The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga)

by Thorne, Nicola

  ‘I will remember it,’ Reyora said, ‘and you will know that she will be safe with me; but make a new life for yourself Analee. Try and find the gadjo – make a new life with him. He loved you and you loved him. You are not a full gypsy and you will never settle with a tribe. You will not adapt to our ways. I think you were meant for other things, Analee. But start afresh with the gadjo. Do not come back to take your daughter. That is all I ask you. I will not allow it. From the moment you leave this place, she is mine. Do you promise that? For her sake, her safety?’

  Analee could not bear to look at Reyora. She knew she was helping her, was doing it for her sake, but it was a hard, bitter bargain.

  ‘It is that or her death,’ Reyora said. ‘You must understand and make me a promise.’

  ‘I promise,’ Analee said and then she lay with her head on the ground near to her baby and wept.

  After a while she grew calmer and she sat up and bared her breasts. Very gently she gave her baby the nipple and pressed her close knowing that it was for the last time.

  There was little to do once it was dark. Just the familiar bundle to make up and a new skirt from Reyora to replace the one that had been cut in two before the birth. In the light of the candle, Analee waited for the signal from Reyora that all was clear. Morella slept in her crib and she tried not to look at her again. Instead Analee started slowly around the tent which had been her home for over a week – a place where she had known great pain and great joy, great hope and now great sorrow. She was off again into the world, with a bundle and no more, no more than she’d had when she’d come to the Buckland camp – but this time she was leaving a husband and a baby behind.

  Nelly helped her get ready and then sat with her trying to support her with her presence, saying nothing.

  ‘I could have taken her with me,’ Analee said at last gazing desperately at Nelly.

  ‘Nay; think of the harm she would come to.’

  ‘Yes.’ The scraping for food and berries, the scratching for a living, the cruelty and curses of people she met on the road. Morella would have no chance on the road. Here she would be protected; groomed to be a cohani, to succeed the powerful Reyora. Marry well, be a full member of the Buckland tribe.

  Suddenly Nelly rose and came to kneel before Analee. She brought her hand up to her lips and kissed it. ‘Let me come with you, Analee!’

  Analee stared at her, gazing at the hand holding hers as though it were some kind of amulet.

  ‘No, no Nelly. What chance would you have on the road?’

  ‘What chance have I got now? I hate my father and he hates me. He leaves me alone since I had the baby, but who knows how long that will last? I cannot bear it. Please let me come with you. I will look after you, be your friend.’

  Analee gazed tenderly on the poor thin young girl, so like a child herself; who stayed by her and helped her. Maybe they did need each other – she Analee as much as Analee needed her. Why not?

  ‘You will have to come as you are.’

  ‘Who cares? I have nothing of my own anyway. Oh, Analee – may I come?’

  Analee gazed at her baby and then at Nelly. She knew which one she’d rather leave behind, but she had no choice. She smiled at Nelly and nodded.

  When Reyora came to say all was quiet Analee didn’t dare glance back at her baby for fear she would break down. She grasped Nelly’s hand and stole out of the tent, across the sleeping camp towards the path that led to the town.

  It was a half moon and there was enough light for them to pause and glance back to where Reyora stood like a sentinel outside the tent, one arm firmly cradling the sleeping baby. Then she raised her other hand in a gesture of blessing and farewell.

  11

  Brent watched the longboat make for the shore in the faint light of dawn. It was cold even for late September and in the far distance beyond the fells the mountain peaks of Cumberland were white capped. All around the coast the land was flat, broken only by the copses of thickly covered trees with here or there a solitary farm or cottage.

  Brent stood on the deck of the small fishing wherry of which he was the sole crew. The captain was Matthew Clucas, a Manx-man, an ex-pugilist and a supporter of the Stuarts. Ambrose Rigg had kept to his bargain and Brent had kept to his. After that memorable day in May when the two men had confronted each other in Rigg’s office there had been no going back.

  In order to deceive Dinward and Quiggan, Rigg had appeared to be disciplining Brent for his misdeeds by transferring him to the fishing fleet as a deckhand. There was no dirtier, smellier or harder work than as a deckhand on one of the small fishing wherries which, on account of their size, were tossed about on the sea like flotsam in a storm.

  It had given Dinward a good laugh to think of the fastidious Mr Delamain getting in the catch on a wherry, and every time he saw him he grinned and made an obscene gesture with his fingers.

  But the plan had worked; the small fishing boats needed a small crew, sometimes only two or three at the most. Brent only caught a token catch which went on top of the cases and barrels he smuggled in from the Isle of Man, and two men were enough.

  Matthew Clucas was a friend of John Collister and even had a mind to make Harriet Collister his wife, if she would have him. But the bold Harriet was hoping for better things than a former boxer with a hard square jaw, a broken nose and blunt manners.

  Clucas and Brent had got on from the start. Brent never shirked hard work or long hours and his diligence as well as his devotion to the cause were infectious. He had no airs or fuss about him, but slept on the deck among the nets, ate his food out of a tin and became an expert at scaling and gutting the fish when time was against them.

  Brent wiped a wet hand across his forehead with satisfaction as he turned and prepared to swab the deck. He felt hungry and thirsty, but rewarded. It was good to be alive. Now the dawn, once begun, came very quickly over the mountains in the east and the calm still sea, which could be so treacherous in its many moods, shimmered in the pale morning sun, a light haze drifting over it.

  ‘Come, Matthew. Let us make for Whitehaven. I am half starved.’

  Matthew smiled and gazed with affection at the man with whom in only three short months he had shared so many adventures. They plied continually between the creeks and bays of the Isle of Man and the coast of Cumberland. Sometimes they went north to Scotland, but Brent had developed a route that was considered safer, whereby the guns were landed in one of the many small bays of Cumberland and ferried across the steep mountains on pack horses. Then there were depots all over the north – at Carlisle, Penrith, Lancaster, taking the route followed by the Prince’s father, King James, in 1715. Many thought the rebellion then had failed for lack of arms; for lack of depots and storage. This time it was going to be very different. Brent had rapidly become acquainted with the hard core of Jacobite sympathizers in the north-west, those who were prepared, as he was, to risk all, to lose all.

  Only this time they would not. They were going to win. The Prince had landed in Scotland in July accompanied by only seven men. All the promises made by the French to provide arms and men had been broken. But such was his calm, his presence, his determination, his sheer magnetism that all Scotland was flocking to him. The faithful were rewarded, the waverers converted. He had raised his standard in August at Glenfinnan, proclaiming himself Regent in the name of his father King James III, and before it a body of 1400 Highlanders had assembled. Even from the beginning he had won small skirmishes against Hanoverian forces taken by surprise, and his progress south had been one of triumph.

  Brent heard all this through the Scottish connections who ran arms to the border from the coast. Across the north of England and Scotland there was a line of information that stretched to the Prince and back down again. And the tales that were told of the Prince – of his gallantry, determination and wisdom for one so young. Of the way he had with the ladies and how he could melt the heart of the strictest Jacobite dowager. Now he had come as far as Perth and
, according to the latest information received by Brent, was about to take Edinburgh.

  The tide of enthusiasm that had swept Scotland had now crossed the border and was rolling remorselessly on as far as London. Some said the government was in disarray, others said it was not and that several large armies had been despatched north. Where they went would determine the Prince’s strategy. Either he would come south by Newcastle, or he would come via Carlisle as his father had done in ‘15.

  Brent, who wished so much to see the Prince, hoped it would be Carlisle; but above all Brent wanted to be in at the fighting. He was not content just to smuggle arms.

  The quay at Whitehaven was already lined with wherries putting in their catch or going out. Brent could discern, as always, the broad figure of Ambrose Rigg and waved to him. Rigg was on the deck of another of his boats, a genuine fishing smack groaning with herring and mackerel. Only about half of his fleet actively smuggled, it was the understanding he had with the customs men whom he paid well.

  Rigg bounded off the boat he was on and came aboard the Sarah, named after his wife. He shook Brent’s hand and Matthew’s and the smile on his face indicated everything was all right. As well as arms, Brent was also carrying, as usual, brandy and tea that had come from the big smuggling port of Nantes in France and carried in bigger ships to the Isle of Man and Port Rush. The little wherries which scampered across the North Sea were ideal for the sort of smuggling that Rigg did on such a large scale.

  ‘Sarah bids me bring you home for dinner, Brent. She has a surprise for you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Brent was lifting out the baskets of fish from the hold, helped by Matthew and a young lad who worked on the quay. His mind was on fish, but from time to time he thought of the crates of guns on their way across the mountains or paths of Lakeland. He alone had smuggled in enough to equip a small army.

  ‘And Matthew, will you join us?’

  ‘No I cannot, thank you, Mr Rigg,’ Matthew said. ‘I promised my mother I would be home for dinner. She complains she never sees me.’

  ‘We’ve been busy,’ Brent said, ‘hardly a night’s sleep for ten days.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I thought a day or two resting, maybe, at Cockermouth. It can be done?’

  Brent glanced at Matthew, saw how tired he looked. He guessed he must look the same. Well, nothing would be gained if their health broke down. Not that he’d ever felt better; just tired.

  The devil of it was that his leg had never healed. He walked with a very slight limp and sometimes it impeded his work. It didn’t pain him so much; but it angered him. Still, he put it to good use at sea and he never complained. What worried him was what would happen if he had to march. He put it out of his mind; but when he was tired he was conscious that he limped more. Sometimes when he was fit and rested he didn’t limp at all.

  Now he limped badly down the gangplank, his leg stiff from too much exercise and Matthew and Ambrose noticed and exchanged glances.

  ‘I have my coach waiting,’ Rigg said. ‘You can rest in that.’

  Brent looked at him and burst out laughing.

  ‘I’m no maid you know, Ambrose! You’ll be dosing me with laudanum and sal volatile for the vapours!’

  Ambrose laughed and smacked him on the shoulders leaving one hand companionably around his neck. Sometimes he felt like a father to Brent.

  After sluicing himself in the yard and a hearty breakfast of beef pie washed down by plenty of ale at the tavern on the quayside, Brent and Ambrose walked to where the coach was waiting at the back of the town, the driver of the pair well wrapped up against the cold.

  It was a small coach because the road from Whitehaven to Cockermouth though important and busy was narrow in places.

  As soon as they settled in Brent fell asleep, his long legs on the opposite seat. After his large breakfast he felt so tired and stupefied that he had not even asked Ambrose what surprise Sarah had in store for him.

  Ambrose Rigg’s passion, besides the acquisition of wealth – which was an obsession – was extending his home. It had once been a yeoman’s low stone house, whitewashed and containing only one floor with a direct entrance to the barns. Indeed at one time, though Ambrose could not remember it, the cattle used to mix freely with the inhabitants of the house, considered just as important.

  This land and the house had been in the Rigg family since anyone could remember. After rising from serfdom the ‘statesmen’ had acquired a special status. The inheritance had passed from father to son though the property still belonged to the lord or squire, monastery or landowner for whom they worked. However, they could not be dispossessed and the yeoman farmer acquired a special role of his own.

  But Rigg now owned the house and the land around it outright. It stood on the hill above Cockermouth which gave a fine view not only of the town but of the Lakeland hills to the south and east. For Cockermouth lay flat in the valley of the River Derwent which entered the sea near Whitehaven twelve miles away. The imposing Rigg Manor was halfway up a bracken-covered fell and on either side was a forest of tall fir trees. Ahead was the centre of Lakeland, the mountains and fells surrounding Crummock Water, Buttermere and majestic Ennerdale; and the tips of Hen Combe, Great Borne, Starling Dodd and High Style towered above the soft, undulating folds of the lesser hills.

  To the west even Skiddaw could be seen and on a clear day Lake Bassenthwaite glimpsed beneath it on the main approach from Cockermouth to Keswick. Sometimes the hills were obscured in the haze of high summer or the mists of winter and they appeared mysterious and even menacing; but on a clear bright day like this day in September they stood out sharply against the sky and seemed to roll on forever – some high, some low, some hidden or only half revealed – resembling a land of enchantment.

  Rigg had bought this imposing site from the descendants of one of the barons to whom it had been given after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. There was still a village of Thursby and an Earl of Thursby, but, like the Allonbys, they had not always been wise in their support for the ruling party and had lost a great deal of land as a result. Lord Thursby was never to be seen in Lakeland; but a son and daughter-in-law lived in Castle Thursby and were on nodding acquaintance with the Riggs, largely because of Sarah, needless to say. The Honourable Mrs Rose Thursby would never have had anything to do socially with the former ‘statesman’ family of Rigg, no matter how well they’d subsequently done in business.

  Like the Riggs the Thursbys had a young family. It had already crossed the mind of Ambrose that, if he worked harder and the Thursbys stayed as they were, in time his own progeny, half Allonby and therefore socially acceptable, would not be a bad match as far as the Thursby family were concerned.

  Ambrose was a contented man as the coach, after climbing the hill, turned through the large gates he had just had installed after being wrought by an ironsmith in Cockermouth. They provided an important link in the wall he had had constructed around his extensive property.

  They swung open to a long drive which had formerly been part of a field where his father grazed cows. Now it was being turned into soft lawns and gardens. Shrubberies and flower beds were appearing everywhere, and a fortune was being spent transporting plants and vegetation from the south of England.

  The drive ended in a circular sweep in front of the building that had been grafted on to the small humble home where the Riggs had their origins, just a little croft house it had once been. In fact the original building was now part of the extensive stables, and a graceful mansion built by an architect who had studied with Mr James Gibb, architect of St Martin-in-the-Fields and other notable London buildings, had risen beside it.

  Like its humble predecessor it was a house built of white stone, but its fluted doric columns supported a Grecian-style arch not unlike that which graced the front of the church of St Martin in London. The porch was wide and was approached by five steps. Double doors led onto a large hallway, showing a tall winding staircase, and a high ceiling from which hung a grand c
handelier made of thousands of tiny crystals. It was a rich house, an elegant house, a big house and, if Ambrose had his way, it looked like being one of the grandest houses in this part of Cumberland, rivalling even Castle Thursby itself.

  And there, dutifully on the porch to welcome him, were his wife, two small children and his brother-in-law. John Allonby stood behind his sister thus composing what seemed on that beautiful mellow September noon, a very charming family group.

  There were even one or two retainers hovering in the background to make sure that the master was immediately served, and barking dogs scampered up to the carriage as it drew into the broad forecourt. A servant ran down the stairs to open the door and Ambrose nudged the sleeping Brent in the ribs. ‘Wake up. We’re there. ‘Tis dinner time.’

  Brent, startled, looked out of the window.

  ‘We’re there already?’

  ‘You slept the entire length of the journey, my boy.’ Brent looked out of the window, rubbing his eyes. ‘My God. ‘Tis John. Is that the surprise?’

  ‘Aye’

  ‘I hoped it might be Mary,’ Brent said quietly, ‘I have not seen her for nigh a year.’

  ‘Ah but that’s who it might be about,’ Ambrose said winking and consulting the timepiece stretched on a gold chain across his large stomach. ‘You may have earned your spurs.’

  Brent jumped down, and sprinted along the courtyard to where John was coming down the stairs. The cousins clasped arms.

  ‘John, how is it with Mary? No trouble?’

  ‘No, no, none at all. My, Brent, but you do smell.’

  John retreated a yard or two and looked at his cousin with dismay.

  ‘Smell? Oh, fish. ‘Tis a good healthy smell and in the basket behind the coach we have some fresh herring and mackerel for our breakfast tomorrow.’

  Ambrose climbed the stairs slowly because they were affecting his breathing more and more. Prosperity was making him put on too much weight. He greeted his wife with a kiss on the cheek, aware that her belly was nice and rounded. She was presenting him with another child, or so he hoped. She had miscarried earlier in the year and this had worried him, not so much for her health, as lest she should opt out of her side of the bargain to provide him with a fine large family to rival the Thursbys.