The rowing boat would risk being smashed if it came close, if he was near to the rocks, he could not be too far from the shore. Go without me,' he bellowed.
He could scramble over them towards safety.
He aimed for the rocks when something hit him from behind, forcing him head first on to an out crop.
The impact left him reeling. He flailed and
was slammed once more on to the rocks.
Something warm trickled down his face, but he had no time to examine the wound.
John clambered up the rocks and crawled on
belly in the direction of the light that was
burning on shore. Facing brutal wreckers would be safer than a certain death by drowning.
After much slipping and sliding that left him grazed and bruised, he staggered on to a beach.
He tripped over a body of one of the crewmen who had not survived the waters and gave a sob.
His head was spinning. There seemed to be
two moons shining down, but even so he was
finding it hard to make out anything in the moonlight.
He felt his head and his fingers came away
wet and sticky with blood. The sensation made him nauseous.
John staggered further up the beach, but when the hard sand changed, he slipped and lay on the damp shingle.
He rolled on to his back, tangled in
his cloak, and lay there.
Time lost meaning and it could have been a day or a minute before he first heard the voices that called to each other across
the shore.
The wreckers had come. Among the coarse sounds, John was convinced he heard soft female tones that did not belong in a place of such devastation and death.
He caught a scent of something floral that was at odds with the odours of sea and blood.
He decided he must be dreaming, or was at last to be reunited with his wife and a feeling of peace descended on him.
'Margaret?" he mumbled. I am ready for you.
He could not keep his eyes open and had no
strength left to do anything but surrender to whatever fate held in store for him.
The fires had been lit in the church windows
again. Blanche Tanet slammed down her comb as soon as the faint scent of smoke reached her.
Her bedchamber on the top floor of the tower room had windows at each side and she could see both shores that the castle overlooked. She leaned out, looking towards the village of Plomarc'h and, sure enough, in the window of St Petroc's Church. a light shone out to sea.
The church was on the clifftop set a short distance from the village. It was visible from the sea, so sailors and fishermen would know they were being watched over, but the purpose of the beacon was far from holy.
Blanche had been preparing for bed, but could not ignore this. She muttered an oath under her breath.
She tore off her chemise and began to dress in breeches and a shirt. Over the top of her padded sleeveless gambeson she threw a heavy cloak, then tugged on her knee-length leather boots.
She did not have time to braid her hair,
but simply gathered it, twisting and piling it under a wide-brimmed sailor's hat, and strode down the stairs, gathering a flaming brand from the iron ring in the wall.
When she reached the path that led to the beach she broke into a run, arriving on the beach slightly out of breath.
The bodies of drowned men littered the shore.
When the moon slid from behind heavy, black
clouds, the rocky shore looked like a battlefield.
Blanche felt her stomach heave. She swallowed down the bile that rose to her throat and tightened her grip on the torch.
She strode to the shore
and peered out across the black rocks that glistened wet and sharp, only slightly visible above the surface.
The rocks stretched out well into the
sea and had been guilty of causing more deaths than Blanche could imagine over the centuries.
Barrels bobbed, surging in and out as the tide
dragged at them. Wine. This had most likely been a merchant ship.
All around her, the villagers hauled the debris from the sea to carry it away or load it on to the wheeled carts they had brought in preparation for such finds.
Was she the only one who felt a twinge of guilt
at the way they treated the dead?