In which Drustan finds himself in the thick of it again. Not much 'TG' stuff in this chapter but their progress to get Aiofe to Carthage is advanced by the sucessful victory over the Barbary pirates.

The Angry Mermaid 15.
Or.

Y Morforwyn Dicllon 15

Mabina. The youngest daughter and Twin to
Drustan Her twin brother.
Grandpa Erin the twins grandfather.
Giana The twins grandmother
Caderyn The twins father.
Herenoie The twins wise and beautiful mother.
Morgaran The Twins oldest brother.
Aiofe The twins oldest sister. Famous for her beauty.
Tara The twins second oldest sister. Famous for her grace.
Feidlim Twins aunt (Caderyns’ beautiful sister.)
Mogantu Twins uncle (Married to Feidlim.) Chief of the Gangani tribe.
Brun. Twins 2nd cousin and the Acaman clans’ blacksmith.
Feorin. Twins second brother. Also training to be a blacksmith.
Rhun Feidlims’ son and Feorins’ favourite 1st Cousin. (Both red-heads.)
Arina Child of a Demetae fisherman, (rescued by Aiofe, Drustan and Mabina.)
Penderol Dumnonii Minor chief.
Udris Young Dumnonii warrior.
Dryslwyn High chief of the whole Celtic nation. Dwells in Brithony.
Bronlwyn Dryslwyn’s wife (and queen.)
Magab The moor who taught numbers.
Eric Saxon galley slave rescued from Corsair pirates.
Carl Another Saxon galley slave rescued by Drustan.
Torvel Celtic galley slave rescued from the same captured corsair ship
Arton. Turdetani Chieftain Holder of Gibral Rock.
Carinia Arton’s wife.
Isobel. Arton’s adopted daughter.
Appotel King of the Turdetani Tribe. (Southern Iberia.)
Bramana Queen. (Wife of Appotel)
Pilus King of the Capetani.
Shaleen Pilus’s queen and sister to Bramana.
Pedoro Lord Marshal of the Southern border region.
Lady Shulaar Lord Pedoro’s wife.
Taan. The scullery maid.
Isaar. Pedoro’s oldest son.
Ferdie Pedoro’s 2nd son
Sular Pedoro’s 3rd son
Gontala Pedoro’s youngest son.
Shenoa Pedoro’s only daughter.
Portega. Tyrant King to the west.
Portua. Portega’s grandson.
Jubail. Old Fisherman.

As Drustan set The Angry Mermaid close to the westerly breeze Jubail’s eyes widened with appreciation. He had never seen a craft sail so close to the wind before. After checking its progress against long familiar onshore markers, Jubail estimated her to be making a modest trot over the ground against what Jubail knew to be a strong westerly set close inshore. He estimated that this strange miraculous craft was making about twice trotting speed through the water and he studied the set of the sails. After assimilating all the unusual characteristics Jubail turned to Aiofe as she was tightening up the main sheet.

“And you say your brother built this when he was but eleven or twelve summers.”

“Eleven summers to be exact,” Aiofe replied, “he spent his eleventh winter and twelfth summer perfecting her. Remarkable craft
is she not?”

“It’s amazing. I’ll warrant she’s still faster than the new copies built at Gibral.”

“She is. Despite having travelled many leagues, she is still a better boat. My brother says it is the wood she is built of. Brithonic oak is very strong and light though hard to work with. As it gets older, it hardens and the Angry Mermaid actually gets stronger with age.”

As she spoke Aiofe ran her soft hands along the rail and Jubail could see the pride and affection the girl had for the boat. ‘If the girl had pride in The Mermaid, the boy must be besotted with affection.’ Jubail glanced aft and smiled secretly. The boy’s eyes were everywhere checking every detail as his creation sped through the water like a flying fish.

Once the Mermaid had made the agreed land mark, Drustan came up to wind and brought the ship into irons. He turned to Jubail and spoke softly.

“So master of the sea, I have shown you my craft, my secrets; now what secrets are you to show me?”

Jubail set his reel at the rail and attached a largish weight of wood and lead with some hooks and bait attached. Drustan noted that it was not a dead weight but it had an almost neutral buoyancy and only sank very slowly. It sank straight down as the Mermaid lay dead in the water letting the current take her eastwards. Then after nearly two hundred fathoms of line was paid out Dustan noticed the line start to pay out westwards as the Mermaid continued drifting eastwards. Jubail took Drustan’s fingers and placed them on the line. The line was tight and ‘thrumming’ with a regular vibration but there was no snagging or jerking. The line was not yet on the bottom. Drustan had handled enough fishing lines to know when a weight was grounded and this weight was not yet on the bottom. The tension on the line was steady but the vibrations indicated that the weight was reacting to being ‘towed’; even though it still flowed free in the water. He looked wonderingly.

“What pulls the line?”

Jubail smiled and explained.

“The straits are very deep but all the waters do not run eastwards. Deep down, deeper than ever the deepest anchor can hold, the waters between the pillars run westwards, out of the Middle Sea. See as I pay out the line it gets ever tighter. Partly because of the pull of the water on the longer length of line but also as the weight goes deeper the outflow gets faster as Norden’s secret waters escape to the Western great sea.”

“How deep does it get?” Drustan pressed curiously.

“In the middle I have found no bottom at four hundred fathoms. After that my line snapped from the strain and I can’t afford to lose more. This line is valuable.”

Aiofe recognised it as silk and well knew the worth of it. She nodded affirmation to her brother.

“So how does this predict the winds?” Drustan asked.

“It doesn’t, not directly anyway but all parts of this world are become one eventually. The sea affects the fish and the fish are food for the dolphins and the dolphins go where the fish go.”

As he spoke, Jubail stopped paying out the line and started slowly reeling it in. Suddenly he smiled and motioned to Drustan to make westering again to ease the strain on the line. Drustan responded as Aiofe lent a hand reeling in the line. Eventually the weight appeared accompanied by a very strange fish the like of which Drustan had never seen before. His jaw sagged as Jubail carefully avoided the grotesque oversized mouth and hauled the monster inboard. Drustan frowned with disgust.

“By all the Gods! What monster of a fish is that?”

“It lives in the very depths of the sea.”

“And so it should. I’ve never seen anything so ugly. That would frighten a Corsair captain, let alone a child.”

“Its looks don’t concern me but its bladder does.” Jubail grinned.

“Why?”

Jubail took his gutting knife and deftly removed the swollen bladder without rupturing it.

“Taste the water in the bladder.”

“It won’t bloody poison me will it? Everything about this horror looks dangerous.”

“It’s just a fish with a bladder, just taste the water in the bladder.”

To demonstrate, Jubail slit the swim-bladder and drained the contents into a small cup he had brought along. He tasted it first, grimaced and handed the cup to Drustan. Reassured that Jubail hadn’t poisoned himself, Drustan put the cup to his lips. He immediately spat the water out cursing and spluttering.

“Bloody hell that’s bitter. Shouldn’t it just be ordinary sea water?”

“I think it is,” Jubail replied. I think the water down there contains more salt. That’s why it sits on the bottom and that’s why it flows out to the great sea.”

“So, it’s saltier, how does this predict the wind?”

Jubail spoke very softly so that only Drustan heard the details. Aiofe was busying herself with the fore sheets and did not notice the old fisherman muttering in Drustan’s ear as he explained.

“When the wind is about to change, this deep salty water sometimes swirls to the surface. I don’t know why, maybe the currents are affected further east and slowly the waters mingle. I think it’s the current flowing into the middle sea slowing down. It loses its force and the undercurrent is free to swirl and eddy upwards specifically between the pillars themselves. Anyway, about a day before the wind change reaches here, directly between the pillars at the narrowest point, the eastbound surface current slows down and loses force, then these saltier bottom waters start to swirl to the surface. There is a very slight change in colour but more particularly the surface fish and the dolphins dislike it while these monsters from the deep occasionally ride the saltier water to the surface. If you are alert to the behaviour of the dolphins you will see them give the upwelling a wide berth. As I said, it happens most where the pillars face each other and the strait is narrowest, I think there is a ridge of rock that sets the current up. So if you keep a close eye on the sea and the dolphins, you might be able to predict the change in the wind a day or more to the east. As the change moves slowly westwards with the wind, you can set your fleets and spring your trap. They can sail into the straits where everybody thinks they are hopelessly committed then when the wind changes, they can double back and fall upon the trapped corsairs who are now meat in your sandwich.”

“It seems risky to me, to plan a whole venture on the conduct of a few dolphins.” Drustan grinned for he had already seen the advantages.

“There is another sign,” the old man added.

“Do tell”, urged Drustan as Aiofe returned to the stern.

“Watch the west wind; if it veers to the north or north east; that usually reinforces the certainty of the first sign. If it backs to the south then the first sign is usually void.”

Drustan smiled gratefully and hugged the old man tightly. Aiofe also smiled. She knew her brother of old. Beneath that seemingly unpredictable, spontaneous bravado ticked a brain that weighed up as many odds as were possible. Aiofe was still impressed with the way her lightly clothed brother had unseated and then finally despatched the mighty King Portega, a fully armoured and well trained man at arms. She settled in to a contented huddle as Drustan nodded with satisfaction.

He who knew what the gods planned had a huge advantage and already Drustan’s mind had formed a plan. By way of a thank you he offered to take Jubail right out into the centre of the straits. Something the old man had avoided since the enmity between Iberia and Nubia had flared up.

“Would that be safe?” Jubail wondered. “I mean, your sister Aiofe, would she not be at great peril?”

“They won’t catch us Jubail,” Aiofe grinned, “Not in this craft.”

To demonstrate, Drustan set out across the straits and even circled a Corsair ship before flying back to safety under Gibral’s cliffs. At the same time Aiofe unleashed a few lethal arrows from her splendid longbow just to show the Berber pirates that even the smaller Iberian ships could bite!

Armed with this knowledge, and copies of Jubail’s charts Drustan returned to the Iberian Celtic fleet now waiting off Caerdeez. He did not mention his new-found secrets but after analysing the Celtic battle plan he saw several opportunities to exploit if he could just delay the battle until there was a probability of an easterly wind. For this he had to be seen to consult a soothsayer to reassure the more superstitious captains then all he could do was wait. To ensure the right circumstances, he had to sit out alone with just his sister Aiofe and Arina the Demetae fisher girl each day in the middle of the straights risking encirclement and capture by the Corsairs.

Eventually he saw the first signs in the water and after double checking his findings he sped north-west to the Celtic fleet and set the battle plan in motion. He was pleased to note that the westerly wind had already started to veer even as the larger ships lumbered into line. They had formed two crescents one far behind the other so that if one line got swept into the straits, the rear line could avert the situation by turning about. Everybody knew that this might split their forces but it was hoped that their superior numbers and the nimble mermaid class would prevail.

As the tension mounted, Drustan flitted from the front battle line to the rear battle line making suggestions and giving advice as the first line advanced inevitably towards the corsair fleet.

As always he was in the thick of it when the two fleets clashed. His tactic was to dash towards a skirmish between two ships and then have Aiofe unleash her deadly arrows at range to kill the Berber steersman then if possible pick off the accompanying commander before the Corsair ship realised they were facing attack from two sides. Other crews in the other mermaid boats soon caught on to the tactic and it proved a successful ploy. Several Corsair ships succumbed before the pirates worked out a defence and placed their ships in pairs to ward off attacks from two sides. Also two of the Iberian’s heavy ships were overwhelmed as the moors proved their fighting skills and courage. Then as the battle was swept between the Pillars of Hercules the moors cunningly broke off and watched knowingly as the Iberian ships with their square sails, were swept by the current helplessly eastwards and out of the fray. The Corsair captains felt they had the advantage as their trisail dhows proved more manageable up into the wind.

The small mermaid class were easily able to out manoeuvre them but it was suicide to close in with the immensely more powerful Corsair ships. The Moors started counting their chickens as they formed a wedge with their ships to plunge into the centre of the second battle line and by concentrating their forces bring a sledge hammer blow to bear. Drustan could only watch and fret as he prayed that the wind would turn in time.

“Come on!” He cursed the gods. “In the name of all that’s in the sky; - turn wind, turn!”

In his fear he brought the Angry Mermaid in close to the point of the corsair wedge and urged Aiofe to fire her arrows at what was obviously the fleet commander’s flagship. After Aiofe had fired her last arrows she turned to her brother and shrugged.

“I’m out of ammunition brother. We are no use to anybody now. Might I suggest we withdraw?”

Reluctantly, Drustan was forced to agree. Both Nubians and Iberians had bows though shorter and with less range than Aiofe’s Brithonic yew long bow. Now that Aiofe had no more ‘teeth’ to bite with, the Mermaid was just a liability. As they sped for safety Arina turned and grinned at the boy she so much grown to admire; - a boy who had used wit and guile to defeat a powerful and cunning enemy for yet a second time. She smiled hugely as she congratulated her brother.

“Well Drustan, would this possibly be the first fight you’ve been in where you haven’t actually ended up wounded?”

“The fight’s not over yet Arina. I still have a useful sword. See that emerald green sail in the thick of it.”

Arina looked and nodded.

“Well that’s Eric’s ship and he looks hard pressed. He's attacked the berber flagship and I think he's bitten off more than he can chew. He needs help.” Drustan continued. “Take us under the counter of the pirate ship that’s grappled to him, I will swim under his stern and clamber up his rudder.”

“But that’s lunacy brother!” Aiofe protested.

Drustan ignored his older sister as he measured the closing gap then he turned to Arina.

“Look the Nubian crew are pre-occupied with the hand fight. They have all set aside their bows to swing their scimitars. That flagship has a higher poop, an extra deck at the stern. I'll wager there's an efter cabin where I can sneak in through the rudder-rope apertures. Nobody has yet spotted us and we are but a spear throw, take me in a few more ship’s lengths and I will slip over the side of the Mermaid unseen. Quickly girl, just do it!”

Arina turned uncertainly to Aiofe who had already realised the futility of trying to keep her crazy brother away from a fight once his blood was up. Even as Arina watched Mermaid's course, Drustan was hanging over the blind side ready to slip unseen into the sea. All he had was his sword in its shoulder scabbard and his faithful dagger stuffed into the waist-belt of his breech cloth. He called up to Aiofe.

“Let me know when we are nearest, those two ships are grappled together and stopped in the water. It is but a few strokes to reach them. Then as I swim under their stern you steer away ahead of them to distract their attention if they do notice you. Have they seen you yet?”

“No, and it’s our closest approach about now.” Snapped Aiofe angrily, furious that her brother should be taking such a crazy risk.

Drustan let go of the side rail and slipped silently into the water as Aiofe immediately tightened the sheets while Arina held the rudder steady. The Mermaid sped past the Corsair’s bow even as Drustan swam the lung-bursting distance underwater to the Corsair’s stern. He was almost seeing stars by the time he surfaced almost under the stern. It was a few strokes to reach the rudder and he prayed he had not been seen. He rested gasping as he clung to the rudder pintle and checked to see if there was any response to his having appeared. After recovering his breath, he then started shimmying up the rudder post to see what mischief he could achieve. In the rudder space he studied the two thick steering ropes but decided to only weaken them, not sever them. If the tiller suddenly went slack, the steersman would be alerted to trouble with the rudder. Better to weaken it and let the steersman find out when he needed to use the rudder for at that moment the two ships were locked together and not moving except to drift with the currents.

Once the ropes were almost cut he sneaked into the steering space through the rope holes then into a well furnished, empty, after cabin. It was obviously the admiral's cabin but he was up on the poop deck directing the battle. The clamour of battle disguised any actions Drustan undertook for the crew were preoccupied with the mayhem on the deck. His knowledge of the Nubian ship was gained from the one they had captured when Drustan had been struck by the arrow and the galley sweep slaves, led by Carl and Eric, had subsequently captured it.

Uncertain of what to do next Drustan peeped out between the slats of a half closed shutter looking from the after cabin onto the deck. He first wanted to disable the Corsair ship but he realised that now the moors were grappled to Eric’s ship, the issue was not the ship but the actual fight. The moors fought to board the Iberian ship whilst Eric’s crew fought like tigers to fend them off. Drustan could see that the moors were slowly gaining headway. It would be no use just charging out onto the deck for there were corsairs aplenty who could have surrounded him and cut him down. These same men were standing in disciplined groups all watching the fight so as to replace every moor that fell. They were watching the fight at the rail and they had their backs to the door of the admiral's cabin.

Drustan realised one big weakness between the Moorish dhows and the Iberian square rigs. The moors had much larger crews and could withstand the attrition rate for far longer. In a straight ship-on-ship fight, the moors could withstand the attrition for longer unless two Iberian ships could pincer the Moorish ship between them. This was a seemingly impossible task because the Moorish ships fore-and-aft trisails made the moors more manoeuvrable. Eric’s boldness in sailing ahead of the main Iberian line had exposed him to attack and what was worse; another Moorish ship could be seen working steadily upwind to join the fight. If that ship grappled Eric’s other side then the battle was over for Eric.

Drustan searched desperately for some artefact to fashion a plan. Then he spied some Moorish armour lying on a bench and his agile brain devised a way to put it to use. The armour not only provide him with protection but it gave him a disguise. With a helmet and jerkin he would be mistaken for a common Moorish foot-soldier. This done he deliberately cut himself to look as though he was wounded then he stumbled out onto the deck holding his ‘wounded’ arm and blood running from his throat. This was crucially to make it look as though his throat was wounded and couldn’t talk if challenged. Then he sucked his cut and filled his mouth with his own blood and breathed through his nostrils. In the frenzy of shouting and fighting he looked just like many other wounded men and he was free to ‘stagger’ towards where the short bows had been carefully stored now that very man was involved in hand-to-hand combat.

‘Thank the gods that the Moors were well organised and disciplined,’ thought Drustan as he bundled two bows and as many quivers of arrows as he could gather.

His foresight worked for as he ‘staggered’ aft loaded with ammunition he was challenged by an officer. He raised his ‘injured arm’ to his bloodied throat and attempted to gargle an answer as he waved the bow aimlessly then pointed towards the higher decked poop. The officer concluded the wounded man intended to die fighting by shooting arrows down into the Iberian ship’s deck-well. That was exactly the subterfuge Drustan had hoped to suggest. As blood erupted with his spittle Drustan’s ruse worked.

The officer recognised a wounded comrade and left him to make whatever contribution he had left with his remaining strength. By the amount of blood the man was covered in, the officer reckoned the bloodied foot-soldier had little life left and he turned to the more important task of releasing his own platoon, which was the last rank of swordsmen to reinforce the troops at the rail and administer the final coup’ de grace. As this last platoon surged forward, Drustan used the mayhem to slip unnoticed back into the little after cabin. There he immediately jammed the door then prepared for his attack. He laid the quivers on a small chart table by the shuttered window then started picking off crucial players in the Moorish attack. Firing through the shuttered window made him invisible and he looked to pick his targets. The first being the officer who had challenged him for if he had seen his own men receiving arrows in their backs, he would have immediately smelled a rat. Taking careful aim, Drustan waited until the officer had decapitated an Iberian crewman and he was pausing to recover. Drustan planted the arrow into the man’s neck so that as he span and fell, nobody could detect where the arrow had come from.

Drustan smiled with evident satisfaction. The trick was to be patient and pick off targets who would not reveal whence the arrows had come. To his satisfaction this usually meant an officer or hot-headed hero who was standing stupidly above the mayhem encouraging his comrades forward. Drustan achieved a dozen excellent shots before the moors realized they were under fire from some place other than the Iberian ship.

It was the Moorish admiral standing resplendent on the poop above Drustan’s cabin, who realised that there were no archers firing from the Iberian ship. He snarled with rage as he saw his best men and officers tumbling to the arrows and his carefully planned coup’ de grace faltering. Then he realised the arrows were erupting from his own cabin beneath his feet.

With a fury born of seeing his victory being snatched from his grasp, he hurtled down onto the well-deck and flung himself at the door. Drustan's barricade held and the admiral cursed as he rebounded painfully off the reinforced door. He roared to his men.

“Smash this bloody door down. The enemy is within!”

Drustan realised his time to loiter was ended. After firing a few remaining arrows into the group gathering to charge the door, he shed his breast plate and helmet then retreated aft into the steering flat and placed his remaining arrows and short-bow by the rudder blocks. To add to the mayhem and uncertainty, he finally severed the steering ropes so that the steersman had to call to the captain who then had to tell the admiral. It added little to the situation between the grappled ships but it added to the admiral’s burden of command. He now realised his flagship was helpless to escape, especially as the battle now seemed to be favouring the Iberians thanks to Drustan's intervention sowing panic and chaos amongst the reserve soldiers gathered in the well deck.

As Drustan retreated into the low confines of the steering flat, the door to the cabin finally succumbed and the giant admiral stormed in roaring with rage. Without a care for his own safety he flung himself through the low-lying door straight onto Drustan’s waiting sword. The razor sharp Toledo point sank between the admiral’s breast plate and his neck. The huge man’s momentum carried him onward and he continued staggering forward, bent over in pain until the hilt of Drustan’s sword fetched up against the rudder stock even as Drustan still struggled to free it. Then Ibn Ben Saar’s immense size and weight carried him ever further onto Drustan’s razor sharp blade as it sank down through the man’s shoulder, through his chest and down into his vitals.

His breast plate saved him from immediate death but Drustan’s sword was now stuck downwards into the man’s powerful chest and jammed inside the collar of his breast plate. It had mortally wounded the admiral but the big man was not dead yet! In his death throes the admiral swiped out frantically and caught Drustan on the hip leaving a serious wound. Drustan felt the hot pain that told him this was a bad wound as he staggered against the rudder-post. The admiral’s sword was still thrusting frantically but every thrust was getting weaker. Unfortunately Drustan could not get close enough to recover his sword for it was jammed between the admiral and the rudder stock. Already other moors were clamouring to get through the low door and protect their leader. They struggled to drag him free from the rudder then left him as they turned to attend to Drustan.

It was time to leave and with regrets, Drustan had to relinquish his precious Toledo sword. He grabbed his bow and last remaining quiver of arrows as he squeezed through the rudder post aperture. Once his bare feet were standing precariously on the top of the tapered rudder Drustan fired off one last arrow then ducked through the rudder-post space and flung himself into the sea.

The Moors gathered angrily at the top of the rudder post but there was little they could do. They had not brought bows and arrows anticipating a hand to hand fight in the confines of the cabin. Nor could they dive to pursue for they would first have to shed their armour.

Drustan had dived deep leaving a thin trail of blood in the crystal clear water then he swam urgently towards Eric's ship. He emerged on the Iberian, outboard side of the grappled pair of ships and burst to the surface screaming for help. Sadly his calls were drowned by the clash of battle still raging aboard the ships. Eventually, the loss of blood weakened him and he lost his grip to slip quietly beneath the waves unnoticed by any man.

PS. Before any know-all goes off on one in the next chapter!
Everybody knows that porpoises are mammals. They didn’t in the dark ages; so when the girls call them ‘fish’ don’t send me mail. I also know they are mammals. Otherwise, comments are always welcomed and noted.

PPS. Somebody has taken pity on me and I now have a friend who checks out my blunders. She’s bloody good and picked up on several things.
(This must have been what it was like in a school to have an English mistress guiding you. The nice part is I don’t get the cane for my spelling mistakes.)

Bye for now. And thanks D. (She wishes to remain anonymous but I have to thank her. Good manners dictate that.)

Beverly.