The Sea Peoples(56)

The troopers rode with what John knew as the English seat; which was odd, since in his experience it was only used for sport—polo. They looked brown as berries though, the way soldiers did after campaigning or at least time in the field, and the music of their sabers against the stirrups, and the jingle of spurs and carbines delighted Hildred.

Castaigne saw his cousin Louis riding with his squadron, a handsome brown-haired young man with an excellent seat, on a mount that would have done for a knight’s courser if not a destrier.

Mr. Wilde, who had mounted a chair by the window, saw him too from the way his pale eyes moved, but said nothing. Hildred’s cousin turned his head as he rode and looked straight at Hawberk’s shop, and Hildred knew the young woman called Constance must have been at the window. When the last troopers had clattered by, and the last pennons vanished into South Fifth Avenue, Wilde clambered out of his chair and dragged the chest away from the door.

“Yes,” he said. “It is time that you saw your cousin Louis.”

He unlocked the door and Hildred picked up his hat and stick and stepped into the corridor. The stairs were dark. John found he could see more than he sensed Hildred could, even though they were using the same eyes; so could the Boisean. Perhaps it was that they’d spent more time outside in the dark than this city man, in places where you had to pick up subtle clues or trip over a root and plant your face in the dirt. Or just that Hildred’s mind was dazzled with savage dreams of glory and power.

Groping about, Hildred set his foot on something soft, which snarled and spat.

Cat, John thought automatically, feeling a slight stab of distress even then—he’d stepped on paws and tails now and then, and hated it.

And then he saw its eyes. Lambent amber, typical enough . . . but there was something else there. He remembered a song for an instant, before the memory fled.

Hildred aimed a murderous blow at the cat with his cane, and John felt his own will adding to the strike. It hit the balustrade instead with a jarring impact that shuddered painfully through his wrist into his shoulder, and the beast scurried back into Wilde’s room.

? ? ?

Deor stepped back from the wall and lowered the wineglass. Pip did the same and looked at him; the scop had turned a little gray.

“What was that about?” she said, when they’d compared notes on what they’d overheard. “It’s a conversation about a plot to seize a throne, and some sort of blackmailing scheme too, I think.”

“That man . . . the man whose shadow we heard, speaking lines graven in the place whose shadow this is . . . was a . . . trollkjerring, they say in Norrheim. One who draws his power from death and fear. The other is his puppet.”

Deor frowned, puzzled. “But the puppet . . . it is as if he was more men than one. And there was a shadow . . . a feeling of Prince John.”

Thora turned her head sharply from where she waited by the door, and Toa gave a grunt from the window.

“Is John here?” Pip said.

Deor smiled.

Rather insufferably, Pip thought.

“Where is here?” he said. “We follow a thread through dreams. Dreams that can kill.”

“And he’s off the stairs,” Toa said, cracking the door open a little. “If we’re following him, let’s go.”





CHAPTER ELEVEN


OFF PEARL HARBOR

CAPITAL CITY, AUPUNI O HAWAI?I

(KINGDOM OF HAWAI?I)

NOVEMBER 29TH

CHANGE YEAR 46/2044 AD

“Fleet to wear in succession,” Admiral Naysmith said.

órlaith shrugged to settle her suit of plate, and as it rattled squinted against the glittering brightness; you generally did, on a sunny day at sea, even when the morning sun was on your left, as it was here. Sailors developed a lot of lines around their eyes; it was one of the marks of the craft, the way burn-scars on the hands were of a smith.

The scent of violence seemed to blow down on a wind from the future, stronger than the offshore breeze, making her feel like a cat whose fur was sparking from a dry wind. She took deep breaths and let them out slowly to keep her mind clear. A hand on the pommel of the Sword helped; she could somehow sense the location of the other ships, and the direction of the wind and the possibilities of movement around and across it for both sides. Nothing that she couldn’t have done herself . . .

With more time, training and facilities than she actually had.

Enemy in sight had sounded half an hour ago, and now the slow stately dance of naval battle was in its opening steps, the part that could give way to cataclysmic destruction with shocking suddenness. The creaking song of a big wooden ship sounded as the Sea-Leopard came about in a volley of orders and deck crews hauling on the sheet-lines—she was wearing, turning about to come on a new tack rather than beating up, not being in a hurry. That economized on wear and tear at the expense of time.

Sails thuttered and cracked taut, lines and cables hummed their song of power as they caught the force of the wind transmitted through canvas into the frames of the ship, and wood groaned at the stresses. The frigate’s deck came upright as her bow pointed downwind for a moment, then canted to starboard as she came about towards the eye of the wind again. The First Mate shouted and pointed with her cane, and the mast-captains relayed the order to their teams as the last adjustments were made to the sheets.

“Thus, thus, very well, thus,” Captain Edwards said at the helm, reaching out a hand to touch the wheel. “Steady as she goes, helm.”