Excerpt
I gripped the lifelines, my habit soaked and
pasted to my body. He shook his head and curled his mouth as he
placed his bare feet on the steps.
Bartolomé glared when I came up to the quarterdeck. He and the
helmsman were fighting with the long tiller to steer the Isabella who
was surfing a wave downwind with increasing speed. He was too
busy to pay me attention.
I could see he was thinking hard, for he had seen men break their
bones when propelled by the long tiller as the waves jerked the
rudder.
The pilot concentrated on the movements of the needle in the
compass set in a wooden box fixed onto the binnacle. A sailor tried
to record the time and course while another minded the sandglass.
Every man there had a duty to perform; all others were tucked away
in the relative safety of the ship’s innards. Bartolomé chewed his
inner cheek, as he always did when considering his options.
The visibility was nil, no other ships were in sight. Every vessel
was on its own now, each full of men fighting for their lives and
praying, the galleons surely better off than the Isabella. They didn’t
have the wretched high castles fore and aft, taking all the wind and
making the vessel ungovernable.
Bartolomé growled, covering his eyes with one hand and
lowering his head without releasing his grip on the tiller. I saw his
lips move silently amid the roar of wind and sea. He could attune his
senses to the mood of the wind, feeling it on his nape, sniffing it out
of the air, hearing it on the sails and rigging.
Bartolomé knew I was adamant about staying on deck; nothing
short of an angel or God’s thunderous voice would send me down.
He aimed a sullen glare in my direction and yelled to the sailor
minding the sandglass to pass me a coil of line. I caught it in the air
and fumbled, keeping an eye out for waves until I found the end of
it. Bartolomé motioned me to bring it around my waist. I managed a
knot above my Franciscan cord and tied myself to the rail as the
others were to the binnacle, but he sighed, nodded to the pilot, let go
of the tiller and came to tie the knot to his liking.
Manolis Aligizakis 