by Rod Duncan
He woke to cracks of sunlight between the shingles above, and drifting dust motes lit yellow.
“Why didn’t you use the bed?” asked a familiar voice.
“Fitz?”
“I made one for you. Just in case.”
Elias sat. His old friend rested cross-legged, back against the end wall. He saw now that straw had been laid out for sleeping, and blankets. A jug and horn beaker lay next to it and a plate of dried fish. Elias grabbed it and began stuffing his mouth.
“Gods, but look at you!” Fitz said. “Your hands are the best kind of mess! Didn’t you think what might happen when you cheated? But you were lucky. They’d have done worse if it were me. And they’d do it now, if they knew I was helping.”
He filled the beaker from the jug and passed it across.
“I didn’t cheat,” Elias said. Then he drank. He’d expected water. It was wine. Still cold from the night.
“We had riders come through two days back,” said Fitz. “They flashed gold for any news of you. I figured you might follow. You must have pissed someone off proper.”
Elias shook his head. He’d been circling the question through his long walk but had found no answer. He’d fought battles for his Patron. They all had. He’d wounded men, but not killed them outright on the field. There should be no grudge against him. He went to the Reckoning most years and played rough like all the young men. But few would have known him away from that place.
In truth, he’d never spared a thought for his great uncle’s politics, beyond the fighting of battles. Against which clans they fought was never his worry. And if he’d used his position to tumble a girl or two, what man would have done different?
“Who’d have thought you’d end up poorer than me?” his friend said.
“Can you help?” Elias asked.
“Perhaps. But you’ll need to keep a secret.”
Having filled his belly on that first morning, he’d slept for thirteen hours straight. And then, waking only to relieve himself and eat again before sleeping for another ten. After three days in the loft, he could stand without trembling. The blisters on his feet were hardening into calluses and the sores around his mouth had begun to heal. Most remarkable though were his hands. Skin was returning over the wounds, growing in from the sides. He could already make a fist without sending jolts of pain up his arm, and had started to learn to use his fingers on smaller things: picking up morsels, fastening the buttons on the new shirt and hose that Fitz had brought him. Simple tasks had become puzzles, even aiming his piss into the chamber pot.
When Fitz climbed into the loft on the fourth night, it was not with food and drink, but a tote bag stuffed with provisions. “This is the day,” he said.
“I’m not ready.”
“It’ll be a month before the next chance.”
Together they pushed the skiff down the slipway. Fitz took the oars, dipping them without a splash, rowing out through the calm of the bay to the chop of open waters where he turned to skirt the coast.
“How do you find your way?” Elias asked.
Fitz gave no answer, but every few strokes he turned his head as if to sight between landmarks.
“Thank you,” Elias said. “I don’t deserve this.” Lying in the boathouse attic, he’d had time to think about their shared childhood. It hadn’t seemed that way at the time, but privilege of birth had tinted all their games. They might not have seen it, but they’d been an uneven match. “I’ll pay you back some day.”
“I know you will,” said Fitz.
He didn’t see the other boat until they were almost alongside. It seemed little more than a raft at first; a flat oval, dipping down into the water at the edges. In the middle sat a protrusion like a barrel. Strangely, the swell washed over the flat part of it, as if it were not floating, but had somehow been fixed to the bottom of the sea.
Fitz gave the oars one last heave, driving them up onto the strange craft, as if grounding on a sand bar. The keel grated against it, whereupon a man stood up in the middle of the barrel, as if he’d been crouched there waiting to surprise them.
“You’re late,” said the man. “I was about to go.” Then he looked down into the barrel and called out. “Bring up the cargo.”
Only then did Elias understand. They had not beached on a raft, but on the back of some much larger vessel, which lay mostly beneath the waves, like the body of a whale.
Two other men climbed up from below, with safety lines attached. Out they came, onto the flat back of the craft, forming a line so that when a package was passed up they could hand it one to the other and then to Fitz, who stowed it in the skiff. Elias couldn’t see the nature of the cargo. But smuggled across from the mainland, it would be contraband for sure.
When there was little room left in the bottom of the skiff, a purse was passed to Fitz, who counted the coins and nodded. Then Elias was being helped along the back of the craft.
Fitz pushed off with one of the oars, timing the move so the swell would carry him clear.
“Come,” said one of the men.
A ladder down from the barrel took him into a dark space below. It smelled of body odour. The last man in sealed a hatch. Then a match flared and caught the wick of a lamp. As the flame grew, he started to make out the details of a small chamber.
His mind was buzzing with questions. How often did they make these smuggling runs? Which Patron did they serve? It was clear that Fitz had been involved with them for some time. But even with a boat so low in the water, they might one day be seen.
A hum like the sound of a wasp vibrated through the floor and walls. He heard the bubbling of air and water in pipes. The craft began to move. Not forwards or backwards, but down.
“Underwater? It travels underwater?” The idea of a submarine boat was so simple and beautiful that he laughed. It was a smuggling boat that would never be found.
“Through there,” said one of the men, shoving him towards a door.
Elias rounded on him, annoyed. But the man was holding a knife, pointing the tip towards his chest. “Through there,” he said again.
They chained him between barrels and wooden crates in what must have been the hold of the submarine boat. The manacle chains were short, allowing him so little movement that there was no way to raise his arms or lift himself from the outward sloping wall of the hull.
At first he’d shouted, calling Fitz’s name, as if the words might somehow reach his friend. But after a minute, the truth came to him. Fitz had known what would happen. He’d known it all along.
Through all that followed, Elias had tried to find a person to blame. Without Fitz, he would have been killed. But from the action of his childhood friend, such suffering had followed: the long march to the Yukon, slave work in the factory, the journey back across the frozen lands of Canada, through Churchill and Labrador. Then across the waters to Newfoundland. But not as the same man who had set out.
Part Three
Chapter 17
Every story has its price, depending on meaning and rarity. News of Elias’s return to Newfoundland might have been worth a handful of hack silver when he arrived. But after he’d been exposed by Jago, it wouldn’t have been worth an old ship’s nail.
The punishment he took in the saloon was no news at all. Dust is beaten from a carpet, they say, and secrets from a man. What Patron wouldn’t have taken the same chance? Not that Elias would have talked.
But if he was then glimpsed walking unharmed next to Jago, a spy could name his own price. Such news would be proof of an alliance between the outlaw and the upstart Patron.
“Hold him,” Jago had said.
The giant gatherer did just that, his one arm trapping Elias’s neck, in the same way he’d held Elizabeth before. The two gatherers who’d beaten the boy took turns to throw fists. Three went to his stomach. Then they started on his face. He lost count after that. They hauled him out through the side door of the church then swung him by a leg and an arm. For a moment he felt weig
htless. Oh, the bliss of it. Then the dirt slammed him on the side of the head. They were laughing as they closed the church door.
It was a slow and lonely walk back to New Whitby. He’d had no sight of a mirror. But peasants on the track winced when they saw him and turned away. He felt his nose: tender but not broken, he thought. He’d lost a tooth. The gap in his mouth felt huge. One of the others was loose. But that would heal. Swelling had closed his right eye.
He might have thought that Jago had decided his story was a trap after all. But as he’d lain in the mud, the Patron bent down to whisper in his ear. “You can thank me later. I’m saving your life. I’ll see you at the North Road turning in four days.”
Somewhere in the beating, Elias’s knee must have taken a knock. Stepping up the hill out of Rooth Bay, it hadn’t been too bad. But coming down the other side, each step gave him a jab of pain. He couldn’t remember being kicked on the ground. But it felt like that kind of damage. There were other bits he couldn’t remember, so he figured he must have blacked out.
Somewhere on the climb towards the second headland, his thoughts cleared enough to send a wave of panic through him. He fumbled in the pocket at his belt. It wasn’t there. At first he couldn’t find it in his tote. Then his fingers closed around the smooth glass pot. Trembling, he pulled out the stopper. His hands refused to obey him so he gave up trying to unclip his cloak pin. Instead, he dipped the tip of his little finger. The chemical buzz filled his senses. He felt his heart slowing.
Elizabeth. They still held Elizabeth and the boy, hostages against the chance that he might change his mind. There’d been no way for him to talk with her. No sooner had he been out of the sacristy than Jago had ordered the beating. She must think their plan had gone to ruin. That had been the point of it. Everyone would think he’d insulted the Patron in some way. Even Jago’s own men.
When dusk began to gather, Elias left the path and searched out a stand of birch saplings. Bending them over, he wove a makeshift frame of living stems, like an overturned basket. Between the withies, he stuffed armfuls of dead bracken until the space below was dark and still. Then he crawled in, pulling more bracken behind him to stopper the doorway. It was cold. Yet not so cold as it might have been.
The problem came in the morning when he tried to straighten. His muscles had tightened from the beating and the rough sleep. At least his hands were steady. He took another dose of glycer-fortis. How small the remaining lump had shrunk. On the way back to the path, he cut some willow branches. The bark tasted bitter as he chewed on the undamaged side of his mouth. It didn’t seem to take the pain away, but after a mile or so he found himself walking faster and more evenly.
With the final headland climbed, he started down towards New Whitby. On seeing him, a fisherwoman turned on her heel and sprinted back to town, trying to be first with the news, he thought. Running would do her little good. He walked directly along the main cut, aware that faces watched him from windows on all sides. Let everyone see that Elias No-Thumbs had come back, beaten.
Turning left, he headed for the Salt Ray. The inn was the last building on the track. He knocked on the door, knowing the danger he brought. But the mistress had to be told. Trying to sneak in would only make things worse.
The spyhole cover slid back. He heard the gasp from within. Then the door was unbolted and Maria Rosa pulled him inside. She demanded to know what he’d done with Elizabeth. Instead of answering he asked for soap and a basin of hot water, for food and drink. She waved a hand and the kitchen girl rushed off to bring them.
There was only one cut that he could find: that on his scalp. A small wound but a lot of blood. As he dipped his head in the basin, his stiff hair began to soften. When at last he could run his fingers through it, he looked down and saw the redness of the water. He didn’t take the hand glass they offered. Nor the bread. It would be a few days before his teeth were up to such a crust. But the soup was delicious and he felt the energy flowing back into his body. He sat in the best seat of the empty saloon and let the warmth of the fire seep into his bones.
Maria Rosa had hovered close to him all the while, her face washed of colour. “Don’t make me wait longer!” she said, when his soup bowl was still half-full.
His eyes flicked to the servants. Taking his meaning, she snapped her fingers and pointed to the door. They filed out.
“She’s safe,” he said, though he didn’t feel it.
“Where?”
“With Jago.”
Maria Rosa’s hand darted to her open mouth.
“He’s keeping her as a hostage against my actions. If he killed her, she’d be no use.”
“There are things he can do that aren’t killing! Men! You have no thought but for your own selves!”
“He won’t hurt her. He has too much on the table.”
Maria Rosa stood, as if to walk away, but sat down again immediately. “Where is the boy?”
“He’s with Elizabeth.”
“My gods. How can you make so light of this disaster?”
“They’re safe,” Elias said, not letting his own fear show, banishing the picture of the boy’s injured back. He leaned closer to her and whispered, “I’m meeting Jago on the North Road. He’ll have your barmaid and the boy with him. We’ll go to meet my contact. That’s what Elizabeth wants to do as well. It’s her chance to get off Newfoundland. She’ll want to be there. And this way she gets taken by a Patron Protector.”
“That man is the worst of them,” Maria Rosa said. “The worst of all of them. Look what he did to you!”
She picked up the hand glass and angled it so that this time he couldn’t help seeing. A distorted face looked back from the mirror, more blue than skin tone, a swollen mouth and brow. Only on the right hand side could he see his own self. How hidden he had become.
“Now tell me Elizabeth is safe!” Maria Rosa was crying.
He wanted to ask why she cared so deeply. But then, Elizabeth was a strange creature. She moved people in one way or another. He still didn’t know why he’d kissed her that night. It hadn’t been from arousal or lust. He’d been annoyed. But deeper than that, and harder to admit, he’d been fascinated.
“Elizabeth is safe,” he said yet again, not liking how deeply he wished it was true.
The mistress wouldn’t give him a bed for the night. But as she pushed him from the door, she whispered that the stable master was still away. Within the hour, all in the town would know that he’d been thrown out.
When it was dark enough, he followed the beach around and came to the stables from the rear. His knee was feeling better already. There was hardly a twinge as he climbed the ladder to the hayloft.
He made himself comfortable, his tote a lumpy pillow under his head. As an afterthought, he set his knife in the hay next to him, in easy reach, another comfort. It wasn’t that he’d an enemy in mind. Jago had been right about that. The beating had saved his life. If he’d walked out of the church unharmed, every other Patron would know an agreement had been struck. They’d all be after him.
He woke in blackness to the creaking of the ladder and then a vibration as someone climbed onto the loft boards. His hand searched, but the knife must have sunk deeper in the hay as he turned in his sleep. His every move sounded loud in the dead quiet. He couldn’t see the figure, but whoever it was had stopped moving.
Then a voice whispered, “Elias?”
“Charity?”
He felt rather than saw the hay shifting as she pulled away the layers and widened the sleeping hollow. Then she was next to him, her breath smelling of alcohol. Her kiss landed on his cheek. It didn’t hurt too badly.
“Your husband…” he began.
She placed a finger over his lips and pressed it down. That did hurt.
“Sleep,” she said. “It’ll be alright.”
He woke to find her pulling on the clothes she had sloughed off in the night. When she saw that he was watching she smiled.
“I have to go. Before the tow
n wakes.”
“There’s always someone watching,” he said. “Will you get in trouble?”
“Not so much.”
“Is… that is…”
“Yes,” she said. “My husband’s home.”
She tilted her head, as if to see him from a better angle, searching his face until he had to look away. She ran a finger along the length of her own crooked nose, then clambered out of the hollow they’d been sleeping in. The ladder creaked. And then she was gone. She hadn’t asked for sex.
Chapter 18
It might have looked like a dining table: a cloth to cover it, six chairs around and plates of meat and fish steaming in the chill air. But there was no space for knees underneath the church altar. That meant sitting back. Elizabeth found herself in a constant battle to stop meat juices dripping onto her skirts. Jago, sitting next to her, had simply tucked the edge of the altar cloth into his shirt. Gold embroidery caught the candlelight.
Elizabeth had been baptised in a country church in Devon when she was three years old. She wasn’t sure if it was a real memory or if she’d built it from things her father had told her. Either way, it had become part of her.
She watched as Jago tossed a bone over his shoulder and reached for another rib of pork. The setting seemed to be sharpening his enjoyment of the food. It had quite taken hers away. Three gatherers shared the feast. Plenty of wine was being drunk by all. She watched and kept count. The more they drank, the better her chance of escape. But also the more unpredictable they would become. When one laid a hand on her shoulder before the meal, Jago had ordered him away. The giant gatherer, who held a grudge against her, had been left on guard duty outside. He’d have his wits about him still.
