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  “Don’t make a custom and don’t break a custom,” Heughan repeated to himself.

  Rodrigues was behind Heughan. “Desmond is a lost soul. A broken man with no family except those he chooses, like the rest of us,” he added ruefully, before slapping Heughan on the back. “Come now, no misery. Or you can call us all Irish! Let’s drink and be merry. It’s not a bad idea.”

  When the embers of the fire had died down to soporific warmth, most of the men curled themselves into their riding cloaks and embraced sleep. Heughan remained hunched by the fire, brooding at dancing images within the smoulder. Next to him, Rodrigues heated the blade of his sharp parrying dagger, turning it slowly. He put the packet that Melisande had given him onto the ground, opening it carefully, noting the way the cloth was folded, memorising the pattern. He withdrew an inner bundle, locked from prying eyes with a red wax seal. Whistling tunelessly through the gap in his teeth, he inserted the tip of the hot knife between the two halves of the great seal and wiggled it gently until it broke apart. He scanned the contents of the letter, pocketing a small book, before turning to re-heat the blade in the fire. He caught Heughan watching him and winked. Heughan feigned disinterest and looked away. Even so, he observed with a sideways glance how Rodrigues used the blade to re-melt the wax, sticking the pieces back together again, before carefully re-wrapping it in the secret folds.

  Some hours later, the noise of oars disrupting the natural rhythm of the breakers woke Heughan from a dreamless sleep. Two small rowboats were breasting the waves, pulling closer to the shore with each stroke. Heughan propped himself up on his elbow and watched as Rodrigues strode out through the surf to grasp the first by the prow. The moon had risen large and full, spilling dappled light onto the shore as night clouds scurried across it. Heughan saw Rodrigues pull the oilskin package from beneath his doublet and pass it across to the boat in exchange for a similar packet.

  The second boat ran aground on the shore. A half a dozen indistinct shapes were bundled out of it swiftly across the wet sands, leaving melting footprints that were erased by the next wave. Casks and crates followed into the hands of the waiting reivers. Five minutes more and everything was swallowed by the dunes and spirited into the gathering night.

  Chapter 5: Birds of a Feather

  Carlisle City, Candlemas, 1603

  Heughan pushed through the Irish Gate ahead of the traffic, almost before the surprised watchman had it open. In slipshod morning brightness, the towering sandstone of William Rufus’s castle was robust of frontage; a red-headed harlot straddling Scotland’s kings and England’s queens alike.

  Early as it was, wavering knots of men were already making their way towards the Carel Cross, ready for the Candlemas hiring. The morning was bitingly cold. Frost nipped hard on the heels of the labourers, who stamped their feet impatiently, blew into reddened, chapped hands to warm them and prayed within the steam for successful employment.

  Heughan hesitated as he turned his horse up the broad cobbled stretch of Castle Street. The Quarter Day meant that there would be a steady stream of callers later for Rodrigues; settling debts, buying cloth, wine or contraband, exchanging gossip. He had ridden ahead to buy himself some time alone and didn’t want to meet trouble this early in the day. Heughan managed to dodge down haunted and empty Long Lane, skirting Treasury Court with its tight knots of hardened gossips. It was too much to hope he could make Rodrigues’s house without being stopped at least once. Sure enough, as he turned into Grape Lane, Red Sally was standing in the doorway with her brawny arms folded, a rudd stone in one hand ready to polish the step and a suspiciously welcoming smile on her shrewd face. Heughan threw one leg over the pommel, sitting sideways on the saddle to face her.

  “Morning, Sal’,” he said, testing the atmosphere. It would be most unwise to dismount until he had ascertained what sort of a reception he was going to get. Sally had a wicked aim and the rudd stone looked a hefty weight.

  Sally looked him up and down. “Morning, yourself,” she said evenly. “I expect you’re hoping for an early feed. A plate of spurs will always leave you with an empty belly,” she added slyly.

  “Aw fuck, Sal’,” groaned Heughan. “How the devil did you get to hear that tale?”

  Sally tapped the side of her nose in reply. “Devil’s right! ’Twas that old gooseberry Roddy himself what told me!” she said laughing. “Never mind, lad. Come inside and wrap yourself round something warm before you have it out with him. You’ll feel a whole lot better,” she cheered encouragingly, pushing open the door as he stepped past her into the bordello.

  Trade for the day was well underway when Heughan looked out of the casement window. He stretched out his arms above his head until the taut muscles on his shoulder blades cracked and decided that he felt really good. The feeling of euphoria lasted for all of five seconds. There she was, coming towards him from the Market Place. He hoped she might turn away, and he could mutter some choice curses at her departing back but she kept coming towards the Lanes. Melisande, he thought, sounding her name in his mind. She looked up.

  “Shit!” he grimaced. He ducked down below the window in case she had seen him and immediately felt foolish. Gingerly, he peered over the ledge and was astonished to see her knocking at the door, even further surprised when she was admitted without delay.

  A small cough from behind reminded him where he was.

  “What’s going on?” asked the girl, pulling on her shift. Heughan told her. “What’s she doing here?” he said.

  “Oh, you know, women’s matters, I ’spect. Sally probably wants her advice about the pigeon and what’s the best way to serve it up,” was the reply. Heughan marvelled at the capacity of women to be bothered with recipes and cooking things.

  The pigeon in question was roosting on the far corner of the bed in the attic, unaware of the discussions taking place concerning its fate. Red Sally and Melisande were outside the door, conferring in hushed tones. Melisande had been to the scullery for hot water and cloths, in case things got messy. She had brought everything else she needed in the leather satchel she carried on her hip; herbs, a flask of oil and a wickedly sharp knife.

  Sally was wringing her hands fretfully, muttering about the price she had paid, worrying about what was to be done, until Melisande patted them with calm reassurance and sent her away to organise the rest of the household. Melisande picked up the pail and cloths in one hand and eased the door open a fraction with the other, keeping her foot against the widening crack in case the bird panicked and tried to rush out past her. She pressed herself inside and closed the door decisively behind her.

  “Now my girl,” she said, in brisk tones but not unkindly, “let’s have a good look at you.”

  A bundle of rags on the bed unwound itself to reveal a young woman in a very dishevelled state. At some point she had pissed herself with either fright or necessity, and her homespun woollen garments smelled rank even from a distance, causing Melisande to wrinkle her nose at the sourness. She had a multi-coloured bruise on the side of her face where someone, and Melisande just knew it was a man, had back-handed her, splitting her lip and eyebrow in the process. Great brown eyes beseeched her silently.

  Melisande shushed her from the doorway and made soothing noises of the sort designed to calm nervous animals as she moved closer. Smiling reassuringly, she prised the girl’s clenched hands gently open and dipped the cloths in the warm water to bathe them. She noticed the pricked fingertips, not coarsened by rough work. “How is it that you spend so much time at your sewing?” she ventured. “Is it your trade or just occupies your hours?”

  The girl snatched her hand away with a wail of panic and crossed herself. “Are you a witch to read my palm?” she asked in English with a slight accent. Melisande sighed with exasperation and held the girl’s fingertips so that she could see them for herself. “No,” she said evenly, “I just use the gifts that have been granted to me, like the use of my own eyes.”

  She rinsed the cloths and continued wa
shing the mud and sand away from the girl’s arms. Carefully, she bathed the bruise on the girl’s face, tut-tutted when she saw the disruptive camouflage of yellow and purple, and opened her satchel to administer lavender and horse-chestnut blended with a little oil. The girl had hair the colour of bitter marmalade and Melisande tucked it behind her ears, the better to see her face. A woman, not a girl, Melisande realised. Smiling a reassurance, finding a name, she persuaded Sorcha to undress and gathered up the soiled clothes for washing or something. ‘Something’ best being a hasty bonfire, if she had her way. Melisande sluiced Sorcha’s lithe body with clean water scented with the sweet herbs from her satchel. Her gentle stroking was calming, yet all the while she was cleaning, checking and assessing with a commercial interest. She wrapped the now shivering Sorcha in layers of blankets before sitting her on the bed.

  As she sat next to her sharing scraps of coarse bread and cold capon, she gave her another frank stare. Large tears began to roll down Sorcha’s face. “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “That depends on you,” Melisande said gently.

  Sorcha looked around, noticing her surroundings for the first time. “Where am I?”

  Melisande tried to reassure her, “This is a house of women, in Carlisle. You are in England.”

  “Oh sweet Mary!” Sorcha babbled in a rush, “I thought it was just another one of his threats. He never dared strike me because he knew he’d have to pay the bride price, but he threatened he’d send me away if I wasn’t more agreeable. The year certain was nearly up, so I thought he meant back to my family. I never thought he’d sell me to blackbirders.”

  Sorcha hugged the blankets around her and snivelled. “He let them hit me and just laughed. Took the silver pennies like the Judas traitor that he was…” she broke off sobbing. Melisande could see she was frightened but knew from experience that shock and disappointment were best swallowed in one large bitter gulp, not sipped. Ireland had many types of legal marriage arrangement, yet Sorcha was not the first wife to be traded into slavery by an unscrupulous husband. Melisande felt afresh the raw pain of being ripped from her own home, an abandoned soul cast adrift in the world by a hard, cold husband who couldn’t even hold onto his own life. Uncharitably, she was reminded that Walter was harder and colder now, long-dead and packed into the earth. She wanted to reassure Sorcha that she was among friends; better yet, sisters, who understood her predicament and who would show her the means to provide her own rescue.

  The Five of Wands. Conflicting demands, she thought. Yet the card also meant a group of people from different backgrounds, struggling with accepting their way of living and finding ways to work together. That decided it for her.

  Out loud she said, “There’s no such thing as a good man. Don’t ever wait for one to rescue you, Sorcha. It’ll never happen. You have been both bought and sold. However unjust you might feel that is, it is your situation. You have a debt to pay back in order to buy your freedom. How you choose to do that is up to you.”

  Sorcha burst into more tears. “Stop,” Melisande said quietly.

  “In this house men are just business, Sorcha, just a way to put bread on the table. An easy way, especially when you’re young and pretty.”

  “I can’t,” Sorcha trembled. “That’s the problem. I don’t much care for men.”

  “No matter. Who does?” said Melisande, meeting Sorcha’s stare with knowing eyes the colour of wet slate. “What? You think you’re the first wife who finds she’s not suited to the marriage bed?”

  She stroked a finger along Sorcha’s collar bone before sliding the flat of her hand down onto her breast, cupping its firm roundness. “We don’t need men. Not when we know how to look after each other. It’s just useful to find ways to control them, whether or not we desire them.”

  “A man will fight and lash out to take what he wants. A wise woman can find a gentler path,” Melisande said softly and bent her head to Sorcha’s breast. Sorcha breathed out a small moan. Melisande smiled, a slow curve of her lips, and gently eased her back onto the bed. She kissed a meandering trail down her hipbones, stroking the flat of one hand along her flank and buttock, over the firm mound with its soft, springy hair.

  She hesitated slightly before she dipped her head between Sorcha’s legs at the cleft and kissed her hard. She felt Sorcha twitch involuntarily, arch her back, push against her. Sweat coupled with the fragrance of lavender that Melisande had used to bathe her. The smell was mossy, earthy and arousing. Sorcha pushed her hips against Melisande’s tongue, encouraging her. Melisande sucked hard in return until Sorcha released her tension.

  Afterwards, Melisande caressed her as she would a cat. She kissed the insides of Sorcha’s wrists gently on her pulse and felt her racing heartbeat slowly calm. She stayed until her breathing was the steady ease of relaxed sleep before tiptoeing gently away.

  Melisande found Sally in the scullery, chopping root vegetables. They met each other’s gaze and shared the reassurance of a smile. Melisande fetched herself some water to wash her hands and face. She rinsed her mouth and spat out. Sally sighed heavily.

  “I’m a purblind fool, I know. What was I thinking, Mele? Trading with blackbirders? I just can’t afford it! I can’t save every poor wee thing from the Isles.” She shook her head.

  Melisande crossed to her and hugged her close, let herself be enveloped in Sally’s generous warm bosom, twisting a strand of red hair that escaped from under Sally’s cap.

  “I daresay she reminded you of someone,” she said shrewdly, smiling into Sally’s eyes.

  Sally blew out her cheeks in puffed embarrassment and pushed Melisande away to rub her hands on her wide hips.

  “She’s too green, Sal. You’ll need a long time to train her up, and I doubt she’ll be willing, it’s not her inclination.” Sally looked at her too sharply and hacked angrily at the turnips.

  Melisande held her hands up, palms open in a gesture of submission. “Why not keep her by you for a while yet? Just give her a chance to see how things are. I’ll give you some sewing for her to do, let her earn her keep using her hands for now. She can be grateful in her own time.”

  Sally scowled over the turnip tops and pulled a wry face of disbelief.

  “If it’s profit you need, put the word about that you’ve a pigeon for the plucking, wait awhile and take the highest bidder,” suggested Melisande.

  Sally brightened, “I’ve done that already, Mele,” she said. “Just to a select few though, as yet.”

  Melisande shook her head. “Too soon, Sal. Don’t rush things.”

  “I need to pay the protection, Mele,” she said, imploringly. “I can’t afford freeloaders. I’ve got one of the heidsmen upstairs with Letty right now. Giving him free bed and board,” she nodded at the mess of vegetables, “just so we can stay in business.”

  “Which heidsman?” asked Melisande. “Does Roddy know?”

  Sally snorted. “Know? It’s El Diablo’s own darling boy sent to collect rent.”

  Melisande folded her arms and frowned. “So who are you paying protection to?” she asked.

  Sally huffed, “Bugger if I know; I let Roddy deal with them, it’s all so complicated. Armstrongs, Grahams, Maxwells. Too many of them. And all of them just to leave us alone!” They looked at one another and laughed at the irony.

  Melisande swung her bag around onto her hip. “I’d best speak with Lettice,” she said, “and make sure she takes proper precautions. That girl gets around faster than an awkward itchy rash, which is probably what half the town apprentices’ll have by the end of the week if she doesn’t mind herself. She’s a sneaky little besom but she’s enthusiastic, I’ll say that much for her. Right, Sal, that’s me done unless there’s anything you need from me. Are supplies running low?”

  Sally shook her head. “No, Mele. We have sponges, vinegar, your brew,” she said, checking the tally on her fingers as she ran through a mental list. “Bastards pay for passage one way, that’s all they get. No freeloaders,” she
snorted derisively, laughing at her own joke.

  Melisande didn’t join in. “Where’s the chart, Sal? I need to check it over before I go.”

  Sally nodded and rummaged in the candle box to hand her a scroll. Melisande pushed the pile of turnip tops and carrot peel from the edge of the table and unrolled it. She examined the checkerboard of crosses and squares marked next to each girl’s name, tracked the squares against the undulation of the moon ride, which ran across the top of the page.

  “Lettice is good for another se’nnight, but if you’ve black rent to pay in kind after that, you’d best introduce your heidsman to Bridie or Kitty,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ll find her and see myself out,” she said, waving goodbye and walking down the thin corridor to the stairs.

  Heughan was coming out of Lettice’s room just as Melisande came up the first flight. The wooden stairwell was too narrow for either to pass and neither moved to give way. Heughan scowled. Melisande remembered whose house she was in and smiled reluctantly, “Good morrow…sir,” she added with considered politeness.

  Heughan decided to risk his manners. “Mornin’, Mistress Melisande,” he answered but spoiled the effect by having his stomach growl a noisy echo. He looked away quickly but her face was thoughtfully straight, although her smile dropped short of her eyes when she heard him use her name. She was trying to peer up the stairs beyond him and keep her concentration on him at the same time. He was annoyed to find himself dismissed again as being of no consequence. Her question caught him off-guard.