Ships from the West

'I can't do that. I must speak to the nobility before I go. I can't just sneak away,' Isolla protested.

Golophin finally let slip the leash on his temper. 'You can and you will!' A cold light blazed in his eyes. They burned like white flames and the fury in them made Isolla retreat a step. 'By Ramusio's beard, I thought you had better sense. Do you think you can give a cheery little speech to the nobles and then expect to trip lightly away? This kingdom is about to enter a dark age that none of us can imagine, and the storm of its wings is almost upon us. I have no more time to sit here and wrangle with stiff-necked fools and silly little girls. You will both do as I say.'

The light in his eyes faded. In a more human voice he said, 'Hawkwood, a word with you outside.'

The mage and the mariner left the shocked Queen behind and stood outside her door. Hawkwood watched Golophin warily, and the old wizard gri

'What do you think? Did I put the fear of God into her?'

'You old bastard! And into me too.'

'Good. The eyes were a nice touch, I think. Listen Richard, you must get her down to that damned ship by mid-afternoon at the latest. Your vessel is called the Seahare, and is berthed in the Royal yards at the very foot of Admiral's Tower. Do not ask how I purloined her; I would blush to tell you. But she is yours, and all the paperwork is . . .' He gri

'Nobles? So who are the others?' Hawkwood asked.

'I'm not yet sure there will be others. That is what I am going to find out now. Just get Isolla down to that ship. And -and look after her, Richard. Quite apart from being Queen, she's a fine woman.'

'I know. Listen Golophin, I haven't thanked you—'

'Don't bother. I need you as much as you needed me. Now I must be gone.' Golophin gripped his arm. 'I will see you again, Captain, of that you may be sure.'

Then he was off, striding down the passageway like a much younger man, albeit one who looked as though he had not eaten in a month.

A flurry of packing - and Hawkwood conscripted into the process by dark little Brie

At last they came to a door which Isolla unlocked and left open behind them, and stepped out into the lower yards of the tower. All about them was the tumult of the wharves, the screaming gulls. Sea smells of rotting fish and tar and wood and salt. A forest of masts rose up into a clear sky before them, and the sunlight was dazzling, blinding after their under­ground journey. They stood blinking, momentarily bewil­dered by the spectacle. It was Hawkwood who collected his wits first, and led them to their vessel where it floated at its moorings in the midst of a crowd of others.

The Seahare was a lateen-rigged xebec of some three hundred tons, a fast dispatch-ru

A great deal of stores had still to be taken on board, and the main hatch was gaping dark and wide as the men hauled on tackles from the yardarms to lower casks and sacks into the hold. Others were trundling more casks from the vast store­rooms under the tower, whilst yet more were coiling away spare cables and hauling aboard reluctant goats and cages of chickens. It looked like chaos, but it was a controlled chaos, and Hawkwood was satisfied that they would complete their victualling in time for the evening tide.

The Royal yards had not yet been engulfed by the panicked disorder that was enveloping the rest of the waterfront, but that disorder was audible beyond the massive walls which separated them from the I

Through the years, Hawkwood had taken ships uncounted out of this port into the green waters of the gulf, and then beyond, to Macassar of the Corsairs, to Gabrion which had spawned him and of which he remembered almost nothing now. To the coasts of hot Calmar and the jungles of savage Punt. But all those memories faded into a merry silence beside the one voyage which had made his name. The one that had broken him. No good had come of it that he could see, least of all to himself. But he knew that it would always be irrevocably linked to him - among mariners at least. He had earned a place in history; more importantly, perhaps, he had won a hard-bought right to stand tall in the ranks of the mariners of yore. But he took no pride in it. He knew that it counted for nothing. Men did things because they had to do them, or because they seemed the only thing to do at the time. And afterwards they were lauded as heroes. It was the way the world worked. He knew that now.