The night took my breath away, it was so beautiful. The sun was long gone now, the stars were out and a sweep of luminous grey cloud stretched in a great arch, a frozen wave, over a full moon that edged it with cold fire, bleached the decks and turned the sails to taut sheets of silver. A soft thunder seemed to echo through the vast dome of the night above us, rolling in time to the smooth slow heaving of the ship. The urgent hiss along the hull told of the true speed she was making, and the snapping flutter of the masthead pennants, the soft hum of the rigging. A few gulls still cried in our wake, or came to perch along the yardarms. The maindeck was empty but for the forms of sleeping hands, wrapped in their blankets. This was the deck watch, ready for any emergency, while their comrades rocked more comfortably in their hammocks below. Around the rails on quarterdeck and foredeck the lookouts paced, each to his own little beat, walking to keep awake, while at the helm Mall still stood, her long hair shot with light and her eyes gleaming star-bright. The lookouts and the master’s mate in command saluted me as I appeared, and Mall jerked her head in casual invitation; I held up the bottle, and saw her teeth flash in answer.
‘A fine wolves’ moon!’ she said as I clambered up the gangway.
‘Don’t spoil it!’ I pleaded. ‘It’s too beautiful.’
‘Is it not?’ she agreed cheerfully. ‘Come, you’ll have a wider view from here – though better yet from the rigging, or the mastheads –’
I’d done plenty of rock-climbing; but rocks don’t sway. ‘Maybe later –’ I was going to say something more, but it faded. I stared uneasily out over the ship’s rail. Nowhere around us was there any trace of the depthless azure; it might never have been. In all directions, glittering like steel and gunmetal beneath the moon, there stretched a wide, empty expanse of rippling grey. It might, just might, have been a calm ocean, catching and mirroring the soft shades of that flowing, feathery arch so exactly as to make them seem one substance. Together they formed a wide tunnel, a cave mouth almost, towards which we were sailing, into the blue-black sky hung with moon and stars. Yet still the sounds were those of the sea, and it was a strong breeze that stiffened the sails, and riffled my hair.
Sea or not, it didn’t seem to bother Mall, so I didn’t let it bother me either; I was tired of playing tenderfoot. I just fumbled out my Swiss army knife and made a hash of uncorking the brandy. I wanted that first swig badly, but manners made it Mall’s.
‘To your good health, Master Stephen. And your ladylight’o’love’s.’ She wiped the neck delicately with her thumb before passing it back.
‘My … Clare’s not my, er, ladylight. Just a friend.’
‘What of her sweetheart, then? A laggard he must be, to leave the chase to you.’
I snorted. ‘A hell of a time I’d have, trying to explain what’s happened to her. But I don’t think there is anyone, not at the moment.’
She gave me a considering look. ‘The better man you, then, to speed so swiftly to her aid.’
I lowered the bottle, embarrassed, and shrugged. ‘Not really. It’s my fault she’s in trouble. My own stupid fault, poking around and mishandling things. I should have known it would attract trouble.’
‘Why so? To strike so deep into the Core like that, it’s unheard-of; nobody who knew anything of Wolves would have looked for it, not Jyp, not I. There’s no blaming you.’
I shook my head. ‘Wish I could agree. Doesn’t make any difference, though – my fault or not, I had to go after her. I couldn’t just sit and do nothing.’
‘But your wife, your own sweetheart – what of her? Should not you stay with her? Is’t fair to herself to risk yourself on such a chase-devil as this?’
A sour taste rose in my throat. ‘I’m not married. And there’s hardly a girl who’d give a good goddamn if I never came back. Except maybe Clare, if that old bastard’s to be believed.’
‘The Stryge? Aye, believe him in this. Only beware of trusting him too far.’ She regarded me with mischievous eyes. ‘And this Clare, you’ve never –’
‘No I bloody well haven’t!’ I countered sharply, and added for good measure ‘What about you? Are you married? Does your daddy know you’re out?’
She gave a bubbling chuckle, and tilted her long nose in the air. ‘Wedded? Not I, I’m too much the rover. ‘Sides, I like to lie o’both sides i’the bed.’
And while I took a moment to think over that one, she sniffed the air, glanced up into the rigging with the instinctive casualness of long experience, and eased off the wheel a little. ‘Wind’s freshening, but we shan’t want to take in another reef, not yet. Speed’s the essence, this night, with the fat sprat we’re after.’ I sat down on the helmsman’s high bench, and studied her as she leaned forward to check the compass binnacle. She was no great beauty, a little too big-boned all over, but her black glossy breeches clung snugly to very feminine curves, and she moved with the grace of a woman athlete. Only that and the breadth of her bare shoulders hinted at any particular strength, let alone the tigerish force she’d displayed. Her easy manner betrayed nothing of the ferocity that drove it, either; but I couldn’t forget they were there.
‘Some sprat,’ I said. ‘But catching it’s only half the problem; what do we do then? It makes me feel a lot better, having you along. I’m glad you came – and incredibly grateful. It’s not your quarrel, after all.’
‘Oh, ‘tis mine all right,’ she said softly. She looked up and out, to where stars glittered beyond the bows. Their pale fire shone in her eyes, and she glared hard at things only she could see – memories, maybe, or forebodings. ‘I’ve a quarrel with all Wolves and suchlike snapping brutes, and all the greater evils that lie behind them. And with all the wrongs the world o’erflows with. To set evil to rights wherever I may find it, so I’m sworn. And most of all where a maid’s in distress –’ She broke off, and remarked with dangerous coldness ‘Say what you laugh at, Master Stephen, and we’ll laugh together.’
‘I wasn’t laughing!’ I assured her hastily. ‘At least, not exactly – it’s just … well, I’ve never heard anyone talk like that before. Not like – I don’t know – a knight errant? Or a – what’s the bloody word? – a paladin. Least of all – if you don’t mind – a hell of an attractive woman …’
‘A paladin?’ She unfroze at once, and swept me a bow so deep her curls went foaming over her face. ‘High praise, fair sir! Too high for my poor self. But I thank you nonetheless.’ She smiled wryly. ‘An all men took me so courteously I’d think better of them.’
‘You probably just make them feel inadequate. I don’t dare. You saved my neck, and you’re helping me save Clare’s. Like I said, I’m grateful, I can’t resent you.’ And I knew I’d better change the subject fast, before I began to. ‘Least of all when I think about taking on those bloody Wolves again. You said … something about greater evils behind them. Old Stryge was hinting along the same lines, but he couldn’t say more – or wouldn’t. You don’t happen to –’
She shook her head, crossed her arms over the top of the wheel and leaned her chin on them thoughtfully. ‘No, Stephen; naught more sure. But it’s an easy guess. There’s always evil behind such creatures, even if it’s only what their first ancestors left in their blood. Deep in there at the centre, at the hub of the Great Wheel –’
‘The Core, you mean?’
‘Aye, aye, so many call it. There, anyhow, good and evil, they’re well balanced, well blended, you might say. A smack of each in most things, and never more so than in men and their doings. Out here, though, east of the sunrise, the measure of all things changes. There’s great good to be found, aye, and great evil as well; and less mixed. Nay, no more brandy for now, I thank you; too much is a lee shore to a steersman.’