Ships from the West (13 page)

‘He has suffered too much,’ Golophin said. ‘I was impatient. I am a fool.’

Isolla bent her head and her shoulders trembled, but she made not a sound.

‘He is dead then,’ she said at last, calmly.

Golophin set a hand on Hawkwood’s chest, and shut his eyes. The mariner’s body gave a sudden jolt, and his limbs quivered.

‘I will not permit him to die,’ Golophin said fiercely, and as he spoke the Dweomer blazed up in him and spilled out of his eyes, his fingertips. It coiled out of his mouth like a white smoke. ‘Get away from him, Isolla.’

The Queen did as she was told, shielding her eyes against the brilliance of Golophin’s light. The wizard had been transformed into a form of pure, pulsing argent. The light waxed until it was unbearable to look at, becoming a shining swirl, a sunburst, and then with a shout it left him and hurled into the inert form on the bed. There was a noiseless concussion that blew out the lamps and sent the bedclothes spiralling into the air even as they crackled and shrivelled away to nothing, and Hawkwood’s body thrashed and twitched like the plaything of a mad puppeteer.

The room plunged into darkness save for where Golophin crouched by the bed, breathing hard. The werelight still shone out of his eyes dementedly. Isolla was standing at the far wall as if fixed to it. Something powdery and light was snowing down upon her head, and there was an inexplicable tautness to one side of her face.

‘Light a candle,’ the wizard’s voice said. The lambency of his stare faded and the room was pitch-dark. On the bed, something was groaning.

‘I -I can’t see, Golophin,’ Isolla whispered.

‘Forgive me.’ A fluttering wick of werelight appeared near the ceiling. Isolla reached for the tinderbox, and retrieved a candle from the floor. The backs of her hands, her clothing, were covered in a delicate layer of white ash. She struck flint and steel, caught the spark in the ball of tinder, and fed it to the candle wick. A more human radiance replaced the were-light.

Golophin laboured to his feet, beating the ash from his robes. When he turned to her Isolla caught her breath in shock. ‘My God, Golophin, your face!’

One side of the old wizard’s countenance had been transformed into a tormented mass of scar tissue, like that of a burn long healed. He nodded. ‘The Dweomer always exacts a payment, especially when one is in a hurry. Ah, child, I am so sorry. You should not have been here for this. I thought that I alone would suffice.’

‘What do you mean?’

He came forward and stroked her cheek gently, the strange tautness there. ‘It took you too,’ he said simply.

She felt her skin. It was ridged and almost numb in a line running from the corner of her eye to her jaw. Something in her stomach pitched headlong, but she spoke without a quaver. ‘It’s no matter. How is he?’

They turned to the bed, holding the candle over the blasted coverlet, the ash-strewn and smoking mattress. Hawkwood’s ragged, scorched clothes had disappeared. He lay naked on the bed breathing deeply. His beard had gone, and the hair on his scalp was no more than a dark stubble, but there was not a mark on his body. Golophin felt his forehead. ‘He’ll sleep for a few hours, and when he wakes, he’ll be as hale as ever he was. Hebrion has need of him yet.

‘Stay here with him, my dear. I must go and take the temperature of the city, and there are one or two errands to be run also.’ He looked closely at Isolla, as though deliberating whether to tell her something, then turned away with a passable pretence at briskness. ‘I may be gone some time. Watch over our patient.’

‘As I once watched over Abeleyn?’ The grief was raw in her voice. She remembered another evening, a different man

restored by Golophin’s power. But there had been hope back then.

Golophin left without replying.

Eight

A procession of dreams, all brightly lit and perfectly coherent, travelled along the trackways of Hawkwood’s mind. Like paper lanterns set free to soar, they finally burned themselves up and came drifting sadly back down in ash and smoke.

He saw the old
Osprey
blazing in the night, sails of flame twisting and billowing from her decks. At her rail stood King Abeleyn, and beside him, Murad. Murad was laughing.

He watched as, like a succession of brilliantly wrought jewels, a hundred ports and cities of the world winked past. And with them were faces. Billerand, Julius Albak, Haukal, his long-forgotten wife Estrella. Murad. Bardolin. These last two were linked, somehow, in his mind. There was something they shared which he could not fathom. Murad was dead now - even in the dream Hawkwood knew this, and was glad.

At the last there came a red-haired woman with a scar on her cheek who pillowed him on her breast. He knew her. As he studied her face the dreams faded, and the fear. He felt as though he had made landfall after the longest of voyages, and he smiled.

‘You’re awake!’

‘And alive. How in the world—’ and he saw her face clearly now, the line of ridged tissue down one side, like the trail of a sculptor’s fingers in damp clay.

Her own fingers flew to it at once, covering it. Then she dropped her hand deliberately, stern as the Queen she was. She had been weeping.

The room was gloomy and cold in the pre-dawn greyness. A fire in the hearth had sunk to smoking embers. How long had he been here? What had been happening? There was no pain. His life’s slate had been wiped clean.

‘Golophin saved you, with the Dweomer. But there was a price. He is far worse than I. It is not important. You are alive. He will be here soon.’

Isolla rose from the bedside, his eyes following her every move with a baffled, helpless pain. He ran a hand over his own features and was astounded.

‘My beard!’

‘It’ll grow back. You look younger without it. There are clothes by the side of the bed. They should fit. Come into the antechamber when you are ready. Golophin wants to talk to us.’ She left, walking stiffly in a simple and unadorned court gown.

Hawkwood threw aside the covers and studied his body. Not a mark. Even his old scars of twenty years had disappeared. He was as hairless as a babe.

Feeling absurdly embarrassed, he pulled on the clothing which had been left out for him. He was parched, and drained at a gulp the silver jug of springwater sitting beside them. He felt as though he must crack every joint in his body to bend it back into shape, and spent minutes stretching and bending, getting the blood flowing again. He was alive. He was whole. It was not a miracle, but it seemed more than miraculous to him. Despite all that he had seen of the workings of magic through the years, certain aspects of it never failed to stun him. It was one thing to call up a storm - it was the kind of thing he expected a wizard to do. But to mould his own flesh like this, to smooth out the burns and heal his cracked, smoke-choked lungs - that was truly awe-inspiring.

What price had been paid for the gift of this life? That lady on the other side of the door. She had paid for his scars with her own. She, Hebrion’s Queen.

When he stepped through the doorway his face was as sombre as that of a mourner. In his life he had not made a habit of frequenting the bedchambers of royalty and he was at a loss as to whether he should bow, sit down or remain standing. Isolla was watching him, drinking a glass of wine. The antechamber was small, octagonal, but high-ceilinged. A fire of blue-spitting sea coal burned in the hearth and there was a pretty tumble of women’s things here and there on the chairs, a full decanter on the table, ruby and shining in the firelight, beeswax candles burning in sconces in the walls, their fine scent mingling with Isolla’s perfume. Heavy curtains were drawn across the single window, so that it might have been the middle of the night, but Hawkwood’s internal clock knew that dawn had come and gone, and the sun was rising up the sky now.

‘There is no formality here, Captain. Help yourself to some wine. You look as though you had seen a - a ghost.’

He did as he was bidden, unable to relax. He wanted to twitch aside the curtains and peer out to see what was in the morning sky.

‘I have met you before, have I not?’ she said stiffly.

‘I have been at a levee or two over the years, lady. But a long time ago I met you on the North Road. Your horse had thrown a shoe.’

She coloured. ‘I remember. I served you wine in Golophin’s tower. Forgive me Captain, my wits are astray.’

Hawkwood bowed slightly. There was nothing more to be said. But Isolla was trying to say something. She stared into her wine and asked at last: ‘How did he die? The King.’

Hawkwood swore silently. What could he possibly tell this woman that would make her sleep any easier at night? That her husband had been burned, ripped apart, drowned? She raised her head and saw what he would not say in his eyes.

‘So it was bad, then.’

‘It was bad,’ he said heavily. ‘But truly, lady, it did not last long, for any of them.’ ‘And my brother?’

Of course, she was Mark’s sister. This woman was now one of the last survivors of two Royal lines - perhaps the last indeed.

‘For him also it was quick,’ he lied, staring her down, willing her to believe him. ‘He died scant feet away from Abeleyn, the two on the same quarterdeck.’ On my ship, he thought. Two kings and an admiral died there, but not I. And the shame seared his soul.

‘I’m glad they died together,’ she said thickly. ‘They were like brothers in life, save that Mark always hated the sea. How was it that he was not on his own flagship?’

Hawkwood smiled, remembering the green-faced and puking Astaran King being hauled over the side of the
Pontifidad
in a bosun’s chair. ‘He came for a conference and - and kept putting off the return journey.’

That made her smile also. The room warmed a little.

A discreet knock at the door, and Golophin came in without further ado. Hawkwood had to collect himself for a moment at the sight of the old man’s face. God in heaven, why had they done it?

The wizard was a gaunt manikin with white parchment skin that rendered his purple and pink scars all the more startling. But he grinned at Hawkwood as the mariner stood with his untasted wine in his fist.

‘Good, good. A perfect job. You had us worried there for a while, Captain.’ Isolla took his heavy outer robe like a girl helping her father, and gave him her own glass. He drained it in one swallow, then stepped across to the window and swept back the curtains.

The window faced west, and looked out into a vast, boiling darkness. Hawkwood joined the wizard to stare at it. ‘Blood of God,’ he murmured.

Tour storm is almost upon us, Captain. It made good time during the night.’

The cloud was twisted and stretched into a great bastion of shadow which filled the entire western horizon. It was shot through with the flicker of lightning at its base and writhed in tormented billows with a motion that seemed almost sentient.

‘The city has been swarming like a wasps’ nest all night, and the sight of that this morning has been enough to tip things over the edge. Already there is a throng of soldiers, sailors and minor nobles in the abbey, all talking without listening. The garrison, such as it is, is out on the streets, but the panic has already begun. They’re streaming out of North Gate in their thousands, and ships in the harbour have dumped their cargoes and are offering passage out of Hebrion instead, to anyone who has a king’s ransom in his purse.’

‘No one said a word’ Isolla said wonderingly. ‘One castaway is brought ashore, and the whole country expects the worst. Storm or no storm, have they no faith? It’s madness.’

‘The fishermen found me floating on the broken maintop of a Great Ship. Some of them recognised me as the captain of the flagship. And I would answer none of their questions’ Hawkwood told her gently. ‘Victory is not so close-mouthed. They know that the fleet has met with some disaster.’

‘Plus, I believe that a few of the palace maids have been more ingenious in their curiosity than I gave them credit for’ Golophin went on. ‘At any rate, the secret is out. The fleet, and our King are no more - this much is now common knowledge. Aruan’s terms have not yet been bruited abroad though, which is a blessing. We must have no more maids or valets in this wing of the palace, if it is to stay that way. I have posted sentries further down the passage.’

‘What do we do now?’ Isolla asked slowly, her eyes fixed on the preternatural tempest which was rolling towards them on the west wind. She was no ingenue, but nothing in her life had prepared her for this sudden, crushing weight of responsibility. She did not even know the name of the officer who now commanded the army.

Golophin looked at Hawkwood, and found that the mariner was watching the Queen with a strange intentness. He nodded to himself. He had been right there, all those years ago, and he was still right. That could be for the good.

He pursed his lips. ‘Abrusio has a garrison of some six thousand men left to her. The marines went with the fleet, as did all the Great Ships. All we have left are dispatch-runners and a few gunboats. There are small garrisons in Imerdon and up on the border with Fulk, but they are weeks away.’

‘There are the mole forts,’ Isolla said. ‘In the Civil War they held up Abeleyn’s fleet for days.’

‘These things’ Hawkwood said slowly, ‘can fly.’

‘What were they, Captain?’ Golophin asked. Even at a time like this, he seemed more curious than appalled.

‘I saw one once before, in the jungle of the Western Continent. I believe they were men at one time, but they have been warped beyond humanity. They are like great bats with tails, and the talons of a raptor. And they number many thousands. There is a fleet out there also, mostly composed of lesser ships, and on board it are black-armoured warriors with pincers for hands and a carapace like that of a beetle. They swarm like veritable cockroaches in any case. Abrusio cannot stand against that. Her best men died off North Cape and her citizens, from what you tell me, are in no mood to stand and fight.’

‘She is doomed then,’ Isolla murmured.

Golophin’s face was a demonic mask. ‘I believe so. Hebrion, at least, must accept Aruan’s terms, or see bloodshed that will make the Civil War pale into insignificance.’

‘He wants the nobles handed over too,’ Hawkwood reminded him. ‘He intends to extinguish the aristocracy of the whole kingdom.’

Both men looked at Isolla. She smiled bitterly. ‘I care not. My husband and my brother are both dead. I may as well join them.’

Golophin took her hand. ‘My Queen, you have been like a daughter to me, one of the few folk I have trusted in this long, absurd life of mine. This man here is another such, though he has not always known it. Abeleyn your husband was the third, and Bardolin of Carreirida was the fourth. Now only you and Hawkwood remain.’ As she hung her head he gripped her fingers more tightly. ‘I speak to you now as a Royal advisor, but also as a friend. You must leave Hebrion. You must take ship with a few of the household whom you in your turn can trust, and sail from these shores. And you must go soon, within the day.’

Isolla looked shaken. ‘Where shall I go?’

It was Hawkwood who answered. ‘King Corfe still rules in Torunna, and his army is the greatest in the world. You should go to Torunn, lady. You will be safe there.’

‘No. My place is here.’

‘Hawkwood is right,’ Golophin said fiercely. ‘If Aruan captures you then all hope for the future is lost. The people must have some continuity in the times to come. And you must go by sea; the land route to the east is closed.’ He raised a hand. ‘Let us hear no more on this matter. I have already spoken to the Master of Ships down in Admiral’s Tower. A state xebec awaits you as we speak. Hawkwood here will captain it. You ought to leave, I am told, with a certain combination of tides, the - the—’

‘The ebb tide,’ Hawkwood told him. ‘It happens at the sixth hour after noon. The xebec is a good choice. She’s lateen-rigged, and with this westerly she’ll have a beam wind to work with to get out of the harbour - precious little leeway, mind. But you’ll find some other skipper. I’m staying here.’

Isolla and Golophin both glared at him.

‘I survived my King, my admiral and my ship - despite being her captain,’ Hawkwood said simply. ‘I’m not running away again.’

‘Bloody fool,’ Golophin said. ‘And what service will you render here in Hebrion, apart from having that stiff neck of yours chopped through?’

‘I might make the same point to you. You’re staying, it seems - and for what?’

‘I can be in Torunn in the blink of an eye if I so choose.’

‘You look as though a child could knock you over with a willow wand.’

‘He’s right, Golophin,’ Isolla said quickly. ‘Are your powers in need of recuperation? You do not look well.’ She appeared momentarily exasperated by her own timidity. Hawkwood saw her jaw harden. But then Golophin, ignoring her, was poking him in the chest with a bony forefinger.

‘Aruan told you his forbearance is at an end. Twice now he’s let you live, to suit his own ends. He will not do so again. Plus, this ship needs an experienced navigator. You will be travelling the entire length of three seas to reach Torunn. You are going, Captain. And you, lady - even if I were not your friend, I would insist that, as Hebrion’s reigning Queen, you must go. And you will, if I have to have you bundled up in a sack. Hawkwood, I charge you with her protection. Now let us hear no more about it. As it happens, I have a reason for staying, and you have given me reason to believe Aruan will not have me slain out of hand. Nor am I defenceless, so rest your minds from that selfless worry and start preparing for your voyage. There are tunnels under the palace that lead almost to the waterfront; Abeleyn had them dug ten years ago, so you will be able to leave without creating even more of a panic than already exists. Isolla knows where they are. You will leave by them as soon as you possibly can.’

‘I can’t do that. I must speak to the nobility before I go. I can’t just sneak away,’ Isolla protested.