Edain gave a wordless cry and dashed back to the rail. Half the watchers laughed, except for a few hanging over it themselves. The rest mostly grinned; even Matti did, and she was usually tenderhearted and liked Edain well. Virginia Kane-Virginia Thurston now, since Lady Heidhveig laid the Hammer in her lap at the handfasting ceremony two days ago-fairly staggered about hooting with mirth. Fred Thurston was looking a little queasy himself, but not enough to join the fish-feeding chorus line.
Seasickness was one of those things everyone found humorous except the sufferer, who wished for death and wasn?t granted it. The only one wholly sympathetic was Garbh, who curled against Edain with whines and nuzzles and ears laid back above anxious eyes.
But it can be no joke, if it goes on long enough, for weeks of sweating misery. I don?t think any here will. Edain always runs to the rail and always recovers quickly, if I remember our boating trips rightly. ?We keep this tack,? Abdou said to Rudi, after he?d cocked a tolerant eye at the sufferers and their audience.?Long tack, as long as wind is steady. Like… so.?
He pointed southeast.?Clear Cape Cod. Then turn for Sorcerer?s Isle. Maybe have to beat up into Sound; that take more time, more work.?
And to be sure, his English is much better when it comes to nautical matters. ?How long?? Rudi asked.
He could feel his skin itching with the need, now. The Sword glowed in his mind, brighter than the winter dawn. ?Seven days, maybe. Winds… might come on storm; then have to run for open ocean get sea room. Inshallah.?
Rudi sighed. Every man has a right to his faith. But I could come to hate that word, sure and I could.
In the meantime… ?All of you!? he called.?Those who aren?t tending the rigging. We?ll drill with these deck engines; there?s plenty of ammunition-?
Or at least plenty of roundshot beautifully worked from heavy granite, which the corsairs used for ballast. The four-foot javelins and globes of napalm the engines could also throw were far too valuable to use here where they couldn?t be recovered. ?-and it?s my thought the work will do us no harm.?
Edain and the other sufferers mostly staggered erect at that; something to distract them from their miseries would be good… and somehow he doubted it would be a simple matter of sailing, this last league of his quest. Mathilda came to his side after the exercise was over. Most were set to sparring with individual weapons, but the two of them had done more than their share of the artillery practice.
Sparring on crowded, shifting ship timber required learning new reflexes. Once again he noticed how Abdou and his folk ignored her and the other women; he wasn?t sure if that was courtesy, scorn, or a mixture of both. Mathilda was beginning to notice it too, and in no kindly spirit. ?What do you think of our Norrheimers, acushla?? he asked her.
Quickly appraising people and how to get the best from them was the most basic of the ruler?s arts, or a commander?s. She turned to the matter seriously at once; the daughter of Sandra and Norman Arminger would always take the trade of kingcraft seriously. He felt a sudden rush of warmth as he watched her frown and wind a lock of seal-brown hair around one forefinger. If he was to be High King, there would always be someone by his side he could share all his mind with. And their strengths and weaknesses complemented each other; he was a better field commander, though she was far from bad at it, but she excelled him equally on the administrative side. ?Most of them were… good enough,? she said thoughtfully.
They?d sworn in seven new recruits in Eriksgarth; one had died in the street fighting against the Cutters and their pirate allies, and another had been too badly wounded to come along afterwards. They?d both been fair-to-middling youngsters, and too little-known for him to feel any great personal grief beyond the regret a lord had for any follower who fell. Still, leading men into battle meant accepting that some would die. That was a cost of doing business, and he didn?t ask anyone to risk what he would not. Three of the remainder were promising beginners, luckier than their fallen friends rather than more skillful. Two… ?Hrolf Homersson is the best of them,? Mathilda said, watching the exercise.?Remarkable, in fact.?
Rudi nodded; the man gave a guttural shout as he leapt to the rail and back and again, swinging his great ax against a target dancing on the end of a pole and turning the massive weapon as if it were a willow switch. The light on the honed edge made sparkling patterns, cold as the wind that keened and whipped bits of ice from the rigging. ?He?s as strong as I,? Rudi said.?Maybe a bit more, in fact.?
He was about three inches taller than the Mackenzie, and considerably heavier too. Not as fast, but not a lumbering ox either. More of a?swift enough,? and thoroughly agile too, which wasn?t quite the same thing. He had a mouse-brown beard that he wore in a braid that reached halfway down his chest, and his long ax bore a war hammer?s serrated head opposite the curved blade. ?Though I wouldn?t have thought even a man that size could use that… that thing… effectively,? Mathilda said.?He can, though. Blasted right through a lot of parries and he never had to hit the same man twice.?
She winced slightly; some of the wounds it had dealt had been grisly even among the usual butcher?s-shop horrors of a battlefield ruled by edged metal driven with desperate strength and savagery. Speed let you dodge or block a blow. Weight and strength could make it count even so, crush a shield or brush aside or snap a parrying blade. ?I wouldn?t care to stand and take a blow from it, even in a suit of plate,? Rudi agreed.?Ulfhild the Black there is next on that list, I think.?
She was not actually very dark; black of hair and eye and with skin of a medium olive. Back home he?d have thought she was Hispano with a fair dash of Indian and nothing remarkable, but those looks were much rarer here-and the Norrheimers thought beauty in a woman meant fairness. All their songs and legends spoke of women who looked like Asgerd, or Rudi?s half sisters, or their mother, Signe, and aunt Astrid. That must have been a burden to her, that and the small-eyed, heavy-jawed looks that were three notches down from Mathilda?s pretty-plain features even in the flush of youth. She was about Mathilda?s five-eight-and-a-bit, too, but thirty or forty pounds heavier; not fat but solid and…
Meaty, he thought.
Ingolf stumbled back with a yell as her blunt, padded lath practice blade slammed painfully under his mail-clad ribs in a wicked rising stroke before he could get his shield in the way. The narrow edge of a live steel sword might well have broken bone there, could possibly have severed the rings and would certainly have hurt badly. ?Fast as a viper,? Rudi said approvingly.
Not as fast as he, but he?d only met two warriors in all the world who were. Both were women, oddly enough: Tiphaine d?Ath and Lady Astrid of the Rangers. Though perhaps not so very oddly. Fighting women were less common than men even among Mackenzies or Dunedain and still more so elsewhere, but the ones who stuck with it as a trade and survived any length of time tended to be exceptional. They had to be, and the way for a woman to excel at weapon play was to be very quick indeed. ?Perfect balance, too, even on a pitching deck and this the first time for her at that,? Rudi continued.?Good technique, though there?s room for improvement there. And plenty of fire in the belly. Ulfhild will be valuable, I?m thinking.? ?Yes, you?re right,? Matti said, while her lips made a moue.?But I don?t like her. She?s… disagreeable.?
Rudi nodded; that was true too. Sour, in fact; short-spoken to the point of rudeness, and sullen. Folk like that could be formidable fighters, but they could also breed trouble in a war band. Rudi thought there was a little more in Mathilda?s expression of distaste. He wasn?t vain of his looks, and the other sex were less affected by sheer eye-comeliness than men anyway, but he could tell total disinterest when it flicked across him in a woman?s gaze.