Ships from the West

(and night) the logsman would cast his board into the sea while his mate watched the sands trickling through the thirty-second glass and cry nip when the time ran out. And the line would be reeled back in and the knots which had been run out by the ship's passage counted. So far, with a beam wind like this to starboard, the fore-and-aft rig of the xebec was drawing well, and they were averaging seven knots. Seven long sea-miles an hour. In the space of six days, running due south, they had put almost a hundred and ninety leagues between themselves and poor old Abrusio, and by Hawk-wood's calculations had long since passed the latitude of northern Gabrion, though that island lay still three hundred miles eastwards. Hawkwood had decided to avoid the narrow waters of the Malacar Straits, and sail instead south of Gabrion itself, entering the Levangore to the west of Azbakir. The Straits were too close to Astarac, and too easily patrolled. But a lot depended on the wind. While veering and backing a point or two in the last few days, it had remained steady and true. Once he changed course for the east, as he would very soon, he would have to think about sending up the square-rigged yards, on the fore and mainmasts at least. Lateen yards were less suited to a stern wind than square-rigged ones. The men would be happier too. The massive lateen yards, which gave the Seahare the look of some marvellous butterfly, were heavy to handle and awkward to brace round and reef.

He rubbed his eyes. A packet of spray, knocked aboard by the swift passage of the ship's beakhead, drenched the fore­castle. The xebec was riding the swell beautifully, shouldering aside the waves with a lovely, graceful motion and almost no roll. Despite this, seasickness had afflicted his supercargo almost from the moment they had left the shelter of Grios Point, and they had remained in their cabins. A fact for which he was inordinately grateful. He had too much to think about to worry about a sparring match between Isolla and Jemilla. And the boy, whose whelp was he? Murad's in.the eyes of the world, but Hawkwood had heard court rumours about his parentage. And why else would Golophin have inveigled a passage out of Hebrion for him and his mother if there was not some Royal connection? Here he came now, hauling him­self up the companionway and looking as eager as a young hound which has sighted a fox. Alone of the passengers he was unaffected by seasickness, and seemed in fact to revel in their swift southward passage, the valiant efforts of the ship. Hawkwood had had several conversations with him on the quarterdeck. He was pompous for one so young, and full of himself of course, but he knew when to keep his mouth shut, which was a blessing.

'Captain! How goes our progress?' Bleyn asked. The other occupants of the quarterdeck frowned and looked away. They had taken to Richard Hawkwood very quickly once he had proved that he was who he had claimed to be, and they thought that this boy did not address him with sufficient respect.

Hawkwood did not answer him for a second, but studied the traverse board, looked at the sails, and seeing one on the edge of shivering barked to the helmsman, 'Mind your luff.' Then he looked humourlessly at Bleyn. He had been about to go below and snatch some sleep for the first time in days and he was damned if some chattering popinjay was going to rob him of it. But something in Bleyn's eyes, some element of un­abashed exuberance, stopped him. 'Come below. I'll show you on the chart.'

They went back down the companionway and entered Hawkwood's cabin, which by rights should have been the finest on the ship. But Hawkwood had given that one to Isolla, and retained for himself that of the first mate. He had a pair of scuttles for light instead of windows and both he and Bleyn had to stoop as they entered. There was a broad table running athwartships which was fastened to the deck with brass runners, and pinned open upon it a chart of the Western Levangore and the Hebrian Gulf. Hawkwood picked up the dividers and consulted his log, ignoring Bleyn. The boy was staring about himself, at the cutlasses on the bulkhead, the battered sea-chest, the quadrant hung in a corner. At last Hawkwood pricked the bottom left corner of the chart. 'There we are, more or less.'

Bleyn peered at the chart. 'But we are out in the middle of nowhere! And headed south. We'll soon drop off the edge of the map.'

Hawkwood smiled and rubbed at the bristles of his return­ing beard. 'If you are being pursued, then nowhere is a good place to be. The open ocean is a grand place to hide.'

'But you have to turn eastwards soon, surely?'

'We'll change course today or the next, depending on the wind. Thus far it has been steady, but I've never yet known a steady westerly persist this long in the gulf. In spring the land is warming up and pushing the clouds out to sea. Southerlies are more usual in this part of the world, and heading east we should have a beam wind to work with again. Thus I hesitate to lower the lateen yards.'

'They're better when the wind is hitting the ship from the side, are they not?'

'The wind is on the beam, master Bleyn. If you're to sound like a sailor you must make an effort to learn our language.'

'Larboard is left and starboard is right, yes?'

'Bravo. We'll have you laying aloft before we're done.'

'How long before we reach Torunn?'

Hawkwood shook his head. 'This is not a four-horse coach we are in. We do not run to exact timetables, at sea. But if the winds are kind, then I would hazard that we should meet with the mouth of the Torrin Estuary in between three and four weeks.'

'A month! The war could be over in that time.' 'From what I hear, I doubt it.'

There was a muffled thump on the partition to one side, someone moving about. The partitions were thin wood, and Bleyn and Hawkwood looked at one another. It was Jemilla's cabin, though the word 'cabin' was a somewhat ambitious term for her kennel-like berth.

'Do you know much about this King Corfe?' Bleyn asked.

'Only what Golophin has told me, and popular rumour. He is a hard man by all accounts, but just, and a consummate general.'

'I wonder if he'll let me serve in his army,' Bleyn mused.

Hawkwood looked at him sharply, but before he could say anything there was a knock at his door. It was opened straight after to reveal Jemilla standing there, wrapped in a shawl. Her hair was in tails around her shoulders and she looked pale and drawn, with bruised rings about her eyes.

'Captain, you have come downstairs at last. I have been meaning to have a word with you for days in private. I could almost believe you have been avoiding me. Bleyn, leave us.'

'Mother—'

She stared at him, and he closed his mouth at once and left the cabin without another word. Jemilla shut the door care­fully behind him.

'My dear Richard,' she said quietly. 'It has been a long time since you and I were alone in the same room together.'

Hawkwood tossed the dividers on the chart before him. 'He's a good lad, that son of yours. You should stop treating him like a child.'

'He needs a father's hand on his shoulder.'

'Murad was not the paternal type, I take it.'

Her smile was not pleasant. 'You could say that. I've missed you, Richard.'

Hawkwood snorted derisively. 'It's been eighteen years, Jemilla, near as damn it. You've done a hell of a job of pretending otherwise.' He was surprised by the rancour in his voice. He had thought that Jemilla no longer mattered to him. The fact that both she and Isolla were on board confused him mightily, and though the ship had needed careful hand­ling to enable the fastest possible passage since Abrusio, he had been using that as an excuse to stay up on deck, in his own world as it were, leaving the complications below.

'I'm rather busy, and very tired. If you have anything to discuss it will have to wait.'

She moved closer. The shawl slipped to reveal one creamy shoulder. He gazed at her, fascinated despite himself. There was a lush ripeness about Jemilla. She was an exotic fruit on the very cusp of turning rotten, and wantonness in her seemed not a vice but the expression of a normal appetite.

She kissed him lightly on the lips. The shawl slipped further. Below it she wore only a thin shift, and her heavy round breasts swelled through it, the dark stain of the nipples visible beneath the fabric. Hawkwood cupped one breast in his callused palm and she closed her eyes. A smile he had forgotten played across her lips. Half triumph, half hunger. He placed his mouth on hers and she gently closed her teeth on his darting tongue.

A knock on the door. He straightened at once and drew back from Jemilla. She wrapped her shawl about her again, her eyes not leaving his. 'Come in.'

It was Isolla. She started upon seeing them standing there together, and something in her face fell. 'I will