Hawkwood and the Kings: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume One) (42 page)

"Get to it, man!" Murad barked impatiently. Pernicus jumped like a frog, and there was a rattle of laughter from the soldiers on the forecastle. Then silence again as the two ensigns glared round and sergeant Mensurado administered a discreet kick. The sails flapped idly overhead and the ship was motionless under the blazing sun, like an insect impaled upon a pin. Pernicus closed his eyes.

Minutes went past, and the soldiers stirred restlessly. Three bells in the afternoon watch was struck, the ship's bell as loud as a gunshot in the quiet. Pernicus's lips moved silently.

The main topsail swayed and flapped once, twice. Hawkwood thought he felt the faintest zephyr on his cheek, though it might have been his hopeful imagination. Pernicus spoke at last, in a choked murmur:

"It is hard. There is nothing to work with for leagues, but I think I have found it. Yes. I think it will do."

"It had better," Murad said in a low, ominous voice.

The sun was unrelenting. It baked the decks and made tar drip from the rigging on to those below, spotting the painfully bright armour of the soldiers. Finally Pernicus sighed and rubbed his eyes. He turned to face Hawkwood.

"I have done it, Captain. You shall have your wind. It is on its way."

Then he left the quarterdeck, gaped at by those who had never seen a weather-worker perform before, and went below.

"Is that it?" Murad snapped. "I'Il have the little mountebank flogged up and down the ship."

"Wait," Hawkwood said.

"Nothing happened, Captain."

"Wait, damn you!"

The crowd in the waist was already dispersing, buzzing with talk. The soldiers were filing down off the gangways, beating out their slow-match on the ship's rail and guffawing at their own jokes. Ortelius remained motionless, as did Bardolin.

A breeze ruffled Hawkwood's hair and made the sails crack and fill.

"Ready, lads!" he called to the crew, who were waiting patiently at their stations.

The light faded. The ship's company looked up as one to see outrider clouds moving across the face of the sun. The surface of the sea to the south-east of the ship wrinkled like folded silk.

"Here she comes. Steady on the braces. Tiller there, course north-north-west."

"Aye, sir."

The breeze strengthened, and suddenly the sails were full and straining, the masts creaking as they took the strain. The carrack tilted and her bow dipped as the wind took her on the stern. She began to move, slowly at first and then picking up speed.

"Brace that foresail round, you damned fools! You're spilling the wind. Velasca, more men to the foremast. And set bonnets on the courses."

"Aye, sir!"

"We're moving!" someone shouted from the waist, and as the carrack began to slide swiftly through the water the passengers broke out into laughter and cheers. "Good old Pernicus!"

"Leadsman to the forechains!" Hawkwood shouted, grinning. "Let's see what she's doing."

The carrack was alive again, no longer the stranded, battered creature she had been in the past days. Hawkwood experienced a jet of sheer joy as he felt the ship stirring under his feet and saw her wake beginning to foam astern.

"So we have our wind," Murad said, sounding a little bemused. "I have never seen anything like it, I must say."

"I have," said Brother Ortelius. He had climbed up to the quarterdeck, his face like granite. "May God forgive you both - and that wretched creature of Dweomer - for what you have done here today."

"Easy, Father -" Hawkwood began.

"Brother Ortelius," Murad said coldly, "you will kindly refrain from making comments which might be construed as detrimental to the morale of the ship's company. If you have opinions you may seek to air them in private with either myself or the captain; otherwise you will keep them to yourself. You are not well, obviously. I would not like to have to confine a man of your dignity to his hammock, but I will if need be. Good day, sir."

Ortelius looked as though a blood vessel might burst. His face went scarlet and his mouth worked soundlessly. Some of Hawkwood's crew turned aside to hide their exultant smiles.

"You cannot muzzle me, sir," Ortelius said at last, dripping venom. "I am a noble of the Church, subject to no authority save my spiritual superiors. I answer to them and to no one else."

"You answer to me and to Captain Hawkwood as long as you are aboard this ship. Ours is the ultimate responsibility, and the ultimate authority. Priest or no, if I hear you have been preaching any more superstitious claptrap I'll have you put in irons in the bilge. Now go below, sir, before I do something I may regret."

"You have already done that, sir, believe me," Ortelius hissed out of a mottled countenance. His eyes glittered like a snake and he made the Sign of the Saint as though flinging a curse at the lean nobleman.

"I said go below. Or will I have a pair of soldiers escort you?"

The black-garbed priest left the quarterdeck. There was a hoot of laughter, quickly smothered, from one of the sailors on the yards.

"That may not have been wise," Hawkwood said quietly.

"Indeed. But by all the saints in God's heaven, Hawkwood, I enjoyed it. Those black vultures think they have the world in their pocket; it is good to disabuse them of the notion now and again." Murad was smiling, and for a moment Hawkwood almost liked him; he knew he could never have stood up to the Inceptine in the same manner. No matter how much he hated the Ravens, their authority was deeply ingrained in his mind, as it was in the mind of every commoner. Perhaps one had to be a noble to see the man behind the symbol.

"There is something I cannot account for, though," Murad said thoughtfully.

"What is that?"

"Ortelius. He was angry, yes; furious, even. But I could have sworn his outrage was founded on more than that. On fear. It is strange. Inexplicable."

"I think he knows more than he seems to," Hawkwood said in a low voice. As one, he and Murad moved to the larboard rail to be out of earshot of the crew.

"My thought also," the scarred nobleman agreed.

"You're sure he was sent by the Prelate of Hebrion?"

"Almost, yes. I have not encountered him before, though, and I know most of the clerics who hang about Abeleyn's court and the Prelate's."

"There is no clue as to his background?"

"Oh, he'll be a scion of some minor noble family - the Inceptines always are. There will probably be a plum post or other waiting for him in return for his services on the voyage."

"You do not seem too concerned about what he may report back to the Church in Abrusio."

Murad stared at Hawkwood, face expressionless. "There are many long leagues of sailing before us yet, Captain, and an unknown continent awaiting our feet. Many things could happen before any of us sees Hebrion once more. Hazardous things. Dangerous things."

"You cannot do that, Murad! He is a priest."

"He is a man, and his blood is the same colour as my own. When he chose to set his will against mine he fixed his own fate. There is nothing more to be said."

Murad's matter-of-fact tone chilled Hawkwood. He had seen battle, ship-to-ship actions with the corsairs where blood had washed the decks and men had been mangled by shot and blade, but this cold, calculated dismissal of another man's life unsettled him. He wondered what he would have to do to earn the same treatment from the scheming nobleman.

He left the larboard rail and stood at the break of the quarterdeck, wishing to put distance between himself and Murad. The carrack was flying along and spray was coming aboard to cool his brow. The third of the leadsmen, the one stationed by the taffrail, was holding the dripping, knotted rope with the thick faggot of wood fastened to the end.

"Six knots, sir, and she's still gathering way!"

Hawkwood forced himself to respond to the leadsman's gaiety, though whatever joy he had in the ship's progress had been dampened by Murad.

"Try her again, Borim. See if she won't get up to eight when the bonnets are on."

"Aye, sir!"

Murad left the quarterdeck without another word. Hawkwood watched him go, knowing that the nobleman was plotting murder on his ship.

B
ARDOLIN LEANED ON
the forecastle rail and stared down into the breaking foam of the carrack's bow. They were clipping along at a wonderful rate and the cool moving air was like a benison after the unmoving furnace of the doldrums.

The soldiers had hauled the remaining horses up out of the waist hatches and were exercising them, leading them round and round the deck. The poor brutes were covered in sores and their ribs stood out like the hoops on a barrel. Bardolin wondered if they would ever live to set foot on the new continent that awaited them in the west.

A good man, that Pernicus. It had been Bardolin who had convinced him to use his powers and call in a wind. He was below now, concentrating. There were few suitable systems of air in the region, and he was having constantly to maintain the one that propelled the ship. Usually a weather-worker selected a suitable system nearby and manoeuvred it into a position where it could do his work for him, but here Pernicus was having to keep at it to make sure the sorcerous wind did not fade away.

A desolate ocean, this. They were too far from land to sight any birds, and the only sea-life Bardolin had glimpsed were a few shoals of wingfish flitting over the surface of the waves. He had seen a deep-sea jellyfish, too, which the sailors called devil's toadstools. This one had been twenty feet across, trailing tentacles half as long as the ship and glowing down in the dimmer water as it pulsed its obscure way through the depths.

The imp chirruped with excitement. It was peeking out of his robe, its eyes shining as it watched the water break under the keel and felt the swift breeze of the ship's passage. It was growing steadily more restless at having to keep out of sight. The only time Bardolin set it free was in the night, when it hunted rats up and down the ship.

He had wondered about sending it into Murad's cabin, to observe him and Griella, but the very thought had shamed him.

As though conjured up by his preoccupations, Griella appeared at his side. She leant on the rail beside him and scratched the ear of the imp, which gurgled with pleasure.

"We have our wind, then," she said.

"So it would seem."

"How long can Pernicus keep it going?"

"Some days. By then we should have picked up one of the prevailing winds beyond the area of the doldrums."

"You're beginning to sound like a sailor, Bardolin. You'll be talking of decks and companionways and ports next... Why have you been avoiding me?"

"I have not," Bardolin said, keeping his gaze anchored in the leaping waves.

"Are you jealous of the nobleman?"

The mage said nothing.

"I thought I told you: I sleep with him to protect us. His word is law, remember? I could not refuse."

"I know that," Bardolin said testily. "I am not your keeper in any case."

"You
are
jealous."

"I am afraid."

"Of what? That he might make me his duchess? I think not."

"It is common knowledge amongst the crew and the soldiers that he is... besotted with you. And I look at his face every day, and see the changes being wrought in it. What are you doing, Griella?"

She smiled. "I think I give him bad dreams."

"You are playing with a hot coal. You will get burned."

"I know what it is I do. I make him pay for his nobility."

"Take care, child. If you are discovered for what you are, your life is forfeit - especially with that rabid priest on board. And even the Dweomer-folk have no love for shifters. You would be alone."

"Alone, Bardolin? Would you not stand by me?"

The mage sighed heavily. "You know I would, though much good it would do us."

"But you don't like killing. How would you defend me?" she asked playfully.

"Enough, Griella. I am not in the mood for your games." He paused, then, hating himself, asked: "Do you
like
going to his bed?"

She tossed her head. "Perhaps, sometimes. I am in a position of power, Bardolin, for the first time in my life. He loves me." She laughed, and the imp grinned at her until the corners of its mouth reached its long ears.

"He will be viceroy of this colony we are to found in the west, and he loves me."

"It sounds as though you
do
expect to be a duchess."

"I will be something, not just a peasant girl with the black disease. I will be something more, duchess or no."

"I spoke to the captain about you."

"What?" She was aghast. "Why? What did you say?"

Bardolin's voice grew savage. "At that time I thought you were not so willing to be bedded by this man. I asked the captain to intercede. He did, but he tells me that Murad would hear none of it."

Griella giggled. "I have him in thrall, the poor man."