Ships from the West Read Free

that Grobus offered so paltry a price today. We will have need of the
Gabrian Osprey.
She is to be the prototype for a new fleet.’
    ‘You knew of that. You had a hand—’
    ‘Damn right.’
    Nothing changes, Hawkwood thought. The nobility have sudden need of you, so they pluck you out of the gutter, peer at the disappointed little life they pinch twisting between their fingers, and set it down on their great gaming board where it can be put to use. Well this pawn has its own rules.
    ‘It’s dark as pitch in here. Let me light a lantern.’ Hawk-wood fumbled for his tinderbox and after striking flint and steel a dozen times was able to coax into life a ship’s lantern which still had some oil in its well. The thick glass was cracked, but that was of no moment. Its yellow kindly light illuminated the creviced features of the wizard opposite and blacked out the sea astern.
    ‘So may I expect you at the gate of Admiral’s Tower tomorrow morning?’ Golophin asked.
    Hawkwood nodded assent.
    ‘Excellent.’ The mage tossed a small doeskin bag on the table that clinked heavily. ‘An advance on your wages. You might want to outfit yourself with a new wardrobe. Quarters will be arranged in the tower.’
    ‘Will be arranged, or have been arranged?’
    Golophin rose and donned his hat. ‘Until tomorrow then, Captain,’ and he held out a hand.
    Hawkwood shook it, rising in turn. His face was a stiff mask. Golophin turned to go, and then halted. ‘It is no bad thing when personal inclination and the dictates of policy go together, Captain. We need you, it is true, but I for one am glad to have you besides. The court is full of well-bred snakes. The King has need of one or two honest men around him too.’
    He left, stooping as he entered the companionway. Hawkwood listened to him stride forward to the waist, and then there was that scrabbling seagull on deck again, and then silence.
    Later, he lay on his oars a cable’s length from the
Osprey
and watched her burn. Somehow the ship reclaimed some of her old beauty as the flames swept up from her decks and roared bright and blazing into the night sky. The fire reflected wet and shining from his eyes and he sat watching until she had burned down to the waterline and the sea began rushing in to quench the inferno. A hissing of steam, and then a murmuring gurgle as what was left of her hull turned over and sank beneath the waves. Hawkwood wiped his face in the choppy darkness.
    He’d build their damn navy, and jump through whatever hoops they put in front of him. It was a way of surviving, after all. But his brave ship would never become a mere blueprint in some naval surveyor’s office.
    He picked up his oars, and began the long haul back to shore.
     
    PART ONE
     
    The Fall of Hebrion
     
     
    He uncovers the deeps out of darkness,
    and brings great darkness to light.
    He makes nations great, and he destroys them;
    He enlarges nations, and leads them away.
    He takes away understanding from the chiefs
    of the people of the earth,
    And makes them wander in a pathless waste.
    Job ch.12, v. 23-24
     
    One
     
    14
th Forialon,
Year of the Saint 567
     
     
    The knot of riders pummelled along the sea cliffs in a billow of tawny dust. Young men on tall horses, they came to a thundering halt scant inches from the edge and sat their snorting mounts there laughing and slapping dust from their clothes. The sun, bright as a cymbal, beat down on the sky-blue sea far below and made the glitter of the horizon too bright for the eye to bear. It caused the sere mountains behind the riders to ripple and shimmer like a vision.
    Cantering up to join the horsemen came another, but this was an older man, his dress sombre, and his beard gun-metal grey. His mount came to a sober halt and he wiped sweat from his temples.
    ‘You’ll break your damn fool necks if you’re not careful. Don’t you know the rock is rotten there at the edge?’
    Most of the younger men eased their horses away from