Chapter Five
THE MENTONESE CAPTAIN
The man in orange withdrew his sword and stood back, eyeing his dead opponent grimly. Then he turned to me and said: "I thank you for your warning, friend. Without it, I think my own blood would have been spilled. But how did you disarm the archer and how--" he grinned suddenly "--did you arrange that so-convenient rolling of barrels?" His English was good but his intonation was unfamiliar; evidently he was some sort of foreigner.
Without immediately replying I sheathed my sword and, delving among the barrels, found the bow, with its severed string, and the arrow. Beside it was my little knife. I picked up both bow and knife and said simply: "I threw this; they're useful little weapons at close range. It startled him quite a bit, didn't it? As for the barrels; well, it was when one of his friends jumped in surprise that they started falling!"
The man in orange took the knife from me and balanced it in his hand, then returned it to me. "There is blood: you did more than cut the string, I see....I am deeply grateful; I shall not forget this."
He turned and bent over the dead man. "I wonder who....? The others were rabble, but this one was different....I think he was from Barodda; he has the look; but I cannot be sure...." His voice trailed off; then he said crisply: "Well, he is dead, and only God or the devil can question him henceforward. Now, friend, let me introduce myself; Avran Estantesec of Sandastre, eternally at your service!"
With an exaggerated flourish of the orange cloak about his shoulders, he bowed deeply; then looked up at me and smiled mischievously. "Under such circumstance, that is the proper response, is it not?"
I laughed outright. "Well, it's very splendid! As for me, I'm Simon Branthwaite, presently of nowhere in particular."
He smiled again at this. "Well, there is much to be said for having so wide a fief! I am honoured to know you. Yet allow me a moment before we talk. I am sure that the good citizens of Bristol will not want to see their fine quayside cluttered up with corpses. My late assailant came out from among the barrels; I think he should go back among them!"
Then, as he bent to lift the body of the bearded man, he paused and looked up at me. "Your sword--it is, I am sure, a venerable weapon, hallowed by the use of distinguished ancestors in many famous campaigns?"
I laughed again. The courtesies of the man in orange might be cumbrous, but they concealed a bubbling humour that was altogether engaging. "No, I am afraid it has no noteworthy history, it's just an old sword."
"In that case, why not effect an exchange? Assuredly our bearded friend will have no further use for his sword; and it is a good blade, an Arctorran blade. The swordsmiths of Andressellar are quite as skilled as those of Toledo. The scabbard also is attractive; the patterning in silver marks it, I think, as Dupratan. Please take them. I have my own good blade and you deserve the honours of that combat."
"Thank you; I'll welcome the exchange, though I confess I'm a poor swordsman."I unbuckled the scabbard from my belt and, when we concealed the body of the bearded man among the tumbled barrels, it was my old sword that was cast down by his side.
Then Avran turned to me again. "I would like to entertain you, if not to dinner, at least to a tankard of ale over which we might properly pledge our friendship. Unfortunately, I am leaving this city too soon for any such celebration. Indeed, I now await the return of the captain of the vessel on which I am to travel homeward. He is due shortly and our ship is to sail at high tide. Under such circumstances...."
"Are you sailing for Rockall, then? Is the captain already ashore?"
"Why yes, I'm travelling to Sandarro; and the captain, he came ashore a full half hour ago!"
"Yet his boat--it isn't here?"
"No indeed; it returned to the ship and I, after arranging my passage, to my inn for these burdensome objects!" He gestured at the satchel and the bundle of bows.
I cursed to myself. By so stupidly falling asleep, I might have missed the chance of the passage I sought; yet...."You say the captain will be returning soon?"
"Very soon; for, as you may mark, he is coming now!"
Avran gestured back along the quay. There, approaching us, was a group of three men. Two of them were young and burly, wearing simple blue tunics and with long yellow hair tied back by twisted braids. Battle-axes were strapped at their waists--a bodyguard, clearly. The third was shorter, more elderly, but more richly attired. Though his tunic was blue also, it was elaborately embroidered in floral patterns with gold thread. Clearly this must be the captain I sought.
I hesitated. "You see, I want to make the voyage to Rockall. I was waiting to see him, to try to arrange it, and--well, I fell asleep in the sunshine."
Avran laughed joyously. "So that was why you were so fortunately there, ready to act as my saviour from death! I am grateful indeed for your sleeping! And to what part of Rockall would you voyage? This vessel sails first to Sandarro, then to Brevolan in Fachane, and after that only to Angmering--and they will not take you to Angmering."
Both other names were equally unknown to me. "Well, I don't know," I responded hesitantly. For some reason, I was reluctant to disclose my ultimate destination.
"Then you must travel to Sandarro with me. Please permit me the pleasure of negotiating for you. It will prove less expensive, for I know these Mentonese."The three seamen were almost upon us as I nodded assent. Avran stepped forward and, as the men halted, began to speak rapidly in a language quite unfamiliar to me. When he paused, the captain gazed at me with eyes as bright and expressionless as those of a lizard; then he replied abruptly in the same language. They exchanged a few brisk sentences and I understood that they were bargaining. Quite soon the captain uttered a single, abrupt word and held out his cupped hands. This was in Rockall, as I later discovered, a signification of the acceptance of a bargain.
Avran turned to me. "You are fortunate," he said. "The captain is in a hurry to make the tide; usually these deals take much longer. I have told him you are my comrade, which perhaps has helped also. He will take you for ten nobles; and, er"--he hesitated--"if you have not so much gold, I would be pleased to, er, advance it."
I smiled with relief. "No, that's fine; I can pay that amount easily."I fetched out the leather purse and paid the ten coins into the waiting palms of the Mentonese captain. He scrutinized them carefully, inclined his head in acceptance of the deal, and handed them to one of the seamen, who stowed them away into a leather pouch at his belt. While this negotiating was in progress a dory, manned by two blue-tunicked sailors, had drawn up at the quay behind us. As Avran picked up his bundles preparatory to boarding it, I remembered my own satchel and pelicon.
By the time I had scrambled up and retrieved them from the top of the big barrel, Avran and the three Mentonese had dropped down into the little boat. It was bucking so erratically on the rising tide that, when I followed suit, instantly I lost balance and tumbled forward almost into the lap of the captain. He drew back disdainfully; but Avran, sitting by him, smiled and the sailors laughed. Thus undecorously did I leave my native shore forever.
The dory seemed to spin away from the quay as the four sailors, two from the ship and two from the shore, pulled on the oars they had already taken up. Down river we went, past the city wall toward the sea. I was facing back towards Bristol and, watching its spires at first diminish behind the wall and then come into view again as we floated farther down-river, was not aware of the ship till we were almost at its bows.
Very different it was, even to my eyes, from the two ships I had seen drawn up at the Backs. It was broader in the hull and more spacious, with a square fore sail, a much huger square mainsail and a triangular mizzen sail over the stern, where a greater depth of the hull and a series of portholes revealed the presence of cabins below decks. (Such ships were then unique to Mentone, but the design was later to be borrowed by many European peoples, the Portuguese in particular). All three sails were green, of all unlucky colours, and bore a saltire--a St. Andrew's cross--in white.
As we approached the ship, one of the sailors blew on a strangely shaped horn. In response, a rope ladder was lowered over the side. Its ascent was accomplished with speed and ease by the Mentonese sailors, even the one who had shouldered Avran's bundle of bowstaves. (I wondered again what they were for). Avran, with his satchel, climbed up more slowly; and, as for me, I found the ascent altogether alarming, the ladder seeming to bob around like a tassel at the belt of a running footman.
Once we were aboard, the dory was secured by ropes and drawn up from the water, to be inverted and tied in place at one side of the mid deck; another dory, similarly secured, lay on the further side. In between, just abeam of the main mast, was a recess in the deck from which smoke was rising. The captain, ignoring us, went straight to that recess and descended some steps out of my view. A series of four throbbing notes was blown on the horn--an instrument, I now noted, twisted and ribbed like a goat's horn, but amber in colour and quite translucent. At this sound, all the sailors began to gather. The smoke billowed and turned to flame.
"Come forward," said Avran in an urgent undertone. "This is their ceremony before setting out from land. They do not like it to be watched by outsiders."
We stepped under the shelter of the foremast. Two other men were there, passengers like ourselves on this vessel; a plump, amply befurred merchant who, by his accent, was from the Low Countries and a lean, dark-haired man with a thin face. The latter gentleman gave only the curtest of acknowledgements to our greeting before striding away brusquely.
"Another Baroddan, I think," Avran whispered to me. "Many of them have no love for we of Sandastre. Well, I suppose it is understandable, even after a hundred years."
Whilst the ceremony was in progress, Avran engaged the Fleming in conversation. The merchant was voyaging to Fachane in an attempt to set up new trading arrangements that might bypass "these accursed Mentonese"--a sharp nod forward--who were, it seemed, expensive middlemen. As for me, I had no knowledge whatsoever of Mentone or Fachane--and little of the Low Countries, for that matter--so their conversation did not hold my attention. My concerns were becoming more personal, for my stomach, as I was increasingly aware, was not adjusting well to the slow heave of the anchored vessel.
The conversation ended when a roar and flare of flame from near the main mast, followed by another braying of the horn, indicated that the ceremony was over. With a rattle, the anchor was drawn up. The Fleming hurried sternward and disappeared from view into the recesses of the ship. Since the presumed Baroddan had already gone below, I looked at Avran questioningly.
"No, we don't follow," he said. "They have only two small cabins for the passengers; we must remain on deck, I'm afraid. They'll bring blankets for us, and food when we need it--if we need it....But now, I fear our troubles are just commencing!"
I noticed that his cheeks were pale, so I guessed that he was beginning to feel as unwell as--yes, as I was myself. The sailors were heaving upon ropes now; the ship was swinging out into the tide. I watched as Bristol's spires receded from view; it was becoming desirable only to watch, not to converse. How this wretched deck did shift about--why, the ship was like a live thing! And how curious; apart from its heaving, the ship seemed to be still and the land to be moving away from us. Moreover, after so much rain there was a hanging haze. As the Severn took us downstream, the haze obscured the green banks increasingly behind a silvery veil through which a pale sun shone yellow. My last views of England seemed blurred, dreamlike, altogether unreal.
They were, in any case, unpleasantly terminated. As we sailed out into the Bristol Channel, I felt a new motion, a sort of transverse bucketing as the hull of the ship responded to the swell. This was too much for me; I sought the side and was very, very sick. Now I knew what Ben Emery had meant--a pleasure to come, indeed....
foreword chapters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 (more chapters will appear in the future)
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