Ships from the West

A slug from the neck of the bottle. He closed his eyes gratefully for the warmth of it. My, how the world had changed - some things, anyway.

His Osprey was moored fore and aft to anchored buoys in the Outer Roads. It was a fair pull in a skiff, but at least here he was alone, and the motion of the swell was like a lullaby. Those familiar stinks of tar and salt and wood and seawater. But his ship was a mastless hulk, her yards sold off one by one and year by year to pay for her mooring rent. A stake in a freighting venture some five years before had swallowed up what savings Hawkwood had possessed, and Murad had done the rest.

He thought of the times on that terrible journey in the west when he had stood guard over Murad in the night. How easy murder would have been back then. But now the scarred nobleman moved in a different world, one of the great of the land, and Hawkwood was nothing but dust at his feet.

Seagulls scrabbling on the deck above his head. They had covered it with guano too hard and deep to be cleared away. Hawkwood looked out of the wide windows of the stern cabin within which he sat - these at least he had not sold -and stared landwards at Abrusio rising up out of the sea, shrouded in her own smog, garlanded with the masts of ships, crowned by fortresses and palaces. He raised the bottle to her, the old whore, and drank some more, setting his feet on the heavy fixed table and clinking aside the rusted, broad-bladed hangar thereon. He kept it here for the rats— they grew fractious and impertinent sometimes - and also for the odd ship-stripper who might have the stamina to scull out this far. Not that there was much left to strip.

That scrabbling again on the deck above. Hawkwood glared at it irritably but another swallow of the good wine eased his nerves. The sun was going down, turning the swell into a saffron blaze. He watched the slow progress of a merchant caravel, square-rigged, as it sailed close-hauled into the Inner Roads with the breeze - what there was of it - hard on the starboard bow. They'd be half the night putting into port at that rate. Why hadn't the fool sent up his lateen yards?

Steps on the companionway. Hawkwood started, set down the bottle, reached clumsily for the sword, but by then the cabin door was already open, and a cloaked figure in a broad-brimmed hat was stepping over the storm sill.

'Hello, Captain.'

'Who in the hell are you?'

'We met a few times, years ago now.' The hat was doffed, revealing an entirely bald head, two dark, humane eyes set in an ivory-pale face. 'And you came to my tower once, to help a mutual friend.'

Hawkwood sank back in his chair. 'Golophin, of course. I know you now. The years have been kind. You look younger than when I last saw you.'

One beetling eyebrow raised fractionally. 'Indeed. Ah, Candelarian. May I?'

'If you don't mind sharing the neck of a bottle with a commoner.'

Golophin took a practised swig. 'Excellent. I am glad to see your circumstances are not reduced in every respect, Captain.'

'You sailed out here? I heard no boat hook on.'

'I got here under my own power, you might say.'

'Well, there's a stool by the bulkhead behind you. You'll get a crick in your neck if you stoop like that much longer.'

'My thanks. The bowels of ships were never built with gangling wretches like myself in mind.'

They sat passing the bottle back and forth companionably enough, staring out at the death of the day and the caravel's slow progress towards the Inner Roads. Abrusio came to twinkling life before them, until at last it was a looming shadow lit by half a million yellow lights, and the stars were shamed into insignificance.

The lees of the wine at last. Hawkwood kissed the side of the bottle and tossed it in a corner to clink with its empty fellows. Golophin had lit a pale clay pipe and was puffing it with evident enjoyment. Finally he thumbed down the bowl and broke the silence.

'You seem a remarkably incurious man, Captain, if I may say so.'

Hawkwood stared out the stern windows as before. 'Curiosity as a quality is overrated.'

'I agree, though it can lead to the uncovering of useful knowledge, on occasion. You are bankrupt I hear, or within a stone's cast of it.'

'Port gossip travels far.'

'This ship is something of a maritime curiosity.' 'As am I.'

'Yes. I had no idea of the hatred Lord Murad bears for you, though you may not believe that. He has been busy, these last few years.'

Hawkwood turned. He was a black silhouette against the brighter water shifting behind him, and the last red rays of the sun had touched the waves with blood.

'Remarkably busy.'

'You should not have refused the reward the King offered. Had you taken it, Murad's malignance would have been hampered at least. But instead he has had free rein these last ten years to make sure that your every venture fails. If one must have powerful enemies, Captain, one should not spurn powerful friends.'

'Golophin, you did not come here to offer me half-baked truisms or old wives' wisdom. What do you want?'

The wizard laughed and studied the blackened leaf in his pipe. 'Fair enough. I want you to enter the King's service.'

Taken aback, Hawkwood asked, 'Why?'

'Because kings need friends too, and you are too valuable a man to let crawl into the neck of a bottle.'

'How very altruistic of you', Hawkwood snarled, but his anger seemed somehow hollow.

'Not at all. Hebrion, whether you choose to admit it or no, is in your debt, as is the King. And you helped a friend of mine at one time, which sets me in your debt also.'

'The world would be a better place if I had not bothered.'

'Perhaps.' There was a pause. Then Hawkwood said quietly, 'He was my friend too.'

The light had gone, and now the cabin was in darkness save for a slight phosphorescence from the water beyond the stern windows.

'I am not the man I was, Golophin', Hawkwood whispered. 'I am become afraid of the sea.'

'We are none of us what we were, but you are still the master mariner who brought his ship back from the greatest voyage in recorded history. It is not the sea you fear, Richard, but the things you found dwelling on the other side of it. Those things are here, now. You are one of a select few who have encountered them and lived. Hebrion has need of you.'

A strangled laugh. I am a withered stick for Hebrion to lean on, to be sure. What service had you and the King in mind? Royal Doorkeeper, or Master of the Royal Rowboat perhaps.'

'We want you to design ships for the Hebrian navy, along the lines of the Osprey here. Fast, weatherly ships which can carry many guns. New sail plans and new yards.'

Hawkwood was speechless for a while. 'Why now?' he asked at last. 'What has happened?'

'Yesterday the arch-mage Aruan, whom you and I know, was proclaimed Vicar-General of the Inceptine Order here in Normannia. His first act in office was to announce the creation of a new military order. Though it is not generally known, I have been able to find out that this new body is to be composed entirely of mages and shifters. He calls them the "Hounds of God".'

'Saint in heaven!'

'What we want you to do, Captain, is to help prepare Hebrion for war.' 'What war is that?'

'One which is to be fought very soon. Not this year perhaps, but within the next few. A battle for mastery of this continent. No man will be unaffected by it - nor will any man be able to ignore it.'

'Unless he drinks himself to death first.' Golophin nodded sombrely. 'There is that.' 'So I am to help you prepare for some great struggle with the warlocks and werewolves of the world. And in return—'

'In return you will attain a high position in the navy, and at court, I promise you.'

'What of Murad? He won't like my . . . elevation.' 'Murad will do as he's told.' 'And his wife?' 'What of her?'

'Nothing. No matter. I will do it, Golophin. For this I'll crawl out of that bottle.'