Like Chaff in the Wind Read Online Free PDF Page A

Lord for having signed a deed of guardianship, stating clearly that in the event of his demise it was Simon, not Luke, who was to stand as father to Mark.
    It almost made him laugh to think of Alex’s reaction at not being considered an adequate guardian. His peculiar, God-given wife would argue that she was fully capable of defending her son, and he could see her eyes slitting into flashing sapphires as she remonstrated with Simon. He shifted on the hard boards, attempting to shut out the sound of the chains. His wife… He ran his hand up and down his forearm, pretending it was her caress he felt. It made him weaken with longing for her.
    “Alex.” He smiled when he said her name, struck by the certainty of what she would do. She’d come after him, find him, and in his gut a flower of hope grew. If anyone could do such, it would be her, but it would cost her, because Simon would never let her take Mark with her – nor should he. He rolled over on his side. Poor Alex; to be torn from another son, just as she’d lost Isaac to the vagaries of time. But deep inside, he was dizzyingly happy as the conviction in him grew, that no matter the cost to her, she would come for him.
    *
    It was difficult to hold on to that ray of hope over the weeks that followed. For a month they lay at anchor in Plymouth, and while the other in the hold were allowed out on deck to take air, Matthew was kept sitting in the dark, the captain making a point of informing him that he would be given no chance to escape. Matthew raged in his chains and on one occasion lost his temper completely, which resulted in him crawling in pain as the cudgels rained over his shoulders and back.
    “You mustn’t provoke them,” James chided him. “You must keep your head down.” But it was too late, and the guards found one reason after the other to taunt and manhandle Matthew. Bend, he told himself, bend Matthew Graham or they will break you. Mostly he did, but sometimes the injustice of it all was too much, and that was how he came to be chained to the main mast in nothing but his shirt, unable to escape the biting iciness of the March wind, as the Henriette Marie began her long journey across the open sea.
    To distract himself from his helpless shivering and the way his fingers and toes ached with cold, he thought about the day he’d found Alex, a strangely dressed lass lying sprawled face down on a hillside. He stretched his chapped lips in a weak smile as he recalled those odd breeches – djeens, she’d called them – and her short hair. And he’d known, already then, that this lass was somehow meant for him, a gift from God no less, for how else to explain the propitious coincidence that had him on the moor just when she came tumbling through time? He laughed; Alex was somewhat more sceptical to this whole divine intervention, voicing that it was all due to the fluke lightning storm, a freak misalignment in time.
    When he was brought back down into the hold, he was unconscious with fever, small bubbles of lucidity popping through his brain. At times he recognised the man who sat by his side, and he’d make an effort to smile at this familiar person before being dragged under yet again.
    James’ face was the first thing Matthew saw when the fever finally broke, and he slumped into a deep dejection. In his delirious dreams he’d been home, wandering green fields and wide woods, laughing as he chased Alex up the slope, holding his wee son in his arms. Now he woke to chains and creaking boards, to men who coughed and farted in their sleep, and the despairing insight that mayhap he wouldn’t make it, maybe he would die without ever seeing her again.
    *
    They all thought they would die some weeks later when the Henriette Marie was tossed from wave to wave, all of her protesting when the sea slammed into her creaking sides. For days the storm raged, sweeping anything not securely lashed to the deck overboard. In the hold they sat in ice cold water as