out.
âMiles is in the water!â I cried.
Nigelâs features streamed, rain and brine.
Men wrestled with a great oar, more massive than the normal tiller, struggling to work the implement through the tiller-lock, and into the sea. The Genoan, for all his size, could not manage it, and the other sailors, strained and pulled, no more capable than monkeys.
I took a grip on the large tiller-oar, and we all strained to steer the ship stern to the wind, as seething water tumbled, threatening to roll her over.
As I turned my head, with effort, I saw Miles, waving, vanishing and waving, closer than before, his mouth a gash.
Later I told myself this wasnât possible. The night was too dark, my eyes burning with salt. Surely this was another apparition, yet another shadow in our wake.
Besides, what spar or wine cask could I throw him? The deck was stripped of everything not tied down, and as I called for Miles, another figure tumbled into the sea, a sailor. I was certain a sailing man would be able to swim, and I called out encouragement, my voice a shriek.
A hand lifted from the stewing water like a farmer, bidding on a prize ewe.
At that last moment, I thought: I know that face, that shoulder, those fingers reaching upward.
And then he, too, was lost.
chapter NINETEEN
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We took turns at the storm-tiller, Nigel and Rannulf joining me, each of them stouter than most of the sailors. Following seas climbed over her, and the Santâ Agnese trembled and staggered under the weight.
Hubert took his turn at the tiller with the rest, but he was not stout enough to make much difference. At one point in the long night one of the animal pens shattered, cut down by a heavy wave. Boards and corner-shafts flew, and starbursts vanished into the windâhens and ducks. Sheep scattered, legs out, rolling, bleating, failing to find any purchase on the slick, heaving deck.
I shivered, gripping hard when it was my turn at the tiller again, and at last, as dawn was breaking, the sky begin to lift. Tatters of dark cloud hung down, the storm dissolving, sunlight lancing.
But the seas remained heavy, and at last Rannulf and I were together, clinging to the tiller. I hung on with a stony stubbornness, but Rannulf leaned into the oar as though he took pleasure in the strain.
I wanted to offer condolences at the loss of his squire, but his bearded face was forbidding, his eyes on some far-off point.
Horses soon forget.
Hours of sunlight and calm winds, and Winter Star accepted my caresses and a feedbag of oats. For Winter Star, nothing troubling had ever happened. More than half our livestock had vanished, however, and the pigs discoursed, querying me as I walked among the horses, insisting on my attention. I gave their bristly swelling bodies a pat, their skin pink and wrinkled under the wiry white-and-brown hairs. The pigs chewed bread crusts and fish heads, contented with what human stomachs had not been able to take in.
I found that Milesâs clothing fit me, cut at the sleeve, and stitched, as one of the sailors was pleased to do. I knew that I wore a dead manâs kit, and heard a dead manâs song in my soul, the lay of a man dressing like a fox to creep closer to his ladyâs doves. Such songs are so often of unfaithfulness, encouraging the married baron to dally with some duchess across the dale.
I wore Milesâs knife. The ivory-handled blade fit in a scabbard Hubert gave me, leather from the skin of a mare, a gift I felt unworthy of accepting.
Men do not forget so soon. Father Urbino spoke the noble Latin, praying to God for the rest of the souls of our brothers Miles de Neville and Matteo Mattei, the big sailor from Genoa. It was not a formal requiem, simply a brief address to Heaven. Only a few of the sailors were able to gather. Two were joint-wrenched, injured by falls during the storm. A few had a flux, black water in the bowels.
Father Urbino was a wraith, unshaven,
âMiles is in the water!â I cried.
Nigelâs features streamed, rain and brine.
Men wrestled with a great oar, more massive than the normal tiller, struggling to work the implement through the tiller-lock, and into the sea. The Genoan, for all his size, could not manage it, and the other sailors, strained and pulled, no more capable than monkeys.
I took a grip on the large tiller-oar, and we all strained to steer the ship stern to the wind, as seething water tumbled, threatening to roll her over.
As I turned my head, with effort, I saw Miles, waving, vanishing and waving, closer than before, his mouth a gash.
Later I told myself this wasnât possible. The night was too dark, my eyes burning with salt. Surely this was another apparition, yet another shadow in our wake.
Besides, what spar or wine cask could I throw him? The deck was stripped of everything not tied down, and as I called for Miles, another figure tumbled into the sea, a sailor. I was certain a sailing man would be able to swim, and I called out encouragement, my voice a shriek.
A hand lifted from the stewing water like a farmer, bidding on a prize ewe.
At that last moment, I thought: I know that face, that shoulder, those fingers reaching upward.
And then he, too, was lost.
chapter NINETEEN
Â
Â
Â
Â
We took turns at the storm-tiller, Nigel and Rannulf joining me, each of them stouter than most of the sailors. Following seas climbed over her, and the Santâ Agnese trembled and staggered under the weight.
Hubert took his turn at the tiller with the rest, but he was not stout enough to make much difference. At one point in the long night one of the animal pens shattered, cut down by a heavy wave. Boards and corner-shafts flew, and starbursts vanished into the windâhens and ducks. Sheep scattered, legs out, rolling, bleating, failing to find any purchase on the slick, heaving deck.
I shivered, gripping hard when it was my turn at the tiller again, and at last, as dawn was breaking, the sky begin to lift. Tatters of dark cloud hung down, the storm dissolving, sunlight lancing.
But the seas remained heavy, and at last Rannulf and I were together, clinging to the tiller. I hung on with a stony stubbornness, but Rannulf leaned into the oar as though he took pleasure in the strain.
I wanted to offer condolences at the loss of his squire, but his bearded face was forbidding, his eyes on some far-off point.
Horses soon forget.
Hours of sunlight and calm winds, and Winter Star accepted my caresses and a feedbag of oats. For Winter Star, nothing troubling had ever happened. More than half our livestock had vanished, however, and the pigs discoursed, querying me as I walked among the horses, insisting on my attention. I gave their bristly swelling bodies a pat, their skin pink and wrinkled under the wiry white-and-brown hairs. The pigs chewed bread crusts and fish heads, contented with what human stomachs had not been able to take in.
I found that Milesâs clothing fit me, cut at the sleeve, and stitched, as one of the sailors was pleased to do. I knew that I wore a dead manâs kit, and heard a dead manâs song in my soul, the lay of a man dressing like a fox to creep closer to his ladyâs doves. Such songs are so often of unfaithfulness, encouraging the married baron to dally with some duchess across the dale.
I wore Milesâs knife. The ivory-handled blade fit in a scabbard Hubert gave me, leather from the skin of a mare, a gift I felt unworthy of accepting.
Men do not forget so soon. Father Urbino spoke the noble Latin, praying to God for the rest of the souls of our brothers Miles de Neville and Matteo Mattei, the big sailor from Genoa. It was not a formal requiem, simply a brief address to Heaven. Only a few of the sailors were able to gather. Two were joint-wrenched, injured by falls during the storm. A few had a flux, black water in the bowels.
Father Urbino was a wraith, unshaven,
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