Captain Predone nodded, the still-unbuckled cheek plates of his open-faced helm rattling to either side of his grin. “Is it so. Sir Ugo? Then the monsignor could do equally well, I trow, with a port piece—those swivels are all mostly nothing but oversized fowlers.”
Turning his head, he bawled, “Master gun captain, there’U be a priest up on deck shortly. Place him as gunner on a port or a base.”
To Ugo, he said, “You and your lot stay by me, and don’t fret or go running off to the first fight you see. I fear me there’ll be action and blood enough for us all, ere this engagement ends. I … will you look at that bugger, the middlemost one out there, pulling ahead of the other two? Why, I think he is going to try ramming us. “Sailing master!”
As Ugo D’Orsini and his men watched, one of the low sail-and-oar-propelled felucca-rigged frigatas bore down on them from the windward, all sails drawing and every long oar flashing, the two methods of power combined giving her a respectable speed. Although the other two frigatas continue to fire off shots from their bow-chasers just as fast as the pieces could be reloaded, the lead vessel had ceased to fire, and knots of men could be seen gathering at midships and stern, bright steel of weapons and armor flashing in the light of the newly risen sun.
Aboard the Spaventoso, the starboard bank of twenty huge oars pulled mightily, while those twenty on the port side backed water every bit as strongly, and the high, long, ponderous galleass slowly moved about in place, in an effort to present her prow to the attacker in time. When he felt the frigata to be within range. Sir Giorgio ordered fire from those cannon that would bear properly, but every humming ball seemed to miss, although some splashed heartbreakingly close to the target.
“Gunmen and moschettieri,” roared Captain Predone, in a voice that Sir Ugo was certain could be heard as far away as Napoli, at least, “half an ounce of gold to the man who knocks the steersman yonder on his keel end!”
At this, the starboard rails became crowded with wheellock and matchlock-armed soldierery and not a few officers as well, for the offered reward was a princely sum indeed. After meticulously checking their priming, some tightening the springs of wheellocks, others blowing on and tapping ash from slowmatches before clamping them into the arms, the firing began. The steersman must have had a charmed life, for after the first dozen or so balls fired at him, he still stood and held the tiller rock-steady. However, the knots of fighting men assembled in waist and stern had not been so lucky, some of them. Some six or seven were down, either lying still or thrashing upon the decks, and all of those still on their feet were quitting the raised steering deck as fast as they could jump into the waist.
In a fury of frustration and fear for his vessel and men, Captain Predone himself stalked over to a base-piece, checked the priming of the long bronze inch-and-a-half-bored swivel gun, then snapped the question to the nearby gunner, “Solid or small shot?”
Fingering his forelock respectfully, the barefoot man said, “Solid, leaden ball, and it please the noble captain.”
A grunt was Predone’s only answer. Taking up a length of slow match, he blew it to a bright glow, then took up the cursive tail of the piece, leaned over, and squinted, sighting it, and abruptly jammed the lit end of the match into the powder-filled touchhole.
The frigata was by now come terrifyingly close, so Ugo did not need a long-glass to see the beefy steersman thrown completely over the stem rail as the pound-or-so ball of hard-flung lead struck him. He could even see five or six men leap up from the overcrowded waist onto the steering deck, hands outstretched to grab at the swaying tiller.
The sailing master of the galleass had seen what must come if none could reach the unguided tiller in time and had ordered the immediate shipping of both banks of oars. The shipping was barely accomplished in time to prevent damage or injury on the row decks of the Spaventoso.
Even as one or two of the Moors finally reached the tiller of their frigata, its solid brazen ram struck the metal-sheathed prow of the galleass, rode over its larger but shorter ram, and, still hard driven by acquired momentum, scraped its starboard side up the full length of the starboard side of the Genoan warship. All of that bank of the frigata’s oars were snapped and splintered like so much kindling, and the hideous screams from her row decks were clearly heard on every deck of the Spaventoso.
And on board the galleass, every swivel that could be brought to bear, every arquebus, musket, dag, and pistol, was fired into the knots of Moors standing or kneeling or lying upon the deck of the frigata as fast as they could be pointed, discharged, and reloaded. Those few of the Moors who made to clamber up the sides of the galleass were all hacked or stabbed back down with sword or dagger or dirk or pike.
As wind in the untended sails bore the Moorish ship slowly away. Captain Sir Giorgio Predone grunted, upon Sir Ugo D’Orsini’s word of compliment on his shooting, “A bit of luck, but we’ll need more than a bit are we all to get out of this pickle alive. There’re two more of the Ifriqan buggers . . . and to judge by this last lot, they know what they’re about.”
CHAPTER
THE FOURTH
A big, burly man with a three-forked chin beard, but no mustache, shoulder-length grey-streaked hair, and even greyer dense brows above grey-green eyes sat on a folding arm-stool at a low, heavy table in a stone-walled room lit by a dozen thick beeswax candles set in brass reflector holders.
All four walls, the floor, and the vaulted ceiling were of stone, unbroken by any apparent openings for door or window or even arrow slits. While everyone knew that such a room existed, few suspected just where it might lie, fewer had been within it, and only a bare handful knew any of the techniques required to gape supposedly solid and immovable stone walls and gain entry to it.
It was the strongroom, the royal treasury, of the ancient kingdom of the southern Ui Neills. The land was also called the Kingdom of Meath, and its king was also the Ard-Righ or High King of Eireann or Ireland. Round about the room reposed chests of all sizes and shapes, all secured to iron floor rings by lengths of thick-linked chain. Most of the iron-bound coffers were held shut by massive locks. One lid stood thrown back, however, and the big man sat studying a velvet-lined tray lifted from out that chest.
As often when alone, Brian O’Maine, Ard-Righ of Eireann. Righ of Mide (or Meath). and Ri or chief of the Southern Ui Neills, talked aloud to himself as if to another person.
“The Seven Magical Jewels of Eireann, we choose to call them. When actually there are eight and including the one of Great Eireann, nine, could only some fisherman dredge up the long-lost Sardius of Ulaid from the murky depths of Lough Neagh. And I have two of them here.”
His fingers, thick-calloused from gripping hilt of sword and haft of axe and from handling the reins of powerful destriers, lifted a piece from its fitted hollow in the rich cloth. In a wide, thick, heavy piece of that ancient alloy called electrum (silver and gold, giving a less yellow metal) were set three stones—a clear-yellow diamond of some inch across, a moonstone of about equal size but of a different shape, and a dark-green carbuncle.
“The Ancient and Most Holy Jewel of Ui Neill.” He named its name. “Where in all this world did that pack of unhung thieves and despoilers that were my ancestors manage to steal such big, beautiful stones I wonder? They certainly were stolen, that or prized, for no man would ever part with them willingly, not for any price. Whenever I look upon it. I can understand just why our dear cousins to the north have never forgiven us Southern Ui Neills for insisting that it remain here, in the south, nearly six hundred years after the last Viking died or was baptized.
“Rest you well and ever safely, my joy.” Reverently, he laid the piece back in its place, then lifted out the piece beside it. This a disk of reddish gold with a large, polished oval of fine heliotrope set in its center, the big gem being surrounded by a circle of twelve green garnets.
“The Blood of Airgialla, they call you. and we all know the myths of your origin, but I wonder what the truths are and if anyone ever again will know them. I doubt not that spilled blood, quarts or full gallons of the stuff, had much to do with your past, though. At least, you were delivered up to me in peace by a friend and ally—so bloodless a change of hands must seem strange to you. Well, I return you to your velvet couch, my pretty.”