Mauger and the least incapacitated groom strove to erect another canvas cover over the stallion for protection, but the wind was too stiff and their bodies too weak, and all they succeeded in doing was wrapping the canvas around themselves and hampering the frantically working crew. Julitta hurried to help them out of their dilemma. Her hair whipped around her face, her gait was a drunken weave as she strove to walk on the heaving deck. Reaching Mauger and the groom, she untangled them from the clogging canvas, the fabric heavy and rough in her hands. All too close, the stallion threshed and struggled against the ropes confining him. Mauger reached his feet by sheer determination of will.
'Give me the end.' He beckoned, and swallowed hard.
With some difficulty, Julitta did so. Between them, she and Mauger, and the groggy groom, managed to erect an awning over the stallion, but it was scant cover from the incoming rain and wind.
Task finished, Mauger collapsed, retching weakly. 'Why should you be gifted with sea legs?' he gasped at Julitta, his voice husky and strained.
'My father's never sick either, I get it from him,' she answered. 'Beltran says he's taking shelter. It won't be long.'
'I never want to leave dry land again,' Mauger gulped. 'Never!'
Julitta returned to Beltran. The captain's eyes were narrowed against the worsening weather, and he constantly snapped out orders to his crew. 'We're off the Breton coast,' he told her. 'There's a bay beyond the next headland. We'll ride this out close to shore. It's going to be a rough night, my lady.'
Julitta gathered her wet, dishevelled braids in her hands and squeezed out the water. She gave Beltran a rueful smile. 'I think that sailors are very hardy, very brave, and utterly foolish,' she said.
'Not so foolish as to lose their lives; my crew are the best.'
'Knowing you, and knowing Aubert de Remy, I would not argue,' she said, and went to sit in the lee of the wine cargo, out of his and the sailors' way. She said a quiet prayer, both for the safety of the Draca and for those on board the Constantine, wherever she was on this wild and stormy passage.
The Constantine also took shelter from the bad weather by hugging the Breton shoreline. Breakers drove in towards the beach – a long strip of fawn sand and shingle giving way to dark forest through the driving rain. Gulls screamed and wheeled; the air was salty with spindrift and the wind was raw.
Benedict checked on the horses in the hold, and found them uneasy and uncomfortable, but not given to outright panic. He went among them, soothing and stroking, making sure that all had sufficient feed and water. The chestnut mare was the most nervous of all of them, and he remained with her longest, talking to her, coaxing. She and Gisele had suited each other, their temperaments a match. He thought of his wife, of her simple grave in the mountains, and of the road he had travelled since then. It seemed as close as yesterday, and as distant as the end of the world.
He gave the mare a final, affectionate pat, and went back on deck. The wind howled through the lateen rigging, sounding notes like an off-key bladder pipe. The canvas sail snapped and billowed. A rope clattered against the mast.
Benedict lunged his way to the cabin and galley in the vessel's stern, where a sailor was stirring a cauldron of soup over a hearth of glazed tiles. Just before he ducked into the shelter, Benedict cast his eyes across the murky horizon. Other ships were seeking shelter inshore. There were two wine traders heading north like themselves, a smaller, southbound Scandinavian Nef, and a fleet of local fishing boats. The farthest sail was a square one, striped in yellow and red-orange, the same colours as those of the Draca. Benedict narrowed his eyes, trying to focus on the ship, but the wind gusted and the rain suddenly began to pelt down, obliterating all vision beyond a few yards. Sighing, Benedict entered the galley, to fortify himself with a bowl of the hot soup. If the weather worsened further, there would be no time for taking sustenance, and besides, the galley fire would have to be doused so that it was not a hazard.
The full force of the squall struck as evening darkened the sky and the wind rose beyond a whine to a scream. The Draca was sent writhing out of control, bucking and kicking on the waves like a runaway colt. The steersman cursed and fought the tiller, striving to bring her round. Bellowing orders, Beltran ran to help him.
Lightning ripped the sky apart, giving the struggling sailors a fleeting vision of heaven's brilliance. In the darkness as the Draca plunged into a trough, they saw the gates of hell and the black mouth of eternity rising up to devour them.
The rain slashed down in a million lances of black light. Sea water broke over the deck and waterlogged the bilges. Sailors frantically pumped and scooped. The Draca wallowed, trembled, and fought back at the sea. Like the Viking ships from which she was descended, she snarled defiance at the silver-clawed waves, her prow dripping trails of crystal and obsidian water.
Soaked to the bone, Julitta huddled against the wine casks and endured the fury of the storm. In its early stages it had been exhilarating, but now she was becoming frightened by its fury. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a wild darkness, and it roared so loudly that it left no room for any other sound. It filled the world to bursting and threatened to rend its very fabric. Even the terrified screams of the black stallion were overridden by the bellowing of the storm.
Julitta searched her mind for the best saint to invoke for protection, but it was impossible to think. Gisele would have known, or Arlette, but both were dead. Perhaps she was going to join them.
Julitta sternly curtailed her over-active imagination. Beltran said that it was an ordinary storm, that the Draca had weathered worse, and would doubtless do so again, and when he spoke, his eyes had been calm.
Beside Julitta, Mauger lay doubled up and groaning, oblivious to anything but his own suffering. His stomach was empty and produced nothing but a watery bile. Julitta had begun to feel queasy too, but she knew that a part of it was fear. She could swim – her father had insisted she learn after she had strayed near the dew ponds as a child, but it was a long time ago, and she had been taught in shallow water where her feet touched the bottom, not in a rough, black sea. Her imagination ran riot again. She squeezed her lids tightly shut and prayed. And the name she sobbed was Benedict's. For he was the only rescuer she had ever known.
The Draca rode out the storm and with the coming of dawn, battered and bruised, but still intact, rolled at anchor on the swell of an iron-hued, sullen sea. Over their heads the clouds still churned, driven like the gulls by the directionless, boisterous wind. Feeling as stiff as an old woman, Julitta clambered in ungainly fashion to her feet and went in search of a cup of water and a crust of bread to calm her quailing stomach. Beltran was sitting on a rowing bench near the steersman and chewing on bread and smoked herring. His eyes were pouched with weariness and there was a troubled frown between his brows.
'Good morrow, my lady,' he greeted Julitta and offered her a share of his breakfast. She declined the herring, but accepted the bread and a cup of watered wine.