It flung the ship into a flurry of action, but noiselessly. Pierce’s one hissed order, as eloquent as his usual bellow, was enough to send the hands scampering to the braces. The slap of their feet on the deck was about the loudest man-made sound. With the embroidered gloves he persisted in clutching, even in this heat, Pierce sketched a sharp line in the air, right to left. The mate lifted his cane in answer; there was one loud creak and rumble as the larboard ports flew open and the guns ran out, and that was all. We were as ready as we could be. In breathless silence, we bucked and dipped through the turbulent seas around the point.
Gradually the lee flank of the headland came into view, as steep and tree-clad as the other, wrapped in deeper twilight. From here the sun was hidden; the only light came from the sunset sky, reflected in the waters of the sheltered bay. And there, in towards the shore, riding easily above the clouds mirrored in that glass-calm pool, was the unmistakeable silhouette of the Chorazin.
The linstocks stopped whirling. The gun-captains held them poised above the touch-holes, ready to rake the Wolves’ ship with yet another terrible barrage. If Clare had escaped our last broadsides, could she still survive this? The mate looked anxiously up to the quarterdeck; we were still sweeping by, across the bay. Already the ideal moment to fire was past. But Pierce stood still, fingering his chin, while Jyp whistled softly between his teeth. There lay our formidable quarry, ports closed, sails furled tight, moored peacefully by bow and stern and showing no light anywhere, nor any other sign of life. And just how likely was that?
‘Head and stern, d’you see?’ whispered Pierce suddenly. Why was he asking me? ‘She’s moored head and stern. Head only, why, she might swing around on a spring, might she not? Bring her guns to bear thus. But now she can’t. God’s wounds! It’s worth the candle! We’ll in and look her over!’ He gestured again, Jyp spun the helm and in the same uncanny silence the deck hands flung themselves on the falls and hauled, taking the strain with a single hissing breath. Even the bosun and his mates dimmed their ritual abuse to a few hoarse whispers, and the mate stood cracking his cane into his palm to set the hauling pace. The sails shifted, the deck dipped; in a fierce, tense hush Defiance swung her nose around and stood in towards the land.
Pierce never took his eyes from the black ship. His brief nod to the mate sent the topmen streaming up the shrouds and along the yardarms with a nonchalance that made me feel slightly sick. Their control was daunting; with hardly a word spoken or a movement wasted the sails were taken in, and Defiance slowed to a stately glide. It brought home to me, with a slight shiver, how old the people I was watching really were. These complex, dangerous evolutions came to them as easily, as automatically as breathing now. They could almost have gone about and shortened sail in their sleep; and why not? They’d been doing it, some of them, for three or four lifetimes. Or more.
Suddenly Pierce flipped up his gloves again, held them high for a second, another – and then brought them sharply down to his side. With its capstan pawl thrown the anchor was trailed down with scarcely a splash to disturb the still waters, and in a second or so Defiance strained gently to a halt. I goggled. With just those two seconds of calculation Pierce had managed to position us neatly at an ideal angle to the black merchantman. Few of her guns could reach us here, but our broadside could rake the stern off her if need be. He’d taken this for granted; the moment the anchor touched water he’d turned away and whispered a barrage of orders. Jyp was already down on the maindeck pulling together a boarding party. I was on my way to muscle in when Mall appeared, hustling along a sick-looking Stryge. She didn’t even glance at me.
‘Well, sorcerer?’ rumbled Pierce.
Stryge scowled at him. The old man really did look exhausted. He coughed raspingly, spat copiously on Pierce’s clean deck and traced a complex figure in the phlegm with his toe. He watched it settle, and sighed. ‘There is little I can tell you. The cloud still hangs about the ship. But if she is not aboard …’ He nodded to the island. ‘Try there.’
‘Some guess!’ I snapped. ‘You’re supposed to be such a powerful sorcerer, and that’s all you can tell me?’
‘I’m spent!’ muttered Stryge. Disdainfully he sniffed the rich, dank odours from the land. ‘And how should I achieve more in this place? I belong to the North. Give me a frosty night air that smells of resin and sharp wood-smoke. Take me back to the pines on the Brocken, where the dark powers meet –’
‘You can’t have been there lately,’ I told him. ‘There aren’t any. The East Germans cut down all the forest and stuck up a damn great concrete blockhouse, like the Berlin Wall –’
Stryge leered. ‘Where the dark powers meet, as I said. Such a stage of human folly suits the sabbats just as well. Or better.’ He seemed to cheer up, and stared again at the shapeless smear of mucus. ‘High up, maybe. Up hills. That’s the best I can do. Now tell this bitch to let me sleep!’
From near sea level the Chorazin looked ten times the size, looming over the longboats as we rowed nearer. It was hard to remember I’d scaled those bulging flanks only days before, and under fire. The two musketeers in our bows kept nervously sweeping their weapons along the high rail; Jyp didn’t stop them. We reached the side without being challenged. Boarding axes hooked quietly on to the blackened planks, and under the watchful eyes of the musketeers in Mall’s longboat the sailors swarmed up the wooden steps as easily as a broad staircase. As for me, I was so much dreading what I’d find that I was at the deck before I knew it, and swinging myself over the rail.
The deck boomed deafeningly under my feet; but there was no watch to be alerted. No sign of anyone, in fact. The high-pitched creak that made everyone jump was just a door swinging in the breeze. As we spread out to search the ship I made for the aft companionway, and with Jyp at my heels hissing caution I swung myself down onto the gloomy stairs.
He could have saved himself the trouble. The moment my head went below the hatchway I knew there was nobody there. I didn’t need to be a warlock or anything. I just knew. It may have been the stillness of the foul air, or something in the way the sounds echoed, our footfalls, the slap and swirl of the water in the bilges; but that ship felt empty. All the way down, deck to deck, it was the same; dark, stinking, still. I tried not to think what it must have been like for Clare, days of it down here among these sewer stenches. But if only she could still be there … Somehow. The lazarette door was locked. I looked at Jyp, shrugged, and blew the lock out with a shot. But as Jyp ripped it open my heart sank; the inner door stood ajar. I knew there’d be nobody inside, but I looked all the same. On the heap of rags meant for a bed lay something dark; I picked it up – and horrified myself by bursting into tears.
‘Her skirt?’ said Jyp. ‘Hey, look, it’s got torn, that’s why she couldn’t keep it on, it’d just fall down. Doesn’t mean she’s not still okay –’
I didn’t explain. It wasn’t just that. It was everything I’d left behind, my ordered office world, my carefully structured little normality, my scrupulously sexless intimacy – or was it our world, our intimacy? The sight of that once-trim skirt brought it all rushing back to me in a flood of emotion I couldn’t even recognize, let alone control. I wanted to hide my head and howl. But I had that much control left, at least; instead I think I said just about every swearword I knew. Even then I spoke four languages, so it must have been quite a lot. Then I rolled the skirt up and thrust it into my belt.