by Peter Tonkin
He very nearly lost his precious lungful when the water temperature hit him, but by then he was in fearsome action and was able to pull his mind and will away from the trembling shell of his body, like a soul on its way to Heaven. Always a strong swimmer, he grabbed great handfuls of water and hurled them back past his sides as his booted feet kicked tirelessly. The weight of the sodden wool, velvet and leather he was wearing helped him dive deeper and deeper, allowing him to keep the precious air in his chest. His mind, focusing with fearsome concentration, sought the boy and noted how the weight of the clothing was helping now. Quite what would happen if he found Hal and needed to swim upwards with him again was something that remained in the realms of distant speculation – with other such distant worries as what would happen if the squall that started this had brought a rogue current with it; or what would happen if they met a shark down here; or what he would say to Lady Margaret if they didn’t find her son.
The bay was not deep, but the bottom he was heading for with all his might was disappointingly lacking in the white sand that gave the place its name, against which Hal’s outline would have been clear; and the lack of some distinguishing feature was growing more of a problem by the moment, for the last of the bubbles he had been following so far glittered past his face and still there was no sign of the body that had made them. The departure of that last little piece of air seemed to signal something to Tom’s lungs too, for the first spasm of real pain ripped at his chest then so fiercely that he might as well have been between the jaws of a ravening shark.
But he was simply not going to give up.
One more great convulsive heave of his leaden arms. One more kick with his aching legs. One more fevered glance from his burning, half-blind eyes. And there he was. Hal’s white face and snowy shirt were outlined against the black rocks just beneath, as though the lad were an anchor that had simply plummeted straight down from the point he had hit the water. The sight was enough to galvanize Tom into even more convulsive action, as though the sheer desperation with which he wanted to hold the lad had been fed directly into his limbs. Down he went through those last few icy feet, as though he were plumbing the frozen depths of Hell itself.
Better get used to it, Tom, suggested an ironic part of his mind.
The clarity of the water was deceptive, however: Hal lay further away than it seemed. Another series of increasingly desperate movements was needed to pull Tom right down until his numb and clumsy hands could wrap themselves like clawed clubs in the stuff of the boy’s shirt.
Tom pulled the white drowned face to his own, feeling his heart twist agonizingly in his breast. As though the lad had been his own son, he pressed his lips to the boy’s cold mouth. Air poured from Tom’s lungs into Hal’s and, as it did so, Tom felt the young body flinch.
That one convulsive movement was enough. Tom turned and began to fight his way upward, buoyed by the dizzy, burning hope that the boy still had a spark of life left in him and, if he could gain the surface swiftly enough, he might fan it back to life. He could see the shifting, liquid mirror of the surface, with the shape of the boat like a water-beetle squatting on it. Dear God, he thought, but how far away it was. One-handed, he clawed upwards again, kicking against the dead weight of the boy.
And the most unexpected thing happened: a harpoon came down, striking at him as though he were some kind of whale. He saw it coming, in a strange slowness of movement, slicing down through the crystal heart of the water towards him. He saw the white iron point of it with the cockspur of the hook behind. He saw the shaft of it, smooth as a broom-handle, straight as a spear. He even noted that a line had been secured to it – a line of rope that led snaking up to the water-bug of the boat above. He had time enough to notice all these things as the spear made its stately way through the thickening, choking element towards him. He even had time to think what a perfect way the harpoon would be for a guilty man caught signalling to smugglers – or to Spaniards, indeed – to be rid of an importunate accuser. But he did not have time to move out of its way.
It struck him on the shoulder, grazed past and continued downwards for a little. Then it jerked to a stop and began to slip back upwards.
Distantly – very distantly – it occurred to him that if he could somehow grasp the harpoon it might help him to float upwards too. The thought registered; he understood it.
Reason told him that if he were going to try this then speed was of the essence. The white-wood handle slid up past his face again.
I should grasp hold of that, he told himself. Indeed he noted that his hand was convenient to it; but his hand was just floating there as though it had become detached from the rest of him. The wood knocked against it as it slid on upwards relentlessly and with gathering pace.
Then it occurred to Tom that the boat-hook might not, in fact, be floating upwards but that Hal and he might be sinking downwards once again, and that the next thing he was like to feel after the numbness gripping his body was the flames of Hell searing his soul. Sheer naked terror flashed right through the whole of his frame. So terrible and overwhelmingly powerful was it that it made him achieve the most difficult feat of his life: it made him close his fist. He jerked with all his might and felt the line tighten abruptly – and saw with distant satisfaction that St Just, so equivocally on the other end of it – was pitched out into the water above them.
The next thing Tom knew for certain was that he was hanging against the side of the boat, puking like a baby and trying to summon up the energy to follow St Just into the rocking little cockleshell. Distantly, he heard a strangely accented voice saying monotonously, ‘Cun on, Hal, another dreath, Hal. That’s it, get rid of the rest. Duke it ut...’ The next sounds set Tom off once again, but they were also amongst the most beautiful sounds he had ever heard in his life. He looked up to see the torn cuff again, and this time there was a strong and steady hand within it, reaching down for him as it had reached for Hal a few moments earlier.
A few moments later still, they were off again. Tom and St Just were both soaking from their ducking, bruised and bleeding from where they had scrambled back into the little boat and shivering in the cold evening wind. Hal was green and shaking, but strong enough – and determined – to take the tiller once again and con them back to the jetty. ‘They’re watching from the castle,’ he said through chattering teeth. ‘They must see what a sea-dog you have made of me, Master Ulysses, must they not?’
St Just climbed ashore looking as weary and battered as Tom felt, and secured the line before collapsing on to the jetty. Then the three of them just sat there, grinning at each other, laughing in the face of death.
‘What shall we tell your mother?’ asked St Just after a while, speaking, to Tom’s adapting ear, more clearly than ever before.
‘As little as possible. That’s what I’d advise,’ he gasped. ‘Though if Hal was right about someone watching us, then she’ll have heard the worst already. God, what a wilderness of trouble we’ll be in when the Lady Margaret gets her hands on us!’
That started them all laughing properly and the laughter seemed to clear their lungs.
‘She’s going to be fit to burst,’ choked Hal. And that set them off again.
Really, it was only the coming of the shadow-laden evening breeze, and the way the falling tide called in a persistent, chilly wind hard upon its heels, that got the three of them to move. One after the other they toiled up the cliff path with Tom leading and St Just bringing up the rear. They looked seasick, cold and bedraggled, but echoing upward before them went the sound of their manly laughter – which sound no doubt made it so easy for Martin Danforth to find them and inform them that Lady Margaret had been looking for them for some time past.
They went into the little library Lady Margaret was using as her office together and faced her, shoulder to shoulder. Ben was seated at a newly supplied table at the back, scribbling away in a world of his own. The Lady faced them standing, with pale cheeks and dark eyes, her mouth a thin, ang
ry line.
They were men of their times and aware of the standing of their gender in the face of the weaker sex; but they were men and each one too well aware that they had brought the promise of outrage, sorrow and deadly tragedy into Lady Margaret’s life – and that, perhaps for the first time, hopefully for the last and only time, they must lie to her by omission, if by nothing more.
Are you well? This to Hal, first.
‘Quite well, Mother, though a little chilled and seasick. Master St Just has taught me how to sail a boat; and Master Musgrave helped – somewhat. We fell into the water, I’m afraid, and went for a little swim.’
Are you mad?
This probably to St Just, but Tom spoke before he could.
‘There’s no harm done, My Lady. Master St Just has taught the lad a useful skill and one that might well guard his life in the future. The price was a wetting and a little seasickness.’
Lady Margaret looked at them, her eyes thawing, perhaps, just a fraction.
And the ruin of your wardrobe, she observed. All of you.
‘Indeed, My Lady. I must into Plymouth on the morrow in the hope of a tailor and boot-maker. Or a cobbler, at the least.’
‘And I,’ added St Just. ‘The cuffs are gone off ny shirt entirely.’
I will to market there myself. Tomorrow. And we will dine privately tonight, so that your apparel will cause none offence.
‘We thank Your Ladyship,’ said Tom. When he bowed, he dripped on to the floor.
I suspect I need to thank you more than you will allow, she wrote at last.
‘You will need to expend a good weight of coin, master,’ said Ben, almost awed – probably by the utter fullness with which Tom had ruined all the clothing he currently possessed – ‘if you are going to hold your head up on Thursday.’
They were walking slowly up towards the room they shared, getting ready to prepare for the promised private supper.
‘I have written, I think, to every family of the first rank in this county and the next,’ he continued. ‘Everyone of consequence south of Dartmoor and Bodmin is bidden to dinner in the castle then. Most of the letters went out by rider as I finished them, area by area, all afternoon. The last go out at dawn, I understand. Hence Lady Margaret’s need to go to market on the morrow. She’ll be taking Cook with her, and perchance the boutellier, though he says the cellars are well enough stocked.’
‘They are,’ said Tom. ‘I looked in on them this afternoon before I went boating with the Baron.’
‘You know she had you watched – well, not you, precisely: her son.’
‘Logic suggested it – logic, and her last note.’
‘Agnes Danforth did it. She has the sharpest eyes in the castle. She reported a drowning and there was much concern. I overheard some of what she said, for although she whispered, she was mightily upset. There was a good deal of to-ing and fro-ing.’
‘Hum,’ said Tom.
‘Master,’ continued Ben, frowning, ‘must we watch again tonight? My head pounds with all that penmanship; and I must observe, Master, that, drowning or not, you look as pale as milk – as a mixture of curds and whey, indeed.’
‘Well, we’ll see,’ allowed Tom.
In the little room they shared a fire had been lit then banked low. Immediately before it stood a bath made of half a barrel, filled with fragrant, steaming water. Tom lowered himself into this at the earliest opportunity, folding his knees up until they touched his chin as he sought to bring the warmth of the water up to his very shoulders. No sooner had he done so than there came a tapping at the door and Ben let in two servant girls. The first had come to remove Tom’s sopping clothes to see what restorative magic the castle’s washerwoman could exercise upon them. The second came laden with what little from the castle slop-chest was of sufficient size and fashion to serve Tom through the rest of the evening.
The rest of the evening passed simply enough, however. Tom had supposed that the private supper proposed by Lady Margaret meant that Ben and he would be fed in a room alone; but no: by that deceptive phrase Lady Margaret had meant that she and the immediate members of the household should eat privately with her guests.
Thus in the family dining-room – rather than the main hall, where full formality obtained – were seated at seven the private family party. Lady Margaret and the young Baron Cotehel were there, of course; Agnes Danforth, though not at first Martin, who oversaw the service and organized the removes; Captain Polrudden Quin; Master Ulysses St Just, resplendent in new shirt and replacement clothes from the wardrobe he kept in the place; the Reverend Joses Wainscott; Tom; Ben. There were two places laid for Dr Ezekiel Rowley and Percy Gawdy, in the vain hope that they might arrive.
It was a festive board, most obviously marked by spring lamb, but well served also with mutton, beef and pork as well as a wide selection of fish. The occasion was, perhaps, a little more muted than it might have been, for Lady Margaret seemed thoughtful, and young Baron Henry said little and ate less – the bright and bubbling Hal of this afternoon seemed snuffed, for the moment, like a candle, either by his near-acquaintance with death or by his mother’s upset. Spirits were raised by the boutellier, who tried some of his better vintages out in preparation for Thursday, but by and large it was a quiet affair where most of those seated around the table were physically, emotionally or spiritually exhausted.
At the end of the meal everyone went to bed. Last night had been a late one and tomorrow morning would be an early start and not just for the last few messengers delivering the final half-dozen invitations. Tom and Ben retired to their room, somehow higher in the general esteem and supplied with candles instead of a taper. Miraculously, in the interim Tom’s tub had been emptied and removed. His close brush with death this afternoon had drained even his great strength, so that when Ben repeated his request that they replace watching with resting – just for tonight – he acquiesced.
The pair of them clambered into the big bed, half-dressed, therefore, in shirts and hose. No sooner were they down than they were sleeping.
And, it seemed, no sooner sleeping than awake.
The hammering came upon their door some unmeasured time later. The hammering was repeated and the door burst wide. It was Polrudden Quin, white and wide-eyed, his face above the candle-flame like a skull. ‘She is dead,’ he whispered. ‘Dead and murdered. Come. For God’s sake come!’
Dazed with the depth of the sleep that had overcome him, Tom struggled up, riven with simple horror. Too stunned to speak, he caught up his sword and staggered after the distraught man.
Out along the little corridor they went and down the stairs and passageways into the great entrance hall; down the steps towards the main door – though Tom had hesitated, looking up towards the passageways that he and Ben had followed to Lady Margaret’s rooms last night; down the staircase, across the hallway and out through the doors on to the steps where Danforth had fallen the night before; down the steps and across the main yard, staggering over to the church.
At Quin’s shoulder, Tom burst into the little church, to be confronted with the Reverend Wainscott, white and trembling, his pallor accentuated by the light of the candle he was holding.
‘Here,’ he whispered. ‘She is here.’
He turned and opened a little door that Tom had hardly noticed when he had come here with Lady Margaret last night. Tom followed him, but froze in the doorway. Wainscott was standing at the bottom of the bell-tower, looking upward, shaking.
Above the little globe of light cast by the flickering flame the tower rose in a column of utter darkness; and there, on the upper edge of the trembling brightness, attired in a gold undressing-robe, little more than white toes dangling below the glistering hem and a form fading eerily into the darkness above, the figure of a woman was hanging.
Twenty-three: Post Mortem
The impact of seeing Lady Margaret alive was nothing compared to the impact of seeing her dead. Only the strength that had allowed him to pull her son back f
rom the very jaws of death this afternoon held him erect now. He stepped forward, jerkily, like an Italian puppet moved by strings. He reached over and touched the toes hanging from the hem of the golden undressing-robe he had last seen sprawled across the foot of her bed when he had been guarding her last night. The foot was cold. He hesitated there, holding it, not knowing what to do next. He was finding it as hard to breathe as he had done at the bottom of Whitsand Bay.
Wainscott and Quin stepped forward with him, the light of their candles creeping up the statue-still, gold-clad form; but her face remained in shadow. ‘What should we do?’ quavered the Reverend Wainscott, sounding as old, frail and desperate as he looked.
‘We must take her down, prepare her,’ whispered Quin.
‘Wait,’ said Tom. ‘We should call the justices and crowner from the nearest town. There are forms of law to be observed.’ And I should warn Poley, he thought. What will Poley make of this? ‘Who is the nearest justice?’ he demanded.
‘The Baron is,’ said Quin. ‘When he is in residence, he is justice to the local assize and crowner too, when inquests are to be held.’
‘We cannot call the Baron,’ said Tom. ‘Well, I will do the crowner’s work and report to him as witness when this comes to any court.’ For I will have to report to Poley too, he thought.
‘But we need the help of the law in this,’ quavered Wainscott. ‘Can no one ride to Plymouth?’
‘Plymouth is across the border,’ said Quin roundly. ‘We are in Cornwall here. Our nearest law in Cornwall is in Liskeard. And Justice Pinnock will be here with Lord St Keane on Thursday in any case, invited to the Lady Margaret’s festive entertainment and hardly likely to get here any sooner than that, short of witchcraft.’
‘Liskeard’s the nearest by road, mayhap,’ said a new voice, decisive, hissing. ‘Saltash is the nearest by water. And there’s a searcher at Torpoint.’
