The captain turned to Kirkpatrick, his face a sour smear of disapproving.
‘Ye will change that tune when the howling wind makes ye jig to the dance it makes,’ he answered. ‘Besides, we are in the Firth o’ Lorn, coming up to the narrow of it and the last run to Oban. It is no place to be at the mercy of a storm wind.’
‘Christ betimes, this is summer,’ Kirkpatrick exclaimed bitterly. ‘You would think there would be kinder weather.’
Those nearest laughed, none heartier than Somhairl, shaking his head mockingly at Kirkpatrick, who gave him a scarring scowl in return and then turned to Pegy.
‘Clap on all sail, or whatever you mariners shout. Sooner we are back in Oban, sooner this cargo is in the keeping of the King.’
‘And Sim’s innards are back in his belly,’ Hal answered, sitting suddenly as the rush of fever-sweat swamped him.
‘Oh aye,’ Pegy replied, knuckling a forehead dripping as much with spray as sarcasm. ‘Clappin’ on sail, yer lordship, as ordered. Now if only any of us here had a wee idea of what that might actually do to this baist o’ a boat …’
They plodded on, heavy and sodden as a wet cow in pasture, with the wind full from the east, the men singing as much to raise their spirits as any sail.
Hal stayed on deck and up at the beakhead, until his face was stiff and salted, his eyes bloodshot and his brow ridged; Pegy found him there and had Angus and Donald cart him to the shelter for the storm was rising again. Hal already knew this, since his raggled hair was straight out and whipping either side of his face as he stared ahead and Pegy had to shout above the moan and whine of a rising wind.
The sea greened round the stern, washing over the stepped deck that rose up there – the nearest to a castle it had, since there was none at all in the fore – and the sails flapped and ragged, the men struggling to bring them in.
It became clear to everyone, with each man Pegy put to bailing and pumping, that the ship was taking on too much water, was too loaded to ride this out.
‘We are sinking,’ Pegy reported to Kirkpatrick and Hal, blunt as a blow to the temple. ‘We need to make landfall.’
‘Where?’
They were shouting, hanging on to lines, buffeted and shoved by a bulling wind. Pegy bawled out where he thought they were and Kirkpatrick squinted; it had started to rain, squalling and hissing, stippling the wet deck.
‘We are closer, then, to Craignish. We could be up that wee loch to Craignish Castle and the Campbells, who are good friends to our king.’
Pegy closed one eye and contemplated, and then spoke, slow and hesitant.
‘Aye, we are. If the weather and wind stay as they are we could be in Craignish watter as you say. Run up through the sound at Islay and then hope the wind has changed a wee, to beat back north.’
‘I dinna ken much,’ Kirkpatrick roared, ‘but I ken that is a long way for a short cut. Can we not go on as we are, straight up to Craignish, round Scarba?’
‘Shorter, but in this wind …’ Pegy bawled back, though the truth was that he did not think he or the crew could handle this bitch-boat well enough. He did not want to admit it, but it was clear in his seamed face, pebbled with spray and rain.
‘If she is sinking,’ Kirkpatrick persisted, with Gordian blade logic, ‘we have no time for a wee daunder to gawp at the sights, Pegy. Besides – taking her through the Islay Sound as she is risks being driven ashore and those island rats will strip her bare with nae thought for the ruin that will bring our kingdom. Run her truer than that.’
Pegy’s hesitation was underlined by the thrum and moan of wind, the crack of the lateen sails. Hal saw him wipe his mouth with the back of one hand and knew it was not wet he washed away, but exactly the opposite.
‘But?’ Hal answered, feeling the sudden dry crack of his own mouth.
‘Aye, yer lordship is smart as a whip,’ Pegy replied, half-ashamed at being so transparent. ‘But … if we are caught by the wind, on the tack it is on now, we will be hard put not to be driven on to the weather coast of Jura, or Scarba itself. Or through the Corryvreckan.’
Those who heard it stopped what they were doing. An eyeblink of pause only, it held more menace than any shriek of fear and both Hal and Kirkpatrick noted it and looked at each other; here was the real reason for Pegy’s concern.
‘Bad, is it?’
‘They say the Caillaich Bheur washes her great plaid at the bottom of the sea in that place,’ Pegy declared, ‘and makes the waves whirl.’
The Cally Vaar – even Hal had heard of this old pagan hag, icy goddess of winter, and he crossed himself.
‘Coire Bhreacain,’ Somhairl declared solemnly, and then added, with a face like an iron cliff. ‘The Corryvreckan: cauldron of the speckled sea.’