“I’m making this sound like an arithmetic examination in high school or like the speech a football coach gives before his team goes out to play. I’m sorry about that. This test, this game, is deadly, and some of you alive today won’t be by tomorrow’s end. But you knew the price when you signed up, and none should think of welshing.
“But after tomorrow is over…”
He paused to look around. Joe Miller, sitting on a huge chair on the podium, looked sad, and tears were trickling down his craggy cheeks.
Little de Marbot leaped up then and raised his glass of liquor and cried, “Three cheers for our commander and a toast to him!”
Everybody huzzaed loudly. After they had drunk, tall big-nosed rapier-thin de Bergerac stood up and said, “And a toast to victory! Not to mention death and damnation to John Lackland!”
Sam stayed up late that night. He paced back and forth for a while in the pilothouse. Though the boat was anchored, there was a full watch in the room. The Not For Hire could up-anchor and paddlewheel into the lake at top speed within three minutes. If John should try a night attack despite his promises not to, Sam’s vessel would be ready for it.
The pilothouse watch said little. Sam left them with a good night and walked for a few minutes on top of the flight deck. Ashore, many fires blazed. The Virolanders knew what was coming tomorrow, and they were too excited, too apprehensive, to get to sleep at their customary time. Earlier, La Viro himself had appeared on the bank in a fishing boat and requested permission to board. Clemens had told him, through a bullhorn, that he was certainly glad to meet him. But he could not discuss anything until after tomorrow. Sorry. That was the way it had to be.
The big dark man with the lugubrious features had departed, though not before blessing Sam. Sam felt ashamed.
Now Sam walked the length of every deck on both sides to test the alertness of the sentries. He was happy with the results, and he decided it was foolish to spend any more time prowling the boat. Besides, Gwenafra would be expecting him to come to bed. She’d probably want to make love, too, because one or both of them might not be alive after tomorrow. He didn’t feel like it at the moment, but she had some irresistible ways of arousing his spirits, among other things.
He was right. She did insist on it, but when his lack of enthusiasm became obvious, and she couldn’t generate any, she quit. Nor did she reproach him. She only asked that he hold her tight and that he talk to her. It was seldom that Sam didn’t have time to talk, so they spent at least two hours in conversation.
Shortly before they drifted into sleep, Gwenafra said, “I wonder if Burton could be on the Rex! Wouldn’t that be funny if he were? I mean, peculiar, not laughable. It would also be horrible.”
“You’ve never gotten over your little-girl crush on him, have you?” Sam said. “He must have been something. To you, anyway.”
“No, I haven’t,” she said, “though I couldn’t be sure, of course, that I’d like him now. Still, what if he were one of King John’s men, and we killed him? I’d feel terrible. Or what if someone you loved were on the Rex?”
“It’s just not very probable,” he said. “I’m not going to worry about it.”
But he did. Long after Gwenafra was breathing the easy breath of the deep sleeper, he lay awake. What if Livy were on the Rex! No, she wouldn’t be. After all, it was one of John’s men who’d killed her in Parolando. She’d never come aboard his boat. Not, that is, unless she wanted to kill him for revenge. No, she wouldn’t do that. She was too gentle for that, even though she’d fight fiercely in defense of her loved ones. But revenge? No.
Clara? Jean? Susy? Could one of them be on the Rex! The chances were very very low that they could be. Yet… the mathematically improbable sometimes happened. And a missile fired from his boat might kill her. And she’d be lost forever to him since there were no more resurrections.