This must be the man who would ride to the cottage to see if I was about. Would Black Tom mistake him for me?
My stay at the cottage need not be long. It was a thing of sentiment as much as business that had brought me back, for the feeling was on me that I'd not again see the home my father had been given for his service in the wars. My father was Ivo Sackett, yeoman, soldier, first-class fighting man ... a decent man, too, and as good a teacher as he was a fighter.
There was William to see, for he would care for the land whilst I was gone over the great waters, and we had a few small matters to speak of. He was a man to be trusted, but in the event something happened to him ... after all, all men are mortal.
My father had schooled me well, and although he left me a fine stretch of fenland, I had no desire to remain there, nor had he wished me to. He had trained me well in the use of arms, of which he was a master, and taught me better than he knew of reading and writing.
"Lad," he would say to me, "I know a weaver who became a great merchant, and the men who rode with William the Norman had only their strong arms and their swords, but with them they became the great men of the kingdom. For some men an acre and a cottage are enough, but not for you, Barnabas. I have tried to fit you for a new life in the new world that's coming, where a man can be what he's of a mind to be."
This cottage and the land in the fens was what my father had done. Now was the time for me. Deep as was my affection for the cottage and the fens, I knew there was a broader, wilder world. I had my father's contempt for the courtier who suspends his life from the fingertips of those in power, looking for morsels. I would be beholden to no man.
The rider I followed was slowing down now as he drew nearer the cottage.
He drew up suddenly, listening, but sensing he was about to halt I had myself pulled up close under a tall hedge, and he could not see me.
He stared down the road behind him for a long time, then he started on, but I held my horse for I had a feeling he would stop again. And he did so, turning in the saddle to look back. After a moment he started again, seemingly reassured.
When he was near the lane that turned down the slope to my cottage, he drew up and dismounted. Purposely, I let my horse take two steps that he could hear.
Instantly, he froze in position, staring toward me. But I sat silent, knowing he was worried-frightened a little, or at least uneasy-and this was what I wanted.
He led his horse into the opening of the lane leading to my cottage, and what he saw or failed to see satisfied him, for he mounted again. But he rode on to where he could look toward the water side of my cottage, and then it was that I started to hum a tune and walked my horse toward him. He was around a turn of the lane but he heard me, as I knew he would, and as I turned the corner I saw him, halberd in hand.
"Ho, there!" I said, not too loud. "Is this the way to Boston?"
"Ahead there, and you'll see the marker." He leaned toward me, peering. "You came up the track?"
"Aye, and a start it gave me, too! Something was there ... I know not what. I spoke to it, but had no answer, and came on quickly enough. Damn it, man, if that be your way, be careful. I liked not the smell of it."
"Smell?"
"Aye, a fetid smell ... as of something dead. I saw no shape or shadow, but ... have you ever smelled a wolf?"
"A wolf?" His voice rose a little. "There are no wolves in England!"
"Aye ... so they say. Not wolves as such, I suppose, but I have smelled wolves ... not your ordinary wolves, you understand, but huge, slinking creatures with ugly fangs. Bloody fangs! And they smelled like that back there. Have you heard of werewolves, perhaps? I sometimes think-"
"Werewolves? That's just talk ... campfire talk, or talk by peasants. There are no wolves in England, and I-"
"Well, I've had a smell of them. That was in Tartary where I went for Henry the Seventh-"
"Henry the Seventh!" His voice was shrill. "Why, that's impossible! It has been almost a hundred years since-"
"So long?" I said. "It scarcely seems so." I leaned toward him. "Werewolves! I'd know that odor anywhere! The smell of graves opened! Old graves! Of bodies long dead!" Pausing, I said, as if puzzled, "But you said King Henry the Seventh was nearly a hundred years ago?"
"Nearly." The man was edging away from me.
"Well, well! How time goes on! But when you have passed, you know, when you're no longer subject to time-"
"I must go. They await me at the tavern yonder."
"Ah? A tavern? I was tempted to enter, but you know how it must be. When I enter the others leave. So I-"
"You're mad!" The man burst out suddenly. "Crazy!" And he clapped his heels to his horse and raced away.
From the hedge there was a chuckle. "He didn't know whether you were crazy or a ghost, Barnabas." Black Tom shivered. "On a night like this a man could believe anything out here in the dark." He gestured. "Come quickly! We have a boat."
Down the lane I rode, with Black Tom trotting beside, hanging to my stirrup leather. There was time for only a glance at the cottage, dark and silent, its small windows like lonely eyes. I figured William was at the hut, some distance away. I felt a twinge at my heart, for the cottage had been my boyhood home, this place and the fens. Inside was the fireplace beside which my father had taught me my lessons. No man ever worked harder for the future of his son, teaching me all he could from what he had seen and learned.
No more ... my father was gone, buried these several years. A wave of sadness swept over me. I started to turn for another look ...
"Quick! Barnabas, into the boat! They come!"
It was no common boat, but a scow, and I took my horse quickly across the plank, and we shoved off upon the dark, glistening water. We could hear the hoofbeats of horses.
Looking back, I felt warm tears welling into my eyes. It had been my home, this cottage on the edge of the fen. Here I had grown to manhood, and here my father had died.
And where, in my time, would my body lie?
Chapter 2
We of the fens knew every twist and turn of the waterways that formed an intricate maze where a stranger might soon become lost. A man might believe the fens, seen from West Keal, utterly flat and without a hiding place. But there were many islets, hidden coves, willow-sheltered channels, and occasional fields.
Over the years the fens had changed much, while seeming not to change at all.
Roman efforts to drain them had largely failed, due to changes in the sea level and long periods when no effort had been made to continue the work. Now Elizabeth was considering a new effort at drainage, for once drained the fens became the richest of farmland.
We who lived in the fens had small concept of their actual area, and no doubt felt them larger than they were, for they seemed vast, extending into several shires, although boundaries meant little.
The Romans had come, even, it was said, to the place where we now went. It was an islet of no more than three acres cut by several narrow, winding waterways.
There were few low-growing oaks, gnarled of trunk and thick of branch, but not tall, and some birch trees. Backed against a limestone shoulder was the hut, a place already ancient when my father played there as a child, and how ancient no man knew. Many times had the thatch been renewed, and long ago I had watched my father replace the door. I had come here before first sailing for America, but now, almost a year later, nothing had changed.
Even Black Tom, who knew the fens, had not known of this place. William knew, and I. Black Tom looked around, admiringly. "A tidy place! A man could live here on the eeling alone."
"Aye, but I am for America, Tom, love it though I do. It is a good place, with the cries of the marsh birds and the glow of the last light on the yellow water lilies. Nor shall I forget the sound of oars as a boat moves through the fens, or the way the morning mist lies close above the grass."