a discombobulated daddy-long-legs. There was an urge to be careful with him but also to throw him out the window. ‘And we’re sure it’s him?’
‘How many other redhead Spanish pirate captains are there kicking around the North Sea?’ Wellesley said drily.
‘Are you really Spanish?’ the warden said to Kite. Kite could follow his French, more or less. Joe had got him used to it, with that strange, Anglified future French. The grammar got turned around, or something subtle but significant, and it made a bridge between English and this Parisian thing. ‘Silly of you to join the English fleet, don’t you think, given that your side won?’
‘In hindsight it was something of an error,’ Kite agreed in Spanish, to prove that he could.
The warden laughed as if a wild animal had spoken to him. He turned back to Wellesley. ‘Excellent! I’ll sign the docket for you, madame. I think this merits a proper glass of wine, don’t you?’
She smiled. Kite was still struggling to find the magnificent green dress anything less than offensive, but she was playing the part well. She even sat differently; usually she had the tall person’s inclination to curve forward, but she was resting against the corsetry now, bolt upright. ‘Indeed it does, sir; and, while we’re here, and since I find myself rather newly wealthy, I was wondering about the purchase of a slave or two. Perhaps I could look at some before I go to the Ministry to retrieve the reward money?’
The warden looked delighted. ‘Oh, absolutely. But wine first. What kind of slaves?’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I have to say, I have been hankering after a handsome man to be decorative about the house. Dark and pretty, perhaps?’
Kite frowned, because he hadn’t thought this would ever happen; that she might just be able to put Joe in a room with all of them at the same time. Which meant there was a chance of getting out of here. He swallowed hard, because hope was worse than fatalism.
‘Absolutely, absolutely – oh, here’s Colonel Herault,’ the warden added as a side door opened. ‘He wants to have a look at our pirate; Herault, meet Missouri Kite.’
‘Isn’t it interesting,’ Herault said, ‘that you turn up just after I put an advert in the paper about your man?’
‘What man?’ Kite said. ‘What paper?’
Herault swept his eyes over him slowly, taking him in, the cuts, bruises, the chains, and then tilted them towards Wellesley. He didn’t say anything, and only folded down into the armchair not far from Kite. When the warden burbled that they were going to sell some slaves to the lady, Herault glanced at Kite and lifted one eyebrow.
‘Are you indeed,’ he said.
46
Newgate Gaol, 1807
After the dimness in the yard and on the stairs, the light in the office was rich. It looked to Joe like a room trapped in amber. There were a lot of people there now; Colonel Herault in an armchair by the window, a flouncy man who might have been the warden, three other men who must have been prisoners from the state of them. Joe glanced at them uncertainly. One of them gave him a thin smile. All of them were in their twenties or thirties, and remarkably good-looking. The warden hurried across and shuffled Joe into line.
And there in an armchair was Revelation Wellesley, looking entirely unlike herself in a green silk dress. She had changed the way she held herself too; she was quick and precise on Agamemnon’s deck, but she looked languid now, and she had taken on a glassy, arsenic-brightened quality just like a certain sort of rich lady always had.
‘My goodness,’ she laughed, sounding like an idiot. Joe could have kissed her. Her French was brilliant. ‘You really do have a good selection. How is it that so many lovely slaves have committed crimes?’
Slave auction. Right. Jesus, could people just walk in like that? And where the hell were they going to get that kind of money? The English fleet seemed to have sixpence between them, and even then, it was probably a fake sixpence off an illegal mint.
‘Oh, sometimes we sell debtors to clear their debts. Minimum ten years of service,’ the warden explained, jolly. In the corner, Herault was leaning against the arm of his chair, clipping a cigar.
Joe hadn’t seen because he was on the periphery of the lamps, and very still, but Kite was there too. He looked terrible, new cuts and bruises everywhere, chains on his wrists, and he wasn’t wearing