Free John Masters by The Rock Page A

out of the hatch and calls, 'The rowmaster wants you, Pendril,' that is the signal. Get behind Pendril and seize his knife. He trusts you, and you are a woman."
    She found Pendril on the poop. For a moment the appearance of the sky made her forget the fear and doubt with which her husband's words had loaded her. Pendril heard her gasp and said, "It is a frightening sight. Go back below, and you will not see it."
    She shook her head. "I would rather stay here with you. It is worse if you cannot see."
    Her thoughts circled dully. How soon would they come? What would she do? There was the knife in his belt at the small of his back, where sailors always carried it.
    "Hold hard now," Pendril said.
    The wind note rose like a keening bird, the bow gave a sudden violent lurch, a sheet of water surged out to either side, and the figurehead plunged in to her neck. The sailors had often told Tamar there was no danger until the Kedesha wet her breasts: now the sea was going over them with every wave.
    The black storm raced across the sea and struck. Tamar crouched gasping under the gunwale. The wind shrieked, the rain deluged down. Lightning split the sky directly over the mast, thunder cracked all around the horizon. The sea was lit by shivering curtains of light. Under the thunder she heard the rowers howling like doomed animals below. The stem sank, and the figurehead's back-thrust shoulders shook against the lightning in that same obscene dance she had witnessed at Carteia. The stem rose, and the Kedesha plunged her face into the sea. Sheets of water surged along the deck and poured onto the rowers below.
    As suddenly as it had come, the squall passed, fleeing eastward down the wind. Pendril turned to Tamar with a smile. "So! That one, at least, is past!"
    His face was red, cold, streaming wet, happy. She said suddenly, "They are going to seize you. Tregan will tell you the rowmaster wants you. I am to take your knife..."
    Pendril's expression did not change. He glanced at the steersman, but the man could not have heard. He said, "It is well. When they come, take my knife, but go behind the steersman there, and if he moves, stab him hard." He opened the chest that had stood on the poop since leaving Carteia, got out the bow and arrow, and went to the very stem of the vessel. To the steersman he said softly. "Hold her head to the sea. Nothing else. Make no sound, neither cry nor call."
    Almost at once Tregan's head appeared over the poop ladder as he called, "The rowmaster wants you, Pendril." Tamar took the knife from Pendril's belt as Tregan ran up the ladder, followed by One-Eye, the other three sailors, and the rowmaster. She held the knife at the steersman's neck, and Pendril aimed the bow, the arrow notched and the string drawn. The giant waves marched slowly on, the Kedesha rhythmically rose and sank.
    "Hold!" Tregan cried. "The woman has betrayed us." They were gathered like snarling dogs, those behind trying to crowd forward, Tregan and One-Eye holding back. She did not see her husband but heard him calling from below, "Go on! There are only two. Go!"
    "How much did he pay you to betray your promise?" Pendril said. Tregan charged with an oath, his knife blade flashing. The bow twanged, and he sank to the deck spurting blood, the arrow through his throat. At the same moment Tamar heard Daniel scream. His hand appeared, reaching up, clawing, then vanished.
    Pendril said, "What happened?"
    The rowmaster, at the back, stammered, "A slave threw a knife. He must have had it hidden. The captain is dead."
    "And that was not the only knife we have," a voice called. "Free us, Pendril, and we will kill them all."
    "Well?" Pendril said, staring at One-Eye, the bow again drawn. Sullenly One-Eye threw down his knife.
    Pendril said, "Back to your posts all. The storm will return. We must work together or..."
    A bolt of lightning and a close chord of thunder drowned the rest of his sentence. A savage jerk of the vessel flung Tamar to her