The bar was full. There must have been thirty people there—Dora, Bethany; Aaron Tapley, his mother and his two brothers; Bill and Harry Penrose. There were regulars from the bar, and most of the fishermen, and John Whittle, who played loosehead prop on the Looe team with Ben, and Agnes, hands stuffed in her mouth and vibrating with excitement, standing on a table at the back of the room.
The adults were all armed, with hayforks, gutting knives, boat hooks, a bristling array of heavy, sharp iron, and it was all pointing at a table in the middle of the room, at which Lord Crane, Merrick and Mrs. Merrick were seated. The married couple wore identically grim expressions. Lord Crane looked almost embarrassed.
“Stephen,” he said. “I really must apologise.”
Day was apparently speechless. He looked around the room, then took a deep breath, and Jonah swung to face him.
“I know you’re stronger than me,” he said, voice savage. “I have no delusions about that. But I swear to God, you short-arsed swine, if you touch one hair of any of these people’s heads, you’ll have to kill me first because I won’t stop coming after you till you do.”
“Get them out of here or we’ll find out just how little time that will take.” Day’s yellow eyes locked with Jonah’s blue, and there was something unpleasant building in the air between them, a kind of thick, greasy feeling that prickled on Ben’s skin. Jonah took a step back, into a crouching position, his lips pulling into a snarl. Day’s face was taut and intent.
“This is my inn.” Dora had a cleaver in her powerful hand. “My inn and my men and you ain’t welcome here, nor you ain’t taking ’em anywhere.”
“Our men,” Bill Penrose grunted. “Bloody incomers. You leave our bucca be.” The great blade he held shook slightly, rather too near Mrs. Merrick’s face.
“Oi. Fishfucker.” Merrick half rose. There was a babble of voices, angry and nervous and excited.
“Stop,” Ben said. “Everyone. Stop this!” He shouted the last words to no effect, with a terrible sense of something irretrievable about to go wrong as the tension in the air built. The Pellore folk were frightened and determined, Day and Jonah were bristling like alley cats, poised on the verge of attack with that dreadful unnatural pressure thickening the air around them, the Merricks looked like a riot waiting to begin and Lord Crane…
…was watching, cool grey eyes seeming unworried by the quivering tines of a hay fork held close to his face. He caught Ben’s eye and gave him a quizzical look. Then he picked up a teaspoon and began to tap it on the china cup in front of him, for all the world like a man drawing attention to the toastmaster at a dinner.
The steady chinking sound cut through the noise, slowly silencing it. Heads turned, one by one, except for Jonah and Day.
“If I may,” Lord Crane said. “Your attention, Pastern, Mr. Day. Or at least, a cessation of the rather tooth-jarring atmosphere you’re creating.”
The practitioners didn’t seem to hear. Jonah was breathing fast, teeth bared and set. Day’s hands were spread like talons. The air was electric now, full of immanent power, as though a spark would ignite it. Ben felt rather than heard a high-pitched buzzing in his ears.
“Spenser.” Ben glanced over, startled, at the sharp call, and Lord Crane nodded at the practitioners. “Get yours to stand down, will you, before they set this place on fire between them? Stephen!” His voice rapped out, unignorable. Day twitched slightly.
“Jonah,” Ben said, as firmly as he could. “Stop it. Back away, now. Stop.”
There was another long second’s tension. Both practitioners straightened, slow and wary, and whatever was in the air dropped away. Quite suddenly, Ben realised that it had been difficult to breathe. He took a gasp of air.
“Thank you,” Lord Crane said. “Now. You.” He indicated Mrs. Tapley with a long slender finger. “Madam. Why, precisely, are you here?”
“Mrs. Linney said you’re taking that Jonah.” Mrs. Tapley, like all the rest, was looking distinctly fearful, but she squared her shoulders. “Well, you ain’t.”
“Because?”
“He saved my son’s life! My boy ’ud be drowned and gone—” Aaron nodded in frantic agreement.
“My life too, and my livelihood wi’ it,” Harry Penrose put in.
“An’ us to marry in spring—”
“—best scrum half in years—”
“Our bucca,” Bill Penrose, impressive when sober, pronounced with a wave of his knife. “Pellore’s bucca. And a damn good aleman.”
“Your…what was that?” Lord Crane enquired delicately.
“Imp,” Ben said, flushing.
“Obviously.” Crane stretched back in his chair, crossing his long legs at the ankles. “Stephen, far be it from me to dictate your course of action…” Day and both Merricks raised their eyes to the ceiling in silent unity. “However, I don’t know if you recall a conversation we had, last April.”
There was a pause, in which Day looked puzzled, then he said, blankly, “You must be joking.”