Birds of Prey

"When did you last sleep, Daniel?" Hal asked.

"Don't worry about me. The watch changes pretty soon now. I'll be handing over to Timothy." outside his hut Hal found Aboli sitting as quietly as a shadow by the fire, waiting for him with a bowl that contained roasted duck and hunks of bread, and a jug of small beer.

"I'm not hungry, Aboli," Hal protested.

"Eat." Aboli thrust the bowl into his hands. you will need your strength for the task that lies ahead tonight." Hal accepted the bowl, but he tried to determine Aboli's expression and to read from it the deeper meaning of his admonition. The firelight danced on his dark enigmatic features, like those of a pagan idol, highlighting the tattoos on his cheeks, but his eyes were inscrutable.

Hal used his dirk to split the carcass of the duck in half and offered one portion to Aboli. "What task is this that I have to perform?" he asked carefully.

Aboli tore a piece off the duck's breast and shrugged as he chewed. "You must be careful not to scratch the tender est parts of yourself on a thorn as you go through the hole in the stockade to do your duty."

Hal's jaw stopped moving and the duck in his mouth lost its taste.

Aboli must have discovered the narrow passage through the thorn fence behind Katinka's hut that Hal had so secretly left open.

"How long have you known?" he asked, through his mouthful.

"Was I supposed not to know?" Aboli asked. "Your eyes are like the full moon when you look in a certain direction, and I have heard your roars like those of a wounded buffalo coming from the stern at midnight."

Hal was stu

"You are still alive," Aboli pointed out. "If he knew, that would not be so."

"You would tell no one?" he whispered. "Especially not him?" "Especially not him," Aboli agreed. "But take a care that you do not dig your own grave with that spade between your legs."

"I love her, Aboli," Hal whispered. "I ca

"I have heard you not sleeping. I thought you might wake the entire ship's company with your sleeplessness."

"Do not mock me, Aboli. I will die for lack of her." "Then I must save your life by taking you to her."

"You would come with me?" Hal was shocked by the offer.

"I will wait at your hole in the stockade. To guard you. You might need my help if the husband finds you where he would like to be."

"That fat animal!" Hal said furiously, hating the man with all his heart.

"Fat, perhaps. Sly, almost certainly. Powerful, without doubt. Do not underrate him, Gundwane. "Aboli stood up. "I will go first to make sure the way is clear."

The two slipped quietly through the darkness, and paused at the rear of the stockade.

"You don't have to wait for me, Aboli," Hal whispered, "I might be a little while."

"If you were not, I would be disappointed in you," Aboli told Hal in his own language. "Remember this advice always, Gundwane, for it will stand you in good stead all the days of your life. A man's passion is like a fire in tall, dry grass, hot and furious but soon spent. A woman is like a magician's cauldron that must simmer long upon the coals before it can bring forth its spell. Be swift in all things but love."

Hal sighed in the darkness. "Why must women be so different from us, Aboli?"

"Thank all your Gods, and mine also, that they are." Aboli's teeth gleamed in the darkness as he gri

The lamp still burned in her hut. The slivers of yellow light shone through the weak places in the thatch. Hal listened softly at the wall, but heard no voices. He crept to the door, which stood open a crack. He peered through it, at the huge four-poster bed that his men had carried from her cabin in the Resolution. The curtains were closed to keep out the insects, so he could not be certain that there was only one person behind them.

Soundlessly he slipped through the door and crept to the bed. As he touched the curtains, a small white hand reached through the folds, seized his outstretched hand and dragged him in. "Do not speak." she hissed at him. "Say not a word!" Her fingers flew nimbly down the buttons of his shirt front, opening it to the waist, then her nails dug painfully into his breast'.

At the same time her mouth covered his. She had never kissed him before and the heat and softness of her lips astonished him. He tried to grasp her breasts but she seized his wrists and held them at his sides as her tongue slipped into his mouth and twined with his, slithering and twisting like a live eel, goading and teasing him slowly, higher than he had ever been before.

Then still holding his hands at his side she forced him over backwards. Her swift fingers opened the fastening of his moleskin breeches, and then in a flurry of silks and laces she bestrode his hips and pi

Much later, Hal fell into a sleep so deep that it was like a little death.

An insistent hand on his bare arm woke him, and he started up in alarm. "What-" he began, but the hand whipped over his mouth and gagged his next word.

"Gundwane! Make no noise. Find your clothes and come with me. Quickly!"