Hawkwood's Voyage

It is our mutual esteem that has brought an end to the endless raiding and rivalry that plagued our two kingdoms from time immemorial. But I tell you this as Astarac’s king: if you play me false, or if I find that you intend to use Astarac as Hebrion’s workhorse, then I will annul our alliance in the blink of an eye, and I will be in the first rank of those who bay for your blood.”

“I would do likewise, were I Astarac’s king,” Abeleyn said gently.

“So be it.” Mark stood up and held out a brawny hand.

Abeleyn rose also and took it, face grave. Mark topped him by half a head, but he did not feel the smaller man.

“Come,” said Mark. “Let us sniff the air. My head is full of the fumes of ale and coal.”

They slipped out of the tent together, the bodyguards at the entrance snapping to attention as they appeared. Their fire had burned down low and the men were stamping their feet and flapping their arms. Mark and Abeleyn dismissed them and stood alone. As one, they walked out to the edge of the camp where the ground fell away in a gentle curve of white to the lower land below. They trudged through knee-deep snow, bound by some mutual arrangement, until they could hear the tiny rill and trickle of water. The Arcolm river. When they found it, they each stood on one side: one man in Astarac, the other in Narboskan Fimbria.

The sun was beginning to top the mountains so the Malvennors were a huge soundless silhouette of shadow. Behind them the sky was brightening and glowing a delicate lilac, whilst over the highest of the peaks wisps of cloud caught fire from the sun and blazed in a glory of saffron and gold.

“Our path will be a hard one,” Mark said quietly.

“Aye. But men have trod it before, and no doubt will again. And these mountains will see other sunrises, other kings making bargains in their shadow. It is the way of the world.”

“Abeleyn, the Philosopher King,” Mark said with gentle mockery.

Abeleyn grinned, but when he spoke again his voice was serious.

“We have the luck or the misfortune to be part of the forces which shape the fate of the world, Mark. We have a conversation over a flagon of ale and lo! History is changed. Sometimes I think about it.”

He fumbled in his fur-lined robes and produced a small silver flask. He unscrewed the top, which transformed into two tiny, gleaming cups.

“Here. We’ll seal our history shaping with a little wine.”

“I hope it’s good,” Mark said. “We must toast the alliance of Astarac and Hebrion in the finest you possess.”

“Good enough.”

They raised their cups to each other and drank, two kings sealing a bargain, whilst above them the sun broke out over the peaks of the mountains and bathed them both in blood.

FIFTEEN

28th day of Forlion, year of the Saint 551.

Wind NNW, backing. Light airs. Course due west with the wind on the starboard bow. Two knots.

Sighted North Cape at two bells in the first dog-watch on this, the seventh day out of Abrusio harbour. At three bells the lead found white sand at forty fathoms. Changed course to due west, remaining on the same latitude. Bespoke a Brenn Isle herrin yawl and purchased three hundredweight of fish. Hands employed about the ship. Brother Ortelius preached a sermon in the afternoon watch and afterward the soldiers had small- arms practice. First Mate Billerand ran out the guns in the last dog-watch and called all hands for gunnery practice. Gunner reported to me that number two larboard gun is honeycombed.

Hawkwood laid down his quill and stretched his arms behind him until the muscles cracked. If he looked up he could see out of the stern windows to where the wake of the ship was faintly phosphorescent in the dimming light of the evening. There was very little swell; they had been plagued by light winds since leaving Hebrion and had not made good time, but he was pleased with the performance of the crew and of the ship herself. Though inclined to be sluggish with the extra cargo on board, the Osprey could still eat the wind out of any other carrack of her tonnage. Hawkwood was convinced it was because of her peculiar design, which he had supervised himself. Her fore- and sterncastles were lower than in other ships of her class, which meant they took less of the wind, and they were structures built as an integral part of the main hull, not tacked on afterwards. There were drawbacks, of course. There was less space on board, and she might be more vulnerable to boarding; but his crews knew their gunnery. The ship’s culverins would riddle any enemy vessel long before she drew close enough to board.

The Grace was a different matter. Haukal had had to take in canvas to avoid outpacing the carrack entirely, though Hawkwood knew he chafed at the slow progress and longed to break out his whole store of lateen sails and plough ahead. At this moment the caravel was under main course alone, bobbing along some four cables to starboard. This beam wind suited her admirably, though she had yards enough down in her hold to transform her into a square-rigged ship should the wind veer round and come from right aft.

Little chance of that. They would be sailing close to the wind in more ways than one for nearly all of this voyage, if the word of long-dead Tyrenius Cobrian was to be believed.

Well, they had hit upon North Cape, as pretty a sighting as could be wished for. All Hawkwood had to do in theory was steer due west until he bumped into the Western Continent. It sounded simple, but there were the winds to take into account, ocean currents, storms or doldrums. He and Haukal both took sightings of the North Star every night with their cross-staffs and compared notes afterwards, but Hawkwood still felt that the ships were sailing in the dark. True, he had the baldly summarized sailing instructions that Murad had copied out of the old rutter for him, but he needed more. He needed to read the account of the Cartigellan Faulcon’s crossing. He admitted to himself that he needed reassurance, the account of another seaman’s accomplishment of what he was attempting to do. He also knew that Murad was concealing something, something to do with the fate of the earlier voyage. The knowledge maddened him.

He stood up from his desk, long accustomed to the slight roll and pitch of the ship, and extinguished the single candle which lit his cabin. Fire was one of the most dreaded accidents aboard ship, and the use of naked flame was carefully regulated. Only in the galley was any cooking permitted, and only on the forecastle could the soldiers and sailors smoke their pipes. There were sea lanterns hanging in serried rows in the crowded filth of the gundeck for the passengers’ comfort, but these were the responsibility of the master-at-arms and his mates. The kegs which contained the powder both for the ship’s guns and the soldiers’ arquebuses were stored below the waterline in a tinlined room so that the rats might not gnaw at them, and no naked light was permitted in there. A tiny pane of double glass allowed the powder store to be illuminated from outside, and only the gunner had access to the interior.

And what a hullabaloo that had caused! Soldiers! They had moaned and bitched about not being able to get at their ammunition quickly enough, about not being able to smoke their pipes in the comfort of their hammocks, about not being able to prepare their own food in their own messes as they were used to. And Murad had not helped. He had insisted that his food and that of his officers be prepared separately from the men’s and served at a different time, doubling the workload of the ship’s cook. And the delicacies he had laid in by way of private stores! There were fully two tons of foodstuff in the hold that were for the exclusive consumption of Murad and his two officers. It beggared belief. And those damn horses! One was dead already, having gone mad in its cramped stall and thrashed about until it had broken its leg. That aristocratic young ensign, Sequero, had almost been in tears as he had cut its throat. The sailors had jointed the animal and salted down the meat despite the protestations of the soldiers. The cooper had barrelled it and placed it in the hold. Those same soldiers might be glad of it ere they saw land again.

Hawkwood made his unlit way out of his cabin, stepping over the storm sill with the grace of habit and exiting the companionway to enter the fresh air of the evening. He ran up the ladder to the quarterdeck where Velasca, the second mate, had the watch. The hourglass ran out, the ship’s boy turned it, then stepped forward to the break of the deck and rang the ship’s bell twice. Two bells in the last dog-watch, or the seventh hour after the zenith to a landsman.

“All quiet, Velasca?”

“Aye, sir. There are a few souls puking over the larboard rail, but most of ’em are below preparing for