The Witch From The Sea Part 19

There was a chill in the air. I missed my petticoat. I thought: I can't stay up here until someone finds where I am. On the other hand the thought of going back into the tower repelled me.

It was quickly growing dark. How stupid I had been to come so far inside. I should have stood at the door and looked about me and then when someone came along-as someone must have-I could have insisted that whoever it was accompanied me on my tour.

I had been foolish and what could I do now?

I walked farther along the ramparts. Here the battlements were fairly low. I leaned over. It made me feel dizzy. Nonna had died after she had found Ysella. She should not have been so curious. It was as though the evil-looking faces carved out of stone up there on the battlements were laughing at me.

Suddenly I heard a shrill piercing scream and looking down I saw one of the women servants running through the archway which led from Ysella's courtyard to another.

I shouted but I was too late for she had disappeared and again my voice was carried away by the wind.

She must have seen me up here on the ramparts. She would think I was the ghost. But she would tell someone and perhaps they would come. I waited expectantly.

But no one came. It was almost dark now. I could not spend the night up here. It was better to go into the castle.

On impulse I threw my petticoat over the ramparts. They would search for me and that would let them know that they had to come here. They would open the door then and come and find me, for the garment would surely give them a clue as to my whereabouts.

I watched it flutter to the ground. It was uncanny. It looked as though it were a woman falling down. What had Nonna felt when she discovered her husband had been unfaithful to her? Life was no longer good for her and she had decided to take her life.

It was the fading light; it was the tension which I must necessarily feel in this situation which had made me fanciful; but it did seem as though that was a human being falling. There was a screech as she fell, but it was the gulls, startled perhaps by what would seem to them a gigantic bird floating down. Several of them rose overhead calling protestingly.

I stood there shivering.

Someone will find the petticoat soon and come for me, I promised myself.

I found my way down the spiral staircase, not so easy to manage in the gloom. I reached the gallery and went down to the hall.

It looked different now. There was very little light coming through the windows, which were few and so narrow. The Tower was built for defence and the lower windows were meant to supply the minimum light and air, for in a fortress the lower part was the most vulnerable.

I picked my way between bales of cloth that had been sodden and were drying out, garments, spices, goods which had been carried from one place to another-gold, silver, ivory; the kind of commodities which my father and the Landors were dealing in. Trade.

So much slipped into place. Colum going out on the nights of storm. His clothes soaked with rain and sea water. The Ysella tower to be locked and intrusion into the courtyard discouraged. Jennet dismissed from the Seaward Tower on the nights when Colum and some of his men were going on a journey. The men who inhabited the Seaward Tower who were not quite the same as the other servants. "They are fishermen, they catch our fish and I am very fond of fish," he had said. They were men of the sea, those who inhabited the Seaward Tower. There were boats there, there were horses and donkeys, pack-horses.

I felt sick. I did not know whether it was the smell of these sea-saturated goods or the knowledge which had come to me or the thought of Colum's anger if he ever knew that I had intruded into his tower. And he would know. Even now he would be looking for me. He would search for me and they would find my petticoat in the courtyard. That would surely lead them to Ysella's Tower.

It was clear now. These goods which filled the tower had come from shipwrecked ships. On the night of a storm when ships were unable to withstand the fury of the elements, when they broke up on our coast, Colum and his servants were there. They salvaged the goods; they brought them ash.o.r.e; they stored them in Ysella's Tower and then he made bargains with men such as those he met in The Traveller's Rest.

And it was a secret.

Was it against the law then to take goods from the sea? Was this why it must be done in secret? He had been angry when he had discovered my curiosity about the tower. He had told me the story in the hope that I would be afraid to go near it because it was said to be haunted.

He had not wished me to know of this. When I found the amulet, he knew that it had fallen from some goods which had been brought into the tower. The locket he gave to me he knew to have been part of these goods. When he gave me a present of jewellery, and he had given me one or two, he came down here and selected it. Something which looked like new ... or would have done if I had not discovered the secret spring and the name in it.

What was this business of his? It seemed that there was something callous about a man who could come by his merchandise through the distress of others.

I shivered. Deep down in my heart I knew that there was something frightening about Colum. I knew that had I married Fennimore Landor I should have lived a peaceful happy life; my only anxiety would be when he took his sea voyages, and that would be for his safety, not for my own.

What a strange thought that was. But my mind felt so lucid now. It was as though a misty mirror had been wiped and I could now see clearly what was reflected.

Colum would be angry. What form would his anger take? If he raged against me, if he struck me-he never had but there were times when I had thought he was about to-I think I should be more at ease than if he silently accepted what I had done.

He would give me some explanation of course. But I did not need an explanation. I knew the answer. This was his profession. He owned much land, it was true, and he was said to be rich. But was he so because he sold jewels and the like which he took from sinking ships?

No wonder he was a little contemptuous of my father's plan and that of the Landors for trading. Here was an easier way of bringing in merchandise than sailing the seas for it; here it was brought to his own sh.o.r.es.

It was growing darker. There was very little light coming into the hall. I could make out the shapes of the various objects; and I thought of people who had sailed with them. I could see it so clearly, the wind and the storm lashing their useless masts, the creaking of their vessels, the dying cries of the drowning and the cargo breaking free to be flung hither and thither on the frothing waters of the sea until it was picked up by the scavengers.

The scavengers! That was how I thought of them. I knew this much. I hated my husband's profession. And he must be ashamed of it, or why should he attempt to keep it a secret from me?

I looked about the hall. If I could but find some light, I thought, I would feel better. I hated the gloom of the place. It was eerie, ghostly.

I sat down by a bale of cloth and tried to shut out its musty odour.

"Oh come, someone," I prayed. "Rescue me. Am I to spend the night here?"

They would miss me of course. They would come to search for me. Perhaps already Jennet was telling Colum that I had not come to the nursery to put my children to bed, for that was a task I insisted on doing myself.

It was dark now. I sat very still listening. A strange scuttle on the stairs. It would be mice perhaps. Or rats. I shivered. Rats who had secreted themselves in some of the bales. They always left the sinking ship though.

One imagines noises. That sounded like a step on the stairs. Could it be the ghost of Nonna? She had given way to her curiosity and died soon after. Died because of it. Nonna had been murdered. She was the unwanted wife. If that long dead Casvellyn had been satisfied with his wife, why should he have set up Ysella in her Tower?

It was a crazy story. It did not make sense. How would it have been possible to keep two wives in the same castle and one not know of the other's existence?

The wind was rising. How clearly I could hear the sound of the sea. It was washing now about the foundations of the castle; it was completely covering the Devil's Teeth. Somewhere out to sea a ship might be in distress. And Colum would be watching so that he and his men might go out and profit from it.

I hated this. Yet my father had been a pirate. He had thought it right to rob the Spanish galleons who crossed his path. How many times had he sailed home, the hold of his ship crammed with treasure-filched from the Spaniards.

My mother said it was robbery. "You are a brigand," she had told him, "a pirate."

And the answer: "This is an age of pirates."

How dark it was. How the wind buffeted the great walls of the castle. And then the lull and the silence which was more frightening than the noise of the wind. The sudden noise from above. What was it-some rat or mouse ... or the footfall of one who was dead and could not rest?

I am fanciful, I know it. I do imagine things. I kept staring into the gloom expecting at any moment to see the ghostly figure on the stairs. Nonna walking slowly, coming towards me, a terrible coldness enveloping me as I am close to the dead and Nonna whispering: "I warn you. I have come back to warn you."

It was imagination. There was nothing ... only the dark hall with the shapes I could see as my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom.

What time is it? I wondered. How long had I been here?

Long enough for them to miss me.

I am going to spend the night in Ysella's Tower, I thought. I remembered how many times I had wished to look inside. Well, now I had, and here I was, a prisoner.

I was trembling. I was certain I was not alone in the tower. The thought sent a shiver down my spine. What had Nonna felt when she knew that her husband had a mistress whom he kept in this tower? I could picture her bewildered grief. And then she had died. Had she died of her own will or was she helped to her death?

I wondered how long I had been in the tower. It must be two hours. It had been about three o'clock when I came. Now it must be five. They would have missed me by now. I was sure of it.

If only I had a light. If only I could find a candle. I would set it in one of the windows. What of the serving-girl who had seen me on the ramparts? Had she not gone back to her fellow servants and told them what she had seen? They would laugh at her. How many times had one of the servants sworn she had seen the ghost of Ysella's Tower?

Perhaps I should go up to the ramparts. Someone might come into the courtyard. If I shouted someone might hear me in time.

I stood up. The fearsome eerieness wrapped itself about me. I almost fell over a bale which I had not noticed. Its sea-damp odour swept up as I touched it.

My footsteps echoed hollowly on the stone flags as I groped my way to the gallery and found the spiral staircase. I could feel the rope and I grasped it.

I really felt terror going up that staircase. I was overcome by an awful presentiment that something malignant was waiting for me at the turn. Still I went on. I had to get out of this place and I had more chance from the ramparts. If I shouted, there was a faint chance that someone might hear me, for they would surely begin to look for me when they found me missing.

I must surely be nearly at the top of the staircase. I seemed to have come a long way. I touched the wall-it was cold and clammy. I turned. The staircase was less curved than it had been. Gingerly I felt my way, taking care not to lift one foot from the stone before I was sure the other was firm.

I could feel the cold air from the ramparts and then suddenly my heart leaped in terror, for a flash of light illuminated the scene and came to rest on the hideous face of a gargoyle carved in the stone. He leered at me in the sudden light and I gave a scream as I fell backwards.

I could not have fallen far though because the turn of the staircase stopped that. I lay inert on the stone staircase and I felt consciousness slipping away from me.

Noises everywhere-voices. I was lifted in a pair of strong arms.

"Colum," I said.

He said: "It's all right. You're safe."

I knew I was in Ysella's Tower because of the smell. It was everywhere. It was light now because there were several men and they all carried lanterns.

Colum brought me down the staircase to the hall. It looked different now with so many lanterns to light it up.

He said: "I'll carry my wife. She cannot walk, I think. She has hurt her ankle."

Two of the men went ahead, their lanterns lighting our way. I was aware then of the darting pain in my ankle.

I was taken up to our room and Jennet was sent up to me. She took off my clothes and wrapped me in a warm gown. Then she drew the curtains about my bed. Some of the women came up-those who were specially skilled with herbs and such like. One of them examined my foot and put a paste of herbs on it and wrapped it up tightly.

I must not stand on it, I was told.

So I lay there, thinking of Ysella's Tower and I went on living those moments as I had mounted the stairs. Then I was given a posset to make me sleep and I did.

I did not see Colum next morning. I remained in my bed for it was painful to walk and it was dusk when Colum came in to our bedchamber. I still lay on my bed.

He drew the curtains back and looked at me lying there.

"Now I wish to know what you were doing in Ysella's Tower," he said.

"I found the door open and looked in."

He leaned over me. His eyes were narrowed. He looked cruel. "You have been told not to go there."

"The door was open. I saw no harm in looking in."

"Yes," he said, "that has been taken care of."

"What?" I asked.

"He who left open the door has been punished."

"Punished. How?"

"You ask too many questions."

"It was my fault for going in."

"It was indeed," he said. "You knew you had no right."

"I saw no harm," I retorted. "I wanted to know what was in there."

"If I had wanted you to know would I not have told you?"

"If it had been something of little importance you would have told me. As you did not I knew it was significant."

"I expect you to obey me. Has it ever occurred to you what could happen if you angered me?"

"You could kill me, I suppose, as your ancestor killed his wife Nonna."

There was a silence in the room. He did not move; he stood like a stone statue, his arms folded.

Then he said slowly: "Do not provoke me. You have yet to learn that I can be an angry man."

"I know it well. I have seen something of your rages."

"You have seen nothing yet."

I had a feeling then that I did not know him. He was a stranger to me though he was the father of my children. I felt that he had worn a mask and that it was slowly slipping from his face.

I was not afraid of him, strangely enough. I knew that his rage could be terrible; I had lost sight of the man who had stormed into the inn, who had taken me to his Castle. I had forgotten that man in the gratified husband, who was so delighted with his son. But he was still there.

I thought: He is capable of killing me if I angered him, or if he wanted to be rid of me.

It was almost as though the ghost of Nonna had lingered with me, that she was telling me this, that she was warning me to take care.

I felt strangely reckless. I was going to confront him with my discovery. I was not going to pretend.

He stood there in that pose as though he kept his arms folded to stop their seizing me; and whether they would have caressed me or his fingers would have gripped my throat and he strangle the life out of me, I could not be sure.

What I realized in that moment was that I knew little of this man.

He said: "You should not have been in the courtyard. You should not have entered the tower. You could have stayed there for days and we not discover you. But for the fact that one of the servants was hysterical because she had seen a ghost on the ramparts and we found your petticoat there we might not have found you. When I knew you were missing I sent men out looking for you. You caused me great alarm."

"I am sorry to have done that."

"So should you be. Never behave in this way again or you will be sorry."

"You sound ... murderous. I believe you would kill me."