Page 170 of The King's Man
He glanced at Thamsine and nodded. ‘Let’s go.’
Four doors faced onto the landing. All were closed. They opened the first one, revealing a squalid rat’s nest of empty bottles and worse. Filthy sheets covered the bed. Thamsine recoiled with her hand to her nose.
‘Outhwaite’s room,’ she said.
The second room contained nothing except a broken pallet bed and a three-legged stool. The door to the fourth room appeared to be locked, but the key had been left hanging on a nail beside the door frame. Kit turned the key and opened the door. Even he gagged. The stench of illness, and worse, pervaded the dark, airless room.
As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he could see a skeletal figure reclining under a sheet on the bed. He crossed to the bed and looked down into the waxen face. The left side of the man’s unshaven face looked as if it had melted, the featuresdragged down and distorted. Only the eyes that scanned his face, showed the intelligence that still burned brightly within.
‘I’m Daniel Lovell’s brother,’ he said without preamble.
The man’s eyes moistened and he raised his right hand, gesturing Kit closer. The skeletal fingers closed on his wrist and he opened his mouth, a dribble of spittle sliding from the corner.
‘’An’l?’
‘Aye. My name’s Kit Lovell. Daniel was my brother. I came to take him home.’
The old man shook his head. ‘Too late. Good boy, ‘an’l. Tried … ’ The man’s face twisted with the effort of speaking. ‘My Janey … ’ he shook his head. ‘Would’ve … wed.’
‘What happened to him?’ Kit asked.
For answer, the man looked away. He raised his hand and waved at a dark corner of the room. ‘’ible,’ he croaked.
Thamsine followed the direction he indicated and produced a dusty box from a chest. She set it down on the end of the bed and opened it, lifting out a hefty Bible.
Pritchard burbled unintelligibly, gesturing at the book.
Thamsine turned the book upside down and shook it. A single sheet of paper wafted to the floor. She picked it up and handed it to Kit. From outside they could hear Outhwaite in a heated conversation with another man. Their voices were coming closer.
Kit folded the paper and stowed it in his jacket.
‘Put the box back, Tham,’ he said.
He looked down at Pritchard. ‘Thank you. We will make this right.’
They barely made it back to the guest bedchamber before the front door slammed and Outhwaite came stumping up the stairs.
‘I ‘spose you want feeding,’ he said. ‘The girl’ll have food on’t table in an hour.’
‘You are too kind,’ Kit said.
He waited until he heard Outhwaite go back outside and unfolded the paper.
‘It’s Daniel’s handwriting,’ he said.
Thamsine clutched his arm. ‘Read it.’
Kit took a breath and began,
This is the testament of Daniel Lovell of Eveleigh Priory, Cheshire. I am the grandson of the second Lord Midhurst and a prisoner of the Commonwealth for no more crime than loyalty to my King. I write this in the hope that the finder will bring justice, not just for me, because it is certain I will be dead before the week is out, but for the good man John Pritchard, who lies ill and untended on his bed, and the poor souls who labour in the fields under the lash of one Ebenezer Outhwaite. Since the death of his daughter Jane, John Pritchard has been taken with a palsy, and at his desire the management of the plantation has fallen to me, but Ebenezer Outhwaite covets the land, even as he coveted Pritchard’s daughter. His manifest cruelties are listed below. These I have seen with my own eyes.
The death of the Scottish prisoner Brodie was dealt by Outhwaite’s own hand. Every day another prisoner is selected by Outhwaite as an example for flogging or consignment to the hole he has had dug in the compound of the slave quarters. Rations have been cut and there is much illness among the labourers.
As for John Pritchard, no one attends him but the slave girl, Clara, who is inadequate to the care of such a sick man. I have resolved that tonight I will take flight and try to reach Holetown in the hope that I can bring my testimony of the dire deeds at the Pritchard Plantation to the attention of the Governor. I fear, however, that I will not make it. Outhwaite does not trust me and iswaiting on an opportunity to move against me. I leave this testimony concealed in the hope that aid will come ere long.
Signed, Daniel Lovell, the twelfth day of February in the year of our Lord 1654.
A list had been attached detailing the barbarous treatment of the slaves and labourers on the Pritchard Plantation since Pritchard’s illness. Floggings, deaths and rape.
