Hawkwood and the Kings: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume One) (31 page)

"Our path will be a hard one," Mark said quietly.

"Aye. But men have trod it before, and no doubt will again. And these mountains will see other sunrises, other kings making bargains in their shadow. It is the way of the world."

"Abeleyn, the Philosopher King," Mark said with gentle mockery.

Abeleyn grinned, but when he spoke again his voice was serious.

"We have the luck or the misfortune to be part of the forces which shape the fate of the world, Mark. We have a conversation over a flagon of ale and lo! History is changed. Sometimes I think about it."

He fumbled in his fur-lined robes and produced a small silver flask. He unscrewed the top, which transformed into two tiny, gleaming cups.

"Here. We'll seal our history shaping with a little wine."

"I hope it's good," Mark said. "We must toast the alliance of Astarac and Hebrion in the finest you possess."

"Good enough."

They raised their cups to each other and drank, two kings sealing a bargain, whilst above them the sun broke out over the peaks of the mountains and bathed them both in blood.

Fifteen

28
TH DAY OF
Forlion, Year of the Saint 551.

Wind NNW, backing. Light airs. Course due west with the wind on the starboard bow. Two knots.

Sighted North Cape at two bells in the first dog-watch on this, the seventh day out of Abrusio harbour. At three bells the lead found white sand at forty fathoms. Changed course to due west, remaining on the same latitude. Bespoke a Brenn Isle herrin yawl and purchased three hundredweight of fish. Hands employed about the ship. Brother Ortelius preached a sermon in the afternoon watch and afterward the soldiers had small-arms practice. First Mate Billerand ran out the guns in the last dog-watch and called all hands for gunnery practice. Gunner reported to me that number two larboard gun is honeycombed.

Hawkwood laid down his quill and stretched his arms behind him until the muscles cracked. If he looked up he could see out of the stern windows to where the wake of the ship was faintly phosphorescent in the dimming light of the evening. There was very little swell; they had been plagued by light winds since leaving Hebrion and had not made good time, but he was pleased with the performance of the crew and of the ship herself. Though inclined to be sluggish with the extra cargo on board, the
Osprey
could still eat the wind out of any other carrack of her tonnage. Hawkwood was convinced it was because of her peculiar design, which he had supervised himself. Her fore- and sterncastles were lower than in other ships of her class, which meant they took less of the wind, and they were structures built as an integral part of the main hull, not tacked on afterwards. There were drawbacks, of course. There was less space on board, and she might be more vulnerable to boarding; but his crews knew their gunnery. The ship's culverins would riddle any enemy vessel long before she drew close enough to board.

The
Grace
was a different matter. Haukal had had to take in canvas to avoid outpacing the carrack entirely, though Hawkwood knew he chafed at the slow progress and longed to break out his whole store of lateen sails and plough ahead. At this moment the caravel was under main course alone, bobbing along some four cables to starboard. This beam wind suited her admirably, though she had yards enough down in her hold to transform her into a square-rigged ship should the wind veer round and come from right aft.

Little chance of that. They would be sailing close to the wind in more ways than one for nearly all of this voyage, if the word of long-dead Tyrenius Cobrian was to be believed.

Well, they had hit upon North Cape, as pretty a sighting as could be wished for. All Hawkwood had to do in theory was steer due west until he bumped into the Western Continent. It sounded simple, but there were the winds to take into account, ocean currents, storms or doldrums. He and Haukal both took sightings of the North Star every night with their cross-staffs and compared notes afterwards, but Hawkwood still felt that the ships were sailing in the dark. True, he had the baldly summarized sailing instructions that Murad had copied out of the old rutter for him, but he needed more. He needed to read the account of the
Cartigellan Faulcon'
s crossing. He admitted to himself that he needed reassurance, the account of another seaman's accomplishment of what he was attempting to do. He also knew that Murad was concealing something, something to do with the fate of the earlier voyage. The knowledge maddened him.

He stood up from his desk, long accustomed to the slight roll and pitch of the ship, and extinguished the single candle which lit his cabin. Fire was one of the most dreaded accidents aboard ship, and the use of naked flame was carefully regulated. Only in the galley was any cooking permitted, and only on the forecastle could the soldiers and sailors smoke their pipes. There were sea lanterns hanging in serried rows in the crowded filth of the gundeck for the passengers' comfort, but these were the responsibility of the master-at-arms and his mates. The kegs which contained the powder both for the ship's guns and the soldiers' arquebuses were stored below the waterline in a tin-lined room so that the rats might not gnaw at them, and no naked light was permitted in there. A tiny pane of double glass allowed the powder store to be illuminated from outside, and only the gunner had access to the interior.

And what a hullabaloo that had caused! Soldiers! They had moaned and bitched about not being able to get at their ammunition quickly enough, about not being able to smoke their pipes in the comfort of their hammocks, about not being able to prepare their own food in their own messes as they were used to. And Murad had not helped. He had insisted that his food and that of his officers be prepared separately from the men's and served at a different time, doubling the workload of the ship's cook. And the delicacies he had laid in by way of private stores! There were fully two tons of foodstuff in the hold that were for the exclusive consumption of Murad and his two officers. It beggared belief. And those damn horses! One was dead already, having gone mad in its cramped stall and thrashed about until it had broken its leg. That aristocratic young ensign, Sequero, had almost been in tears as he had cut its throat. The sailors had jointed the animal and salted down the meat despite the protestations of the soldiers. The cooper had barrelled it and placed it in the hold. Those same soldiers might be glad of it ere they saw land again.

Hawkwood made his unlit way out of his cabin, stepping over the storm sill with the grace of habit and exiting the companionway to enter the fresh air of the evening. He ran up the ladder to the quarterdeck where Velasca, the second mate, had the watch. The hourglass ran out, the ship's boy turned it, then stepped forward to the break of the deck and rang the ship's bell twice. Two bells in the last dog-watch, or the seventh hour after the zenith to a landsman.

"All quiet, Velasca?"

"Aye, sir. There are a few souls puking over the larboard rail, but most of 'em are below preparing for dinner."

Hawkwood nodded. Even in the failing light he could make out the wisps of smoke from the galley chimney drifting off to leeward.

Velasca cleared his throat. "I've had a deputation from the soldiers come to see me this watch, sir."

"Another one? What did they want this time?"

"They don't like the idea of a priest berthing in the forecastle with the common sailors, sir. They think he should be aft with the officers."

"There's no room aft, unless he cares to sling his hammock in my chartroom. No, we didn't ask for a Raven on board so he must make the best of it. Trust an Inceptine to put the common soldiers up to intercede for him."

"Oh, they say he hasn't said a word, sir. He seems to be a kindly enough sort of fellow for one of his order. They took it upon themselves to ask."

"Well they can take it upon themselves to keep their mouths shut, or go through their own officers. The running of the ship is difficult enough as it is without playing runaround with the assigned quarters."

"Yes, sir."

"How's the wind?"

"Light as a baby's fart, sir. Still nor'-north-west, though it's showing signs of backing to north-west."

"I hope not. We're close-hauled enough as it is. I'll take the watch now if you like, Velasca. I'm as restless as a springtime bear. Get yourself below and grab some food."

"Aye, sir, thanks. Shall I have the cook send something up?"

"No, I'll survive."

Velasca left the deck, Hawkwood having relieved him an hour early.

The carrack sailed on as the first stars came out to brighten the sky. There would be a moon later on; it was near the full, but the wind was fitful and wayward. The
Osprey
was under courses and topsails, the courses bonneted, but Hawkwood guessed she was making less than three knots. A peaceful evening, though. He could hear the growing hubbub from belowdecks as the passengers assembled for the evening meal, and light poured out in shafts from the gunports. They kept them open most of the time these nights, for ventilation.

He heard the clink of glass and laughter from the officers' cabins below his feet: Murad entertaining again. The scar-faced nobleman had even invited Ortelius, the last-minute Inceptine, to dinner a few times. Primarily, Hawkwood thought, to interrogate him as to his reasons for joining the ship. Someone high up in the Inceptines of Abrusio had ordered him to, that was clear, but so far Ortelius had deflected all Murad's enquiries.

He was being watched. Turning, Hawkwood caught Mateo, the ship's boy, staring at him. He frowned and Mateo looked away hurriedly. The boy's voice was breaking; soon he would be a man. He no longer held any temptation for Hawkwood, not with the sneering Murad and an Inceptine on board. No doubt the lad was hurt by Hawkwood's curt treatment of him, but he would get over it.

Unwillingly Hawkwood found himself thinking of Jemilla, her white skin and raven-dark hair, her wildcat passions. She was a king's plaything now, not for the likes of himself any more. He wondered if King Abeleyn of Hebrion had scratches on his back under his regal robes. The world was a strange place sometimes.

He paced his way to the weather rail, and stood there gazing out on the even swell of the quiet sea whilst the breeze fanned his face and pushed at the towering canvas above his head.

"Y
OU'RE NOT WAITING
on the high table tonight, then?" Bardolin asked as Griella joined him at the swaying, rope-suspended table.

The girl sat on the sea chest next to him. Her colour was up, and her coppery hair clung to her forehead in wires and tails.

"No. Mara said she would do it for me. I can't stick the thought of it tonight."

Bardolin said nothing. Around them the hubbub of the gundeck was like a curtain of noise. In between the dull gleam of the long guns, hanging tables had been let down from the ceiling (what was the nautical term, deckhead?) and around each of these a motley crowd of figures jostled and elbowed for space. Each table seated six, and one person from each took it in turns to bring the food for the table down the length of the deck from the steaming galley.

This was the first night Bardolin had seen it as full as this; most of the passengers seemed to be getting over their sea-sickness, especially as the weather was mild and the ship's movement not too severe. They were an odd mix. He could see men in fine robes, some of whom he recognized as figures at the Hebrian court, and ladies in brocade and linen - even here clinging to their past status - but the majority looked like well-to-do merchants or small artisans with nothing remarkable about them. There had as yet been no manifestation of power, and he did not know if there might be a weather-worker on board to speed the passage of the ships. Probably the presence of the Inceptine had put the captain off from enquiring.

Neither did he know if there was another full-blooded mage on board, for he had as yet seen no other familiars in evidence and his own imp was asleep in the bosom of his robe. He and Golophin were not, of course, the only mages in Abrusio; Bardolin was personally acquainted with another half-dozen. But he saw none that he knew here, and wondered if Golophin had had other plans for them.

The air was heavy and thick, hanging around the brutal great guns and the laden tables. Bardolin could smell the aroma of the cooking pork, heavy with grease and salt, and around that the sweat of close-packed humanity. Underlying these was a faint stink of vomit and ordure. Not all the passengers possessed the necessary spirit to crouch out on the beakhead of the ship and perform their necessary functions there, with the warm sea lapping at their arse. And there had been those who had surrendered to seasickness a mite more violently than they had expected. The deck would have to be washed out, or swabbed down, but that was the sailors' job.

Oh, such a rich web woven by unknown forces! They were not a ship sailing serenely across a placid ocean, they were a fly caught quivering in a vast spider's web. And that nobleman, Murad, he was one of the spinners of the web, along with Golophin and the King of Hebrion.

But not Hawkwood, the captain. He and Murad loathed each other, that was plain. Bardolin got the impression that their good captain was about as enthusiastic for the voyage as the majority of his passengers were. He must know their destination; it might be worth talking to him, or to Billerand.