The Rose Garden

This time the shrug was Daniel’s. ‘Let him go. There will be nothing Creed can do. There is no vessel in Polgelly harbour that can catch the Sally when she runs before the wind.’

I believed him. I could feel the pull and power of the ship’s sails as we altered course a second time and set Polgelly squarely at our back.

Beside me Daniel straightened from the window, the top of his head nearly brushing the beams of the cabin. ‘Are you troubled by sea travel?’

‘Pardon?’ I asked.

‘Do you feel any sickness?’

‘Oh. No, I’m all right.’

‘Good. You will find the comforts greater here,’ he told me, ‘in the cabin, but I should think that you would find the journey more diverting from the quarterdeck.’

It was an invitation, and I willingly accepted it.

Above, the air smelt cleaner and the sunlight from the west had taken on that warmly golden glow that marked the final hours of the evening. We were headed south, and opposite the sinking sun the purple of the coming night had started creeping up into the wide bowl of the sky above, where soon I knew the evening star would make its first appearance.

Watching the men work the sails and the ropes with experienced ease, I gave myself up to the sinuous rising and roll of the ship’s deck beneath my feet, leaning at times to the will of the wind at an angle that tested my balance.

But I didn’t mind. I was looking at Daniel for most of the time, because seeing him here on the Sally was proving a small revelation. It occurred to me that, though I’d seen him smile and even laugh before, I’d never seen him totally content until this moment. He looked the same person, but … different. He looked so at home here, the voyager, eyes to the distant horizon, relaxed at the helm.

The same thing that made me so nervous, this whole thought of venturing into the unknown, seemed to cause him no bother. In fact, it appeared to be one of the forces that drove him. Like Tennyson’s Ulysses, with his plans to bravely sail beyond the sunset, Daniel had the look of someone who would not be bound by lines on maps or dragons that were drawn there, but would set his own course to discover what lay at the end of it.

I watched him till the cooling night breeze chased me down below decks once again, where Fergal set me to helping him parcel out hard bread and ale to the men with a stew made of fish that he’d somehow prepared in a cauldron secured on a firebox of bricks in the galley.

The food was simply made and roughly eaten, but I gladly ate my share and then retired to my private cabin where, with Fergal stationed like a sentry in his galley just outside my door, I braved the swinging hammock. It embraced me like a lover’s arms, and sent me off to sleep with dreams of ships and sails and distant shores that lay beyond my view.

CHAPTER THIRTY

They were loading the last of the boats. The sloped deck of the Sally gently rose and fell beneath me as I held the rail for balance. Even with the hanging mist I still could see the shore, the little cove curved round its sheltered bit of sea, green hills that echoed those we had just left and small square houses stacked in cosy clusters up the slopes, with only the slight difference in the architecture telling me that we had crossed the narrow stretch of sea dividing Cornwall from the Continent, and had arrived in Brittany.

The crew were hard at work still bringing up the Sally’s cargo. I tried purposely to keep my gaze averted so they wouldn’t think me nosy, but I had already seen the bales of wool.

A true free trade, I thought. They swapped the raw materials that were, by British law, so hard to come by on the Continent, for finished goods that were considered luxuries to those back home in England, just as Daniel had explained to me.

He’d gone ashore himself on the first boat, and I’d assumed I would be coming on this final one with Fergal when the crew had finished loading it, but even as I smoothed my hands across my gown to tidy my appearance Fergal strode across the deck and set me straight.

With a curt nod he said, ‘I’ll be away myself, now. Time you got below.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll be safer in the cabin,’ he elaborated. ‘Come.’

He took me there himself, and quickly looked around to see that everything was as it should be while I grappled with the fact that they were leaving me behind, that I would not be going with them when they went ashore. I hadn’t been expecting that.

I wasn’t good at hiding how I felt. My own face must have held a mix of irritation and dismay, but if it did then Fergal chose not to react to it. He simply faced me, hands on hips, and asked me, ‘Can you fire a pistol?’

‘Pardon?’

Crossing to the desk he pulled the top drawer open just enough to show the pistol lying there. ‘You’ll find it primed and loaded. Do you know the way to fire it?’

‘Likely not.’

‘Then let me show you. Pay attention now,’ he told me, as he took the pistol from the drawer and led me through the steps.

‘Fergal …’

‘Not that you’ll be needing it.’ His glance was reassuring. ‘There will be only three men left aboard with you, and none of them will give you any trouble. I could trust them with my mother. Still,’ he added, with a shrug, ‘’tis always best to think the worst of everyone, for that way you’ll be seldom disappointed.’

‘Fergal.’

‘Ay?’

I knew the answer, but I had to ask him anyway. ‘Can’t I come with you?’