Ships from the West

come back at a better time.'

Jemilla curtseyed to her gracefully. 'Do not depart on my account, your majesty. I was just leaving.' As she passed the Queen in the doorway, the shawl unaccountably slipped again. 'Later, Richard,' she called back over her naked shoulder, and was gone.

Hawkwood felt his face burning and could not meet Isolla's eyes. He scourged himself for he knew not what. 'Lady, what can I do for you?'

She seemed more disconcerted than he. 'I did not know that the lady Jemilla and you were . . . familiar to each other, Captain.'

Hawkwood raised his head and met her eyes frankly. 'We were lovers many years ago. There is nothing between us now.' Even as he said it he wondered if it were true.

Isolla coloured. 'It is not my business.'

'Best to have it in the open. We'll be living cheek-by-jowl for the next few weeks. I will not dance minuets around the truth on my own ship.' His voice sounded harsher than he had intended. In a softer tone he asked: 'You are feeling better?'

'Yes. I - I think perhaps I am gaining my sea legs.'

'Better to go up on deck and get some fresh air. It is fetid down here. Just do not look at the sea moving beyond the rail.'

‘I will be sure not to.'

'What was it you wished to speak of, lady?'

'It was nothing important. Good day, Captain. Thank you for your advice.' And she was gone. She banged her knee on the jamb of the door as she left.

Hawkwood sat down before the chart and stared blindly at the parchment, the dull shine of the brass dividers. He knuckled his eyes, his exhaustion returning to make water of his muscles. And then he had to sit back and laugh at he knew not what.

The small change of course he had ordered woke him from a troubled sleep. He climbed out of the swinging cot and pulled on his sodden boots, blinking and yawning. In his dreams he had been terribly thirsty, his tongue swollen in his rasping mouth, and he had been seated before a pitcher of water and one of wine, unable to quench his raging thirst because he could not choose between the two.

He stumped up on deck to find a strained atmosphere and a crowded quarterdeck. Arhuz nodded, checked the traverse board and reported, 'Course east-south-east, skipper, wind backing to west-south-west so we have it on the starboard quarter. Do you want to call all hands?'

Hawkwood studied the trim of the sails. They were still drawing well. 'What's our speed?'

'Six knots and one fathom, holding steady.'

'Then we'll continue thus until the change of the watch, and then get square yards on fore and main. Rouse out the sailmaker, Arhuz, and get it all set in train. Bosun! Open the main hatch and get tackles to the maintop.'

The mariners went about their business with a calm com­petence that pleased Hawkwood greatly. They were not his Ospreys, but they knew their craft, and he had nothing more to tell them. He studied the sky over the taffrail. The west was clouding up once more, banners and rags of cloud gathering on the horizon. To the north the air was as clear as ice, the sea empty of every living thing.

'Lookout!' he called. 'What's afoot?' On an afternoon like this, with the spring sun warming the deck and the fresh breeze about them, the lookout would be able to survey a great expanse of ocean whose diameter was fifteen leagues wide.

'Not a sail, sir. Nor a bird or scrap of weed neither.'

'Very good.' Then he noticed that both Isolla and Jemilla were on deck. Isolla was standing by the larboard mizzen shrouds wrapped in a fur cloak with skeins of glorious red-gold hair whipping about her face, and Jemilla was to star­board, staring up into the rigging with a look of anxiety.

'Captain,' she said with no trace of coquetry, 'can you not say something to him, issue some order?'

Hawkwood followed her gaze and saw what seemed to be a trio of master's mates high in the fore topmast shrouds. Frowning, he realised that one of them was Bleyn, and his two companions were beckoning him yet higher.

'Gribbs, Ordio!' he bellowed at once. 'On deck, and see master Bleyn down with you!'

The young men halted in their ascent, and then began to retrace their steps with the swiftness of long practice.

'Handsomely, handsomely there, damn you!', and they moderated their pace.

'Thank you, Captain,' Jemilla said, honest relief in her face. Then she swallowed and her hand went to her mouth.

'You had best get below, lady.' She left the quarterdeck, weaving across the pitching deck as though she were drunk. One of the quartermasters lent her his arm at a nod from Hawkwood and saw her down the companionway. Hawk­wood felt a small, unworthy sense of satisfaction as she went. This was his world, where he commanded and she was not much more than baggage. He had seen her a few times at court in recent years, a high-born aristocrat who deemed it charity when she deigned to notice his existence. The tables had been turned, it seemed. She was a refugee dependent on him for the safety of her son and herself. There was satisfac­tion to be had in her current discomfort, and she was not so alluring with that pasty puking look about her.

She will gain no hold on me, Hawkwood promised himself. Not on this voyage.

The wind was picking up, and the Seahare was pitching before it like an excited horse, great showers of spray breaking over her forecastle and travelling as far aft as the waist. Hawkwood grasped the mizzen backstay and felt the tension in the cable. He would have to shorten sail if this kept up, but for now he wanted to wring every ounce of speed he could out of the blessed wind.

'Arhuz, another man to the wheel, and brail up the mizzen-course.'

'Aye, sir. Prepare to shorten sail! You there, Jorth, get on up that yard and leave the damn landlubber to make his own way. This is not a nursery.'

The landlubber in question was Bleyn. He managed a creditable progress up the waist to the quarterdeck until he stood dripping before Hawkwood, his face wind-reddened and beaming.

'Better than a good horse!' he shouted above the wind, and Hawkwood found himself grinning at the boy. He was game, if nothing else.

'Get yourself below, Bleyn, and change your clothes. And look in on your mother. She is taken poorly.'

'Aye, sir!' Hawkwood watched him go with an inexplicable ache in his breast.

'He seems a fine young fellow. I wonder he was not presented at court,' Isolla said. Hawkwood had momentarily forgotten about her.

'You too might be better below, lady. It's apt to become a trifle boisterous on deck.'

'I do not mind. I seem to have become accustomed to the movement of the ship at last, and the air is like a tonic'

Her eyes sparkled. She was no beauty, but there was a strength, a wholeness about her that informed her features and somehow invited the same openness in return. Only the livid scar down one side of her face jarred. It did not make her ugly in Hawkwood's eyes, but he was reminded of his debt to her every time he saw it.

What am I become, he thought, some kind of moonstruck youngster? There was something in him which responded to all three of his passengers in different ways, but he would sooner jump overboard than try to delve further than that. Thank God for the ceaseless business of the ship to keep his thoughts occupied.

He recalled the chart below to his mind as easily as some men might recall a passage from an oft-read book. If he kept to this course he would, in mariner's terms, shave the south-west tip of Gabrion by some ten or fifteen leagues. That was all very well, but if the southerlies started up out of Calmar he would not have much leeway to play with. And then, to play for more sea room would mean eating up more time. Two days perhaps.

The figures and angles came together in his head. He felt Isolla watching him curiously but ignored her. The crew did not approach him. They knew what he was about, and knew he needed peace to resolve it in his mind.

'Hold this course,' he said to Arhuz at last. What Bleyn had said had tipped the scales. They could not be profligate with time. He would have to chance the southerlies and gain leeway by whatever small shifts he could. The decision left his mind clear again, and the tension left the deck. He studied the sail plan. The lateens on fore