"Paul Kearney - Monarchies of God 1 - Hawkwoods Voyage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kearney Paul)

For the Museum Road bunch: John, Dave, Sharon, Felix, and Helen; and for Dr. Marie Cahir,
partner in everything.

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord,
and his wonders in the deep.

Psalm 107:23-24



PROLOGUE
YEAR OF THE SAINT 422
A ship of the dead, it coasted in on the northwest breeze, topsails still set but the yards braced for a
long-lost wind on the open ocean. The yawlsmen sighted it first, on the eve of St. Beynac’s Day. It was
heeling heavily, even on the slight swell, and what was left of its canvas shuddered and flapped when the
breeze fell.

It was a day of perfect blueness—sea and sky vast, even reflections of one another. A few gulls flapped
expectantly round the silver-filled nets the yawl crews were hauling in hand over fist, and a school of
gleaming oyvips were sporting off to port: an unlucky omen. Within each, it was said, howled the soul of
a drowned man. But the wind was kind, and the shoal was large—it could be seen as a broad shadow
under the hull, twinkling now and then with the bright flank of a twisting fish—and the fishermen had been
here since the forenoon watch, filling their nets with the sea’s uncertain bounty, the dark line of the
Hebrionese coast a mere guess off behind their right shoulders.

The skipper of one yawl shaded his eyes, paused and peered out to sea, blue stone glinting out from
rippled leather, his chin bristling with hairs as pale as those on the stem of a nettle. Water shadow writhed
luminously in the hollows of his eyesockets.

“There’s a sight,” he muttered.

“What is it, Fader?”

“A carrack, lad, a high-seas ship by the looks of her. But the canvas is hanging in strips off her
yards—there’s a brace flying free. And she’s made a ton of water, if I’m any judge. She’s taken a
pounding, all right. And what of the crew? Un-handy lubbers.”

“Maybe they’re dead, or wore out,” his son said eagerly.

“Maybe. Or maybe sick of the plague as I hears ravages them eastern lands. The curse o’ God on
unbelievers.”

The other men in the yawl paused at that, staring darkly out at the oncoming vessel. The wind veered a
point—they felt it shift out of one eye—and the strange ship lost way. She was hull up, her battered
masts black against that uncertain band of horizon that is either sea or sky. Water dripped from the men’s
hands; the fish flapped feebly in the nets, forgotten and dying. Droplets of sweat gathered on noses and
stung their eyes: salt in everything, even the body’s own water. They looked at their skipper.

“It’s salvage, if the crew’s all dead,” one man said.