Dark Tides

by Philippa Gregory

  The extra thatch on his house was all that stood between him and yawning arc of the icy sky. Ned, who had been exposed to the elements all his life, and had never feared an English winter, thought that this was a season that took a man to the edge of fear.

  He was so dreading the solitary nights of winter that he was delighted to see Wussausmon’s dugout nose to the pier, and the man clamber out and come up the steps to the bank.

  “Lord! It’s good to see you!” he said. “I am sick of my own company already, and it’s only November.”

  Wussausmon showed his slow smile. “Why not go into the town for the winter? Would they not give you a bed at the minister’s house?”

  Ned shrugged. “I can’t leave the beasts,” he said. “And Mr. Russell’s house is crowded as it is. I’ll get used to it as the winter closes in—I’m just getting used to it now. Are you staying the night?”

  The man shook his head. “I’m going downriver. I was at Norwottuck this morning and Quiet Squirrel sent these for you. She says you can have them for a cheese.” He held out a bundle that looked like an armful of half-woven basketware.

  “Come in out of the cold anyway,” Ned said. “What are you doing at Norwottuck in this season? I’d have thought you’d be beside your fire at home in Natick?” He led the way indoors and pulled off his thick woolen jacket.

  “Visiting,” Wussausmon said nonchalantly.

  “Pokanoket business?” Ned asked acutely.

  “Colony business, actually,” Wussausmon said. “The governor and Council at Plymouth asked me to take messages to all the tribes that are not allied to the Pokanoket.”

  “Are there any?” Ned demanded. “Surely, those who aren’t kin have sworn friendship?”

  “Hardly any. I told them that. But the Council is determined to turn his own friends and kinsmen against the Massasoit.”

  Ned hesitated, wanting to ask more.

  “See what she’s sent you!” Wussausmon urged.

  Ned sat on a stool as Wussausmon lowered himself in an easy crouch. Ned disentangled his gift. At first he thought it was a fish trap; he saw bended whips of supple sticks tied together with strings of hide, and woven with split withies. They looked like two great flat baskets. He looked at Wussausmon for an explanation.

  “Snowshoes!” the man told him. “Quiet Squirrel made them for you, thinking that you would be able to walk into the woods when the snow comes. Have you got some already?”

  “No!” Ned exclaimed. “I don’t know anyone who has them. I’ve only seen a French trapper wear them. I’ve always dug out my path and struggled along. Isn’t it hard to learn to walk on them?”

  “It’s just walking,” Wussausmon smiled. “Coatmen can walk? Just keep your tips up.”

  “How do I fit them?” Ned asked.

  “That’s the other part of her gift to you,” Wussausmon told him. “You’ll have to give up your shoes, you’ll have to wear moccasins like the People of the Dawnlands.”

  “She’s always hated my shoes,” Ned complained. “And my feet will freeze!”

  “No, they won’t. These are winter moccasins, they’re made from moose fur; your feet will be warm. Far better than in your boots, and she’s given you buckskin leggings to tuck into them.”

  Ned looked at the beautifully stitched moccasins, more like the bootees that an English child might wear in the cradle than shoes for a man, but he could see they were thickly lined with fur and were made with double skins, real native boots.

  “Try them!” Wussausmon suggested.

  Ned heeled off his heavy shoes and his cold damp hose and slid a bare foot into the fur-lined moccasin; the comfort and the warmth was instantaneous. Wussausmon laughed aloud at Ned’s face.

  “Shall I tell her you’ll give her a cheese for them?”

  “They’re worth two!” Ned swore. “And tell her she is a good friend to think of me in these cold days.”

  NOVEMBER 1670, LONDON

  Alys and Livia waved at the passing masts of Captain Shore’s galleon as it went downriver at midday, under a darkening sky.

  “Godspeed,” Livia called after it. “God bless.”

  “I hope it’s not going to be stormy,” Alys said.

  “God grant them good weather,” Livia agreed. “Especially coming back with my goods.”

  “Amen,” Alys said as the two women went into the warehouse front door and closed it behind them. “But before it returns we have to earn some money! I can’t pay for the return voyage and the delivery. I’ve got next to nothing in the chest, after paying Captain Shore. I’m having to ask some creditors to wait.”

  The younger woman slipped her arm around Alys’s waist and rested her smooth cheek and scented ringlet curls against Alys’s shoulder. “Make them wait,” she recommended. “Unless you want me to borrow from Sir James?”

  “No! No, of course not. We don’t need anything from him. We can stretch it. Tabs can wait for her wages. If the worst comes to the worst I can borrow at Paton’s against the next cargo.”

  “Of course Tab can wait,” Livia agreed. “You feed and house her, after all! And could you borrow enough to take another bigger warehouse? Would it not make sense to get a bigger warehouse so that I don’t have to sell at Sir James’s house? So I never have to go to his house again?”

  At once Alys looked anxious. “I’d rather you didn’t go—but we couldn’t raise such a sum, it would be far too much.”

  “If we sold this warehouse?”

  “We can’t sell here!”

  “But my dear, how are we going to make more money unless we take our opportunities? You don’t want me to be confined here forever, do you? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to buy a new warehouse, somewhere more fashionable, somewhere that we could show the antiquities, and you could run the warehouse and I could sell the treasures in a gallery?” Livia took Alys by the waist and swayed with her as if they were dancing together. “It would be a real partnership, it would be our own business.”

  “I… I… don’t think, I couldn’t…” Alys floundered, torn between the beguiling picture of a thriving warehouse and a business that Livia could run alongside her, a partnership of work and love. “It sounds wonderful… but I couldn’t raise such a sum. I couldn’t risk our home… and Johnnie would never agree.”

  Livia’s pretty laugh tinkled out. “Ah, Johnnie! We might as well ask Matteo for his permission. My love, we will not let our children rule us! We will think what we can do. Us together. And see! We have just seen our ship go out, we are going to see it come in. You don’t know, you have no idea, what profit I am going to make. You don’t know, you have no idea, what plans I have for us. Especially, you have no idea how happy we are going to be.”

  * * *

  Sarah’s bumboat hailed Captain Shore’s galleon as it rolled at anchor, waiting for the tide. Passengers often joined ships at Greenwich, merchants often sent out a final load. Captain Shore himself helped her scramble aboard over the ship’s rail.

  “Whoa—a little lass?”

  “I’m the maid at the Reekie warehouse,” she said. “The Nobildonna has sent me to choose her goods in Venice and get them packed.”

  “I’ve already got the order from Mrs. Stoney,” he protested.

  “I’m to see they fulfill it,” she said easily. “And then come home with them.”

  “Why?” he asked simply. “Why not let me fetch them like last time?”

  Sarah shrugged. “You know what she’s like,” she said, confident that he did not. “She wants me to pick them out. I can’t refuse. She just ordered me to come, and so here I am.”

  “She said nothing to me about sending a maid to do my work. I thought she trusted me, I’ve worked for her often enough!”

  Sarah smiled at him. “Oh no no! Not Mrs. Stoney! She’s fair enough—it’s the other one. The Italian one. It’s her that sent me.”

  “Ah,” he said dourly. “Her.” He showed Sarah into a small cabin and stowed her hatbox under the bunk. “We
only stop at Lisbon,” he warned her.

  “That’s fine,” Sarah replied. “I didn’t even want to come. I’m here to fetch her goods, and to meet my husband.”

  “What’s he doing in Venice?” he asked, immediately suspicious.

  “He’s sick,” Sarah improvised.

  “How sick? For if they have sent him to the lazaretto we’ll not even see him, you’ll not be allowed to meet till the end of his quarantine, if he survives at all.”

  “No, nothing like that! It’s a broken leg,” she said glibly. “Nothing infectious. He’s a trader… a trader in silks. I’m to choose her goods and bring him home.”

  He looked at her, his blue eyes acute under his sandy eyebrows. “I hope you’re telling me the truth, young lady?”

  “Oh yes,” she lied cheerfully. “I am.”

  NOVEMBER 1670, LONDON

  The next morning Alinor told Alys that Sarah had sent a message from the millinery shop to say that she had gone to the country for a visit and would be back within the week. The three women were sewing herb bags in Alinor’s high room. Below the turret, the tide flowed in, a surge of rubbish on the incoming waves, creamy with foam from the tanneries and dye shops that had drained out to sea and were now washing in again. Seagulls cried and dived into the mess. Alinor watched for cormorants breasting the water and soaring gulls in the sky and spoke absentmindedly: “It was Ruth from the milliner’s shop. Getting married from her village and she wanted Sarah to cook her wedding breakfast.”

  “And that takes a week?”

  “Oh, my dear, she’s worked without a holiday for seven years! She’s served her time, let her take a holiday.”

  “Alys, don’t be a hard mamma!” Livia interpolated, resting her work in her lap. “Let our pretty girl stretch her wings. She’ll be clipped and cribbed soon enough.”

  In silence, Alinor observed Livia advising Alys on how to treat her own daughter.

  “I’ve never even heard of this Ruth before,” Alys complained.

  “You think she has run off with a lover?” Livia challenged, laughing at her. “No, you don’t! So, let her go. She’ll be back in a few days, won’t she?”

  Alinor smiled. “I’m sure you know best,” she said with a little edge in her voice. “And are you going to the Strand today, my dear?”

  Livia preened. “For my exhibition tea,” she said smugly. “To meet the buyers. And one sale agreed: I have sold my Caesar heads!”

  “How much?” Alys asked eagerly. “Are they as valuable as you thought?”

  “A hundred pounds,” Livia said, halving the sum without hesitation.

  “One hundred?” Alys repeated disbelievingly. “One hundred pounds?”

  “I told you!” the younger woman triumphed. “And Sir James is taking nothing from me for using his house!”

  Alys glanced at her mother at the mention of his name. Alinor was impassive, her eyes on the bright face of her daughter-in-law.

  “You’ll bring the money home tonight?” Alys pressed her. “You know how badly we need it in the warehouse.”

  “It’s not for running the warehouse,” Livia ruled. “It’s for buying us a beautiful new home.”

  “We are buying a new home?” Alinor asked.

  Alys glanced from her to Livia. “It’s a plan of Livia’s,” she explained shortly. “And of course it would be wonderful to move to another house, out towards the country, with a garden. But, my dear, you owe for the warehousing, and for two voyages, and we cannot carry such a great debt.”

  Alinor watched the two young women as Livia spread her hands before her friend, like a magician, a trickster on a street corner, showing that he has nothing up his sleeves. “Don’t nag me for money. For see? Nothing yet. But tonight, I will bring home a fortune.”

  Alys smiled, soothed at once.

  “And we won’t buy another poky little house far out of town,” Livia declared. “You know what I have in mind.”

  “Does she?” Alinor remarked.

  NOVEMBER 1670, HADLEY, NEW ENGLAND

  Ned woke in the morning with bluish light filtering through his frosted window, and a memory from the night of the whisper of snow. He opened his door a crack and found a deep drift blown against the threshold, almost knee-high. It had been snowing all night again. Ned would have to dig himself out of his door. When the weather was bad, a howling wind and blizzard of snow, he tied a rope around his waist to the ring latch of his front door, and paid it out as he went to feed the cow and the sheep, huddled for warmth in their shared stall. He took an armful of logs on every return journey and followed his line back to his front door. Without the rope he would not have been able to find his way across his own yard, the battering of the snow was so blinding, the scream of the wind so deafening. Some days, in the middle of a storm, although he was standing no more than a few feet away, he could not see his own house. The world was a whirl of icy blindness; when he looked downward the snow was so thick around his knees that he could not see his own feet in the new moccasins.

  But this day was so calm, and the sky so clear, that Ned had decided to try his new snowshoes and even go into town and sell some of his winter stores. He sat on his stool and tied his new moccasins and then worked his feet into the straps of the snowshoes. Feeling like a fool, he tramped clumsily to his door pulling on his heavy wool coat and his oiled cape on top. He had made his own fur hat out of rabbit skins and he pulled it down over his ears. He had no idea how he would manage with the basketwork boots like great hooves on his feet, and his first challenge was to step up from his threshold to the drift that had blown against his door. The snow was softest here and he sank and stumbled and fell headlong, and picked himself up again. He was panting and sweating with the effort, but once he had climbed onto the denser snow he found he could stand without sinking, and by adopting a slow laborious waddle, he found he could get along. When he looked back he saw that, though he was walking in snow that was feet deep, he was leaving a track of only a few inches.

  It was exhilarating to walk on the top of snowdrifts instead of having to dig a path through them. It was still hard work, Ned was sweating and panting with the effort; but he could see that he could get to the town gate and even down the broad common road which was a snowfield of driven white. It was a beautiful day for his adventure with his new snowshoes, the sky a duck-egg blue, the shadows as dark blue as indigo on the dazzling snow. Ned lurched his way, a basket in each hand, to the north gate, half-buried in the drifts.

  He swung his baskets over, and then climbed over himself. On the town side of the gate on more even ground, he found that the thick snow was smoother under his snowshoes, and he could stride forward, a little bowlegged, a little awkward, but definitely making progress.

  As he went along he saw other houses of the town were snowed in. Most people had dug a narrow path from their doors to their byres or stables, most had cleared a narrow path to the common road, and Ned stood high on the snowdrifts as they came out, muffled up in furs, to buy anything they needed. Ned sold dried goods, berries, mushrooms, and some dried game meat, and corn kernels from his winter store.

  People remarked on his strange snowshoes: some had never seen such a thing before. Ned explained that Quiet Squirrel had made them and traded them with him and that if anyone wanted a pair, he was sure that other trades could be made. But the men said that they would rather dig themselves paths to their stores and stables than stagger around like drunk Indians, and Ned would get frostbite and lose his feet, and the women said they could not wear them under skirts anyway.

  John Russell was holding a prayer meeting, half a dozen people in his study and hall as he led them in prayer for guidance, for them as pilgrims in the cold land. Ned shed his snowshoes and his oiled cape, fur coat, and hat and bowed his head with the others. When the service was over the men and women exchanged news before opening the front door to the icy outer world. One of Ned’s regular customers saw him and came forward.

  “D’you have any
fresh fish, Ned Ferryman?”

  Ned ducked his head in apology. “It’s been too cold to take from the weirs,” he said. “Later in the season, perhaps I’ll learn to fish through the ice.”

  “Would you dare?” she asked.

  Ned swallowed, hiding his apprehension. “It’s safe enough, I know.”

  She nodded and went away, and Ned looked around for Mrs. Rose, the minister’s housekeeper. She came to his side. “I’ll take some dried venison, Mr. Ferryman,” she said. “And what are these?”

  “Dried cranberries, and these are blueberries. I picked them myself. They’re very good.”

  “I use them in pies,” she said. “I’ll have a quarter.”

  “I’ll bring them through to the kitchen,” he offered.

  She inclined her head. “Will you take a seethed ale against this cold weather?”

  “I should be glad of it.”

  She led the way to the kitchen at the back of the house.

  “The nights are very long for our guests,” she said quietly, speaking of the hidden men. “Too cold to go out, they stay upstairs and read. They barely see the sun.”

  “I’ll visit them before I leave,” Ned said. “They must feel imprisoned.”

  “If I were them, I’d go back to the old country and take my chance,” she said.

  “They’d be executed on the quay as soon as their ship arrived,” he told her quietly. “There’s no safe return for those that sentenced the old king to death. It’s death for them there. Remember, they captured John Barkstead, John Okey, and Miles Corbet and executed them—hanged, drawn, and quartered them. And they were not even in England—the new King Charles had them traced and trapped in Holland, and dragged back to England to their deaths.”

  “Could just as well be death for them here,” she pointed out. “No surety we all get through the winter—what with the savages and the weather and hunger? No doctor if you have an accident, no apothecary if you get sick. No surety at all.”