Bring It Close (28 page)

Did he want to sail in consort with Acorne? Not especially, but nor did he want to stay here mouldering with these poultry-headed mummers. Another month of this and Spotswood would have no need to worry, he would be driven mad enough to hang himself. There again, was Acorne telling the truth? He was right about Knight. A useless worm if ever there was one.

Teach’s thoughts returned to
Sea Witch
. Acorne had a good ship. She was fast – and seaworthy. He also had good taste. That little missy, the midwife, was a woman worth drubbing. There was something different about her. Something inexplicable that drew him like north draws the needle on the compass. Something she was hiding. He sat, stroking his beard. He would like to see that young woman again. He had unfinished business with her.

Israel Hands came back, bent low to talk quietly into Teach’s ear. Teach nodded. “Along tha river path thee say? Why fore’n he be goin’ there d’ thee s’pose?”

Mary was allowing the fop to twirl her around and around, her mouth open in laughter, her skirts flying out to reveal too much of her ankles and lower leg. Making a public slut of herself. Teach had had enough.

“Israel, tidden good t’ be blatherin’ roun’ here. Gather tha crew, I as reckon as we ought be makin’ us’n way down river. Time us had us own fun of a frawze to do, eh?”

Delighted Israel agreed. Land life was boring for a sailor, and all these self-important bags of wind made it doubly so. He trotted off to round up the men and make ready as Teach stepped out into the twirl of dancers, earning himself several annoyed rebukes when he trod on toes or used his elbow to force a way through. Reaching his wife he clamped his fingers around her wrist and glowered at the orchestra until they scraped to a ragged silence.

“Tha party be over. Fetch’n thy things, wummun. We’re goin’ aboard my ship an’ settin’ sail.”

She attempted to wrest her arm free; failed. “But we cannot. My guests – our room, it is all made ready.”

“Then it’ll need be made unready. Fetch’n thy things or come as thee be.”

“Look here, Teach, Edward, I do not think –”

Teach cut his father-in-law short. “That’ll be thy trouble, thee casn’t think.” He let go of Mary, turned to leave. “I’ll send some’un to escort thee aboard.”

“Where are you going?” she shrieked. “I demand to know.”

Teach stopped at the open doors and scratched at his backside. “If’n tha must be knowin’ m’business, I be ‘eadin’ fer a sits on the privy. What I doos after tha’ be me own conc’rn.”

Ten

On the Night of the Dead, he was aware of others crossing the frozen ice. Could sense their presence, hear their nervous laughter and anxious squeals as feet slid, or the ice shifted and creaked.

What fools they were! They were already dead, they could not die again! Yet no soul knew what would happen if one fell beneath the ice, or should fail to cross back over as dawn first touched the eastern skies and the River turned again to flowing, deep, dark water. Be condemned to walk forever, lost between the two worlds, he assumed. For him though, he would not be returning. The Witch Woman was to use her Craft to help him stay among the living for a while. If something went wrong, well, it was a risk he was prepared to take. Nothing could be worse than the condemnation he was already enduring, and would continue to endure for all eternity unless he set things right and paid for his guilt.

She, the Witch Woman, had said she would help him, so why did he sit here and listen to all those unseen forms make their way with gleeful chatter to the hearth-fires of their loved ones for this one night? Why, why did he just sit here?

He looked again at the sodden paper in his hand. At the unbroken seal. Why had the boy not opened it? Not read it?

He had retrieved the letter and sat here, holding it, though night had fallen and it was time to go. Sat here, grieving.

Some of the words he had written were not too blurred and could still be read, but he had not the heart to look at them. He had tried to explain, had tried to tell his son that he had loved him in life – as he loved him now, in death. He had been a fool. Such a bloody fool.

“Captain? Captain Mereno? I cannot hold the energy I need to do this for long. You must come now or come not at all.”

The Witch Woman, Tiola. Jesamiah’s lady was a good woman and Charles had a moment’s doubt and guilt about deceiving her, for there was more to this than he had revealed.

He stood, dropped the letter. A wind flurried and blew it away as he set one foot upon the ice. He caught his breath as it crackled beneath his boot. He had scoffed at the others – he saw now why they had been so afraid!

He took one slow step, then another, and another. He had been told, when first he came to this place, that he had to pay a high price to relieve the burden of his guilt.

Where land becomes sea

And sea becomes land,

Where one is not the other

And all is not it seems;

Time stands and waits

For the life beat to cease.

He walked towards the Witch Woman, the midwife who brought life into the world, her arms outstretched towards him in welcome.

He hesitated. Did he want to do this? No, he did not, but he had to. To find peace, to rest, he had to pay penance.

He had to take the life of his son.

Eleven

It was cold beside the River, the touch of ice in the air turning Tiola’s breath to mist. Everything was white with hoar frost and glistened under the careful watch of every star that lit the Universe. In any other place it would have been beautiful, but not here by the boundary between Life and Death, where souls crossed from one world to another. Where, on the Other Side, those who could passed into the Eternity of Peace; the Elysium Fields, Valhalla, Heaven. It had many names, and as many appearances. What was happiness and contentment to one, could be hell and suffering to another. The exact state of peace, joy, happiness, was the choice of each individual soul. Unless that soul was unable to choose because regrets obstructed the acceptance of what was, and what had been.

Tiola was unsure that she was doing the right thing. The fact that she had the ability to do something did not make it acceptable. But Charles St Croix Mereno had asked for her help, and so in an oblique way, had Jesamiah. The both of them had an entwined past that needed laying to rest, and sometimes choices were not always easy or comfortable when balanced against conscience.

“You must come now,” she called, “while the energy does flow between this world and that, while the boundary is open and Life is Death and Death is Life.”

As he came nearer she could see him more clearly. He was much like Jesamiah, except Jesamiah’s black hair and dark eyes were from his mother. Charles had the same swagger, the same air of pretended confidence – a mask to hide the reality of stomach-twisting fear. She reached out her hand and took his. It was cold, ice cold. He stepped ashore, exhaled a breath that, unlike hers, did not puff a misted cloud. He was not a corpse; he was clothed, his flesh looked like flesh, his reddish hair was tied neatly at the nape of his neck with a ribbon. He looked human, looked alive, but he was not either and only those who had known him would be able to see him. And only if he wished it so.

“On this night alone,” Tiola said as she welcomed him to her side of the River, “I can work my Magick, for the opposition between the Light and the Dark becomes suspended. The balance is level and neither can influence the other. Nor can I be detected amongst the chatter of returning souls.”

“A temporary cessation of the battle?”

“If you like. For this one night, between the setting and the rising of the sun, Death, in whatever its chosen guise, and the Bone Mother and the Soul Hunter do not have claim over the dead. While the River runs still and turns to ice, there is a flux of motion between the plains of existence. That is why I can bring you here.”

They walked together a while, Charles wondering if he should tell her the full truth of why he had come, but about to speak, he stopped, pointed along the path. Someone was coming. A lantern, held high, was throwing a bobbing patch of light to the muddied ground, footsteps splashed in the puddles.

Tiola turned to Charles Mereno, but he had gone. She had played her part, now it was for him to sort his conscience and quieten his soul.

With a warm smile she waited to greet the man coming towards her. The one she loved. Jesamiah.

Twelve

“Tiola?” Jesamiah lifted the lantern higher, caught sight of his woman a few yards ahead. “What the fok are you doing in the dark by the river? What if you’d fallen, hurt yourself?”

“That is not likely, luvver, I can see perfectly where I set my feet.”

“Without a lantern?” He was standing before her now, perversely cross because he had been concerned and had no need to be. And because he had unjustly shouted at Joe Meadows a few moments ago for letting her come along here on her own. It had not helped that Meadows had shouted back, or that Jesamiah knew full well he had not been in the right.

“I need no lantern, Jesamiah. I appreciate your anxiety but it is unwarranted.”

“You were with someone. Who was it?”

“I have been about business this night.”

Belligerently he studied her face in the flickering, yellow light, remembered belatedly what night it was and what she had probably meant. He looked sharply around, could see no phantom ghosts prowling in the darkness.

Her witchcraft worried him, not because he was afraid of it, although there was an element of that this particular night. Ingrained superstition was hard to ignore. His fear was for her safety. Not long ago they hanged or burned witches; there was no guarantee that, were she to be identified, the noose or the flame would not suddenly be resurrected.

He lowered the lantern. “I yelled at Skylark for not accompanying you.”

“Then you had better apologise to him; I did not want to be accompanied. Only the dead could have walked with me to where I went.”

Again Jesamiah’s eyes flickered towards where he was certain a man had disappeared beneath the trees. If there had been someone he was no longer there. It did not occur to him to doubt her fidelity; her loyalty put his wanderings to shame. He puffed air through his cheeks, admitted the truth of his unease. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Teach has got me on edge, and I have missed you more than I can say.”

Tiola threaded her arm through his and continued down the path, heading for the Town. “It has been hard not sharing my thoughts with you these weeks. I am protected this night because there is a surfeit of Magick in the air, there are other spirits, there is much power, but once we have parted and the dawn comes, my protection will be gone and I will again not be able to speak with you in our private way. Not until the babe is safely born.” She reached up and cupped his cheek with her palm. “But my silence will not be for long and I do so love you, Jesamiah.”

He set the lantern down, took both her hands in his. She was cold, as if she had been touching ice. The proposal coming out of nowhere; he suddenly asked, “Will you marry me, Tiola? Now. Here, tonight?”

She nodded. “
Ais
. I will.” She had been waiting a long while for him to say those words in a way that he meant them.

“I can get Governor Eden to officiate if I offer him a tempting payment. I…”

Reaching up she stopped his words by putting her finger on his lips. “No. There is an older, more binding way for us to follow.”

She took the lantern and set it in the centre of the path and moving her fingers above it released a gentle
hie…asssh
sound. And the lantern had gone. Only the stub of the candle and its flame remained: a blue flame that flickered and wavered in the wind, but never faded and would not be blown out by earthly means.

Tiola began to sing; words that had no meaning, a lilt that ached the heart for it was so full of love. And as she sang, the candle became two candles, and then three – and the three flames were green in colour, the hue flickering to brown and then purple as the three candles became a circle of six.

Her song changed in pitch, the unheard words in the rippling cadence transforming the six purple flames to a glowing red, and as they then turned to orange the six candles became nine and the orange flared brighter and brighter until the flames burnt with a fervent yellow heat. Tiola’s voice rose like the joyous song of the lark and lifted the candles until they danced in the air three feet from the ground in a perfect circle of bright white.

The Circle of Light, the Circle of Love.

She took Jesamiah’s hands so that their arms formed around the candles in another unbroken circle, and she walked with him, around and around and around three times, as the circle of candles turned, and the stars circled above. The circle set within the circle, within the circle. Unbroken. Unending. Forever.

Her words were soft, but sure. “Three times, I honour thee with my words. Three times, I honour thee with my touch. Three times, I honour thee with my love.”

And again they circled.

“Once, I walk the Circle to bind thee to my body. Twice, I walk the Circle to bind thee to my heart. Thrice, I walk the Circle to bind thee to my soul.”

A third time. “Seven times the Three do I want thee. Eight times the Three do I worship thee. By Nine, the Power of Three by Three, do I wed thee and take thee as mine own.”

Jesamiah repeated the words as Tiola spoke them. They stood, holding hands, and the candles and the watching stars became motionless.

She smiled directly into his eyes, and through them to his soul, knew that he was looking at her in the same way for she could feel his loving presence deep within her. She spoke in barely a whisper; the sealing of her vow was too great to be shouted, and too intimate. “I love thee. I love thee. I love thee. So may it be.”

Jesamiah squeezed her hands, his throat felt tight with emotion, his heart full. “I love thee. I love thee. I love thee. So may it be.”

Tiola reached for the acorn earring that she had on a chain around her neck and put it over Jesamiah’s head. “When you can, wear it as it is meant to be. I have blessed it, the charm will protect you.”

“I need no charm, sweetheart. I need only you.” He pulled her close, kissed her. She was his wife and he, her husband, and he did love her so.

As he broke away, stepped back, the candles disappeared and the clouds covered the sky. Only the lantern burning with a single flame was on the path between them, as if nothing else had ever been there.