by Paul Kearney
“Y OU’RE not waiting on the high table tonight, then?” Bardolin asked as Griella joined him at the swaying, rope-suspended table.
The girl sat on the sea chest next to him. Her colour was up, and her coppery hair clung to her forehead in wires and tails.
“No. Mara said she would do it for me. I can’t stick the thought of it tonight.”
Bardolin said nothing. Around them the hubbub of the gundeck was like a curtain of noise. In between the dull gleam of the long guns, hanging tables had been let down from the ceiling (what was the nautical term, deckhead?) and around each of these a motley crowd of figures jostled and elbowed for space. Each table seated six, and one person from each took it in turns to bring the food for the table down the length of the deck from the steaming galley.
This was the first night Bardolin had seen it as full as this; most of the passengers seemed to be getting over their seasickness, especially as the weather was mild and the ship’s movement not too severe. They were an odd mix. He could see men in fine robes, some of whom he recognized as figures at the Hebrian court, and ladies in brocade and linen—even here clinging to their past status—but the majority looked like well-to-do merchants or small artisans with nothing remarkable about them. There had as yet been no manifestation of power, and he did not know if there might be a weather-worker on board to speed the passage of the ships. Probably the presence of the Inceptine had put the captain off from enquiring.
Neither did he know if there was another full-blooded mage on board, for he had as yet seen no other familiars in evidence and his own imp was asleep in the bosom of his robe. He and Golophin were not, of course, the only mages in Abrusio; Bardolin was personally acquainted with another half-dozen. But he saw none that he knew here, and wondered if Golophin had had other plans for them.
The air was heavy and thick, hanging around the brutal great guns and the laden tables. Bardolin could smell the aroma of the cooking pork, heavy with grease and salt, and around that the sweat of close-packed humanity. Underlying these was a faint stink of vomit and ordure. Not all the passengers possessed the necessary spirit to crouch out on the beakhead of the ship and perform their necessary functions there, with the warm sea lapping at their arse. And there had been those who had surrendered to seasickness a mite more violently than they had expected. The deck would have to be washed out, or swabbed down, but that was the sailors’ job.
Oh, such a rich web woven by unknown forces! They were not a ship sailing serenely across a placid ocean, they were a fly caught quivering in a vast spider’s web. And that nobleman, Murad, he was one of the spinners of the web, along with Golophin and the King of Hebrion.
But not Hawkwood, the captain. He and Murad loathed each other, that was plain. Bardolin got the impression that their good captain was about as enthusiastic for the voyage as the majority of his passengers were. He must know their destination; it might be worth talking to him, or to Billerand.
“H E has invited that Raven to his table yet again,” Griella was saying between gulped mouthfuls of the tough pork and hard biscuit.
“Who, Murad?” Bardolin marshalled his thoughts hurriedly. Griella had a light in her eye that he did not like. He had already cursed himself a score of times for bringing her with him on this voyage. And yet—and yet . . .
“Yes. He means to ply him with brandy once more and find out who ordered him to take ship with us. But Ortelius is as slippery as an eel. He smiles and smiles and says nothing of import, just mouths saintly platitudes that no one can disagree with. There is something about him I truly do not like.”
“Naturally enough. He’s an Inceptine, child. There is nothing strange about your dislike of him.”
“No, it is something more. I feel I know him, but I cannot think how.”
Bardolin sighed. He was no longer hungry. His stomach had been used to such rough fare in his youth; it had grown dainty with age. And this was the good stuff. Later in the voyage their meat would be wormy and their bread full of weevils, while the water would be as thick as soup. He had endured it once before, on a Hebrian troop transport. He was not looking forward to undergoing such a diet again.
I’ve become soft, he thought.
“Don’t worry about the damned Inceptine, girl,” he said. “He cannot touch you here, unless he means to take on all the passengers of the ship by himself.”
But Griella was not listening. Her fingers had curled into claws around her meat knife.
“Murad will ask for me again tonight, Bardolin. I cannot put him off much longer without—without something happening.”
She was staring into her wooden platter as though its contents were the stuff of an augury. Bardolin leaned close to her.
“I beg you, Griella, commit no violence aboard this ship. Do not. Do not let your emotions overcome your reason, and do not lift a finger against him. He is a nobleman. He would be within his rights to slay you out of hand.”
Griella grinned without humour. Her teeth were strong and very white, the lips almost purple against them.
“He might find that difficult.”
“You might kill him.” Bardolin’s voice had dropped. It was almost inaudible in the clatter about them. “But even with the change upon you, you would find it hard to kill all the soldiers on this ship, and the sailors, and the passengers who would stand against you. And once your nature is revealed, Griella, you are lost, so for the Saint’s sake rein in your temper, no matter what happens.”
She kissed him on the mouth without warning, so hard that he felt the imprint of the teeth behind her lips. He felt his face flush with blood and the immediate stir of warmth in his groin. The imp moved restlessly in the breast of his robe.
“Why did you do that?” he asked her when she drew back. He was uncomfortably aware of the erection throbbing in his breeches.
“Because you wanted me to. You have wanted me to this long time, even if you did not know it.”
He could not answer her.
“It’s all right, Bardolin. I don’t mind. I love you, you see. You are like a father and a brother and a friend to me.”
She stroked the stubble of his ruddy cheek.
“You are right, though. Everyone knows you are my guardian. Were I to refuse him, I might be damning you along with myself and I would never do that.” She smiled as sunnily as a child. Only her eyes mocked the image. He could see the beast in them, forever biding its time.
Bardolin took her hand, heedless of the stares they were attracting from their neighbours at the table.
“Hold fast, Griella, no matter what happens. Hold fast to that part of yourself that is not the animal; then you can beat it down; you can defeat it.”
She blinked. “Why would I want to do that?” Then she flashed a feral grin at him and rose, her hand slipping out from under his. “I must go. Mara expects me to help her clear up. Dear Bardolin, don’t look so worried! I know what I have to do—for your sake as well as mine.”
Bardolin watched her slim, straight back as it moved down the gundeck and was finally lost in the crowd. His face was profoundly troubled, and the imp was trembling like a leaf against the slick sweat on his chest.
“M ORE brandy for the good cleric there, girl. Don’t be shy with the stuff!”
Murad was smiling, his scar a wriggling pink furrow down one side of his face. When the girl Mara bent to pour the brandy he slid a hand under her robe, up the satin-smooth back of her leg. She twitched like a horse with a fly settling on it, but did not move away. He tweaked the soft flesh where the buttock swelled out at the top of her thigh. Then she straightened as if nothing were amiss and moved away. Di Souza was red in the face with glee, but Sequero looked merely disdainful. Murad smiled at him and raised his glass so the aristocratic young man had to follow suit.
The four of them were seated around a table which ran fore and aft along the line of the keel. At Murad’s back were the stern windows which he shared with the captain’s cabin on the other side of the
thin bulkhead. The eastern sky was black, but there was a glimmer from the ship’s wake as if foamed and churned behind them. They could see the level of wine in the decanters arrayed about the table tilt slightly with the carrack’s roll, but it was so slight as to be hardly noticeable.
Sequero was still out of sorts at the death of one of his beloved broodmares. A good thing they had shipped two more than originally planned. He was not a natural shipboard companion, was Ensign Hernan Sequero. He hated the cheek-by-jowl promiscuity, the awkward hammocks, the continual stench, and especially the stubborn independence of the mariners, who looked to their own officers alone and obeyed the order of no soldier. It was an inversion of the natural order of things. His plight had provided Murad with endless private amusement in the week they had been at sea.
Di Souza, on the other hand, seemed to relish the entire experience. His prowess with an arquebus had won him the respect of soldiers and sailors alike, and his low birth seemed to have inured him to the indignities of life aboard ship. He could laugh when shitting from the ship’s head, whilst Murad suspected that Sequero performed his own functions in the depths of the hold rather than let his men see their officer hanging barearsed over the sea. Murad himself had a pot, emptied daily by one of his two cabin servants.
He studied the amber depths of his brandy in the light of the table lanterns. Fimbrian, casked in the time of his great-grandfather. And here he was wasting it on a low-born buffoon, a cleric and a tight-arsed minor noble. Well, it oiled the tongues. It let the evening slip along pleasantly enough. But it did not help loosen the lips of the damned Raven, Ortelius.
The girl, Mara, retrieved the dinner dishes and the silver cutlery that glittered the length of the table. They had dined on potted meat, freshly killed chicken, fish caught that morning and fruit from the orchards of Galiapeno. Now they sipped their brandy, cracked walnuts and popped black olives into their mouths. There was little conversation. The two junior officers did not like to speak without being spoken to first whilst at their superior officer’s table, and the Inceptine seemed to value silence as much as his own discretion.
Murad would have to invite Hawkwood to dinner one night along with the Raven, and then watch the sparks fly. By the looks of things there would be little else in the way of amusement this voyage, and he would have to be inventive if he were not to expire of boredom before they made landfall in the west.
He caught the girl looking at him and stared back blandly until her eyes darted away. She had a pleasant peasant-brown face surrounded by a mass of dark curls, and her body was stocky and strong but not overly exciting. She had shared his hanging cot ever since leaving Abrusio, but she was not the one he was truly hungering for. That short-haired, snapping-eyed wench named Griella; she was the one he wanted. It would be diverting to break her in, and he was curious to see what kind of shape hid under those boyish clothes she wore. She hated him too, which was even better. Where was she tonight? Her absence irritated him, which was one of the reasons for the fear in the other girl’s eyes.
“A capital brandy,” Ortelius said in the silence. “You keep a good cellar even while afloat, Lord Murad.”
Murad inclined his head. “There are certain luxuries which are not in fact luxuries, but more . . . accessories of rank. We may not need them, but they serve to remind us of who we are.”
Ortelius nodded gravely. “Just so long as we do not find we cannot do without them.”
“You have precious few luxuries with you on this voyage, I fear,” Murad said sympathetically, though inwardly he was seething at the cleric’s implication.
“Yes. I came aboard in some haste, I am afraid. But it is no matter. I may not have the austere habits of a Friar Mendicant, but it will do me no harm to forgo some of the prerequisites of my rank for a time. Such things bring us closer to God.” He tossed back the last of his brandy.
“Of course, admirable,” Murad said absently. He was searching for an opening, a chink in the Inceptine’s bland manner. He saw Sequero and di Souza exchange glances; they knew the nightly game had started again.
“Well, we are in your spiritual charge, Father Ortelius. I am sure I speak for all the soldiers and mariners and common folk aboard when I say we shall rest easier knowing that you are here to shrive us of our sins and to watch over our moral welfare. But tell me: what do you think of the worthy crews who maintain these ships, or indeed of the passengers with whom you have taken ship?”
Ortelius looked at him, his normally urbane countenance twisting with what seemed like a spot of wariness.
“I’m not sure I follow you, my son.”
“Oh come now, Father! Surely you must have noticed that half of Hawkwood’s crew have faces as black as apes. They are heathens—Merduks!”
“Are you sure, my son?” Ortelius had stopped playing with his empty glass and was watching Murad closely, like a fencer waiting for the change of balance that heralded a thrust.
“Why, yes! Some of them are black worshippers of the evil prophet Ahrimuz.”
“Then I must do my humble best to show them the true and righteous path to the Company of the Saints,” Ortelius said sweetly.
But Murad went on as if the priest had not spoken.
“And the passengers, Father. Do you know who they are? I’ll tell you. They are the dregs of our society. They are sorcerers, herbalists, oldwives and even, God save us, mages. Didn’t you know?”
“I—I may have heard something to that effect.”
“Indeed, the very type of folk that the Inceptines have so industriously been ridding Abrusio of for these past weeks. Yet now you take ship with them, you sleep in their midst, and you administer to their so-called spiritual needs. Forgive me for saying so, Father, but I find it difficult to comprehend why a man like you should have taken it upon himself to associate with such fellow travellers. We know the vocation of the Friars Mendicant is to proselytize and convert, to spread the news of the Visions of the First Saint, but surely the Inceptines are rather loftier in the Church’s hierarchy.”
Murad let the unspoken question hang in the air.
“We go where we are sent, Lord Murad. We are all servants, we wearers of the black robe.”
“Ah, so you were sent to join us?”
“No. I have used that word clumsily. You must excuse me.”
“Either you were sent or you were not, Father. Do have some more brandy, by the way.”
Murad poured the cleric more of the Fimbrian whilst his two ensigns looked on like spectators at a gladiatorial contest. Sequero seemed amused and fascinated, but Murad was surprised to see a look of downright terror on di Souza’s face.
“Are you all right, Valdan?” he asked at once. “A touch of seasickness, perhaps?”
The straw-haired officer shook his head. He was like a man going to the gallows.
“As I was saying,” Murad said smoothly, turning to the cleric, “either you were sent, Father, or you came of your own accord. Or someone asked you to join our company.”
Here he stared back at di Souza, reading the young man’s suffused face and letting his last sentence hang in the air.
“I asked him to come!” di Souza blurted out. “It was me, sir—my idea alone. The soldiers wanted a chaplain. I asked Father Ortelius. I thought I did right, sir, upon mine honour!”
Murad glanced around the table. Ortelius was delicately wiping his lips with a napkin, eyes cast down and countenance serene once again. Sequero’s face was wooden, as if he feared to be associated with di Souza’s guilt by his proximity to his brother officer.
Murad laughed. “Well, why did you not say so?” He stood up. “I am sorry to have tried your patience thus these last few days, Father. Please forgive me.” And he bent to kiss the priest’s knuckle.
Ortelius beamed. “That is quite all right, my son.”
“And with this revelation I am afraid I must end our delightful evening, gentlemen. I would like to retire. Good night, Father. I hope you have a pleasant sl
eep. Sequero, good evening. You will see Father Ortelius to his hammock, I am sure. Ensign di Souza, stay behind a moment, if you please.”
When the other two had left di Souza sat stiffly in his chair with his hands in his lap.
“Talk to me, Ensign,” Murad said softly.
The younger man’s slab-like face was shining with sweat. His skin was red with wine and heat, contrasting vividly with his yellow hair.
“The men did not like the idea of sailing without a chaplain, as I said once before to you sir, I think.”
“Did Mensurado put you up to this?” Murad interrupted.
“No, sir! It was my idea alone.” Had di Souza placed the blame on his sergeant, Mensurado, Murad would have been forced to have the man strappadoed, or perhaps shot. And Mensurado was the most experienced soldier on the ship.
“How well do you know this Ortelius?”
Di Souza’s eyes flickered up and met Murad’s steady glare for a second. He seemed to shrink in his chair.
“Not well, sir. I know he was once on the staff of the Prelate of Hebrion, and is well thought of in the order.”
“And why should such a distinguished cleric take ship with an expedition into the unknown and with such travelling companions, eh?”
Di Souza shrugged helplessly. “He is a priest. It is his job. When he shrove me before we took ship he seemed to know about the voyage. He asked if I was at ease at the thought of undertaking it with no spiritual guide. I was not, sir—I tell the truth. He volunteered to come, but I thought he was only trying to comfort my wretched soul. I did not think he truly meant what he said.”
“You have a lot to learn, Valdan,” Murad said. “Ortelius is a spy in the pay of Himerius the Prelate of Hebrion. He has come along to see what the King is up to, commissioning this expedition, and with such passengers. But no matter. I know him now for what he is, and can deal with him accordingly.”
“Sir! You’re not going to—”
“Shut up, Valdan. You are a stupid young fool. I could have you stripped of rank and put in irons for the rest of the voyage for what you have taken upon yourself to do. But I need you. I will tell you one thing you had best remember, though.”
