'Why?' he asked.
She was tying up her hair, and paused, letting it tumble once more about her shoulders. 'Even queens need a little comfort now and again.'
'Would you still need it, if you were not a queen of a lost kingdom?'
'If I were not a queen, Captain, I would not be here – nor you either.'
'If you were not a queen I would marry you, and you would be happy.'
She hesitated, and then said quietly, ‘I know.' Then she gathered her things and slipped out of the door as silently as she must have arrived.
Two more days passed in the bright spring blue of the sea, and the routine of the ship became a way of life for all of them, ruled by bells, punctuated by unremarkable meals. As the Seahare sailed steadily onwards it became their entire world, self-contained and ordered. They had a fair wind, a sky uncluttered save by a little high cloud, and no sight of any other ship, though the lookouts were kept at the masthead day and night. It seemed strange to Hawkwood. The Levangore, especially the western Levangore, was crossed by the busiest sea lanes in the world, and yet in all their passage of it thus far they had sighted not a single sail.
The wind kept backing round until it was east-south-east, and in order to preserve some of their speed, Hawkwood altered course to north-north-east so it was on the beam. To larboard they could see now the blue shapes of the Malvennor Mountains that formed the backbone of Astarac, Isolla's birth shy;place. She spent hours standing at the leeward rail, watching the land of her childhood drift past. The lookouts kept their gaze fixed on the open sea, and thus it was she who came to Hawkwood in the afternoon watch, and pointed at the south shy;western horizon.
'What do you make of that, Captain?'
Hawkwood stared, and saw dark against the blue shadows of the mountains a sombre stain on the air, a high column rising blackly against the sky.
'Smoke,' he said. 'It's some great, far-off fire.'
'It is Garmidalan,' Isolla whispered. 'I know it. They are burning the city.'
All day she remained on deck staring over the larboard quarter at the distant smoke, and as the daylight faded it was possible for all to see the red glow on the western horizon which had nothing to do with sunset.
Bleyn appeared on deck at dusk, having stayed dutifully by his sea-sick mother all day, and joined Isolla at the rail. An unlikely friendship had grown up between the two, and when Hawkwood saw the both of them standing together at his ship's side with the swell of the sea rising and falling behind them he felt an almost physical ache in his heart, and knew not why.
'Sail ho!' the lookout called down from the masthead. 'Where away?'
'Fine off the port quarter, skipper. She's hull down and with not too much canvas abroad, but I do believe she's ship-rigged.'
Hawkwood dashed up the starboard shrouds, then the futtock shrouds into the maintop. The lookout was on the crossyards above him. He peered back along their wake, slightly phosphorescent in the gathering starlight, and caught the nick on the red and yellow glimmer of the horizon. He wiped his watering eyes but could make out nothing more. The strange ship, if ship it were, was on almost the same course as they, but it must have no more than reefed courses up or he'd have seen them pale against the sky. Not in a hurry then.
He did not like it all the same, and began bellowing orders from the maintop.
'All hands! All hands to make sail! Arhuz, send up topgallants and main and mizzen staysails.'
'Aye, sir. Rouse out, rouse out, you sluggards! Get up that rigging before I knot me a rope's end.'
In minutes the rigging was full of men, and a crowd of them climbed past Hawkwood on the way to loose the topgallant sail. As the extra canvas was sheeted home and the yards braced round he felt the ship give a quiver, and the dip of her bow became more pronounced. Her wake grew even brighter with turbulence and he could feel the masts creaking and straining. The Seahare picked up speed like a spurred thor shy;oughbred. Hawkwood stared aft again.
There – the pale shapes of sails being unfurled. Despite their extra speed, the stranger was hull up now. She must be a swift sailer indeed, and have a large crew to cram on so much extra sail in so little time. Fore and aft sails on main and mizzen – so she was a barquentine then. God almighty, she was fast. Hawkwood felt a momentary chill settle in his stomach.
He looked down at the deck below. They were lighting the stern lanterns at the taffrail.
'Belay there! Douse those lights!'
The mood on board changed instantly. He saw pale faces looking up into the rigging at him, and then over the stern to where the strange ship was visible even from the quarterdeck she was coming up so fast.
Hawkwood swallowed, cursing the sudden dryness in his mouth. A row of lights appeared along the barquentine's sides. She was opening her gun-ports. He hung his head a moment and then called out hoarsely:
'Master-at-arms, beat to quarters. Prepare for battle.'
He climbed slowly down from the maintop whilst the deck exploded into a crowded, frantic activity below him. The enemy had caught up with them once more.
Eighteen
The last of the wagons had been abandoned and now the men of the army were bent under the weight of their packs, while at the rear of their immense column a clanking, braying cavalcade of heavily burdened mules were cursed forward by their drovers. They had left behind the last paved road and were now forging upwards along a single stony mountain track whilst above them the Cimbrics reared up in peak on peak, and the snow blew in streaming banners from their summits.
They were ten days out of Torunn, and the first, easy stage of their journey was behind them. They had been three days on the river, and after the interminable disembarkation had been five days more marching across the quiet farmland of northern Torunna, cheered to the echo at every village and town and freely given all the food supplies they needed. A thousand mules and seven thousand horses had cropped the new spring grass of every pasture in their path down to the roots, and the Torunnan King had every evening summoned the local landowners about him and had compensated them in gold coin from his own hand.
But the kindly plains were behind them now, and so were the lower foothills. They were on the knees of the Cimbric Mountains, highest in the western world, and their sweating faces were set towards the snows and glaciers of the high places. And the battle which would be fought on their other side.
Corfe sat his horse on the brow of a tall, crag-faced hillock, and watched as his army streamed past. Beside him were Felorin, General Comillan of the Bodyguard, Ensign Baraz, and a sable-clad man on foot, Marshal Kyne, commander of the Orphans now that Formio was left behind in the capital.
The Cathedrallers were in the van, five thousand of them leading their warhorses by the bridle, most of them natives of these very hills. Next came ten thousand picked Torunnans armed with arquebuses and sabres, then the Orphans, ten thousand Fimbrian exiles with their pikes balanced on their shoulders, and then the straggling length of the mule train. Bringing up the rear would be the five hundred heavy cavalry of Corfe's Bodyguard in their black Ferinai armour.
In the midst of both the Torunnan infantry and the Orphans, light guns were being manhandled along, some shy;times lifted bodily over deep-running streams and broken boulders which had tumbled from the heights above. They were six-pounder horse-artillery, three batteries' worth in total. All that Corfe dared try and take across the mountains.