Home From The Sea (15 page)

But Toby knew him.

For the second time that afternoon Jim’s hackles began to rise as he heard Toby’s voice call from the door right below this casement, “I’ve been expecting you.”

The man came to a halt ten paces away and lifted his head. The tricorn perched forward on that head, crammed down to keep it on against the wind, prevented Jim from seeing his face, but he was looking Toby in the eye as he said,

“I bloody knew you’d get here first, Trelane.
Quick as a ferret as usual.
You always were.”

“I just didn’t sit about with a bunch of well-poxed whores, getting blind drunk,” Toby retorted.

“Better than the rest of us, ain’t you?” the man sneered.

“More sober, perhaps,” Toby said quietly. “You’re not welcome here, Bellowes. They’ll have buried poor Marguerite by now.”

“Dead?”
Bellowes had a rum-rough voice, like gravel on a shovel. “You’ve seen her?”

“She was running.” There was a sharp edge of anger in Toby’s voice. Jim had never heard it before, and he hung on every word as Toby said, “It was just pure luck,
happenstance, that
she came to the doorstep of the old lady who cooks here, begging for a copper or two to buy medicine in the morning. She made it here, and she died.”

Bellowes spat into the mud at his feet. “She
were
sick.”

“And you beat her,” Toby added scathingly. “It takes a fine, fine man to take his fist to a woman. What, you beat her till she picked up her skirts and ran, on a night that was cold, wet,
filthy
?”

“She’s dead? Then she’s dead, and there’s the end of it,” Bellows snarled. “Let it be, Trelane. She’s not why I’m here. You fuckin’
know
why I’m here.”

“Oh, I know,” Toby said almost too softly for Jim to hear. “And you’re too late, Barney. We all are.”

The man missed a beat. “Chegwidden’s gone? He’s swindled the lot of us, and buggered off?”

“He’s as dead as poor Margie,” Toby informed him, “and he’s been dead for years. The house belongs to Jim Fairley now, and his father before him. You don’t believe me? Walk on up to the churchyard, read the headstones. It’s no secret that Jim and his father came out here, bought the place from old Charlie and gave him a good home, a little care and comfort, while he sweated through the last few weeks of his life.”

“Well … shite.” Bellowes snatched off his hat and dragged both hands over his face, which was sheened with oily sweat. He glared at Toby, and from above Jim saw a shining bald head and gray-brown hair caught back at his nape with a green riband.
“So Charlie’s gone to hell ahead of the rest of us.
It don’t change one damn’ thing, Trelane.”

“It does,” Toby said quietly, “when I tell you there’s nothing here.”

“Nothin’?”
Bellowes echoed. “What in the name o’ Christ are you sayin’, Trelane?”

And he barged toward Toby, in through the open door, out of Jim’s sight and hearing. Jim’s heart beat a tattoo on his ribs, and his palms prickled with sweat as he set down the shaving mug. What he needed was the blunderbuss, but it was under the bar with the bags of shot and powder. He had no weapons upstairs, and the whole length of the taproom separated bar from staircase.

He heard voices but could not make out the words as he slipped out and along the passageway. He pressed against the wall at the top of the doglegged stairs, out of sight around the corner, and went down one at a time, hoping the voices would become more distinct. Most of what he could pick out
were
curses as this Barney Bellowes character grew angrier and began to snarl at Toby.

It was getting ugly faster than Jim could slither stealthily downstairs, and he heard the high, sharp notes in Toby’s voice before he began to make out words. So Toby Trelane was no angel – and Jim had suspected as much for some time, since no angel ever had so many secrets, and was so vigilant about protecting them. But Jim had taken an instinctual dislike to Bellowes, and if he was going to take sides on gut feeling alone, he would stand by Toby every time.

“For the love of God,” Toby began, sharp with alarm.

“Don’t you bloody quote God at me,” Bellowes roared. “I don’t trust you, Trelane. I
never
trusted you. Time an’ again, I told Nathaniel to get
shot
of you.
You’d’ve
been fish food, if it were up to me.”

“Then I’m grateful it wasn’t. And if you’ll just put the pistol away and talk for one minute –”

Pistol?
Jim
froze,
two steps short of the corner where he would be plainly visible from the taproom. He swallowed hard on his heart, which seemed to be beating in his throat, and took a deep breath.

“Shut your yap,” Bellowes growled. “Twice I’ve told you, Trelane, and I ain’t got
no
breath to keep
repeatin
’
meself
all night. You come clean, you hand it over, and you keep a head on your shoulders.”

“Barney, there’s nothing to hand over,” Toby said in desperate tones. “I’ve searched this house from loft to cellar! I’ve been in every inch of it and there’s nothing.
Nothing
.”

The mystery was like splinters of glass under Jim’s skin. He had always abhorred a mystery, and this one was maddening because he had come to care for Toby. Healthy lust was only a part of what he felt. It was sheer dread that gripped him by the throat as he inched nearer to the corner, listening to the sound of shoe leather on the floor as Toby moved – dread that there would be a vast emptiness where Toby had
been,
and the world would be colder, darker, at least in the corner where Jim lived.

“Like I’m
goin
’ to believe one word outta your trap?” Bellowes was sneering. “Stay right where you bloody are, Trelane! You get on your knees, you put your hands on your head and you start talkin’ truth before I beat it out of you!”

“Like you beat Marguerite?” Toby said bitterly.

“Forget the doxie! And stay where you are! I swear –”

Whatever Bellowes was about to swear, Jim never knew. He heard the slap of footsteps on stone, the rasp of a chair being shoved out of the way, a smothered curse, and then a pistol shot, deafening in the confines of the taproom. Toby grunted, not a cry of pain but the solid “
ungh
” of a man who had been punched, the air knocked out of his lungs. Jim’s heart seemed to stand still and then raced, and he thrust himself away from the wall now, in the half minute of safety before Bellowes could reload. Who was it who said, the only good thing about a pistol was that it had one shot, and until it was reloaded it was just a club; and as clubs go, it was puny.

Sure enough, as Jim moved out onto the lower flight of stairs Bellowes was digging through the pockets of the threadbare brown coat, scrambling for powder and shot. Jim’s eyes were wide, searching for Toby, and he swore as he saw him. He was bent back over a chair, struggling for balance while scarlet blossomed around his right arm. Blood soaked the shirt sleeve while Jim watched, but Bellowes had shot wide and Toby was more furious than hurt.

His teeth were bare in a wolf-like grimace as he shoved himself upright, kicked away the chair and seemed to ignore the wound. Bellowes was struggling with the leather pouch, spilling gunpowder over his boots as Toby launched himself – younger, taller, stronger, infinitely angrier. With his left hand, he batted the pistol and powder bag right out of
Bellowes’s
grip. Bellowes was still grabbing for them when Toby clenched the same left fist and hammered an immense roundhouse into the side of the man’s head.

The blow sent him sprawling. He was so far off
balance,
he dove over the table behind him and kept falling, into the cold, unlit hearth at the far end of the taproom, where kindling and fire irons were kept. The second hearth was only lit in the very dead of winter, with snow up to the windowsills. In April it was clean and polished. Bellowes went into it, face-first and cursing.

Jim was intent on the fire irons, fully expecting Bellowes to roll over, snatch up the nearest poker and come after Toby with it. He did not even feel the leg as he propelled himself toward the bar, and under it, both hands seizing the blunderbuss. The gape-muzzled boat gun was always kept loaded. If Toby had only known this he would have gone for it at once, but Jim had never had cause to mention it.

Waiting to hear the clatter of the pokers, curses and threats from Bellowes, he swung back toward the hearth at the far end of the taproom, and it was Jim himself who swore.

Bellowes had not moved. Toby was beside him where he lay, half in the hearth, half out, and Jim watched him give Bellowes a shove with one foot, and another, harder.

“I think you can put the naval gun away, Jim,” he said softly.

“He’s knocked himself senseless?” Jim wondered, shifting his grip on the blunderbuss. He felt the leg keenly now as he paced the length of the taproom, and around the table that had sent Bellowes sprawling.

“He’s broken his ugly, stupid neck,” Toby whispered. “Well, there’s a wise old saying. As ye sow, so shall ye
reap.
” He looked up at Jim, eyes wide and dark, and dropped carefully to his knees beside the body.

And then he was murmuring, and Jim had heard these words before from his lips. “
Réquiem
æternam
dona
ei
,
Dómine
.
Et
lux
perpétua
lúceat
ei
.
Requiéscat
in pace.
Anima
ejus
,
et
ánimæ
ómnium
fidélium
defunctórum
, per
misericórdiam
Dei
requiéscant
in pace. Amen
.”

“Amen,” Jim echoed. He had set the blunderbuss on the table, and blinked down at Bellowes with ice cold curiosity. “What
is
that recitation?”

“A prayer for the dead.”
Toby stood and hissed through his teeth as he became aware of the wound.

“The old language,” Jim observed.

“Latin.”
Toby closed his eyes. “It’s still spoken today, by a few of us.”

“Lawyers and priests.”
Jim looked away from the body, with its neck twisted at a crazy, horrible angle. “You’re not a lawyer.”

“No.” Toby’s eyes were shades darker. “I’m not. And I’m bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig. You’ll have to help me, Jim.”

Reality snapped back into focus like a physical blow, and Jim took a deep, hard breath to the bottom of his lungs. “Sit,” he told Toby.

He grabbed up the blunderbuss and thrust it back under the bar. Before he went in search of a yard of ragging to bind the wound, he threw the bolt to lock the tavern’s front door. They were lucky. The weather had kept drinkers away, and even as he locked up, he heard the rain coming back in, spattering in the puddles outside and drumming on the shutters. The only people who knew Barney Bellowes had arrived here were himself, Toby, and Edith Clitheroe, who stood in the kitchen doorway, wringing her hands and looking from Jim to Toby and back with big, startled eyes.

Chapter Nine

The trapdoor slammed down into place, and Jim dusted his hands as he and Toby stood back. Mrs. Clitheroe was stoic, brewing tea, slicing apple pasties and hard old cheese, and by now a little of the
color
had returned to Toby’s face. For some minutes he had been waxen, sweated, as Jim tore the sleeve out of the ruined shirt and examined the wound. He clenched his teeth as it was doused with strong rum, before Jim bound it tightly with strips cut from an old bed sheet. It was the best cure anyone knew for flesh wounds – and
thank
the gods, Barney
Bellowes’s
aim had been as atrocious as his temper.

The body was still cooling, wrapped in two well-worn sacks, tied with a dozen yards of line and dumped down at the bottom of the steps. It lay in the cellar, out of sight but weighing heavily on Jim’s mind. “That’s two dead bodies on my property in three days,” he said darkly as he scraped a chair up to the table and took a mug from the old lady. “In the six
years
I’ve been here, the only other dead body I’ve ever seen belonged to Charlie Chegwidden, who died of old age and infirmity … and all three of the departed are connected to you, Toby.” He looked up at the balladsinger, brows arched, took in the shuttered face, the downcast eyes. “I think,” he said softly, “
it’s
high time you told me the truth. All of it.”

“Yes.” Toby sank into the chair opposite, took a mug of tea and held it between his palms. “Yes, I rather think it is, before…” He looked away.

The wound was hurting him quite badly but Jim had seen at once, Toby Trelane was far more accustomed to pain than any man should be. He was simply ignoring it. The shirt sleeve was pinned back up at the shoulder; the bloodstain was drying out to a dark, rust-brown
color
.

“Yes, I owe you the truth,” he whispered, “before anything else happens here. Lord knows, I knew I should have told you before, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak.” He looked up at Jim, and away again. “I’m not proud of the things I’ve done.
Had to do.
Been compelled to do, and subjected to. Not that I’m trying to tell you I was a victim. I walked into it with my eyes wide open, and when it went wrong I was stuck tight as if my boots were a foot deep in stinking mud.”