Theodosia’s stricken look met Palmer’s. She staggered to him as he came for her.
She reached for him, clung to him as if in fear she too would be carried over. “You’ve saved me again. I don’t deserve it, with doubting you over and over. Please forgive me. Please.”
Palmer held her tight, heart still racing, the picture of le Bret and his raised sword seared in his memory. “Like I doubted you. You stayed awake to watch for Satan, which I put down as foolish prating.” He brought a hand to her cold cheek as the wind circled round them. “Yet your watching out for evil saved us both.” Unseen by her, he brushed his lips against the top of her hair and thanked his own God silently in his heart. And may those two bastards rot in the hell of their own making.
CHAPTER 21
Palmer led the way through the crowds on Southampton’s busy quayside, Theodosia close behind him.
“I fear we will not be able to find her in time, Benedict,” she said.
Though the port was at the edge of a tidal estuary, there was still plenty salt on the wind to make his skin prickle. The ocean, his old enemy. The one that had taken him from his family, set him adrift in the world. The one that would force him to deliver Theodosia back to the church. “We’re not looking for her,” he said.
“What do you mean?” She grabbed his arm hard enough to stop him and pull him round to face her. “Don’t be so foolish. We have to. People have lost their lives through looking for my mother. We cannot stop. Do you hear me?”
Palmer drew breath to match her sharp reply, but guilt stabbed at him. Her gray eyes, haunted by things she shouldn’t have seen, heard. Her pale skin, her clothes, spattered with the mud and dirt of the hundreds of miles they’d traveled. She must be at her limit.
“What I meant was,” he said, “it could take days to find two people here. Especially as Edward will be wary of being seen. And we don’t have days.” He squinted up at the sun’s position over the town’s castle. “We’re not much later than midday, and from the monk’s letter, tomorrow is the day they sail. That’s why I’m not looking for your mother, I’m looking for the reeve’s office.”
She frowned. “A reeve?”
“A reeve’s an official of the king. They control the foreign trade that comes into and out of ports. They’ve the power to raise taxes from foreign merchants and goods that come in from other lands.”
“That’s no help. My mother and Edward are not coming in from abroad.”
“Such a man will know all of the ships that come and go. Including the one your mother will be on.”
“Then why are we wasting time?”
Limit or no, she could fair try his patience. Palmer set off again along the quay, Theodosia alongside him.
Ships of different size and age took every space at the dockside. Men loaded some, unloaded others. Some vessels sat full in the water, some empty. Between them, choked with seaweed, spoil, and rotten wood, the ocean lapped still and dirty. Men carried out repairs with hammers, saws, mallets, quick to get back to sea.
Ahead, a group of men with heavy muscles unloaded a large cog. Each man carried an oak barrel on his bent shoulders along the sagging wooden planks of the gangway. They carried their loads across the dock, then up through one of the arches set into the high defensive banks surrounding the town.
“These men will know,” said Palmer to Theodosia. “Those are wine barrels.”
As one of the dockers returned to collect another load, Palmer stopped him. “A word, fellow.”
The man looked from Palmer to Theodosia. Sweat dripped from his face, and his leather jerkin moved in and out from his toil. “What is it? I’m in a hurry.”
“Where are the harbor reeve’s rooms?” said Palmer.
The man jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Fifty yards along,” he said. “Goes by the name of Rodger Oswin.” He spat on the ground in contempt. “Hope you’re not bringing aught in. He’d tax the shite dropping into a privy, that one.”
“My thanks.” Palmer put his arm around Theodosia’s shoulder and drew her away with him.
With a wave, the man continued on his way to the cog.
“How ill he speaks of Mr. Oswin,” said Theodosia, eyes rounded at the man’s response.
A wood-and-stone building, battered from storms and the elements, caught Palmer’s eye. “Look. That’s it.” It stood at the end of a row built leaning against the town’s defenses, each one between an open brick archway.
A large wooden board, painted with a crown, hung from a metal bracket above the open door. The building’s contents spread out across where people walked. Bags piled up, barrels stacked one on another. A chair. Earthenware pots. A bale of straw. Piles of mangy animal pelts.