Hawk Quest

Wayland shoved him away. ‘Where’s the rope? Get me a rope.’

‘You crazy bastard,’ Raul shouted. He pinned Wayland with both arms. ‘Captain, lend a hand. He’s planning to go over the side again.’

Vallon swore and ran towards them at a crouch. ‘Haven’t you put us in enough peril? I’m not risking our lives for a dog.’ He pointed at the shore, his features distorted by anger. ‘Look at that.’

Wayland registered a line of soldiers crouched along the shoreline, loosing bolts at the ship. ‘Let go,’ he croaked. ‘I’m not leaving the dog.’

Raul gripped harder, then suddenly released him and slapped the deck. ‘Shit!’ He looked at Vallon. ‘I’ll go. Keep a tight hold because I swim even worse than Wayland.’

He hung from the stern and dropped. When he surfaced, his face was knotted up as if a stake had been pushed up his rectum. He kicked off like a maimed frog. Wayland called to the dog, imploring it to swim towards him. Raul thrashed up to it and managed to loop the rope through the collar. Vallon and Wayland hauled them alongside and hoisted Raul aboard. It took all three of them to manhandle the dog over the side. It kicked and bucked and pitched on the deck half strangled. It stood straddle-legged, head hanging, like a dying calf, then it vomited seawater. It stood looking at its own puke, shook itself, then walked unsteadily towards Wayland, gave him a feeble lick and collapsed.

Wayland seized Raul’s arm. ‘I won’t forget this.’

Raul fought for breath. ‘Nor will I!’

Wayland crawled over to Syth. Hero and Richard had covered her with blankets and were chafing her limbs.

‘Is she dead?’

Hero threw him a shocked glance ‘No. I think she’ll be all right if we can keep her warm.’

Wayland uncovered her face. It was mottled and waxy and the sight of it brought back old horrors. He shook her. ‘Syth, don’t die.’

Her eyelids fluttered, her lips moved.

‘I’ll get a sleeping bag,’ Hero said.

Wayland pressed his cold body against her. Shivers convulsed him. The dog flopped down beside them. He noticed crossbow bolts sticking out of the ship’s timbers and became aware of the motion of the ship pecking in the small waves. There was a voice in his head that wouldn’t go away — a familiar voice intoning what sounded like a curse or malediction.

He raised his head. On the ship, nobody moved and apart from the voice in his head, everything was smothered in an eerie silence. Vallon stood in the bow, staring out to sea. Hero had doubled over like a stringless puppet. Richard looked stunned. Raul met Wayland’s eye and spat with eloquence.

Wayland groped for the gunwale and pulled himself upright at the second attempt. The Normans moved like shadows on the fading shore. He shook his head and screwed a finger into his ear.

It was Drogo’s disembodied voice that wouldn’t go away.

‘You’re all bound for hell. Your leader isn’t called Vallon. His name is Guy de Crion. He killed his own wife and murdered the Duke of Aquitaine’s nephew. Do you hear me? You’re all bound for hell.’

To the North XV

Shearwater drifted fog-bound on the tidal swill. Someone was screeching. It was Snorri. He was capering around the edge of the hold, stamping his feet and shaking his fist. ‘Christ,’ Vallon groaned. He made his way aft, stumbling as if the ship were rolling in a swell.

‘What the devil’s wrong with you?’

‘’Tis the girl, cap’n. We have to get her off.’

‘Calm down. We’ll put her ashore at the first opportunity.’

‘No, no. She’s jinxed. There’ll be no getting away while she’s on board.’

Vallon glanced into the hold. The girl sat cocooned in a sleeping sack with Wayland on one side, the dog on the other. It would be a brave man who tried to come between them.

‘What do you expect me to do? Throw her overboard?’

Snorri grasped Vallon’s sleeve. ‘She can paddle back on me punt.’

‘Send her back to the Normans? Are you mad?’

‘Cap’n, I swear we’re doomed if we don’t get rid of her.’

‘We’re doomed if you don’t get this ship under way.’ With great effort, Vallon made his tone conciliatory. ‘You’re the sailing master. We’re relying on you.’ He gave Snorri’s shoulder a squeeze and lowered his voice. ‘Have no fear. I’ll deal with the girl.’

Snorri regarded him with watery hope. ‘Ye promise? She’s a cunning little mother.’

Vallon turned his head. ‘Wayland, on deck.’

Wayland climbed up and made to walk past. Vallon checked him. ‘The rest of you, over here. We’re going to get the ship under sail.’

Raul looked up dully. ‘There ain’t no wind.’

‘I know that, you blockhead. We need to be ready when it comes.’

Raul manhandled himself upright. Hero and Richard clambered to their feet like wounded insects.

‘You think you have no strength left,’ Vallon told them. ‘But I guarantee you won’t feel weary when the Normans grapple with us.’ He stepped back. ‘Master Snorri, set the mast if you please.’

Snorri gave a high-pitched giggle. ‘There ain’t enough hands.’

‘What! How many do you need?’

‘Six to pull her upright, four to hold her steady, two to lever her into the old woman. Never saw it done with less than eight and that was in harbour with the hands pulling on shore.’

Vallon stared at the mast — a pine trunk forty feet long with a base as thick as a man’s waist. It had taken a dozen men to lift it aboard and slide its lower end into the hold. Now they had to raise it through seventy degrees with half that number — including a man with only one arm and two youths as feeble as noviciates after a week’s fast.

‘Raul has the strength of three. We’ll lift it somehow.’

‘Cap’n, if she slips, she’ll smash my ship and then where will we be?’

Hero stepped forward. ‘We could keep the mast centred by lashing two rails lengthways across the hold.’ He pointed at the yard and its spare stowed along the port side. ‘Those look long enough.’

‘At last, someone who uses his head.’ Vallon turned to the rest of the crew. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’

Raul twiddled his hat in his hands. ‘Captain, not being funny, but none of us have sat down to food since yesterday.’

‘All right. Change into dry clothes and snatch a meal.’

Vallon was as stupefied by toil as the rest of them. He plopped down onto a thwart, palping the torn muscles in his side. His palms were blistered and split, his fingers swollen and the tips corpse-white. When he kicked off his wet breeches, he saw that the skin on his inner thighs had been rubbed raw. He sponged himself with clean water. Clothed afresh, he felt a little better.

‘Sir, take this,’ Richard said, offering him bread and mutton and a cup of ale.

He ate only a few mouthfuls before impatience got the better of him. ‘Drogo will be halfway to Lynn by now. Let’s get to work.’

‘See the old woman,’ Snorri said, pointing at a coffin-size block of oak spanning the four centre frames. ‘The socket in the middle takes the mast foot. The block on top of her, we call that ’un the mast fish. She closes round the mast front and sides. Takes the strain when the ship’s under sail. Knock a wedge into the groove at the back