by Paul Kearney
“We have been blown far off our course. Any fool can see that. Can you even tell us where we are, Captain? Could any man? It could be we will be sailing until our provisions run out.” His hand tightened further on the symbol at his breast until Hawkwood fancied he could hear the fine gold creak. “And we will thirst or starve to death, becoming a floating graveyard upon this accursed sea. I tell you, Captain, it is rank impiety to suppose that any man can cross the Western Ocean. It is a border of the world set there by the hand of God, and no man may breach it.”
Here he looked away, and Hawkwood could have sworn that the priest knew these words were false.
“I cannot authorize the abandonment of the voyage,” Hawkwood said in measured tones, hiding the exasperation he felt. “For it is not I who bears the ultimate responsibility. While the ship floats and is in a condition to carry on, the broader decisions are left to Lord Murad. I can only override him if I feel that my technical knowledge renders my decisions more valid than his. The ship can go on, once we have made our repairs, so the decision to turn back is not mine to make, but Murad’s. So you see, Father, you have come to the wrong man.”
Let Murad muzzle this priest, not I, he was thinking. The pious dastard thinks of me as common scum, to obey the orders of the Church nobility without question. Well, I will not disabuse him of that notion. Let him go to Murad for his refusal. He may take it more easily from one of his station.
“I see,” the priest said, bowing his head so that Hawkwood might not see his eyes.
They could hear the shouts of the sailors out on deck, the creak of rope and squeak of pulleys. The crew must have been hauling the new topmast out of the hold. Hawkwood chafed to be away, but the Inceptine continued to sit with his head bowed.
“Father—” Hawkwood began.
“I tell you there is a curse on this ship and those aboard her!” the priest blurted out. “We will leave our bones upon her decks ere we ever sight any mythical Western Continent!”
“Calm down, man! Making wild claims like these will help no one. Do you want to panic the passengers?”
“The passengers!” Ortelius spat. “Dweomer-folk! The world would be better rid of them. Do they even know where they are headed? They are like cattle being driven to the slaughter!”
With that he leapt up off his stool and, throwing open the cabin door, launched out into the companionway. He barked his shin on the storm sill and went sprawling, then gathered himself up and billowed off, out to the glaring brightness of the deck. Hawkwood stared after his black flapping form in wonder and disquiet. He had the strangest idea that the Inceptine knew more of the ship’s destination than he did himself.
“The old Raven is going mad,” he said, slamming the bulkhead door and laughing a little uneasily.
Another knock at the just-closed door, but before Hawkwood could say anything it had opened and Murad was standing there.
“I heard,” the nobleman said.
“Thin bulkheads. There are few secrets on board ship,” Hawkwood said, annoyed.
“Just as well. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.” Murad perched on the edge of Hawkwood’s desk nonchalantly. He had taken off his leathers and was in a loose linen shirt and breeches. A scabbarded poniard hung from his belt.
“Do you believe him?” Murad asked.
“No. Seamen may be superstitious, but they are not fools.”
“Will we be at sea through the winter then, trying to regain our course?”
“Not necessarily,” Hawkwood admitted. Murad looked terrible. They all did in the aftermath of the storm. Most of the crew were like badly animated zombies, but Murad was as lean as a well-gnawed bone and there were muddy puddles under his eyes, red lines breaking across his corneas. He was like a man who had forgotten how to sleep.
“There is a weather-worker on board. I suppose you’ve heard.”
“The soldiers speak of it.”
“Well, we have two choices. Either we whistle for a wind and then try beating north-west, which according to Tyrenius’ rutter—or what you have allowed me to read of it—would be right into the teeth of the prevailing north-westerlies.”
“What would that mean?” Murad snapped.
“It would mean extra months at sea. Half-rations, the loss of your remaining horses. Probably the deaths of the weakest passengers.”
“And the other alternative?”
“We ask the weather-worker to utilize his skills.”
“His sorcery,” Murad sneered.
“Whatever. And he blows us back on course as easy as you please.”
“Have you sailed with a weather-worker before, Hawkwood?”
“Only once, in the Levangore. The Merduks employ them in their galley squadrons to bring down calms when they are attacking sailing ships. The one I met was chief pilot in the port of Alcaras in Calmar. Their magic works, Murad.”
“Their magic, yes.” The nobleman seemed deep in thought. “Do you realize that Ortelius is a spy, sent to observe the voyage for his master the Prelate of Hebrion?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“It will be bad enough that our crew are half-Merduk and our passengers a parcel of sorcerers. Now we are to use sorcery to propel the very ship itself.”
“Surely the voyage comes under the King’s protection. The Prelate would not dare—”
“It is the colony I am thinking of. It is a new Hebrian province we will be seeking to establish in the west, Hawkwood, but if the Prelate of Hebrion sets his face against it, it may become simply a place of exile for undesirables.”
Hawkwood laughed at that. “I can see it now: Murad, lord of witches and thieves.”
“And Hawkwood, admiral of prison hulks,” Murad countered.
They glared at one another, tension sizzling in the air between them.
“It is your decision to make,” Hawkwood said stiffly at last. “But as master of the Osprey I feel bound to tell you that if we do not use sorcery to fill our sails then we will be drinking our own piss ere we sight land.”
“I will think on it a while,” Murad told him, and moved towards the door.
“One more thing,” Hawkwood said, feeling reckless.
“Yes?”
“That fellow Bardolin. He asked me to have a word with you about the girl Griella.”
Murad spun on his heel. “What about her?”
“I suppose he wants you to leave her alone. Perhaps she does not relish your attentions, my lord.”
Before Hawkwood could even flinch, Murad’s poniard was naked and shining at his throat.
“My affairs of the heart are not a basis for discussion, Captain, at any time.”
Hawkwood’s eyes were aflame. “The passengers are my responsibility, along with the running of the ship.”
“What’s the matter, Captain? Are you jealous? Have you lost your taste for boys, perhaps?”
The poniard broke the skin.
“I do not hold with rape, Murad,” Hawkwood said steadily. “Bardolin is rumoured to be a mage, not a man to cross lightly.”
“Neither am I, Captain.” The blade left Hawkwood’s throat, was scabbarded again. “Find this weather-worker, and let him ply his trade,” Murad said casually. “We can’t let a man like our good priest end up drinking his own piss.”
“What will you tell him?”
“Nothing. He is worn-looking, don’t you think? Maybe he has a streak of madness in him induced by the strain of the past days. It would be a shame were something to happen to him ere we sight land.”
Hawkwood said nothing, but rubbed his throat where the poniard tip had pricked it.
P ERNICUS was a small man, red-haired and weak-eyed. His nose was long enough to overhang his upper lip and he was as pale as parchment, a bruise on his high forehead lingering evidence of the passage of the storm.
He stood on the quarterdeck as though it were the scaffold, licking dry lips and glancing at Hawkwood and Murad like a dog searching for its maste
r. Hawkwood smiled reassuringly at him.
“Come, Master Pernicus. Show us your skill.”
The waist was crowded with people. Most of the passengers had learned of what was happening and had dragged themselves out of the fetid gundeck. Bardolin was there, as stern as a sergeant-at-arms, and beside him was Griella. Most of the ship’s crew were in the shrouds or were standing ready at the lifts and braces, waiting to trim the yards when the wind appeared. Soldiers lined the forecastle and the gangways, slow-match lit and sending ribands of smoke out to hang in the limpid air. Sequero and di Souza had their swords drawn.
But at the forefront of them all, at the foot of the quarterdeck ladder, stood Ortelius, his eyes fixed on the diminutive weather-worker above. His face was skull-like in the harsh sunlight, his eyes two deep glitters in sunken sockets.
“Get to it, man!” Murad barked impatiently. Pernicus jumped like a frog, and there was a rattle of laughter from the soldiers on the forecastle. Then silence again as the two ensigns glared round and sergeant Mensurado administered a discreet kick. The sails flapped idly overhead and the ship was motionless under the blazing sun, like an insect impaled upon a pin. Pernicus closed his eyes.
Minutes went past, and the soldiers stirred restlessly. Three bells in the afternoon watch was struck, the ship’s bell as loud as a gunshot in the quiet. Pernicus’ lips moved silently.
The main topsail swayed and flapped once, twice. Hawkwood thought he felt the faintest zephyr on his cheek, though it might have been his hopeful imagination. Pernicus spoke at last, in a choked murmur:
“It is hard. There is nothing to work with for leagues, but I think I have found it. Yes. I think it will do.”
“It had better,” Murad said in a low, ominous voice.
The sun was unrelenting. It baked the decks and made tar drip from the rigging on to those below, spotting the painfully bright armour of the soldiers. Finally Pernicus sighed and rubbed his eyes. He turned to face Hawkwood.
“I have done it, Captain. You shall have your wind. It is on its way.”
Then he left the quarterdeck, gaped at by those who had never seen a weather-worker perform before, and went below.
“Is that it?” Murad snapped. “I’ll have the little mountebank flogged up and down the ship.”
“Wait,” Hawkwood said.
“Nothing happened, Captain.”
“Wait, damn you!”
The crowd in the waist was already dispersing, buzzing with talk. The soldiers were filing down off the gangways, beating out their slow-match on the ship’s rail and guffawing at their own jokes. Ortelius remained motionless, as did Bardolin.
A breeze ruffled Hawkwood’s hair and made the sails crack and fill.
“Ready, lads!” he called to the crew, who were waiting patiently at their stations.
The light faded. The ship’s company looked up as one to see outrider clouds moving across the face of the sun. The surface of the sea to the south-east of the ship wrinkled like folded silk.
“Here she comes. Steady on the braces. Tiller there, course nor’-nor’-west.”
“Aye, sir.”
The breeze strengthened, and suddenly the sails were full and straining, the masts creaking as they took the strain. The carrack tilted and her bow dipped as the wind took her on the stern. She began to move, slowly at first and then picking up speed.
“Brace that foresail round, you damned fools! You’re spilling the wind. Velasca, more men to the foremast. And set bonnets on the courses.”
“Aye, sir!”
“We’re moving!” someone shouted from the waist, and as the carrack began to slide swiftly through the water the passengers broke out into laughter and cheers. “Good old Pernicus!”
“Leadsman to the forechains!” Hawkwood shouted, grinning. “Let’s see what she’s doing.”
The carrack was alive again, no longer the stranded, battered creature she had been in the past days. Hawkwood experienced a jet of sheer joy as he felt the ship stirring under his feet and saw her wake beginning to foam astern.
“So we have our wind,” Murad said, sounding a little bemused. “I have never seen anything like it, I must say.”
“I have,” said Brother Ortelius. He had climbed up to the quarterdeck, his face like granite. “May God forgive you both—and that wretched creature of Dweomer—for what you have done here today.”
“Easy, Father—” Hawkwood began.
“Brother Ortelius,” Murad said coldly, “you will kindly refrain from making comments which might be construed as detrimental to the morale of the ship’s company. If you have opinions you may seek to air them in private with either myself or the captain; otherwise you will keep them to yourself. You are not well, obviously. I would not like to have to confine a man of your dignity to his hammock, but I will if need be. Good day, sir.”
Ortelius looked as though a blood vessel might burst. His face went scarlet and his mouth worked soundlessly. Some of Hawkwood’s crew turned aside to hide their exultant smiles.
“You cannot muzzle me, sir,” Ortelius said at last, dripping venom. “I am a noble of the Church, subject to no authority save my spiritual superiors. I answer to them and to no one else.”
“You answer to me and to Captain Hawkwood as long as you are aboard this ship. Ours is the ultimate responsibility, and the ultimate authority. Priest or no, if I hear you have been preaching any more superstitious claptrap I’ll have you put in irons in the bilge. Now go below, sir, before I do something I may regret.”
“You have already done that, sir, believe me,” Ortelius hissed out of a mottled countenance. His eyes glittered like a snake and he made the Sign of the Saint as though flinging a curse at the lean nobleman.
“I said go below. Or will I have a pair of soldiers escort you?”
The black-garbed priest left the quarterdeck. There was a hoot of laughter, quickly smothered, from one of the sailors on the yards.
“That may not have been wise,” Hawkwood said quietly.
“Indeed. But by all the saints in God’s heaven, Hawkwood, I enjoyed it. Those black vultures think they have the world in their pocket; it is good to disabuse them of the notion now and again.” Murad was smiling, and for a moment Hawkwood almost liked him; he knew he could never have stood up to the Inceptine in the same manner. No matter how much he hated the Ravens, their authority was deeply ingrained in his mind, as it was in the mind of every commoner. Perhaps one had to be a noble to see the man behind the symbol.
“There is something I cannot account for, though,” Murad said thoughtfully.
“What is that?”
“Ortelius. He was angry, yes; furious, even. But I could have sworn his outrage was founded on more than that. On fear. It is strange. Inexplicable.”
“I think he knows more than he seems to,” Hawkwood said in a low voice. As one, he and Murad moved to the larboard rail to be out of earshot of the crew.
“My thought also,” the scarred nobleman agreed.
“You’re sure he was sent by the Prelate of Hebrion?”
“Almost, yes. I have not encountered him before, though, and I know most of the clerics who hang about Abeleyn’s court and the Prelate’s.”
“There is no clue as to his background?”
“Oh, he’ll be a scion of some minor noble family—the Inceptines always are. There will probably be a plum post or other waiting for him in return for his services on the voyage.”
“You do not seem too concerned about what he may report back to the Church in Abrusio.”
Murad stared at Hawkwood, face expressionless. “There are many long leagues of sailing before us yet, Captain, and an unknown continent awaiting our feet. Many things could happen before any of us sees Hebrion once more. Hazardous things. Dangerous things.”
“You cannot do that, Murad! He is a priest.”
“He is a man, and his blood is the same colour as my own. When he chose to set his will against mine he fixed his own fate. There i
s nothing more to be said.”
Murad’s matter-of-fact tone chilled Hawkwood. He had seen battle, ship-to-ship actions with the corsairs where blood had washed the decks and men had been mangled by shot and blade, but this cold, calculated dismissal of another man’s life unsettled him. He wondered what he would have to do to earn the same treatment from the scheming nobleman.
He left the larboard rail and stood at the break of the quarterdeck, wishing to put distance between himself and Murad. The carrack was flying along and spray was coming aboard to cool his brow. The third of the leadsmen, the one stationed by the taffrail, was holding the dripping, knotted rope with the thick faggot of wood fastened to the end.
“Six knots, sir, and she’s still gathering way!”
Hawkwood forced himself to respond to the leadsman’s gaiety, though whatever joy he had in the ship’s progress had been dampened by Murad.
“Try her again, Borim. See if she won’t get up to eight when the bonnets are on.”
“Aye, sir!”
Murad left the quarterdeck without another word. Hawkwood watched him go, knowing that the nobleman was plotting murder on his ship.
B ARDOLIN leaned on the forecastle rail and stared down into the breaking foam of the carrack’s bow. They were clipping along at a wonderful rate and the cool moving air was like a benison after the unmoving furnace of the doldrums.
The soldiers had hauled the remaining horses up out of the waist hatches and were exercising them, leading them round and round the deck. The poor brutes were covered in sores and their ribs stood out like the hoops on a barrel. Bardolin wondered if they would ever live to set foot on the new continent that awaited them in the west.
A good man, that Pernicus. It had been Bardolin who had convinced him to use his powers and call in a wind. He was below now, concentrating. There were few suitable systems of air in the region, and he was having constantly to maintain the one that propelled the ship. Usually a weather-worker selected a suitable system nearby and manoeuvred it into a position where it could do his work for him, but here Pernicus was having to keep at it to make sure the sorcerous wind did not fade away.