60
“Your orders, highness?”
Prince Leopold looked at the Crucifer knight. Sir Richard was no fool. In his pale blue eyes, and lined, sun-battered English face the answer to his question was already written. He simply wanted it confirmed.
“Die well.”
Sir Richard grinned, hefted his hand-and-a-half sword, checked the war hammer at his hip and looked up at the unbroken wall of the Mamluk ship’s prow. “When do we start?”
“Impatient to die?”
“If we’re going to do it,” Sir Richard said, “we might as well do it while our courage is up and our strength still holds.”
Half his men would lose control of their bladders or bowels. Not through fear, but because bodies could only handle so much at once. A man in half-armour can fight full pitch for five minutes before exhaustion sets in. Staying alive and blocking blows comes well ahead of natural functions.
Clapping Sir Richard on his shoulder, Prince Leopold made his round of the others, joking with some, clasping the hands of others, gripping one apprentice by the shoulders, telling him he’d find courage when the moment came.
The boy was in tears but stood straighter when Leopold stopped to talk to his master. Their talk was short and intense. There was no disagreement. Master Theobald simply wanted to check he understood what the prince required.
At an order from Master Theobald, his apprentices began rolling red-painted barrels across the deck, stacking them below the enemy ship’s prow. They did so in the face of a shower of arrows, loosed up and over from the enemy side. Luckily, gusting night winds and the Mamluk archers’ own fear protected them.
As the apprentices worked, Prince Leopold’s archers kept loosing their own arrows to stop Mamluk axemen cutting the grapple free. And the ship’s carpenter, a balding man, bad-tempered and stout, but good at what he did and not one to suffer fools, began to hammer a nail into the Mamluk ship.
He worked quickly, ignoring those around him. Ignoring everyone. Even Sir Richard, who went to see what he was doing.
“Ask the prince.”
Sir Richard decided he’d wait and see.
Once the nail was fixed, the carpenter forced it free with a long, split-tongued pry bar, working it so hard muscles ridged across the man’s back, his face turned red and sweat broke out across his forehead. “Done,” he said. Into the hole he fixed a hook, using his pry bar to twist it tight. “Time for another, my lord?”
The prince shook his head. So the carpenter fixed a chain to the single hook and began to wrap it round the mast.
“Help him,” Leopold ordered.
Once the chain was locked in place, Leopold nodded to Master Theobald, who widened his valve nozzle, and swept flame up the Mamluk bow.
“And beyond.”
The last of the mage fire fell on to their enemy.
Men screamed, axe-wielding Mamluks tried to cut the grapple, not knowing they’d been chained to their doom. They died bathed in the flames, turned to arrow-stuck candles, filling the air with the stink of meat burning.
“Now,” said Leopold.
Stepping forward, Master Theobald smashed a red-painted barrel and thick sticky black tar oozed around his boots. He smashed another, then another, until the deck became slick. Slivers of silvery metal in the mix began to smoke, gently at first.
“Out of my way…”
When Prince Leopold began to push towards Atilo’s ship, Sir Richard looked appalled, then met his gaze and felt shamed instead. It went without saying the prince would stay with those about to die. But someone had to cut the Lionheart free from the San Marco. Old enemies looked at each other.
“Help me, and hurry.”
“No,” Atilo said. “Move your men to my ship.”
“They stay,” Leopold said. “It’s the only way to stop the Mamluks freeing themselves. I’m not losing the Lionheart without reason… Help keep my wife safe. And trust Sir Tycho’s instincts.”
He grinned at the youth next to Atilo. “We’ll never get that rematch.”
“Be grateful,” said Tycho.
Prince Leopold laughed, and jumped on to the rail of his ship, raising his sword to begin cutting the ropes that lashed their galleys together. After a second, Tycho joined him.