thought Diya, as they always did, and Mally would join them when she smelt breakfast.
Lucy was blowing last night’s coals back into a blaze. Smokey the cat was rubbing against her arm, clearly hoping to be fed. Breesha was standing there in her nightgown, but when she saw her mother she grabbed her clothes from the back of a chair, and disappeared into the bedroom to wash and dress. The two women in the kitchen could hear her shouting at Mally. ‘Get up, you lazy pig!’
‘I’m not a pig!’
The bedroom door banged.
Billy emerged from behind the kitchen bed-curtain, knuckling his eyes. He was buttoning his shirt when his mother called from the hearth without turning round, ‘Billy, are you getting washed? Remember to wash your neck! There’s a tide mark there as big as the one on Stackey beach!’
Billy sighed as he poured water from an earthenware jug into an enamel bowl. No one was watching, so washing took him less than half a minute. He dragged the comb through his curly hair. He was darker than Lucy, but he’d inherited her thick curls and her freckles. His eyes were not like hers though; Lucy had grey-green eyes, but Billy’s were bright blue and very wide open, giving him an air of startled innocence. Billy fastened his breeks with a wide leather belt that was much too long for him. Lucy had helped him cut an extra hole in it. The belt had been Uncle Jim’s. Billy treasured every small item that he had inherited from Uncle Jim. A leather belt, a beaver hat for special occasions, both far too large for him, were small icons to Uncle Jim’s memory and to Billy’s status in a family of females. Jim’s shirts had long ago been unpicked and remade for children’s nightgowns and women’s petticoats. Jim’s Sunday blacks, seldom worn, were put away in camphor for when Billy was a man. Jim had been wearing his oilskin jacket on the night it had happened, so they didn’t have that. Billy kept Uncle Jim’s second-best knife in its leather sheath under his pillow, and wore it for fishing and other jobs. The telescope they all used, because they had to for the light. But Billy cared about that telescope more than any of them. It was more his than anyone else’s, or so he reckoned.
CHAPTER 4
‘FOR CHRISSAKE, BEN, IS YOUNG ARCHIBALD NO GOIN TAE get me oot o here?’
Benjamin Groat shifted his feet uncomfortably, but he kept his face close to the barred grille in the door down to the dungeons. Ben was a big, gangling fellow, and he had to stoop to look through. The dungeon stank of excrement and foetid bodies. His gorge rose. At least he was on the right side of the door, standing in a chilly stone alley that led inwards from the old moat of Castle Rushen. The formidable keep, which was the main part of the prison, rose like a grey cliff behind him. It was surrounded by a great curtain wall, making the old moat into an enclosed prison yard. Ben couldn’t meet Drew’s eyes. He’d come here to help him if he could, but the plain fact was there was nothing he could do.
‘He didna say so, Drew. That doesna mean he winna.’
‘Bastard! Poxy whore’s son! The bastard!’ Drew Scott shook the bars of the grille, but the dungeon door was too solid to budge an inch.
A harsh voice came from the darkness below him. ‘Stow that racket! And get out of the bloody light.’
Drew ground his teeth. ‘Pack o bloody Manxmen. Give themsels airs. Think they own the bloody place. Dinnae want to be locked up with common felons! Common felon! That’s whit the bastard called me … I’d knock his bloody brains oot but!’
‘Ay well.’ Ben sighed. He glanced swiftly down at Drew’s face. ‘Don’t do onything, Drew, however much they rile you. You’ve no been charged yet, even. Turnkey telt me this was just the holding cell. It’s no like they’ve put ye in the main prison bit. But if there’s any more trouble now …’
‘’Tweren’t nothing! You saw, Ben! The cully spat in my face! An I floored him. What of it? What kind a man wouldnae, if a cull spits in his face and calls him another thievin Scotchman? I never got called a thief. Never! I’ve no stolen aught!’
‘That wasna what he said. Another of Atholl’s thieving Scotchmen was what he said. He wasna saying you had your hand in another man’s pocket. He meant the late Duke.’
‘Dukes arena anythin to do wi me! Just as well. Young Archibald’s more’n enough. For Chrissake, Ben, you mean he’ll do naught? He’s no goin to get me oot o here?’
‘Well … what I mean is … he will, Drew. He must. What would Mr Stevenson say, supposing Young Archibald left you be?’
‘Mr Stevenson isnae here though, is he? There isnae naebody here but Mr Stuck-up Lick-yer-arse Fidget-face. And when did he ever give a damn? He’d let me swing an no lift a finger to save me, so he would. I tell you, Ben’ – Drew’s voice grew shrill, and Ben drew back involuntarily – ‘he’ll let these bastards hang me, an no give the snap of his fingers for’t, so he will.’
‘Who said onything about hanging, Drew? Your man’s no deid nor like to be. They threw a bucket of water ower him and he came roon soon enough.’
Drew put his face close to the bars and whispered, so Ben had to come right up to the grille to hear him, ducking his head and putting his ear close to the metal. The stench from inside was appalling. ‘Man in there says they transported a fellow who knocked oot a man just the same as what I did. Tavern fight. Just the same. Transported, Ben! Convict ships! They do a lot o that here. That’s what they’ll do to me if Young Archibald doesnae go bail for me. Christ, man, I got tae get oot o here. Where is the bastard?’
‘Young Archibald? He’s away to see a fellow,’ said Ben, not meeting Drew’s eyes. ‘Water Bailiff, he said. About the new light. Legal stuff. But Drew, they kinna transport you. They kinna! You’ve no done notheen hardly. Few days in here, that’s what it’ll be, just. Few days, couple o weeks maybe. That’s all.’
‘All! That’ll lose me ma joab! Ben, I got to come wi you. I got my joab to do. You cannae go oot there wi’oot me. Whit’ll ye dae wi but one chainman? Whit’ll ye dae? He’s got to get me oot but!’
Ben dropped his eyes. There were a few limpet shells among the refuse on the ground, and he clumsily ground them under his boot. ‘Well … thing is, Drew … Young Archibald told me to see about hiring another man. Just for this job, like. Just if you couldna mak it this time roond.’
‘Bastard!’ Drew spat furiously, and Ben flinched. ‘He’ll bloody leave me here to rot! Throw me oot like yesterday’s bones! He’ll report me and lose me ma joab, so he will! He isnae even goin tae see the magistrate, you mean? You mean he isnae goin tae dae naught for me, Ben?’
Ben looked down at his feet. ‘He’s in a hurry, Drew. Waste of time, see, having to deal with this Water Bailiff. He wants to get off as soon as possible to this Port St Mary, and find this boatman. You know how he hates politics. He wants to get on with the job. He doesna want to lose another day.’
‘The devil! Doesnae want to lose a day! An me like to lose ma life! There’s no justice in it, Ben. The man’s a murderer. He’ll have ma blood oan his hands, sure as if he’d knifed me hissel. He’s killt me, Ben!’ Drew’s voice grew shrill.
‘Stow your noise, blast you!’ The voice from inside the dungeon was as hoarse as a dying crow.
‘That’s no fair,’ said Ben reasonably. ‘It’s no a hanging matter, I telt ye that. It wis just a brawl. And it was you that floored the cully. No one else. Young Archibald wasna in the tavern even. It’s notheen to do with him really.’
