The Gallows Curse (56 page)

    'No,
no, my friend, I am not that stupid. You bring the cargo, then I pay you.'

    The
sailor glowered at him, then bent his head to his companions, muttering Softly.
But even had they shouted their conversation across the room, it would scarcely
have mattered, for Raffe couldn't understand them.

    Finally
the man straightened up. "We take the ring now. Then you give us the purse
when we bring your cargo.'

    Raffe
hesitated. He could see that they were not the kind of men who would be
prepared to leave with nothing, and the ring was easier to identify than coins
if they tried to double-cross him.

    Raffe
pulled the leather thong over his neck. The sailor swiftly examined the ring
once more. Clearly he had learned not to trust any man. Then he looped the
thong over his own head, dropping the ring down inside his shirt even as he
strode to the door.

    'Tonight
I bring him here. But I do not wait. You are here, good. If not, your cargo it
sinks to the bottom of the sea, you understand?' He returned a few paces to
Raffe, staring him in the face. 'Tonight you give me the purse, no argument.
You try to cheat me, and the crabs they have a good breakfast.'

    The
sailor spat on the palm of his hand and extended it to Raffe. He did likewise
and they shook, their fingers gripping each other's with equal force. The
transaction was sealed and there was no going back on it.

    
She
gingerly pushes open the door of the courtyard, alert for an ambush. The sun is
burning down, bleaching the stones a dazzling white, and for a moment she is
blinded, unable to see anything. Then she hears the sound of fast, rapid breathing.
Three girls are crouching in the corner of the tiny yard, pressed into a sliver
of dark shadow, their arms wrapped around one another, their heads buried into
one another's chests, so that they seem to be a single ball of limbs. Flies
crawl everywhere in thick black waves, over the weeds as dry as parchment, over
the dusty ewers, over the backs of the girls. As they hear the sound of
footsteps behind them one of the girls begins to whimper, but they do not move.

    Elena
is thirsty and running with sweat. She is weary to the bone. She just wants to
get this over with, get it finished. She strides to the corner and grabs an arm
at random, trying to prise the little knot of bodies apart. But the others
cling to their sister with surprising strength, considering how skeletally thin
they are. Elena is almost afraid that if she pulls too hard, the bone of this
slender arm will snap off in her fist. But pull she must. She seizes the girl
round the waist and drags her out. The two remaining sisters snap together,
clinging to one another more fiercely than before.

    The
girl struggles, but soon her arms are bound behind her. She stands sobbing and
helpless. She is trying to mumble something. Is it a plea for mercy or a
fervent prayer? Elena cannot tell. But whatever she is saying is repeatedly
broken each time a new scream echoes through the street outside. Some screams
continue on and on, like the wind howling. Others are cut abruptly short,
severed in mid-cry. Although Elena longs for the screams to stop, her heart
jolts with pain each time they do.

    Elena
has pulled a second sister out from the corner and is tying her wrists. This
one does not even try to resist. She is numb; her eyes glazed and lifeless as
if she is already dead.

    But
as Elena binds the two sisters together, one behind the other, the third girl
suddenly springs up from the corner. Before Elena can stop her she is running
for the stone steps that lead up from the yard. Elena tries to make a grab for
the hem of her skirts, but the cloth slips through her fingers. The young girl
bounds up the stairs in her bare feet. At the top she turns and lifts her face
up to the golden sunlight. Then she closes her eyes and jumps. She crashes down
on to the flags of the courtyard, and lies there, her legs twisted at grotesque
angles. A trickle of scarlet blood runs from her head, and meanders slowly over
the white stones. The flies are already crawling towards her.

    But
the fall was not high enough. She is still alive, still twitching. Her bones are
broken, but her brown eyes are wide open and crazed with pain. Her two sisters
stare at her aghast, then as one they begin to scream. She looks at them, her
mouth opening wordlessly, her eyes pleading desperately for help. They struggle
to cross to her, but they are tethered and cannot even reach out their hands to
hold hers.

    Elena
watches the tears running down their faces. It shouldn't matter. She shouldn't
care. She's seen the tears on hundreds of faces today, young and old. The
sisters' fate will be the same as all the others'. Minutes, hours, what
difference can it make in the end? By the time the sun sets today they will see
nothing, feel nothing any more. For what seems like eternity she stares at the
flies swarming over the trickle of blood. Then she crosses swiftly to the girl
on the ground and cups her left hand over the pleading brown eyes. With her
right hand she pulls out her dagger and plunges it into the girl's heart
.

    The
clouds had been building all day, and now great purple walls of them were
towering over the lead-grey sea. The wind was howling and white waves charged
towards the land, rearing up and crashing down on to the shore, sucking up
great mouthfuls of sand to be spewed out again as the tide rose higher and
higher up the beach. The gulls had long since deserted the island of Yarmouth
and fled inland, shrieking doom like witches in the sky.

    Men
were dragging the smaller craft out of the water and pulling them as far up the
shore as they could. Others were sculling the bigger boats which could not be
beached out into the deeper water. Once the boats were safely anchored and the
ropes tethered to the shore to ensure they couldn't twist side-on in the wind,
the men dived into the waves, hauling themselves by the mooring ropes back to
the beach.

    The
wind funnelled between the Rows, moaning like the damned in hell, and sending
the dried silver fish scales whirling in the air, stinging the faces of the men
as they hurried back to their homes. Fish oil lamps began to flicker in the
upper rooms and the tiny wooden houses hunkered down and braced themselves for
what the night might bring.

    Raffe
trudged back to the Silver Treasure. The wind was too sharp now for anyone to
be loitering in the yard and the brazier had been extinguished. The little ale
room too was empty save for a solitary old man with red-rimmed eyes, who sat
hunched in the corner over his leather beaker.

    He
raised his watery eyes as Raffe struggled to close the door against the wind.

    'Dead
are coming,' the old man pronounced solemnly.

    Raffe
nodded without understanding. The door opened and the alewife brought in a
small flagon and a beaker. She banged them down in front of Raffe and waited,
hand on hip, for the coin. Her face was as expressionless as before. She
crossed to the old man to refill his empty beaker.

    'Last
one, then it's home with you. Your daughter'll be wanting to bar the door afore
the wind takes it.'

    'Where's
he going?' the old man asked. They both turned to stare at Raffe from their
hollow, sea-bleached eyes.

    The
woman shrugged. 'He's to wait,' she said, as if she knew all about Raffe's
business.

    Outside
the skies darkened and the wind rattled any loose pieces of wood or reed-thatch
it could find, like a naughty child testing to see if it could be yanked off.
Raffe walked over to the door. He opened it a crack, holding it tightly against
the wind. The Row was deserted. Here and there in the dim pools of yellow light
cast by the oil lamps in the casements he could see small pieces of gravel
being hurled up the alley by the wind, and in the far distance at the end of
the Row, he glimpsed flashes of white foam on the tar-dark water.

    Raffe
was torn with indecision. Part of him was sure they would not come tonight.
Surely no one would want to commit their lives to a little craft in these seas?
Yet he dared not leave, for he had little doubt they were capable of carrying
out their threat if they came and he wasn't waiting.

    Forcing
the door closed again, he slumped back down on the bench. The old man drained
the last of his ale and hopped to the door, leaning heavily on a crutch.

    'Be
sure and give the sea back her dues, afore she comes to take them,' he
muttered.

    The
door had scarcely shut behind him again when it flew open with bang. The sailor
from the
Dragon's Breath
stood in the doorway, wiping his spray-wetted
face on his sleeve and peering into the dimly lit room. He saw Raffe and
grunted, pushing a man in through the door in front of him.

    Your
cargo,' the sailor said, without any greeting. 'My purse.'

    He
held out his open hand. The skin on his palm was thicker than the hide on a
man's heel, but across it and between the fingers were deep raw cracks from the
cold and the salt which would never heal, not until he settled ashore. And that
was not likely to be anytime soon, for when a man's got salt water in his blood
and a sea wind in his lungs, neither wife nor land can keep him from the waves.

    Raffe
ignored the outstretched hand and regarded the newcomer. He was short and
slight, made to seem smaller by the muscular sailor standing beside him. His
cloak was still pulled tightly around him and his face had a sallow, greenish
tinge of one who is about to vomit. He swayed slightly on his feet. Then,
stumbling towards a bench, he sank on to it.

    The
sailor was still holding out his hand, but Raffe gestured impatiently for him
to wait. The Frenchman was leaning on the table, holding his head as though it
would roll off his neck if he didn't hold it in place. He had a clerk's hand
with thin fingers and swollen knuckles, as if he'd spent many hours writing in
the cold, but his left hand was twisted and scaly like a bird's claw, though he
could plainly use it to grasp, albeit clumsily.

    'How
do I know this is the man?' Raffe demanded, still regarding the Frenchman.

    Without
raising his head the man opened his tunic; the badge of St Katherine was pinned
inside.

    The
sailor clapped a heavy hand on Raffe's shoulder and spun him round. 'You give
me the purse now! Storm is coming'

    To
lend weight to his words, there was a roar and a clatter as a violent gust of
wind dashed a handful of gravel against the wooden wall of the alehouse. Raffe
slid the purse across to the sailor. He opened it, counting the coins, then he
slipped it into his shirt. At the door he turned, grinning, showing a large gap
in the front teeth, and gestured towards the hunched man.

    'He
thinks he escapes the sea. He don't like her. But the sea, she still wants to
play with him. Women are like that, no? When you tire of them, that's when they
want to make love to you.'

    As
the sailor struggled to close the door, the alewife ducked in under his arm,
carrying a small sacking bundle. She set it on the table and unwrapped it,
displaying some coarse dark bread and two small cooked herring.

    'We
can't stay to eat,' Raffe explained. 'We have to leave straight away to get to
the mainland. I have a boat waiting.'

    The
woman ignored him and crossed to the door and, lifting a stout beam of wood,
set it in the iron brackets across the door to brace it shut.

    Raffe
started forward. 'No, you don't understand, we have to leave.'

    The
woman turned to him, her hands on her hips, her body square in the doorway.

    'There'll
be no man willing to take you ashore tonight, tide's running in fast against
the rivers. That wind'll push it hard in, but rivers'll only be pushed so far,
then they'll come roaring back. You'd best stay here tonight, less you want to
play with the sea, like the sailor said.'

    She
climbed the rickety ladder to the upper chamber and, moments later, two long
thick pallets tumbled through the trapdoor and fell in a heap on the floor
below. The woman leaned forward and squinted down at Raffe through the hatch.

    'Mind
you don't open that door again tonight till it's light, no matter who begs to
come in. There's some foreigners would cut your throat just for a parcel of
herring heads.'

    She
glowered at them both, as if she suspected the pair of them were in league with
a band of murderers. Then she heaved the ladder upwards till it disappeared
through the hole in the ceiling and the trapdoor fell down with a loud clatter.
Raffe heard a beam of wood being drawn over the trap to brace it firmly shut.