PROLOGUE
Bitter. Pitch. Lost.
Murk waters slapped his skin, his eyes, with relentless malice. No strength left to even shiver. His throat a jagged path of pain – breath a mere rasp.
He possessed not even the strength to abandon the debris he clung to, slip into the black sea and let it replace the unremitting agony with promised rest.
A wave swiped, smothering, and he gasped, saltwater stinging his throat, the currents beneath clattering his useless and dangling leg.
Dear heaven, let it be over.
Another crashed, tougher, tugging at him, and yet for some primeval reason, his fingers refused to unfasten, to straighten, nails rammed into the debris as though struck in with a hammer.
But it took his breath.
He wheezed, heaved in water, coughed and spat… He was to die and–
John Doherty slammed upright on the rigid bench, choking, fingers to throat, eyes wide…
No chill water or blackened night met his stare.
Instead a carpenter’s workshop lay about him, moderate in size, with myriad lengths of wood stacked and leaned, waiting to be sanded or cut or chiselled.
Mr MacNamara’s Boat Shop in Micklow, Ireland.
Slowing his breath, John rose and limped to the cracked mirror above a basin of water in the corner.
A haggard face grimaced back.
He touched the reflected forehead – grimy with sawdust and sweat. The cheeks were thin and the rough pads of his fingers ran beneath the green eyes – shadowed with pain. His hand crept to his nape, felt for the coarse scar.
Some said the near-drowned should never be rescued. They were cursed, marked by the sea as their own, and that any who aided them would be burdened also with ill-fortune.
But they needn’t have worried as the sea had indeed taken John that day.
His life and his memories.
The face that scowled back was unknown. His old life gone. His name forgotten.
Nigh sixteen months ago, while hauling catch in the deep sea, men from this fishing village of Micklow had likewise hauled John’s carcass out, had believed him dead until one had grabbed his leg and he’d convulsed in pain, terrifying the bejabbers out of them.
The doctor, a drunkard who’d slammed his leg against a plank and roped it tight, had told them it was unlikely he’d survive the night and to pray for his eternal soul.
The prayers had worked but to their own agenda. He’d lived to see the dawn. So they’d stowed him with a family who’d a spare storeroom and then asked along the coast if anyone had lost a fisherman.
Three months it had taken to recover, leaving him with a husk of a voice that had an English lilt, a limp that pained when chill winds blew and the bestowed name of the fisherman who’d spotted him in the swell.
He wrenched at his shirt and thrust his hand inside, to clench at his sole possession from a life unknown: a pendant on a leather cord. He traced the intricate carving of a dragon with his fingertips. To his eye it appeared whole yet some innate sense told him a part was lost.
It brought no memories but gave…comfort, and some nights it had felt as if this was all that kept him sane. Somewhere out there, he’d a home…
Voices sounded from the shop, a customer from the city no doubt, so before Mr MacNamara could dock his wages for napping, John donned the spectacles he used for close work and stumbled over to the keel he’d been shaping.
As usual, the slow glide of grit on wood calmed him and he peered along the length to gauge the line.
The scrap of paper tacked to the wall caught his eye, dates pertaining to due repairs.
This was the twenty-second day of November.
