Gisborne: Book of Pawns (19 page)

I looked back to the time before Gisborne had arrived at
Cazenay
and I realized how ign
orant and immature I had been, how indulged by everyone.
I possessed some useless accomplishments but no experience of life or death and no understanding of the
grosser side of human nature.
Now here I was, swamped by the realitie
s of gambling, deceit and …
I th
ought of Wilfred and Harry … murder.
It was the difference, quite simply between Heaven and Hell.

I sighed and turned over.
I lay on a bed of mildewed sail and faced one of the wooden ribs of the ship, reac
hing out a finger to touch it.
It was smooth, as slippery as silk except for
that mark there, and another.
It was too dark to see but I tried to trace them
and in my mind, decipher them.
My finger went o
ver and round, over and round.
That and the sounds of the
boat, the creaking of the rigging
, the sighing of the wind through the stays and the ever-present
‘Ysabel, Ysabel,’
of the water lulled me into an dreamless sleep.

And so it was; m
e
with my circular thoughts, Gisborne
working as a member of the
crew, the seafog persisting. If I saw him
at all, it was
as a shape through the mists.
He’d be bending to a task, laughing with the crew or in i
ntense discussions with Davey.
He would appear and disa
ppear like an enchanted being.
Once he glanced up and caught my gaze.
There was no smile
but our eyes met and
held and I took strength from the moment.

Davey had ordered the sail lowered a few hours after the m
ists enveloped us.
All sound was muffled and we could
hear nothing of our pursuers.
The men took their place at oars that we
re well greased with seal-oil. Gisborne
sat at
a larboard
oar and when Davey signaled, for no voices were allowed, he pulled w
ith the rest.
He half stood, his broad shoulder taking the strain as the oar scooped dow
n into the water and up again.
But then the mist drifted across him and he vanishe
d and my heart skipped a beat.
It
was
like being on ghost ship,
as Davey had said,
with shapes
dissolving
, a silent ambience with only a fa
int splash as the oars dipped.
The water sighed along the planks
but there was no other sound.
Ghosts from past and present.
I wasn’t sure if I felt intimidated by the pervasive atmosphere
or not
.

At one point we heard rhythmic tolling and Da
vey jumped down to the rowers.
He spoke s
oftly but all appeared to hear. ‘Larboard oars pull. The rest of yer hold.’
The vessel judd
ered and began to shift away from the sound. The other
oars
men
joined in, we moved fo
rward a few lengths, then the lar
board oars were stilled for one pull and we straightened again.

Davey joined me at the stern.

‘Bell Rocks,’ he said.

I knew of Bell Rocks, greedy and hidden beneath a
swirl of weed and white water. Death to many a boatsman.

‘Another day and a
half and we’ll be off the coast.
We’re making good speed.’

My stomach flipped over.

‘The other boat?’

Davey tapped his nose.

‘Trust Davey, mistress.
There’s no one can cr
eep about this ditch like me.
There’s some
even
call the
Marolingian
magick.’ He thumped the mast with his fist. ‘
I’d stake my life on the fact that they’ve heade
d directly across from Calais or maybe even tried to sit the mist out. Either way we’ve lost ‘em.
Trust me.’

Trus
t you indeed. What choice
?

That night the same soft
sea-song sang me to my sleep. A hand shook
my shoulder much later
and
woke me and I could see a s
harper light behind Gisborne as he squatted next to me.

‘Ysabel,
wake you.
W
e are off the coast at Great Yarmouth.’

I sat up as if a bo
lt of lightning had struck.

‘The other boat?’

It was becoming a litany.

‘No sight, as Davey predicted.’

Guy stood
and in the daylight that ventured through the mists I could see he had almost grown a beard and that his hair was windblown and knotted.
S
hadows
looped under his eyes
and yet his manner betrayed little of his tiredness.

I grabbed his hand.

‘Stay a moment.
I need to talk.’

He squatted down
again
and his fingers laced throu
gh mine, my heart swelling.

‘About what?’

‘Moncrieff. What if I don’t go home?
What if I go somewhere else entirely?’

His hand fell away from mine.

‘You would not see your father?
Or Cecilia.
’

Or my mother
, but he didn’t say the words.

I could feel my jaw tightening and I grabbed my hair and smoothed it back, twisting it i
nto that all too familiar knot.

‘My father?
My father whom
I believe sees me as some sort of currency? Why would I?
I would have been better to stay in
Cazenay
.’

He gave me
a measuring glance and then lowered himself to sit next to me, his back against the rib whose marks had so soothed me.

‘In hindsight
Cazenay may have been safer, b
ut you ar
e in England now or near enough, and you have unfinished business. Something’s awry in Moncrieff.
More so than when
Cecilia sent me to collect you.
How it is connected with you I can only begin to guess but even if
De Courcey has
assume
d
the estate, there are
things that are rightly yours.
Things of your mother’s, things in your father’s library…’

‘My father’s
library
?’

A library?

Mother
had
never mentio
ned that Father had books. An interest in monastic works certainly and those held by
some noble houses, but his own
books
?

‘Ysabel, are you listening?’

Guy nudged me and I nodded.

‘My suggestion is this…’

I sig
hed.
I could see it coming…

‘We ride as secretly…’

Of course!

‘Ysabel!’
Guy shook my arm.

‘Yes. Secretly to Moncrieff.
Even th
ough I am afraid of De Courcey.
Even though it
seems he wishes to use me in some way
, you want me to return to Moncrieff.’

Gisborne frowned at me.

‘You’
ve s
hown immense courage thus far.
We can see this through and then I swear
when we know what has happened and taken what is yours,
we can make a plan and I can see you and
your father safe if needs be.
To Wales or Ireland,
even back to Aquitaine –
far from
De Courcey
.’

‘My father can
stay at Moncrieff, I care not.’ For a moment I thought he would dispute
but perhaps he thought of his feelings towards his own father and could see the hypocrisy of argument.

‘Yourself then.
I shall see you safe.’

I flu
ng myself on him, hugging him.

‘You would do that?’

H
is hand spread across my back, his fingers pressing.

‘Of course.
I woul
d never leave you defenceless.
We can get word to
Cecilia
and find out what
De Courcey has done and then make plans.
O
nce you are safe, I can leave
.’

Leave? Leave me?
There! There was the truth of it – the game unfolding to the end

I
sat back on my heels, unable to help that I must seem disappointed, disillusioned.

‘Ysabel, I…’

‘Master Guy?’
Davey’s voice dri
fted toward us from amidships. ‘Can you come, sir?
I need you.’

My face twisted, I kn
ow it did.
It shouldn’t have because I had chanted to myself that I
knew which way this was to be played. I thought I was beyond naivety … that even though I found the man suspect after he had let Halsham go, I had knowingly laid myself out for him.

‘Go,’ I said, pushing him. ‘Davey needs you.’

I pulled on my coping face, the new Ysabel who was courage
ous and could tackle anything.
I watched him begin to move away and I swear it was as though someone had taken a sword to my who
le body and cleaved it in two.

‘Guy,’ I called.

He looked back.
The strengthening light illum
inated lines of dirt and fatigue.

‘One thing…’

‘Yes?’ H
is head
quirked
to the side, that quizzical gaze that I had come to know so well.

‘I want a bath in
Great Yarmouth
.’

‘Ghosts,’ I murmured.

‘Your pardon?’

Gisborne
turned away from sur
veying the sea to focus on me.
As I observed the state of his hair, his beard and his clothes, I wondered how close to vagabonds we seemed.

‘Ghosts,’ I repeated. ‘We have been ferried by spectres
on a ghos
t ship from Calais to England. It is how it seems.
Do you see?
’

I pointed in the direction Gisborne
had been st
aring.
The mists had returned after a b
rief and sunlit break at dawn and t
he
Marolingian,
anchored in the depths of the miasma
, was invisible. Of the dory that rowed us to shore there was no sign.
It boded well.
I felt that if we were so well
hidden now, surely we had the advantage in my secret return to Moncrieff. I wo
uldn’t say that my spirits rose
but I
was just a little less tired.

‘
What is he? A
smuggler?’
I asked, referring to Davey.

Gisborne
chuckled, a quiet sound muffled by the strands of fog that eked over the
water’s edge
onto la
nd.

‘Some say so.
For my par
t, he is a good man and loyal.
Steadfast, I would say.’

I detected a note in hi
s voice
, as if there were very few in this world that he would trust and Davey was one of them. Trust had been something I had taken for granted all my life, for why should an indulged daughter of a noble house have
need to worry about such things? But in these last weeks I had been forced to face the other side of human nature; the side that revealed the worst qualities of men. I turned away from the water
, the pebbles
crunching under my boot-soles.

‘
What now, where do we go? It is still day
s to Moncrieff.’

He
pushed on ahead of me, talking back over his shoulder.

‘We need
food and horses.
Davey has organized…’

‘How?’ I interrupted.

Davey’s web of intrigue
is even larger than I imagined.