Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven (2 page)

Outside, this cottage looked like all the others down in Clogwyn: weathered stone, tiny windows, slate-shingled roof. Thatch was for inland; it wouldn’t last here, so close to the ocean. Inside, was where this cottage differed from all the neighbors’, with an ancient wooden floor made of ship’s planks gone black with age, glazing in the windows as well as shutters, ships’-timber beams on the ceiling and the oven built into the hearth. Only the houses of prosperous farmers and the baker and shopkeeper were as fine as this. There were not one but two handsome dressers on either side of the door, one
displaying copper pots, the other the bits of pretty china that Prothero women had gotten over the generations. Off to the side of the fireplace was the larder, with shelves full of preserves in glass and pottery jars, little casks and bags, and the keg of beer her da bought once every few months. Floor to ceiling, those shelves went, on two sides of the larder. On the third, the window side, was the sink. Opposite the fireplace there was a loft with a mattress where Mari slept; her da took up the bed in the bedroom beneath it. She preferred the loft, except when storms raged. It was a bit unnerving to listen to the wind howling right above you. But it was always warmer than the bedroom beneath it, and in summer, you could open the little window and let the cool wind off the sea come right in, and the gentle sound of the waves would sing you to sleep.

She put the bread on the table and covered it with a towel. No use going to the landward window to look for her father either; with the rain lashing outside, she wouldn’t see him when he came—

If he came—

No. She wouldn’t think that way. He always came home. He swore he always would. She had to believe him.

“He’ll be home,” whispered a giggly little voice. “It’ll ne’er be water that kills Daffyd Prothero.”

Mari shivered and did not look in the direction of the voice. She knew what she would see if she did. A small woman, translucent, with seaweed hair and knowing eyes and not a stitch of clothing on her, only seaweed, sitting on the edge of the water-barrel.

For the thousandth time, she wondered, was it a touch of the Sight that made her see such things or a touch of madness? Mari had seen her before, many times, and others like her, and heard her, too. Always, always around or about water.

She had seen such little creatures all of her life. And there had been the great black horse that came up out of the river, looked startled, bowed to her and went back down again. And the golden-haired beauties she had seen beneath the moon, walking or dancing together on the surface of the water as if it were a floor, and the great herd of red-spotted white cattle that she had seen one night,
going down into the waters of the lake as though they were merely going down into a valley.

She knew what all these things were supposed to be, of course. When she was too little to bide in the cottage by herself, and her da thought she needed a caretaker, she’d gone to dame-school in the village. That was where the old woman who pretended to teach the village children letters and numbers had told them all tales between her naps. They were the Fair Folk, the Pharisees, the Tylwyth Teg. The black horse was the water-horse, of course, the cattle were Gwartheg Y Llyn, the Fairy cattle, the beautiful women Gwragedd Annwn, the water-elves. The black horse Ceffyl Dwr, who carried people off to drown, or just to frighten them, was the oddest, because he’d not offered to harm so much as a hair of her head. She wasn’t sure who the little women were; they never figured in the old woman’s stories. Mari had been seeing creatures supposed to be Tylwyth Teg for as long as she could remember.

But those were just stories. Nobody believed them but children and old women. Half the time Mari was afraid she was going mad; the other half, she was afraid she really was seeing them, even though they had never harmed her.

Quite the contrary. Even though she tried to pretend she saw nothing, heard nothing, they helped her. They showed her where to find sea-coal and driftwood washed up after storms, where the best shellfish and kelp were, and a spring with the sweetest water. Once, one had led her to a gigantic lump of greasy gray stuff with a strangely sweet smell. She brought it home and her da had taken it to Criccieth and come back with silver coins he put with the others he kept under the hearth-stone. “Ambergris,” he’d said it was, and that the men in towns that made perfumes would pay dearly for it. She hadn’t told her da she’d been led to it. She’d only tried that once, when she was still in leading-strings. Something about his face when she’d babbled about her “friends” as that tiny child made her shut up about them and not say another word since.

But that hadn’t stopped her thinking. The more she was alone, the more she thought about it.

Was she mad? Had her mother run mad before she died? Had it not been a rogue wave that had taken her, but her running into the waves?

Or was this something devilish? The creatures had never offered her anything that wasn’t wholesome but… but… when she sat in the chapel of a Sunday morning and listened to the preacher, she had to wonder. When her da sat all hunched over and silent and looking as if he had a guilty conscience, she had to wonder.

And if it was the Sight, well, wasn’t that dangerous too? Those tales were also of those with the Sight, who had eventually Seen things they shouldn’t, and been blinded, or carried off, or cursed for what they had Seen. Though that seemed the least likely of the three… still… in no interpretation was there likely to be a good end.

The shutters shuddered, and she flinched. Oh, how she hated these spring storms!

And just as she thought that, she heard the thumping of her father’s boot on the door, which meant he had his arms full, and she ran to open it and let him and a gust of wind and water into the warm, safe house. Her heart filled with happiness again.

He had a welcome bag of sea-coal and herrings strung on a bit of cord. She relieved him of these things, and he stripped off his old oilskin and went to the fire, shivering. Then she got out the pie, cut him thin slices of warm bread spread with butter and jam and poured a glass of beer. A glass of beer with his supper was one luxury he allowed himself. In this much, her da was a very careful man, for instead of spending extra money on luxuries, there were carefully hoarded silver coins under the hearthstone. She knew why; he worried that he might be sick or hurt and not able to fish. “For a rainy day,” he would say, with every coin that joined the rest.

“Bad out on the water, Da?” she asked, bringing him his plate and his glass, and settling herself in her seat on the other side of the fire with her own dinner. He was a handsome man, still, was Daffyd Prothero, and women still looked at him, though he hadn’t eyes for any of them. Welsh to the core, as she was, dark of hair and eye, lean and fine-featured, and with a look about him of melancholy that women seemed to find irresistible.

“Only in the coming into port,” he said. “That was when the black waves hunched up their backs like so many angry bulls and foamed at me.” He was warming now, and he gave her his lopsided grin. “But you know your da. I never ran from bull nor wave, and never shall.” Then he told her of his day, and she listened, loving the music of his voice. She knew folk who said that the Welsh were either mad poets or poetically mad, and she reckoned whoever had said such a thing was mostly right.

“Then I got into Criccieth, and I was the only one who’d got out on the water,” he said, after telling her of the shaft of light that had broken through the clouds “like God’s own finger,” and the great shoal of herring it had pointed out to him. He chuckled. “Ah, if it weren’t for the difficulty of it, I’d wish every day was a storm day. I think every woman in our little village was waiting for me on the docks. Oh, and they filled my ears full of the news.” He took a sip of his beer as he finished the last of his bit of pie. “Such a fluttering and cackling and crowing in the henhouse as you never heard in your life. There’s to be a constable stationed here.”

She blinked at him. “A—what?” she asked, incredulously. “And for why, Da? Clogwyn’s never had a constable before!”

“Now, what d’ye think?” he countered, his expression darkening. “The strikes, of course. Up at the mines.” He smiled a bit bitterly. “Our English overlords have never heard of the word of God not to bind the mouths of the kine that tread out the corn. Begrudge a man a fair day’s wage for dirty and dangerous work, and wonder why the men won’t take it anymore. I would reckon there’s being constables placed in every village bigger than two houses, just in case someone might be offering aid and comfort to miners who want a decent wage for their work and a bit less chance of dying under the earth.” He handed her the empty glass and his plate; she took both, and while he stretched out to warm himself, she did the tidying up.

“You really think that’s it, Da?” she asked, tilting hot water into the stone sink, and starting in on the plates.

“What else would it be, I’m asking?” he replied with a derisive
sniff. “Worst thing we’ve ever had happen in Clogwyn was when Mrs. Bevan’s dog stole them sausages—well, there’s the usual dust-up at the pub every now and again, but I wouldn’t call that enough for to station a constable here.”

“Well then, where will they be putting him? Violet Cottage?” Violet Cottage had been the home to Mrs. Ithell the elder before she’d got pneumonia and died in the winter. Now it was empty. It was one of the smallest cottages in the village and one of the meanest. Mrs. Ithell had been a penny-pincher, and had not put a shilling into the repair of her place that she didn’t absolutely have to, and never mind improvements. Like many of the cottages in the village, it wasn’t freehold, it was rented, and belonged to the Manor. Nevertheless, with the rent being so cheap, the cottage had been hotly contested over. Now perhaps the mystery of why there had been no tenant found was solved.

“Likely,” Daffyd replied, and sniggered. “Short of finding someone willing to rent him a room, or having him stay up at Criccieth or thereabouts, it’s the only choice he’ll have. And bad luck to him already. Roof’s leaking, I hear tell, and chimney needs cleaning so bad the fireplace sends most of the smoke into the room, and if there’s one mouse in there, there’s likely to be a hundred. If he’s some city man, used to laid-on gas and piped-in water, he’ll be wishing he was back at home before he’s there an hour.”

Probably less than that
, Mari thought. She considered the villagers. Would there be anyone there willing to help him? Fix his leaks, clean his chimney, tell him who had the best rat-catching ferrets?

Well… yes. Some would. For the money, if naught else. And some to prove that they were in no way in sympathy with the striking miners. But this was likely to divide the village soon enough, unless the fellow somehow managed to alienate everyone.

Which was possible, if he came in demanding things and acting as if he suspected everyone. Then everyone would be up in arms, giving him no welcome at all. He’d have to hire everything done from Criccieth.

Or if he’s helpful and pleasant, they might all decide he’s a good
sort and warm up to him
… “Da, there’s no telling. He might be a good enough fellow,” she ventured. “This might be a good thing.”

Once again her father sniffed. “And I might be able to fly if I jump off the roof. One’s as likely as the other.”

She just didn’t have a response for that. “Well… tomorrow’s market day. I’ll be finding all about it then. And twice as much that’s made up of whole cloth.” She put the dishes in their places, covered the pie and the bread, and made all straight, then returned to the fire. “Was there anything you’d be wanting?”

He shook his head. The windows were rapidly darkening, the only way that you could tell the sun was going down in this storm. “Nothing worth spending money on.”

He picked up the net she’d been mending, and took up where she’d left off. She took up her knitting; he always needed socks. They busied themselves, talking of commonplaces, until the fire grew too low to see by. Then they took themselves to bed; she climbing up the ladder to the loft and he to the bedroom. She stripped to her shift, and climbed under the blankets and nestled into the featherbed. The bed soon warmed to her body, and she relaxed. She listened drowsily to the wind slowly die away, and tried not to listen to the other voices she heard… and finally slept.

Morning dawned clear and bright, and they both breakfasted heartily on the rest of the pie and toasted bread and tea. He hurried down to his boat, while she put things to rights, then took the path to Clogwyn.

Their little cottage stood far off by itself, within sight of the village (or at least of the church steeple), but it was a good brisk half hour walk to the village itself. The cottage was an oddity; the only other dwellings that stood this far away from a village or town were those that belonged to great landowners, for the use of their tenants, or farmhouses. But the Prothero cottage, which had been in the family for many years, had no land to speak of, just enough of a garden to supply most of what she and her da needed and a henhouse that was empty now. No use trying to keep chickens without a dog; foxes and stoats would have them in no time, and
until they found a dog that fancied fish instead of meat, a dog would just be another mouth to feed. It was easier just to trade for eggs. They had a cat, so to speak. It was an aloof beast, kept to itself, slunk in and hunted the cottage and slunk back out again. The only time it stayed inside was in the worst of weather, hiding under a chair or in the corner of the hearth, and running off as soon as the door was opened. It would come if she offered it fish, but ate with one suspicious eye on her, bolting the food as fast as it could. She wondered what had made it so wary, because neither she nor her father had ever so much as shied a stone at it. It was as if they were some terrible predators, and the cat was waiting for them to pounce on it and eat it.

The morning was as bright and beautiful and mild as if the sea had never dreamed of throwing a tantrum yesterday. Her way was clear enough, with the village visible along the curve of the coast, on their hill up ahead. The church tower rose up above the other gray-slate roofs like a hen above her brood, beneath a cloudless sky. The air was lovely, almost intoxicating.