A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson

Author:Poul Anderson [ANDERSON, POUL]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Tags: Science fiction
ISBN: 978-1-4976-9424-8
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2011-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

xiv

A FISHING SMACK.

SKY and water reached in the same iron hue. Beneath the overcast went blue-black clouds swollen with rain. Chill, misty, shrill in movement, the air soon blurred out eyesight; there was no horizon. The boat rolled and pitched to the chop of whitecaps. It smelled of tar and old catches. A man stood at the tiller, another at the rail beside Will and near Rupert, who sat on a bench at the cabin entrance. Each one wore a shabby woolen pullover, the prince’s badly strained across chest and shoulders; but the cavalrymen kept their own hose and boots instead of the sailors’ patched wadmal and bare feet thrust into wooden shoes.

Tacking, the boat came about in a creak and thump of boom, a rattle of faded-red canvas. Will lurched, nearly fell, caught a stay, and swore. “God founder thee, thou spavined, knock-kneed jaede! Dwouldst cast me off?”

“Speak not thus,” Rupert reproved. “Or dost thou not know ‘founder’ has a different meaning at sea?”

“Tha less I know o’ tha zea, tha happier I. Dwould ’twarn’t zo eager for to make my ’quaintance. It comes leapin’ o’er tha zide to licke me like a lollopin’ zalty dog.”

The hard-bitten, gingery-haired little man with them grinned. “Pe glad you’re not seasick, Sergeant. Not that anybody e’er died o’t; no, none ha’ peen that lucky.”

“Oh, but I be zick o’ tha zea indeed, Captain Price.”

“Ap Rhys, if you please. Owen ap Rhys.”

“Beg pardon. I forgot zometimes how Welsh you Welshmen be. Pray keep your leeks out o’ this hull whilst I be aboard. How long’ll that last, think ye?”

“Hwell, since we’ve lately passed the Scilly Isles—”

“Silly for sure, waterlogged’s tha’ must be.”

“—and the hwind is foul, hwithout sign of pettering soon, and we’ve the Channel to run and then the narrow sea till we reach Holland, it could pe days.”

Rupert frowned. “Meanwhile a Navy vessel might come on us,” he said, “and the Navy’s Roundhead.”

“Have no fears o’ that, your Highness,” ap Rhys assured him. “My folk have peen smuccling since Noah came to harpor. Can we not slip free, the hwell has a false pottom, room peneath for you and your man if maype a touch crowded.”

“To lie liake herrin’s in a crock,” Will grumbled, “an’ smell liake ’em a foartnight after.”

Rupert ignored him. “I’d fain tell thee once more, skipper,” he said, “how thankful I am that thou and thy son do hazard this—despite my warning thee that exiled royalty is longer in pedigree than purse.”

“’Tis for the King, sir; though to pe sure, when he’s pack on the throne, if your Highness might say him a hword on pehalf of honest fishermen who must needs eke out their meaccer living py foreign trade—”

“Indeed I shall. Thou’d wish the duties lowered or abolished, eh?”

Ap Rhys stood appalled before answering: “St. David preserve us, nay, sir, nay! What hwould that do to the trade? Nay, higher tariffs if ye hwill, heaven-high, put … fewer cutters—?”

“Ship ho!” cried the helmsman.

The three others scrambled to peer ahead.

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