by Rod Duncan
“He’s crooked,” Aaron said, loud enough to quiet the whispers.
“Is that what you’re afraid of?” Jago asked.
“I’m afraid of nothing! But he’s a known cheat.”
Elias held up his hands. “Remember these?” He’d found his voice. “You did this to me!” He spat out the words, hatred giving them power. He showed his mutilated hands to the crowd, turning until he faced Aaron again. “Do you think I could fool you with these?”
“You’d try!”
“Well, I’d rather have no thumbs than have no wits!”
The crowd erupted: shouts of outrage, barks of laughter.
Jago purred in his ear, “Very good.” Then pushed him down into the seat of honour.
Gems glinted among the gold and silver in the cloth. If he won, Jago would surely take the treasure for himself. If he lost, it’d take more than a lifetime to pay it back.
Patron Weaverbright was shouting. A hush fell, moving from the table outwards. The crowd gathered on the rise were the last to know that something was happening.
“This is foolery! You can’t put an idiot to play with such a treasure.”
“Don’t you have the wealth to match it?” Elias asked, saying what Jago would surely have said. Oh, but the task was gripping him now. He would do it. He would bring them low. And if the bomb had been rigged to go while he was sitting there, at least they would die, Charity would be free and his own torment would be over.
Jago’s hand still gripped his shoulder.
Weaverbright and his chief councillor had their heads together in a whispered consultation, hands cupped around mouths so no one would be able to read the words on their lips.
“We will play,” Weaverbright said at last, pushing his son Aaron towards the seat next to Elias.
“Show the colour of your metal,” Elias said, loud enough for all to hear.
Weaverbright’s councillor upended a purse on the table in front of Aaron, spilling a pile of Spanish gold coins and silver American dollars. More than the life’s earnings of a peasant. But nothing compared to the cloth bundle in front of Elias.
“He’ll start with that,” Patron Weaverbright said. “More will come.”
“We don’t gamble on promises,” Jago jeered.
“More will come!”
The chair on the other side from Elias pulled back and another purse dropped onto the table. Another Patron’s son. “I’m in,” he said. The men and women behind him clapped.
Then more were sitting, young men of the Blood from different clans. One against one, his chances had been even. If the dice were fair. But each new player shaved another slice from his odds. Many had been part of his outlawing. But he’d fixed his thoughts of revenge on Aaron Weaverbright. Now they all faced him, ganged together. The table filled.
Men were pushing through to the front of the crowd, tallest among them, his great uncle, Patron Calvary. On reaching the front, he asked, “Who is to assay the bets?”
It was a good question. With no king or government, Newfoundland could have no currency of its own. Thus each bet would need to be appraised, whether it were a love poem or an egg or a gem the size of an egg. In the usual way of things, the balance of wagers could be agreed by the players themselves. But with the highest stakes, an assayer was needed. Chunks of hack silver could be weighed against each other in a hand balance. But it took skill to judge a gem against a pile of gold and silver coins.
“You do it,” Jago said to Calvary.
“He’s the man’s uncle!” Weaverbright growled.
“Then you and he do it together.”
There were nods from the councillors.
Elias reached inside his new cloak to his belt pocket. His hand closed around the dice he’d carved at the Salt Ray Inn. That seemed like years ago. He’d taught himself to tell them apart by touch. The weighted one bore a scratch, invisible, though he could feel it. He let that one lie, for the time being.
“I am no cheat,” he said, his voice level. “I played fair in that card game.”
“Liar,” Aaron rumbled.
“It’s passed,” said Patron Calvary. “Let it go.”
Elias selected a handful of silver dollars from the bundle in front of him and pushed them forwards. Then he slapped down his two fair dice.
The other players had coins to match. There would be no need for the assayers on the first bet. Metal sang the song of wealth as coins fell and rolled. Elias took up the dice again and stood.
He would beat them. He would bleed the money from them. And then he’d do as his great uncle had said. He would finally let it go. It would never be revenge enough. But later they would die from Jago’s bomb. Then he would rest.
He kissed his clenched knuckles and drew back his hand to cast. But Aaron shouted, “No! I won’t play with his dice.”
Patron Calvary and Patron Weaverbright nodded to each other. It was Calvary who delivered the verdict: “Elias chose the game. Aaron may demand his own dice be used.”
Aaron smiled then, slow and gloating. Elias’s heart began to jump. He felt the pain across his chest. His hand dropped, seeking out the glass pot from his pocket. The urge to feel that chemical buzz was almost unbearable.
His enemy stood and held up a small bag of dark velvet. Turning for all to see, he eased back the drawstring and emptied the contents onto his upturned palm. Two dice. But not cubes. These were long dice, cut in the shape of six-sided prisms. He cast them onto the table so they rolled and tumbled towards Elias. Elias found himself reading the numbers carved into the upturned faces. A six and a three. It seemed important for some reason.
Hand shaking, he gathered them up. They were bone dice, like his own. But carved from thin, delicate pieces rather than the leg joint of an ox.
He couldn’t speak. Somehow he knew what was coming.
“Do you know them?” Aaron asked. “You should do. They’re your own two thumbs.”
The lock holding the iron collar in place would not yield. Each time Elizabeth tried to pick it, she got two of the three levers inside to move. The third always jammed. An angry red line on Charity’s neck marked the place where rough metal had dragged against her skin.
“One more time,” Elizabeth breathed.
But Charity held up a hand to stop her. “Where have the people gone?”
Elizabeth listened. She could hear the whispered boom of waves and the distant cry of a gull. But no voices. She peered outside. There were no people in sight.
“Wait,” she said, then set off towards the top of the next rise, which gave a view of four clan encampments. Nothing was moving but a few tethered horses, the turn of an ear, the swish of a tail.
Elias’s game of chance was the only answer. But needing to be sure she ran as fast as the stupid dress would allow, down the slope then up another, slowing as she approached the top. Peering towards the rock ridge she saw the massed crowd around the table, like a swarm of ants around a bowl of sugar.
Catching her breath, she took one last turn, scanning the Island. Everyone was there. If the bomb went off, hundreds would be slaughtered. The most powerful men and women, the oath-holders: all stood near the centre. And the oath-wrights, who’d left their usual places and come to watch. Their robes gave them away.
It was surely the moment that Jago had planned.
She ran. Not back to the tent, but towards the cove that Elias had pointed out to her. At the lip of the cliff she looked down on a scree slope of little stones. But there were bigger rocks on the beach below. She launched herself over the edge, digging in her heels as she slid with the scree tumbling around her. The first rock she tried on the beach was too heavy to lift. The second seemed too small to do the job. It needed to be hard as well. She found what she was looking for in a rounded lump of white quartz. Lifting it two-handed, she struggled back up the scree. For every step she put in she slid back half a step. With a mighty effort she scrambled up the final few feet and cast her burden onto the turf, crawling up
after it, exhausted.
There was no time to catch her breath. The watch she’d found hidden in the underside of the table would be ticking, the hands moving towards the alarm. She lifted the stone again and set off towards the tent. If she was right, Jago would soon leave the table with his men. He might come back to the camp. In which case, they’d be found. More likely he’d cross the rock ridge to be near the stored weapons when the explosion hit. Then he’d head back onto the Island, armed, to slaughter the survivors or demand their surrender and their allegiance.
He may have promised to free Charity, but he never would. The fact that Elias had loved her would make her an amusing plaything. And she, Elizabeth, would be condemned to a life of servitude.
She half-collapsed in through the tent flaps, the lump of quartz rolling to a stop next to the iron spike in the ground. For a moment she couldn’t speak to answer the flood of questions. But when her breath calmed, she said, “Stretch the chain…”
Charity understood. She positioned one link over the head of the spike and pulled back her hands, far enough for safety. All they needed was to break that one link. Elizabeth lifted the lump of quartz, took aim and brought it down hard. The sharp noise of it left her ears ringing. The chain had jumped free with the impact. The spike had sunk further into the ground.
Charity held up the link for her to see. It had been dented. She placed it back on top of the spike. Elizabeth lifted the rock again and sent it down on target, letting go at the last moment. A harder impact than the first. A louder noise. Any man standing within a hundred yards would have heard it. But the chain remained whole.
Charity was crying. The link seemed no closer to breaking than before. Less of the iron spike remained above the ground.
“It’s sinking in each time,” Elizabeth said. “That’s cushioning the blow.”
“Then what can we do?”
“Pray the end hits something solid down there before we drive it all the way in.”
She stood to her full height and raised the rock above her head so that it pressed into the canvas of the tent ridge. Summoning all her strength she brought it down. The rock shattered. Charity fell back. The top of the spike had buckled over. And there, among the white fragments of rock, lay a single iron link, broken and twisted.
Charity stood, a length of chain hanging loose from her neck. A trickle of blood ran down one of her cheeks. A flying shard perhaps. But not a deep cut.
They looked at each other, blinking. Elizabeth was the first to speak.
“Elias – I’ve got to let him know.”
But Charity shook her head. “I should just slip away. He’ll find out soon enough. When he’s done with his dice game.”
Elizabeth took her hand. “You’re wrong. We have to tell him somehow. I’ve no time to explain. But there’s going to be an explosion. If he doesn’t leave that table, he’s going to die. I’m sure of it.”
Charity’s face fell to horror.
“I’ll warn him,” Elizabeth said. “You search the other tents. Find clothes. Men’s clothes. Anything small enough to fit us. Hats – to hide our hair. As drab as you can find. And a cloth to wind around your neck to hide the irons.”
Not waiting for an answer, she ducked out of the tent, gathered up her skirts as best she could and ran back in the direction of the rock ridge.
Chapter 38
Elias picked up the long dice. A sweat had broken out all over his body when he saw them. Now, holding them, they seemed to itch, as if they were still attached to him by sinew and flesh. He had to breathe hard to stop himself from throwing up.
Aaron Weaverbright would die. At that moment, Elias had no other wish. Not for gold, not for Elizabeth, not for his own life. Not even for Charity. All his hatred of the man and the misery that he’d suffered came crashing back. Aaron Weaverbright would die. And it wasn’t enough for the bomb to take him unawares. He had to know of his own defeat. He had to see death coming. He had to feel regret.
He shook the dice in his cupped hand, meeting Aaron’s eyes directly. A hush had fallen.
“Choose your main,” said Aaron.
“Eight!” said Elias, then cast the bones down the table. They bounced and clattered and spun and came to rest beyond the range of his reading. Hands reached out to take them.
“Cease!” bellowed Patron Calvary.
The hands withdrew.
Patron Weaverbright pushed through the crowd until he could lean over the dice. “A two and a one,” he said. “Three. That’s an out.”
It took only a moment for Elias’s wagered silver to be scooped away. He watched as they divided it. Aaron leered.
Someone took his hand and placed the dice on his palm. He pushed forward a pile of gold coins. The other players matched the bet.
“Eight,” he said, choosing the same main for luck.
This time he threw seven, which became his chance on another throw, but that he lost. By the end of his turn he was down a small fortune.
The dice moved on, scooped from the table by the next caster. Elias flinched at the imagined touch on his thumbs. The noise and stink of people pressed closer around him. If he’d had a sword in his hand, he would have known what to do. His training could have taken over. He could have laid into Aaron’s sneering face and suffered the punishment for murder. That would have been a good death. If he’d had his own dice to play with, the sleight of hand he’d practised would have tipped the odds and let him beat them, just as they’d cheated him before.
The dice spun and danced. Some of the other casters won and some lost. Treasure shifted from man to man. But not much. They were saving their big bets for him. Around the table the dice moved. For each throw, he put down a few coins, taking a share of the other men’s losses. But it was only a trickle.
Then Aaron’s turn came to cast. “Seven!” he shouted.
Elias picked a large sapphire from his pile and pushed it forwards. A whisper passed through the crowd. Patron Weaverbright took the gem and held it close to his eye. “It’s flawed,” he said. “The value is three ounces of gold.”
Everyone must have known that was too low. But Patron Calvary nodded it through. Aaron counted out twelve gold coins. He took the dice, spat on them, shook them in his fist then set them to fly. They spun and stopped in front of Elias. A six and a one.
Aaron took the gemstone between his finger and thumb and licked it. No man should have such a run of luck. He lost on the next throw but the bet was small.
His eyes were still laughing when his turn was over. He scooped up the dice, shaking them in his closed fist as if about to cast again. Then he held them out on his upturned palm. Elias hated him for the touch of skin as he took them for his own throw.
“Seven,” he said, trying to breathe confidence into his voice, feeling weak for choosing the same main as his enemy.
Gold and silver went down around the table. Patron Calvary pronounced twenty-three ounces of gold would be required to match the bet.
“Unless you’re a coward,” Aaron hissed, too quiet for the Patrons to hear.
Elias felt a shift in the press of bodies. Looking around, he saw a flash of bright pink in the crowd. Elizabeth was pushing through in that bloody dress that Jago made her wear. His goading and insults had stirred the Island up into a fever of plot and rumour. Elizabeth had been part of that show. They stepped back from her now, letting her through.
Her arrival had to be Jago’s doing. He must be moving his puppets to make the greatest drama. Elias glanced around further, looking for the Patron. A wall of faces stared back at him. The pain in his chest turned to a spike of ice. He fumbled for the green glass pot.
Jago had slipped away.
An extraordinary clarity comes with the proximity of death. Elizabeth took in the scene: men leaning over the table, the baying, the stink of hatred and excitement. Jago had gone. She’d expected it. But it was still somehow a revelation. In that moment she felt as if she could almost see through the timbers of the tabl
e to the hidden cavities filled with glycer-fortis, and hear the clockwork ticking away the seconds of life.
On her approach, she’d been watching the man who sat next to Elias. He’d dipped his hand under the table. There’d been a shift in his tension as he brought it back into view. There was a slight cupping of the down-facing palm.
Elias looked back and saw her. He seemed to be struggling to breathe. She pushed closer, put her lips to his ear and shielded her mouth with her hands.
“Charity is free.”
Elias didn’t move or speak.
“She’s free. You can go. Tell them you’re giving up.”
He seemed frozen. There was something in his eyes that was not Elias. Something fey and bitter, as if the man she’d come to know had been hollowed out.
He grimaced as he took the dice, as if they were made of hot metal. Still he held them. His knuckles had grown white.
She pressed her mouth to his ear again. “They’ll all be dead in a few moments. You either come with me or you die here too!”
“I can’t.”
In her mind, the clockwork ticked. It could go any second. “Know this,” she whispered. “The man sitting next to you is cheating. He’s got another die in the crease of his palm.”
Turning, she stepped away from the table. The crowd jostled each other to back off, as if the touch of her skirts might contaminate them. She didn’t look back, but all her focus was behind her, yearning to hear a movement that would mean Elias had chosen to follow.
There was none.
Everyone on the rise was standing. They’d been seated when she arrived. Their whispers stopped as she approached, surrounding her in a circle of silence. Her footsteps in the mud sounded unnaturally loud.
Elias might have helped her to escape. Or he might not. But he had chosen to die. She felt sick. Even with all his lies and plots, he was a good man. If only he could have seen it for himself, he might have let go of the bitterness. He might have lived.
