by Ahimsa Kerp
“I can at least call you Master Basilides, can I not?”
“Of course, my lord.”
“You can dispense with the ‘my lord’,” the Earl said. “When we’re alone, at least.”
“Of course, and if it pleases you, you may simply call me Basilides when we’re alone.”
A tired smile crossed the Earl’s face. “You’re a strange one, Basilides. Are you always so formal?”
“I didn’t realize I was being formal, my lord.”
The Earl smiled again and opened his mouth to say something more, but changed his mind and instead turned away to look over the harbor.
“You can speak freely with me,” Basilides said, resting his arms on the railing. “Anything you say I will keep in confidence.”
“Tell me then your honest opinion about my physician,” the Earl said after a moment. “It is plainly written on your face that you disagree with his treatment of my ailment, and your own methods are….”
“Master Dooley no doubt has good intentions, but his ways are antiquated and do you more harm than good.”
“And your methods are better? You think you can cure me?”
“Perhaps. There is likely no way to cure you fully, if my suspicions about your melancholic lung are correct, but I can at least help treat your coughing spells without causing more damage and teach you what manner of things trigger your spells so you may avoid them all together. If it is your desire, my lord, I will treat you as Master Dooley has directed, but if you are willing I would prefer to examine you fully so I may determine the manner of your melancholic lung.”
“But you at least agree with Master Dooley that I suffer a melancholic lung?”
Basilides frowned. “The term melancholic lung means nothing. It’s a common term used to describe many different ailments. Even a dry melancholic lung can be caused by many things: contagion, lack of moisture in the air, or scarring of the lungs, as I suspect in your case. Were you ever exposed to smoke or dust as a boy? Heavy smoke or dust for a good length of time?”
“I lived through the siege of Langlon,” the Earl said. “Those northern sheep-forners tried to burn the city and smoke us out. We doused all the thatch roofs in the city with water. It kept them from burning, but it smoked like Ordryn’s bushy arse. You could hardly see, the smoke was so heavy, and the air was thick to breathe. We ripped the sleeves off our tunics, soaked them in water, and tied them around our faces—breathed like that for two weeks until young Dermid arrived with his army to break the siege.”
“How long ago was this?”
The Earl pursed his lips. “Some twenty years ago now, but I’ve only suffered my melancholic lung for the last several years, so it can’t be the cause.”
“I’d not be so sure. That smoke likely scarred your lungs and it’s only now starting to hinder you, much the same as a broken leg comes to plague a sailor many years after the break has healed.”
The Earl snorted. “Captain Elver can certainly attest to that. The man won’t cease to complain about his cursed knee whenever the weather turns.”
As if on cue, Captain Elver began shouting orders to release the moorings. The Valor of Gaulang was loaded and ready to set sail.
Lyrie found herself stowed away in a small cabin on Verk’s Mistress along with piles of horse tack that reeked of dried sweat, leather, and manure. The smell hadn’t deterred Lord Klaye from taking her the moment they set sail, however. He’d caught her off guard; just minutes after Everild locked her in the cabin, Lord Klaye barged in, ripped away the trousers she was wearing and took her with animal-like fury. She tried moaning to please him, but he didn’t seem to notice, and when he was finished, he left without a word.
It was her second encounter with him. The first had been in a tent back at the camp outside Gaulang where he had been more gentle, slowly undressing her from her gown and running his fingers over her body before turning her onto her side and entering her with tender precision. She’d enjoyed the moment, had a glimmer of hope that her initial fears about being dragged along to war were un-founded, but in this second encounter he seemed an entirely different man. The intensity in his eyes was different; it was as if he hadn’t even seen her, though his eyes were on her face the whole time.
When Verk’s Mistress left the safety of the harbor, the ship keeled to its port side to catch the wind and the rocking began. Lyrie learned quickly that she was prone to seasickness. By the time Everild checked on her a few hours after embarking, she had vomited, and despite her best efforts to keep the disgorgement isolated to one corner of the cabin, she was covered in the filth. Everild left her with a curse and returned some time later with a rag dampened with seawater.
“Clean yourself up. You don’t want Lord Klaye to find you like this.”
“I need some air,” she said. “Please, can I go on deck?”
“You can go on deck when we arrive in North Port. Now keep quiet and clean yourself up or I’ll be forced to do it, and I’ll be none too gentle.”
Lyrie yanked the rag from his grasp and said nothing more. He stared as she sat squatting in the corner in the boy’s clothes he had made her wear. She returned his stare and was about to ask him if he meant to have a go at her too, but he abruptly turned away and left her once again locked in the cabin.
Black Zefferus was the last ship to leave port. Stretching before her was the largest fleet Terryll had ever seen.
“It’s a lot of cursed ships,” Alwyn noted.
“Aye, and there’ll be more sailing from Kiln,” Terryll said.
“You won’t be able to even see the water in North Port.”
“More ships than Ordryn’s hairy cunny has crabs.”
Terryll smiled at the jest. “How are we sitting in the water, mate?”
“Low, Cap’n. I’d say no more than two-thirds sail, else we risk running her under.”
Terryll inspected the sky and the swells in the sea around them. “Three-quarters sail. Let’s see if we can’t get to the front of the line and offload and be out of North Port before everyone else catches up. Put a watch up in the crow’s nest to look out for storms and high seas. Any sign of trouble, drop sails to half-mast and fetch me. I’ll be napping in my quarters.”
“And dreaming of Lyrie?”
“I certainly won’t be dreaming about your hairy cunny.”
Alwyn exploded with laughter, and Terryll stepped from the stern castle grinning.
The eight-day voyage was an eternity for Lyrie. Locked in the cabin with only a small candle lantern to see by, she had no way of discerning night from day, no way of gauging the passage of time. The first day she vomited until there was nothing left. She cleaned herself the best she could, but when Lord Klaye came to her, he curled his nose at the stench. He flipped her over anyway and took her from behind. She didn’t bother trying to please him, just concentrated on preventing herself from dry heaving.
When she was alone she slept fitfully, rolling into the cabin wall with each rise and fall of the ship, waking in confusion only to remember where she was and collapse again. Everild brought her bread and water, and she ate and drank slowly. She forced herself to breathe in a pattern like she had once seen an older whore do after taking silphium to rid herself of a pregnancy. The breathing pattern calmed Lyrie’s stomach, so she was able to hold down her food, but she still felt nauseated.
When she asked Everild how much longer they would be at sea he ignored her, so she asked Lord Klaye when he next visited.
“Two days, ten—I don’t know,” he said as he removed his trousers. “Sunspar is an inland hamlet, and I know little of sailing.”
“Mightn’t I walk up onto deck and get some fresh air, my lord? It would do me some good and—” She grunted.
“Not unless you want to be raped by a hundred and fifty sailors and soldiers.”
She adjusted herself beneath him. “For a moment’s fresh air, it might be worth it.”
“No, I’m not willing to share you,” he said, a
nd he actually kissed her.
The rest of the voyage went much the same. She nibbled bread, sipped water, spread her legs for Lord Klaye—who was sometimes tender, sometimes a vacant-eyed animal—and she slept across three saddles she threw onto the floor to keep herself off the residual vomit and sea moisture that clung to everything. When they finally reached North Port, they might have been sailing for months for all Lyrie could tell.
Everild came to her and helped her don the guise she’d worn while sneaking onto the ship: the baggy cloak and vest that obscured the shape of her breasts, the liripipe, which she tucked her hair into, and the leather boots that were too wide in the foot.
“What do you say if anyone asks who you are?” Everild tested her.
“Nothing. I’m a mute.”
“That’s right, you’re mute, boy. Now stay close to my side.”
He led the way from the cabin up the steep stairs onto the main deck where a sodden Lord Klaye waited for them. Rain was coming down in sheets, blowing sideways in the gusting wind. Lyrie tipped her head back and let the raindrops pelt her face and wash away a week’s worth of filth. She never thought air could taste so good or that she would be so happy to find herself in the rain.
“Come,” Everild snapped at her, and they made their way down the gangplank to the docks amidst a seething mass of sailors and soldiers. Lyrie’s legs wobbled and she had to grab onto Lord Klaye’s cloak to keep from careening into the men around her. She had been pleading to the Passions to finally set foot on solid ground again, but when they stepped from the floating docks onto the muddy streets of North Port the ground still rocked beneath her feet. If it were not for the rain and wind in her face she would have been sick again.
North Port was nothing like Gaulang. It was a shabby town, hugging the crescent shaped shoreline of the bay and curving northerly into the inlet of the River Ordan. The buildings had a sense of impermanence about them, as if the builders were resigned to the fact that nothing built of wood could long withstand the winds and driving moisture that came off the sea. The roofs were shingled with wood and had loose stones dispersed across them, but even still, many shingles had been blown off, revealing the straw thatching beneath that was blackened with mildew.
The majority of the buildings around the docks were small warehouses. There were a few taverns and brothels—most of their windows and doors boarded shut against the flood of soldiers and sailors—and then away from the docks, were small hovels, grouped together in clusters around common gardens. Nothing much grew in the gardens, and there was no sign of any townspeople anywhere. There were only soldiers. Whoever lived here had fled.
Lyrie followed Lord Klaye and Everild through the muddy paths weaving between the clusters of buildings. When they reached the outskirts of the town, they halted, taken aback. Thousands upon thousands of tents and pavilions covered the hillsides, their pennons snapping in the wet wind. A score of makeshift corrals held a hundred or more horses a piece, and even in the rain, the camp bustled with people: soldiers digging latrines, cooks stoking fires, smiths banging out horseshoes and spear points, soldiers sparring, and camp whores making their rounds. The Stone Road ribboned away from town to the north. To either side of the bemired tract, a mass of humanity blotted out the landscape.
“Balin’s sac,” Lord Klaye muttered.
“The armies from Kiln arrived before us,” Everild noted. “And the Lord Chancellor too, it seems. That is his banner above the large pavilion.”
“Find my own banner. Make sure our men have seen to our horses and erected our tent properly, then come fetch me. I’ll want to change before meeting with my cousin. Lyrie will stay here with me.”
Everild nodded and strode away into the war camp. Lord Klaye grabbed Lyrie by the shirtsleeve and pulled her to the side of one of the nearby hovels to take shelter beneath the overhanging roof thatching. “Stand close to me and pretend like we are speaking,” he told her. “Pleasure me with your hands, but make sure no one takes notice.”
She stepped closer to him and reached into his trousers as surreptitiously as possible. He sighed and closed his eyes. “When we get to my tent, I want you to clean yourself up and put on a dress. You’re to stay inside the tent at all times. I’ll not have you be taken for one of these slatterns skulking about the camp.”
“Of course. When you spoke of your cousin, my lord, did you mean the Lord Chancellor himself is your cousin?” Lyrie knew he had not meant to have an actual conversation with her, but she was good with her hands—persuasive.
He let out a soft groan. “Of course. Lord Galkmeer was a ward in Sunspar when we were boys. We grew up together, riding horses and herding cattle. I taught him much of what he knows. In fact, it would have been I who was Master of Horse to King Dermid if I weren’t the heir to Sunspar. Perhaps it should have been me, but no matter—Sunspar will have its glory soon enough…Faster now.”
Black Zefferus sat anchored in the bay of North Port, away from the still crowded docks. Terryll and his crew had made good time, outpacing the rest of the fleet from Gaulang and unloading their cargo before most of the other ships arrived, but they were on strict orders to not leave the harbor.
“What is it they mean for us to do?” Alwyn grumbled.
It was still raining and while most of the crew had taken shelter below deck, Terryll and his first mate stood at the rail of the stern castle watching the activity in North Port.
“That rat-spear Galkmeer still has half of his men on the wrong side of the river,” Terryll said. “His commanders mean to have us help ferry the rest of them over.”
“Black Zefferus is no river barge, Cap’n.”
“No, but she’s the only ship here that can navigate the river and everyone seems to be in a mad hurry to march on Hairng and die fighting, the daft scollocs.”
“Cow forners fighting sheep forners fighting swine forners; I hope they all burn in Ordryn’s fiery arse, dragging us into their bloody feud like this.”
Terryll shrugged. “I suspect we’ll be forgotten out here. Without a king to keep everyone in order, all the lords are fighting amongst themselves. I had five different harbormasters try to tell me where to unload our cargo. One of the stinking blackspurs even tried telling me to load up a dozen horses and take them to the river crossing.”
Alwyn chuckled. “Aye, I heard you tell him where he could put his horses.”
“I’m not about to let horses on deck—filthy animals. As far as I’m concerned, unless Lord Verk himself or his chancellor gives us an order, we’re staying right here until the armies are out of sight, and then we’re gone, back to Gaulang. We don’t owe fealty to anyone but the Earl and ourselves.”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
The rain had ceased and the sun set, but the racket of camp activity still filled the air: fires popping, horses snorting, whores moaning, and soldiers laughing and yelling. Basilides sat alone in Toli Verk’s pavilion in silent contemplation. He blocked out the surrounding din as he had been taught by the elders of Liraeus when he was a boy. His body was calm, his mind wholly focused inward. Yet, he was still aware of his surroundings and recognized the oncoming sound of the Earl coughing outside. Basilides rose and was at the ready when the Earl stumbled into the pavilion with the aid of his squire a moment later.
The Earl’s face was white, and he wheezed horribly.
Basilides hurried to his medicine bag and grabbed a phial of dried mandragora root. “Have him lie down,” he told the squire as he grabbed a steaming kettle from the brazier he’d prepared and filled a chalice. He crushed a section of the dried root with his fingers and sprinkled it into the vessel to steep in the hot water. “Sit up and blow away the steam, my lord, then drink down the entire draught.” He placed the chalice in the Earl’s right hand so that he could examine and probe the Earl’s left hand. The Earl did as he was told, and though his breathing remained rapid and shallow for a few moments more, the coughing ceased.
“It’s the campfires, my lord,”
Basilides said. “The smoke irritates your lungs and gets you to coughing.”
The Earl shook his head and licked the foam from his mustache with his tongue. “No. I’ll tell you what irritates me: that fool Galkmeer. And Salmund Palne—such a pompous ass I’ve never seen! Here I’ve come with an army larger than both of theirs combined, and more campaigns fought than either of them, and they mean to tell me what to do.”
“Do not become overwrought or the coughing will return,” Basilides warned him.
The Earl took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I stand for Galkmeer’s insolence because he means to marry my daughter when he’s king, but he forgets himself. Without me, he won’t become king. And Palne, I don’t even know what to make of him. Galkmeer’s promised him something—I don’t know what. The Lord Chancellor has sold out his entire kingdom before it’s even his.”
Basilides dug through his bag for another phial. “When you are ready to rest, my lord, let me know and I will give you something to ease your sleep.”
“Not yet.” The Earl got to his feet. “Fetch Bennson and all my bailiffs.”
The squire bowed and scurried away, leaving the Earl to pace the pavilion. Basilides deemed it best to leave him be for the moment and returned to his corner to sit and meditate.
Chancellor Bennson arrived shortly, and the squire with the Earl’s bailiffs soon afterward. They discussed their marching plans for the morning, how their lines would be ordered, who would be in charge of what contingent, how far they meant to march, what each soldier’s rations would be, and dozens of other details that interested Basilides little. He ignored them and lost track of how long they continued talking. When a guard entered the tent near midnight and announced the Lord Chancellor had come to speak with the Earl, Basilides was caught as off guard as everyone else.
“Bailiffs, leave me,” the Earl commanded. “You have your orders for the morning.”