by Paul Kearney
He opened a desk drawer and brought out an oilskin-wrapped package. It was rectangular, the covering much worn. He unwrapped it and revealed a thick, battered book.
“The rutter,” Hawkwood breathed.
“Yes. I have deemed it time to reveal its contents to you, Captain, and to you, Bardolin, since I feel you probably have an expertise in these matters.”
“I don’t understand,” the mage said. The imp squirmed in his robe, but went unnoticed.
“We are not the first expedition to search for the Western Continent. There was one—in fact there were two—who went before us, and both ended in disaster; the second because the ship had a werewolf on board.”
There was a pause. The racket and clamour of the carrack went on heedlessly outside.
“I was never informed of this,” Hawkwood said coldly.
“I did not think it necessary, but I do now with things the way they are. It would seem that western expeditions have a way of coming to grief that is similar.”
“Explain, please,” Bardolin said. Sweat was trickling down his temples and dripping off his battered nose.
Briefly, Murad informed them both of the fate of the Cartigellan Faulcon, over a century before. He also told them of the references in the rutter to an even earlier voyage west, one undertaken by a group of mages fleeing persecution in the Ramusian kingdoms.
“The information is fragmentary, and obscure, but I have tried to glean what I can from it,” he said. “What disturbs me are the similarities between the three voyages. Werewolves, Dweomerfolk. Murders on board ship.”
“And ultimate disaster,” Hawkwood added. “We should turn back for Abrusio, get the boats out and tow the ship’s head into a wind. That Inceptine is right: this voyage is cursed.”
Murad brought a fist down on the desk with a startling thump. Dust rose from the pages of the ancient book.
“There will be no turning back. Whatever demon has taken ship with us wants precisely that. You heard what Bardolin said. Someone or something has been sabotaging westward voyages for three centuries or more. I intend to find out why.”
“Do you think the Western Continent is inhabited then?” Bardolin enquired.
“Yes, I do.”
“What about the Grace of God?” Hawkwood asked suddenly. “Could her disappearance be the result of some kind of sabotage also?”
“Perhaps. Who can say?”
Hawkwood cursed bitterly.
“If the caravel is lost, Captain, don’t you want to find out how or why? And who it was that destroyed your ship and killed your crew?” Murad’s voice was low, but as hard as frost.
“Not at the expense of this ship and the lives of her company,” Hawkwood said.
“That may not be necessary, if we are vigilant enough. We have been warned by the fate of the previous ships; we need not go the same way.”
“Then how do we track this thing down? You heard Bardolin—there is no telling which man on this ship is the shifter.”
“Perhaps the priest can tell. I have heard it rumoured that the clergy can somehow sniff out these things.”
“No,” Bardolin put in quickly. “That is a fallacy. The only way to weed out a shifter is to wait until it changes and be ready for it.”
“What makes it change?” Hawkwood asked. “You said it was rational after a fashion, even in its beast form.”
“Yes. And I also said it is impulsive, uncontrollable. But if we turn back it will, I believe, have got what it wants and may not find the need to shift again. On the other hand, if we announce that we are sticking to our course it may feel forced to persuade us otherwise.”
“Excellent,” Murad said. “There you are, Captain. We must continue westwards if we want to hunt this thing out into the open.”
“Continue westwards!” Hawkwood laughed. “We are not continuing anywhere at the moment. The sails are as slack as a beggar’s purse. The ship is becalmed.”
“There must be something we can do,” Murad said irritably. “Bardolin, you are supposed to be a mage. Can’t you whistle up a wind?”
“A mage is master of only four of the Seven Disciplines,” Bardolin replied. “Weather-working is not one of mine.”
“What about the other passengers? They’re mages and witches to a man, else they would not be here. Surely one of them could do something?”
Bardolin smiled wryly. “Pernicus was the only one gifted in that particular field. Perhaps you should ask Brother Ortelius to pray for a wind, my lord.”
“Do not be insolent,” Murad snapped.
“I only point out that the dregs of Ramusian society have suddenly become sought-after in a crisis.”
“Only because one of those dregs jeopardizes the entire ship’s safety with his own accursed brand of hellish sorcery,” Murad said icily. “Set a thief to catch a thief, it is said.”
Bardolin’s eyes glinted in his old-soldier face. “I will catch your thief for you, then, but I will not do it for nothing.”
“Aha! Here’s the rub. And what would you like in way of payment, Mage?”
“I will let you know that at the appropriate time. For now, let us just say that you will owe me a favour.”
“The damn thing isn’t caught yet,” Hawkwood said quietly. “Worry about obligations after we have its head on a pike.”
“Well said, Captain,” Murad agreed. “And here”—he threw the rutter into Hawkwood’s lap—“peruse that at your leisure. It may be of use.”
“I doubt it. We are far off our course, Murad. The rutter is no longer any use to me. From now on, unless we regain our former latitude—which is well-nigh impossible without a Dweomer wind—we are sailing uncharted seas. From what you have told me, it seems that the Faulcon never came this far south. My intent now is to set a course due west, parallel to our old one. There is no point in trying to beat up towards our former latitude.”
“What if we miss the Western Continent altogether and sail to the south of it?” Murad asked.
“If it is even half the size of Normannia it will be there on this latitude. In any case, to try and sail back north would be almost suicidal, as I told you before we enlisted Pernicus’ services.”
Murad shrugged. “It is all one to me, so long as we sight land in the end and are in a fit state to walk ashore.”
“Let me worry about that. Your concern is this beast that haunts the ship.”
B Y the end of the morning watch the guns had been run back in and the rumour had circulated round the ship like a fast-spreading pestilence: Pernicus had been murdered by a stowaway spy, and the murderer lurked aboard, unknown. The carrack began to take on some of the aspects of a besieged fortress, with soldiers everywhere asking people their business, the crew armed and the ship’s officers barking orders left and right. The patched-up boats were swung out from the yardarms and crews of sailors began hauling the carrack westwards, out of the doldrums; a killing labour in the stock-still heat of the day.
In the midst of the militant uneasiness the last of the storm’s damage was rectified and the ship began to look more like her old self, with new timber about the sterncastle and waist and new cable sent up to the tops. But the sails remained flaccid and empty, and the surface of the sea was as obstinately flat as the surface of a green mirror, whilst the sun glared down out of a cloudless sky.
It was in the foretop that Bardolin and Griella finally found the peace to speak without being overheard. They sat in the low-walled platform with the bulk of the topmast at their backs and a spider tracery of rigging all about them.
Still red-faced from clambering up the shrouds in this heat, Bardolin released the imp. With a squeak of pleasure it darted around the top, gazing down at the deck far below and peering out at the haze-dim horizon.
“You’ve heard, I suppose?” Bardolin asked curtly.
“About Pernicus? Yes. Why would anyone have done such a thing? He was a harmless enough little man.” Griella was dressed in her habitual breeches and a thi
n linen shirt that Bardolin suspected was a cast-off of Murad’s. Fragments of lace clung to its neck and she had rolled the voluminous sleeves up to her elbows, exposing brown forearms with tiny golden hairs freckling them.
“He was killed by a shifter, Griella,” the mage said in a flinthard voice.
The pale eyes widened until he could see the strange yellow-golden circle around the pupils. “Bardolin! Are you sure?”
“I have seen shifters kill before, remember.”
She stared at him. Her mouth opened. Finally she said:
“But you don’t think—you do! You think it was me!”
“Not you, but the beast that inhabits you.”
The eyes flared; the yellow grew in them until they were scarcely human any longer. “We are the same, the beast and I, and I tell you that it was not I who slew Pernicus.”
“Are you expecting me to believe there are two shifters on board this ship?”
“There must be, or else you are mistaken. Maybe someone killed him in such a way as to make it look as though it was done by a beast.”
“I am not a fool, Griella. I warned you about this many times. Now it has happened.”
“I did not do it! Please, Bardolin, you must believe me!”
The glow in the eyes had retreated and there was only the light of the pitiless sun setting the tears in them afire. She was a small girl again, tugging at his knee. The imp looked on, aghast.
“Why should I?” Bardolin said harshly, though he longed to take her in his arms, to say that he did, to make it all right.
“Is there nothing I can do to convince you?”
“What could you do, Griella?”
“I could let you see into my mind, the way you did before when I was about to change into the beast and you stopped me. You saw into me then, Bardolin. You can do it again.”
“I—”
He was not so sure of himself now. He had thought to extract a confession from her, but he had not considered beyond that. He knew he would never have turned her over to Murad—there would have been some bargain made, some deal done. But now he no longer knew what to do.
Because he did believe her.
“Let me see your eyes, Griella. Look at me.”
She tilted up her head obediently. The sun was behind him and his shadow fell upon her. He looked deep, deep into the sea-change of the eyes, and the top, the mast, the ship and the vast ocean disappeared.
A heartbeat, huge and regular. But as he listened the rhythm changed. It became erratic, slipping out of time. It took him a moment to realize that he was listening to two hearts beating not quite in tune with each other.
Pictures and images flickering like a shower of varicoloured leaves. He saw himself there, but shied away from that. He saw the ragged brown peaks of the Hebros Mountains that must have been her home. He saw swift, red-tinted images of wanton slaughter flitting past.
Too far back. He had gone too deep with his impatience. He must pull out a little.
The other heartbeat grew louder, drowning out the first. He thought he could feel the heat of the beast and the prickle of its harsh fur against his skin.
There! A ship upon a limitless ocean, and in the dark hours aboard a vision of white limbs intertwined, linen sheets in crumples of light and dark. An ecstatic, lean face he knew to be Murad’s hovering over him in the night.
The beast again, very close this time. He felt its anger, its hunger. The unrelenting rage it felt at being confined.
Except it was not. It was free and lying beside the naked man in the swaying cot, the stout supporting ropes creaking under the weight. It wanted to kill, to rip the night apart with scarlet carnage. But did not. It lay beside the sleeping, nightmare-ridden nobleman and watched over him in the night.
It wanted to kill, but could not. There was something that prevented it, something the beast could not understand but could not disregard.
Nothing else. A few spangled images. Himself, the imp, the terrible glory of the storm. Nothing more. No memory of murder, not on the ship, not since Abrusio. She had told the truth.
Bardolin lingered a moment, peering round the tangled interstices of Griella’s mind, noting the linkages here and there between the wolf and the woman, the areas where they were pulling apart, where control was weakest. He withdrew with a sense both of relief and of mourning. She did love Murad, in some perverse manner that even the beast could recognize. And in loving him, she was doing some violence to herself that Bardolin could not quite fathom.
She loved himself, old Bardolin, also—but not in the same way, not at all. He scourged himself for the unexpectedly acute sense of grief at the discovery.
The sun was beating down on them. Griella’s eyes were glassy. He tapped her lightly on the cheek and she blinked, smiled.
“Well?”
“You told the truth,” he said heavily.
“You don’t sound too overjoyed.”
“You may not have killed Pernicus, but you play a dangerous game with Murad, child.”
“That is my business.”
“All right, but it seems that the impossible is true: there is another shifter aboard the ship.”
“Another shifter? How can that be?”
“I have no idea. You have not sensed anything, have you? You do not have any suspicions?”
“Why, no. I have never in my life met another sufferer of the black disease, though folk said the Hebros were full of them.”
“Then it seems there is nothing we can do until he chooses to reveal himself.”
“Why would another shifter take ship with us?”
“To cause the abortion of the voyage, perhaps. That would be his motive for killing Pernicus. Murad told me something today which intrigues me. I must go down and consult my books.”
“Tell me, Bardolin! What is going on?”
“I don’t yet know myself. Keep your eyes open. And Griella: do not let the beast free for a while, not even in the privacy of Murad’s cabin.”
She flushed. “You saw that! You pried on us.”
“I had no choice. The man is bad for you, child, and you for him. Remember that.
“I am not a child, Bardolin. You had best not treat me like one.”
He stroked her satin cheek gently, fingers touching the tawny freckles there, the sun-brown skin.
“Do not think ill of me, Griella. I am an old man, and I worry about you.”
“You are not so old, and I am sorry you worry.” But her eyes were unrelenting.
Bardolin turned away and scooped up the watching imp.
“Come. Let us see if this not-so-old man can make his way down this labyrinth of ropes without cracking open his grey-haired skull on the deck.”
T HE carrack inched westwards painfully, towed by the labouring men in the ship’s boats. They made scarcely two leagues a day, and the sailors became exhausted though the boat crews changed every hour. Hawkwood began to ration the water as though it were gold, and soldiers with iron bullets in their arquebuses guarded the water casks in the forward part of the hold day and night. The ship’s company became subdued and apprehensive. Salt sores began to appear on everyone’s bodies as the allowance of fresh water for washing was cut and the salt in garments began to abrade the skin. And still the sun blasted down out of a flawless sky, and in the clear green water below the keel the shadow of hanging weed grew longer as it built up on the carrack’s hull.
The sailors trolled for fish to eke out the shipboard provisions. They hauled in herrin on their westward migration, wingfish, huge tub-bodied feluna, and sometimes the writhing, entangled sliminess of large octopuses, some of them almost big enough to swamp the smaller of the longboats.
Weed began to be sighted in matted expanses across the surface of the sea, and on the weed itself colonies of pink and scarlet crabs scuttled about seeking carrion. The weed beds stank to high heaven and were infested with sealice and other vermin. Inevitably some made their way aboard, and soon most of the ship’s
company had their share of irritating red bites and unwelcome itches on scalp and in groin.
In the dark of one middle watch a great glistening back rose like a birthing hill out of the sea alongside the carrack, and for half a glass it rose and sank there, a bulk that rivalled the ship in size. A long-necked head with a horny beak regarded the astonished ship’s watch before diving below the surface again in a flurry of white foam. A knollback turtle. The sailors had heard of them in old maritime tales and legends. They were supposed to have been mistaken for islands by land-hungry mariners far from home. The crew made the Sign of the Saint at their breasts, and the next day Brother Ortelius’ sermon was better attended than it had ever been before, affording the Inceptine a grim kind of pleasure. He called the voyage a flight in the face of God, and with Murad looking on declared that God’s servants could not be muzzled by threats or fear. God’s will would be done, in the end.
The same evening Hawkwood had two men flogged for questioning the orders of the ship’s officers.
The men in the boats rowed on through the humid nights, watch on watch, their oars struggling through the stinking, matted weed with its population of crabs and mites. And on the gundeck the talk was turned to Pernicus’ death and its possible author. Wild theories were hatched and did the rounds and it was all Bardolin could do to keep the Dweomer-folk calm. As it was, there were more manifestations of magic now. Some of the oldwives were able to purify small amounts of salt water whilst others worked to heal the salt sores everyone bore, and still more ignited white were-lights and left them burning through the night for fear of what would creep about the decks in the dark hours.
And then, eight tense, airless, back-breaking days after Pernicus had met his end, a wind came ruffling over the surface of the undisturbed sea. A north-easter that gathered in strength through the morning watch until the carrack’s sails were drawing full again and the white foam broke beneath her bow. The ship’s company drew a collective sigh of relief as the wake began to extend ever further behind her and she set her bowsprit squarely towards the west once more.
It was then that the killing began.