“For the king, is he?”
The goodman lowered his head. But it was enough for Giles. He had his confirmation. Caxton was a smuggler and a pirate. A mercenary with Royalist sympathies. A man who could blend into the king’s court, but who also knew how to slip in and out of secret anchorages, to plot a course to France, to evade and outdistance pursuit. They had their man.
“This frigate, she ‘ave a name?”
Goodman Yarrow shrugged helplessly. “Wind Dancer, I’m told, sir.”
Giles nodded, observing, “Pretty name.” So far he was doing well with Goodman Yarrow, but maybe there was still more he could get out of him, some little nugget of information, something that the goodman didn’t even know was important.
“Y’are an island man. Where would you find deep channel anchorage fer a frigate?” He refilled their tankards once again.
The goodman seized his eagerly and took a deep draft before saying, “In a chine, o‘ course.”
“Which side o‘ the island?”
Goodman Yarrow shrugged again. “Them’s all down the coast from Yarmouth to Shanklin. Some deep, some not.”
“Give me a name, man. Somewhere to start lookin‘.”
“Why you so interested in the master, anyways? There’s smugglers aplenty along these coasts.” The goodman, emboldened by ale, felt the first stirrings of rebellion.
Giles pushed back his stool with a scrape on the flagstones. “ ‘Tis up to you,” he said carelessly, rising to his feet. Then he bellowed with shocking suddenness, “Men!”
The hurried tramp of booted feet resounded from the courtyard beyond the scullery door.
“Puckaster Cove,” Yarrow blurted as the door burst open. “Somewheres around there, I’ve ‘eard tell.”
Giles sent the men away with a flick of his fingers. “Well, thankee, goodman.” He strolled to the courtyard door that still stood open. “We’ll ‘ave to keep ye and the goodwife fer a spell, but ye’ll not be too uncomfortable, I trust.”
Soldiers came in soon after the sergeant’s departure and escorted the Yarrows to a small barred chamber beneath the gun platform.
“Well?” Prue demanded. “What did ye tell ‘em?”
“ ‘Twas man’s talk, so keep a still tongue in yer ’ead, woman!” the goodman snarled.
So you told him what he wanted to hear. Prue took the thin blanket from the straw pallet and drew it around her shoulders. She sat on the cold stone floor, her back against the frigid damp wall.
“If’n ye betrayed the master, there’s those on the island who’ll not forget it.”
“What was I supposed t‘ do? After gettin’ the thumbscrews, ‘e was,” he muttered, flinging himself on the pallet.
“There’s those on the island what wouldn’t ‘ave told whatever ’appened,” Prue said softly.
Giles rode back to Carisbrooke, but when he arrived it was late, the king had retired, and Lord Granville had returned to Chale with his wife and daughter. The men Giles had sent to question the landlord of the Anchor had little to report. George knew of no Edward Caxton. He referred familiarly to a man he called “our friend,” and was coaxed into admitting that the same character was also known as the master. He could always be relied upon to supply contraband, and when he made contact he was always in fisherman’s guise. Other than that, no one asked questions and no one volunteered information.
Giles rode to Chale and was informed that Lord Granville too had retired. If the sergeant had truly urgent information, they were to wake his lordship, otherwise the sergeant should report to him at dawn.
Giles debated whether his information warranted dragging his lord from his wife’s bed. He could hear the wind getting up, great swirling eddies as it whipped off the sea and across the cliffs. No sane man would attempt to rescue the king on such a night.
He took himself to his own bed and lay visualizing the island’s coastline. Puckaster Cove lay just below Niton. Niton was where George and the Anchor had their being. There had to be a connection.
Olivia lay listening to the wildness of the night. She could hear the waves breaking on the shore of Chale Bay some two miles distant. A fork of lightning illuminated her window, and the crash of thunder followed within seconds.
It was a wrecker’s night.
But Anthony had other fish to fry at present. He had to leave the island, get himself to safety. Surely he wouldn’t risk his freedom for the wealth of a wreck?
But she couldn’t second-guess him. Despite everything they’d shared, she understood only that he was a mercenary, that he loved danger. She understood nothing about his real motives.
The branch of the magnolia tree whipped against the diamond windowpanes. Sleep was impossible. Olivia got up and went to the window. She pressed her forehead against the glass and stared out across the dark garden where the shapes of the trees swaying in the wind took on a strange and ethereal life.
What ships were out there on the black foam-tipped water? In her mind’s eye, she could see the jagged black rocks of St. Catherine’s Point, the sea turbulent around them even on a balmy day. What would they be like now?
And the compulsion to go and see grew until it could not be denied. It was madness to go out on such a night, to walk the cliff path. And yet she seemed to have no choice.
She still had the britches and jacket she’d borrowed from Portia, and almost without conscious intent Olivia dressed herself. She took her thickest cloak and crept downstairs.
The house was in darkness, the hall black as pitch as she crossed it on tiptoe. The dogs raised their heads and growled warningly as she slipped into the kitchen, but they recognized her and dropped their heads to their forepaws again with breathy sighs.
The back door from the scullery opened into the kitchen courtyard. As Olivia raised the latch the wind snatched the door from her hand and it crashed against the wall of the house. The dogs barked and she leaped through the door, slamming it behind her.
The wind howled, the trees swayed, the rain beat down. No one would have noticed the banging of the door amid nature’s own racket.
Olivia let herself out through the small gate at the rear of the kitchen garden, skirted the orchard, and emerged into the lane some distance from the locked and bolted main gates.
The wind tore at her cloak and she was drenched within minutes. It was cold and her thin shirt was plastered to her skin, but she kept on up the lane until she reached the narrow path that led to the clifftop. And here on the exposed cliff she could barely keep her feet. She could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs below her, and the wind screamed in her ears. She battled against the wind, keeping her head down, barely noticing how far she had gone. Now there was something exhilarating about being out in this elemental force, pitting her puny strength against the battering of the storm.
In a momentary lull she raised her head and looked towards the point of cliff ahead of her. A lone figure stood outlined against the black sky. His black cloak swirled around him like Lucifer’s wings. As she watched she saw a spark of flint on tinder, and then the bright flare of the beacon.
She began to run, gasping for each breath that was snatched from her on the wind. And then suddenly men came out of nowhere, shapes elongated in the beacon’s light. The man at the beacon was engulfed as they surged on him. For a few seconds the beacon flared strongly into the night, and then it was doused.
A sheet of lightning lit up the sea, showing Olivia the boiling rocks, then thunder cracked and it was as if the heavens themselves had been split open.
Faintly from far below came shouts, the sound of steel on steel. Fighting.
She fell to the grass, inching forward on her belly until she could look down over the cliff edge.