The Runaway's Gold by Emilie Burack Page A

world, thieves, pickpockets, and a maze of streets and shops me mind could hardly fathom. Being only a short journey across the North Sea from Rotterdam and Bergen, it had, for as long as anyone could remember, been a stopover on the way to the rich fishing grounds of Greenland and Iceland. It was the home of Sheriff Nicolson. And of the island’s prison, with its high stone walls overlooking the harbor. And the home of Wallace Marwick, whose empire of shipbuilders, coopers, chandlers, and seamen was a sight to behold.
    The sounds of Skeld faded quickly as I raced past several crofts on the outskirts of the village of Reawick and then north. As I anxiously glanced over me shoulder for signs of Knut Blackbeard, I didn’t notice that nearly all the sloops and smacks were sitting empty in the waves. And as I walked, me mind drifted to last September.
    It had been an entire month with no smuggling. “Knut and I are off to meet with Mr. Marwick,” Daa had announced. “Private meetin’.”
    â€œThen you’ll be needin’ me to carry your kishie,” John said hopefully. And since the hull of Gutcher’s fourareen was leaking and there was no money to repair it, they set out on foot.
    For years John had begged to see Lerwick for himself, which is why Daa and Knut agreed to take him along. It was from his stories of that journey that I first learned of the place.
    â€œThere are rows and rows of real houses—some two and three stories tall!” he explained when he returned several days later, his rivlins worn clear to his socks. “With corners so square you could cut yourself on the edge and slate roofs the color of the sky!”
    He described beautifully carved doors, and streets where the homes were set so close together you could see your neighbor through the window next door.
    â€œAnd the people! Some with skin as dark as night, and many so well fed they had belts as long as the reins on a harness. All speaking different languages—I couldna’ understand a word!” He told of mariners filled with fire whiskey, carousingin the streets at night. Of people bustling from shop to shop during the day buying everything imaginable. “Cakes, cheese, bread, books—even ready-made jackets and breeks! Why, you could buy jars of
red
and
green
paint!” His description of the lasses were hardest to believe. “No sallow faces or rough, worn hands—all plump, rosy-cheeked, and full of laughter and smiles,” he said, confessing that, when it was time for him to take a wife, it was there he would return.
    But it was the tale of the shipwrecked American spy that most piqued me interest. How he’d been blown off course to an island just beyond the harbor during the war with the rebellious American Colonists, a trunk of gold ducats aboard his ship.
    â€œIt’s been nearly sixty years,” I said. “Surely someone’s found the treasure.”
    â€œDon’t think they haven’t tried,” John said, eyes gleaming as he looked off into the distance. “Daa knows of a man who’s been digging for it nearly all his life.”
    As I staggered along, me empty stomach churned and me head began to grow dizzy.
Fill up with water
, I remembered Midder urging in those dark times when there had been no more food.
It will ease the hunger
. But as I veered from the path in search of a spring, a familiar voice made me nearly jump out of me skin.
    â€œPeace be with thee, Christopher Robertson.”
    There, slumped awkwardly on a rock by the path, was theReverend Frederick Sill, the minister of our parish and a man despised by me family more than nearly any other on the island.
    â€œYou’re a long way from Culswick, are you not?” His crackling voice boomed so loudly I stood frozen in place.
    He was Shetland born, the son of a powerful Lerwick minister, and had been educated in Edinburgh and had taken over our parish at the request of