The Sinful Stones

by Peter Dickinson

  Secondary infection, yes. Dangerous, the book had said. Pibble knelt on the slimy rock beside the gunwale with his hip as close to it as he could manage. Carefully he let himself keel over towards it, then at the edge of his balance he twitched and ducked under his own right hand which still held Sister Dorothy’s wrist; as she toppled, he heaved shoreward. The twist and heave were agony, but her weight slid over the gunwale into the rocking dinghy. For a moment he felt so light that the wind could have blown him away. He lowered her on to her back, picked up her ankles and tucked them brutally in. Her interrupted snoring settled at once to a steady rasp …

  “Get into the bows now, Countess,” he said. “Sit a little over on the far side, and we’ll be level again.”

  She stepped daintily in. Pibble followed. Two rubber rowlocks projected from the fat gunwales, and when he fitted the stubby and splintery oars into them Pibble found that Dorothy’s body was so disposed that it lay right across the place where he had to sit and row. He let go of the oars and wrestled with its inertness.

  “Sit on her, you idiot!” shouted the old man. “Row! She’s used to it, hey? This thing’s only made of rubber!”

  Pibble looked up. The wind had already nudged the dinghy round and was drifting it down towards a reef of puncturing rocks at the bottom of the inlet. He settled into Sister Dorothy’s lap with barely a twinge and started to pull with short strokes, lifting the oars high above the jerky wavelets each time he came forward. The toothed rocks receded, but still the funnelled wind shoved the dinghy crabwise. His right hand insisted on pulling more strongly than his left.

  Sir Francis raised his walking-stick and for an instant Pibble thought the old man was going to strike him, but the ebony rod wavered and steadied to point over his right shoulder. Pibble pulled three times on his left oar and the pointer swung round, lifting over his head. Thus guided, he struggled with the sea.

  Father had liked rowing. There’d been sweltering Sundays at Richmond, Mother in her wide hat, Father stripped to his waistcoat (he’d never have been seen in braces) and sporting a straw boater with a curiously broad ribbon, and small Jamie headachy from the sunbeams bouncing off the greasy water. Father, careful of his ruined lungs, had rowed with tidy economy, feathering, pocking the stream with regular little whirlpools where his oars had dipped; sometimes a passing boatload of oafs would mock raucously at his daintiness and Mother would flush, but he would row on unsweating, faster than many a splashing heaver. The cushions were brown, buttoned, sun-faded velvet; the seat-back varnished wicker. And once, when the day had soured into a squally wind and thunderclouds, they had hurried back from their picnic over a Thames that had real waves on it, all of six inches high. Then Father, explaining as usual, had rowed with an almost circular stroke, not feathering at all but lunging briefly at the water when the oars bit. That, he said, was how seamen managed waves. And he’d got Mother’s new print dress back to the quay almost unspotted, while the boatloads of oafs cursed each other at every drenching stroke.

  It worked, too, in a real sea with real waves. Pibble tugged steadily and Sir Francis never cursed him once.

  The ebony stick speared skywards. Pibble easied, looked over his shoulder, tugged twice with his right oar and put up his hand to clutch the gunwale of the boat.

  “You first,” yelled Sir Francis. “You’ll have to haul me up. Then the loony. Then you can come back for Dorrie.”

  Pibble stood unsteadily and scrambled aboard. The undecked half of the ship was a wild tangle of rotting fishing gear, nets and ropes rising into a herring-smelling mound under which the loose water in the bottom of the boat slopped soupily, rocked by his arrival. He found a loop of rope and hung it over the side, coiling the other ends round a T-shaped bit of brass made for some such purpose. He took the parcel which the mittened claws were waving at him and found a nook for it on the netting.

  “Put your foot in the loop, sir,” he said.

  Sir Francis reversed his walking-stick and hooked it over the gunwale; carefully he pulled himself up; Pibble took his hands; Rita’s slim arm, rough with gooseflesh, held the dinghy tight against the boat while Sir Francis pawed with his spatless foot and found the loop.

  “Now!” said Pibble.

  He was so light with age that Pibble almost tossed him against the far bulwark. They clutched each other like drunken waltzers but stayed upright. Sir Francis was already glaring round the boat.

  “Damned Celts!” he said. “Couldn’t keep a shoe-box tidy! Bad as niggers—natives are always the same, wherever you go. Tie the painter and get the loony aboard. Tell her to find a place for me to nest while I see what sort of a mess those damned women have made of the rigging. You can heave Dorrie up.”

  Pibble ran to the side and gave Rita her orders in his best Regency. He was worried about the time that had flickered by since Sir Francis had come to in the bothie. Rita had found the food-sack and was gnawing a corner of the loaf and looking as cold as a waif in a Christmas weepie, but she nodded and scrambled up. Pibble tied the painter and tumbled down to the heaving rubber. As soon as he knelt beside the snoring mass he knew that the job was beyond him. He was too weak to lift her now—he’d been too weak on firm land, dammit, and on this bulging and erratic platform …

  He looked despairingly up. A shape on the shore nicked the edge of his eyesight. Lord Ullin’s daughter poised by the sea-waves. No, it was Hope, the brown skirt of his habit stiff in the wind. Two others were at the cliff-top. Pibble stood and shouted to Sir Francis and pointed. The old man sneered at him.

  “Can’t reach us here, hey?” he said and returned to poking with his stick at the hummocks of red-brown cloth which lay beside the mast.

  “I can’t lift Sister Dorothy,” called Pibble. “Can we tow her?”

  “If you want to drown a good witness,” snarled Sir Francis. “Wake the bitch up. Pour some water on her.”

  Pibble knelt again, scooped the icy water in cupped hands and tossed it against the lined brown and open mouth. His victim shook her head and spat in her sleep. He tried again. This time she sat violently up, looked round the bay with eyes that seemed all rolling and bloodshot white, heaved herself to the gunwale and vomited. Pibble grabbed her by the shoulder as she was settling back to her stupor.

  “Get aboard!” he shouted. “We’re going!”

  He helped her to her knees, guided her hands to the gunwale of the boat, held the dinghy close in while he forced her into a crouch with his spare hand, got his shoulder under her buttock as she began to tumble, and heaved her inboard. He was afraid she might have broken her neck, but when he clambered up from the wallowing dinghy she was kneeling on the mount of netting, swaying like a slowing top.

  “Bloody boats!” she said thickly and collapsed face down; her snore rose clear above the rattle of wavelets and the hissing wind and the endless, inane excitement of the wheeling gulls. Pibble lurched forward to where Sir Francis was still sitting by the hummock of sail, poking it with his stick.

  Poking it without meaning or interest. He had gone soft. “We’re ready to go now, sir,” said Pibble.

  “Well, get on with it, you damned fellow.”

  “I need your help, sir.”

  “Leave me alone. Can’t you see I’m tired?”

  Pibble looked up. Three Virtues now stood on the shore, and Providence was coming ponderously down the cliff path.

  “Come back in three hours twenty minutes,” said the leaden voice. “Where’s Dorrie?”

  Rita answered.

  “She sleeps, Sire. But I am here, and your cabin is prepared. Here are your matches.”

  Sir Francis put the little box away like an automaton and tried to rise. Rita helped him up.

  “Stop!” said Pibble. “I don’t know how to sail the boat or where to go.”

  “Come back later,” mumbled the old man.

  “His Majesty’s command,” sa
id Rita, “is absolute law to all his subjects. Even the highest, Your Highness.”

  “Reet,” said Pibble, “the stones are your brothers.”

  She laughed.

  “Can you number the hairs of your own head, Reet?”

  “Only … only …”

  Her voice was changing. She stared wild-eyed round the incomprehensible sea-scape. Pibble toiled brutally on.

  “Can you number the sins of your own heart, Reet?”

  “Only God can number the sins of His own heart. And He has none.”

  “And He has none. Go to the lonely cell, Reet, and wait for the word of the Lord to be made plain.”

  He pointed to the low door. She shuffled in, dead-faced. Pibble took Sir Francis by the wrists.

  “Sit down, sir,” he said gently.

  “Damned insolence,” grumbled the old man, but allowed himself to be lowered on to the netting. Pibble settled him against Sister Dorothy’s vibrating torso and went aft for the food-sack. Providence was on the shore now. Hope had stripped. As if at a signal all the Virtues knelt on the rocks, and Providence raised both arms. The wind was the wrong way for Pibble to hear the words of their commination. He picked the bottle out of the sack, turned and settled himself beside Sir Francis. No snarl came through the old lips as he worked the watch out of the waistcoat pocket, flipped its back open and tipped the last ration of cortisone out into his palm.

  “You haven’t taken your pill, you naughty boy,” he cooed.

  “Yes I have.”

  “No you haven’t. Open your mouth.”

  It worked. The tongue, grey as fungus, protruded between the tensed lips. Pibble popped the pill on it and it flicked in.

  “Water,” said the dull voice plaintively.

  Pibble held the bottle to his lips and tilted. Perhaps, he thought, the mild lacing of spirit in it would act as a disinfectant against any bugs in the boggy water. Sir Francis swallowed once, half choked, sneezed, shook his head and managed to finish his swallow. The spattering explosion produced an uncannily powerful reek Pibble smelt the bottle. Crippen, this was neat whisky.

  He sat on the netting and waited. Nothing happened. Providence was standing again, pointing at the enemies of the Faith, crying no doubt that his prayers had been answered and Sir Francis’s senility had been visited on him before he could escape. Despairingly Pibble remembered the effect of salt water on Sister Dorothy and picked up a battered saucepan from the rubbish in the boat.

  It would be a grisly risk. If the old man caught cold … perhaps a light sprinkling, and then dry him off with one of his shawls. … He leaned over the bulwark.

  Something slammed agonisingly into his back, and he nearly lost the saucepan. Clutching it he began to turn, but the pain caught him again, on the shoulder this time. He ducked down and sideways, looking for his enemy. The stood Sir Francis, eyes popping with rage, walking-stick raised for another blow.

  “You damned insolent pup!” he shouted. “I’ll have ye cashiered for this!”

  “I can’t sail the boat!” Pibble shouted back.

  “My saints, can’t an old man have a moment’s peace? Do I have to do everything for you, you cretin?”

  Sir Francis lowered his stick and looked round the inlet grunting when he saw the group of Virtues.

  “I’ll get you out of here,” he said. “Fetch the loony. She can cut the anchor rope. I haven’t got long.”

  Rita was in the cabin, on her knees, praying under a scarlet riding-light which she’d hung from a hook in the” main beam.

  “Come, Countess,” said Pibble. “We need your aid.”

  “The stones are my brothers,” she said. “I will cut my die.” Pibble crouched in under the low roof and took her icy, hand.

  “Come,” he said. “It is the King’s command.”

  “There is only one King,” she said in her Sister Rita voice, “and He is waiting for us to build Him His city.”

  “Reet,” said Pibble “It is time for you to kill a great snake.”

  She looked up, nodded, and rose to a crouch under the low beams. He led her out, plucked one of the gutting knives from where they had been stuck in the bulwark, took her up on to the foredeck and showed her the taut hawser which ran through the guides in the bows.

  “Cut it when I call,” he said.

  She crouched beside the straining hemp holding the knife like a dagger. Pibble realised he’d have to get the weapon away from her as soon as she’d done her job. He went down to the well behind the mast and found to his despair that Sir Francis was once again poking with his stick at a mound of russet canvas.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Course I am, you damned ninny, but I won’t be if you keep me hanging around much longer. There’s a winch under there, with a ratchet; you hoist the sail with it. Run it up steadily. Stop if it gets caught in anything. See that the ratchet-lock is working, so that it doesn’t fall down when you let go. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pibble pointed to the shore. Hope had vanished from the group of monks, but a rounded, dark object was bobbing in the water. A pink arm rose and clove towards the boat with a sturdy stroke. And again.

  “My saints,” said Sir Francis, staring, “will I ever get used to the idiocy of truly damned idiots? Let me get aft.”

  He tottered off under his mound of shawls. Pibble, clawed and kicked at the brown canvas until he had lugged it clear of a battered old brass winch with a crank-handle that fitted over a square-cut projection from the axle. He started to turn. The locking pin clicked over the cogs. Beside him the brown mound heaved and a long spar rose slowly, hung from four pulleyed ropes along its length. The canvas threshed to and fro in the wind with a fearsome cracking and thumping, but Sir Francis seemed unperturbed so he wound on. Suddenly the winch would turn no more. He looked up and saw that the front end of the sail was taut, held by a series of rings which his winding had pulled up the mast. The spar and the back end of the sail still slapped back and forth. Hope was barely thirty foot away in the water. Pibble ran aft.

  “Right,” said Sir Francis. “Hold the sail out as far as you can that side and tell that loony to cut the rope.”

  “Kill that snake, Reet,” he shouted.

  She laughed at him, delicately.

  “Coupez, comtesse,” he bawled.

  At once the blade flashed down as though she were skewering Marat at his ablutions. Then she had to saw. There came a bang and a rattle, and a lurch that nearly tipped the leaning Pibble out of the boat. The wind seemed to drop and the sail moved away from his reach and hardened into a clean curve. They were moving. The hustling waves rattled on the hull with a different note; the shore rocks drifted backwards. Hope had already turned and was swimming back towards his fellows with the same unflurried stroke.

  “Come here,” shouted the old man. “I’m damned near done for.”

  You could hear in his voice that it was true. Pibble crouched beside him.

  “Steer with this,” said the old man, “and manage the sail with this. Those hags have left it reefed for you. You’ll be damned seasick, but tell yourself you’re Will Pibble’s son, hey, and stick it out. Take the tiller first.”

  Pibble settled beside him, wincing at the harshness of the thwart, and took the tiller; he was astonished by the muscular feel of the water.

  “Shove it over, you ninny,” said Sir Francis. “You’ve got to balance the damned sail. Now take these.”

  “These” were two ropes which ran to the top and bottom of the sail. Pibble took them in his left hand. Sir Francis grunted and leaned forward over his stick, struggling to rise. He couldn’t make it.

  “You’ve spitchered me, you damned interfering ninny,” he said, snarling like a dying vixen.

  Pibble looked up and refocused his gaze from the narrowing rocks of the inlet mouth to
where Rita stood statuesque by the mast.

  “Countess!” he called.

  She came with the swoop of a gull.

  “My father is ill,” he said. “Pray take him to the cabin and try to make him warm. If he catches cold he will die, and then all will be lost.”

  “Alas!” she cried, and took the old man’s hand, heedless of the angle of the tiller and the ropes that governed the sail. Her efforts combined with a lurch of the boat to tilt him to his feet, but at the same time tangled the ropes half round the pair of them.

  “Look out!” cried Pibble, and leaned round the swaying couple to try and pull the ropes clear of them on the other side. His movement altered the angle of the tiller, just as the struggles of Rita and Sir Francis altered the angle of the sail. The rocks at the edge of his vision seemed to be moving differently, and he looked up from the crazy tangle to see that the boat was now moving, slowly but deliberately, almost straight for the right-hand shore. He pushed the tiller away from him, furious with fright. Slowly the boat’s nose began to come round, with the cumbrous turn of a dowager acknowledging a lowly acquaintance at a flower show. They weren’t going to make it.

  But they did, easily. The curve of their course sharpened as the boat regained speed, and now they were pattering along parallel to the rocks. Rita found a hand to lift the impeding ropes over Sir Francis’s head, and the sail stopped its waffling and banged out to its proper position. Craning below the curve of the sail-foot Pibble watched the lee shore edge away.

  “Prize nincompoop!” complained Sir Francis, not in his leaden voice but rambling and slurring his words like a drunk. “Prize … your mum was half right … Peace, not Physics …”

  “Come, Your Majesty,” simpered Rita. “His Highness comes worthily of a race of heroes. But our first task is to see you to safety.”

  The pop eyes looked at her.

  “Giddap, then,” he said with sudden liveliness. “If going to drown I’ll do it with a bit of young flesh in my hands.”

  She smiled and manoeuvred him round. The four-legged bundle of tweed and shawl edged away without turning either of its two heads. Pibble had a sense of rushing inescapably on, such as motor-cyclists experience when they first learn to use their machine, though he could see from the backward march of the cliffs that the boat was barely moving at a walking pace. This sense of speed came partly from the waves in the inlet being so small and close together, but beyond the sheltered water he could see the real waves loitering past, menacing, like the louts from a protection racket looking over an amusement arcade.