Ships from the West

Seventeen

'Thus spake Honorius the Mad, four and a half centuries ago, and he was never wrong in his predictions – though he was cursed in that they were fated to be dismissed in his lifetime as the ravings of an insane anchorite. My friends, we are tools of history, instruments in the hands of God. What we have done, and what we will do in the time to come is but a fulfilment of His vision for the good of the world. So set your minds at rest. Out of blood and fire and smoke shall dawn a new sunrise, and a second beginning for the scattered peoples of the earth.'

Aruan did not seem to raise his voice, but every man in the vast host which stood listening heard his words, and as they did, something about their hearts kindled and uplifted them, and each one straightened his shoulders as if the Vicar-General were speaking to him alone.

On the waterfronts they listened, and in the rigging of the ships, and all through the streets of ancient Kemminovol, capital of Candelaria. As he spoke, the night drew back from the margins of the horizon and the sun sprang up above the grey silhouette of the promontory to the east, touching the mastheads of the tallest ships with gold.

'So go now about your work, and know that it is the work of God you do. His blessing is upon you this day.'

Aruan raised a hand in benediction, and the listening crowds bent their heads as one. Then he left the rough dais which had been cobbled together out of old fish boxes, and the men who had been listening sprang into a swarm of activity, and the ships moored there were thick with their sweating and hauling companies.

Bardolin supported the arch-mage as he climbed.down from his wooden podium. Aruan was white-faced and per shy;spiring. 'I'll not do that again for a while. I believe I misjudged the effort required. What a task it is, to lift men's hearts!'

'There were many thousands listening to you – you are not telling me you touched every one,' Bardolin said gruffly.

'Oh yes. I can bend the will of armies, but it takes an effort. I must sit down, Bardolin. See me to the carriage, will you?'

They climbed inside the closed box of the four-wheeler and in its padded leather confines Aruan threw his head back and closed his eyes. 'Better, much better.

'With Almarkans and Perigrainians it is easier. They have traditional antagonisms with Astarans and Torunnans – a matter of history, you understand. But the Candelarians have been a nation of merchants for centuries, opening their doors to whatever conqueror comes along and then going on with business as usual. I had to fire them up a little, you might say.'

'They will be the first wave then?'

'Yes. The main host of the Perigrainians will follow up the seaborne assault with an advance on Rone, crossing the Candelan river up in the southern foothills. Southern Torunna is lightly defended; it will fall quickly. Our intelligence reports that the Torunnan King is finally on the move with his main army. He is going north by ship, to the gap. All that is left in the capital are a scattering of regulars and a mob of conscripts. By the time the great Corfe realises what we're at, we'll be sitting in Torunn and he will be caught between two fires.'

'And Gaderion? How hard do you want the Torunnans pressed there?'

'Very hard, Bardolin. Corfe must be persuaded that his pre shy;sence at the gap is essential to prevent its fall, so the assault must be pressed home with the utmost ferocity. If it falls, so much the better. But it does not have to fall; its role is to suck in the main Torunnan armies and keep them occupied.'

Bardolin nodded grimly. 'It shall be so.'

'What of Golophin? Have you had any more words with him?'

'He has disappeared. He has cloaked his mind and cut himself off. He may not even be in Torunna any longer.'

'Our friend Golophin is running out of time’ Aruan said tartly, mopping his bald pate. 'Track him down, Bardolin.'

'I will. You may count on it.'

'Good. I must rest now. I will need all my strength in the days to come. Four of the Five Kingdoms are ours now, Bardolin, but the fifth, that will prove the hardest. When it falls we will be close to matching the Fimbrian Empire of old.'

'And the Fimbrians, what of them?' Bardolin asked. 'We've heard no word since their embassy left Charibon, weeks ago now.'

'They're waiting to see how Torunna fares. Oh, I have plans for Fimbria also, make no mistake. The Electors have stood aloof too long; they think their homeland is inviolable. I may have to prove them wrong.' Aruan smiled, his eyes gazing upon a vision of a single authority that spanned the continent. Firm, but benign, harsh at times, but always fair.

'You shall be Presbyter of Torunna, once it falls,' he told Bardolin. Then his eyes narrowed. He pursed his full lips. 'As for master Golophin, I shall give him one last chance. Find him, speak with him. Tell him that if he comes over to us with a full heart and a clear conscience, he shall have Hebrion to govern in my name. I cannot say fairer than that.'

Bardolin's eyes shone. 'That will do it; I'm sure of it. It will be enough to tip the scales in our favour.'

'Yes. We will have to disappoint Murad, of course, but I am sure we will find something else for him to do, once he has slain the Hebrian Queen and her mariner. Good! Things are progressing, my friend. Orkh is already installing himself in Astarac and our armies are poised for the final campaign. You must go back to Gaderion and begin hammering on those walls again.' He gripped Bardolin by the hand. 'My Mage-General. Get me Golophin's loyalty, and the three of us will together set this unhappy world to rights.'

The vast foam-flecked and moonlit expanse of the Levangore, stirred into a stiff swell by an inconstant wind blustering out of the south-south-east. Above it a sky empty of cloud, the stars brilliant pinpoints in that black vault, the moon as bright as a silver lantern.

Richard Hawkwood fixed his eye on the North Star and stared through the two tiny sights on his quadrant. The plumb line of the instrument hung free and he swayed easily with the ship, compensating without conscious effort for the pitch and roll. When he was satisfied, he caught the plumb line and read off the numbers on the scale. The ship was six degrees south of Abrusio's latitude. Those six degrees of latitude corresponded to over a hundred leagues. By his dead-reckoning, they had made some two hundred leagues of easting in the past eleven days. They were south of Candelaria, not far off the latitude of Garmidalan, and two thirds of their journey was behind them.

Hawkwood checked the pegs of the traverse board. They were headed north-north-east, and the wind was on the starboard quarter. He had sent up the square yards on fore and main at last, retaining the lateen only on the mizzen, and the Seahare rode the swells easily under courses and topsails, making perhaps five knots. Sprightly though her progress might be, an experienced observer would note that much of the rigging had been knotted and spliced several times over, and her foremast had been fished with beams of oak and line after line of woolding to hold together the crack which ran through it from top to bottom.

They had outpaced the storm, and had run through the Malacar Straits at a fearsome clip, Hawkwood on deck day and night, the leadsman in the forechains continually calling out the depth. The wind had backed round after that, and had slowly become a natural thing once more, the seasonal airs of the Hebrian Sea replacing the Dweomer-birthed gale. But that had not ended the hard labour on board. The Seahare had taken a severe battering in her race with the squall and while she could neither pause in her voyage nor put in to shore, her crew were able to start the work of restoring her to full sea shy;worthiness.

The repairs had taken the better part of a week, and even now the ship was making more water than Hawkwood liked, and the pumps had to be manned for half a glass in every watch. But they were still afloat, and they seemed to have outrun their pursuers with a mixture of luck, good seaman shy;ship, and the valour of a swift-sailing ship. The ship's com shy;pany were a crowd of whey-faced ghosts who dropped off to sleep as soon as they were off their feet, but they were alive. The worst was over.

Hawkwood put the traverse board away in the binnacle-housing, noted the ship's position in the crowded chart that was his mind, and yawned mightily. His belt hung slack about his waist; he would have to make another hole in it soon. But at least he had hair on his head once more, a salt-and-pepper crop which stood up like the bristles of a brush on his scalp.

Ordio, one of the more capable master's mates, had the watch. He was scanning the brilliant night sky with studied nonchalance, standing by the larboard rail. They were two glasses into the morning watch, and it would be dawn in another hour. When they had finally made landfall, Hawk shy;wood promised himself, he would sleep the clock around. He had not had more than an hour or two's uninterrupted rest in weeks.

'Call me if the wind changes,' he told Ordio automatically, and went below, staggering a little with the ever-present tiredness. The blankets in his swinging cot were damp and smelled of mould, but he could not have cared less. He drew off his sodden clothes and crawled under them gratefully and was asleep in moments.

He woke some time later, instantly alert. The sun had come up by now despite the darkness in the cabin, and the Seahare was still on her course, though by the tone of the water running past the hull she had picked up a knot or so. But it was not that which had woken him. There was someone else in the cabin.

He sat up, throwing the blankets aside in the closed dark shy;ness, but two hands on his shoulders stopped him from getting to his feet. He flinched as a pair of cold lips were placed on his own, and then the warm tongue came questing over his teeth. His hands came up to cup the face of the one who kissed him, and he felt under his fingers the ridged scar tissue on the otherwise smooth cheek. Tsolla.'

But she said no word, only pushed him back down into the cot. There were rustlings and the click of buttons, and she climbed in beside him, shivering at the touch of the fetid blankets on her skin. Her hair was down and covered both their faces with its feather-touch as they sought each other in the darkness. The cot swung and the ropes which supported it creaked and groaned in time with their own smothered sounds. When they were done her skin was hot and moist under his hands and their bodies were glued together by sweat. He started to speak, but her hand covered his mouth and she kissed him into silence. She climbed off the cot and he heard her bare feet padding on the wood of the deck as she dressed. He raised himself up on one elbow and saw her slim silhouette in the cracks of light which slipped under the cabin door.

'Why?' he asked.

She was tying up her hair, and paused, letting it tumble once more about her shoulders. 'Even queens need a little comfort now and again.'

'Would you still need it, if you were not a queen of a lost kingdom?'

'If I were not a queen, Captain, I would not be here – nor you either.'

'If you were not a queen I would marry you, and you would be happy.'

She hesitated, and then said quietly, ‘I know.' Then she gathered her things and slipped out of the door as silently as she must have arrived.

Two more days passed in the bright spring blue of the sea, and the routine of the ship became a way of life for all of them, ruled by bells, punctuated by unremarkable meals. As the Seahare sailed steadily onwards it became their entire world, self-contained and ordered. They had a fair wind, a sky uncluttered save by a little high cloud, and no sight of any other ship, though the lookouts were kept at the masthead day and night. It seemed strange to Hawkwood. The Levangore, especially the western Levangore, was crossed by the busiest sea lanes in the world, and yet in all their passage of it thus far they had sighted not a single sail.

The wind kept backing round until it was east-south-east, and in order to preserve some of their speed, Hawkwood altered course to north-north-east so it was on the beam. To larboard they could see now the blue shapes of the Malvennor Mountains that formed the backbone of Astarac, Isolla's birth shy;place. She spent hours standing at the leeward rail, watching the land of her childhood drift past. The lookouts kept their gaze fixed on the open sea, and thus it was she who came to Hawkwood in the afternoon watch, and pointed at the south shy;western horizon.

'What do you make of that, Captain?'

Hawkwood stared, and saw dark against the blue shadows of the mountains a sombre stain on the air, a high column rising blackly against the sky.

'Smoke,' he said. 'It's some great, far-off fire.'

'It is Garmidalan,' Isolla whispered. 'I know it. They are burning the city.'

All day she remained on deck staring over the larboard quarter at the distant smoke, and as the daylight faded it was possible for all to see the red glow on the western horizon which had nothing to do with sunset.

Bleyn appeared on deck at dusk, having stayed dutifully by his sea-sick mother all day, and joined Isolla at the rail. An unlikely friendship had grown up between the two, and when Hawkwood saw the both of them standing together at his ship's side with the swell of the sea rising and falling behind them he felt an almost physical ache in his heart, and knew not why.

'Sail ho!' the lookout called down from the masthead. 'Where away?'

'Fine off the port quarter, skipper. She's hull down and with not too much canvas abroad, but I do believe she's ship-rigged.'

Hawkwood dashed up the starboard shrouds, then the futtock shrouds into the maintop. The lookout was on the crossyards above him. He peered back along their wake, slightly phosphorescent in the gathering starlight, and caught the nick on the red and yellow glimmer of the horizon. He wiped his watering eyes but could make out nothing more. The strange ship, if ship it were, was on almost the same course as they, but it must have no more than reefed courses up or he'd have seen them pale against the sky. Not in a hurry then.

He did not like it all the same, and began bellowing orders from the maintop.

'All hands! All hands to make sail! Arhuz, send up topgallants and main and mizzen staysails.'

'Aye, sir. Rouse out, rouse out, you sluggards! Get up that rigging before I knot me a rope's end.'

In minutes the rigging was full of men, and a crowd of them climbed past Hawkwood on the way to loose the topgallant sail. As the extra canvas was sheeted home and the yards braced round he felt the ship give a quiver, and the dip of her bow became more pronounced. Her wake grew even brighter with turbulence and he could feel the masts creaking and straining. The Seahare picked up speed like a spurred thor shy;oughbred. Hawkwood stared aft again.

There – the pale shapes of sails being unfurled. Despite their extra speed, the stranger was hull up now. She must be a swift sailer indeed, and have a large crew to cram on so much extra sail in so little time. Fore and aft sails on main and mizzen – so she was a barquentine then. God almighty, she was fast. Hawkwood felt a momentary chill settle in his stomach.

He looked down at the deck below. They were lighting the stern lanterns at the taffrail.

'Belay there! Douse those lights!'

The mood on board changed instantly. He saw pale faces looking up into the rigging at him, and then over the stern to where the strange ship was visible even from the quarterdeck she was coming up so fast.

Hawkwood swallowed, cursing the sudden dryness in his mouth. A row of lights appeared along the barquentine's sides. She was opening her gun-ports. He hung his head a moment and then called out hoarsely:

'Master-at-arms, beat to quarters. Prepare for battle.'

He climbed slowly down from the maintop whilst the deck exploded into a crowded, frantic activity below him. The enemy had caught up with them once more.