The Vampire Megapack. Nina Kiriki Hoffman
“You can put a watchman in the bow,” said Sant-Germainus. “And bring that Egyptian oarsman to steer with me. He knows these waters and he has come through his share of storms.”
“The Egyptian from your ship?” The first officer shook his head. “The captain would never agree.”
“He must have someone else on the other oar, and all of you know it,” said Sant-Germainus. “No one man can hold the ship on a single steering oar alone. If the other steering oar breaks, you will have no control on the starboard side, and the ship will roll more heavily than it does now.”
“But you and…he…are chained together. Your oar and the other one are linked by the chain,” said Ynay in a desperate attempt at reason.
“Think of the risk of my falling, or worse.” Sant-Germainus regarded him steadily as the seas pitched around them.
“I suppose that’s what you would have done on the Morning Star,” said Ynay.
“At the very least, had I been caught in such a storm,” said Sant-Germainus with more emotion; the loss of his merchant-ship five days ago to these Greeks still rankled; bales of silk lashed to the deck bore the eclipse symbol of his trading company, serving as a constant reminder of his capture, the capture of his men, and his cargo’s theft. “You would do the same, Ynay; you know the sea.”
“Our captain is not so willing to put lives—”
“He may risk one or two, or he may risk all,” said Sant-Germainus over a new wash of wave.
“It is dangerous, to chain a man on deck in such a storm,” said Ynay, then realized what he had said, and to whom; he added, “Your crew could drown if they are brought to help you. Let them be safe at their oars.”
“Then the captain is risking all,” said Sant-Germainus, relieved that he had taken no nourishment for more than six days, for had he received sustenance since then, he would now be enduring crippling nausea as well as severe pain in his muscles and joints from his exposure to water and light. His hunger was growing as he tired and with it his formidable strength was waning—another day or two like this and he would be utterly exhausted and disoriented by the enervation the water gave. He clutched the oar to his chest and hung on as the waves pounded over the bow of the ship, washing back to where he stood on the after-deck. “We will all pay the price for his greed and cowardice.”
Ynay winced as he nodded. “So I fear.”
“Then, for your own sake, convince him of what he stands to lose.”
The first officer clung to the safety-rope, his face distressed. “I will ask the captain if he will accept volunteers to man the oar, and the watch. And I’ll send the oar-master to—” He motioned to the corpse.
Sant-Germainus watched Ynay lurch back toward the middle of the ship and the hatches that led below. He frowned at the man’s struggle to keep his footing. The ship rolled ponderously and threatened to capsize, but Sant-Germainus held the oar, his whole body leaning into it; the wood moaned in his hands, and for a long moment he feared the oar would break, leaving the ship at the mercy of the storm. The ship topped the swell and righted itself, sliding down the wall of water into another trough, and he used this short time to align the bow more safely.
How he hated crossing running water! At least it was the dark of the year, so that sunlight did not join with the sea in wearing him out. Even the hard months crossing the Takla Makan in the Year of Yellow Snow, thirty years ago, was less arduous than this passage through the Aegean Sea—then there had only been cold and hunger to exhaust him, not the vitiation of running water and unrelenting labor. He wondered briefly how Rutgeros was doing below-decks and hoped that his bondsman was faring better than he was. Looking over at the dead man, he said, “May you rest quietly.”
* * * *
Some while later, the oar-master—a massive fellow from Odessus called Dvlinoh—came wallowing along the safety-rope and unlocked the manacles holding the corpse to the oar. “I’ll bring someone up to help you,” he said bluntly. “No one can hold these oars alone, not in a storm. The captain’s a fool.”
Sant-Germainus said nothing, watching as the body slid down the after-deck; the oar-master caught it by the ankle and let the next wave that broke over the ship carry it off.
* * * *
Dark water heaved around them, changing from mountain to valley and to mountain again in restless progression, but the wind had died down, so that the waves no longer piled up like hissing battlements. The ship was still afloat, but half the oarsmen were on the mid-deck, helping to bail out the holds on a bucket-chain. A wan swath of reddish sunlight smeared the eastern horizon off their port side ahead, its light revealing in the distance the suggestion of an island.
Sant-Germainus hung over his steering oar and regarded Khafir-Amun, who held the other next to him. “I think the captain will relieve us shortly.” He spoke the Egyptian tongue with an old-fashioned accent.
“A foolish, frightened creature, not worthy of this ship; he makes no offering to Poseidon,” said the Egyptian, a tall, wide-shouldered, leather-skinned man with arms as tough as tree-trunks from his long years at the steering-oar; he had a wide, irregular scar along his jaw and another cutting through his eyebrow, and his left hand was missing its little finger. “What made him think he could command a ship, let alone a band of sea-robbers?”
“A family trade, perhaps?” Sant-Germainus ventured, making himself stand upright in spite of the ache in his limbs; his sodden dalamatica adding to his chill. He rarely felt cold, but combined with damp, Sant-Germainus was now distinctly uncomfortable.
“Then he should have left the trade and apprenticed himself to a camel-drover,” said Khafir-Amun. “Ynay is better suited to this work than the captain will ever be.”
“That is often the case,” said Sant-Germainus, thinking back to the many times he had seen outwardly powerful men who were supported by more capable assistants. “Ynay is a true sailor, and sensible.”
“Your man—Rutgeros?—volunteered to watch, but the captain wouldn’t allow it, nor would he allow anyone who had been among your crew. He said you and they would hatch mischief if you were allowed to work together.” He glanced toward the island in the distance. “Do you know where we are?”
“I know we are not at Naxos, or Paros. We cannot have been blown as far as Crete. Amorgus or Ios, perhaps.” Sant-Germainus squinted in the increasing sunlight, his skin starting to feel tight, as if he stood too near a flame.
“Amorgus is long and thin and much too far south,” said Khafir-Amun. “From here, that island looks small and probably fairly round. There are no very high peaks I can make out.” He thought a moment. “The small island east of Naxos—what is it called?—that might be it.”
“We may be east of Naxos,” Sant-Germainus conceded. “Not so far south as Koufonisia or Karos, I would reckon.”
“Dhenoussa,” said Khafir-Amun. “That’s the island. I wish I could see it more clearly. I am almost certain I am right.”
“I doubt we could have been blown so far to the east,” said Sant-Germainus, but even as he said it, he began to think of the long night and the furious wind. They might well have gone farther than he had assumed. He looked over his shoulder toward the west but could not make out the three peaks of Naxos. “We could have reached Dhenoussa,” he said with less certainty; now that they had come through the heart of the storm, he realized he was more exhausted than he could remember being in more than a century.
“It’s too big for any of the Makaris, so it must be Dhenoussa. After such a night as we have passed, I would not be surprised to see Melos ahead, had we gone southwest, or Mykonos, had we been driven backward.” He chuckled to show he knew this was impossible.
“With the seas still running so high, I wonder if we will find a safe harbor, whatever island it may be.” Sant-Germainus bore down on his oar as the