On the Black Wind to Baldairn Motte

Part 19.

Basilides watched the next morning as sailors and soldiers alike rowed, even Lord Klaye, Everild, and Lyrie. Payce manned the tiller and the Earl called out their rowing cadence; otherwise, no one spoke. After their night of ill fortune, everyone's mood was as foul as the weather. It had been an ugly business. Three sailors dead, two more injured, four men-at-arms slain and another with a missing hand. And it had all happened so quickly. That was the way with fighting men, Basilides knew. Most of them hadn't even realized why they were fighting. They just responded.

The steady rain had continued throughout the night and into the morning. It was a still, cold rain without a hint of wind. After throwing their dead overboard—a sailor's burial as Terryll had called it—the Earl commanded everyone to take up their oars and start paddling. Basilides was spared rowing duties only because he had stayed up the whole night tending to the injured sailors and soldiers.

It was slow going. Captain Payce steered them through the slower moving current near the western bank of the river, but even so, they were fighting a current that grew ever more swift with runoff from the rain. Black Zefferus was a fast ship, and she cut through the water like none other, but she was a far cry from a galley and not meant to be paddled along. Basilides contemplated the rowers, three of them at each twenty-foot oar, facing towards the stern, using their entire bodies to push the ship forward in sync with the Earl's voice. Lyrie's face was red with exertion, but she was doing as well as Lord Klaye it seemed.

Basilides wondered how long they would all last at the chore. The human body was an amazing machine, he knew, and the rain would keep them all from overheating, but as strong as even the sailors and soldiers were, they weren't plow horses; they couldn't be expected to row all day at such a grueling pace.

As it turned out, they didn't have to. After several hours, the ship's captain suggested they halt to rest and, with the Earl's approval, they laid anchor for a short time during which the wind picked up again and they were able to raise their sails and beat against the southerly breeze. They were all relieved at the reprieve from oaring, but still no one spoke other than Captain Payce who only spoke to shout out commands, and so the day passed until again the sky darkened.

Finally Everild shouted out from the bow: "There itis! Gildan's Sprite."