River of Destiny (7 page)

‘But I’m just the blacksmith.’

‘You’re a man!’

‘And if I laid a finger on her she would run screaming to her husband.’

‘Probably. That’s the way such folk are.’

‘And I love you, Mrs Smith. I’d never look at another woman.’

‘I know.’ Susan glanced over her shoulder into the shadows of the great barn and shivered. Several other horses stood quietly in their stalls, their great haunches shadowy in the fading light. There was no one else there, but somehow she had felt a breath of cold air touch her face.

There was a small stone church on the hill near the great hall of the thegn. The priest was a good man of some seventy summers; the people of the village liked him and so did the Lady Hilda. She was with him now, sitting on a stool in the cool shadows of the nave. ‘My husband is dying, father, we both know it,’ she said, speaking quietly even in the privacy of the empty building. ‘I need you to bring him the sacrament.’

‘I can’t do that, my lady.’ Father Wulfric shook his head sadly. ‘He has refused baptism yet again.’ He sighed. ‘His father was a good Christian and so is his brother, but the Lord Egbert is adamant in his apostasy. He cleaves to the old gods in his despair.’

‘My husband is a superstitious fool!’ she retorted with spirit. ‘He has found himself a sorcerer from the forest and reveres him as though he were a priest! The man gabbles spells and charms, and scatters runes like spring seed, and promises him a place at the side of Woden and Thunor. And,’ she added bitterly, ‘Egbert keeps on calling for the swordsmith. All that matters to him is that that wretched sword is finished before he dies.’

‘And his brother? What says he to that?’ Father Wulfric tightened his lips in disapproval. He was holding a small beautifully illuminated book of Gospels in his hand. It was the church’s most treasured possession, presented by Lord Egbert’s mother. Kissing it reverently he laid it on the altar.

‘He is preoccupied with raising men for the fyrd. King Edmund is calling warriors to his standard at Thetford. They are expecting more attacks from the Danish host.’

‘So we will soon be left unprotected.’ Father Wulfric turned back to her and sighed again.

She glanced at him, alarmed. ‘The Danes won’t come near us, surely? What would they want with a small settlement like ours?’

Father Wulfric didn’t answer for several breaths. They both knew what befell any settlement in the path of the Viking horde. ‘Please God they will not even know we are here,’ he said at last.

He stood and watched Lady Hilda walking slowly back towards the Hall, her blue cloak clutched closely round her against the sharp autumn wind. Her shoulders were slumped, her whole stance defeated. He shook his head sadly as he turned towards his own house, then he stopped. The swordsmith was standing watching him from the door of the smithy, his arms folded, his face thoughtful. For a moment Father Wulfric considered walking over to join him, but already the other man was turning away into the darkness of his workshop. The door slammed and the old priest heard the bar fall into its slot.

At first she thought Leo wasn’t going to ask her in, but after a moment’s hesitation he stood back and ushered her into a small cluttered living room. Zoë glanced at once towards the window. Yes, he too had the ubiquitous view of the river; his hedge had been trimmed low so he could just see the moorings below the trees. She could see his boat and the
Lady Grace
tugging gently at their buoys, swinging with the tide. The fire was unlit and she could see an old rubbed leather Gladstone bag on the floor just inside the door. ‘I am sorry. Were you just going out?’

‘I just came back.’ He folded his arms. ‘How can I help you?’ There was no smile to alleviate the slightly irritated tone and she felt an instant reciprocal bristling of irritation.

‘I have come at an inconvenient moment. I’ll come again when it is a better time.’

‘I doubt there will be a better time,’ he said. ‘Please, spit it out. Whatever you came to say was presumably important, or are you merely here to pass the time of day?’

She reined in a flash of temper. Had she given him a reason to be so rude? ‘I wanted to ask you about the ghosts, if you must know. The house is getting to me. But I will phone first next time and make an appointment.’

‘What makes you think I know anything about them, beyond the fact that they scared your predecessors away? At least, they scared her; he was an insensitive clod who wouldn’t have noticed if the entire angelic host had descended on his house.’

She found herself biting back a smile. ‘I wasn’t actually here to talk about the barn. Rosemary said you had a book with a picture of the ship.’

He stared at her thoughtfully for a moment and she saw the tension in his jawline. It accentuated the scars slightly. ‘You’ve seen the ship?’

She nodded. ‘I think so. Twice.’

‘Ah.’

He continued to study her face for several seconds, then he turned towards the bookshelves which lined the wall opposite the window. In front of them there was a long shabby sofa, covered by an old tartan rug. The room was nice, Zoë decided in the silence that ensued. Scented with an all-pervasive smell of woodsmoke, it was furnished with some decent antiques, and some attractive paintings, both modern and old. It felt lived in and comfortable and far more homely than the huge space which they called the great room at home.

He stood in front of the shelves, his eyes ranging left to right; his books were not arranged in order then. She watched silently, folding her arms as she shifted her weight, aware that she was not going to be asked to sit down. ‘Here,’ he said at last. He pulled out a small volume with a rubbed red cloth cover. ‘It’s in here.’ He handed it to her. ‘I’m in no hurry to have it back, but look after it. I will want it eventually.’

‘Thank you.’ Taking it she moved towards the door. She reached out for the latch, then she turned. ‘Have you seen it?’

‘The ship? Yes.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘Mean?’

‘Yes. Is it a sign of some sort?’

‘That one is barking mad, for instance?’

‘No, that there is something wrong. Is it a portent of evil?’

He smiled. ‘Who knows? Read the book.’ He moved towards her and reached past her for the door, pulling it open and waiting for her to leave. ‘Are you a religious woman, Zoë Lloyd?’ he said as she stepped out into the porch.

‘No.’

‘So evil is for you a philosophical concept rather than a religious one?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘And what you really meant to say is, is it a sign of bad luck? Impending doom.’

‘I meant what I said,’ she retorted coldly. ‘Thank you for the book. I shall take care of it.’

She was tempted to hurl it at him.

Back at home, she made her way through the kitchen into the living area which she and Ken had by common consent come to call the great room. It had seemed appropriate in every sense on the first day they moved in and the term had stuck. She went to stand by the huge window, staring out towards the river. It was deserted, the sunlight glittering on the water. From here all she could see of the two boats were their masts. She listened. The room was silent. There was no feeling today that there was anyone else there in the house with her.

Curling up in one of the chairs she had placed so that there was a clear view of the river, she looked down at the book in her hands and turned it over so she could read the title on the spine.
Tales and Legends of Bygone Suffolk, collected and retold by Samuel Weston
. The page she was looking for was marked by a discoloured cutting from a newspaper. She unfolded it carefully. Dated 1954, it related the sighting of a ghost ship in the river:
The great sail was set and the ship seemed to move before a steady wind, but there was no wind. The vessel has been seen in the past and on this occasion its passing was witnessed by two fishermen lying below Kyson Point. The men watched as it came close and both described the air as growing icy cold. It passed them round the corner and when they scrambled ashore and ran to look from higher ground the ship had disappeared. There was no sign of life on board and no sound other than the usual lap of the river water. When asked, both men agreed it had been a frightening experience.

She refolded the cutting and tucked it into the back of the book, then she began to read the chapter. It more or less repeated the description of the fishermen, adding details of several more documented sightings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She turned the page and there it was, a woodcut said to be taken from the sketch made by one of the farm workers on the Timperton Hall estate. It showed the ship exactly as she had seen it, with a curved sail and on it the design which she had not been able to make out clearly in the mist but which the unnamed farmhand had shown as an animal head with a long ornate tongue protruding from its open mouth. She scrutinised it thoughtfully and decided it might be a boar or perhaps a dragon. He had also shown the animal on the prow of the ship, a kind of figurehead high above the level of the water. He was obviously a man of no little talent – the sketch was detailed and had a pleasing sense of perspective. There was no comment with it, though, no record of what the man had felt. She skipped through the succeeding pages, but there seemed to be no further reference to it. Resting the book on her knee, she stared out of the window again. The sun was lower in the sky now, and the river looked like a sheet of silver metal. There were no boats in sight, real or ghostly. She listened. The room was quiet. How strange to think that the man who had sketched the Viking ship had probably worked in this very barn, perhaps stood with a hay fork in his hand on this very spot where she was sitting. She shivered and glanced round in spite of herself. The roof of the room was lost in shadow without the lights on, the great beams slumbering, hinting at the ancient oaks from which they came.

The door to the kitchen opened revealing the light she had left on over the worktop. ‘Ken? You’re back! I didn’t hear the car.’ She turned to greet him. There was no reply. ‘Ken?’ She stood up uneasily. ‘Are you there?’

The house was silent. There were no sounds of anyone moving around in the kitchen. Putting down the book, she walked across to the door, aware that her mouth had gone dry. ‘Ken?’ She pushed the door back against the wall and stood staring round the room. ‘Who’s there?’ Her voice sounded oddly flat; without resonance as though she was speaking in a padded recording studio. The sun shone obliquely in at the window; in minutes it would start to slide down below the fields on the opposite side of the river. She had to force herself to move forward towards the work island in the centre of the floor. ‘OK, enough is enough,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t like this. Who are you? What do you want?’ She clenched her fists, suddenly angry. ‘If you are not going to show yourself, I want you to just bugger off!’ She wasn’t sure if she was addressing the neighbours’ wayward children or some ghostly presence. Either way she acknowledged that she was scared.

Her heart was thudding in her chest. The feeling that there was someone listening intensified; behind her she heard something roll across the table and it fell to the floor with a rattle. She spun round and stared. A bent corroded nail lay beside the table leg. She stared at it and then looked up. Had it fallen from the ceiling? In here there were fewer beams, the ceiling between them smoothly plastered. There was nowhere it could have appeared from. Hesitantly she stooped and picked it up. It was rusty, squarish, with a small head, cold as it lay in her palm.

She dropped it hastily on the table. ‘Is that yours?’ she called. She was addressing the ghost. ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’

There was no reply.

Seconds later she heard the crunch of car tyres on the gravel outside and, glancing through the window, she saw Ken’s car sweep round the side of the building.

She scooped up the nail and put it into a small bowl on the dresser; minutes later Ken had opened the door and walked in, bringing with him a blast of cold air. He piled some paper carriers on the worktop. ‘I missed the blasted post again! Here, do you want some sausages? From the farm shop. I thought it might be nice for supper.’ He pushed a packet towards her. ‘The forecast is good; shall we go out early tomorrow? See if we can get down the river and over the bar?’