To drighten lord is oath-bound
Ring-giver fares to Utgard
And Skadhi?s shield-maid follows
Yare am I for battle
So Skadhi, stand by Ulfhild
She-wolf fights?gainst trollcraft
Holy huntress, help me!? ?People will always surprise you,? Rudi murmured very softly to himself.?For their minds turn upon themselves in coil and counter-coil. We do not ever know ourselves completely. How can we know another??
He waited until she was finished to walk up the short ladder staircase to the poop. The two men at the wheel nodded to him-one was a Southsider, the other a corsair. Ulfhild had already turned; she gave him a short dignified inclination of the head and then met his eyes, standing proudly with her left hand on the hilt of her sword. He liked that. Norrheimers didn?t truckle to their Gods or to their chieftains either. ?Good morning, Ulfhild Swift-sword,? he said.?Today we make landfall.? ?Good morning, lord,? she said.?I am ready.?
Which was about as many words as they?d exchanged since the oath she?d sworn, apart from orders. She hesitated, and he waited patiently, withdrawing the edge of his self. There was a trick to that, almost like hunting, which drew folk out. ?The others are awake,? she said.
They?d turned the captain?s cabin over to the womenfolk of the party; a little inconvenient for the two wedded couples, but on balance the best way to handle the crowding of the ship as a whole. ?May I ask you a question?? He nodded, and she went on:?Why did you arrange the quarters that way, lord?? ?Princess Mathilda?s folk have different ways from mine. They?re. ..?
He hesitated; modest wasn?t exactly what he meant.?Much more shame-fast about their skins, I think you would say. You can?t always take account of that when men and women are together on a campaign, but there?s no harm in doing so when you can.? ?I understand,? she said. Then more hesitantly:?I don?t think your betrothed… the Princess Mathilda… likes me, lord. Have I offended her?? ?No,? Rudi said.
Or not by doing anything in particular, he thought, which was what she?d actually meant. Aloud he went on: ?Some people just don?t take to each other. I have no ill to say of you; you fought well at Kalksthorpe, and you?ve worked hard and obeyed orders without complaint since. And you are sworn to me, not her. Tell the Princess that we?ll be having a conference in there as soon as it?s clear; her, myself, the Moorish captain, Ingolf and Father Ignatius.?
She hurried off, with an air of relief. ?We just nearly there,? Abdou al-Naari said twenty minutes later.
The captain?s cabin of the Bou el-Mogdad had touches of lavishness; inlaid wood, mother-of-pearl in traceries of alien script, thick cushions of butter-soft red leather, hanging lanterns of intricate metal fretwork wrought in brass and silver. Rudi admired the workmanship-there were few things Mackenzies valued more highly-and the neatly compact folding tables, chart case and cupboards for instruments, racks for weapons and armor. There was also a shelf of books, mostly older works on navigation and geography in French, pre-Change guidebooks for travelers giving details of cities on the western side of the Atlantic, and several volumes of poetry in languages he didn?t recognize. Besides leather and cloth and lamp oil the room smelled surprisingly of some faint flowery scent.
Right now, five tightly bound bedrolls rested against the walls, or against the cushioned couch below the slanting stern windows. Rudi and Edain had the little cabin to the port, Ignatius and Ingolf the one to starboard, and the rest of the crew had the hold and forecastle, carefully arranged so that the corsairs were always shadowed by at least one of his war band.
The lanterns glowed, dispelling the last of the dawn twilight, and Rudi?s closest stood around the table and looked at the map, with the dividers and set square atop it. More and more cold bright sun spilled through the skylight as the night died, flowing clear as diamond.
They all held bowls in their hands and plied spoons as they thought. The Bou el-Mogdad had a well-fitted galley but she?d been down to dried dates, dried salt fish, a little rice and weevily sorghum by the time the corsairs reached Kalksthorpe. Rudi had restocked before they sailed, and this was steel-milled oats cooked with dried blueberries and honey, welcome for stoking the fires. Nowhere on a wooden ship was completely dry, or less than cold on these seas in this season. He hadn?t grudged the Moorish captain a monopoly of his coffee set and beans; it was a rarity for the very wealthy in Montival, but the man came from a land where it was common and he was used to it. Abdou sipped at a cup as he indicated the map. Rudi had to admit the scent was intoxicating, though the Moors brewed it thick and strong enough to melt a spoon. ?We sight Sorcerer?s Isle today, if this wind holds,? the rover captain said.
He traced their course; southeast down to just below the hook of Cape Cod, and then across the wind west and south towards Nantucket. That had been a little more tricky, a shorter leg but needing more time; these were shoal waters, and the shallows had shifted unpredictably since the charts were made. ?And that fast sail. No troubles,? Abdou said.
There had been one ship flying the White Ensign of Greater Britain, but it had simply come close enough for King-Emperor William?s men to hail them and check that they weren?t Moors. That conversation had taken place with the Imperials? twenty-four-pounder catapults pointing at them out of open firing ports in the steel hull, and a team at the pump handles of a flamethrower. Rudi had prudently sent all the hostage seamen below before the warcraft reached speaking distance. ?Really, should give me ship back, for such goodish sail working,? the corsair went on, his voice elaborately reasonable. ?And then you awaken from the pleasant dream, Abdou, weeping for the fading beauty of it in the cold light of dawn,? Rudi said dryly.
We?ll never be friends, he thought. If I hadn?t needed him I wouldn?t have sworn him safety, and then the Kalksthorpe folk could have hung him and dedicated the sacrifice to the High One for all I cared.
It was a King?s duty to see pirates dead without excessive formality, and a very needful one. What was a King for, if not to see that his folk could sleep sound in their beds and know they?d be able to keep what they grew and made? Still…
But he?s a brave man and no fool, and a likeable rascal. Though doubtless I?d feel a wee bit less charitable if it was my coasts and folk he and his kind threatened. ?Best to approach from the north,? he said aloud, with an uncomfortable feeling that Abdou had followed the thought. His finger showed where the harbor entrance opened between its breakwaters. ?Though from what the guidebook says it may have silted up,? he added.?We may have to go in with the longboat.? ?It?s not just more ruins from before the Change,? Ingolf said.?I don?t know… but I don?t think we?ll just… walk in.?
He set his bowl aside and wiped his mouth with the back of one big hand, elaborately unconcerned, but his battered features were tight-held. One thick finger rested a little to the west of the town?s hatch of streets. ?This is where I landed, back… uff da, four years ago! There?s a village there. Partly refugees from the mainland who came after the Change, a couple of families… but Injuns, too. Injuns who?d never heard of white men, or seen iron or corn. We walked through the woods to what the maps said should be the center of Nantucket Town, on the harbor there and… that?s where it all happened. But it wasn?t anything like what the books say. No houses, no open fields or recent scrub-forest, old, old forest. Oak trees that had been growing two or three hundred years. And chestnuts… the books say all the chestnuts in this part of the world died of a blight nearly a century before the Change.?
Abdou nodded impassively, but Rudi could see his Adam?s apple move. The Moor?s voice was calm when he spoke; like anyone who dealt with extreme danger routinely, he knew that the best way to tame fear was simply to ignore it, refuse to admit it even, so that it couldn?t build on itself. If you kept the body calm, it calmed the mind. ?You to understand, we would have use for island there. Good safe place within range of dead cities to water ship, take on wood, not be possible many savages… Eaters, you say… like are in dead cities, near dead cities.? ?It would make a good base, you mean.? ?Yes, base. But we not try many year from now, ah, you say, for many years now? Only one harbor, and… when ships get close, crews say many things. Lights, head hurting. Sometimes just find they far away again and-?