Billerand joined him on the quarterdeck, sweating and red-faced. His fantastic moustache seemed to bristle with suppressed fury.

“God-damned landsmen!” was all he could utter for several moments. Hawkwood grinned. He was glad he had kept Billerand here with him on the Osprey instead of giving him command of the Grace. He looked across at the smaller vessel. The rigging of the caravel was black with men. They were just finishing the job of rerigging her with the long lateen yards; she carried them on all three masts now. They would serve her well in the beam wind they would be sailing on. Haukal of Hardalen, the master of the Grace, had been brought up on the square-rigged, snakelike ships of the far north, but he had soon picked up the nuances of sailing with lateen yards. Hawkwood could see him, a tall, immensely bearded man who habitually carried a hand axe slung at his waist. He was standing on the Grace’s tiny quarterdeck waving his arms about. He and Billerand were close friends; their exploits in the brothels and taverns of half a hundred ports had become the stuff of legend.

The Grace’s decks were also crowded with soldiers and passengers, hampering the work of the sailors. It was to be expected; this would be the last real sight of land they would have for many days. For most of them, Hawkwood supposed, it was probably their last ever sight of Hebrion and gaudy old Abrusio. Their fates were set in the west, now.

“How is the supercargo settling in?” he asked the fuming Billerand.

“We’ve hammocks slung fore and aft the length of the gundeck, but God help us if we’re brought to action, Captain. We’ll have to cram the whole miserable crowd of them down with the cargo or in the bilge.” That thought made his face brighten a little. “Still, the soldiers will be useful.”

Billerand had time for soldiers; he had been one himself. For Hawkwood, they were just another nuisance. He had thirty-five of them here on the Osprey, the rest on the caravel. Two-thirds of the expedition travelled in the carrack, including Murad and both his junior officers. Hawkwood had had to partition the great cabin with an extra bulkhead so the nobility might sail in the style it was accustomed to. The sailors were berthed in the forecastle, the soldiers in the forward part of the gundeck. They would be living cheek by jowl for the next few months. And they had so many stores on board for the setting up of the colony, to say nothing of provisions for the voyage, that both ships sat low in the water and were sluggish answering the tiller. It would take very little to put the tall-sterned Osprey in irons or make her miss stays. Hawkwood was not happy about it. It was like mounting a normally fiery horse and finding it lame.

“Longboat on the larboard beam!” the lookout called from the foretop.

“Our tardy nobleman, at last,” Billerand muttered. “At least he will not make us miss our tide.”

“What have you heard of this Murad fellow?” Hawkwood asked him.

“Only what you already know, Captain. That he has an eye for the ladies, and is as swift as a viper with that rapier of his. A good soldier, according to his sergeants, though he’s overfond of flogging.”

“What nobleman is not?”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you, Captain. This Murad is to bring no valet on board with him. Instead he has selected a pair of girls from among the passengers as his cabin servants.”

“So?”

“I’ve heard the soldiers talking. He’ll have them as bedmates and the soldiers intend to try and follow his example. We have forty women on the carrack alone, married most of them, or someone’s daughter.”

“I hear you, Billerand. I’ll talk to him about it.”

“Good. We don’t want the mariners feeling left out. There’s enough friction as it is, and raping a sorcerer’s wife or daughter is no light matter. Why, I saw a man once—”

“I said I’d talk to him.”

“Aye, sir. Well, I’d best see to the windlass. We’ll weigh as soon as the tide is on the ebb?”

“Aye, Billerand.” Hawkwood slapped his first mate on the shoulder, and the man left the quarterdeck, sensing his captain wanted to be alone.

Or as alone as it is possible to be in a ship thirty yards long with ninescore souls on board, Hawkwood thought. He peered out towards the land and saw the longboat skimming along like a sea-snake half a mile away. Murad was standing in the stern, straight as a flagstaff. His long hair was flying free in the wind. He looked as though he were coming to lay claim to the ships and all in them.

Hawkwood moved over to the weather side of the deck, pausing to shout down through the connecting hatch to the tillerdeck below.

“Relieving tackles all shipped there?”

“Aye, sir,” a muffled voice answered. “Course west-sou’-west by north as soon as we weigh.”

The men knew their job. Hawkwood was fidgeting, anxious to get started, but they needed the ebb of the tide to help pull them out of the bay. There was a while to wait yet.

He had said his farewells, for what they were worth. He and Galliardo had drunk a bottle of good Gaderian and chewed half a dozen pellets of Kobhang so they might talk the night through. The port captain would look after his affairs while he was gone, and call in on Estrella occasionally.

Estrella. Saying farewell to her had been like ridding one’s hands of fresh pitch. She knew this was no common voyage—no coasting trip, or ordinary cruise after a prize. He could still feel her thin arms about his waist as she knelt before him, sobbing, the tears streaking kohl down her cheeks.

And then Jemilla. What was it she had said?

“I’ll look for you in the spring, Richard. I’ll look out over the harbour. I’d know that absurd carrack of yours anywhere.”

She had been naked, lying on the wide bed with her head resting on one hand, watching him with those feline eyes of hers. Her thighs had been slick with the aftermath of their loving and his back was smarting from where she had clawed him.

“Will you still be the King’s favourite when I return?” he had asked, lightly enough.

That smile of hers, infuriating him.

“Who knows? Favourites come and go. I live in the present, Richard. This time next year we could all be under the Merduks.”

“In which case you would no doubt be chief concubine in the Sultan’s harem. Still spinning your webs.”

“Oh, Richard,” she said, feigning hurt, “you wrong me.” But then her face had changed at seeing the anger on his. The dark eyes had sparked in the way that never failed to raise the hair on his nape. She opened her legs so he could see the pink flesh amid the dark fur at her crotch, and then she spread herself wide there with shining fingers so that it seemed he was looking at some carnivorous flower from the southern sultanates.

“You have your ships, your culverins, your crews. I only have this, the one weapon all women have possessed since time began. You would prate to me of love, fidelity—I can see it in your great sad eyes. You who have a wife weeping the night away at home. The sea is your real mistress, Richard Hawkwood. I am only your whore, so let me pursue the same aims in life as you, in my own way. If that means bedding every noble in the kingdom, I will do it. Soon enough my charms will be taken from me. My skin will wither and my hair will grey, while your God-cursed sea will always be there, always the same. So let me play what games I can while I can.”

He had felt like a child groping for an adult’s comprehension. It was true that he had been about to tell her that he loved her. In her own way, he thought she returned his love—if it was in her to love any man at all. And he realized that, in her own way, she hated his leaving as much as Estrella did, and resented it similarly.

They had loved again, after that. But this time there was no hectic passion; they had coupled like two people grown old together, savouring every moment. And Hawkwood had known somehow that it was the last time. Like a ship, she had slipped her cables and was drifting away, letting the wind take her further on her voyage. He had been discarded.