ERAK'S RANSOM

by John Flanagan

  'King,' he said, 'you have Skandia's gratitude for the help you're giving us.'

  Duncan nodded again. It didn't seem necessary to say anything in reply. Svengal looked now at the slim blonde girl at the King's side.

  'And I know how difficult it must be for you to send your daughter on a mission like this.'

  'I won't deny that I have misgivings, Captain,' Duncan replied this time. Svengal nodded rapidly.

  'Then I give you this oath. My helmsman's oath — you're familiar with the helmsman's oath, King?'

  'I know no Skandian will ever break it,' Duncan said.

  'That's true. Well, here's the oath, and it binds me and all my men. We will protect your daughter as if she were one of our own. So long as one of us is alive, no harm will be allowed to come to her.'

  There was a low growl of assent from the members of the crew, who had gathered at the ship's shoreward rail to watch proceedings. Duncan looked around their faces now. Scarred and weatherbeaten, framed by hair wrapped in untidy pigtails and surmounted by horned helmets. Duncan was a big man, but the Skandians were built on a massive scale. They were bulky, hard muscled and well armed. And the faces showed one more thing — determination to uphold their leader's oath. For the first time in the past three days, he felt a little better about the whole situation. These men would never desert his daughter. They would fight tooth and nail to defend and protect her.

  He raised his voice a little, so that his answer was aimed not just at Svengal, but at the entire crew.

  'Thank you, men of Wolfwind. I don't believe my daughter could be in better hands.'

  The sincerity in his voice was obvious, and again there was a fierce growl of assent from the Skandians.

  'One thing, however. I think from this point, until you reach Al Shabah, it might be safer if Cassandra were to travel incognito. She has decided to resume the name most of you know her by — Evanlyn.'

  Will nudged Horace in the ribs. 'Thank goodness for that. I can never get used to calling her Cassandra. I get tongue-tied around her when I'm reminded she's a princess.'

  Horace grinned. It didn't bother him either way. But then, stationed at Araluen as he was, he was more used to seeing Cassandra on a day-to-day basis.

  Evanlyn, as she would now be known, hugged her father one more time. They had already gone through prolonged goodbyes in private. Then she glanced up at the pennant streaming from the masthead — her personal pennant depicting a stooping red hawk.

  'In which case, we'd better have that down for the time being,' she said.

  As one of the crew moved to the halyards to lower the flag, her father muttered to her, 'Make sure you get it back this time. I'm not sure I like the idea of a gang of freebooters sailing under your pennant.'

  She grinned and touched his cheek with her hand. 'You're right. It could be embarrassing at a later date.'

  She moved away from him and stepped lightly aboard the ship, taking Axel's hand to steady herself as she did so.

  'Thank you,' she said. He flushed and nodded, mumbling something indiscernible as she moved to the stern where her companions were waiting.

  'Anything else?' Svengal asked and Halt pointed to the east.

  'Let's get going,' he said.

  'Right! Up oars!' Svengal's voice rose into the familiar ear-shattering bellow that Skandian skirls used when giving orders. The rowing crew clattered into their benches, unstowing their oars and raising the three-metre long oak poles vertically into the air.

  'Cast off and fend!'

  The line handlers cast off the bow and stern lines that had held them fast to the jetty. At the same time, three other crewmen placed long poles against the timbers of the jetty and pushed the ship clear, setting it drifting out into the current. As the space between ship and shore widened, Svengal called his next order.

  'Down oars!' There was a prolonged clatter of wood on wood as the sixteen oars were slotted into their rowlocks down the sides of the ship. The blades were cocked forward towards the bow, poised just above the water, ready for the first stroke.

  'Give way alf!' Svengal ordered, seizing the tiller. The oarblades dipped and the rowers heaved themselves backwards against the oarhandles. Wolfwind surged forward through the water and the tiller came alive in his hand. The bow oarsman on the port side called for another stroke and the speed increased as a small bow wave began to chuckle at the wolfship's prow.

  They were under way at last.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  * * *

  The trip downriver was uneventful. Several times, they saw farm workers and travellers stopping on the banks of the river to gape at the sight of a fully manned wolfship slipping quietly by. Once or twice, horsemen had set spurs to their horses after the first sighting and gone galloping away, presumably to sound the alarm.

  Will smiled at the thought of villagers huddled behind a stockade or in one of the defensive towers that had been built at strategic sites, waiting for an attack that would never come.

  Even though there had been no Skandian raids for the past three years, the memories of those who lived near the coast were long, and centuries of raids were not forgotten quickly. There might be a treaty in place but treaties were abstract concepts written on paper. A wolfship in the vicinity was a hard reality, and one calculated to create suspicion.

  Finally, Wolfwind slipped out of the sheltered waters of the estuary and turned south into the Narrow Sea. The Gallican coast was a thin dark line on the horizon, more sensed than seen. It could well have been a cloud bank. The wolfship rose and fell to the gentle slow rollers that passed under her keel. Evanlyn, Will and Horace stood in the ship's bow, feeling the regular rising and falling movement beneath their feet.

  'This is a bit better than last time,' Will said.

  Evanlyn grinned at him. 'As I recall, you said much the same thing last time: If this is as bad as it gets, it should be all right. Something along those lines.'

  Will grinned ruefully in reply. 'What was I to know?' Horace looked curiously at the two of them. 'What's the big joke?' he asked.

  Evanlyn leant her elbow on the bulwark where it began to curve up to form the bow, closed her eyes and let her hair stream out in the salt breeze.

  'Aaaah, that's good,' she said. Then, in answer to Horace's question, she went on. 'Well, pretty soon after Will uttered those immortal words, we were hit by one of the worst storms Erak and Svengal had ever seen.'

  'The waves were huge,' Will said. 'Positively huge.' He pointed to the towering mast, where the crew were now busy hoisting the yardarm for the big square sail. 'They came through two or three times the height of the mast there.'

  Horace glanced at the mast, mentally projected it to two or three times its actual height and looked back at his old friend, polite disbelief in his eyes. Horace had learned that when people spoke of a terrible storm or a dreadful battle, they tended to exaggerate the details.

  Evanlyn saw the look and hurried to Will's support. 'No, really, Horace. They were huge. I thought we were going to die.'

  'I was sure we were going to die,' Will added. Horace frowned, looking at the mast again. He might be ready to suspect Will of exaggeration. Evanlyn was a different matter.

  'But,' he said reluctantly, 'that'd make the waves bigger than the wolfship itself ... ' He couldn't conceive of such a thing but he realised both his "old friends were nodding excitedly.

  'Exactly!' Will told him. 'We were actually rowing up some of them.'

  'Well, we weren't,' Evanlyn corrected him. 'We were tied to the mast so we wouldn't be swept overboard. Just as well too,' she added, remembering how helpless they had been against the massive force of the green water sweeping down the deck.

  Horace gazed anxiously around him. Up until now, he'd been enjoying the light, easy movement of the ship.

  'Well, I hope we don't hit anything like that today,' he said.

  Will shrugged casually. 'Oh, don't worry. Wolfwind can handle anything the sea can throw
at it. She's a very seaworthy ship.'

  He spoke with the confident assurance of one who had been through bad weather at sea. It was also the confidence of one who had quizzed Svengal thoroughly the night before and knew there was little chance of a similar storm at this time of year. But Will didn't feel it was necessary to tell Horace that. Not just yet, anyway. He was enjoying his big friend's nervousness and the way he kept sweeping his gaze around the horizon, searching for the first possible sign of a storm.

  'They're on you before you can blink, those storms are,' Will said mildly. Evanlyn gave him an accusing look. He shrugged, all innocence. She shook her head at his attempt to worry Horace.

  'To hear you tell it, you've been on board ship all your life,' she said. Will grinned at her. She turned to Horace. 'What he's carefully not mentioning is that it's too early in the season for one of those big storms.'

  Horace looked a little relieved at the news.

  'Still, you never know,' Will said in a sombre voice and she cocked her head at him.

  'Exactly,' she said. 'You, particularly, would never know. That's why you were so anxious last night, asking Svengal if there were going to be any nasty storms.'

  'What'd he say?' Horace asked, sensing that Will had been pulling his leg.

  'He said, "You never know",' Will replied, a serious look on his face.

  Evanlyn sighed in exasperation. 'He said,' she faced Horace as she answered the question, dismissing Will with a casual wave of her hand, 'that it'd be like a millpond all the way to the Constant Sea.'

  Horace looked quickly at Will, who had assumed a look of injured innocence. Not for the first time, Horace reminded himself that Rangers were a devious lot.

  'That'll be fine then,' he said. He smiled at Evanlyn, who smiled back at him.

  Will shook his head ruefully at the Princess.

  'You're just no fun any more, are you?' he said. But he couldn't help a grin breaking through as he said it. In truth, he was enjoying becoming acquainted with Evanlyn once more.

  Their paths had diverged after their return from Skandia and he knew that she would have been disappointed, even hurt, by his decision to remain a Ranger, and his turning down a commission in the Royal Scouts. He didn't know the depth of that hurt. He had been offered the commission only after Evanlyn had pleaded with her father to find a way of keeping Will at Castle Araluen. She had seen his refusal as a rejection of her and, on the few times since when they had met socially, she had made a point of assuming royal airs and maintaining a frosty distance from him. Now, in the rough and ready atmosphere of a wolfship, with so many reminders of their past adventures around them, those barriers seemed to be melting away.

  ***

  'Are you all right?' Gilan asked Halt. It was the third time he had asked the question. And as he had on the previous two occasions, Halt replied in a tight voice.

  'I'm fine.'

  But something was wrong, Gilan sensed. His former mentor seemed unusually distracted. There was a small frown knotting his forehead and his hands gripped the ship's rail so hard that his knuckles showed white.

  'Are you sure? You don't seem all right,' In fact, Halt was looking rather pale, behind the beard and below the shadow of his cowl. 'Is something bothering you?'

  Halt's pale angry face turned to him. 'Yes,' he said. 'Something is bothering me. I am being constantly asked "Are you all right?" by an idiot. I really wish ... '

  Whatever it was that he wished was cut short abruptly and Gilan saw his face set in determined lines as he clenched his teeth tightly. The fact that the interruption coincided with a larger than usual lurch from Wolfwind was lost on the younger Ranger. He cast a worried look at his old teacher. Halt had loomed large in his life for years. He was indefatigible. He was all-knowing. He was the most capable man Gilan had ever known.

  He was also seasick.

  It was something that always afflicted him for the first few hours of a sea journey. It was the uncertainty, Halt knew. It was all mental. When the ship lurched or heaved or rolled, he was caught unprepared — unbelieving that something so large and substantial could be tossed around so much.

  Deep down, he knew that the current conditions weren't too bad. But in the first few hours of a sea journey, Halt's mind queried the fact that any moment might see a bigger wave, a more sudden lurch, a fatal roll that would go too far. He knew that, once he became accustomed to the whole idea of the ship moving and recovering, moving and recovering, he would come to terms with his stomach and his nerves. But that would take several hours. In the meantime, he thought grimly, whatever his reason might tell him, he'd be well served if he stayed close by the railing. He wished that Gilan would leave him alone. But he couldn't find a way to suggest such a thing without hurting the younger man's feelings. And that was something that Halt, gruff and bad-tempered and unsmiling as he might appear to be, would never countenance doing.

  Svengal, large, noisy and hearty, appeared at the railing beside him, breathing the salt air deeply and exhaling with great sighs of satisfaction. Svengal was always glad to be back at sea — an attitude that Halt thought bordered on lunacy.

  'Mmmmm! Aaaaah! There's nothing like the sea air to brace you up, is there?' he boomed. Halt glanced suspiciously at him. Svengal didn't meet his gaze. Instead, he peered out at the sparkling water. 'Nothing like it!' he told them. He took a few more deep breaths, studiously ignoring Halt's condition, then finally said to Gilan, 'You know what I don't understand?'

  Confident that Svengal was about to answer his own question, Gilan saw no need to reply beyond raising his eyebrows.

  'I don't understand how people can ride all day on one of those jerking, lurching, jumping, bucking fiends from hell without the slightest problem ... ' He jerked a thumb at the four horses in their midships stalls. 'But put them on a smooth, solid, barely moving ship's deck and suddenly their stomachs want to turn themselves inside out at the slightest little roll.'

  He grinned at Halt, remembering the Ranger's lack of sympathy when the pony had thrown Svengal during the ride back to Araluen.

  'Halt?' said Gilan, realisation dawning. 'You're not seasick, are you?'

  'No,' Halt said shortly, not trusting himself beyond one syllable.

  'No, of course not,' Svengal agreed. 'Probably just a little off colour because you missed breakfast. Did you miss breakfast?'

  'No,' Halt replied. This time he managed two more words. 'Had breakfast.'

  'Probably just a bite of bread and some water,' Svengal said dismissively. 'A man needs a decent breakfast in his belly,' he went on, addressing Gilan, who was peering with interest and some disbelief at Halt. 'Sausages are good. Or a piece of pork. And I like potatoes. Although there are those who say cabbage is best. Solid on the gut, cabbage is. Goes well with a good greasy piece of bacon.'

  Halt groaned softly. He pointed to Svengal, muttering a few indiscernible words.

  Svengal frowned and leaned closer to him. 'Sorry, I missed that,' he said cheerfully.

  Halt, hands gripping the ship's rail like claws, hauled himself closer to the big Skandian and said, with an enormous effort, 'Lend me ... '

  'Lend you? Lend you what?' Svengal asked. Halt gestured but Svengal didn't understand.

  Halt paused, held up a hand, gathered his wits and said distinctly, 'Helmet. Lend me your helmet.'

  'Well, of course. Why didn't you say?' Svengal said. He began untying the chin straps that held his big horned helmet in place. Then he stopped, catching sight of the dreadful, vindictive smile on Halt's pale, tortured face. Memory came back of another time, another ship and another borrowed helmet. Quickly, he jerked the helmet away from Halt's outstretched hand.

  'Find your own bucket!' he said grimly.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  * * *

  After two days at sea, Halt was mercifully in control of his stomach once more. That didn't stop an evilly grinning Svengal from asking after his health at every possible opportunity, or offering him ch
oice titbits from the wolfship's limited larder.

  'Chicken leg?' he said, an innocent grin splitting his face. 'Bit greasy but good nevertheless. Just the thing to stick to a man's ribs.'

  'Svengal,' Halt said for the tenth time, 'I am over it. Are we clear on that? I am over being seasick. And I am definitely over your attempts to make me heave my insides over the railing.'

  Svengal looked unconvinced. He knew Halt's strength of mind and he was sure that he was bluffing — that, deep down, the Ranger's stomach was still in turmoil. All it needed was a little suggestive prodding.

  'If it's not to your taste, I've some lovely pureed chestnut sauce you could smother it in?' he suggested hopefully.

  'Very well,' Halt agreed, 'give me the chicken leg. And fetch me the chestnut sauce — and some pickled cucumbers while you're about it. Oh, and you'd better bring me a large tankard of dark ale if you have any.'

  Svengal grinned, convinced that Halt was bluffing. Within a few minutes he had the required food laid out on a small folding table by the steering position. He watched expectantly as Halt bit into the chicken, chewed slowly and swallowed. Jurgen, one of the crew, filled a mug with dark ale and set it down as well, then stood by with the small cask, ready for further instructions.

  'All well then?' Svengal asked hopefully. Halt nodded.

  'Fine. Bit overdone and stringy but otherwise all right.' He took a deep draught of the dark ale, which he knew was Svengal's favourite and which he knew was in limited supply. He thrust the tankard out to Jurgen.