Free Blood on the Sand by Michael Jecks Page A

certain. His legs had the bandy look of a horseman, and remained bent as the vessel moved, one leg straightening more or less with the deck as it rolled
beneath him, scarcely bothering to hold onto a rope or spar as he did so. He looked a part of the ship, as much as the mast or the rigging. Where the galley went, so too would Grimault.
    Seeing Berenger’s gaze upon him, the Genoese gave a broad smile and beckoned. Rubbing his chafed, sore wrists, Berenger waited until the deck was almost level, and then let go of his rope
and hurried across the deck, moving crabwise as the prow began to swoop downwards into a trough. He made it to the ladder to the rear castle as the prow rose once more, and had to thrust out both
hands to stop himself slamming into the beams. This was no life for a man, he told himself for the hundredth time as he set his boot on the first rung and started to climb.
    ‘Godspeed!’ Grimault said with a flash of teeth in his bearded face. ‘It is a fine, a glorious day, is it not?’
    ‘It’s clear enough,’ Berenger admitted.
    It was a perfect day for sailing. The sea gleamed like quicksilver, so it was hard to look at it for long. The wind whipped at the back of their heads as they stared forward, and to his left,
Berenger could see the coast of France. They had been travelling for half a day now, and the rhythmic tapping and clattering of hammers and chisels striking away their irons had at last ceased. All
the men had been released, and although one of the younger boys from the ship’s company had complained as the chisel slipped and the bracelet twisted, snapping a bone in his arm, the
ship’s tooth-breaker and surgeon reckoned it should heal well enough. Worse was the man whose ankle had been deeply gouged when the chisel span from the armourer’s hand into his flesh.
Luckily it didn’t quite shear through his Achilles, but he would be limping for a month with the damage done.
    ‘Do you not trust me yet?’ Grimault asked.
    ‘We’re alive and free, so I suppose I do. A little,’ Berenger said, looking along the hull towards Jack, who stood near the drum. The galley could be called to war at a
moment’s notice, and the ship taken to battle stations by a simple drumbeat.
    ‘He is well enough there,’ Grimault said, and cast a sly look at him.
    If there were to be a battle, Berenger wanted at least one of his men there, beside the ship’s drum, so that he and his men could swiftly take control and turn matters to their own
benefit.
    ‘He doesn’t get ill.’
    Grimault laughed. ‘If we call battle orders, he will be held comfortably, just as you will. You have no need of subterfuge on board my ship. You are our friends. This is a matter of honour
with us, you see. We rescued you – we will not wish to harm you.’
    ‘But you caught us.’
    ‘Yes. And I promised that you would come to no harm, did I not? That is why I was forced to liberate you. I was going to break in the cardinal’s door to remove you.’
    Berenger scowled. ‘How did you know we were there? Didn’t you go to the gaol first?’
    ‘Yes, of course. But the gaoler had already shown us that you were no longer in the cell.’
    ‘It was good fortune for you to decide to rescue us on the very day the cardinal decided he would see us executed.’
    ‘Ah, perhaps there was some fortune in it.’
    Berenger nodded with comprehension. ‘The gaoler was bribed to warn you, was he?’
    ‘No, of course not!’ Grimault said, scandalised. ‘I would not pay another man’s servant to break his own oaths. The gaoler was sworn to secrecy. However, his pot boy was
not. So, as soon as the gaoler was told, the pot boy came to find me, and naturally we then came to find you.’
    ‘But why?’
    ‘As I said: I promised no harm would come to you.’
    ‘So you chose to come and free us?’ Berenger didn’t believe the man. ‘You are a mercenary, paid by the French. Surely this will damage your reputation?’
    ‘Me? My