Birds of Prey (21 page)

‘I had duties ashore,’ he whispered back.

‘I do not believe you,’ she told him. ‘You try to escape your punishment. You deliberately disobey me.’

‘No, no, I would not—’

‘Open this panel at once.’

He groped for his dirk, which hung on his belt on the hook at the foot of his bunk, and prised out the dowels. The panel came away in his hands with only the faintest scraping sound. He set it
aside, and a square of soft light fell through the hatch.

‘Come!’ her voice ordered, and he wriggled into the gap. It was a tight squeeze, but after a short struggle he found himself on his hands and knees on the deck of her cabin. He
started to rise to his feet, but she stopped him.

‘Stay down there.’ He looked up at her as she stood over him. She was dressed in a flowing night-robe of some gossamer material. Her hair was loose and hung in splendour to her
waist. The lamp-light shone through the cloth of her robe and silhouetted her body, the lustre of her skin gleaming through the transparent folds of silk.

‘You have no shame,’ she told him, as he knelt before her as though she were the sacred image of a saint. ‘You come to me naked. You show me no respect.’

‘I am sorry!’ he gasped. In his anxiety to obey her he had forgotten his own nudity, and now he cupped his hands over his privy parts. ‘I meant no disrespect.’

‘No! Do not cover your shame.’ She reached down and pulled away his hands. Both stared down at his groin. They watched him slowly stretch out and thicken, thrusting out towards her,
his prepuce peeling back of its own accord.

‘Is there nothing I can do to stop such revolting behaviour? Are you too far gone in Satan’s ways?’

She seized a handful of his hair and dragged him to his feet and after her into the splendid cabin where first he had laid eyes on her beauty.

She dropped onto the quilted bed, and sat facing him. The white silk skirts parted and fell back on each side of her long slim thighs. She twisted the handful of his curls, and said, in a voice
that was suddenly breathless, ‘You must obey me in all things, you child of the dark pit.’

Her thighs fell apart, and she pulled his face down and pressed it hard at their apex against the impossibly soft and silky mound of golden curls.

He smelt the sea in her, brine and kelp, and the scent of the sparkling living things of the oceans, the warm soft odour of the islands, of salt surf breaking on a sun-baked beach. He drank it
in through flaring nostrils, and then tracked down the source of this fabulous aroma with his lips.

She wriggled forward on the satin covers to meet his mouth, her thighs spread wider, and she tilted her hips forward to open herself to him. With a handful of his curls, she moved his head,
guiding him to that tiny bud of pink, taut flesh that nestled in its hidden crevice. As he found it with the tip of his tongue she gasped and she began to move herself against his face as though
she rode bareback upon a galloping stallion. She gave small incoherent contradictory cries. ‘Oh, stop! Please stop! No! Never stop! Go on for ever!’

Then suddenly she wrenched his head out from between her straining thighs, and fell backwards upon the covers lifting him over her. He felt her hard little heels dig into the small of his back
as she wrapped her legs around him, and her fingernails, like knives, cutting into the tensed muscles of his shoulders. Then the pain was lost in the sensation of slippery engulfing heat as he slid
deeply into her, and he smothered his cries in the golden tangle of her hair.

T
he three Knights had set up the Lodge on the slope of the hills above the lagoon, at the foot of a small waterfall that dropped into a basin of
dark water surrounded by tall trees hung with lichens and lianas.

The altar stood within the circle of stones, the fire burning before it. Thus all the ancient elements were represented. The moon was in its first quarter, signifying rebirth and
resurrection.

Hal waited alone in the forest while the three Knights of the Order opened the Lodge in the first degree. Then his father, his bared sword in his hand, came striding through the darkness to
fetch him, and led him back along the path.

The other two Knights were waiting beside the fire in the sacred circle. Their swords were drawn, the blades gleaming in the reflection of the flames. Lying upon the stone altar under a velvet
cloth, he saw the shape of his great-grandfather’s Neptune sword. They paused outside the circle of stones and Sir Francis begged entrance to the Lodge.

‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost!’

‘Who would enter the Lodge of the Temple of the Order of St George and the Holy Grail?’ Lord Cumbrae thundered, in a voice that rang against the hills, his long two-edged claymore
glinting in his hairy red fist.

‘A novice who presents himself for initiation into the mysteries of the Temple,’ Hal replied.

‘Enter on peril of your eternal life,’ Cumbrae warned him, and Hal stepped into the circle. Suddenly the air seemed colder and he shivered, even as he knelt in the radiance of the
watchfire.

‘Who sponsors this novice?’ the Buzzard demanded again.

‘I do.’ Sir Francis stepped forward and Cumbrae turned back to Hal.

‘Who are you?’

‘Henry Courtney, son of Francis and Edwina.’ The long catechism began as the starry wheel of the firmament turned slowly overhead and the flames of the watchfire sank lower.

It was after midnight when, at last, Sir Francis lifted the velvet covering from the Neptune sword. The sapphire on the hilt reflected a pale blue beam of moonlight into Hal’s eyes as his
father placed the hilt in his hands.

‘Upon this blade you will confirm the tenets of your faith.’

‘These things I believe,’ Hal began, ‘and I will defend them with my life. I believe there is but one God in Trinity, the Father eternal, the Son eternal and the Holy Ghost
eternal.’

‘Amen!’ chorused the three Nautonnier Knights.

‘I believe in the communion of the Church of England, and the divine right of its representative on earth, Charles, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the
Faith.’

‘Amen!’

Once Hal had recited his beliefs, Cumbrae called upon him to make his knightly vows.

‘I will uphold the Church of England. I will confront the enemies of my sovereign lord, Charles.’ Hal’s voice quivered with conviction and sincerity. ‘I renounce Satan
and all his works. I eschew all false doctrines and heresies and schisms. I turn my face away from all other gods and their false prophets.’

‘I will protect the weak. I will defend the pilgrim. I will succour the needy and those in need of justice. I will take up the sword against the tyrant and the oppressor.’

‘I will defend the holy places. I will search out and protect the precious relics of Christ Jesus and his Saints. I will never cease my quest for the Holy Grail that contained his sacred
blood.’

The Nautonnier Knights crossed themselves as he made this vow, for the Grail quest stood at the centre of their belief. It was the granite column that held aloft the roof of their Temple.

‘I pledge myself to the Strict Observance. I will obey the code of my Knighthood. I will abstain from debauchery and fornication,’ Hal’s tongue tripped on the word, but he
recovered swiftly, ‘and I will honour my fellow Knights. Above all else, I will keep secret all the proceedings of my Lodge.’

‘And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!’ the three Nautonnier Knights intoned in unison. Then they stepped forward and formed a ring around the kneeling novice. Each laid one hand
on his bowed head and the other on the hilt of his sword, their hands overlapping each other.

‘Henry Courtney, we welcome you into the Grail company, and we accept you as brother Knight of the Temple of the Order of St George and the Holy Grail.’

Richard Lister spoke first, in his sonorous Welsh voice, almost singing his blessing. ‘I welcome you into the Temple. May you always follow the Strict Observance.’

Cumbrae spoke next. ‘I welcome you into the Temple. May the waters of far oceans open wide before the bows of your ship, and may the force of the wind drive you on.’

Then Sir Francis Courtney spoke with his hand firmly set on Hal’s brow. ‘I welcome you into the Temple. May you always be true to your vows, to your God and to yourself.’

Then between them the Nautonnier Knights lifted him to his feet and, one after another, embraced him. Lord Cumbrae’s whiskers were stiff and pricking as a garland of thorns from the
traitor’s bush.

‘I
have a hold filled with my share of the spices that you and I took from
Heerlycke Nacht
, enough to buy me a castle and five
thousand acres of the finest land in Wales,’ said Richard Lister, as he clasped Sir Francis’s right hand in his, using the secret grip of the Nautonniers. ‘And I have a young wife
and two stout sons upon whom I have not laid eyes for three years. A little rest in green and pleasant places with those I love, and then, I know, the wind will summon. Perhaps we will meet again
on far waters, Francis.’

‘Take the tide of your heart, then, Richard. I thank you for your friendship, and for what you have done for my son.’ Sir Francis returned his grip. ‘I hope one day to welcome
both your boys into the Temple.’

Richard turned away towards his waiting longboat, but hesitated and came back. He placed one arm around Sir Francis’s shoulders and his brow was grave, his voice low, as he said,
‘Cumbrae had a proposition for me concerning you, but I liked it not at all and told him so to his face. Watch your back, Franky, and sleep with one eye open when he is around you.’

‘You are a good friend,’ Sir Francis said, and watched Richard walk to his longboat and cross to the
Goddess
. As soon as he went up the ladder to the quarterdeck his crew
weighed the anchor. All her sails filled and she moved down the channel, dipping her pennant in farewell as she disappeared out through the heads into the open sea.

‘Now we have only the Buzzard to keep us company.’ Hal looked across at the
Gull of Moray
where she lay in the centre of the channel, her boats clustered around her
discharging water casks, bundles of firewood and dried fish into her holds.

‘Make your preparations to beach the ship, please, Mr Courtney,’ Sir Francis replied, and Hal straightened his spine. He was unaccustomed to his father addressing him thus. It was
strange to be treated as a Knight and a full officer, instead of as a lowly ensign. Even his mode of dress had changed with his new status. His father had provided the shirt of fine white Madras
cotton on his back, as well as his new moleskin breeches, which felt soft as silk against his skin after the rags of rough canvas he had worn before today.

He was even more surprised when his father deigned to explain his order. ‘We must go about our business as if we suspect no treachery. Besides which the
Resolution
will be safer
upon the beach if it comes to a fight.’

‘I understand, sir.’ Hal looked up at the sun to judge the time. ‘The tide will be fair for us to take her aground at two bells in tomorrow’s morning watch. We will be
prepared.’

All the rest of that morning the crew of the
Gull
behaved like that of any other ship preparing for sea, and though Daniel and his guncrews, with cannon loaded and aimed, and with
slow-match burning, watched the
Gull
from their hidden emplacements dug into the sandy soil along the edge of the forest, she gave them no hint of treachery.

A little before noon Lord Cumbrae had himself rowed ashore and came to find Sir Francis where he stood by the fire upon which the cauldron of pitch was bubbling, ready to begin caulking the
Resolution’s
hull when she was careened.

‘It’s farewell, then.’ He embraced Sir Francis, throwing a thick red arm around his shoulders. ‘Richard was right. There’s no prize to be won if we sit here upon
the beach and scratch our backsides.’

‘So you’re ready to sail?’ Sir Francis kept his tone level, not betraying his astonishment.

‘With tomorrow morning’s tide, I’ll be away. But how I hate to leave you, Franky. Will you not take a last dram aboard the
Gull
with me now? I would fain discuss with
you my share of the prize money from the
Standvastigheid
.’

‘My lord, your share is nothing. That ends our discussion, and I wish you a fair wind.’

Cumbrae let fly a great blast of laughter. ‘I’ve always loved your sense of fun, Franky. I know you only wish to spare me the labour of carrying that heavy cargo of spice back to the
Firth of Forth.’ He turned and pointed with his curling beard at the spice store under the forest trees. ‘SoI shall let youdoit for me. But, in the meantime, I trust you to keep a fair
accounting of my share, and to deliver it to me when next we meet – plus the usual interest, of course.’

‘I trust you as dearly, my lord.’ Sir Francis lifted his hat and swept the sand with the plume as he bowed.

Cumbrae returned the bow and, still rumbling with laughter, went down to the longboat and had himself rowed to the
Gull
.

During the course of the morning the Dutch hostages had been brought ashore and installed in their new lodgings, which Hal and his gang had built for them. These were set well back from the
lagoon and separated from the compound in which the
Resolution’s
crew were housed.

Now the ship was empty and ready for beaching. As the tide pushed in through the heads the crew, under the direction of Ned Tyler and Hal, began warping it in towards the beach. They had secured
the strongest sheaves and blocks to the largest of the trees. Heavy hawsers were fastened to the
Resolution’s
bows and stern, and with fifty men straining on the lines, the ship came
in parallel to the beach.

When her bottom touched the white sand they secured her there. As the tide receded they hove her down with tackle attached to her mizzen and foremasts, which were still stepped. The ship heeled
over steeply until her mastheads touched the tree-tops. The whole of the starboard side of her hull, down as far as the keel, was exposed, and Sir Francis and Hal waded out to inspect it. They were
delighted to find little sign of shipworm infestation.