by Alys Clare
‘Yes, and those links are of long standing,’ I responded. ‘Sir Richard’s father was trading in slaves from the early 1560s, Sir Thomas’s brother joined him a few years later. The young man whose body was found near Buckland Abbey had African blood,’ I added quietly. ‘As, I suspect, did the man I treated last night, although his eyes were blue.’
‘Do we postulate, then, that the fugitives are a band of runaway slaves?’
‘But two of those I have encountered are not of fully African blood and the man in the barrel appeared to have none at all,’ I said.
Jonathan frowned. ‘Is there intermarriage between slaves and slave owners?’
‘I cannot answer that,’ I said. ‘Perhaps not marriage but, human nature being what it is, I would assume there is sexual congress, wouldn’t you?’
‘I would,’ he agreed, ‘and, again taking into account human nature, especially man’s nature, I fear that a child born by a slave woman to a white master might not have been conceived at the will of both partners.’
It was a roundabout way of expressing it, but I knew what he meant. ‘I fear you are right,’ I muttered.
‘Is this about revenge, do you think?’ Jonathan said suddenly. ‘Does a son born of rape seek retribution?’
‘I have heard no rumour of involvement between any man of either the Drake or the Hawkins family and a slave woman,’ I said. ‘They were in the Caribbean for gold and treasures, not for—’ I held back the crude expression I’d been about to utter.
‘No indeed, and you are quite right to point out that they are very probably blameless in this respect.’ His words, and the very way he said them, carried the strong implication that he did not hold the men of either family quite as innocent in other matters. He was a man of God; in his compassionate, humane eyes, slavery would be an abhorrence. ‘And yet, Gabriel, I feel the presence of the ancient, dark homeland of the Caribbean slaves in this. I sense—’ He did not continue.
‘I do too,’ I said.
And I told him how, after we had cut down the young man’s exsanguinated body from the tree above the river, I had gone home and sought out my Caribbean notebooks. I also told him what I’d written in them.
‘They brought their fearsome gods with them when they were torn away from their homeland,’ Jonathan said reverentially when I had finished. ‘They found comfort in their faith, and who can blame them? Their lives were brutal, they were in an unknown land, and so they turned for help and support to the only thing nobody could take from them.’
I was surprised to hear a man such as him defend an alien belief. ‘But their gods are not our God,’ I said.
He looked at me for a long moment. I thought at one point he was about to say something, but he shook his head and kept silent. Eventually he said, ‘I too have studied this faith.’
‘You have?’ My surprise increased. ‘But—’ I was about to ask how on earth he’d come across it, but realized I would sound impertinent. Even more so, I further realized, than I must already appear by having lectured him on something about which he undoubtedly knew far more than I did …
‘I was at Cambridge,’ he said, and his eyes held amusement at my discomfiture. ‘Trinity Hall.’
‘Yes, so you once told me.’
‘I was to have read law, but my path was diverted. I studied instead the law of the Church, which we know as canon law.’
‘And that included vodou?’ It seemed unbelievable.
He paused, then said, ‘The great masters who were our instructors were wary of the religion of our country’s enemy at the time.’ The Spanish, I thought. Jonathan was being very diplomatic in not naming them. ‘To defend oneself against an enemy it is advisable to learn all you can about him, and—’
‘But the Spanish are fervently Catholic!’ I interrupted.
‘Of course,’ he said impatiently, ‘but by the time I was at Cambridge they were already in possession of much of the Caribbean, and they had sent their priests to root out the secrets of men’s hearts. Those priests encountered the faith that the slaves had brought with them, and they discovered how one dark, ancient belief system met and absorbed elements of another; one that pre-existed among the indigenous peoples of Central and South America. The priests wrote of their findings – and they were brave men, those Spanish priests, and their accounts are frequently harrowing – and, writing as they were for their masters and ultimately their king, they did not hold back.’
I wondered how on earth the writings of Spanish priests in the Caribbean had come to be read by a young ecclesiastical student in Cambridge. Looking at Jonathan’s expression, however, I didn’t ask.
He glanced at me. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he murmured. ‘You are very interested in how it was that I read the papers and the journals I pored over, and you are absolutely right in the conclusion that I am not going to tell you. Men risked their lives to acquire and disseminate this perilous information, Gabriel, and I will not endanger them.’ He looked around at the darkening room. ‘Even here – especially here, just now – I fear being overheard.’
‘I understand and I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘No need to be sorry, for you managed not to ask the question burning in you,’ he said lightly. Then, frowning in concentration, he added, ‘We were speaking, were we not, of the fugitives, and whether they too were experiencing the same dreams that haunt us?’
‘We were indeed.’
‘Yes …’ He thought some more. ‘You have suggested that England, and this specific area of England, was their intended destination since they have been to both Buckland Abbey and to Sir Richard Hawkins’s Plymouth house. They have, it seems we must conclude, something extremely powerful with them: a dark force that can enter men’s dreams and make him see visions from another world.’
‘There are potions and powders that can instigate these visions,’ I said.
‘Yes. And the adepts of vodou and its associated faiths are well practised in the making of such potions. So, the fugitives leave the Falco and for some reason are not able to take with them the dried corpse that they took on board. It – she – was, however, so important to them that they stole her back from Master Davey’s house.’ He paused. ‘Is it theft when you take back what belongs to you? Is it right to say that a power object such as that tiny corpse can belong to anybody?’ He shook his head. ‘But those are questions for another time.’
He turned to me, looking me straight in the eyes.
‘Gabriel, there is great danger here. We cannot know what the fugitives’ purpose is, but we must conclude that, taking into account the strength of the weapons they have brought with them, it is potentially very, very harmful.’
‘Weapons? But—’
He made an impatient sound. ‘Oh, think, Gabriel! I do not refer to swords, knives, muskets, well-armed ships with canons and well-trained archers lining the upper deck. Those are not the only weapons, nor, indeed, are they the most formidable.’ He lowered his voice and said quietly, ‘You know the danger to which I allude, for you have just told me how something – some malign and very powerful spiritual force – enters your mind as you sleep.’
‘Enough!’ I said quickly.
But I didn’t think he heard; if he did, he took no notice. Leaning forward in his fervour, he went on, ‘And I have experienced the same danger, I too have been terrified so that I fear to go to sleep, and, believe me, I would far rather face a flesh and blood enemy pointing his sword at my throat, or the iron and wood threat of a vast ship bristling with guns – something that I can see, hear and feel with my everyday senses – than what presently haunts my dreams!’
In the few moments before he brought himself back under control and was once more the cool, detached figure of the vicar of Tavy St Luke’s, I glimpsed just how afraid he was. And I understood, for I felt exactly the same.
I reached the safe confines of the Rosewyke yard before it was fully dark. I had not enjoyed the short ride home. Even before my talk with J
onathan, I had already become far too aware of my surroundings when on my own; far too willing to ascribe to every innocent countryside noise a sinister and dangerous meaning; the hissing whisper was but the latest example. The relief I experienced at seeing Samuel’s impassive face and Tock’s permanent expression of mild bemusement made me realize just how twitchy I had become.
Celia and I ate supper together. She had looked at me with a slight frown as I came in and I was aware of her watching me while we ate, but her conversation was of light, mundane matters and, as she described her encounter with an elderly woman friend who fussed her like a hen with one chick, she even managed to make me laugh.
Later, however, as we sat together either side of the fire, the shutters closed against the night, a good fire burning and Celia’s beautiful embroidery spread over her lap as she calmly sewed, I sensed from the sudden tension I observed in her that she was preparing to speak on more vital matters: to ask me why, perhaps, I was acting so oddly.
To forestall her, I said, ‘I called in to see Jonathan on my way home, to apologize for having abandoned you yesterday evening. I am sorry, Celia. I hope it wasn’t awkward in any way after I’d gone?’
She looked up. ‘Awkward?’
I thought I detected a slightly mocking tone. ‘Well, you know.’
‘In fact I don’t know, Gabe. I can assure you, however, that being alone with Jonathan was in no way awkward.’ This time there was no doubt about it.
‘Oh. Well, good.’ She was still looking at me, her eyebrows raised. ‘And it was an enjoyable evening?’ I plunged on.
‘It was, thank you, Gabe.’ As she bent over her stitching, I thought she was smiling.
‘I hope you found enough to talk about,’ I said. I’ve never truly learned the art of when to stop an unwise exchange, particularly with my sister.
‘Without your scintillating presence to provide interesting topics of conversation?’ she said somewhat acidly. ‘Indeed we did.’
‘Jonathan is a man of much learning and he has an enquiring mind, so no doubt you—’
She put down her embroidery and glared at me. ‘Gabe, if you wanted details of every little thing we said to each other, then you ought to have stayed here and not gone dashing off to attend to your patient!’ she said. ‘Jonathan was a delightful guest, he expressed appreciation for everything Sallie put before him – well, you observed that for yourself since you were here – and we enjoyed a glass or two of brandy in the library after the meal, we talked without a pause for at least two hours, whereupon he exclaimed that it was late, he was sorry to have outstayed his welcome – I assured him he hadn’t – and he thanked me very much for a rare and delightful evening and expressed the hope that we might do it again.’ She stopped, panting, slightly flushed. ‘And that is absolutely all I’m prepared to say!’
I reflected, as I picked up the book I’d been reading and pretended to return to my study of its pages, that she had said a great deal more than she’d probably intended.
And I wondered just how soon she would realize.
But when, a little later, she broke the silence, it was not to refer back to what we’d just been saying. Instead, an anxious expression in her eyes, she said, ‘Gabe, what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing!’ I said before I’d had the chance to think how unwise it was.
She tutted. ‘Something is the matter. You keep looking up and staring around. You jump at the small, normal noises. You look pale, and although you said you were very hungry earlier, you only ate half your food.’ She leaned closer. ‘You’re my dear brother, we’ve shared much that we’d far rather not have shared and I had the idea we were close. You helped me when I very badly needed help, and I would like to believe that means you can ask me for my help, such as it is, when you are in need. Please, Gabe, tell me?’
Her earnestness touched me, as did the honesty and courage I saw in her face and her warm hand reaching to take mine. ‘Your help is invaluable,’ I said quietly, ‘so no more of this such as it is rubbish, and in any case modesty doesn’t suit you.’ She grinned. ‘I am indeed troubled, Celia,’ I went on. ‘It’s hard to explain, but I believe—’
‘It’s the ship, isn’t it?’ she interrupted. ‘Something to do with what was found on the Falco, and Captain Zeke asking you to help, and Jonathan going on board and saying prayers to purify the secret hold where the fugitives hid.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He told you about that?’
‘Well, you certainly didn’t,’ she said shortly. Then she added, ‘Sorry.’
‘I didn’t want to—’
‘Worry me?’
She said it lightly, but I knew how it irked her to be treated like a fragile little woman who had to be sheltered from life’s rawness and violence. Considering what she had endured, it was hardly surprising.
‘No, not that,’ I said. ‘There was something very badly wrong on the Falco. I think, by not telling you about Jonathan’s purification ceremony, or any of the other things that have been happening, I was actually trying to protect myself rather than you.’ I met her eyes and attempted to smile. ‘I wanted to keep here’ – I waved a hand around the cozy room – ‘safe. Inviolate. Untouched by the blue ghosts and whatever it is they’ve brought here with them.’
She nodded. After a moment she said, ‘Jonathan is frightened.’
‘He told you?’
‘He didn’t need to. I went out to the yard with him when he left and just as Samuel was bringing out his horse, a barn owl flew low over the house. He jumped as if I’d stuck a needle in him.’
Poor Jonathan. ‘He is afraid,’ I said. ‘So am I.’
Then I poured out more brandy, took a deep breath and told Celia everything that I had been holding back.
THIRTEEN
‘So as I clearly recall saying to you before,’ Celia whispered over breakfast the next morning – Sallie was out in the scullery, but my sister and I knew from long experience that her hearing is equal to that of a bat, if not better – ‘what we really need to find out is what brought the fugitives to this part of England, and why they’ve been lurking round the residences of Drake and Hawkins.’
‘Yes.’
‘If you don’t mind me searching through your books, your notes, your maps and everything else up in your study, shall I see what I can discover?’
‘I don’t mind at all, and yes, please do.’
Having been taught by our formidable grandmother Graice Oldreive, Celia’s knowledge of many subjects – most subjects, in fact, that are not to do with medicine or the sea – far exceeds mine.
‘What are you going to do today?’ she asked.
‘I have several patients to visit, I should call in on Theo to see if the man bitten by the dog has been found, and—’
‘I don’t think you will find him,’ she put in.
‘Why not?’
‘Because wherever it is that these fugitives are hiding, they have chosen the spot well. Nobody has reported strangers, have they? And they took back the tiny corpse that was left behind on the Falco, and that hasn’t been found either.’
‘So, you envisage some out-of-the-way place where they have found shelter, where they’ve hidden the little corpse and where the dog-bite man fled back to so that his companions can look after him?’
‘Precisely that.’
‘But how could they—’
‘Oh, for goodness’s sake, Gabe, we live on the edge of a vast moor with great tracts where nobody goes and where there are the remains of abandoned dwellings, not to mention outcrops of rock that provide shelter and concealment! If you were going to say how could they stay undetected, then I would reply, very easily!’
I grinned, for she was quite right.
‘So, let me remind myself,’ she went on. ‘There are, or were originally, at least four of them: the old man whose body was in the barrel, the young man who was found at Buckland Abbey, the dog-bite man and a lithe person who was small enough to clamber through Theo’
s little window. Is that right?
‘Yes.’
‘And the old man was English but the two others you’ve seen were of mixed blood.’
‘Yes.’
‘And all of the men you’ve seen have blue hands and forearms,’ she murmured. Then she gave me a dazzling smile. ‘Oh, I love a challenge!’ she said, getting up. ‘See you later.’
As I left the house and went to collect Hal, it occurred to me, not for the first time, that Celia didn’t have enough to do. Considering how much she had to offer, I thought that was a great pity.
I took Flynn with me. He is an obedient dog, and two of the patients I was going to visit were children, one only three years old; the presence of a good-natured dog with gentle manners was often a distraction while I did things that hurt.
I told myself that was my reason for having him with me and that it was nothing to do with the fear of ominous presences lurking in the shadows.
When finally I arrived at Theo’s house, Flynn was tired and very willing to lie down in the yard. I went on into the house and found Theo in his office.
‘Jarman Hodge has gone up onto the moors,’ he said, not bothering with even the briefest of greetings; I gathered from this that he had made no progress in his investigations into the two deaths or the mystery of where the tiny corpse had gone, and that he was becoming deeply frustrated at his failure and increasingly short-tempered as a result. I knew him well enough to be aware he never took out his ill humour on his wife or his children, so I resigned myself to being the recipient.
‘Gone to look for the fugitives’ hiding place,’ I remarked.
His head shot up from the document he was studying. ‘How do you know? You’ve seen him?’
‘No. It was only a guess – Celia suggested the same thing this morning, and she reminded me how easy it would be to hide on the moor.’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’ He looked down at the document. ‘I’ve already got two dead of consumption and a stillborn child to process and now there’s this!’ He picked it up and waved it violently in my face. ‘The body of some old man has washed up on the banks of the river and the dear God above knows what I’m to do about him since half his face has gone, one of his hands is missing, he’s as naked as the day he came into this world and not even the mother who bore him would recognize him.’ He swore, at length and without repetition, for some moments.