Tidelands Read online

  “Oh, aye, that’s what we say, is it?” Zachary said unpleasantly. “I’m glad it has turned out so well for us all.” He turned as if he thought they might let him go, but at once Rob laid hold of his arm.

  “But you will come home now, Da? Now that you’re not in the navy anymore?”

  “I can’t immediate,” he said, looking again to James for help. “I got out of the navy when they went over to the prince. When the ships went to Prince Charles, I got away. I couldn’t have looked your uncle Ned in the eye if I had served the king! Now could I? But I had to indenture myself to the ship Jessie and so I’m bound to serve in her for another year. She’s a coastal trader, all around England and all around France. I’m never here. Never stop sailing. But as soon as I’ve served my time I’ll come back to you, for sure.”

  “But what shall I tell Ma?” Rob pressed him.

  “Tell her that! Ask this tutor of yours to explain. He understands, don’t you, sir?”

  “Very well,” James said levelly.

  Rob looked at him with hope. “You do?”

  “I understand that your father was bound to the navy and is now bound to a trading vessel. That’s quite usual. He’ll be able to come home when his term is over, but we can tell your mother that he is alive and well, and will return.”

  “If it suits her,” Zachary said. He turned to James and, unseen by his son, closed his eye on a wink.

  James swallowed distaste. “But you must have a drink with us and talk with your son now we have so luckily found you,” he said heartily. “It’s such a chance! We only came to Newport to see the sights of the island and catch a glimpse of the king, and we have found you.”

  Walter did not look as if it were much of a treat for him, but Zachary brightened at the invitation to take a drink. “We can go in here,” he said, indicating one of the quayside alehouses. “I have a slate here and I wouldn’t mind bringing them some trade.” He winked again at James. “Gentry trade,” he said. “Carriage trade. That’ll surprise them.”

  “Certainly,” James said pleasantly, and led the way into the room, looking around quickly to ensure that although it was a poorhouse, serving fishermen and the harbor traders, it was not bawdy or unsafe for the boys.

  Walter and Rob took their seats at a small table in the corner while the men stood at the doorway to the kitchen to order their drinks. Zachary entered into a brief whispered discussion with the landlord that James cut short by saying, “Tell him I will clear your slate.”

  “Kindly of you,” Zachary said, instantly suspicious.

  “I may have work for you,” James said.

  “Happy to help a friend of the Peacheys. Or perhaps you’re a friend of my wife?”

  James was stony-faced at the slur on Alinor. “This is for the Peacheys,” he said. “I think I may be able to put some business your way.”

  “Oh, aye,” Zachary said, agreeably. “Boys, would you take a slice of beef and bread? I know boys are always hungry.”

  Walter, uncomfortable, shook his head.

  “We just dined,” James explained. “They’ll take a glass of small ale and then they’ll go back to our inn.”

  “Fair enough,” Zachary said. “I’ll take a measure, since you’re buying.” He nodded to the landlord, who poured a spirit from a blackened bottle under the table. Zachary raised his earthenware cup in a toast to his son. “It’s good to see you, my boy,” he said fondly. “And looking so fine!”

  The boys were awkward at the table. Rob did not take his eyes from his father’s face but asked no more questions. After a while, James told them that they could make their way back to the inn and go to bed. “I will make arrangements with your father,” he promised Rob.

  “Will you, sir?” Rob’s brown eyes were trustingly on his face. “Shall we see him tomorrow?”

  “I’ll ask him to breakfast with us.”

  “Thank you, sir, because . . . I have to ask him . . . I have to be able to explain to my mother how it was.”

  James thought of Alinor’s poverty and the terrible risk to her reputation since this man had abandoned her and their two children. “I’ll speak to him,” he promised, and was ashamed at his own duplicity when the boy’s face cleared.

  The men waited until the boys had left and the door had closed behind them.

  “What d’you want with me?” Zachary said bluntly. “You needn’t cony-catch me.”

  “I need your ship,” James said. “I agreed with a coastal trader to meet me here, but he has failed. I need to commission a voyage out to sea.”

  “Which way?” Zachary asked sarcastically. “For this is an island. It is out to sea in every direction.”

  “South, towards France.”

  “That’s what I do, once a week.”

  “You’re the ship’s master?” James confirmed. “You can sail when and where you want?”

  “Provided I have a load and can turn a profit,” Zachary said. “My owner trusts me to manage the business.”

  “I want you to meet a ship offshore and transfer some goods,” James said. “You don’t need to know more.”

  “Smuggling?” Zachary asked quietly. “It can be done, but it is expensive.”

  “I will pay you,” James promised him. “I will pay you well.”

  “Would this be a barrel sort of goods? Or a chest sort of goods? Or more like a person?” he asked.

  “You don’t need to know that,” James said. “All you need to know is that you will be well paid, and set sail a few minutes after midnight. I will come with you. Not the boys.”

  “And how much am I paid for this nighttime jaunt? With Your Honor as shipmate? With these goods?”

  “Twenty crowns as we leave, twenty crowns on the quayside when we come back; and no one the wiser,” James said.

  Zachary tipped back his chair and put his sea boots on the barrel that served as a table. “No, I don’t think I’ll take it,” he said, smiling at James over the top of his cup. “It’s too much for ordinary smuggling and I’m no smuggler, I must tell you. And it’s too little for shipping the king off the island. If that’s your game, you’ll be hanged for it.”

  “It’s what my other ship would have been paid,” James said coolly. “It’s the right price.”

  “No, it isn’t. For—see? He wouldn’t do it for the price. Your fine friend didn’t appear. You don’t know why?” His sharp glance at James’s face told him that the handsome young man did not know why his ship had failed. “So, if he wouldn’t do it for the money, I don’t think that I will either.”

  “I think you will,” James said. “For I can call the watch to arrest you, and I can tell the magistrate that you have abandoned a wife and thrown her children onto the parish at Sealsea. I can tell them that you deserted from the parliament navy and serve as a smuggler. I can tell them that you are an adulterer and possibly a bigamist. I can tell them that you are wanted on Sealsea Island, perhaps elsewhere. Your own son would give witness that his mother is waiting for you to come home and that the Sealsea church wardens want you for your tithes.”

  “She is not!” Zachary slammed the table with the palm of his hand. “She’s not waiting! Damn you for all the rest of it, but don’t tell me that. She don’t miss me, she don’t want me. The boy might look for me, but she won’t.”

  “I know that she does,” James said steadily, thinking of the white-faced woman waiting for this man’s ghost to speak to her on Midsummer Eve.

  Zachary leaned forward confidingly. “Not her, because she’s a whore,” he said frankly. “One honest man to another: she’s a whore and a witch. They married me to her, though I had my doubts, but her mother—another witch—wanted my boat and my nets and my catch, and thought that I would keep her girl safe, in difficult times. Thought I would make a fortune. Maybe I swore that I would. Maybe I made all sorts of promises. I was so mad for her—and who do I blame for that, eh? I built our house right next door to her mother in the ferry-house so that they could carry on t