Ripples in the Sand (The Sea Witch Voyages) (34 page)

Twenty One

The Mother of all Mothers; Anu, Goddess of Fertility and Life. She wore a green cloak and a red skirt; beside her stood other women, their forms ethereal and ghostly, misted shapes that faded and shifted, and were replaced by yet more women, all black-haired, all wearing the green cloak and the red skirt, as Tiola herself preferred to wear. The grandmothers of grandmothers; Tiola’s incarnation existences. All of them standing, smiling at her from the long, long years of the past.

The woman, Anu, turned slowly and gazed at Tiola, and Tiola felt as if she were staring into a glass mirror, looking back at her own face, her own eyes and her own smile.

We are one,
Anu said, her voice clear and beautiful in Tiola’s mind.
Our soul exists from one living body to another, passing, in an unbroken maternal chain, through grandmother to granddaughter. You are the last of us, my dear; you will have no daughters. It is to you that we look to end this conflict between us and the Sea. Tethys must have her offering. Sacrifice must be made.

The protest burst from Tiola’s mouth as shouted words, “But we are of Birth and Life. You took an acorn and nurtured it into the first great oak tree, giving life to the earth. I will not leave Jesamiah to drown. I cannot, nor will not.”

I nurtured the first life, and I took the first life. I am of birth and I am of death. I bring the living into the world and see the dead from it. As do you, and all those who have been your existences. Long ago you interfered with the Fate of Death, and Tethys has not forgotten, or forgiven that interference. She must have the soul that was stolen from her, and it must be you who releases that soul and be-gifts the lifeline of Jesamiah to her, for this feuding must end.

The gull cried again, and with it, from the grass headland, the caw of a crow. Tiola turned, saw Rue and Pamela down on the sand; saw the blue sky, felt the breeze on her face, and saw the crow lazily flapping across the mouth of the estuary, gliding across the white-tossed surge of the Bar.

The crow. The bird of death.

Twenty Two

Ushant! The very name was enough to cause dread, even on a fair-weather day, but with the storm that had buffeted them for two days already threatening to increase its temper, Ushant, and the approaching dusk was not looking to be a pleasurable prospect. A rocky outcrop twelve miles off the coast of Finistère, Ushant was three miles long but set right in the path of ships coming from Biscay and heading for the English Channel. Fog, gales, reefs, Atlantic swells and tide races that reached anything up to nine knots aided its sinister reputation. Its coastline was littered with shipwrecks and the sea-washed, whitened bones of the dead.

The gale had built up a wicked sea in the Bay of Biscay, the crew and passengers experiencing a rough time of it.
Sea Witch
had tossed and bucked as the wind had come screaming like a Banshee across the steep swell that heaved the ship in all directions. She was a weatherly craft, but the pumps had been going almost continuously now for more than twenty and four hours, and still the water was slopping around in her bowels. Jesamiah was grateful that he was carrying only a ballast of timber, for any cargo stored in the lower hold would have been ruined. He had heard of bales of rice that had soaked up the dribble of a leaking hull. The rice had swollen and literally prised the ship apart.

Ushant was a few miles ahead, and Jesamiah was anxious about weathering the island. He had tried running west, but the wind had made matters worse, nor was heaving-to and waiting the storm out an option – it seemed set to blow for days. From Ushant to the Scillies was thirty-five leagues, a little over one hundred miles, and almost as much again to Barnstaple Bay, a night and a day’s sail ahead at the most. In fine weather. But this was far from fine.

How the Cádiz fleet was faring he had no idea. The best he could offer ‘Cesca when she had asked groggily through a distinct green tinge was that a delay in sailing would have served them well. She looked most ill and getting worse on the brief occasions that Jesamiah had found a few spare moments to enter the great cabin in search of a dry shirt and breeches. Once, his visit had been to snatch some sleep in his own bed, although he had only intended a few minutes to rest and ease the ache in his shoulder where a spar had caught him as it had broken free. He had slept for two hours.

The t’gallant masts had been brought down on deck from the first rough blow; the jib boom soon following. All rigging aloft that could be carried away had been doubled up, with rolling tackles and preventer braces set on the yards, slings and trusses. Nothing could be left to chance or trusted to hold firm in the force of a storm. The anchors were stowed outboard, made secure on the bows with double ring painters and lashed along the entire length of the stock, for they could be needed in a hurry if land was too close to leeward. Even the rudder had been safeguarded with relieving tackle, and the helmsman had taken the additional precaution of lashing himself by a rope to a ringbolt in the deck.

Lifelines were rigged fore and aft. The guns if they broke loose would smash through a bulkhead and the ship’s side, crushing limbs and life in an instant. They were made fast and secured, their muzzles tied to the ringbolts above the firm closed gunports, tethered there like beasts in a stall.

The hatchways ventilated the below-deck world, but with the tons of water that would spray over the decks in a storm the hold could soon be awash, and so daylight and fresh air gave ground to heavy sheets of canvas lashed over the grating and battened down. Life would be morbid for the passengers, for even seasoned sailors succumbed to seasickness in a storm, and the only movement would be that of hand over hand, clinging to whatever offered stability. The motion below deck would be horrendous. The only way to remain in a cramped bed was to be tied in. There would be no dry blankets, no hot food, but who would be wanting food when everywhere was awash with vomit? And the noise! The pumps, the continuing clatter, day and night,
clank, clank, clank
, as the battle was fought against the water seeping into the hold. The sound of the wind in the rigging and against what small spread of canvas they had. The almighty crash of the sea trying to force its way in… In that below-deck world,
Sea Witch
had become hell.

Twenty Three

By nightfall, with Ushant, thankfully, behind them, the seas had worsened and the wind had veered, changing pitch to a higher keening that shrilled through the rigging and the treble-reefed topsails.

Through the long, black hours of night Jesamiah stood at the helm, the wind and the rain beating at him, saltwater drops gleaming against the flickering light in the binnacle box as the wind swept them past in arcs of vicious spray. The rest of the ship was in darkness, a ghost world where the moaning of the wind matched the moaning of seasick men. Even Jesamiah had spewed over the side when
Sea Witch
had tumbled down into a deep trough and somehow, valiantly, lurched herself out again.

The ship plunged onward through the sea, the sun rising somewhere behind the grey – black in places – overcast sky, bringing poor light to a sea that was boiling in an angry temper. The crests riding ahead of the swell were a cauldron of breaking fury from horizon to horizon, apart from in the relative calm at the bottom of each deep trough, troughs that, if they grew much bigger, could soon dwarf the
Sea Witch
. Foam torn from the crested waves tumbled aboard, and the sea itself sluiced over the bows and ran along the deck.

The swell had also increased and the depth between each crest had become a fiercesome plunge that seemed to send
Sea Witch
down and down, as if she would never rise again. Each time, she clawed her way over the next rise, only to plunge and rise again, and again. They also had to wear ship, and wear again, and again, each manoeuvre taking its toll on the weary men; each change of direction taking them nearer to the Scilly Isles, another great hazard, another graveyard for ships and sailors.

Apart from that brief snatch of sleep – he could not recall exactly when it had been – Jesamiah had taken no rest. It was his responsibility to get
Sea Witch
safely home to harbour. He had lost a ship once in a storm, it seemed years ago now, and he would not permit himself to go through that devastating experience again. His muscles ached from the mere effort of moving along the deck. He was soaked to the bone, but then, so were they all. Eyes were red and sore from the salt, hands chapped and chafed from the continuous bracing and hauling on spars and yards.

With the wind dropping slightly Jesamiah took the opportunity to check for anything that had fretted itself loose or shifted – the seemingly small things like the lashings on the spare spars – and that the scuppers were clear of debris; minor details that could lead to major tragedy. He did manage to peer into his cabin to check on Francesca; how le Roy, the King, was doing he cared not. If the man were to wear a crown and rule a kingdom he would have to sort his own guts out. ‘Cesca was on her knees in the quarter cabin, her head over the privy hole, vomiting. Her maid was doing the same into a bucket; both looked as white as chalk. Jesamiah left them to their privacy and went in search of Finch.

“I don’t have time to see to the
señora
!” Jesamiah shouted into his steward’s ear, having to raise his voice above the wolf howl of the wind. “Are you tending her?”

“Aye, but she’s in a bad way.”

“We all are, Finch. There’s nowt I can do about it.”

“Didn’t say there were, did I!”

The hours and the nautical miles crawled by, and as they left the Scillies astern – the relief showing on all faces – the wind brought a new discomfort of hail in with it. Hailstones as big as peas, some as large as shilling pieces, and as hard, that swept in across the sea and rattled on the deck and ship’s sides, turning everything white as if a sudden fall of snow had trooped past. Hail that stung and bit at faces and hands, and drummed on the taut canvas of the sails, battered at the secure hatchways. Hissing into the sea as if it were a rasp-breathed monster, whipping the waves into a foam of turmoil.

As they rounded Sennan and the Cornish Land’s End, and turned into the Celtic Sea, almost without warning the wind tore around the four compass points.
Sea Witch
lurched and plunged like a hornet-bitten horse, bucking in pain and surprise, trying to unseat its torment, and its rider. Her canvas sails boomed like a discharge of thunder before the wind settled into its previous unruly screeching, and she paid off again. The stinging hail gave way to a downpour of torrential rain, but as everyone was sodden anyway the extra wet made little difference. The changing wind forced
Sea Witch
to lie over on her side, the strain on her causing every inch to creak and groan in what sounded like searing pain. His arm hooked around a stay, Jesamiah glanced at Isiah and Skylark at the helm, their wet, plastered hair and grim faces as taut as the sodden rigging. This was grim, and he was no longer certain that they would survive it.

Twenty Four

A dream, or a vision? Whatever it was, this had happened in her own incarnation, for Tiola remembered every detail. Tethys had tried to take Jesamiah’s life and Tiola had prevented it by tricking her. She felt ashamed of the trick now, but not ashamed of the reason or the result. Jesamiah’s life.

Taken by surprise Tiola screamed as they fell, her and Jesamiah, tumbling over
Sea Witch’s
rail, and plummeting straight down into the Atlantic swell. Jesamiah’s brother – the man he had thought to be his brother – had pushed them overboard with the full intention of leaving them to drown. The water was cold. Ice cold. Salt water stung her eyes and throat, the need for air burnt in her lungs, but she was of the White Craft, one of the Old Wise Ones. She could not drown. She slowed her breathing and her heart to the point where it was barely beating. She looked up at the water above her, at the sun dazzling on its surface, glinting and shimmering. Saw Jesamiah falling, his eyes closed, arms outspread, sinking. Drowning.

Tethys crowed her delight, the sound clawing through the depths of her undersea world. With the speed of a darting fish she thrust upward, her glee trailing behind in a stream of air bubbles and she enfolded him into her deadly embrace.

I have my gift. I have him. You, Witch Woman, you stole him from me.

Did Tethys not realise that each boy had been a different life? That Jesamiah was not the child who had been in that basket? On the other hand, the one was the father of the other, they carried the same force of life, the same soul, so why should she realise the difference?

Of what use is he to you, Tethys? He is mortal, his body will decay and rot and then you shall have nothing but his bones as your prize. Do you not have enough of those already?

Malicious. Insistent. Demanding.
Give me the soul that is mine!

Tiola felt wet tears on her face, or were they the touch of Tethys? Her cold, salt spray? Jesamiah was barefoot, wore only a loose shirt and breeches, had nothing to impede his arms and legs. Tiola wanted to scream at him to leave her, to save himself.

I will give you a gift, Tethys, in exchange for Jesamiah.

What gift? My gift?

It will not rot, nor will it fade. It will shine forever for you in your darkened depths.

Tiola removed the gold ring of his that she wore on her finger, a signet ring shaped like an acorn. It was pretty, and Tethys was easily distracted by pretty things.

Tiola saw her release Jesamiah, saw him kicking out, swimming to the surface where Rue and the others had him, were hauling him aboard to safety, her own limp body clutched, precious, in his hands.

He was safe. Oh blessed Universe, he was safe!

She awoke with a start. A dream then. A dream of the past, but the words recoiled around her mind, the vileness hissing like the sea scraping onto a rocky shore.

I do not want shiny trinketsss. I want the soul that was given to me!