to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) Read online

  "Is it you, Lila? It has been long, girl."

  "I am passing."

  "I heard you speak. So you come and go. Well, it is a far land to which you go, and so has it always been with us. So many have gone, so few have come back. It is the sea that takes them, or the farther shores. I do not know."

  She moved easily, putting food on the table. "There's a slab of mutton from the moors beside the sea. The sheep eat salt grass and theirs is the best flesh of all. Eat, boy, and do not stand on time. The food will stay with you and the memory of it where you go. My mam said always to take a cargo of memories, whatever else, for when all is lost the memories remain."

  She looked at Lila. "Your mistress is a good woman, girl?"

  "She is that. And this one a good man, although I doubted him at first. I did not think any man good enough. Nor do I fear to sail with him. Only the Icelander must be wary or this one will own the boat."

  "You have the gift, girl. What do you see?"

  She looked up. "I will not speak of that, Mam."

  "Come! Is it so bad, then?"

  "No." She hesitated, smoothing her strong white hands on her skirt. "Only dark times lie before and about us, dark, dark times. I will marry there, Mam, and die there, too, with a son to leave behind."

  "And this one?"

  "Four sons, Mam, that live. Some others will die, and she will die in England, and he ... alone ... he will die alone with a weapon in his hand, and there will be fire around and howling madness with the flames. It is not a good thing of which to talk."

  Somberly I looked at her. "And will I die old or young, Lila?"

  "Old," she said, "Old. Your sons will be men, one of them lost afar off whom you will not see again, far, far off in a strange place. But he will live to leave his blood behind, as will the others."

  "But Abigail will come again to England? She will leave me, then?"

  "Not like that. I see love always. But she will leave. I do not know why, nor when ... and she will not come back. I see blood upon the shore, and some people already in America are gone ... gone ..."

  I ate in silence then, brooding upon what she had said. I believed only a little, but they believed, and that worried me.

  Yet, what was there in what she said to worry about? I should live to an old age, I should have four sons to leave behind, and I should have sewn my seed in a new land, under new trees.

  "Old," I said. "Well, we must all grow old, and die when the hour comes. But what of the Queen? Will she relent? Will she learn I have no treasure?"

  "She will not relent, nor will he who comes after. You will be sought always, for this is fixed in their minds: that you have found the royal crown, and you have kept it for yourself. When it is found that you are in America, some will come seeking you, and you will hide ... you will go far."

  "To the blue mountains then?"

  "To the very mountains. You will lose yourself in them, and they will give you food, shelter, all that you need. You will live in their bosom."

  "Ah, well. It is what I want, after all."

  For I was contented then. The mountains would be mine. I would go to them, wander among them, know them. Was not that my destiny, after all?

  Footsteps, an opening door, and then the huge frame of Owain was standing there.

  "Men come. Four men upon horses."

  "Are they strangers?"

  "Aye. Would I come if they were not?" He looked at me. "The boat makes ready.

  You will go then?"

  "I shall, and take your sister there. First, I must stand in the road and see what manner of men they be."

  "I would stand with you. I'll get my axe."

  My hand lifted. "See your sister to the boat. Did you not say there were only four?"

  Sword in hand, and two pistols belted on, I walked out upon the road of gray pounded shells, and I stood there, dark against the road, watching them come.

  The mountain was behind me, dark against the sky, a piece of the sea was on my right. Under my black cloak was my sword. My hand on the hilt, the sword half-drawn.

  I waited for them there, and hoped they would be strong.

  Chapter 10

  A rough-looking man now stood in front of the cottage. He looked both at me and the men coming toward me. He called out something over his shoulder. Two other men came from the house.

  Across the road near the shore, a man was mending a net. As Owain passed, going to the boat, he spoke. Then the man left his net, holding a long pole.

  The riders were coming nearer. Several other people appeared and stood, watching.

  The riders drew up, facing me, some thirty feet off. One of them was Robert Malmayne!

  "So? We meet again!"

  "There is a sadness on me," I said, cheerfully, "for we meet only to part."

  "Not this time, I think. You are my prisoner, Sackett."

  "You say that to me when you have only three men behind you? And what men they are! I think they have no stomach for steel, or you, either."

  My sword slid easily from the scabbard, the point lifting-there was a whispering of sandalled feet upon the shell road, a whispering around me. "Go!" A voice spoke in my ear. "The wind does not wait!"

  "And leave these gentlemen?" I said.

  There must have been fifty people around us now, both men and women, with a few children. They were saying nothing, but crowding closer and closer. Some had spears, others had poles or sticks. Some had nothing. One at least held a scythe and there were several with wood-axes.

  "Back up there!" Malmayne shouted. He waved at them.

  "You are in Wales, Malmayne. They do not speak English."

  "Tell them to get back."

  "I don't speak Welsh, and what are they doing? You are strangers, and they are merely curious."

  "By heaven, I'll teach them who is strange!"

  He started for his sword but found a large hand already on the hilt. He looked down into a smiling, bearded face. Malmayne cursed, but the hand on the sword hilt would not be moved.

  "Careful, Malmayne!" I warned, smiling. "These are good folk, but somewhat rough when stirred."

  Now they were crowded tightly around all four horsemen, so close the horses could not move. One fellow had a hold on a rider's leg. He was smiling, just holding the leg, but the implication was clear-one heave and the rider would be sprawling in the road.

  "Come!" Owain shouted. "The wind is for the sail! Come quickly!"

  Backing away, I sheathed my sword, then ran lightly to the shore. Lila was with me. I caught the gunwhale of the boat and we leaped aboard. We shoved off. The wind took the sail and it bellied out.

  "I shall see you die by fire!" Malmayne shouted. "I shall have a warship after you!"

  With Holyhead behind us, we held a course to the southwest for Wicklow Point, far and away across the Irish Sea.

  "What will they do?" I asked, gesturing behind us.

  "They? Nothing. After a bit they will drift back to their work and your Malmayne can do as he feels, which will not be much on Anglesey. He'll get no boat there, nor for miles away, and by that time we shall be along the Irish coast, which none knows better than I."

  We had a strong wind, a following wind, and the sea went well before us. After a bit I went below and lay down on some mats and sails and slept. When I awoke, our vessel was south of Wicklow Head and off the Horse Shoe Bank which we kept inland of us.

  "When you sleep, you sleep!" Owain declared. He pointed ahead and to starboard.

  " 'Tis an easy coast here, if one be watchful. Yon lies a rock ... Wolf Rock, 'tis called, and she bares her teeth when the wind blows. There are banks along the coast, no place for a ship to be caught, so a man must hold well out upon the sea. Most of the dangers lie four to six miles out, along here."

  We stood together, watching the sea ahead. "Landsmen!" he said. "Such fools, they are! Why, a month ago in Dublin town I heard one talk in a tavern, a wise man, they said he was, and he was saying how ancient seafaring me
n were afeard to venture to sea, that they always held close along the coast for safety. I laughed at him, and he became angered."

  "Did you tell him?"

  "I did, but what good to tell fools? I told him the dangers of the deep ocean were one in ten to the risks along an unknown coast, or even a known one. He looked at me with pity for my ignorance, he who had never set a sail nor held a hand to the tiller. Look you! Ahead of us lie the Arklow Bank, the Glassgorman, Blackwater and Dogger, and any one a death trap-be you not knowing them. Yet the sea looks innocent enough to a landsman."

  "The Icelander you spoke of. Where will he be?"

  Owain considered that. "He may have moved, yet I think in Castlehaven or Glandore. He does not like busy places, that one."

  Green lay the coast and gray the sea, and the wind whipped whitecaps from the wave crests and stung our faces widi blown spray. Our craft lay over on its side and cut the waves handily as if playing with the sea, like a porpoise. We saw only a few fishing boats closer in, and one square-rigged ship, afar off.

  From time to time I took the tiller.

  It was Glandore Bay to which we came at last, rounding Galley Head and Foilsnashark Head and keeping Adam Island well off our port beam. The Bay was small, but it penetrated well into the land and was thus well-protected from all winds.

  There were two castles in view. This was, or had been, a seat of the O'Donovans.

  The gray walls of Castle Donovan arose on our port side.

  We dropped anchor there, close in, and the ship we looked for was there, the Icelander standing by the rail watching us as we steered into the harbor.

  "Hoy, Thorvald!" Owain called. "I have two for your ship!"

  "Ve sail for Newfoundland!" Thorvald called back. "Ve sail at first light!"

  "It is my sister who goes, and an Englisher. We have followed you from Anglesey!"

  A skiff was lowered and Lila climbed down, then I. Owain rowed us over, and we climbed aboard.

  "A woman aboard my ship? I would do it only for you, Owain!"

  Thorvald was broad and thick, heavy-boned and blond. He looked at me with piercing blue eyes. "You are a sailor, yes?"

  "I am."

  "Vhere is it you go?"

  "To Virginia, but Newfoundland is a step upon the way. We thank you."

  "Somevon looks for you?"

  "Aye, mayhap a Queen's ship, but if you do not wish to risk it, we will find another way, or buy our own boat and sail it together."

  Thorvald chuckled. "You'll find that hard, very hard! And cold, too." He smiled wryly. "If a Queen's ship will follow vhere ve go, she may have you, und velcome."

  The hills were green and lovely around the Bay of Glandore, and the crumbling ruin of Castle Donovan looked wild and strange among the thick-standing trees above the bay. We went ashore in the skiff, and at a place to which Owain took us, I bought some provisions.

  Curiously, I glanced around the old building. It was a combination warehouse and shop, a place I suspected where a goodly portion of the merchandise had been smuggled. We bought what we needed, including some additional stores for the ship, and then returned to our boat.

  It was no great craft, at all, but built somewhat on the lines of a Norwegian bojort with a square topsail above the spritsail, a lateen mizzen and a small spritsail under the bowsprit. It was called the Snarri, and I liked the look and the feel of her. She was steered with a whipstaff, which gave the man at the helm a chance to observe the sails.

  There was a small cabin aft and a section was curtained off for Lila.

  The sky was gray when we left the emerald-green harbor of Glandore behind and sailed past the islands into open sea. Standing amidships I looked back at Ireland. Would I ever again see the isles of Britain?

  The wind blew smartly from the south, yet Thorvald crowded on what sail we had to make good time toward Iceland. A sound of distant thunder with far-off streaks of lightning warned us what trouble lay ahead, but Thorvald had grown up on a ship's deck, and the man on the whipstaff was a burly fellow of forty years or more, who looked the Viking he was.

  Shortly before noon I relieved the helmsmen, and Thorvald stood by, keeping a close eye upon me for he was no man to trust his ship to an unknown. But I was a fair hand from the boating down off the fens. After a bit he no longer watched so closely, trusting my hand and judgment.

  Most of the time, Lila stayed below. When the weather was mild enough and the ship steady, she cooked with supplies from the stores, always warm, nourishing food.

  Thorvald looked at her and shook his head. "You spoil us all, Lila. It is not good for sailor to expect too much!"

  He wasted no time, but laid a course for the northwest, pulling steadily away from any area where a search might be directed, steering toward the cold northern waters.

  At midnight I awakened and came on deck to stand beside Thorvald. "If you wish to sleep," I said, "you can leave her to me."

  "I am tired," he said simply. "The course is northwest-by-north."

  He went below, and I was alone with the man on the whip-staff, whose face I could not see under his cowling.

  The wind had grown colder with the days, and when at last the mountains of Iceland loomed ahead we gathered amidship to look at land again, and Thorvald took us easily into a small cove where lay his home.

  Three days we lay in port, and then once more set sail. Now the wind was steady but cold. And on the night watch it grew suddenly colder. Wary of some change, I awakened Thorvald.

  He came on deck, sniffed to smell the wind, waited a bit, and then said, "Ice!"

  We changed course toward the south. Suddenly I saw something white and glistening in the water. It was ice. Soon we saw several patches of broken ice and then, looming, a huge berg.

  We passed her, several hundred yards off, a vast white tower pointing an icy finger at the clouds.

  The days passed swiftly. It was a gray and overcast day when we sighted the birds of Witless Bay, and turned north along the coast, for we'd made our landfall a bit to the south of our port.

  We moved into St. John's harbor and dropped our anchor there. Many boats were about, Portuguese, Basque, and Icelandic fishermen, and some others, just as obviously pirates. The pirates loved the rugged bays and small harbors of the island. They liked to recruit seamen there, for the Newfoundlanders were hardy men, skilled in all the work of ships and the sea, welcome aboard any ship, but doubly so aboard pirate craft for whom speed and seamanship were a prime requirement.

  "Ve'll go no further here," Thorvald said. "Ve sell vhat ve have brought and ve load fish for home."

  "I wish I could tempt you. I've traded for furs along that coast." I indicated where the large land might lie beyond the island. "There's a fortune to be had for the taking."

  Thorvald shook his head, although his eyes held on the western horizon.

  "Think, man," I suggested, "you could take back as much in one voyage as in four."

  He shook his head again. "I vill find a boat for you," he said, "I know all here, und they know me."

  It was a bold island to which we had come, and there were bold men about, ships fitting for the sea. And boats came in to dry their fish or to replenish supplies for another spell upon the dark water.

  An eagerness was upon me now. I had come far upon my way, and I thought only of Abigail and our ship and my friends. Always the blue mountains hung like a mist at the back of my dreams, and there was no challenge that called to me as they did.

  We went ashore and moved among the fishermen, Thorvald, Lila, and I, buying what things we needed, for it was a goodly port of supply.

  Suddenly a huge man stood before me. He was bigger than I by breadth and height.

  A strong man he looked, and certainly he felt himself so.

  "The wench, there," he gestured at Lila. "Fifty English pounds for her!"

  "She's a free woman," I said.

  "Bah!" he sneered. "What woman is free when money is offered? I want her! A hundred pounds,
then!" His eyes bulged a little as he leaned toward me. His face was red with drinking.

  "No," I said. "Now stand aside."

  "Stand aside!" he shouted. "You say that to me?"

  He was a big man and drinking. A dangerous man, I thought, and I was of no mind to fight with him then. I was impatient to be off to the south, hungry for a ship to take me there, and irritated by this great oaf who stood there, breathing his foulness upon me.

  He reached for his sword, so I dropped one hand to stay the drawing of it, and with the fist of the other I smashed him in the wind.

  It hit him hard and his breath left him with a gasp. But knowing a hurt man is not a whipped man, I spread my legs and swung both fists to his jaw.

  Both landed ... and as I have said, I am strong as two men ... or three.

  He sat down hard in the mud, blood streaming from his smashed nose and mouth. He was stunned by my blows. So I walked by him and went on. Thorvald stared at me.

  "There is power in you," he said. "But do you know who he is?"

  "No."

  "Nor I ... but he comes from yon ship," he pointed to a Dutch fluyt that lay in the land-locked harbor, "and he is a pirate."

  "No matter," I said, but I lied. For suddenly there was a great envy upon me.

  The fluyt was a neat, compact, and handsome vessel, every line of her speaking of speed and good handling.

  "He comes," Lila said quietly.

  Turning, I saw the big man had gained his feet. A half dozen were gathered about him, all looking toward me. He pointed, then took a step toward me but staggered and almost fell again.

  A lean-faced man with dark, pleasant eyes stepped up to us. "Yon's a quarrelsome, trouble-making man. We'll be well rid of him when he goes."

  "Is that truly his ship?" I asked.

  "It is."

  "And is he truly a pirate?"

  "He is ... and fresh from robbing good fishermen upon the Banks, and making ready to sail for the Antilles when he is finished with his drinking."

  "I am Barnabas Sackett," I said, "from England, and this is my good friend Thorvald."

  "I know him," the lean man said. "You travel in good company."