The crystal cave - Mary Stewart [46]
I believe the journey took four days. Rough weather there certainly was, but at least it was behind us, and we made spanking speed. I stayed below the whole time, huddled thankfully in the blankets under the port-hole, hardly venturing to lift my head. The worst of the sickness abated after a time, but I doubt if I could have moved, and mercifully no one tried to make me.
Marric came down once. I remember it vaguely, as if it were a dream. He picked his way in over a pile of old anchor chain to where I lay, and stood, his big form stooping, peering down at me. Then he shook his head. "And to think I thought we'd done ourselves a good turn, picking you up. We should have thrown you over the side in the first place, and saved a lot of trouble. I reckon you haven't very much more to tell us, anyway?"
I made no reply.
He gave a queer little grunt that sounded like a laugh, and went out. I went to sleep, exhausted.
When I woke, I found that my wet cloak, sandals and tunic had been removed, and that, dry and naked, I was cocooned deep in blankets. Near my head was a water jar, its mouth stoppered with a twist of rag, and a hunk of barley bread.
I couldn't have touched either, but I got the message. I slept.
Then one day shortly before dusk, we came in sight of the Wild Coast, and dropped anchor in the calm waters of Morbihan that men call the Small Sea.
BOOK II -- THE FALCON
1
The first I knew of our coming to shore was being roused, still heavy with that exhausted sleep, by voices talking over me.
"Well, all right, if you believe him, but do you really think even a bastard prince would be abroad in those clothes? Everything soaking, not even a gilt clasp to his belt, and look at his sandals. I grant you it's a good cloak, but it's torn. More likely the first story was true, and he's a slave running away with his master's things."
It was, of course, Hanno's voice, and he was talking in Breton. Luckily I had my back to them, curled up in the welter of blankets. It was easy to pretend to be asleep. I lay still, and tried to keep my breathing even.
"No, it's the bastard all right; I've seen him in the town. I'd have known him sooner if we'd been able to show a light." The deeper voice was Marric's. "In any case it would hardly matter who he was; slave or royal bastard, he's been privy to a lot in that palace that Ambrosius will want to listen to. And he's a bright lad; oh, yes, he's what he says he is. You don't learn those cool ways and that kind of talking in the kitchens."
"Well, but..." The change in Hanno's voice made my skin shift on my bones. I kept very still.
"Well but what?"
The Weasel dropped his voice still further. "Maybe if we made him talk to us first...I mean, look at it this way. All that stuff he told us, hearing what King Camlach meant to do and all that...If we'd got that information for ourselves and got away to report it, there'd be a fat purse for us, wouldn't there?"
Marric grunted. "And then when he gets ashore and tells someone where he comes from? Ambrosius would hear. He hears everything."
"Are you trying to be simple?" The question was waspish.
It was all I could do to keep still. There was a space between my shoulder-blades where the skin tightened cold over the flesh as if it already felt the knife.
"Oh, I'm not as simple as that. I get you. But I don't see that it -- "
"Nobody in Maridunum knows where he went." Hanno's whisper was hurried and eager. "As for the men who saw him come on board, they'll think we've taken him off with us now. In fact, that's what we'll do, take him with us now, and there are plenty of places between here and the town..." I heard him swallow. "I told you before we put out, it's senseless to have spent the money on his passage -- "
"If we were going to get rid of him," said Marric bluntly, "we'd have done better not to have paid his passage at all. Have a bit of sense, we'll get the money back now in any case, and maybe a good bit over."
"How do you make that out?"
"Well, if the boy has got information, Ambrosius'll pay