Tidelands

“You must,” he said bluntly. “Look, I beg you. I’m sorry, but I have to go. I can’t miss this. Colonel Pride has taken the houses of parliament, praise God. The army will put in its own men, and they’ll vote down all these empty agreements with the king! I’ve got to be there. If they need an old soldier, I’ve got to stand with them. I have to see this. I can’t be down here, on the edge of the mire, getting news three weeks late, and wondering all the time what’s happening. I can’t be stuck in Foulmire like a frozen sheep in mud for the last days of my war. Alinor! This is the last battle. These were the greatest days of my life. These are the last days of the kingdom. I’ve got to be there. I was there at the beginning, I must see the end.”

Alinor closed her eyes to block out his flushed face. “I can’t keep the ferry,” she said. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“Nobody will want the ferry in the days before Christmas,” he lied. “After the Chichester Christmas market nobody’ll go off Sealsea Island. God knows, nobody’ll come here. They’ll all stay home for the season.”

“They will! They will!” Alinor was more and more distressed. “Nobody wants to go through the wadeway in winter. They’ll all want to go on the ferry, even at low tide, and at high tide they’ll load horses. I can’t do it, Brother. Not on cold water. Not on the winter tides. Don’t make me! I can’t—I swear that I can’t.”

“But I can,” Alys said suddenly from behind her. “I’ll keep the ferry for you, Uncle Ned.”

“You?”

“Yes, but you have to pay me. You know I don’t have all my dowry yet. I’ll keep the ferry for you for five shillings. I mean five shillings on top of the money you’ve promised me as a gift. Five shillings and I keep all the ferry fees.”

“You can’t,” Alinor turned to her daughter. “You can’t be on the water. I couldn’t bear it. You’re not strong enough, when the tide’s high . . .”

“Yes, she can,” Ned said. “What harm’ll come to her? And Rob can come back from the Priory and help.”

Alinor closed her eyes at the thought of her children on the dark waters of the winter mire. “Please,” she said quietly. “Please don’t do this. You know I can’t spare them.”

“Five shillings for my wedding,” Alys bargained. “And I keep all the fees.”

Ned held out his hand. “Done.” To his sister he said: “I’m sorry; I have to go. I know that the army’ll bring the king to London. I pray that they’ll charge him with treason against us, the people. He’s guilty as sin, and I want to see him answer for his crimes. He’s destroyed the peace of England and been the death of thousands of good men—it’s all been for nothing unless we gain our freedom from him. And I want to see him punished as I’d want to see a witch drowned. This is the end of tyrants in England, this is the start of our new country. I must be there to see him humbled. Sister, I have to be there.”

Alys, her face bright and uncaring, handed over the basket of oils to her uncle. “You can carry those for Ma,” she said, “as you go together to Chichester. And I’ll stay here. I’ll start today.”

He grinned like a lad. “Pull us over then,” he said.

“A halfpenny for the two of you,” she said, putting out her hand and slipping the coin that he gave her into the pocket of her gown. Ned took Alinor’s arm and helped her onto the ferry; she clamped her scarred hands on the wooden rail.

“Don’t fear,” he said to her. “No harm will come to her on the water. How should it? There’s nothing to fear except your dreams of drowning. And I’ll come back soon.”

“When?” she demanded.

“When it’s over,” he said, his face bright. “When the king has begged pardon of the people of England.”

Alinor and Ned parted at the Market Cross in the center of Chichester where the stone cross marked the roads that ran north and south, east and west. Ned was going to walk north to London, confident that someone would offer him a lift on the way, the wagons rolling easily on the frozen roads.

“There’ll be many old soldiers going to London for news,” he said confidently. “Many of us have waited for this for years.”

“But you’ll come back when it’s all over?” Alinor asked, putting her hand on his sleeve. “You won’t enlist again? Not even if the Irish rise against us, or the Scots invade again? You won’t go with Cromwell’s army?”

“That’s finished,” he said certainly. “There’ll be no more wars, there’ll be no more uprisings. The king will have to swear on his life to live in peace, and all the poor men who marched on one side or the other will be able to go home, and the brave women who kept the houses against their enemies will be able to live in peace at last.”

“I ask you, because I have troubles that I haven’t told you,” Alinor said choosing her words with care. “I’m going to need you at home, Brother. I’m going to need your help.”

At once, he was alert. “Has Zachary come back? Have you heard from him?”

“No, God be praised, no,” she said quickly. “But I have to get Alys married and Rob into his work and I have a difficulty, a difficulty of my own. I’ll need your help.”