swirled around the lights, having come in through the open stern windows. It was hot, despite the slight breeze.
“I have no doubt his hand was in this,” Bickerstaff said. He and Rakestraw and Lieutenant Middleton were the only other occupants of the cabin. They were all sitting, watching their captain pace, watching his anger build like a tropical storm. “But we must discover more. We have only the slightest facts of the case, and those at third hand.”
“Sod the facts!” Marlowe was surprised by his own anger, a little afraid of it. He had not experienced this intensity in some years. “The goddamn Wilkensons make up facts as they choose, and everyone else just nods their heads and says, ‘Yes, sir, whatever in the world you say.’ I’ll not suffer their lies.”
“We will go and speak to the sheriff in the morning, and the governor,” Bickerstaff said. His tone was even, his suggestion reasonable, but Marlowe was not in the mood for reason.
“Yes, the sheriff and the governor. Disinterested parties, to be sure. We’ll get justice from them, I’ve no doubt, just as we did when our tobacco was condemned.”
“The sheriff is a villain in the Wilkensons’ employ, I will grant you that, but the governor has always been fair…”
Marlowe stopped pacing and turned to Bickerstaff and the others. “I’ll not wait for morning.”
“What do you wish to do, sir?” Rakestraw asked eagerly. The first officer, perhaps more than most aboard the guardship, had embraced his new captain’s way of running affairs. He worshiped Marlowe, that was plain.
“I wish to have Elizabeth Tinling out of jail, and so I intend that we shall go and get her out of jail. Pray assemble the men. Cutlasses, pikes, and pistols,” he said to Middleton.
A grin and a nod, and the second officer disappeared.
“Thomas, you cannot propose we forcibly remove Elizabeth from jail?”
“I do. Who will stand up to us? The militia? There ain’t a force in the colony to reckon with the Plymouth Prizes.”
“That is not the point, not the point at all. You are a king’s officer now, sir. What you are proposing is against the law.”
“Against the law? I
“You are
“
“Oh, it is very pretty to think so, isn’t it? Thomas, this is a violation of everything that justice and honor mean-”
“Don’t lecture me, teacher, I have had quite enough of it.”
The two men stared at each other. Through the windows they could hear the clamor of the Plymouth Prizes turning out, the rattle and clash of small arms being issued, the excited buzz of speculative conversation.
“Your army awaits you,” Bickerstaff said at last.
“You are goddamned right it does. You may come or stay, as you wish. I shall not think the worse of you if your misguided conscience will not allow you to accompany us.”
“I will come with you, as I did before, after you bested LeRois. But I will not have a hand in what you are about to do. Like our years at sea. I will hope only to dissuade you from this course.”
“Hope all you want, pray if you wish, but it will do you no good.” Marlowe shed his coat and draped his shoulder belt and sword over his head, then pulled his coat on again. He was silent as he loaded a brace of pistols and clipped them to the leather strap. “They have driven me to this,” he said at last, “I did not go willingly.” He picked up his hat and stepped out of the great cabin, leaving Bickerstaff alone.
He made his way to the quarterdeck and stood at the top of the ladder, looking down into the waist. The Plymouth Prizes were assembled there. Some had pistols thrust in their belts and sashes, some had boarding axes. Some leaned on long pikes whose bright blades winked in the lantern light, high above the men’s heads. They all wore cutlasses. Most had bright-colored cloth tied around their heads and ribbons tied around their arms and legs. Various bits of gold jewelry glinted dull yellow. They were grinning and joking among each other. They were ready to go.
“Listen here, you men,” Marlowe shouted, and the buzz on deck dropped off and all heads turned aft. “I reckon you all know what’s acting here. There’s some might think what I intend ain’t right, and I’m not sure they’re wrong on that point, so any man here who does not wish to go tonight can stay behind, and there’ll be nothing said about it.”
He looked out over the upturned faces. No one said a thing, no one moved. And then from somewhere forward a man yelled, “Bugger every one of them fucking Wilkensons!” and the men erupted in a spontaneous cheering, shaking their weapons at the sky, shooting off pistols.
A lantern was opened and a torch thrust in. The clothbound end burst into flames, casting a bright and flickering light down on the cheering men, and then another and another
was lit until the crowd in the waist took on the aspect of some savage, primeval hunting party.
“Let’s go, then!” Marlowe shouted, drawing his sword and leaping down into the waist. The men stood aside as he made his way over the brow and onto the dock, and then, still cheering and shouting, they followed him ashore.
They were a disorderly army, marching up the rolling road to Williamsburg. The cheering dropped off quickly as they fell into the rhythm of the walk, the only sound the steady padding of bare feet on the road and weapons thumping at the men’s sides.
Like most sailors, the Plymouth Prizes were powerful men, but they were not much used to walking long distances. Soon they were huffing like a herd of cattle as they trudged along the dusty, hard-packed road, illuminated all around them by the torches held aloft.
An hour into their march Marlowe heard the sound of hooves coming toward them.
“Hold up!” he shouted. He raised his hand, and the footsteps behind him stopped. “Stand ready!” He heard cutlasses draw from their frogs, flintlocks snap back.
The sound of the hooves came closer, and then horse and rider appeared in the circle of light. The man pulled his mount to a stop, half turning on the road, looking down at the villainous band below him. Marlowe did not recognize the rider, just some traveler on the road, and the man did not stop for introductions. His eyes went wide and he said “Dear God…” as he wheeled the horse around and charged back up the road, kicking the horse hard with his heels and lying down across its neck, as if fearing he would be shot in the back.
The entire encounter lasted no more than half a minute, and then horse and rider were gone. Marlowe looked back at his men. He could see why the traveler had been so frightened; the Plymouth Prizes must have looked as terrifying to him as Pharaoh’s army did to the Children of Israel. And Marlowe knew that they were quite capable of acting as vicious as they looked.
He stepped aside until he could see to the end of the crowd. At the edge of the torchlight Bickerstaff stood patiently, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He wished the teacher would step forward and walk with him, but Marlowe knew he would not. Bickerstaff was there, but he was not a participant.
Explain that to the judge when they try to hang us all, Marlowe thought, then waved his men forward again.
It took them another hour and a half to reach Williamsburg, and by then the men were starting to tire, their pronounced step becoming more of a shuffle.
Ten minutes shy of midnight they left the dark fields with their darker patches of trees, the split-rail fences hemming them in, and came at last to the big brick building that housed the College of William and Mary, the western end of the capital city.
Their arrival in Williamsburg seemed to reinvigorate the Prizes. Their steps became more distinct and the light fell in a broader circle as the torches were held higher overhead.
Of their own volition the men holding the long boarding pikes fell into two fairly straight columns and began to march in a regular step at the head of the tribe. Their ordered march, followed by the rag and tag Prizes, with torchbearers fore and aft, rendered the entire procession even more martial, and thus even more frightening, to those citizens who witnessed it.
