Chapter 3

 

The odds were one in six that two throws would add up to seven. If the dice were true. But there was no way to judge the odds of a smuggling run between Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador.

A faster boat would cut the danger, or a quieter one. The captain could set out after dark on a moonless night, steer by the compass. The lanterns that guided him in could be hooded, casting only narrow slits of light.

It would work, most likely. Nine times out of ten. But on every run, the captain would be thinking about that one other time, which would surely come. A cannon might pick him off, if he was lucky. It would take only a minute to die in the freezing waters of the Strait of Belle Isle. His body would go into shock. He wouldn’t even know it when he breathed water into his lungs.

But if a Patron Protector’s ship caught him, or caught the land crew trying to guide him in, then his family and theirs would die. Only when he’d witnessed his life’s loves passing through every horror would he be allowed to follow them into the fire. Nine cargoes safely delivered could never pay for that.

An oath-bound man could be ordered to do it. But even oaths had limits. Ask a boat captain to take the trip again and he might choose to sever his bonds instead, whatever the cost.

The question that had lurked under the surface of Newfoundland politics for two centuries was this: what if someone found a way to change the odds completely? Would death once in a hundred times be worth the risk? It took a gambler to reckon it. But what if the risk could be so blunted that any cargo might be carried with easy mind? That was the nightmare of every Patron Protector. Unless he could find such a path for himself, in which case it was his fondest dream.

The others would set upon him if they knew, banding together to bring him low. It was easier to defend than to attack in the bare hills. But numbers would tell in the end. They’d surely break him.

The trick would be to keep the secret close. If he could smuggle in a great treasury of powder and weapons before being found, he’d be able to wage war on all of them. He’d be able to win. A crown was the thought that none of the Patrons could abide, though most might dream of wearing it.

Smuggled weapons did turn up from time to time. The year before his outlawing, Elias had found an off-island sword, pulled it from the cold grip of a corpse on the battlefield. The edge cut wonderfully keen. Elias had had no thought for the politics of smuggled weapons. He just wanted to keep it for himself. But his uncle insisted they yield it to Patron Calvary. That had been little more than three years ago. It felt like a different lifetime.

Before the outlawing, his duties had been to obey Patron Calvary, his great uncle, to fight with the clan when ordered, to practise with sword and pistol, to hone his powers of battle. Beyond that, his needs had been simple. In the way of men who are given most things they want, he desired only to win at everything.

The odds of two thrown dice adding to twelve was one in thirty-six. If they’d been cut true. But the chance of all four kings turning up in a poker hand were smaller than Elias could figure. He should have known better.

 

Arriving at the Reckoning two years before, still a man of the Blood, whole in body and with blatant wealth, Elias yielded his weapons to the oath-wrights for safekeeping. That was the way of things, custom and practice, which enforced each year a short-lived break from war. He couldn’t have guessed how closely his pistol would be inspected once he was gone. It was a fine thing. He’d been given it freely by Fitz, a childhood friend. There was no cause to think it might be the death of him.

His mind was elsewhere. The Reckoning was a time when he could meet with men from other clans without it being in battle. And girls too, women of the Blood who weren’t his cousins. They strolled in fine clothes, swaying rumps or breasts or whatever else their gifts. It would be a feast for his eyes. And his hands, if he could only find the means to woo them.

They made camp on a promontory projecting from Newfoundland’s northern coast. It had been the site of the Reckoning back to the time of his great, great grandfather. The Island, they called it, though it wasn’t quite. Each of the twenty-three clans took up its old place, forming a kind of map, as if the Island were the wide span of Newfoundland itself. The Calvary tents were pitched at the northwest tip. The Locke clan pitched immediately to the south of them.

As the days of the Reckoning passed, Elias did his best to be seen and heard. He wrestled and drank and showed off and flirted. And he gambled on cards: a skill with which the gods had marked him.

For once, no man of the Blood was playing. That gave him the pride of dealing and the top seat. He thought nothing of it.

He’d always had a feeling for the odds, Elias, and he liked what lay before him. The other players seemed awkward at the game. But they’d no shortage of gold. That should have been a warning. They were only the sons of councillors.

They flashed their money and slapped it down on the oak board. He spread the cards for everyone to see and then flipped them over. The pack whispered to his shuffle. They played and they drank, or pretended to. He won three hands then lost the four that followed, but was still up on the night because he knew when to fold. The others hadn’t the same wit. With his next strong hand, he pushed up the stakes and won more than he’d lost on the previous four.

Some men want their money taking.

A crowd gathered. There’s no sport like watching another man lose. The higher the stakes the better. Among them were two women of the Blood, but rosy-skinned and with arses that drew his eye. Their clans were distant enough that he’d not spoken to them before. Yet not so distant that an alliance would be impossible. Patron Calvary might let him have one of them. As the heap of his winnings grew, they favoured him with their eyes and the angle of their bodies.

He flashed the pack, spreading it one-handed between fingers and thumb, showing off his skill, then made another perfect dovetail shuffle.

When a break was called, Elias made a show of going off to the cliff edge for a piss, staggering as if half-drunk. On the way back he blundered into one of the others, making it seem a mistake. But in the clumsy righting of himself, he’d felt the man’s purse and guessed its weight.

It was going to be a good night.

Then came a hand of three kings. He swapped out the other two cards, hoping they would think it a long-shot at a flush or a straight. In return he drew a five and the final king. A wiser man might not have trusted such a run. But luck can seem the way of things when it’s been a friend for so long. There was gold to be won. There were men to be beaten. And there were pretty girls watching.

Four kings wouldn’t make for a big win. Unless others round the table thought their hands better. He tossed down an American silver dollar, a cagey raising of the stakes. One by one they followed, but with gold. He frowned, as if thinking to give up, hiding the stir of excitement building in his chest.

The pile of gold and silver grew. So did the crowd. There was so much treasure on the board that the heap of it was taller than the drinking beakers. Such a prize might change even the life of a man of the Blood. The women moistened their lips and flashed their eyes.

When there was no more gold to put down, he laid out his cards; four kings and a five. The crowd clapped, but not wildly. No one likes to see the highborn win. A few cheers had come from men of his own clan.

He looked up, expecting defeat in the other players’ eyes. But one of them was snarling with anger. Down came his cards. A flush of spades; the two, the seven, the eight, the ten and last the king. Five kings lay on the oak board, and he, Elias, had been the one to deal them.

The crowd rushed him, turning the table spilling the treasure on the turf. They had his arms pinned. A fist went into his gut. Another caught him on the side of the head. Then he was on the ground and kicks were coming in from all sides.

There were no guns or knives on the Island. But the boots were hitting hard enough to do the job. He might have died, but a group of Patrons happened to be strolling close by. One of them shouted and the beating stopped.

 

That night, Patron Calvary came to the place they’d chained him. “What have you done, boy?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“You cheated.”

“I did not!”

“There’s eight men standing witness against you.”

“I left the table. Just for a minute. One of them must have changed the pack. It was all set up.”

But the more Elias begged, the darker the Patron’s gaze. “You’re either a cheat or you’ve been played for a fool. Which is worse?”

In the morning they took him to where the Patrons had gathered and pushed him to his knees. Men came then, to tell what they’d seen. Each swore Elias had been crooked in his dealing of the cards. After the fifth had spoken, Patron Locke called it to an end.

“Who will witness for this man?”

No one came. Not even his own kin.

“Patron Protector Calvary, one of your blood has shamed the Reckoning. You must pay the price of it.”

But his great uncle stood and shook his head. “He’s no more of my blood. He’s no more under my protection. Last night I cast him out. I have men to swear it.”

Patron Locke failed to cover his disappointment.

“Then this Elias is of no affinity. He is severed. Let it so be marked. And let him be put beyond the law.”

“Aye,” said each of the other Patrons in turn.

 

It was a grim mark, the tattoo they gave him: the likeness of a rope wrapping his arm high above the elbow. But there was no one to speak for him. No one to argue his case that it be inked on some less needed limb. The oath-wright worked with jabs of the needle. It took all the day to finish.

Through the hurt of it, Elias was planning the way of his escape. Outlawed, he’d be given a warrant of eighteen hours to put miles between himself and the many who’d want the sport and pride of slaying Patron Calvary’s great nephew. None could shelter him without suffering the same forfeit. Nor could any give him aid.

Most would reckon he’d flee down the road to New Whitby, where a boat might be stolen. A few, knowing the way his mind worked, might think he’d turn south to the end of the track and hope to be more swift than them over the rough land beyond.

But whichever way he turned, they’d snare him soon enough. They would have horses and dogs, weapons and food. He’d have only his wits, his feet, his hands and such clothes as he was wearing.

A narrow spur of rock connected the Island to the cliffs of the mainland. If he followed that, the hunting dogs would pick up the smell of him. But he knew another way across: down a scree to a little cove then around the base of the cliffs, wading to the mainland when the sea was low, climbing the cliffs on the other side. He’d done it as a child, hunting for seagull eggs.

If he did it unseen, the dogs wouldn’t know where to pick up his scent. He could make a wide circle and then cut north with scant chance of being followed.

Then to leave Newfoundland. There was the rub. But Fitz knew a way. Fitz could get things brought in from Labrador and Nova Scotia. Things no one else could get. The pistol had been one of them, a beautiful weapon with a snakeskin pattern acid-etched into the barrel and the same design picked up by a dark wood inlay in the walnut stock. It was too lovely to have seen but not held.

“You must never tell where it came from,” Fitz had said.

“I wouldn’t!”

“I smuggled it. You know the trouble we’d be in.”

“How did you smuggle it?”

“I’ll show you one day. I promise. But swear now never to tell. On your life.”

So the oath was sworn. On the honour of the Calvary name.

Now was the time for Fitz to show him the secret of how the gun was smuggled, which might also be a means for him to leave Newfoundland. Fitz would help. They’d been like brothers. Even when wealth and standing had taken them apart, they still found ways to see each other from time to time. Fitz would save him. He always did.

 

All at the Reckoning came out from their tents for the sport of seeing him brought low. They lined the sides of the track and jeered as he was dragged through. None had the right to do him harm until the eighteen hours were spent. But they could pelt him with rotting food. They cheered when a boy ran from the crowd and reached up to rub filth in his face.

The women whose eyes the night before had offered pleasure, now whistled and spat. The truth, laid plain by the morning light, was that they too had been plotting his downfall. And every other player around the table. The Patrons hadn’t just happened to be passing when the fifth king was upturned. He’d been the only one who hadn’t known the play in which he acted. Yet he’d spoken his lines to the letter.

He clamped his jaw tight, cursing his own dull wits, inwardly vowing to never trust long odds again. He would get away. Somehow. He’d see his enemies weeping. After eighteen months of exile in Labrador, he’d come back stronger. They would fear him in the end.

“Wait!”

Everyone turned. A man was marching down the track: Aaron Weaverbright, eldest son of Patron Weaverbright.

“I’ve a complaint against Elias! I demand he pay me back for what he’s taken by trickery.”

It was the claim of a simpleton. Elias might have laughed.

“He was found out,” said Patron Locke. “He’s being punished.”

“He’s being punished for last night. But last year he won gold from me. And the year before. Now we know him as a cheat. Let him pay me back for those times.”

Patron Locke turned to Elias. “Will you pay him what you owe?”

To be outlawed was to be cast loose with nothing. The Patron would know he couldn’t pay. Everyone would know.

“I note your silence,” Locke said. “Therefore the plaintiff must take settlement in flesh.”

Elias fought like a wild thing, though there was no chance of escape. In the end, they lifted and carried him to the fire. His great uncle among them.

“Stay still or you’ll lose your whole hand.” He spat the words.

Elias never saw the man who did it. Dread had overwhelmed his reason. There was a blur of angry faces and the pincers, crystal clear, pulled red hot from the fire. He closed his eyes after that.

Shards of the ordeal would afterwards flash in his mind unbidden: the blades clamping over the base of his left thumb, not knowing if it was hot or freezing cold, the stink of burning flesh, the hiss of boiling fat. He’d no wits left when they pulled his other hand across and strapped it down. It seemed they’d got it wrong because he sensed both thumbs, as if they were numb but still attached. He couldn’t scream. There was no breath left in his lungs.

As the crowd cheered for a second time, the truth hit him that this too had been part of the play. The pincers had been ready for him, waiting in the fire.