to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) (12 page)

Where now was Abigail? Where was our ship? How far at sea? Whose hand was at the helm? Who lined up the fo'm'st on a distant star?

We rode across the moors, past quiet farms and between stone walls that guarded fields to right and left. We rode at last to Trearddur Bay, and to a small house there of sticks and plaster, a cozy and warm cot, under low trees with vines all about and some flowers, and it had a view over the bay, and of the mountain that towered to the north.

At the door we drew up. Lila called out, and the low door was opened by a tall man, a very tall man, for when he straightened up from the door he was taller than Lila, a man with a red beard and shoulders rolling with muscle under a flimsy shirt.

"Ha!" He looked at Lila. "You've come home, have you? And who is the man?"

"His future belongs to my mistress. We seek a boat, Owain."

"A boat? To where would you sail, sister?"

"To Ireland to find a ship for America."

"America, is it? You'd go there?"

"It is my destiny."

"Well, look for cousins there. We had those who sailed with Madoc, long, long ago. And others who went looking for them later. And once I talked to a Dane who had gone there in an Irish ship. He was an old man, very old, yet he spoke of wonderful things, palm trees like those in Africa, and great stone buildings, and people who wear feathers. You go to a wild land, but it is at a good time you come, for a ship lately here lies now off Ireland, if you can catch her. She is small, but seaworthy. Her captain is from Iceland. But how to get there? I do not know how it will be done."

"Is it far?"

He shrugged a heavy shoulder. "If you wish to know, you must ask the wind." He looked closely at me. "Is it because of the girl that you hurry? Or are there those behind you?"

I smiled at him. "A little of both. The girl, of course, for I love her very much, and would be with her. As for those behind me, if I am caught it goes hard with me and I do not think I will let them take me. The sea is too close, and my sword too sharp. There would be a fight, I think."

He chuckled, deep in his heavy chest. "There speaks a man. Go within." He gestured. "Your mam will see you, Lila. Feed him. He will need his strength where he goes now, and if he sails with the Icelander, he will need it well. Go.

I shall find a boat, and if there be strangers coming, I'll give a call in time.

"Eat ... rest ... talk to Mam and let her listen to your voice so in the years to come she will have it to remember."

We ducked our heads under the low door, but not so much as he had ducked when he came out.

Inside it was cool and still. There were pots and kettles about, and a good smell of cooking, and a woman there, tall and thin with gray hair and a face unlined by the years, her eyes as old as the stones outside, but not cold.

"Is it you, Lila? It has been long, girl."

"I am passing."

"I heard you speak. So you come and go. Well, it is a far land to which you go, and so has it always been with us. So many have gone, so few have come back. It is the sea that takes them, or the farther shores. I do not know."

She moved easily, putting food on the table. "There's a slab of mutton from the moors beside the sea. The sheep eat salt grass and theirs is the best flesh of all. Eat, boy, and do not stand on time. The food will stay with you and the memory of it where you go. My mam said always to take a cargo of memories, whatever else, for when all is lost the memories remain."

She looked at Lila. "Your mistress is a good woman, girl?"

"She is that. And this one a good man, although I doubted him at first. I did not think any man good enough. Nor do I fear to sail with him. Only the Icelander must be wary or this one will own the boat."

"You have the gift, girl. What do you see?"

She looked up. "I will not speak of that, Mam."

"Come! Is it so bad, then?"

"No." She hesitated, smoothing her strong white hands on her skirt. "Only dark times lie before and about us, dark, dark times. I will marry there, Mam, and die there, too, with a son to leave behind."

"And this one?"

"Four sons, Mam, that live. Some others will die, and she will die in England, and he ... alone ... he will die alone with a weapon in his hand, and there will be fire around and howling madness with the flames. It is not a good thing of which to talk."

Somberly I looked at her. "And will I die old or young, Lila?"

"Old," she said, "Old. Your sons will be men, one of them lost afar off whom you will not see again, far, far off in a strange place. But he will live to leave his blood behind, as will the others."

"But Abigail will come again to England? She will leave me, then?"

"Not like that. I see love always. But she will leave. I do not know why, nor when ... and she will not come back. I see blood upon the shore, and some people already in America are gone ... gone ..."

I ate in silence then, brooding upon what she had said. I believed only a little, but they believed, and that worried me.

Yet, what was there in what she said to worry about? I should live to an old age, I should have four sons to leave behind, and I should have sewn my seed in a new land, under new trees.

"Old," I said. "Well, we must all grow old, and die when the hour comes. But what of the Queen? Will she relent? Will she learn I have no treasure?"

"She will not relent, nor will he who comes after. You will be sought always, for this is fixed in their minds: that you have found the royal crown, and you have kept it for yourself. When it is found that you are in America, some will come seeking you, and you will hide ... you will go far."

"To the blue mountains then?"

"To the very mountains. You will lose yourself in them, and they will give you food, shelter, all that you need. You will live in their bosom."

"Ah, well. It is what I want, after all."

For I was contented then. The mountains would be mine. I would go to them, wander among them, know them. Was not that my destiny, after all?

Footsteps, an opening door, and then the huge frame of Owain was standing there.

"Men come. Four men upon horses."

"Are they strangers?"

"Aye. Would I come if they were not?" He looked at me. "The boat makes ready.

You will go then?"

"I shall, and take your sister there. First, I must stand in the road and see what manner of men they be."

"I would stand with you. I'll get my axe."

My hand lifted. "See your sister to the boat. Did you not say there were only four?"

Sword in hand, and two pistols belted on, I walked out upon the road of gray pounded shells, and I stood there, dark against the road, watching them come.

The mountain was behind me, dark against the sky, a piece of the sea was on my right. Under my black cloak was my sword. My hand on the hilt, the sword half-drawn.

I waited for them there, and hoped they would be strong.

Chapter
10

A rough-looking man now stood in front of the cottage. He looked both at me and the men coming toward me. He called out something over his shoulder. Two other men came from the house.

Across the road near the shore, a man was mending a net. As Owain passed, going to the boat, he spoke. Then the man left his net, holding a long pole.

The riders were coming nearer. Several other people appeared and stood, watching.

The riders drew up, facing me, some thirty feet off. One of them was Robert Malmayne!

"So? We meet again!"

"There is a sadness on me," I said, cheerfully, "for we meet only to part."

"Not this time, I think. You are my prisoner, Sackett."

"You say that to me when you have only three men behind you? And what men they are! I think they have no stomach for steel, or you, either."

My sword slid easily from the scabbard, the point lifting-there was a whispering of sandalled feet upon the shell road, a whispering around me. "Go!" A voice spoke in my ear. "The wind does not wait!"

"And leave these gentlemen?" I said.

There must have been fifty people around us now, both men and women, with a few children. They were saying nothing, but crowding closer and closer. Some had spears, others had poles or sticks. Some had nothing. One at least held a scythe and there were several with wood-axes.

"Back up there!" Malmayne shouted. He waved at them.

"You are in Wales, Malmayne. They do not speak English."

"Tell them to get back."

"I don't speak Welsh, and what are they doing? You are strangers, and they are merely curious."

"By heaven, I'll teach them who is strange!"

He started for his sword but found a large hand already on the hilt. He looked down into a smiling, bearded face. Malmayne cursed, but the hand on the sword hilt would not be moved.

"Careful, Malmayne!" I warned, smiling. "These are good folk, but somewhat rough when stirred."

Now they were crowded tightly around all four horsemen, so close the horses could not move. One fellow had a hold on a rider's leg. He was smiling, just holding the leg, but the implication was clear-one heave and the rider would be sprawling in the road.

"Come!" Owain shouted. "The wind is for the sail! Come quickly!"

Backing away, I sheathed my sword, then ran lightly to the shore. Lila was with me. I caught the gunwhale of the boat and we leaped aboard. We shoved off. The wind took the sail and it bellied out.

"I shall see you die by fire!" Malmayne shouted. "I shall have a warship after you!"

With Holyhead behind us, we held a course to the southwest for Wicklow Point, far and away across the Irish Sea.

"What will they do?" I asked, gesturing behind us.

"They? Nothing. After a bit they will drift back to their work and your Malmayne can do as he feels, which will not be much on Anglesey. He'll get no boat there, nor for miles away, and by that time we shall be along the Irish coast, which none knows better than I."

We had a strong wind, a following wind, and the sea went well before us. After a bit I went below and lay down on some mats and sails and slept. When I awoke, our vessel was south of Wicklow Head and off the Horse Shoe Bank which we kept inland of us.

"When you sleep, you sleep!" Owain declared. He pointed ahead and to starboard.

" 'Tis an easy coast here, if one be watchful. Yon lies a rock ... Wolf Rock, 'tis called, and she bares her teeth when the wind blows. There are banks along the coast, no place for a ship to be caught, so a man must hold well out upon the sea. Most of the dangers lie four to six miles out, along here."

We stood together, watching the sea ahead. "Landsmen!" he said. "Such fools, they are! Why, a month ago in Dublin town I heard one talk in a tavern, a wise man, they said he was, and he was saying how ancient seafaring men were afeard to venture to sea, that they always held close along the coast for safety. I laughed at him, and he became angered."

"Did you tell him?"

"I did, but what good to tell fools? I told him the dangers of the deep ocean were one in ten to the risks along an unknown coast, or even a known one. He looked at me with pity for my ignorance, he who had never set a sail nor held a hand to the tiller. Look you! Ahead of us lie the Arklow Bank, the Glassgorman, Blackwater and Dogger, and any one a death trap-be you not knowing them. Yet the sea looks innocent enough to a landsman."

"The Icelander you spoke of. Where will he be?"

Owain considered that. "He may have moved, yet I think in Castlehaven or Glandore. He does not like busy places, that one."

Green lay the coast and gray the sea, and the wind whipped whitecaps from the wave crests and stung our faces widi blown spray. Our craft lay over on its side and cut the waves handily as if playing with the sea, like a porpoise. We saw only a few fishing boats closer in, and one square-rigged ship, afar off.

From time to time I took the tiller.

It was Glandore Bay to which we came at last, rounding Galley Head and Foilsnashark Head and keeping Adam Island well off our port beam. The Bay was small, but it penetrated well into the land and was thus well-protected from all winds.

There were two castles in view. This was, or had been, a seat of the O'Donovans.

The gray walls of Castle Donovan arose on our port side.

We dropped anchor there, close in, and the ship we looked for was there, the Icelander standing by the rail watching us as we steered into the harbor.

"Hoy, Thorvald!" Owain called. "I have two for your ship!"

"Ve sail for Newfoundland!" Thorvald called back. "Ve sail at first light!"

"It is my sister who goes, and an Englisher. We have followed you from Anglesey!"

A skiff was lowered and Lila climbed down, then I. Owain rowed us over, and we climbed aboard.

"A woman aboard my ship? I would do it only for you, Owain!"

Thorvald was broad and thick, heavy-boned and blond. He looked at me with piercing blue eyes. "You are a sailor, yes?"