“Master of what?” Giles refilled his tankard.
“A frigate,” the goodman said proudly. “Pretty a ship as ye’ve seen.”
“And where’s her anchorage?”
The goodman shook his head mournfully. “That I don’t know, sir. I’m tellin‘ ye the truth. There’s few folk on the island what knows that.”
“Tell me who might know.” Giles regarded him steadily over the rim of his own tankard.
The goodman looked uncomfortable. “ ‘Tis ’ard to say, like. Those what ‘elps the master only knows a few of t’others. An’ Prue an‘ me, like, we don’t know nothin’ very much. The master, ‘e jest comes and goes.”
He could see that the sergeant was not very impressed, and hit upon a name. “There’s George at the Anchor in Niton. ‘E might know summat.”
Godfrey Channing had already put them on to George. Giles had sent men to have a word with the landlord some time ago.
“So what does this master do wi‘ his frigate?”
The goodman buried his nose in his tankard. This he did know. And it was information that could condemn the master.
“Come on, man, out wi‘ it!” Giles leaned forward across the table and now there was menace in his eyes. “Go easy on yerself,” he said softly.
Goodman Yarrow glanced around the pantry. It was an unthreatening place, but he could hear the slosh of the moat washing against the south wall under the rising wind. This was a fortress. A moat on two sides, the sea on the remaining two. He could die in its dungeons and no one know.
Goodman Yarrow was not a brave man.
“Smugglin‘, an’ a bit o‘ piracy, I ’eard tell,” he muttered.
“Piracy, eh?” Giles nodded. “An‘ what is it that he smuggles? Goods… or summat a little more interesting, maybe?” His eyes narrowed as he watched his prey wriggle like a worm on the end of a hook.
“I dunno. I dunno.” There was desperation in the goodman’s voice. He knew nothing, but there were rumors.
“For the king, is he?”
The goodman lowered his head. But it was enough for Giles. He had his confirmation. Caxton was a smuggler and a pirate. A mercenary with Royalist sympathies. A man who could blend into the king’s court, but who also knew how to slip in and out of secret anchorages, to plot a course to France, to evade and outdistance pursuit. They had their man.
“This frigate, she ‘ave a name?”
Goodman Yarrow shrugged helplessly. “Wind Dancer, I’m told, sir.”
Giles nodded, observing, “Pretty name.” So far he was doing well with Goodman Yarrow, but maybe there was still more he could get out of him, some little nugget of information, something that the goodman didn’t even know was important.
“Y’are an island man. Where would you find deep channel anchorage fer a frigate?” He refilled their tankards once again.
The goodman seized his eagerly and took a deep draft before saying, “In a chine, o‘ course.”
“Which side o‘ the island?”
Goodman Yarrow shrugged again. “Them’s all down the coast from Yarmouth to Shanklin. Some deep, some not.”
“Give me a name, man. Somewhere to start lookin‘.”
“Why you so interested in the master, anyways? There’s smugglers aplenty along these coasts.” The goodman, emboldened by ale, felt the first stirrings of rebellion.
Giles pushed back his stool with a scrape on the flagstones. “ ‘Tis up to you,” he said carelessly, rising to his feet. Then he bellowed with shocking suddenness, “Men!”
The hurried tramp of booted feet resounded from the courtyard beyond the scullery door.
“Puckaster Cove,” Yarrow blurted as the door burst open. “Somewheres around there, I’ve ‘eard tell.”
Giles sent the men away with a flick of his fingers. “Well, thankee, goodman.” He strolled to the courtyard door that still stood open. “We’ll ‘ave to keep ye and the goodwife fer a spell, but ye’ll not be too uncomfortable, I trust.”
Soldiers came in soon after the sergeant’s departure and escorted the Yarrows to a small barred chamber beneath the gun platform.
“Well?” Prue demanded. “What did ye tell ‘em?”
“ ‘Twas man’s talk, so keep a still tongue in yer ’ead, woman!” the goodman snarled.
So you told him what he wanted to hear. Prue took the thin blanket from the straw pallet and drew it around her shoulders. She sat on the cold stone floor, her back against the frigid damp wall.
“If’n ye betrayed the master, there’s those on the island who’ll not forget it.”
“What was I supposed t‘ do? After gettin’ the thumbscrews, ‘e was,” he muttered, flinging himself on the pallet.
“There’s those on the island what wouldn’t ‘ave told whatever ’appened,” Prue said softly.
Giles rode back to Carisbrooke, but when he arrived it was late, the king had retired, and Lord Granville had returned to Chale with his wife and daughter. The men Giles had sent to question the landlord of the Anchor had little to report. George knew of no Edward Caxton. He referred familiarly to a man he called “our friend,” and was coaxed into admitting that the same character was also known as the master. He could always be relied upon to supply contraband, and when he made contact he was always in fisherman’s guise. Other than that, no one asked questions and no one volunteered information.
Giles rode to Chale and was informed that Lord Granville too had retired. If the sergeant had truly urgent information, they were to wake his lordship, otherwise the sergeant should report to him at dawn.
Giles debated whether his information warranted dragging his lord from his wife’s bed. He could hear the wind getting up, great swirling eddies as it whipped off the sea and across the cliffs. No sane man would attempt to rescue the king on such a night.
He took himself to his own bed and lay visualizing the island’s coastline. Puckaster Cove lay just below Niton. Niton was where George and the Anchor had their being. There had to be a connection.
Olivia lay listening to the wildness of the night. She could hear the waves breaking on the shore of Chale Bay some two miles distant. A fork of lightning illuminated her window, and the crash of thunder followed within seconds.
It was a wrecker’s night.
But Anthony had other fish to fry at present. He had to leave the island, get himself to safety. Surely he wouldn’t risk his freedom for the wealth of a wreck?
But she couldn’t second-guess him. Despite everything they’d shared, she understood only that he was a mercenary, that he loved danger. She understood nothing about his real motives.
The branch of the magnolia tree whipped against the diamond windowpanes. Sleep was impossible. Olivia got up and went to the window. She pressed her forehead against the glass and stared out across the dark garden where the shapes of the trees swaying in the wind took on a strange and ethereal life.
What ships were out there on the black foam-tipped water? In her mind’s eye, she could see the jagged black rocks of St. Catherine’s Point, the sea turbulent around them even on a balmy day. What would they be like now?
And the compulsion to go and see grew until it could not be denied. It was madness to go out on such a night, to walk the cliff path. And yet she seemed to have no choice.
She still had the britches and jacket she’d borrowed from Portia, and almost without conscious intent Olivia dressed herself. She took her thickest cloak and crept downstairs.
The house was in darkness, the hall black as pitch as she crossed it on tiptoe. The dogs raised their heads and growled warningly as she slipped into the kitchen, but they recognized her and dropped their heads to their forepaws again with breathy sighs.
The back door from the scullery opened into the kitchen courtyard. As Olivia raised the latch the wind snatched the door from her hand and it crashed against the wall of the house. The dogs barked and she leaped through the door, slamming it behind her.