The Sword of the Lady c-3

by S. M. Stirling

  He waited until she was finished to walk up the short ladder staircase to the poop. The two men at the wheel nodded to him-one was a Southsider, the other a corsair. Ulfhild had already turned; she gave him a short dignified inclination of the head and then met his eyes, standing proudly with her left hand on the hilt of her sword. He liked that. Norrheimers didn?t truckle to their Gods or to their chieftains either. ?Good morning, Ulfhild Swift-sword,? he said.?Today we make landfall.? ?Good morning, lord,? she said.?I am ready.?

  Which was about as many words as they?d exchanged since the oath she?d sworn, apart from orders. She hesitated, and he waited patiently, withdrawing the edge of his self. There was a trick to that, almost like hunting, which drew folk out. ?The others are awake,? she said.

  They?d turned the captain?s cabin over to the womenfolk of the party; a little inconvenient for the two wedded couples, but on balance the best way to handle the crowding of the ship as a whole. ?May I ask you a question?? He nodded, and she went on:?Why did you arrange the quarters that way, lord?? ?Princess Mathilda?s folk have different ways from mine. They?re. ..?

  He hesitated; modest wasn?t exactly what he meant.?Much more shame-fast about their skins, I think you would say. You can?t always take account of that when men and women are together on a campaign, but there?s no harm in doing so when you can.? ?I understand,? she said. Then more hesitantly:?I don?t think your betrothed… the Princess Mathilda… likes me, lord. Have I offended her?? ?No,? Rudi said.

  Or not by doing anything in particular, he thought, which was what she?d actually meant. Aloud he went on: ?Some people just don?t take to each other. I have no ill to say of you; you fought well at Kalksthorpe, and you?ve worked hard and obeyed orders without complaint since. And you are sworn to me, not her. Tell the Princess that we?ll be having a conference in there as soon as it?s clear; her, myself, the Moorish captain, Ingolf and Father Ignatius.?

  She hurried off, with an air of relief. ?We just nearly there,? Abdou al-Naari said twenty minutes later.

  The captain?s cabin of the Bou el-Mogdad had touches of lavishness; inlaid wood, mother-of-pearl in traceries of alien script, thick cushions of butter-soft red leather, hanging lanterns of intricate metal fretwork wrought in brass and silver. Rudi admired the workmanship-there were few things Mackenzies valued more highly-and the neatly compact folding tables, chart case and cupboards for instruments, racks for weapons and armor. There was also a shelf of books, mostly older works on navigation and geography in French, pre-Change guidebooks for travelers giving details of cities on the western side of the Atlantic, and several volumes of poetry in languages he didn?t recognize. Besides leather and cloth and lamp oil the room smelled surprisingly of some faint flowery scent.

  Right now, five tightly bound bedrolls rested against the walls, or against the cushioned couch below the slanting stern windows. Rudi and Edain had the little cabin to the port, Ignatius and Ingolf the one to starboard, and the rest of the crew had the hold and forecastle, carefully arranged so that the corsairs were always shadowed by at least one of his war band.

  The lanterns glowed, dispelling the last of the dawn twilight, and Rudi?s closest stood around the table and looked at the map, with the dividers and set square atop it. More and more cold bright sun spilled through the skylight as the night died, flowing clear as diamond.

  They all held bowls in their hands and plied spoons as they thought. The Bou el-Mogdad had a well-fitted galley but she?d been down to dried dates, dried salt fish, a little rice and weevily sorghum by the time the corsairs reached Kalksthorpe. Rudi had restocked before they sailed, and this was steel-milled oats cooked with dried blueberries and honey, welcome for stoking the fires. Nowhere on a wooden ship was completely dry, or less than cold on these seas in this season. He hadn?t grudged the Moorish captain a monopoly of his coffee set and beans; it was a rarity for the very wealthy in Montival, but the man came from a land where it was common and he was used to it. Abdou sipped at a cup as he indicated the map. Rudi had to admit the scent was intoxicating, though the Moors brewed it thick and strong enough to melt a spoon. ?We sight Sorcerer?s Isle today, if this wind holds,? the rover captain said.

  He traced their course; southeast down to just below the hook of Cape Cod, and then across the wind west and south towards Nantucket. That had been a little more tricky, a shorter leg but needing more time; these were shoal waters, and the shallows had shifted unpredictably since the charts were made. ?And that fast sail. No troubles,? Abdou said.

  There had been one ship flying the White Ensign of Greater Britain, but it had simply come close enough for King-Emperor William?s men to hail them and check that they weren?t Moors. That conversation had taken place with the Imperials? twenty-four-pounder catapults pointing at them out of open firing ports in the steel hull, and a team at the pump handles of a flamethrower. Rudi had prudently sent all the hostage seamen below before the warcraft reached speaking distance. ?Really, should give me ship back, for such goodish sail working,? the corsair went on, his voice elaborately reasonable. ?And then you awaken from the pleasant dream, Abdou, weeping for the fading beauty of it in the cold light of dawn,? Rudi said dryly.

  We?ll never be friends, he thought. If I hadn?t needed him I wouldn?t have sworn him safety, and then the Kalksthorpe folk could have hung him and dedicated the sacrifice to the High One for all I cared.

  It was a King?s duty to see pirates dead without excessive formality, and a very needful one. What was a King for, if not to see that his folk could sleep sound in their beds and know they?d be able to keep what they grew and made? Still…

  But he?s a brave man and no fool, and a likeable rascal. Though doubtless I?d feel a wee bit less charitable if it was my coasts and folk he and his kind threatened. ?Best to approach from the north,? he said aloud, with an uncomfortable feeling that Abdou had followed the thought. His finger showed where the harbor entrance opened between its breakwaters. ?Though from what the guidebook says it may have silted up,? he added.?We may have to go in with the longboat.? ?It?s not just more ruins from before the Change,? Ingolf said.?I don?t know… but I don?t think we?ll just… walk in.?

  He set his bowl aside and wiped his mouth with the back of one big hand, elaborately unconcerned, but his battered features were tight-held. One thick finger rested a little to the west of the town?s hatch of streets. ?This is where I landed, back… uff da, four years ago! There?s a village there. Partly refugees from the mainland who came after the Change, a couple of families… but Injuns, too. Injuns who?d never heard of white men, or seen iron or corn. We walked through the woods to what the maps said should be the center of Nantucket Town, on the harbor there and… that?s where it all happened. But it wasn?t anything like what the books say. No houses, no open fields or recent scrub-forest, old, old forest. Oak trees that had been growing two or three hundred years. And chestnuts… the books say all the chestnuts in this part of the world died of a blight nearly a century before the Change.?

  Abdou nodded impassively, but Rudi could see his Adam?s apple move. The Moor?s voice was calm when he spoke; like anyone who dealt with extreme danger routinely, he knew that the best way to tame fear was simply to ignore it, refuse to admit it even, so that it couldn?t build on itself. If you kept the body calm, it calmed the mind. ?You to understand, we would have use for island there. Good safe place within range of dead cities to water ship, take on wood, not be possible many savages… Eaters, you say… like are in dead cities, near dead cities.? ?It would make a good base, you mean.? ?Yes, base. But we not try many year from now, ah, you say, for many years now? Only one harbor, and… when ships get close, crews say many things. Lights, head hurting. Sometimes just find they far away again and-?

  He reached out to his chronometer where it hung on the wall and slid one finger across the glass, as if moving the hour hand ahead.

  – ?time is… gone. Maybe rest of island better. Maybe not. Not try.? ?I?ve reason to believe we?ll be allowed in,? Rudi said.?And-?

 
A cry came, and the ringing of a bell:?Sail ho!?

  Abdou almost jostled him in the doorway; they all leapt up the stairway to the poop. The ocean reached crisp blue to the horizon, with a wind out of the north that chopped icy spray from the running whitecaps. The lookout was Edain, long since past his illness. He scrambled down the rigging-harder than on a square-rigger?s ratlines-and pointed westward. ?Two-master, Chief. Looks a lot like this ship.?

  Rudi?s brows went up.?All hands on deck,? he called.?Battle stations.?

  He noticed how the corsair?s bosun-Falilu, the man?s name was-gave a quick glance at his skipper and received a nod before obeying. Whistles and bells called the crew. Metal shields went into prepared slots in the rails, giving the defenders a rampart against boarders. Nets were rigged above that; folk helped each other into their armor, and set out garlands of stone shot for the catapults, sheaves of arrows and javelins for humans. Long boarding pikes were ready to hand. The rover crew weren?t armed, but they helped with the labor.

  He turned his head to Abdou al-Naari as the rushing drumbeat of feet and cries subsided. The last sound to cease was the crink… crink… as the war engines were cranked to full compression, and the multiple click… click… sounds as their triggers engaged. Abdou had been allowed to keep his binoculars, if not his sword; they were needful for his work conning the ship. He leveled them now, and breath hissed between his teeth. ?Is ship Gisandu,? he said, when the oncoming vessel was still doll-tiny.? Shark, English word. Jawara captain.? ?Why would he be here?? Rudi asked. ?I do not know,? Abdou said, and then hid his distress under an iron calm.?How know we come here? I did not until you say! Jawara know-think me dead. No Kaolaki captain come here. And Gisandu short supplies, have cargo, not want to meet Empire ship. Makes no… no sense… not go home.? ?Would your Jawara try to rescue you?? ?Yes, yes-my wife his sister. We be like brother, sail, fight side by side years. But how rescue me, even if he knows? Sea fight, most likely everyone die. Better pay ransom. That right fashion of doing. Dead man not bring back good thing for children, family, town, tribe. Not… not responsible, is the word??

  Rudi nodded. When both ships could throw globes of napalm at wooden hulls, death was the most likely outcome of a slugging match with no restraints. He knew these corsairs were proud and brave, good fighting men, but they were in business to make a profit and not to die. Salvaging was a dangerous trade but a trade still; so was outright piracy, in a way. ?Then from what you say, I think it most likely that your friend does not command that ship,? Rudi said.?The false Marabout does, or the High Seeker, or both. And Graber should still have twenty or so of his men; and some of his Bekwa. If they escaped to the Gisandu with your friend?s crew and struck without warning-?

  Abdou hissed again, and raised the binoculars.?Maybe. If those two evil sorcerers like you say. Now I want rescue Jawara. Will talk to him.?

  The Gisandu came closer with shocking speed; both vessels were sailing with the wind on their beams, a good angle for their rigs. She looked much like her sister-ship, save that someone had painted a toothy mouth on her bow at the waterline. He leveled his own glasses. Most of the crew tending the sails were corsairs, but he could also see the reddish armor of the Sword of the Prophet, and Bekwa. More might well be waiting belowdecks. ?Land,? Abdou said.?Nantucket.?

  Rudi started slightly; he?d put it out of his mind. When he looked over his left shoulder it was there, a long low bluish-green line, marked with white where surf pounded. Just as Ingolf had said, the high bluffs were marked with a tangle of low thick forest. None of the trees were over fifty feet or so, between the sandy soil and the salt sea breeze, but it was plainly old-established. ?Jawara at wheel,? Abdou said.?Shields up. Catapults ready. They closing us, want come alongside.? ?Don?t come too close,? Rudi warned.

  He didn?t put his hand to his sword. Abdou had had personal experience of what Rudi Mackenzie could do with a blade, and confirmation watching him practice since. Strain showed on his face, graving the lines beside his dark eyes that a lifetime of squinting over water had produced. The deck was silent now; Rudi looked behind him for an instant, and Mathilda gave him a cheerful-seeming smile and a thumbs-up from beside the murder-machine on its turntable.

  For one mad instant he imagined telling the corsair turn back. And sailing, sailing away over the horizon, ignoring the place he could feel calling him as northward drew a compass needle. Going somewhere peaceful, and…

  Just saying?No, thank you very much, O Powers, you never asked me what I thought of the idea of being the foredoomed Hero, now, did you??

  His mouth quirked upward. He could imagine that; he could imagine strolling barefoot over the waves and into Nantucket. And both were about as likely. A spire showed there now, white and beautiful, like a Christian church. A squat lighthouse, beside the narrow entrance to the harbor. No wrecks or obvious impediments in the channel. He blinked. Was that a spire? Or buildings? Or was there a ship, a metal ship of oddly towering squared-off shape in the channel itself? When he blinked again the water was empty of all but a few wildfowl and a curious seal that reared its fore-quarters out of the water to watch. But there seemed to be a shuddering in the air. His mouth felt dry, and he swallowed several times. ?Let?s get by this man, so inconvenient and obstructive as he is, first,? he muttered. ?Close,? Abdou said.?They on starboard. Safer for us.?

  The Gisandu was heeled over against the same norther that was making the Bou el-Mogdad bound forward at a good twelve knots. That put the rail the Shark had towards its sister ship sloping down, and its counterpart on Rudi?s own ship point up. Which meant that the Bou el-Mogdad?s war engines would bear on the other corsair vessel while the enemy weapons were pointing down into the water.

  He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Abdou. Just opening fire was not going to be a good idea, if he wanted this man?s cooperation. And he?d promised not to try to force him to fight his own people. Onrushing speed; the Shark?s bow was dark with men. Soon he?d be able to see their faces. Closer, well within range, closer still…

  Abdou had a speaking trumpet. He used it to shout across the diminishing distance, through the whine of wind in rigging and the endless slapping white-noise shsrrshshrrsh of water along the hulls of the ships: ?Jamm ga fanan!?

  Rudi had learned that much Wolof in the last few days; it was a greeting. ?Nanga def, Jawara??

  The thickset black man at the wheel of the other vessel didn?t reply. Not in words; instead he screamed, a long desolate sound like a prisoner?s cry from deep within some dungeon. Almost at the same instant Tunnggg!

  A globe flew towards them from the bow engine of the other ship. It trailed smoke in a low flat arc. There was a crack as it struck near the Bou el-Mogdad?s own prow, and the onrushing bow wave scrubbed its load of liquid fire off to float oily orange-red on the ice-blue waters. ?Shoot!? Rudi shouted.

  He hardly needed to. Arrows lifted in a rushing cloud from the Bou el-Mogdad at Edain?s bark of wholly together! A like volley came back, and every one of the broadside engines on the other ship cut loose. Most of their loads struck the water harmlessly-even at maximum elevation their angle was bad. The arrows were another matter. Rudi swept his knight?s shield up, giving the corsair shelter as well. Three shafts stuck quivering in it, and one banged off his left greave and skittered off across the deck. More rattled like metal hail on the sloped shield of the engine Mathilda commanded.

  The tunggg of its discharge sounded very loud, and all the starboard broadside machines and the bow-chaser shot in the next half second. Sheet-metal shields rang and distorted and collapsed as the heavy granite balls struck; some of them went over the barricade or through it, plowing gruesomely through flesh and sending snapped rigging and wood splinters flying.

  Abdou was screaming orders at the crew on the rigging lines and at the helm; the men there crouched and spun the wheel. The schooner paid off suddenly and heeled southward; booms swung out as it turned to run before the wind, and Rudi ducked as the thick timber swept by overhead. The Gisandu turn
ed behind them; the world swung with disconcerting speed, and suddenly he could look over his shoulder and see the other vessel appallingly close. Another globe of napalm snapped out. There was a crash below as of glass and shutters, and a wisp of smoke billowed up. ?Falilu!? Abdou barked.

  The bosun led a rush of men with buckets of sand and water. Then the slim Moorish captain shook his head in amazement. ?He not talk! Just try to kill me, his brother!? ?He?s not his own man, Abdou al-Naari,? Rudi said grimly.?His mind and soul are not his own.? ?Now I believe,? the corsair said grimly.?Not before. But now, yes.?

  Mathilda jerked the lanyard as the stern rose. Rudi could feel the deck quiver a little beneath his feet as the force of the throwing arms was transmitted through the turntable. The stone ball skipped twice, plunked through the very top of a wave and then caught the Gisandu?s bowsprit at its base. There was a cracking sound loud enough to hear, and Abdou winced even then; he must love these ships like his own children.

  Falilu came back upside; there were scorchmarks on his clothing. He spoke in rapid Wolof, moving his hands in a fashion that left no doubt as to what he was saying. ?Old pagan dog not get use of Bou el-Mogdad after all,? Abdou said with grim amusement.?Falilu make fire slow, not able put out. Ship burn to waterline. Soon now, soon.?

  Tunnnggg.

  They both ducked, but the bolt from the Gisandu?s bow-catapult hit the steel protection of their stern-chaser and pinwheeled away and up in fragments. Shields were raised and men ducked across the deck against that hail. Father Ignatius came to the wheel, wiping off hands bloody from field surgery. ?Two dead, five wounded,? he said.

  Rudi thought swiftly and spoke to Abdou.?Take her straight in and to the dock.? ?Dock?? ? That dock!? Rudi said.

  Abdou blinked as if he were only then aware of the tangle of quays ahead. Rudi realized with a chill in some distant part of his mind that the Moor hadn?t seen them until that moment. ?Ram it. We?ll leap off-the ship is doomed anyway. Ignatius, see that the wounded all have someone to carry them.?