We came into the bay on the wind and the tide, with the red light of sunset in our sails. The captain was with us on the quarterdeck, the first mate down in the well, roaring at the hands through a megaphone. My own work done for the moment, I leant on the taffrail and watched as they brought us into harbour. Not journey’s end, of course, only one more call on a journey that had no end, only one more bead on a rosary, another turn of the wheel; but it was always good to touch land after weeks at sea, just as it was always good to break free again with the dealing done. We sailors are never really comfortable with an unchanging horizon, but we need regular reminding of it. We forget else, we get hungry for stone walls and fresh food, warm beds and hills with a bit of solidity to them, somewhere to stand and fix yourself and see how the world doesn’t turn around you.
Briggs the harbourmaster was first aboard to welcome us, as soon as we were tied up at the quay. I hung back politely while he exchanged courtesies with the captain; but he came to me next, his hand outstretched and his thin face smiling his pleasure.
“Martin! You’ve changed ships again.”
“Of necessity, I’m afraid. The Seaswift foundered in a gale, away to the south. Three years since, that would be.”
“Ah, that’s bad. Many lost?”
“Most.”
He nodded solemnly, then smiled again and struck me on the shoulder. “But not Martin, eh? Never Martin. We’d thought you lost, it’s been so long, people have been saying you must finally have met a storm you couldn’t master; but I should have known not to listen. I should have known you’d be back, when it suited. Ships come and ships go, but Martin sails on forever.”
“I’ve been lucky,” I agreed quietly. Then I handed him a copy of the Gentle Lady’s manifest and a list of our needs, with good water and fresh fruit at the head; and we arranged to meet early the following morning in his place of business, for the inevitable haggling. The captain wouldn’t want to delay two days if we could have the business done in one, but on land and after nightfall my time was my own. That was clearly understood between us.
So I bade the captain a respectful goodnight, touched my hat to the quarterdeck and followed the harbourmaster ashore; and already, even before my feet had touched the planking of the quay, it was clear to see that much had changed in this town in the seven years I’d been away.
If I still had a home other than the sea then this was it, it was this bay and this busy port I came back to time and again, in my own ship or another’s. But when last I left it had been a sullen, suspicious home to me and all its people, doors bolted in the twilight and never opened till the sun was up. Strangers were unwelcome and deeply mistrusted—and this in a trading port that depended on strangers for its business—and even old friends were eyed askance. Even I caught my share of black looks and murmured imprecations.
Tonight the streets were thronged, the houses burned with light through open shutters; I could hear the taverns’ noise even down here on the quay.
“Your—trouble’s over, then?” I inquired, indirectly, as the habit had been in those difficult years.
“Eh? Oh—oh, yes. Yes, God be thanked, it’s over. Almost forgotten, tell the truth, except for the folk who lost their own kin, and you wouldn’t expect them…”
“No.” You wouldn’t expect anyone to forget the blood-drained body of their child, liver and kidneys and delicate flesh cut away and the residue dumped in the street for the dogs to chew on. “Did you catch the man, then,” I asked, “the one who was doing it, the killer?”
“No, we never did; but you must have seen the last of it, the very last. There’s not been a, a sign of trouble like that here since that summer you were trading up and down the coast and we had you here for a week in every month. Seven years, it’s a long time, no one worries now. He died, or moved away.” And then, after a judicious pause, “That lad you signed up then, to crew in Seaswift, he’s not with you still? Young Toby, the widow’s boy from the tavern?”
“No, Toby’s not with the Lady.”
“Did he go down, then, when the Seaswift was lost? Ah, someone should tell her, if…”
I shook my head. “He didn’t sail with us more than a season. I don’t think the life suited him.”
“Ah. Well, then.”
“Why,” I asked mischievously, “what’s your interest in Toby? Or is it his mother you’re interested in?”
“What? God, lad, don’t say things like that, even in jest. No one here meddles with the widow. No, it was only remembering that summer put me in mind of him. The Seaswift here, and him signing on to be a sailor when he’d never shown an interest before. But you would remember the odd things, wouldn’t you, with it being the last summer of the troubles, and not a hint of bother since, in that way?”
I left Briggs to his own affairs and walked slowly up the cobbled wagonroad, past yards and warehouses to the thronging centre of the town. I leant heavily into every step in the swaying walk of the long-time seafarer, feeling the immutability of land against the plunge and roar of water in my bones, the lasting rhythms of the sea. And yet every sailor knows that the sea may be changeable day to day, but she never truly changes; and land may give you firm footing today and the same for your children tomorrow, but the sea can shift it in the end, the sea can swallow anything.
I went through the town and climbed higher, up the hillside behind, almost to the crest; and the last low roofs, the last lights I came to were the sheltering roofs and the welcoming lights of the widow’s house, the tavern on the hill, where Toby’s mother looked down to the port and out, far out across the bay, where her boy had gone to sea with me seven long years before.
This was no busy, bustling place like the rowdy taverns down below. The widow’s reputation saw to that. I ducked my head under the lintel and walked into a quiet, smoky room, the customers scattered in tight little groups among the shadows in the corners, no one braving the fierce light of the fire. Some would be travellers from out of town, nervously learning that they should have found somewhere else to stay tonight; the rest undoubtedly were smugglers and thieves, with worse perhaps hidden away in the private rooms. Bandits and murderers, men with valuable heads and a talent for keeping them attached.
I strode unheeding across the room, and hammered a fist on the bar.
“Service here, service! Where are you, sluggard, you whore? Service!”
The low hissing of secret conversations died to nothing, while those self-absorbed groups looked around with a slow curiosity, interested to see what might happen to such a fool in such a place as this.
There were heavy, unhurried footsteps on the cellar stairs, and the widow heaved her bulk up through the trap behind the bar.
Dressed in her usual filthy black, she had a little more grey perhaps in her wild hair than when I’d last seen her, her skin was mottled more and her jowls hung lower. But for all the changes she was like the sea, she was still unchanged. Her small, dull eyes strained to focus through the smoke to where I stood in shadow, and she slapped one meaty hand down on the bar with a noise like wet canvas snapping in the wind.
“Who called?” she demanded, and her voice boomed as it always had, and the room was utterly still. “Who called me so?”
“I did,” I said mildly, as if it were a matter of no moment. “I’m salted through from throat to belly, and I’ll take a jug of your best ale now and a meal later, and a bed if ever we get that far. If you’ve got one with no fleas, that is, my blood’s not for sharing.”
“Martin?” she wheezed, suddenly breathless. “Martin, is that you?”
“In the dry and bitter flesh, it is.”
“Hah! I knew it. I knew you’d be along, when you were ready. Let them say what they like, with their soft bellies and their soft minds, I knew you wouldn’t be drowned. Not Sailor Martin, let them hope what they like. And they did, you know, they were hopeful. You frighten them…”
And while she talked, she drew a deep jugful of ale, carried that and two tankards in one hand, a bottle of spirit and two glasses in the other; rolled around the bar and over to a table by the window. The pane was too dirty to see through, but this was my table nonetheless, I always sat here. Today it was empty, but she’d thrown men off before, thrown them out even for daring to be sat at my table when I came in.
I sat with my back to the wall, where I could see every door and every corner of the room, every conversation. She pulled up two stools, set them together and lowered herself with a little more care than she used to take.
Two shots of spirit were sloshed into the glasses, and we toasted each other silently, tossed the drinks down. Oil and fire, as vicious as ever, and as effective. Then the glasses were topped up, tankards of ale were poured and tasted and approved, and she leant her massive arms on the table and said, “What of my boy, then, my Toby, what of him?”
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’ve no news, none since he left my ship. And that was within a year of his signing on.”
She grunted, sweat glistening on her doughy face. “What, and nothing since, no rumours, even? Not a word?”
“No. Truly, nothing.”
“Well.” She paused and thought about it, sighed and said, “Well, perhaps that’s just as well. Only a sailor-boy, after all, and why should they be talking about one sailor in thousands? That’s why he left, after all, why I chased him off, to get him away from the rumours.”
“Indeed.” That was why I’d agreed to sign him on. I’d been first mate on the Seaswift, I’d had the authority; but I wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t been pressing in her anxiety, if the talk hadn’t been growing stronger day by day. Death by death. I’d taken Toby on to save his life; but a piss-poor life it was, and not worth the saving except for her sake, to see her happy. He was a strange and secret lad with stranger appetites, and the ship had been well free of him, even if her luck hadn’t got any better after.
“He’ll come back,” the widow was saying now. “When he’s ready. What’s seven years, to a boy like that? I count them, but he wouldn’t. He’s off discovering the world, it’ll be a while yet before he notices how time’s passing, before he comes back to see his mother. And it might be safe now, but he’s not to know that. He’ll likely be cautious, wait longer than he wants to, to be sure. He’ll be back, though, sooner or later. When the time’s right. He’ll come whistling up that hill, gold ring in his ear and all the arrogance in the world, I know you sailors.”
“Oh, you do that,” I agreed, toasting her again. “Indeed you do. None better. And how’s business, then?”
“As you see,” with a jerk of her head towards the wide room. “How I like it, quiet. No trouble. You’ll be with the Gentle Lady now, is that right? I saw her coming in.”
I nodded. “Supercargo.”
“You’ll be wanting supplies, then?”
“Please. But we can talk about that in the morning.”
She smoked and salted meat, to supplement her takings at the inn; but I was never sure how much she needed the money, because she didn’t encourage customers for either business. She worked just enough to keep her occupied. Otherwise she ate and drank and talked, laughed and fought and won every fight she was mixed up in.
And, presumably, watched the sea these days, watched the wide sea and every ship, every boat that sailed it for signs of her son’s returning.
I remember a fresh bottle being cracked open, and at some point I remember a meal, thick stew and good fresh bread. And there was always ale in the jug when I reached for it, though I remember reaching and pouring many more times than a single jug could satisfy.
I don’t remember being led to a room, but certainly I woke up in one, sprawled on a straw mattress still in my clothes, with a pounding head and the widow’s rough fist pounding on the door. “Up now, Martin,” and she laughed raucously, “time to get up now. We’ve business to discuss.”
“Business?” I blinked against the soft dawn light, dragged a hand down across my face and said, “What business? Pay when I leave…”
“Of course you will,” she said, gripping my arm and hauling me bodily to my feet. “But you want meat for your ship, don’t you? Salt pork, sausage and dried beef?”
“Talk to Briggs. I’ll tell him, buy from you, I’ll tell him…”
“Oh, now, Martin. A good officer never buys blind, you’ll want to see what I’m selling. Come on, this way…”
She steered me down a passage and through an open door, out onto the hillside behind the inn.
“Where are we going?”
“To the smokehouse,” she said, and cackled. “Nothing in there for you, nothing ready yet, but I want you to see it, I want you to see what I’ve got.”
I didn’t understand the feverish mood that was on her, the childish excitement, secrets to show or tell; but I went with her stumblingly, while the wind and sunlight cleared some of the fuddlement out of my head.
She led me to where two wooden doors, one squat and the other tall and wide, were let into the hillside. There was a pile of hickory logs beside, and each door leaked a little smoke between its planks.
She opened one, the low one, and coughed in a sudden cloud of smoke. Peered, and threw in a couple more logs. “Mustn’t let it get too hot,” she grunted, reaching a long metal poker in to rake the embers. “Slow and sweet, that’s the way. Slow and sweet, not to cook the meat. Fire in there, do you see, Martin,” slamming that door closed and pulling open the other to create another swirling cloud around us, “and the smoke’s drawn through into here. Hang the meat for a few days, let it dry, let the smoke get to it. I’ll leave the door open, it’ll clear in there, you can have a good look.”
And she took my hand and pulled me into her smokehouse.
My eyes smarted tears, and my lungs all but cracked my ribs with coughing; but the smoke did clear slowly, and eventually I could see.
I saw sides of beef and sides of pork and strings of good fat sausage, all hanging in neat rows in that artificial cave; and finally, down at the far end, I saw what she wanted me to see.
I saw a young man, barely more than a boy, hanging naked among the meat, his arms bound tightly to a crossbar.
“Doing nicely, that one,” the widow said softly beside me. She reached to grip the lad’s tangled hair and jerk his head up from where it was slumped against his chest. I faintly saw a movement in his red and staring eyes, faintly heard a noise from his cracked mouth.
“He’s still alive?”
“Oh, yes. They do better if you smoke them living first. It dries them out, you see,” and indeed there wasn’t a trace of sweat on him even in this stifling chamber, barely a hint of moisture even in those terrible eyes. Smoke had stained his skin as darkly orange as the meat around him, and his flesh had shrivelled up tight around his bones. A skeleton in leather, he looked like. I’d seen one once before, a drifter in a boat we found out on the open ocean, baked by sun and salt. The only difference was, this one was alive.
Temporarily, at least.
“I don’t know how long they’re to keep, you see,” the widow was saying, pinching at the boy’s flank and seeing how the skin stayed rigid long after she took her fingers away. “That’s why I sweat them so. It could be years yet, and the drier the meat, the longer it keeps. Doing nicely, this one,” she said again. “He’ll live another day or two, I guess. Tough lad. Then I’ll open him out and dry him from the inside too, and he’ll be fit to hang for a good long time, he will.”
“Where did you—?” I had to break off to cough; even with the wide door open, the acrid air in there was harsh on my lungs. “Where did you get him from?” Won’t he be missed?
“Oh, he came to me. Looking for work as a pot-boy. On the run from something, I’d guess, jumped ship or skipped his indentures. I didn’t ask. Came in the early morning, he did, no one around.” No, he won’t be missed. “It’s always like that, there’s always a loose boy you can pick up on the quiet. And I only take one a year, and strangers mostly. No one worries, no one even notices.” Not like when my Toby was around, with his strange appetites, she was saying, and it was local children being taken, and their carcasses just dumped in the street. Not like that at all.
We came out into the sweet air again and shut the door, shut the young man in with his slow death; and then she took me back to the inn and down to the cellars and back, far back under the hill.
It was cold down there, with a cold that had never known it might have an enemy in warmth. We were swallowed into cold dark tunnels, and neither the cold nor the dark were touched by the flaring lamps we took with us.
These were the widow’s storerooms and famous in the town, the tunnels and the many doors that opened off them. Every smuggler on the coast knew and used these tunnels, for a fee. Worse men than smugglers too, or so the rumours went.
Even the rumours didn’t speak of the widow or what use she might be making of her own space. Even rumour-mongers had better sense than that.
But she took me down, and showed me. Opened one door among many. Beckoned me in and let me see.
“One for every year he’s away,” she said.
I have seen dried birds for sale in Eastern markets, chickens and ducks, where the body has been opened and the bones exposed, so that they lie like a pattern on a flattened disc of flesh.
I’d never seen it done to a man before.
Take your body and gut it, cut off head and hands and feet. Cut through the breastbone, map the ribs and the clavicles, and with a little more knifework you can open the chest out like a flower. After that it’s easy. Slice and peel, slice and peel back; and before long you have a man turned inside out, all his bones revealed, clinging to his flesh as his flesh used to cling to them.
Then you can really smoke him.
She’d done that, the widow had, and she showed me the results, six leathery curtains hanging with their bony frames uncovered. Six down here, and the seventh in the smokehouse above, one for every year he’s away.
“A mother should provide for her boy,” she said, stirring a vast barrel of brine in the corner. “She should have something in store, to welcome him back from sea.” Something rose to the surface briefly, rolled and stared at me, smiled and sank. She didn’t waste a thing, the widow.
“Of course, it’s not what he liked, quite,” she said, “he liked them young, and fresh; but he can’t have everything. I don’t want the trouble starting up again when he gets back. And he’s a good boy, he’ll eat what he’s given.”
I nodded politely, thinking, Ah, if only. If he’d eaten only what he was given, I might have brought him back with me last night, and returned him to the suspicious glares of his neighbours and his mother’s loving clasp.
Young Toby should never have gone to sea. Sailors are a tolerant folk, by and large—but strange appetites should only be fed on strangers. He should never have stolen the heart of the captain’s favourite cabin-boy. Neither the liver and lights.
As first mate on the Seaswift, I was the one who gave the order that hanged poor Toby, hanged him high and slow from the yard-arm. And sailors are superstitious, so I was the one who hammered a precautionary stake through his chest before he was sewn into a sail and cast overboard with no prayers other than the twenty-four pounds of lead at his head and feet to hold him there.
And now I stood with his mother in that larder prepared against his returning, and remembered that she’d married very young. Formidable though she was, she was a long way short of fifty yet; she should have a deal of active life before her. And of course she had the contacts to buy any service she wanted even after her strength had gone, and probably all the money she’d need.
One for every year he’s away, she said.
I smiled my compliments and shook my head in admiration, and followed my hostess upstairs to pay my bill, thinking it was as well that the tunnels ran deep and private.