Page 121 of The Armor of Light

‘Guilty,’ said the foreman.

Joanie staggered and seemed about to fall, but Jarge held her up.

There was an indignant noise from the public.

Sal saw Will Riddick smile. I wish I’d killed him with that stone, she thought.

‘Prisoner in the dock,’ said the judge. ‘You have been found guilty of a crime that renders you liable to the death penalty.’

Joanie was white with dread.

‘However,’ the judge went on, ‘your fellow townspeople have argued strongly for leniency, and the merchant Silas Child has testified that you gave him all the money you received by selling the stolen grain.’

Surely, Sal thought, this means she won’t hang. But what will her punishment be? Flogging? Hard labour? The stocks?

‘Because of that, I will not condemn you to death.’

Jarge said: ‘Oh, thank God.’

‘Instead, you will be transported to the penal colony of New South Wales in Australia for fourteen years.’

Jarge shouted: ‘No!’

He was not alone. The crowd was outraged, and there were more shouted protests.

The judge raised his voice. ‘Clear the court!’

The sheriff and the constables began to push people out. The judge disappeared through the door to the anteroom. Sal held Jarge’s arm and talked to him to distract him from thoughts of violence. ‘Fourteen years, Jarge – she’ll only be forty-four.’

‘They hardly ever come back even when their sentence is up, you know that. When it was America few returned, and Australia’s farther away.’

Sal knew he was right. When the sentence ended prisoners had to pay for their passage home, and it was nearly impossible for them to earn enough money out there. In almost all cases, transportation was effectively banishment for life. ‘We can hope, Jarge,’ said Sal.

His anger was turning to grief. Near to tears, he said: ‘And what about little Sue?’

‘She’ll be left behind. No one would want to take a child to a penal colony, and anyway it’s not allowed.’

‘She’ll have no mother or father then!’

‘She’ll have you and me, Jarge,’ Sal murmured solemnly. ‘She’s our child now.’

*

Kit knew something terrible had happened, but for several days he could not get any adult to reveal the details. Then one morning at breakfast his mother said: ‘Kit and Sue, I’m going to try to explain to you what’s going to happen today.’

At last, Kit thought. He sat upright, interested.

‘Sue, your mum has to go away this morning.’

Sue said: ‘Why?’

Kit, too, wanted to know that.

Sal said: ‘The judge thought she did something wrong when she stopped the men loading the sacks of grain onto Mr Child’s barge.’

Kit knew about this. He said stoutly: ‘It was Kingsbridge grain, it shouldn’t have been sent away.’

Jarge said: ‘That’s what we all thought, but the judge saw it differently, and he’s the one with the power.’