Raider's Tide

by Maggie Prince

  “Well, not everything, would it? If you marry Hugh, he could come here, and Gerald could stay at Mere Point and marry whomever he pleased.”

  “If I marry Hugh.”

  John looks at me quickly. “Is there some doubt?”

  Doubt – if only he knew how much doubt. It is nine o’clock. In another two hours I must leave for the cottage. I raise my goblet to him, down some elderberry wine, and say, “Yes, there’s doubt.”

  In the shifting light John’s face looks vulnerable and young. He says, after a pause, “There seems to be truth in the air this evening. Beatrice… if there is some doubt that you are to marry Hugh, then…”

  Someone leans between us. It is William, one of Father’s henchmen. He has to shout above the uproar. “Parson, you’re needed, sir. Mistress Mattock’s son says to come at once. His mother’s been tekken bad wi’ t’visions again.”

  John nods at William. “Thanks. I’ll come at once. Does she want the Cockleshell Man too?”

  “Nay sir. She reckons as he’s in league wi’ t’devil.”

  John stands up and looks down at me. “I’ll try to get back later. Beatrice, are we to continue with this conversation, or…” He half smiles. “… am I making a truly humiliating mistake?”

  I stand up beside him. Any other night, and yes, I would have had this and any other conversation on earth with him, but tonight I do not know the answer. William looks curiously from one to the other of us. I struggle for words, but John is already turning away, taking my silence as reply. By the time I call after him, “John…” he is making his way down the hall, struggling past slumped bodies and heaps of discarded clothing and weaponry. He has vanished through the door to the spiral staircase long before I can reach him.

  Chapter 20

  I have lost my appetite. As the evening wears on I sip wine, and speak to people as little as possible, waiting for midnight to draw closer. Time seems to have slowed. Some of the torches go out but the fires flare high and brassy at each end of the hall, and the shadows in between leap tall and wild. I have been up since before dawn. I am very tired. People blend in and out of my vision. All along the tables guests shout, laugh, sob, drop their tankards and fall off benches.

  “Sing, Kate!” someone shouts. “Sing us a battle song!”

  The uproar subsides a little. Kate’s voice is renowned throughout the valley and beyond. She climbs up on to the table next to me, clumsy with her bad leg. She half tips over the great silver salt, and I steady it, my eyes following the inscription dizzyingly round its rim, The rose is redde, the leafe is greene, God save Elizabeth our queene. I rub my eyes to get rid of the dazzle, and sit back, glad that Kate is going to sing, glad that I don’t have to talk to anyone for a while.

  They asked for a battle song, but Kate sings a lament. Her voice rises pure and ghostly along the length of the hall, and silences everyone. When the last verse dies away, full of words about not returning, someone starts weeping loudly in a corner, and others cough and shuffle their feet. I half rise to ask Kate to sing something more cheerful, but as I do, from the far end of the second table, another voice starts up. It is a resonant male voice, controlled and powerful. It sings Mistress mine well may you fare with a sure and light-footed perfection of pitch. It transfixes me to my chair. The singer is in shadow. His voice fills the hall. Everyone listens in silence.

  “In these woods are none that hurt,

  Men can speak but silent words…”

  He has chosen well.

  “Who’s yon?” mutters someone near me.

  “One of t’new henchmen I reckon. Them as replaced George and Martinus.”

  “That’s right,” I agree hurriedly, edging out of my chair. I am no longer hot. I am so cold that I am shivering. I squeeze behind my father and Verity, and make my way down the hall, pushing between the wall and the backs of people. No one takes any notice of me. They are too intent on this new singer with his beautiful voice. I trip over guests who are lying on the floor, and push past those huddled in the corners created by the square stone pillars. Oh Robert, I thought I knew you so well, but I didn’t know you could sing.

  It is quite dark at the centre of the hall. At the door which leads to the spiral staircase I come up against my mother.

  “Whatever can have got into Cedric?” she asks plaintively, waving a goblet of French wine at me. “He just jumped up and went off.” She prods a prone henchman with her foot.

  “He’ll be back, Mother,” I assure her, whilst wondering which of us will indeed be back this night.

  The singer is on his last verse now. He is standing where light from the far fire only reaches intermittently. I make my way round the end of the first table and past the fire. I can see him now. He has one foot on the bench and one on the table. As I reach the second table the song ends, and a cheer goes up. People around him reach over and slap his legs in approval.

  “More!”

  “That’s more like it!”

  “Mistresses we want, not graveyards, ye old baggage,” someone yells at Kate. With no further encouragement the stranger begins the Robin Hood Round. As with any round, it is an invitation to others to join in, and Kate’s voice comes in powerfully above the stranger’s. I put my hands on my hips and look up at him. Robert looks down at me and smiles. A few people notice me and raise their tankards.

  Other voices are coming in now, adding more parts to the round, and some confusion too, but Kate’s and Robert’s voices keep the tune going until they finally arrive at the same note at the same time, and both burst out laughing in triumph, while all the rest trail off in disarray.

  “There’s a man after my own heart,” shouts Kate.

  “You’d better get out now, while you can,” I whisper to him.

  “Not without you.” Robert’s voice is also quiet, then he goes straight into the first verse of The Willow Tree. I jump, as a plucking music begins at the other end of the hall, and realise that in honour of this strange singer, Germaine has extricated herself from my father’s grip and is playing her lute. She plays this considerably better than she plays the fiddle, and the resulting music is powerful and affecting, all the more so when Kate joins in again. A few others join in too, humming the verses or singing the choruses. I stand there helplessly, wondering how long before people, drunk as they are, notice the other thing in this singer’s voice, a Scottish accent.

  It happens the next moment. The song ends. Another cheer goes up. People stamp their feet and clank their tankards and drum their hands on the tables.

  “More!”

  “Sing a mucky song! Go on! Sing t’nightingale song!”

  But my father, perhaps angry at the loss of Germaine’s comforting weight, shouts from the far end of the hall, “Who’s that? Who are you? Show yourself, singer. I’ll have no travelling balladeers in here. Spies, every one of ’em!”

  A quietness falls on the gathering. In the silence, a log in the far hearth caves in with a sigh, and a puff of smoke and sparks billows out into the room. I move quickly towards the door to the spiral staircase. It opens slightly as I reach it, and I see Cedric outside, beckoning. “I’ve saddled a horse,” he whispers. I nod, and turn back to where Robert has stepped down into the firelight between the tables.

  “Greetings.” His voice is not raised, but the stillness is now such that it echoes all round the hall. “I thought I’d come and see you at your Anglo-Saxon revelry.”

  An incredulous ripple runs the length of the tables.

  “By God! A Scot!”

  In the paralysis which follows, Robert calls, “Aye, and what a pathetic sight you all make. You poor drunken sots think you’ll be invading Queen Mary’s royal Scotland? It’s laughable. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I suggest ye dinnae bother. For one thing you’ll no be capable, and for another, I’m away to warn them.”

  He jumps with both bare feet on to the table, and runs along it, knocking down plates, trenchers, food and tankards. People draw back with shrieks
, as legs of mutton land in their laps, and cascades of ale spray their bosoms. When he is level with the door where I stand, he leaps again, over heads, to reach it. Yes Robert, I certainly appear to have mended you all right.

  He is through the door and running downstairs, taking the steps three at a time, even as the assembly rises with a roar and charges after him.

  “After him! He can’t get far!”

  “Catch the bugger! He’s here to spy for Scotland!”

  “I warned you… travelling balladeers…”

  “Get him! Fetch your bratch-hounds, Master Spearing.”

  They all run the way Robert has gone, down the spiral staircase, tumbling and falling and holding on to the walls. I run the other way, down the straight stairs behind the eastern fireplace, to my room, then on down the silent, empty stone steps which lead past the kitchen to the underground passage and the barmkin. Pray God no one has opened the wolf-pit. I have no time to bother with candles or lanterns. In less than a minute I am up through the floor of the dairy and out into the barmkin. At the front of the tower, shouting and bellowing, the assembled neighbourhood comes crashing out into the night.

  It is dark. There are clouds obscuring the moon and stars – good for Robert, bad for me just now. I can sense the horses shifting about, unnerved by the commotion. I make my way to the corner where Saint Hilda usually stands. Something touches my ankle, Caesar my cat, also out hunting. Saint Hilda is there, but someone is on her back, and someone else is holding her head, two silent black shapes, very still, waiting to see who is approaching them. I am filled with fury.

  “How dare you come here? Get away from my horse, Scotsman!”

  “How dare I?” It is Robert on the horse, his voice filled with bitterness. “Why didn’t you tell me? I had tae hear about this bluidy raid from a couple of riders out in the forest.”

  Saint Hilda shies, reacting to his tone. The Cockleshell Man steadies his grip on her head as the rein whips through his fingers. He soothes her, whispering in her ear, then he says to Robert, “Tell you? How could she tell you? Do you think she’s a traitor to her own people just because she helped you the way she’d help a wounded dog?” He turns to me. “Beatrice, let him take your horse. I’ll ride with him. I’ve saddled your father’s horse too. Just open the barmkin gate when I say, then get back to your room.”

  I hesitate. The sound of the crowd is growing nearer as they come round the tower wall, searching for a trail, spreading out as they come. “No.” I hitch my skirts above my knees. “You open the gate, Cedric. I’ll ride with Robert on Saint Hilda. You follow on Caligula. We’ll need you to see us across the bay.” With one foot on the mounting block I vault on to Saint Hilda’s broad back, behind Robert, and click my tongue. “Come on girl, down to the shore.” I look at Cedric, who is holding my father’s horse, Caligula. “Can we beat the tide, Cedric?”

  He sniffs the air. “Maybe. One way. Is that what you want?”

  The crowd is coming. There is no time. Cedric flings open the barmkin gate. Robert lurches and grasps the reins. I hold him round the waist and kick at Saint Hilda’s sides. She sets off at a fast running trot, under the stone arch, then breaks into a gallop as she feels open country ahead, and the familiar road down to the sea. Behind us, a cry goes up. Closer, I can hear the slap of Caligula’s hooves on turf.

  When I am sure that Robert has good control of the horse, I look behind me. The moon comes out, and I can see Cedric outlined against the white tower, on Father’s black horse. Close behind him, terrifyingly close, comes the crowd, running.

  “There he goes!”

  “Catch him!”

  “Whip t’bugger off his horse!”

  The disjointed phrases come to me on the wind. Then there is a different sound, a pulsating whistle, a throbbing in the air, a loud crack, and a faint, fading cry. When I look back, Cedric is no longer on his horse. What I heard was a bullwhip. They have whipped him off his horse. Caligula still follows behind us, running wild, his eyes pale and bulging, his gallop slowing. Then they are all out of sight, and the steep side of the Pike is rushing by in a blur.

  Carried on the wind – or is it only in my head? – I hear a voice. “Mind the tide, Beatrice. Mind the tide.”

  Chapter 21

  “They thought Cedric was you, Robert. They whipped him off his horse,” I shout against his back as we reach the trees and the cliff path.

  Robert reins in. “Dear God! We’d better get back. They’ll kill him if they know he helped me.”

  “They won’t know. He’ll say he was chasing you. No, we’ve got to go on now. We’ll barely make it as it is.”

  He hesitates, and Saint Hilda edges towards the cliff path, which is where she had thought she was going. Robert tightens the reins and turns to look at me. “Well you’d better get back anyhow, Beatrice. Join the merry throng. Pretend you were never away. They have no reason to connect you with me.” He holds on to the reins with his bad arm and puts his good one round me. “Thank you, dearest girl. I shall never forget you. I trust I was a little more than the wounded dog Cedric seems to think me.”

  “You know you were. Come on. We’d better get on down the path. You’ll never cross the sands on your own.”

  There is a longer silence than we can afford.

  “You’re coming with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just across the sands?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll not have that. You don’t know the way either, and in darkness too…”

  I unwind his arm from round me and kiss the back of his neck. “I’ve crossed before. I’ll do my best. It’s your only hope of getting away. They’ll be after you on horseback and with hounds in the time it takes to saddle up and wake the dogs. You can’t go round the bay. It would take too long and they’d cut you off. Your only hope is to cross before the next tide. By the time the tide is out again, your tracks will have gone, and you’ll have had time to get on northwards.” I look at the moon and try to reckon what time of night it is. If it is close enough to the incoming tide, our pursuers will not risk following us out on to the sands. I dismount. “Here, let me ride in front. There’s somewhere we must go first.”

  “First? What do you mean? There’s no time.”

  I jump up in front of him, whirling my foot over Saint Hilda’s head and taking the reins from him. I grip with my knees and guide her down the dark, rocky path which leads to the sea. Half way down I turn off to the left. At that moment, in the distance, comes the starved baying of loosed hounds, Master Spearing’s bratch-hounds. I remember Mad Joly’s teeth in my face, and the hairs rise on the back of my neck.

  “Mary and all the saints,” mutters Robert. “Where are we going, Beatrice? This doesn’t seem the way to the sea.”

  “We must go to the chapel first, Robert. We have to ask for a safe crossing. The last travellers who didn’t went down in the quicksand.”

  I kick Saint Hilda into a precipitous canter along the twisting, sloping track. Robert holds firmly on to me. I can feel his breath on my neck. Tree branches lash our heads and stones shoot away from under Saint Hilda’s hooves. We emerge into a clearing where the chapel stands on the cliff edge, brilliant white in the moonlight. Through the trees the damp sand stretches away to Gewhorn Head, and a broad, broken strip of light shines from one side to the other, like a pathway to safety.

  “At least the moon’s out, thank God,” I whisper. We dismount, and I lead the way into the tiny, rudimentary stone building, reconsecrated by Parson Becker after the last carter was hanged for robbing people. The low, salt-rimed doorway is hung with spiders’ webs. Clearly no one has crossed the sands for weeks. The door creaks on its hinges and the webs wrap themselves round our heads as we enter. Far off, the dogs howl.

  “Dear God, Beatrice, is this really necessary?” Robert whispers.

  “And you call me a heathen. Come on.”

  Inside, instead of an altar facing east, a water-bleached wooden table faces west, wi
th a view across the bay through three unglazed arched windows. I kneel hastily in front of it, clasp my hands on the warped grey wood and stare out of the window. “Please save us from the dogs, the people and the tide.” Robert utters a fervent amen, then we are through the door and away.

  “They’ll think you’ve gone by the other path,” I shout back at him. “They won’t expect you to know about the chapel and this way down.” We reach the bottom of the cliff. I have been frantically trying to work out the tides, in my head. It must still be well before midnight. The tide is quite obviously out, but how long has it been gone? How long will it be before it turns, and comes rushing back, faster than a galloping horse? Last high tide was around midday, so next high tide will be around midnight, or just after. There should be time to cross, just, but hardly time for me to get back. By that time my absence will probably have been discovered anyway.

  As we pick our way between the low tide pools on the grassy foreshore, there is a sudden crescendo of barking and yelping at the top of the cliff, curdling away into a series of howls. Seconds later the sounds of human voices and horses’ hooves can be heard. I had been going to suggest to Robert that we send Saint Hilda back, and cross on foot, rather than risk my horse out on the quicksands. Slowness and caution are necessary anyway, and a horse would be no advantage without a knowledgeable guide making speed possible. Now we have no choice. I kick at Saint Hilda’s flanks and she leaps forward over the salt pools with her loping stride, until we come to the wide, wet sands.

  Robert is silent behind me. I lean back into his comforting warmth, and we settle to a steady trot, keeping to the clumps of eelgrass which trail off into the moonlit distance. I know, anyway, how to recognise the danger spots, though they are harder to see at night. The sand shimmers smooth and silky where water is trapped in it. The places we need to tread are dull and ridged. I guide my patient horse’s head to and fro on the dull, ridged, safe patches of sand, and think what underappreciated qualities dullness and safety are. Behind us a shout echoes and rebounds round the cliffs. “There he goes!” In the night air, the voices carry clearly.