'As Private Gideon Yeovil,' Hoare said at random.
'That example will serve, sir,' she said, and shut her mouth with a snap.
'Do you think, Taylor,' he asked, 'that Mr. Goldthwait would know of Blassingame's experience?'
'I can hardly say, sir. Let me inquire.'
Sir Thomas Frobisher's trial took place as Hoare had warned the knight it would, in an obscure corner of the White Tower. Truth to tell, Hoare was surprised; he had made the prediction up out of whole cloth, feeling it romantically appropriate. He was requested and required to attend the trial, and must obey, but he did so unwillingly. After all, one way or another, the knight-baronet was sure to be put away somewhere where he could do no more harm.
Throughout his trial, Sir Thomas sat in the dock, dispirited, contributing little or nothing to his defense, and appearing, indeed, to pay little attention to counsel's struggles on his behalf. Indeed, though the knight's children came faithfully to sit in the chilly gallery of the tapestried chamber, to offer their father whatever moral support they could, he acknowledged their presence only upon being escorted into the chamber and out of it.
Sir Thomas's three judges-authority had determined that the trial should not be by jury-must be exalted men of the law, Hoare was certain, for they sat heavily on high, red-robed and wigged colossally. He neither knew nor cared, but stood up when ordered to do so, gave his evidence, and reseated himself. So, too, did others: the limner Pickering, for example, and two of Sir Thomas's servants, one from Gracechurch Street and a pimpled man whom Hoare recognized as the lackey he had once pushed down Sir Thomas's steps in Weymouth.
The two were followed by a string of the knight-baronet's confederates, the sorry well-connected imitators of the Babington plot. Their trial would follow in due course. Their contributions were as mixed as their demeanor, ranging as they did from cringing contriteness on the part of one youthful weed to the belligerent posturing of a curly-headed, red-faced blond man who could only have been a champion bully at Eton. The latter, to Hoare's quiet glee, was ordered suppressed by the presiding justice, and gagged.
Concluding arguments took place close to midday on the third day of the trial, and were followed by no recess. Instead, the three justices conferred in undertones, right there on the bench, before God and everyone. Within less than half an hour, they nodded agreement among themselves, three great toy mandarins from Tartary. The flanking mandarins composed themselves and turned to their senior. Would he reach for a black cap, Hoare wondered, to cover the snowy curls of his great peruke?
He would not. Instead, he simply leaned forward, unadorned. Hoare thought he heard a sigh from where the young Frobishers sat.
'The prisoner will rise,' he said. Sir Thomas obeyed, and stood as straight as he could to await sentencing.
'Thomas Frobisher,' the justice said, 'this court finds you guilty as charged, of high treason against the realm, in that…' Here he embarked on a recital of as many treasonous deeds, as it seemed to the listening Hoare, as there were Articles of War.
Concluding this array, the justice refreshed himself with a sniff from the scented sphere he bore in one hand, took a sip from a glass at his other elbow, and continued.
'Until well within the memory of living men,' he said, 'the penalty for high treason has been harsh; attainder and a cruel, protracted death. The latter has commonly consisted of drawing, quartering, exposure of the severed parts in the four quarters of the realm, and the like.
'However, prisoner, in your case this court finds mitigating circumstances. In the first place, no person has been made to suffer unduly as a result of your plotting. In the second place, evidence has been presented to the effect that you are not always of sound mind.'
At this, the prisoner visibly bridled.
'Thirdly, prior generations of the Frobisher family have been consistently loyal, and have contributed to the welfare of the realm. To the best of this court's knowledge and belief, your children-whom I believe to be present in the courtroom-'
Necks craned.
'— took no part in the conspiracy.
'Accordingly, this court has mercifully concluded that your execution would serve no purpose, and that attainder of your family-the reversion to the Crown of all its lands, tenements, and hereditary rights-would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The Frobisher baronetcy, and the properties associated with it, may remain intact. However, the court sentences you to be transported for the balance of your natural life to His Majesty's penal colony in Australia, sentence to be carried out at the earliest convenience of the Crown.'
In the dock, Sir Thomas grunted. Alone and anonymous in the gallery, Hoare chuckled to himself. The blackfellows of the outback in the antipathies-no, antipodes-could never dream that their odd land was about to be claimed by an aristocrat who was odder still.
'Moreover,' his lordship continued, 'this court shall inform Bath King at Arms of your guilt, in the confident expectation that that order of knighthood will take appropriate action of its own in your case.'
'No!' With this shout, the prisoner sprang to his feet. 'I am-
'The prisoner will be silent.' The justice did not raise his voice, but Sir Thomas subsided nonetheless.
'I declare this court adjourned,' Hoare heard the justice conclude. 'I've an appointment with a brace of fine lobsters, gentlemen. Good-day.'
Not many days later, realizing that he had a moment to spare before meeting with the hunters of John Goldthwait, and that the tide was about to ebb, Hoare took the short walk upstream through a thin scattering shower, to Deptford Docks. From there, he had learned, HM armed transport Sanditon was about to cast off, destination Sydney Thomas Frobisher, baronet, was to be aboard.
Hoare found boarding all but complete. Convicts and their relatives, about to be parted, lined rail and dockside, howling their last farewells back and forth. Not all the howls were tragic: 'Bring us back a parrot, Jem!' or 'Take good care of Peggo wile I'm gone! Know wot I mean?'
A chaise drew up to the entry port, followed by a substantial wagon. From the first, the three Frobishers and Sir Thomas's guards emerged. One of the latter hailed Sanditon, summoned a deck officer, and the transfer of Sir Thomas's traveling chattels began. His would not be a hardship case, Hoare observed.
At last, the baronet himself embraced his ugly daughter and took the hand of his ugly son. He climbed slowly aboard the vessel that would be his home for the next hundred days or more.
'Cast off forrard!'
'Pick up the tow, there!'
'Aye, aye, sir!'
'Aloft there, the larboard watch, and loose sails! One hand there, stop in the tops and crosstrees to overhaul the gear. Leave the staysails fast.
'Lay out there, four or five of you, and loose the headsails!
'Here, you, lay down out of that; there's enough men out there to eat them sails!'
And so it went, that old familiar, flexible ritual of getting underway from dockside, a blend between the fighting navy's sharp commands and the casual obscenity of a merchantman. As a transport, Sanditon had a foot in each camp. Transports were slovenly ships, and convict transports worse yet. For all his cravings for duty at sea, Hoare hardly envied Sir Thomas Frobisher the months ahead.
The baronet had inveigled one of his servants into accompanying him, Hoare had noted, but not Dan'l O'Gock. Hoare could not imagine a solitary Inuit among those antipodean blackfellows.
Now that Sanditon was out of easy hail from ashore, the crowd began to wander off. Before the young Frobishers could return to their chaise, Hoare stepped up to them and doffed his hat to the lady.
'Will you take tea, sir?' he asked Martin Frobisher. The other looked at him astonished, while his sister sniffed and tossed her head.
'Sir!'
'Come on, Lyd,' Martin said. 'Hoare's tryin' to make amends, can't you see? Delighted, Hoare.'
Blassingame, it developed from Taylor's inquiry, was more fully acquainted with the Greenwich underworld than he had revealed. The next night, he asked leave for a run ashore, to bring together a cove or two that 'mought
