Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

Tress nodded, smiling at me. "Aye, he will that," she whispered.

Ambrose continued. "Connor you've decided to see already, and you can do that as soon as you come back up from the Villa. As for the others, Brander has been waiting longest and must leave immediately, once he has spoken to you, but his request is of no great or worrisome moment— I mean, it is to him, but should not be to you. It's not even you he wishes to speak to, really, but Huw Strongarm. He is seeking Huw's permission to move Liam Twistback and his cattle breeders back onto Pendragon land for a time. It seems the clime in their new island home does not lend itself sufficiently to such operations. I offered to pass on his request and assured him I could see no difficulty in the granting of it, but he feared that perhaps Strongarm himself might have come to grief in the war, so he wished to speak to you in person. But you have been long in coming and now he is fretting, wishing to be gone again, back to his own duties. .. " He paused then, reflecting, before he went on. "My Northumbrian guests can await your pleasure. They are in no particular hurry. Bishop Enos, on the other hand, I cannot speak for. I have no idea what his mission consists of, or what time constraints may press upon him. You will have to be the judge of that. That's all I can tell you. My suggestion would be Connor first, then Brander, since he is a king, then Enos, and then the Northumbrians. "

"So be it. That's the order I'll adopt. Now, can you get us out of here without our being seen?"

Before Ambrose could answer, Tress turned in my arm and brought one hand up to lay her fingers over my lips, pressing me to be silent. She pointed out that neither she nor I could be so rudely selfish. She had waited half a year for me to come home to her, she said, blushing to be speaking so openly in front of Ambrose; another half day would be sufferable. I attempted to interrupt her on several occasions, but each time the insistent pressure of her fingertips against my lips kept me from speaking out, and as I listened, I reluctantly acknowledged the truth of what she was saying. Ambrose stood silent, throughout all of it, watching us intently. Finally I nodded, mute. Tress read my submission in my eyes and removed her hand. I stooped and kissed her briefly, then straightened again to look at Ambrose over her head.

"Well, " I said, "such willing self sacrifice demands respect. Where will we find Connor?"

We met with the admiral in Ambrose's day room, where we closed and locked the door behind us to ensure that we would be undisturbed. It was cool, almost cold, with that hint of winter that insinuates itself into all places unlit by the sun on short, bright autumn days. Ambrose lost no time in lighting the fire that lay ready in the brazier, and while he did so I went directly to the chest in which he kept his mead and poured a small cup for each of us, gently bidding Tress to sit and let me wait upon her. By the time I turned around with the mead for Connor and Tress, the two of them were already deep in conversation, talking about the new Scots settlement in the islands of the far northwest. I handed each of them a cup and then held one ready for Ambrose when he rose from in front of the brazier, rubbing pieces of ashy grit from his knees. I saluted each of them with my raised cup, and we drank together. After I had sat down, I looked inquisitively at Connor, who then immediately launched into what he had come to tell me, half story, half report.

As I had suspected, he had intercepted Ironhair's fleet on its way to evacuate the Cornish mercenaries. The meeting was accidental, just after daybreak on a windless morning, when the surface of the seas was obscured by drifting fog. When the fog cleared, the two fleets were in plain sight of each other, and Ironhair was disadvantaged by being between Connor's vessels and the too close, rocky shores of a wide bay. The fleets were almost evenly matched, Ironhair with his bireme and twenty galleys and Connor with his own bireme and eighteen galleys. But Ironhair was also saddled with an enormous fleet of smaller vessels, mainly fishing boats and shallow draft barges, destined for the shore where he had planned to meet his levies upon their withdrawal from the interior and Dolaucothi.

Ironhair surprised Connor by attacking at once. His massive bireme heeled hard over as its oarsmen put their backs into angling the huge craft out from the shore towards the Scots admiral's vessel, building up quickly to something approaching top speed almost before Connor had had time to assess what was happening. Once he saw what his enemy intended, however, Connor took immediate evasive action, swinging his bireme to the right and then angling back immediately, hard left, as the approaching ship changed course to meet his first feint. As he did so, he released the attack signal to his fleet, turning them loose against the assembled shipping that stretched in an undisciplined sprawl along the coastline, and from that moment on he gave all his attention to the task of dealing with the other bireme.

For more than an hour, he said, the two great vessels swept and cavorted in a dignified yet deadly dance, each captain seeking to outmanoeuvre and out sail his opponent and to put his own vessel into the winning position. From the outset it was clear that Ironhair's plan was to ram Connor's ship, crushing its hull beneath the waterline with the huge, metal clad ramming horn that projected from his bow. Connor's plan, on the other hand, was to bring his craft alongside his enemy's and capture it, and this desire forced him into a defensive, evasive role. He would await the enemy ship's forward rush and then sweep clear of its path , to one side or the other, before cutting back across its wake and positioning himself to await its next attack. In this, Connor had one massive disadvantage, for his desire to capture the enemy vessel, rather than simply destroy it, exposed him to a hazard that he could not match.

At each pass, the catapults on Ironhair's raised rear deck hurled pots of blazing oil towards Connor's sails, and although most of these missiles fell harmlessly into the sea, the fire fighting parties on Connor's decks were hard pressed to smother and contain the flames from the three that did land on the fighting platforms, smashing against the dry, pitched wood and throwing streams of blazing oil in all directions to ignite timber, cordage and human beings alike. These fire fighting duties were carried out grimly and in double jeopardy, since the danger of the flames—and there is no greater danger on a ship at sea—was enhanced by the danger from flying arrows. Bowmen on both vessels exchanged heavy volleys, every time they came within range. Connor told me that he had wished passionately for a contingent of Pendragon bowmen on his rolling, pitching decks, since he could see plainly how the superior speed and strength of the Pendragon longbows would have sharpened the edge for him in such a conflict.

Connor's principal strategy, however, involved a manoeuvre on which his crew had been working for some time, one that he carefully held in reserve until the time was right. Connor Mac Athol played a wily game that made his efforts to evade attack seem ludicrous and cowardly. At first, each sideslip away was without design, save that whichever way he avoided the enemy's charge, he cut immediately across their wake and withdrew to a safe distance. Soon, after several of these flights, his men could hear the jeers from the enemy vessel as they passed by. But that was what they had been waiting for; they had been working hard to earn the enemy's scorn. Now they began to work their master strategy, aiming each lumbering evasion to move themselves subtly closer to the shore. Finally one swift attack, as it went hissing by them, took the enemy vessel into the confines of the bay itself and directly towards the shallow coastal shoals. This time, as soon as the enemy ship had passed, Connor gave the signal and the driving drumbeat of the overseer changed immediately. The rowers on the left all shipped their oars for one long stroke, while those on the right dug deep and heaved, spinning their massive vessel so that its prow now lay towards the enemy's stern, within half a bowshot's distance. The left oars dipped, the tempo of the drumbeat escalated, and Connor's ship went leaping in pursuit of the other bireme, which found itself, for the first time, in the role of prey and in rapidly shoaling water.