He almost laughed. A soldier, a monk and a blind lunatic who believed himself Pontiff sitting under an ox-cart arguing over who should eat a burnt turnip, whilst behind them burned the greatest city in the world. It might have been a comedy written by one of the playwrights of Aekir, a sketch to keep the mob happy when bread was scarce.

But then he thought of his wife, his sweet Heria, and the thin, bitter humour ran cold. He sat and stared into the flames of the fire as though they were the conflagration that blazed at the heart of his very soul.

I T took an hour of soaking in the big copper bath for Hawkwood to lose the stink and filth of the catacombs, even with the perfumes he had poured into the water.

He could see them in his mind's eye: the low arched ceilings of rounded brick, the torches in the hands of the jailers guttering blue with the stench and the lack of air. And the countless figures lying as still as corpses in row on row with heavy irons at their wrists and ankles. A white face would flash as one looked up, but the rest remained p.r.o.ne, or sitting with their backs to the streaming damp of the walls.

Hundreds of men and women and even children sprawled together. There was blood here and there where they had fought amongst themselves, and a woman keened softly because of some violation.

Hawkwood had been in sties where the pigs were fifty times better looked after. But these, of course, were dead meat already. They were destined for the pyre.

"Radisson!" he had called out. "Radisson of Ibnir! It is the Captain, Hawkwood, come to free you!"

Someone reared up, snarling, and one of the turnkeys beat him down savagely, his arm with its club descending again and again until the man lay still, a broken place shining in his skull. The other prisoners stirred restlessly. There were more faces turned to Hawkwood, ovals of white flesh in the gloom with holes for eyes.

"La.s.so! La.s.so of Calidar! Stand up, d.a.m.n you!" An unwise order. Though Hawkwood was short himself, he had to crouch under the low vaulted ceiling. The turnkeys seemed permanently bent, as though warped by their ghastly labour.

"I am here for the crew of the Grace of G.o.d. Where are you, shipmates? I am to take you out of here!""Take me, take me!" a woman screamed. "Take my child, sir, for pity's sake!"

"Take me!" another shouted. And suddenly there was a cacophony of shouting and screaming that seemed to echo and re-echo off the walls, pounding Hawkwood's brain.

"Take me, Captain! Take me! Save me from the flames in the name of G.o.d!"

H E poured more water over himself and relaxed in the rose-scented steam. He did not like the perfumes Estrella used. They were too sickly for his tastes, but today he had poured vial after vial of them into the water to wash away the stink.

He had his men-most of them, at any rate. One had died, beaten to death by his fellow prisoners for the blackness of his face, but the rest were back on board ship, no doubt being scrubbed down in seawater by Billerand, the new first mate, if Billerand had time for such niceties in the chaos of outfitting for the voyage.

The voyage. He had not yet told his wife that he was leaving again within two sennights. He knew only too well the scene that would provoke.

The door to the bathing chamber swung open and his wife walked in, averting her eyes from Hawkwood's nakedness. She carried clean clothes and woollen towels in her arms, and bent to set them down on the bench that lined one wall.

She was wearing brocade, even in the heat. Her tiny fingers were covered with rings, like so many gilded knuckles, and the steam in the air made the tong-curled frizz of her hair wilt.

"I burned the other things, Ricardo," she said. "They were fit for nothing, not even the street beggars . . .

There is cold ale waiting in the dining chamber, and some sweetmeats."

Hawkwood stood up, wiping the water out of his eyes. The air in the room seemed scarcely cooler than the liquid in the tub. Estrella's eyes rested on his nakedness for a second and then darted away. She coloured and reached for a towel for him, her eyes still averted. He smiled sourly as he took it from her.

His wife and he only saw each other nude when in the bed chamber, and even then she insisted on there being no light. He knew her body only by moonlight and starlight, and by the touch of his hard-palmed hands. It was thin and spare, like a boy's, with tiny, dark-nippled b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a thick fleece of hair down in her secret part. Absurdly, she reminded Hawkwood of Mateo, the ship's boy who had shared his bunk a few times on that last long voyage to the Kardian Sea. He wondered what his wife would make of that comparison, and his smile soured further.

He stepped out of the bath, wrapping the towel about himself. Ricardo. Like Galliardo, she had always used the Hebrionese rendering of his name instead of his native version. It irked him to hear it, though he had heard it ten thousand times before.

Estrella had been a good marriage. She was a scion of one of the lesser n.o.ble houses of Hebrion, the Calochins. His father had arranged the match, terrible old Johann Hawkwood who had wanted a toe in the door in Abrusio, even in his day the fastest-growing port in the west. Johann had convinced the Calochins that the Hawkwood family was a n.o.ble Gabrionese house when in fact it was nothing of the sort. Johann had been given a set of arms by Duke Simeon of Gabrion for his services at the battle of Azbakir. Before that he had been merely a first mate on board a Gabrionese dispatch-runner with no pedigree, no lineage, no money, but a vast store of ambition.

He would be pleased if he could see me, Hawkwood thought wryly, consorting with the emissaries of kings and with a Royal victualling warrant in my pouch.Hawkwood dressed, his wife leaving the room before the towel fell from his waist. His hair and beard dripped water but the arid air would soon put paid to that. He padded barefoot into the high-ceilinged room that was at the centre of his house. Louvred windows far above his head let in slats of light that blazed on the flagged floor. When his bare foot rested on one of the sun-warmed stones he felt the pain and the heat of it. Abrusio without the trade wind was like a desert without an oasis.

High-backed chairs, as stiffly upright as his wife's slender backbone, a long table of dark wood, various hangings as limp as dead flowers against the whitewashed plaster of the walls-they seemed unfamiliar to him because he had had no part in choosing them-and the balcony with its wooden screens, closed now, dimming the light in the room. The place is like a church, Hawkwood thought, or a nunnery.

He stepped to the balcony screens and wrenched them aside, letting in the golden glare and heat and dust and noise of the city. The balcony faced west, so he could see the bay and the Inner and the Outer Roads, as the two approaches to the harbour were called; the quays, the wharves, the seaward defence towers and the watch beacons on the ma.s.sive mole of the harbour wall. He noted half a dozen vessels standing out to sea, their sails flaccid as empty sacks, their crews hauling them in with longboats. He listened to the clatter of wheels on cobbles, the shouts of hawkers and laughter from a nearby tavern.

Not for him the isolation of a n.o.bleman's villa on the higher slopes of Abrusio Hill. He was looking out from one of the lower quarters, where the houses of the merchants clung to the slopes like tiers of sand martins' nests and it was possible to sniff bad fish and tar and salt air, a reek more welcome to him than any perfume.

"The ale will get warm," Estrella said hesitantly.

He did not reply, but stood drinking in the life of Abrusio, the sight of the flawless sea, as calm as milk.

When would the trade start up again? He did not want to begin the voyage with his ships being towed out of the bay, searching for a puff of air on the open ocean.

That thought made him feel guilty, and he turned back into the room. It was full of light now, the early afternoon sun pouring down to flood the stone and touch off the gilt thread in the tapestries, bring out a warmer glow from the dark wood of the furniture.

He sat and ate and drank, whilst Estrella hovered like a humming-bird unable to settle upon a flower.

There was a sheen of sweat on her collar-bone, gathering like a jewel in the hollow of her throat before sliding gently below the ruff and down into her bodice.

"How long have you been back, Ricardo? Domna Ponera says her husband spoke to you days ago, when there was that shooting in the harbour . . . I have been waiting, Ricardo."

"I had business to attend to, lady, a new venture that involves the n.o.bility. You know what the n.o.bility are like."

"Yes, I know what they are like," she said bitterly, and he wondered if court gossip about Jemilla had come this far down from the n.o.ble Quarter. Or perhaps she was just reminding him of her own origins.

It mattered not, he told himself, though again the remorse edged into his mind, making him defensive.

"Half my crew were taken away by the Ravens when we docked. That is why I stank like a privy when I arrived. I have been in the catacombs trying to get them released."

"Oh." Her face slumped, some of the energy going out of her. He noted with satisfaction that not even she could find fault with such a virtuous cause. She loved virtuous causes.She sat down on one of the high-backed chairs and clapped her small hands together with a snap. A servant appeared at once and bowed low.

"Bring me wine, and see it is cold," she said.

"At once, my lady." The servant hurried away.

She could order the common folk like a true n.o.ble at any rate, Hawkwood reflected. Let her try that tone of voice once with me and we'll see how that narrow rump of hers likes a seaman's belt across it.

"Berio, was that?" he asked, slugging thirstily at his ale.

"Berio is gone. He was slovenly. This new one is named Haziz."

"Haziz? That's a Merduk name!"

Her eyes widened a little. He could see the pulse beat in her neck. "He is from the Malacars. His father was Hebrionese. He was afraid of the burnings, so I gave him a position."

"I see." Another stray dog. Estrella was a strange mixture of the petulant and the soft-hearted. She might take in a man off the street out of pity and throw him out again a week later because he was slow in serving dinner. Jemilla at least was unrelentingly hard on her attendants.

And her lovers, Hawkwood added to himself.

The wine came, borne by the ill-favoured Haziz who had the look of a seaman about him despite the fine doublet Estrella had procured for him. He looked at Hawkwood as though Richard were about to strike him.

They sat in silence, the husband and wife, drinking their tepid drinks slowly. As he sat there, Hawkwood had an overwhelming longing to be at sea again, away from the torrid heat, the crowds, the reek of the pyres. Away from Estrella and the silences in his home. He called it his home, though he had spent more time in either of his two ships and felt more at ease in them.

Estrella cleared her throat. "Domna Ponera was also saying today that your ships are being outfitted for a new voyage in great haste, and that all the port is buzzing with talk of the issue of a Royal warrant."

Hawkwood silently cursed Domna Ponera. Galliardo's wife was a huge woman with a moist moustache and the appet.i.te of a goat for both food and information. As wife to the port captain she was in a fine position to acquire the latter, and her mine of information obtained her invitations to households where ordinarily she would not have been countenanced. Hawkwood knew that Galliardo had upbraided her many times for being too free with her tongue, but he was as much to blame. He could not, he had once told Hawkwood with a sigh, keep his tongue from wagging in the marriage bed, and he so loved the marriage bed. Hawkwood preferred not to dwell on that. His friend was an admirable fellow in many respects, but his unbridled l.u.s.t for his enormous wife was inexplicable.

It was Domna Ponera who took the bribes, and then bullied her husband into carrying out her promises.

A convenient berth, a vacant warehouse, an extra gang of longsh.o.r.emen, or an eye turned aside for a special cargo. There were many ways a port captain might be of service to the high and the low of Abrusio; but though it made Galliardo rich, it did not make him happy, even if it did make his wife gratifyingly agile in the afore-mentioned bed. Sometimes though, Hawkwood thought that Galliardo would give it all up to be master of a swift caravel again, plying the trade-routes of the Five Seas and raising a riot in every port he put into to wet his throat.As for Domna Ponera's Royal warrant, Hawkwood had already seen it. The scarred n.o.bleman, Murad of Galiapeno, was in possession of it, and had sent the victualling doc.u.ments to Hawkwood as soon as he had received Richard's agreement on the proposed voyage. Hence his visits to the catacombs this morning. Some other poor devils had gone to the pyre today, but not Hawkwood's crew. There was that to be thankful for.

"Do you know anything about this warrant?" Estrella asked him. She was trembling. She probably hated the silences even more than he did.

"Yes," he said heavily at last. "I know about it."

"Perhaps you would be so good as to tell your wife then, before she hears about it from someone else."

"Estrella, I would have told you today in any case. The commission is for my ships. I have been hired to undertake a voyage by the n.o.bility, and ultimately by the King himself."

"Where to? What is the cargo?"

"There is no cargo as such. I am carrying . . . pa.s.sengers. I cannot tell you where, because I am not yet entirely sure myself." He hoped she would recognize the element of truth in that statement.

"You do not know how long it is to be for, then?"

"No, lady, I do not." Then he added, out of some belated sense of decency, "But it is likely to be a long time."

"I see."

She was trembling again and he could see the tears coming. Why did she cry? He had never worked it out. They took little pleasure in each other's company, in bed or at board, and yet she always hated to see him go. He could not decipher it.

"You would not have told me-not until you had to," she said, her voice breaking.

He stood up and padded barefoot out to the balcony. "I knew you would not like it."

"Does it matter greatly to you what I like and do not like?"

He did not reply, but stared out at the crescent of the teeming harbour and its forest of masts and, further out, the blue of the horizon where it met the sky in the uttermost west. What lay out there? A new land ready for the taking, or nothing but the rim of the earth as the old sailors had believed, where the Western Ocean tipped away eternally into the gulf wherein circled the very stars?

He heard the swish of her heavy robe as she left the room behind him, the gulp of breath as she swallowed a sob. For a second he hated himself. It might have been different had she borne him a son-but then he could imagine the scenes when first the father took the son to sea with him. No, they were too far apart from each other ever to find some middle ground.

And did it matter? It had been a political marriage, though the Hawkwoods had done better out of it than the Calochins. Estrella's dowry had bought the Osprey. He forgot that sometimes.

I'd as lief have the ship, he thought, without the wife.

He was the last of his line; after Richard Hawkwood the name would disappear. The last chance to perpetuate it had died with the abortion he had procured for Jemilla, unless by chance there was a wh.o.r.ein some port who had borne his progeny in a moment of carelessness.

He wiped his eyes. The dry heat had baked the bathwater out of his hair and now he stank of roses. He would go down to the yards and see how the outfitting was coming along. He would regain the smell of cordage and salt and sweat that was his proper scent, and he would ready his ships for the voyage ahead.

EIGHT.

D OWN near the Guilds' Quarter of the city the streets were quieter than at the rowdy waterfront. Here the merchants rented or owned the stoutest warehouses for the most expensive of their commodities. It was a district of clean alleyways and bland shopfronts, with privately hired guards at most corners and the odd, cramped little tavern where men of business might meet in peace without being disturbed by the drunken antics of paid-off sailors or off-duty marines.

Most of the guilds of Abrusio owned property here, from the humble Potters' Guild to the mighty Guild of Shipmasters. The Thaumaturgists' Guild owned towers and mansions further up the hillside, near the courts as befitted their role. But those towers were closed now, by order of the Prelate of Abrusio, and Golophin the Mage, Adviser to King Abeleyn of Hebrion, was waiting patiently in a tiny tavern tucked behind one of the warehouses built of stone that was for the storage of ship timber. His wide-brimmed hat was pulled down to shade his eyes, though the lights were low in the place, as if to encourage conspiracy. He smoked a long pipe of pale clay whilst a flagon of barley beer grew ever warmer on the table in front of him.

The door of the inn opened and three men entered, all cloaked despite the closeness of the night. They ordered ale, and two took theirs to a table on the other side of the inn while the third sat down opposite Golophin. He threw back his hood and raised his flagon to the old wizard, grinning.

"Well met, my friend."

Golophin's narrow, lined face cracked into a smile. "You might order me another beer, lad. This one is as flat as an old crone's t.i.t."

A fresh flagon came, and Golophin drank from its moisture-beaded pewter gratefully.

"The landlord seems singularly incurious about the nature of his customers," King Abeleyn of Hebrion said.

"It is his business. This will not be the first whispered discussion he will have seen in his tavern. In places such as this the commerce of Abrusio is directed and misdirected."

Abeleyn raised one dark eyebrow. "So? And not in the court or the throne room then?"

"There as well, of course, sire," said Golophin with mock sincerity.

"I do not see why you could not have made your way into the palace invisibly or suchlike. This trysting in corners smacks of fear, Golophin. I don't like it."

"It is for the best, sire. It may seem to complicate things, but in fact it keeps life a lot simpler. Our friend the Prelate may be out of the city, but he has spies aplenty to do his watching for him. It were best you were not seen in my company while this current purge lasts."

"It is you he aims at, Golophin.""Oh, I know. He wants my hide nailed to a tree, to halt what he sees as the Guild's meddling in the affairs of state. He would rather the clergy did the meddling. The Prelate has a whole host of issues he means to address, sire, and this edict he badgered you into signing is one way of getting to the heart of several of them."

"I know it only too well, but I cannot risk excommunication. With Macrobius gone there is no voice of reason left among the senior Church leaders, except possibly Merion of Astarac. By the way, how is the Synod coming together? What have you seen in your sorcerous travels?"

"They are still gathering. Our worthy Prelate had a good pa.s.sage once he was out of the calms around these coasts. His vessel is currently crossing the Gulf of Almark, south of Alsten Island. He will be in Charibon in ten days, if the weather holds."

"Who is there already?"

"The Prelates of Almark, Perigraine and Torunna have preceded him. Their colleague, Merion of Astarac, had a longer journey to make than any of the others, and the Malvennor Mountains to cross. It will be two weeks, I fear, before the Synod is convened, sire."

"The longer the better, if it keeps that tonsured wolf from my door. I will soon be setting off myself for the Conclave of Kings at Vol Ephrir. Can you keep me informed about the doings here while I am away, Golophin?"

The old mage sucked deeply on his pipe, and then shrugged with a twitch of his bony shoulders.

"It will not be easy. I will have to cast through my familiar, something no mage likes to do at any time, but I will do my best, sire. It will mean losing our eye on the east, though."

"Why? I thought all you wizards had to do was gaze into a crystal and see what you wanted to see."

"If only it were that simple. No, if my gyrfalcon accompanies you I will be able to send you news from here through it, but do not expect regular bulletins. The process is exhausting and dangerous."

Abeleyn looked troubled. "I would not ask, except-"