Tidelands

“I shouldn’t think so,” James replied. “This is a godly town, or at least it used to be. But we can stroll round the market, and you can buy a fairing for your mother. Perhaps some ribbons for her hair.” He found that his throat was suddenly dry at the thought of her fair hair.

“No, she always wears a cap,” Rob replied. “But if there are some little tokens for sale, I’d get them. She likes old coins, little tokens. Come on.”

The two boys walked through the market, looking at the stalls and laughing at the tricks of a small dog who was trained to jump through a hoop and would stand on his hind legs at the command of “Ironsides!” The stalls went down the narrow streets towards the harbor where the River Medina wound through the town, and the boats bobbed at the quayside. James was looking out for ships that had newly arrived, or might be ready to set sail, when Rob suddenly exclaimed: “Da! My da!”

James wheeled round and saw a brown-faced, dark-haired man jerk up his head at a familiar voice. He caught a glimpse of the strange face, looking astounded. Then the man turned and plunged away into the crowd.

“That was my da! That was my da!” Rob shouted. “Da! It’s me! Rob! Wait for me!” He took to his heels, darting forward, worming his way through the crowds, and though the man’s dark head bobbed ahead of him, Rob was quicker. When James and Walter caught up with him, he had laid hold of the man and pitched himself into his arms. “It’s me!” he announced, joyously certain of his welcome. “It’s me! It’s me, Da! Rob.”

The man’s guilty eyes met James’s gaze over his son’s head. “Rob,” he said, patting the boy’s back. “Oh, Rob.”

Rob was fawning like a puppy. “Where’ve you been?” he said. “We didn’t know! We’ve been waiting and waiting! We thought you were drowned!”

James saw that the stranger was looking at him with a sort of desperation, as one man to another, in this terrible failure of fatherhood.

“They thought you had been pressed into the navy,” James prompted.

“Ah! I was. That I was!” the man said, suddenly glib. He hugged his son and then stepped back to see his face. “I didn’t recognize you, you’ve grown so tall. And dressed so fine! I can see you’ve done well enough without me!”

“We haven’t! Where’ve you been?” Rob insisted.

“It’s a long story,” the man said. “And I’ll tell you all of it some day.”

“Why didn’t you come home?”

“Why didn’t I come home? Why, I couldn’t come home, that’s why!”

“But why not?”

“Because I was pressed, Son. Snatched up by the navy press gang off my boat and taken to serve in the navy for the parliament. Served as a common seaman and then rose through the ranks since I knew the seas around Sealsea Island and all the way to the Downs.”

“But why didn’t you send a message to Ma?”

“Bless you, they don’t let you go ashore! They don’t give you high days and holy days off! I was on my ship and spoke to no one but the other poor curs who were pressed alongside me.”

James watched Alinor’s son, raised to love and trust, struggle to believe his father. “You couldn’t even get a message to us? Because we waited and waited for you to come, and Ma still doesn’t know if you’re alive or dead. I’ll have to tell her when I get home. She’ll hardly believe me! She’s been waiting. We’ve all been waiting for you to come home!”

“Oh, she knows.” He nodded rapidly. “It’s better for her to act as if she doesn’t. But you know your ma, Son. A woman like that—she knows in her bones. She knows in her waters. She doesn’t need a message to tell her what’s what. The wind and the waves tell her. The moon whispers to her. The birds in her hedge are her familiars. God knows what she knows and what she doesn’t know, but you needn’t worry about her, ever.”

An icy sweat of sheer hatred washed over James as he saw the boy struggling to comprehend this, the puzzled frown on his young face, as the faithless father told the boy that his mother was faithless too.

“I don’t think she does know,” Rob said tentatively. “She would’ve told us when we asked where you were.”

“Well, you’re doing well enough for yourself anyway,” his father said cheerfully. “Fine clothes and fine friends.” He turned to James. “I’m Zachary Reekie,” he said. “Captain of the coastal trader Jessie.”

“I’m James Summer,” James said, not offering his hand. “Tutor to Master Walter Peachey here, and to your son, who is his lordship’s server of the body and companion.”

“In the Peachey household?” Zachary demanded of his son. “Didn’t I say there was no need to worry about your mother? What did she have to do to get you in there? Imagine I know! Is Mr. Tudeley still the steward there?”

Rob flushed scarlet. “My mother keeps the stillroom for the Priory,” he stumbled.