Peril on the Sea Read online

  This sea held their future, whether good or ill, as often before. Katharine loved the ocean as much as her father did, and loved to hear her father tell the stories of his days building pinnaces for the Admiralty, of the investments he had made as a speculator in spices and rare cloths, and of ships that had weathered brutal gales to arrive packed with answered prayers. Pinnaces were smaller vessels carried or towed by ships and used in exploration and surprise attacks, and a well-built pinnace was a craft of beauty.

  This windy night she had been eager to sit before a fire and serve her father hot wine, and she had questioned the wisdom of going to church for the evening’s service. But the ceremony was a tradition along the Devonshire coast, calling for the blessing of God on the vessels of fishermen and merchants alike, and this evening had included a sermon on the storm of the Sea of Galilee, and how Jesus had quieted the tempest with a command.

  Katharine knew that her father was no more pious than the next man, but she also knew that no one was more in need of Heaven’s favor than the two of them. His injured leg was not healing, and every day his limp had been growing more pronounced. Katharine was increasingly responsible for running the household. When problems arose, the servants told Katharine before they troubled her father with the news.

  They had nearly reached the gatehouse of Fairleigh, the manor house and walled gardens of the dwindling Westing property, when the sound of hooves swept down on them from the woodland. The lead horse had a distinctive sound—small bells had been fastened to the bridle so the rider could descend on his prey with a sweet but sinister melody.

  Sir Anthony tried to hasten Katharine along toward the protection of the gate, but his sixteen-year-old daughter was quick enough to move out of the way of his attempts to shield her. Katharine believed that it fell to her to protect her father from harm, and she stepped into the path.

  Sir Anthony’s man Baines reached for his weapon, an old-fashioned broadsword.

  For a moment no one spoke.

  “I wish you good evening,” said Sir Gregory at last, with an abrupt courtesy.

  His squire rode with him, a silent hulk named Cecil Rawes. Cecil was a new, taciturn arrival to Lord Pevensey’s domain, and no one knew much about him. England was well supplied with rough hands looking for profitable employment and not above acts of violence. Cecil let his cloak hang open, windblown, and let the starlight gleam on the hilts of a rapier and a dagger with a brass knob.

  “We are hale but cold,” replied Sir Anthony with forced cheer. He kept a good grip on his walking stick, a knobby span of hazelwood that could serve as a defensive weapon.

  “All the more reason to ask me in, then, to your hearth,” said Sir Gregory, “so we can discuss business.”

  Sir Gregory Skere was a knight who had fought in Portugal against the Spanish, received a musket ball in the face, and retired to serve as a hired sword to whatever lord or lady would fill his purse with coin and his cup with malmsey, the sweet wine of his preference. Sir Gregory worked for Lord Pevensey, the most important landowner of the district. In the starlight Katharine could not make out what she knew was a battered visage under a cap that sported a single falcon feather.

  “I should be glad to offer you bread and beef,” said Sir Anthony, “but this evening’s offering is not worthy of a man of your good name.”

  Katharine knew as well as her father that their pantry was reduced to rinds of cheese as hard as soap, and the darkest, most chewy bread, no food fit for a guest, and proof, furthermore, of their financial straits.

  “Lord Pevensey,” replied Sir Gregory, “in particular asked me to sit down with you and discuss most urgent business.”

  “We will be most grateful to his lordship,” said Sir Anthony, “if he would be our guest on some night not many days from now, along with you and any of your friends.”

  Sir Anthony was a baronet, a minor but honorable noble rank. His estate had been in the Westing family since 1435, when a Westing named Robard wagered that his falcon could catch more pigeons than a hunting hawk owned by a Pevensey forebear.

  Ever since Fairleigh and its land had been won by this sporting bet, the Pevensey family had fumed. Pevensey was an earl, and he owned orchards, grain mills, the fishing rights to major rivers, and every roof and chimney of several villages. A retinue of clerks and controllers was needed simply to accumulate his yearly rent.

  Sir Anthony, in contrast, was the owner of unpretentious farmland, and was owed the services and rents of a few loyal folk. There was, however, the grand manor house of Fairleigh, complete with paved courtyards and a sprawl of chambers and fireplaces. The estate also featured a gatehouse, with an ancient gatekeeper, Sedgewin, who even now was opening the cross-timbered gates.

  “We will speak business this very night,” insisted Sir Gregory, “or my lord will be most displeased.”

  “My father is weary, Sir Gregory,” interjected Katharine, “and fretful with his worries over an illness that plagues our stable, affecting even our broodmare.”

  If Sir Gregory had little regard for human beings, he nevertheless might wish to spare his horse contact with a croup or fever. This equine illness was a fiction—every last horse had been sold, and the stable stood quite empty.

  “I saw your broodmare at market, Friday a week past, my lady,” said Sir Gregory. “The one with the nick in the ear, the pretty bay. She’s a good breeder, and as sporting as any female this countryside has produced, save, if I may say so, the young mistress of this place.”

  “No,” said Baines, who had been trembling with illsuppressed anger. “You may not say so, my lord, if you please, and you hear my master when he says that this is not a good night for visitors.”

  But as Baines pronounced this rugged attempt at courtesy, he made the mistake of gesturing with his sword, more to add meaning to his words than as a threat. Sir Gregory lifted a booted foot from his stirrup and kicked Baines hard in the chest.

  The servingman went down, and Sir Gregory guided his steed forward with a quiet cluck, cluck sound. No horse would choose to put a hoof on a human body, which provided at best unsteady footing. But this horse had been trained, or at least had learned to accommodate his master. The horse placed a metal-shod hoof on Baines’s chest as the man stirred, catching his breath.

  “Please let me speak with you, Sir Anthony, inside where it is warm,” said Sir Gregory with what was in him a great demonstration of diplomacy. “I would so regret,” added the knight, “being forced to injure your man.”

  6

  LET ME SAY what we all know to be true, Sir Anthony,” said Sir Gregory when they were all settled before the hearth.

  “As you wish,” answered Anthony. He added, with a dry laugh, “Although when a man sent by Lord Pevensey speaks of the truth, even the mountebank hides his coin.”

  “You wrong me, Sir Anthony,” protested Sir Gregory. “I am not a bird hound, trained to leap at a whistle.” Cecil sat in the shadows, firelight glinting off the brass pommel of his dagger as he took a long swallow of wine.

  Anthony smiled and said nothing further for the moment. He was a tall, lean man with sandy hair. He was quick to take pleasure in life, and quick to grow concerned. He could hide his feelings from someone like Sir Gregory, who did not know him well and who was too vain—in Katharine’s view—to sense another man’s feelings in any event. Anthony could not hide his tensions or his happiness from his daughter, however, and she could see how anxious he was.

  Their visitor leaned forward, with his elbows on the table. A maplewood cup of wine was beside him, the last of the best drink that Fairleigh had to offer. A fire was burning merrily in the grand fireplace—a great oak had fallen last winter in a gale, and firewood, if nothing else, was plentiful.

  Sir Gregory gave a wondering glance at Katharine, who had joined the two men at the table. It was not entirely usual for women to confer with men, but with the death of Katharine’s mother four years previously, Anthony had come to rely on Katharine’s jud
gment regarding everything from whether he should wear a hood instead of a cap to whether the sheep—when there had been a flock—might be ready for shearing.

  “My daughter,” explained Anthony, “is my partner in commerce.”

  This phrase was calculated to carry weight—where business was concerned, age and sex stood aside for good judgment regarding money. While women entered life, and marriage, at a disadvantage, many a widow ran a prosperous business, and a bright husband might seek a wife with the capacity for balancing income and expense.

  “What a prize,” said Sir Gregory, “your daughter will be.”

  “She is a prize to me, as she was to her late mother,” said Anthony. He added, perhaps foreseeing a discussion of marriage, “My daughter is not chattel.”

  Sir Gregory lifted a finger, as though to acknowledge Anthony’s remark without necessarily agreeing with him.

  Baines entered the room at that moment, casting a baleful glance in Sir Gregory’s direction. Baines was nearly the last of a committed staff of servants. Sedgewin the gatekeeper had stayed on, too, a man who had sailed to Naples as a youth and who now kept pots of dwarf oranges growing in tubs over the entrance to Fairleigh. Aside from Angus Deets, the cook, and his dimpled daughter, Molly, the once-renowned kitchen staff of Fairleigh had departed, including the ewer carriers and the bottler, the pantler and the scullery boy. Want of silver had forced Anthony to let even the most loyal and able of them go—and they were all faithful, warmhearted folk—with promises to hire them back when he could afford to.

  Baines set a bowl of apples on the table, small, worm-shot though they were—cider apples, most properly, and not sweet enough for ready eating.

  “Will you be desiring anything else, sir?” Baines inquired, hovering protectively.

  Anthony thanked Baines and said that there was nothing wanting. And in a way it was the truth. The dining chamber of Fairleigh Manor was a grand, pleasant room. The floor was covered with a mat of rushes woven with lavender and sage that even in its worn condition gave off a balmy perfume on this chilly night.

  The hall was a treasury of fanciful wood carvings, doorposts and window frames ornamented with grinning imps and placid lions. The handles of the fireplace irons resembled hunting dogs of some hard-to-determine breed, and the tapestry on the wall depicted a griffin—an animal half eagle, half lion—sporting on a field of lily flowers.

  Both Anthony and Katharine had a special fondness for this woven artwork. The tapestry had been crafted in the Loire and bought for a song by Anthony’s father from Saint Bridget’s Priory when it was disbanded, along with all the other abbeys and convents, during the reign of Henry VIII. Along with the family griffin banner, this would be one of the last items either of them would part with.

  Sir Gregory waited until the door had shut behind the servant.

  “You owe Lord Pevensey,” said Sir Gregory, “several pounds of silver, a solemn debt which you promised to pay off completely by last Michaelmas, now nine months past.”

  Anthony sighed and gave a nod of agreement.

  Gregory continued, “This sum was invested in a ship. The Rosebriar, Walter Loy captain, returning from the West Indies with a load of cinnamon bark and dyestuff. The shipment would be valuable enough in ordinary times, but thanks to the disrupted transport in recent seasons, the cargo is incalculably precious.”

  Sir Anthony gave a forced smile. “All true.”

  “But the ship,” said Sir Gregory, taking a sip of his wine, “is more than two years out, and you have had no steady income all this while.”

  “The sea is an unsteady mistress,” said Sir Anthony.

  He had invested the loan in the ship, true enough, but he had also spent it on draining the stream near the windmill and repairing the stiles throughout Fairleigh. Furthermore, he had invested in books during his trips to the stalls of Saint Paul’s in London: Of the Heathens of Virginia and Their Practices, and the weighty The Healing of Wounds with the Grease of Fowls and Beasts, along with Other Marvels and Panaceas, together with many pamphlets decrying Spanish lies and love of idolatry, and praising Sir Francis Drake for his bold raid on Cádiz. Sir Anthony loved to read.

  “The ocean is hazardous,” agreed Sir Gregory. “But where can you win greater honor?”

  Katharine believed that Sir Gregory quietly envied seamen and wished he had chosen a mariner’s life. “Lord Pevensey gave you a generous loan, and then there were those gambling debts you owe him from last Christmas.”

  “His lordship is a deft hand with dice,” admitted Sir Anthony.

  “Lord Pevensey, it may surprise you to learn, has purchased the debts you owe to tradesmen all over the south of England.”

  The scar on Sir Gregory’s cheek resembled nothing so much, thought Katharine, as a third eye, closed tightly. He had a black short-cropped beard, with a mustache combed stylishly upward at the ends. He wore a large cuff at his wrist, folded back, as was the fashion, and held his hands together in a gesture that resembled prayerfulness without looking at all benevolent.

  “Has he indeed?” asked Anthony after a brief silence.

  He tried to sound unconcerned, but Katharine perceived the pinpricks of red that appeared in her father’s cheeks and saw the just-visible tremor of anger.

  “The debt you owe the thatcher, for instance,” said Sir Gregory, “and the balance due the tiler. Not to mention the further debt you owe the goldsmith for that pretty little ring on Katharine’s finger.”

  Katharine folded her hands and put them under the table. The gift had been for her last birthday, an extravagance that had embarrassed but pleased her, and Sir Anthony had prided himself on keeping the cottages of the Fairleigh tenants whitewashed and freshly thatched, for the benefit of the farmers and out of love for the family land.

  Katharine sometimes wished she possessed a sibling to confide in, although in an imaginary sense she did have one. Katharine had been born just after her twin sister, Mary. Her twin had died after three days, as though, as her mother explained, “a sprite had stolen her breath.” Katharine often felt this presence of Mary’s companionship, a shadow so vivid it was alive. Surely such a sister would be helpful now, listening to this odious man with his broad Midlands accent.

  “Adding these and other debts all together,” said Sir Gregory, “I doubt that even a treasure ship of Peruvian gold would be enough to offset the debt you now owe Lord Pevensey.”

  “I have every faith,” said Anthony, “that the Rosebriar will bring ample blessings from the West Indies.”

  “Until last week you did not even know,” said Sir Gregory, “if the ship still swam the surface of the waves. But you have had good news.”

  “Indeed, very good news,” agreed Anthony.

  “The Zephyr,” said Sir Gregory, “touched shore here with news that the Rosebriar was dismasted in a gale and is being refitted in the Azores, and you expect the ship with its sweet-smelling treasure to our waters in a matter of weeks.” The Azores were Atlantic islands, nearly one thousand land miles west of Portugal, and celebrated as a safe haven for troubled ships.

  “This is all as I understand it,” responded Anthony. “Why do you make these happy tidings sound so meager?”

  “Because, my friend,” said Sir Gregory, “your debts to Lord Pevensey are so great that he will seek the Admiralty’s permission to seize the ship and her cargo when she arrives in England.”

  Anthony sat in unhappy silence for a long moment. “This cannot be!”

  “The document is being written up in Lord Pevensey’s best ink,” said Sir Gregory. “Cecil and I will carry the scroll to London.”

  “Why does Lord Pevensey,” asked Katharine after maintaining her own silence until now, “seek to ruin my father?”

  “For profit,” said Sir Gregory.

  “He sent you to tell us this?” asked Katharine.

  Sir Gregory said, “My lady, he did.” The knight clasped his hands together thoughtfully. “You do know, Sir Anthony, that
if you could tender me a gift, or even the promise of a gift, I would just as happily dispute on behalf of you and your daughter.”

  “I don’t believe,” responded Sir Anthony, with an air of pointed diplomacy, “that my daughter and I can afford your services.”

  “Perhaps not,” replied Sir Gregory regretfully, and Katharine could see in his features a briefly younger, idealistic Sir Gregory, with hopes for his own destiny. “But fortune can surprise any of us.”

  Katharine wondered if she was the only living thing with the sense that she was attended by an absent twin. Perhaps, she sometimes thought, every mortal has a missing sibling, identical but separate, absent and yet never gone. This awareness of her faithful, long-vanished sister gave Katharine a sensitivity to the spoken word that made her feel all the more acute.

  Even now, at the table with the two men, Katharine knew what was about to be offered. She asked nonetheless, if only to have her suspicions confirmed.

  “What,” she asked, “does Lord Pevensey really want?”

  7

  WHEN SIR GREGORY had finished his visit, he departed into the night, taking the shadowy Cecil with him.

  Baines reappeared, clearing away the untouched apples. Anthony reached for one, and took a second, and Katharine realized how hungry she was, too, and joined him in emptying the plate of the slightly wizened fruit, the remains of last autumn’s harvest.

  “Sir,” said Baines, “I’ll not stand by and see you shamed, if you will forgive me for saying so.”

  “You were listening at the door, Baines,” said Anthony in a tone of no great surprise.

  “Truly, if I may say so, sir, the knight’s voice carries,” said Baines in a tone of ardent respect. Baines was a former seaman, and had a sailor’s way of standing even now, his feet planted flat, prepared for the floor to begin to rise and fall. “I can collect young Carter and that spirited lad Percy, with your permission, and I’ll arm them with pikes. If Sir Gregory ever shows his face at Fairleigh again, he’ll regret it.”