What’s the Lady Maun?’

  ‘It’s a convict ship.’ Hugh paused. ‘Unluckily for them, the boat happened to be in port and leaving tonight on the tide. So they took them aboard.’