by Rod Duncan
“You’ll make them suspicious,” she’d say. Or, “I can’t protect you out there.”
And it was true. But without taking those small risks, she’d never find a way for her and her friends to escape. Her safety at the inn wasn’t complete. They would find her one day, if she did nothing.
Elias refolded the paper and slipped it into his tote. “I’d better be going, then,” he said. “It’s a long walk to Jago’s fortress. I’ll say goodbye.”
“No,” said Elizabeth.
They both turned.
“If you’re going, I must go with you.”
Maria Rosa favoured Elizabeth with a patient smile, as if she was a child who’d not understood the conversation of the adults. “You can’t. Not to Jago’s land.”
“I must.”
“You’ve seen the Patron. And his men. Remember that giant gatherer? No. I won’t hear of it.”
“Once Elias has gone, he won’t come back. He won’t keep to his deal.”
Elias frowned, as if offended, but made no complaint. There was nothing he could have said. They each knew secrets that could ruin the other. But to use them would bring down destruction on both. The promises they’d made to each other were tenuous enough. Add distance to the mix and they would be useless. Each might bring the other to ruin. But only if they were ready to embrace it for themselves.
The gentle smile on Maria Rosa’s face had been replaced by anxiety. Now she seemed terrified. “You can’t go!”
“I have no choice. Unless you let the meeting happen here.”
“There is a third way,” Elias said. “If you’ll permit it. Send a cart along the East Road, as if you’re trading goods. And a small party to go with it. It won’t seem strange that Elizabeth’s there, as a serving girl. If we time it right, we can meet Jago at one of the hamlets on the way. There’ll be enough witnesses to make it safe. Or safer. We’ll be on Williams Clan land. An attack on Elizabeth would insult their Patron Protector. I don’t think even Jago would do that. It’d be better than meeting him here, unaligned. Far better than going to Jago’s fortress.”
“And better for you?” Maria Rosa said.
He acknowledged the truth of it with a half-smile, which made Elizabeth think he’d been angling for it all along.
The East Road earned its name only in that it was more east than any other bearing. The meanders of bay and headland always came back to the travellers facing the rising sun. But to call it a road was to overdress the truth. Grass grew thick along the middle ridge while the ruts on either side were deep enough to ground the axles of the cart. Again and again, they had to work it free, men pushing behind, beasts straining at the front.
There were five of them in the main party: a carter, who looked like the oxen he cared for; Tinker the stable boy; the old man who’d pricked Elias with the bill hook; Elizabeth the barmaid; and Elias himself. They’d loaded the cart with barrels of ale brewed at the Salt Ray and wedged them in with straw.
A young man had been sent to ride on ahead, scouting the land. From looks and mood, Elias figured him to be of the same family as the old man. A grandson, perhaps. Both of them scowled whenever they looked in his direction. Elias made sure not to let his own feelings show. But he kept his knife in easy reach. You can break a man’s arm and he’ll forgive you. But wounded pride will always fester.
The East Road was an ordeal by headlands. Each one meant another climb. When the axles stuck on the way up, he and the old man had to go behind and lift while the oxen did the pulling. Once, when there seemed no chance of it being shifted, the old man took out the side planks and used them as levers. That lifted the cart another couple of inches and it lurched forwards again.
At the top of each ridge they’d catch their first view of the next stretch of coast, a bay and a headland, the measure of the journey’s next ordeal. Tinker, whose eyes were the sharpest, had been given a small brass telescope. At each summit, he climbed onto the cart and spied the land ahead for dangers.
It was a day of clear air and fast-moving cloud. Elias had been keeping watch on a storm over the sea. Once, he’d looked back and seen a double rainbow blazed on the slate grey sky. There’d been only a few drops of rain through the morning, but it could spill out at any minute. If they couldn’t reach the shelter of a hamlet, they’d be forced to make camp. Rain would slow Jago as well. Parts of the East Road would turn to rivers and foul the Patron’s mood. There were risks, whichever way he counted it.
They were climbing again. His heartbeat came irregular, so he stopped to breathe and look back. No rainbow this time, but a glimpse of New Whitby far off around the curve of the coast, lit by a beam of sunlight. He felt in the belt pocket for his glass pot. Taking the pin from his cloak, he dipped it and wiped a smear of glycer-fortis on the underside of his tongue. His mouth filled with that chemical buzz. Relief flowed down through his neck to his chest.
“What’s that?” Elizabeth asked.
Damn, but the woman could be quiet. He put on a careless half-smile and turned to face her.
“Medicine,” he said
“For what?”
“It’s a tonic. That’s all.”
“May I see?”
“No.” He stoppered the pot and slipped it away. “Where did you learn about cards?”
She folded her arms, a sign that the question had unsettled her. “My father taught me.”
“He was a gambler?”
“No.”
“A bookmaker?”
“An entertainer,” she said. “Where did you learn to fight?”
He found himself folding his own arms now, mirroring her defence. “My father taught me,” he said.
“He was a fighter?”
“This is Newfoundland. We’re all fighters.”
“He taught you to fight without thumbs? Or did you lose them after you learned?”
“It makes less difference than you’d think,” he said. And then, “How did you come to wash up here?”
“An accident.”
“You were sailing somewhere?”
“Steaming.”
She began to walk, setting off towards the cart which had pulled ahead.
He followed. “Where were you steaming to?”
“From,” she said. “There was a battle. Out there somewhere.” She pointed to the horizon. “Men were dying. And women.”
“You deserted?”
“It wasn’t my battle.”
“That’s what all deserters say.”
“And every tyrant disagrees.” She flashed him a wounded glance. That jab had got under her guard.
They walked on, but slowly, as if by some agreement, not closing the distance to the ox cart, keeping beyond the earshot of the others. The air between them felt heavy.
“I’ll offer you a trade,” he said. “A truth for a truth.”
“You’ll tell me how to escape from Newfoundland?”
“Not that. Not till the end of this. But anything else. I tell you whatever you want to know. In return, you tell me what I ask. Do you want to know how I lost my thumbs? Most folk do. I don’t tell them.”
“No,” she said. “But I want to know what you’re planning to do to the people who cut them from you.”
The cart had reached the brow of the headland. A patch of sunlight swept over the sea towards them. Then they were all bathed in yellow light, and the puddles in the wheel ruts turned golden. At the top of the rise, the boy’s telescope caught the sun. Then he turned towards them and was waving with both arms.
Elizabeth set off up the hill, running faster than Elias’s heart would let him follow. They’d danced around each other’s questions. But he’d got something out of it: the glint of a brilliant mind. One word out of place and she might be made a slave. And she didn’t look the type to use a sword in battle. Yet she was dangerous. He felt it in his gut.
He took his time climbing to the crest of the hill. It was too soon for Jago and his men to have reached them. Ahead lay another d
esolate beach. But there was no driftwood on it and no seaweed lines, which meant that it was being worked. Smoke smudged the sky beyond the next headland.
He followed behind as the others rushed on towards their hoped-for rest. Elizabeth led the way, putting more distance between herself and him. And she would do nothing by chance.
The rain hit them as they were climbing the final rise. Sudden and hard, it swept in from the sea, driven by a gusting wind. Elias felt the sting of it on one side of his face. Head down, leaning into the blow to stop himself being thrown, he pushed on. The wheel ruts turned to rivers. Gritty water sluiced over the top of his boots.
Elizabeth had already thumped on the door of the first hovel by the time he caught up. A woman carrying a baby on her hip pointed them inland along a track, which led at last to a stable with a stone wall at the front and a turf roof that leaked.
From cloak through to underwear, Elias could not have been more soaked. The others seemed little better. The carter found empty stalls for the beasts and while he was giving them food, the owner of the stable ran in from the rain to greet them. There was no inn nor any house big enough for them all. The old man and his grandson were sent to a nearby shack.
“I’ll bunk with the boy,” said Elizabeth.
“Right you are,” said the stable owner. He pointed to a hovel closer to the sea. “They’ll take you in. And you two…” He nodded to Elias and the carter. “You can go to the shack at the end of the row.”
The boy ran off ahead. Elizabeth looked set to follow, but Elias grabbed her wrist. “I think not,” he said. “I’ll be going with you.”
Her eyes were on him. It seemed she might try to pull free. But then she nodded. “Very well.”
The sun would still be up. Somewhere. But a sky full of storm had turned the afternoon to twilight. The owners of the hovel must have been warned of their coming. A lantern swung from a nail in the wall, turning the rain to dull yellow streaks. Elias led the way across the deepening puddles of the yard. The door opened as they came close. A woman with grey strands in her hair beckoned them in. Elias had to stoop to get inside, where his clothes dripped onto a floor of irregular and ill-fitting flagstones. The woman bowed low, as people once did on meeting him.
“Most welcome. Most welcome,” she said. She seemed perhaps thirty, but weatherworn to look older. “You’d take soup?”
“Thank you,” said Elias.
“And the lady wife?”
“She’s not…” he began.
“I’m not,” said Elizabeth.
“Oh,” said the woman, flustered.
The shack’s one room served as both kitchen and work space. A great mass of fishing net covered the table and the floor around it. Mending needles rested on top, hooked into a roll of twine.
A sluggish fire burned in the hearth. Some of the smoke went up the chimney, the rest drifted under the beams of the roof, where dried fish hung from racks, together with sacks and rope and gardening tools. One end of the loft space had been sectioned off with boards to make a sleeping platform.
“The rats don’t much go there,” the woman said, as if to coax them up.
Elias was first to climb the ladder. He found a box bed half-full of straw and a roof so low that it was easier to crawl on hands and knees than go about stooped. A small pile of blankets lay folded on the floorboards next to the bed, which would just be wide enough for two. Elizabeth clambered up after him.
“I didn’t know,” he whispered, feeling suddenly shamed.
“No?” There was a barb in her tone. “You thought there’d be two spare rooms in every shack?”
“I didn’t think.”
“Turn!” she ordered. “And if you even think of looking, I’ll bury my dagger in your eye.”
Facing the wall, he listened to the slap of her sodden clothes dropping. Her shadow moved. Charity would never believe it had happened by mistake: him and the naked barmaid next to the bed they were about to share. Plain-faced Charity with her crooked nose.
Elizabeth was a different kind of woman. Young but with depth in her eyes. She had a mind that might cut glass. He couldn’t help imagining her body, just behind him. She might not have the speed of hand to stab him, or the killer’s heart. But he still resisted the urge to steal a look.
The floorboard creaked.
“I’m done,” she said.
She had wrapped a blanket around herself, over one arm and under the other, gathering it around at the waist with her neck scarf. If the woman below saw the ring of false oath-marks, she’d think Elizabeth a slave. His perhaps.
“Don’t go down,” he said. “I’ll… you know.”
He gathered up her clothes and dropped them over the edge, then clambered back down the ladder.
The woman had already tied a line in front of the fire. She took the wet things and draped them. Finding himself staring at Elizabeth’s underwear, he looked away.
“And yours?” asked the woman.
He was about to fetch a blanket and wrap himself as Elizabeth had done. But to hell with it all. He had no need. The woman turned her back to him as he stripped. He caught her sneaky glance at his cock as he handed her the clothes. Then her eyes shifted to his chest and arm. She’d never have seen those oath-marks. Not together. He left her gawping and climbed back to the loft.
Elizabeth was lying in the bed, eyes closed, facing the edge of the box, the blanket tightly round her. He wrapped himself as she had done then lay down with his back to hers, pulling the other blankets over the both of them, trying to keep their body warmth within the bed frame. It would be a cold night. He wriggled deeper into the straw, getting comfortable. His feet were sore from thin soles and a rough road. Tiredness washed over him and he closed his eyes.
“What happens in the end?” Elizabeth asked.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“You promised to tell me a secret.”
He felt too aware of her nakedness under the blanket. He was too tired to think straight anyway. A bad time to cross swords with Elizabeth. “Tomorrow,” he said. “We can talk tomorrow.”
“What happens in the end?” she asked, her tone a challenge.
“The end?”
“The mistress is helping to get you sorted with Jago. The deal is, you’ll introduce me to the smugglers who helped you get away to Labrador. But what happens after that? For you, I mean?”
He turned onto his back. “Why do you want to know?” It was a mistake. He should be the one to choose the time of this conversation.
“They say you came back to take revenge. Is that true?”
“That’s the secret you want from me?”
“Yes.”
“In exchange, I can have any secret from you?”
Instead of answering, she turned over, bringing her face uncomfortably close.
“I think you’re going to gamble with them,” she said.
“Who?”
“The people who cut off your thumbs.”
“How do you figure that?”
“When I saw you stripping cards from the deck, I couldn’t work out why you were doing it. There was no gain for you. But then I thought, what if you’re practising? That made sense. But you had to be practising for something.”
“To get better,” he said.
“To win,” she countered. “And why does a man want to win at cards?”
“For money?”
“If you wanted money, you’d make something to sell. Or you’d do some service and get paid. With that kind of trade everyone ends up with the thing they wanted. But gambling’s different. It’s the only trade where one person ends up poorer. Gamblers don’t do it for the money. Not really. Not even to win. You do it so someone else loses.”
He didn’t know how she’d built so much truth on so little ground. No one else had managed. Every answer he made was giving her more. He had the feeling that even should he lie, she’d gain from it.
“What if I can’t make something?” he aske
d, holding his free hand for her to see. “What if gambling is all I’m good for?”
Her eyes mocked him.
“It won’t do,” she said.
He really had to stop talking or he’d let slip something that mattered. He’d think sharper in the morning. But those keen eyes were fixed on him.
“What won’t do?” he asked, knowing he’d bitten on a baited hook. Hating his own lack of will.
“You’re not so good at cards,” she said. “Not so good as you think.”
“They didn’t see!”
“They were half-drunk! But I saw. And I wasn’t even in the game. Real gamblers would be looking for it.”
If he’d known for sure that she was wrong, the sting wouldn’t have been so sharp. He stared at the roof beams, trying to ignore that oh-too-beautiful face. “I’m good enough.”
“You’re fooling yourself,” she said. “A man never looks so keenly at the deal as when he’s got money on the table.”
“I want to go to sleep now.”
“Liar.”
He rolled to face her, his anger beating his wits; they were inches apart. “You dare to say that?”
“I dare because it’s true. I dare because if you’re driving yourself to ruin, I need to know. I need to get out of the way.”
“I’m good with the cards!”
“You are,” she said. “You’re outstanding. For a man with no thumbs.”
He took a breath. His fists were bunched under the blankets. Her gaze held his. His knife was on the floor, just outside the box bed.
Afterwards he’d try to tell himself that she was at fault. He was teaching her a lesson. But at the time, there’d been no such thought in his head. The whim came to him and he acted. Dipping his head close, he placed a kiss plumb on her mouth. To stop her goading.
Her eyes went wide. For a second neither of them moved. Then she twisted away, breaking the warm contact of her lips and he was left cursing himself for a fool.
Chapter 13
Elizabeth’s first view of Rooth Bay was from the crown of yet another headland. The village comprised a bunching of mean-looking shacks and stables, a quayside and slipway and, incongruously, a corrugated iron church, complete with corrugated iron bell tower surmounted by a rusting cross.
