The Wreckers

by Iain Lawrence

  The two silent riders stared at me, one with an evil glee that set shivers down my spine, the other with a nervous, frightened glimmer. The nervous one’s face was riddled with smallpox. It was that man who spoke, and at that it was little more than a whisper.

  “He’s only a boy,” he said. “Just a boy, Caleb.”

  “And so was Tommy Colwyn, wasn’t he?” Caleb, with my coat bunched in his hand, lifted me nearly clear from the ground. “Have you been up on the moor, Spots?”

  Spots shook his head.

  “Go, then. Go have a gam with young Tommy Colwyn. Follow the crows, old son; you’ll see them from a mile away. His eyes, they’re dangling down like watch fobs.”

  Spots swallowed. “But who’s to know?” he said, and licked his lips. “We could turn the boy loose. Let him—”

  “You know the law, Spots.” Caleb turned to the other man. “Give us your knife there, Jeremy Haines.”

  The grinning man reached for his belt. A knife appeared in his hand, a long blade that he flipped in his palm, and flipped again to hold it out handle first. He was tall, his stirrups hanging nearly to the horse’s knees, and he had to lean far down from the saddle.

  Spots looked as though he might be sick. “Least make it quick,” he said. “Don’t cause the boy no pain.”

  Caleb took the knife. The way he looked at me, his thumb flicking on the blade, it made me think of Father eyeing the Christmas goose. And it was too much to bear. All my courage and resolve drained away, and I fell to my knees on the cobblestones.

  “Bear up,” said Stumps, beside me. He sat on his cart like a boy in a wagon, watching with bored interest as these men planned my death so coldly.

  “Give him a moment,” said Spots. “Let him make his peace, Caleb.”

  In the stillness, head bowed, I heard the pulse of faraway surf. A gull cried as it wheeled through the sky. The clop of hooves on the stones—the rider came so slowly—was like the chiming of bells. I couldn’t see clearly. My eyes, I’m ashamed to say, were wet with tears. I only waited for the knife to strike, and gritted my teeth to stop from screaming.

  And then a voice cried out, loud with anger, and the tall man, Haines, said, “Do it, Caleb. That’s Simon Mawgan coming.”

  Caleb grasped my collar. The hooves came faster, harder. I tried to pull free but only twisted onto my back. And there I lay like a dog, flat upon the stones with my neck bared, my head turned away. Caleb crouched beside me.

  With a snorting of breath, the black horse barreled into the group of wreckers. It reared up, hooves flailing, and skittered in a tight circle. “Stand back from there,” yelled the rider, Simon Mawgan.

  Caleb kept his hold on me. “Leave us be,” he said.

  Mawgan pushed through on his horse until the hooves stamped on the stones beside me. Only dimly could I see him, a man as wide as a barrel, draped in a riding cloak of black and gold. He said, “Let that lad up.”

  “This is no concern of yours,” said Caleb.

  “It is if he’s from the wreck. Now stand back, I say.”

  “You don’t order me about, Simon Mawgan,” said Caleb. But with a last twist of my coat, he let go nonetheless, and stood, the knife balanced in his hands.

  “Put that down,” said Mawgan. He looked round the group of men. They turned their heads, or lowered them, avoiding his stare like schoolboys caught in a prank. Only Caleb glared back, his eyes like gun slits. “There’s been killing enough.”

  “Not yet there hasn’t,” said Caleb. “The wreck’s not dead.”

  “The wreck is mine!” roared Mawgan. “Or do you argue with that now? Any of you?”

  Again the wreckers—all but Caleb—hung their heads. Even the horses seemed to sag and skulk away.

  Mawgan laughed. He was rather fat below his cloak, and his cheeks—reddened by wind and sun—shook like jellyfish. “ ’Course you don’t. I’m surprised at you, Spots. I’d think you a better man than this.”

  “You’re whistling down the wind,” growled Caleb. “If that boy lives, we’re all off to the knacker’s yard. Mark my words, Simon Mawgan. And you’ll be with us. Aye, you’ll be there.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Mawgan. “Now, help the lad up.”

  Caleb didn’t move. It was Mawgan himself who heaved his bulk from the saddle and held a hand down toward me. “Can you stand?” he said. “ ’Course you can. A few scratches and such, but you’re fit as a fiddle. Climb on, lad, and I’ll ride you up to the moor.”

  The moor was the last place I wanted to go. But Mawgan, seeing my shock, laughed harder than ever. “I’m taking you home,” he said. “I’m taking you up to Galilee.”

  He made a cup of his hands and gave me a boost. And I settled on the flanks of his big black mount, looking down at Caleb, and at Stumps beside him like a blot of a man. With a sly gesture, Stumps touched my father’s ring to his lips.

  Mawgan put a foot in the stirrup. Caleb, behind him, raised his knife and slowly pointed the tip directly toward me. He held it there, then just as slowly touched the blade to his neck. The message was clear, delivered in utter silence as the breeze fluttered in the cape of his coat. And I could hear the words in my mind as though he’d spoken them aloud:

  “I’m not done with you yet.”

  Chapter 4

  GALILEE

  We rode down the waterfront and up through the village, and the horse pranced like a colt, though it carried better than twenty stone upon its back. Simon Mawgan was so roundly fat that I had to spread my arms far apart to keep a hold on his hips. He wore no hat, and his hair was as silver as mist.

  He asked my name, and where I came from. And when I told him, he grunted. “You don’t look like a Londoner,” he said. “You’re not so pale and pasty-faced as that.”

  We talked of the city as we rode through a maze of narrow streets. From cobblestones to dirt; along a twisting lane; through a gateway and up a path barely wider than our knees. Higher we rose, and the buildings spread below us, roof after roof in a solid, jagged field.

  “I’ve been to London,” said Simon Mawgan. He turned his head enough to show me his profile. “I like it better here. Room for a horse to run.”

  The village seemed deserted. Not even a puff of smoke rose from the chimneys. The road turned and climbed again more steeply. And at the top of the hill was the church I’d seen from the far shore, a huge gray building of buttressed walls and a bell tower three stories high. In the arched windows of leaded glass, the faces of saints gazed down at me, their hands clasped and their heads in halos.

  We followed a wall past a little graveyard with headstones in staggered rows. Then I saw a movement by the church, and a man stepped out from a side door. He wore black robes that covered him from the neck down, a collar, and spectacles; his head was small and white, like a skull. He stopped in the sunshine—he was smiling—and put on a black hat with an enormous round brim.

  “That’s the parson,” said Mawgan. “Takes his afternoon walk every day in the churchyard.” He reined in the horse and adjusted his bulk in the saddle. “Good day to you, Parson Tweed.”

  The parson waved back, then moved—so gracefully that he might have been a lady—down between the headstones, right up to the wall beside us. He rested his hands on top of the stone.

  “Is this the boy I’ve heard about?” he asked.

  “It is,” said Mawgan. “I’m taking him to Galilee.”

  The parson nodded. His gaze flicked over me and away again. “Keep him close to you, Simon. It is providential that you found him before the others could.”

  “The others did,” said Mawgan. “Stratton had a knife at his throat.”

  “Oh, my!” said Parson Tweed. He looked right at me, his eyes dark under the huge brim of his hat.

  Mawgan twisted in the saddle. “Stratton is the worst of them all,” he told me. “He binds the rest of them together the way a barrel hoop holds the staves. Without him, they would fall apart.”

  Parson Tweed h
ad a kindly face, but the shadows made it gaunt and sinister. He leaned forward over the wall. “And when those staves come away, what’s in the barrel? Hmmm? What’s in the barrel then?”

  He stared at me, and the wind set little waves rolling across his hat brim. There seemed to be some sly double meaning in his words, but I could make no sense of it.

  Then he winked. “We shall see that soon enough.” Suddenly he straightened. “Take care of him, Simon.”

  “I will,” said Mawgan. He flicked the reins, and the horse stepped sideways and forward. The parson watched us go.

  Mawgan steered the horse onto a dirt lane. “We’ll take the sea road,” he said. “It’s a bit longer, but you’ll like it.”

  At a canter, we circled round the back of the village, then over the stone bridge. In a moment we were up on the moor, and the sea breeze tasted of salt. We didn’t pass so close to the cliffs that I could see the Tombstones or the wreck of the Isle of Skye. But soon we were right at the Channel, and the road twisted from headland to headland. For a mile or more we rode like that, plumes of dust rising from the hooves. And at each bend, as the cliffs dropped to a patch of sand and rows of wild, wind-driven breakers, Mawgan spoke a few words over his shoulder.

  “That’s Tobacco Cove below,” he said at one. “The Gehenna wrecked here in seventy-nine, inbound from the Indies.

  “We call this Sheep Cove,” he said at the next. “Here the Northern, inbound from the Hebrides, came ashore three years ago this month.”

  Every tiny cove had a name, each for the cargo of a doomed ship. In the mile of shore, Mawgan named sixteen wrecks.

  “It’s a haunted coast,” he said. “Most men won’t ride here at night.”

  Sunset wasn’t far off. But at a place he called Sugar Bay, Mawgan stopped to water the horse. He let it drink from a little freshet that dribbled down from the moor to flow thin and sparkling, like a slug’s trail, over the stones. I slid down the animal’s rump and scooped handfuls of water from the crevices in the rock.

  “So,” said Mawgan, watching from the saddle, “you’re a sailor, are you?”

  “Not really,” said I. “This was my first voyage.”

  He smiled faintly. “Where did you go?”

  “Greece,” I said, “Italy, and Spain.”

  “Nowhere else?”

  I splashed water on my face and then looked up at him through a rainbow. It seemed he was glowering, but when I wiped my eyes I saw only a smile on his face.

  “Tell me,” he said. He shifted in the saddle. “Where did you load those barrels of wine?”

  “Spain,” I said.

  “What port?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, lad!” He laughed, flinging out his arms. Yet he sounded impatient—nearly angry. “You must know where you were!”

  But I didn’t. It had been dark when we got there, and we were gone before dawn. I remembered how the barrels had rumbled and thumped, how the ship had sat still in the water like a frightened bird. “Loading cargo in the dead of night,” Captain Stafford had said. “Skulking like thieves.” And I wondered at how odd it was that out of the whole voyage, it was this particular night that caught the interest of Simon Mawgan.

  He came down beside me. We sat together above the surf and spray, at the brink of the cliff, and let the horse graze among tufts of grass at the edge of the freshet. Mawgan yawned. “This ship of yours,” he said. “The Isle of Skye. Who owns her?”

  I felt a shiver. What was he driving at? I said, “She was my father’s ship.”

  “Your father’s? I see.” He moved close beside me. “And where were you going with those barrels of wine?”

  “London.” I picked up a handful of pebbles and tossed them one by one over the cliff. They fell forever, straight down to the angry sea. I threw six of them before Mawgan spoke again.

  “You would go in on the night tide? Is that it? He would be there at the wharf?”

  “No,” said I.

  “What then?”

  I tossed another pebble. “He was aboard.”

  And then Mawgan put his hand on my back, between the shoulders, as though he meant to push me over the edge. He said, “I suppose he drowned in the wreck.”

  I didn’t answer. I drew in a breath and shook all over. Mawgan’s hand pressed harder on my back, then suddenly fell away. He must have thought I was crying.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Well, I won’t ask you now. But later you’ll tell me. You’ll tell me the truth of all this.”

  I didn’t know what he meant. Did he know that my father was alive, or was he talking again about the barrels of wine? Whatever it was, I was happy to wait. He stepped into the saddle, and I cast the rest of the pebbles over the cliff, then climbed up behind him.

  The day was already late. Our shadows fell far to the east, racing ahead of us along the road, then swinging to our side when Mawgan turned the horse onto a cart path over the moor.

  It was a great, empty land that we crossed, but the path snaked in every direction, doubling back and turning again. To the west, the sky had become an ugly blue. And the shadows had darkened until it seemed that beyond each rise lay a vast, gloomy lake that engulfed us as we thundered down. I watched for the crows; I watched for Tommy Colwyn to come rising from the bogs with his eyes dangling at his cheeks. And I thought of my father, hidden away in a place known only to Stumps.

  Then, suddenly, Mawgan reined in the horse. “There’s Galilee,” he said in a solemn, quiet voice. “I always stop here for a moment. Prettiest sight this side of Plymouth.”

  “Where?” I said.

  “Why, right ahead.” He raised a hand and pointed.

  I had to lean over to see around him. And there, under his arm, windows aglow with lamplight, was a white house twice the size of my London home. Behind it was a cottage and a small stable. Surrounded by hedgerows, nestled in a valley by a brook, the house was so sheltered from the breeze that the chimney smoke lay around it like a wreath.

  Mawgan set the horse forward at a walk. The saddle creaked as he turned slightly toward me. “I like it on the moor,” he said. “I’m far enough from the sea that I only rarely hear the surf. Yet I’m close enough I can hear a pistol shot.”

  It was a curious way to gauge distance. Before I could answer, he was talking again.

  “Mary will have the dinner ready. Oh, she’s a fine cook.” We passed through the hedgerows. There was no gate; the road merely ended there at the house. “With any luck she’ll have starry-gazy.”

  I said, “What’s starry-gazy?”

  “Why, pilchards, lad. Pilchard pie.” Simon Mawgan shook his head. “You say you’re from London, and you don’t know starry-gazy?”

  He swung his leg across the horse’s neck and slipped from the saddle as easily as a boy. I sprang down beside him.

  “Eli!” he cried. Then, “Blast him! Where are you, Eli?”

  Out from the cottage came a teetering, shuffling figure. He was like a bit of old sausage—thin and brown and bent—and he came with his arms cocked back, as though someone behind was pushing him on. He saw me but asked no questions. Without a word at all, he took the reins and led the horse toward the stables.

  Mawgan clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Eli’s a fright to look at, but he gets the work done. Don’t try talking to him.” He ushered me toward the house. “He’s got no tongue, you see.”

  “No tongue?” I said.

  “A dreadful thing,” said Mawgan. “A wicked thing.”

  The smoke smelled of peat and lay on the ground as thick as sea mist. It swirled round our legs as we climbed to the porch, then flurried with us in through the door. And there I stopped.

  I’d been to the homes of barons and lords. I’d been to palaces and castles. But none was as fine or as rich as the home of Simon Mawgan. The entire floor of the parlor was covered by a huge Persian carpet, and half of that was covered again by another carpet twice as thick. In the middle stood a round table mad
e from a ship’s wheel. Pulled up to its rim were high-backed chairs plush with leather, and on its polished top sat chalices of silver, crystal decanters, rows and rows of delicate glasses. Ships’ figureheads were mounted like hunting trophies; a round-topped sea chest stood below a corner window. All around, on every shelf and level surface, were golden figurines, intricate carvings of wood, and small boxes inlaid with shells and sparkling jewels. And this was only one room of the house. Through a doorway I could see a dining table so big that it was laid like a trestle across the barrels of English cannons.

  Mawgan popped his thumbs into his waistband. “Everything here,” he said, “comes from the sea.”

  “From wrecks,” I said.

  He squeezed my shoulder and smiled. “That’s right, my boy. It’s a bountiful thing, the sea.”

  This made me more angry than I could say. For every bauble that he owned there was a drowned sailor. For each bit of finery a man lay buried in the moor. I shook off his hand and turned away.

  “What’s the matter?” he said. “Why, John Spencer, I do believe you’re angry.”

  I didn’t look at him. I stood there, shaking.

  “Oh,” he said then. “Oh, I see. Why, you’ve come from the other side, haven’t you?” He touched me again, his fingers on my back. “Well, I’ll ask you this: Did I steer those ships onto the rocks? Did I miss stays or lose my way on a dark night? ’Course I didn’t. So why—”

  “You wrecked the Isle of Skye,” I told him. I straightened and looked him right in the eye. “You used false lights to lure us—”

  “Who told you that?” said Mawgan. He fixed me with a hawk’s glare. “Who told you there were false lights?”

  “I saw them,” said I.

  “Then you saw wrong.”

  “I did not,” I said. “They used lights to lead us ashore, and then they killed us. Caleb and the others. They murdered everyone.”

  “Do you know that?” said Mawgan. His fingers no longer merely touched me; they gripped like talons. “Do you know for a fact that they killed everyone but you?”