Winds of Time (7 page)

I turned around, just as one of the sailors
put my satchel on board the ship. Morgan stood at Marc’s stirrup.
He hadn’t actually left yet. Marc nodded at something Morgan said
and then looked at me.

I raised my hand. “Thank you, Marc.”

He hesitated, and then returned my
salutation, before grasping the reins of both his horse and mine
and heading back the way we’d come. Meanwhile, a different sailor
picked up my satchel, opened the cabin door, and gestured that I
should follow him inside.

“
Where should I put this,
Madam?” he said, in Welsh.

“
In the corner is fine,” I
said.

He dropped it on the floor and left. I
surveyed the space that would be my living quarters for the next
few days. The furniture included a single chair and table, which
was bolted to the floor, and a cloth sling hanging from the ceiling
in one corner. It was a hammock, though the captain wouldn’t have
used the word and I hadn’t thought they were known in Europe before
the Spanish Conquest. It made me scoff yet again at all historians
didn’t get quite right.

I exited my cabin to find
the captain just closing the door of the cabin beside mine.
Glancing at me, he pulled it shut, but not before I saw the figure
of a man, sitting at a table in the far corner.
The physician.
I was relieved not to
have to think the worst of Captain Morgan.

“
We sail within the hour,
Madam,” the Captain said.

“
Thank you.” I followed him
up the ladder to the top deck. He indicated that I could sit under
the canopy at the rear of the boat. I did as he suggested and
watched the sun set. It wasn’t clear to me how, exactly, the
captain was going to navigate us to Wales in the dark. The
thirteenth century might not be pre-hammock, but we were definitely
pre-sextant.

The Isle of Man was some distance south and
west of Silloth, the village at which we were docked. I couldn’t
see the island from where I sat. Hopefully, Captain Morgan had an
astrolabe, and between that and dead reckoning, he could find the
way.

This proved to be the case, at least for the
initial stage of our journey. It took us all night to sail to the
Isle of Man, and all of the next day to reach Keill Moirrey, a
fishing village on the south end of the island. Because Scotland,
not England, ruled the Isle of Man in this time, the village could
offer us a safe haven.

Unfortunately, smooth sailing or not, within
an hour of leaving Silloth and entering the Irish Sea, I was
hanging over the side of the boat, praying for the journey to end.
The crew managed to refrain from openly laughing at me, but I could
see laughter in their eyes—when I could open mine, that is. As a
teenager, I had once gone deep sea fishing with my aunt and uncle.
I’d caught a tuna in that first hour of relative peace, and spent
the remaining eight hours on the boat lying on a cushion feeling
ill. I’d avoided small boats—any boat, really—ever since. The
memory hadn’t improved with time, and this journey felt (if
possible) worse.

I was so miserable that I didn’t remember to
ask for help from the physician until after we left Keill Moirrey.
It was the captain’s comment, “Rough sea ahead!” that reminded me.
I leapt to my feet and knocked on the door of the other cabin.

“
Come in.” The words were in
English.

I opened the door and stepped through it,
finding myself in a space equal in size to mine, with its own
hammock and table. An older man with a beard and long gown sat in a
chair near the starboard window. He got to his feet as I entered,
and greeted me with a bow. I curtsied, which seemed to surprise
him, and he suggested I sit in the only other chair in the
room.

I sat and for a minute we just looked at
each other.

He spoke first, again in English. “I am
Aaron ben Simon.” Then, with a wry smile, he added, “I confess you
are not what I expected.”

I’d heard that a lot recently. “How is
that?” I said.

“
The captain led me to
believe that you were a widow with two grown children. I had
envisioned a woman with more years to her. You are young and
beautiful.”

If I were on the internet, I
would have typed
LOL
. That was one of the nicest things anyone had said to me in a
long time. I should have been used to everyone’s reaction to my
appearance by now, but I kept forgetting. Life was hard for women
in the Middle Ages, even those who were rich. By comparison, the
twenty-first century provided a very soft life, and that was
reflected in my face, and as Edyth had noticed, my
hands.

I smiled and thanked him. “My name is Meg,
and I assure you that I am long widowed. I am thirty-seven years
old, though few have believed this of me of late.”

Aaron’s eyes smiled, even if his mouth
didn’t. “How is it that you were in England?”

All of a sudden, I realized
he was the first person I had met here who was really looking
at
me
and talking
to
me
; not to a
preconception of me that included woman, widow, and dependent
person. It made me wonder who Aaron was and if he was
representative of the Jewish community in England. I knew he was
probably well educated; certainly he was literate if he was a
doctor.

I had a sudden compulsion to tell him the
truth—the real truth—but I clamped my lips together and fought the
feeling. He watched me, and I decided that some truth was better
than none.

“
Please forgive me my
silence,” I said. “I would rather not lie to you, and that means I
can’t tell you anything of myself. Will you accept me as I am for
the time being? Hopefully, when we arrive in Wales, I can tell you
more of my history.”

Aaron graciously tipped his head. I sighed
in relief.

“
I was hoping that you could
help me with my seasickness,” I said. “I understand that you are a
doctor?”

“
Yes.” His expression grew
concerned. “But I am forbidden to practice on
Christians.”

“
English Christians,” I
reminded him, “which I am most definitely not. We are also no
longer under the jurisdiction of England, so perhaps you would
consider helping me?”

“
I would be delighted to
assist you.” Aaron rose to his feet. “If you give me a moment, I
will find something that should stem your nausea.”

“
Thank you.” I watched as he
went to a trunk, pulled out a large book, and began to page through
it.

“
What is that book?” I said,
after a minute.

“
A Greek text,” Aaron said,
without turning around. “Why do you ask?”

“
That’s too bad. I can’t
read Greek.”

Aaron almost dropped the book. “You read,
Madam? In what language?”

“
In English, Welsh, French,
and Spanish,” I said. “And Latin.”

Aaron stared at me, and I
couldn’t help feeling pleased.
Finally
, someone who appreciated my
particular talents. Young and beautiful was all very well and
good—but smart was better. It hadn’t always been that way for me,
which is probably why I’d allowed myself to fall for Anna’s father,
but I wasn’t eighteen anymore.

Aaron didn’t question me further, however,
because a second later a loud rushing sound came from outside. In
unison, we looked towards the doorway, which I had left open for
propriety’s sake. Rain beat on the deck so hard I could barely see
the wood through the rush of water. The boat had been rolling more
and more as Aaron and I had been talking, but our conversation had
distracted me from the rocky feeling in my stomach. Now my
attention was drawn to it, and the intense queasiness returned. I
must have paled because Aaron hurried to his herbal collection and
began taking down bottles.

“
I cannot promise the
immediacy of the cure,” he said, stirring one powder and then
another into a glass of wine. “By rights you should have taken this
before we left land, for it to reach full potency by the time we
reached the open sea.”

“
Anything to help me.” I
gurgled my unhappiness, my head in my hands. Aaron handed me the
wine.

I gazed at it, not dubiously, but suddenly
wary of medieval medicine I didn’t know anything about. “What’s in
it?”

“
Ginger, basil, and
peppermint are the best herbs for nausea. Their tastes don’t go
well together, however, and usually I use just one, infused in a
tea. I have no hot water here and thus, I ground the herbs to
powder and mixed them with wine. This particular concoction is
predominantly ginger. I am out of peppermint.”

Feeling like I had to drink it, if only so
Aaron wouldn’t think I mistrusted him, I sipped the drink. It
didn’t taste too bad—a good thing because that alone could have
made me vomit. I sipped some more and thanked him as he returned to
his chair.

“
What brings you to this
ship?” I said, trying to distract myself from my stomach. “Captain
Morgan told me that you’d saved his daughter’s life. Why are you
leaving England?”

“
I may have saved her life,
but I lost my wife and daughter in the same sickness.”

“
I am so sorry!” I said.
“How terrible for you!”

“
Fortunately, Samuel, my
son, was not with us and was spared.”

The silence stretched out and I was about to
prompt him again, when he spoke. “I have worried about the status
of Jewry in England for many years. King Henry took our money and
allowed us a living, such as it was, but his son, Edward, stripped
us of our wealth and standing. He has even closed the synagogues.
Many refuse to see the danger, but I am free to make my way in the
world. If a more hospitable land exists, I will try to find
it.”

“
And you think that might be
Wales?” I said.

“
Prince Llywelyn exhibits
few of the excesses of his English cousins. He doesn’t persecute
the Jews, and he himself is under the interdict of excommunication.
He ignores this by worshipping among the Cistercians, who have no
love for the Jews, I admit, but their rule is more tolerant than
that of their English brethren.”

“
I see,” I said, loving the
formality of his vocabulary, and thinking of all the people who
left Europe for America over the centuries for the freedom to
practice their religion in peace. That was still over three hundred
years in the future. Aaron’s decision to sail to Wales was only a
first step.

Aaron tilted his head to one side as if
curious. “For some reason, I believe you really do see. How is that
possible?”

“
It is one of things I can’t
tell you right now, without having to lie,” I said. “And I am tired
of lying.”

Aaron nodded and then looked more closely at
me. “Your face is turning green. ” He said this if making an
unimportant observation.

“
I feel
terrible.”

“
Let us walk a little,”
Aaron said. “Perhaps the captain would allow me on the deck to
escort you to the side of the boat.”

I nodded and Aaron took my arm. We walked
through the door and then a few paces to the left, trying to stay
in the shelter of the slight overhang that protected us from the
rain. I gripped the rail, but then saw with horror how enormous the
waves had become. As the boat went up one wave and down another it
seemed that a gulf opened at our feet.

“
Madam! Have a care! And
you!” Captain Morgan appeared with a glare for Aaron. “What are you
thinking?”

“
Sorry! Sorry!” Aaron held
up his hands, palms outward. “My mistake.”

“
Get yourselves back
inside!” Captain Morgan grasped our arms and hauled us backwards
from the rail and towards the cabin door. As the deck of the boat
rose again, we fell into Aaron’s cabin and the Captain slammed the
door behind us.

I found myself face down, my dress rucked up
around my thighs. Fortunately, since I’d been riding astride during
my journey, I wore leggings underneath.

I pushed to my hands and knees. “I hate the
sea.”

“
I can appreciate why,”
Aaron said.

Laughter bubbled in my throat and then bile.
I forced it back down. Everything that had happened over the last
week threatened to overwhelm me all at once and I moaned. Aaron
hooked his hand around my arm and helped me into the hammock. I
rocked with the motion of the ship, listening to the rain pound on
the roof and praying that I—and this little boat—could keep it
together just a little longer.

Chapter Six

The storm worsened in the night. Aaron hung
on to an iron ring in the floor, literally for dear life, while I
rocked in the hammock. He tried to make conversation, but I felt so
ill I could barely speak. He talked about his family, particularly
of his older brother Jacob, who had been a trouble-maker as a boy.
When I didn’t respond, even to his funnier stories, he began to
recite one of his medical books from memory. In Latin.

At some point in the dark hours of the early
morning, Captain Morgan reappeared. As he opened the door, the wind
banged it back against the wall of the room so hard that it split
in two. “Mistress! You must leave the ship with the youngsters
among my crew. We are only a few miles from Wales but I can’t take
the ship in to shore. The storm hasn’t lessened as I’d hoped and
the wind is against us.”

Terror filled me, though there was something
in Morgan’s eyes that made me think he was offering us the only
hope he had, and would save none for himself. Without waiting for
an answer, he half-dragged, half-carried me from the room, picking
up Aaron by his upper arm on his way out the door.