The Mark of the Salamander by Justin Newland

Author:Justin Newland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical fiction
Publisher: Troubador Publishing
Published: 2023-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

11

The Dog Watch

7th January 1578

The waves crashed against the bow of the Pelican as it ploughed through the deep blue sea off the North African coast. Recovered from his ordeal, Nelan scrubbed one section of the quarterdeck. Great Nelan cleaned the part in front of him. Since the shearwater incident, silence had drawn a curtain between them like an invisible pall. For a reason Nelan had yet to fathom, Great Nelan’s lips were tighter than the shell of a clam. Nelan resolved to prise them open.

Nelan stood up and glanced to port at the distant coastline. The contours of the hills were as unfamiliar as their straw-coloured slopes, which were pitted with the occasional splash of translucent green. The sun rose high in the azure sky. At midday, the watch turned over the thirty-minute sandglass and rang eight bells to mark the end of the forenoon watch. The pilot arrived with his apprentice to take readings. The man used a curious instrument, pointing it upwards and trying to hold it level with his eye. Next to him, his apprentice scribbled the readings on a paper with a squeaky quill pen. Nelan guessed that the three-sided instrument was an astrolabe. The pilot always used it at this time of the day. It resembled a flat metal disc with a scale or series of notches around the outer edge, and a pointer or needle which stretched across the face of the astrolabe and pivoted in the middle. Mounted at either end were brass plates with small holes in the centre.

“I’ve shown you how to do this several times already, and yet you still haven’t got the hang of it,” the pilot said with an air of frustration. “So, watch me closely now.”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

The pilot held up the astrolabe by a piece of cord threaded through a hole in the top, and watched as the pointer turned until the sun shone through the holes at either end. He noted where the pointer rested on the scale on the outer edge.

“What coastline is that?” the apprentice asked.

“You tell me,” the pilot replied.

“Err, it’s…” the apprentice murmured.

“You’ve no idea, have you?” The pilot shook his head. “It’s Cape Rhir.” He pointed to the chart in front of them.

“Is that so?”

“It is, and today the Lord is assistin’ us with this stiff nor’easter.”

“We’re headin’ south into strange climes,” the apprentice said. “The days are warm, yet we’re in the clutches of winter.”

“You know it’s early January.”

“At home with my missus right now, I’d be freezin’ me bits orf, I would, or out and about scratchin’ around the henge an’ the hedgerow for kindle an’ firewood.”

The pilot seemed less impressed with this new information, and gazed at his instruments.

The apprentice said, “I mean, I like lookin’ up at them twinklers, I do. In England, I’d be admiring old Orion, striding across them night skies like the governor of all them stars. I was lookin’ for ’im last night, but could I see ’im up there?”

“You won’t see the constellation of Orion this far south.

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