Hawkwood's Voyage

scrawled writing and stained parchment of the document, and the entries were hard to find—but they were there.

They referred to the very first expedition to the west, three centuries before the master of the Faulcon had made his ill-fated voyage. It was a venture that had ended, as far as Murad could make out, in slaughter and madness.

But that had been a long time ago. Such things became garbled and fantastic with every passing year. There would be nothing in the west that Hebrian arquebuses and pikes could not face down.

Time enough to worry about such things when the fabled Western Continent was looming off his bow with its secrets, its dangers and its unknown riches. It would be too late then for anyone to turn back.

FIVE

R ICHARD Hawkwood opened the ornate grille that enclosed the balcony and stood naked, sipping his wine. There was no breeze. It was unheard of for the Hebrian trade to fail so early in the year. He could look down the steep, teeming roofs to the harbour and see the Outer Roads crowded with caravels and carracks, galeots and luggers, all harbour-bound by lack of wind. The only seamen doing a good trade were the masters of oar-powered galleys and galleasses, the swift dispatch runners of the crown who would sometimes condescend to transport compact cargoes for a small fortune.

He could see the Grace in the inner yards, still being refitted. Seaworms had riddled her hull in the voyage to the Malacars and she was having her outer planking replaced. Somewhat further out was his other ship, a tall carrack named the Gabrian Osprey. She had crawled in two days ago, labouring under sweeps, and was now at anchor waiting for a free berth. Her crew were being kept under hatches until Hawkwood could devise some way of slipping them past the Inceptines. A longboat perhaps, at night. Or he could hire a smack to stand off and let them swim out to it. No, that would never do.

He rubbed his forehead wearily. His torso shone with sweat and the stink of the pyres seemed to grease it like some foul second skin. He closed the grille as a woman’s voice said: “Richard, are you coming back to bed?”

“A moment.”

But she had risen, a sheet draped about her shoulders, and was padding over the cool marble floor toward him. Her arms encircled him from behind and he felt the heat of her through the crumpled linen.

“My poor captain who has so much to occupy his mind. Are you thinking of Julius?”

“No.” Julius Albak’s body had been retrieved and burnt by the Inceptines. There was no family to speak of, save the seagoing one that was Richard’s crew. A dozen of them were in chains in the catacombs awaiting a hearing. No, Julius Albak had gone to the long rest at last. There was nothing more to be done about that.

The woman’s hand drifted down to caress his manhood but he was unresponsive.

“I’m not in the mood, Jem.”

“I noticed. Usually when you return from a voyage we never even make it as far as the bed.”

“I have a lot on my mind. I’m sorry.”

She left him and went back to the bed and the tall decanter that stood beside it. The room was quite cool, thick-walled, faced with marble and white-painted plaster. The ceiling rose up far beyond Hawkwood’s head to be lost in a maze of arches and buttresses of dark cedar. The enclosed balcony stretched along the whole of one wall, and the bed occupied another. There were elegant chairs, a dressing table, hangings heavy with gilt. Over all were thrown a pretty tumble of women’s clothes and head-dresses. High in a corner a tiny monkey stared down from a golden cage with wide, unblinking eyes. Richard had brought it to her from far Calmar half a dozen years ago.

The sound of the city drifted in as a distant surf of noise. This far up the hill one was removed from the narrow filth of the streets, the shocking heat, the stinking open sewers, the noisy vitality of Abrusio. This was how the nobility lived.

“Have you seen your wife yet?” Jemilla asked him tartly, and he winced.

“No. You know I haven’t.”

“You’ve been back three days, Richard. Shouldn’t you pay her a visit, at least for form’s sake?”

He turned to look at her. Whereas his body was burnt a deep brown by sun and wind and seaspray, hers was as white as alabaster, which made the heavy mane of dark hair all the more striking. Her eyes were as black and bright as pitch bubbles on a tropic-heated deck, wonderfully mobile brows arching over them like two black birds rising and falling in tune with her moods. She was a passionate, almost a savage lover, and he often came away from her covered with scratches and bites. And yet he had seen her on her way to the palace in a barouche, hair coiled on her head, robes stiff with brocade, a linen ruff encircling her face making it seem that of a porcelain doll.

She had other lovers: noble, or humble like himself. He could not expect her to be faithful, she always protested, when he was away two-thirds of the year. But she was careful. A virtuous noble widow she appeared to be, and was believed to be by most people at court, but the servants knew differently, as did Hawkwood. He had procured a misbirth for her not two years ago—at her insistence. An oldwife in the lower city had done it in a cramped little back room. She would never tell him if the child had been his or not. Perhaps she did not know herself. He thought about it sometimes.

“My wife understands that I have many things to clear up when I finish a voyage,” he said coldly.

She laughed, water rippling in a silver ewer, and reached out a slender hand. “Oh, don’t be so stiff and proper, Richard. Come here to me. You look like a mahogany statue.”

He joined her on the bed.

“It is Julius and your crew, I know. I have tried, Richard. There is nothing anyone can do, perhaps not even Abeleyn himself. He is not happy about it either.”

“He discusses policy with you, then, as you lie together.”

She flushed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Only that you should be more careful, Jem. I’ve been back three days, but already I know who the King’s new bedfellow is.”

One eyebrow soared up her forehead disdainfully. “Rumour and truth have a large gap between them.”

“The King does not like his lovers to bruit his affairs in public. He has made a policy of bachelorhood. If you are not careful you may wake up one morning aboard a Merduk slave transport.”

“Do you presume to tell me how to regulate my affairs, Captain? I suppose your voyaging from one louse- ridden port to another makes you qualified to discuss the doings at court.”

He turned away. She loved throwing his humble birth in his face. Perhaps it gave their lovemaking an added spice for her. And yet they were as close as lovers ever got. Sometimes they argued as though they were married.

He finished his wine and stood up. “I must go. You are right. I should visit Estrella.”

“No!” She pulled him back down on the bed, eyes blazing. He had to smile. For all her bedhopping, she was still jealous if he went to someone else.

“Stay, Richard. We have things to talk about.”

“Such as?”

“Well . . . news. Don’t you wish to catch up on what has happened since you left?”

“I know what has been happening, and so does my crew.”

“Oh, that silly edict. Everyone knows that the Prelate put Abeleyn up to it. The King is not the sort to think up a thing like that, though his father was. No, Abeleyn is more one of your sort. A soldier’s man, the sailor’s darling. He and the Prelate have had a contretemps, and all Abrusio is on the side of the King, except those whose wits are addled by religion, may God forgive me.” She made the Sign of the Saint against her bare breasts. For some reason Hawkwood found the gesture arousing.

“The Prelate is on his way to the Synod in Charibon, and do you know, the moment he was out of the city gates the burnings lessened? Two days ago they were consuming forty unfortunates every afternoon. Today six were sent to the pyre. Abeleyn has his officers accompanying the Inceptines on their rounds and the lists go straight to him. Just as well. My maid was becoming hysterical. She’s from Nalbeni.”