Dark Tides Read online

  “You can’t keep me safe, you can’t even keep yourselves safe. Your town is fenced with wood that wouldn’t stop deer. You know we can make fire in a forest and tell it which way to go! If we told fire to come to Hadley, your roofs would burn in a moment, we could walk through the ashes. If we were all as one and we rose as one against you, you would not be able to resist us.”

  “We can,” Ned said firmly. “Don’t tell anyone that we can’t.”

  “So now you’re all Englishman? I thought you were half Norwottuck?”

  Ned sighed. “I am a man at peace, in a peaceful country,” he said. “Neither Indian nor English.”

  “We will all have to choose a side at the end of the peace.”

  “God forbid,” Ned said sourly. “None of the militia know how to march.” Then he remembered that he was speaking to a Pokanoket. “Don’t tell anyone that either.”

  SEPTEMBER 1670, LONDON

  Alinor, Livia, and Alys were breakfasting in Alinor’s room. The glazed door was open and the warm air breathed into the room. For once it smelled only of salt and the sea, the stink of the river was washed away by the high tide. Livia, waiting for her ship to come in, was too nervous to eat anything; she drank her chocolate and nibbled at the edge of a roll of bread. Alys glanced at her. “Would you eat some pastries?” she asked. “I can send Tab out for something sweet?”

  “No! No, I am eating this.” She broke off a little crumb.

  “What did the apothecary say about the thunderstone?” Alinor asked her daughter.

  “He paid well for it. He’d never seen such a thing before. Three shillings a pound, and it was a pound and a half weight. When you write to Uncle Ned, tell him that we can sell more. And any curiosities—he told me the gentlemen of science are taking an interest in such things, especially from New England.”

  “And the sassafras?”

  “He has it on sale at four shillings a pound and he offered to buy from me at two and six a pound. I think I could have got more but I said yes, because—” Alys broke off.

  “Because we need the money now,” her mother finished the sentence.

  Livia ate a tiny crumb of bread, her eyes on the river.

  “The cashbox is emptier than I’d like,” Alys admitted. “But it’ll come in.” She smiled. “Perhaps today! On Livia’s ship!”

  Livia took a tiny sip of chocolate and said nothing.

  “Well, I’ll get started,” said Alys, and rose to her feet, kissed her mother on the cheeks, and went out of the room. They could hear her heavy footsteps on the stairs and the closing of the door of the counting house.

  “I am so anxious,” Livia volunteered.

  “You are?”

  “See? I cannot eat, I cannot sleep. I even dream of my ship at night. I so much want this for all of us. I feel that I owe it to Roberto, to give his son my dowry as an inheritance, since his loving father could do nothing for him.”

  “You dream of it?” Alinor asked her.

  “Yes! Yes!”

  “D’you ever dream that Rob might come on it?”

  Livia recovered rapidly from her shock at the question. “Alas no,” she said. “No. It is not possible, Mia Suocera. I don’t dream of it.”

  Alinor nodded. “It’s due this week, I think?”

  “Yes. But I suppose a ship can often be late?”

  “It can be many days late,” Alinor confirmed. “Many things can delay it.”

  “Like what?” Livia demanded in pretend alarm.

  “Contrary winds, or a delay leaving port,” Alinor listed. “Or—what is worse—it can be on time; but the cargo spoiled in a storm at sea or robbed.”

  Livia gave a little pretend moan into her hands and then raised her laughing face to her mother-in-law. “Ah, now you are teasing me! You are frightening me!” she said. “My antiquities are too heavy to be stolen at sea, and they will not spoil from salt water. As long as they have not sunk, I am a wealthy widow.”

  “Not until they sell,” Alinor reminded her. “All that the ship brings you is your goods and costs.”

  Livia clattered her cup down on the table, staring out of the window, her hand to the lace at her throat. “Look! Isn’t that it? There’s the galleon. Is that our galleon? Captain Whatever-his-name-is galleon? That ship mooring in the channel? Isn’t that our ship?”

  Alinor leaned forwards to get a better look. “I can’t see the name from here. But it looks like it might be yours.”

  Livia was halfway to the door. “May I?”

  “Go!” Alinor said to her with a smile. “Go! I’ll watch from here.”

  The young woman flew out of the room. Alinor could hear the patter of her rapid feet on the stairs, could hear her calling: “Alys! Alys! Come! Come! I think it is my ship.”

  Alys dashed out of the counting house, letting the door bang behind her, and Livia dragged her out to the wharf to see the galleon dropping her sails and letting down the anchor, as the young woman danced with impatience on the shore. Alys had to take hold of Livia round her waist to keep her from the edge of the wharf. Together they watched the lightermen gather around the galleon in their flat-bottomed rowing boats, bidding for the work. The Captain shouted that he was going upriver, to queue for the legal quays to unload his goods. All he had here, were some crates to deliver to a lady: her own furniture coming to her from Venice.

  “But heavy!” he warned the men.

  Three lightermen agreed a price and the division of the work, and the precious cargo was lowered, piece by piece, into the rocking craft.

  “I can hardly bear to look,” Livia moaned.

  “They won’t let it fall,” Alys assured her. “They make their living on the water.”

  Arm in arm the two women watched as the lightermen brought their boats alongside the wharf, tied up, and then the dockers laid hold of the Reekie pulley rope and hauled one heavy crate after another from the rocking boats up to the wharf.

  “Don’t let it bang on the quay, don’t let it knock!” Livia instructed frantically.

  Again, Alys lay hold of her. “Let them work,” she advised.

  Behind them, the Captain climbed down into the ship’s dinghy and was brought to the stone steps before the house.

  “Have you got everything? Did you bring it all?” Livia demanded before he had stepped onto the cobbles.

  He looked past her to Alys, who shook hands with him.

  “Good day to you. Did you have a good voyage, Captain Shore?” she asked with careful courtesy.

  “Fair, Mrs. Stoney. It was fair.”

  “Do you have all my antiquities?” Livia repeated, a little more shrill.

  Now that he had been greeted, he turned to her. “In the heavy crates? Aye.”

  “Not dropped, not shaken. All safe?”

  His narrowed eyes in the scarred face looked past Livia to Alys. “Aye, all safe,” he said quietly.

  “We’ll put them in the bottom warehouse,” Alys decided.

  “You must take great care!” Livia said. “They must not be dropped, not even rolled along.”

  “Are you paying me extra for extra care?” he asked her.

  “No!” Livia said at once. “Only what she agreed! And she’s paying, not me!”

  His chapped lips parted in a grim smile. “As I thought,” he said. He turned his head and shouted an order. To Alys he gave the bill of lading, the export license from Venice, and his bill. “They were just over six tons,” he said. “But I’ll charge you for the six: fifteen pounds you owe me.”

  Alys gritted her teeth. “I’ve got it, I’ll pay you tomorrow morning.”

  “And I shall send you a message if I need another load,” Livia said blithely.

  “You’ve got more furniture?” he asked, surprised.

  “It is a very large collection,” Livia said.

  “Well, you know where to find me,” the Captain said to Alys. “I’ll be at Paton’s every morning till I sail, probably next month. I’d be glad to see you there, Mrs
. Stoney. I’ll bid you good day.”

  “I’ll settle up with you then,” Alys promised him. Unconsciously, she fingered the shillings from the apothecary in her pocket as she walked with the Captain to Horsleydown Stairs where his dinghy was waiting to take him back to the ship.

  “See how long you’ve got to wait at the legal quay with your load,” she advised him. “I heard this morning, it was weeks. They’re queuing all down the river to get in. You can bring the ship back here and we can unload you.”

  “I’m obliged, but I’m carrying coffee, I have to unload under the king’s lock. Otherwise I’d come to you, Mrs. Stoney. I know your rates are fair and your warehouse secure.” He bowed his head. “Always a pleasure to do business with you, ma’am.”

  “Next time,” Alys said pleasantly, and watched him go down the steps into his boat. He raised a hand in farewell and Alys walked back to the warehouse. She paused for a moment and looked up at her mother’s little tower. Alinor had come out onto the balcony to lean on the rail and look towards the ship. Her hand shaded her eyes, her gown billowed a little in the breeze from the river; she stood very still, strangely attentive as if she were waiting for someone.

  “Ma?” Alys called up from the quay. “Are you all right?”

  Alinor looked down at her daughter. “Yes,” she said. “There were no passengers?”

  “None that’d want to disembark here,” Alys stated the obvious.

  “No,” Alinor said quietly, and went back through the glazed door to her room.

  “Alys, come!” came Livia’s impatient cry from inside the warehouse, and Alys went inside and bolted the double doors behind her.

  Livia was still standing before her crated goods, one hand on the crate as if she could feel a heartbeat. “I can hardly believe they’re here,” she said breathlessly.

  “When will you take them to his house?” Alys asked.

  “As soon as you can lend me the wagon.”

  Alys nodded, knowing that the wagon would earn no money but would be gone all day.

  “As soon as I have them there, I will confirm the date of the showing. I want them to be at their very best.” She turned to Alys. “You will help me, won’t you? You will lend me your wagon and two men, and let me take it to and from the house? You know I’m only doing this for Matteo, for Roberto’s son? So that he can have his inheritance in gold at the goldsmith’s, rather than in lumps of marble left behind in Venice? You know I want to help here? Bring some money in, so that you can move to a cleaner part of the town?”

  “And then will you leave us?” Alys remarked, her voice carefully neutral.

  There was a pause while Livia took in what her sister-in-law was saying. “Leave you?”

  “After your sale?”

  “I did not think it,” she said quietly. “Do you want me to leave? I know it is crowded. I know that Matteo means extra work for everyone…”

  “No,” Alys stumbled. “Not at all… but I thought… I would want you to stay! I would want you…” She could not say what she wanted; she did not know what she wanted.

  But Livia was quick. She clasped her sister-in-law’s hands. “No! My darling! My dearest! Don’t think of me leaving! Have you been thinking that? Don’t dream of it. This is for all of us, for all of us that Roberto loved, even your children will benefit! If I can make a fortune, then we will all buy a new house together and all live together. You will ship my goods, we will have a house and a gallery of antiquities. We will never part. You are my sister, are you not? Mia Suocera is my mother-in-law! We are family, I want no one else! We will live together always. We shall never be parted!”

  Alys, her hands tightly clutched, felt her eyes fill with unexpected tears. “Oh! I’m so glad. I thought you would… I didn’t want…”

  Livia drew her sister-in-law into her arms, so that her little lacy cap was against Alys’s smooth golden braids. “We will never be parted,” Livia breathed. “You are all the family that is left to me, and I and the baby are all that is left of your brother. Of course, we will always be together, and our fortunes will be as one. You will help me, and I will help you.”

  SEPTEMBER 1670, HADLEY, NEW ENGLAND

  It was easy for Ned, a man who had been born and bred on the Saxon shore, the band of marshland between deep seas and flooded fields, to remember the times of the year for his letter to Alinor. He wrote in the autumn equinox, when the waters of the swamps rose high under a huge moon, that hung so close in the pearly sky that he could write by its yellow light.

  AUTUMN TIDE

  MY DEAR SISTER,

  I AM SENDING 1 BARREL OF DRIED HERBS AND SOME LABELED SEEDS WHICH YOU CAN SET. THEY LIKE A LIGHT SOIL (LIKE RIVER SILT) AND GOODNESS IN THE SOIL (ANY MUCK. WE USE FISH). 1 BOX OF DRIED SASSAFRAS LEAVES. 2 BOXES OF SASSAFRAS DRIED BARK AND ROOTS AND 1 BARREL DRIED FRUITS AND ROOTS. I HAVE PUT A MAPLE LEAF BETWEEN EACH PACKAGE SO YOU CAN SEE THEY HAVE NOT BEEN DISTURBED OR WE ROBBED.

  THANK YOU FOR YOURS WHICH CAME SAFE TO ME THOUGH IT BROUGHT SUCH BAD NEWS. NO DOUBT ROB HAS GONE TO THE LIFE ETERNAL, AND WE WHO WILL FOLLOW HIM SHOULD NOT GRIEVE. HIS WAYS ARE MYSTERIOUS INDEED. HOW WE SHOULD LOSE ROB AND NOT OTHERS I DON’T KNOW. I GIVE THANKS TO GOD THAT YOU AND ALYS AND YOUR CHILDREN ARE WELL AND THAT ROB’S WIDOW AND BABY HAVE COME TO YOU.

  THINGS GO WELL FOR ME. I HAVE LAID DOWN A CORN STORE THIS SEASON. ONE OF THE WOMEN OF THE PEOPLE SHOWED ME HOW TO DIG A GREAT HOLE IN A SANDBANK, LINE AND SEAL IT WITH CLAY, AND WRAP MY DRY CORN COBS SO THAT THEY DON’T SPOIL. I HAVE DRIED MY BEANS AND STORED THE SQUASH, I HAVE SMOKED FISH. MY FRIENDS IN THE VILLAGE WILL TAKE ME ON A DEER HUNT WITH THEM FOR WINTER MEAT. I HAVE SAVED SEEDS TO PLANT IN SPRING FROM MY GARDEN AND GATHERED NUTS AND SEEDS FROM THE WOODS. THEY HAVE PLANTS THAT WERE STRANGE TO ME AT FIRST, BUT NOW I GROW THEM AND HARVEST THEM. THE SQUASHES ARE LIKE OUR MARROWS, ONLY STRANGELY SHAPED AND COLORED. THE NATIVE WOMEN GROW THEM ALONGSIDE BEANS AND MAIZE AND THEY CALL THEM THE SISTERS AND SAY YOU MUST GROW AND COOK THE THREE TOGETHER. THE APPLE TREE WHIP THAT YOU SENT ME LAST YEAR HAS TAKEN, BORE THREE LITTLE APPLES AND I HAVE SAVED THE SEEDS TO PLANT IN SPRING. THE FORESTS ARE FULL OF BERRIES AT THIS SEASON, ONE CALLED A CRANBERRY GROWS IN THE SWAMPS IN THE POOREST OF SOIL. IT IS SHARPER EVEN THAN A RED CURRANT BUT MAKES A VERY GOOD JAM. WHEN THEY’RE FULLY RIPE I WILL FILL ALL THE JARS THAT I OWN, WHICH ARE NOT MANY AS THEY’RE SHIPPED FROM ENGLAND. I MOSTLY USE GALLEY POTS MADE FROM CLAY BY THE NATIVE WOMEN THAT ARE SO STRONG THEY CAN BE SET IN THE EMBERS LIKE AN IRON KETTLE. I SEAL THEM WITH PARCHMENT AND STRING AND BEESWAX WHEN THEY COOL. YES! I HAVE FINALLY TRADED FOR A SWARM OF ENGLISH BEES. VERY FIERCE—I ONLY WISH YOU WERE HERE TO BEFRIEND THEM.

  I NEED NO CANDLES! I USE CANDLEWOOD CUT FROM PITCH PINES. THE SPLINTERS BURN LIKE A CANDLE AND IT YIELDS TURPENTINE. I AM LAYING IN FIREWOOD AGAINST THE WINTER AND REPAIRING THE CRACKS IN THE CABIN WITH CLAY AND SAP FROM THE TREES MIXED TOGETHER. I HAVE SHIELDED ONE WALL WITH SHINGLES TO KEEP OUT THE COLD. IF THERE IS TIME I SHALL PUT ON AN EXTRA LAYER OF THATCH WHICH THE NATIVE PEOPLE BRING UPRIVER FROM THE COAST. THE NATIVES TELL ME THAT I SHOULD DOUBLE THE THICKNESS EVERY YEAR AS THE REEDS DRY OUT AND SETTLE AND THE WINTERS HERE ARE BITTER WITH SNOW FOR MONTHS. I AM BETTER PREPARED EVERY YEAR.

  I WILL HAVE NO VISITORS FROM WINTER TILL THAW, EXCEPT THE NATIVE PEOPLE WHO WALK ALIKE THROUGH SNOW AND HEAT. ONE OR TWO OF THEM WILL COME TO ME WITH DRIED MEATS AND STORED CORN TO SHARE, AND I WILL GIVE THEM AN EGG OR TWO IF ANY OF THE HENS WILL LAY THROUGH THE COLD WEATHER. I HAVE TO BRING THEM INDOORS—JUST LIKE YOU HAD THEM AT YOUR OLD HOME. THEY WOULD DIE OF COLD OTHERWISE. THEY THINK IT RIGHT TO ROOST ON MY FEET ON MY BED, AND WHEN I TURN IN THE NIGHT THEY CLUCK AT ME FOR DISTURBING THEM.

  I TRUST THE NEW KING IS NOT TURNING PAPIST OR TYRANT? WE GET SO LITTLE NEWS HERE AND MOST OF THE SETTLERS ARE INDIFFERENT TO HIM—PROVIDED HE STAYS AT A DISTANCE AND DOES NOT TRY TO RULE US! HERE WE ARE FREE OF EVERYTHING BUT THE RULE OF THE ELDERS, AND IF YOU DON’T LIKE THEM, YOU CAN TAKE YOUR MUSKET AND BED ROLL AND GO—THERE IS A WHOLE COUNTRY TO ROAM. THEY MAY T
RY—BUT NOBODY CAN MUSTER OR ORDER ME—AND THIS IS WHAT I WANTED ALL THOSE YEARS AGO WHEN MY COMRADES IN THE ARMY SAID THAT WE MEN MIGHT RULE OURSELVES, OWN OUR OWN LAND, AND CALL NO MAN MASTER.

  I THINK OF YOU AT FULL MOON. GOD BLESS YOU ALL,

  YOUR LOVING BROTHER

  NED.

  SEPTEMBER 1670, LONDON

  On Saturday, when Johnnie and Sarah came home, they demanded to see the wrapped crates and then set up such a clamor that at least one should be opened, that Livia said she could not resist them. “But they have been packed so carefully!” she laughingly complained.

  “We’ll repack them, Aunt Livia,” Sarah assured her.

  “This is seaworthy packing, so that they can be carried from ship to shore and in the wagon to their new home!”

  “I know, I know!” Johnnie replied. “And we know how to do it! We were born and raised in a wharf! We’ll repack them if you will just let us see one! Only one!”

  “But you already know what they are like! You have seen such things at Whitehall Palace. You will have admired the king’s collection. It is just marble busts and columns.”

  “We don’t go to court!” Sarah said dismissively. “And anyway, these are your marble busts and columns! That you’ve been waiting for, that you’ve spoken of every Saturday, that you’ve prayed for every Sunday. I want to see them!”

  “Do let us see what you have,” Johnnie urged her. “And I can pack it up again. I can nail up the cases.”

  “Ah! I cannot resist you, Johnnie! I spoil you, and that is the truth.”

  “Very well, open them! I command it! We have to see!”

  “If you command with that smile, I have to obey!”

  Johnnie fetched a claw hammer from the tools hung at the side of the warehouse and levered the nails from the packing wood. With meticulous care, he laid one plank after another to the side, till all that stood before the rapt audience was a canvas padded with off-cuts from wool fleeces, too ripped and dirty for sale.