Tidelands Read online

  “It might be worse. They may be thinking of a trial,” James warned.

  His father turned on him. “A trial? What d’you mean?”

  “When I was in Sussex I met a man, a veteran from Cromwell’s army, who said that the radicals among them, levelers and men of that sort, believed that the king should answer to them for making war.”

  “It can’t be done!” his father said, frowning. “How would men like that ever bring a charge against a king?”

  “Who was this man?” his mother demanded acutely. “One of her friends?”

  James flushed with shame.

  “Will you return to England and report for us?” Dr. Sean asked bluntly. He gestured to the paper in his hand. “The young man who sent this is already on his way back here. He was in hiding with one of the members of parliament who has been barred from his seat. He’s left London already, this came from”—he broke off—“another port. He’ll come back to us as soon as he can get a passage.”

  James felt a deep sense of dread. He looked from his mother and father to his tutor. “You know I have lost my faith,” he said. “I can’t go.”

  “This is a matter of the king, not of God,” his father said bluntly. “You can do your duty to the king. These are—Lord knows—earthly troubles. We have to know what they plan. If you’re right—if there’s any possibility of a trial—then we have to get him away.”

  “I couldn’t make him come last time,” James reminded them. “I failed. He refused me.”

  “He’ll come now,” Dr. Sean predicted. “He knows he must not fall into the power of the army. Besides, all you have to do is to take our young man’s place: deliver some money, a letter, and report back.”

  “Is it safe for him to go back to England?” Lady Avery turned to her son. “What if that woman betrays you?”

  “She doesn’t come to London. She never leaves Sussex.”

  “You’re only to go to London, deliver the money and the orders, find out what is happening, and report to The Hague,” Dr. Sean said.

  “Don’t go to her,” his mother added. “Not when you’re on the king’s business, not when you’re in danger. I don’t trust her.”

  “I’ll get you the letters, the address of the safe house in London, and the gold.” Dr. Sean hurried to his private room. “I’ll have it all ready within the hour.”

  “You can take my horse,” James’s father said. He stepped towards his son and hugged him tightly. “Leave him at the inn at Dunkirk. Here, take my cloak as well. It’s a cold day, and it will be worse at sea. Go, my son, I am proud of you. Do your duty to the king and then we’ll see what is ahead of us. You’re a young man, and these are times that change with every tide. Don’t promise anything to anyone. We don’t know where we will be next year! Come back safely.”

  James felt his father’s heavy cloak swung around his shoulders like an extra burden to carry, saw his mother’s anguished face.

  “Come back,” was all she said. “Don’t go to her.”

  TIDELANDS, DECEMBER 1648

  Alinor and Alys walked in silence to the ferry-house, their shawled heads bowed against the icy wind that blew down the mire. They looked like two hooded beasts, crawling across a wet desert. They were each bent over a large basket filled with little bottles of oils, and twists of waxed paper filled with dried herbs. At the ferry-house Alinor opened the side door, went into the storeroom, and loaded another basket with jars of bottled plums, dried apples, dried black currants, red currants, and blackberries.

  Ned appeared in the doorway, Red at his heels. “I’ll come with you,” he said abruptly. “I’ll carry this stuff for you. I’m on my way to London.”

  “What?” Alinor asked. Her first thought was that he must somehow know that she was with child, and he was leaving them forever. “What? Ned? What d’you mean? You can’t leave?”

  “Colonel Pride has taken the House of Commons,” he said, stammering with excitement. “God bless him, he’s one of the commander’s best men, so this must be on his orders. It must be. It’s war on parliament, as it was war on the king.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “Cromwell’s himself! Noll Cromwell himself!”

  “What’s he done now?” Alys appeared beside her mother, pushing back the scarf from her cold face.

  “Taken the houses of parliament, as if they were a royal palace—which they were! They were! The members of parliament will never again throw away an army victory. The army has barred the door to the king’s placemen, thrown out the traitor members. They’re not going to allow a deal with the king over our heads! They’re not going to put him back on the throne with some kind of cobbled oath that he’ll break as soon as he can. Us army men saw through his lies from the very beginning, we who were there, we who were there at Marston Moor, we who were there at Naseby.”

  Alinor put down her basket and took her brother’s cold hands in her own, trying to hold him still. “Hush, Ned. I don’t understand you. You can’t go to London. Who’ll keep the ferry?”

  “You must,” he said bluntly. “Look, I beg you. I’m sorry, but I have to go. I can’t miss this. Colonel Pride has taken the houses of parliament, praise God. The army will put in its own men, and they’ll vote down all these empty agreements with the king! I’ve got to be there. If they need an old soldier, I’ve got to stand with them. I have to see this. I can’t be down here, on the edge of the mire, getting news three weeks late, and wondering all the time what’s happening. I can’t be stuck in Foulmire like a frozen sheep in mud for the last days of my war. Alinor! This is the last battle. These were the greatest days of my life. These are the last days of the kingdom. I’ve got to be there. I was there at the beginning, I must see the end.”

  Alinor closed her eyes to block out his flushed face. “I can’t keep the ferry,” she said. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

  “Nobody will want the ferry in the days before Christmas,” he lied. “After the Chichester Christmas market nobody’ll go off Sealsea Island. God knows, nobody’ll come here. They’ll all stay home for the season.”

  “They will! They will!” Alinor was more and more distressed. “Nobody wants to go through the wadeway in winter. They’ll all want to go on the ferry, even at low tide, and at high tide they’ll load horses. I can’t do it, Brother. Not on cold water. Not on the winter tides. Don’t make me! I can’t—I swear that I can’t.”

  “But I can,” Alys said suddenly from behind her. “I’ll keep the ferry for you, Uncle Ned.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, but you have to pay me. You know I don’t have all my dowry yet. I’ll keep the ferry for you for five shillings. I mean five shillings on top of the money you’ve promised me as a gift. Five shillings and I keep all the ferry fees.”

  “You can’t,” Alinor turned to her daughter. “You can’t be on the water. I couldn’t bear it. You’re not strong enough, when the tide’s high . . .”

  “Yes, she can,” Ned said. “What harm’ll come to her? And Rob can come back from the Priory and help.”

  Alinor closed her eyes at the thought of her children on the dark waters of the winter mire. “Please,” she said quietly. “Please don’t do this. You know I can’t spare them.”

  “Five shillings for my wedding,” Alys bargained. “And I keep all the fees.”

  Ned held out his hand. “Done.” To his sister he said: “I’m sorry; I have to go. I know that the army’ll bring the king to London. I pray that they’ll charge him with treason against us, the people. He’s guilty as sin, and I want to see him answer for his crimes. He’s destroyed the peace of England and been the death of thousands of good men—it’s all been for nothing unless we gain our freedom from him. And I want to see him punished as I’d want to see a witch drowned. This is the end of tyrants in England, this is the start of our new country. I must be there to see him humbled. Sister, I have to be there.”

  Alys, her face bright and uncaring, handed over the basket of oils to her