Hawkwood's Voyage

He looked again over the part of Tyrenius’ log that detailed the anchorage he called Essequibo Bay. From the description, the Western Continent seemed rich, heavily vegetated, and uninhabited.

He flipped the pages. More of the crew had died in Essequibo Bay, and the expedition into the interior had been abandoned. They had reprovisioned and sailed away leaving nothing behind.

Nothing at all, for the beast had been back on board ship by the time they had weighed anchor. Two weeks out to sea, and the first disappearances had begun. The return voyage had been a nightmare. A dwindling ship’s company, contrary winds, and terror down in the hold.

The last pages of the log were missing. There was no word of how Tyrenius had met his end, or how he had managed to pilot his ship to the very coasts he had left six months before. The writing was hard to decipher. It shook and scratched as though written in haste or terrible apprehension. Murad was surprised to find that he pitied long-dead Tyrenius and his haunted crew. They had found hell within the wooden walls of a ship, and had carried it with them across half the world and back again.

There was a knock on the door and he started, spilling his wine. He cursed and snapped: “Who is it?”

“Renaldo, my lord, come with your supper.”

“Enter.”

His servant eased the door open and entered bearing a wooden tray. He cleared a space on the large table and began to set out a place. Murad put away the log and rutter and sat down before a plate of sliced roast boar and wild mushrooms, fresh-baked bread and olives, and a chunk of gleaming goat’s cheese.

“Will that be all, sir?” Renaldo asked.

Murad was still screwing up his eyes against the flood of light that the open door admitted. He was surprised to see it, for he had thought it later in the day. But he liked to eat early; it gave him a chance to ride up to the city afterwards if he felt in need of amusement.

“Yes. You are dismissed.”

The servant left, and Murad paused a moment in his tearing of the fragrant bread. They were sailing in eight days. There was time enough to call off the voyage.

He shook his head incredulously, wondering what had prompted that thought. This was the chance he had been waiting for all his life, the chance to carve out a principality for himself. He could not throw it away.

As he ate, though, not tasting the food, he could see in his mind’s eyes the picture of a deserted ship sailing across an endless ocean with a dead man’s hand on the tiller. And the eyes of a beast burning as bright as candles in the depths of its hold.

ELEVEN

I T had been a busy time, but now the worst was over. Hawkwood’s two ships had been towed out of their berths by sweating harbourmen and were anchored in the Inner Roads, yards crossed and the last of the water completed. They were ready for sea, and rose and fell slowly on the swell that the trade wind had brushed up in the bay. Even this small distance from the land, it was cooler. There was no dust hanging in the throat out here, only the tang of the ocean and the shipboard smells that to Richard Hawkwood had always been the aroma of home.

The deck of the Gabrian Osprey, Hawkwood’s flagship, was a scene of utter chaos. Billerand could be seen down in the waist of the ship bellowing and shoving along with a pair of bosun’s mates. The goats were bleating madly in their pen aft of the main hatch and at least threescore of the passengers and soldiers who were aboard were lining the lee bulwark and peering up at Abrusio hill as it towered over the shining expanse of the bay.

The ship was dangerously overcrowded, and when sailing as close to the wind as they would need to in order to clear the bay itself, Hawkwood would have to make sure that the passengers manned the weather side of the ship to stiffen her against the breeze. A beam wind—not the Osprey’s best point of sailing, not by a long chalk. Richard had lost count of the times he had beaten out of this port with the north-west trade in his right eye. It was an ordeal every sailor leaving Hebrion had to undergo, except in the hottest of the summer months when the trade might fail altogether, or veer a point and make it necessary to tack out of the bay, for there was not enough sea room here for wearing. Old salts had a saying that Abrusio loved to welcome ships, but hated to let them go.

“Take your hands off me!” a shrill voice cried. A girl down in the waist, her hair a dark golden bob. One of the crew was lifting her bodily from the ship’s side to get at the fiferail. But then, unaccountably, the sailor was lying clear across the other side of the ship, looking dazed, and the girl was standing with her hands on her slim hips, eyes aflame. The rest of the crew roared with laughter, loving it. Eventually an older man, who looked like a soldier or a prize fighter, calmed her down and led her away. The dazed seaman had to endure the derision of his comrades, but he went back to his work readily enough.

Hawkwood frowned. Women on board ship, and in such numbers. And soldiers, too. That was a potentially explosive mixture. He must have a formal meeting with Murad and his officers as soon as possible and lay down a few ground rules.

Billerand was restoring some sort of order to the deck in his rough way. The passengers were being hustled below, the last of the goats lowered down through the main hatch by a gang of men with tackles, and the soldiers were being patiently ushered up to the forecastle, their armour clinking and glittering in the bright air.

The breeze was freshening. Over an hour still to the evening tide. But it was a long pull to the Inner Roads with the trade blowing, half a league at least. Hawkwood hoped Murad would not cut it too fine.

The scar-faced nobleman was in Abrusio tying up some last matters of his own, and the Osprey’s longboat, along with eight good oarsmen, was waiting for him at the harbour wall.

The past week had been a nightmare in every way possible. Hawkwood swore to himself that he would never allow himself to be threatened or cajoled into a joint expedition again. It was the old story of soldier versus sailor, noble versus commoner. At times he had almost believed that Murad was throwing obstacles in his path and disregarding his arrangements for the sheer satisfaction of seeing him rant.

Billerand joined him on the quarterdeck, sweating and red-faced. His fantastic moustache seemed to bristle with suppressed fury.

“God-damned landsmen!” was all he could utter for several moments. Hawkwood grinned. He was glad he had kept Billerand here with him on the Osprey instead of giving him command of the Grace. He looked across at the smaller vessel. The rigging of the caravel was black with men. They were just finishing the job of rerigging her with the long lateen yards; she carried them on all three masts now. They would serve her well in the beam wind they would be sailing on. Haukal of Hardalen, the master of the Grace, had been brought up on the square-rigged, snakelike ships of the far north, but he had soon picked up the nuances of sailing with lateen yards. Hawkwood could see him, a tall, immensely bearded man who habitually carried a hand axe slung at his waist. He was standing on the Grace’s tiny quarterdeck waving his arms about. He and Billerand were close friends; their exploits in the brothels and taverns of half a hundred ports had become the stuff of legend.

The Grace’s decks were also crowded with soldiers and passengers, hampering the work of the sailors. It was to be expected; this would be the last real sight of land they would have for many days. For most of them, Hawkwood supposed, it was probably their last ever sight of Hebrion and gaudy old Abrusio. Their fates were set in the west, now.

“How is the supercargo settling in?” he asked the fuming Billerand.

“We’ve hammocks slung fore and aft the length of the gundeck, but God help us if we’re brought to action, Captain. We’ll have to cram the whole miserable crowd of them down with the cargo or in the bilge.” That thought made his face brighten a little. “Still, the soldiers will be useful.”

Billerand had time for soldiers; he had been one himself. For Hawkwood, they were just another nuisance. He had thirty-five of them here on the Osprey, the rest on the caravel. Two-thirds of the expedition travelled in the carrack, including Murad and both his junior officers. Hawkwood had had to partition the great cabin with an extra bulkhead so the nobility might sail in the style it was accustomed to. The sailors were berthed in the forecastle, the soldiers in the forward part of the gundeck. They would be living cheek by jowl for the next few months. And they had so many stores on board for the setting up of the colony, to