'Where is he?' Isolla asked urgently.
'Peace, Isolla. He is being carried here as we speak by a file of marines.'
'A file may not be enough. Do you hear the crowds down there? I have ordered out the garrison. The city is ablaze with torches.'
Golophin listened. It was a sound like the surf of a distant, raging sea. Tens of thousands of people in a panicked fever of speculation, clogging the streets, choking the city gates. A mob maddened by fear of the unknown. All this in the space of a few hours. Rumour sped faster than a galloping horse, and all over the city men were wailing that the fleet was destroyed, and that they were now about to face an invasion of - what? That was the core of the panic. The ignorance. The yawl which bore the survivor had put in to the Inner Roads late in the afternoon, and the marines sent to fetch him to the palace were moving more slowly than the speculation.
'Have you summoned the nobles?'
'What is left of them. They're waiting in the abbey. My God, Golophin, what does it mean?' There were tears in her eyes, the first time he had seen her weep in many years. She truly loved Abeleyn, and now she was jumping to conclusions about his fate like everyone else. Golophin felt a pang of pure despair. He knew in his heart what this castaway they had found would tell him. But he had to hear it aloud, from someone who had been there.
A thump on the door. They had repaired to the Queen's chambers, as the rest of the palace was in an uproar.
All the best officers of the kingdom had been on board those proud ships. All that were left were time-servers and passed-over incompetents. Hebrion had been decapitated.
If the fleet is lost, Golophin reminded himself. The door was thumped again.
'Enter’ Isolla called, composing herself. A burly marine with a livid scratch on his face put his head round the door. All the maids had been sent away.
'Your majesty, we have him here. We brought him on a handcart, but that got snarled up, so we—'
'Bring him in,' Golophin snapped.
It was Hawkwood. They had not known that. Isolla's hand went to her mouth as the marines carried him in. They set him on the Queen's own four-poster and then stood like men who have had the wind knocked out of them. They were all looking at Golophin, then at the wrecked shape on the bed as though waiting for some explanation. In a kindlier voice, Golophin said; 'There's wine in the antechamber, Sergeant. You and your men help yourselves, and remain there. I shall want to question you later.'
The marines saluted and clanked out. As the door banged shut behind them Golophin leaned over the body on the bed. 'Richard. Richard, wake up. Isolla, bring over that ewer, and the things on the tray. Water, lots of it. Hunt up one of those bloody maids.'
Hawkwood had been terribly injured. Half his beard had been burnt off and his face was a raw, glistening wound which was bubbled with blisters and oozing fluid. His arms and chest had also suffered, and his right fist was a mass of scorched tissue from which a sliced rope's end protruded. He was caked with salt and what looked like old blood.
Golophin trickled water over the split lips and sprinkled drops over the eyelids. 'Richard.' His fingers wriggled and conjured a tiny white ball of flame in the air. He flicked it as one might bat at an annoying fly, and it smote the unconscious mariner on the forehead, sinking into his flesh in the glimmer of a second.
Isolla returned, a maid behind her bearing all manner of cloths and bottles and a steaming bowl. The maid was wide-eyed as an owl, but fled instantly at one look from her mistress.
Hawkwood opened his eyes. The white of one was flooded scarlet.
'Golophin.' A cracked whisper. The wizard trickled more water over his lips and Hawkwood burst into a racking cough. 'Cradle his head, Isolla; raise it up.'
The Queen rested the mariner's battered head on her breast, tears sliding silently down her face.
'Richard, can you talk?' Golophin asked gently.
The eyes, one garish red, glared wildly for a second, terror convulsing his body. Then Hawkwood relaxed like a puppet whose strings have been snipped.
'It's gone. The whole fleet. They destroyed it, Golophin. Every ship.'
Isolla shut her eyes.
'Tell me, Captain.'
'Weather-working - a calm and fog. Monsters out of the air, the sea. Thousands. We had no chance.' 'They're all—'
'Dead. Drowned. Oh God!' Hawkwood's lips drew back from his black gums and a hoarse cry ripped out of him. 'Pain. Ah, stop, stop.' Then it passed.
'I will heal you,' Golophin said. 'And then you will sleep for a long time, Richard.'
'No! Listen to me!' Hawkwood's eyes blazed with fever and anguish. I saw him, Golophin. I spoke to him.'
'Who?'
'Aruan. He let me go. He sent me back.' Hawkwood sobbed dryly. I bear his terms.'
A hand of pure ice closed about Golophin's heart. 'Go on.'
'Surrender. Hand over the nobles. Hebrion and Astarac both. Or he'll destroy them. He can do it. He will. They're coming here on the west wind Golophin, in the storm.'
It poured out of him in a stream of tumbled words. The raft. Aruan's appearance. His words - his implacable reasoning. At last Hawkwood's voice sank into a barely audible croak. 'I'm sorry. My ship. I should have died.'
Isolla caressed his unburnt cheek. 'Hush, Captain. You have done well. You can sleep now.' She looked at Golophin and the old wizard nodded, his face grey.
'Sleep now. Rest.'
Hawkwood stared up at her, and the ghost of a smile flitted across his face. 'I remember you.' Then coughing took him, a fit that made him jump in Isolla's arms. He fought for breath. Then his eyes rolled back, and the air came out of him in a long, tired exhalation. He was still.
'He has suffered too much,' Golophin said. 'I was impatient. I am a fool.'
Isolla bent her head and her shoulders trembled, but she made not a sound.
'He is dead then,' she said at last, calmly.
Golophin set a hand on Hawkwood's chest, and shut his eyes. The mariner's body gave a sudden jolt, and his limbs quivered.
‘I will not permit him to die,' Golophin said fiercely, and as he spoke the Dweomer blazed up in him and spilled out of his eyes, his fingertips. It coiled out of his mouth like a white smoke. 'Get away from him, Isolla.'
The Queen did as she was told, shielding her eyes against the brilliance of Golophin's light. The wizard had been transformed into a form of pure, pulsing argent. The light waxed until it was unbearable to look at, becoming a shining swirl, a sunburst, and then with a shout it left him and hurled into the inert form on the bed. There was a noiseless concussion that blew out the lamps and sent the bedclothes spiralling into the air even as they crackled and shrivelled away to nothing, and Hawkwood's body thrashed and twitched like the plaything of a mad puppeteer.
The room plunged into darkness save for where Golophin crouched by the bed, breathing hard. The werelight still shone out of his eyes dementedly. Isolla was standing at the far wall as if fixed to it. Something powdery and light was snowing down upon her head, and there was an inexplicable tautness to one side of her face.