by Alex Dylan
A laugh from the shadows startled him, “I don’t think you’ve lost anything down below, lad. You were all still there the last time we checked.”
Rodrigues peeled himself away from a dark corner and came to sit lightly on the end of the bed. He turned back the blankets and peeked critically at Heughan’s leg. Heughan propped himself up onto his elbows to see for himself. The plaister was gone; so too were the swelling and the infection. The skin was pink and soft, like a newborn lamb’s muzzle; no stitches now but a foot-long red track to mark their passing. He touched the scar hesitantly but the skin held together. That’s healing, he thought.
“How long have I been here, Roddy?” he asked.
“Must be more than four or five days now,” said the Spaniard thoughtfully.
“Oh God, no!” said Heughan, struggling to throw back the blankets and get out of the bed, which creaked warningly at him. Rodrigues put a hand on his chest and pushed him back down.
“Steady now, lad. No rush, no panic,” he said. “Whatever it is will wait.”
Heughan shook his head. “Time and tides wait for no one,” he said bitterly, collapsing defeated on the bed.
Rodrigues pulled at his moustaches thoughtfully, “But a crafty smuggler who’s received an explanation might wait a while even so. Especially if there is the prospect of gold. I’ve always said that the best way to keep loyalty in a man’s heart is to keep money in his purse.”
“Did you get a message to Mac? Thank you, but I don’t need to buy my friendships.” Heughan was both grateful and annoyed. “Mac means more than that to me.”
“Calm lad, calm,” said Rodrigues evenly. “Don’t I know it’s so? Business is business, however. That too, I have told you. The heart of a mercenary beats only for gold. Don’t hate me for what I am.”
“Someone who’ll sell themselves to the highest bidder?” said Heughan quietly.
Rodrigues leaned over him and skipped his one good eye right and left between Heughan’s two. “I will choose to believe that it is the sickness talking now. When you are yourself again, you will reconsider the irony that you speak so to me when you are in a whorehouse, surrounded by those who sell themselves and their services. And that includes you. You can delude yourself that you have a higher calling, a noble cause, but deep down you know that this is mitigation and money is the motivation. Whatever you plan to do, you can accomplish nothing, nothing, without money.” He nodded to emphasise his point. “Yes, Heughan, you still need my money.”
Rodrigues stood up, lifted a heavy leather bag of coin from the floor and dropped its weight onto the squat table near Heughan’s head.
“The truth, my lad, is the heavier the purse, the lighter the heart.” He smiled lopsidedly at Heughan before patting the side of his face inoffensively with the palm of his hand, the rough caress of a bluff man. “We are what we are, Heughan. Travel with a light heart; it is bought and paid for,” he said over his shoulder as he walked out of the room.
Heughan wanted to call him back, to apologise for his ingratitude. Instead he kept his mouth shut. Why did I do that? Why pick a fight with a friend? He had no answers.
In his head, he heard Willie say, ‘Heughan lad, you could start a fire with your temper.’ It was so true. He hated to admit it to himself.
Willie! He sat upright in bed and pushed a hand through his tousled hair. Damn but it had all gone so wrong. There was too much to do; too little time. He fumbled about looking for clothes, a shirt, some trews and his jack.
“Where are my riding boots?” he said out loud in exasperation.
“Right here, laddie,” said Willie, standing in the doorway, holding a boot in each hand. Heughan lifted him off his feet to embrace him, flinging him round like a whirligig. “Aye, weel now, affy nice to see ye’ too,” puffed Willie in embarrassment as Heughan put him down again. “There’s nae need for a fuss, lad. Nothing’s happening in the world without yer. Tek yer time, there’s nae hurry.”
Heughan shook his head in disagreement. “No, La’l Un, time is what I don’t have right now. I’ve lost a week’s worth of tides, and I should have been in Ireland this long while back.”
“Aye, well, I dare say the bonny lassie will wait,” grinned Willie, starting up one of his ballads.
"Oh waly, waly gin love be bonnie,
A little time while it is new!
But when ’tis auld, it waxeth cold,
And fades awa’ like morning dew
For my true love has me forsook,
And says he’ll never lo’e me mair."
Heughan opened his mouth to rebuke him, changed his mind and grinned back. “This is different, Willie. This time I’m courting my future.”
Chapter 7: Across the Sea
Maryport, the Solway Coast
Big gulls drifted overhead, yakking loudly in a rapidly darkening sky as Heughan reached the small cluster of huts that made up Maryport. He sat up in the saddle to catch a view of the sea, hoping that it was calm and would stay that way. A ribbon of pale gold lit the horizon reassuringly as he sauntered carefully through the small lanes, Aluino picking his way through the detritus. There was no one about; just the sounds of some children beating a pig and someone out of sight breaking firewood.
He cleared the huts and came out into the bay. He could see McGuire’s boat tied up to the old jetty, sitting squarely on the wet mud, waiting for the slowly returning tide to re-float it. He dismounted and walked Aluino onto the beach, where the tide made a narrow space of level sand. He scrubbed his face with his fist and breathed hard, filling his lungs with the sea and drawing into him the memories of crossings gone before.
The sea was its own kingdom, untameable, unpredictable; his wet road to other lands and other people he longed to know. It excited him looking across it in the evening light but like all sensible men, he was wary of it and knew to treat it with respect.
He stood on the creaking jetty and called into the wooden hulk. Captain McGuire appeared from inside his boat, where he had been sleeping. The huge man beamed a dishevelled smile, “Here at last, you bugger. What happened to you?” he said as he leapt from the plank onto the jetty.
“There’s no rush,” said Heughan as he was enveloped by McGuire hugging him to him. He spat out the man’s coarse hair and, despite the air being squeezed out of him, managed to say, “Carlingford will still be there, don’t worry.”
“It’s good to see you, lad. I’ve waited a week for you. We’ve missed some good tides,” he stood back to look at him, “but you’re a grand sight.”
Heughan immediately warmed in his company. He looked at the old man, his biography written in the lines on his open face. Heughan loved to drain him of his stories of the sea. He had only survived each crossing thanks to McGuire’s immense knowledge of the tides, the currents, the stars and his strength, which was that of a man twenty years younger.
He handed his bags to McGuire and went off with Aluino to find the stables. He took off the saddle and wiped the horse down with wisps of hay, talking to him softly, telling him to be calm and wait for him. The horse knew where he was, the smell was familiar. They had been here before. Heughan paid the stable lad, told him not to overfeed him and left for the sea.
McGuire’s boat was a fifty-foot craggy veteran of a cog he had had for years. It was originally a lily-livered Dutch coaster but even with just one sail, it proved to be as hard as nails and surprisingly agile on the Irish Sea, an unforgiving and bad-tempered place. It could easily hold two dozen horses in its belly. The two young lads he had working for him, Cooper and Greaves, appeared at the top of the beach. They had been to get bread and some cured meat for the trip along with some sour apples and a pot of warm stew they would eat now with the rest of the crew.
Heughan propped himself up against the boat and ran his eye along her curve. The shape of a woman, he thought; the grooved wood carefully worn over years of care and repair. He liked the smell of the tar drops blocking up the holes.
“So how’
s your leg?” asked McGuire.
“Eh?” grunted Heughan through his mouthful of stew.
“The foot-long slice yer darling girl took out of it last time we saw you?” Cooper said.
“Oh, right. No, it’s fine; wasn’t too bad, just bled a lot. Mad witch she is,” said Heughan, in between bites.
“Curves in all the right places I believe tho’,” smiled McGuire.
Heughan didn’t reply. He didn’t want to think of her now. “I’ve brought your gold,” he said. “Roddy needs me to be back in a week without fail.”
“Grand, don’t worry about the money, I’m just pleased to see you. How is the Spaniard? Still the same mad bastard?”
“Still the same ugly bastard,” agreed Heughan.
“Aye, well, he wasn’t a pretty sight the first time I fished him out of the Irish Sea, and his looks haven’t improved with time,” beamed McGuire. “Shut up and eat! We’ve a wait for the high tide.”
Darkness came with the tide. A few lanterns dabbed yellow light amongst the huts above the shore. Heughan watched Greaves cast off the rope and push the boat away from the jetty, helping him leap into the stern. McGuire started humming. He claimed it calmed the sea, though Heughan knew it was to annoy him. Off they set, west into the distant sun already over the horizon.
It was a clear night, the sky bedecked with baubles of shimmering light. They had a good breeze in their back and with McGuire’s humming, they should be off the tip of the Man by late morning. With any luck, they would be just off Ardglass by late afternoon. Then a quick and easy few hours down the coast, they should be tucking into Carlingford by last light, by which time the Excise men should be deep into their ale and wouldn’t notice a ruffian and his old sea dog coming ashore.
“Ah, Molly!” said Heughan under his breath, hoping there would be a warm welcome for him after the sea had stripped some skin from him.
The sea was calm and the boat settled into a steady rhythm. McGuire was still humming. Heughan lay on the top deck and stared into the sky. It looked like the confusion in his brain. He thought he saw patterns, but he kept losing them and then he couldn’t find them again. He knew there were signs and predictions in the night sky that wise men and witches could divine into wisdom and foretelling.
"Go and catch a falling star
Tell me where all past hours are…"
The suppressed words to Mac’s tune tiptoed round his head, avoiding his other thoughts. To Heughan it looked beautiful for sure but there was no story there for him. The scale of the sky made him feel insignificant. Perhaps his wanderlust was an escape from feeling small, but where would he feel bigger?
"Teach me to hear mermaids singing
Or to keep off envy’s stinging…"
He had heard that the world was so big that no matter how far you sailed, there was no end. He saw the paths that the stars reflected onto the waves. So far he had followed only a few. Where could the others take him? Rodrigues talked of strange-looking tribes across the sea, savages that would eat a man. People spoke of life among the heavens, where a man never grew old and had all he wished to eat without killing.
"Or find what wind
Serves to advance an honest mind…"
Slowly, the rocking of the waves sent him to sleep.
He awoke feeling cold, standing by the rail, the whispering of the sea beneath him. The cloud had smothered the moon, and the wind was getting up. This was the time the monsters came after them, when the depth yawned open and the pitching black sea had drained the sky of light by swallowing all the stars to feed the devils of the deep. Heughan hated looking over the side at night to see his own face looking back at him from beneath the waves, a visage of anguish and failure. The shapeless, fathomless, dark hole was the emptiness in his own life, filling his lungs with water, drowning him.
He felt Melisande over his shoulder, daring him to look into the infinity of his soul, laughing with scorn at his fear of the water. He stepped back, recoiling from the intangible water slipping through him and felt for the rigging, something physical he needed to hold on. From the helm aft McGuire called him, but Heughan couldn’t hear him for the sound of Melisande in his ears, ‘Let go, I am with you. Let it take you. What do you fear? Set us free.’
Just then Cooper touched his arm and Heughan turning sharply, flooring him with one blow. He dropped onto him fiercely. Cooper flailed his arms and screamed to McGuire for help. Heughan was trying to bite his ear off and was tearing at his throat with his hands. Heughan felt his hair being torn from his skull and his heels dragging along the deck as McGuire hauled him off the bleeding and terrified Cooper. McGuire dunked Heughan’s head in the water barrel again and again until he had woken him, then hugging him to himself, he repeated in his ear, “Calm now, calm now.”
McGuire bundled him up in blankets and propped him up against the rail next to him at the helm. Cooper shouted in pain as Greaves administered rough aid and tincture to his wound.
“All right, boy, she’s not here, calm now, calm now,” McGuire soothed to the motionless heap beside him.
The old man gripped the helm knuckle-white until it might break and stared at the horizon. He had seen Heughan like this before, and although it disturbed him, he just wanted to protect him.
Heughan was unconscious, the boat lolled his head from side to side, but McGuire kept him close and kept them on course. A cowed and bruised Cooper sidled up to the helm and ventured a conversation.
“What’s the matter with him?” he asked. “Was he not awake then?”
“He didn’t know what he was doing, lad. He’ll be sorry when he does wakes, when his head has stopped hurting. How’s yours?” asked McGuire, turning Cooper’s head in his sailor’s hands to check the patching for himself.
“All right,” said Cooper, pulling away. “What is he afraid of?” McGuire looked at him. “Why is he afraid of the deep?” asked Cooper.
“He’s lost someone,” muttered McGuire.
“What? Someone drowned?”
“You could say that.”
“When?”
“When he was a youngster,” sighed McGuire. He looked away across the water and silently, more to himself than anyone else, he said, “He’s looking for himself in there.”
Cooper left it; he didn’t want to rile the old man. He’d already had one beating. He stood silently watching ahead, waiting to be wanted.
McGuire started talking; a monologue, as if reasoning with himself. "But he really was just a boy on his first crossing, completely terrified, still in shock. His father was wounded and slept all the while, and I just kept him near me. He held me, just stood there, couldn’t speak; struck dumb he was. I felt alone with him.
"He scratched her name in his arm; I couldn’t stop him. He kept going over to the side and peering into the depths. I tied a rope to him in the end and let him stand there. He cried big silent tears. He vomited over the side every hour, didn’t say a word.
"I took him to his father’s side but he wouldn’t look at him and wouldn’t stay there. I let him take the helm with me, and he stood longer than any man I know. He spat out the food and took no water. I expected him to die but, by God, he’s tough. He has a sword’s blade for his spine, but his eyes are like a woman’s.
“The crew wouldn’t go near him for fear he was possessed. It’s not him drowning; I could see him inside himself, I could see him, I could…” he trailed off and Cooper could see silver tears on the man’s face in the moonlight.
Cooper took the helm and McGuire slumped down beside Heughan and laid his hand on his back. That’s to steady them both, Cooper decided.
Heughan stirred. He could feel the comforting rhythm of the gently rocking boat on a calm sea. He couldn’t see but he could sense McGuire’s presence. He felt sick, not from the sea but from something else. His head was banging; he drifted away again.
Dark shapes and the heat of much hurry came into his mind. He was being carried aloft, there was noise all around…
>
He managed to half open his eyes but the grey sky above the Irish Sea blurred everything and wearily he shut it out again…
He was hurled to the ground at his mother’s feet, the door was closed shut and he could hear muffled noises of the battle raging outside. His mother scooped him up with one arm, she was holding his sister in the other, and half dragged him to the back of the hut behind the bed and into a small curtained-off alcove, into the darkness.
His mother’s hand across his mouth, he looked up pleadingly and could see the fear in her eyes. He wanted to run for help but his mother held him back from making a shape in the curtain. He could smell the sheep in the wool of the drape, the smell of sleep, of safety.
The sound of screaming became louder. He could hear the crackle of fire and the whinnying of frightened horses. The door of their hut was torn open and voices he didn’t know entered. His mother tensed and though she was hurting his face with her grip, he didn’t move. He could hear them smashing their possessions, searching the room for them.
They had stopped shouting and searching and were listening. Heughan held his breath, just as his mother was. Should he look around the curtain? Perhaps they had given up and left. His mother pulled him back gently to signal ‘no’. He was standing at an awkward angle and his back was aching. He was desperate to change position onto his front foot to ease the pain. His mother pulled him tighter to her; she stood behind him absolutely still.
Heughan could stand the pain no more and he shifted sideways. He disturbed an earthenware pot. He looked down to see it tipping; he couldn’t reach down to stop it for fear of disturbing the curtain. The pot fell onto the straw, making no sound. He stopped it from rolling out with his foot and sighed inside with relief, but it was half full of water, which silently and steadily seeped through the straw and under the curtain out into the room.
Heughan fixed his gaze on the floor. The curtain was slowly and deliberately opening and there stood a man, his boots in the edge of the water.