CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

The wind had been merciful. It had waited until the ship’s surgeon had finished sewing up the ruin of Florin’s back before it began to play.

It started gently enough: merely rippling patterns into the rolling surface of the water and scattering the light of the setting sun. Then, gradually, it became bolder, rushing across the water in sudden charges that sprayed ruffs of white water up from the top of the swells. The foam shone ice-white as it flecked the air, the chill brightness belied by the warmth of the breeze.

The sea soon joined in with the fun. It rolled its waves higher and sharpened their ridges, so that instead of just little flecks the wind could rip great white sprays from their heads. Trailing these crests back like plumes from a warrior’s helmet the wind, caught up in the excitement of the game, blew harder.

The sea wasn’t to be outdone. It reared up in response, carving valleys and mountains from its surface in shapes designed to challenge the wind’s imagination.

Overhead the sky became jealous. Its scowl became greyer as the game below grew rougher, and the light bled out of the world. Soon it began to growl with anger, bitter at the fun that its brothers were having, but the wind and the sea were too enthralled to notice.

It wasn’t until the sky began to spit with frustration, the first crackling flames of its rage flashing down to hiss across the cloud shadowed water, that things began to turn nasty. Suddenly this was no longer a game.

Suddenly this was war.

Yet had an eagle been watching the Destrier and her two sisters as they rode through the battle it would have seen little amiss. Bobbing this way and that, the ships seemed happy enough amongst the thrashing of the sea. They moved as effortlessly as motes of dust on a summer’s breeze, now racing up to new heights on heaving swells, now plunging suddenly down into the green shadowy depths below. It seemed all the same to the little flotilla, even when their formation was broken and they were scattered across the ocean’s boiling surface like matchsticks in a millrace.

But amongst the ships’ passengers, the voyage was rapidly collapsing into a nightmare. The mocking whine of the wind was interspersed with the blunt impact of the sea against fragile walls. The terrifying groan of tortured timbers split the air, blending with the cries of men sure their world was about to end.

Only the sailors remained silent. Their faces grim and white beneath a sheen of salt spray they worked swiftly but calmly, bound by a discipline forged from fear and confidence in equal measure. Swinging around their ropes and hanging from winch handles like acrobats they dragged the sails down, fighting the howling wind for possession of the cloth.

Their captain watched them, silent for the most part. His men knew what they were doing. He wouldn’t burden them with unnecessary orders.

Only when danger loomed ahead did he step in. Once a loose boom, snapping free of its restraining cord, brought him racing down to the stern, a hastily assembled gang of men at his heels.

Later a coil of rope rolled across the deck, the tangled hemp as dangerous as a snare on the pitching ship. He and the first mate battled their way down to clear it away, and then he worked his way up to the stern to find out why the foresail still remained unfurled.

Above him the clouds ripened into a heavy black mass and then, suddenly, burst apart into a torrent of rain.

An hour later the storm proper began.

 

Lorenzo sat and shivered. He cursed, low and loud, muttering the profanities with the sort of quiet intensity that other men reserve for prayer. The fact that he was kneeling on the floor, leaning over a bucket as other, more spiritual men, might lean over a reliquary, just added to the illusion.

Every now and again he’d crawl to his feet, being sure to keep at least one handhold clamped onto the interior of the pitching cabin, and would look down on Florin. In the days, or perhaps weeks, since the storm had begun his master had sunk into a deep, burning fever.

“Gods rot the bollocks off that cursed surgeon,” Lorenzo repeated for the hundredth time as he rolled Florin onto his side and checked the brown stained mass of his bandages. Reluctantly he peeled them back, revealing the jagged rail of the poorly stitched wound that followed the bumps of his spine.

It was weeping again: a thick yellow liquid seeped out from between the stitches.

According to the surgeon that was a good thing. Perhaps that was why he’d stayed locked in his own quarters since the storm had begun.

“Worthless scum,” Lorenzo decided as he lent to feel Florin’s brow. The burning flesh beneath his hand was worryingly dry, and Lorenzo knew that it was time to try and get some more water into him.

“What a gods forsaken place,” he grumbled as a sudden, gut-wrenching yaw sent his knuckles cracking painfully against the wall and his boot heels squeaking across the planking. He waited until the ship had righted herself before crawling across the tiny room to recover the water skin.

It felt worryingly slack, almost empty. Never the less Lorenzo unhooked it and took it back to Florin.

“Here you go, boss,” he said, pinching Florin’s stubbled chin and shaking his head back and forth. The only response was a groan of complaint, but that was good enough for Lorenzo.

Carefully, bracing his knees beneath the bunk, he lifted his master’s head and put the spout to his lips.

“Drink up,” he demanded, lifting the flask higher so that the last swig of their water spilled down, some over Florin’s face, some into his mouth.

Lorenzo squeezed the water skin and realised that it was empty.

He cursed again, and looked resentfully at the tightly sealed door of their cabin. The skipper had promised to send water into them twice a day. He’d promised soup too, come to think of it. But for the past few days there’d been no sign of water, or of soup, or anything else.

For all Lorenzo knew he and Florin were the last survivors of a ghost ship. The two of them would rot away in the squalid isolation of this tiny cabin whilst the Destrier swept to her doom.

He tore his thoughts away from that disturbing idea and instead indulged himself in a brief fantasy, a dream of impossible comfort that involved nothing more than curling up in his bunk and waiting for the storm to pass.

A horrible squeaking groan from the ship’s innards snapped him back to reality. He knew that he no longer had a choice. Without water Florin’s fever would devour him, and he’d no more allow that to happen to his friend than his friend would allow it to happen to him.

Struggling out of his jerkin and leaving it in the dryness of the cabin Lorenzo hung the four water skins he’d managed to scrounge across his chest and opened the cabin door.

The storm, it seemed, had been waiting for that very moment. With a deafening roar it pushed past him in an arc of salt spray and howling wind, the force of it scouring the inside of the cabin.

Lorenzo, head bowed down as he struggled out of the cabin onto the lifting deck, swung the door shut behind him. The slam of wood on wood was lost in the cacophony. The spray that lashed across the pitching deck was thicker than rain, and the manservant found himself spitting out bitter mouthfuls of sea water as he seized one of the ropes that lined the Destrier’s gunwale and pulled himself forward.

He tried not to look over the side into the thrashing abyss that waited below. Beneath the weight of the storm clouds the sea was black and bruised, the mad flecks of foam that scudded across its surface a dull grey. It looked alive, Lorenzo thought, tearing his eyes away. And hungry.

With tears streaming down his face he pulled himself along the gunwale towards the hatch that led to the water casks below. The Destrier, meanwhile, lurched drunkenly from one side to the other, now filling Lorenzo’s field of vision with the ravenous depths of the sea, now hiding everything but for torn rigging and boiling skies.

Somehow, despite the weakness in Lorenzo’s knees and the rolling in his empty stomach, he ignored the twin monsters of sea and sky and pulled himself forward. By now his hands had frozen into petrified claws around the rough hemp of the rope. Blisters grew and popped as he slid his palms down the unforgiving surface.

“Come on then,” Lorenzo roared in tiny defiance of the elements. “Gome and get me.”

The storm snatched at him in response. Dragging himself ever onwards, Lorenzo laughed with a hard edge of hysteria in his voice.

By the time he’d drawn level with the hatch his hands were pink with a burning compound of blood and seawater. Although his destination was only a lunge away he made himself wait as the Destrier rolled to the left, bringing her side down close enough to the sea’s angry surface for a sudden wave to rear up and slap him a numbing blow across the back.

“Rot your bollocks,” he snarled defiantly and waited for the Destrier to right herself. The second she did so he unclenched his hands from the rope and dived across the deck.

As soon as he left the support of the gunwale his feet slid from under him and he fell onto his knees. But it was too late to give up now. Crawling across a slick of polished wood and running water, sliding this way and that, he struggled desperately onwards towards the oasis of the hatch.

He almost made it on the first attempt. Almost. But just as his fingertips brushed against the mahogany inlay that surrounded the trapdoor, the Destrier reared her head, heroically breaching the crest of a wave and sending Lorenzo slipping helplessly back down the deck.

He scratched at the wood with his nails as he shot back down the sudden slope of the deck, back towards his cabin. With a bang he hit the wall only three feet to the left of where he’d started out.

But before he had time to despair the Destrier charged, storming the cavern that had followed the wave, and Lorenzo was sent spinning back towards the hatch.

He hit it with a thump, his hands and teeth gripping the wood as he hugged himself into it, fastening onto the carpentry as tightly as one of the barnacles that slated the Destrier’s hull.

She reared up again, climbing the next wave, and in the second of relative calm that followed Lorenzo reached over and grabbed at the solid wooden handles that opened the hatch. He turned at them expectantly, already anticipating the sweet respite that awaited him below decks.

The handles remained solid. Stubborn.

Unmoving.

Baring his teeth in desperation, Lorenzo twisted and pulled harder, but nothing gave. The Destrier’s charge was broken as she dropped into a sudden chasm with a bone-jarring thud, and Lorenzo, half stunned, tried again.

“Gods damn it!” he swore at the sudden rush of water that smacked into him, pulling playfully at his legs.

Then he tried to turn the handles the other way.

Still nothing.

Lorenzo howled with frustration and, refusing to relinquish his precious handholds, banged the hatch with his head.

Suddenly the handles were turning of their own accord. The hatch winked open, and he felt hands pulling him roughly inside. He was dragged down a short ladder as the trapdoor was once more secured into place above him.

At first Lorenzo could think of nothing but the relative silence and calm of this welcome underworld. Even the stench of refuse and bilge-water seemed sweet to him after the terrible, scouring freshness of the world above. And the dozen or so men who stood hunched over him, their faces distorted into gargoyle masks by the flickering light of their lantern, looked like angels.

Then their leader pushed his way through them, bent almost double beneath the low ceiling, and looked down with a terrible satisfaction.

“Well, well. Look who it is,” said Jacques, as he knelt down to study his lads’ catch. “The captain’s monkey.”

“That boot didn’t do much for your looks,” Lorenzo told him, and spat a mouthful of blood and salt water into the bilges at Jacques’ feet.

“No matter,” the mercenary agreed smugly. “The girls always love a winner.”

“So I see,” Lorenzo looked around pointedly.

Jacques laughed and slapped his catch on the shoulder.

“You’re a real diplomat, little man,” he cackled. “But you can get stuffed. I’m not making the same mistake twice. Your fop of a master turned out to be a real killer, gods alone know what a runt like you would turn out to be.”

“What I am,” Lorenzo shrugged, grabbing at the ladder as the Destrier leapt upon another peak, “is in a hurry. The fevers got a hold of Fl… of the captain. Seems the surgeon’s better at drinking the spirit than using it on his patients.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Jacques frowned. “He wasn’t a bad fellow. For an officer.”

“Isn’t such a bad fellow,” Lorenzo muttered. “But anyway, if you’ll just show me where the water’s kept I’d better get back to him.”

“Surely,” Jacques nodded. “You’ll have to ask the sergeant first, though. Turns out he isn’t just a pretty face either.”

“Sergeant? You mean one of the Kislevites?”

“No. Orbrant, of course. Kislevites!” he spat. “Those rotten bastards wouldn’t piss on their own grandmothers to put them out. That captain they hide behind won’t even let us leave our sick in the upper decks. That’s why we’re all stuck down here.”

“You have a sickness down here too?”

“Fever, dysentery, sea weakness. Just the usual,” the mercenary shrugged.

“Maybe when the boss is better he can change that. But look, can we be quick? I don’t like to leave him for too long.”

“Of course,” Jacques agreed and headed off into the darkness.

Lorenzo ducked his head and followed him, splashing through the wash of filthy water that rushed throughout the Destrier’s lower deck. It was dark here; the men were presumably rationing their lantern oil. It was dripping wet. Mould grew in slick patches on the ceilings and walls of this dingy world, and most of the men who swung like rotten fruit from hammocks that had been strung up between the Destrier’s ribs were coughing or feverish. One of them was crying out in the soft tones of a child, wailing in his delirium as one of his comrades lent over him, mopping the dampness from his brow.

“Is the upper deck much better than this?” he asked, although he was really speaking only to himself. Jacques, who was holding tightly to a crossbeam as the Destrier rolled queasily, answered him.

“It’s drier,” he said. “And that’s the thing when you’ve got a fever. There are less vermin too.”

To demonstrate, he waved the lantern at a bundle of black-furred shapes that were swimming past them. The rats fled before the light, although without much urgency.

Jacques led off again and Lorenzo realised how similar this place was to the visions of hell his village priest had tried to terrify him with as a child. The darkness, the filth, the misery and the vermin.

And if this had been hell, the figure that they now approached would presumably have been the presiding daemon.

Orbrant was kneeling with his back to them, the smoothly shaved cannon ball of his head bent in prayer. He seemed not to notice the foetid bilge-water that surged around his calves and thighs, or the creaking of the ship’s timbers.

He somehow sensed Lorenzo and Jacques approaching however, and rose smoothly to his feet, legs slightly bowed to allow for the rolling of the ship.

“Visitor for you, sarge.”

“Thanks, Jacques. What is it Lorenzo?”

“It’s Captain d’Artaud,” Lorenzo said. “He’s got the fever.”

“Yes,” Orbrant nodded. “I’d heard. Is it bad?”

“Bad enough.”

“He’ll need water.”

“Yes.”

“Well then, let’s get moving. Jacques, bring a couple of lads and a coil of rope to the hatch. Lorenzo, come with me to the casks.”

“Yes, sergeant,” Lorenzo said, realising too late that he’d failed to inject even a trace of mockery into his use of the title.

 

Florin’s fever broke on the same day as the storm, and just as suddenly. One night he was shaking with the icy chill of his burning blood, teeth chattering as he mumbled to friends long gone and imagined. But the next morning, as effortlessly and naturally as the rising sun, he opened his eyes, yawned, and said, “How about something to eat?”

Lorenzo, who’d been dozing while the storm drew its breath, looked up blearily. Then a wide grin split his grizzled face.

“Yes, how about something to eat?” he said and, eager to be gone before the storm reasserted itself, he stripped off his jerkin and padded over to the cabin door.

“Won’t be long,” he said, picking up the billycan Orbrant had given him to keep the rations dry. Then, bracing himself, he opened the cabin door and snatched for the safety rope that the sergeant had had rigged up.

He’d already twisted a loop of it around his wrist by the time he realised something was wrong. It took him perhaps half a dozen heartbeats to realise what it was.

The storm had gone.

There was no wild assault of wind and spray to greet him, no pitching deck, no grey half-light or flickering octane.

Instead the Destrier rode easily across calm blue waters, the tortured remains of her rigging sharply defined against a clear sky. The ship’s crew were already aloft, busily repairing the damage, and above them there was nothing but lazy cumulus clouds. Lorenzo sighed with pure animal pleasure as felt the warm sun against his skin—the first time he’d felt it for perhaps a month.

Around him other men, smiling the same disbelieving smile, sat or strolled around the deck. After the purgatory of the storm they looked as alike as brothers: their skin pale, their clothes mildewed, their faces gaunt but open with the joy of being alive.

Lorenzo unhitched his hand from the safety line and strolled across the deck to the galley, where the cook was ladling out the contents of a great iron pot to all comers. The smoke from the cooking fire, the first in weeks, lifted in a high and unbroken line into the clear sky.

Filling his cook tin Lorenzo hastened back to Florin to tell him the good news, tripping over fallen rigging as he made his way back to the cabin. Once there he kicked open the door with a bang and handed Florin the steaming tin.

“The storm’s broken,” he said smugly, as though he’d somehow personally arranged the improved weather.

“Storm?” Florin slurped the contents down hungrily. “What storm?”

Lorenzo was still chuckling when Orbrant, as unmoved by the storm’s passing as he had been by its fury, knocked on the cabin door to make his first official report.

 

It was another day before Florin could stand up without dizziness, and three more before he could walk around the deck. The violence of the fever had left him gaunt, his shirt hanging like an empty sail from his bones, but at least his wound had healed into a healthy jagged scar. The pink slash ran down beside his spine, and the surgeon’s only advice was to shield the raw flesh from the sun.

He would have done so anyway. There was no doubt now that they had travelled far, far to the south of Bordeleaux. Even beneath the brisk sea breeze the tropical skies burned with a scorching blue light, the midday sun beating down on men grown sluggish with the heat.

Not that that stopped the Destrier’s crew. Day by day they struggled to repair the damage done by the storm. Ignoring the sweat that poured off them they raced to get their ship back into shape, so that the days were filled with the sound of hammering and sawing, and the cries of foremen as they manhandled timber across the vessel.

The Destrier’s sister ships, the Hippogriff and the Beaujelois, seemed in even worse shape. They limped along behind her, their splendid white sails now as bedraggled as a street urchin’s rags. The Beaujelois had even lost her foremast. The splintered stump made her seem as unbalanced as an elephant with only one tusk. Long boats of materials and craftsmen plied back and forth between the three ships, swapping canvas and expertise under Captain-Owner Gorth’s foul-mouthed direction.

The mercenaries, meanwhile, had been confined to quarters, their clumsy limbs stowed out of the crew’s way whilst they worked. So, while the sailors toiled above in the healthy sea air, Florin’s men remained rotting in the dank fever-pit of the hold. He’d visited them on the second day, where he’d been impressed by their ragged salute as much as by the squalor in which they lived. Judging by the coughing and the babbling of the delirious, he could tell that the men needed a change of quarters.

Eventually, of course, they’d be allowed up onto the deck to sleep under the warm southern stars or through canvas-shaded days, but only when the skipper had finished repairing the storm damage. And when that would happen, nobody appeared to know.

In fact, it often seemed to Florin that things were getting worse. Even now, as he made his way over to the stern deck, a great, splintered beam was being lowered down onto the main deck, trailing a mess of twisted tackle behind it.

He skirted the mess, Lorenzo close behind him, and greeted the two men he found there.

“Good-day to you, skipper,” he said, bounding up the steps and offering his hand. “Just wanted to thank you for getting us all through that storm.”

The sailor nodded his thanks, and grasped Florin’s hand.

“Don’t mention it, cappo,” he said, eyes smiling within the weathered creases of his face. “If I’d have lost his ship old man Gorth would have followed me down into the deeps to give me a beating for it.”

Florin laughed. Old man Gorth, although safely ensconced on his flagship, was legend amongst passengers and crew both. Rumour had it that he’d built this fleet up from nothing but the fishing skiff his uncle had left him and Florin, although he’d never seen the man, was inclined to believe it.

“According to what I’ve heard, the old man probably would have. And you, captain,” he continued, turning to the other man. “We were never introduced. I’m Captain Florin d’Artaud.”

Again he held out his hand and the Kislevite, after regarding it for one suspicious moment, reached out and shook.

“Graznikov,” the man muttered, and squeezed as hard as he could. Florin squeezed back. Only when the two men’s knuckles start to shine white did Florin force himself to pull his hand away.

The small victory was enough to paint a wide smile across the pink expanse of Graznikov’s flabby face. His small blue eyes gleamed as he drew a bottle of clear liquid out from the folds of his cloak.

“You southerners, very soft,” he smirked, uncorking the bottle and taking a long pull. After a moment’s hesitation he offered the bottle to the skipper, who declined, and then Florin.

“Cheers,” he said, raising the glass before taking a swig.

The alcohol burned its way down Florin’s throat like molten lead. There was no taste to it, unless you counted the hint of burnt grease. It didn’t even have a smell.

“Excellent,” Florin deadpanned, passing the bottle back. Although his expression gave nothing away he couldn’t stop the red flush that burned his cheeks, nor the tears that blurred his vision.

Graznikov sniggered sadistically and took another swig. Then he passed it back, his greed overcome by the pleasure of seeing another man suffer.

“Drink, drink,” he told Florin encouragingly.

“You’re very kind,” Florin agreed and took another gulp of the vile liquid. Surprisingly, this mouthful was as nasty as the first.

“Thank you very much, Captain Graznikov,” he handed the bottle back. “Acshually, I mean actually, I’m glad we met. I wanted to talk to you about the men.”

“Talk later,” Graznikov decided, lifting back the tall fur hat that seemed to serve his company as uniform and scratching his head. “First drink.” His eyes disappeared between rolls of fat as he smiled evilly.

“After you.”

“Chyars, you say, hey?” Graznikov waved the bottle towards Florin before taking another pull. “I take three fingers, you see? Now you take three fingers.”

“Three fingers,” Florin nodded, wrapped four fingers around the bottle, and drank.

“Now talk,” Graznikov said, retrieving the bottle and carefully driving the cork back home.

“It’s about… about the men,” Florin paused. He was waiting for the nausea to pass before continuing. “I’d like to move all the sick onto the upper deck, where your lads are. It’ll be a lot healthier for ’em.”

Graznikov looked at him blankly, and Florin wondered if he’d understood. But before he repeated himself the Kislevite answered.

“Why?” he asked, incomprehension furrowing his brow.

“Why? Well, they’ll recover quicker if they’re dry. Isn’t that right, skipper?”

The sailor, who’d been watching his carpenters getting to work on the boom, nodded absent-mindedly.

“That’s right. That’s how we always treat our lot. The fevered need to be kept dry and warm.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Graznikov waved away the explanation impatiently. “But why I move my men? They are happy. If they are happy, I am happy.”

“Yes, I understand,” Florin agreed. “But all we want to do is to bring up our sick from the hold.”

“Not possible. Old man Gorth, he gave the upper deck to me. The skipper knows this. Not possible I move them.”

“Even for gold?”

“How much?” Graznikov asked, the future once more full of possibilities.

“Twenty gold crowns.”

“No. Not enough. I move my men, I have too much trouble.”

“Well, then, perhaps a wager. After all we’re both gentlemen, not merchants. My twenty crowns against your upper deck.”

Graznikov sucked at his teeth thoughtfully.

“What wager? I no fight you. I see what you do already!” Graznikov smiled approvingly, as if at some fond memory.

“What wager do you choose?” Florin asked, warily.

“I show you. Drobnic!” He turned and bellowed across the deck to his sergeant. “Bring my dragons!”

“Dragons?”

“You see, you see,” The Kislevite said smugly. “Now we have another drink, no? Finish bottle.”

“If it doesn’t finish me first,” Florin replied weakly. Graznikov howled with laughter and punched his arm.

“No! Is good for you!”

By the time Graznikov’s man returned the bottle was empty. The Kislevite, legs as steady as ever, went to the prow of the foredeck and wedged the glass against the rail. Then, content with his handiwork, he paced back to the opposite rail and opened the box his sergeant proffered.

“My dragons,” he smiled as he reached inside and drew both of them out. “Here. Look.”

So saying he thrust one into Florin’s hand and started the delicate operation of loading the other. He was slow and careful about this task, perhaps because of the danger inherent in black powder or perhaps because the gun was so beautiful.

And they were beautiful. The finely wrought barrels, thick bored steel as long as a man’s forearm, ended in muzzles that snarled open in the likeness of a dragon’s mouth. Behind them the length of the metal was inlaid with a silver damasque of intertwined beasts and birds, and the thick club of the gun’s body and grip shone with the dull inner glow of well-polished walnut.

Wielding a ramrod with a flourish Graznikov firmly pushed down a scrap of wadding to hold down the charge in the first, then swapped it with the one Florin was holding and repeated the process.

Florin hefted the bulky weapon and squinted along the length. The two beads, fore and aft, bobbed up and down as he waved the pistol inexpertly from side to side.

“Good, good,” Graznikov muttered, after priming the second. “Now look. Trigger. Punch back. Make hammer punch here. Then, bang! Very easy.”

“I see,” said Florin. He’d once used a similar weapon, although that had been a long time ago.

“Now, come. Stand here. We fire at bottle, yes?”

“But I don’t know how,” Florin shrugged and tried to give the pistol back. Graznikov shook his head.

“No problem. First, practise. Look along barrel,” Florin followed his advice, and peered along the foreshortened steel.

“Make line of sights.” The bottle jumped back and forth across the two beads, until Florin gradually held it still.

“Now punch trigger!”

Florin fired. The pistol leapt in his hands, an explosion of flame and black smoke erupting from the muzzle.

When it had cleared he peered forward, cautiously massaging his wrist.

“Hey, not bad. Look, I chipped the rail just to the left of it.”

“Good, good,” Graznikov beamed. “She pulls, that one. They both do. To the left. Now, again, and point a little right.”

Florin took the next pistol and aimed again, this time waiting until the sights were an inch to the right before firing.

Once more the pistol roared as it spat a blur of lead out in its fiery breath. This time, when the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of the bottle apart from a fine dusting of glass splinters.

“Very good,” the skipper said, dryly. “But if you want to carry on shooting my ship, go and fire at that mess at the pinnace. It’s all going to have to go anyway.”

“Good, good,” Graznikov nodded, busily reloading the second pistol and handing it back to Florin. “Come, my friend, we’ll find a target, yes? A wager?”

“We’ll see,” Florin muttered, swapping a wary glance with Lorenzo before following the stocky Kislevite up to the rail.

For a while the two men regarded the messy tangle that was all that remained of the Destrier’s elegant pinnace. Where once the sleek wood had thrust forward from her prow, as sharp and eager as a narwhal’s tusk, it was now a splintered stump, the canvas and rope that it had once borne so elegantly aloft now trailed miserably downwards into the sea.

“Why don’t you shoot at that block on the end?” the skipper suggested, coming forward to stand between the two men.

“Yes. Good,” Graznikov nodded.

“It’s a bit small, isn’t it?”

“No hurry,” Graznikov grinned encouragingly.

“What do you think, Lorenzo?” Florin asked doubtfully.

“I think you’re mad,” he said, and spat disgustedly over the side. “What do you know about guns? Might as well just give him our money now and have done with it.”

“Stupid,” Graznikov snarled at him. “Maybe I fire at you instead.”

Florin chewed his lip thoughtfully until Graznikov, overwhelmed with disgust, snatched the pistol from his hand.

“Yes, too weak. Too frightened,” he sneered.

Florin turned on him, face flushed with anger, or drink, or a combination of the two.

“Give me the gun,” he demanded. “Let’s do it. The skipper can be our witness. If I shoot the block off first my men get the upper deck. If you do it, I’ll pay you twenty crowns.”

“Gold crowns,” Graznikov reminded him.

“Gold it is.”

“You’re sure about this?” the skipper, who knew trouble brewing when he saw it, asked them.

“Yes, yes, yes,” the Kislevite agreed impatiently.

“Yes,” Florin nodded.

“I go first,” Graznikov said and, before anybody could protest, he raised his pistol and fired.

It was an excellent shot. If the block hadn’t swung to one side at the same moment that the Kislevite had fired the bullet, it would have hit dead centre. As it was, it just chipped the side and spun it around like a top.

For a moment the men watched spellbound as the rope from which it hung twisted and knotted, frayed edges sticking out wildly. But for now, at least, the block remained in place.

“Not bad,” Florin allowed, heartened by Graznikov’s scowl. Then he turned his attention to the block. It swung and bobbed, a tiny mark against the shifting blues and greens of the sea. It occurred to Florin, not for the first time, that he could stand here blazing away at it all day without even chipping the target.

Well, that was no problem.

With a final check that his weapon was primed and loaded he slipped it into his belt and swung himself over the Destrier’s prow.

“What you doing?” Graznikov asked, but Florin ignored him. All of his concentration was focused on the creaking rat’s nest of frayed rope, torn sail and chipped wood that he had begun to creep along. Below him the sea slipped past the Destrier’s prow, the spray of cool water refreshing in the heat of this moment.

“You can’t do that!” Graznikov howled as, inch by perilous inch, the Bretonnian crawled towards the target.

The Kislevite was still howling his protests as Florin, swinging beneath the stump of the pinnace, wrapped his legs around the timber and snagged the length of rope upon which the block hung.

Drawing it towards him he carefully retrieved his pistol, put the muzzle to the chipped wood of the target, and closed his eyes.

Then he pulled the trigger.

There was deafening bang and a backwash of sudden heat. Even before he opened his eyes again Florin knew that he’d been successful. Graznikov’s storm of protests was loud enough to be heard even above the ringing in his ears.

“Well done,” the skipper said as Florin pulled himself back on board and handed the pistol back to the waiting Kislevite.

“No!” the Kislevite protested, stamping his foot on the deck. “No well done. Cheated.”

“Are you calling me a cheat?” Florin asked, eyes narrowing in ersatz rage as he gripped the hilt of his belt knife.

“No,” the Kislevite decided hastily. “No.”

“Excellent. Well, then, let’s get things moving, shall we? Skipper, perhaps you’d let Graznikov’s men wait on the deck whilst my lot move into the upper deck?”

“Yes, of course,” the sailor said. “Captain Graznikov, perhaps you’d gather your men?”

“Old man Gorth gave me the upper deck.”

“You took your chance,” the skipper waved the objection away. “You lost. Now go and prepare your men. I don’t won’t to waste any more time.”

Florin, eager to pass on the good news, followed him. Behind him Graznikov turned to hide his rage, his face burning with hatred as he clenched the rail.