“Run!” I gasped hoarsely. “Into the trees!”
Redwan caught up Cervon’s sword. “Into the trees!” I repeated. “Hurry!”
They started, but then there was a great rush of feet from down the slope, and something struck me hard behind the ear. I grasped my sword and turned to face them, but then a wave of darkness swept over me and I fell.
When I awakened it was to movement. The earth was moving, or I was in a litter. My skull throbbed heavily. The surface upon which I lay rose and fell.
The sea. I was at sea again.
It was late dusk, the sky overcast. I was lying on the afterdeck and could hear the slow, measured beat of the oars. A toe prodded me. “Get up!”
Walther … he was alive, then.
Staggering to my feet, I lurched against the bulwark. My eyes opened … Aziza?
My head throbbed like an enormous drum. Walther was staring at me. “She got away! It was your doing!”
Our Breton gods had not given me a quick brain for no reason. I had the sense to act amazed. “I got the gold for you! Was not that the bargain?”
He was furious, hating me more than ever. He had never intended for the girl to be freed, yet he had intended, I am sure, that Cervon was to die.
“I don’t understand!” I protested. “I was chasing her when I was hit! How could she have escaped from us all?”
“You did not see the Moors?”
The rush of feet I remembered had been the ship’s crew, but the shouts and the charge had been the Moors, but whose? Were they the men of Duban? Or of ibn-Haram?
Had Aziza escaped our ship only to fall into their hands? It was an ugly thought. Yet, would they harm her? Would she not be a valuable hostage?
“I was pursuing them when something hit me.”
“You were trying to escape.”
“What? And leave the reward you promised?”
That stopped him, bottling up his doubts, for what man would run away from a promise of gold? “You will get nothing,” he said irritably. “You are a fool.”
Who is the wise man and who the fool? The question has puzzled philosophers. “Perhaps the gold you keep from me will buy you pain in the bazaars of Cadiz, pain left to you by some cheap wench.”
“Cadiz? Who spoke of Cadiz?”
“Where else? When one has gold where else to go but where there are the finest women, the best wines, the luxuries of the earth?”
Four men, I learned, had been slain in the charge, and one of the Finnvedens had died earlier. Another had been killed by an arrow after they had gotten into the boat, and of course, Cervon was dead. They did not suspect that it was I who killed him.
The sword had been taken from me, and my dagger as well, but they needed me now, and I would have both weapons back one day.
The roll of the ship was sickening to me. My mouth tasted evil, and my head throbbed. What struck me was probably a stone from a sling. Well, we Celts are noted for our hard heads. And with that thought I drifted into sleep.
Rain awakened me. A hard dash of rain, then another. I staggered to the bulwark. Walther was nearby, revealed in a flash of lightning. “Get busy!” he shouted. “Do something!”
“In this storm? With all the gold you have, I would be snugged down in some port with a loaf and a bottle of wine.”
The seas were crested with white. I got a hand on the steering oar. We were headed west, which was right for Cadiz, so I tried as best I might to hold that course. Then, as the sky was gray with arriving day, he came to me, his fat jowls glistening with rain. “I like not the weather,” he grumbled. “Take us to Cadiz.”
The lush beauty of Malaga had spoiled me for the dirt of the galley and the greasy faces of the crew. They hated me and I them, and it was but a matter of time until I escaped or they killed me.
Yet chained to their oars were Selim and Red Mark, among others, and to them I had promised release. How long ago it seemed.
Cadiz … it was my port of destiny. Somehow, some way I would seek payment from Walther, and somehow I would escape and be my own man once more.
And I knew how—if only I could make it happen. Wild the wind and dark the rolling sea, yet not so dark as the waves within my mind. Walther must pay, and my old companions of the oars must be freed.
Then, the wide world would be mine! I would be off to find my father, off to seek what fortune there was for me, and somewhere, somewither, a lass.
5
My eyes opened on despair. The galley was silent; water lapped lazily against the hull, but I was a prisoner. The crew, except for a few to guard the slaves and myself, had gone ashore to Cadiz.
All my plans had come to nothing, and I lay still, trying to think my way out of the situation. Sitting up, I looked down the line of sleeping slaves. Only Selim was awake. Our eyes met.
Here was a man who knew hope. His eyes burned with the hot fire of eagerness, and it was I who had given him hope. Yet what could I do against four armed men?
From the granite and green of the Armorican hills of Brittany, from her lonely moors and shores, her menhirs and dolmens, the world outside had seemed a place of bright romance where I would stride heroically among my enemies. And here I sat a prisoner to a pack of petty thieves on a stinking ship.
Was I, the son of Kerbouchard the Corsair, to stand for this?
One of the four was a Finnveden with no cause to like me, with a bow and arrow at his hand. His arrow would transfix my guts before I could even stand erect.
To be reckless is not to be brave, it is only to be a fool. Caution always, but when a man acts he should act suddenly and with decision.
The others slept, but what could I do against the Finnveden? What was it the pockmarked sailor had told me long ago? “Trust to your wits, boy.”
Perhaps I had no wits, but that stupid ox with the bow … I might think myself wiser than he, but what price wisdom with an arrow in the guts?
“They are having their fun ashore,” I suggested. “It is a pity Walther would not allow us a bottle of wine.”
The Finnveden did not reply. He did not ask the question I hoped for, so I suggested, “He could at least have given us a bottle from the stores.”
The Finnveden was alert. “What stores?”
“He will be having plenty of wine ashore. Why did he forget to tell us we might help ourselves from what lies below?”
“There’s wine below?”
“Of course. It is stored under the arms chest where Walther sleeps.”
His piglike eyes searched mine. He was a man sadly lacking in faith in his fellow man. He trusted me not at all. Selim was listening, understanding our talk. It needed time for the Finnveden to make up his mind. He was a heavy-shouldered, hairy man, uncertain of temper as an old bear with a sore tooth. Finally, he awakened the others, and they whispered together. Suddenly, they came over to me, knocked me sprawling, and bound me, hand and foot. There was a trick my father had taught me, to take a deep breath and to distend the muscles while being bound. With the slack gained when one exhales and relaxes the muscles, one can do much. The time was not yet …
They went below, under the afterdeck, and then came tumbling back to the deck clutching the wine I had seen Walther hide. They began to work the corks loose with their teeth and to drink. One waved a bottle over me, laughing contemptuously when wine splashed in my face.
The sun rose higher. Walther and the others would be waking up in the bordellos ashore. Suppose a relief was sent before these had drunk enough?
Closing my eyes, I let the sun warm my muscles. Bound though I was, I could yet enjoy this pleasure, for I am one that from his earliest days has loved the physical delights: the warmth of the sun, the drinking of cold, clear water, the taste of salt spray, the damp feel of fog upon the flesh, and the touch of a woman’s hands.
Lying upon my back, I could feel the gentle movement of the deck beneath me, the creak of resting oars, the muttering of sleeping slaves, the clank of a chain as one moved restlessly in his sleep.