Home From The Sea

by Keegan, Mel

  “Of course I bloody am,” Jim said brusquely.

  “Go up and rest,” Toby began.

  “Sod that.” Jim stooped for another load. “Like the saying goes, you’re a long time dead … I’ll rest then.”

  The remark won him a husky chuckle before Toby applied himself to the work as if defying it to beat him. But the water was soon noticeably, measurably higher, and Jim watched it gloomily. They would never be done with the entire floor before they must turn their attention to the walls, which invited an element of luck into the scheme.

  He had always hated anything that pivoted on luck. Jim Fairley was not a gambling man. If he had been, he would have hesitated to wager a shilling on their chances of beating Charlie Chegwidden at the years-old game of hide and seek.

  And he would have been wrong. The water was lapping ankle deep, and Toby had abandoned the floor moments before with a passionate curse. Jim awarded himself one minute of rest and perched on a barrel, rubbing his leg against the ache, the cold, the fatigue. His eyes had almost fallen out of focus as he concentrated on the leg, let his own body overwhelm him for this moment. And it was then – when he stopped looking – that he saw it.

  Tired eyes and mind snapped back into focus as if a dragoon had pulled back the hammer on a loaded musket. “Toby.”

  Something sharp, dark and acid in his tone made Toby spin toward him, poised in mid-water with a keg in his hands.

  They had shifted enough of the cellar’s final stack to make the wall behind it visible for the first time. There, no more than a foot above the lap of the black, filthy water, was a picture – a cameo image painted on an oval of bone or ivory half the breadth of Jim’s palm.

  He hopped down off the barrel with a grunt, and stooped toward it. The picture was well painted, if quickly, a likeness good enough to jog a man’s memory, make a face from yesteryear come alive once more. The cameo hung on what was left of a red satin ribbon, from the long, rusted spike of a ship nail driven into the space between two stones, where the earth and mortar had been dug out.

  He plucked it off the nail and turned it to the light – a woman’s face, and young when the tiny portrait was done. She was a redhead with pale skin and a heart shaped face; and beneath the likeness were the initials ‘H.C.’

  “Helen Chegwidden,” Toby whispered, “everyone called her Nell for short. I’ve seen this, Jim, many times. Charlie used to carry it with him. I think he loved his mother more than any other woman who ever crossed his path. He used to say, ‘She’s the gold you can’t spend, the diamond you can’t wear, the treasure you hunt the world for and find back at home.”

  “Damn.” Jim swallowed hard on a dry throat. “Charlie couldn’t read or write, you said?”

  “No.” Toby was intent on the face in the cameo. “Did he mark the hiding place with this? Did he leave it for someone who’d know it, if they saw it?”

  “Like you.” Jim’s heart beat faster. “How many in your company did he share the cameo with? Not Burke and Pledge, surely? They’d have mocked him, spat on it out of scorn.”

  “He used to show it to me and Rufus,” Toby remembered. “Me, because I’d been a priest, he knew I understood a man’s love and respect for the woman who birthed and raised him. Rufus, because he was another one raised by his ma, after his da passed on and left a woman and eight children to fend for themselves.”

  “Then, Charlie knew you’d recognize this,” Jim said slowly, “and Rufus would know it. The others wouldn’t have seen it, much less remember … ‘the treasure you hunt the world for, and find back at home.’” His brows arched at Toby, and he slapped the cameo into his outstretched hand. “Charlie’s talking to you. You can’t hear him? He couldn’t write, he knew he was dying and he didn’t dare share the secret. He’s talking to you, Toby.”

  And even now, even here, Toby crossed himself and shivered as if the old man’s voice had indeed whispered in his ear, across the years. The blue eyes were wide, pale in the light of four lanterns all burning the purest whale oil, as he handed back the precious little picture, retrieved the pry bar and went down on one knee in the water.

  “You see the place.” Jim’s right fingers dove into the space where earth and mortar had been dug out.

  “I’ve got it. Stand back, now.”

  The tip of the bar slid in and he worked it this way and that, pulling, pushing, using every ounce of his weight to shift a stone that had not moved in eight years. Jim held his breath, longing to help and suspecting he would only get in the way. He felt none of his aches and fatigue now. A pulse hammered in his ears as he knelt to see what Toby was doing, and he murmured as the stone gave at last.

  It moved a bare half inch, and then another, and another. Toby transferred the bar to the other side and weighed on it again, moving it back and forth now, keeping it moving until he and Jim could get their fingertips to it. Jim thrust the cameo into his pocket, dried his hands on his shirt and got a grip on the protruding edge of the stone. He gave Toby a look. “On three.”

  They heaved together, every bit of strength and weight they possessed, and stone scraped on stone, coming loose, and looser. A second heave, a third, and it was halfway out. A fourth, and it passed the tipping point. Toby barked a warning for Jim to watch out for his feet, a scant second before the stone hit the water.

  They grabbed for the lanterns, angled them so the pure white light streamed into the hole, illuminating a cavity in the tavern’s ancient foundations. Jim whispered as he saw not one fist-sized leather sack, but at least half a dozen. “He broke it up,” he guessed, “to be able to get it through into the stash.”

  “The chest wouldn’t have fit … these bags are old powder pokes,” Toby said softly. “Here.” He handed Jim his lantern and reached in. “One. Two. Three.” He set them down on the barrel where Jim had been sitting moments before, and went back for more. “Four. Five.”

  “How many would you be expecting?” Jim hardly knew the sound of his own voice.

  “It’s been a long time – memory plays tricks,” Toby warned. “Six. Seven.” Then he was feeling around, searching blindly, out of the reach of the light. “Eight. Nine … and that’s the lot. Nothing else here.”

  Nine battered leather gunpowder sacks, the kind used by musketmen and about half the size of a man’s deep coat pocket, were arranged on the barrelhead. As Jim watched, Toby drew the leather thong on the first one. He held his breath as the poke opened, part of him expecting even now to see black powder or lead shot –

  But no, the inside of the old leather sparkled, scintillated, as if starlight had been caught in the bag and was trying to escape. Jim’s mouth fell open. He felt a sudden dizziness, an overwhelming weakness in the vicinity of his knees, and he set down the lanterns and made a grab for Toby.

  They were both wet and filthy, beyond tired and hungry, as they hugged, kissed with a fury that left the iron tang of blood in Jim’s mouth. “Christ,” he murmured when Toby let him breathe again, “we did it. We’re in with a chance, Toby – in with a chance to walk away from this!”

  “Oh, we’ll walk away, I guarantee it.” Toby was beginning to sober, visibly becoming aware of the cold, the sodden clothes, the fatigue. “This?” He picked up the open poke, trickled a few gems into his palm and held them to the light. Red, blue, green – rubies, sapphires, emeralds, sparkling as brightly as the last day they had glittered in the hands of Diego Monteras and the love of his life, the Indian prince the Spaniards called Fernando. “This is the price of our freedom, Jim, and our future. All we have to do now is play out the hand we were dealt … we hold all the trumps.”

  Jim glanced up into the square of light from the kitchen. “Burke and Pledge?”

  “And the rest of the company. Eli Hobbs and Rufus Bigelow and Willie Tuttle. No loose ends left to fray out and catch our feet in a year from now, or ten years.” He dribbled the jewels back into the pouch and touched Jim’s face with cold fingertips. “I want those years, Jim. I want them with you, i
f you’ll have me.”

  “If?” Jim echoed. “Don’t be so daft, Toby. If I could have got my hands on the blunderbuss, Nathaniel Burke and the bold Joseph Pledge would be dead already. I couldn’t stand Burke’s hands on you, and every word out of Pledge’s mouth was like rat poison.”

  “They were mostly true,” Toby said quietly. “I was grateful to wear Nathaniel’s brand. I did earn it, exactly as you imagine I did. And as for being a priest … well, that was over a week before I signed on the Rose. If Captain Graves had known who he was signing aboard – what he was signing on – I do believe he’d have burned me himself instead of waiting for the devil to do it.”

  Jim cocked his head at the man, watching him gather up the nine pokes and thrust them into an old turnip sack, the better to carry them up. “You believe any of that bilge water?”

  “Do I believe in the scriptures?” Toby’s head shook slowly. “I’ve seen too much, and suffered too much, to believe any of it word for word any longer. But I do believe there’s something out there. Is it God?” He shrugged eloquently. “God or gods, angels or the powers of the cosmos. Perhaps a spirit like Vesta, who was the goddess of hearth and home to the Romans … in the end, what’s it matter, so long as there’s something more than flesh and bones, pain and mortality. Something to come after the pathetic charade of this life,” he added darkly as he tied off the sack. “Jim? Go up ahead of me, now – and you be bloody careful on those steps!”

  “As if I’m going to fall and break my neck now you’ve got the treasure of Diego Monteras over your shoulder,” Jim scoffed, and headed for the stairs with the brightest of the lanterns in his right hand.

  A pace behind him, Toby snuffed the rest one by one, gathered them up, and was close enough to Jim to touch him, every step of the climb back to the kitchen.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It seemed the stars had been plucked out of the sky and cast into the big earthenware bowl in which bread dough was punched as it rose. Every manner of gemstone Jim knew and some he did not winked in the lights of the four lanterns hung from the beams over the table, and in that moment neither he nor Toby felt the cold of wet clothes, the protests of tired, sore muscles.

  Snoring issued rudely from the taproom, and when he lifted a brow at Edith she made a disgusted face. “Aye, they’s asleep, right where they fell. Their ’eads is propped on logs outta yon woodpile, else they’d ’ave drowned an hour back.” She rumbled a wicked chuckle. “Does thee want me to roll ’em over? They’ll not be wakin’ up again, not if I just rolls ’em over an’ lets yon water get at ’em.”

  “No, just keep them asleep,” Toby said quickly. “You know how.”

  “Aye, that I do.” Mrs. Clitheroe nodded in the direction of the stairs. “I got a fire goin’ in the big bedchamber. Go up’n get dry, afore thee catches thy death, the pair o’ thee. I’m comin’ up meself, soon as I get some food together. Take the skillet up wi’ thee, Master Trelane. It’s a deal too ’eavy fer me.”

  “I’ll do that,” Toby promised.

  “The dogs,” Jim wondered.

  “Upstairs, outta the water,” she told him. “Bessie’s a right mess, long coated like she is. Boxer’ll do, but ’e were shiverin’ wi’ cold, such a little mite as ’im.”

  “I’ll dry them,” Toby swore, but his eyes were still on the gems.

  So were Jim’s, and he was casting about, looking for something to hold the mass of them. The water was well above his ankles now. He was conscious of pushing his way through it as he made his way across the kitchen and lifted the oat bin down from the pantry shelf. By April it was getting along towards empty, and waiting to be topped off when the harvest came in, in July or August. He tipped the remains of the grain into a spare basin and moments later watched as Toby scooped up great handfuls of the gems, dumped them into the bin and folded the nine old pouches on top of them, like packing to hold them safe.

  They filled it almost to the top, and with every bauble inside he and Jim stood looking in with a sense of disbelief. “There’s enough to ransom a king,” Jim whispered.

  “Or buy the lives of two like us,” Toby said softly. “This needs to be somewhere safe … and I know the place. Jam the stopper in tight, and come on.” He seized a lantern and took the stairs two at a time, leaving Jim behind, wrestling with the bin and cursing the leg.

  But Jim thought he could guess where Toby was going. At the head of the stairs he turned right, leaving a trail of wet footprints to the end of the passage. Right above was the little trapdoor into the loft, and against a near wall, a tub chair which would bear the weight of a man standing on the seat.

  The trapdoor squealed, timber on timber, as it opened. Jim had the bin under his arm, and had only to hand it up to him, watch him stash it to the left of the hatch where an assortment of tools was kept, for running repairs on the thatch.

  “Done.” Toby coughed and managed a chuckle. “I did a good job on the roof – it’s dry enough up here to be dusty.” The big, strong hands dragged the trapdoor back into place. It settled with a solid slam before he hopped down off the chair. He had set his lantern on the little sideboard where linen, candles and strewing herbs were kept for the bedchambers. The light cast odd shadows around his face as he turned back to Jim, and caught Jim in both arms. “We’re almost done. We can do this.”

  He was cold, almost to the point of trembling, and Jim held on tight to him. “You’re bloody freezing!”

  “I’m wet and tired … and angry,” Toby said against Jim’s hair.

  “And scared,” Jim added.

  “Not now. But I was, before you put the bastards down.” Toby leaned back, and his features thinned with dread. “You have no idea what Nathaniel would have done to me.”

  “Yes, I have.” Jim took Toby’s angular face in both hands, brushed his mouth with both thumbs. “I know exactly what Burke had in mind, and it made me so angry I could have choked the breath out of him with my own hands. We can,” he said thoughtfully, “do as Edith suggested. Roll them over and let the water have its way with them.”

  Toby’s eyes closed for a moment. “Murder,” he whispered. “And even so, if it ended with Nathaniel and Joe, I suppose I might … but it doesn’t end with them, Jim – the other three are out there, and they’re not fools. They’d know we made off with Nathaniel and Joe.”

  “And they’d know why.” Jim took a deep breath, held it, exhaled it as a long sigh. “You said something about them being at The Cattlemarket.”

  “Hobbs and Tuttle where there, and drunk as a couple of lords, when I passed by the place and stopped just long enough for a jar of ale. Rufus must have arrived by now, unless this evil weather’s kept him in some port in Holland or France.” Toby hugged both arms around his own chest as the cold set in, in earnest. “I’ll go back there in the morning.”

  “We,” Jim corrected. “We’ll go as soon as there’s enough light to get through. At this moment all I want is warmth, a little rum, a lot of food. A soft bed,” he added with a groan, “if we can stuff enough straw back into a mattress to make a comfortable place to doss down. Damnit, Toby, the buggers made a mess.”

  “We knew they would,” Toby said bleakly as he followed the flickering light of a fire, which issued from the big bedchamber.

  Mrs. Clitheroe had been in here. A broom still leaned against the wall by the door – she had swept the confusion of straw, rags and plaster dust into a pile in the corner and set a fire in the hearth. A pan of water was on the hob, for tea. The dogs had curled together by the fire, wearing a pair of bewildered faces, and Jim was not surprised to see the big black kitchen cat sitting up on top of the wardrobe, surveying the scene with wide green eyes.

  “I’ll fetch up the skillet, and the food,” Toby offered. “See what you can do with the mattress, eh, Jim?”

  “And I’ll organize the small room for Edith,” Jim added. “It’s tucked in right by the kitchen chimney, so it’ll still be warm … Toby, take a look at Burke and Pledge as yo
u go by. Make sure they’re still well asleep.”

  The balladsinger’s lean face set into lines like carved granite. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll truss the pair of them like hogs for the butcher. If they wake during the night, the worst they’ll be able to do is whine and cuss.” He paused, halfway out of the room, with haunted eyes. “Don’t give the bastards a thought before morning. I’m afraid I learned more than I ever cared to about binding a man, Jim. Trust me – they won’t get loose.”

  And Jim believed him. He peeled out of his boots and britches and wrapped a blanket around his hips as he padded away to the chaos of his own bedchamber. Everything he possessed had been torn out of trunks and drawers and thrown aside like so much rubbish. He swore lividly as he hunted for enough clothes to get himself and Toby decent and warm.

  Voices on the stairs announced Toby, and he was talking over his shoulder to Edith as they climbed. The old woman made long, hard work of the stairs – her legs could sometimes be even more of a challenge than Jim’s left. She reached the top puffing and oathing, just as Jim opened up the small room. “Food, Edith,” he told her, “while I organize sleeping space for you.”

  “Oh, to set this old spine to a mattress,” she crooned, as if it were a mortal sin.

  “Pork and onions, bread and cheese.” Toby hefted the bag he had carried up along with the biggest of the skillets. He dropped his voice. “Take this from me, Jim. I’ll go and see to them.” His brows quirked at Jim, and Jim took bag and pan with a mute nod.

  The small bedchamber was less disordered, only because there had been a lot less in it to begin with. A box of kindling and split wood stood by the hearth, and he knelt carefully to coax a fire to life before retrieving the broom and sweeping rubble dust and mattress stuffing right out through the door. The mattress itself was half empty, and he systematically pushed straw back through the ripped hole until it was taut enough to do service.

  On a whim, just as his nose began to catch the aroma of frying meat, he cracked open the casement, pushed back the shutter and looked out over the ocean. Sandy Bay stretched east and west, and for the first time in days the horizon was clear. A vast swath of the sky was cloudless, filled with stars, and the westering half moon rode like a carriage lamp, ringed around by the chestnut colored flares of scudding clouds.