I shared his smile. ‘You’ve been friends for a very long time, Fergal says.’
Daniel nodded. ‘We have. Twenty years, more or less.’
‘You must both have been young when you met.’
It was a rather clumsy way of asking him how old he was, but Daniel didn’t seem to mind. Through the smoke of his pipe his eyes smiled at mine. ‘I was fifteen, and Fergal a few years above that, when both of us came near to being pressed into the navy in Plymouth.’
My mother, with her love of history, had once painted me a vivid picture of the roving groups of rough men hired to forcibly recruit or ‘press’ unwary locals into hard military service, coercing when they could, using violence when they wanted. The strength of Britain’s navy had owed much to countless lads who’d woken up from one too many drinks to find themselves aboard a ship and far from land.
‘Myself, I was too green to do much but fight with my fists,’ Daniel told me, ‘but Fergal is quick in his mind and his speech and he got us both out of the way of the press gang and onto a fishing boat, and these years later he still thinks me fully incapable of taking care of myself. That, I suspect, is why he does not leave.’ His smile grew more reflective as he looked at me, and then he added, ‘Fergal does not easily attach himself to people, and his loyalty, once won, is won for life.’
‘Then you are fortunate to have it.’
‘I was not speaking of myself.’ His tone was patient, like a tutor’s. ‘If you find that Fergal seems more out of temper, you should know ’tis not from anger, but because he has been worried for your welfare and is far too proud to tell you so.’
I was touched by the thought, and I promised to keep it in mind. ‘Have I really been gone two days?’
‘You have.’
I hadn’t figured out the workings of travelling in time yet, beyond the fact that I appeared to leave my own time and return to it seamlessly, so however long I spent here I went back to the same moment I had left, to find that nobody had missed me.
But the rules seemed rather different at this end of the equation.
Daniel must have seen me frowning, because narrowing his gaze against an upward waft of smoke he asked, ‘What is it?’
I explained, as best I could. ‘It makes no sense,’ was my complaint. ‘It’s just not logical, it’s—’ Then I saw that he was laughing at me and I stopped. ‘What?’
‘You will forgive me, but you’ve come across three centuries and what concerns you most is that the times will not be matched?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Well, if a pig came up to me one day upon the road, full dressed and wearing boots, and asked the way to Plymouth,I can promise you it would not be the colour of his buttons that would interest me.’
I saw his point, but couldn’t help but add in my defence, ‘It’s only that I’d like to understand what’s going on.’
‘I know.’ His eyes acknowledged that. ‘Like yours, my mind would seek to know the science. But there are things in life that lie beyond our understanding. Why they happen, we may never learn. And yet they happen.’
In his eyes the light of laughter was now fading into something more like quiet curiosity. ‘What would it change,’ he asked me, ‘if you understood?’
‘I don’t know. Likely nothing.’
‘You would still be here.’
I had no argument for that, and so I didn’t offer any.
Daniel’s pipe was dying and he knocked the ashes from it. ‘When I meet a wind I cannot fight,’ he said, ‘I can do naught but set my sails to let it take me where it will.’
I knew that he was right. Some forces could not be controlled, and that was just as true for hearts, I thought, as for a ship at sea. I met his gaze and said, ‘I’m not much of a sailor.
‘Give it time,’ was his advice. ‘Mayhap you’ll learn.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
There were a lot of other things I had to learn before that.
Fergal had decided that, to guard against the chance I might come back again one day and find myself alone as I had done before, I ought to know the workings of the house and its surroundings, from the little plot of vegetables that sheltered in a terraced garden up behind the stables to the well close by the yard where they drew water.
Leaning over the lip of the stone well, I looked at my rippled reflection below. ‘Is it any good for drinking?’
‘Ay, if you and I were horses, maybe. Me now, I would rather meet my thirst with ale and cider.’
I’d have happily poured him a big glass of cider to soften his mood at the moment. He’d been brusque and short-tempered, as Daniel had warned me he might be, and if I hadn’t known it was his way of showing worry I’d have taken it to heart. As it was, I found it touching, even flattering, that this fierce man had taken on the role of my protector so completely.
Turning from the well, he said, ‘This water will not harm you, but you’re best to keep to ale for drinking, anyway. You do remember where the ale is kept?’
I answered back obediently, ‘In the cask beside the cellar steps.’
‘And if the ale runs dry, the cider is …?’
‘To be protected at all costs,’ I quipped, to see if I could make him smile.
He did, a little. But he wasn’t fully satisfied until I’d answered properly and told him where the kegs of cider that he prized so much were hidden. Having done that, I asked, ‘Does Jack really not know where they are?’
‘He does not. And I’ll thank you to leave him in ignorance.’
‘But if you’re away and he’s here when I run out of ale …’
Fergal drily assured me there’d be little chance that I’d run out of ale with Jack in the house. ‘Even if you did, he would be off down to the Spaniard with his cup and bowl, he would not need my cider. But yourself,’ he said, ‘you cannot leave Trelowarth without Danny or myself, so if the cider keeps you safe another day, so be it.’
Turning from the well he led me off again to what I hoped would be our final stop, because my legs were having trouble keeping up to Fergal’s pace. Against the north wall of the stable block stood a small shed with a rickety roof.
‘And your firewood is in here,’ said Fergal, and shoved the door open to show me the tightly wedged stacks of split wood. ‘Though with luck you’ll not have to come all this way out for it. I’ll leave a fair supply stacked in the scullery.’
When we went back to the house I discovered he’d already been hard at work in the scullery, arranging the food in the cupboard so that I’d have no trouble finding the things that I’d need to make one of his stirabouts. ‘If we have cheese, which we usually do, it will be at the back in that tin there. And this,’ he said, raising the lid of a small keg nearby and lifting a leathery long something out of it, ‘this is salt beef. Bane of a sailor’s existence, that is, but we always keep some for the Sally. I’ll leave this lot here, then you’ll need never fear you’ll have nothing to eat.’
I took the length of salt-cured meat from him, feeling its strange texture, hardened like wood. ‘And you eat this?’
‘Well, not like that, no. Break your teeth if you tried. No, you boil it and soak it to draw out the salt, and then cook it with other things into a broth. Here, I’ll make it for dinner and show you.’
He started off by showing me the way to use a tinderbox to light the fire, explaining as he went, and, while I doubted I could match his skill, at least it let me see the steps more closely than I’d seen them when the constable had done the task. And with the fire lit Fergal kept a close eye on me while he was cooking, to see I was paying attention. I was. Fergal’s hands were the hands of a hard-working man, and his knuckles were scarred from a lifetime of fighting, but he cooked as deftly as any trained chef I had seen. A true man of abilities.
‘Fergal?’
Turning around with his knife in his hand he asked, ‘Ay?’
‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘
Taking care of me. I’ve never had a big brother before.’
‘Have you not?’
‘No. I had an older sister, but she died this past winter.’
He looked at my face for a moment. ‘God rest her soul.’ He crossed himself respectfully and turned back to his work.
I asked him, ‘You don’t honestly have seven sisters, do you?’
‘When did I say that I did?’
‘You told the constable.’
‘Well then, it’s certain I told him the truth, for I’d never tell lies to the constable.’
I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Me neither.’
‘See then,’ he said with a nod of approval, ‘and did I not say that you were an O’Cleary?’
The moment of companionship sat easily between us while the kettle on the hearth steamed with the scents of salted beef and boiling cabbages and carrots, and it struck me just how comfortable I had begun to feel here, even with the things I had to learn, the things I didn’t know.
‘And so the people at Trelowarth,’ Fergal asked me, ‘are they not your family, then?’
I took a minute to explain my whole connection to the Halletts, my relationships with Mark and Claire and Susan.
Fergal listened intently, as though he were storing the facts in his memory. ‘And what do they think when you vanish from their time? Where is it you tell them you’ve gone?’
‘They never know, so I don’t have to tell them anything. Things work a little differently at that end,’ I explained. ‘When I go back, it’s like I’ve never been away, I step back into the same moment that I left.’
I watched him think this over. Daniel had been right about the quickness of his mind, he didn’t miss much. ‘But the last time you went back you were in different clothes.’
‘I was.’
‘And no one noticed?’
‘I’d been walking on my own, there wasn’t anyone to see me.’ But the thought of clothes reminded me that, ‘Daniel said I ought to give my other clothes to you, so you could hide them.’
‘Did he, now? Well, bring them here then, and I’ll see what I can do.’
And that was why, when Daniel came to join us in the kitchen several minutes later, he found Fergal deep in fascinated study of my jeans.
‘You see now, Danny,’ Fergal told him, barely glancing round, ‘this is a work of genius, this is.’ And he ran the zipper up and down to prove it. ‘Look at that. I’ve never seen its like in all my years. And see this seam, with every stitch so even. Sure my own granny could never sew a seam like that, and she was known through all the county for her needlework, she was.’ He smoothed the fabric with his roughened hand in wonder and appreciation. ‘A pair of breeks as fine as this would last a man a good while. ’Tis a shame,’ he said to me, ‘that you are not a larger woman, else I could take these in trade for the trouble you’ve caused me.’
Daniel pointed out with flawless logic that if I had been a larger woman I would not have fit into the borrowed gowns. ‘Then she would have no clothes and you would have a pair of breeks you could not wear for fear the constable might see them.’
Fergal shrugged. ‘So let him see them. I could tell him they were made for me by seamstresses in Ireland, where all the finest fashions have their start.’ But he’d already started folding up the jeans. My shirt had been a plain white T-shirt, which was slightly less exciting, though I saw him take note of the tag. ‘’Twas made in India. So are the trade routes open still, in your time?’ Without waiting for an answer, he went on, ‘Myself, I’ve never been to India. Jamaica, now, I’ve sailed there twice, but never yet to India.’
I was thinking, as he said that, of the black beach in Kerala on the southern coast of India, where I had gone to visit with Katrina on her holiday from filming in Mumbai. I felt the touch of Daniel’s gaze and raised my own to meet it, but I only glimpsed the speculation in his eyes before he looked away respectfully and changed the subject.
With his head tipped slightly back, he sniffed. ‘What the devil are you cooking, Fergal?’
‘Beef broth.’
‘And what are you using in place of the beef?’
Fergal sent him a suffering glance. ‘’Tis salt beef, so that Eva will know what to do with it.’
‘Eating it,’ said Daniel, ‘would not be my first suggestion.’
‘Are you wanting something purposeful to do?’ asked Fergal drily. ‘Because I was just saying now to Eva that we need a bit of firewood for the scullery, and if you have the time to speak your mind about my cooking, you could surely spare a bit of time for walking to the woodpile.’
Daniel smiled, and looked at me. ‘Will you come?’
‘To the woodpile?’
‘It is a chore that can be made more bearable by company.’
I yielded to the smooth persuasion of his smile, and went out with him into the strong sunlight of the stable yard.
‘Did Fergal show you where the well was?’ Daniel asked me as we passed it.
‘And the garden, and where to find things in the house. He even showed me where the cider was.’
‘Did he indeed?’
I nodded. ‘He wanted to be sure I wouldn’t die of thirst if I ran out of ale.’
‘And what if you ran out of cider, too? What then?’
‘You wouldn’t be away that long.’
‘If all was well, we wouldn’t, no. But many things can happen while a ship’s at sea,’ he said. After a moment’s thought he carried on, ‘There is one other place you would find ale if you had need of it, though ’tis not in the house and the only way down to it wants a sure foot and some courage.’
I gave a nod. ‘The cave below the Cripplehorn, you mean. Yes, I—’
‘What do you know of that?’ he asked me, in a tone too casual.
I didn’t see the need to lie. ‘I read about it in a book, and then my friend who lives here … well, he used to play down there when he was little, so he took me down to show me what it looked like.’
‘And what does it look like?’
I couldn’t really tell if he believed me, but I said, ‘It’s mostly empty, only a few old barrels left, although I don’t think they were yours.’ I couldn’t tell him that his dagger had been there, as well. I only told him, ‘If it helps, the book did say that no one ever gave away your hiding place.’
We’d nearly reached the woodpile, but he stopped and turned to face me, and his eyes held open disbelief. ‘The book says that?’ He clearly found the thought improbable. ‘It mentions me?’
I gave a cautious nod.
‘By name?’
I tried remembering exactly. ‘It didn’t say your name. It said “the Butler brothers of Trelowarth”.’ I found his gaze too steady to meet comfortably.
‘And why, pray, would it mention us at all?’
I shouldn’t tell him anything, I knew. And yet I couldn’t bear to have him look at me like he was looking now, as though he thought I’d made the whole thing up.
I took a breath. ‘Because you were such well-known smugglers. Well, that is, you used to be well-known. The book was old.’ I didn’t tell him Jack would one day write a book himself. I thought that might be pushing things. ‘It was really only a field guide, about birds and rocks and trees, with little bits of local history. All it said was you were smugglers, and the people here respected you, and that you used the cave below the Cripplehorn.’
Daniel stood a moment looking down at me, his eyes unreadable, and then he let it pass and looked deliberately to one side as though gathering his thoughts. When his eyes came back to mine, they weren’t so hard.
‘How did you come across this book, then?’ There was something gentler in his voice, as well, that made me more aware of just how close to one another we were standing, there beneath the trees that edged the stable yard, in quiet shade.
I raised my chin and told the truth. ‘I wanted to find out about you.’
‘Did you? Well,’ he teased, ‘you should not trust the thi
ngs you read in books. If there is something you would know, you’ve but to ask.’
The problem was, when he smiled down at me like that I found it difficult to phrase a simple question, or to speak at all. And anything I might have asked seemed unimportant, suddenly.
To my relief he looked away again. With slightly narrowed eyes he judged the movement of the clouds above our heads. ‘We do have time, I think, to walk awhile.’
‘But shouldn’t we … the firewood, I mean … and Fergal’s dinner—’
‘Will be every bit as inedible an hour from now. Salt beef,’ he promised, ‘cannot be destroyed. A single piece of it would outlast any civilisation.’
And so I let him lead me past the woodpile, up the slope of field that lay beyond the stables and the ordered garden plots where Fergal grew his vegetables.
The wind blew wilder here, and whipped my skirts about my legs and made it hard to hear when Daniel spoke ahead of me. He had to turn his head to ask the question over. ‘Do you ride?’
I told him that I did. Not all that well, but I could ride.
‘Then I shall introduce you to my favourite mare, and mayhap someday you may ride her,’ he said. ‘Come, the field’s not far.’
I wasn’t sure at first which field he meant. The hillside had been altered through the centuries so that I had to work to get my bearings here, and what I’d always known as garden plots with walls and hedges was now open land with long grass chased in ripples by the wind, and the dark of the woods lying off to my left. We climbed to the top of the hill where the road was. That still had the same shape, although it was more of a track than a proper road, rutted and grassy and curving in ways that had never made sense to me until this moment, when I saw the great tree that stood in its way.
The tree was an ancient one, oak from its shape and the way it stood spreading its limbs in defiance of any assault the winds wanted to make. The road, too, had run straight towards it until, clearly meeting its match in the tree, it had veered to the side and gone round it instead, curving off round the hill and away to St Non’s while the tree held its ground as it had done for years, maybe hundreds of years. It looked stubbornly capable of standing there a few hundred years more, but I knew that it hadn’t. This tree wasn’t part of the grounds of Trelowarth that I knew. I’d never heard tell of it.