Gideon Livermore came panting after him. They were in view of the quay now and there were other witnesses on the bridge, but that did not stop the merchant. All his plans could founder on this one man. As long as Nicholas Bracewell was alive, Livermore would never inherit the estate and seize Mary Whetcombe as an agreeable part of the booty. Most of all, he would never take over the Mary herself. That was his dream. Gideon Livermore was a pirate trying to lay hold of a pirate ship. It was a fitting place in which to decide his fate.
Open space gave Nicholas more options and his own dagger was now out. The two men circled each other warily. Nicholas was bleeding profusely but he did not dare to look down at the flesh wound on his hand. Livermore could not be underestimated. Though he paid others to kill for him, he was more than capable of doing his own work. The merchant feinted then lunged but Nicholas evaded him. A second attack forced the book holder back and he fell over some coiled rope that lay on the deck. Livermore pounced and his weight took the breath out of his adversary. Nicholas had a grip on the man’s wrist but his own weapon had been knocked away.
They grappled, they rolled, they punched and gouged. Livermore even tried to bite him. With sudden power, Nicholas threw him off and got to his feet, but Livermore was after him at once. The advantage had swung back to the merchant now and he was taunting his prey, forcing him back towards the gunwale. Nicholas ran out of space. He was cornered.
‘Give me the will,’ demanded Livermore.
‘The Mary will never be yours.’
‘Give me the will!’
Nicholas patted his jerkin. ‘Come and take it.’
The merchant needed no more invitation. Aiming the point of his blade at Nicholas’s face, he charged forward. The book holder was too fast for him. He ducked, grabbed then heaved upwards with all his might, and the body of Gideon Livermore went over the side and into the river. The people on the bridge were so impressed that they gave a cheer. Other boats were now being rowed out from the quay.
Nicholas leant over the side of the gunwale as the merchant surfaced. The man coughed and spluttered. Though he had learnt to swim in the river, he had never done so in heavy clothing when he was exhausted from a fight. Livermore began to flail wildly and call out for help. He was drowning. Nicholas peeled off his jerkin and kicked off his shoes before diving over the side of the ship. He hit the water cleanly and explored its murky depths for a few seconds before coming up again. He was just in time to see Livermore starting to sink. Grabbing the man from behind, he lay on his back and swam towards the ship with Livermore’s head supported above the water.
The sailor on watch was waiting to help them aboard, and the other rowing boats were closing in. Spectators on the bridge and quay were applauding Nicholas’s heroism in saving the drowning man. But Gideon Livermore himself had second thoughts. He would never inherit the estate and marry the woman he coveted. He would never own the Mary. All that awaited him was a humiliating trial and a long rope. He would never submit to that.
When Nicholas finally pulled him to the side of the ship, Livermore waited for his moment and then broke clear to plunge headfirst again into the dark water. Nicholas went after him and a few other men from the boats jumped in to assist, but they could not find the merchant anywhere. It was several minutes before the River Taw yielded up its sacrificial victim. When Gideon Livermore bobbed to the surface with his face still submerged, he was way beyond any processes of law.
In one transaction, many debts had been paid off.
It was a windy afternoon, but that did not deter him. He took a long, meandering, valedictory walk through the town to reacquaint himself with a youth that now seemed a century away. He went down streets where he had once played and across a field where he and his brother had first learnt to ride a horse. He left flowers on his mother’s grave at the nearby churchyard then walked slowly back towards his old family house in Boutport Street. It looked much as it had done when his parents raised their children in the dwelling. Compared to the cottage where his father now lived, it was a small mansion. A deep sorrow made him turn away.
Nicholas Bracewell went through the gate and left the town, feeling an immediate sense of release. Barnstaple had once been his entire world but it now had the whiff of a prison about it. The pleasure of seeing familiar places was offset by the pain of old memories. He walked briskly on in the stiff breeze until he came to a walled garden. Nicholas halted in alarm. His feet had taken him insensibly to the one house in the area which he had vowed he would never visit again. When he tried to turn back, his legs betrayed him again and impelled him forward to the gate. One look up at the half-timbered dwelling brought it all back.
The home of the Hurrell family had once been filled with noise and laughter, but it now seemed curiously empty. The garden was overgrown and there were no signs of life in the house itself. He pushed the gate back on a grinding hinge and went in. Swept by the wind, the thatched roof was parting with a few of its reeds and somewhere in the property a window was banging. Nicholas followed the sound as it led him to the rear of the house. A rectangular lawn was fringed with flowerbeds that were badly neglected. The grass was ankle high. It was in this same garden that Nicholas had been obliged to court Katherine Hurrell. He shuddered as he recalled how he had allowed himself to become betrothed to her to please their respective families.
The noise took his eye upwards. It was a long, low house with eaves that jutted right down over the top of the walls. The open window was in a bedchamber that he identified at once, and the rhythmical banging was a hammer that nailed a spike into his skull. Nicholas was mesmerised. This house and that window had altered the whole course of his life. Many people had suffered as a result, and there were some things for which he could never forgive himself. Katherine Hurrell had recovered from the shock of his departure to marry another man and to leave the area. Mary Parr had not been so fortunate, nor had her daughter.
Nicholas stared up at the window as it flapped away like the wing of a trapped butterfly. He had no wish to see inside that room again. It was a tomb for so many of his hopes and ambitions. The house was sad and uncared for, but it still held its old menace for him. As Nicholas stood there and looked up, the whole building seemed to tense up in readiness, as if it was about to hurl itself at him. He could bear it no more. The Hurrell house had already struck him down once. Before it could assault him again, he took to his heels and ran all the way back to Crock Street.
It was time to liberate himself from Barnstaple.
‘When will you leave?’ asked Mary Whetcombe.
‘Tomorrow at dawn.’
‘So soon?’
‘The company is waiting for me to join them.’
‘Can nothing detain you here?’
‘No, Mary. I fear not.’
They were in the hall of the house, which she had now rightfully inherited from her husband. Lucy was playing with her dolls at the table. Nicholas had done all that he had come to do. Susan Deakin’s death had been avenged and Mary Whetcombe had been rescued from her plight. Gideon Livermore was dead and Barnard Sweete — along with other accomplices — was under lock and key. The spy in the Whetcombe household had been revealed and dismissed. A question still hovered over Arthur Calmady, and his sermons were now tentative and apologetic. His visits to Crock Street had been abruptly terminated. Nicholas wore heavy bandaging on his wounded hand, but it would not prevent him from taking ship to Bristol.
Mary Whetcombe was hampering his departure. Reluctant to see him at first, she now wished to keep him in Barnstaple, and Lucy added a smile to hold him there. When the three of them were alone together, there was happiness in the house for the first time. Nicholas was only briefly tempted. Some memories had been obliterated but others were overpowering. Robert Bracewell still stalked the streets of Barnstaple.