The Ravens’ Banquet Read Free Page A

the eye.
    Stone was a strange fellow, and he had about his person the air of a Dissenter who had lost his God. At twenty-three, he was two years my senior, and his family lived on my father’s lands not far from where our own house lay. The Stones farmed a lot or two, but chiefly they were the blacksmiths in the village, and had been for many a year. In the fortnight I had spent in Samuel’s company, he had proved himself to be a hard toiler, sober in temperament, but possessed of a sharp tongue when prodded. And although he seemed resigned to his new situation, I caught a drift of a surliness that I had seen often in others like him. Chiefly the Separatist rabble that seemed to infest Plymouth before shipping themselves off to the plantations in America. But, if canting Puritan he was, I had already seen him hoist a double jug with gusto and curse a blue streak as well.
    “Answer me this, then,” I said, “What would induce a man to leave his business and family to follow a stranger into certain battle in a land far from home?”
    He nodded slowly and reached again to steady himself on the ship’s rail. “That be a fair question deserving of a straight answer even if I thought I’d made it already. I stand here because my father ordered me to it – no more, no less.”
    “But my father did not order any of his tenants to this task,” I replied. “He asked for a volunteer to follow me into service with the Danes. Why did your father volunteer you ?”
    “Make no mistake,” said Samuel. “I had no wish to leave my home. That much is true. But neither have I yet taken a wife as has my brother, so you got me.”
    “Then will you follow me into service and fight against the Papists?” I asked him.
    He smiled a half-smile and looking over to me for the first time, swept his long dank hair behind one ear. “Aye, well, I’m a farmer and not a soldier, but if needs must, to keep an eye on you, as is my appointed task, then a soldier shall I be.”
    “You don’t need to do it,” I said. “Even now the way lies open – we could set you on Kentish soil tomorrow should you wish it.”
    He gave a hollow laugh. “And find myself a masterless man in Kent with but a few coins in my purse? That, sir, is no choice. I am my father's son and I serve his will as the Lord commands.”
    “Then our purpose is fixed, Goodman Stone,” I told him. “And we are in God's hands.”
    “Master Treadwell,” he asked, “What is it that makes you take leave of home?”
    I was cut to the quick by his insolence but I answered him civilly. “Why what cause is there but the Protestant one? A noble cause and a means to make one’s fortune. There are worse fates to be had in Devon shire.”
    Samuel nodded, but he was not necessarily agreeing.
    “My father once told me that everything happens for a reason. It that is so, then when these things happen it must have reason behind it as well.”
    His long face lay half in shadow, the right side illuminated fiery-bronze by the light of the forecastle lantern.
    “You mean Opportunity must be seized when it appears,” I said.
    “Aye, something like that,” he replied, as if it were a guessing game.
    I tried to carry on our conversation but he cut me off before I could probe him any further.
    “By your leave, Master Treadwell, I will take to my bed.”
    I waved him off and Stone trundled away, shoulders hunched. Was he truly so dull as he made out to be, or was there something else besides? Perhaps he had seen in this adventure the means of his own escape from the drudgery of the hoe or anvil. As the ship rolled, I watched him bounce like a skittle off the bulkhead door and disappear into the darkness of the aft cabin.
    By now, I had no stomach for more dice or drink and so decided to take to bed myself. I had been given a small cot in an adjoining closet to the master's cabin and so, once his gaming ended, was treated to the snoring of Captain Trask for the better part of the night.