the ceiling. Was the alewife lying awake up there listening to the cries? Could she hear them above the wind?
The voice outside rose higher, shrieking desperately to make itself heard. 'Have mercy on me. I'm so cold, so very cold. I cannot bear it. For pity's sake, don't leave me out here in the dark.'
The fist hammered frantically against the door. The man outside was sobbing, screaming. Raffe could stand it no longer. He struggled to his feet, splashing across the room, and with numb hands tried to trace where the bracing beam was positioned in its brackets. He began to wriggle it loose, and had almost succeeded when he felt an ice-cold hand grasp his.
'No, no!' Martin shrieked at him. 'What are you doing? You must not open it.'
Raffe shrugged the hand off. 'Can't you hear him? A man is in trouble out there. We can't leave him to die.'
'Who? Who would be wandering abroad on such a night? I can hear nothing except the wind and water. If you open that door, the water will pour in and we will all drown, maybe even the house will fall.'
The voice outside rose again in a shriek for help, the pleas so tormented that Raffe felt as if a fist was twisting his guts.
'Can't you hear that?' Raffe shouted. He pushed Martin aside and began again to wrestle with the beam.
'It is just the storm you can hear,' Martin said. 'Things banging in the wind.'
Raffe could not believe that Martin was pretending not to hear the man pleading for his life outside. That snivelling little wretch was such a coward, he was willing to let a man drown just inches away from where he stood and do nothing. Raffe fought with the beam and almost had it clear when a fist hit him so hard in the diaphragm that he doubled up, gasping and struggling to draw breath. He sank to his knees in the water, his hands clenching and unclenching, and he tried desperately to force air into his lungs, then finally, with a burst of effort that felt like an explosion inside him, he drew breath. He knelt there in the icy water wheezing painfully as he heard Martin forcing the beam back into place.
Raffe was still on all fours in the water gasping for breath when he felt Martin's legs against his thigh and the cold, sharp prick of a dagger in his back.
'Reach slowly and give me your knife,' Martin ordered.
Raffe reluctantly did as he was told. In his younger days, he could have disarmed the man in a trice, but he had a feeling that Martin, for all his weasel build, knew how to defend himself better than most.
'Now you will sit over there on that bench. And if you go near to the door again, I will kill you.'
The man's tone was suddenly cold and hard. There was a calm resolve in it which left Raffe in little doubt that he meant it.
They sat there opposite each other on the benches until daybreak, listening to the storm rampaging through the streets. Neither spoke again. The voice outside finally fell silent and the howling of the wind now seemed hollow and empty as if all life had vanished from the world.
Towards dawn, the storm died down and, despite the cold and his wet clothes, Raffe must have drifted off into some kind of sleep for he woke to the sound of the ladder creaking as the alewife descended into the room. A pale, milky light filled the room. The shutter stood open and Martin was peering out into the Row.
'The water, it has gone,' he said, turning to the alewife.
'Aye, well, it would. Sea goes back to its bed right enough, soon as the wind dies down.' She heaved the beam from the door and flung it open. Without even bothering to look out, she picked up a birch besom and began sweeping vigorously, shooing the black muddy water along the floor towards the open door.
'You'll be off then.' It was more a statement than a question.
She reminded Raffe of his own mother. She could never wait for the men to leave the house each morning. She regarded men and children as something to be shaken out with the dust, beaten out, if needs be.
Martin extended Raffe's knife to him, offering the hilt with his clawed hand. There was no embarrassment or apology, merely the curt return of it as you might hand over an