Free to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) by Louis - Sackett's 02 L'amour

no position to hold back from the roughest hand.
    Men and women mixed together, some children ran about, all in the filthiest rags, faces and hands dirty, with the worst of criminals mingled with debtors and those thrown into gaol for heresy, which was an easy thing if one talked but loosely of Queen or Church.
    One day I was called to a private room where two men sat. One was a slender man with a tight, cruel mouth and a tightly curled wig. He looked at me with an aloof and distant expression.
    The other man was square and solid-looking, a man of the Army, I would have guessed, or perhaps the captain of a warship.
    "You are Barnabas Sackett?" this one asked.
    "I am, and a loyal yeoman of England," I added. "I am also an admirer of Her Majesty."
    "There be many such," he replied shortly. "Now to the matter at hand. You have traded certain gold coins to Coveney Hasling and others?"
    "I have."
    "Where did you obtain these coins?"
    Relating the events of the day on which I found such coins was simple, and then I followed by relating that once I knew antiquities might have value, I went to another place and found more.
    "So quickly? So easily?"
    "It was chance. One in a thousand, I suppose, although there are many places in England where old coins are found."
    "Your home is in the fens?"
    "It is."
    "You live near the Wash?"
    "Some distance from it, actually."
    "But you know it? You've sailed on it?"
    "Many times."
    "You know the story of the loss of the royal treasure?"
    For hours they questioned me. The man with the wig had a cold, fierce eye and there was not one whit of mercy in him, nor any belief in my story.
    He turned at last. "Damn him for a liar, Swalley!" he said. "I told you this would do no good. I say the rack ... or a thumbscrew. He'll speak the truth fast enough. His kind have no belly for pain."
    "How is yours?" I said roughly. "I think you have no stomach for it, either.
    Have done with this. I have spoken the truth. If you do not care to believe, do what you will, for I have nothing else to tell you."
    He looked at me for a moment, and then he struck me across the face with the back of his hand. It was not much of a blow, and I smiled.
    "If we each held a sword," I said, "I'd have your blood for that."
    "What? You threaten me? Why, you-!"
    "I am an Englishman. I am freeborn. A man who strikes a prisoner so is a coward, and you, sir, are doubly a coward."
    "Here! That will be enough of that!" Swalley came to his feet suddenly. "I am sorry, Sir Henry."
    He pointed a finger at me. "You! You will tell us where lies the royal treasure or, by the Lord, you shall be put to the question."
    "I have told you all I know. You waste time. Would I be going to America if there were such a treasure?"
    Swalley stared at me, then smiled with thick lips that repelled me. "How do we know you were not for Spain? Or for Italy? We know you have the treasure, for word has been given us that you have it, that you took it from the Wash this past year. It is sworn to."
    Appalled, I stared at him. Then I shook my head. "That is obviously a falsehood.
    There is no treasure."
    "Think of it," Swalley said quietly. "We will talk again."
    So I was returned to my cell. I looked about the bare room with its cot, its white-washed walls and bare ugliness, and felt hatred for the first time.
    What right had they to seize and confine me in this manner? Taking me from all I loved, from my chance at a future of some worth, and bringing me to this horror?
    Yet moaning and wailing was not my way. I had never complained, for who cares for complaints? If something is wrong, one does something.
    Hyatt ... I must see Hyatt. I went forth from my room, guessing very well that once questioning began there would be no longer such freedom, even though many a malefactor enjoyed it. I should be taken, held, confined, tortured.
    Suddenly I stopped. Before me was Peter Tallis, talking to a thin, wiry little man whom I had seen about before. He glanced my way but gave