The King's Deryni (17 page)

High atop the mast, the narrow green-black-green pennon of Corwyn's maritime service lifted and writhed on the growing breeze, and the heavy canvas of the sail bellied and snapped until the crew could secure the sheets. But once they trimmed the sail and ran the oars back in, the ship's speed increased and they began moving briskly on into the harbor, headed out between the great sea jetties of tumbled granite.

“Listen, and you can hear the bells on the sea buoys that mark the harbor entrance,” Llion said, gazing toward the end of the nearer jetty. “The one on this side has a deeper voice than the other, so you can tell them apart in the dark or in rough seas. Do you hear it?” At Alaric's rapt nod, Llion swept a hand toward the lighthouse towers bracketing the harbor mouth, horizontally striped green and white.

“And those towers have fire platforms at the top, where beacons can be lit at night to mark the harbor mouth and warn ships off the rocks. The harbor at the Isle d'Orsal has similar ones.”

Something suddenly shuddered underneath the bow, scraping along the keel toward them, and Alaric leaned out in some alarm to look down.

“That's only the harbor chain,” Llion told him, pointing as they passed over the submerged shadow-line of massive chain—“There!”—and watched it recede into the gloom behind them. “When it's raised, big ships can't pass. It's part of Coroth's sea defenses.”

Alaric's delighted grin said far more than words as the two of them watched the lighthouse and jetty recede and they passed into open water, now skirting westward along the rolling pasturelands of Tendal. After a while, with admonitions to keep a good grip until Alaric was sure he had his sea legs, Llion abandoned him and went up on the afterdeck where Kenneth and Xander stood chatting with several of the crew. Their four men-at-arms were gathered nearer the bow, one of them already looking a trifle queasy as the light chop of the enclosed harbor gave way to more rolling swells.

But Alaric found the experience exhilarating. The wind was fresh, the sun pleasant, and a decided nip of autumn was in the air. He had been aboard ships before, tied up in the harbor at Coroth, but he had never been at sea, and he squinted happily against the wind and the sea spray, glad of the wool cloak and cap Llion had insisted he wear.

After a while, when he was beginning to tire of watching the slow crawl of the distant shore, Llion came back down to fetch him onto the afterdeck. There he found his father and Xander talking with a man Alaric could only assume must be the ship's master: a wind-burnt, bandy-legged individual with a thatch of wiry grey hair escaping from underneath his salt-stained leather cap. The battered cockade affixed to the brim might once have been the green of Corwyn's sea service. The worn leather jerkin and breeches under the man's cloak of faded black obviously had weathered many a storm.

“Alaric, meet Rafe Winslow, master of the
Gryphon
,” Kenneth said, indicating the captain.

“Honored, milord,” the captain replied, touching two fingers to his cap. “And that shaggy fellow at the helm is Henry Kirby, my first mate,” he added, jutting his chin at the tall, lanky man steering the ship. As Kirby also gave Alaric a nod, white teeth flashed in his full beard and mustache, which were bleached rusty-brown by the sun and rain.

“Welcome aboard, my lord,” the man said. “Would you like to take a turn at the tiller?”

Alaric's eyes got round, but he came immediately to place both hands on the weathered oak, moving at Kirby's direction to stand between the man's two burly arms.

“Can you feel the pressure of the current?” Kirby asked. “She's got a heavy touch in this weather, but she's a good ship, very responsive.”

Alaric concentrated, letting his hands move with Kirby's in fine response to the waves, and thought he felt what the helmsman was talking about. He grinned as he glanced up at the man, then murmured his thanks and ducked out to let Kirby resume full control.

“Thank you, Master Kirby, but it might be best if you did the steering.”

The adults chuckled at that, the captain clapping him on the shoulder in good-natured approval. Soon a cabin boy began bringing out cups and a jug of ale, and then folding canvas stools, so the men could take their leisure, but Alaric politely declined their invitation to join them, excusing himself to explore the ship instead. The crew were mostly friendly, some of them aware of what he had done to assist with loading the grey mare below. He headed down to see her, spending a few minutes stroking both horses, but it was stuffy belowdecks, so he soon went back topside to scan the distant shoreline once more.

He soon learned that, once the cargo was safely stowed and the sail was set, there was very little for the crew to do when they were not on duty, so many of them were relaxing on deck, a few fishing off the sides. He could see a lookout up in a little cage atop the mast, and two more at the bow, but the frantic activity attendant on getting the ship under way had ceased. The men-at-arms had settled to sit with backs against the forward deck platform, except for one who was retching over the side.

“Some men just don't take to the sea,” one of the sailors told him. “It isn't their fault. He'll feel better, once we anchor for the night. Lucky for him, this is a calm sea today.”

Alaric found himself wondering what it would be like if it were
not
a calm sea, but he decided to say nothing, lest he damage his credibility as a sailor. After a while, he found an out-of-the-way spot to sit at the base of the afterdeck platform, with a view of the shoreline crawling by. There he settled down and pulled out the Koltan extract that Viliam and Jernian had given him, and spent the rest of the afternoon puzzling out the first few lines. They dropped anchor that night in a tiny bay tucked into the coastline at Trevas, dined on a hearty fish stew and crusty bread washed down with ale, and sailed again shortly after dawn.

This became part of his routine for the next few days: morning sword drill on the main deck with Llion and Xander and the men-at-arms, and sometimes his father, then several hours immersing himself in Koltan. Occasionally, one of the sailors would give him a fishing line to hold, but he never caught anything, and concluded that fishing actually was rather boring. One afternoon he spent several hours with one of the sailors learning about simple splices and knots.

He also visited the cargo hold at least once each day to check on the grey mare, usually wheedling an apple from the ship's cook to split between the mare and the dun gelding. On the third day out, after a stop at the Carthmoori port of Kilchon, he looked up from his reading to see Henry Kirby, the steersman, towering above him.

“Do you read for pleasure, young sir, or has your knight set lessons for you?” Kirby asked casually.

Alaric gave the man a wry smile. “For pleasure, though some of this is hardly pleasant. I don't suppose you read Torenthi.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Crouching down, Kirby reached across to angle the manuscript toward him. “We trade with Torenth, so I had to learn the lingo. And if you want to be a master one day, and captain your own ship, you learn to read it as well as speak it. Is this Koltan you're reading? Don't tell me you play cardounet?”

“Yes, and yes,” Alaric said in surprise. “Friends in Coroth copied out part of the beginning of his
Basic Strategies
—and tried to translate it for me. But I don't think their Torenthi is as good as they'd like it to be. We played a lot, though, while I was there. And I'm much better now than I used to be.”

“May I see that?” Kirby asked. “Do you mind if I sit?”

Shaking his head, Alaric handed over the piece of vellum, which Kirby studied for several minutes. Then:

“This is useful, as far as it goes. A pity they didn't have room to copy more for you.” Kirby looked up. “Would you like a match? I have a board and pieces in my cabin. It's a game that seafarers play a lot.”

“Thank you, but I doubt I'd be much challenge for you,” Alaric said, though he was pleased to be asked.

“Nonsense. If you don't play, you can't learn. Let me get my board. We've time for a match before I must go back on watch.”

Without waiting for an answer, Kirby unfolded himself and went below. Across the deck, Llion had been watching, and smiled and nodded as he caught Alaric's eye. But the boy was given no opportunity to contemplate that for very long, because Kirby emerged very quickly with a small cardounet board under one arm and a leather pouch in that hand.

“Here we go,” he said, folding back to a cross-legged seat beside Alaric and plopping the board between them. “You probably aren't used to pieces like mine, but you can help me sort them and set up.”

He pulled apart the drawstrings and upended the bag over the board, spilling out an assortment of black, white, and brown tiles, which he quickly began sorting. As he did so, Alaric soon saw that the brown tiles were actually suede leather backings for black or white tiles, which all had symbols painted on them to represent the traditional pieces.

“I suppose you're used to fancy game pieces carved like the figures they represent,” Kirby said, as he began sliding the white tiles into position on his side of the board. “These are easier to play with at sea; they don't slide off the board as easily in weather. And frankly, it keeps your concentration sharper, because you must pay more attention to the pieces.”

The explanation made sense, and Alaric immediately pitched in to help, first turning all the rest of the brown tiles, then sliding the black ones onto his side of the board, for Kirby clearly had already chosen the white side.

“I've taken the white, so that you don't have to waste time deciding what first move
you
would make,” the helmsman said, looking up at him when the board was set. “And no reading my mind,” he added casually. “Fair is fair.”

With that comment, he sent his war-duke over the front of the white line to challenge Alaric's archers.

This opening move, plus the allusion to his Deryni powers, put Alaric on the defensive at once, though there had been no hostility in Kirby's statement; only an acknowledgment of fact, that seemed not to bother the helmsman in the least. It did, indeed, take more concentration to keep the pieces straight without the shapes to remind him which was which—and Kirby did not coddle him or give him extra advantages. As he had said, fair was fair.

Kirby trounced him handily in their first match, and in the second, and the third. But each time, Alaric learned something new. Sometimes he was able to answer one of Kirby's moves with a move of his own that came straight from Koltan, which always brought a smile to Kirby's lips and a nod of approval. The helmsman was a good player and a good teacher, and pointed out the boy's mistakes in constructive and sometimes even humorous ways.

“Now,
that
was fairly pathetic,” Kirby said sympathetically, taking Alaric's war-duke after Alaric had moved the piece directly into the potential path of one of Kirby's knights and then not covered it in his next move. “When you're a real duke, you'll need to look ahead better than that.”

“What?” Alaric yelped. Then: “Oh,” he said, breathing out with an exasperated sigh.

“But you won't forget
that
again, will you?” Kirby said.

They played again the next day, and the next, sometimes on deck and sometimes down in the cabin, by lamplight. The pair became a regular sight on deck, when Kirby was not on duty: the shaggy-haired helmsman and the towheaded lad young enough to be his son, with heads bent over the cardounet board.

Kenneth was glad to see him so occupied, and he and Llion would watch the pair for hours from up on the afterdeck, as the ship continued westward along the rocky coast, calling at the ports of Kentar and Dunluce and finally rounding the Point of Kentar to enter the Eirian Estuary. High above, on the point, the Abbey of St. Ultan's looked down on the sea, and they put in briefly at the abbey's tiny harbor to take aboard two monks of the
Ordo Verbi Dei
, bound for Nyford.

And to Nyford they came, at midday the next day, tying up at the quay along the northern bank of the Lendour River where it met the Eirian. The groom in charge of looking after the horses aboard had asked Alaric to stand by when they offloaded the grey mare, for it was uncertain how she would react after nearly a week at sea.

It was well that they had taken the precaution, because the mare all but exploded as the groom tried to lead her from the hold, nearly going over backward and into the water as her hooves hit the ramp and she skidded, screaming.

Fortunately, Alaric was waiting nearby, and immediately slipped in beside her to grab the headstall and haul her down, crooning endearments all the while. He became airborne a few times, but he hung on doggedly as she gradually danced to the end of the ramp and onto the stone paving of the quay. At the same time, Kenneth and Llion came down the passenger gangplank and rushed to assist him, Xander right at their heels. No one noticed, until the mare had stopped dancing, that a party of mounted men had ridden up quayside, their leader robed in episcopal purple and wearing the flat, broad-brimmed hat of a bishop.

“You there! Back off, all of you! Take your hands off my horse!” the bishop cried, his voice rising on an angry note as he gestured for two of his men to take charge of the animal. “Why, don't tell me it's the Earl of Lendour? What an unpleasant surprise.”

Kenneth whirled to confront the speaker, his heart sinking as he recognized Oliver de Nore, the Bishop of Nyford, who of all the men in the world probably hated Kenneth Morgan and his son more than any other.

“Yes, I'm Lendour,” Kenneth said defiantly. “And you probably have my son to thank for the fact that your horse is not now in the bay, or hobbling on a broken leg.”

Startled, de Nore turned his attention to Alaric, who was doing his best to become invisible while being separated from the mare, who still was rolling her eyes and dancing on the slick cobbles.