The man sneered. ‘Well that’s where you’m wrong, my lover. ’Tis my horse. I paid for un fair an’ square, an’ I can do as I please with un.’

  The news took her back a bit, but she had an answer for him. ‘Then you’ll have a bill of sale.’

  He hadn’t expected knowledge of the horse trade from such a young woman. ‘Not about my person, no,’ he blustered. ‘But he’m mine, fair an’ square. Depend on it.’ The argument had gathered a crowd and some of them were egging him on. ‘Tha’s right, Johnny-Jo, you tell ’er.’

  ‘I don’t depend on nothing,’ Suki told him trenchantly. ‘Not when ’tis a matter of money. If he’m youm an’ you’ve a-paid for him, you’ll come with me to a notary and show the bill of sale. ’Twill have my husband’s signature upon it, which I shall know, depend on it, and then ’twill be fair an’ square.’

  ‘Now look ’ee here,’ the man said, beginning to sense that he was getting out of his depth. ‘I bought un from a good stables. Reputable. Mr Wenham’s Livery stables on Broad Quay. He’ll tell ’ee.’

  ‘Very well,’ Suki said. ‘We’ll go there an’ see.’ And she began to lead the horse away as if she knew where she was going.

  ‘Now look ’ee here,’ the man said again, but he had to follow her whether he would or no and the crowd followed him, eager to see the end of the drama.

  The stable was easy to find. She could have sniffed it out, even without Mr Wenham’s brightly painted sign to point the way, and when the gentleman himself was called for and appeared, currycomb in hand, swarthy and tousle-headed, in his fustian breeches and his leather apron, she knew at once and by instinct that however hard this fight might prove to be, she was going to win it.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘’tis the Captain’s horse. No mistaking.’

  ‘Which you sold to me,’ Johnny-Jo said, pushing himself forward. ‘Fair an’ square. Six pounds ten shillin’.’

  The crowd burst into a chorus of comment. ‘Now we’m a — cornin’ to it.’

  ‘Tha’s got her, Johnny-Jo. You tell ’er.’

  Encouraged, Johnny-Jo repeated his claim. ‘Which you sold to me.’

  ‘Which I never did nothin’ of the sort,’ Mr Wenham said. ‘I hired un out to ’ee. No more.’

  Johnny-Jo was blustering too much to make sense. ‘You told me… What I means for to say… ’Tain’t handsome, Mr Wenham.’

  Suki swept his incoherence aside and made a direct appeal to their audience. ‘The one thing I do know about my husband,’ she told them, ‘is he never would’ve sold this horse. Never. ’Tweren’t in his nature. He loved un too much. ’Tis a rare fine horse. Anyone can see that with half an eye. And another thing. You’d never buy an animal of this quality for six pounds. Look at him. I ask you. Six pounds? Sixty maybe. That’ud be more the mark. But six? Never in a month a Sundays. He’s making it up an’ that’s the truth of it.’

  ‘I knows what I knows,’ Johnny-Jo said stubbornly. ‘This horse was sold to me, fair an’ square. I defy Mr Wenham to say any different. Six pounds fifteen shillings. In the Seven Stars.’

  ‘You hired un,’ Mr Wenham said. ‘That was all. Onny you don’t recollect the manner of it on account of you was drunk.’

  The blustering rose to spitting point. ‘I remembers every blamed word, Mr Wenham. We shook hands on’t.’

  ‘You was drunk.’

  ‘I was not.’

  They were glowering at one another now, red in the face and panting. Suki sprang her clinching argument into the pause. ‘Then where’s your bill of sale?’

  The chorus swayed, in both senses of the word. ‘She got the right of it there.’

  ‘Ought to be a bill of sale.’

  ‘After all, she knows her own husband. Stands to reason.’

  It was all over bar the shouting, which went on for ten more minutes and got louder and more and more ridiculous. When Johnny-Jo finally left the stables he was shouting that he’d ‘have the law on Mr Wenham and that witch there. Which I means to say that witch should be set in the stocks. Flayed alive and ate she should be. I wouldn’t touch her with a red-hot poker. Nor the horse neither. ’Tis a vicious animal. If you want my opinion of it, ’tis blamed injustice, that’s what. I’ll have the law on the whole blamed lot of you.’

  The crowd booed him off the premises and were quite disappointed when he’d gone. Soon they began to drift away, there being nothing left to see and hear except horses.

  ‘So, Mr Wenham,’ Suki said, brisk and to the point. ‘This horse was stabled here by Captain Jack, and you been a-hirin’ him out. Is that the right of it?’

  ‘’Twas all agreed upon,’ Mr Wenham told her, speaking respectfully, having learnt that she was a woman who got her own way. ‘We come to an arrangement, on account of the price of hay, which he eats monstrous. He’s a reg’lar trencher, you might say. Which I ’aven’t had no more money for his keep since your Jack set sail, which is a good long time since, as you know.’

  It was time to make a decision and an offer. ‘I got a bank note for five pounds in my pocket,’ she said, pulling it out and displaying it, ‘what say this horse is mine and his fodder well paid for? How say you to that?’

  Twenty crowns was a fair and immediate profit even for a horse that had been steadily earning his keep. Not to be sniffed at certainly. ‘Aye,’ the stableman said. ‘I’d be agreeable.’

  ‘Then we must have a bill of sale,’ Suki told him and sensing that the lack of one in Johnny-Jo’s case was due to Mr Wenham’s illiteracy, she offered, ‘I’ll write un for you if you wish, if you’ll fetch pen and paper.’

  It was fetched and a careful document written, agreeing…

  The bay stallion known as Beau is henceforth the property of Suki Brown of Lambton farm in Twerton, having been stabled with Mr Wenham of Wenham’s Stables Broad Quay for…

  ‘How many months, did you say?’

  ‘Now as to that,’ Mr Wenham said, thinking so hard he had to hold his face with both hands to keep it from nodding, ‘’twould be around six, as I recall. He left in harvest time. October, ’twas. They were in a parlous hurry to get the ship away on account of the trade winds.’

  ‘Which ship was that?’ Suki asked, seizing her chance for more information. ‘Do you recall the name?’

  He was delighted to think that his knowledge was greater than hers. ‘Don’t ’ee know?’ He tried mocking her a little. ‘I’d ha’ thought you’d ha’ knowd your own husband’s ship.’

  It was a tricky moment, but she spoke through it easily. ‘He sails on so many ships,’ she said. ‘I forgets the names of ’em. He do tell me, but I forgets.’

  ‘I got a better memory than you then, me dear, for I remembers it clear. Every blamed detail. The Bonny Beaufoy. That was the ship. Belongs to Mr Smith the banker. I remembers his name too. Mr Jedediah Smith. Sailed with her, as I recall, which I don’t see the sense of, bein’ ’tis a mortal hard crossing.’

  The details were being written.

  …having sailed on the Bonny Beaufoy out of Bristol being the ship of one Mr Smith, banker. All costs of fodder ate by the stallion Beau, are now clear and paid for.

  ‘There you are Mr Wenham, if you’ll put your mark just here below where I’ve signed, ’twill be all correct.’

  ‘Which I s’pose you’ll want to ride un home,’ Mr Wenham said, when he’d appended his cross.

  She hadn’t thought of riding this great beast — ambling along on Farmer Lambton’s old mare had been difficult enough — but now it was being suggested she had to agree to it, even though it meant hoisting up her skirts in the most immodest way in order to sit astride Jack’s high saddle. What did it matter? She had bought the horse and she would find his owner. It was just a matter of seeking out the shipping office and asking the right questions.

  Pretending to horsemanship, she clicked Beau into walking, touching his flanks gently with her heels, remembering how easily Jack had ridden him, all those months ago. To her delight, he went where she led and stopped quietly when she reined him in outside the shipping office, which had been easy to find from such a splendidly high vantage point. She was charmed to notice that he came to a halt right beside the mounting block where he stood obediently, almost as though he knew she would need the use of it.

  The office was so crowded she required a fierce face and considerable pushing to fight her way to the counter. But once there, her request was taken seriously.

  ‘Yes,’ the shipping clerk confirmed, consulting his ledger. ‘We do have news of the vessel. The Bonny Beaufoy. Yes. Here ’tis. Sailed in October and left the slave coast in February. The owner had letters from the Bissagos Islands to that effect. She’m expected back in Bristol sometime between May and July, depending.’

  She thanked him rapturously — May! May! Next month! A matter of weeks — and rode back to the high street, singing with pure joy.

  Annie was sitting in the cart waiting anxiously and crossly. ‘Where you been, you bad gal?’ she said. ‘What you doin’ on that great horse?’

  Suki was still bubbling with happiness. ‘I bought un.’

  ‘What nonsense!’ Annie said, and her voice was sour. ‘I thought you were supposed to be buyin’ cloth for your babba. You can’t just go about buying horses. ’Taren’t fitting.’

  ‘Well, I’ve bought un,’ Suki said, stroking the horse’s neck. ‘He’s mine. Ain’t you, Beau?’

  ‘Where d’you get the money from?’

  ‘I used the bank note.’

  Annie’s eyes widened in astonishment and disbelief. ‘All that money on a horse. You must have took leave of your senses. You’ll not have a penny piece to spend all spring and summer. And William growing so. I wonder at ’ee Suki Brown. I truly do. And what will ’ee do with it, now you’ve got it? Tell me that. ’Twill need stabling an’ fodder an’ grooming. Have ’ee thought of that?’

  Suki hadn’t thought of anything except rescue. ‘I shall speak to Mr Lambton,’ she decided. He had stable room a-plenty and would understand what a fine horse Beau was and what a bargain she’d got. Wouldn’t he?

  Annie was coughing with distress and annoyance. ‘You’ve made us late,’ she complained, ‘an those two poor babbas awaitin’, an’ all you’ve done is buy a horse! Walk on Mr Jones, if you please. I don’t know what Mr Lambton will say.’

  Mr Lambton laughed out loud, his brown face wrinkled with delight at her daring. ‘What a spirit you have,’ he said. ‘We never know what to expect of ’ee.’ He agreed that Beau was a fine strong horse and saw how badly he’d been treated. ‘He’ll be out of place on a farm,’ he pointed out, ‘for he’ll not pull plough or cart. But I could ride him to market, I daresay. And so could you.’

  So Beau was given stable room ‘until you gets sent for or the Captain comes for him’. And Suki’s immediate problems seemed to be resolved.

  Annie wasn’t pleased. She was weary after her day on the road and her conscience was troubling her for leaving her Precious all on his own for so long — even if he did have Molly with him. ‘Have you thought of the expense, Mr Lambton?’ she asked and the question was a complaint. ‘’Twill cost us dear, a great horse like that.’

  ‘He shall cover our young mare, while he’s here,’ the farmer said. ‘We could get a fine strong foal out of him. Think of that, my dear.’

  Annie wasn’t mollified. ‘I think ’twill be a good thing when she’m sent for and goes off to join those fine Bradburys of hers,’ she said. ‘Horse indeed. She’m a sight too bold for the likes of us.’

  ‘You were glad of her company when Constant was born,’ the farmer pointed out, ‘and pleaded for her to stay when I would have had her move on.’

  But she was coughing too much to answer him, so he let the matter drop out of pity for her. A strong foal would more than make up for a few weeks’ fodder and Suki herself would soon be off with the Bradburys, and might well take the animal with her, which would solve all their problems.

  Suki’s fine Sir George Bradbury was actually in Bristol that very afternoon. He’d travelled down with Sir Arnold Willoughby and the Honourable Sir Humphrey de Thespia in order to inspect their biggest and most impressive privateer, the three-masted frigate called Yorick, and to give instructions to her master for her first sailing, which was to be to Nevis to escort the Bradburys’ sugar crop home and protect it from the French.

  The ship had been transformed since Sir George first saw her languishing at the head of Broad Quay. Now, agleam with new black paint, her decks scrubbed white, her rigging fresh, her sails neatly furled and with the formidable addition of sixteen brass cannon, she looked every inch the man-o’-war and a most impressive vessel. It gratified them all that she was the centre of admiration and gossip the length of the quay.

  ‘She’s proved a handsome purchase, Georgie,’ Sir Arnold said. ‘Damme if she ain’t. She’ll do well for us.’ Her second sailing was to be to Portugal to protect the cargo of oak beams and quality cloth that he and Sir Humphrey were currently amassing in the port of London, so his interest was keen.

  Fitting her out had cost a great deal more than Sir George’s original estimate, which considering the depleted state of his finances should have given him cause for concern, especially as he had a wedding to pay for in the autumn. But in fact, he was glowingly content, beaming at their fine ship and rubbing his hands with satisfaction. Taking financial risks excited him. It made him aware of his acumen and courage. And besides, he was basking in the reflected glory of his prospective son-in-law’s dazzling company, having learned during the last six months that the young man was renowned and feared and admired wherever he went.

  He seemed to have an influential relation in every town and city they visited. Today he had arrived with his impressive retinue to take up temporary residence with an aunt who lived in one of the prestigious new houses in Queen’s Square, and had insisted that his two friends should join him there for dinner, which sent the poor old lady into a tizzy of anxiety. Now stooping delicately backwards as he ascended the gangplank of their splendid ship, he was the focus of all eyes, like the principal actor at a play.

  Sir George and Sir Arnold followed at a respectful distance. Sir George looking back over his shoulder to address some happy remark to his old friends and to enjoy the stir they were causing. As he turned he caught sight of a face he thought he recognised.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he said. ‘Feller in a brown bob wig. Looks familiar, damme if he don’t.’

  Sir Arnold glanced back too. ‘Not a man of my acquaintance, me dear,’ he said. ‘Nor yours neither, judging by the look of him.’

  There was something disquieting about the man’s pointed stare, something that made Sir George think of being beaten about the head and stitched by some fool surgeon. He frowned and bit his lip, trying to remember. ‘He looks this way.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ Sir Arnold advised. ‘’Tis an idle fellow. A poor tradesman or a bounty hunter or some such. Suchlike wretches are ten a penny hereabouts.’

  They could hear Sir Humphrey drawling a greeting to the ship’s master. ‘Mr Swann, your servant, sir.’ So they had to join him and leave the man in the brown wig behind. But his disturbance echoed in Sir George’s mind.

  The master was given orders to sail to Nevis with all speed, to wait there until the sugar ships were loaded and to escort the cargo home. He was moreover, as Sir George told him happily, ‘to engage such French ships as should put in an appearance and give ’em a good trouncing.’ He expressed himself mindful of the importance of his mission and promised to obey it ‘to the letter, sirs, to the very letter.’

  ‘We wish ’ee God speed,’ Sir Humphrey said, bowing in his exquisite style.

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Sir George echoed. ‘So we do, sir. That’s the ticket, damme. Fair winds, fine weather and God speed.’ And he found himself wondering what speed the Bonny Beaufoy was making, and how many slaves she’d lost, and what sort of price they would make in the Windwards, and how well old Jedediah was managing to ration the food stocks. I’m a man of action, he thought, mopping the sweat from his forehead, damme if I ain’t.

  Chapter 22

  The Bonny Beaufoy was becalmed. She’d sat in the same flat, filthy patch of water for the last seven days, waiting for a breeze that never came and now the sea was beginning to rot around her. Strands of thick weed lay heaped and motionless on the surface of the water, brown and oily and entangled, and above her empty masts the sky burned in an endless, maddening blue, with no cloud to soften its glare.

  Without movement, the heat was intense and the smell from the holds so nauseating that Jack had been allowing the slaves out on deck for most of the day, even though their sores festered in the sunlight and the smell they carried with them was as miasmic above decks as below. After three more storms and an outbreak of shaking sickness, they’d lost six of the crew and were down to a hundred and sixty-two male slaves — all unshackled save for six who were too violent — and forty-one females, which made for an impossible crush on deck. But at least the holds could be sweetened a little in their absence, and that was done every day, although their stock of vinegar was running parlously low. Lack of vinegar was the least of their worries. Their drinking water was coated with green slime, the maize barrel was full of weevils, and their diet was much reduced because all their livestock had been killed and eaten long ago. Slaves and crew alike were unshaven and unwashed for there was no wish to add to the debris floating beside them. Consequently many of them were suffering from boils and many more were too weak and lethargic to do more than sit in what little shade they could find and wait.