Drake, David - Lord of the Isles 4 by Drake David

Author:Drake, David
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

MISTRESS OF THE CATACOMBS

Chapter Fourteen

Sharina stood beside the four-arched fighting tower fixed to the quinquereme's deck between Captain Ceius and the steersmen in the stern and the mast amidships. Ordinarily the wooden tower—painted to look like stone—would've been struck until The King of the Isles prepared to go into action. Tenoctris sheltered within it now, working incantations that the sailors preferred not to see.

Waist-high sailcloth curtains covered the lower half of the archways, concealing the seated wizard while allowing her light and air. Sharina was ready to hand Tenoctris anything she called for, though as yet she might as well have stayed in Valles. Occasionally wizardlight dusted the sunlight red or blue as Tenoctris chanted, but those escapes remained faint enough that the crewmen on deck could pretend not to notice.

The captain spoke to the flutist seated on a perch built into the sternpost.

That man lowered the instrument on which he'd been blowing time; at a nod from the captain, a petty officer blew an attention signal on his 376

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straight bronze horn.

‘Cease rowing!’ said Ceius. ‘Shake out the sail!’

Officers on deck and in the crowded hold beneath relayed the orders in a chorus, generally with the added obscenities that Sharina had learned to expect when somebody was directing soldiers or sailors. The difference between the methods of junior officers and of muleteers, so far as she could tell, was that the former didn't use Whips—at least in the royal forces.

While deck crewmen grabbed ropes to unfurl the sail to catch the freshening breeze, the oarsmen released from duty came boiling up from their benches in the hold through the open beams that supported the deck and allowed ventilation below. The first of them, squirming like a snake hunting voles, was King Carus himself. He sprang to the deck beside Sharina.

Captain Ceius stepped forward in greeting, but Carus waved him back.

‘Carry on, Ceius!’ he said. ‘You've got matters under control.’

Petty officers were dipping cups of wine mixed with two parts water from great jars in the bow and stern. Their strikers held waxed rosters to check off the name of each man served. Military personnel didn't have to be scholars, but Sharina had been surprised to learn that even the lowest-ranking officers were able to read at least names or passwords scratched on a potsherd.

Carus winked at Sharina, then took his place in the line forming for the drinks. The men ahead of him immediately scattered in surprise.

‘Get back as you were!’ Carus roared, speaking so that the ship's whole crew could hear him. ‘When I'm acting as your commander, I expect you to jump into the sea if that's what I order you. But while I'm pulling an oar, by the Shepherd! I expect to be treated as an oarsman. Does anybody doubt me?’

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He raised his big hands, his palms gleaming with the resin he'd dusted on them before gripping the oarloom. Zettkin and his three aides in the bow, all noblemen, stared at the king in amazement, as did several of the nearby Blood Eagles.

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