The Two of Swords: Part 15 Read Online Free PDF Page A

Exeat – while others maintain that reciting the offices is a sure way to still the winds and subdue the waters, which is why a storm lasts as long as it does.
    Genseric, huddled in the bottom of the catboat, could hear someone screaming scripture into the wind. Coming from a family with a long and proud tradition of unbelief, he didn’t know the words and couldn’t join in, but he paraphrased as best he could:
Lord, whoever you are, please make it stop
. That, apparently, wasn’t good enough. An empty water barrel fell on his back, and he stopped, in case his imperfect prayers were annoying the Divine.
    “Where is this?” Orderic asked.
    It was a stupid question, not deserving a reply. The beach the storm had pitched them up on was broad, flat and featureless; the sand was white, there were no rocks, precious little driftwood or seaweed. In the distance, Genseric could just make out the dark green of a pine forest.
    The helmsman was gazing at his bribe, the foundation of his future prosperity, which was now just so much firewood. They’d hit something on the way in which had torn the bottom out of her, and she’d shed strakes all the way up the beach. The mast was somewhere in the deep water, a long way away. A few bits and pieces were bobbing up and down thirty yards or so out, but the captain showed no inclination to go and fetch them.
    “I didn’t see any island,” Orderic was saying. “Or is this the island? It’s too big, isn’t it? I thought you said there was a town.”
    Genseric didn’t think it was the island. He hadn’t really been keeping track of their progress during the storm, but it had been horribly fast, at least until they lost the mast, and, as for direction, he didn’t have a clue. But wherever they were, he was quite sure it wasn’t where they were meant to be. One of his many regrets was that his armour was at the bottom of the sea. He’d taken it off in case he had to do any swimming, and it had gone the way of the rest of their cargo when the catboat was holed. Orderic still had his sword, but that was their entire defensive capability.
    He got up and trudged across the soft sand to where she was sitting, with her back to the keel, staring at her bare feet as though she’d never seen them before. Her hair was a sodden rope and her arms were covered in sand. “I don’t suppose you know—”
    “No.”
    He sat down beside her. “Well,” he said, “I suppose we ought to make a move. It won’t be that long before it gets dark.”
    “I haven’t got any shoes.”
    “That’s unfortunate. But we can’t stay here forever. We’ve got to find out where we are.”
    She wasn’t looking at him. Neither was anyone else; they were all giving their entire attention to something on the landward side of the wreck. He saw it quickly enough: a dozen or so horsemen, hurrying towards them. Ah, well, he thought.
    It wasn’t long before he could tell they were soldiers, twelve lancers and an officer in a red cloak with a fur collar. He stood up and went to meet them.
    The officer was light-skinned but the features of his face were pure Imperial; a young man, maybe twenty-four or five, in gilded parade armour, with an ivory scabbard for his sword. “Who the hell are you?” he said.
    “We were shipwrecked,” Genseric said.
    “I didn’t ask how you got here.”
    “My name’s Genseric.”
    He was annoying the young officer. “East or West?”
    Something in the way he said it, a hint of distaste for both alternatives. “Excuse me,” Genseric said, “but is this Blemya?”
    “East or West?”
    “West,” Genseric said. “We were heading for Atrabeau, and there was this sudden storm which came out of nowhere. We don’t want to be any trouble to anyone, so if you could just—”
    “Sergeant,” the officer said. At once, the troopers fanned out, forming a half-circle. Their lance points were universally level with Genseric’s head, a really quite impressive display of drill. One of