"Right, let's get under way and out of this madhouse," he said, looking up at the sky. Blue with a slight haze; ought to hold steady, although you might get fog with that. Wind out of the north and a little to the west, about six knots; they'd have to scull clear of the dock. "Martha, you mind if the petty officer here takes the other oar?"
"Not suffering from the side effects of testosterone poisoning," she said, heading for the cabin with a basket in either hand, "I have no objection at all to leaving hard physical labor to someone younger and stronger."
Well, that's put me in my place, Cofflin thought with wry affection. "Prepare to cast off fore and aft," he said aloud.
Lucy sprang for the dock and the stern line, grabbing the davit and casting a look of triumph at Heather. Jared Jr. scrambled to the bows; his sister Marian was kneeling on one of the cockpit seats, looking dreamily at the harbor with her elbows on the coaming and chin propped on the heels of her hands.
"Cast off."
The children freed the mooring lines and hopped nimbly back to the Boojum. Jared and the Guardsman picked the long oars out of their racks and pushed against the timber pilings with their collars of floating weed, then fitted them to the oarlocks and began to scull. Martha took the tiller, looking between them and craning her head a little to see past the mast. The catboat dislodged protesting gulls and sea ducks as it slid out into the millpond-still surface between the piers. He spared a glance for the vane over Fort Brandt.
"Right, sea's medium and the wind's steady," he said.
And fresh enough to raise a little froth on the long sack-shape of the Great Harbor. The lagoon ran northeastward up the Island from here; Nantucket Town was tucked away in the southwestern corner. Traffic was fairly thick… 't
"Let the centerboard go," he said. Martha did, and the wooden fin-shape slid down through the hollow box and slot to project through the center of the hull. The motion of the catboat altered as it bit water and started to resist the sideways slip of the flat-bottomed craft. They racked the oars and tied them down. The Boojum pitched as she lay motionless, the mast making circles against the sky.
"Cast away, loose the sail," he said.
The children were just tall enough to reach the running knots if they stood on the seats. He watched his adopted son prying at the damp hemp, a frown of concentration on his face and his sun-faded tow hair riffling in the breeze, caught Martha's eye, and grinned with the pleasure of being alive. He'd looked much the same himself, when his father taught him how to handle a boat, and Cofflins before him, back to the beginning of time or at least the settlement of the Danelaw over in the old country. Cofflins had been Lincolnshire men before the founding of New England, and fishermen since Noah.
In fact, a remote would-have-been-ancestor was probably teaching his boy how to handle a bullhide coracle, somewhere in barbarian Europe this very day… which was a bit eerie, when you thought about it. For that matter, Jared Jr.'s birth-parents had come from the part of Alba that bordered the fenland marshes, so he was probably a remote ancestor of the American who'd raised him, which was downright weird when you thought about it.
"All right, everyone down, and 'ware boom," he said. Martha came to take the tiller again while he heaved. "Martinelli, lend a hand…"
A spatter of shots came over the low hill ahead. Raupasha nodded and smiled, more broadly as the buzzing of the ultralight grew stronger. They'd only been in the field a few weeks, but she'd grown used to air scouts and the reach of vision they gave you; the older warriors of her band still shook their heads at it, or made covert signs.
It was a bright cool day, the air smelling of damp earth and the not-too-distant sea; the grass was green, starred with some winter flowers. Trees were mostly bare now, except where distant mountains reared blue-green with pine. It would have been a beautiful country, if war had not come by; plumes of smoke scarred the sky, one from the farmstead not far behind her. The horses shied a little as beams collapsed in an acrid smell of ash, and Sabala turned his head and pricked his ears.
"Seha River Land," she read off the map; maps were wonderful things, letting your mind soar like an eagle across the earth.
They were far in the northwest of the thumb-shaped peninsula of land that held the Hittite Empire, north and east of Troy. The Seha River flowed past northward to her right, too deep to ford easily-she must remember that, not to get pinned against it. A farmhouse burned behind her, the plume of smoke one of dozens visible.
The ultralight came over the ridge and swooped downward toward them. More horses shied; some had to be fought down from the edge of bolting. Some of the men were looking more than a little apprehensive, too; Raupasha hopped down from her chariot, took the pole with the red banner, and waved it in a huge circle around her head.
The blue arrowhead drove toward her, then pulled up like an eagle-the eagle whose wings were painted on the fabric. It came by at barely head height, and a package trailing a long ribbon of cloth came down from it. Raupasha could see the pilot's goggles, grin, streaming scarf and glazed sheepskin jacket; yes, it must be cold up there. But how glorious!
One of her men ran over with the message cylinder, turning it over in his hands. Raupasha took it from him and unscrewed it, smiling a little at his gape of awe.
"Thank you, Artatama," she said.
The boy blushed and bowed with hand to forehead. Warriors liked it when their rulers knew their names-both her foster father and Lord Kenn'et had told her that. Sabala relaxed as he left; the hound was never easy when those he considered strangers approached her.
She unrolled the paper and held it beside her map. The notes were scrawled one-handed by the paper, but clear enough. She closed her eyes for a moment, called on Agni and made things clear to her inner eye. Then she called the squadron commanders to her, explaining.
"Now!" she said at last, when all was ready.
The Mitannian chariots fanned out-a hundred war-cars took up a surprising amount of space-and then surged forward. The thunder of a thousand iron-shod hooves would give the enemy some warning, but they would be swift on its heels. Reaching down, she pulled the rocket launcher from its rack, put it over her shoulder, and swung the end toward Gunnery Sergeant Connor.
"Load," she said crisply.
"Up!" he replied, sliding the rocket shell into the tail of the launcher.
She felt a click as the trigger spring took up the tension. So many Nantukhtar things involve clicks, she thought, mouth dry. Soon…
The Mitannians crested the rise, seeming to their enemies to appear from nowhere in a rattling thunder. Iridmi flicked his whip, a delicate touch that did the team no hurt but told them time to run.
The chariots plunged downward, over gently rolling plowland green with winter wheat, flowing around obstacles. Raupasha raised her voice as her foster father had taught her, high and pure and strong in the first note of the war-song, the ancient paean her people had brought with them from the seas of grass. The others took it up, and it spurred the horses on more than rein or whip.
Wind flew past her, and clods of turf torn up by the hooves. Sabala ran baying at the wheel, his usual gentle-foolish face turned into something altogether different, as if he were indeed Guardian of the Underworld-she had named him for that, as well as his fur.
Ahead, the enemy were strung out on a track beside a little stream lined with oleander and poplars. Part of their force was a train of wagons, some big ones of the Nantukhtar type, others commandeered from the people of this land. The rest was a working party, local peasants digging and ditching and throwing dirt and gravel from baskets onto the surface of the roadway. The two groups had fouled each other, a wagon had bogged to the hubs leaving the made section of the road, and extra teams and men had been hitched to free it. Teamsters and laborers ran about getting in the way, oxen bellowed in panic, and the escorting warriors ran for their weapons.