Magician (87 page)

The morning was clear and cold. Amos
and Vasco watched the crew work with approval. The less experienced
men had been replaced by men handpicked by Trevor Hull. They did
their work quickly and well, and the
Sea Swift
raced westward.

Anita had been shown to a cabin below,
and Arutha and Martin stood on deck with Amos. The lookout reported
the horizon clear.

Amos said, “It’s a close
thing, Highness. If they’ve gotten that brute of a ship
underway as quickly as possible, we’ve only stole an hour or
two on them. Their captain may choose the wrong course, but seeing as
we’re trying to stay free of Jessup’s sea ambush, they’re
a good bet to follow close to the Keshian coast, and risk running
into a Keshian warship, rather than losing us. I’ll not feel
comfortable until we’re two days free of pursuit.

“But even if they started at
once, they’ll only make up a small distance each hour. So until
we know for certain they have us in sight, we’d all do with a
bit of rest. Go below, and I’ll call you should anything
occur.”

Arutha nodded and left Martin followed.
He bid Martin a good rest and watched as the Huntmaster entered the
cabin he shared with Vasco. Arutha entered his own cabin and stopped
when he saw Anita sitting on his bunk. Slowly he closed the door and
said, “I thought you were asleep in your own cabin.”

She shook her head slightly, then
suddenly she was across the short space separating them, her head
buried against his chest. Sobs shook her as she said, “I’ve
tried to be brave, Arutha, but I’ve been so frightened.”

He stood there awkwardly for a moment,
then gently placed his arms around her. The self-reliant pose had
crumbled, and Arutha now realized how young she was. Her court
training and manners had served her well in maintaining poise among
the rough company of the Mockers over the month, but her mask could
no longer withstand the pressure. He stroked her hair and said,
“You’ll be fine.”

He made other reassuring sounds, not
aware of what he was saying, finding her closeness disturbing. She
was young enough to make him judge her still a girl, but old enough
to make him doubt that judgment. He had never been able to banter
lightly with the young women of the court like Roland, preferring a
straightforward conversation, which seemed to leave the ladies cold.
And he had never commanded their attention the way Lyam had, with his
blond good looks and his laughing, easy manner. On the whole women
made him uncomfortable, and this woman—or girl, he couldn’t
decide which—more than usual.

When the tears subsided, he ushered her
to the single chair in the cramped cabin and sat upon the bunk. She
sniffed once, then said, “I’m sorry, this is so
unseemly.”

Suddenly Arutha laughed. “What a
girl you are!” he said with genuine affection. “Were I in
your place, smuggling myself from the palace, hiding amid cutthroats
and thieves, dodging Radburn’s weasels and all, I’d have
fallen apart long since.”

She drew a small handkerchief from her
sleeve and delicately wiped her nose. Then she smiled at him. “Thank
you for saying that, but I think you’d have done better. Martin
has told me a lot about you over the last few weeks, and you are a
rather brave man by his accounts.”

Arutha felt embarrassed by the
attention. “The Huntmaster has a tendency to overboast,”
he said, knowing it to be untrue, and changed the subject. “Amos
tells me if we don’t sight that ship for two days, we’ll
have won free.”

She lowered her eyes. “That’s
good.”

He leaned forward and brushed a tear
from her cheek, then, feeling self-conscious, pulled his hand away.
“You will be safe with us in Crydee, free from Guy’s
plottings. My sister will make you a welcome guest in our house.”

She smiled faintly. “Still, I am
worried about Father and Mother.”

Arutha tried his best to lay her fears
to rest. “With you safely gone from Krondor, Guy cannot gain by
causing your parents harm. He may still force a consent to marry from
your father, but Erland could do no harm by giving it now. With you
out of reach, it’s a hollow betrothal. Before this is all done,
we shall have an accounting with dear cousin Guy.”

She sighed, and her smile broadened.
“Thank you, Arutha. You’ve made me feel better.”

He rose and said, “Try to sleep.
I’ll use your cabin for the time being.” She smiled as
she went to his bunk. He closed the door behind him. All at once he
felt little need for rest and returned to the deck. Amos stood by the
helmsman, eyes fixed astern Arutha came to stand at his side. Amos
said, “There, on the horizon, can you see it?”

Arutha squinted and made out a faint
white speck against the blue of the sky. “Radburn?”

Amos spat over the transom. “My
guess. Whatever start we’ve had is being slowly eaten away. But
a stern chase is a long chase, as the saying goes. If we can keep far
enough ahead for the rest of the day, we might blip them at night—if
there’s enough cloud cover so the moons don’t mark our
passage.”

Arutha said nothing, watching the faint
speck in the distance.

Throughout the day they had watched the
pursuing ship grow slowly in size. At first the tiny speck grew with
maddening slowness, but now with alarming speed. Arutha could see the
sails clearly defined, no longer a simple blur of white, and he could
see a hint of a black speck at the masthead, undoubtedly Guy’s
banner.

Amos regarded the setting sun, directly
ahead of the fleeing
Sea Swift
, then watched the following
ship. He shouted to the watch aloft, “Can you mark her?”

The lookout cried down, “Three-masted
warship, Captain.”

Amos looked at Arutha. “It’s
the
Royal Griffin
. She’ll overtake us at sundown. If we
had but ten more minutes, or some weather to hide in, or she was just
a trifle slower . . .”

“What can you do?”

“Little. In a broad reach she’s
faster, fast enough that we can’t shake her with any sort of
fancy sailing. If I tried to turn to a beam reach just as she came
near, I could put a bit of space between us, for we’d both lose
speed, but she’d fall off faster for a time. Then as soon as
they trimmed sails, they’d overhaul us. But that’d send
us southward, and there’re some fairly nasty shoals and reefs
along this stretch of coast, not far from here. It’d be chancy.
No, she’ll come in somewhat to the windward. When she’s
alongside, her taller masts will cut our wind, and we’ll slow
enough for them to board without so much as a by-your-leave.”

Arutha watched the closing ship for
another half hour Martin came on deck and watched as the distance
between the two ships shrank by a few feet each minute. Amos held the
ship tight to the wind, driving her to the limit of her speed, but
still the other closed.

“Damn!” said Amos, nearly
spitting from frustration. “If we were running east, we’d
lose them in the dark, but westward we’ll be outlined against
the evening sky for some time after the sun sets. They’ll still
be able to see us when we’ll be blind to them.”

The sun sank and the chase continued.
As the sun neared the horizon, an angry red ball above the
black-green sea, the warship followed by less than a thousand yards.

Amos said, “They might try to
foul the rigging or sweep the decks clear with those oversized
crossbows, but with the girl aboard, Radburn might not risk it for
fear of injuring her.”

Nine hundred, eight hundred yards, the
Royal Griffin
came on, rolling inexorably toward them. Arutha
could see figures, small silhouettes in the rigging, black against
sails turned blood-red by the setting sun.

When the pursuing ship was five hundred
yards behind, the lookout shouted, “Fog!”

Amos looked up. “Where away?”

“South by west. A mile or more.”

Amos sped for the bow and Arutha
followed. In the distance they could see the sun setting, while off
to the left a hazy white band stretched across the top of the black
sea. “Gods!” shouted Amos. “We have a chance.”

Amos shouted for the helmsman to come
to a southwest heading, then sprinted for the stern, Arutha behind
him by a step. When they reached the stern, they saw the turn had
halved the distance between the ships. Amos said, “Martin, can
you mark their helmsman?”

Martin squinted, then said, “It’s
a bit gloomy, but he’s not a difficult mark.”

Amos said, “See if you can take
his mind off holding course.”

Martin uncovered his ever-present bow
and strung it. He drew out a cloth-yard shaft and sighted on the
pursuing ship. He waited, shifting weight to compensate for the
rolling of the ship, then let fly. Like an angry bird, the arrow
arched over the water, clearing the stern of the following ship.

Martin watched the shaft’s
flight, then quietly hummed an “Ah” to himself. In a
single fluid motion he drew out another arrow, fitted it to the
bowstring, pulled, and released. It followed the path of the first,
but instead of clearing the rear of the other ship, struck in the
transom, quivering mere inches from the helmsman’s head.

From the
Sea Swift
they could
see the
Royal Griffin’s
helmsman dive for the deck,
releasing the tiller. The warship swung over and began to fall away.
Martin said, “A little gusty for fine shooting,” and sent
another arrow to strike within inches of the first, keeping the
tiller unmanned.

Slowly the distance between the ships
began to widen, and Amos turned to his crew. “Pass the word.
When I give the order for silence, any man who drops so much as a
whisper is fish bait.”

The warship wobbled behind a minute,
then swung back on course Martin said, “Looks like they’ll
keep a little less broad to us, Amos. I can’t shoot through
sails.”

“No, but if you’d oblige me
by keeping those lads in the bow away from their ballista, I’d
be thankful I think you irritated Radburn.”

Martin and Arutha saw the ballista crew
readying their weapons. The Huntmaster sent a flurry of arrows at the
pursuing ship’s bow, one arrow following the last before it was
halfway to the target. The first struck a man in the leg, felling
him, and the other men dove for cover.

“Fog dead ahead, Captain!”
came the shout from above.

Amos turned to the helmsman. “Hard
to port.”

The
Sea Swift
angled to the
south. The
Royal Griffin
came hard after, now less than four
hundred yards behind. As they changed course, the wind died.
Approaching the fog bank, Amos said to Arutha, “The winds fall
off to less than a bilious fart in there; I’m reefing sails, so
the sound of flapping canvas doesn’t give us away.”

Abruptly they entered a wall of grey,
murky fog, quickly becoming black as the sun sank over the horizon.
As soon as the warship vanished from sight, Amos said, “Reef
sails!”

The crew hauled in sails, quickly
slowing the ship. Then Amos said, “Hard to starboard, and pass
the word for silence.”

Suddenly the ship became graveyard
quiet. Amos turned to Arutha and whispered, “There’s
currents here running to the west. We’ll let them carry us away
from here and hope Radburn’s captain is a Kingdom Sea man.

“Tiller to midships,” he
whispered to the helmsman. To Vasco, he said, “Pass the word to
lash down the yards. And those aloft are to remain motionless.”

Suddenly Arutha became aware of the
quiet. After the clamor of the chase, with the fresh north wind
blowing, the ropes and sheets singing in the yards, the canvas
snapping constantly, this muffled fogbank was unnaturally silent. An
occasional groan of a yard moving, or the snap of a rope, were the
only sounds in the murk. Fear dragged the minutes out in the
seemingly endless vigil.

Then, like an alarm ringing out, they
heard voices and the sounds of a ship. Creeking yards and the snap of
canvas as it moved in the faint wind echoed from all quarters. Arutha
couldn’t see anything for minutes, until a faint glow pierced
through the murk to the rear, passing from northeast to southwest,
lanterns from the pursuing
Royal Griffin
. Every man aboard the
Sea Swift
, on deck and above, stayed at his station, afraid to
move for the noise that would carry over the water like a clarion In
the distance they could hear a shout from the other ship, “Quiet,
damn it! We can’t hear them for our own noise!” Then it
was suddenly still, save for the rippling of canvas and ropes from
the
Royal Griffin
.

Time passed without measure as they
waited in the blackness. Then came a hideous grinding sound, ringing
like a thunder peal, a tearing, cracking shriek of wood being
crushed. Instantly the cries of men could be heard, shouts of panic.

Amos turned to the others, half-seen in
the darkness. “They’ve shoaled out. From the sound,
they’ve torn the hull right out from under. They’re dead
men.” He ordered the helm put over to the northwest, away from
the shoals and reefs, as sailors hurriedly set sail.

“A bad way to die,” said
Arutha.

Martin shrugged, half-lit by the
lanterns being brought up on deck. “Is there a good way? I’ve
seen worse.”

Arutha left the quarterdeck, the faint,
pitiful cries of the drowning men still carrying across the water, a
grisly counterpoint to Vasco’s more mundane shout to open the
galley. He closed the door to the companion way and shut out those
unhappy sounds. He quietly opened the door to his cabin and saw Anita
lying asleep in the faint light of a shuttered candle. Her red-brown
hair looked nearly black as it lay spread about her head. He started
to close the door, when he heard her say, “Arutha?”

He stepped in, finding her watching him
in the dim light. He sat on the edge of the berth. “Are you
well?” he asked.

She stretched and nodded. “I’ve
been sleeping soundly.” Her eyes widened. “Is everything
all right?” She sat up, bringing her face close to his.