The Island House (10 page)

Light picked out the edges of a steel staircase leading into the void below. The treads were fixed to the wall with massive bolts, and irregularities in the stone glittered like powdered glass as, step by step, she descended. Ahead, there were four small windows, through which daylight struggled. Freya had not noticed them on the outside of the building.

But something else was down there, something big. As she stood on the stone floor of what was, undeniably, an undercroft—a crypt such as a monastery might have—awe feathered her spine.

The granite obelisk was much taller than she was, and it was
considerably weathered, but she was startled by the symbols carved on its surface. Touching the incised markings gently, Freya traced the lines. There were twining serpents and double circles with dots in the middle like the pupils of eyes, and something that looked like a hand mirror used by high-status women; she recognized that from finds she’d seen as a child. Memory nudged. The Picts. These were
Pictish
symbols.

She walked around the other side, and here there were Nordic runes. If they were Elder or Younger Futhark, Freya did not know, but one thing was clear: the obelisk had been reused, very deliberately, in antiquity, by two separate peoples.

She held the lamp higher and turned a complete circle. The placement of the stone was strange: it was planted in the floor near the bottom of the stairs like a tree that had somehow lost its forest, but the groined and vaulted ceiling placed this space somewhere between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries CE, as did the slender, twisted pillars that supported the roof and marched away into darkness.

As Freya’s light traveled over the landscape of this new subterranean world, it did not touch the ends or edges of the space—so this was a very large area, possibly even more extensive than the footprint of Compline House.

And then she saw the storage Compactus. She couldn’t imagine the difficulty her father must have had and all the time and labor it would have meant, but somehow he’d brought these steel cupboards down here and assembled them, piece by piece, panel by panel onto their tracks. Perhaps he’d had help—maybe Walter had lent a hand? The Compactus certainly answered one of the questions that had nagged Freya; here was storage space for his finds, and lots of it.

Was it locked? Freya pulled on the handle at the end of one row of cupboards—there were five—and the first rolled smoothly away from its neighbor. The shelves were organized and orderly, but they were packed, crammed with containers. Anonymous cardboard
boxes with lids but all labeled, all cross-referenceable with Michael’s records upstairs.

Freya scanned the numbers on the shelves and selected a box. In a nest of cotton wool was a gold torque, something a king might have worn much more than a thousand years ago. Michael’s notes had said he’d found it when cutting peat for the fire—one of the random discoveries he’d made in what had once been a marsh.

She opened another and saw arm rings, also gold; these had been lying close to the torque in the bog. “You said they were here, Dad, and I didn’t believe you.” Only two boxes out of . . . who knew how many others.

Freya replaced the second lid very carefully. Findnar was a treasure-house—a really, really serious trove of precious objects.

She pushed the last cupboard back, and as she turned, her light slid over a surface that seemed to writhe—dark figures squirmed, all popping eyes and teeth like knives.

But it was only a carving, just a piece of blackened wood. Propped up against the wall beyond the windows, this panel was several meters long but narrow at one end and with a long, curved edge. It had been deep in shadow before, but now, etched in high relief, Freya saw the savage little figures were linked together in patterns; whorls formed by arms and legs, swords and axes spun out into ever greater circles of repeating motifs. There were animals too, many-legged horses and snarling hounds.

Freya put the lamp on the floor. She knocked with one careful knuckle on the surface of the wood. This was very old, Viking age at least, and museum quality, as were all the finds she’d seen.

She closed her eyes. Her head was tight and aching—as if there wasn’t enough skin to properly stretch over her skull. Time to ask a few questions of the living.

CHAPTER 8

L
ATE IN
the morning a fresh wind pushed the fog away. Hauling on the backpack and zipping her wet-weather jacket tight to her throat, Freya closed Compline’s back door. She resisted the urge to lock it.

The little cart was waiting in the shed, and Freya picked up the handles. It was heavier than it looked and would be cumbersome on the cliff path, but if she bought provisions in Portsolly, it would beat carrying them home.
Home.
Hmmm, bit premature that.

Head down against the wind, Freya walked the narrow trail to the cove. Natural buttresses forced the path to curve along its length, and she tried to avoid looking down at the rocks below. When she reached the beach, she put the cart down and flexed her shoulders, scanning the headland at the other end of the cove. The granite was black against the white sky, and it was hard to pick out detail except where light caught on the knobs and spines of rock, but there it was. A void, at sea level—a different shade of dark beneath a natural arch of stone.

Workshop Man was rude, but he was right. This had to be the sea cave.

Heartened, Freya trudged along the hard sand above the tide line. It was tough pushing the cart, so she tried pulling it. After a time her arms quivered with the effort, but she slogged on virtuously—this was better exercise than in any gym, and it was free. Of course, the real price would be paid when she tried to get out of bed tomorrow.

Closer to the headland, Freya began to appreciate how useful
this sheltered beach must have been to the islanders. Sand and shingle sloped gently into the water, and landing boats must have seemed easy on Findnar compared to the rest of this difficult coast. And, too, the headland blocked the worst of the weather from the strait. The air was gentle in the cove, and warmer, a contrast to the cold buffeting she’d had on the cliff path.

Nearly there, now, nearly . . .

She could see the opening was many times her height though narrow, and a tongue of shingle licked out of its shadows.

But there was one further trial; swollen by water cascading from a rent in the cliff face, a stream guarded the entrance to the cave. The rain last night had turned the trickle to a minor torrent, and it would be hard going indeed to pull the cart to the other side.

Freya made a mental note. Enough with the wooden wheels—she had to get something with a tread for this cart and gum boots too for her; no, make that waders.

Panting, wet beyond the knees, Freya finally shoved the cart inside the cave. And there it was—a small cruiser, nothing elaborate but solid and well used. Amidships, there was a proper cabin for protection against the weather, and the seats inside were comfortably padded, including a high chair for the driver, plus there was a substantial panel-mounted VHF radio. Below there was space enough to sleep a couple of people on narrow benches; a tiny, simple kitchen; and tucked away under the nose, a microscopic toilet. Michael must have made the trip to Portsolly and back many, many times and in all weathers. Maybe, thought Freya, he liked exploring the coast as well. Comfortable and dry, that’d be his style.

A natural stone quay began where the shingle ran out, and Michael’s craft was moored to a steel ring hammered into the rock. At high tide, as now, a wide channel in the floor of the cave floated the boat so that it faced an opening on the sea side of the cliff. At low tide, the craft would be beached high and protected as the sea retreated. A convenient and logical place for the only means of
transport on and off the island—secret, too, sort of. If you needed it to be.

The wharf rock must have been used by islanders for a very long time, for there were steps chipped into the stone, and Freya noted, with approval, that a drum of fuel was placed well away from the water. It had a hand pump in the bunghole, and beside it was a new-looking jerrican. She picked it up. It was heavy, full of fuel—excellent backup. There was also a tin trunk and inside that were coils of rope, a rugged flashlight with spare batteries, plus a first aid kit. All good stuff, all well maintained and carefully stowed.

Freya had spent time in boats when she was a kid, and Michael had always insisted on safety checks and well-ordered equipment. It seemed nothing had changed. Some things never did.

As her eyes adjusted to the space, Freya saw the ceiling sloped down as the cave burrowed back into the cliff, its end lost in the dark.
Dark
—Findnar’s specialty. She thumbed the flashlight anyway, but the battery was dead. Putting a fresh one in, she let the beam show her what was there.

Light played over an odd feature. High up at the back of the cave was a stone ledge; quite wide, it would be a good place to store stuff out of the sea’s reach. Serviceable, definitely serviceable, and a good place to hide too. Freya restowed the flashlight. Somewhere to hide—was that a good thing?

Outside the cave, the sea had muddled to a low chop as Freya jumped down into the cruiser. She was pleased with herself; she’d judged the tip and sway of the boat well, and exploring the cabin, she found a safety vest stowed in a locker between the bunks. Time and salt had faded the sleeveless garment from violent orange to pink. It was larger than she needed, a man’s vest. Freya hesitated but then, impatient with herself, tied it on. Michael had taught her to respect the ocean, for he, and she, knew what it could do. In the end, for him, respect and knowledge had not been enough.

Don’t think about that now.

The wind off the strait pushed the sea higher, and the little cruiser swung on its rope when the surge rushed into the cave. It took Freya many attempts and much swearing to get the inboard engine to fire; like the flashlight, it had been a long time unused, and there was almost no juice in the starter. But as the motor rattled and coughed at last, reluctantly snarling into life, Freya nudged the boat out of the cave with a sense of achievement. Instinctively she picked the best moment to crest the incoming swell, and that pleased her too; things learned in childhood, practiced enough, stayed for life.

Once past Findnar’s sheltering headland, Freya felt the force of the sea against the small hull as the restless swell turned muscular on the open water. It took strength and concentration to hold the cruiser’s nose toward Portsolly when the sea wanted to go elsewhere, yet it was glorious to taste salt on the wind again, and there was nothing in this small bout of weather the cruiser couldn’t handle. Michael had chosen his craft with care, Freya could feel that—he must have understood the strait so well, and yet it had taken his life.

Something nudged her. Something half-remembered—lines from a poem at school.

    
The sea does not care.

    
It has no mercy

    
And no memory,

    
For what it has done.

It took less than half an hour to cross between the island and the mainland, and as Freya entered Portsolly’s breakwater, she throttled the motor to slow, taking time to putter toward the quay.

This was such a pretty place. White-walled cottages, some painted pastel pink or yellow, and working buildings of sober gray granite were backed and sheltered by sheer cliffs. There was
a sense that the people of the town had come to terms with their changeable neighbor the sea long ago; they had anchored their houses to the shore like whelks or oysters—unwilling or unable to leave a place of such wild beauty.

Freya cut the engine and allowed the boat to drift toward the quay, making ready to fend the cruiser off. Could she ever fit in here—really learn to call Findnar and Portsolly home?

“You!”

Freya glanced up, startled. A fat young man of around her own age was glaring down. He was furious about something. About someone. Her.

“Who said you could tie up here?”

“Sorry, I thought this was the public wharf.”

The man spoke over her with volume flicked to loud. “People like you. All the same—don’t even read the regulations.”

Though it galled Freya to retreat, she bent down to start the motor again. She kept her voice polite. “I didn’t see any regulations. Can you tell me where I can tie up?”

“Nowhere. Clear off. Tourists!”

That did it. Freya straightened, gaff pole in her hand. It wasn’t easy to balance against the swell, but at least she was on her feet and more this oaf’s equal. “I’m not a tourist. I live on the island. If you can’t tell me where to moor, I’ll ask someone else.”

“Don’t bother.” He snorted.

Not a pretty sight, Freya’s assailant. Thick lips in a lard-pale face; the very fat nose encouraged comparison with a pig,
in so many ways,
Freya thought. She raised her voice. “I’d been told Port-solly’s a friendly place. You’ll be the exception that proves the rule.”