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The Long Sword(154)

By:Christian Cameron


            She blew me a kiss. She said something, and I couldn’t hear it, and we were past. I watched her for as long as I could, but our deep rudder turned us out of the line and I lost her behind Turenne’s galia sottil. And there on the bow was the Hungarian from Mestre, with his long hair wrapped in pearls. I would not have seen him except that I was staring after Emile. And then he too was gone.



            I had thought the admiral a quiet, dignified old gentleman, but on board his flagship he was a tartar. He was always on deck; often, he would take the helm of his ship and steer her personally. Of course, as I knew, it was his ship – he owned the vessel, her cargo, and most of the standing rigging, the arms, and tools. It was from watching him, and talking to him, when the mood was on him, that I learned how little he relished taking the Venetian squadron to sea in pursuit of the Turks.

            ‘They sprout ships like mushrooms in a rainy winter,’ he said. ‘If we beat them, they will be back directly. If we lose?’ He looked up from the rail. ‘I’m ruined, and so is every man who outfitted a ship.’

            I learned a great deal from him, and from listening to him discourse to Nerio. He often forgot we were not Venetians and he freely discussed his orders and his reasoning. Not, I suspect, because he sought our opinions: in terms of naval tactics, none of us had anything useful to offer. But as I have found since, it is often useful to speak to intelligent men – ay, and women! – if only to clarify your own point of view.

            I had little experience of the sea, beyond, as I have said, crossing the channel, running up and down the Thames, and the recent voyage out to Greece from Venice. Yet now that the Venetians had left the king and the crusade behind, I discovered a whole new level of hurry, of hard-pressed sail, and hard-pressed mariners.

            Admiral Contarini might have been hesitant about meeting the Turks in battle, but he was in a great hurry to reach the point where the decision would have to be made, and he pressed us hard. We had the great lateen sails rigged on both the foremast and the mainmast. When the wind was right, on her quarter, we could rig a lateen to the stubby stern mast. When the wind was dead astern, we’d rig ‘gull winged’ with one great lateen out over each side. The great galleys were odd cross-breeds, with heavy masts and a sail rig, yet the long hulls and oar banks of a galley, and I lacked the knowledge of ships that would allow me to know if they were good ships or not. The passage of time has made me a better sailor, aye, and a better judge of ships, and now, of course, I know that the great galleys of Venice are one of the handiest and most dangerous warships afloat, but they looked so little like the King of England’s warships that I had my doubts.

            You may imagine that I did not express those doubts. Instead, I accepted orders and instructions and listened to the irascible old man scold his subordinates, curse his sailors and woo his oarsmen through two long weeks of Ionian summer. During that time we learned that on a Venetian galley, in a long row, the gentlemen are expected to put in their time at the great oars, and we rowed almost every day. It was excellent exercise, and the hard bellies and heavily muscled arms of the Venetian courtiers I knew were explained.

            Often, Venetian gentlemen-marines are also men in training to command galleys, and as the admiral tended to forget that we were foreigners, we received instruction every day on the rudiments of navigation and operations at sea. I learned a little about taking the helm and steering the ship, enough to know that it would require a lifetime of practice to be proficient. Still, in two weeks, the group of us learned a fair amount, all except Fiore, who had at last found an element that was not his own. The sea defeated him, and he didn’t stir from his hammock except to lose his latest attempt at a meal over the side.

            During these lessons I got to know Contarini’s Venetian gentlemen better. His captain was Messire Vettor Pisani, a famous sailor and merchant. Pisani had a great name as a fighting sailor, and we heard tales from the sailors about his exploits against the Turks, the Egyptians, and most especially against the Genoese. He was in his forties, tall and weather-beaten, with a great nose like the prow of a ship and cheekbones so high and sharp he might have been a Tartar. He had a vast dignity, for a man of his age; he seldom spoke unless he had something to say, and his silence was sometimes more effective than Contarini’s diatribes.