While he hacked at a tangle of rigging and splintered yards—for Walid prided himself on never forgetting his antecedents nor asking his seamen to do aught that he would not himself do—he reflected that only the worst possible string of ill luck had gotten him and his fine ship involved in this Roman mess to begin. The Bishop of the East at Constantinople had nothing to do with the Roman Crusade, though he had given leave for any of his as had the desire to join in it. Walid certainly had never for a minute entertained any such desire, yet now he would in all likelihood lose his ship if not his life through being caught up in the Roman stupidity. The sultan in Anghara would be in no way pleased, either, when and if Walid returned to report the loss of ship, guns and all. A chill coursed through Walid’s powerful body despite the heat engendered by his exertions, for he had seen strong men live for long hours after being impaled—screaming, pleading, babbling, dying by bare inches, while the remorseless wooden stake tore up through their bodies. He shuddered. That was no way for a decent Tripolitan seaman to die!
Much later, he was on the main gundeck, supervising the drawing of the charges from several of his battery of bronze culverins, when Fahrooq al-Ahmar, a captain and the sole remaining officer of Walid’s contingent of fighting men, found him with a message.
Arrived on his quarterdeck, one look through his long-glass was enough to tell the tale. The remainder of the Papal fleet was once more sailing upriver, but no longer under Papal ensigns; each and every one of the ships and galleons now bore the personal banner of Arthur III Tudor, King of England and Wales. The fleet was being shepherded by some English galleons and frigates, while the squadron of galleys seemed to be beating in the general direction of Walid’s crippled galleon. The thought flitted through his mind that perhaps they meant to give him and his no quarter, in which case he had unloaded those culverins too soon.
He turned to a quartermaster. Haul down that Roman rag and hoist Sultan Omar’s banner in its proper place.” Then, “Fahrooq, send a man down to tell them to get those culverins reloaded immediately, load the swivels, get yourself and your men armed for close combat, open the main arms chests for the seamen, and send a man to my cabin to help me get into my armor. They may kill us all in the end, but this particular batch of Franks will know they’ve come up against real men, by the beard of the Prophet and the tail of Christ’s holy ass!”
As the seamen and soldiers set to their tasks aboard the immobilized galleon, the row galleys crept across the intervening water. Closer they came, ever closer. When they were just beyond the effective range of a long eighteen-pounder culverin shot, they divided, half of them passing across the galleon’s stern quarter to form a line on her port side, the others similarly positioned to menace her starboard side.
Watching the deadly vessels through his fine long-glass, Walid could discern the raised platforms for the single gun that each galley mounted. Absently, he noted that they looked to be nine- or maybe twelve-pounders.
With both his sides menaced properly, eleven of the galleys held their places, using their oars only enough to keep them in those places, while a single galley began to stroke slowly toward the galleon. No gunners stood on the platform; there was but a single man—helmetless, but wearing half-armor, sword, dagger, and pistols and holding the haft of a bladeless boarding pike to which a grayish-white square of cloth had been affixed.
“Looks to be a herald of some kind,” remarked Walid, then he ordered, “No one’s to fire on them until and unless I say to do so. But keep your eyes on the other galleys, most especially on those off the port bow. We can lose nothing by hearing what this Frank bastard has to say to us.”
As the small galley neared, Walid thought to himself that some of the oarmen were easily the most villainous-looking humans he had ever set eyes to in a lifetime spent at sea and in some of the roughest ports in all the wide world. The herald, on the other hand, though his face was well scarred and his nose was canted and a bit crooked and though he might have looked fearsome if viewed alone, seemed to represent an uncommon degree of gentility when compared to the satanic-looking crew whose efforts propelled the galley.
Then the rowcraft turned to starboard and came directly toward the galleon, and all that Walid could see were the backs of the rowers, the supposed herald, the steersman, and another he assumed to be the master on the minuscule steering deck at the stern.
And on that small steering deck, Squire John Stakeley felt far more exposed to imminent death or maiming than ever he had even when spurring on at the very forefront of a cavalry charge. Though he was no true seaman and made no such pretensions, he well knew just how frail was this galley and her crew when one contemplated a hit by even a single ball from an eighteen-pounder culverin, and they were now within perfect range if that Roman bastard elected to pull his broadside or any part thereof.
Of course, if he did that—fired on a herald—the rest of the squadron would proceed to pound the galleon to pieces, before boarding the hulk and butchering every man aboard
her. But that would be of no help to Squire John and the noble herald and the gallowglasses who were rowing closer to the anchored warship with every stroke of the long, heavy sweeps.
Hailing from an inland county and being thus conversant with damn-all of ships in general, Squire John failed to recognize the new, gaudy standard that had been run up to replace the even gaudier Pap;.l one. But the herald saw it for what it was, and, as the galley came alongside the galleon, with a brace of brawny Irishmen contriving to keep her there against the tug of the current with boathooks and main strength, the herald shouted up at a swarthy, bearded man who stood by the rail with a glowing length of matchcord in one tar-stained hand and the other grasping the aiming rod of a swivel gun—a three-inch drake, mounted in the rail specifically to repel boarders.
In purest Arabic, he demanded and threatened and insulted so meticulously that Walid and every man of his within the hearing immediately recognized a kindred ethnic spirit.
“Throw me down a ladder at once, you sorry by-blow outcome of a diseased sow and a spavined camel’s perversions, else I’ll see you given that swivel gun and all within it as the hottest clyster that your foul fundament ever has known!”
At Walid’s curt nod of approval, the gunner laid aside his slow-match and, grinning his own appreciation of the herald’s admirably couched words, heaved down a rope ladder from the galleon’s waist rail to the bobbing galley below.
Leaving the white flag leaning against the gun carriage, the herald stepped onto the gunwale of the galley and ascended the swaying, jerking ladder as nimbly as any barefoot seaman, despite his heavy boots, armor, long-skirted buffcoat, and dangling weapons.
As Fahrooq ushered the newcomer up onto the quarterdeck, Walid noted that the herald moved with a pantherish grace and so was most likely an exceeding deadly swordsman. Otherwise, he looked to be much akin to Walid himself.
Both were of average height—some five and one-half feet from soles to pate—with black hair and eyes, swart skin, and fine, prominent noses, heads, hands, and feet a bit on the small side, fingers long and slender. Both men were possessed of slim waists and thick shoulders, but the herald also showed the fiat thighs of a horseman and considerable facial scarring, more than Walid had managed to collect in his own lifetime.
“Sahlahmoo aleikoom, Ohbtdhn. I am Sir Ali ibn Hussain.” “Aleikoomah sahlahm.” Walid intoned the ritual greeting, but then demanded, “By the flames of Gehenna, now, how is it that an Arabian knight is serving an excommunicated Prankish king who is making war—rather successful war, but still war—upon the Holy Apostolic Church? Man, you risk your soul in the hereafter, not to contemplate what will be done to your body if you find yourself taken and brought before an ecclesiastical court.”
“Oh, I serve not King Arthur,” was the reply. “At least, not directly. No, I have the great honor to be the herald of his grace, Sir Sebastian, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Rutland, Markgraf von Velegrad, Baron of Strathtyne, Knight of the Garter of the Kingdom of England and Wales, Noble Fellow of the Order of the Red Eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, and Lord Commander of Horse in the Armies of Arthur III Tudor, King of England and Wales.”