The Coming of the Whirlpool Read online

  The wind came from the west, but by adjusting the sails and working with their oars, the crew steered the barge to the south east. By mid-afternoon they had left the mouth of the river far behind and were pushing along parallel to the eastern arm of the Claw, a mile or so offshore. The peninsula itself looked a drear and lonely place, consisting mostly of windblown dunes or stony scrub. Only occasionally did Dow spy any habitation there: a hut, or a leaning fence. Often there was no real shore at all, only mud flats, gleaming dully.

  ‘Does no one live here?’ he asked the captain doubtfully. ‘I thought there were villages and towns all about the Claw.’

  The captain shook his head. ‘Not on this side of the bay. Over by the western arm there’s deep water and good anchorage; that’s where the fishing fleets berth. There’s fine land there too, green and wide. But over here it’s all flats and shallows, and for land there’s naught but a bare spine of sand and rock. It’s only us barges that come this way, when the wind says we must.’

  Indeed, other then several such barges visible in the distance, low in the water, the bay appeared utterly empty; a bleak, grey prospect to Dow’s eye. It was certainly nothing like the seething ocean as he remembered it from the headland. Everything here felt flattened – the sky, the waters, the very air – and the small chop splashed ineffectually against the logs of the raft; there were no waves rearing, no white-caps glinting on the horizon. A few gulls squabbled over the mud flats, but otherwise it was as lifeless a world as Dow had ever seen.

  Dusk came on, with sunset lost behind the clouds. The air grew chill, and Dow huddled into his timberman’s jacket. The crew lowered the sails and rowed the barge close in to the silent shore to anchor. A cheerless night passed, black, with showers of rain. The morning dawned leaden and wet; but at least the breeze still blew, having swung around overnight to come from the north. They soon raised sails again and were underway, now following a coastline that ran directly south. By midday, however, the shore had angled to the south-west. The arms of the Claw were drawing towards each other once more.

  ‘Wind willing, we’ll make journey’s end by nightfall,’ said the captain, sounding pleased.

  Journey’s end. Dow had almost forgotten, in his five days upon the barge, that there was any purpose to the journey at all, other than the journey itself. But ahead now, and close, waited the fishing village that was to be his new home – and waiting also was the man who was to be his new father. A nervous sensation started to grow in Dow’s stomach, and even the cold wet deck of the barge began to feel like a familiar home that he found himself reluctant to leave.

  A steady rain set in as the afternoon lengthened, and the waters of the Claw rolled in low undulations that were pockmarked with raindrops. Visibility dropped to barely a mile and the shore became only a murky shadow on their left. But as dusk approached Dow saw a greater shadow looming ahead, in fact a twin shadow, two hills rising upon the shrouded horizon.

  The captain pointed through the twilight. ‘The promontories. West Head on the right, East Head on the left, and the Rip in between. East Head is where you’re bound. Stromner lies at its feet. We won’t stop at the pier, so be ready to jump.’ He gave a shrug. ‘Sorry lad, but we’ve no time to linger if we’re to offload in Stone Port tonight and be away again tomorrow.’

  Dow made sure that all his gear was stowed in his bag. He stood in the bow and peered forward into the gathering dark. Then the rain lifted a little, and he saw the two headlands more clearly. The closest, East Head, marked the end of the peninsula they had been following all day, and from this angle it formed a rounded scrubby hill. But there was no sign yet of any village.

  The western peninsula, having curved far away out of sight for so long, now came striding out of the mist to terminate in a blunter, rockier height. This was West Head, and upon its slopes was built a town.

  In fact, it was a fortress. The main keep was set high and proud upon the headland, and streets and houses spread downwards from its walls to the shore. Lights already shone out from many windows, and atop the highest tower of the keep a great bonfire was just beginning to blaze up. Down at water level the town was mostly hidden behind a sea wall that reached out in an arc, but through a massive set of gates, presently thrown open, Dow caught sight of the harbour waters within, and a blur of docks and warehouses. This was Stone Port, no doubt. And no doubt too the keep on the hill was the seat of the Ship Kings governor.

  But for all that, Dow’s gaze was drawn away from either East Head or West. For between the two promon- tories was the channel of restless water that formed the Rip, swirling with strange patterns and currents. And beyond that was a tantalisingly open expanse that extended away into the night, free of all land or constraint.

  The true ocean, at last.

  Then the rain thickened again and the prospect was lost in gloom. The wind fell. The crew set to work with the oars. Over the rain and the splash of the paddles Dow could hear the boom of distant surf; beyond the Rip the ocean was pounding against the outer shores, but around the barge the water was calm. East Head loomed through the rain, and they entered a small scoop of a harbour that lay sheltered on its inner side. For the first time, Dow beheld Stromner. There was a beach backed by dunes, a scattering of houses and sheds, a few boats drawn up on the sand, and a rickety-looking pier extending out into the water.

  ‘Ready?’ asked the captain.

  Dow nodded, lifting his bag over his shoulder. He felt that he should say goodbye to the crew and thank them, but abruptly everything was too rushed. The barge bumped lightly against the end of the pier and already it was sliding by, he had to jump or miss his chance.

  Dow leapt, slipped as he landed on the wet timbers and fell to his knees. By the time he got up, the barge was already twenty feet away and the crew were labouring at the oars in an effort to swing themselves past the East Head rocks. Only when the barge was well clear and headed west into the channel did the captain turn and give one slow wave of salute.

  ‘Good luck, lad,’ came his voice over the water.

  A heavy shower rattled down and it was full night. Dow stared out from the pier’s end, but the barge was gone. The wind gusted hard suddenly and rain stung his face.

  He turned to face the village. In the darkness it seemed to consist of little more than a few broken-backed shanties strewn across a wet hillside. Not a light shone from any window, and there was not a soul to greet him.

  The rain blustered again. Dow hunched his shoulders against it and trudged down the pier into his new existence.

  If he had arrived in an unfamiliar village in his home valley, Dow would simply have sought out the central Barrel House, knowing he would find the menfolk there, busy with the evening’s drinking. But in the rain and darkness it seemed that Stromner had no centre and no Barrel House. There was only sand and grass and the leaning shacks strung out across the slope, their windows shuttered against the weather.

  Dow stumbled uphill, tripping over wet heaps of rope and blundering into invisible nets suspended between poles. Bones and shells crunched underfoot and the stench of rotten fish was everywhere.

  He stopped and stared about. Would he be reduced to knocking randomly on doors? But just then there came a lull in the rain, and in the passing quiet Dow heard a muffled chorus of male laughter rise and fall – somewhere nearby men were gathered indoors, telling tales around a fire and a whisky keg. And there, finally, he saw it; a glimmer of light, a glow around the edge of a shutter. The rain came down again and he hurried forward. A tall narrow building loomed ahead of him, the upper storey leaning awkwardly out over the lower. Dow smelled smoke and heard the laughter once more and knew it must be the place.

  There was a dark door beneath the overhang. He hammered upon it, and the laughter within snapped off. The wind whistled bleak over the sudden silence. Dow waited, his ears straining for any sound from inside, but none came. He hammered again, then sought for a latch and found it; the door swung open. It led into a small
vestibule lit by a single lamp, the floor crowded with muddy boots and the walls hung with jackets. Another door led further inwards, and, eager for warmth, Dow pushed on through it – and then stopped short.

  His first thought was that he’d come to the wrong place after all. He had been expecting some equivalent of his own Barrel House, with its roaring central fire, its great crowded tables and its high shadowy roof. Instead he found only a small room, squashed low beneath a ceiling of heavy beams. And yet there was no mistake, for here, arranged behind a wooden counter, were the whisky casks, and here were the men, bent over a huddle of little tables set before a grate in the corner, their faces all turned in stony silence to study the intruder.

  Dow swallowed. ‘Is . . .’ He searched his memory, which had gone blank. But then it came. ‘I’m looking for Nathaniel Shear.’

  The men only stared on. They were barely a dozen, most of them old and grim, their faces hard and deep-creased and expressionless. Unable to meet the stares, Dow’s own gaze strayed nervously to the walls, which were thickly hung with strange objects and carvings, and with the skulls of what he could only assume were sea creatures, their jaws agape and gleaming with saw-edged teeth.

  Then the silence was broken. ‘Nathaniel Shear, you say?’ The speaker was standing behind the wooden counter, a towel draped over his shoulder and his hands paused in the act of polishing a whisky glass with a rag. He was huge in girth, with great muscular arms, and his bald scalp was a bright red, as if it had been roasted hotly at some time and never cooled down. His face was of the same hue, making him look flushed with rage, but belying that his eyes and his voice were calm. ‘Aye, but what be your own name, lad?’

  Dow swallowed again. ‘Dow Amber.’

  The man considered this for a long frowning moment, but at last he nodded, glancing about at his fellows as he did so. ‘Dow Amber. Aye, that’s a name we’ve heard before, sure enough. You’re expected.’

  But there was no welcome in the words, or in the mutters that arose now among the other men.

  ‘It’s cursed luck, Boiler,’ said one, speaking to the red-faced man, ‘that he’d light here tonight, of all nights.’

  ‘Ten years to the very day,’ said another.

  ‘Trouble will come of it,’ added the first.

  ‘Enough of that now,’ growled the red-faced man, glaring at the assembly. ‘Trouble was most likely going to come of this either way, as we all know. But we made the choice, and now here he is.’

  There was more murmuring among the men, but no one gainsaid the red-faced man directly. He leant on his counter and surveyed Dow – who was still standing at the door – with a more kindly expression.

  ‘Nathaniel isn’t here, lad. You’ll find him in his hut. Go back down to the pier and turn right along the beach. There’s a path there. Follow it until you come to the last shack in the dunes. You might have to knock hard to rouse him, but he’ll be there, and he knows you’re due.’

  One of the men ventured a disbelieving question. ‘You’d really send him to Nathaniel? Tonight of all nights? It’s too cruel, Boiler.’

  The red-faced man considered. ‘Maybe now isn’t the best time, at that,’ he conceded, half to himself, half to the others. ‘I suppose the lad could always bed down here this evening, and then tomorrow—’

  ‘No,’ declared a new voice, high and thin. In a dark corner a figure stirred; an old, old woman, sitting alone. Her head was bowed but she lifted it now to reveal a long, withered face framed by lank hair, and eyes that were deathly white and blind – eyes, nevertheless, that seemed to fix upon Dow. ‘No, I say. All of you invoked the fates in calling this boy to us, and if the fates decree that he should arrive on this night, then it was intended to be so. Send him to Nathaniel.’

  Silence greeted this, until, behind the counter, the red-faced man sighed. ‘Aye, if it must be, then it must be, and there’s no preventing it.’ He looked at Dow. ‘Best you be on your way, lad. And if Nathaniel gives you any trouble, you tell him that I sent you. Boiler Swan is my name. I’m the keeper of this inn here, and he’ll heed what I say, no matter what his mood.’

  Dow didn’t move. Even under so many forbidding stares, he felt reluctant to leave the warmth of the room and venture back into the night. Besides, he could scarcely credit that he was not being offered any food or drink, nor a place by the fire. In his own village a traveller stumbling into the Barrel House on a wild and wet evening would never be treated so coldly.

  Boiler Swan too seemed to realise this. ‘There’ll be nights that we’ll be happy to welcome you in,’ he added gently, ‘but for now it’s only proper that you go to your new home, and to your new guardian.’

  This dismissal Dow could not refuse. His heart shrinking, he backed into the vestibule. He turned to the outer door and lingered a moment, listening, but there was only silence from the main room. They were waiting, Dow sensed, for him to be properly gone.

  He hunched and stepped out into the night, letting the wind slam the door behind him. He took a few directionless steps, and then paused, looking back at the building he had just left, rearing tall above him. The inn. A strange name. And what was the need of such a large structure, he wondered, when there were only those few drinkers within, using only the one small room?

  Dow turned away and moved on, back down towards the pier. He found his way more easily now, for the rain had eased and the clouds had broken into hurrying shreds, between which peeped a sliver of moon – but its cold illumination only served to make the village appear even more wet and dismal than it had before, and the stench of rotten fish still prevailed.

  Back at the pier he located the path leading off to the right, a sandy line worn through the tussocks of grass. It took him to a ragged line of shacks sheltered behind the dunes. Dow tramped past door after door, seeing no lights nor any sign of life, until he came to a lone hut half hidden beneath a tree whose branches were all bent in one direction by a lifetime’s wind. The path ended there, so this had to be the last house, just as he’d been sent to find.

  Remembering what Boiler Swan had said about rousing the shack’s occupant, Dow gave the door three thumps, feeling the thin wood shudder against its hinges. He waited, ready to strike again, but to his surprise there was an immediate response from inside; a hurried scrabbling and an incomprehensible shout. Alarmed, Dow stepped back just as the door was flung open.

  A lantern shone out, held high by a bony hand, and in its light a face loomed, a man’s face, aged and drawn, and yet at the same time alive with eagerness. For an instant the old man stared at Dow with joyous eyes, and he cried out something, a name perhaps, or two names—

  ‘Nathaniel?’ Dow stuttered. ‘Nathaniel Shear?’

  The old man faltered, seeming to truly see Dow at last. Confusion fleeted across his features, chased by sorrow or pain. He shrank back in the doorway and studied his visitor with narrow suspicion. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded, the smell of whisky strong and stale on his breath.

  ‘I’m Dow Amber.’

  ‘Dow Amber? Dow Amber?’ The old man was shaking his head in denial, his whole body trembling with apparent fury. He reached for the door handle. ‘You’re no one known to me. Go away.’

  But Dow wouldn’t go. He refused, in his utter weariness, to be simply dismissed again. He propped his foot against the door. ‘Are you Nathaniel Shear? I was told to come here.’ The old man was tugging blindly at the handle, ignoring him, but Dow pressed on. ‘The man at the inn, Boiler Swan – he sent me . . .’

  At the mention of Boiler Swan the old man sagged against the doorframe. ‘Ah, drown me and be done,’ he panted, bent over. ‘Not tonight. By all that’s afloat, not tonight. Come back tomorrow if you must, but for now leave me be.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve nowhere else to go. They sent me here.’

  Nathaniel Shear – for Dow had no doubt now that this was he – looked up to glare at his visitor once again. He was perhaps not as ancient as Dow had first thought. But he was certa
inly wretched, his body scarecrow thin, his clothes threadbare, his cheeks heavy with grey stubble and his hair hanging in strands. Along with the smell of whisky, he stank of sweat and fish.

  ‘Damn those fools.’ The old man blew his nose in drunken disgust. ‘Very well then, come aboard if you must.’ He turned to lead the way inside, then spun back. ‘But I do not welcome you, boy, and there’ll be no food or drink for you here, not tonight – of all nights.’

  They went in. In the dim lantern light Dow had an impression of a low cramped room cluttered with gear and rubbish, the walls stained black by soot, the air reeking of smoke and whisky. A single chair sat before the smouldering fire and beside it was an upturned crate upon which sat a whisky bottle and a cup. It seemed clear that Dow had interrupted a solitary drinking session. And judging by the litter of empty bottles about the room, it was no rare event. Such behaviour was almost unheard of in Yellow Bank. Men did not drink alone in their own huts. They drank together in the Barrel House.

  But he was not allowed to linger. Nathaniel reeled to a small door in the rear corner of the room and pushed it open.

  ‘In here,’ he rasped. ‘And not a word out of you till dawn, or I’ll toss you overboard, Boiler Swan or no.’

  The door led to a tiny bedroom, if bedroom it could be called – it was more a lean-to of wooden planks erected at the back of the shack. The floor was of caked sand, the air almost as chill as outdoors, and the one small window was opaque with crusted salt. There was a cot against one wall, its mattress half buried by a pile of mildewed canvas. Reluctantly, Dow squeezed himself into the space. Nathaniel was already swinging the door shut behind him.

  ‘Remember, not a sound!’

  It was only as the door slammed that Dow spied a nub of old candle sitting on a shelf – then he was left in blackness.

  He fumbled a few moments to find the candle, groped in his bag for a match, and lit a wavering flame. Huddled on the edge of the cot, he stared about at the bare walls. Cold and hunger jostled inside him, along with dull despondency. This was meant to be his room? He could not help but compare it to the snug closet he had shared with his brother back in Yellow Bank. But to think of home was too terrible. Right now his family would be gathered before their little fire, smiling and laughing, with warm bowls of soup on their laps . . .