‘Do ye ken where’s Will’s gone?’ Father asks, tugging at his beard.
‘Nooo,’ she answers but her eyes slide away. She’s hoping he returns home soon, and his part can be hidden from both Father and the Queen’s soldiers, who will no doubt quickly come to re-take the castle – and punish the perpetrators.
Father stares at her, rubbing at the back of his neck, but if she says aught she’ll have to admit she saw all and did nothing.
‘Aye well, he’s probably away on some nonsense, as usual,’ he says.
She picks at the skin around her thumb. They both know Will is a lad consumed by the right way to follow God’s true word, and not much inclined to nonsense. The fear of what may happen to him scratches away inside her.
For the first few days, there’s always a group of townsfolk gathered near the castle gate waiting for something to happen, but the soldiers expelled naked as newborns do not reappear to take back their dead Cardinal’s palace. Loud laughter and carousing from within can be heard and soon some of the watchers are calling at the castle gate and asking to join the revellers. Everyone knows of the rich stores the Cardinal kept, why should they not join the celebration and partake of them? For did they not all suffer under his yoke?
Bethia goes to stand before the forbidding walls and closed gate. She stares up, willing her brother to look out and see her. Instead a group of men high above lean over the rampart calling down.
‘Come on up my bonny lass and gie us all a wee cuddle.’
She thinks of asking for Will but doesn’t want to be the town crier, letting everyone know he’s inside. Their calls get louder, and more coarse, as she lingers. Then the men disappear and she hears the clatter as they run down the turnpike. She scoots away as the gate is flung open.
‘Don’t go, my wee lass. We’re all lonely here,’ they shout as she runs along the path that leads to the harbour. It’s the path she came toiling up in search of John barely three months ago, only to witness the preacher, flesh shrivelling and slowly smoking to death. She shudders as she runs and then she’s angry. She shouldn’t have to spend her life taking care of her brothers, who live as though they’ve no responsibilities. She’d like one day of being indulged, as they have been all their lives, just one. Then she remembers the beatings John endures and the contempt with which Father treats Will; maybe life isn’t easy for them after all.
She pauses by St Mary’s on the Rock, her beloved chapel, says a quiet prayer to the Virgin to return Will safely home and bends to touch the stone with her lips. The harbour below is busy and Father’s ship has come in. He’s chatting to the captain as they watch the cargo of linen, furniture and coal being unloaded and taken to his warehouse. Father may be standing at ease, but he won’t miss anything. Later he’ll pass his scribbled notes for her to enter into the big accounting book. She should be home collecting carbon from the chimney to make up more ink, not spying on him, but she stays watching the bustle on the long wooden pier. There’s been talk of building one of stone to hold strong against the winter storms, but this would be a big undertaking, which Father says won’t happen, not in his lifetime.
A boat is being rowed out from the harbour. Curious, she retreats back along the path to watch, as it hugs close to the cliff. Both oarsmen are rowing strongly into the rising wind and a third man is sitting at his leisure in the stern, dark cloak wrapped tight around him. It’s as well the tide is far enough out so they can see, and avoid, the rocks. They draw close to the castle, so close they may be fired upon, and she wonders why they’re taking such a risk. Then the boat rounds the castle rock and disappears from view. She waits, holding onto her cap which the wind is tugging fiercely. Just when she thinks she must go home before Father returns, the boat re-appears, bobbing over the white caps, which the wind is frothing like Agnes beating eggs and sugar for a sweet pudding.
There are only the two oarsmen in it now. It is as she suspected: the cloaked figure will have entered the castle through the seaward postern – a gate through which she too might quietly gain entry. She needs a man with a small boat; a fisherman. She hurries home; if she can only get Agnes on side.
There are soldiers in front of the castle now, the Captain of the Guard has returned and found his men. They are clothed and booted and keep watch at a safe distance from musket shot or fired arrow although a well-aimed cannon might cause havoc. They are successful in preventing the garrison inside from coming and going freely as they have been doing up to now, and preventing those outside from joining them.
Father wonders where the captain found clothes and weapons for men who were expelled naked as squealing piglets. She’s pleased to hear him laugh. It makes a change from pacing up and down worrying about Will.
‘Why does he send no message?’ she hears him mutter. ‘Even a wee word to tell us he’s safe.’
She thinks, that’s what she should have done when she could, passed a note for Will through the gate, but when she remembers the leering men her heart fails her. It is wicked to leave Father in such an agony of not knowing, but she keeps expecting Will to return home, and if he does she’ll have spoken unnecessarily. She gnaws at the skin around her finger nails; if he doesn’t come soon then she must fetch him.
Mother says Father is fussing over nothing, and Will is off with young Nydie on some prank – which story she has fortunately shared with their neighbours. Father shakes his head, his expression grim. He guesses where Will is, Bethia thinks, but if he doesn’t voice it then perhaps it won’t be true.
Agnes has arranged the boat, but now Bethia must be brave and act. She doesn’t know if she can do it and asks Agnes if her brother, Geordie the fisherman, would take a message to the castle instead. Agnes says he’s a great gowk, who hasn’t got the sense he was born with, and cannot be relied upon. Bethia tears some more at her skin and now her fingers are bleeding. May the Virgin grant her courage.
She rises before the first bells the next day and slips down through the pends, passing the mill, its wheel turning and the miller already at work, through the Sea Yett and onto the quayside. Geordie, as arranged, is waiting on the pier. He bobs his head at her, climbs down the ladder and onto his boat. She stands on the edge and looks down at him looking up. It is a long drop to the boat below.
He frowns and beckons. She turns around and kneels on the pier then sits back on her haunches to suck out the splinter which has stabbed her, sharp as any needle.
‘I haven’t got all day. Are ye coming or no?’
Edging backwards, she gets her feet on the first step of the ladder fearful he can see up her skirts. Next time she’ll borrow a pair of breeches from John – but there shouldn’t be a next time. She fumbles to find the step, when a hand grips her foot placing it firmly on the rung and, by this method, she slowly descends until she’s lifted and swung into the boat.
‘Sit ye down,’ he says and she does, sending the boat wildly rocking. Now the fear is of the unsteadiness of the small craft. She’s only ever been on Father’s ship, safely enclosed behind the rails on deck, and they never left the quay. She grips the sides tightly, knuckles white. They pull swiftly away, the wind pushing the boat along and whipping her hair out from under her cap and around her face. The tide is on its way out, and more of the shoals are exposed than when she watched the boat creep close to the base of the cliff at high tide yesterday. Agnes’s brother swerves around the half-hidden rocks; he’ll know this coastline, no doubt as well as the wrinkles on his wife’s face.
They reach their destination sooner than she expects, bumping up against smooth rocks below the cliff, which form a jetty. Geordie leaps out and offers his hand to steady her as she follows him. The crumbling sandstone is soothing to the eye, but the castle rising above is grey and forbidding. She tips her head back and can see a small gate high above, but she can’t see any way to reach it.