Stolen Lives (The Alice Chronicles #3)

34

K eeper Sparrow appears, as good as his word and as slight as he said. He is short, small of frame and wiry. A sharp faced man, his acquisitive eye seems ever on the move as though seeking prospects for personal gain. He rides out of the prison door and turns immediately down Gaol Lane, Alice and Jay following. The door crashes to behind and the shutter is thrust back across the grating.

Sparrow turns down an alley on their right. Switching left and right in the darkness of the town he, like Jay earlier, unerringly knows his route. At the town gate he is known, and with a following jest that Keeper Sparrow has escaped at last! , they pass through. At one point he slows for them to catch up and comments, ‘Over to our right is the old Roman place they call Maumbury Rings. Some there are who think that would make a good hanging place. You could pack in the crowds on those slopes.’ At Alice’s protest, he adds, ‘People like a good hanging, mistress, reminds them what evil there is in the world, the good that justice does in stamping it out. Makes them feel safer.’

‘Keeper Sparrow?’ Alice asks. Anything to change the subject. ‘Shall we reach Portland in time?’

‘Who knows?’ he says. ‘We’ve over ten miles to go, nearer twelve, and first light will be in, what, two hours, perhaps less.’

‘What is first light to them? Won’t they wait for sunrise?’

‘Maybe they’ll wait for sunrise,’ he suggests.

Jay reminds him, ‘In this close heat the sun does not appear.’

‘You have the right of it, fellow,’ Sparrow concedes. ‘They’ll just have to guess, won’t they?’ He seems unmoved that the thickness of cloud could decide the fate of a man.

They have made a brisk pace through the town but once beyond the outskirts they slow down, ‘while I find my night eyes,’ Keeper Sparrow tells them. Moving alongside him, Jay talks of the landmarks he can make out, verifying these against the Keeper’s expectation. Without appearing to, Jay has taken the lead, and for a while Alice feels the pace pick up again. Away to their right, the long undulations of ancient Maiden Castle rear into the night sky, briefly lit by a flash of lightning. They skirt a small mound crowning a hill on their left, Keeper Sparrow taking the opportunity to point out this ancient barrow of the dead as one might point out a grand house or a fine prospect.

They descend the gentle slope at a trot and ford the Winterbourne stream, passing through a thin scatter of cottages making up Herringston village. Continuing south, they follow the line of a wide valley towards the wooded hill of Came Down. This makes for a steady climb, and there is little chance for seeing ahead as the track becomes harder to pick out in the woodland. Their pace slows, and recalling Sir Thomas’s fate, both Jay and Alice lie along their mount’s necks when the trees close in around them. The low branches brush past harmlessly.

Keeper Sparrow has become more voluble as his night sight has improved. ‘Many folk of ancient times are buried around here,’ he comments conversationally, and Alice wonders what it is that keeps his mind fixed on death. Perhaps his constant association with the condemned has formed his outlook. He seems to view death’s tools and trappings as one would view entertainments at a fair, something to tickle the interest in passing.

Alice turns to Jay at her side. ‘How do you feel we are doing for time?’

‘Difficult to say,’ he answers. ‘We’ve been going, what, half an hour? I think we’re making good time. This way will take us through Bincombe and if we go due south from there we shall get to Melcombe Regis. Then I suppose we follow the coast to take us onto the sand bar to Portland Isle.’

A few paces ahead, Sparrow calls back, ‘Long before we get to Melcombe Regis, we shall turn south-west. Following the coast would only take us through marshy areas that will be hard to compass. We shall head for Wyke, and from there southwards for the Chesil Bar and thus to Portland.’

‘As well you came with us, Master Sparrow,’ Jay says.

‘I am sure you will remember that when the time comes,’ Sparrow comments enigmatically.

Alice and Jay change mounts at the top of the hill above Bincombe. She is uncomfortably aware, even in the dark, of Keeper Sparrow’s peering stillness as she settles her skirts. From Bincombe they strike westwards where the country becomes flatter, and they find themselves fording the same stream more than once on the way to Broadwey. Within sight of its rooftops, Sparrow is keen to stop and knock up the alewife at a tavern he knows, protesting that he only needs a few minutes. It is with difficulty that Alice and Jay persuade him of the shortage of time, the need to press on.

At the southern end of Broadwey a bridge spans the river. This is the Wey, Sparrow explains, but they should not cross it here or they will have to make a wide detour round the winding river. ‘We shall keep to this bank until we get to Radipole Manor in a mile or two,’ he tells them. ‘That is the place to cross; then we shall continue uninterrupted southwards.’

‘We must have been on the road an hour or more already,’ Alice says. ‘Are we keeping a good enough pace? Are we halfway?’

‘Hard to say,’ Sparrow answers, but Jay says, ‘I fear we are not yet halfway.’

‘We need to hasten, Master Sparrow,’ Alice says. ‘It is flat here and we can follow our way easily by the sound of the river.’ She spurs her mount to a brisk trot and is relieved to hear him encourage his horse similarly. An unease has taken hold of her, that Sparrow is far less committed than she and Jay to making the journey in time. She would give much to be able to speak privately with Jay.

Sparrow overtakes her and for the next half hour they follow his lead, crossing the river at Radipole, and following a straight road. The occasional dark flash of water on their left indicates the widening River Wey on its last languid phase before giving itself up to the sea. They have long since left behind the ridged hills that flanked their earlier ride, the country here is gently rolling. Alice becomes aware of the distinct difference between the shades of land and sky. It cannot be due to thinner cloud, there is still not a single star to be seen. And a fresh breeze has arisen. Is this the start of the dawn? Are they later than they thought? And where is the neck of land that will take them onto the island of Portland? ‘Jay?’ she cries. ‘The sky is lightening!’

Jay comes up alongside her. ‘Ever seen the sea, mistress?’

Glimpses of horizon on the right, then more here and there, with water appearing away to the left. ‘The sea?’ Alice looks again, at the flat, straight line. ‘Is that it? But we are so far from it, Jay, it’s too light, we’ll never make it before dawn!’

‘That’s not the dawn,’ he tells her. ‘That’s what Sir Thomas’ man spoke of. The false dawn that comes from the light off the sea. It will help us see our way better. In a little while we shall be able to go much faster.’

As Jay predicts, the road becomes progressively more visible and they are able to judge its condition some distance ahead. At a slow canter they ride towards the town of Wyke, the last before the sea. No sooner has her confidence risen again than surprisingly, the land does not flatten out here as she expected. The approach to the town is down into a dip, where for a while they lose that advantage of slight radiance. Aggravatingly, they are forced to slow for several hundred paces through the town and on the climb up the other side for a steep half-mile.

As they breast the rise, they once again catch glimpses of the sea. Most of the dwellings of Wyke were in the lee of the hill, but the last little houses are more exposed. They bunch together on either side, small, sturdy stone structures with thick slate roofs, houses built to withstand many a wild storm in this windy corner of Dorsetshire. As the land steadily drops away, the sea becomes visible on both sides of them, suddenly close. The Chesil Bar, although Alice has never seen it, is unmistakable. She had imagined a slight mound a few feet high and no wider than the village street of Hillbury, but this is a long line of shingle, huge and broad and solid, stretching from the indiscernible west before sweeping past them and continuing on to the Isle of Portland. It is a strange barrier between mainland and sea. There at the end of its curving neck the sharp rise of Portland pushes up from the horizon, its black northern scarp rearing almost vertically, a vast wedge of rock merging with sky and sea into a leaden blur.

Alice looks back to the shoreline at the foot of the slope on which they have halted, to where a thread of water lies glinting between them and the Chesil Bar.

‘That’s called the Fleet,’ Jay says to her. ‘It’s not a river, just a sort of long tidal lake. Come, we’ve a way to go to get to the castle.’ Jay spurs his horse forward. ‘This way, is it?’ he calls.

‘This is the way,’ Keeper Sparrow confirms and they move forward together. The land flattens out and the roadway becomes a rough track as they descend the slope. Portland Isle sits in the distance. The stretch of water called the Fleet is a dark ribbon on their right, and a stiff breeze blows from that direction. Now to find the point where the bar will converge with the mainland to form their crossing onto the isle. She screws up her eyes to scan for the place. The track peters out to shingle. The lake is a lagoon, its mouth here at the very tip of the mainland. It empties into the sea between them and the Chesil Beach. Portland Isle connects not to the mainland but to the towering mound of the Chesil Bar. There is no convergence. Between them and the Bar flows a hundred paces of water. So near…

Alice strains to see a way to cross. Next to her, Jay reins in, and they turn in enquiry to their companion. He has already halted and looks at them, a slight smile on his face in the light reflected off the water.

‘Where do we cross?’ Alice asks.

‘Here,’ he says simply.

She dismounts and looks across the stretch of water. ‘You mean we wade across? Is it shallow enough?’

‘It’s on the ebb,’ Sparrow tells her. ‘The Fleet is emptying into the sea with the outgoing tide, but it has some way to go yet.’

‘So how do we cross?’ Jay asks.

‘By boat,’ Sparrow says shortly. ‘Do you know boats, fellow?’

‘It can’t be that difficult,’ Jay says. ‘It’s only a short way. But there’s no boat.’

‘There is a boat, but you will need more than a boat to ferry you safely to the other side.’

‘Please, Keeper Sparrow,’ Alice says. ‘We are short of time. Please tell us how we may cross.’

‘I shall do so. You will see I am as good as my word. But the use of a boat is a costly business.’

‘Where is the ferryman, then?’

‘Who knows?’ he says.

‘How can we pay his fee if we don’t know where he is?’ she asks.

‘You may pay me instead.’

Alice’s earlier doubt fires into suspicion. She regards him sitting his horse, still and smiling. ‘This is not for the ferryman, is it, Master Sparrow?’

‘You will recall I said you would remember your gratitude when the time came? Well, mistress, it has come.’

‘Can we not resolve this later? A man’s life is at stake, sir.’

‘It all depends how much value you place upon this man, mistress.’ There is an ominous tone to his voice.

‘You would hold us to ransom?’

‘I would hold you to a fair price for services rendered.’

‘Sir, I have a little money about me. Will a crown suffice?’

Sparrow scoffs lightly.

‘Two crowns? Three?’

‘Oh, I rather think we are talking many times that.’

‘This is outrageous!’ she exclaims.

‘Nevertheless, the price is more, mistress.’

‘This is highway robbery!’

‘What is your friend worth?’

Alice fumes. He is playing with them, and yet with time so short she cannot see a way out of this. As she reaches for her purse, Jay moves his mount round to Sparrow’s flank. He is all wide shoulders and jutting jaw. ‘Do you wish to regret the help you have given us so far?’ he asks.

Sparrow laughs. ‘Threaten me as you will, fellow, you need me. I am not like to crumble early, and long before I do, they will be feeding your friend to the fishes.’

‘Sir,’ Alice says, loosening the strings of her purse and turning its contents into her hand. A laurel, a unite, a half crown, several groats and half groats. She sifts out the small change and offers him the rest. ‘Take it, please! The sky is lightening and we must cross the water.’

Sparrow looks. He screws up his face in distaste. ‘Many times that. Many, many.’

‘How can I pay what I do not have?’

‘You wear a ring,’ Sparrow says.

‘No!’ Alice’s hand flies to cover the ring with its blue stone carved in the form of a woman. ‘It is of great antiquity,’ she tells him.

‘Yes, when I saw it at the prison I realised it was old, and of quality,’ Sparrow answers in conversational tone. ‘The way across in return for that.’

‘I was left this in a Will.’

Sparrow’s voice hardens as he comes to the nub of his bargaining. ‘If you wish to cross that stretch, you will offer it to me.’

‘I am telling you this is heirloom, you must see that!’ Alice protests. ‘Surely there is another way?’

‘The tide is falling and there will be a sand bar you can cross. Possibly two hours, three maybe.’

‘Sir, I beg you,’ she says to Sparrow, ‘you have my word that I shall pay you a handsome fee for your services as soon as I return home and can make arrangements.’

‘Your word is a fragrant thing, madam, but I do not know you, and you are but a woman. Offer me the ring.’

There is nothing for it. Slowly, Alice draws off the ring and hands it over.

‘Thank you for your kind offer, mistress, which I accept with grateful thanks.’ He chuckles, as at a private joke, and slips it inside his shirt. ‘Safekeeping,’ he says, patting his chest.

‘Where’s this boat?’ Alice demands.

‘Yonder behind that mound.’ Remaining in the saddle he points up the beach where a shingle dune rises to head height.

‘Do not suppose I shall forget this, Sparrow,’ Jay says. He swings a leg over his mount’s neck and slides down onto the pebbles, following where Sparrow points.

‘What will you do, fellow?’ Sparrow calls after him. ‘Get yourself confined to jail, so you may attack me inside?’ He laughs again. ‘Have a care lest you be hanged by mistake!’

Alice remains by the Keeper, ready to grab his bridle if necessary, while Jay scrambles up the dune. She would not trust Sparrow to honour his side of the bargain, now that he has her payment. ‘Who do we ask for at the castle?’ she says. ‘What name?’

‘Captain Winterbourne.’

The sound of sliding pebbles and then a shout confirms that Jay has located the boat. Alice urges her horse towards him, jumps down to climb the few slithering yards, and there it is. At least they have the means to cross the water.

‘Where’s the oars?’ Jay calls, and they both stand helpless as loose pebbles clatter and Sparrow’s horse regains the track.

‘You must needs shift for yourselves, now,’ he calls.

‘Where are they? You must tell us!’ Alice cries.

‘Buried treasure.’

‘We had a bargain!’ Jay roars, chasing after him. ‘The means to cross.’

From his safe distance, Sparrow responds, ‘Seek and ye shall find.’ He turns his mount towards Wyke.

‘You can’t leave now!’ Alice cries.

An exaggerated shrug is all his reply.

‘You knave!’ Alice yells.

His back to them Sparrow doffs his hat in derision and kicks his horse to a canter.

‘How could you? Damn you!!’ she screams at the Keeper, beside herself with fury. ‘A pox on you, you louse!’ She becomes aware of Jay standing, fists balled, beside her, his anger no less bitter for being held in check. For a moment they both stand there, their hopes dissolved in deceit and betrayal. Then Jay moves.

‘I’ll get the boat anyway.’

At a point not far from the water’s edge stands an upright wooden post. Alice hitches all four horses to it and follows Jay crunching over the shingle to where the boat lies. To her relief they find on checking the boat that it is sound and undamaged. She would not put it past Sparrow to have cheated them over that also.

It is a flat-bottomed, square-built affair, and it takes Jay several minutes pulling and pushing to shift it from its hiding place. He tries to discourage her from helping but the heaving and hauling is what Alice needs, to dispel the pent-up rage at Sparrow’s treachery. By the time they have shoved and dragged the boat from its hiding place, she is out of breath and panting hard.

‘Where would a ferryman hide his oars?’ Jay says.

‘Would he take them home with him?’

Jay shakes his head. ‘They’d be heavy things. He’d need to hide them easily and get at them quickly. Well, I’ll get the boat down to the water.’ Bit by bit he rocks and heaves the little ferryboat over the ringing, clattering pebbles, down the shelving beach to the water’s edge.

Alice searches the area where the boat rested, a mix of earth and shingle, but there is nothing but tough grass and scrubby, ground-hugging growth. Buried treasure . It would take too much effort for the ferryman to bury them here every night, and there would surely be the signs of it. Where would a ferryman secrete his oars to be sure of laying his hand upon them? She climbs the dune and looks out over the beach, where Jay has just reached the waterline. The ferryboat sits half in, half out of the water, barely rocking in the little waves that lap at the shore. Part-way up the beach the four horses wait patiently on the shingle by the stanchion.

Of course! When you want to hide something, choose a place in plain sight. Alice races down the beach to where the horses stand tethered. There she falls on her knees and starts frantically digging, throwing up the cold stones all around. Unnerved, the horses snort and pull on their tethers. Less than a hand’s width below the surface her fingers meet something rounded, warmer than stone, unmoving. With a cry of triumph, she clears more pebbles, grasps, pulls hard. Shingle drops away along a line and she draws out the first oar as Jay rejoins her. ‘Buried treasure,’ she says, and Jay pulls out the other.

‘I’d better give them a try in the boat to be sure I can steer straight,’ he says. ‘No point getting the horses into the water until I can keep the boat in the right direction.’ Jay clearly knows as little about boats as herself, so they will just have to do what feels right and hope for the best. ‘It won’t take a minute,’ he says.

‘Can the horses swim alongside?’ she asks.

‘If you’ll hold the reins, we should be able to keep them with us, I suppose. At least it’s not choppy,’ he says, peering out at the dark surface. ‘It’s a millpond out there.’

‘We can leave the mounts we’ve been riding. I’ll bring the others,’ she says, and turns back to the stanchion. The horses are bunched all around the post. Alice has to push in between two to unhitch them. The horse next to her slides suddenly and Alice is shunted against the other, losing her balance and plumping onto the pebbles. ‘Get off, go on, get off!’ she tells the horse, pushing irritably against its leg, and as she goes to rise, her hand falls on something tied to the base of the post. Puzzled she scoops stones out of the way and uncovers a rope. She pulls on it but no end comes away, instead more rope, leading seawards. Alice grasps the rope in both hands and pulls hard on it. Faintly, the line of it cuts up along the beach. She pulls again, and it flaps up, casting pebbles aside as it comes to the surface all down the beach, showering silver droplets as it rises dripping from the smooth run of water beyond, close to where Jay is pushing off.

The smooth water… the current that will carry a man off… He is already hauling clumsily at the oars to get out of the shallows. She jumps up.

‘Jay!’ she screams, dashing down the beach. ‘Don’t go out there! Jay!’ She runs, waving her arms, still shouting, ‘Come back! Come back!’ As he turns her way, the boat suddenly launches, the end swings round and he has no control, the boat is floating seawards. He tries to row against the pull but his frantic efforts barely hold the little craft. He throws down one oar and paddles furiously with the other, but inexorably he is being drawn out to sea.

Alice charges into the flow, ploughs in knee deep, slowing as the water rises to her waist. Her skirts float up around her as she wades forward. ‘The current!’ she shouts. ‘You can’t row against it… must get back to shore!’ Another step and her foot meets nothing and she is in over her head. Almost immediately she bobs back to the surface but as she gulps air, water slaps in her face and she sinks again, choked and coughing. She kicks and twists, trying to climb to the surface but she seems not to be rising at all. Her eyes are screwed shut and with no sense of her own weight, she is suddenly unsure which way will take her upwards. Blind panic takes hold and she flails around, windmilling her arms through the water, vainly seeking something, anything that will give her a direction, and she is suffocating, her lungs bursting for air…

The oar catches her in the chest, shoving her backwards and she grabs at it and clings onto the end. She breaks surface, gasping and spluttering, blinking seawater. She is much closer to the boat than she was when she went under. Jay is shouting something but the water is in her ears and she is struggling to breathe and to cough out water. Her skirts have sunk from the surface and are starting to weigh her down, hampering movement. She can feel the current’s pull on her body. She goes under and the oar digs into her chest again and she blinks as she rises and Jay is leaning out of the boat which is lying precariously on its side while he tries to push Alice backwards, even as they are both being sucked along the outflow from the Fleet, and the water washes once more over her head.

Then her feet touch sand and she is on all fours, raising her head clear of the water. At last she can breathe, although the very act sets her gagging. She rises, still clutching the oar, bent over, heaving and coughing seawater. But that inexorable pull has lessened. She hears Jay splash into the water alongside her on the sandbar, and she feels the oar taken from her hand, the clatter as he tosses it into the boat. He has hold of the vessel and with his free hand grasps Alice round the waist and pulls both away from the drag. The salt stings her eyes but she can see enough to grasp the side of the boat and help pull. With their combined strength, the boat comes towards the shallows. As they pull and step and pull, the sea’s grip on the little craft gradually lessens, and slowly they retreat towards the safety of the shore until the boat grounds. Jay gives it one last haul and it is safely stranded once more, and they sink onto the gravelly sand. As she gags the last of the seawater,

‘That was stupid!’ he shouts at her. ‘You could have been swept away!’

‘The beach, it shelved suddenly,’ she explains. ‘I didn’t realise. I just had to stop you. That’s no mill pond, Jay, it’s the current!’

He takes several breaths before he speaks again, calmer now. ‘That was some pull,’ he says. ‘I felt it as soon as the boat slipped into it.’

‘I think your paddling was holding you at the edge of the current. Even so, you were being pulled out to sea.’

‘You just saved my life,’ he says.

‘Then honours are even; you just saved mine.’

‘It was still stupid!’

‘Me, or you?’ A laugh bubbles out of her, but it sounds slightly possessed and she stifles it. Then she realises he too is laughing, and they both lie back on the shingle, laughing without restraint. They laugh and laugh, until Alice’s ribs ache, and Jay alternately whoops and whimpers in his efforts to stop. As the last of the tension leaves them, Alice rolls and sits up, and they both pause for breath. The silence is broken only by the slap and suck of wavelets.

‘There’s a rope,’ she says between slowing breaths. She sits up. ‘It stretches across to the Bar. It’s probably the only way to cross the Fleet safely.’

‘A rope ferry,’ he says. He rises to his feet and scans across the water. ‘I’ve heard of them, never seen one.’

‘And Keeper Sparrow omitted to tell us of it.’ She looks at him.

He returns her look. ‘He knew there was a ferryman, knew where the boat was, even where the oars were hidden, and didn’t mention the rope.’

‘Or the current. I wonder why that was.’ Alice stands up. Gritty sand coats her skirt, bodice, sleeves. She dusts off her hands. ‘We must go. At least we know how to cross. I’ll fetch the horses if you’ll get the boat over to the rope.’

Her clothes weigh a ton, sodden and clinging; her kinked curls have turned to rats’ tails, the water drips down her face and neck. She pushes back her hair and realises her cap has washed away. At the stanchion, she unhitches the rested pair and leads them to the water’s edge where Jay is angling the boat to slip into the water at a push. Although the waves are tiny, the two beasts are nervous, possibly from the feel of the stiff gusts, and Alice spends some minutes calming them. Soaked through as she is, in the sea breeze she is already feeling the chill. For the first time in days she misses the sun’s warmth.

Jay comes to her and takes the reins. ‘Do you sit in the boat and take the rope, I will bring these two,’ he says. ‘I’ve put the oars in, but I think we’ll have our hands full just pulling ourselves across.’ Alice climbs into the boat and sits on one of the thwarts. She reaches to take up the rope.

‘Whatever you do, don’t let go of that,’ Jay says with the ghost of a laugh. Holding the reins of the two horses in one hand, he leans to shove the boat out. It is reluctant to move and he tries again, putting his back into the effort. Still it will not budge. Alice wraps one arm round the rope and grabs an oar. As he heaves again, she uses both hands to dig the oar into the shingle. The boat casts off and Jay gives a final shove before wading into the water and climbing in. The horses splash in alongside. Quickly the water covers their fetlocks, rises to their knees, and seconds later they are in up to their bellies and buoyant. By the time it washes over their shoulders they are swimming easily.

Alice has shipped the oar and is hanging onto the rope with both hands. ‘For dear life,’ she thinks. For this is truly their lifeline. And Wat’s. The water pulls at the boat, trying to take it seawards again, but Jay at the stern has also taken hold of the rope, and between them they keep the little craft facing across the current to the opposite shore. The current drives the horses bumping against the side of the boat, and Jay concentrates on fending them off to keep the rope from becoming trapped. Alice slides first one hand then the other along its slimy length and the terror of losing her grip makes her fingers ache.

Hand over hand they slip forward. It looked such a small distance from the shore to the Bar, but out here in mid-channel it feels endless. The breeze is sharp, the rope slippery. She can feel the current trying to pull them seawards, and hangs onto the rope, fingers chilled and stiff with the strain. In the back of her mind, becoming an anxious concern, is the realisation that she seems to be able to see much more clearly now than a few minutes ago. She glances across the curve of sea to where the northern tip of the Isle stands banked against the sea. By her reckoning, that mass of rock is still a couple of miles off, and they must yet ride that distance along the Chesil Bar. As they near the shore she strains to see if it is all shingle. The horses will hardly be able to cope with riders if it is. They must go faster. Sharply she pulls on the rope, her hands slip, and the bow starts to swing seawards. Jay behind her lunges forward, pulling on the rope and she regains her grip.

And then the drag is suddenly removed, she realises the horses are finding their feet, and at that moment there is the first bump on the shore. They come to rest at the edge of the water and Jay jumps out. ‘Stay where you are a minute!’ he shouts. ‘Keep hold of that rope!’ He draws the two dripping horses clear of the sea and hitches them to the stanchion where the rope ends. They shake a shower of droplets from their manes as he returns to pull at the bow. Alice jumps out and helps him drag the boat well clear of the water. At last they are on the massive bar of Chesil Beach. The top of it is probably two hundred paces from where they stand. The thunder of surf on the other side comes clearly to their ears. Despite the height of the Beach, the wind is just as strong as it was on the mainland, buffeting them constantly. They leave the oars in the boat, trusting to the honesty of chance passers-by.

Alice almost cheers as she catches sight of the made road leading forward along the narrow neck of land. It is patchy and uneven, its edges eaten away by weather or usage, but they can ride along it at a good rate without checks. She lifts each of her mount’s hooves but no pebbles have lodged. Jay does likewise. Now to ride. She vaults up, and watches Jay mount ahead of her.

‘It feels like dawn, Jay,’ she calls anxiously. He nods and they both dig in their heels. The wind under her mount’s flank makes Alice’s mare skittish, and for a few seconds she shies and sidesteps until Alice can get her under control. Then they are off, the horses eagerly increasing to a canter, a gallop, as though glad to escape the sea. At this rate, Alice estimates, they should make it to the castle in ten minutes. All they need do is negotiate this neck, hug the coastline and get there.

All.

The castle being at sea level, there are thankfully no heights to scale. Even so, the thin ribbon of road soon starts to feel endless, they seem to be racing along it while it lengthens before them. Alice frets that she underestimated the time it would take. She is still wondering when she becomes aware that the sea has receded on the left, the Beach has moved away to the right. The land is widening. They are on the Isle. Within a minute, a lesser way leads off to the left, and hardly checking, they take this. The sound of the sea ebbs, along with the stiff breeze, as the mound of Chesil Beach rears higher and higher and they follow the protected northerly shore. Now they can hear the soft incessant lap of sheltered water on their left. And then Alice can see it. At the same moment, Jay shouts and points forward. A massive, curve-fronted stronghold, battlemented and grey, stands alone looking blankly out across the seascape towards Wyke and Weymouth. Most of the fort’s curve is beyond their sight, facing out to sea.

As they draw near, the reality of the castle reveals itself. Its battlements are crumbling, the walls cracked and broken in places where the sea has had its way, battering winter storms combined with long neglect. No one has felt the need to keep this castle strong. Are we so safe, Alice puzzles, that we can let these defences fall into disrepair? While our new King speaks of war with France?

The castle stands alone on the flat stretch of shore, dwarfed by the rearing cliff behind. From their angle of approach, just one deep-set embrasure is visible, a cyclops eye. Alice expected a building of several storeys with twin towers and an unscalable curtain wall, but this is a low squat structure, not a castle at all, a fortress, really. They slow, seeking where to approach. Around the outer perimeter is a large ditch, suggesting a former moat, out of which vegetation now sprouts. Part way along, a section of the wall is higher, the ditch seems to have been filled in, and through a gap in the haphazard growth is the wide arch of a doorway. She gives a shout to Jay, pointing, and it is the more worrying, that she knows it is now light enough for him easily to see her signal.

Alice hauls her mount to a stop by the arch, jumps down and bangs several times on a wicket set in the left-hand door. ‘Captain Winterbourne!’ She bangs again, repeating her call, and Jay adds his voice to hers. There is no response. If they are all in the castle itself perhaps they are unable to hear visitors at the gate? Jay hammers hard on the door shouting again for the Captain, and Alice adds the name of Wat Meredith, declaring his innocence. When there is still no response, Jay leaves her and starts to skirt the wall, following the line of the ditch and shouting all the way. Alice continues to bang repeatedly on the door, ‘Wat Meredith is innocent! I have proofs! Where is Captain Winterbourne?’

In its crumbling silence the castle could be deserted. It is not as if the sea on this side of the island is noisy enough to smother sound. Unless, Alice suddenly wonders, unless they have taken him to some other place? Is the gallows not at the castle at all? Given that the Dorchester gallows is on a hill at the edge of town, is this a similar case? Has Keeper Sparrow deliberately misled them over this as well? Has he spent the journey laughing in his sleeve, knowing that if they are not being swept to their deaths by the currents of the Fleet, their efforts are still destined to fail? She smashes her fists against the door. ‘Answer me!’ she screams. ‘Answer me!’

Jay reappears, having skirted right round the castle between wall and low tide. He shakes his head in answer to her unspoken question. ‘He’s not here, Jay!’ she cries. ‘After all that, he’s not here.’ She leans against the door, wrapping her arms over her head, fighting a wave of frustration and defeat.

A bolt is drawn. The wicket opens and a uniformed man stands there, wide brimmed black hat, dark, buttoned coat, pike in hand. ‘Who makes affray at these gates?’

Alice pushes through the doorway. ‘Wat Meredith is innocent!’ she cries. ‘You cannot hang him!’

‘We were given orders,’ the man says.

‘ Were ?’

‘We have proofs of innocence,’ Jay says.

‘What proofs?’

‘Where is he?’ Alice glances round the castle yard. To her left, ruinous buildings like sheds or storerooms. Ahead, the solid bulk of the castle’s angular walls.

And in the first glimmerings of day, across the open courtyard, hanging from a crossbar between two uprights, shadowed against the sky and gazing out to sea, his neck abnormally stretched, the lean figure of a man. No cart, no coffin, no people, just the rope, the black dangling shape, head skewed sideways to an unnatural angle, the body too still. A scraggy winged shape claws hold of the hair, neck curved over as its long beak picks flesh from the unresponsive head.

‘No!’ she screams. ‘No!’

The guard shouts and grabs but she is past him and running. It is only a couple of dozen yards. The bird squawks and flaps raggedly away and she comes up all standing behind the motionless figure. How can they leave him like this? Have they no compassion? Wat Meredith, the kindly man who went through so much; who was foully accused in a conspiracy of self-interest; who stood resolute between Cazanove and Robin’s child.; Alice stands looking up in the gloom at the hanged man who has died never knowing why Cazanove set his merciless trap.

She looks at the ragged shirt and linen breeches flapping in the sea breeze, the bare stockingless legs, the unshod feet, and wonders, why do this to the condemned? Why force them to remove their outerwear for their execution? Why steal a man’s dignity at the last, even if they believed the charges against him? She reaches to lay a hand on the leg. The flesh is cold and the body swings stiffly to her touch. So they didn’t even wait for first light; they did this last night. ‘I’m so sorry, Wat,’ she whispers. ‘We’ll take you back home.’ It is the least they can do, to give him a decent burial, not leave him carrion for gulls and crows until his remains fall and moulder on the ground.

Behind her she hears Jay’s step, feels a hand on her shoulder. ‘Alice,’ he says gently.

She rubs the heel of her hand across her eyes. ‘All that, and we were too late.’

‘Alice,’ he repeats, and the unfamiliarity of that address makes her turn. ‘Look.’ He nods towards a door in the angled wall of the castle. In the gloom, figures are emerging, one between two others. Alice looks, looks again, glances up at the shadowy corpse above her, and back at the group of three. How can this be? A sudden, confusing distress overwhelms her, a sob threatens to choke her. ‘Jay, I can’t…’

Jay gives her shoulder a quick squeeze and walks across to greet Wat Meredith.