The Sword of the Lady

by S. M. Stirling

  ″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 turned 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 s
tern-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.″

  Unexpectedly, Abdou spoke: ″I, my men not fight. We carry hurt, though.″

  Rudi nodded grateful acknowledgment as the corsair called orders in his own language.

  ″Ingolf?″ he went on.

  The Richlander swallowed. Rudi didn′t think that was the dangers of battle that brought the sheen of sweat to his face despite the cold.

  ″I came in the other way. But . . . right up that street from the harbor, the one the maps call Center, and then left where it forks. The house with the pillars on your right. I think. It was . . . mixed up, there, at the end.″

  ″That′s what we′ll do, then. You lead and—″

  Ignatius shook his head. ″You and the Princess must go first, Your Majesty,″ he said. ″I will hold the rearguard with the rest.″

  He smiled when Rudi started to object. ″What have we made this journey for if not to get you to the Sword? And the Princess is my charge. If you would save us, accomplish your mission swiftly.″

  The smile grew broader as he patted his own hilt. ″Gain your Lady′s Sword, your Majesty. I also have a sword blessed by a Lady, and a mission laid upon me. I will fulfill it.″

  ″Right,″ Rudi said tightly.

  More smoke was coming out of the stern windows, trailing along on either side of them as the wind that pushed the ship took it. It gave a little cover, and the Gisandu had to turn slightly every time she fired; the bow-chaser couldn′t shoot directly over her own bowsprit. The stern-chaser on their own ship could, but . . .

  ″The deck′s starting to get very hot here!″ Mathilda called; not alarmed, just reporting.

  She jerked the lanyard. Tunnnggg. This time there was a splintering crack almost immediately, as the shot caught the other vessel at the waterline. They were gliding southeast through a narrow passage now. A broadside of incendiaries came flying at them as they came about to head directly south and the harbor opened out around them, a broad shallow lagoon. Two globes smashed against the steel shields and hissing fire ran down. Their own replied, and a sail came rattling down on the Gisandu as a stay was severed. Corsairs worked frantically at a deck pump to wash the napalm down and into the sea before it started another fire.

  Edain and his picked archers crowded onto the poop deck. He was firing like a machine across the hundred-yard gap, draw-aim-loose nock-draw, chanting under his breath:

  ″We are the darts that—got you bad, bastard!—Hecate cast!″

  Rudi made himself turn. As he did he realized that something had been inhibiting him, something besides his natural desire to keep his eyes on the men trying to kill them all. He blinked and shook his head, but there was nothing wrong with his eyes. It was as if he saw multiple images laid one upon another, like paintings on layers of glass. A festival where men and women danced through snow. Tall-masted ships tied at the docks. Something smooth and silvery and massive that floated above the water, then turned its nose skyward and rose with impossible speed . . .

  Then a very solid dock and roadway, wharfs on barnacle-encrusted tree trunks, what looked like a street of low brick buildings, interspersed with white-trimmed gray shingle shops and leafless winter trees, with church steeples rearing beyond. No dwellers . . . or was that a band in oilskins with duffel bags over their shoulders? No, they were gone. And the dock was there.

  ″Brace for impact!″ he shouted, as it loomed before their bowsprit, and looped his elbow around a line.

  Crack. His feet skidded out from beneath him. A long crunching, grinding sound, and the bow reared up as the huge momentum of the two-hundred-ton vessel ground into timber and stone. Nearly everyone else fell too; Mathilda went sliding past him as the impact pitched her off the gunner′s seat of the weapon, and he snagged her with a leg. She clung to his sword belt as the long echoing crash continued and the deck canted more and more steeply beneath them. Their helmets rang together as the foremast broke with a sound like thunder and came down on the shattered dock.

  Silence except for snapping wood and the growing burr of the fire beneath them.

  ″Go, go, go!″ Ignatius shouted.

  Rudi hauled Mathilda upright as if her solid weight and the armor were nothing. They ran along the side to the buckled rail, up to it, down onto the crazy-quilt mess of the dock where the schooner′s weight had struck. His leg went through a broken board and he wrenched it free. Then they were running, up past a dry fountain and onto a stretch of cobbles. His weight pounded down through his boots, but the sound was too deep, as if he were walking on a drumhead. An arrow went past them . . . but it floated past. His run turned to steps in a dream, one where you floated. He floated, past primeval forests, past a rough hamlet hacked from the woods where folk in rust-colored coats and high-steepled hats and long dresses gaped at him, past the street he′d first seen, but dense with the cars and trucks of the ancient world, past the same with ox carts heaped with fish . . .

  ″Here. We′ll hold them here!″ Ignatius shouted; the stone basin of the fountain blocked part of the street.

  Shields locked on either side, and the archers fanned out in two forward-slanting wings from side to side of the roadway. The Bou el-Mogdad was burning like a pillar of fire now, delaying the men the Gisandu carried and making it impossible for her deck engines to shoot. They came staggering out of the smoke anyway, and first was a man in a tattered red robe the color of dried blood. His hands were held out before him like claws, and his eyes were windows into negation.

  ″Noooooooo!″

  The endless wail was as much shriek as word, and less a protest than a single long scream of what he was, or what the thing that wore the man like a glove was. Ignatius raised his sword and brought up his shield, but behind the visor of his helm he shouted for joy as his gaze met those wells of night without end.

  ″Yes!″ he cried. ″Eternally, yes!″

  Behind him Edain barked: ″Let the gray geese fly. Wholly together—Shoot!″

  The bows snapped, and men went down in the ragged mob of Bekwa and Sword troopers and corsairs who rushed forward as the arrows sleeted into them, but there were too many, far too many. Three punched into the High Seeker, but his body simply flexed and came on.

  ″Nooooooo!″

  ″You shall not pass, Hollow Man!″ Ignatius cried.

  And then—

  Knight-brother Ignatius snatched at his sword. It wasn′t there, nor was his armor and gear. Instead he wore the simple Benedictine robe and cowl; after an instant he was conscious that he sat on a bench. Before him was a cloister, slender white stone columns supporting arches on three sides of a garden and fountain where water played before an image of the Virgin. The shadows within the walk hid tall doors; behind them was a hint of bookcases full of leather-bound volumes. Within the court the sun ran dappled on the water that lifted and fell in its basin, shifting in spots of brightness through the leaves of tall beeches; a few flower beds stood in troughs between walkways of worn brick, shimmering in gold and silver and hyacinth blue.

  The day was mild and dry and warm, with scents of rock and wet and warm dust, and somewhere a hint of incense. It was very quiet; the sound of the plashing fountain, a few cu-currrus from doves that stalked past, perhaps very faintly a hint of chanted plainsong in the distance. He smiled. It wasn′t Mt. Angel, but it was as if . . .

>   As if it is the distilled essence of everything I loved about the abbey, he thought. Peace, beauty, wisdom. God.

  Beside him another monk sat; the man threw back his cowl and smiled. Ignatius′ eyes went a little wide. It was Abbot-Bishop Dmwoski, but as he′d first seen him as a postulant, the square hard face amused at his earnestness but in a way that was kindly, not mocking.

  ″Am I . . . is this . . .″

  ″No, you are not, my son,″ the abbot answered.

  ″Then, you—″

  Dmwoski laughed; it had been a rare thing on Mt. Angel, but it lit the warrior-cleric′s sternness like a candle through the glass shutter of a lantern.

  ″Not yet, as your life thread is drawn; there I am currently fighting the sin of despair, and grappling with a sea of troubles. Time is different here. Or rather, we′re not entirely in time as men understand it.″

  ″I always thought you would be a saint,″ Ignatius blurted.

  Dmwoski frowned. ″All human souls are, potentially. I . . . have been allowed to progress.″

  ″And this is—″

  Another chuckle: ″And yes, this is where you think it is. Or as much of this . . . one of the many mansions . . . as you can currently understand. Think of it as a metaphor, but a true one.″

  ″Such peace,″ Ignatius breathed, wondering.

  He drew the air into his lungs, and then glanced behind him. A long table reached into dimness; someone was turning the pages of a text, and the bright colors drew him even through the glass and across the distance.

  ″Yet . . .″ he said. ″It does not feel in the least static.″

  ″Never. More like an endless high adventure; or rather, what an adventure should be. We cannot fully know Him, yet we can know ever more of Him; and in that is the completion of our natures. Come, walk with me, my son.″

  They rose and folded their hands in the sleeves of their robes. A bell rang somewhere as they paced through the cloister and out the gateway, a great bronze throb that seemed to scatter brightness through the air.

  ″Why am I here, then, Father?″