‘Wait, lass, it is our ship.’ He stood on the shore looking out in bewilderment. The Sea-Harrower was raising canvas, like white wings, and her bow was turned to the west.
‘My hands are caught,’ Marsali cried.
‘She’s going without us, lass,’ Rory called, and then hurried to the hut’s black entrance. Marsali had struggled to her feet, awkward, fighting at once the morning’s illness, and her hands which were bound tight behind her. ‘Who has done this?’ she cried.
‘Why?’ Rory whispered. ‘Why?’
The Sea-Harrower caught the morning wind, and heeled gently, grand and free.
‘Where is Antoine?’ Marsali whispered.
Rory turned grimly to face her and said, ‘And where, my love, do you think?’ He waved a furious dismissive hand to the sea-loch and the ship, riding proud to the Atlantic. ‘The bastard,’ he said. ‘He has left us, Marsali, with the soldiers on our heels and a price on our heads. He has left us to our fate. Now, lass, will you defend him? Is that his measure of truth?’
She watched peering intently into the west, as if she could see him yet, somewhere in the high shrouds. ‘Indeed,’ she said at last. ‘He is going home, as he said, that is truth. Come, lad, will you untie my hands, for you and I must be riding now, till we find some ship of our own. And the Dear Lord knows where.’
Rory, speechless now with anger, bent over her hands, and tugged at the knots of her wrists. ‘I will never know why he thought the need of this. You were not likely to run away after and grab hold of the anchor chain.’ Marsali laughed softly and shook her head.
‘I’ll not understand that, but ’tis not the only thing. But look, Rory, we may not need to wait so long for a ship after all. Yon’s a second sail, and a third.’ His hands stopped at their work, and his head came up at once.
‘We’d best be off, lass. Another ship indeed, and she’ll not be French. ’Tis a frigate, no doubt, and another. And Geordie’s. They knew indeed what we were about. Look, lass, I’ll set you on that pony, and you’ll ride like this. I cannot be getting this free the now, and we must be off this shore. No, wait now.’ He drew his sword and made to saw at the bond, but the sharp blade slipped at once, and grazed her skin, drawing blood. ‘Och damn, forgive me, it’s tied too close,’ Rory whispered. ‘It must wait.’
He crossed hastily to the wind-broken rowan where they had tied their ponies and brought them to her, saddled and ready. Then he lifted her awkwardly on the back of one, and swung himself onto the other. As he did there was a crash of cannon, from the sea.
‘They’re alongside,’ Marsali cried.
‘And they’re firing on her,’ Rory whispered. ‘Och, lassie, this is not going to be nice.’ They rode away then, from the shore, with Antoine’s abandoned pony running wild behind them, panicked by the cannon fire. Then they reached the crest of the hill, Rory pulled his pony up and held tight to the lead rein of Marsali’s. ‘I am thinking, lass, there is no hurry. They are far too busy to mind on the likes of us.’
There were four ships now, in the loch. The Sea-Harrower was in the centre, and the hills echoed with her fire, but around her, like wolves blocking her escape, were the British frigate and the two light sloops, attacking and parrying and raking her from every side. As Marsali watched the mizzenmast shattered midway, and crashed to the sea, dragging shrouds and men and canvas into the water.
‘She’s lost,’ Rory whispered.
‘She cannot be,’ Marsali cried, for she thought the ship immortal. ‘They’re so small; they cannot touch her.’
‘There are three, lass.’
‘Can she not run?’ Marsali cried, her face wet with tears. ‘Surely she can run?’
‘Never, lass, she’s on the rocks.’ Rory turned away.
Marsali watched, unable to free her eyes. The mainmast fell to join the mizzen, and then the powder went with a thundering crash, and flames shot down the decks.
‘Oh Dear Christ,’ she whispered.
Rory put his arms about her, leaning on her, his hands in her straw-tangled hair. ‘Weep for him, lass; he’ll not escape that.’
She turned and smiled and said, ‘Och never. ’Tis not Antoine, lad, I cry for. But his bonnie ship. He’ll be so sad to lose her; she is his home.’
‘Marsali,’ Rory said sharply, ‘he’ll need no home nor anything now, again. They will die, all of them, and you must face it. She is burning from bow to stern.’ Then he looked back to the sea and added with a grim, satisfied smile. ‘But I swear now, she is buying our freedom. They will think us lost upon her, and let us be.’
Marsali only laughed. ‘Free my hands, lad,’ she said. ‘My wrists are so stiff. No, you do not understand. The sea cannot hurt him.’
Rory shook his head gently, no longer wishing to speak. He struggled with her bonding again and said, ‘Lord knows what he tied you with. It must have been simple to bind, in the night, but it’s not so easy to untie.’
She started at that and said in a whisper, ‘What said you?’ But as she did, the bond broke free, and her hands fell to her sides. She raised them, rubbing the wrists, marked red with the binding of them.
Rory held the bond up in his hand, and said, ‘Now will you look, ’tis leather, or fur, the eerie thing.’
She whirled about, her eyes wide, and caught it in her hands, and held it, slowly straightening it so it lay across her fingers. It was magically smooth, as if it had never been knotted at all, sleek and silky, the grey sealskin. She looked from it to the hulk of the Sea-Harrower, strung with flames, and slowly laid her head again on Rory’s shoulder. The sea wind stung at her tears. Rory stroked again her hair, gently, and said, ‘Aye, lass, that is better, weep. He is yet a man, for all he’s done. He’s yet a man.’
Chapter Seventeen
‘Tearlach MacSheumais, MacSheumais MacTearlach,’ Rory chanted the poet’s words, to the winds of the Western Isles, receding now off their stern.
‘Charles the son of James, the son of James, the son of Charles.’
‘Is it not strange, lass, how when you say it again, and yet again, it becomes a sound, only a sound, with no meaning at all?’
Marsali, standing there beside them on the deck of the French brig, Clementina, bound from Stornoway to Halifax, shook her head, not thinking of it, toying with the silken sealskin thing in her hands.
‘I will go back,’ said Rory. ‘A year again. I will go back. We are not yet done.’
‘’Tis a dream, Rory. A dream of youth. Always we would go back to our youth. But we will set foot in Nova Scotia, and turn around once, and we will have land, and turn around again, and we will have bairns. And again, Rory, and we will be old. Life is swift running, and short.’
‘Dreams are long,’ said Rory.
She shook her head again. ‘Within the year I will have a child, what do you say?’
He grinned. ‘I say that is grand. I’m flattered by your faith, but there’s scant been time.’
‘’Tis not yours, lad.’ She paused and said quietly, ‘You may leave me on Halifax shore if you fancy. I’ll make my way.’
‘T’hell,’ Rory growled, and then sighed softly, ‘I’m not a fool lass, and I had my thoughts. Och well, it will no doubt be bonnie.’ Then he raised her face with his hand and said, ‘I do not care, lass. ’Tis the raising of the bairn makes fatherhood, not the casting of the seed. ’Tis not just the sowing, but the long summer’s work wins the crop.’
She smiled to herself and said, ‘I am hoping you are right, lad. I am hoping most strongly.’
She yet toyed with the silken thing in her hands, hidden from him, but he said aloud, ‘What’s yon? What have you there?’
She looked up, and then out to the rock skerries of the Hebrides, vanishing forever. ‘This? Och, ’tis nothing. A wee bit nonsense, lad. A wee bit nonsense, and nothing more.’
She cast it, spinning and silvery, into the silvery sea.
Abigail Clements
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Highland Fire
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The Sea-Harrower: A Scottish Highlander Historical Romance Page 33
