Chase the Morning

Chapter Six

As a small boy I’d lain on the lawn, looking up at the clouds passing over our rooftop, imagining they were standing still and that I and the roof were surging upward among them. Now it was happening.

The channel opened before us as we scudded out, wider and wider, a blazing expanse of blue it hurt the eye to look at. Purest, infinite azure above us and below, the depthless blueness of an ideal sea, a perfect sky – if any horizon separated them, it was beyond my dazzled sight. And under the low sun’s long rays the blue turned swiftly to burning gold, seamed with streaks of shimmering white; thin streamers of sunset cloud or wind-driven wavecaps, either or both, both at once – how could I tell? I was beyond caring, beyond thought. I stood rapt. It was in light we rode, light that filled our sails and rippled beneath our timbers, light we breathed, light that filled our veins and quickened our pulses. And outspread before us in hilly swathes of cloud lay the islands of the sunset archipelago.

Yet as we drew nearer they didn’t lose that look, didn’t fade as clouds do into shapeless, insubstantial billows. They grew sharper, firmer, more solid by the minute, seemed to materialize out of the mists of distance just as more mundane places do. Along their golden margins the swirling flecks of white became breakers crashing up wide pale sands; I could hear them, faintly, as we passed. The shadowy grey swirls of forest at their hearts resolved into the tops of tall trees, tossing their leaves in the wind; it brought me the strong slow breath of them, and, very faintly, the tang of leaves and pine-tar, bracken and damp mould, the scents of ancient forests long cleared from the lands. About their heights soared wings, not seabirds but broad-pinioned raptors gliding and stooping, osprey, hawk and proud eagles. From small islets in our path there came mournful yipping barks, and grey shapes stirred against the rocks, lifting round heads to watch us as we passed, some undulating away in alarm. Of other life I saw few signs, though once I was sure the antlers of a stag lifted in brief black outline against the blazing blue-gold; of humanity nothing. But once, as we rounded a high grey headland, there came drifting out to me from the cresting forests the reedy rise and fall of pipes. Not a sound I’d ever cared for; but it belonged here, plaintive but exulting, like a voice given to these wild shores to sing of their lonely splendour. It sang through me, and I thrilled to it, all other marvels forgotten in that low chant; I ached to land, to throw aside all my troubles on the beach and run off, free, through the rich woodlands. Mall’s hand on my shoulder jolted me out of the trance. ‘Best not to listen too close, good sir,’ she observed quietly, ‘when there is no man playing.’

‘No man?’ I repeated stupidly. ‘That isn’t the wind I hear.’

‘Did I say it was so? But there are no men on that sweet isle. Much music, but no men.’

The beach beyond came into view. Just above the sealine a tall black rock loomed unnaturally upright against the bright sands; its flanks, glistening like flaked glass, were shaped, roughly but unmistakeably. Overhead the yards and rigging creaked, and the scoured planking beneath my feet tilted to a different angle; the set of the sails was changing. Orders were shouted, and men ran to the braces. I looked around; Jyp had the helm now, and he was taking us further from the shore.

‘As wise a pilot as ever,’ Mall commented. ‘There’s more ways than one to run upon a rock, hereabouts.’ With a friendly clap on my shoulder she went back up to the quarterdeck to join him. Absently I rubbed the bruise and listened to a sailor singing to that eerie tune as it dwindled away astern.

‘Belay that, you tarrarag!’ growled Pierce; but the singer had already stopped. A flock of grey crows fluttered up from the hills, squawking derisively; and that was the last we heard.

The shores held my eyes still, but the cloudy isles sank away on either side, further and further, receding into misty distance once more. It took me a while to notice the little sailor at my side again. ‘Cap’n’s compliments, Master, and will you take wine with him and the Sailin’ Master on the quarterdeck afore dinner?’

I certainly would. After the alarms and excursions – God, was it only yesterday? – and a sleepless night I felt direly in need of a drink, preferably strong; I wondered if they shipped rum on privateers. The ‘wine’, though, turned out to be some kind of Madeira, smoky and lethal and served by the little old seacook in half-pint pewter beakers. By my second I was feeling no pain at all, and confident enough to copy Jyp and the captain, resting their feet on the rail and tilting their chairs with the light skipping motion of the ship, while Mall leaned on the great wheel. Something was bothering me, though, and as we got up to go below I realized what it was.

‘The sun! It’s almost set! But damn it, we set sail at dawn! And that was no more than two hours back! And dinner?’

Pierce let out a great guffaw, his jowls crinkling and bobbing, while an answering chuckle ran around the deck below; Jyp struggled to control his face, and failed. Only Mall did not even smile, but regarded me gravely from the helmsman’s bench.

‘Oh, go ahead, laugh,’ I said resignedly. ‘Don’t mind the new boy around here.’

‘Sorry, Steve,’ grinned Jyp. ‘I mind it hit me just that way the first time, and I was forewarned. East of the sun, west of the moon, remember, there’s our road. So naturally it’s setting behind us now, and we lose a day. No worry; we’ll soon pick it up on our way home. Now let’s eat.’

About the food I was a bit apprehensive, dimly remembering tales of weevil-ridden biscuit and salt pork, rock-hard and mouldy. I should have known better. The little saloon was brightly lit with swinging brass lanterns; the furniture was Queen Anne or something of the sort – I wouldn’t have dared call it antique, not here – and laid with bright silver. Captain Pierce was evidently in a profitable line; at any rate he lived big. Five courses, with wines, and the entrée was several in itself, stews and sliced meat mostly, and little roasted game-birds, one each. All the three-star restaurants in town would have killed to get hold of them. I was a bit disconcerted to be told they were golden plovers, which sounded rare. But they did things differently here, and nothing was going to bring those birds back; I tucked in. On boats my stomach was always a bit unsure at first, but not here. The motion might be the same, but evidently it just didn’t believe we were at sea.

After dinner there was coffee and brandy; Jyp lit a cigar, and the captain an enormous pipe, filled, I guessed, with the same blend of sulphur and nettles as his snuff. I managed to survive the result in that confined space for an hour or so, while the two of them vied with each other in what I sincerely hoped were enormous lies about past encounters with Wolves and other perils of the sea. I hardly dared disbelieve anything now, even Jyp’s tale about what he had caught with an oxhead as bait. At last I was driven to make my excuses and retire, wheezing, to bed. Or cot, rather. The captain had offered me, as ‘owner’, the use of his cabin, but I’d thought it tactful to refuse. Instead I had one of the two little cubbyholes, as they called them, adjoining the saloon doors. Jyp, as sailing master, had the one on the port side. A little over six feet square, mine held only a rickety chair, a hinged wall-table and an ominously coffin-like box slung by ropes from the beams above. This was my bed, it was two inches too short for me, and I hadn’t the knack of sleeping coiled up yet. Besides, all my instincts screamed at me that it was about nine in the morning, high time I was at work. The air was stuffy, and somehow it smelt too much of dinner; the single cloudy porthole that gave onto the deck I couldn’t open. The drink buzzing around in my head didn’t help. After a suffocating hour or two I gave up, dressed and mooched out on deck again, taking the brandy bottle Pierce had given me for a nightcap.

The night took my breath away, it was so beautiful. The sun was long gone now, the stars were out and a sweep of luminous grey cloud stretched in a great arch, a frozen wave, over a full moon that edged it with cold fire, bleached the decks and turned the sails to taut sheets of silver. A soft thunder seemed to echo through the vast dome of the night above us, rolling in time to the smooth slow heaving of the ship. The urgent hiss along the hull told of the true speed she was making, and the snapping flutter of the masthead pennants, the soft hum of the rigging. A few gulls still cried in our wake, or came to perch along the yardarms. The maindeck was empty but for the forms of sleeping hands, wrapped in their blankets. This was the deck watch, ready for any emergency, while their comrades rocked more comfortably in their hammocks below. Around the rails on quarterdeck and foredeck the lookouts paced, each to his own little beat, walking to keep awake, while at the helm Mall still stood, her long hair shot with light and her eyes gleaming star-bright. The lookouts and the master’s mate in command saluted me as I appeared, and Mall jerked her head in casual invitation; I held up the bottle, and saw her teeth flash in answer.

‘A fine wolves’ moon!’ she said as I clambered up the gangway.

‘Don’t spoil it!’ I pleaded. ‘It’s too beautiful.’

‘Is it not?’ she agreed cheerfully. ‘Come, you’ll have a wider view from here – though better yet from the rigging, or the mastheads –’

I’d done plenty of rock-climbing; but rocks don’t sway. ‘Maybe later –’ I was going to say something more, but it faded. I stared uneasily out over the ship’s rail. Nowhere around us was there any trace of the depthless azure; it might never have been. In all directions, glittering like steel and gunmetal beneath the moon, there stretched a wide, empty expanse of rippling grey. It might, just might, have been a calm ocean, catching and mirroring the soft shades of that flowing, feathery arch so exactly as to make them seem one substance. Together they formed a wide tunnel, a cave mouth almost, towards which we were sailing, into the blue-black sky hung with moon and stars. Yet still the sounds were those of the sea, and it was a strong breeze that stiffened the sails, and riffled my hair.

Sea or not, it didn’t seem to bother Mall, so I didn’t let it bother me either; I was tired of playing tenderfoot. I just fumbled out my Swiss army knife and made a hash of uncorking the brandy. I wanted that first swig badly, but manners made it Mall’s.

‘To your good health, Master Stephen. And your ladylight’o’love’s.’ She wiped the neck delicately with her thumb before passing it back.

‘My … Clare’s not my, er, ladylight. Just a friend.’

‘What of her sweetheart, then? A laggard he must be, to leave the chase to you.’

I snorted. ‘A hell of a time I’d have, trying to explain what’s happened to her. But I don’t think there is anyone, not at the moment.’

She gave me a considering look. ‘The better man you, then, to speed so swiftly to her aid.’

I lowered the bottle, embarrassed, and shrugged. ‘Not really. It’s my fault she’s in trouble. My own stupid fault, poking around and mishandling things. I should have known it would attract trouble.’

‘Why so? To strike so deep into the Core like that, it’s unheard-of; nobody who knew anything of Wolves would have looked for it, not Jyp, not I. There’s no blaming you.’

I shook my head. ‘Wish I could agree. Doesn’t make any difference, though – my fault or not, I had to go after her. I couldn’t just sit and do nothing.’

‘But your wife, your own sweetheart – what of her? Should not you stay with her? Is’t fair to herself to risk yourself on such a chase-devil as this?’

A sour taste rose in my throat. ‘I’m not married. And there’s hardly a girl who’d give a good goddamn if I never came back. Except maybe Clare, if that old bastard’s to be believed.’

‘The Stryge? Aye, believe him in this. Only beware of trusting him too far.’ She regarded me with mischievous eyes. ‘And this Clare, you’ve never –’

‘No I bloody well haven’t!’ I countered sharply, and added for good measure ‘What about you? Are you married? Does your daddy know you’re out?’

She gave a bubbling chuckle, and tilted her long nose in the air. ‘Wedded? Not I, I’m too much the rover. ‘Sides, I like to lie o’both sides i’the bed.’

And while I took a moment to think over that one, she sniffed the air, glanced up into the rigging with the instinctive casualness of long experience, and eased off the wheel a little. ‘Wind’s freshening, but we shan’t want to take in another reef, not yet. Speed’s the essence, this night, with the fat sprat we’re after.’ I sat down on the helmsman’s high bench, and studied her as she leaned forward to check the compass binnacle. She was no great beauty, a little too big-boned all over, but her black glossy breeches clung snugly to very feminine curves, and she moved with the grace of a woman athlete. Only that and the breadth of her bare shoulders hinted at any particular strength, let alone the tigerish force she’d displayed. Her easy manner betrayed nothing of the ferocity that drove it, either; but I couldn’t forget they were there.

‘Some sprat,’ I said. ‘But catching it’s only half the problem; what do we do then? It makes me feel a lot better, having you along. I’m glad you came – and incredibly grateful. It’s not your quarrel, after all.’

‘Oh, ‘tis mine all right,’ she said softly. She looked up and out, to where stars glittered beyond the bows. Their pale fire shone in her eyes, and she glared hard at things only she could see – memories, maybe, or forebodings. ‘I’ve a quarrel with all Wolves and suchlike snapping brutes, and all the greater evils that lie behind them. And with all the wrongs the world o’erflows with. To set evil to rights wherever I may find it, so I’m sworn. And most of all where a maid’s in distress –’ She broke off, and remarked with dangerous coldness ‘Say what you laugh at, Master Stephen, and we’ll laugh together.’

‘I wasn’t laughing!’ I assured her hastily. ‘At least, not exactly – it’s just … well, I’ve never heard anyone talk like that before. Not like – I don’t know – a knight errant? Or a – what’s the bloody word? – a paladin. Least of all – if you don’t mind – a hell of an attractive woman …’

‘A paladin?’ She unfroze at once, and swept me a bow so deep her curls went foaming over her face. ‘High praise, fair sir! Too high for my poor self. But I thank you nonetheless.’ She smiled wryly. ‘An all men took me so courteously I’d think better of them.’

‘You probably just make them feel inadequate. I don’t dare. You saved my neck, and you’re helping me save Clare’s. Like I said, I’m grateful, I can’t resent you.’ And I knew I’d better change the subject fast, before I began to. ‘Least of all when I think about taking on those bloody Wolves again. You said … something about greater evils behind them. Old Stryge was hinting along the same lines, but he couldn’t say more – or wouldn’t. You don’t happen to –’

She shook her head, crossed her arms over the top of the wheel and leaned her chin on them thoughtfully. ‘No, Stephen; naught more sure. But it’s an easy guess. There’s always evil behind such creatures, even if it’s only what their first ancestors left in their blood. Deep in there at the centre, at the hub of the Great Wheel –’

‘The Core, you mean?’

‘Aye, aye, so many call it. There, anyhow, good and evil, they’re well balanced, well blended, you might say. A smack of each in most things, and never more so than in men and their doings. Out here, though, east of the sunrise, the measure of all things changes. There’s great good to be found, aye, and great evil as well; and less mixed. Nay, no more brandy for now, I thank you; too much is a lee shore to a steersman.’

I lowered the bottle from my own lips. ‘You talk about good and evil as if they were things in themselves.’

She considered. ‘And so they may be, far out there at the margins of the worlds. Things absolute and pure. For certainly the farther from the Hub one fares, the purer they become.’

‘Purer how? In people’s minds – evil people? Or near-people like the Wolves?’

‘Hard to say. Minds – oh, there’s minds there all right. People … maybe.’ Her face took on that haunted look again. ‘Some of them might have been, once. Black-hearted souls drawn outward to the greater evils like moths to a flame, and shedding more and more of their humanity as they went. But others, they may be those same greater evils reaching inward, and shaping themselves more human in the process; hence, maybe, the Wolves’ strange blood. But out here between Hub and Rim one’s as bad as t’other, and has as little in it of what we’d call men. You saw – you should remember. In the warehouse.’ She must have seen me stiffen. ‘And that creature, dreadful as it seemed, ’tis but a common servant to such outernesses, a sentry or scout. They’re ever seeking to spread their black influence inward, like worms riddling sound timbers. Even deep within the Hub it lies behind more pain and suffering than most men ever guess.’

Somehow the night didn’t seem quite so beautiful. ‘And you think that something like this is behind the Wolves?’

‘After that thing they smuggled in … aye, I do. Trade is ever the subtlest means of passage, for it’s the lifeblood of the wider worlds – the more so, for their endless variety, and the many ways about them that one man may pass with ease, and another, not in sympathy, find barred to him forever. Even the Wolves and other strange races trade at times. It must be shielded, that trade, and sentinels stand guard over its arteries lest infection creep along them, and darkness in its wake. It’s not only for your Clare I’m doing this, Stephen. And I’d lay odds old Stryge is of the same mind. He’s an unchancy bastard, but he’ll brook no meddling of this measure. He and I, we’ve seen too much to let it pass unchallenged. That’s my oath, my deepest purpose in life.’

‘Sounds pretty good,’ I acknowledged gloomily. ‘Wish I’d one worth the name.’

The bell hung high on the stern rail chimed quietly into the darkness, marking the passage of the watch. On the deck below some of the dozing hands began throwing off their blankets and prodding others awake. The moon was falling from the zenith now, and long shadows oozed across the planks as more seamen came scrambling down from the rigging, took up the discarded blankets and stretched out in their place. Mall turned to lean against the wheel, studying me thoughtfully. ‘No wife, no true love, no purpose … Yet you have a mind, and some heart at least; neither of the worst, if I read aright. You must have dreams, sure; or have had them once. When I was a child I was used to waste my scanty pennies in the playhouses, standing and dreaming at plays where women dressed as boys for some brave purpose; but that only because boys took the women’s part anyway. A fine irony; even on stage we could not be ourselves.’

There was something in what she said that made my hair prickle, but the drink was getting in the way of it. ‘I had dreams once, maybe. Pretty stupid ones; they didn’t add up to much of a purpose.’

‘That takes time,’ she said, and the bitterness in her voice startled me, making what I felt trivial. ‘It took me long years, till I’d sloughed every last taint of my birth, left it lying behind me in the road. Till I was new-minted from my old metal.’

‘Where were you born, Mall?’ I asked gently, struggling to sort out what was taking shape.

She shrugged. ‘Find me my father and mother, and ask. Neither name nor face can I put to them. My first memory’s the bawdy-house where I was everybody’s child and nobody’s, being raised like fatstock for the coming trade. From that I fled as soon as ever I could; but it was not soon enough. For you now, though, it should not have been so ill.’

I shook my head, but in agreement. ‘It shouldn’t, I suppose. I wasn’t born rich, but we were never short of anything. I got on with my parents, they gave me a good education, I took an okay degree and I’ve done well in my job. Very well, so far. And that was because I gave up dreaming early on, settled for sensible ambitions instead. I began planning it all out while I was still in college, how I’d get on in business and then maybe move on to a career in politics, Parliament maybe or the European bunch – oh, not for any particular party or anything like that. Not ideals. Just as a natural progression, running things. I took that pretty seriously – still do. And I suppose I dreamed of living comfortably, independently, and I do; that came true, too. So far I’m on target. What else counts?’

‘You ask that of me?’ she said amusedly. ‘Many things, be you a man and not a straw-stuffed popinjay – or a Wolf. But a blind man on a blacker night than this could see you know that.’

‘All right!’ I admitted. ‘The human side. Love, if you must call it that. I’ve had plenty of girl-friends, but I just haven’t clicked with them – is that my fault? I’ve had lots of fun. I’ve got fond of them, serious even, but love – no, nobody. This last year or two I’ve been too busy, anyway; sinking myself in my job. Got to do a bit of that if you want to stay ahead. And in the long run, you know, it’s more satisfying – oh, except the physical bit,’ I added, seeing the look on her face. ‘But I get that when I want it.’

‘From whores,’ she said coolly. ‘Dolls, trulls, doxies –’

I began to get angry. ‘Don’t jump to bloody conclusions! Casually, okay! So what? You think that’s less honest than the dinners and gifts routine, the darling-I-love-you spiel when you both know it’s bullshit? Or just plain conning some stupid girl onto her back? I don’t. I’ve played that game; I got sick of it. But I don’t pay – hell, I’ve never had to! Well, hardly ever,’ I added, remembering business trips to Bangkok. ‘But that was just … playing tourist. Seeing the sights.’

‘Men buy with more than coin,’ she said quietly, when I’d petered out. ‘Believe me, I know! But I’m no canting Puritan. They’ll go a-whoring, your lads and lasses both; an ancient vice, and there’s many more terrible – unless it’s set in the place of something better. And by the Mass, Master Stephen, in you it is! You’ve never loved, you say? I give you the lie! For your own words do as much.’

I stared, and half laughed. ‘Hey, Mall, you can think what you damn well like –’

I stopped. Her long hand had landed on my shoulder, lightly but firmly, as I’d tried to get up. ‘Do you walk away from everything? From the plight of Clare you cannot. Why then from your own?’

‘So what makes it your business, anyhow?’ I parried, angrily.

‘Nothing,’ she said simply. ‘I claim no right to meddle, even to care. But when I’ve held a life in my swordhand I cannot help an interest in it thereafter.’

‘All right!’ I acknowledged, trying not to be annoyed by the reminder. ‘Maybe I was pretty keen on someone for a while. But no more. It wouldn’t have worked out, God knows!’

‘Hold, hold!’ Mall released me and ruffled my hair amusedly. ‘I only wish you to think, not tell me all your privy secrets. You may surprise yourself.’

‘Well, I will tell you, dammit, and you can judge for yourself. I don’t want you dreaming up all kinds of crap about me, really. I met her in my first year at college, she was at the art school and we hit it off. We had fun – God, she was more fun than any English girl I’d ever met. Just so different, so – I don’t know. Outside all the rules. All the girls I knew – even the unconventional ones were unconventional along the same lines, if that makes any sense. She was Eurasian, by the way – half Chinese, from Singapore, pretty as hell. A beautiful body, near perfect. Like polished bronze. That was part of the trouble, in fact.’ Mall had both hands on the wheel again, and her eyes on the horizon, but she nodded slowly to show she was listening. I watched the play of curves between her breast and ribs as she steered, and the hollows in her muscular thighs. Jacquie’s shape was different, much smoother, more delicate – almost fragile. ‘She wasn’t rich. She was getting money from home, but never really enough. She used to model for life classes to earn more.’

‘And you were jealous?’

‘No,’ I said, slightly surprised. ‘Not really. I was proud of her, in a way. A bit uneasy, but proud. There was nothing dodgy about it, after all; she wasn’t the type. She was so damn beautiful …’ She’d been something of a status symbol round the college, if I was honest. ‘But she hated living off me, she wanted to pay her own way when we went out; she was obstinate like that, stupidly so. And, well, she went a bit far. She decided she’d earn most posing for magazines – and God, she went and did it without telling me.’

‘Why should she? Was that so different?’

‘Come on, there’s all the difference in the world between a few student’s scribbles and copies on every newsstand in the country! They’re permanent, photographs! They hang around! They could surface years later –’

Mall drew breath suddenly. ‘Hah! And you feared they would?’

‘Look, you’ve got to understand. I told you, I had it all planned out! And you know what it’s like – you’re young, you think it’ll all happen tomorrow! She could have wrecked everything! I couldn’t have some little hack turn up with these things – they were pretty damn broad – and slather them all over the papers when I was trying to get taken seriously as some kind of public figure! I mean, imagine it when I was fighting my first by-election, even! So –’ I waved my hands helplessly.

‘So you quarrelled?’

‘Well, yes – a bit. But I didn’t just drop her or anything like that, I wasn’t that cruel. I just let it peter out naturally over the summer vac. We’d talked about going out to Singapore – but, well … it lapsed. And come winter –’ I shrugged. A gull cried out, wild and lonely, and I shivered a little. ‘She married somebody else the next summer, so she can’t have been in that deep either. Not the type I’d have expected; one of her artists, a right talentless little sod. Last I heard he was graduated and designing soap wrappers. About her, nothing. Expect they’re still married, if she hasn’t wrung his scrawny neck by now. That’s the nearest I’ve come to what you’d call love, Mall; and it can’t have been that near, can it? Am I supposed to go on thinking about that?’

I don’t know what response I expected, but it wasn’t the mildly pitying look I got. ‘Few care to remember being cozened of something precious for a false profit; still less when they’ve cozened themselves. But consider two things. One, she’d not need snow in her mouth to feel winter come. Two, politics once was not a craft a man openly professed. The word meant doing what was expedient, not what was right and true.’

The sting was in the tail. And luckily the glib answer that leaped to my lips never got beyond them. The falling moon laid down a first tinge of silver on the horizon, the billows caught it and spread it, glittering, in a great streak. From up above in answer came the lookout’s voice, crackling with excitement into the exultant shriek of a seabird.

‘Sail ho! Sail ho!’

‘Whither away?’ bawled the master’s mate, through a speaking trumpet he hardly needed.

‘Hull down on the horizon, dead ahead!’ There was a general rush, and a snapping open of telescopes. ‘Three masts i’ the moonlight! And she’s a big’un!’

‘Then begad, that may be she!’ muttered the mate. ‘Hold the deck, Mall! Cox’n, go rouse the Sailing Master and the Captain. By’re leave, sir!’

‘Only a league or two the head of us,’ Mall gloated. ‘Is this not a sweet speedy little bird we ride? We’ll have ’em, Stephen, we’ll have ’em! If it is the Chorazin, mind; must needs be sure first. There’ll be all hell to pay if we open fire on someone’s plain ordinary merchantman; and a warship so big’d blow us to matchwood for a pirate, with one broadside.’

‘Open fire …’ I felt a drop of sweat trickle down my back; the hunched black shapes spaced out along the rails took on the look of sleeping cobras, poised to spit venom. The reality of what we were about to do took sudden drastic form. And whether it was the excitement or what, the dinner and the drink chose just that moment to strike, and it occurred to me there was one vital part of the ship I hadn’t cottoned on to.

‘Er – Mall – by the way, where’re the, er, heads?’ At least I’d remembered the proper shipping term.

She pointed in the general direction of the foredeck and the bowsprit beyond. ‘Up there.’

‘Up where? In the foc’sle?’

‘No. Over the rail there, down into the forepeak and out onto the bowsprit. There’s a ladder.’

‘You mean … in the open air?’

‘For health’s sake, aye.’

‘Christ!’ The picture appalled me. ‘Why the acrobatics? Why not just use the rail, long as it’s public anyway?’

‘Cap’n Pierce wouldn’t like it. And just one little flaw of wind, and like as not you get your own back.’

‘I see,’ I said, and stumbled off down the companionway.

It was only as I tottered across the foredeck towards the rail that she shouted after me. ‘There’s always another, mind – in the port foc’sle cabin. That’s mine. By custom for ladies only, but if you’d wish to avail yourself, you being a well-brought-up sort of young man –’

‘Listen!’ I called back as I clambered clumsily over the rail. ‘I appreciate the compliment, but – Here am I, stuck on a ship to nowhere, right? With a bunch of the toughest goons I ever saw in my life! And you think I’m going to go tempting fate and use the ladies?’

A cheer arose from the bowels of the ship.

So that is how we sped heroically into action, with myself crouched shivering on the wooden box behind the bowsprit. As a figurehead I left a lot to be desired, and my only comfort was that if we really were above the airs of earth, the earth was in for a bit of a shock.

By the time I clambered back up the watch below had been called up, and the deck was in a whirl of purposeful activity. Jyp and the captain were up and about; Jyp looked fresh as a daisy, but Pierce was in a filthy mood, and I was secretly glad to see him head hastily for the bowsprit.

‘Any joy?’ I demanded.

‘We’ll know any minute,’ Jyp answered without lowering the telescope from his eye. ‘T’gallants in – sail shortened for the night. We’re overhauling her fast – too fast, maybe. I’d sooner come on ’em after moonset. Has anyone seen old Stryge? Someone roust him out!’

The lack of enthusiasm was so general that I offered to go myself. When I hammered on the small green door I expected anything from a frenzied bout of barking to a thunderbolt, but instead the girl Peg Powler opened the door, gathering her loose black rags about her. She said nothing, only looked at me large-eyed and was beckoning me in when Stryge’s low snarl stopped her.

‘I know!’ he growled out of the darkness behind her, before I’d said anything. Swampy smells drifted out. ‘I can hear! Tell the master he’ll have what he needs – but not to attack before then! At his peril – and yours!’

‘We’ll have what we need?’ enquired Jyp when I took the word back. He looked at Pierce, who’d reappeared. ‘Damfino! Wonder what what happens to be?’

‘He seemed to assume you’d know.’

‘Him? Never! He just likes bein’ cussed, that’s all. But one thing I’ll tell you – you won’t get me attackin’ before he’s done, not at a cannon’s gob. Now, Steve, what’re we going to do with you? You can stay here on deck if you like, but the safest place is always below the waterline where the shot don’t come –’

‘Like hell!’ I snapped, surprised and offended. ‘You think I’m not coming with you?’

‘No,’ admitted Jyp. ‘But I did promise the skipper I’d give you the chance. He ain’t coming either, ’less it’s with a relief party. See, Steve, this is kind of specialized stuff, boarding a ship, specially one a lot higher in the side. And you’re the only guy aboard who’s not done it before – ’cept maybe the Stryge.’

‘I’m a pretty fair climber,’ I said. ‘How many of your lads would shin up an overhanging rockface?’

Jyp glanced at the captain, who shrugged. ‘A fair point, maybe. But you’ll needs be armed, Master Stephen, and I gather you’re not trained to the sword. I can give you a good pistol, but that’s but two shots – if your priming stays dry … And speaking of which, we’ll needs arm soon, volens-nolens!’ He snatched up his speaking-trumpet and roared, ‘Mastheads! Be you buggers all struck horn-blind up there? They’ll have sight of us by now!’

‘A moment more, sir! But a moment …’ You could have plucked the air on the quarterdeck like a taut steel wire.

‘There’s scant science to a cutlass,’ suggested Mall. ‘Just lift, slash and parry, keep a firm hold and let the weight work for you.’

‘There is against Wolves,’ objected Jyp. ‘When they’ve been handling them since their cradles, or whatever they have instead.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Got it! A boarding axe. That’ll help with the climb, too. And I’ve some duds for you.’

‘Won’t these do?’ I was wearing a lightweight windcheater, silk-lined, and activity trousers, expensive and tough.

‘Sure, if you want your pretty patch pockets hanging off every nail and splinter on their hull, and yourself arriving stark naked. No, what’s best is heavy canvas like the lads wear, or merhorse hide like me an’ Mall; pricey but strong. You and I are close on the same size; you can have my spares.’

Merhorse hide? I peered suspiciously at what Pierce’s servant brought. It was blacker than the night, felt softer than it looked, and faintly furry, like moleskin only less so. It had a faint but disturbing smell, oily and bitter.

‘Try it,’ Mall suggested, looking inscrutable.

Evidently there wasn’t much point in being coy around here, so I slid out of my clothes on the spot and tugged on the strange breeches and shirt. They turned out to be slightly elastic, so they made a very good fit, especially when topped off with a broad belt and the light running boots I’d been wearing. The sleeveless shirt left me shivering slightly in the keen night air, but I had an uncomfortable idea I’d be warming up soon. At least the boarding axe I was given turned out to be much the size and weight of an ice-axe, with the same long spike behind the head; Jyp explained this could be hooked into planks and other holds for climbing, while the blade would cut the netting strung along the rails to hinder boarding. Pierce lent me a long knife and the promised pistol, a little two-barreled flintlock affair he showed me how to cock – gingerly, because it was already loaded; it felt nothing like the pistols I’d fired on a range, and it unnerved me. Mall chipped in then, fastening an ornate brocade headband like her own round my brows.

‘Thanks!’ I said, thinking how I must look and beginning to feel incredibly piratical. ‘Some sweatband!’

‘It’s a little more, maybe. You’ll need what –’

‘Deck! Deck!’ Our heads shot up like chicks in a nest. ‘She’s a Wolf! A howlin’ bloody Wolf!’

‘Be you sure, man?’ bellowed Pierce. ‘What’s her flag?’

‘No flag! But I see her lanterns!’

Pierce snapped the trumpet back in its rack with a satisfied click, and leaned over the rail. ‘Mr Mate! Clear for action! Hands to their stations!’

‘Her lanterns?’ I asked Jyp, peering at the distant dot that was all I could make out – no more than her mastheads, probably.

‘You’ll see!’ he said tersely, as the decks drummed under the impact of running feet. We drew back from the rail a moment as sailors came streaming up to man the quarterdeck guns.

Pierce was glaring aggrievedly through his huge brass telescope. ‘What the devil’s the matter with ’em ahead there? You’d think they’d be running out their guns the moment we hove in sight, but damme if they’re so much as astir!’

‘Maybe they’re trying to look innocent,’ I suggested.

Pierce rumbled his dissent. ‘I fear not, sir. If I spied any sail so hot on my slot, I’d run out my guns as a mere caution – and my conscience is less burdened than any Wolf’s, I’ll warrant. And see how they’ve shortened sail for the night! I’ll wager the rascals never dreamed they’d be pursued, and they’ve set no more than a deck watch – not one mastheader, the idle bastards. What say you, sailing master?’

‘That’s it! And the lookouts half asleep by this hour, and with the lanterns in their eyes!’ Jyp pounded the taffrail excitedly. ‘Hell, that’s the chance we need! All we’ve got to do is wait for the moonset before closing. If they haven’t spotted us already, they won’t now!’

‘Very well!’ said Pierce. ‘But we’ll leave naught to chance. Mr Mate! You may give the order to load!’

The whole ship quivered suddenly with a muted thunder. On the decks and down below the massive guns were being run in for loading, great lumps of iron or bronze a tonne or more in weight on wheeled wooden carriages festooned with ropes and chains to restrain them. Their crews skipped around them in a controlled flurry, moving with the ease of long experience, while the Master Gunner, a limping, sallow little man with a shock of black hair and dark malign eyes, ran from each to each inspecting them. ‘Loaded an’ ready, sir!’ he shouted back.

‘Very good, Mr Hands!’ Pierce drummed his fingers on his thighs a moment. ‘Stand ready, but don’t run ’em out yet! We’ll save our fire till we close, eh, sailing master?’

‘Don’t want to waste that first salvo!’ agreed Jyp, and explained: ‘While the guns are properly loaded and we’ve time to aim. Things get kind of sloppier when you’re under fire.’

‘I can imagine!’ I said fervently. ‘But – firing – won’t that put Clare in danger?’

‘No worse than she’s in already. And it can’t be helped. That’s a big ship, we’ve got to hit her, clear a way for the boarding party at least – disable her if we can. Carry away enough spars, the rudder even, and we’ve got her.’

Pierce was shovelling snuff into his nostrils with such gusto I almost offered him a gun-rammer. ‘To deal with at our – leisure!’ The word came out as a thunderous sneeze. ‘Damme! But depend on it, they’ll hold any precious prisoners below decks, and that’s where the lass’ll be safest. We’re not out to hull them unless we’ve no other choice.’

‘Anyway,’ added Jyp encouragingly, ‘we’re going to be moving in close before we fire. That’ll keep the shooting short. Might be they never even reach their guns!’

‘Let’s hope so!’ I said. ‘Let’s bloody hope so!’ A sort of chill horror was settling on me, at what I was about to do; I could have wished Jyp had been a bit more persuasive. I looked out to the moon. It was sinking fast now, almost touching the horizon; silver bled out of it across the strange ocean we sailed on, and turned it to a frosted mirror. Then for the first time I saw our enemy clearly, a little sharp-edged column of sails across the horizon, a child’s toy drifting and yet heavy with menace. It was hard to believe it held Clare, Clare from another, infinitely distant life … No; by now she was part of this one too.

‘Better make ready while we’ve a few easy minutes remaining!’ said Pierce. ‘Cox’n, relieve Mistress Mall at the helm! Mister Mate, up with the arms chest! Boarding parties, muster on the maindeck!’

At the mainmast the arms chest stood open, and cutlasses and pistols were being passed out to the milling men – about thirty, besides us. Jyp scrambed up onto the step and raised his voice. ‘Form into two parties as you draw your arms, by port and starboard watch! Port watch’ll be under my command, and we’ll board by the foremast stays! Starboards, take the mainmast, and follow Mistress Mall! Every man got his arms?’

A cheer went up, and a rattle of cutlasses.

‘Swell! Then into the scuppers with you, hunker down by the railings – well down, and clear of the gun tackle! Any man raises his head above that goddam rail before the order, I’ll have it off his shoulders! Okay? Hop to it, then – an’ give’em hell!’

Mall laid a hand on my arm. ‘You come with my band, Stephen; the leap will be less, and the footholds better!’

‘Suits me –’ Mall’s grip tightened suddenly; she was staring past me, to the bows. I turned, to see Stryge’s cabin door open, and the old man himself shuffling out, his strange companions behind him.

He paused a moment, stared blearily at us and said ‘Going to board them. Need help, don’t you?’

‘Depends,’ said Jyp thinly. ‘What’d you in mind exactly?’

‘Mine. And theirs. You two!’ ordered the old man briskly. ‘Go with the boarding parties. Help them.’

‘Hey, wait a goddam minute –’ roared Jyp, as Fynn, casting him a malevolent look, scuttled to hunch down among Jyp’s sailors. To a man they shrank away from him. But I was even more astonished to see the black-haired girl drift idly over to our group.

‘You take them,’ said the Stryge, implacable as ancient stone, ‘if you want to stand a chance of coming back. Give up and go home, otherwise. Now I’ll play my part. Stand ready!’

Jyp saw the looks the sailors exchanged at that, and acknowledged defeat with a sigh. I didn’t know what to think. I could guess well enough what Fynn the bodyguard was, a sort of poor man’s werewolf, but I’d assumed the girl was along for another kind of comfort altogether. There must be more to her than that, though, if the old devil was willing to risk her, and she herself. In this weak moonlight she didn’t look quite so pretty, her brow higher and more rounded under the lank hair, her eyes still larger, her chin too weak and narrow for the rest of the face; a hint of malformation, a lingering look of the foetus. The sailors shied away from her, too. Stryge paid them no attention, but went shuffling up the companion onto the foredeck and, standing there in the last moonlight, he began to whistle softly, as if to himself, and stretched out his arm to the skies.

‘Now what’s he on about? demanded Mall, as our party crouched down together behind the rail, uncomfortably close to one of the guns. I couldn’t suggest anything. Run in as the thing was, I was looking down its muzzle and into the ferocious grins of the crew behind, an unnerving sight; I could even smell the peppery sharpness of the powder. Mall was grinning, too.

‘Best stop your ears when they fire, Stephen. And be thankful it’s but an eighteen-pounder. The Chorazin has twenty-fours –’

‘I thought Jyp said we outgunned them!’

‘Aye, they’ve only five a side and a couple of chasers, where we’ve got ten. But five’s still a deal, can they but bring them to bear.’

I considered that for a moment, then decided I didn’t want to. There was something else that wouldn’t go away, something Mall had let slip, and the more I mulled it over, the more my hair bristled. Beside us a spark swirled in the gathering dark, in slow figures of eight like a firefly on a string; I found it incredibly irritating. ‘That guy – does he have to keep on waving that torch thing like that!’

‘The gun captain? That’s his linstock – he must do thus to keep it alight.’

‘Well, I wish to hell he wasn’t so casual about it – not near the cartridges!’ Mall only chuckled. I seethed.

‘Mall … There’s something – I’ve just got to ask it –’

‘Ask, then!’ she hissed. No chuckle now; she sounded every bit as tense as I felt.

‘Those plays – where boys acted the women’s roles. That hasn’t been done for … Mall, were those plays Shakespeare’s?’

‘Who? Oh, Shakspur!’ She sounded surprised. ‘Do they still play’em, then? Aye, some were. All the rage with the gentry, but too many words for my liking! Now your Middleton, your Master Dekker, now, there were play-makers indeed –’ She broke off, her hand light on my shoulder. High above, against the darkening cloud-arch, came a shadow and a white flash, a shape circling down on narrow wings towards the still shadow on the foredeck – a smallish gull. Right on Le Stryge’s upraised arm it landed, still flapping and fluttering nervously, and slowly he clasped it to him and bowed over it, petting it, ignoring its uneasy protests. He glanced up at the moon, and at the high sails of the Wolf merchantman, suddenly much closer. I was shocked to see how fast we were overhauling her. Still crooning over his catch, he shuffled forward to the rail. Suddenly he held up the bird, gleaming in the last rays, and shouted something aloud, sharp and guttural and cruel. Somehow I understood what he was about to do; I half rose, a shout on my lips. But Mall yanked me down, even as the old man flung his arms wide and ripped the hapless bird apart, wing from body.

A low groan of revulsion arose from the sailors. But even as the blood spattered onto the deck, I saw the sails ahead jolt as if some vast hand had slapped at them, and flap empty and useless in the breeze. Then the moonlight dulled and dimmed, and in the shadow that spilled across the maindeck I heard Stryge’s cackle of high-pitched laughter.

Pierce’s bellow drowned it. ‘Belay that, blast your eyes! Now we’ll be on ’em in minutes! Hands ready to go about! Starboard crews – run out your guns!’

With a creak and a crash the ports flew open, and once again that drumming thunder shuddered through the ship. Beside my ear the tackle clattered, the carriage squealed as the straining crew sent that massive weight nosing out into the darkness, as if scenting its distant mark. Handspikes clattered, heaving the heavy barrel up to the right angle and elevation. I hoped the gun captains remembered their orders. There was a brief frantic clinking as wedges were hammered home to hold the aim, and then a silence so abrupt it was frightening. I’d tuned out the usual ship noises; all I could hear was my own breathing, very loud. My mouth tasted gummy and rank; I’d have drunk anything, even that damn brandy. On and on the silence went, the waiting, for what felt like hours, with nothing to do but think. That stroke of cruel magic had upset me horribly; and yet my words with Mall haunted me far worse. It set things boiling in the back of my brain, hopes and fears and odd concerns – and the truths she’d made me face.

‘Hands to braces!’ yelled Pierce suddenly. ‘Helm a’lee! Headsail sheets! Mainsail! Cast off, starboard – tail on, port! And haul! And haul, damn your arses, haul!’

Panic gripped me for a moment as overhead our own sails shivered, emptied and flapped; but then the yards creaked slowly around.

‘Going about – into the wind and onto another tack!’ hissed Mall. Our canvas boomed full again, and suddenly the Chorazin’s sails, still flailing, rose up from the side, not ahead. ‘For our broadside – or theirs –’

Then it came. ‘Starboard guns – as you bear – fire!’

Barely in time I clapped my hands to my ears, and squeezed my eyes tight shut. The thunder was here, it spoke and the whole ship thrummed to the mighty word. Orange fire danced through my eyelids. The deck heaved sharply beneath me, and I was suddenly enveloped in clouds of black smoke and stinging sparks. I was coughing and choking, and even under my hands my ears rang; I didn’t hear the next command, but felt the rumble as the guns were drawn back, and gingerly opened my eyes. Through streaks of scarlet I watched the gun crew slam the still smoking gun back against its tackle. The barrel hissed and belched steam as it was swabbed out with one quick thrust and twist of a wad of soaked rags on a pole. Then – very gingerly – bags of dusty-looking cloth were lifted from deep leather buckets and tipped into the gun mouth; these were the powder cartridges, and one speck still hot from the last shot could have sparked off a fearful accident. Broad wads of coarse fibre were thrust in to hold the charge, and rammed home with a heavy felt pad on the original ten-foot pole. Only then was the iron ball rolled in, looking absurdly small, wadded and rammed home in its turn. A simple enough operation; but it was done among suffocating smoke and hot metal, and literally in a second or two. The crew wove and skipped around each other with an absurd grace – drilled movements repeated at every gun, so the deck looked like some kind of weird dance, weird and deadly.

‘Run out!’ came Pierce’s command. ‘Train! Fire!’ Again the stunning thunder, again the surge as the Defiance heeled, the flame and the burning smoke. Ship, sails, everything vanished in the searing cloud; I couldn’t even see my own hands. And this was in the open air; the lower gundeck must be like some medieval vision of hell. Panic welled up in me, and a sudden desperate need to understand; I reached out blindly, and seized warm arms. The smoke flicked aside, and instead of Mall I found myself clutching a weird grinning urchin, her green eyes flashing in a soot-blackened face.

‘Mall!’ I shouted. ‘Are you really five hundred years old?’

The whites of her eyes showed as they rolled skyward. ‘Christ i’glory, man, what a time to be asking!’

‘I had to ask! You’re throwing away your life – and it’s because of me – you’re not really risking so much? Are you?’

She nodded soberly. ‘Aye, indeed. Such things are.’

‘God …’ I sagged.

She laughed softly. ‘Did I not say the measure of all things changes? All things, even hours and distance. Time’s what the Great Wheel turns on, the axle at the heart of the Hub – the stalk in the Core, if you will; men see it in many shapes. But break the bounds, fare outward, and the world grows wider. Well then, so also must its hours; for what are they but two sides of one cloth, cut to the same yardstick? As you voyage on one, so also in the other, back and forth. The farther you voyage, the less you settle, the lighter the hours’ hold upon you; and a wanderer, I. Here your span’s as much as you may win for yourself. And as much, maybe, as you may endure. Many fare wide and live long, yet drift back to their own in the end, trapped by a web they never quite shook off. Drift back, and forget. But not I, never!’ She scowled. ‘What was there for me, among the stews and the dens, the coney-catchers and cutgizzards? I wanted to live, to learn, to find better things – or bring them to be!’

With a yell from the crew and a rattle of chains the guns rumbled forward again. The gun captain snapped back the priming cover, and we both ducked and covered our ears as the glowing linstock struck down into the powder. This time, as I opened my eyes, the gun crews were capering and cheering.

‘Looks like we’ve hit something – God!’ I shook my head again. ‘Five hundred years already … You could have as much, more – yet you’re ready to stake it all on a damn-fool jaunt like this?’

‘Why not? What’s wealth, if you but hoard it and never use it? How long’d I love my life if I never staked it ’gainst a good cause? The longer you linger, the more you must risk yourself, to give your years meaning! It’s you, my bawchuck, with your few scant years behind you who’s risking more this night – and for the barest of friendships, it seems. If it were love now, I’d understand – but then you’ve never loved, have you?’

She checked, glanced up. I’d heard it too, a flat thudding sound like a nearby door slamming, very deep, and on its tail a sibilant, falling whistle; but even as I realized what it was, she threw us both to the deck. Just above our heads wood smashed and splintered, something snapped with a deep ringing twang, and the planks beneath us leaped to a rapid tattoo of appalling crashes.

‘– seems we’ve woken them –’ I heard her say in my ear, and then our guns erupted in answer, no longer in a salvo but a savage raking drumroll, firing the moment they were ready. I hardly realized what she meant. Crouched there behind the rail, juddering with every detonation, I felt strangely detached from the whole pandemonium. Half deafened, half blinded, scared stiff, but detached. Accidentally or deliberately, Mall had triggered off a worse turmoil in me.

Just why the hell was I so hot after Clare now? To rescue her, yes; but I’d hired a whole shipload of fighters who could all do the job better. Why was it so important to me to go along? I didn’t want to hang back, to seem a coward in this tough company – but they wouldn’t thank me for slowing them up, either. So why? What was I trying to prove? That I really could care for somebody?

I didn’t drop her … The hell I didn’t. It gets hard to live a lie when you’re looking down a cannon-mouth. You could say it strips you. Fear flicked away my masks, peeled back the varnish. Slowly, thoroughly, neatly, I’d ditched Jacquie – and about as coldly and cruelly as it could be done. I’d kept up appearances, let her down gently – for her sake, I’d liked to think; but mainly for mine. Sheer bloody windowdressing … had I always known that? I couldn’t tell. But for the first time I realized she must have known; I couldn’t have fooled her for a moment – any more than I’d fooled Mall. Then why on earth had Jacquie gone along with it, that pretence of a fading affair, of drifting apart?

For my sake. She’d gone on loving me, enough at least to let me keep my dignity when she could have destroyed it completely. To let me go on playing my part; because she saw how much I needed to, how empty I’d be without it. She’d loved me, all right. I’d betrayed her – and maybe also myself.

It was the past I saw glimmer through the gun-smoke, myself of the last few years. That disillusion, that creeping dishonesty I’d kept finding in my relationships, more and more often, poisoning them from within; when had I first begun to notice it? Not long after. Somehow nothing else had been the same, ever again, nothing – or no one. Till I’d shut away women in a separate compartment of my life, nice and safe and shallow. Why? Because I’d been too damn full of myself to realize what I held in the palm of my hand? Because I’d been idiot enough to cheat myself of it, to trade it away against some unspecified golden future? Dishonesty – some laugh. It’d been there all right; but it was in me.

Mall’s hand on my shoulder fetched me up, crouching with the others behind the rail. Still lost in myself, I hardly noticed the heavy mist-strands entwining with the smoke, the spreading grey in the sky above the rail. High sails, shot-torn and smouldering, swelled up against it, and below them a blacker bulk that seemed to swing towards us with frightening, inexorable speed. On its high stern transom tall lanterns grinned, for they were carved in the shape of huge fantastical skulls, utterly unhuman – carved, or real? And as the black flanks towered above us I saw the huge smoking snouts of the cannon thrust out, and begin to tilt downward. From our own deck a wild chorus of yells arose and from the shadow above a fearful guttural howling – Wolves right enough. It would have scared anybody; it terrified me. But I knew what I was doing now, and it was horribly simple.

‘It’s all I’ve got left!’ I yelled to Mall, and she seemed to understand. ‘Not much – you’re right – but I’ve got to defend it! I’ve got to fight –’

A chance to care about someone else. If I lost that …

No. Not that. Clare!

Then the flanks of the two ships came together, and all human sounds foundered in a squeal of tortured wood and a long-drawn-out grinding crash. The Defiance stood right in under the Chorazin’s tumblehome, and the swell of the merchantman’s much higher side bulged right against our rail, clattering and splintering, a looming cliff in the dawn light. Sailors sprang up, swinging many-toothed iron hooks on long lines, and flung them out to catch through rail and gunport, grappling us to the looming cliff above.

‘Come, then!’ yelled Mall, and sprang up onto the rail. Then memory, remorse, everything dissolved in the thunder that shook the universe.

The Wolves had fired at point-blank range – but they’d left it too late. A blazing demonic breath seared the air, but the twenty-five pound shot that might have shattered our vulnerable hull screamed over our heads, terrifyingly close, and ploughed only through rigging and sails, without harm. Except one. The immense pine mainmast leaped in its socket and writhed like a live animal maimed, flinging at least one mastheader away and out in a great arc, past any help. Then with a long tearing sound, punctuated by sharp popping cracks, it tilted slowly over. In a tangle of torn rigging it crashed in among the Chorazin’s masts and was held there, swaying uneasily, as trees in a close forest support their falling companions.

It was an appalling moment. But in the clearing smoke I saw the rail empty – and Mall, her long hair smouldering, clinging spider-fashion to the Chorazin’s black planks, clinging and climbing. I jumped for the rail and flung myself after her, only dimly aware of the roar as the others did the same. I looked down –

The axe-spike bit into the lip of a timber and held – luckily for me. My mind wavered. I swung on the lip of chaos, feet scrabbling for a foothold like a hanged man’s, struggling to clear my mind of the depths I’d glimpsed, that had scattered my thoughts like dry leaves in a blast. A vast void of swirling, scudding vapours and beyond it a blur of rushing speed, steel-gray infinity shot with shards of bitter light. It blinked among the mist and was gone in the very second of seeing, like the blind spot of an eye …

Then my feet jammed against boltheads and lips of timber, my hand caught the edge of a gunport. With those firm holds it became an easy enough climb. I ducked as a grappling line hissed down, severed by a blow from above, then gaped as the black-haired girl forged past me, her dress hitched up over thin white thighs, her slender fingers clamping to the planks like a fly to a wall, the dark nails digging into the wood. Her hair glistened, and she looked wet, wet through as if she’d climbed straight from the sea. She didn’t spare me a look; her eyes were intent, her lips set with childish determination. Another grapple twanged loose, but others flew in its place, and from above there came a sudden shout. Wolves were leaning over the rail, striking at Mall with axe and cutlass, and one, no more than five feet above, leant out to aim some kind of musket. The muzzle of one of the huge guns still protruded beside me. I stuck a foot on that, swung myself up by the huge stay tackle and hacked out with the axe. He yelled and dropped the musket, which went off into nowhere; I yelled and leaped for the rail with my shoe-sole sizzling. That gun was hot!.

Mall was over the rail already, driving back Wolves with great roundhouse slashes to clear our way. Behind her the Stryge’s girl slithered up through a shot-torn gap; instinctively I moved to help her, then almost fell back myself as she flung herself weaponless on the first of the enemy. Though not exactly weaponless; she went straight for the shock-headed brute’s throat with those relentless fingers, yanked herself up and sank her little white teeth straight into his face. With a screech that cut through every other noise he tore himself free, stumbling and stamping and clutching frantically at his face. No wonder: it was covered with a ghastly black slime that spread and seethed and smoked like some foul acid. Another hurled him aside and slashed at her – and she spat like a cobra, full into his eyes. Back into his fellows he blundered, shrieking; with a yelp of dismay they fell back, and we were on them.

What happened in the next few minutes isn’t too clear. None of these neat duels you see in the movies, certainly. Huge figures in strange gaudy rags ranged around us like a wall, blunt grey faces snarled like storybook trolls and long dull blades hissed and clashed till it seemed the mists themselves were hitting out at me. They never hit me; no doubt I was being protected, though I wasn’t aware of it, or by whom. Desperately I dodged past them, parried and hacked out when I could, yelling god knows what at the top of my voice, and when my blows landed there was a wild exultation, the mirror-side of fear. Then suddenly there was a space open before me, and I stumbled out into it, uncomprehending, till Mall’s hand shook my arm.

‘Come, Steve, along with you! While the way’s open!’ I followed with eight or nine others, skidding in the puddles of smoking black slime spreading across the decks, jumping over the Wolves that writhed in them. Mall ran aft and in one fluid movement kicked a half-open hatchway back off its coaming and swung herself in.

‘I saw some vanish down here!’ she panted. ‘Looking to their captive, maybe?’

From up forward somewhere Jyp’s shouts rang across the deck. ‘Sic’em, Defiants! That’s the style! Not one cent for friggin’ tribute!’ It was good to know he’d got through too. There came a ghastly howl of agony, suddenly cut off, and a yelping bark, high and malevolent; I thought of Fynn. Hastily I plunged after Mall, cantered half out of control down the ladder and cannoned into her in the pitch-blackness below. The stench caught at my throat and set me coughing.

‘Hush!’ she hissed, as the others came clattering after. ‘To the walls, and flatten! They can see better than us in the dark – yet they’d need a little light – aha!’ Metal clattered and chinked, a red spark winked and swelled to a yellowish flame, and suddenly we were gaping wide-eyed at one another in a narrow corridor of rough timbers painted a dull red all over, floor and ceiling included. Mall gestured to the various doors on either side, held her lantern high and hefted her sword as seamen kicked them open. They were all nothing but storerooms, mostly half empty and incredibly messy, and she padded quickly down towards the shadowy stairs at the end, casting monstrous shadows on the walls. Overhead the deck throbbed as the fighting swept astern again, and sounds rang suddenly through the muffled furore, that horrible bark, a falling blade singing in the planking, Jyp’s voice cracking with excitement. ‘Remember the Alamo! Tippecanoe an’ Tyler too!’ Then we swept down after her into the dark.

Mall moved fast, but she was still on the stairs when the Wolves padded forward, swift and silent as their namesakes, out of the shadow-pool below. They caught her on the bottom step, sword-arm encumbered by the rail, and while one dared his cutlass against her long blade another swung around to the side and jabbed at my legs with a great spear-headed pole-axe. Still only a few steps down, I ducked below the deck, snatched the forgotten pistol from my belt and tried to cock the hammers with a rake of my hand as Pierce had. The springs were so stiff that the metal tips gouged right across my palms, so painfully I almost dropped the gun. But there it was, cocked; I leaned out, levelled it – and in my hurry pulled both triggers. The priming hissed and sizzled, but for an instant nothing happened; the powder had got damp. I was just about to throw the gun at the man’s head instead when with a loud pop and a dazzling flash one barrel went off. The gun bucked madly and wrenched itself out of my unpractised grip, but at three feet I could hardly have missed. The Wolf’s head exploded and he was flung back into the shadows, just as Mall twisted her opponent’s guard around and passed her blade through his throat. She sprang down over him, slashed another across the belly and ran him through the back as he doubled over; a fat Wolf hacked at me with a cudgel and hit the sailor behind me as I dodged. Then a loud bang went off behind his feet; that damn pistol had only been hanging fire. He skipped and stumbled, I hit him clumsily with my axe and he vanished with a yell, tumbling down yet another ladder. We went rattling down after him, but he was sprawled silent at the foot.

‘We’re below their waterline here,’ panted Mall, holding her lantern up. ‘Abaft the hold. So those’ll be the charge and shot magazines down here – still open, we caught ’em napping! And maybe – aye, a lazarette!’

It was a heavy door, brassbound and barred across the little window at wolfs head-height. I caught the bars and hauled myself up to peer in. There was another door with a wider window, and as Mall held up the lantern –

‘Clare!’

There she was, blonde hair straggling and face smudged, smart office blouse hanging in strips, crouched away on a narrow cot and staring at me with utter horror. Then her jaw dropped and her voice came out as a dry croak.

‘St – Steve?’

‘Hold on!’ I shouted, trying to fight down a weird hysterical play of feelings. Seeing her there like that, so familiar from my ordinary, everyday life, filled me with a shocking sense of dreaming, of unreality, so strong that the solid timbers around me seemed to turn misty, the threat they contained to lose all meaning. The temptation to ride with the dream was overwhelming, to just let things happen and wait to wake up. But I reached out to her, and could not come. Whatever was between us, door or dream, was all too real.

‘Hold on! We’ll get you out!’ And dropping down I began to swing at the door with my axe. One of the sailors, a huge round-shouldered ape of a man, snatched up a Wolf’s axe and joined me with great swings that sent chips and splinters flying. On either side of the lock we struck, and deep gashes were opening up when a louder crash resounded from behind us, and a sullen yellow lantern-light flooded in. The sailor’s stroke faltered. Behind us another door had been flung wide, presumably leading from the hold. Wolves were crowding through it, and at their head the biggest I’d ever seen, a stubble-bearded sunken-eyed brute dressed in a filthy red frock-coat, embroidered breeches – even filthier – and a battered cocked hat with a red bandanna beneath. Round his neck hung a net of gold chains, and on one of them a heavy key. Beneath his breeches his feet were bare, and I saw why Wolves wore such massive boots; each elephantine toe was tipped, not with a human nail, but a narrow yellowish claw.

‘Off swine-spunk!’ he roared, barely understandable. ‘Stand’ee back o’there!’

‘Keep at it!’ hissed Mall urgently, and skipped lightly back. The hulking creature growled something and behind him a dozen muskets were levelled. Mall laughed aloud, and flung wide the first door she’d tried. ‘Thou’d let fire down here? Go to, my buckie! Best lock thy magazine ere thou play’st so! One bullet there and we’ll to the angels, thou to thy black masters! Art in such haste for Hell?’

Even before she’d finished the Wolf gave one savage hiss of frustration in that horrible voice, and the muskets sank.

‘I larn thee meddling, man-bitch! I lay thy stinkin’ lights open and feed’em thee!’ He snatched out an ornate broadsword as long as Mall’s. ‘Take ’em!’ He charged. With a baying yell the rest followed. Mall elbowed past me and met him, caught his blow on her blade, but even she stumbled under the force of that rush. Then the whole howling pack of them crashed into us, drove us reeling back into a crush so tight that only the giant and Mall could use their weapons freely, swinging and hewing at each other over our heads as the mêlée separated them. I clung desperately to the door-frame so as not to be swept away, tearing at the shattered wood with my fingers; a minute more and it would surely give –

But more Wolves were pouring in from the hold, and the little corridor became a slow, struggling scrum. Sheer strength told, and inch by inch we were forced back towards the stairs. I felt my feet leave the floor, I couldn’t breath under the pressure and my hold tore free. I struggled frantically to get back, but a wolf slipped across it, blocking me, and I was borne away, still struggling, with the rest.

‘Away!’ shouted Mall. ‘Away back up! We’ll do no more good here –’

‘No!’ I yelled desperately. ‘Jesus, we can’t leave her! Not now –’

The edge of the stair caught me painfully across the calves; my legs slipped from under me and I slid down right into that deadly trampling crush. A hand grabbed my shirt and hauled me up onto the step.

‘Don’t be daft!’ panted Mall, shaking me. ‘What shall we do else? We’ve found her now, there’s small gain in getting gutted! An it go well on deck we may gather and sweep this rat’s nest clean i’seconds –’

‘Clare!’ I yelled. ‘Hang on, girl! Hang on!’

‘Steve!’ I heard her shout. ‘Steve! Don’t –’

‘We’re coming back! You hear? We’ll get you out –’ I was choked off, literally. With a howl of rage the giant Wolf plunged forward, hacked down one of his own kind who couldn’t clear the way, and struck over at Mall. Trapped at an awkward angle in the stair, she was slammed back into me, but she managed to get her arm up to block the blow and hold it a moment, no more. I decided fair play wasn’t exactly the burning issue round here, and with every bit of two-handed muscle I could manage I lunged out over her shoulder and brought the boarding axe down on the Wolf’s head. I half expected the blade to break; it didn’t. It split that fancy hat right down the middle and thumped into the skull beneath with a noise like split kindling, and stuck there. He screamed, a high shrilling sound, his sword dropped from convulsing fingers and he whirled about, wrenching the axe from my hands, and sagged down, gaping. I think he died there; but in the crush he couldn’t fall.

‘A very palpable hit!’ whooped Mall, as the dismayed Wolves swayed back an instant. Left weaponless, I snatched at his sword as it slithered over their pinioned shoulders and whacked at them with it; to my surprise I found it more manoeuvrable than the axe, and they gave back again. Our last man living reached the stair and ducked past us, and Mall and I backed slowly up, her sword defending the narrow way and mine faking it. But the moment we reached the top Mall ran, hauling me after her, and the long-delayed fusillade came whistling at our heels, striking splinters from the timbers as we bolted for the deck.

But it wasn’t going well there, at all. We emerged into thickening mists yellowed with powder smoke, and a fearful yelling furore, a wall of clashing figures surging this way and that. Out of it burst Jyp, and all but grabbed us as we slammed-to the hatch and dogged it down. ‘No more?’ he rasped, hoarse with shouting and smoke. ‘Okay, let’s get the lead out, let’s be movin’ –’

‘Where?’

‘Back to the brig, whaddya think?’

‘No!’ I yelled. ‘We found her, she’s there! Another few minutes – more men –’

‘Like hell!’ he yelled back. ‘We’re losin’em by the minute already!’

‘Listen, we’re bloody well not just leaving her –’

‘We can’t do anything else! See sense, Steve! We were holding this end t’give you folks below time, but we can’t last out! There’s just too goddam many of ’em, boiling out of every crack like cockroaches! Must’ve been packed in tighter’n a Portugee slaver!’

‘Pierce – the rescue party –’

‘They’re cutting loose that goddam mast! Now will you kindly –’ But I never got the choice. From out of the mists came a sudden roar and a single anguished shout of ‘They come!’, and then the line shattered suddenly into little struggling knots of men.

‘Hold together, Defiants!’ howled Jyp. ‘Don’t get encircled! Group, and cut your way to the side! Quick as you can! Damn the goddam torpedoes!’

Then the Wolves were on us too, and we were fighting for our lives. With only that enormous sword I might have been in trouble, but there was no room here for science, it was stick together and hack and slash with a vengeance at any Wolf that got in the way, yelling incoherent insults and spitting when those ran out. It took a century or so to reach that rail, and left us a pack of gorecrows, our blades and our limbs sticky with carrion. All along the side our men and women were spilling back to the Defiance, and we didn’t stand on ceremony but swung ourselves off that gloomy flank and back down with the rest. I didn’t see too clearly, the smoke maybe, but I think I was crying as my feet slapped back on our deck.

It wasn’t over, though. ‘That goddam mast –’ shouted Jyp.

‘Almost away!’ roared Pierce, as axes thumped into the tangle of cordage amidships. ‘All hands to fend off, and lively! All hands!’ Men were still leaping back off the Chorazin, while pistol shots cracked and whined above our heads, keeping the Wolves back from the rail. I saw the Stryge’s girl caught by one arm, turn and rake her nails across the Wolf’s ham features, leaving gouges that smoked like flung vitriol; she leaped free and landed lightly, running to the Stryge’s side, where Fynn already squatted in his human shape. Then there was a sudden explosive fizz and a sullen, thudding bang, and the broken mast, blown free, swung violently, tore through the Chorazin’s rigging and went crashing down in havoc on its deck. ‘Fend off!’ Pierce bellowed, and the crew rushed to the side and snatched up anything they could, from boathooks to handspikes and fallen muskets. I got one of the ten-foot gun rammers, and as Pierce shouted ‘Heave!’ we all strained against the black timbers above. Quite suddenly, with a rattle and crash of falling debris, they slid away, and the heavy mists leaped like spray between us, tinged suddenly with gold.

I stood there numbly watching it, forgetting the shouts and shots that still flew between us. But it wasn’t over yet. ‘Guns!’ yelled Jyp’s voice through the boiling mist. ‘To the guns, all hands! Load and run up, port and starboard both! We’ve got to keep ’em off!’ Before I knew it I was heaving on tackle with other smoky scarecrows, leaping aside as the gun came trundling back, and snatching up the rammer again, thankful I’d got some idea what to do watching them earlier. Thrusting those wads in was harder than it looked, but at last the shot was home, I plucked out the pole and threw my weight on the tackle with the rest as the gun ran up. From out in the fog came an echoing splash, and I saw the ghastly lanterns swing slowly around.

‘She’s cleared our spars, sir!’ shouted the mate, leaping down from the rigging. ‘Coming about –’

‘Port guns!’ shouted Pierce before he’d finished. ‘Fire as you bear!’

We jumped back, hands to ears, as the broadside erupted, and we were so close that we heard the smash of timbers as the shot struck, and saw one of the lanterns dissolve to fragments. But just as quickly we ducked down as an answering thunder shook the mist. Shattered spars and blazing canvas came raining down on our heads, and the foretopmast snapped in half. ‘Chop that wreckage loose! Gun crews, back and load!’ screamed Jyp. ‘Fast! Faster, or they’ll have us! We’ve gotta keep ’em off! Teach ’em it’s not worth their time!’

Again and again, with relentless rhythm, we ran those guns back and loaded, until my weary arms would hardly lift the rammer – how often I don’t know, or how long it took. Only minutes, probably; but I was past telling. Gunsmoke thickened the mists around us, flame and sparks blinded us, the constant jarring explosions left us quivering and numb.

‘Pound’em, lads, pound’em!’ howled Pierce as we sprang to reload, but when he suddenly hesitated, and then bellowed ‘Cease firing!’ we hardly understood. Some crews went on reloading almost automatically, faltered and ran down, peering in bewilderment. The wreathed gunsmoke seemed to gather and rear up, and then a sharp cool gust tore through it, parted the fog to reveal a dazzling dawn, the air clear and fresh and thrilling with light, the sky blue and bright and hard-edged as glass, fringed with flecks of cloud like ermine; beneath it, only ocean.

Real ocean, blue-green sea, rolled gently beneath us, its long, slow swell lifting us almost apologetically, its whitecaps spilling softly along our hull. Then Jyp, on the quarterdeck above, gave a shout, and pointed. Far away, halfway to the horizon, a dark shape rode, and it seemed to my exhausted eyes that some mists still clung about it like a shielding hand. A weary cheer went up from the crew; I couldn’t blame them, for it must seem to them that, even if they hadn’t beaten their unexpectedly strong enemy, they’d sent the Wolves running with their tails between their legs. But I knew better, and so, by their faces, did the others on the quarterdeck as I climbed unsteadily up.

‘Why should they risk a longer fight?’ Jyp was saying. ‘We came too close that time already. They’ve got their prize, and they’re safeguarding it. We’re left dismasted, doubly, and helpless as a baby.’

Pierce snorted. ‘Ach, never despair! We’ll jury-rig some repair, to be sure –’

‘And then?’ I demanded.

It was Mall who answered, heavily. ‘Limp to the nearest port – if we’re thus lucky. I’m sorry, Stephen. There’s no more we can do.’