“I loved her,” I said, my voice trembling.
“I loved her too,” he answered.
“And yet …”
He was himself again, the softness passed. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said roughly. “Maria was irresistible … a witch, if you like. She’d put a spell on me.”
“And even though she had murdered my mother and you knew it, you married her.”
“It’s something you’re too young to understand.”
“I understand there is such a thing as unbridled lust,” I said contemptuously.
“’Twas more than that. Try to understand, Tamsyn.”
“I understand this,” I retorted. “You are a murderer, for I hold you guilty with her.”
“It was done before I knew it. There was nothing I could do to stop it.”
“Only marry her and enjoy the fruits of her infamy.”
“You will never understand.”
“Alas for me. I understand too well.”
“You will cease your insolence, girl, or I’ll take you to the courtyard and lash you there myself.”
“Yes,” I answered, “you are capable of that.”
He did not try to stop me as I pushed past him and left him standing in my room.
I did not know what I was going to do. All through the morning I looked for my stepmother but she was nowhere to be found.
It was afternoon when Fenn rode over.
I heard his voice in the courtyard and my heart started to beat madly.
I ran out to him.
“Fenn,” I said, “at last you have come.”
He dismounted.
He took my hands and looked at me steadily. “I’ve wronged you, Tamsyn,” he said; and my heart leaped and in spite of all my indecisions and the horror which was all about me I was happy.
“I must talk to you,” he said. “Where can we be alone?”
“In the burial ground,” I told him.
We went there together.
There he said, “So it is my father who lies there.”
“You know,” I answered.
He clenched his fists suddenly. “The murderers!” he said. “I shall avenge him.”
“I was hurt when you didn’t come,” I told him.
“I was miserable … most of all to think that you had been a party to this.”
“I never was.”
“I know that now. I know that you saved one of our ships. I have spoken to the captain and he has told me that the Paling Light prevented a disaster. And I know now that it was you who lighted the lanterns after they had been put out.”
“I did not know of this foul trade. Not until I read my mother’s journal. She knew. But he was her husband.”
He nodded.
“I love you, Tamsyn,” he said.
I said: “It’s a strange place in which to be so happy.”
“But before I can speak to you of this I have something to do. Your father is responsible for my father’s death. I have sworn that my father’s murderer shall not go free. I have come here today to speak not of love but of hatred. I shall never forget, Tamsyn. I shall kill him. I am going to make him pay for the lives of my father and those innocent sailors.”
“Let us go away from here. I never want to see this place again. The sound of the wind howling round the walls, the knowledge of what has been done here nauseates me. Let’s go right away from here.”
“And if we go away, what then? Shall they be left to ply their hateful trade. How could we go away knowing that they went on luring ships on to the rocks to destroy them.”
“Then what can we do?”
“I am going to stop this forever. He has plundered his last ship.”
“How can you stop it?”
“What he does is a crime against humanity.”
“He is a powerful man in these parts. I know of none who do not tremble before him. Suppose you inform against him. Where would you inform? What would happen? He is too powerful. You would never stop him. He would have means of evading justice.”
He looked beyond me with a faraway look in his eyes, and he said, “There is only one way of making sure that he never does this again. That is by killing him.”
“But you are a man of peace,” I said.
“This is the way to bring peace. Sometimes it is necessary to remove someone who is corroding the society in which we live. We had to kill Spaniards when we defeated the Armada. I have no remorse for them. We were saving our country from a cruel enemy. We drove off those ships which carried the invader and his instruments of torture. I would fight again and again; I would kill any Spaniard who tried to land in England. This is different. This is a ship full of cargo, a trading ship. The wrecker wants that cargo so he lures the ship on to the rocks; he sends thousands of men and women to their deaths for he must make sure that there are no survivors to carry the tale of villainy where it might be acted on. No, there is only one way, I say.”
I looked at him fearfully. In his eyes there was a fanatical hatred—so alien to him.
“I am going to kill your father,” he said.
“No, Fenn,” I cried; and I put my arms about him.
He put them aside; then he looked at me sadly.
“It would always be between us,” he said. “He killed my father. I can never forget that nor forgive him. And I shall kill yours. You will never forget that either.”
He looked down at his father’s grave; then he turned away and left me there.
I ran after him. I had to stop him, I knew he meant what he said. He had idolized his father; he had gone on doing so after he was dead. He had refused to believe that he was dead and gone on dreaming of his return.
And my father was responsible for his death—he had killed him as certainly as though he had run him through with a cutlass and left him to die.
I heard the shouting voices above the wind.
“He be gone out,” said one.
I saw them in the Seaward courtyard. There were about four of the men who worked with my father.
“He be at the Teeth,” said Jack Emms, a dark-haired man with battered features.
“Why should he go there?” cried Fenn. “There’s no wreck. He’s been merciful of late. There has been no disaster there for the last two months to my knowledge.”
“There he be gone, Master.”
Fenn had the man by the throat. I had not known he was capable of such violence. It was born of anger which came from the love of his father. He could not forget that but for this man, his father would have been alive today.
“Tell me where he is. I will know,” he said, “or it will be the worse for you.”
I saw then that Fenn was a man with the strength of my father. I had thought him gentle and so he would be—gentle and tender; but he was an idealist as his father had been and now he was full of righteous anger.
“He be gone, Master, with Jan Leward. There always be cargo that stays in the foundered ships. We go out now and then to recover it.”
“I am going out there,” said Fenn. “I am going to catch him at his evil trade.”
“Nay, Master.”
“But yes,” cried Fenn. “Yes, yes!”
I was terrified. I pictured my father out there at the Teeth, with the howling wind whipping the waves to fury. And Fenn there … in the midst of his enemies.
I wanted to cry: “Don’t go. Jack Emms is your enemy. All these men are your enemies. They will destroy you because you have come among them like an avenging angel. You are trying to destroy their lucrative business. Fenn, don’t go.”