The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,66
ye,’ the captain thundered.
‘Leave him. He is heartsick and worried for the woman he loves,’ Will said, aware of the irony in his words.
‘This is my ship, not a Bankside stew,’ Courtenay snapped. ‘My rules, Master Swyfte.’ He paused, eyeing the fallen spy. ‘Yet I will show a little kindness on this occasion, as he’s a friend of yours. But if he raises his blade in anger to one of us again, it’s over the side with him.’ He grabbed the scruff of Strangewayes’ undershirt in his meaty hand and dragged him across the cabin, flinging him out of the door with a boot up his arse. Will felt concerned that the humiliation might only make Strangewayes angrier, but he had more pressing matters to concern him.
‘Keep an eye on that one,’ Courtenay rumbled as if he could hear Will’s thoughts. ‘He’s still got too much of the spoiled child in him. If his temper gets the best of him again, you might find that steel going right through ye.’
Will shrugged, feeling the weight of his responsibility to Grace. ‘We will shape him to be a man, one way or another.’
Bloody Jack grunted dismissively.
A warning call rang out from the topman and Courtenay and Will stepped out on deck to find the men leaning over the starboard side, pointing, brows furrowed. The captain barged his way among them, making a space for Will. For a moment, shock lit Will’s features. The ocean had turned brown as far as the eye could see, and the air was thick with a stink like wet dogs. Peering closer, he saw that the Tempest now sailed through a dense bank of seaweed, the glistening tendrils tugging at the galleon’s hull.
‘Avast,’ Courtenay bawled to his men. Once the sailors had trudged away from the rail, the captain leaned in to Will and whispered, ‘I told ye: right where we shouldn’t be.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE SEA OF stinking brown weed seemed to stretch to the blue horizon. The Tempest sailed through the boiling heat as if she were ploughing a furrow in an autumn field. The seamen lined the rails, watching with uneasy eyes while they recalled all the fearful tales of that place they had heard in quayside inns across Europe.
Leaning out, Will glimpsed dark shapes weaving sinuously among the floating clumps of seaweed; eels, he thought. He glanced around for the land he presumed must be near.
Bloody Jack shook his head. ‘No land here,’ he said. ‘Not for days. This is the great Sargasso, a sea within a sea. All around, the currents are the strongest you will ever encounter, but here ships drift in this forest of weed, and grow becalmed. It is a strange place, sailors tell, haunted, and most give it a wide berth.’
‘The weed will not hold us fast?’
‘The wind, or lack of it, is the greater problem. The weed can snarl a rudder, at worst. It floats on the surface in vast mats. I have fathomed it meself here, and there is no bottom. A Spanish sea-dog told me how his vessel was becalmed for weeks in the middle of this stinking sea. To conserve their water, the crew were forced to throw the war horses o’erboard and feared they would not get out with their own lives. There is nowhere like it in all the oceans.’ His brow furrowed. ‘And yet . . . My mind plays tricks with me. The last time I skirted the Sargasso the weed looked different . . .’ His voice tailed off. ‘It remains a mystery to me how that storm blew us so far off course.’
Will heard a troubled note in the captain’s voice, but his attention was caught by the swimming shapes. One broke the surface, black skin glistening in the sun. As thick as a man’s arm, the eel seemed to have a face akin to a baby’s, with wide eyes and full lips that revealed a hint of sharp teeth. A strange mewling sound rose up, cut short as the thing darted back below the surface.
Courtenay recoiled. ‘God ha’ mercy,’ he hissed under his breath.
Will thought back to the white men-fish that swam beneath the surface of the frozen Thames and asked, ‘You have seen the like of that before?’
‘Never. Nor have I heard word of such.’ He crossed himself. ‘I do not believe this is the Sargasso at all. It is some devil-haunted place we have sailed into.’
The sun beat down; the breeze began to fail. An uneasy mood