The Long Sword(161)

            I looked aft, and the admiral was pointing at something aloft, a flag out of place, perhaps.

            We turned again. I saw that the dying enemy had ripped away our starboard steering oar, and that limited our ability to turn. And a small cloud of Turkish galleys came at us.

            Now, every ship carried a ram – not under water, like the ancients, but a spur above the water for breaking oars and fouling the enemy cathead and his rowing benches. Nonetheless, such was my experience that I assumed that the ram was the principle weapon and could sink us.

            Even as I watched, two Turkish galleys turned nimbly out of their crescent formation and charged us. Their archers loosed and loosed, so that there seemed to be a continuous stream of silver-lit shafts in the early morning sun dazzle. But it is very different to shoot up than to shoot a bow down. Our rowers were not directly exposed, and at first we took few losses.

            But we could not steer and I prepared for death.

            The oar-master roared a command I didn’t know, and then all the great oars began to fly inboard. Under my very feet, the big oarsmen were crossing the shafts of their oars, wedging the handles under the opposite bench so that the oars stood proud of the water like cocked wings. This brought the outboard portion of the oars above the ram of the enemy, so that they struck – when they struck – only Dalmatian oak.

            The hull rang, and I was knocked from my feet. I was praying to the Virgin.

            I got to my knees and the second blow knocked me flat – again.

            Practically at the end of my nose, three oarsmen on a bench were grinning like savages as they pulled maille haubergeons over their canvas rowing shirts.

            The nearest one, a gap-toothed giant with a gold earring, grinned as he pulled a wicked axe from under his bench. ‘Eh, messire!’ he shouted to me. ‘Easier to fight on your feet!’

            The benches were emptying.

            I got my feet under me to find the rest of my marines similarly employed. And forward of us, every Turk ever birthed was pouring over the rails from both sides into the waist of our ship.

            Sometimes, when you fight, you are in command of the army that is your body. You parry and snap blows, you deceive and you thrust and you counter as if on the practice field.

            Whatever men say, such encounters are rare.

            The Turks who got aboard didn’t pause to sweep the benches. They came straight up the companionway, aiming to kill the admiral and sweep the helms clear and take the ship.

            I have a memory of the moment before the wave of Turks broke on my line. I had a spear in my hand, held underhand, blade up, as Fiore recommended if one was fighting in line with companions. And I had the man himself on my right and Nerio on my left, and Marc-Antonio pressed so hard at my back that he was pushing me forward.

            I remember a man in plate and maille and a pointed helm, with a sword as long as mine and curved like the Crescent of Islam. He was grinning.

            And then I was panting like the bellows in a forge, and I hurt: my arms would scarce obey my command. The great scimitar was on the deck at my feet, and my spear was shattered, and the end with the sharp point was reversed in my hand like a thick dagger and sticky and red.

            Fiore’s spear was red from iron to point.

            Nerio had a dagger in each hand, one his own, one Miles’s.

            Miles stood with his longsword upright between his hands.

            Juan was on one knee, panting, and he, too, had his sword in his hand.

            We had held.

            I was just letting thoughts filter into my head – really, there was nothing there. Men call it ‘the black’ or ‘the darkness’ but for me it was just an emptiness, a void that was suddenly filled with noise and light.