by Alys Clare
‘It is known as the Northwest Passage,’ Jonathan said quietly into the silence. I might have known, I reflected, that he too would be well versed on the subject. ‘The existence of a northern route has been postulated from as long ago as the middle of the last century and probably further, and an expedition that I can think of in fact explored to the north east, when a pair of adventurers searched for a passage to the north of Russia and froze to death. In the other direction, Martin Frobisher’s search for the Northwest Passage during Queen Elizabeth’s reign was equally unsuccessful. John and Sebastian Cabot searched many decades earlier, and they were possibly the first men to declare that a passage through or around North America would have to be found if a short passage from England to the Orient and its wealth was to become a reality. Then—’
I felt that we might be wandering a little too far into the bottomless depths of history now, and Jonathan, I guessed, had much more to tell us if he was allowed to. ‘Thank you, Jonathan,’ I said gently.
‘Oh!’ He looked startled, then gave me a swift nod. ‘Enough. Of course,’ he muttered.
Simoun, his amazement at such knowledge existing here in the library of a country doctor showing clearly in his face, straight away began to speak before anyone else could.
‘The man who created this rutter revealed a great deal more to me than facts and dates and the details of unsuccessful missions,’ he said. ‘He knew. He’d been there, seen it all. They believed there was a strait called Anián that stretched between North America and Asia, and that this gave access to the Northwest Passage from the western end. Way back, the Spanish sailed along the Baja California Peninsula—’
‘That’s on the west coast of North America,’ I interrupted, looking at Celia. ‘I’ll show you later, on my globe.’
‘No need, Gabe,’ she said curtly. ‘I have already seen for myself, thank you.’
Henry Wex’s mouth dropped open again.
‘The Spanish thought that Baja California was an island, and that the stretch of water separating it from the mainland was the southern entrance to the passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic,’ Simoun went on, watching me warily in case I interrupted again. ‘They thought that by exploring from the western end, eventually the strait of Anián would reveal itself.’
Jonathan, his face alight with interest, couldn’t contain himself. ‘Yes, indeed, and there have been many expeditions from the eastern end too!’ he said. ‘Brave men have sailed around the coasts of Greenland, Baffin Island and Labrador, and only a couple of years ago one of our countrymen explored the great bay that opens up on the north east coast of America and—’ Catching my eye, he subsided.
‘Thank you,’ Simoun murmured, not without irony. He glanced down at the beautiful parchment spread out on my table. ‘Many of us believe that seeking out the western end of the Northwest Passage was what Francis Drake was really up to when he set off in 1577, and that it was only because he couldn’t find it that he turned instead across the Pacific, and thus eventually came to the Spice Islands.’
There was a hushed silence while we all thought about that.
Presently I turned to Simoun. He met my stare, and I had the feeling he was waiting for this moment. ‘Why are you here?’ I asked.
He turned away.
‘You didn’t come to make harsh and unreasonable demands of the kinsmen of Francis Drake or John Hawkins. I thought at first that might be the reason, but I was wrong,’ I ploughed on when Simoun made no answer. ‘You’re not here for vengeance on the men who left you behind to face the hell that swallowed you up, because you don’t hold either Drake or Hawkins responsible for your fate. You know it had to happen; that you and your fellow sailors had to be sacrificed so the rest could make it home.’
Simoun gave a great sigh and said, ‘No, we’re not after revenge, and we’re not seeking some extravagant pay-off to stop us spreading our story.’ He stared straight into my eyes. ‘Against unimaginable odds, the three of us have not only made it back to our home, but survived when our three dear companions did not, and all we want is a bit of help to settle back here in peace.’ He touched the rutter with his fingers. ‘We thought we had something to offer in exchange, but it appears we were wrong.’
I put that aside for the moment.
‘You came home for that reason? To find peace?’ I had to ask, but I was all but sure now that it was not the truth.
And the look that Simoun Wex gave me told me I was right.
‘Oh, no, Doctor.’ He gave a strange half-smile. ‘You know, don’t you?’ he said very softly.
‘I believe I do,’ I agreed. ‘Please, go on. If you are able?’
‘I am.’ He paused, perhaps gathering his strength, then raised his head and said to the room at large, ‘We weren’t running to England – to home – as much from what we left behind us.’
Nobody said anything for a few moments. Then, with an exclamation of horrified understanding, Jonathan said, ‘You refer, I believe, to the magic; to the dangerous, uncontrollable dark forces that you and your companions stirred up back on the plantation. Where the thin boy’s mother was a priestess, and where you fell into her ways.’
Simoun gave a grunt of laughter. ‘Not sure we fell into anything, Father, as much as ran in with our eyes wide open.’
His face full of compassion, Jonathan said very softly, ‘However it happened, you have my sympathy, and I will help you in any way I can.’
As Simoun looked at him, I thought I saw the shine of tears in his eyes. ‘I’m grateful, Father,’ he muttered.
It was, I reflected, something of an understatement.
‘We should be all right,’ Simoun went on, ‘as long as we have—’ But, with a swift glance at Celia, he stopped.
As long as we have Mama Tze Amba, I finished silently for him. As long as they had beside them the fearsome presence that somehow protected them from far worse magic.
But I wasn’t going to mention her any more than Simoun was.
Some things are better not brought out into the open unless there is absolutely no choice.
As if perceiving that the discussion was over, Simoun rolled up the parchment, re-tied the silk cord and put the scroll into the box, carefully fastening the clasp. ‘Ah, well, seems I was wrong about this,’ he said, a hand resting on the box. ‘Nobody in either the Drake or the Hawkins clan has the least interest in us or anything we have to offer, and that’s putting it mildly.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘They have turned respectable now and they don’t want any reminder of their famous forbears’ dangerous, violent pasts.’ Their morally dubious pasts, I might have added. ‘But I have an idea,’ I went on.
Henry spun round to look at me, and the hope in his expression made me say a silent prayer that my idea was sound. Simoun went on staring down at his red wood box.
‘Will you let me explore it?’ I asked.
After quite a long pause, Simoun pushed the box across the table at me. ‘May as well,’ he muttered. Then, as if he had to part from his precious treasure quickly if he was to do so at all, he hurried out of the room and, after a final glance at Celia, Henry ran after him.
‘Where will they go?’ I asked Jonathan.
‘Back to the derelict house,’ he replied. ‘It is not so bad now, and, as Simoun said, they have known far, far worse.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Do you anticipate success in this scheme of yours?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
I slept long and deeply that night, and woke refreshed and a good deal more optimistic than I’d been the night before. I rose early and was down on the quay standing beneath Falco’s soaring wooden sides just as the day was getting into its stride.
I should have come before, a fact that was made very clear to me by the many moments I spent listening to Captain Zeke yelling at me, swearing at me and demanding to know why the fuck I hadn’t thought to give him the smallest of hints as to what had been happening. When he’d calmed down and only the last drift
s of steam were coming out of his ears, I accepted his invitation to take a seat, accepted a glass from him and told him.
When at long last I had finished, he reached out a hand and grasped mine. ‘I apologize,’ he said gruffly. ‘I gave you a bugger of a task, you did it, you came as soon as you could to give me your report and I shouted at you as if you were some worm of a raw recruit. Sorry.’
‘Apology accepted,’ I replied. ‘So, can you help me?’
Captain Zeke thought for some time. Then he said, ‘If I could relieve you of what you have in that red wood box, I’d do so. Dear God, I’d do so!’ He paused, his eyes alight with the thrill of possibilities. ‘But, although as you and I well know, I am a man of some means, I cannot give our fugitives the gold they require.’
‘They’re not greedy,’ I said swiftly. ‘They ask only for enough to purchase a little house. Henry will work – he is desperate to, in fact, for work will, I believe, provide the healing he so badly needs.’
Captain Zeke nodded in understanding. ‘Yes, you are surely right,’ he agreed. ‘Poor devil’s been a slave, and urgently desires to restore his self-respect. Nevertheless, Gabe, I cannot pay them what they require.’ He paused. ‘But I believe I may be able to direct you to someone who can.’
I went there without delay.
The house had a stately beauty and had been built, I estimated, in the middle of the last century. The small bricks of which it was constructed had mellowed pleasingly, and the gardens surrounding it were mature and well-tended. It stood some miles back from the coast, as if the former sailor who inhabited it had seen enough of the sea and her capricious moods.
It was the home of Admiral Sir Bewley Underhay, retired, and he was the brother of our local justice of the peace.
He was an elderly man now, although he still bore himself well. He was courteous and seemed pleased to have a visitor, and as soon as I had identified myself he ushered me into a pleasant room with windows overlooking woodland and fields, where he sat me down and gave me a glass of very fine wine.
When I told him what I had come for he changed.
When I produced the red wood box, opened it and unrolled the parchment inside, he acted as if Spanish spies were huddled beneath the window and lurking in the passage outside, curtly ordering me to replace the rutter in its box and hide it away.
He disappeared, and I heard him striding around in the corridor outside the room. Returning, he checked the window. Finally he came to stand over me and hissed, ‘Do you know what you have there, Doctor Taverner?’
‘I do,’ I replied.
He looked as if he was about to explode. ‘Then in heaven’s name why have you got it? How did you come across it? Where in God’s good earth did it come from? Who made it?’ He puffed a bit, then said, ‘How do you—’
I stopped him. ‘I cannot answer those questions, Sir Bewley, for as I am sure you will appreciate, to do so would be to break another man’s confidence.’
‘But you must, you—’
Again I interrupted. ‘Perhaps it will help if I say that I wish to put it into your hands. Right now, and you shall keep it when I leave.’
He gazed at me, eyes popping in his head. ‘What do you want in return?’
I named the amount of money that Jonathan Carew and I believed would purchase a modest dwelling.
Sir Bewley Underhay’s eyes widened some more. ‘Is that all?’ he demanded.
‘It is.’
I hadn’t truly anticipated that he would give me the gold there and then, but he did, in a couple of leather bags that weighed heavy in my hands. Before he could change his mind, I left the red wood box on the small side table where I’d placed it and hastened away. I think he was as glad to be rid of me as I was to leave.
On my way home I called in to see Theo.
He sat at his desk, I drew up a chair opposite to him and for some time we simply looked at each other. He knew full well that there were things I hadn’t adequately explained to him, but I believed he also knew that I’d told him as much as I could.
If he was left with an imperfect understanding of it all, then so was I.
‘Is it over?’ he said after a while.
‘I am fairly certain it is,’ I replied.
‘I can bury the two foreigners?’
‘You can.’
‘And—’ He gave me an odd look, turned away and then once more fixed me with his blue eyes. ‘What of the first one?’ he said quietly.
Ah, I thought. Of course he would want to know; need to know, in fact, for he was the coroner and it was his solemn duty to uncover the circumstances of death for bodies found within his jurisdiction before releasing them for burial.
So how was I to tell him that he was never going to see Mama Tze Amba again?
‘Theo, the little corpse that was removed from your cellar needs to be with the men who brought her here,’ I began tentatively. ‘She isn’t so much a body as a religious artefact, and—’
‘Looked like a body to me,’ he muttered.
‘Yes, of course, and I’m not denying she was human, but she died a very long time ago and a long way from here,’ I went on.
‘You said when you examined her that she probably died of old age,’ Theo said.
‘Yes, indeed I did.’
He was looking at me hopefully. ‘And?’ he prompted.
I shook my head. ‘And what?’
‘And is that still your opinion?’ he demanded impatiently.
I began to understand. ‘Yes.’
He frowned, clearly thinking hard. ‘Then I have the cause of death,’ he murmured, more to himself than to me, ‘and it would serve, I suppose, to put in my report that the body was released for burial and not actually mention that it was more a matter of it being taken than my releasing it …’
He looked up at me hopefully.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that there was no question of Mama Tze Amba being buried but I managed to bite back the words.
Instead I said, ‘If you’re asking my opinion, Theo, I’d say it would serve very well.’
He nodded, and I sensed his relief.
After a short pause he said, ‘And the other men?’
‘They will be cared for.’
He nodded again. ‘Good man, Jonathan Carew.’
‘He is,’ I agreed.
If Theo thought that Simoun, Henry and their strange companion were to be housed in some little village dwelling found for them by Jonathan in Tavy St Luke, then so much the better. It was preferable, for both them and Theo, for the four of them not to meet again, and if what I had in mind worked out – and there was no reason why it should not – they wouldn’t.
I got up to go. Theo rose too, and came out into the yard to see me on my way.
‘Come to dinner soon,’ he said as I mounted Hal. ‘You and Celia.’
‘We will. Good day to you, Theo. May we have some peaceful days now.’
‘Amen to that,’ he agreed fervently. Then he went back inside and shut the door.
I went back to Rosewyke, the leather bags heavy across Hal’s neck. I went inside and, managing to evade attention from either my sister or my housekeeper, slipped upstairs to my study and hid the gold in a safe place. It would not be there for long: the Falco fugitives needed a home, and I would make sure they had one as soon as possible.
But it wouldn’t be today.
Today I was tired, mentally and physically. I had seen sights I would far rather not have seen, heard tales that told far too vividly of the brutality of men. At times in these days just past I had come close to despair, all but drawn down into the black, stinking abyss that some insist on digging across this beautiful world.
The Falco fugitives had a future now; I believed that I was justified in taking a few hours of absence from them and their concerns, and today I did not intend to give them another thought.
For today I had other plans.
I was going to put on fresh linen, then return downst
airs to collect my horse and set out again.
I was going to ride over to the neat little cottage above the river with the door knocker shaped like an angel, because it was high time I made sure Judyth had truly suffered no lasting ill effect from Henry Wex’s blade.
That, anyway, was my excuse, although I was fairly confident I wouldn’t need one.
A FEW WEEKS LATER
It was a small house, in a little-used alley off a busy street in Plymouth quite near to the water. The house was unobtrusive, unremarkable, and within dwelt an old man and his mixed blood son, and the son brought in a good enough wage for the pair to live in a degree of comfort. They were attended by a long, thin servant who looked like a boy. He had strange eyes and a wild look about him. Occasionally he emerged on errands, although he preferred the safety of the little house’s four walls. When he did venture out, he aroused little interest in a hectic port where exotic-looking men and women were everywhere.
The house had a main room downstairs and a scullery off it. There was a walled yard behind, and a small space for the servant just off the kitchen, warmed by the fire that was kept burning in the hearth. Upstairs there were two small chambers furnished basically but comfortably, one for the old father, one for his son.
Between these two chambers there was a little cupboard, perfectly concealed by a door that looked exactly like one more piece of the smooth wood panelling.
But this panel opened, and behind it there was a shrine. Where, propped against the wall and dressed in a freshly-washed, pure white robe and headdress, stood a tiny corpse. At her feet flowers floated in water, and the flowers were refreshed every few days. Next to the flowers, a candle burned in a red glass jar.
Although there was no longer any real need, Mama Tze Amba continued to watch over the men she had guarded for so long.
And her protection was never going to stop.
