Page 34 of By Marsh and By Moor (Marsh and Moor #1)

“Aren’t you?” Vaughan’s voice was soft. He was watching Jed closely, studying the effect of his shots in the dark. “If you weren’t, it wouldn’t hurt so much, would it?”

To his dismay, Jed felt his eyes sting. He blinked hard, wrenching at the ropes tying his hands behind the chair.

“The only thing I care about is getting out of this bloody prison.”

“Yes, about that,” Vaughan said. He straightened up, putting some more space between them, and Jed could breathe again.

“Why are you so anxious to escape? Is it so bad, to be in the Navy? You’ll be fed, clothed”—his gaze lingered on Jed’s shabby and ill-fitting clothes—“paid a decent wage, perhaps win yourself a little prize money…”

Jed said nothing.

“Of course there are the disadvantages of the wind and the rain, storms, shipwreck, perhaps the occasional burst of cannon fire. But you don’t seem to be a man lacking physical courage.”

You’ve left out the chief disadvantage, Jed thought with a sort of sour amusement. The utter powerlessness. “I want to be my own master,” he said aloud. “Is that so strange?”

But he didn’t expect Vaughan to understand. You lord it over me now, he thought, but I bet you come running when a captain snaps his fingers.

Vaughan was watching him, lips pursed. Abruptly, he said, “I’ll be honest with you, Trevithick.

I’m desperately worried about Wallace. He means the world to me.

I love him, God help me. I would forgive him anything.

” His voice rang true—and there was, perhaps, some truth in it. “Only tell me—how is he? Is he well?”

“And then you let me go?”

Vaughan nodded.

“And—” He hesitated, because knowledge was power. “Solomon too?”

Vaughan looked pleased at this little victory—this little confession of Jed’s. “And Solomon too.”

Jed thought of Wallace, on the way to that inn he hoped to run. Of Emma Yates. Of evenings at the Boar. Of Wallace beaming at Solomon, entering eagerly into conversation with Jed.

Would it be so bad to tell Vaughan what he wanted to hear? Would it really do any harm to Wallace?

But it was the first step along a path Vaughan intended to entice him down. A path that didn’t lead anywhere Jed wanted to go.

Jed looked him in the eye. “No.”

“No?”

“I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you.”

Vaughan’s lip twisted in a snarl that he couldn’t quite hide beneath a smile.

“I see,” he said softly.

Jed’s pulse hammered in his temples. This was a man who could have him hanged for desertion in the face of the enemy. But he couldn’t bring himself to submit to Vaughan—and then be sent off to sea anyway.

Vaughan rose to his feet and walked around Jed. Before Jed knew what he was about, Vaughan had cut his bonds.

“Stand up,” he rapped out.

Instantly, Jed was on his feet, responding instinctively to that tone of command. He hated himself for doing it.

They stood facing each other. Vaughan was between Jed and the door.

The penalty for striking an officer was death. Jed felt more trapped now than he had when he was tied to the chair; he had no doubt that was quite deliberate. He could see it in Vaughan’s eyes.

“Where is Wallace Acton?”

“I don’t know, sir,” he said, the sir slipping out instinctively.

“Where did you last see him? Where does he work? Who does he frequent? Who are his friends?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“Is that how you answered all your officers? My God, they must have come down upon you hard and fast.”

A short coil of rope lay atop the stack of chests by the door. Vaughan picked it up, uncurling it and letting it snap against the chair. It cracked like a bosun’s starter. Jed flinched despite himself.

Vaughan’s lips spread, slow and satisfied. He tossed the rope aside and stepped closer, putting his hands on Jed’s shoulders and turning him so that Jed’s back was to him. Jed clenched his fists, fingernails digging into his palms.

Through the cotton of his smock, he felt a finger tracing one long, slow, horrible line down his back.

“Have you ever been flogged, I wonder?” The finger stilled at Jed’s flinch. “You have, haven’t you? More than once, hmm?” His breath whispered on the back of Jed’s neck. “I wish I’d been there.”

Jed trembled with the effort of not lashing out.

There came a knock at the door.

Vaughan stepped away. “Come.”

It was one of the gangers. “The surgeon’s here, sir.”

A flicker of annoyance passed across Vaughan’s face. Then he shrugged. He picked up his hat and crossed the room in two swift steps.

“Have this man taken downstairs. He’s of no further use to me.”

The surgeon had set up shop in the same downstairs room where Lieutenant Vaughan had recorded the prisoners’ names upon their arrival. He had laid his instruments out on a table near the window, and was examining a man’s teeth when Jed was brought in.

A handful of other men stood waiting their turn, under the watchful guard of three uniformed Marines armed with muskets. Solomon was among them, and Jed felt a flood of relief. He hadn’t seen Solomon since the previous day, and he’d been worrying that Solomon might already have been sent to sea.

He thought, suddenly, how desperately he wanted to end up on the same ship as Solomon—and then he pushed that thought aside, because he wasn’t going to end up on any ship at all.

Their eyes met. There’s an able seaman upstairs, Jed heard.

But this might be his only chance to warn Solomon of his plans to make a break for it at the harbour, before they were transferred to the tender.

His only chance to take Solomon with him.

Though he could not see how to warn him without being overheard.

“Next,” the surgeon called, as the previous man scrambled back into his clothes.

Under cover of the movement, Jed managed to get close enough to Solomon to murmur in his ear. “Solomon, listen, as soon as ever I can—”

At the same time Solomon was whispering, “Listen, Jed, please don’t try to escape until—”

“What’s that you’re muttering about?” The nearest Marine stepped in to pull them apart. “Heard the word ‘escape,’ did I?”

The line of prisoners shuffled forward. Jed tried to hang back, close to Solomon. But it was his turn now, and he was pushed forward.

The surgeon was a portly fellow with little round eyeglasses. He cast a disinterested glance over Jed, up and down.

“Strip,” he ordered, making a note in his book.

As the surgeon measured and examined him, Jed caught Solomon’s eye, trying to read the meaning there. What did he mean, ‘don’t try to escape’? What had Solomon done? Jed remembered again his fear that Solomon would try to strike some sort of desperate bargain with Vaughan.

“You’re in excellent health,” the surgeon said. “His Majesty is lucky to have you.” He scribbled something on a piece of paper, then waved at one of the guards to take Jed from the room. “Next!”