Preface and Chapter 1

Preface

“Part of the Hill[s] are covered with Woods and itt is well watered with small Rivalets; there I met with greatest Quantity of Fish I ever see. . . . Here may Black Cattle, Sheep and Goats be Easely Breed, and itt is a good place for a Look Out or to Sett Wounded or Sick Men on Shore, In order for their Recovery.”

From the account of Lionel Wafer, ship’s surgeon and buccaneer, of the lands of the Isthmus of Darién, c. 1695.

Chapter I.

“I’ll kill ye, I swear to God!” yelled Ephraim Henderson as he charged up from the fruit cellar.

         He  stood panting at the top of the stairs, straightened his waistcoat and surveyed the courtyard of Newark Castle through the September drizzle. Someone was stealing his stock and he thought he knew whom.

         “Iain Barclay, where are you?” Henderson inquired, failing to completely recover his composure. “Put down your hammer and nails and the raspberries and onions you stole and show yersel’!

         A stocky man in an apron flecked with curls of planed wood emerged from the doorway of his workshop.

         “No’ this again Mr Henderson.” Barclay dropped his hands loosely to his sides. “I swear on my wife and weans I’ve been nowhere near your stock. Besides, I couldn’t steal it even if I wanted to; you’ve bricked up the passage between the cellar and my workshop, remember?”

         Henderson could feel his face flushing. He stared at the silver buckles on his shoes while he waited for his normal, paler colour to return. Barclay was right, but who else could it be? Ever since he had moved down from the city of Glasgow and taken up occupation of part of the castle for storage of his stock, things had been going missing. Sometimes fruit or vegetables, sometimes other things like quills, ink, a knife or a length of rope.

         It was easy for Henderson to blame his castle neighbour. Barclay was a carpenter; a tradesman, and therefore to be looked down upon by Port Glasgow and Kilmacolm’s principal (or rather, only) wholesale merchant of fruit and vegetables. He disliked Barclay’s tone but the man had a reputation for honesty, a rare trait among the trades. Furthermore, it had been he who had first warned him about the mysterious pilfering that had recently plagued the castle's tenants. Henderson took a breath and leaned against the trestle by the cellar door.

         “Alright Iain, I grant that there would appear to be a third party making our lives difficult, as if things weren’t difficult enough with the poor harvest,” stating the obvious and stopping short of an apology; none of which was lost on Iain Barclay.

         “Do you really think so, Mr Henderson?” Barclay asked, with an exaggerated inflection.

“Aye, Iain, I do. And I’m most vexed that I need to purchase another knife. My old one was a beaut.”

Two eyes and one ear took in this exchange from behind the doocot. The eyes and ear belonged to something. A person, a ghost; it barely knew. It knew words though and could understand almost everything the two men were saying. It knew that it had once been called a name. The name sounded like Jordy. Jordy smiled.

         Knife. The word appeared and disappeared in Jordy’s mind like a spark struck from flint. He could feel the wooden handle of the fruit knife as he held it in his grimy right hand.

         “Ah-ah,” he said, “Bad, last time, remember?”

         Jordy remembered. He ran the three fingers of his left hand along the flat side of the blade.

         Jordy could feel hunger. His belly gurgled. After surviving for weeks on raspberries, blaeberries, onions and cabbage he craved a more substantial meal.

         Iain Barclay sat by the small hearth in his workshop. The harbour clock chimed six o’clock. The heat from the fire was pleasant, as was the evening meal of ham, bread, cheese and a small bottle of porter, which his wife had packed for him. Barclay looked up and out of the doorway; the clouds had cleared a little but the sun was already low in the western sky. He would normally be home by now but he had a deadline to meet for a shipping firm on the far shore of the River Clyde at Dumbarton. A squadron of ships was assembling for the second phase of the Darién venture and Barclay had been lucky enough to secure some work. Like most Scots, he had invested some of his savings in the scheme and hoped he’d see a return. In the meantime, ends had to be met and this additional work was a blessing.

         The doorway darkened. Barclay saw the black outline of a man but far larger than any man he knew, looming larger as it made toward him then hesitated. The right arm of the dark visitor raised and Barclay could see a short blade. Iain jumped from his stool rapidly, sending it tumbling back, and grabbed a broad mallet.

         “Thief! You’ve got a brass neck coming back here. Put that knife down or you’ll have a broken neck, too!”

         The knife-wielding stranger started forward, babbling. The carpenter yelled “Get aff me!” and struck out at the stranger as he side-stepped the advance. The mallet caught the back of the man’s head and sent him to the ground, arms and legs splayed, and the small knife skittering under a bench. He rolled onto his back and put his hands in front of him in submission. Looking around him nowhere in particular, disoriented by the blow to his head, he mumbled,

         “Pease missur. Nay mer. Ahmuh good boay.”

         Barclay drew back. He could now see, in the light from the doorway, the pathetic state of the visitor; filthy and ragged but muscular and well-fed. Barclay estimated the man’s age to be early thirties, although possibly younger, judging by the damage he had suffered.

         “You do a lot of theft and blade brandishing for a ‘good boy’.” said Barclay. “I take it you’re the tar-finger who’s been plaguing me and my neighbour, Mr Henderson. Now, stay just where you are and explain yourself.”

         “Ah didnae know ye wur here, honest! I smellt meat. Jist wanted a wee bit. Wisnae gonnae tak aw ae it. Honest!” said the stranger on the floor, less dazed but now starting to cry.

         “Och, enough. I should have you before the Sheriff right now and no amount of bubbling’s going to change that.” said Barclay

         The stranger composed himself, sniffed, smeared his grimy nose on his forearm, looked up at Barclay and said, “Wissa shurruff?”

         Barclay dropped his arms to his side and threw his eyes skyward. Is this poor wretch an idiot? he thought. He should be under the care of his family or the Church or a charitable person.

         “Sit there.” Barclay motioned to the stool. The stranger complied. Barclay gestured to the small table by the fire: “There’s the meat you were after. Eat.”

         Again, the stranger obeyed with great enthusiasm.

         “I thought you said you didn’t want all of it,” said Barclay, as Jordy consumed the lump of meat. “What’s your name?” he asked, retrieving the fruit knife from the floor.

         “Vorvay,” said the stranger through an overflowing mouthful of part-chewed ham.

         “Whit?” Barclay narrowed his eyes at the disgusting sight.

         The stranger swallowed the gifted meal and announced, “Jordy. That’s whit ma mammy cried me when I done somethin’ right. Alexander George MacSuail when I was bein’ a wee shite.”

         “I see.” Barclay wondered what he was getting into and whether this Jordy fellow was as mentally impaired as he first seemed. “Well, ‘Alexander George MacSuail’ you have caused a more than reasonable aggregate of trouble in these parts lately. You care to tell me what you’re doing here and why you’ve been stealing from me and Mr Henderson? Where are you from?”

         “Here,” replied Jordy.

         “What do you mean, ‘here’? The Port? Greenock? Kilmacolm?”

         “Naw, here,” Jordy gestured all around him.

         “The castle? But no-one’s lived here for about thirty y…” Barclay stopped and looked at the floor as a new sensibility of his guest began to dawn. “Are you one of the MacSuails who used to own this place when it was a great house?”

         Jordy looked blankly at Barclay. “It was just me and my mammy. She died. I didnae like the folk that came for me,” explained Jordy, now staring intently into the flames in the hearth.

         Barclay took in the pathetic figure and felt some pity for his ordeal. “I think we need to…” as Barclay spoke he was interrupted by a voice behind him.

         “Barclay, I’ve asked … what the devil? Is this him? Well done, man! Although it looks like there’s been quite a struggle in here,” said Henderson.

         “You!” he snarled, addressing Jordy, “I ought to whip you myself! Ugly, stinking brute! Here, have a taste of my rage!” exclaimed Henderson becoming red in the face. He looked round, finding a length of wood, and raised it to strike Jordy who was now getting to his feet. Seeing Jordy at his full and substantial height and breadth, Henderson stepped back then recovered his bravado and struck at the larger man. The blow came down. Jordy raised his left arm to fend it and the wood snapped and splintered.

         “Bad man!” howled Jordy with pain. He cradled his arm for a moment before he reached with his right, grabbed Henderson by the shirt and propelled him through the door.

         “That’s enough!” shouted Barclay, “Sit down!”

         “Bad man . . .” Jordy said. But, he obeyed and watched Barclay run outside to revive Henderson.

         “Mr Henderson, are you alright?” asked Barclay.

         Henderson groaned and looked up. “That thing is a menace. We’re going to the Sheriff. I want it locked up!”

         “Aye, you’re probably right but I think he’s harmless, really. And, to be fair, you attacked him.”

         “Are you suggesting he should press charges against me? I’ve never been so…” spluttered Henderson, looking around as if to find some meaning to the occurrences of the last few instants.

         “No, Mr Henderson, of course not.” said Barclay, attempting to calm his red-faced neighbour. “I just think this poor creature is more to be pitied than vilified.”

         “Vilified is it, now? You have ideas above your station.” said Henderson shaking his head. “You’re a stout fellow but you must learn your place,” he went on as he took Barclay’s arm and they both headed back into the doorway of the workshop. “I appreciate your charitable instincts but…” at that moment he was interrupted by Jordy collapsing to the floor, moaning loudly. They found him lying on his side, squirming and babbling.

         Having eased Henderson onto a seat, Barclay looked to Jordy. “It seems to be some sort of fit. He’s sweating but ice-cold, his jaw’s clamped shut – I pray he isn’t choking on his tongue!”

         Jordy’s body became rigid and his eyes snapped open, staring, wide and wild like a panicking animal. “Death for the horned horse and the saltire!” he rasped in a new voice, growing louder. “The red lion with claws bared is perishing. So too the brave adventurer and the grey fish that grins! Your hubris blinds you. Flies and morass are taking you. The dragon-slayer and the orange king are your betrayers. Make not a grave of your efforts! The rising sun will die in the west!”

         With this last sentence screamed as if to be heard over a storm at sea, Jordy collapsed senseless into Barclay’s arms.