Peril on the Sea (8 page)

But then they all fell silent.

 

THEY WERE NOT ALONE.

Two men in high-gartered, mud-flecked leggings and farmers' beige tunics approached from the direction of the cottage. In their hands they carried farming implements that could be put to easy use as weapons.

The taller of the two carried a billhook, a long device, recently sharpened, Sherwin thought, judging by the gleam of the heavy iron hook-and-blade. The younger, stouter man brought a mower's scythe, a large one, made
for felling grain during harvest, and for swiftly clearing briars during the spring's first toil.

The men were joined by dogs, three of them, good-sized, bristling animals with white teeth. The dogs were restrained by spoken commands as quiet and peremptory as any aboard the
Vixen
.

“What men are you?” asked the tall man with a field man's bluntness.

“We are the crew and wardens,” said Sergeant Evenage, “of Her Majesty's Ship the
Swan
. Caulkers have left a leak along her keel, and we are making good the defect.”

“The
Swan
, out of Portsmouth,” inquired the tall farmer, “as is captained by Captain Hawkins?”

“That very ship, my good man,” said Evenage, with a smile that betrayed a trace of doubt.

The tall man took a better grip on the shaft of his billhook. The dogs growled in unison, although they remained on their haunches near the younger man. Sherwin thought that he had never seen such intimidating beasts, nor any so eager to tear intruders to shreds.

“And you prick pigs, do you, for pitch?” asked the tall farmer.

“We hear such praise of the livestock in this region,” replied Evenage, “that our shipmate could not restrain his curiosity regarding the quality and general merits of your piggery.”

“There is a sailing
Swan
,” said the farmer, speaking in the slightly impatient accent of a man who saved such arguments
for market day. “But as to whether Hawkins captains her, or whether she berths in Plymouth, I have no knowledge.”

Evenage let his shoulders rise and fall, and he lifted a gloved hand in helpless courtesy.

“We intend no harm,” interjected Sherwin, “to any living creature.”

But Tryce's quivering animosity gave the lie to the cordial fictions of Sherwin and the sergeant.

“Percy,” said the landsman, in a voice empty of all fear, “hurry up to Fairleigh and tell Sir Anthony that his land is despoiled not by Spaniards, as we feared, but by English pirates.”

W
E ARE NOT PIRATES,” said Evenage.

He made this protest in the affable, round tones of a lawyer addressing a magistrate.

The farmer made no remark in response.

“If you will send word to your lord,” added Evenage, “be kind enough to give him the compliments and best wishes of Captain Brandon Fletcher, the strong right hand of our gracious Queen.”

“Did you get that?” the farmer asked the youthful Percy, who turned back to catch these additional words. “Tell Sir Anthony that the famous Captain Fletcher is on our doorstep.”

The younger man hurried off.

“Although,” the farmer added, quietly, “I hear that in a crowd of honest men, Captain Fletcher would be missing.”

Evenage gave his sword belt a hitch, and Sherwin sensed that this veiled insult might be answered with blood.

“I give my word, before God,” said Sherwin, eager to intervene, “that no harm will come to man or beast.”

Evenage took a moment to adjust his hat, as though in surprise or instant caution at hearing Sherwin utter such an unenforceable oath.

The farmer lifted his chin in recognition of the veteran soldier's reluctance. “Can the same be said for all of you,” asked the farmer, “or will my dogs have seamen for dinner?”

“We'll do no harm, my good man,” said Evenage, assuming a lighthearted tone, “upon my word.”

Tryce spat. “I'll not bandy oaths with a swineherd.”

Evenage turned and cuffed him. The blow was hard enough to snap Tryce's teeth together and send him staggering back across the rutted road.

The farmer took a step back, and Sherwin, too, had shied involuntarily at this sudden violence. This was not the first time that Sherwin was forcibly aware that his assumptions and hopes might not fit the actual character of his new companions.

“The young gentleman and I,” said Evenage, “will take responsibility for this sailor.”

Tryce leaned against the wall, setting his cap back snugly onto his head. He made a point of spitting deliberately in the direction of the landsman, and Sherwin did not like the way Sergeant Evenage wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword, drawing the blade and settling it back into its scabbard.

“Tell me, pray, whose farmland is this?” asked Sherwin,
as much to guide the silence toward friendly discourse as to solicit an answer.

The farmer, however, did not like the way Tryce was scowling, leaning against the wall, and gazing at the sergeant. The farmer retreated into a guarded silence, giving his head a shake in response to Sherwin's inquiry, much the way a solitary traveler might refuse to speak to a suddenly menacing group of beggars.

The four of them were kept where they were, watched over by the dogs, which grew bored with threatening the strangers and began to yawn and sniff the ground nearby.

Sherwin and his companion could observe young Percy's progress toward a large house in the distance.

Whatever meeting transpired there did not take long.

As they watched, they beheld the opening under the gatehouse swing wide and the mantled form that had been visible on the cliffside reappeared. She was joined by a male figure who looked, at a distance, to be a servingman, clad in a gray cloak and wearing a broadsword.

No stylish individual carried such a weapon, which was thought to be manly, essentially English, but entirely unfashionable. Nonetheless, Sherwin did not enjoy the prospect of being cut by one.

As the woman approached, Sherwin became aware that the striking, soldierly appearance of his garments was diminished by the spattering of muck and worse over his boots. He was aware, too, how even a short voyage with merchant seamen had made the prospect of quiet, pleasant
conversation with a young woman seem extraordinary and desirable.

The sergeant also removed his cap, gave it a quick brush-off with a gloved hand, and then it was too late to repair the outward show they made as the young woman swept quickly toward them, the servant with a firm grip on the pommel of his sword.

Sherwin readied any number of dashing opening comments—compliments on the weather, sincere respects regarding the attractiveness of the fields and oaks all around—but it was Tryce who got off the first remark, a whisper, but one that carried.

“We'll stick and pickle this lady,” he said, “if we can't capture a pig.”

The sergeant gave a twitch of embarrassment and Sherwin took a step sideways, trying to distance himself from the sullen seaman. There was, at least, the hope that the young woman had not been able to hear the remark.

The young woman introduced herself, sweeping back the hood of her mantle with one gloved hand, and asked, “Which of you is Captain Fletcher?”

K
ATHARINE WESTING had light brown hair and brown eyes, and was not afraid to look at each man directly, including Tryce, who made a great show of finally realizing that a lady was present and removing his cap. Bartholomew made a courteous and graceful bow.

“None of us, my lady,” said Sergeant Evenage, “is equal to the honor of that name.”

“My father would meet with the captain over wine and nourishing fare,” said Katharine. “He has a proposition that may put money into the captain's purse.” She added, “That man is bleeding.”

Tryce shook his head in denial. “I never,” he said.

“Oh, don't mind our Tryce, my lady,” said Sergeant Evenage. “He bleeds or he doesn't, as the wind blows.”

“If your people, my lady,” said Sherwin, “could offer some dressing for our companion's wound, we would be grateful.”

This was the first remark he had made in Katharine's presence, and she smiled to hear the words, as though
reassured that she was encountering human beings of normal fellow-feeling.

Sherwin introduced himself, giving his Christian name and his surname, and his place of birth. As he spoke, he felt the need to be far from Tryce and even the well-spoken sergeant. Instead, he wanted to be strolling in a sun-drenched garden where he could weave verses for this young lady. He had never felt this way so strongly, and the feeling struck Sherwin with all the fierceness of a too-long-suppressed insight. What he did not want, at that moment, was a further voyage, and the company of bungling rogues like Tryce.

“Oh, this is our new young gentleman and historian, my lady,” interjected Sergeant Evenage, as though eager to provide additional introduction. “As was nearly killed by the sea this recent night.”

Sherwin was pleased at this description of his character and recent adventures, and he was sure that he must have blushed before he could speak. He sensed Bartholomew standing tall beside him, proud of his new master.

This good feeling was offset as Lady Katharine asked, “Tell me, Sherwin Morris—are you a brigand, too?”

Sherwin was about to express himself handsomely when a goose, whose trumpeted complaints had carried from an unseen confinement until now, made its appearance.

The large white bird careened around the corner of the wall and lunged at everything in sight, including the larger of the dogs, the sergeant's boot tops, and as much as it could pinch in its yellow beak of Bartholomew's breeches.

The goose's great mistake, however, was in attacking Tryce.

The seaman did not tolerate being assaulted for an instant.

He drew his sword from its scabbard, took a single cut through the air, and the goose was headless, even as its unfurled wings and churning legs continued to hurry the remains out across the road.

The decapitated white fowl was blushing into a rosy hue as its blood cascaded down over its plumage, and still the bird ran, continuing in an uneven circuit. Sherwin felt called upon to end an episode of grotesque cruelty, and to assert something like his own stamp on events.

He drew the pistol from his belt, sparing a glance toward Bartholomew, who gave the hint of miming a two-handed grip.

Sherwin cocked, aimed, and fired.

 

THE REPORT was deafening. The smoke was a bright blue in the sunlight, and smelled strongly of sulfur.

Even with a horizon obscured by smoke, Sherwin could see that his shot went wide of the headless bird, and that his attempt to cancel the post-mortem sprint with a further act was doomed. The shot had sent up a spray of soil, and then Sherwin could see the lead ball as it bounded, slightly deformed from the impact with the dirt, like a hazelnut tossed across the grass.

But the goose's body took that moment to collapse and utterly expire, as though the sound of the pistol shot had
torn some fabric in what remained of its will. The thought was not pure fancy. People believed that cannon shots often caused rain, and during a drought farmers sometimes loaded their fowling pieces and set out across the fields to puncture the blue with gunfire.

When Sherwin was able to hear at all, he made out the words of Katharine as she said, “Well done, Sherwin Morris.”

Sherwin turned to Bartholomew and said, with words sounding strange in his still-ringing ears, “Get coin from Tryce to pay for this.”

Tryce wrestled free of Bartholomew, but not before a leather sack was winkled from the interior of his tunic, and silver pennies taken, enough to pay for a burgeoning flock of prize geese. As Sherwin had suspected, a mountebank's apprentice learned the fine points of theft.

Sherwin pressed the silver into the farmer's hand and then he turned to address Katharine.

“My lady,” he said, “I am sorry you had to see this.”

Sherwin had known many women before, including an intimate entanglement with Lily Sprocket, the daughter of the owner of the Cock and Miter inn. He had thought himself in love with Lily, and ruefully advised himself to forever keep a closer guard on his affections when Lily took up with an ostler from Epping, found herself pregnant, and married him.

Sherwin had never met a woman like Katharine Westing. She had a direct, lively gaze and a ready smile. But she also had that indefinable quality so often described as beauty.

“My dear Sherwin,” said Katharine with a smile, “I have seen many things worse.”

“My lady,” said Sherwin—feeling his earnest intentions never to love again slipping away—”I regret to hear it.”

He took the offered gloved hand, the white leather of the glove well cured and not a mean piece of stitchery, either. But for all the expense of the silk lining of her mantle, lavender showing well against the heath-brown of the hood, there was a tear in her sleeve that had been daintily mended, and a fray along the instep of her shoe. She was well appointed, but not as wealthy as she had been in the recent past.

“I suppose,” she said, “a felon such as yourself fires a pistol before breakfast every day.”

“My lady,” was all he could think of saying, “if it pleases you.”

 

BUT TRYCE did not leave at once.

“I'll not retreat to the ship,” he told Sherwin, “without the captain's pig, as he requested, and payment from your lad for the money he took.” His leg was still bleeding, and no one had given another thought to his medical needs.

Katharine had gone back toward the great house in the distance, taking her sword-wearing servant with her, and Evenage was trying to lead Tryce away with a soothing
Now, now,
like a dockside constable calming an angry drunk.

“Mr. Highbridge,” the sergeant said, “will find a way to pay you back for your trouble.”