Copyright © 2011 Dianne Greenlay
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1460951921
ISBN-13: 9781460951927
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61915-669-2
To my children,
because you are loved.
Ooh-ah.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Acknowledgments
No book is the result solely of an author’s efforts and therefore I wish to offer my gratitude to the many people who assisted me upon this journey:
To the wonderful Shaunavon Library staff who fulfilled my numerous requests for reference materials, without which this book would not have been written;
To my many teachers over the years, whose lofty standards ensured that I became fluent in at least my mother tongue;
To Diana Gabaldon, historical author extraordinaire, for her encouragement and excellent advice to me during a blue pencil session at the Surrey International Writer’s Conference;
To the very knowledgeable and engaging staffs of the many marine exhibitions and nautical museums of Nova Scotia, Canada. The information that they had at their fingertips was amazing, immeasurable, and full of unexpected bits of historical entertainment;
To the crew of the tall ship Silva, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for allowing me to hoist sail aboard their ship, or should I say, attempt to hoist sail–it was the hardest physical thing that I’ve ever done;
To my husband, Mike, who tirelessly edited page after page of manuscript, and whose input kept me grounded when I tended to float with my head in the clouds;
To Kim Laidlaw, a good friend who gave me something to prove;
To Hazel Lavoy, whose attention to detail, meticulous eye, and critiquing abilities were phenomenal;
To Norman Lavoy, Shirley Nordlund, and Cathy Smith, for getting caught up in the story and never flagging in their enthusiasm for it;
To Catherine Millard and Deb Widmer, who were there for me from the beginning, sharing their belief in the value of this story at crucial times when my own faltered;
And to my children, Michael, Tobishan, Sheridan, Byron, Clayton, and Brianne, whose teenage escapades provided plenty of fuel to fire up my already overactive imagination, and who taught me that there’s always somethin’ what comes from somethin’ ….
I would also like to note that all errors contained within are my own and, although I spent a good deal of time researching particulars, the characters and events are products of my imagination and are entirely fictional (except, of course, for those that are entirely true). Enjoy.
Prologue
He would have retched, had his mouth not already been open in a strangled scream. He hoped the thickness of the stone walls would prevent the others from hearing him. It would not do for a man of his ranking to be caught in such a compromising position. Performing such a compromising act. It was revolting to him yet had to be done.
Sitting erect on a chair in front of the fireplace’s bed of embers, he swiped at a bead of sweat that ran down his cheek and into his carefully groomed beard. His legs, powerfully built from past years of required training, nonetheless shook uncontrollably. Exhaling a long steadying breath, he began. It was time.
The tip of the iron rod glowed crimson and sizzled as it seared into his flesh, melting skin then muscle. He pressed it deeper into his own upper chest. Hot tendrils of smoke curled up into his nostrils.
The brand would make the difference. He was certain of that.
He was alone in the bed chamber and had secured its great wooden door shut against any intrusion. This was not a procedure for the uninitiated to witness. He had had to do it on his own. He had considered taking a stiff drink beforehand to help numb the anticipated pain but had wisely decided against it. There could be no room for error.
It had to be perfect in its placement.
Perfect in its outline.
Was it any wonder he’d had no results with the ring before this? The bejeweled circle sat just above the middle knuckle on his little finger and could be pushed down no further. It was too small for him to wear it properly.
And he’d not been born with the mark.
Without one, it was said, the power of the ring’s verdurous emerald stones would be minimal. Ineffectual. Obtainable, to be sure, but not without months, maybe years of practice. But now ….
He could hardly wait for his burnt flesh to heal.
Deeper in the bowels of London, tucked down a narrow cobbled alleyway, the sharp bouquet of smoldering herbs permeated a shuttered room. Its lone occupant sat at a table, inhaling the vapors as they rose from her infusion dish. As she peered at the flame of the lone candle burning in a holder beside her clay dish, its tip flickered and danced, probing the darkness of the room.
She owned only one item of any value–its real worth was known to only a few–and she manipulated it with her fingers, breathing slowly and deeply, willing the visions to visit. There were many things that she wanted to know. Things that had been asked of her by others. Things she needed to know for herself. The visions would come–they always did. The visions would tell her.
Something pushed into the edge of her thoughts. An intrusion.
An unbidden presence challenged. She tilted her head. No, not challenging. Seeking. A faint pulsing energy … growing stronger. She caught her breath and began to tremble. A Spinner? Why now? Had the time truly come to prepare a successor?
The suddenness of the first vision’s arrival made her gasp. This time there were horrific flashes–terrifying and grotesque clips of violence and pain–and she whimpered as they slammed through her mind. It was not the first time that the visions had touched her with fear but now they announced that the inevitable would soon be forced upon her.
William would never forget the last day of his life as he knew it.
He was being attacked for the first time that morning. The rough grip clutching him dug into his shoulder and shook him hard. His heart bolted into a sudden pounding frenzy.
“William! Wake now!” The voice was shrill and pierced his sleep. His eyes shot open and focused on the face hovering above him.
His mother. Even in the dim pre-dawn light, he could see a deep furrow of worry lacing her eyebrows together. Her lips were pressed into a narrow frown and he couldn’t quite read the emotion fueling her painful grasp on him.
Worry or anger? It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good.
“C’mon lad! Up with you. Your father and brother didna’ return from the pub last evening–still drunk as mice in the dregs of a brandy barrel, I ‘spect–but that’s no relief to Millie, will it be, with her bag near ready to burst, nor to those of us needin’ kindling to have kept the flame tucked overnight. Sometimes I curse the day John Robert discovered his dammed drink!”
His confusion at being woken well before sun up was quickly replaced with alarm. Not home? Neither one? William wearily struggled to sit up on his straw-filled mat. A tangled lock of sandy colored hair swung down into his face and he tucked it behind his ear. He recognized his mother’s angry use of his father’s proper names.
“Bring us wood and dung as fast as you can, lad, and I’ll set to save what embers I can. Your sister will start the milkin’. Quickly! Off with you now!”
He could hear the strain in her voice. His Da’ not home? Nor Johnny? His mother’s worry was well placed then. His father would never have left the evening milking undone. At the very least his older brother, John, would have been sent back to help do the chores. And no wood for the overnight or morning fire!
He quickly slid both feet into the boots lying on the floor beside him. The worn leather had molded to his feet like a second layer of calloused skin. Throwing his woolen tunic on overtop of his night shirt and trousers, he quickly lashed it around his waist, and called out.
“Lucas! C’mon boy, let’s have a look.” From a woven floor pad, the grizzled hound lifted his head in response to his name, but the relative warmth of the house called more strongly to his arthritic joints than his master’s voice, and he merely yawned and laid his head back down upon his front paws. “Fine then, you old fart! Stay here while I go looking.” Lucas simply closed his eyes and exhaled a contented sigh. William didn’t blame him. The dog was nearly as old as William was now and the past winter’s ache had settled and stayed in his bones. Being allowed to stay inside was a special treat. Giving his dog a fond scratch between the animal’s ears, William pulled the tunic’s hood up over his own head, and stepped through the hut’s doorway into the chill of the damp air.
An urgent lowing greeted him as he strode the few steps it took to reach the livestock shed’s doorway. Running footsteps from behind told him that Abbey was already on her way to milk the cow. For a heartbeat William felt a pang of guilt for his little sister. The cow’s bag would be swollen hard and the animal would be more miserable and uncooperative than usual. Millie was calmer with a female’s handling of her teats at the best of times, it seemed to him. Probably comes from having the same kind of equipment, and knowing how to handle ’em without harm.
William trotted silently further down the rutted path, its surface having been torn into parallel troughs by years of foot traffic and cart wheels. Anything useful as kindling had long since been picked clean near the buildings. His keen eyes gradually adjusted to the dim pre-dawn light. He preferred to find branches and twigs to burn, rather than to have to return with an armful of dung from the cowshed. Although the manure burned slowly and gave off decent warmth, its smoke was thick and noxious.
He was closer to the village than to his home by the time he came across anything worth picking up. Skirting around the edges of the underbrush that lined both sides of the path, he gathered a small armful of dried twigs. They would burn up in no time, he knew. He continued to scour the bushes deeper into the underbrush in hopes of discovering a few decently sized branches.
Just a bit more and I’ll have enough to make the porridge fire, anyway.
He realized it was the wrong time of year to be finding much dead wood. Everything was leafed out and no limbs on the trees or bushes were dry enough to have been shaken down by wind passing through the thickets and forest.
Scrambling out of the underbrush he clutched the twigs and a few skinny branches to his chest. Reaching the road once more, he stumbled in one of the ruts and pitched forward onto his knees, dropping his kindling. An intense bolt of pain shot through his leg as his kneecap cracked against an exposed cobble rock. William ground his teeth together in quiet agony.
Goddamn these ruts! Where in the hell are Johnny and Da’ anyway?
Still on his hands and knees, he lifted his head and glanced down the road. Something off to the side glowed eerily white, lying in an area of dark trampled grasses. He squinted in the semi–light and cursed the rut again for being the cause of his knee pain. Damned stupid stumble–
William strained his eyes on the strange discoloration ahead, his knee pain immediately forgotten.
What the hell is that?
A branch! A large friggin’ branch!
He struggled to his feet and fixing his gaze on it, lurched towards it. Living at the edge of the forest as his family did, William knew the different woods on sight, and he also knew their properties–which smelled sweetest when burning, which was strongest for fences, and which wood was flexible enough for bows. Even so, in this dim predawn gray, he could not place from which kind of tree it was. The shape was unlike anything that he was familiar with. He kept his eye on the precious branch as he hurried onward. Upon reaching it, he bent down and froze in mid-reach.
Not a branch.
Wood, yes to be sure, but it was the splintered remains of a broken club, its shattered end darkly stained. William’s nostrils flared as the faint metallic scent wafted up from the dark patch of grass.
‘Heme’ they had called it in the slaughter shed. “It’s the heme ‘o the blood what gives the smell,” his father had once told the boys. Johnny had declared that he smelled only the pigs’ shit, but William had been blessed with a sense of smell more keen than most, and to him the warm blood smelled vaguely like the hot metal in the blacksmith’s shop.
“You’re part wolf, I swear,” his father had declared. “Ya’ see and smell things the rest of us can’t. Whatever use that will come to though, I can’t declare.”
William held the broken club to his nose and sniffed. It was the heme alright. Alarmed, he threw it down and it landed with a soft wet thud onto a saturated piece of cloth lying in the crushed grass. William bent closer and peered at the spot. His stomach lurched.
Da’s cap!
Wet with the heavy morning dew. Wet with blood. It laid in the grasses as though already part of the earth.
Oh Jesus! It can’t be! His heart hammered in his chest as cold panic washed over him. Oh God! Wha–what happened? His father was a large man. Determined. Stronger than most. What could possibly have gotten the best of him?
William dropped onto his hands and knees, oblivious to the shrieking pain in his knee. His stomach was heaving. The burn of the bile in his empty stomach filled his mouth and his shoulders hunched high under his ears as he heaved, choking and spi
tting.
Then suddenly, horribly, his eyes came to rest on a calloused pale hand protruding from the tangled roots of the hawthorn bush beside him, the broken wrist bent at an odd angle, the entire arm awash with blood.
Oh Christ Almighty!
William strangled a cry in his throat and his stomach heaved anew. The dry heaves tore at his insides and he gasped for breath. The curl of the fingers, the shape of the broad thumb, so much like his own–
Dear God! Let him be alive!
Jerking his head up from the sight of his grisly find, William scanned the area around him. His breath came in ragged gasps. Am I alone? Oh God! Lucas! I need you here, boy! Who did this? A club? It wasn’t an animal! Bandits? Are the attackers still around?
Self-preservation instincts took over. Seeing no one and hearing only his own blood roar in a frantic whoosh in his ears, William reached out for the protruding fingers.
“Da’?” he whispered in the semi-darkness. Clasping the cold finger, he shook it as though to wake its owner. The hand was already stiffening in death.
“Da’!” William’s silent scream was punctuated by the whoosh in his head. His breath came in burning gulps as he reached out and parted the bushes. His eyes travelled from the hand, up the bloodied forearm, to the body, then upward to the face. His vision blurred with hot tears. Oh Da’ –
The words died in his throat. The sightless blue eyes were not his father’s.
The roaring inside his head increased to a high pitched squeal. He felt his thoughts spinning, spinning, as he sank mercifully into blackness. The void sucked him down into nothingness, away from the terror of his discovery.
His head dropped with a soft thump onto the cold chest of his brother’s stiffening corpse.
William never felt the rough hands that pulled him from the bush, nor felt the coils of rope splitting his skin as the strands were tightened, cutting into his wrists and ankles, binding them together.
To the girl on the stool, the scream was at once both ear-shattering and guttural. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end and her heart pounded furiously against her chest wall. The woman on the low bed beside her moaned and writhed in agony, gripped in a contraction beyond her control.
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