BLACK Horses for the KING ANNE MCCAFFREY. Part one

Part One

Horse Fair at Septimania

“GALWYN’S FEEDING THE FISHES AGAIN,” the mate called as I emptied the odorous bucket overboard. I ignored him, rinsing the bucket in the strong waves that were following us from Isca Dumnorium.

By now, I was some used to crossing the Narrow Sea, but to have to tend to six grown men who were not, made me as ill as they. And made me, once again, the butt of jokes for my uncle’s crew. It had taken me a while to learn not to rise to the mate’s lures; he’d leave off his taunts sooner. “Have ye no sea blood in ye at all? “Have ye no use in the rigging, little use on deck, and ye can’t even keep b’low decks clean.”

I was hauling the bucket up, had it nearly to the rail, when a particularly hungry wave caught and filled it.

The line pulled burningly through my hands. I barely managed to belay it on a pin and thus not lose it entirely. The mate roared with laughter at my unhandiness, encouraging the other men of his watch to join him.

“Galwyn, I’d want proof that y’are indeed Gralior’s nephew if I’d one like ye on any ship of mine.”

The bucket forgotten, I whirled on him for that insult to my mother.

“Ah, lad, we’ve sore need of the bucket below,” said a deep voice in my ear. A hand caught my shoulder with a powerful shake to gain my attention and curb my intent. “Such taunts are the currency of the petty,” our noble passenger continued for my ear alone. “Treat them with the contempt they deserve.” Then he went on in a tone meant to carry, “I tried the salted beef as you suggested, and it has succeeded in settling my belly. For which I’m obliged to you. I’ll have another plate for my Companions.”

I could not recall the Comes’s name-a Roman one, for all he was supposed to be as much a Briton as the rest of us. My uncle treated him with more respect, even reverence, than he accorded most men, fare-paying passengers or not. So I was quite as willing to obey this Briton lord without quibble, and to ease his Companions’ distress in any way I could. I hauled up the bucket, which he took below with him. Then I got more salt beef from the barrel before I followed him back down into the space assigned the passengers.

Warriors they might be, but on the sea and three days from land, they were in woeful condition: Two were green under their weathered skins, as they lay defeated by the roll and heave of the deck beneath them. I did not laugh, all too familiar with their malaise. They were big men, strong of arm and thew, with callused hands and arms scarred by swordplay. They’d swords in their baggage, and oiled leather jerkins well studded with nails. Big men in search of big horses to carry them into battle against the Saxons. That much I had gleaned from snatches of then- conversation before the seasickness robbed them of talk and dignity. Then they clung to their crosses and made soft prayers to God for deliverance.

“Come now, Bwlch, you see me revived,” the war chief cajoled. Bwlch merely moaned as the salt beef was dangled in front of his face and gestured urgently to me to bring the bucket. There could be nothing now but bile in the man’s stomach, if that, for he had drunk no more than a sip or two of water all day. “Bericus, will you not try young Galwyn’s magic cure?” The second man-at-arms closed his eyes and slapped a great fist across his nose and mouth. “Come now, Companions, we are all but there, are we not, young Galwyn?”

I was mortified that he had remembered my name when I could not recall his and started to duck my head away from his smiling face. Now I was caught by the brilliant blue of his eyes and held by an indefinable link that made of me, in that one moment, his fervent adherent. Ah, if only my uncle had awarded me such a glance, I could have found my apprenticeship far easier to bear.

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