The Vanishing Witch (29 page)

‘There, Bor, over there, we’ll make for that one. Push as hard as you can, afore someone else beats us to it.’

Glancing back, he saw another of the flat-bottomed boats catching up fast. His heart sank when he recognised Martin and his hulking son, Simon. Martin’s wife had done what every man wished for and had borne him a son first instead of a daughter. The lad was now a
strapping sixteen-year-old and little Hankin was no match for him. But Gunter was determined not to be beaten this time.

Weighing up the distance between his punt and Martin’s, he stepped to the opposite side and, with his next push, slewed the boat at a slight angle while still sending it shooting forward. He was gambling on Martin being alert: if he wasn’t, Martin’s punt would plough right
into his. But the trick paid off and, with a stream of curses, Martin was forced to turn his boat and slow it down to avoid a collision.

With one swift push, Gunter had his boat back on a straight course heading for the vacant mooring closest to the warehouse. With a practised hand he brought the punt alongside. Hankin knew what was expected of him. He made the leap for the short, slippery ladder
that hung down the side of the jetty, bounded up it like a squirrel, deftly caught the rope his father flung up at him and made it fast.

‘We beat them, Faayther!’ Hankin grinned for the first time in days.

Gunter glanced back. Martin and his son were arguing with another boatman as both tried to force their craft into the same mooring further along the jetty. Gunter knew he had the edge, but
not for long. ‘Make the other rope fast, so she doesn’t swing out. Then wait for me on the punt. Don’t go running off.’

Gunter knew the temptations of a crowded port for a young boy, never mind the excitements of the marketplace beyond. It was only too easy for a lad like Hankin to become engrossed in watching the boat-builders cutting the great logs with saws twice as long as a man, or lose
all sense of time wandering among the colourful stalls, dancing bears and storytellers. As a lad, he’d done so often enough.

Gunter pressed his hand to the side of the jetty, measuring the gap between the high-water mark and the river. They were so far from the sea that the tide only made the water level in the Braytheforde rise and fall a couple of inches. But in the lower reaches of the Witham
you could feel the effects of the tide’s strong pull and push. By his reckoning, the tide would be high within an hour or so. If they were travelling downstream when it was ebbing, it would speed their journey.

Gunter hoisted himself up the ladder and limped along the jetty towards the warehouse. Fulk, the overseer, known behind his back as Fart, was standing at the door. He was a small, stocky
man who made up for his lack of height with aggression. He lost his temper easily if forced to think about two things at once, and his attention was now focused on berating the few warehousemen who’d arrived late. But Gunter could already see the familiar figures of other boatmen wending their way round the wharf towards the warehouses. He couldn’t afford to wait. If there were no loads at the
first, he’d have to hurry to the next, and by that time their cargoes might already have been assigned. Fulk was still snarling at one cowed youth when Gunter interrupted. ‘Beg pardon, Master Fulk.’

‘What is it?’ Fulk snapped, turning away from the youth, who slid inside and disappeared.

‘Any loads going out this morning?’

Fulk ignored him and peered into the dark interior of the warehouse.

‘You, boy,’ he bellowed. ‘I’ve not finished with you yet. I’ll see your wages docked for this. I’ve warned you, there’s plenty ready to take your job, if you can’t haul your carcass out of your kennel of a morning.’ As he turned to Gunter, the men inside made obscene gestures at his back. ‘There’s precious little going anywhere, with the trouble those Flemish weavers are causing in Flanders. Scum
want hanging, the whole pack of them.’

‘But the warehouse is open,’ Gunter said desperately. ‘There must be something.’

Fulk tugged at his lower lip, apparently considering the matter. He derived a cruel satisfaction from making other men wait. ‘There’s one cargo going out today, only one, mind. Wool to be taken down to Boston.’

Gunter’s stomach surged with relief. The full length of the river
– that would pay well.

‘But ship sails in two days. You sure you can get it there in time?’ Fulk looked doubtfully along the jetty to where Hankin was sitting, swinging his legs and staring across the harbour. ‘You’ve only a little lad with you. He’ll tire afore you’re clear of Lincoln.’

‘He may be small, but so’s a weasel and that can tackle a rabbit three times its size. Come on, Master Fulk,
you know me. I’ve done that run since I was boy. Have I ever got a load there late?’ Glancing around, he saw Martin in conversation at a warehouse further round the wharf. ‘I’ve never lost so much as a single barrel or bale neither, not like some.’ Gunter jerked his head pointedly in Martin’s direction. ‘Please, Master Fulk. I need this. I’ll keep going all night if I have to, but I swear it’ll
reach the ship in time.’

Fulk plucked at his lip again. ‘I suppose I could let you take it. But you’ll not get paid until you bring me back the tally from the ship’s quartermaster so I know he’s had the full load and it’s not been spoiled.’

Gunter was aghast. ‘That’s not right. It’s always half now and half when I get back with the tally.’

‘
Was
, Gunter. We’ve had too many loads delivered recently
that have been short. A great many mishaps there’ve been, or so you all claim. Bundles disappearing in the night while the boatman sleeps, barrels falling off into the river. Of course, it’s never his fault. It couldn’t possibly be due to the fact that he’s a thieving bastard. Anyhow, Master Robert’s had enough of it. He says it’s bad enough when trade is good, but when it’s as piss-poor as
it is at present, he’ll not be robbed blind, so he’s given new orders. If a load doesn’t arrive on time or there’s so much as a sack of feathers missing, you don’t get paid at all.’

‘But you know me, Master Fulk,’ Gunter protested. ‘You know nothing’s ever gone missing from my loads.’

Fulk shrugged. ‘Maybe so, but you can blame your brother boatmen not me. It’s them has queered it for everyone.’

‘Please, Master Fulk,’ Gunter begged. ‘Not half then, just enough to buy a bit to eat. If I’ve two days’ journey ahead of me I need food and ale for me and the lad afore we set off. And if we’ve then to come all the way back upriver again, that’s another two days’ journey afore we get paid.’

‘Should have brought meats with you or coins enough to buy some,’ Fulk said indifferently. ‘Do you want
the work or not?’

Dumbly, Gunter nodded. He’d no choice. Reluctantly, he clasped the hand that was extended to him to seal the bargain.

‘Right, I’ll get a couple of lads to start loading the boat.’ Fulk disappeared back into the warehouse.

Gunter walked back towards the jetty. He was shocked and dismayed at the sudden change in terms, but at least he’d got a load. That was all that mattered,
he told himself. They’d find something to eat. Maybe, even, it was better this way: he’d be taking every penny home at the end of the job. He was so preoccupied, he didn’t notice Martin until the man spoke.

‘You want to watch where you’re swinging that bow of yours, Gunter. If I hadn’t been keeping a close eye out, I’d have rammed you broadside and that old wreck of yours would have been lying
at the bottom of the Braytheforde.’

On any other day, Gunter would have come back at him hard, but he was too relieved to have found work to pick a quarrel. He clapped a friendly hand on Martin’s massive shoulder. ‘Come now, you were trying to beat us to that mooring even though we’d got into the harbour ahead of you. Fair game!’

‘Fair, is it?’ Martin said sourly, shaking off Gunter’s hand.
He peered at Gunter suspiciously. ‘You look like a fox that’s made a kill. You got a cargo.’

‘That I have,’ Gunter said. ‘Need it badly too. Not had a load for days.’ He smiled, suddenly feeling generous even to a man like Martin. ‘Hope the day brings you good fortune too.’

But Martin only scowled and spat into the water.

Gunter walked back along the jetty to where Hankin was slumped, lost
in thought. He prodded the boy with the toe of his shoe. ‘Stir yourself, lad, we’ve got a load all the way to Boston.’

‘Suppose Mam’ll be pleased about that,’ he said morosely. He suddenly brightened and scrambled up. ‘Will I buy some food to take? I saw a girl walk past with a tray of pies. Hot and fresh, they were, mutton, she said. I could catch her up.’

Gunter glanced up from his son’s eager
face in time to see Martin disappearing through the door of the warehouse. He murmured a prayer of thanks to the Holy Virgin that he had reached the surly overseer first.

‘Can I get us some pies, Faayther?’ His son was holding out his hand in expectation.

‘There’s to be no money paid to us till we return to Lincoln. You can have your pie then.’

Hankin was as startled as he himself had been
by the news. Gunter grasped him firmly by the shoulder. ‘No need to put on a face like a sour pickle. You want to be grateful we’ve got work. If we hadn’t, you certainly wouldn’t be eating pie.’

‘I’m not eating it now,’ the boy muttered. ‘Didn’t you ask him for the money? Why didn’t you tell him we need it today?’

For the second time that day, Gunter felt like clouting his son, but he held his
temper. ‘Is there any bread left?’

‘Only your slice,’ Hankin said sulkily. ‘That won’t keep us for four days.’

‘It won’t if you eat it, but if you save it for bait, we’ll feast like kings. We’ll set out a fishing line when we tie up for the night.’

‘If we trailed a net, we’d not need the bread for bait.’

‘It would slow us up. Never trail a net on a moving boat, unless you’re out at sea. If
the net snags on a fallen branch or some such under the water it can jerk a man off the punt or even sink it. We’ll do fine with the line, lad, and we can always try our hand at netting a sleeping duck. We’ll not starve.’

All the fowl and fish in the river belonged to those through whose lands the river flowed. But at night, well hidden from any cottage, it was a risk worth taking and it certainly
wouldn’t be the first time Gunter had taken it.

He felt the jetty creak and looked up to see two of the paggers bent almost double, staggering down the wooden planks towards them with large bales on their backs supported by thick straps across the men’s foreheads. He tapped his son’s shoulder. ‘Quick, into the punt with you and be ready to help catch them as they lower them.’

He scrambled into
the punt after his son and they both looked up expectantly, waiting for the bales to be passed down to them. But, to their dismay, the men didn’t stop. Instead they lumbered past and on down the jetty.

‘Here, it’s this boat you’re meant to be loading,’ Gunter yelled, but the paggers didn’t pause or turn.

They kept moving until they drew level with Martin’s boat and dropped the bales onto the
jetty. Then they began to lower them to Martin’s son, Simon, who was standing in his father’s punt.

‘No!’ Gunter scrambled up the ladder onto the jetty. ‘You’ve got the wrong boat.’

‘They haven’t.’

Gunter spun round. Martin was standing behind him, grinning, showing a mouthful of crooked teeth. ‘Good long run too, all the way to Boston.’

‘But Fulk told me there was only one load going out
today.’

‘And this is it.’ Martin’s grin broadened.

Gunter gaped at him. ‘But he promised it to me. We shook on it.’

Martin shrugged. ‘Changed his mind, then, didn’t he? With two real men in a sound punt, instead of a cripple and a brat in a leaking tub, he thought he’d a better chance of getting his load delivered safely and on time.’

‘How much did you bribe him?’ Gunter roared.

‘Fair game.’
Martin smirked.

Gunter’s fists clenched, but the two paggers pushed between them on the narrow jetty, as they returned for another load. By the time they were past, Martin was already walking towards his boat.

Gunter felt someone race past him, but before he had time to register that it was Hankin, the boy had reached Martin. He leaped onto the man’s back, pummelling him in a frenzy. ‘Thief!
Cheat!’

Martin staggered under the surprise and ferocity of the assault, and for a moment it looked as if both would fall into the Braytheforde. Gunter stumbled along the slippery boards as fast as he dared, but before he could reach Hankin and pull him off, Martin’s son had bounded onto the jetty. He seized Hankin by the waist, swung him up and hurled him as far as he could into the thick, green
water. Hankin hit it with a slap and disappeared.

The spirits of drowned men return to the shore and conjure lights to lure ships to their destruction on the rocks and drown their crew.

Gunter stared in horror at the water of the Braytheforde where wavelets were rapidly spreading outwards in circles from the spot where Hankin had vanished. He was dimly aware of Martin’s son bellowing with laughter and the cries of alarm from
others who’d witnessed the boy’s body arc through the sky.

Gunter dropped onto the boards of the jetty and wrenched off his wooden leg. Though he had warned his children many times never to jump into water when you couldn’t see what lay beneath, he grabbed the edge of the jetty, pushed himself off the side and rolled head first into the Braytheforde. The water rushed into his nose and ears and
he struggled desperately to surface, thrusting up into the air and fighting for breath, but he couldn’t afford to give himself time to recover. He struck out for the place where he thought Hankin had sunk.

But now that he was in the water, it was hard to work out which direction he should swim in, never mind how far. The wind and rising tide, though by no means strong, still produced waves that
kept dashing into his face making him splutter. He arched upwards and gulped a lungful of air, preparing to dive down, but just in time he heard a voice shout, ‘No, to the left . . . the left.’