Part 14 (1/2)

”I don't believe you. I'm not going to give up. We'll be at sea for many weeks, and I'm not going away.

Sooner or later, you'll come to me.” He turned away and strode aft with as firm a step as if he had been ash.o.r.e, not on a slanting deck, wallowing in a contrary sea.

Chapter 23 - Lovi's Choices.

Once, after a week at sea, the lookout spotted a concentration of clouds on the horizon east of their position. ”That's them!” cried ibn Saul. ”No rain or storm has pa.s.sed over us, so they cannot be storm clouds. They are the kind that form where a tall obstacle disturbs the pa.s.sage of the sea winds-an object like . . . an island, like mountains.” He scrambled aloft with amazing agility for one his age, and despite his long scholar's robe.

An hour later, back on deck, he was dejected. ”I saw nothing. Change course in the direction where the lookout saw them. By morning, they'll be clearly visible.”

They were not. Such tantalizing glimpses occurred several times-unnatural clouds, or flocks of seabirds riding updrafts that could only form in the presence of land. But when they sailed toward them, clouds dissipated, birds drifted away, and there was the only the endless sea.

Ibn Saul made scratchings on a vellum skin, noting their position, as best he could determine it, at thetime of each sighting, and from his notes he determined that their elusive destination had to lie in one particular, very limited area of the sea.

Brandis.h.i.+ng his vellum, he attempted to explain his reasoning to the captain, Kermorgan, but the seaman was highly skeptical of lines, notes, and numbers.

”Our destination lies a hundred leagues south and west of the Ar Men rocks,” ibn Saul insisted.

Sh.o.r.e Bird's master was adamant: ”There is nothing there! We've been at sea for three weeks now, and have only once seen land. Our water is almost gone, and what's left of our food reeks. The last chicken's neck was wrung yesterday. We must put in at Gesocribate again.”

”Just one last try!” Ibn Saul sounded desperate-as well he might. Thus far the voyage had been entirely unproductive. As if some malign G.o.d did not wish them to succeed, they sometimes found themselves far north or south of where ibn Saul calculated their course would take them, after a day or two of cloudy skies. When the skies were clear however, there was no such confusion. Pierrette had thus concluded that the scholar's lodestone had ceased to function properly: when they sailed by the stars, ibn Saul was able to determine which way to sail, by the pole star, and to estimate their lat.i.tude, but using the lodestone they went astray, as if it no longer pointed north at all.

Still, on two occasions, from different directions, they had spotted isolated clouds on the horizon, clouds that did not change position, as if they were anch.o.r.ed in place. Such clouds had only one explanation: the presence of a land ma.s.s high enough to disrupt the smooth flow of the oceanic winds-the presence, in short, of a mountain in the sea.

Now, even without exact knowledge of their longitude, ibn Saul was sure that the Fortunate Isles lay . . . ”There! That way! With this breeze, a little out of the north, we can reach them in two days' sail.”

”Perhaps Kermorgan is right, master,” said Lovi, shortly later. ”With fresh water aboard, and livestock . . .”

”Once in port and paid off, we'll never get them out again. Besides, my purse is now so light I can hardly feel it. It's now-or never.”

”Then it will be never,” Lovi murmured angrily. Only Pierrette heard him. What did he mean? His recent behavior had puzzled her. For a while, after he had declared his intent to pursue her affections, he had been cheery and optimistic, but in the face of her undiminished stubbornness, he had become glum and surly, and had urged ibn Saul to give up this crisscrossing of the empty sea. Now his words had an ominous tone. He had sounded so sure of himself. How could that be, unless he planned to do something to make it happen-or not happen?

As the s.h.i.+p again plunged south and westward, retracing the course it had taken several times before, Pierrette kept an eye on Lovi, but saw nothing amiss. He spent most of his time peering out to sea at the clear, cloudless horizon. Nightfall brought high clouds with it, which obscured the stars and made of the crescent moon a hazy blur of cool light.

”Are we on course, master?” he asked ibn Saul. ”Without any stars, shouldn't you make sure the helmsman hasn't turned us around-as he surely did before?”

”Fetch my lodestone and bowl, then, and a lamp,” the scholar said. Pierrette's eyes followed Lovi aft, where their baggage was stowed. Why did he want ibn Saul to use the lodestone, if indeed he did notwant his master to succeed?

Lovi unwrapped the bra.s.s bowl, the wooden disc, and the fragment of black rock. Then-why?-he pulled something from another sack and hid it at his waist. What was it? He dropped a bucket over the side, filled it with salt water, and poured some in the bowl. Returning, he laid the materials on the broad thwart by the mast, then sat down next to them. Ibn Saul carefully lowered the wooden disc onto the water, and placed the lodestone on it, with the disc's ”north” mark pointing just aft the starboard beam, as it should be, if their course were correct. Then it swung around, past the s.h.i.+p's stern, and continued moving until it hovered just off the port beam. ”You're right!” the scholar hissed. ”We're not sailing south of west, but northeast! We're sailing back to Gesocribate! The treacherous pigs! Call that wretch Kermorgan over here!”

”Piers,” said Lovi. ”You do it. I want to keep my eye on the lodestone.” Why? There was nothing to see.

The stone was not going to move. Or . . . or would it? Then, as suddenly as if a light had been lit in a hitherto dark corner of her mind, Pierrette knew what Lovi was doing, and she knew what he had gotten from his sack. But she betrayed nothing. She nodded, expressionless, and went to find the s.h.i.+p's master.

Ibn Saul confronted the captain with the evidence that they were actually sailing northwest. ”You're mad,” said Kermorgan indignantly. ”I don't care where that thing is pointing-we have not changed course. I've had a log and line astern all this while, and it stretches straight aft, and has done so all day and night. We are heading a bit south of west, as you will see, when those clouds blow past.”

”Bah! Turn the s.h.i.+p now. When the sun rises in the west, I'll apologize for doubting you, not before.”

”When we see the Ar Men rocks off our bow for the second time in two days, I'll just keep sailing that way, right into port.” The captain shouted orders, and soon the s.h.i.+p was a busy place as sailors hauled the sails about onto the new tack and braced them. But Pierrette was not watching the crew. She watched Lovi. Ibn Saul kept his eyes on the lodestone.

Lovi arose in a seemingly casual manner. He stretched, and s.h.i.+fted position aft. As the s.h.i.+p turned downwind and the yards were hauled amids.h.i.+ps, he edged around further. As the sails refilled on the new tack, and the s.h.i.+p continued to turn, he moved slowly to the other side of the mast, and seated himself on the opposite side of ibn Saul's bowl, always keeping as close to it as he could.

From ibn Saul's viewpoint, the lodestone had obediently continued to point north as the s.h.i.+p turned completely around, but from Pierrette's perspective, the stone had followed . . . Lovi. Now she was sure of it. As the s.h.i.+p settled on the new heading, ibn Saul packed away lodestone and disc, poured out the water, and handed everything to Lovi. He then went astern, and for the rest of the night watched the line that stretched out over the s.h.i.+p's gla.s.sy wake. It was straight, in line with the keel, and if it s.h.i.+fted either way, he would see it, and would know that the s.h.i.+p was again changing course.

Pierrette sidled up to Lovi as he squatted and wrapped the lodestone and its accessories. ”What are you looking at?” he snapped.

”I'm just watching,” she replied. ”Does that bother you?”

”Youbother me!” he said, and turned away. But by that time Pierrette had edged quite close to him, and her hand darted inside his tunic. She grasped something cold and hard, pulled it free, and then backed away. ”Give that back!” Lovi hissed.

Pierrette shook her head. She hefted the horseshoe, then threw it over the side. The sound of waterslipping around the hull masked the faint splash. ”Why?” she asked. ”Why have you been toying with your master, making the lodestone follow your horseshoe instead of pointing north? All this time, we've been sailing in wrong directions, haven't we?”

Lovi turned away, leaned on the rail, and covered his face with his hands. ”I want to go home, can't you understand that? Nothing is right anymore. Gregorius is gone. You will have nothing to do with me. My master is obsessed with finding those miserable islands, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life in this cold, forbidding land, chasing something that doesn't exist.”

”How cruel you are! How selfish.” Pierrette's indignation was genuine-even though Lovi's trickery had played right to her own desires; ibn Saul had not found the Fortunate Isles, and now he would not.

”If you were less cruel, I wouldn't have done it.”

”That's not fair. It's not my fault.”

”Just go away.” Then: ”Are you going to tell him?”

”Why? He'd just be more miserable than he will be, when he realizes where we're going.” She went forward, and spent the last hours of the night snuggled up against Gustave.

At dawn, the sun rose in a glowing western sky. ”Impossible!” yowled ibn Saul.

The s.h.i.+pmaster smiled smugly. ”Since we have been sailing north of east all night, and are now halfway home, I intend to remain on this course as long as the wind holds. If you wish to follow your silly device all over the trackless sea, you must find another s.h.i.+p.” Ibn Saul's vehement protests did not sway him.

”You have not been watching my crew the way I have,” the captain said. ”You haven't heard how they curse you at mealtimes, when the worms in their moldy bread prove the best part of the meal. You haven't listened to the whispers whenever two or three of them gather to coil a rope one man could coil.

Another day of this aimlessness and you might find yourself overboard with a marlinespike pushed up behind your eyeb.a.l.l.s. Be grateful for my caution.”

Ibn Saul accepted the inevitable then, and spent the remainder of the voyage home sullenly alone.

With s.h.i.+fts in the wind, and allowing for the tides, it was two days before they slid up to Gesocribate's wharf. ”Where are you going, boy?” ibn Saul called out to Lovi. ”Help us offload these sacks.”

”I'm going to look for Gregorius. He may be here still, waiting for us.”

”Bah! He is long gone. When the baggage is stowed in our lodgings, you may seek where you will. But you'll waste your time.” Lovi reluctantly helped Pierrette lash the sacks to two poles, and the poles to Gustave.

The aroma of crisp lamb fat filled the inn, and as soon as possible they sat to enjoy their first decent meal since the last of the s.h.i.+p's pigs and chickens had been slaughtered. But despite good cider and fine, tender meat, it was a gloomy gathering. ”Have you made further plans, Master ibn Saul?” asked Pierrette.

”I have seen vessels like that fat, single-masted one, the third from the end of the wharf, in my voyages along the Wendish coast, which is beyond the Viking lands. Unless I miss my guess, it will be homeward bound soon-and we will be aboard it.” ”But master-I thought we'd be going home!” Lovi had seen the light of reason (and had smelled the lamb cooking) and had postponed his search for Gregorius.

”We shall-by the eastern river route to the Euxine Sea, Byzantium, Greece . . . why slog over dull, familiar ground when we can see new sights, and visit the fountainheads of true civilization, instead?”