Ambergate

by Patricia Elliott

  They circled Caleb. Caleb, whimpering beneath them, tried to aim his musket. Then they flew lower so that they were just above his head. Chance saw him dodge and duck, his musket wave wildly. He was too frightened to move, to go to Caleb’s rescue.

  Suddenly there was an explosion of gunfire. Chance had the impression of something heavy falling from the sky through a cloud of white smoke.

  At once the swans ceased their attack and veered off. He heard the thrum of their wings as the great birds cleaved the air laboriously.

  In the distance Caleb crouched down. He began to sob: loud, noisy sobs of relief.

  Chance came to himself at last. He trembled with shock. The swans are the guardian spirits of this place, he thought. He’ll he damned.

  Caleb stumbled back toward him, red in the face and wild-eyed, clutching his smoking musket. An acrid smell clung to him. “I shot one, didn’t I?” he said with triumphant bravado. “I shot a swan, filthy creature. I frightened them all off. I killed a Bird of Significance and survived. What does that mean, eh, Chance?”

  “Not good, I reckon,” muttered Chance, still trembling.

  Caleb seized him by the collar of his jacket. “You fool. It means I’m more powerful than they are. You saw, didn’t you? They’re only weak creatures, after all. It died, shot with one of my musket balls! Only wish I could have killed that vagrant. Those blasted birds got in my way!”

  Chance, half throttled, automatically balled his fists, but before he could throw a punch, Caleb hastily released him. Chance glowered and readjusted his collar.

  “Not a word about this back at camp, understood?” growled Caleb. “Say nothing to Mather. I’ve the power to make things very unpleasant for you, don’t forget. Could get you discharged—like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  Chance nodded resentfully. “Goin’ to leave it behind then, are you, Sir—your trophy?” he managed to say with heavy sarcasm.

  Caleb stared. “What?”

  “The bird you shot.”

  Caleb opened his mouth, thought better of answering, and brushed past Chance to the boat. Chance followed sullenly. There was no way he could search for the girl now, yet she had been so close to him—still was, no doubt. On the other hand, this place gave him the creeps. He wanted to leave smartish in case those swans came back.

  Behind them the Wasteland was silent.

  Poorgrass Kayes

  15

  Gadd took me to Poorgrass in the dory that self-same day, as soon as he had made Erland as comfortable as he could.

  He washed Erland’s wounded leg with a vinegar mixture to quell the bleeding, then dressed it with a sour-smelling poultice of yarrow. When that was done, he said we should set forth immediately, while the tide was on the ebb and in our favor. There would still be light enough to get us to Poor-grass, and to get him safely returned on the flood tide before nightfall.

  I was shocked. “Must I leave while Erland is in this state, Mr. Gadd?”

  Outwardly, Gadd seemed his calm self, but his face was grim. “You say one of the soldiers saw you?”

  I nodded miserably. At the time I had scarcely cared whether they did or not. I thought Erland dead, that the Lord Protector’s son had shot him as the swans flew about his head. It had been impossible to see what happened in that frenzy of feathers, the fog of white smoke.

  But it was a flesh wound: the musket ball had ripped past Erland’s thigh. There was so much blood, though, that I had to tear up his shirt and my petticoat to staunch and bandage his leg before I could help him limp back to the shelter. He couldn’t tell me what had happened: he was speechless with pain.

  “It be wisest to leave now,” said Gadd quietly. “The soldiers may return and search the Wasteland any time. You’ll be safest in Poorgrass, with your new employers.”

  “Shall the soldiers come here to question you, do you think?” I asked fearfully. “Shall you tell them the truth, Mr. Gadd?”

  “What truth be that?” said Gadd, shrugging. “Nay, you’ve told me neither your given name nor birthplace. And Erland be too ill to speak, so I shall do his talking. Nobody knows nothing, I shall say. All we did was take in a sick young maid and tend her till she be well again, as we would any of God’s creatures.”

  I looked at Erland lying helpless on his pallet beside the fire, as I had done myself until only recently. His eyes were closed: he slept; and how dearly I wanted him to wake, to protest that I must stay to look after him, that I was his love. In the song about the Amber Gate the maiden tends her true love, who is sick unto death, and words from the refrain kept running in lunatic fashion through my head: And shall he wake no more? And shall he wake no more?

  “You will give Erland my address, won’t you, Mr. Gadd?” I begged. “I’ll be allowed time off, I’m sure, to see him next time he comes selling in Poorgrass Kayes. Get word to me, I beg you, of how you’re both faring. You’ll remember where I am, with the Bundishes of Gull House?”

  I prayed Gadd’s memory still worked: he was an old man, I thought dismally.

  “Erland will find you, wherever you be.” Gadd moved jerkily about the shelter, sucking in his breath as he bent to pick up sail bags and ropes.

  “I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused,” I said in a low voice. “All this is my fault—and now you have to put yourself at risk as well as Erland.”

  “Bless the maid,” he said, his smile strained. “Erland would have been shot whether you was there or no. They be like that—soldiers.”

  My old clothes had become too ragged and filthy to wear. I was dressed in a skirt that Gadd, in the kindness of his heart, had roughly stitched for me from a piece of supple leather, and a warm sheepskin jacket that had once belonged to Erland when small, as had my laced leather boots. I took a brush of boar’s hair and brushed myself clean of Wasteland mud. At least my old frayed bodice had had a wash in hot water only two days before. As for my face, I rubbed it with a wet cloth until my cheeks stung, and then I combed my hair, tying it up with string for lack of ribbons or bonnet.

  But in truth I little cared if my employers thought me some outlandish country clod. My heart was heavy.

  I looked my last on Erland’s peaceful face. I will see yousoon, I thought, but immediately into my head came the maddening refrain: And shall he wake no more?

  I shut the mahogany box that he’d given me and tucked it under my arm. Then we left.

  “Oh, Mr. Gadd!” I gulped, crouching down uncomfortably as the dory rocked in the current, the sail billowed wildly and the waters fought beneath the hull, “I’m not sure I like this!”

  “You’ll not need endure it long,” said Gadd shortly. He pulled on a rope somewhere, and the sail became taut. Suddenly wind and water were moving us along in a surge of speed. But I could not understand how it was we remained afloat, given the fearful straining sounds of rope and sail and wood. And over our heads was the incessant mockery of the herring gulls, and all around, the cold gray surface of the river waiting to gulp us down.

  I shut my eyes; it seemed the safest thing to do. “I can’t swim,” I whispered to myself.

  Holding the tiller steady above me, Gadd said, “I cannot swim neither, and have never had need to yet.” I took comfort and opened my eyes a crack to see where we were.

  “Look,” said Gadd. “See Poorgrass Kayes? There be her watch-tower.” Indeed, there the tower was, rising against the overcast sky and easy to mark, since the land was flat all the way.

  “It is no distance at all!” I exclaimed. I felt considerably cheered.

  “Little by land, farther by water,” Gadd said.

  And so it proved. Though my eyes watered with looking, the tower never seemed to draw any closer. The river widened and narrowed and widened again, as we sailed past mudflats, salt marshes, and low mounds of samphire and seaweed.

  But at last the mudflats gave way to dykes, the long shingle banks protecting the farming land that sheltered behind them: fields still mostly bare and brown, divided by draini
ng ditches. Sheep clustered down by the river and sheltered around the few stunted, windblown trees; they skittered off when we passed close.

  Far beyond our little boat, the gray river flooded into the horizon and became part of the vast gray sky. “Is that the sea?” I asked.

  “The town sits before the bar,” said Gadd. “It be the sea, right enough.”

  “It’s too big,” I murmured in dismay. This place was to be my home. Could you live in a port and turn your back on the sea?

  Gadd found a mooring for the dory on the nearest quay. Above us, warehouses of dark brick rose from the long causeway, which was thronged with merchants and seamen, bartering and arguing over piled barrels and bales of wool. Around us sailors threw their ballast over sails hung between boat and quay and shouted to each other in words I didn’t understand.

  My head rang after the peace of the Wasteland; my heart sank to my boots.

  Two young men from a fishing smack helped me onto the quay, and Gadd after me. They doffed their woolen caps to us, then said something to each other, laughing. An old fisherman, chewing a lump of mastigris as he sat on a bollard, stared at me expressionless and spat out a stream of orange-stained spittle.

  There was a trawling net by my feet full of dead fish: the reek was overwhelming. For a moment I thought I’d be sick.

  Gadd and I looked at each other. Gadd twisted his old leather hat between his hands. “Now then, Miss Scuff, tide’s turning. I must get myself home.”

  “Of course you must, Mr. Gadd,” I said. My feet rocked beneath me with the remembered motion of the river. I felt oyster shells splinter beneath my borrowed boots. I swallowed hard. “I don’t think I realized Poorgrass was so very far…”

  “You have the address safe?” said Gadd.

  I felt for the parchment tucked into the pocket of Erland’s old jacket, and nodded.

  “Then fare you well, maid.”

  That was all he said. He turned and scrambled awkwardly back down into the dory. The young fishermen watching didn’t help. When Gadd glanced up, they moved back to their black-hulled smack, shoving at each other and making a lot of noise.

  I couldn’t watch Gadd sail away and leave me. I shifted the mahogany box more securely under my arm, then bent my head, crunched over scattered fish bones to the causeway, and slipped quickly into the crowd.

  I was tempted to go up one of the alleys between the warehouses. It would bring me out into the town where someone might well know the Bundishes and where they lived. The house couldn’t be far.

  I could see a marketplace down the end of one alleyway. I hesitated at the opening. It was dank and narrow; filthy urchins played in the puddles. A man came out from a hidden doorway and spoke roughly to them. He looked over at me. My scalp prickled; I walked on hurriedly.

  Gull House is on Kaye Street, I thought. It must be here on the causeway somewhere.

  I began to search along the warehouses, weaving my way in between the groups of haggling merchants before the open doors. Most were too engrossed in their business to pay me any attention, but when I wandered out onto one of the quays, a sailor looked up from coiling rope to stare at me, eyes gleaming in his weather-beaten face. He smiled; he seemed friendly.

  A small boy crouched nearby, feeding a plump cat a dish of milk. I looked at the milk thirstily. I’d had nothing to eat or drink since breakfast at first light.

  ‘All alone, Miss? You somethin’ to sell?” The sailor’s eyes went to the mahogany box under my arm.

  I tightened my grip on it. “No, indeed, Sir,” I said quickly, and turned back to the causeway. I’d heard the sound of the Capital in his voice.

  “Wait. That’s a nice piece. That wood comes from faraway places. I seen such trees growin’. Could fetch you a good price.”

  “It’s not for sale,” I said. “I have the offer of employment here. I’ve no need of money”

  “Lucky girl,” the sailor said, smiling a broad, white smile. “I don’t like to think of you goin’ hungry.” He looked at my clothes and smiled again. “Remember me if you change your mind—Butley by name. I could bring you a good price back from the Capital. Gravengate Docks is my regular run, takin’ brick or salt along the coast.”

  “Gravengate?” I breathed.

  “Gravengate. This is my girl here—the Redwing.” He gestured at a broad, three-masted barge lying against the quay, its rust-colored sails furled. “And if I’m not mistaken, you’re from the Capital yourself.” He came closer. “Regular number of us here, there be, not just the summer plague-runners but soldiers too.”

  I was suddenly frightened. For all his face was so friendly, I wondered if he could be being paid by the Militia to interrogate strangers. “Do soldiers come here to Poorgrass?” I asked, my heart beating hard.

  “To Poorgrass? ‘Course they come, for a bit of off-duty relaxation, if you understand my meanin’.” He winked. “It’s wild fenland where they are, the military camp at Windrush Creek. Only sheep. No ladies.”

  I relaxed. “You know Poorgrass well, then, Sir?”

  “Well? Me and Shadow”—he gestured at the small boy—“are back here all the time, ain’t that the truth, Shadow?”

  The boy looked up and nodded, and the cat weaved round him, purring. The tip of its tail was white, otherwise it was coal black. “And Plushey,” the boy said.

  “And Mister Plush, can’t forget him.”

  I made a decision. “Would you know the whereabouts of Gull House on Kaye Street, Sir?”

  His bright eyes measured me. “Is that where you’ll be workin’?”

  “It might be,” I said carefully.

  “It’s by the stream, what they call a gull local.” He jerked his head. “Follow the causeway till you can’t get no further, then the street roundwise. Can’t miss it.” He was chuckling to himself now.

  I felt uneasy; I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. Now his eyes were on the amber at my neck. I pulled my jacket collar together and turned away. “Thank you, Sir.”

  “Wait. Shadow will go with you. He knows Kaye Street like the back of his hand, don’t you, Shadow? You don’t want to be hangin’ ‘round Kaye Street in the dark tryin’ to find your way, a young lady like you.”

  Chuckling again, he bent to his ropes, the cat rubbing against his legs. The small boy sprang ahead of me back along the quay, as nimble and delicate in his movements as the barge cat. “I’ve nothing to give you for this, I’m afraid, Shadow,” I said. “I’ve no money till I’m paid.”

  He grinned at me, his dirty face mischievous. “I’ll come and collect it later, then, Miss!”

  “Is that your father?” I nodded behind us at the sailor’s back.

  “Lawks, no. That’s the bargemaster.” ‘Is brother is mate and I’m barge boy. There’s more crew to help with the loadin’ and unloadin’, but I do the important stuff like climbin’ the riggin’ and lookin’ after Plush.” He puffed out his scrawny chest and then laughed mockingly at himself. “’E’s important too, is Plush, ‘cos ‘e eats the rats.”

  I wondered if he were an orphan, if he’d ever been in a Home. A shapeless woolen tunic hid his thin forearms and any branding mark. “Why are you called Shadow?”

  His lively little face lit up. “It’s a nickname, see?”

  “I’ve a nickname too,” I said. “It’s Scuff. Maybe I had a proper name, a given name, once, but I don’t remember it. I was nicknamed Scuff because I wore shoes that had belonged to someone with bigger feet.”

  He looked down at my borrowed boots and grinned again. “I’m called Shadow for a reason too.” He pulled me closer. He smelled of warm grass and salt. “I’m like a shadow, see?” he whispered. “That’s ‘cos I’m a spy for ‘imself, for the barge-master, Mr. Butley.”

  “Why does he want you to spy, Shadow?” I asked warily.

  He looked at me sideways, put his finger to the side of his nose. “Others could be jealous of our cargo, know what I mean? I keep a watch on ‘em, report back. They don�
�t know I’m listenin’. I’m just a shadow on the wall and ever so small.”

  I was relieved. “You sound useful, Shadow.”

  “Oh, I am.” His eyes glinted. “’Ey, Miss Scuff! Could do the same for you, report back. If there’s anything—anyone—you want watchin’.”

  I shook my head quickly.

  “You could pay me—later,” he offered chirpily.

  “What makes you think I need someone to watch for me?” I said, my heart beating faster.

  He laughed carelessly. “Why, everyone’s watchin’ some person else, ain’t they?”

  On the causeway I was afraid of losing him, but he stuck by my side like a limpet, grabbing hold of my jacket to guide me. They were beginning to light braziers and lamps outside the warehouses. Once I stopped to warm my cold hands, but Shadow pulled me on. “You shouldn’t stop, Miss.”

  It was true I could see no other females about in the fading light. I was doubly glad Shadow was with me. I might have missed the continuation of Kaye Street altogether, for the causeway ended abruptly in the brick wall of a dockyard and there was only a dark alleyway between the wall and the last warehouse. Shadow darted into the gap, but I hesitated.

  “Can this be right?” I said in a low voice, for some seamen were looking at us curiously.

  He nodded. “Yes, Miss, you’ll see the Gull in a minute.”

  And he was right, for the narrow gap between wall and warehouse widened at the end into a puddled street with a wide, open drain down one side, full of rushing water. In some places it had risen to pour over the cobbles. The wind funneled down between the buildings on either side of us and rippled the shiny surface of the water into tiny sharp waves, but it could not blow away the stench of sewage.

  I looked at the water in horror in the dusk. Shadow pulled me onto a line of raised stepping stones. “This way.”

  There was no one about. The buildings that lined the street appeared to be warehouses, shuttered and dark. Then we passed an ironworks. The main part of town lay to our left. I was filled with doubt. Was this where Miss Jennet’s relatives would live?