Chapter 7

 

Elias woke with a start to the unaccustomed feeling of linen beneath him, a down-filled cover above, and his left side warmer than his right. Inching out a hand, he met the naked skin of a woman’s hip. She sighed and rolled towards him, bringing those full lips and that crooked nose close to his face. Her kiss began as something lazy but became more urgent. Her mouth smelled of sleep. His must too. She pushed him onto his back, her weight squeezing the breath from him.

When they got back to her house the night before, she’d wanted stories of his time as an outlaw. The more he spoke of reckless deeds and hardship, the hungrier her eyes had become. He’d no wish to re-live the shame, but stories were the price of a bed. So he told her of a day on the journey back towards Newfoundland when he’d held a piece of wood to the neck of a trapper, told him it was a knife and robbed him of a plate of beans and bacon. It had been a bad time. But hearing it, she launched herself at him. They started against the kitchen wall. Then she took his hand and led him up to the sleeping loft.

He’d guessed the truth already, but found proof of it in the way she took him. It wasn’t Elias she wanted, but the desperate outlaw she imagined him to be. Straddling his hips, she’d closed her eyes, as if for a better view.

Perhaps she’d been dreaming of outlaws because, with the morning light streaming in through the gable window, she needed no more stories. This time her eyes were open and, in the end, his were closed.

There were eggs for breakfast – he ate three – and toasted bread and butter and blueberry jam and coffee. Her name was Charity, she said, as she slid another slice onto his plate. He chuckled at that, taking it as a joke, but stopped when he saw her frown. So Charity it was. Finding her smile again she kissed him on the forehead and returned to the stove.

Afterwards, leaning back from the table with the odd feeling of a full belly, he watched her washing the breakfast things in the sink. She wasn’t fat, few on Newfoundland were. Strongly built might be a better way to put it. Her arse swung from side to side as she dried the plates and shifted them to the rack. Before his outlawing, he’d had the pick of the serving girls. They’d been happy enough to take a tumble with a young man of the Blood. Sometimes he gave them trinkets: a ring or a necklace, red glass cut to look like rubies. Back then, he wouldn’t have given Charity a second glance. Now here he was, trading his body for a bed and a plate of food. At least the serving girls had gone away with something that lasted.

The mistress of the Salt Ray Inn had asked after Charity’s husband. Elias had seen a pair of man’s boots just inside the back door. There’d been mention of a brother as well. The boots could belong to him. It would have been good to know if there was a chance of another night in Charity’s house. But it seemed the wrong time to ask.

“What do you know about the Salt Ray?” he said.

“They’re pricy,” she said. “But the beer’s not watered. The mistress don’t hold with fighting. I guess folk go there if they want a quiet time.”

“Where’s she from?”

There was a lull in Charity’s washing of the cutlery. “She’s from up north, they say. Moved to New Whitby ten years back. Bought the Salt Ray – it wasn’t called that then. Twelve years, maybe. Why do you want to know?”

“I’m curious. What about that barmaid?”

“The pretty one?”

He caught the warning note in her voice.

“I hadn’t noticed,” he said.

That seemed to be the right answer. She carried on brighter. “She’s new. Turned up a few months back.”

“From where?”

“Does it matter?”

“I saw the mistress look to her. It felt wrong. Like their places were the other way about. Like the maid was the mistress. Could she be family, do you think?”

Charity turned to face him, wiping her hands on her apron.

“You’re sure you didn’t see how pretty she is?”

“I need something from them,” Elias said. “That’s all.” And then, knowing he could press her no more, he changed the subject. “Do you have children?”

“I was never so blessed,” she said.

“And your brother?”

“The line ends with us.”

“I meant to ask where he is. You said he lived with you?”

“Oh. Yes. But he’s away.” She looked to the floor, blushing. “Was it him you wanted to know about, or my husband?”

Elias blushed too, and felt foolish for it. “Both,” he said.

She met his gaze. “They’re away together. On business. Couldn’t be back until tomorrow. That at the soonest. So I’ll be on my own tonight. Unless you’re wanting to stay?”

 

The great wonder of Charity’s house was a copper tub. More than large enough for Elias to sit in, and deep enough to soak to the bottom of his chest, it had been made with a high sloping back, so the bather could rest in comfort.

At the woodpile, he found the axe handle too fat for his grip. The saw was more to his liking. As he worked, he wondered about the other men she must have bedded. If the husband and brother were traders, they might be away for much of the time.

When enough logs had been cut to heat the water, he split them with a hammer and spike. Then, feeling guilty for his thoughts, he cut two loads more.

Stripping off in the kitchen he was aware of her eyes on him, reading the words of the law tattooed across his chest. Only a man born of the Blood had such marks. He turned away before pulling down his long johns and casting them to the floor with the other clothes.

“You weren’t so shy last night,” she said.

He lowered himself into the water. “Why are you staring?”

“Sorry. It’s just, I’d never thought to see a highborn man stripped naked.”

“I’m not of the Blood. You’ve seen the severed rope on my arm. They cut me off.”

“Do you think it makes a difference?” she asked.

It was a stupid question. “Yes, it makes a difference!”

“But not to who you are.”

“Ink is everything,” he said.

“Ink is ink,” she replied, almost fiercely. Then she tipped a stream of water over him. The shock of the heat made him gasp.

When the bucket was empty, she was smiling again. She threw him the soap, giggling when it slipped out of his hands and splashed into the tub.

“I’ll wash these for you,” she said, gathering his clothes.

 

Alone in the kitchen, Elias stared at the limewashed wall, seeing but not seeing. Charity was unaligned. She lived in the unaligned land. She would never go to the Reckoning or understand the meaning of oaths and honour. He was merely a story to her.

He slid lower, allowing his face to dip beneath the hot water. His heart slowed as he let breath escape through his nose. When he sat up again, his thoughts had cleared. It was the barmaid he needed to think about, not Charity. The barmaid held the key.

Her voice had been bothering him from the start. The Newfoundland mix was almost right. He might not have caught the foreignness. But her vowels slipped on some words. A different accent hid underneath. It had been prickling at the back of his mind. But only with his body relaxing into the steaming water did a memory come to his aid. He’d heard a similar accent once before, in the Yukon when he was an outlaw. A European man had travelled through, stopping at the glycer-fortis factory. Elias never learned how that man had ended up in Alaska. Now he wished he’d asked.

In Europe, all matters of life were controlled, they said. Anything you did might risk gaol or the gallows. Lawmen stood on every corner. And spies. Easy to understand a man or woman in that place wanting to escape to the free wilds beyond the Gas-Lit Empire. But not to Newfoundland. Newfoundland was a place apart. Hard to get to. Harder to leave.

He guessed the barmaid was in her early twenties. If she was an off-lander, the only way for her to be living in New Whitby was as a slave. Yet he’d seen no slave marks on her skin.

They could be lovers, he thought, the two women. The mistress might have met her in Labrador or Quebec, away from Newfoundland but not yet in the Gas-Lit Empire. She could have found a way to smuggle her lover back. That would explain the closeness, the way the mistress had yielded to the maid. But more than that, it would answer the riddle of the look the women had shared when he told them Jago might return. They’d been afraid. Pity the barmaid if Jago found out she was an off-lander but not yet owned. He’d have his oath-wright marking her skin before anyone else could put in a claim.

Elias lifted his leg over the side of the copper bath and let it dangle, dripping water onto the tiles. He might go back to the barmaid, he thought. But if he demanded to see her oath-marks and found them in order, he’d have burned what slim welcome remained for him at the Salt Ray. If, on the other hand, the mark was missing…

With a crash, the kitchen door slammed open behind him. He lunged his hand out of the tub. But his knife had been taken with his clothes. He was set to leap out and grab the skillet as a weapon, but Charity’s giggle made him stop.

“Did you think it was the husband?” she asked, wickedly.

He turned and saw that she was alone. “I thought just that!”

He lowered himself back into the water, trying to calm the uneven beat of his heart. If the glycer-fortis had been in reach, he’d have given himself another dose. She stepped around the tub and looked down at him.

“Your things are drying in front of the fire,” she said. And then, holding his gaze, she began to undress. Her chemise was the last to fall. She stepped into the tub and crouched, scooping up water onto her breasts. For the first time he thought about her unmarked skin.

 

Salmon-pink veins ran through the rocks behind the Salt Ray Inn. He sat above the place where the outcrop plunged into the shingle of the beach. A small fleet of fishing boats were out in the loop beyond the shelter of the bay. The furthest headland shone dizzyingly clear in the distance. The beauty of it was almost too much to hold. It felt like a knife cutting into his flesh.

If Charity weren’t married, he might move in with her. He let himself imagine the ease of sleeping in the same bed from day to day, knowing there’d be hot food. Not that she’d want him like that. He might dream of a simple life, but she’d bedded him for a taste of the opposite. She was being unfaithful with him. But she could just as easily be unfaithful to him. It was a fool’s dream. Even if she could change, he could not.

It was mid-afternoon, judging by the sun. They’d be scrubbing down the saloon in the Salt Ray, getting ready for the night. All the windows had been thrown wide, making the most of the good weather. He could hear tables and chairs being dragged around within. Then a shovel began to scrape over flagstones. Someone was mucking out the stables. He didn’t turn to look. Not even when the back door of the inn opened and a bucket clanged near the ash pit.

Eyes would be fixed on him though, and not just from the inn. The windows of New Whitby might be small, but someone was always watching. Jago’s wrath would be white hot at the end of the week if he didn’t get what he wanted. It wouldn’t take him long to find out that Elias No-Thumbs had spent his days loitering around the Salt Ray. He’d force his way in, say he was searching for smuggled weapons. If the mistress had nothing to hide, she’d have nothing to fear.

Elias rummaged for his smoking things. The tobacco was from Georgia, or so said the man who’d traded it. He prised open the tin and breathed in the sweet scent. He’d been holding off, but there might not be a better time, so he tipped the last rubbings onto a paper and began the rolling.

The good thing about having no thumbs was the way people thought he could do so little. He’d come to relish the chances that gave him. Life’s little pleasures. He had workarounds for most every task. Like rolling the twist, which he did on the palm of one hand with the fingers of the other. The result was misshapen. But it would taste every bit as good.

A launch steamed into view around the headland, the smoke from its funnel smudging the horizon. An inspection crew would ride out to it as soon as it made fast at one of the jetties. Elias wondered what kind of craft Charity’s husband and brother used for their trading. Nothing so brash as the steam launch, he thought. It would be modest but solid and reliable.

A scuffing of shoes made him turn. A skinny boy had scrambled up onto the rocks and was staring at him.

“Show us your hands,” said the boy.

Damn, but everyone in the whole dump of a town must be talking about him. He held them out anyway.

“It is you,” said the boy, sounding impressed “Mistress says you’re to go to the stable.”

Feeling a stir in his heart, Elias put the unlit twist in the tin and snapped closed the lid. The boy jumped back down from the rocks and beckoned.

Elias would have waited there all day if needed, and the next. With Charity’s husband back he’d have been looking for a new place to sleep. And scrounging for food. There was a crock of coins in Charity’s kitchen, hidden behind the flour and the oats. He’d have felt bad dipping into it. But none of that mattered now. The mistress had panicked. She’d shown the weakness of her hand. She’d never have made a gambler.

They reached the yard. The boy pointed to the stable doors then scampered away. Elias considered the dark opening before stepping inside. He couldn’t see much after the bright sunshine. He could smell the horses though. One of them stamped and snorted as he stepped further in.

Then something clicked against the flagstones behind him. He started to turn but a sack rammed down over his head. He tensed, about to swing his elbow back into whoever it was, but a sharp point jabbed against his right kidney. A hand pushed on his shoulder. Obediently he knelt.