Chapter 4

 

With bone dice cut and marked and stowed in the pocket at his belt, Elias No-Thumbs, returned outlaw, stepped from the Salt Ray Inn. Three door-bolts scraped shut behind him. The morning fog had melted away, leaving a blue sky bright enough to hurt the eyes. Newfoundland could span four seasons in one morning.

Squinting against the light, he scanned the houses that made up New Whitby: weather-sanded timbers and fading paint, stilts holding shacks flat over rocky ground, here and there a square of glass catching the sun. It wasn’t much of a place compared to the towns of Québec and Labrador. It sprawled round the bay and over the low hills, with no clear end or beginning, its angles wayward.

But under the sun, with low billows rolling into the bay, the place kindled something in his heart. The scent of childhood perhaps. The sting of home that only a wanderer can know. However bad the way of things, however low he’d sunk, his feet were standing on Newfoundland soil. If he had to die, and he owned that all men did, then it was here his bones would bleach. One way or another.

But not yet.

A scattering of men and women were out working the shoreline, gathering the gifts of the last high tide. Seaweed and small pieces of driftwood for the most part. But on the other side of the bay a horse had been roped to lug something large from the beach. It seemed to be a tamarack, complete with roots and branches. Who knew how such a tree could have come to land in the bay and where it might once have grown.

The ocean was a mystery, both curse and blessing. It gifted the food that for the most part kept the peasants alive. It made the rock of Newfoundland into a fortress that no attack could breach. But it also stopped the Patrons from getting the things their hearts were set on.

Scanning the eastern sweep of the bay, Elias at last found what he was looking for. Not trouble, exactly, but a hint that it would come. A boat had tied to a jetty two furlongs distant. The crew were unloading casks.

Elias had stayed hidden since coming back, biding time, gathering news. His face and frame, now lean, had been their own disguise. But Jago had found him out. And Jago had given him a week. That had shrunk to six days and a few hours. He’d no choice but to act.

Setting off on the path at the top of the shoreline, his long legs carried him towards the jetty. Eyes were always watching in New Whitby. But it still surprised him how quickly a crew could arrive to rummage through the boat and its cargo. Cantering hooves clattered the stones behind. He stepped off the track but didn’t turn to face them. Three riders passed, and then a small pack of powder dogs. He held his breath, but they gave him neither look nor sniff. The horses bore the brand of the Locke clan. Elias shuddered. He’d caught a glimpse of the same mark inked across the cheekbone and ear of the rearmost rider.

He was too far away to hear the challenge when they arrived at the jetty. But he saw the captain bowing. The powder dogs sniffed around for a moment then leapt into the boat. Two riders had jumped down and were knocking on the barrels, testing them by sound. The third rider, Elias knew: Nathaniel Grimundson, who was married to Patron Locke’s great niece. He wasn’t of the Blood himself, or he wouldn’t have been doing such menial work.

Closer now, Elias could hear the voices.

“I don’t care. Open the barrel or I stave it in. Not that one. This one! This one, idiot!”

The boat captain said something to his mate and tools were brought. He’d begun to drill a hole in the top of the cask by the time Elias drew level. The dogs, having done their work, leapt back to the jetty, tails wagging. One of them, some kind of lurcher, bounded towards him. It nosed around the hem of his cloak then jumped up to smell the tote slung from his shoulder.

“You,” said Nathaniel, from the saddle of his horse. “What do you carry?”

There was no recognition in the man’s eyes. But then, Elias was a ghost of the warrior he’d once been.

“Clothes,” he said. “And food and soap.”

The dog was still sniffing. It hadn’t sat, which would have been the sign of contraband. But it was there, moving around him, bothered by some smell.

Nathaniel swung himself down, landing double booted in the shingle. As he stomped closer, Elias raised his hands, gloved for disguise, to show he held no weapon. Nathaniel circled him, head cocked, eyes narrowed.

“Empty the bag.”

So Elias did, spilling his things onto the path. There was little enough: a few rags to wrap himself in should the weather turn colder, strips of dried meat, a scratched pewter bowl, a tin with his last few rubbings of tobacco. Nathaniel used a boot to spread the scanty treasures.

“What’s your clan?” he asked.

“I’m unaligned.”

Nathaniel’s lip curled in a sneer.

The dog was getting close to the strips of dried meat. Elias stooped to grab them; it was a good enough excuse to break the man’s gaze.

“What’s that?” Nathaniel asked.

“Mipku,” Elias said, holding the meat above the dog’s reach.

“Speak English, damn your eyes!”

“I don’t know another name. It’s dried caribou.”

There’d once been great herds on Newfoundland. But they’d been hunted out a generation before.

“Where did you get it?”

“On the mainland.”

The dog had found a small jar, which had rolled free from the rest of Elias’s things. It shifted its body first to the left then the right, but always with the button of its nose pressed against the wide cork, sniffing. Nathaniel picked it up and peered through its dull green glass. A bean of something rolled within. It could have been a roughly formed ball of clay. Elias tensed as Nathaniel shook the jar next to his ear, then pulled out the stopper. It came away with a quiet pop.

“It’s medicine,” Elias said, too quickly.

Nathaniel sniffed, recoiling with an expression of disgust. “What manner of medicine?”

“They call it glycer-fortis.”

“Well, the dog doesn’t like it. I want to see you use it. Show me.”

Elias drew the long pin from his cloak and with great care dipped it into the jar, which Nathaniel was still holding. A greasy crumb of the contents came out, stuck to the pin’s tip. Elias wiped it off on the underside of his tongue. A familiar chemical buzz and heat filled his mouth, flowing down to his chest. For a moment he felt light headed.

“What’s it for?”

“My heart.”

“It makes you strong?”

“Yes,” said Elias.

“Then I should take some for myself.” The man seemed set to dip his little finger into the jar.

“No!” Elias blurted the word.

“No?” There was an edge in Nathaniel’s voice.

“It might kill you,” Elias said. “Even a touch of it on the skin would make you sick.”

“You saying you’re stronger than me?”

“No. It’s the way of this medicine to make a strong man weak, but to keep a weak man alive.”

For a moment Nathaniel Grimundson seemed interested. Then a call came from the jetty. The hole had been drilled in the cask, as ordered. Inside was merely salt. The dogs jumped and yowled, sensing it was time to run once more. He took a last look into the green glass jar, then replaced the stopper and seemed about to thump it down. Elias clenched his teeth. But instead, Nathaniel tossed it in the air. Elias grabbed at it like a drowning man snatching for a rope. It jumped from his grip and looked set to fall, but he grabbed again, and this time pulled it to his chest.

Nathaniel mounted his horse. “Glycer-fortis,” he said with a sneer. He pointed down to Elias, as if his fingers were a gun. Then he kicked in his heels and was thundering away, followed by his men and the dogs, back along the coast path the way they’d come.

The boat captain began to spike the hole he’d been forced to drill. His mallet made a dull drum of the cask. The sound echoed from a low rise of rocks to the east, while waves scoured the shingle below the jetty.