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For Kathy Hedges
CHAPTER ONE
You were born at Winecourt, on that blessed sun-struck coast of southern Bonille, where the vineyards line the river valley and produce vintages famous throughout the world. You disappointed me when you told me the origin of your city’s name, for instead of a word pairing that evokes a land devoted to delight and song and the inspiration of the grape, it’s merely the capital of some old Sea-King named Winefrith, who gave his name to the place and died.
A disappointment that history may have been, but it was the only time you have disappointed me. For I delight in you, in the sweet caress of your lips, in the scent of myrrh that hangs in your masses of black hair, in the little freckles that cross the bridge of your nose, the freckles that embarrass you but each of which I would kiss if I could.
I find your forbearance a wonder. You know my faults better than anyone—you have, to a degree, indulged them—and you forgive me more easily than I forgive myself. You know how badly I have compromised myself, and you forgave me ahead of time.
It is well that we league so well together, so that in each other’s company we form a kind of single organism. How else would I dare to commit such treason as we have planned? Were I alone in the world, I would quail before the enormity of the crime. Yet as we are together, united in heart and united in thought, I find myself ready to topple lords from their seats, kings from their thrones, and the gods themselves from their aery realms.
It is not treason if we prevail.
Well, enough of that. We are committed to our emprise, and it’s far too late for second thoughts. There is no point in worrying now. Let me kiss you and see if your lips provide the inspiration for another subject.
Ah, indeed. Yesterday you asked me about the crooked little finger on my left hand and were surprised when I told you it was a result of a shipwreck. I had not the time to tell you of that voyage yesterday, but if you will join me on my couch, pillow your head on my shoulder, and spread your warm, soft hair on my breast, I will don my noble-hero face and relate the story, though I may intermingle it with kisses or caresses as the fancy takes me.
Winecourt is a port city, and of course you are familiar with the ships that sail in and out of the harbor. Even the blessed climate of southern Bonille can be subject to storms, as I know from having looked down at the Races from my house at Dunnock and seen the water foam white through those famous fang-toothed rocks deadly to ships. You account yourself a good sailor and thrived on that winter voyage we shared to Balfoy, in northern Loretto.
Yet that voyage was paltry compared to the roaring wind that blew Royal Stilwell onto the iron shore of Fornland. For five days we had taken no sight of the sun, or seen a single star, and we knew not where on the great ocean we were.
I was half-owner of the ship, which I had helped capture in the late war, and Royal Stilwell was homeward bound from far Tabarzam, laden with fine silks, spices, incense, fragrant cedarwood, ivory, and that rare wine made from sweet grapes raisinated on straw. The cargo was worth more than the ship, and I was in a mad terror lest I lose it all—and that was not my only concern, for though the cargo was insured, my life was not, and all other things being equal, I preferred to preserve myself. Yet my captain, a seasoned skipper named Gaunt, had seen the mare’s tails curling high in the sky as they blew in from the northwest and knew that a storm would follow. We had taken all precautions, the upper masts struck down, canvas shortened, the guns double-breeched and the wheels blocked, the cargo roped and wedged into immobility, and safety lines and nets rigged over the decks. The bonaventure-mizzen, our fourth mast, had proved vulnerable to weather in the past, and so it was struck below.
Yet the storm, when it came, overwhelmed all our preparation. We saw it coming across the night horizon, a long, silent, ominous line of lightning flashes advancing toward us like a skirmish-line of ghosts. The wind nearly died away, and then, in a great lightning-flare, we saw the great wave the storm pushed ahead of it, a black onrushing shadow with a foam-flecked crest like the slaver of a hungry animal.
“Hold fast!” cried Gaunt. “Hold fast, my rampallions!”
He was a sturdy man of great strength, with enormous fists like kegs at the ends of his arms, and he latched onto the bulwark with both his powerful hands. I had time to seize the fife rail, and then the wave broke over our larboard quarter and swept us to the stem. I am a big, strong fellow, as you know, but I felt my arms almost pulled from their sockets by the force of the sea. I was underwater for I know not how long, and I felt the deck tilt beneath my feet, a list so severe that my feet flew out from under me; and then I was surrounded by foam, and the ship slowly righted, and I found myself on my knees with my arms still holding the rail. All was noise and shrieking—not just the cries of the seamen who had been swept overboard or into the safety nets or piled in a vast struggling mass of arms and legs and broken heads at the break of the forecastle, but the wail of the storm-wind in the rigging, from the deep bass tones of the backstays, to the tenor cries of the shrouds, to the treble screams of the running rigging, a hellish chorus that drowned the voices of the mortal men who fought for their lives amid the wrack.
Royal Stilwell staggered upright as the great weight of water poured off the decks. “Up with the helm!” shouted Captain Gaunt, barely heard over the hurly-burly of the storm. “We must not be rolled under!”
The timoneers picked themselves from the deck and hurled themselves against the whipstaff, fighting the great weight of the rudder and the force of the water that drove against it. Thanks to the captain’s swift action, we managed not to slew broadside to the wind, which would have been the end of us, but instead ran before the storm. And though we had set only the spritsail and a reefed foresail, with such a wind behind us we ran like the swiftest courser in the royal stable.
Yet there was one being in the salt sea faster than we, for I saw it come gliding down the front of a wave as it loomed above our poop—a great ocean serpent, vivid green striped with yellow and a great horned head with a thick viridescent mane that might have been hair, or might have been seaweed. Though the night was black, I saw it perfectly well, for, like many of our supernatural visitors from the Land of Chimerae, it seemed to glow with its own shimmering light. As our stern lifted beneath the rising swell, I raised a hand to shield my eyes against the blaze of the sea-drake, for such beings are difficult to look at for anyone from this mortal world. Though the worm was bearing right down on us, and large enough to damage the ship, and though that great snarling head was filled with teeth that could have engulfed a sheep with ease, I was too struck with wonder to feel fear.
The monster
soared down the face of the wave and loomed over the poop, bright as a beacon, and I held my breath and clutched the fife rail in anticipation of a collision; but at the last second the creature twisted its serpentine body and surged up along our larboard side. I had a glimpse of one great golden eye, and somehow sensed amusement glimmering there, as if the sea-drake relished the storm and its unlikely encounter with a ship and the surprised officer who stared from the quarterdeck. And then wave and foam spilled over the ship, and when the poop rose again from the water, the beast was gone.
We found it difficult sailing, for Royal Stilwell was a high-charged galleon, with large fore- and aftercastles, and the wind caught these tall structures and tried to blow us broadside to the waves, which would have rolled us under in an instant. We could only preserve ourselves by constant attention to the finer points of sailing. Every wave smashed with its great weight against the rudder, and so exhausting was the battle to hold our course that we had to relieve the men at the whipstaff every half hour. The ship’s timbers worked so heavily that the caulking was squeezed from between the planks, allowing water to jet into the vessel, and the carpenter and his mates had to wade through frigid water in the bilges and hammer the oakum back into place. We all grew aware, as we never had before, that there was only a handsbreadth of wood between us and our instantaneous doom.
For two days we ran before the wind. The days were nearly as dark as the nights, and the sun was never visible behind the dense storm-cloud. The sea formed great, scudding, heaving mountains of foam, and foam blew in long salt streamers over the decks. The pumps were at work all the day long. The ship was so wet that we could never sleep dry, and our only meals were cold biscuit and cheese chased with small beer. We had no meat, for if we tried to steep the salt beef, the fresh water would have rolled right out of the tubs. My body was sore with being thrown against bulkheads or pinrails or the capstan, and I’d had but little sleep.
Our voyage to Tabarzam and back had taken eleven months, during which time I had worked at learning the sea-officer’s craft, and Captain Gaunt judged that I was qualified to stand a watch. This was lucky, as one of the mates suffered a broken leg in the storm’s first onset, and another was overcome by terror, ran weeping to his cabin, and refused to come out. So I stood a watch, though Gaunt ordered the boatswain to stand the watch with me, and prevent me from making a fatal error. I made no such error, though I was grateful for the bosun’s support. Nor did I confine myself to an officer’s duties, but helped to mend, splice, and secure along with the ordinary seamen.
Our compass was worth but little, though it suggested that the wind was backing from northwest to southwest. We had every right to believe Fornland was below our lee, and I expected at any moment to see the cliffs of Penarthar rear up right before our bows. Captain Gaunt was as concerned by this prospect as I, and when it was clear the wind was continuing its shift to the south, he decided to stop flying before the wind and heave the ship to.
Royal Stilwell would ride quite naturally without a single sail aloft, for so tall was our sterncastle that it would act like a wind-vane and keep the bow pointed directly into the oncoming sea. Yet the timing of the evolution would be difficult, for we would have to turn the ship about in a neat half-circle and not be caught broadside by a wave in the middle of the maneuver.
Captain Gaunt called the officers onto the poop to best consider how to perform our evolution. We clung there to lines or rails and shouted over the shrieking wind as spume rattled like hailshot into our faces.
“We must snap her right round,” said Gaunt. He was pale with exhaustion, and his great hands were torn and bloody. “The spritsail must be doused in an instant, and the lateen put right to weather.”
“We will not be able to hear you,” said the chief mate. “And it may be too dark to see any signal. Can you use a lantern?”
“We may not be able to keep it alight. Can you hear whistles, do you think?”
“We would be lucky to hear a cannon!”
I was puzzling how to snap the bow around, and it occurred to me to drop a mast overboard. This was the sort of inspiration only exhaustion could produce, for cutting down one of our own masts was a mad idea, and though it would drag alongside and spin the ship around, it would have to be cut free at exactly the right instant, or Royal Stilwell would keep going in circles till she foundered. Yet there were other things we could throw in the water.
“Can we put out a sea-anchor?” I asked. “Snub off the hawser at the right moment, it may tug us into the wind.”
This was debated for a while, and in the end the debate was ended by exhaustion, for no one had a better idea.
“Pray Pastas this may serve!” said the captain.
“May the Netweaver give us strength,” the chief mate said piously, and then we dispersed to our tasks. As the sea-anchor had been my idea, I was put in charge of it, and so I took a party to rouse out some old canvas from the sail-locker, then brought up one of the smaller hawsers from the cable tier and lashed one to the other. I put some cannon shot in the roll of canvas to make sure the old sail got in the water promptly and did not float on top. I soon had everything ready atop the larboard forecastle, and I reported to the captain on the quarterdeck.
Gaunt sheltered beneath the break of the poop deck, with the whipstaff and the binnacle before him, and the miserable timoneers holding our course against the brute strength of the storm. He had two lanterns to signal with, and a whistle, and his own great voice. He had been waiting only for me to report, for my errand had taken the longest to prepare, and the other officers were already at their stations. He explained how he planned to signal, and I shouted into his ear that I understood.
“But I do not know if I will see those lanterns, or hear the whistle,” said I. “The storm is so black, and the spray so dense, that I can find my way only by feel.”
“You will have to judge by the movement of the vessel,” said Gaunt.
I went forward, clinging to bulwarks and lines as the sea burst over me. The lantern-light faded behind me as I groped my way over the streaming deck. I was in doubtful mind, uncertain whether I was experienced enough to know when or how to do my duty.
I took my station on the forecastle, and clung to the shrouds while gazing aft in hopes of seeing the lantern-signal through spray and foam and bursting waves. It was at that moment that I remembered the opening words of The Art of Navigation, a book I’d borrowed from the captain to further my study, written some decades earlier by Antonio de Wivara, a veteran sea-captain of Varcellos.
Do no one enter the sea by choice but out of necessity, but because the man who sails, if it were not for the relieving of his conscience, to defend his honor or to protect lives, I say and affirm that such a person is a fool, or bored, or completely crazy.
It occurred to me that I had fair claim to be all three.
Royal Stilwell lifted as water boiled under our larboard quarter; then timbers groaned and the ship rolled as a wave hurled itself against us. I ducked my head as salt water sluiced over me, and I sensed the ship rising atop the great mountain of water. As the crest of the wave passed beneath us, I felt the galleon’s motion change. I strained my senses as I peered aft, but I saw no lights, heard no whistle. The wind still keened through the rigging, and the ship still sped through the water.
Captain Gaunt, I knew, would not throw the rudder hard over: The great wooden blade would then act as a brake, and the ship would lose way and wallow in the wave-trough. The helm had to be put up gently, the spritsail and foresail braced round to keep as much way on her as possible.
Spray stung my face, and the howling wind seemed to snatch the breath from my lungs. The wind was definitely shifting forward, and from this I knew the turn had begun. Dimly I sensed men bustling around me, sailors who belonged to another party who tended the spritsail sheets and braces.
“Ready the sea-anchor!” I cried. “Stand clear of the cable!”
My party of sailors heaved the old
sail to their shoulders and carried it to the bulwark. The canvas had to be thrown cleanly into the water, threading it between the highly organized tangles of line that were shrouds, stays, and the running rigging. Not only was the rigging an obstacle, but the storm-wind was trying to blow the sea-anchor back in our faces, or to tangle it on the flukes of the bower anchor lashed to the forecastle just below the level of the deck.
I could feel the wind shift forward. Suddenly there was slatting and banging overhead, a vast thunder like a cannonade, and fire stitched along my worn nerves. The foresail had gone aback, the wind now lifting and whipping the canvas instead of filling it. The chief mate hadn’t braced the sail around fast enough, and if he didn’t correct the mistake soon, the sail would take the wind in front and act as a giant brake, stopping our way and even sending us stern-first through the water. In the present circumstance this could only mean disaster.
At the crashing and booming overhead my mind chattered madly, and I felt an overwhelming impulse to do something, anything, to retrieve the situation. I resisted the impulse to order the sea-anchor over the side. I looked aft again for a signal or command, and again saw nothing.
Royal Stilwell rocked as the force of the wind lessened. We were in the trough between two waves, and the oncoming wave was to a degree blocking the wind. Yet so far as I could tell, we were still making way through the water, and the flogging foresail hadn’t yet put a stop to our movement. As the wind’s scream faded slightly, I could hear the chief mate’s commands: “Haul taut!—Brace up!” And suddenly, with a great shivering roar, the foresail filled, and Royal Stilwell surged ahead.
“Let go the lee sheet and halliards! Clew down!” Another voice boomed out of the darkness, surprisingly near where I stood on the forecastle. It was the second mate, and he was dousing the spritsail, because we had run so far up into the wind he could no longer keep it full. “Let go the weather sheet! Clew up!”
Quillifer the Knight Page 1
