Lionel kept his eyes on the pursuing ships. The Barber , first in the center of the fleet, was now in its rear; for the smaller ships were quicker in gaining their top speed.
“The cutters approach rapidly, but we can make the open seas before they overtake us. Once there our speed will double theirs. It is the others we have to fear. If The Barber reaches full speed, we will have little chance of escape.”
“But we will have reached Thunder Bay by then, and they will have been drawn into a battle for which they are not fully prepared. No, a ship of that size can only function on the high seas and we must only pass the Atiltian stretch.”
“There is little choice on our part,” Lionel said. “If their fleet reaches the Western March without provisions for a siege, they cannot make one. Their ships are all with them: if they break off to receive supplies we can take them. If not, the French will blockade them and they will starve.”
“But will the French come?”
“We cannot but hope.”
“Hope, hope, the immortal pope,” de Garmia laughed. “But who else will be our priest?”
They were interrupted by the cry of a sailor, coming from the stern, “They make headway, sirs.”
At that moment, an arrow struck the deck.
Chapter 81
Far ahead, and barely visible through the bright sun and sea, was a ship: its storm-cloud sails throwing it forward. The sea about the ship was empty and quiet, filled only with bird cries from the trees that hung nearby. But two hundred yards behind them was a line of pursuing ships, stretching backwards a mile until it ended with the lofty rails of The Barber . Gylain was its figurehead, his arms dragons and his eyes the sea. But his eyes were also closed: though he saw he did not look.
Several yards behind him a table was prepared upon the deck with a feast upon it, albeit untouched. Lyndon, Montague, and de Casanova still sat around it, the circle of power. Yet they had power only to have it; they commanded luxuries only to know they could. Sometimes they sat, and sometimes they stood, and sometimes they inspected the soldiers or studied charts of Thunder Bay. Only Gylain played the hermit, dueling the ocean with his stare; and he did not need his eyes to see, for he knew what was there. De Garmia and Lionel were only symbols of his fears: to lose the crown, the power, the strength; to have it clearly shown that, far from being God’s equal, he was not even the best of men. God was his enemy, weakness his foe.
“We will punish the rashness of youth, my friend,” Lyndon said, and in the silence their thoughts still lingered on the same subject. “We will punish him, and bring his mind to sanity. Then, when all is done, we will remake the crown a hundred times nobler, or a thousand. Money is of no account, for there is always more to take.”
“Nothing falls from a head without a purpose; and if every hair is numbered, how much more every crown? This is an omen, Lyndon: an omen that has been replayed a thousand different ways. Yet I see them. I know what is coming. Oh God, my enemy!” and his hands flew to the air like fate to the luckless. “Will you stab your own earth with the trident of the seas? Will you overturn the Pillars of Heracles and sink them to Hades? May it never be!” Gylain clenched his fists and fell silent, staring deeper into the sea as if he unwove its fabric with his piercing gaze and saw into the dimensions beyond.
“Has not my brother’s death not appeased your thoughts of predestination, Gylain?” Montague asked. “If Nicholas cannot retrieve this Holy Graal, can the rebel king meet another fate? Your rival is vanquished, your life secured.”
“Fool!” Gylain said lowly, his feeling not anger but resignation. “Fool, if you think I sent your brother for the Holy Graal, you are mistaken; if you think I sent him to the Cervennes peak for an ancient goblet, or even the blood of God, than you are gravely mistaken.”
Montague stood, “Then why was he sent?” and his voice betrayed his doubting heart.
“He was sent, on a mission of intelligence and divination, to the Titans. He went to see of the prophecies of the poets, of the Greeks, and he has not returned but in dream. What can this be, other than an ill omen and a mark of predestination? What has gone before will come again, and what has happened once will repeat a thousand times! Woe to us who live and woe to those who die. Above all, woe to the White Eagle!”
Montague stood and Gylain, hearing his surprise, broke his connection with the sea. “You are distraught? Then you see as I do.”
“No, though I have seen as you say. There was more when my brother appeared to me, but I did not understand, and so did not think it important.”
“Your hesitation breeds my impatience with this life, man!”
“My lord,” and Montague’s demeanor flinched, “He held a smooth, rectangular tablet in his hands as he spoke, with letters or symbols engraved upon it. I could not read them, but they formed an outline of a White Eagle; and as you spoke just now, it recalled itself to my mind.”
“Can you remember what they were?”
“Yes, for they are engraved upon my mind as well.”
Montague began to trace what he had seen on a paper, symbols arranged in a box as if still upon the tablet. They were at once hieroglyphics and letters, and Gylain seemed to understand them. In a shaking voice, he read:
In the name of Uranos, by whom the trident of the nations will be sunk to the nether lands of Hades. The Pillars of Heracles has been sunk, and with it the gods of men. The Garden of Hesperides has been sunk, and with it the men of gods. Soon, the third and final remnant of the ancient world will be destroyed. Just as Eden was overrun by evil and sank, so will it be. Just as Atlantis was conquered by the Titans and sank, so will it become. The trident of the nations will pierce Hades.
Gylain was silent for a moment, then looked to the compass that sat beside the paper. “I cannot see the White Eagle,” he said, “But these figures have two meanings: one as symbols and one as letters; one as Egyptian hieroglyphics and one as Phoenician letters. It must come from the ancient race of strength, from Atlantis. Still, I can see no White Eagle.”
“Yet I saw it, and I drew it just as I remember.”
“What of the pyramids, if it is partly Egyptian?” Lyndon suggested, “Or of the temples of Ra?”
“Of course!” Gylain cried, making the connection. “For in each of those, each corner is placed precisely on one of the four geographic poles. Here,” he took the drawing and – using the compass as a guide – set it straight to the cardinal points: north, east, south, and west. The figures seemed to melt away, molded into a White Eagle with a lion’s head grasped in its talons.
Gylain fell into a pit in his mind. It was several minutes until he was rescued, suddenly, by a movement of Lyndon’s hand. The latter held a knife, with which he was carving idly upon the table.
“Let me see the knife,” Gylain said, and Lyndon handed it to him, though he also handed him a questioning look. The knife was a foot long, with half its length manifested in the handle, divided into ten rings or lines; then, upon the hilt, was an etching of a sky with ten stars. A small section stuck out on either side between the blade and the handle and on this portion was carved an ancient galley or ship of war.
Gylain held it in his hands and examined it minutely. After a time, and in a voice hardly audible, he asked, “From where does it come?”
“I found it on the beach of Hibernia, near my palace as I walked alone,” Lyndon answered. “It had washed ashore from the deep.”
Gylain opened his hand as the words lashed against his ears and courage. The knife came loose and fell to the deck, piercing three inches into the wood.
“So it comes,” Gylain paused, “The end draws near.”