P ERNICUS was a small man, red-haired and weak-eyed. His nose was long enough to overhang his upper lip and he was as pale as parchment, a bruise on his high forehead lingering evidence of the passage of the storm.
He stood on the quarterdeck as though it were the scaffold, licking dry lips and glancing at Hawkwood and Murad like a dog searching for its master. Hawkwood smiled reassuringly at him.
“Come, Master Pernicus. Show us your skill.”
The waist was crowded with people. Most of the passengers had learned of what was happening and had dragged themselves out of the fetid gundeck. Bardolin was there, as stern as a sergeant-at-arms, and beside him was Griella. Most of the ship’s crew were in the shrouds or were standing ready at the lifts and braces, waiting to trim the yards when the wind appeared. Soldiers lined the forecastle and the gangways, slow-match lit and sending ribands of smoke out to hang in the limpid air. Sequero and di Souza had their swords drawn.
But at the forefront of them all, at the foot of the quarterdeck ladder, stood Ortelius, his eyes fixed on the diminutive weather-worker above. His face was skull-like in the harsh sunlight, his eyes two deep glitters in sunken sockets.
“Get to it, man!” Murad barked impatiently. Pernicus jumped like a frog, and there was a rattle of laughter from the soldiers on the forecastle. Then silence again as the two ensigns glared round and sergeant Mensurado administered a discreet kick. The sails flapped idly overhead and the ship was motionless under the blazing sun, like an insect impaled upon a pin. Pernicus closed his eyes.
Minutes went past, and the soldiers stirred restlessly. Three bells in the afternoon watch was struck, the ship’s bell as loud as a gunshot in the quiet. Pernicus’ lips moved silently.
The main topsail swayed and flapped once, twice. Hawkwood thought he felt the faintest zephyr on his cheek, though it might have been his hopeful imagination. Pernicus spoke at last, in a choked murmur:
“It is hard. There is nothing to work with for leagues, but I think I have found it. Yes. I think it will do.”
“It had better,” Murad said in a low, ominous voice.
The sun was unrelenting. It baked the decks and made tar drip from the rigging on to those below, spotting the painfully bright armour of the soldiers. Finally Pernicus sighed and rubbed his eyes. He turned to face Hawkwood.
“I have done it, Captain. You shall have your wind. It is on its way.”
Then he left the quarterdeck, gaped at by those who had never seen a weather-worker perform before, and went below.
“Is that it?” Murad snapped. “I’ll have the little mountebank flogged up and down the ship.”
“Wait,” Hawkwood said.
“Nothing happened, Captain.”
“Wait, damn you!”
The crowd in the waist was already dispersing, buzzing with talk. The soldiers were filing down off the gangways, beating out their slow-match on the ship’s rail and guffawing at their own jokes. Ortelius remained motionless, as did Bardolin.
A breeze ruffled Hawkwood’s hair and made the sails crack and fill.
“Ready, lads!” he called to the crew, who were waiting patiently at their stations.
The light faded. The ship’s company looked up as one to see outrider clouds moving across the face of the sun. The surface of the sea to the south-east of the ship wrinkled like folded silk.
“Here she comes. Steady on the braces. Tiller there, course nor’-nor’-west.”
“Aye, sir.”
The breeze strengthened, and suddenly the sails were full and straining, the masts creaking as they took the strain. The carrack tilted and her bow dipped as the wind took her on the stern. She began to move, slowly at first and then picking up speed.
“Brace that foresail round, you damned fools! You’re spilling the wind. Velasca, more men to the foremast. And set bonnets on the courses.”
“Aye, sir!”
“We’re moving!” someone shouted from the waist, and as the carrack began to slide swiftly through the water the passengers broke out into laughter and cheers. “Good old Pernicus!”
“Leadsman to the forechains!” Hawkwood shouted, grinning. “Let’s see what she’s doing.”
The carrack was alive again, no longer the stranded, battered creature she had been in the past days. Hawkwood experienced a jet of sheer joy as he felt the ship stirring under his feet and saw her wake beginning to foam astern.
“So we have our wind,” Murad said, sounding a little bemused. “I have never seen anything like it, I must say.”
“I have,” said Brother Ortelius. He had climbed up to the quarterdeck, his face like granite. “May God forgive you both—and that wretched creature of Dweomer—for what you have done here today.”
“Easy, Father—” Hawkwood began.
“Brother Ortelius,” Murad said coldly, “you will kindly refrain from making comments which might be construed as detrimental to the morale of the ship’s company. If you have opinions you may seek to air them in private with either myself or the captain; otherwise you will keep them to yourself. You are not well, obviously. I would not like to have to confine a man of your dignity to his hammock, but I will if need be. Good day, sir.”
Ortelius looked as though a blood vessel might burst. His face went scarlet and his mouth worked soundlessly. Some of Hawkwood’s crew turned aside to hide their exultant smiles.
“You cannot muzzle me, sir,” Ortelius said at last, dripping venom. “I am a noble of the Church, subject to no authority save my spiritual superiors. I answer to them and to no one else.”
“You answer to me and to Captain Hawkwood as long as you are aboard this ship. Ours is the ultimate responsibility, and the ultimate authority. Priest or no, if I hear you have been preaching any more superstitious claptrap I’ll have you put in irons in the bilge. Now go below, sir, before I do something I may regret.”
“You have already done that, sir, believe me,” Ortelius hissed out of a mottled countenance. His eyes glittered like a snake and he made the Sign of the Saint as though flinging a curse at the lean nobleman.
“I said go below. Or will I have a pair of soldiers escort you?”
The black-garbed priest left the quarterdeck. There was a hoot of laughter, quickly smothered, from one of the sailors on the yards.
“That may not have been wise,” Hawkwood said quietly.
“Indeed. But by all the saints in God’s heaven, Hawkwood, I enjoyed it. Those black vultures think they have the world in their pocket; it is good to disabuse them of the notion now and again.” Murad was smiling, and for a moment Hawkwood almost liked him; he knew he could never have stood up to the Inceptine in the same manner. No matter how much he hated the Ravens, their authority was deeply ingrained in his mind, as it was in the mind of every commoner. Perhaps one had to be a noble to see the man behind the symbol.
“There is something I cannot account for, though,” Murad said thoughtfully.
“What is that?”
“Ortelius. He was angry, yes; furious, even. But I could have sworn his outrage was founded on more than that. On fear. It is strange. Inexplicable.”
“I think he knows more than he seems to,” Hawkwood said in a low voice. As one, he and Murad moved to the larboard rail to be out of earshot of the crew.
“My thought also,” the scarred nobleman agreed.
“You’re sure he was sent by the Prelate of Hebrion?”
“Almost, yes. I have not encountered him before, though, and I know most of the clerics who hang about Abeleyn’s court and the Prelate’s.”
“There is no clue as to his background?”
“Oh, he’ll be a scion of some minor noble family—the Inceptines always are. There will probably be a plum post or other waiting for him in return for his services on the voyage.”
“You do not seem too concerned about what he may report back to the Church in Abrusio.”
Murad stared at Hawkwood, face expressionless. “There are many long leagues of sailing before us yet, Captain, and an unknown continent awaiting our feet. Many things could happen before any of us sees Hebrion
