Hawk Quest (26 page)

‘There are more coming out of Lynn,’ Wayland called.

Vallon saw sails breaking the horizon miles to the south. ‘Forget them for now.’

Their predicament looked hopeless. The Normans were directly downwind, blocking the middle of the channel, mudflats on both sides. No room to outflank them. Even if they could have got to leeward, in this light breeze the Normans could row faster than
Shearwater
could sail. She was bearing down on the boat at no more than walking speed. Soon they’d be within crossbow range. Vallon cupped a hand to his mouth. ‘Snorri, hold your course. You hear me? Straight ahead.’

Raul sucked air through his teeth. ‘Captain, they outnumber us five to one.’

‘I know it. Thirty men in a boat half the size of ours. Look how they’re getting in each other’s way. And they won’t be feeling too lively after rowing from Lynn.’

The soldiers were tripping over each other as they scrambled to get underway. Their movements rocked the boat so violently that they threatened to swamp it. Some of them had taken up oars and were flailing the water. Others were struggling into their hauberks. The boat nosed about uncertainly.

‘They’ll have smartened up by the time we reach them,’ said Raul.

Vallon shielded his eyes. ‘I don’t see any archers.’

‘No, they’re infantry. Swords and lances.’

Shearwater
heeled as the bow came round.

‘What the …!’ Vallon charged aft. ‘I told you to hold your course.’

‘I can get round,’ Snorri cried, leaning against the tiller.

‘They’ll catch us before we’ve gone a furlong.’ Vallon wrenched the tiller from him. ‘Ram them.’

‘I ain’t wrecking my ship.’

‘It’s twice the size of that cockleshell. We’ll crack it like a nut.’

Whang
went Raul’s crossbow. Vallon raised his sword. ‘Do … as … I … say.’

Snorri shook his fist. ‘Ye’ll pay fer any damage.’

Vallon ran back to the bow. Raul pulled a face to show that he’d missed.

Features began to form on the faces of the enemy. An officer had set half the soldiers to rowing. In the bow, half a dozen spearmen jostled to make space for each other. The rest of the force lined the sides, banging their swords against their kite-shaped shields and chanting ‘
Dex aie, Dex aie.
’

Wayland in one fluent movement bent his bow and loosed. Vallon watched the arrow arc up, lost it as it descended, then heard a cry that showed it had hit its mark.

‘Fluky devil,’ said Raul, still reloading his weapon. Wayland had already strung another arrow and was aiming again.

The vessels were less than a hundred yards apart and the Normans had realised that
Shearwater
was on a collision course. The superiority in numbers that had seemed irresistible from afar didn’t look so overwhelming as they contemplated a ship four times their weight bearing down on them. Their war cries petered out. Some of the men in the bow jerked their heads from side to side, searching for avenues of escape.

‘Starboard stop!’ the officer shouted.

‘Too late,’ Vallon murmured as the boat began to swing to port. The strange silence that preceded battle descended. Strange because it magnified ordinary sounds – the crying of gulls, water burbling under the bow, the rustling of the sail.

‘After the spears, prepare for boarders.’

Raul snuggled his crossbow tiller into his shoulder and triggered a bolt that spun one of the soldiers on his axis.

The change of course and the lethal darts had thrown the spearmen into disorder and only four of them launched their lances. Neither their aim nor footing was sure, and the three men on
Shearwater
’s foredeck easily avoided the missiles.

‘Brace yourselves,’ Vallon said.

Shearwater’s
stem collided with the boat, stoving in its hull just behind the bow and shearing off a few oars. Men tumbled. Stays parted with brittle pops and the mast lolled. Of the half dozen Normans who’d been prepared to board, only two made it, the others either knocked over or falling short. Wayland shot one of the boarders in mid-jump. Raul charged the other, lifted him as if he weighed no more than straw and pitched him overboard.

‘Behind you!’

Vallon whirled to see another soldier milling on to the deck, his helmet spilling off. Before Vallon could reach him, he was on his feet again. ‘To me!’ he called, and took one step forward and then stopped, spitted by a spear launched by his own side. Vallon caught him as he pitched forward, the two locked together for a moment like lovers.

‘Brave lad,’ Vallon said, and shoved the corpse away.

The collision hadn’t checked
Shearwater
’s momentum. Vallon glimpsed a gallery of howling faces sliding past. Another spear just missed him. One soldier in a fit of fury hurled his sword end over end.

Then the boat was behind them, already awash, its company crying out in terror of drowning.

‘Anyone hurt?’ Vallon called. ‘Hero? Richard?’

They climbed out of the hold, knuckling their mouths when they saw the two corpses. Vallon glanced round. ‘Raul, put those men over the side.’

He went to the stern and rested both hands on the post. The fishing boat had rolled on its side and the Normans were clinging to the hull. The breeze had blown away the fog and he could see the ship that had passed them heading back out to sea.

Hero was watching him in horror when he turned. Vallon ran his sword into its scabbard. ‘I sent you away because I wanted to spare you such sights.’ He stepped past and then stopped. ‘If there’s a providence that looks after rats, why shouldn’t it bestow a kindly glance on us?’

The sun’s lidded eye slid below the land. The ship in their wake had halted to pick up the survivors of the wreck. Snorri came bustling out the hold. ‘I told ye yer madness would wreck us. We’ve sprung planks. We’re shipping water. We’re like to founder.’

Vallon waved tiredly at Raul. ‘Take a look.’

Raul spat with deliberation. ‘I reckon I died without anyone telling me and now I’m working my way through hell.’

‘Hell wouldn’t have you.’

Raul grinned as if Vallon had paid him a compliment.

Shearwater
sailed on with Vallon manning the rudder. He kept watch on the ships to the south. There were five of them, sailing parallel with
Shearwater
, making no attempt to close. They were racing to block the mouth of the Wash, where sandbanks constricted the exit. If they reached it first and formed a blockade,
Shearwater
would have to slip between vessels stationed no more than half a mile apart. Colour drained from the sky and the night came down. The enemy ships receded from sight as the sea darkened and stars began to prick the sky. The darkness wouldn’t last long. Soon the moon,
only one day off full, would rise and light the seascape as bright as day.

Vallon looked up at Wayland, balanced on the yard thirty feet above deck. ‘Can you still see them?’

‘Yes. They’re holding the same course.’

Snorri and Raul emerged from the hold. ‘Just a little leak,’ said Raul. ‘We plugged it. The girl’s keeping an eye on it.’

Snorri took the tiller. They sailed on. A subterranean glow spread up from the east and the moon rose huge and tremulous, gold at first, paling to a marbled eggshell. The Norman ships appeared again like pale lanterns.

‘Will we beat them to the entrance?’ Vallon asked Snorri.

‘It’ll be ticklish close.’

‘You said that
Shearwater
can outsail any English mudskipper.’

‘Aye, but they’ve got a clear passage up the Lynn channel, while we got to steer round the Mare’s Tail.’

‘A sandbank?’

‘Girt big island more like. Three miles long and curves south.’

‘Forcing us towards the Norman fleet.’

Snorri tittered, as he did when stressed. ‘Aye. Right into their path.’

Wayland stayed aloft with instructions to keep an eye out for shoals. Raul reloaded his crossbow, standing with both feet on the arms and then, after inflating his chest, pulling up the string in one vein-popping effort. He claimed that it had a three hundred-pound draw and could shoot a bolt clear through two armoured soldiers. Vallon didn’t doubt it. In an idle moment, he’d tried to span the weapon and found that he could barely deflect the cord. Since their journey began, Raul had kept up a running debate with Wayland about who had the more deadly weapon, Raul insisting that the crossbow was more accurate and powerful, Wayland – when he could be bothered to reply – pointing out that he could loose six arrows for every dart that Raul shot.

‘Sandbank ahead,’ Wayland called.

It broached the sea like the back of a half-submerged whale. Snorri steered the ship a few points to starboard, while Raul used a tacking boom fitted to the sail’s forward leech to keep it exposed to the full draw of the wind.
Shearwater
’s speed hardly lessened, but now they were angling towards the enemy. The Norman ships were pulling
ahead. Vallon could see the headlands on each side of the Wash’s mouth and knew that the two leading ships would reach it first. Even if
Shearwater
evaded their initial attack, the manoeuvres would allow the other vessels to join the action. The nearest of them wasn’t more than a mile to starboard and
Shearwater
still hadn’t reached the end of the Mare’s Tail.

Vallon tapped his foot without being aware of it. They still hadn’t cleared the sandbank and all but one of the Norman ships were showing their sterns. The laggard was square on to
Shearwater
, so close that Vallon could see figures moving along its side.

‘The leading ships are reefing sail,’ Raul shouted. ‘They’re going to lie in wait.’

Vallon watched the slow convergence. The two leading Norman ships were separating and the others were moving to fill the gap. Vallon joined Snorri. ‘Any ideas?’

‘We ain’t goin’ to smash through. Those ships are as big as
Shearwater
.’

‘Clear water ahead,’ Wayland cried.

‘We got one trick we can play,’ Snorri said. ‘Soon as we get round the Mare’s Tail, tack hard to port and run for a channel that’ll bring us out at the northern tip of the Wash. The Normans can’t turn into the wind. They’ll have to go round the far side of the bar.’

Shearwater
slid out from the end of the sandbank. Vallon saw that Snorri’s proposed course would shave the edge of the bay.

‘We got to decide quick,’ said Snorri.

‘Do it.’

Snorri called out to Raul and leaned on the rudder. In the uncertain light the Normans didn’t spot the change of course, or perhaps they thought it was a feint. By the time they reacted and began to track across the bay,
Shearwater
was heading north, across the wind.

The two leading Norman ships still had the advantage of sea room. As the coast drew closer, Vallon began to think that Snorri’s gambit had forced them into a corner. Ahead was a channel between coastal mudflats and a narrow bar of sand. One of the Norman ships was shadowing them less than half a mile downwind, while its partner took a more seaward route. Like dogs coursing a rabbit. They were nearly at the entrance of the channel. Once inside they would be
committed. If the Norman ship reached the other end first, inter -ception was certain.

Shearwater
took the inshore passage. The Norman ship with a lead of perhaps two hundred yards kept to the other side of the bar. Vallon could hear its commander shouting instructions. On
Shearwater
there was silence. Wayland kept lowering his bow and brushing his sleeve across his mouth.

‘I think we’re gaining on them,’ said Hero.

Anxious minutes went by before Vallon dared to believe that he was right. They pulled level, the two ships sailing up different sides of the sandbank like shadows of each other. The Normans crowded the side, roaring a challenge.

‘Definitely gaining,’ Hero said.

The soldiers saw it, too, and their cries turned to wails of frustration. Out to sea they’d enjoyed the better of the wind, but in the lee of the coast,
Shearwater
was the more efficient vessel.

Yard by yard
Shearwater
increased her lead. When she slid out from the channel she was a bowshot ahead of her pursuer, only two bowshots from the shore. So close that Vallon could see a light in a coastal settlement.

Snorri cavorted. ‘They won’t catch us now.’

Vallon went aft, touching each man’s arm in passing. ‘Well done,’ he murmured. ‘Well done.’

Raul punched the air. ‘Fate spares the undoomed warrior.’

They headed into open sea. Vallon watched until the sails behind them were very small before turning.

‘Everyone stand down. Fill your bellies and get some rest.’ As Wayland walked past, Vallon reached out and caught him by the sleeve. ‘Not you.’

Wayland stood before him mute and defiant. His actions had been unforgivable. Vallon had hanged men for lesser offences. He had to make an example. God knows, discipline was lax enough as it was. If he let Wayland’s insubordination go unpunished, every man would take it as licence to do as he pleased. All this Vallon knew, and at the same time he recognised that he couldn’t afford to lose the falconer. He and the rest of the rabble were all Vallon had. The constraints on what punishment he could mete out made him even angrier.

‘You endangered all our lives by going back for the girl. If we weren’t so short-handed, I’d have left you to be killed.’

‘I thank you for your mercy. We both thank you.’

‘Never mind that. The girl can’t stay. A pet has no place on this ship.’

Wayland sucked in his cheeks and stared past him.

‘We’ll put her ashore when we next make land.’

‘She doesn’t have anywhere to go. Her family’s dead.’

Vallon thumped the gunwale. ‘We’re not a refuge for orphans. The girl goes.’

Wayland swallowed and lifted his gaze.

‘If you care about her, you must see that it’s for her own good. Think of the risks if she stays.’

‘She’s not afraid of the voyage. Her father was a fisherman.’