Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [118]
And suddenly Mellor had the boy in his arms. He broke away, walking swiftly towards the sterncastle.
Lucille was sobbing now. ‘Don’t do this, Ethan, please. I know you think you have to, but you don’t.’
She was playing her part perfectly. At that moment this poor sobbing wretch of a woman looked more beautiful to him than ever before. His heart swelled with love. He made a fist and swung it at her head, punching her across the temple. She staggered but didn’t fall, and then looked up at him with wide, stunned eyes. He smiled and hit her again, much harder.
This time she went down. She clamped a hand to her nose and it came away bloody.
‘You coward!’ she cried.
He kicked her in the chest, and heard her gasp. He felt the weight of her body move against his boot. She began to wail. Snot and blood bubbled from her nose. She beat the palms of her hands against the rolling deck. ‘You’re a coward, Ethan,’ she said again. ‘That’s why you do these things. You’re afraid of your men, of me, of everyone you’ve ever met. You’re afraid because you don’t understand them. All these foolish theories you make up to justify everything . . . the truth is, you’re just a coward.’
Maskelyne recognized every word she spoke for the sacrifice that it was. She was trying to make it easier for him to punish her. The thought made his heart shudder with pain and love. Each blow he administered hurt him more than it hurt her. He wanted to pick her up and carry her away, and yet by doing so he would be betraying her. He wavered for an instant. He didn’t know if he could match her courage.
She spat at him.
He was about to respond when he heard Mellor shouting. ‘Ships to port.’
The first officer stood by the sterncastle hatch, gazing out to sea. Maskelyne realized that every man of the crew was looking in the same direction or moving to the port side to get a better view.
‘Men-o’-war,’ someone shouted. ‘Two of them.’
Maskelyne could see them now: two old, Irillian tall ships, their hulls clad in red dragon scale. They were three-masted, with foretops on their bowsprits and silver cutwaters. The fire-power from any one vessel’s triple gun decks would be enough to reduce the Unmer icebreaker to toothpicks. They were running near to full sail, despite the gales, and they were headed this way.
‘It’s the Haurstaf,’ Ianthe said.
CHAPTER 13
A CANNON BATTLE AT SEA
Granger had been standing at the wheel for most of the night, and yet he hadn’t spotted the lights he’d been hoping to see. Dawn had come and gone, and still nothing. He was red-eyed and edgy with exhaustion, but nothing could tempt him to sleep now. The Whispering Valley lay nor’-nor’-west of Scythe Island, and Briana Marks’s vessel, Irillian Herald, had been steaming out of Ethugra in that general direction when he’d had last seen it, which meant that it seemed likely the Haurstaf witch had received some intelligence about Ianthe’s position. Granger’s detour to Scythe Island had cost him valuable time. Now he wasn’t just chasing Maskelyne, but Marks herself.
There were two sextants and two chronometers on the bridge. An elaborate gold- and platinum-plated sextant sat in a special mount on the navigation console beside a matching chronograph. Both bore the Imperial seal along with the engraving: Excelsior, His Majesty Emperor Jilak Hu. But Granger found an old brass Valcinder-made set of instruments in a metal box behind the pipe-housing hatch. He took noon sight with these latter devices. From the worn look of them, this particular set had been much favoured by the Excelsior’s own navigator.
Granger located the almanacs, sight tables and charts in a drawer under the console. He calculated his position. He drew a pencil line across the map, stared at it and then rechecked his figures. The Excelsior had covered more distance than he would have believed possible. At this rate of knots he certainly faced no danger from the pursuing Ethugran fleet. Furthermore, he would reach the Whispering Valley in another six days, half the time it would have taken Maskelyne in his heavy