Quillifer the Knight

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Ay, we will have stories to tell our sweethearts!” he said. “For tacking with the anchor and the axes may be something no man has done before us. It was something new, and we performed it flawlessly and without scathe.”

  When I had reminded the captain of the bower anchor, I had intended no such maneuver, but rather anchoring offshore instead of running into the land. But if Gaunt was willing to credit me with the invention of this stratagem, I would be willing to accept the praise.

  “Has that maneuver not a name, then?” asked I.

  “Not one that I know.”

  I laughed. “Then I think we may call it ‘Quillifer’s Haul.’ ”

  He looked at me from beneath one shaggy brow. “You may call it that,” he said, “but I call it the blessing of the Pilgrim.” At that instant was an almighty crack, and we saw directly in front of us the mizzenmast split along its length from the deck right up to the crosstrees. There was a breathless moment in which it seemed all time stopped and our hearts ceased to beat, and then the leeward part of the mast shivered and fell away, and brought all the rest down in ruin. We leaped for our lives as tons of mast and rigging and lateen sail all roared down onto the deck, and then all was frenzy as the crew was summoned to cut all away. The timoneers had run to save themselves with the rest of us, and we had to hack a way to the helm. The binnacle had been ruined, but the whipstaff still stood tall, leaning hard to weather and turning the ship toward the land. The timoneers threw themselves against it to point us up into the wind, but their effort was pointless, and Royal Stilwell was doomed.

  For with the mizzen we lost the lateen sail, and we needed the lateen to push the stern to leeward and keep the bow into the wind. Now the ship’s balance was lost, and even with the helm restored, we were now sailing right onto the skerry, with no hope of clawing our way off. Captain Gaunt ordered the spritsail doused, to keep us as far into the wind as might be, but it made little difference. Now it became of utmost urgency to let the captain know what I had seen in my survey of the coast, and I told him of the towering cliffs and of the little tail on the north end of the skerry.

  “I will try to beach her there,” Gaunt said. “We may be a little sheltered from the waves behind the island.” He also ordered one of the chase guns on the forecastle cleared away and fired every few minutes, to alert anyone in the area to a ship in distress.

  Even if they heard us, there was nothing they could do, except perhaps collect our bodies and bury them after the sea gave us up.

  Gaunt and I went forward onto the forecastle to better see where we might strand the ship. I was in a strange fey mood—till this moment, even through fear and cold and weariness, I was determined to battle to save my ship and cargo. But now I had lost the ship and the battle, and my fear had fled along with my fierceness. I was but little interested in what might happen next, how ruin and death might come, for it seemed that everything of importance had already happened. I would die ere the day was over, and then someone else—my friends, my partners—would deal with what came next. And as for my ambitions—which I admit are considerable—they would remain unfulfilled. I felt something like satisfaction to let all that top-hamper blow away in the storm-wind and to stand on the rolling deck, to feel my face tingle to the cold spray, and to watch the rocks grow ever nearer.

  “I must beg your forgiveness, Sir Quillifer,” said Captain Gaunt. Spray rolled down his face like tears. “This is all my fault. The splitting of the mizzenmast was but his vengeance upon me.”

  I was puzzled. “Whose vengeance?”

  “Pastas Netweaver,” he said. “For I called upon Pastas to save us, and then gave the credit to the Pilgrim, and the mast split but a second later.”

  “Gods are quick to anger,” said I, and I was right, for I have had some experience in this matter. “But it is foolish to blame a god when we may as well blame the workmen who scarfed that mast together and botched the job, or the storm that has been battering our gear for days, or the deep-hidden faults of one of the crewmen, whose surpassing wickedness some other god has decided to punish, and who has brought us all to this fate.”

  “I know well enough the wickedness of seamen,” Gaunt said, “but in my heart I know the fault is mine.” And from the deep sorrow on his face, I knew that at the knowledge of the ship’s coming destruction, his great seaman’s heart had broken.

  “Be at peace,” I advised, “save what we can, and perhaps some god will reward us for doing our duty.”

  “Gods reward worship and flattery, not duty,” Gaunt snarled, and I recognized the Pilgrim’s teachings in his words.

  “Then practice your flattery,” said I, “and tell the men that you are about to save them, and that they are the best sailors in the world.”

  He gave me a cynical look, but then he gazed out at the skerry with narrowed eyes and then viewed the island’s foam-flecked tail with his telescope. Then he turned back to the break of the forecastle, waved one great fist, and addressed the men.

  “You’ve done everything I’ve asked you, my cullies!” he said. “You’ve fought this storm to a standstill, and if it weren’t for a bit of ill luck, you’d now be readying yourself for a feast, with beef and mulled wine and fig pudding! But now, my braves, we have one more test—for we must put the ship aground in the safest place I can find, and for that, my bawcocks, I must have your absolute and instantaneous obedience to orders. Now take your stations, and pray to every god you know to bring us safe to land!”

  That seemed to hearten the men somewhat, but it was the captain I wished to hearten, and so I stepped forward, waved an arm, and shouted, “Three cheers for Captain Gaunt!” The men raised a cry, and I felt my own spirits rise a little.

  As the men went to their stations, I took the telescope and viewed the skerry’s tail of rocks, and it seemed to me that I saw more of them than I had before. “I think the tide may be on the ebb,” I told the captain.

  “Better let me have that telescope.”

  As I handed the glass to the captain, the signal gun went off, and I nearly jumped out of my oilskins. Gunpowder briefly tainted the air before being swept away. We were come within two cables of the skerry now, and I could see the gray cliffs blackened by rain, the white gannets that nested on the rock, and the few scrub trees on the island’s crown.

  “Ease up the helm!” Gaunt called. “Handsomely, now.” Royal Stilwell fell off the wind, her speed growing as the wind filled her sails.

  “Amidships!” For now we aimed directly for the island’s tail, though the bow’s pitching made it impossible for us to keep it fully in view.

  Captain Gaunt called out small corrections to the helm, and I had nothing to do but watch. Again the fey spirit descended, and I wondered in a spirit of perfect disinterest what the captain intended. My mind filled with calculations, but they were not calculations for my survival, only a sort of wagering with myself as to the captain’s course and the probability of his success.

  “Down helm! Hard down!”

  We were almost upon the rocks now, laid out across our path like the black, broken tusks of some long-dead monster. The galleon shuddered as the rudder bit the water, and the bow swung up into the wind. There was a grinding noise as we passed close inboard of one of the great tusks, and then we were past it, sailing free amid a sea of foam and sharp, looming stone. Both our remaining sails went aback, but the ship had good way on her, and we sailed on as our starboard bow crashed into one of the great black fangs, and we rebounded into another obstacle. A sea lifted us over the next set of rocks, and then Royal Stilwell ground onto hard stone just short of the skerry, and I held on to the forecastle stanchion in order to keep my feet. All way was lost, but a wave lifted us up, and we floated close enough to the island for the jibboom to shatter on the cliffs like a lance, taking with it the little platform that held the sprit topsail. Then the stern swung to larboard and we grounded again. The next wave failed to move us, just lifted us and dropped us again on the rocks. There was
a cry from the timoneers as the rudder was flattened by an obstacle, and the whipstaff snapped to larboard.

  More waves came, fountains of spray bursting over the bows, and the ship lifted to each wave, but Royal Stilwell remained trapped in its pen of stone. We were partly sheltered from the wind by the skerry, and only the fore part of the ship was exposed to the full force of the waves, but still we were grinding on the rocks, and it wasn’t long before the carpenter came to tell the captain that the planks were stove in in at least three places, and that the damage was beyond his ability to repair. That handsbreadth of wood that stood between us and the end had failed us, and Royal Stilwell was sinking.

  The gun went off again, as if to punctuate this final comfortless message. “Bring up food and fresh water to the sterncastle,” the captain said. “The poop is high enough that it may remain above the waves. And we’ll keep the pumps going as long as we can.”

  “You can try to turn the lateen into a shelter,” I offered, but I was looking at the cliffs just three or four fathoms away and mentally charting the crags and handholds and chimneys that led to the skerry’s crown. The strange detachment that had possessed me since the fall of the mizzenmast was beginning to drop away like a discarded cloak, and the wheels of my mind, frozen for a long moment by weariness and pain, were beginning to turn.

  But first I turned to Captain Gaunt and embraced him. “You have saved us!” I said. “And now we may spit in Pastas’s eye!”

  * * *

  A half hour passed before Captain Gaunt and I had finished our preparations. Canted slightly to starboard, Royal Stilwell had settled deep into its rocky den, and the sole reason the main deck was not awash was that the tide was running out and had left the ship stranded. Spray still boiled up over the starboard bulwark with each wave, and a cold rain still pelted down from the sky, and the ship still lifted with every sea. The signal gun had fallen silent, for all the gunpowder had been soaked.

  Certain shrouds had been loosened, or cast away, and some stays had been slackened. Other lines had been rigged to the crosstrees and the main yardarm, and axe parties stood by in the waist. Captain Gaunt walked along the tilted deck, touching each line and muttering to himself, his eyes craned aloft to trace each line. As he walked along, he threw lines off the pins and let other crew flake them out on the deck, ready to run.

  Finally he judged all ready and took his place on the quarterdeck. I leaned close to him and said, “First thing, send up the strongbox.”

  “Ay,” said he. “I will not forget.”

  For my strongbox held not only silver but my own private merchant venture, into which I had sunk all my money. The box held as well the ship’s papers and the bills of lading, which would be required to claim insurance. I had dealt with maritime insurance before, and I knew that the insurors’ caviling was best forestalled through tactical deployment of the proper documents.

  Gaunt took his place. “Ready, my rampallions, my madbrain rudesbys, my lass-lorn gangrels!” he cried. “Now cut! Cut and pray!”

  Axes thudded down, and shrouds and stays parted. The ship lifted to a wave as spray exploded over the bow, and I saw the mainmast roll a little out of true, its tip scribing a circle against the gray sky. The wedges that held it securely in place had been knocked out. Royal Stilwell, and the mast, settled back into place.

  Lines parted. Another wave burst over the ship, and the mast rolled again, its tip inscribing a larger circle in the sky.

  The third wave pitched the mainmast right over to starboard, and that did the business—the mainmast cracked and popped right above the deck, long splinters flying like hailshot, and then the mast, with its yard and topmast and tackle, fell upon the skerry with a long, rolling series of crashes, like a rockfall.

  The trick was not to shake the mast out of the ship—that part was easy and required only the cutting of enough of the mast’s supports—but rather to drop the mast exactly where it was wanted, and to that end some of the stays and shrouds were carefully balanced, or loosened, or tightened, to produce just the effect we desired. Gangs of seamen were tailed onto lines in order to haul in, or let go, as needed. But the mast fell too quickly for even a single order to be given, and some lines were torn right out of the men’s hands by the great mass of the falling timber.

  Yet Captain Gaunt had judged aright, and the mast fell exactly where we had intended, in a kind of channel or flue extending partway up the skerry’s cliff-face.

  Now came my own part. I removed my oilskins, and a light line was wrapped around my waist. Then I sprang to the ruined mast and began to climb.

  I should remark at this point that I am very good at climbing. I have no fear of heights, and I spent many long hours of my boyhood leaping from roof to roof in my home city of Ethlebight. In a failed attempt to save my family, I once climbed my city’s walls when the town was attacked by Aekoi reivers, and I once fled across the roofs of Selford to avoid ruffians set upon me by a jealous nobleman.

  To go aloft is daunting for landsmen taken aboard a ship, but it was not so with me. When I set myself to learn the seaman’s profession, the first time I was taken aloft, I climbed to the masthead without trouble, and was soon skylarking in the rigging like a foretopman. Other aspects of the sailor’s profession proved more difficult, such as the trigonometry required for navigation, which is difficult even with an abacus.

  I hope you understand that I mention this not to boast, but to explain why it was I who scrambled up the fallen mast, and not some other. The sea roiled below me, ready to swallow me whole, and the mast was so draped in a tangle of shrouds and canvas and lines that the footing was treacherous—though it was also paradoxically safe, because there was so much cordage that if I fell, I could snatch at a line and save myself.

  The clifftop was perhaps eighty or ninety feet above the sea, and the canted mast took me up the first thirty feet or so. A pair of seamen followed me carrying the line, so that it wouldn’t be tangled in the wreckage. Once I had reached the chute leading upward, I took a careful look at the cliff and began to climb.

  The stone was wet and therefore treacherous, and anything resembling a ledge had its own bird’s nest, gannets for the most part but also guillemots and kittiwakes. The air reeked of bird droppings. In order to get a firm purchase upon the cliff I was forced to hurl or kick the nests into the sea, along with any unfortunate chicks dwelling there, for I had the lives of a hundred sailors to save, and there were plenty of sea-birds left over. Even when the nests were gone, the rock face was still slimy with droppings. Some of the adult birds defended their posts with vigor, and the slashing beaks soon had my right hand bleeding freely. And all the while the wind blew, and rain poured down the chute in a regular waterfall. I was soaked within minutes.

  Despite the obstacles and the opposition of the birds, climbing the flue gave me little trouble. But twenty feet below the crest the flue came to an end, with a kind of overhang at the top that I could not climb over. I would have to leave the relative shelter of the flue and venture upon the open face of the cliff, and as I neared the cap, I studied the rock face with care. Though I had examined the cliff from the ship, the handholds could not be seen from below, and now I took my time and caught my breath while the rainwater sprayed down on my head. I made as complete an examination as I could and decided eventually the more promising path lay on my right.

  No sooner had I groped my way out of the channel than a great shrieking gust of wind howled over the rock face and tried to pluck me bodily from the skerry and hurl me into the turmoil of the sea. The blast felt as if I were standing in front of a gun as it was discharged, and I recoiled. As I was blown back, my right hand was torn from the rock face, and my foot nearly slipped. My heart thrashed in my breast as I flailed wildly to regain the flue, and I remained there for a moment gasping for air. Over time I recovered myself, and I looked out again into the wind.

  The gust that had nearly killed me had lasted only a few seconds, and there had not been anoth
er. But rather than risk that blast again, I decided to venture instead to the left.

  I had to drop down the flue another ten feet before I could find a foothold strong enough to make the first attack on the rock face. I kicked away the bird’s nest that occupied the ledge and carefully put my foot on the stone. Droppings oozed from beneath my shoe, and the stink of partially digested fish rose in the air. I reached out, found a protrusion that I could seize with my fingertips, and eased myself onto the rock face.

  I waited for a long moment, expecting another blast of wind, but it did not come. I reached up with my free foot, discovered a crack that would support my weight, and pushed myself up.

  And so I began the climb again, moving from one rain-drenched handhold to the next, fingers and toes straining to hold my weight. I had to take elaborate care that my feet not get tangled in the line I was trailing back to the ship. My arms and shoulders ached, and I felt a freezing cold invade my body where it was spread-eagled against the rock. My hands grew pale with cold, except where they were bloody from cuts. I was losing feeling in my fingers, and I tried stuffing one hand in my doublet to warm it, but my doublet was soaked and no warmer than anything else. I blew warm breath on my fingers and kept climbing.

  Then I looked up, blinking in the rain just a few yards below the summit, and I could see no more handholds, just a bare rock face streaming with water, and a little vertical gash in the rock a few inches wide. I reached into the gash in hopes of being able to lodge my fingers, but the bottom of the scrape broke free, and I winced as stone bounced off my face.

  I saw what might be a narrow foothold to my left, and I reached my foot toward it, but fell short. It seemed the only way I could reach it would be to take a wild, half-blind leap in that direction, and hope that I might find enough support to prevent me from tumbling into the void. In my current state this seemed not just unlikely, but impossible. Yet the alternative was to stay here until I froze, or try to work my way back down the cliff and into shelter, and both these courses seemed likely to end the same way, with a blind tumbling fall into the gulf below me.