Ships from the West (23 page)

He and Arhuz looked at one another. There was something disquieting about the remorseless speed of the line of broken water.

‘Where in the world did that come from?’ Arhuz asked wonderingly.

‘All hands!’ Hawkwood bellowed. ‘All hands on deck! Arhuz, take in fore and main, and make it quick.’ The off-duty watch came tumbling up the companionways from below, took one look at the approaching tempest, and began climbing the shrouds, yawning and shaking the sleep out of their heads.

‘Is there something the matter, Captain?’ Isolla asked.

‘Go below, lady.’ Hawkwood’s tone brooked no argument, and she obeyed him without another word.

The mizzen was brailed up and the maincourse was in, but the men were still fighting to tie up the thumping canvas of the forecourse when the squall reached them.

In the space of four minutes it grew dark, a rain-swept, heaving twilight in which the wind howled and the lightnings exploded about their heads. The squall smote the
Seahare
on the starboard quarter and immediately knocked her a point off course. Hawkwood helped the two helmsmen fight the wicked jerking of the wheel and as the thick, warm rain beat on their right cheeks they watched the compass in the binnacle and by main strength turned one point, then two and then three points until the beakhead pointed east-north-east and the ship was running before the wind.

Only then could Hawkwood lift his gaze. He saw that the forecourse had broken free from the men on the yard and was flying in great, flapping rags, the heavy canvas creating havoc in the forestays, ripping ropes and splintering timber as far forward as the jib boom. Even as he watched, the sailors managed to cut the head of the sail free of the yard, and it took off like some huge pale bird and vanished into the foaming darkness ahead.

The
Seahare
was shipping green water over her forecastle, and it flooded down the waist as the bow rose, knocking men off their feet and smashing through the companion doorway and thus flooding the cabins aft. Hawkwood found himself staring at slate-grey, angry sky over the bowsprit, and then as the ship’s stern rose the waves soared up like dark, foam-tipped phantoms and came choking and crashing over the bow again.

Arhuz was setting up lifelines and double-frapping the boats on the booms. Hawkwood shouted in the ear of the senior helmsman, ‘Thus, very well thus.’ The man’s reply was lost in the roar of wave and wind, but he was nodding his head. Hawkwood made his way down into the waist as carefully as a man negotiating a cliff face in a gale. The turtle deck was shedding the green seas admirably, but they had surmounted the storm-sills of the companionways and he could feel the extra weight of water in the ship, rendering her stiffer and thus more likely to bury her bowsprit. It was a following sea now, and thank God the xebec was not square-sterned like most ships he had sailed and thus the waves which the wind was flinging at them slid under her counter without too much trouble. Hawkwood found himself admiring his sleek vessel, and her winsome eagerness to ride the monstrous swells.

‘She swims well!’ he shouted in Arhuz’s ear. The Merduk grinned, his teeth a white flash in his dark face. ‘Aye sir, she was always a willing ship.’

‘We need men on the pumps, though, and those hatchway tarpaulins are working loose. Get Chips on deck to batten them down.’

‘Aye, sir.’ Arhuz hauled himself aft with the aid of the just-rigged lifelines.

It was the lack of heavy broadside guns that helped, Hawkwood realised. The weight of a couple of dozen culverins on deck raised the centre of gravity of a ship and made her that much less seaworthy. It was the difference between a man jogging with a pack on his back, and one running unencumbered. The xebec was running before the wind with only a brailed-up mizzen course to propel her, but her speed was remarkable. Perhaps too remarkable. A vision of the chart still pinned to his table below decks floated into his mind. They were steering directly for the ironbound western coast of Gabrion now, and there was not a safe landfall to be made there for many leagues in any direction; the promontories of that land loomed out to sea like the unforgiving ravelins of a fortress. They must turn aside if they were not to be flung upon the coast and smashed to matchwood. Hawkwood closed his eyes as the water foamed around his knees. A northerly course was the safer bet. Once they were around that great rocky peninsula known as the Gripe, they would find anchorages aplenty on Gabrion’s flatter northern shores. But it would mean giving up on the southern route. They would then be committed to a passage of the Malacar Straits, the one thing he had tried so hard to avoid.

He opened his eyes and stared at the lowering sky again. Sudden squalls such as this were unusual but by no means unknown in the Hebrian Sea. Mostly they were quick to pass, a brief, chaotic maelstrom most dangerous in the first few minutes. But every horizon was dark now, and the sun had disappeared. This squall would blow for a day or two at least. The southern passage was too risky. He cursed silently. They would have to go north as soon as the ship could bear it.

He blinked rain out of his eyes. For a moment— And then he was sure. He had seen something up there against the dark racing clouds, a shadow or group of shadows moving with the wind. His blood ran cold. He stood staring with wide eyes, but saw nothing more than the galloping clouds, the flicker of the lightning, and the shifting silver curtain of the rain.

His cabin was swimming in at least a foot of water which sloshed back and forth with the pitch of the ship. A hooded lantern set in gimbals still burned feebly and he opened its slot to give himself more light, then bent over the chart and picked up the dividers. Navigating by dead-reckoning, with a rocky shore to leeward and the ship running full tilt towards it before the wind. A mariner’s nightmare. He wiped salt water out of his eyes and forced himself to concentrate, estimating the ship’s speed and plotting out her course. The results of his calculations made him whistle soundlessly, and he tossed down the dividers with something like anger. There was nothing natural about this squall, of that he was now sure. It had reared up out of a clear sky at just the right moment, and was meant to wreck them on the rocks of Gabrion. It would blow until its work was done. ‘Bastards.’

He roused out a bottle of brandy and gulped from the neck, feeling the good spirit kindle his innards, wondering if the xebec could stand a change of course to the north. The wind would be square on the larboard beam then, trying to capsize her. The decision had to be made soon. With every passing minute they were running off their leeway, thundering ever closer to that killer coast.

A knock on the door of his cabin. It stood open, swinging back and forth with the pressure of the water that sloshed underfoot. He did not turn around, and was unsurprised to hear Isolla’s voice, somewhat hoarse.

‘Captain, may I speak to you?’

‘By all means.’ He sucked from the neck of the brandy bottle again as though inspiration might be found therein.

‘How long do you suppose this storm will endure? The mariners seem very concerned.’

Hawkwood smiled. ‘I’ve no doubt they are, lady.’ The lurch of the ship sent Isolla thumping against the door jamb. Hawkwood steadied her with one hand. Her cloak was sodden and cold. She was as soaked as he was.

‘I believe the Himerians have found us,’ Hawkwood said at last. ‘It is they who have conjured up this squall. It’s not violent enough to threaten the ship - not yet - but it is making us go where we do not want to go.’ He gestured to the chart, which was wrinkling with wet. ‘If I cannot change course very soon we will run full tilt on to the rocks of Gabrion. They timed their weather-working well.’

Isolla looked startled. ‘How can they cast a spell over so great a distance? Hebrion is hundreds of miles behind us.’

‘I know. There must be another ship out there, somewhere beyond the walls of this storm. Weather-workers can only maintain one spell at a time; I believe they have used sorcery to speed their own vessel and draw within range of us, and then have switched their focus and unleashed this storm, which they think will propel the ship to its doom.’

‘And will they succeed?’

‘Even a preternatural storm can be weathered like any other, given good seamanship and a little luck. We’re not beaten yet!’ He smiled. Perhaps it was the brandy, or the storm, but he felt a certain sense of licence.

‘You’re wet through. You must try and keep yourself out of the water. Huddle in your cot under a blanket if you have to.’

She shrugged, and gave a wry smile. ‘It’s pouring in the door and down from the ceiling. There’s not a dry spot in this ship I believe.’

Hawkwood leaned towards her on an impulse and kissed her cold lips.

Isolla jerked back, astonished. Her fingers went to her mouth. ‘Captain, you forget yourself! Remember who I am.’

‘I’ve never forgotten,’ Hawkwood said recklessly, ‘Not since that day on the road all those years ago when your horse threw a shoe, and you served me wine in Golophin’s tower.’

‘I am Hebrion’s Queen!’

‘Hebrion is gone, Isolla, and in a day or two we may all be dead.’

He reached for her again, but she backed away. He cornered her by the door and set his hands on the bulkhead on either side of her, the bottle still clenched in one fist. Around them the ship pitched and heaved and groaned and the water swept cold about their legs and the wind howled up on deck like a live thing, a sentient menace. Hawkwood bent his head and kissed her once more, throwing all sense of caution to the ravening wind. This time she did not draw away, but it was like kissing a marble statue, a tang of salt on stone.

He leant his forehead on her damp shoulder with a groan. ‘I’m sorry.’ The moment where all had been possible faded like the mirage it had been, burning away with the brandy fumes in his head.

‘Forgive me, lady.’ He was about to leave her when her hands came up and clasped his face. They stared at one another. Hawkwood could not read her eyes.

‘You are forgiven, Captain’ she said softly, and then she lowered her face into the hollow of his neck and he felt her tremble. He kissed her wet hair, baffled and exhilarated at the same time. Half a minute she remained clinging to him, then she straightened and without looking at him or saying another word, she left, splashing up the companionway towards her own cabin. Hawkwood remained frozen, like a man stunned.

When he finally came back up on deck he felt oddly detached, as though the survival of the ship was not something that was important any longer. There were four men on the wheel now, and the remainder of the crew were huddled in the half-deck under the wheel, sheltering from the wind. Hawkwood roused himself and checked their course by the compass board. They were hurtling east-north-east, and if he was any judge the
Seahare
must be making at least nine knots. Before the squall they had been perhaps fifty leagues to windward of the Gabrionese coast. At their current speed they would run aground in some sixteen hours. There was no time to play with. His mind clear, Hawkwood stood by the wheel, clutched the lifeline, and bellowed at the helmsmen, ‘Two points to port. I want her brought round to north-north-east, lads. Arhuz!’

‘Aye, sir.’ The first mate looked as dark and drowned as a seal.

‘I want a sea anchor veered out from the stern on a five-hundred-fathom length of one-inch cable. Use one of the topgallant sails. It should cut down on our leeway.’ Arhuz did not answer, but nodded grimly and left the quarterdeck, calling for a working party to follow him below.

The decision was made. They would try and weather the Gripe and strike out for the northern coast. If the southerlies finally kicked in after they had left this squall behind, then they would have the broad reaches of the Hebrian Sea to manoeuvre in instead of fighting for sea room all along the southern coast of Gabrion. They would have to risk the straits. It could not be helped.

If we make it that far, Hawkwood thought. He kept thinking of Isolla’s arms about him, the salt taste of her lips unmoving under his own. He could not puzzle out what it might mean, and he regretted the brandy she must have tasted on his mouth.

The ship came round, and the blast of the wind shifted from the back of his head to his left ear. The xebec began to roll as well as pitch now, a corkscrew motion that shipped even more water forward, whilst the pressure on the rudder sought to tear the spokes of the ship’s wheel from the fists of the helmsmen. They hooked on the relieving tackles to aid them, but Hawkwood could almost sense the ropes slipping on the drum below.

‘Steer small!’ he shouted to the helmsmen. They had too little sea room to work with, and her course must be exact.

Bleyn came up on deck wearing an oilskin jacket too large for him. ‘What can I do?’ he shouted shrilly.

‘Go below. Help man one of the pumps.’ He nodded, grinned like a maniac, and disappeared again. The pumps were sending a fine spout of water out to leeward, but the
Seahare
was making more than they could cope with. As if conjured up by Hawkwood’s concern, the ship’s carpenter appeared.

‘Pieto!’ Hawkood greeted him. ‘How does she swim?’

‘We’ve three feet of water in the well, Captain, and it’s gaining on us. She was always a dry ship, but this course is opening her seams. There’s oakum floating about all over the hold. Can’t we put her back before the wind?’

‘Only if you want to break her back on Gabrion. Keep the pumps going Pieto, and rig hawse bags forward. We have to ride this one out’

The carpenter knuckled his forehead and went below looking discontented and afraid.

Hawkwood found himself loving his valiant ship. The
Seahare
shouldered aside the heavy swells manfully - they were breaking over her port quarter as well now - and kept her sharp beakhead on course despite the wrenchings of her rudder. She seemed as stubbornly indomitable as her captain.

This was being alive, this was tasting life. It was better than anything that could be found at the bottom of a bottle. It was the reason he had been born.

Hawkwood kept his station on the windward side of the quarterdeck and felt the spray sting his face and his good ship leap lithe and alive under his feet, and he laughed aloud at the black clouds, the drenching rain, and the malevolent fury of the storm.