Suzanne Robinson (2 page)

He glanced over his shoulder at the threatening clouds, then turned his gaze back to his quarry. As he stared at the retreating sails, he began to hear a faint hissing. He looked around, but no one was near him. He resumed his relentless vigil only to glance
around again as he heard that same low, rhythmic whispering.

No, the sound seemed to come from somewhere ahead. But that was nonsensical, for there was nothing but sea ahead. Morgan gripped the gunwale and leaned out over the waves, straining as the whispers seemed to call to him. A tremor passed through his body even though he was wrapped in his warmest cloak—a tremor of expectation. What was this feeling of exhilaration? He hadn’t caught the priest yet. He’d almost decided that the past few weeks’ chase had played tricks on his hearing, when he felt the ship slow.

Whirling around, Morgan forgot the mysterious hissing as he raced across the deck toward the stern, his arm clamping his sword to his side. He veered around a coiled rope and swooped down upon the ship’s master. Before he could speak, the master nodded to the boatswain, who began to shout.

“Stand by your lines!”

Morgan turned and gazed past the prow and the rapidly vanishing pinnace on the horizon. He rounded on the master. “You’re not coming about.”

Sunlight disappeared as he spoke, and the sea and wind picked up. The master pointed to the sky behind them.

“That be a black squall, my lord.”

Morgan gazed up at a line of ebony clouds that seemed to fly across the sky, swallowing all light. The leading edge was as straight as a sword blade. Several men scurried past them and climbed up to loosen the topsails.

“You know nothing of the sea, my lord. A storm like that can slap my ship to the bottom of the sea. I know you want to catch that pinnace, but the squall will reach her before we can.” When Morgan remained
silent, the master pressed his lips together and continued. “After all, I got a wife to think of, and my men—”

“Mean you that you’re turning this ship around because of a
woman
?” Morgan’s eyes rounded and widened. “God’s blood, man, that pinnace carries a French spy. If I don’t catch the bastard, he’s going to cause the death of more than just a few English sailors. A pestilence take you, man, that priest serves the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Queen of Scots, and you prate to me of a stupid woman? I’m trying to prevent a war!”

As Morgan finished, the wind hit them, and the boatswain began to yell again.

“Lower and reef the main course. Lower the mizzen course.”

A driving rain mixed with sleet pelted them as the master’s gaze darted from the topsails to the mizzen course and spritsail.

“Boatswain,” the master yelled. “It’s too late. Trim the spritsail.”

A heavy swell pitched the ship, and Morgan gripped the gunwale. His feet began to slide out from under him, and he tasted rain and saltwater. Now the swells blocked out the sky. The ship ascended the next wave, and he caught a glimpse of the horizon before the deck rolled and pitched beneath him. Cursing, he got his feet back beneath him. Across the deck, sailors had uncoiled ropes and strung them down the length of the ship.

The master had worked his way amidship to join the boatswain. Morgan followed, but a great swell broke over the stern, dashing him to the deck. He landed facedown and felt his body begin to slide. He grabbed a cask as the ship pitched almost vertical to the sea floor.
When he’d gotten to his feet again, he gripped the gunwale and slowly maneuvered forward. He reached the master in time to hear him bellowing at a young sailor, little more than a boy, who was hugging the mast. The master pointed at the mainsail, which lay across the deck with its spars extending out past the gunwale.

“Get out there, you pissant cur!”

Morgan glanced at the men reefing in the sails. Wet sails were heavy and dragged, requiring great strength to haul. The master was still yelling. Morgan watched another swell nearly carry a man overboard, and made a decision.

Removing his sword and letting it fall to the deck, he lurched past the man reefing sail on the port side and climbed out on the spar. A swell rose up as he edged out over the sea. Morgan hugged the spar as an ocean of water broke over him. When it was gone, he straightened, spat water, and began to drag in sail.

To his right he heard someone yelling. It was the master, but he dared not take his gaze from the sail. A blast of horizontal sleet hit him in the face, and he gasped. The ship rolled, and the world turned sideways. Morgan clutched the spar again. He heard the master screaming at him. He couldn’t see for the spray and the wind that blew his hair in his face.

Then he felt it—the crack and sudden drop of the end of the spar. Voices shouted at him, and he lunged in the direction of the gunwale. As he leapt, the spar broke. The sail tore as he grabbed for it. A gray wall of water loomed high above him, topping the mast. Morgan grabbed for the jagged end of the spar, and then plunged into the sea.

He hit the water like a pat of butter hitting a brick. The sea swallowed him. As he sank, he twisted his body and looked about, his lungs on fire. His clothing
dragged at him as he fought his way to the surface. He popped, corklike, into the air and gulped in a deep breath. Another swell slapped him underwater once again.

This time it was all he could do to claw his way to the surface. A wave batted him again, and he went down into darkness once more. It was as if he were swimming in cold pitch. His muscles were stiff, and his chest burned.

Rapidly losing his senses, he broke to the surface. He tried to remain afloat, but his strength was fading. Another wall of gray rose in front of him, and he knew he couldn’t survive it. The carrack had vanished.

In desperation, Morgan turned and tried to swim away from the giant swell. He threw out an arm, and it hit something hard—the end of the spar. Clutching the wood, he wrapped himself around it and braced himself as the swell hit. This time he went down, but the wood helped him pop back to the surface quickly.

How long he rode those swells, he couldn’t judge, but his arms froze in their clutched position around the spar, and the rest of him went numb. Suddenly the blast of the wind dropped a bit, and the pelting rain let up. His vision blurred, and he could just make out great mountains of waves under a ragged black sky.

He fixed his whole attention on remaining afloat, and kept it there until he heard a sudden crash. Swinging his wobbling head around, he beheld sea foam and white tops. A wave rocked him. As he was carried on its crest, he saw the reason for the foam and the crash—rocks. Tall, jagged, and black, they littered the coast of an island.

Morgan tried to turn and swim away, but the swells were carrying him toward the rocks. He kicked uselessly, and a high swell picked him up as easily as the
wind blows a feather. His body sailed high. Then he plummeted into the base of a pair of rocks that looked like giant’s teeth.

His body slammed against pitted black stone. Air rushed out of his lungs. He lost his grip on the spar as he was sucked back out to sea by the return wave. Half conscious, he flailed his arms and legs only to be lifted once again and thrown. He saw black teeth and white foam, then cried out as his body was rammed between the two rocks. As he hit, his head smacked into stone. He felt the exploding pain just before blackness overwhelmed him.

The morning after the storm, Pen stood in the outer bailey listening to Dibbler and Sniggs. Her agitation had faded somewhat with the waning of the storm, and yet she still had vague expectations of calamity. Her gift seldom misled her, so she hadn’t yet let down her guard.

Behind her she could hear the noise and catch the smells from the piggery, which backed against the south wall between two towers. Dibbler began shouting at Sniggs as the castle’s herd of pigs trotted outside. Pen waved at the swineherd, a girl by the name of Wheedle, then winced as Dibbler cuffed Sniggs on his ear.

When the two were like this, she wished she’d heeded Nany’s warnings about taking in homeless creatures. But there were so many who, like Sniggs, had been cast off their land by greedy noblemen, or, like Dibbler, possessed odd yet well-meaning natures that forced them into difficulties.

Dibbler and Sniggs were still scuffling.

“Stop it at once,” Pen said.

Dibbler gave her a glance of pretended remorse and dug his toe into the mud. “Your pardon, mistress, but fell asleep at his post, did Sniggs. What if Sir Ponder had decided to attack last night?”

Sniggs reddened and burst into speech. “It were a fairy, mistress. A wee fairy with gold wings and silver hair cast fairy dust in me eyes and put me to sleep. I didn’t even hear no thunderclaps nor nothing.”

“Fairy dust,” Pen said.

“Aye, mistress.”

Pen’s gaze traveled over Sniggs, from his grease-caked hair, patchwork jerkin and hose, to his worn and cracked boots. Sniggs rubbed his nose, which was pitted and shrouded in a network of tiny red veins. She caught a whiff of ale and cheesy breath, and stepped back.

Dibbler was making disgusted noises. Dibbler rivaled Sniggs in his tattered appearance. His doublet had once been of green and red velvet, but wear had made its nap all but vanish. The buttons that worked diligently to fasten the garment over Dibbler’s paunch were tarnished. He had a ring of graying hair around his bald spot.

In order to keep his head warm, he wore a flat cap shaped like a kidney. Dibbler had an assortment of once-grand caps of which he was proud and which he guarded with his life against thievery. At the moment, he put one sausage-thick finger against his nose and addressed Pen.

“It weren’t no fairy that put him to snoring,” Dibbler said.

“No?” asked Pen, her already tried patience beginning to fail.

“Nah, mistress. Everyone knows that fairies don’t come out in no storm. They hides under toadstools and leaves and such.”

Sniggs sputtered. “Well, this one hid in my tower last night.”

“It did not!”

Pen waved her hands and wavered between a sigh of exasperation and a smile. “Please, both of you. I like not this quarreling. No harm was done.”

“But, mistress—”

“Dibbler, I thank you for your diligence, and now I must catch up with Wheedle. One of her sows took ill last night.”

Pen left the two men to finish their quarrel without her and walked across the wet ground, avoiding puddles and lakes of mud. She passed the beehives and the dovecote, rounded the corner of the deserted woodshed, and entered the gatehouse. She passed beneath the rusting portcullis, through iron-studded double doors, and over the drawbridge. The moat was littered with dead leaves from the castle orchard and moss blown by the storm.

Free from the confines of Highcliffe, Pen emerged onto the stone outcrop upon which the castle had been built and hurried down the slanting path that led to the fields. To her right, nestling close to the castle, lay Highcliffe village.

Once again she fell to worrying about the future of her people. Regardless of her care, they remained vulnerable to disaster. This year’s crops had fared well, but one late freeze, one plague, and they would all go hungry. Mayhap she should reconsider the marriage offer of her disagreeable neighbor, Sir Ponder Cutwell.

Pen gazed out at the countryside, torn between duty and her own inclinations. A patchwork of soggy mud stretched before her, and Pen thanked God once again that the harvest had been gathered and most of the
grain threshed before the rain came. She was pleased, for her warning had come in time to shelter both animals and wheat. Highcliffe could ill afford their loss.

Nany Boggs wasn’t pleased, though. Not since the recurrence of the gift. However, Nany would have to endure. Pen had arranged her life on Penance so that it was almost perfect, except for that annoyance, Ponder Cutwell. And if her gift warned her of a threat to that perfection, so be it. Of course, Nany resented their lack of servants, the shut-up and boarded towers, the plain food, the isolation of Penance Isle. Pen loved it for these very reasons. Here she was safe, safe from blood and terror and the contentious men who brought them.

Reaching the base of the Highcliffe Mount, Pen saw that Wheedle had already reached the edge of the forest that lay between Highcliffe and the realm of Sir Ponder Cutwell. She took in a deep breath of rain-washed air. She could ask about the sick pig when the girl returned.

In the glare of the newborn sun, yesterday’s apprehension and prickling expectation faded even more, until they seemed but a whimsy. Her spirits lifted as she beheld the masses of gold and copper of the turning leaves of the forest. The sea breeze whipped at her cloak and skirts and danced in her hair. Another ordinary day in which she must needs see to the salting of meat, the making of preserves, the storing of grain and wood, all in preparation for winter. But first, a walk in the open air.

Pen skirted fields and gardens and took the path that bordered the cliffs. She would walk to the caves and back before resuming the day’s chores. As she went, Pen glanced down at the surf breaking on the rocks.

Gulls and terns cawed and screeched as they sailed over the waves. She paused while three dolphins skimmed by, then took the path around a rock outcrop. As she walked she gathered stones. When she had a handful, she stopped and began tossing them over the cliff. She was determined to throw one out beyond the farthest rocks in the sea.

Three stones hit the fan of boulders that marked an old cliff slide. Pen grimaced and walked farther down the path, where the sea had carved more land from the island. She clamped a hand around a stone, drew back her arm, and it stayed there. Something white had flapped in the air. She narrowed her eyes against the sun’s glare and peered down at two tall rocks that jutted out of the roiling surf like giants’ teeth. It wasn’t foam, this white. Was it a sail?

Pen turned abruptly and went back to the rock outcrop. Climbing it, she looked down on the jagged black obelisks swimming in surf. A shirt. And someone was in it. A torn shirt covered the torso of a man. Now she could see him. His body was wedged between the two rocks, lodged just above the water. His arm hung loosely, his fingers dangling in the waves at the base of the rock.