01 - The Burning Shore by Robert Ear - (ebook by Undead) Read Free Book Online

what was supposed to be a winning smile. “And you
can take the basket, too.”
    “Five gold crowns?” Lorenzo asked, aghast, but Lundorf had already paid. The
old woman dropped the coin into the front of her ragged bodice and narrowing her
eyes suddenly with the caution of a millionaire in a poorhouse, she slipped away
into the crowd.
    “Here you go,” Lundorf said, turning to present the basket to the manservant.
“Just look after those, would you?”
    Before Lorenzo could argue Lundorf was once more ploughing ahead into the
crowd.
    “And there’s your boat,” Lundorf told them, five minutes later. The Destrier. Don’t worry, she’s not as bad as she looks.”
    “No?” Florin said dubiously. He pushed his way past a knot of street children
to study the bobbing wooden box that would be his home for the next three
months.
    The Destrier was a cog, a thickly built barrel of a ship designed to
withstand the towering seas of the north. The elegant lines of the Tilean vessels that lay at anchor beyond had no parallels in her bulky frame.
She wallowed in the sea as gracelessly, and as comfortably, as a pig in its sty.
    She was also a lot smaller than most of the other vessels. Against the
backdrop of Bordeleaux’s distant heights, even against the backdrop of the other
merchantmen, the Destrier looked tiny. In fact, apart from its towering
central mast, the only thing that was big about the ship was the smell of brine
and unwashed bodies that wafted from her open holds.
    “I’m not surprised that my predecessor jumped ship,” Florin guessed, but
Lundorf shook his head.
    “Oh no, it was nothing like that. There was just some, ah, unpleasantness
with the witch hunters at the last port. Bad business.”
    “I bet it was,” Florin barked with laughter. Then he frowned as he watched
the stream of men and goods disappearing into the Destrier ’s dank
interior. It seemed that, even as he watched, more bodies and bundles had
disappeared into the ship’s entrails than was possible. It was as though the
ship were no more than a trapdoor to some other place.
    “Nice looking fellows,” Lorenzo muttered sarcastically as a dozen drunken
mercenaries staggered over the boarding planks. Their accents were harsh, and
despite the warmth of the Bretonnian sun their flushed faces were wrapped in
shapeless fur hoods. One of their number was being dragged unceremoniously
behind them, his heels cutting deep ruts through the filth of the pier.
    “Their captain,” Lundorf explained, with a shrug. “It’s a shame. Those
Kislevites can be real daemons if they’re properly led. You needn’t worry about
that, though. You’re only responsible for your fellow countrymen. There’s about
a score of them, I think. Anyway, I’ll introduce you to the captain of the ship,
and then I must be off to see how my lot are doing.”
    Then, for the first time since he’d fled from his chambers, Florin paused.
What was he doing here? He’d never been in a battle, never commanded so much as
a squad. How had he bluffed his way into command of a hardened mercenary
company?
    He felt a sudden vertiginous sense of doubt, like a sleepwalker who awakes to
find himself about to step over a high precipice, and for a moment he stood
balanced on the very brink of turning back.
    The roar of the world around him grew silent and, in some deep part of his
soul, a dice began to spin. Each of its faces held a vision of a different route. He held his breath as it revolved, revealing different
paths to take.
    Now Mordicio’s mercy.
    Now a passage to Araby.
    “Are you all right, old man?” Lundorf asked, slapping him on the back.
    And the dice was cast.
    “Yes,” Florin said, drawing himself up with a sudden certainty. “Yes, I’m
ready. Let’s see my new command.”
    “Good man,” Lundorf said approvingly, and led him into the organised chaos of
the Destrier ’s foredeck.

 
 

CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    The shoals around Bordeleaux were