Raffe took the knife and at the same time grabbed Martin's arm with his other hand, pulling the little Frenchman in towards him.
'You try that again,' Raffe snarled, 'and you'll find my knife in your ribs instead of in your hand.'
'I hope,' Martin said levelly, 'that it will not be necessary to try that again.'
The alewife's besom nudged pointedly round their feet, compelling them to move towards the door and then leap swiftly out of it, as she swept a wave of filthy water towards them.
Outside, the small courtyard was a wreck. Although most of the water had indeed drained down the sloping Rows back into the sea, puddles still filled the smallest hollow. The tables and benches in the yard were smashed again into the pieces of driftwood from which they had been crafted, and lay in a heap against the far wall covered in wet sand. Barrels were stranded on their sides, bound fast in bright green seaweed. Dead fish stared up glassy-eyed from the sand or flopped desperately in the brackish puddles. Starfish, still twitching the tip of an arm, were strewn among lumps of tar, pieces of rope, broken flagons and a single rosy apple.
A movement drew Raffe's attention and as he watched, a large crab crawled out sideways from under a tangled piece of net and scuttled for safety towards the wood pile, holding a piece of something white in its raised claw. Now that the crab had drawn his attention, Raffe could see that there was something large and pale buried under the old net. He couldn't make out what it was. mostly from idle curiosity he bent down and tried to disentangle the net, which had been so long in the sea it was covered with slime and goose barnacle shells. But the net was caught fast. As he pulled, something flopped out of the tangle on to the wet sand. It was the tattered sleeve of a garment, bleached of any colour, but it was not that which made Raffe drop the net hastily. Poking out from the end of the sleeve were the bones of a hand.
It took a whole breath before Raffe realized he was staring at a human corpse, or rather the upper half of one. Whoever the poor bastard was, he had been in the sea for a long time. Most of the face was eaten away and what little flesh remained clinging to the bones of his hands and chest was feathery and bone-white. A cluster of black winkles had adhered themselves to one of the rib bones and purple bladderwrack dangled from the bones of his neck.
There was a cry behind him and Raffe turned to see the alewife standing in the doorway, her birch besom fallen to the ground and both hands pressed across her mouth. A neighbour passing in the Row heard the cry and rushed over to her.
'Whatever is it?' the neighbour cooed soothingly, then, following the wild stare of the alewife, she gasped. She crossed herself several times before throwing her arms around the alewife. She tried to pull her inside, but the stricken woman wouldn't budge.
'It's my man, my Peter.'
The neighbour pressed her own hand over the alewife's mouth.
'Hush now, would you drown your own husband? There's been no word his ship's come to any harm. He'll be walking in that door bold as you like one of these days. And you'll be giving him a right mithering afore he's even got his boots off.'
But the alewife shook her head. 'I knew he was gone that day the cormorant sat on the roof of our house from dawn to dusk. They always come to warn that a ship's foundered. It knew Peter was lost. It knew and came to tell me.'
The neighbour tried to pull her inside again. 'They found another corpse this morning. I've seen that one and that's not your Peter either. Dead always come back from the sea in their own time. But not your Peter, sweeting. Your Peter's not dead.'
The alewife shook her head. 'I know it's him come back to me. I heard him last night in the storm begging for me to let him in. Said he was cold, so cold. You heard him, didn't you, master, you heard my dead husband knocking at the door?'
She raised her head and looked straight at Raffe, though her pale eyes had no sight in them, only an endless streaming tide.