Hawkwood's Voyage

Billerand’s fierce face relaxed into a smile. “Here, little one. See what I have for you?” He produced a small quid of tobacco from a neck pouch and held it out. The imp looked at Bardolin, and then leapt on to the table and sniffed at the tobacco. It took it delicately in one minute, clawed hand and then began to gnaw on it like a squirrel working at a nut. Billerand scratched it gently behind the ear and his smile widened into a grin.

“As I said, the hands will be pleased.” He leaned back again. “What would you have me tell you then, Bardolin of Carreirida?”

“What do you know of this voyage we are to undertake?”

“Very little. Only that it is to the west. The Bre

“And the nature of the other passengers, besides the soldiers?”

“Dweomer-folk, like yourself. The hands do not know it yet, and I’d as soon leave it that way for the moment.”

“Do you know who is sponsoring the voyage?”

“There is talk of a nobleman, and even of a Royal warrant. Richard has yet to brief his officers.”

“What kind of a man is this Hawkwood?”

“A good seaman, even a great one. He has redesigned his ships according to his own lights, despite the grumbling of the older hands. They’ll make less leeway than any vessel in this port, I’ll promise you. And they’re drier than any other ships of their class. I’ve been in this carrack in a tearing gale off the Malacar Straits with a lee shore a scant league away and a south-easter roaring in off the starboard quarter, but she weathered it. Many another ship, under many another captain, would have been driven on to the shoals and broken.”

“Is he a Hebrian native?”

“No, and neither are most of his crews. Nay, our Richard is Gabrionese, one of the mariner race, though he has made his home in Abrusio these twenty years, ever since his marriage to one of the Calochins.”

“Is he a . . . pious man?”

Billerand roared with laughter, and a spit of fluid sparked out of the brim of his pipe. The imp jumped, afraid, but he soothed it with the caress of one callused hand.

“Easy, little fellow, it’s all right. No, wizard, he is not particularly pious. Do you think he’d take your sort as supercargo if he was? Why, I’ve seen him make a sacrifice to Ran the god of storms to placate the tribesmen among the crew. If the Inceptines had heard of that he’d have been burnt flesh a long time ago. You need not fear; he loves the Ravens even less than the next man. They had Julius Albak, the first mate before me and a damned good shipmate, shot in front of our eyes and then they hauled half the crew of the Grace off to the catacombs to await the pyre—but our Richard got them back, God knows how.”

“Which lands do your seamen come from?” Bardolin asked with interest, perching on a seachest that rested against the forward bulkhead.

Billerand sucked a moment on his gurgling pipe.

“What are these questions in aid of, wizard? You wouldn’t be a spy of the Inceptines yourself, would you?”

“Far from it.” Bardolin’s face changed, going as white as marble, but his eyes flashed. “A friend of mine they burned today, sailor, a boy who was like a son to me. They have wrecked my home and the researches of thirty years. I am about to be exiled because of them. I have no love for the Ravens.”

Billerand nodded. “I believe you. And I’ll tell you that our crews are from every kingdom and sultanate in Norma

“Myself, I’m from Narbosk, the Fimbrian electorate that broke off from the empire and went its own way back in my great-grandfather’s time. I’ve served my stint in the Fimbrian tercios, but it’s a boring life fighting the same battles on the Gaderian river every year. I tired of it, and took to the sea. Which army did you serve with?”

“The Hebrian. I was a sword-and-buckler man, and later an arquebusier. We fought the Fimbrians at Himerio, and they trounced us up and down. They pulled out of Imerdon, though, and thus it now belongs to the Hebrian crown.”

“Ah, the Fimbrians,” Billerand said, his eyes shining. Abruptly he reached under the table and produced a wide-bottomed bottle of dark glass. “Have a taste of Nabuksina with me, in memory of battling Fimbrians,” he said, his smile baring teeth as square and yellow as those of a horse.

They shared the fiery Fimbrian root spirit, slugging in turn from the bottle. The imp watched, gri

“Some other time, perhaps, my friend. I have other questions for you.”

“Question away,” Billerand said expansively, curling one end of his luxurious moustache on a finger.

“Why are the soldiers taking ship with us? Is that usual?”

Billerand belched. “If a king’s warrant is involved, why then yes.”

“How many are coming?”

“We’ve been told to provision for fifty—a demi-tercio.”

“That’s a lot of fighting men for two vessels such as these.”

“Indeed. Perhaps they’re to keep the Dweomer-folk from magicking us when we’ve put to sea. We’ve to provide berths for half a dozen nags, too, both mares and stallions, so the nobles don’t wear out their boots when we make landfall.”

“And you’re sure you don’t know where that landfall will be?”

“Upon mine honour as a soldier, no. Richard is keeping that nugget to himself. He does that sometimes if we’re putting to sea in search of a prize, so that word will not get out over the harbour. Sailors can be like a bunch of gossiping old women when they choose, and they dearly love a prize.”

“This ship is a privateer also, then?”

“It is anything it has to be to make a little money; but we don’t like that too widely known in Hebrion. Our good captain has contacts with the sea-rovers, the corsairs of Rovenan, or Macassar as they call it now. Our culverins and falconets are not for decoration alone.”

“I’m sure,” Bardolin said, standing up. “Can you tell me when you expect to sail?”

Billerand shook his head mournfully. The drink was begi

“Then we’ll see you again, Billerand. Let us hope the voyage will be a prosperous one.”

Billerand winked one eye slowly, showing them his square-toothed grin again.

B ACK out on the dock Bardolin strolled along lost in thought, the imp fast asleep in his bosom. Griella had to jog beside him to keep up.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Well what?”

“What have you learned?”

“You were there—you heard what was said.”

“But you’ve guessed something. You’re not telling me everything.”

Bardolin stopped and gazed down at her. Her lower lip was caught up between her teeth. She looked absurdly fetching, and incredibly young.

“It is the presence of so many soldiers, and the nobles who command them. And the horses.”

“What about them?”

“We ca