Kitabı oku: «River Daughter», sayfa 3
CHAPTER SIX
Cat’s Head
A howling river wind woke Moss early next morning. She lifted her head and sat up. Salter was still asleep, propped against an empty beer barrel. She guessed he’d dragged it over to the fire to shield them from the wind. She stood up and shook out her dress. It was smoky and specked with ash, but the wool was bone-dry next to her skin. Silently she thanked Pa. Without a blanket or a groat to her name, this dress was all she’d got.
‘Arrggh.’ Salter groaned himself awake. He stretched and his neck cricked. ‘Sweet Harry’s achin bones! Feels like someone chopped me head off and put it back the wrong way.’
Moss didn’t hear him. She was already down by the water’s edge, walking along the shore. The strangeness of their river journey was fresh in her mind – snatched by a freak current and dumped right in front of the Tower.
‘Hey! Leatherboots! Wait for me!’
Salter caught her up. ‘Where are you goin?’
‘Back to where we pitched up last night.’
‘Won’t do no good. Tide’ll have taken the boat. Won’t be nothin to find now.’
‘I know. I just –’ She broke off. What could she say? She wasn’t going to tell him about the Riverwitch.
But Salter was distracted by something else. The grey river raked the shingle, leaving a sticky sludge in its wake.
‘Steer clear of that mud, Leatherboots,’ said Salter. ‘You never know how deep this stuff is. Maybe it’s just an inch or two, or maybe it’s sinkin mud.’
‘Sinking mud?’
‘Deep as a pit, thick as porridge – mud that’ll trap you an’ pull at yer boots an’ the more you struggle, the more stuck you get. Till you ain’t got the strength to even call out fer help. And when it knows you ain’t goin nowhere, that mud will suck you down. Cold an’ thick an’ pressin the life from yer lungs. An’ there ain’t a thing you can do but watch yerself get swallowed slow.’
Moss stopped walking. ‘That’s what it felt like. That day the fish jumped out and I got stuck.’
Salter nodded. ‘It’s evil stuff an’ no mistake, an’ you don’t go near it if you can help it.’
They were almost at Tower Wharf. A putrid smell crept past Moss’s nostrils.
‘Holy dogbits!’ Salter’s nose caught the wind. ‘That’s disgustin! I think I’m gonna gip.’
The closer they got to the Tower, the stronger the smell, until Moss’s eyes were watering.
‘Hold it, Leatherboots. What is that ?’
Salter was pointing at a messy object, half buried in the mud not five feet from where they walked.
‘Wouldn’t touch it if I was –’
Too late. Moss was crouching by the muddy object, trying not to retch on the foulness that clawed its way down her throat.
It was a ball of matted fur, caked with river mud and what looked like old blood. Moss grabbed a stick and poked at it, rolling it over slowly. The matted fur was odd-looking. Speckled with a strange pattern, though it wasn’t easy to see through all the mud. The ball tipped on its side.
‘Oh!’
Moss jumped back.
Two startled eyes stared up at her – huge and black-ringed, faded by death. A lolling tongue poked through four enormous fangs. It was the head of some poor dead animal. Washed up by the tide.
Salter was beside her now. He whistled. ‘That is one big cat. What’s it been feedin on? All the other cats in town?’
‘That’s no cat,’ said Moss.
‘Got cat ears,’ said Salter. ‘Got cat eyes. And I reckon them straw things plastered to its fur are whiskers.’
‘Look at its teeth,’ said Moss. ‘When did you last see a cat with fangs the size of parsnips?’
‘Well, what is it then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Hey, what are you doin? Don’t touch that thing!’
Moss had lifted the head by the scruff of fur between its ears and was carrying it to the water’s edge. It was heavy. She swilled it in the grey water until the mud had rinsed off. Then she carried it back up the shingle and laid it down.
The creature’s head was covered in a strange pattern of round black patches, like a beautiful plague that spread from the line between its eyes across fawn-yellow fur.
‘It’s a good thing it’s dead,’ said Salter. ‘Those jaws would rip yer face off soon as look at you. Whatever that creature is, it ain’t from round here.’
At Salter’s words, something clicked inside Moss’s head and it filled with the memory of animal roars from long ago.
‘But it could be from round here.’
‘Eh?’
‘This creature. It could have come from the Tower.’
‘What? ’
‘From the Beast House.’
Salter nodded slowly. “I heard about that place. Wolves an’ snakes an’ weird birds, ain’t it?’
‘I only know what the Tower folk told me. That they are the King’s beasts. Rare and strange animals sent by the kings and queens of far away places.
‘You ever see em?’
‘No. I never went into the Beast House. Normal Tower folk weren’t allowed, only the keepers. On Execution days we’d walk right past and I’d hear the animals howling and roaring, but the keepers kept it locked.’
‘So,’ said Salter, ‘if you ain’t never seen em, what makes you think that mangy head is one of em? An’ even if it was, what’s it doin washed up on the shore?’
‘I don’t know.’
She stared up at the Tower. Its walls gave nothing away. Once these walls had encircled her whole world. Where she and Pa had lived almost her entire life. Stark and sheer, they blocked the sky. A howl echoed across the turrets, joined by another and another, as if the animals of the Beast House were crying out, trying to reach beyond the walls. Moss had never heard them howl like that in all the time she had lived in the Tower.
She looked down at the head of the beast. Its face was a frozen snarl. However this creature had died, she was pretty sure it hadn’t passed away peacefully in its sleep.
‘We’ll bury it,’ she said.
‘You what?’
‘It shouldn’t be here. We can’t leave it slopping in and out with the tide.’
Salter spent the next ten minutes grumbling while they scrabbled a hole in the shingle near the bank, deep enough to take the creature.
When the head was buried, Moss walked back to the mudline.
The rotten smell was still there. It was everywhere. In her hair, in her nose. She could taste it on her tongue. It was the smell of death and it hung around the Tower like a stinking fog.
‘Ready fer breakfast?’
‘Not really. Anyway, we’ve no food. Or money.’
There was a flicker in Salter’s eye. Tiny. But Moss caught it.
‘Salter, no.’
‘What?’ He laughed. ‘You don’t even know what I’m plannin!’
‘And I don’t want to know.’
‘Look, I ain’t lyin to you. It’s a scam all right. But it only takes from the pockets of them that can afford a groat or two. Nothin big. Nothin fancy. We won’t get caught. All you need to do is –’
‘No. Just . . . no. We’ve been in London one night and already you’re talking about thieving ?’
‘You got a better idea? Unless you want to turn round an’ walk back to the village right now?’
She didn’t.
Right now they needed food and a place to sleep. Surely there must be someone who’d give them shelter. Just for a night or two.
‘You lived on the river long enough,’ said Moss, ‘You must know somewhere we can go?’
‘Ain’t no one I can ask,’ said Salter. ‘It’s every man, woman and child fer themselves in this city. Ain’t no one who’ll take us in without a groat to show fer ourselves.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Moss. In her memory, a thought stirred. A name from the past. She’d never met him, but Salter had talked about him. A boy. Someone Salter went to for . . . well, she wasn’t quite sure what he went to him for. But she remembered that he had helped Salter once, maybe twice.
‘Eel-Eye Jack!’ she cried. That was his name.
Salter’s brow creased.
‘Eel-Eye Jack,’ said Moss.
‘I heard you the first time. What about him?’
‘He’s your friend, isn’t he?’
‘Eel-Eye Jack ain’t no friend.’
‘You know what I mean. He helped you didn’t he? Helped you find me when I went to Hampton that winter.’
‘Eel-Eye Jack don’t help people.’
‘Oh, come on, Salter. We can ask him for a bed and a bit of food, just enough for a few days.’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean no?’
‘I mean no pussin way. I mean Eel-Eye Jack ain’t the kind to be askin favours from.’
‘Salter, don’t be ridiculous. We’ll find a way to pay him back.’
‘I’m serious. I ain’t never been in debt to Eel Eye Jack. Done all me business on an equal foot. An’ there’s good reason for that. When he calls in his favours, you don’t know what he’ll ask.’
‘What are you afraid of, Salter?’ Moss could feel the heat rising in her throat. ‘You don’t want to ask for help? Is that it? You take care of yourself, let others take care of themselves. You’d lie and steal rather than ask a friend for help.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘So prove it.’
Silence. She was up close to Salter. Close enough to see the trouble in the brown eyes that were gazing straight into hers.
She blinked. They both stepped back.
Salter kicked the shingle. ‘All right. Have it your way. Just remember, he ain’t my friend. An’ whatever you think, he won’t be no friend to you neither.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Eel-Eye Jack
It was a long, winding walk from the river. Through shadows and alleys and back streets that twisted like the roots of a tree. Once or twice the two of them broke out into a wide street of painted shops and stalls, where they were squashed by the tide of people as they tried to cross. But Salter pulled Moss behind him and soon they were back in the dark lanes that squelched with the muck of horses and the spatterings of pisspots.
‘Keep yer head up,’ said Salter. ‘Look like you know where yer goin. Look like you ain’t got a care in the world.’
Moss did her best, but she felt like a lamb lost in a forest. Watching her from the shadows were sly pairs of eyes. In fact, the further they went, the quieter the streets and the more convinced she became that they were being followed.
‘Where is everyone?’ she whispered. ‘And why do I feel like we’re not alone?’
‘We’ve had scouts on us from Cheapside onwards. Eel-Eye Jack knows I’m comin.’
‘Really?’
‘We’re on his patch now.’ Salter stopped and faced Moss. ‘Listen, Leatherboots. When we get there, let me do the talkin.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I know what he’s like. I know how he works. An’ I won’t tell him any more than I have to.’
Moss shrugged. She didn’t see what she could possibly talk about anyway. Lost in her own thoughts, she was happy to follow Salter, to let him do the talking, so long as they could get a place to sleep and a little food.
They were walking down another twisted alley. This one was so crowded with leaning roofs and tumbledown houses that daylight had given up on it entirely. Through the gloom, Moss could hear music. A fiddle, playing fast and furious. And as they rounded the corner, suddenly there was light. Squares of flickering gold, spilling from the windows of a building at the end. It was tall, many-floored and bent in all directions like a crooked hat.
Now the alley seemed full of the sawing fiddle and Moss heard shouts and the stamping of feet. Salter led her towards the bright building and stopped at the door. Hanging above it was a painted sign, rusted to an iron bracket. On it, a one-legged crow perched on a piece of mangled wood.
‘Not a pretty sight, eh?’ said Salter. ‘But people don’t come here fer pretty.’
Moss stared up at the sign. Beaten and faded, the crow peered down at her and she wondered how it had lost its leg.
‘Welcome to The Crow and Stump,’ said Salter. ‘You still sure this is what you want?’
Moss nodded.
‘All right then. Stay behind me an’ keep quiet.’
He pushed the door open and they walked in.
The fog of smoke inside was intense, but when Moss’s eyes had stopped smarting she found herself in a large, rowdy inn. A topsy-turvy room of tables and jutting wooden platforms with steps and railings and ladders. Crammed into every corner were men clanking beer mugs, women who laughed and clapped to the music, and raggedy children dangling from the railings.
Filling the room with wild music was a boy. Older than Moss. Maybe fourteen or fifteen. He stood with his legs planted firm on the floorboards, holding a large fiddle to his chin. His bow was lightning quick, and the notes were clear and strong and soared up and around the room like swallows in the sky.
The boy seemed lost in his music, but as they threaded their way through people and tables, Moss saw that the boy’s eyes were fixed on Salter, following as they crossed the room. And once they’d seated themselves on a step in the corner, his gaze kept flicking back to them and to Moss in particular. It was a curious gaze, thought Moss, but beyond that, she could not read it.
The music changed. Now the boy’s strokes were deep and slow, and the inn filled with a sad, beautiful melody that settled inside Moss, drawing out memories of things long past, floating them into her head where they swirled with the music. All around her, the people of the inn nodded their heads, lifted from the room by their own rememberings. As Moss drifted with the melody, she became aware that the boy’s blue eyes were now fixed on her. All this time Salter sat next to her, shifting on the step, as though impatient for the music to stop.
‘What’s the matter?’ whispered Moss. ‘It’s beautiful. Don’t you like it?’
‘It ain’t the music that bothers me. It’s the one that’s playin it.’
As Salter spoke, the boy finished playing, tucked the fiddle under his arm and strolled over to where they sat. He leant casually against the wooden rail of the stairs and tipped his head at Salter.
‘Hello, Salter.’
‘Eel-Eye.’
‘It’s been a long time. I heard you had left the city.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I heard you were living in the fields with apple trees all around. Catching the stoats and milking the cows.’
There was something different about the way this boy spoke. As though he held something in the back of his throat. And there was a sing-song rhythm to his speech.
‘So,’ the boy went on, ‘is it true? Are you a country boy now?’
‘Maybe. It ain’t such a bad life. You should try it yerself.’
‘Maybe I will. Maybe I will come and visit you sometime, pick an apple from your tree.’
Moss watched this exchange. Two foxes circling each other. Voices smooth, hackles up.
Eel-Eye Jack turned to Moss. ‘And you must be . . .?’
‘Moss,’ said Moss. ‘I’m Salter’s friend.’ She felt a sharp dig in her ribs.
‘Ahhh,’ said Eel-Eye Jack. ‘Friends . . .’ He drew up a chair and sat on it back-to-front, legs astride the seat, turning his full attention to Moss. ‘And I always thought Salter was, how would you say, a lone wolf ?’ He swept his hand through the sand-blond hair that hung in sleek strands to his neck. ‘Where are you from, Moss?’
‘From –’ Moss felt another jab in her side. ‘From the village.’
Eel-Eye Jack laughed. ‘Well, Moss-from-the-village, you are welcome in The Crow. We see the same old faces here and a new one is fresh air to blow away our dirty smoke.’ He looked directly at Moss as he spoke, his blue eyes bright, holding hers, as a flame would hold a moth.
Moss felt the words drop from her head. She didn’t know what to say to this boy with his blue-flame eyes and sing-song words.
‘I . . . I liked your music.’
Eel-Eye Jack took his fiddle from under his arm, sat on the step next to Moss and laid it across his knees. It was polished, walnut brown, etched with a twisting pattern of thorns.
‘This fiddle has travelled far,’ he said. ‘From the cold countries across the sea.’
‘The cold countries,’ echoed Moss. ‘Is that where you’re from?’
Eel-Eye Jack smiled. ‘In the cold countries they say that a good player has been taught by the devil himself. And in return, he gives a piece of his soul.’
‘Oh . . . And what do you say?’ said Moss.
Eel-Eye Jack leaned close to Moss and whispered in her ear. ‘I say that maybe it is a bargain well struck.’
He pulled back and laughed and his eyes sparked mischief, as Salter’s sometimes did. Moss couldn’t help herself. She laughed too.
‘All right, very funny I’m sure,’ said Salter. He wasn’t laughing and Moss sensed the irritation in his voice.
Eel-Eye Jack stood up. ‘So what brings you to The Crow, Salter, my old friend? Can I call you that?’
‘Call me what you like,’ said Salter gruffly. ‘We came to ask fer somethin.’
‘Yes?’
‘Food an’ lodgins. One, maybe two nights.’
‘You have money?’
Salter shook his head.
‘Your boat?’
‘Nope.’
‘Then what are you bargaining with?’
‘I ain’t. I’m askin fer a favour.’
‘A favour . . .’ said Eel-Eye Jack, rolling the word on his tongue. ‘A favour is not a thing I ever thought to hear you ask for.’
‘Yeah? Well, I ain’t askin twice.’
Eel-Eye Jack looked from Salter to Moss. ‘For a favour,’ he said, ‘you can stay.’
‘Fine,’ muttered Salter.
‘Thank you,’ said Moss brightly. The music had lifted her heart and right now she couldn’t think of a better place to stay than this warm, friendly inn.
After a word with the landlord, Eel-Eye Jack brought over a plate of bread and mutton. Moss and Salter ate ravenously and by the time they’d finished, they’d been given blankets too. They tucked themselves into a corner and Moss peeked out at the emptying tavern. The last thing she remembered was Eel-Eye Jack, leaning back against a staircase, eyes closed, the sad melody from his fiddle floating upwards with the smoke.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Great White Bear
‘Stone the crows an’ the sparrers! That ain’t worth no favour that I can think of.’
Salter and Moss sat at a table. In front of them were two bowls of grey porridge.
‘Take it or leave it,’ sniffed the landlord, ‘That’s all you’re gettin unless Eel-Eye coughs up some more.’
They watched him shuffle back over to his barrels. They weren’t the only ones who’d stayed the night in The Crow and Stump. Men and women lay slumped in their chairs and on the rickety staircase a handful of children were curled up fast asleep. A fug of beer and smoke hung in the air. Of Eel-Eye Jack there was no sign.
Moss dug into her porridge, remembering the beautiful music of the night before. ‘Eel-Eye Jack must have got up early,’ she said. ‘I’d like to hear him play again. I wonder when he’ll be coming back?’
Salter eyed her. ‘Better not ask too many questions about Eel-Eye,’ he said. ‘Wherever he is, it’s his business and whatever that business is, you can bet yer guts it’s dodgy.’ He scraped the last of the porridge from his bowl. ‘So . . . what you got planned fer our stay in the big city, Leatherboots?’
The question took Moss a little by surprise. In all the excitement of their arrival, she’d almost forgotten the Riverwitch.
‘Well, I’m going to . . . just walk about a bit.’
‘Walk about a bit ? You came all this way to go fer a walk?’ Salter laughed. ‘Suit yerself. I’ll come with you.’
Moss opened her mouth to object, but Salter was already on his feet.
‘Fine,’ she said. Hopefully he’d get bored and wander off by himself.
She wasn’t sure how or where the Riverwitch would show herself, but one thing was certain, it wouldn’t be here in The Crow and Stump. She needed to be down by the river.
They were standing next to Tower Wharf with the incoming tide slapping at their ankles.
‘Crikey, Leatherboots, what are we doin back here? I didn’t think you’d want to be within a pigeon’s fart of the Tower.’
The truth was, Moss didn’t know. It had seemed as good a place to start as any. She was fairly sure the freak current that had dragged them all the way to London had been the Riverwitch’s doing. And they’d been dumped right in front of the Tower. That was no coincidence. She scoured the murk-dark water. There was no sign of the Witch.
‘Ain’t this where that old tunnel of yours is?’ Salter was sloshing under the wharf.
‘Wait!’ Moss splashed after him. She’d almost forgotten about the tunnel. Rather, she’d tried to forget. Although it had been her escape route from the Tower, at high tide it flooded and last time she’d crawled in there she’d almost drowned.
‘There you go,’ said Salter, running his hand over the vague trace of a hole. The stones that blocked it were barely visible, hidden under a thick layer of oozing mud.
Moss stuck her hand in and tugged at one of the stones. ‘Help me, will you?’
They pushed and pulled and eventually worked the stone loose enough to heave out. It splashed into the water and a thick brown sludge leached out after it.
‘Ugh! Devil bite me nose off ! That stuff stinks!’ Salter staggered back.
Moss stared at the hole. The sludge moved slowly, seeping from the gap where the stone had fallen. The whole tunnel was blocked. Floor to ceiling, choked with oozing, reeking mud.
‘Ain’t nobody going to be comin and goin through there no more then,’ said Salter.
‘I guess not.’
‘Never liked it. Filthy crawlin rat-burrow of a place.’
They waded out from under the wharf and walked up the shore a little way, leaving the foul reek behind them. The shingle was dry and they sat together, halfway up the bank, staring out at the river.
It was the strangest feeling to be back, thought Moss. She’d wondered whether much would have changed in the year and a half she’d been away. She remembered how the river used to look from the Tower walls. On a sunny day she’d gaze down and it would sparkle up at her, silver-grey. Today, although the sun shone, the river was mud-brown. Still, it was packed. Barges nudged for a place on a quay, painted galleys unfurled their sails and the watermen steered their flat little boats, cussing their heads off as they rowed passengers from bank to bank.
Salter stretched and breathed in deep, filling his lungs. ‘Salt river. Best smell in the world, ain’t it? Don’t tell me you haven’t missed this, Leatherboots?’ he said.
Moss smiled. ‘I don’t know if I’ve missed it exactly,’ she said.
‘No?’ He closed his eyes and breathed in some more. ‘Sprats, cockles, that’s what I can smell. An’ the tug of the current on me little boat.’
Moss closed her eyes too, remembering the first time she’d set foot on the shore. She could hear the swish of the waves rolling up and down the shingle, the noise of the river from inside Salter’s shack. She loved that sound. It was the river breathing. In and out. Salter was right. She had missed it.
‘I’m gonna take a walk up to Belinsgate. See the catch comin in,’ said Salter. ‘You comin?’
Moss shook her head. ‘No, I’ll stay here a bit. Follow you up there later.’
‘Well don’t be too long. I’ll wait for you by the herring boats.’
‘All right.’
She watched Salter pick his way up the narrow line of shingle until he was just a brown speck.
Now what? Surely the Riverwitch would show herself soon?
The wind was getting up, whipping a scum from the tip of the waves. In the distance among the bobbing boats, a barge was making its way up the river. Snatched by the wind and blown towards her, she could hear shouts from the deck along with a sound she’d not heard on the river before. An odd, strangled roar. She squinted, curious to see what was on that boat. She counted twelve men rowing and, as the boat got closer, the rowers began turning it to put in at Tower Wharf. She could see deckhands scurrying to and fro at the front. And as the barge turned, there was the strangest sight. A great beast, tethered to the deck. Moss had never seen anything like it. It looked like a bear. Yet unlike any dancing bear she’d ever set eyes on. Even on all fours it towered above the men. Its fur was creamy white. As she gaped at the bear, it threw its head back and another agonised roar spluttered from its jaws. Around its neck was an iron collar, welded to a chain that was stretched taut to a wooden post. Straining at each leg was a piece of thick rope, tied to four more posts. The bear tossed its head, trying to bite the chain from its neck, and the blood that leaked from its jaw had stained its muzzle red.
What was it doing here, this huge white bear? It was like a creature from a wild dream, thought Moss, from a faraway land of giants who hunted bears as tall as trees.
‘Keep them ropes tight!’
‘Watch out for its claws!’
‘Don’t let it come down too quick!’
The deckhands were shouting, throwing mooring ropes at the wharf. When the barge had been secured, they laid across a hefty gangplank. Moss watched as they untethered the great bear. Surely it will pull free now, thought Moss. But from the wharfside came men with iron rods, the ends glowing as if they’d been heated in a fire. One of the men jabbed his rod at the bear and it flinched, grunting at sudden red-hot pain. The bear bowed its head and was led from the barge to the wharf, where two dozen men were ready to pick up the ropes. They hauled and prodded, and the beast lumbered to the steep path of Tower Hill. Were they taking it to the Tower?
A small crowd was buzzing now and Moss ran with them, up the hill. There were screams and cries of disbelief as the enormous bear shambled past them. All the while, the men with hot iron rods poked and jabbed, and each time it raised its head, Moss heard a low anguished growl and smelt singed fur. The portcullis cranked open and Moss’s last view of the bear was of two powerful hind legs, trunks of thick white fur, disappearing through the arch of the Lion Tower.
By the time Moss and Salter returned to the alley, the open shutters of The Crow were coughing smoke into the twilight.
Inside, Eel-Eye Jack was seated at a corner table. His fiddle was by his side. A man was sitting opposite with his back to Moss and Salter, the blunt frame of his shoulders blocking the firelight. Moss noticed that the rest of the tavern was giving this table a wide berth. Only the landlord approached with a flagon of ale and, when the blunt man rose to leave, he scuttled back to his barrels on the other side of the inn instead.
When the man had gone, Eel-Eye Jack picked up his fiddle. He didn’t seem in the mood for a foot-stomping tune, and sure enough the tavern soon echoed with a melody that blew cold as the wind.
Salter ignored the music, eating his stew noisily and chattering all the while about the herring boats he’d seen at Belinsgate and the orange-capped herringmen, and the tremendous catch they’d brought in.
‘It was a fine old sight, Leatherboots. I wish you’d seen them boats comin into the wharf. Handled better than any craft I ever seen. I’d give me eye teeth and me toenails to sail a day with them Hollanders!’
While Salter talked, Moss peeped from behind her stew bowl at the bustle that filled The Crow and Stump. It was a very different crowd to the one she’d grown used to at home. Back in the village, The Nut Tree was smoky and busy, but the babble always hummed gently. If the door opened, everyone looked, then got back to their conversations. And Moss had grown to love their talk of harvests and the price of pigs, finding it as comforting as warm milk. Here in The Crow the atmosphere felt charged, like a Tower cannon ready for firing. Conversations moved quickly, eyes were everywhere, and though no one gave a second glance when the door opened, Moss sensed that nobody entered The Crow unnoticed. The people here were not wealthy, she could tell. Their faces were scarred, sinewed and tanned by the sun. And among the browns and greys of their garments were bright sashes, embroidered shawls, feathered hats and beards flashing red ribbons.
‘Who are all these people?’ she murmered.
‘Thieves. Pirates. Cutpurses. Cutthroats.’ Salter wiped a dribble of stew from his chin. ‘Ain’t an honest person in here, if that’s what yer askin.’
‘How do you know that?’
Salter sighed. ‘I’ve been here plenty. When I had business to do, when I wanted somethin that weren’t easy to get. And it ain’t me favourite place in the world. You’d best keep yer head well down.’
‘So you keep telling me.’
But from his corner of the tavern, Eel-Eye Jack’s fiddle was singing its sorrowful song. Despite Salter’s words of warning, Moss found herself on her feet.
‘Leatherboots –’
But Moss was already crossing the tavern to where Eel-Eye Jack stood with one foot raised on a stool, drawing his bow across the walnut fiddle. He was watching her. As she approached he smiled and nodded to the empty chair across the table. She sat and listened while he played the sweet sad end to his tune. Then he lowered his fiddle and sat on his stool, facing her.
‘You like this music?’
‘Very much. It makes me think of mountains and ice lakes and places I’ve never seen.’
‘You have never been to the cold countries then?’ said Eel-Eye Jack.
Moss shook her head.
‘Lands of frost and ice, where the mountains are a fine sight, but treacherous too. The falling snow from a mountain can bury a village.’
Ücretsiz ön izlemeyi tamamladınız.
