Swordships of Scorpio

CHAPTER NINE

Ochs, Rapas, and Fristles do not make good seamen. Chuliks may be trained, given the methods to which I had been born and grown accustomed, the system of the late eighteenth century, consisting of the lash, the starters of the bosun’s mates, a wall of marines — and the lash. Rum, in its counterfeit of shipboard wine, also helped.

As a consequence the vast majority of the crew of Dram Constant, Captain Alkers, were men of recognizable Homo sapiens stock. The few halflings were, and on their own wishes, employed in noncritical functions aboard ship — waisters.

No captain in his right mind would enroll a Fristle. I saw one being aboard — he was not Homo sapiens

— who interested me mightily. His body was square in the sense that the distance across his shoulders, waist, and hips was the same, and equaled the distance from his neck to his upper thigh. He had but two arms, and they were as long and thin as Inch’s, while his legs, also long, were nearly as thick as Inch’s, which is another way of saying he was spindly-legged in the extreme. His face bore a cheerful rubicund smile at all times, his ears stuck out, he had a snub nose, and he could run up the ratlines and around by the futtock shrouds into the top with the agility of a monkey. This man, one Tolly, was a member of the race of Hobolings, inhabiting a chain of islands that I have mentioned, that ran parallel to the northeastern coast of Loh from the tip of Erthyrdrin southeastward to the northwest corner of Pandahem opposite the land of Walfarg.

Dram Constant, as Captain Alkers was happy to tell me, was as fine and tight an argenter as it was possible to find plowing the Sunset Sea. He knew that this report of his ship had been the cause of our taking passage in her, our little party consisting of Tilda and Pando, and Inch and I as guards and champions to protect them and see they were not molested and reached their destination safely. I believe it is not necessary to dwell on the mental turmoil I went through after Tilda’s offer. As the days passed and the dwaburs slipped past our keel, as we sailed in the armada toward Loh, I had again and again to rationalize out my decision. Delia of Delphond waited for me in Vallia; yet I was to travel to Pandahem. Not only was I sailing away from her, I was voyaging to a land in deadly rivalry with her own. By taking an intense interest in every aspect of the argenter — an occupation easy to feign — I canceled out a great deal of my own misery and indecision. I thought Delia would understand, I prayed she would; and yet I doubted. .

This argenter was about a hundred and thirty feet long — Captain Alkers told me she was a hundred feet on the keel — and almost fifty feet on the beam. She was thus little more than twice as long as she was broad. Captain Alkers also said she was eight hundred and fifty tons burdened; but this I tended to doubt. She was a fat, wallowy, comfortable ship, with good stowage place below. We quartered ourselves aft, within the three-decked aftercastle, and our cabins were of a roominess that at first amazed me, used to far more cramped quarters. One genuine improvement these sailors of the outer oceans had made in their ships over the swifters of the inner sea was in the use of a rudder and whipstaff in place of the twin steering oars.

With her three masts and her square sails, Dram Constant plunged gallantly onward, sheeting spray, and if she made a great deal of fuss about her passage she did make a passage over open and truly deep sea

— if at a snail’s rate of knots.

Pando loved to lie out along the bowsprit beneath the spritsail mast and watch the water smashing against the round cheeks of the bows, creaming and coiling away. Dram Constant, as it were, squashed her way through the sea.

Tilda was continuously on at Pando, and me, for the lad to come down where it was safe. After I showed him a few of the necessary tricks of the trade any sailorman must have, I felt a little more confident about him. But, all during that passage, he was a sore trial. Probably in an attempt to get his mind off ships and to confine him to one spot, Tilda got me to teach him rapier and dagger work. In truth, he was of an age when this very necessary accomplishment would be vital for him to learn quickly.

A full-size Jiktar and Hikdar would have overweighted him, but we were fortunate in being able to borrow a practice pair belonging to one of the young gentlemen signed aboard Dram Constant to learn their trade. With these I had Pando puffing and lunging, riposting, parrying, drawing the main-gauche back in cunning feints, carrying out all the many evolutions of swordplay — the twin-thrust, the heart-thrust, the thigh stop, the flower, the neck riposte — until he was dripping with sweat and limp as a moonflower on a moonless night. Tilda would sometimes watch, and when the boy flagged, would say tartly: “Get on, Pando, get on! This is man’s work now! Stick him!”

She did not, and for this I was mightily thankful, use that expression: “Jikai!”

Tilda and Pando proved excellent sailors.

Poor Inch lost a great deal of his dinner and his dignity over the side. Memories ghosted up — to be instantly quelled.

For me to be back on the sea again was an invigorating experience, and I snuffed the sea breeze like an old hunter let out to the chase once more. The sky gleamed and glowed above us, a few clouds streamed in the wind, the breeze bore us on, all our flags and banners snapped and whistled in that breeze, our canvas strained, billowing with all the painted panoply gorgeous upon it. We plunged and reared in the sea and in our wake we left a broad swathing wash of creamy foam. Yes, for a time they were good days. I knew that I would reach my Delia; first I had to deliver Tilda and Pando — that imp of Sicce who was now Kov of Bormark — safely to Tomboram.

Tilda had not told Pando, yet, just who he was. That would come later. A wise decision, I felt. We made landfall in due time at Northern Erthyrdrin, and took on fresh provisions and water and landed a man who had fallen and smashed up his pelvis. We shared berthing facilities with ships from other Pandahemic nations; but the peace was kept. I looked up at the gnarled mountains that thrust right up to the coast. Up there, in those mountains and valleys, lay Seg Segutorio’s home. I could walk there. I knew the way, for he had told me often. But I was committed. I vowed that one day I would go there, for I could walk directly to where he had cut his bow-stave, where he had held the pass, right to his home and greet the people as though I had known them for years. But my honor and integrity — such as they are and have value — had been enlisted in support of Tilda and the young Kov. Yes, one day, I would walk the hills and valleys of Seg’s home.

We were talking of the enforced amity of the different countries of Pandahem here, and I heard more stories of the horrors that did occur from time to time. There were massacres, and mutual extermination excursions, and tales of bitter fighting even when the Vallians laughed and stepped in to steal the prize. I came to recognize the different devices and characteristics that divided and marked one nation from another on Pandahem. In all this talk of division and what amounted to internecine warfare I began to wonder if the Star Lords had set another task to my hands.

As we sailed out in our armada and set our bows toward the southeast I leaned on the larboard rail and looked back over the larboard quarter. Out there, across the shining sea, lay Vallia. . As I stood there dreaming I heard a harsh and savage cry. I looked up. Up there, slanting against the mingled rays of the twin suns, a giant bird circled, a gorgeous scarlet-feathered raptor, with golden feathers about its neck, and wickedly clawed black talons. I knew that bird, circling in wide hunting circles. The Gdoinye, sent by the Star Lords. As I watched I saw the white dove fly smoothly above me, circle once, and then rise and wing away. The white dove of the Savanti!

I felt a tremendous sense of elation, of relief, of lightness. I had not been forgotten. The Star Lords, who had brought me to Kregen, and the Savanti, who also had brought me here and then thrust me out of their paradise of Aphrasoe, both were watching over me. They would not take a hand to halt the cruel thrusting spear or sword. They wanted me for their own inscrutable purposes. I wondered, again, if there was work for them to my hand in Pandahem.

“What weird bird was that, Dray?” demanded Pando. His mischievous face was all screwed up against the sun glare, and quite serious.

“A bird, Pando. An omen.” I could not tell him the Gdoinye came from the Everoinye, the Star Lords.

“It means that everything is going to be wonderful in Tomboram.”

“Of course, I am excited at going there, and the sea, and the ships, and learning swordplay — but, Dray, tell me. Why is Mother going home?” His eyes searched my face. “Home to me is Pa Mejab. She knows that.”

“When you get to Tomboram, Pando, there will be many wonderful and exciting things to do. You will be a man. I know you will do your best to look out for your mother. She is a woman alone.”

“She said to me once, would I mind if she married again.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I would not mind if she married you, Dray.”

I pushed myself off the rail and swayed gently with the roll of the ship.

“That cannot be, Pando.” I spoke seriously, man to man. “Your mother is a most wonderful woman. You must cherish her. Yes, she will marry again, I feel sure, I hope — but I cannot marry her-”

But he was staring at me with such a black look that I felt sick. “You don’t like her!”

“Of course I do.” I looked around the wide deck, which was largely deserted on the larboard side, most folk being over on the starboard watching the last of the land. I bent toward him. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course I can.” He was most ungracious, his lips in a pout.

“I am engaged to a girl — a wonderful girl — and I-”

“Is she a princess?” Scornfully.

I eyed him. He had been hurt. But I did not intend to lie. Clearly, not even a princess was better than his mother — and how right and proper that attitude was, to be sure! — but if my betrothed was a princess that, so Pando must be reasoning, might go some way to explaining my boorish behavior. But I would never, quite, be the same to him again.

He was growing up.

“Do you know what a Kov is, Pando?”

“Of course — anyone does. He has lots of money and rides a zorca and is covered in jewels — and he has a flag — and-”

“All right.” A Kov, a similar rank to our Earthly duke, is what Delia had more or less confirmed me as, after my masquerade as Drak, Kov of Delphond, in order to avoid being killed by the overlords of Magdag. The title had been given me and she had confirmed it; I was not foolish enough to believe her father would do the same. As for the Lord of Strombor — as for all the other lords of the enclaves of the city of Zenicce — we were a cut above a Kov!

“As far as I am concerned, Pando, your mother is a Kovneva.”

He screwed his face up to me. He was jigging up and down now, as all small boys do, being compounded of spring wire and rubber. “A Kovneva? So I’m a Kov, then?”

I tried to laugh. I did laugh, after a fashion.

“And I am the captain of a swordship!”

He laughed, then, and we were friends again; but it had been a near squeak. I sensed that Pando, young as he was, perhaps because of the insights of that youth, felt in me a secret that I could not utter, something vast and portentous that might move mountains. That it was in truth merely the love of an ordinary mortal man for his princess might have seemed far too commonplace for him. Because of the action we had seen together, and my rescue of his mother, and the swordplay I was teaching him, Pando had come in his boyish way to hero-worship me. I had tried to choke this off, being not so much embarrassed as aware of the dangers; but had had little success. Now I felt I had succeeded, violently, and at a stroke.

The days passed and we bore on southeastward, the weather remained fine with a moderate breeze generally from a few points north of east, so we were continually on the larboard tack. Two alternatives now lay before the admiral of the armada.

He might choose to swing to the east and so outside the long chain of islands stretching down to Pandahem. This choice would offer attack opportunities to privateers from Vallia, scouring across the Sunset Sea. Or, he could run down between the islands and the mainland of Loh, which was here the homeland of Walfarg, progenitor of a once-mighty empire. This choice would lay him open to attacks from all the swordships which lay in wait in their festering pirate nests among the islands. If he took the latter course, however, he would have to swing due east when he reached the last of the islands and run clear across the northern coast of Pandahem and the countries having their seaboards there before he could reach Tomboram in the east. Also, to figure into the calculations, there was over twice as much sea room outside as inside the island chain. To me, a fighting sailor, sea room is vital. The admiral hoisted his flags and Captain Alkers, not without a fitting comment on the importance of the occasion, put his telescope to his eye. He nodded his head with satisfaction. He lowered the glass and turned to the helmsman.

“Make it east!”

So we were to run clear of the islands, and then turn southeast for Tomboram directly — and to the Ice Floes of Sicce with the rasts of Vallia!

Every sixth day Captain Alkers conducted a short religious ceremony on the open quarterdeck. Most of the passengers attended and all the crew, both human and halfling. Tolly, I noticed, was particularly devout. In the inner sea the green of Grodno and the red of Zair hate and detest each other. In Zenicce they used to say: “The sky colors are ever in mortal combat.” The people of Pandahem and Vallia had progressed some way along the path of a more live religion, for they held the view that the red and the green, Zim and Genodras, were a pair. They both shone down upon the one world, the twin suns mingling their light into an opal glory. They regarded their deity as an invisible pair, the invisible twins with which Tilda so often threatened Pando, and upon whom she called in time of trouble. The name often given to this twinned deity of invisible godhead was Opaz: a name conjoined from the light streaming and mingled from the Suns of Scorpio.

Despite my vows to the Krozairs of Zy, and my own half thoughtless swearing by Zair, I was happy to join the others in their worship, feeling no true blasphemy to my own God, feeling, rather, that these people were nearer to Him than many and many another I had known.

So we beat on east and then turned southeast and aimed for a quick run to Tomboram. The easting had cost us time, for we had had to make to windward by a long series of boards. But that weary tacking was paying off now. The spume flew, and the last of the gulls left us, and we were alone on the shining sea.

The lookouts were alert, and a most careful watch was kept at all times toward the east and northeast, from which we might expect the lean galleons of Vallia to pounce upon us. As the days winged by and the weather remained fine we began to congratulate ourselves. Not a single speck of sail showed on the horizon rim. The galleons of Vallia had missed us, or were not at sea. The reason we discovered, to our disaster, when black clouds began to build up all along the eastern horizon. The twin suns shone down with a light I found uncomfortable. This was rashoon weather. When the blow came I discovered the difference between a rashoon of the inner sea and a hurricane of the outer oceans. I have lived through many a hurricane and tempest, many a typhoon — on two worlds — but that was a bad one. We were driven helplessly toward the west. Our masts went by the board. We lost crewmen swept overboard. The blackness, the wind, the rain, and the violence of the waves battered at our physical bodies and smashed with a more awful punishment against our psyches. We suffered. We went careering past islands, seeing the fanged rocks spouting ghostly white, to see that spray ripped and splattered away in an instant. Onward we surged, a wreck, our seams opening, our timbers splintered, lost, it seemed, in the turmoil of the seas.

When the storm at last blew itself out and we poor souls, numbed and drenched, could crawl on deck and discover to our surprise that Zim and Genodras still smiled down upon us from a clear sky, the dreaded cry went up.

“Swordships! Swordships!”

The deck was in a frightful mess, cumbered with wreckage, raffles of cordage, splintered timbers, everything that had not been washed overboard. We rushed to the rail. There they came, long lean shapes spurring through the sea. With deadly intent they closed in on us. Helplessly, we wallowed in the sea as those sea-leem ringed us.

“Swordships! Swordships!”