Quillifer the Knight Read online

  The foresail over my head began to rattle again. I assumed it was braced around as far as it would go, and that the chief mate would douse it at once before it went aback. That foresail was our last bit of canvas, and after this the ship would lose way quickly. I felt the bow lift and the wind freshen on my face. “Let go the sea-anchor!” I said. “Get it into the water!”

  The seamen hurled the roll of canvas into the water, and I rushed forward to make sure it cleared the bower anchor and other obstacles. I could see nothing and received a face full of ice-cold seawater for my pains. But I groped for the hawser and felt it shooting over the bulwark, nearly scorching my fingers, and I knew the canvas had found its way into the sea.

  Royal Stilwell was losing way and beginning to stagger in the face of the oncoming wave. I tried to judge how much cable had flown out—ten fathoms? fifteen?—and then reasoned that I could always let out more of the hawser if I needed to.

  The hawser had been allowed to run out between the uprights of a stanchion, so that a crewman could draw it against the stanchion if necessary and provide a check on its speed. “Belay the cable!” I said, and the crewman threw a loop of the hawser over one of the stanchion’s uprights, and the line snapped taut with a sudden deep bass thrum.

  The ship was wallowing now, and I sensed that it had lost all momentum and was stumbling back along the slope of the wave, the fore- and aftercastles buffeted by the wind. Spray pelted the deck. I divined the crest of the wave gathering over us, and I knew that we had failed, and that only luck could save the ship.

  “Hold fast!” I cried, and wrapped my arms around a pair of shrouds. Then there was a cracking noise from the stanchion, and I felt the hawser snap against my waist like a great iron bar. It knocked me to one side, and then the entire ship tossed as the bow lunged to windward. In an instant the wave was crashing into us, tons of water thundering over the larboard bow and pouring like a cold river onto the forecastle. I locked my arms around the shrouds and was buried in black water, blind and hopeless, conscious only of my own failure and the lives that would be lost to my mistake.

  Then I felt Royal Stilwell lift again, and suddenly there was a blast of wind in my face, and the ship was shrugging off the water like a great whale breaching from the sea. Through my oilskins I felt the cable still hard against my side, the ship’s beak was angling down again as we followed the curve of the wave, and we were no longer careening headlong before the storm, but moving in a staid, stately way with the wind howling over our larboard bow.… The sea-anchor had worked and brought the bow around at the very last second.

  I sagged against the shrouds with relief, my knees grown weak. As soon as I had caught my breath, I began assembling my party again to better secure the cable. I was afraid the power of the wind and waves would tear the stanchion clean off the deck and take the cable with it, so I carried the tail of the hawser around the foremast and snugged it tight so the mast would take the weight rather than the stanchion. By the time I’d accomplished this task, another wave rose white-crested over the ship and broke over the forecastle. But this time we weren’t buried in water but in spray and foam, and I realized that we were now riding almost easily under bare poles, with the storm pushing the sterncastle downwind, and the sea-anchor offsetting us just a few points, so that the bow didn’t bury itself in an oncoming wave, but lifted gently toward the crest.

  I reported to the captain, and once the ship had ridden a few more waves and he was satisfied, he dismissed everyone but the men on watch.

  We were riding so much more easily that the cooks were able to start their fires and were able to keep the fresh water in the steeping tubs, so soon we were served a pottage made with dried peas and onions, followed by salt beef, cheese, and a plum duff filled with currants and raisins and drenched in molasses. Those of us in the officers’ berth were also treated to a hot brandy punch, and this sent me to my boxlike bed with my head spinning and my skin aglow with warmth. I slept soundly till my watch was called. The ship was riding well enough that I had little to do except keep my eyes peeled for the horrid specter of land looming up under our lee.

  This possibility disturbed the captain as well, and he had a hawser rove out of the starboard hawsehole and fixed to the starboard bower anchor, just in case cliffs loomed up in our path and we had to drop an anchor and pray it would hold.

  After my watch I had another hot meal and slept dreamlessly for eight hours. When I rose, I found myself so hobbled by pain and bruises that I could barely manage to don my oilskins. I had some cheese, biscuit, salt pork, and, for warmth, a cup of mulled wine, then dragged myself onto the quarterdeck.

  The storm raged like a fury for another day, then began to diminish. The sky was gray rather than black, and the waves, though steep, no longer loomed over the ship like a toppling tower. The foam did not cover the whole sea, but lay in white streaks on the water. Royal Stilwell rode more placidly on the waves, and the crew were able to rest and to have regular hot meals.

  I invited Captain Gaunt and the others to dinner on the morning of the fifth day. I issued the invitations not in the character of a junior officer, but rather that of the ship’s owner, and had them to dine in my own splendid cabin under the poop, with food from my own pantry. I served a pottage of vegetables and bacon, followed by pickled oysters and anchovy, ham, spiced Varcellos sausages, fresh-baked white manchet-bread, and lastly a cake sweetened with dried fruit. This with wine and brandy, and I brought out my guitar, and we sang a few songs, “Old Captain Jermain” and other favorites.

  It was the best meal we’d enjoyed since we’d left land, and the best sauce was that we had escaped from deadly danger and now had every chance of coming safe into port and selling our cargo for a great profit.

  “Thank the Compassionate Pilgrim,” said Gaunt as he sipped from the wine-cup in his vast fist. “He has given us the wisdom to endure the storm.”

  “Was it the Pilgrim, or rather Pastas Netweaver?” asked I. “For I heard you call upon the god when we were in danger.”

  Gaunt flushed, for he was a most thorough champion of the Pilgrim’s philosophy and quite learnèd in his own way. He was completely self-taught and mingled the Pilgrim’s thought with his own hard-earned wisdom. He had made strenuous efforts to convert me to the Pilgrim’s path, and we’d had many discussions during the long night watches, in which he urged me to abandon the old gods, who he maintained did not exist, and view the Pilgrim himself as divine.

  I had my own reasons for crediting the existence of gods, which I did not share with him; but it was for the joy of argument that I opposed the captain’s opinion, and many and fine and eloquent were our debates as we paced the deck beneath the stars.

  But now it seemed I’d caught him out, calling upon one of the gods he maintained did not exist.

  “Though the Compassionate Pilgrim knew the minds of men,” Gaunt finally said, “I have not heard that the Pilgrim knew aught of the sea, and so when I have time for reflection, I follow the Pilgrim’s teachings. But in a storm I pray to Pastas, like a sailor.”

  “That is pragmatic philosophy,” I said, “and I cannot gainsay it.” I raised a glass, on the verge of toasting the captain and his accommodation with divinity. But at that moment there was a great thunder of feet on the planks above our heads, followed in seconds by a pounding on my cabin door. The boatswain entered in dripping oilskins and spoke the words that froze our blood.

  “Land!” he cried. “Land right under our lee!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Perhaps you would refill my wine-cup? It is thirsty work to relive that storm, to feel again my fear and my bruises, and to remember the taste of salt spray on my tongue.

  Now we are engaged in something just as hazardous. If I am not so afraid now, it is because you are with me.

  Tomorrow we shall be traitors, but until then we are free to consider only pleasure. Therefore I will rest my head in your lap and continue my tale. It seems that tonight I am far more comfortable spe
aking of my past than reflecting upon my future.

  On hearing the boatswain’s despairing cry, we abandoned our feast and dashed up on deck, and through the surge and spray we saw black, jagged cliffs lining the northern horizon, four or five miles distant. The wind was from the south and blowing us right down on the land.

  “We shall have to put sail on her,” said Captain Gaunt. His great fists fastened on the taffrail as if he would tear it clean away. “Call up all hands.”

  While the pipes shrilled down the hatches, we returned to our rooms to don our oilskins. I looked about the remains of my abandoned feast, and wondered if I should ever see that cabin again. I reflected that if I were to die, it were best to die with a belly full of good food and wine, and so I quickly pledged myself with another cup and ate a piece of cake, and then I ran up to the deck and awaited orders. Now I was no longer the owner of the ship, but rather the most junior officer on the quarterdeck.

  The sea-anchor put the wind on our larboard bow, and thus when we made sail, we would be on the larboard tack. Gaunt’s orders came fast and were emphasized by flailing arms and fists, as if he were engaged in a boxing-match with some invisible foe.

  “Lay aloft and loose the foresail! Lay aloft, the afterguard! Loose the mainsail! Stand by—let fall! Down from aloft! Man tacks and sheets! Clear away the rigging—haul aboard!”

  The ship heeled mightily as the sails filled, even though they were thrice-reefed, and I gazed at the sea in alarm as the deck seemed to fall away beneath me. Sea-foam boiled over the lee bulwark, and the taut canvas was hard as iron. The sea-anchor, which had so well preserved us in the worst of the storm, was cut free. The timoneers fought to hold Royal Stilwell’s course as the spritsail and lateen were set. Even under these few sails, we surged through the water with the sea hissing beneath our keel, spray crashing over the bows, fast as a shining carbonero. My heart leaped at the way the galleon took to the sea, and I found myself grinning as the spray dotted my face. Truly, I thought, it was good to be young, and alive, and engaged in a contest with the elements. But soon enough my smile began to fade.

  To explain why, I must make a digression, and for that I beg your pardon. In your girlhood in Winecourt you saw ships, and were no doubt familiar with their ways, but you have not conned a ship in a storm, or had to cope with clawing to windward off a lee shore.

  Royal Stilwell was, you remember, a high-charged galleon, with tall fore- and aftercastles that caught the wind. The wind’s pressure on the hull, masts, and rigging drove the ship to leeward, a motion the ship resisted with its deep keel, which is why a ship heels as the wind tries to push its upper works over, and the keel resists. But the keel cannot hold the ship still, and as long as the wind blows, the ship will scud to leeward, whatever its attitude toward the wind. This constant downwind movement is called “leeway” and is always present.

  Stilwell’s fastest point of sailing was with the wind on either quarter, or behind, but she could not sail into the wind, or anywhere near it. We could lay our course about a point into the wind and no more, and that was with the lateen pushing the stern down as far as it could, and the timoneer leaning on the whipstaff with all his weight. If we pinched up any closer, we would begin to lose way and soon be in irons.

  A point into the wind should have been enough to keep clear of the land, but not in a great storm. For the vast force of the storm-wind overcame the resistance of the keel, and heeled the ship far over and drove it toward the land faster than we could make up the distance by sailing. Thus, even though we sped fairly through the water with the sea boiling beneath our hull, we grew ever closer to that iron shore, and it soon became clear to all of us that we would be wrecked if we stayed on the larboard tack.

  Yet we could not put her about. We could not tack across the wind, because the storm would blast us back and drive us stern-first upon the land, most likely with our masts tumbling about our ears. And we could not wear the ship around, for we had not the sea-room and would go directly on the shore.

  “Can we not drop another sea-anchor?” I asked the captain. “Off the starboard side, so that it puts us on the starboard tack?”

  Gaunt wiped spray from his face and turned to me the hollow, weary eyes of despair. “We have not time to make one.”

  “Have we not the bower anchor ready?”

  Gaunt was silent for a moment as the idea moved visibly across his face, and then kindled a light in his eyes. “By Pastas,” he said, “I will do it.”

  I grinned at him. “Do you not mean ‘by the Pilgrim’?”

  There came no answer, for he was already shouting orders. “Leadsmen to the forepeak! Muster the crew on the main deck!”

  The leadsmen began to cast their leads, to determine the depth of the water, and found no bottom. This was worrying for, looking at the land, I could see black, stony cliffs rising sharp from the great boiling mass of white surf-spray, and I knew that the land above the sea often reflected what was beneath it. If the land gently shelved down to the sea, then it very likely shelved into the water as well. Likewise, if the land dropped suddenly into the ocean, there was very likely deep water just offshore.

  If the anchor found no bottom, then we were surely doomed.

  The crew was mustered before the break of the quarterdeck, a wet, dispirited mob huddled in their gleaming oilskins and facing the certainty of their own death. I looked down at their faces, upturned and pale like flowers seeking the sun during rainfall, and then Gaunt stepped forward to the quarterdeck rail and spoke.

  “I’m going to drop the best bower,” he said, “and use it to bring us round on the other tack. You must listen to my orders, my cockerels, and obey instantly. Now take stations for stays, and watch me with care, for if there is a mistake, we are done for.”

  The hands ran to their stations with hope speeding their steps. Gaunt sent the chief mate forward with an axe party to cut the anchor cable on his signal. And at that moment came a relieved cry from one of the leadsmen.

  “By the mark twenty!” And only a few seconds later the other called, “Quarter less twenty!”

  Twenty fathoms. Relief flooded me as I knew there was bottom beneath our keel.

  “Keep her full!” said Gaunt to the timoneers. “Get a good way on her!”

  “Half less twenty!”

  “Ease your helm down, my bawcocks!” Gaunt said. “Ease her!” Royal Stilwell’s bow began to swing into the wind.

  “Silence fore and aft! Stand by the anchor! Stand clear of the cable!”

  Royal Stilwell hesitated in the wind, and the mainsail overhead lifted, its canvas trembling.

  “Let go the anchor!”

  The mainsail thundered overhead as the bower anchor crashed into the water. There was a bright flash forward, from the friction as the cable ran out, and for a second we were lit as if by lightning.

  The galleon swung into the wind, and the relentless storm-wind caught us and flung us backward, the canvas all flogging, the ship drifting stern-first toward its destruction. Then the ship came to a shocking halt as the hawser went taut, and I was almost thrown off my feet. There was a great crash from all the gear followed by a babble of wonder from the crew, and then, above the din, the voice of the captain.

  “Stop in your wind, now!” he admonished the crew. “Haul all together, my beauties! Haul! Haul!”

  The crew bent double as they hauled the great yards around against the force of the wind. Spray burst over the forecastle, but I saw it was shooting up from the starboard bow, not the larboard.

  “Cut the cable! Cut!” Gaunt made frantic chopping motions with his hands.

  Against the sounds of roaring canvas and the shriek of the wind I didn’t hear the axes biting, but very suddenly we were free and falling off the wind. The sails filled, one after the other, with a series of booms that sounded like cannon fire, and the ship heeled far over, as if reaching for the deadly cliffs that awaited us… and then we were in motion, foam flying past.

  “Helm
answers, Captain!”

  “Ay. Keep her full, my gaberlunzies, my sweetlings!”

  We were flying on the starboard tack, the spray showering over us. The quarterdeck, where I stood, swooped up each of the steep waves, then fell down the other side in a series of sudden drops, each ending in a shivering crash. I ran to the lee rail and tried to judge our heading in relation to the shore, and whether we were winning clear. I stood there for some time in the wind and spray, the sea boiling just beneath me, before I was able to judge that we were clawing off the coast.

  I reported the good news to the captain.

  “Ay,” he said. “If the wind doesn’t head us, we may win free.”

  I went back to the lee shrouds and continued measuring our course, and soon it was clear enough that yard by yard we were leaving the cliffs astern. Again my heart lifted, and again I grinned like a losel at my apparent victory over the elements. And then my grin faded, as, appearing through the mists ahead, I saw a rocky skerry appear, a gray silhouette standing out in a sea of foam like a tall ship plowing its steadfast way into the sea. I could not tell if we would clear its stony prow, and so I ran forward to view it from the forecastle. Again I could not be certain if she stood in our way or not, and so I ran back again to tell Captain Gaunt.

  “Take a telescope,” said he. “And tell me if you see a place where we may beach the ship. For if we do not clear the island, we may have no choice but to run her aground.”

  Again I ran forward and scanned both the island and the mainland for anything that looked like a friendly landing-ground. The mainland north and west of us presented nothing but tall cliffs rising from foaming waves, the frowning cliff-faces broken only by feathery, windblown waterfalls pouring off the scarp. The skerry ahead seemed to have a rocky tail of some kind trailing off to the north, but otherwise its cliffs seemed as formidable as those of the mainland.

  My survey seemed pointless, however, for by the time I completed it, it seemed clear that we would clear the island, and I saw nothing else ahead of our track but flying scud and the gray, heaving sea. I returned to the quarterdeck and reported this to the captain, and Gaunt gave a laugh and thumped one of his big fists on the quarterdeck rail.