Birds of Prey Read Online Free Page A

cultivated man. ‘You will die before you ever make a swordsman, unless you
find steel in your heart as well as in your hand. Some hulking Dutchman will cleave you to the teeth at your first encounter.’ Sir Francis scowled at his son, ‘Recite the law of the
sword.’
    ‘An eye for his eyes,’ Hal mumbled in Latin.
    ‘Speak up, boy!’ Sir Francis’s hearing had been dulled by the blast of culverins – over the years a thousand broadsides had burst around his head. At the end of an
engagement, blood would be seen dripping from the ears of the seamen beside the guns and for days after even the officers on the poop heard heavenly bells ring in their heads.
    ‘An eye for his eyes,’ Hal repeated roundly, and his father nodded.
    ‘His eyes are the window to his mind. Learn to read in them his intentions before the act. See there the stroke before it is delivered. What else?’
    ‘The other eye for his feet,’ Hal recited.
    ‘Good.’ Sir Francis nodded. ‘His feet will move before his hand. What else?’
    ‘Keep the point high.’
    ‘The cardinal rule. Never lower the point. Keep it aimed at his eyes.’
    Sir Francis led Hal through the catechism, as he had countless times before. At the end, he said, ‘Here is one more rule for you. Fight from the first stroke, not just when you are hurt or
angry, or you might not survive that first wound.’
    He glanced up at the hourglass hanging from the deck above his head. ‘There is yet time for your reading before ship’s prayers.’ He spoke in Latin still. ‘Take up your
Livy and translate from the top of page twenty-six.’
    For an hour Hal read aloud the history of Rome in the original, translating each verse into English as he went. Then, at last, Sir Francis closed his Livy with a snap. ‘There is
improvement. Now, decline the verb durare .’
    That his father should choose this one was a mark of his approval. Hal recited it in a breathless rush, slowing when he came to the future indicative. ‘ Durabo . I shall
endure.’
    That word formed the motto of the Courtney coat-of-arms, and Sir Francis smiled frostily as Hal voiced it.
    ‘May the Lord grant you that grace.’ He stood up. ‘You may go now but do not be late for prayers.’
    Rejoicing to be free, Hal fled from the cabin and went bounding up the companionway.
    Aboli was squatting in the lee of one of the hulking bronze culverins near the bows. Hal knelt beside him. ‘I wounded you.’
    Aboli made an eloquent dismissive gesture. ‘A chicken scratching in the dust wounds the earth more gravely.’
    Hal pulled the tarpaulin cloak off Aboli’s shoulders, seized the elbow and lifted the thickly muscled arm high to peer at the deep slash across the ribs. ‘None the less, this little
chicken gave you a good pecking,’ he observed drily, and grinned as Aboli opened his hand and showed him the needle already threaded with sailmaker’s yarn. He reached for it, but Aboli
checked him.
    ‘Wash the cut, as I taught you.’
    ‘With that long black python of yours you could reach it yourself,’ Hal suggested, and Aboli emitted his long, rolling laugh, soft and low as distant thunder.
    ‘We will have to make do with a small white worm.’
    Hal stood and loosed the cord that held up his pantaloons. He let them drop to his knees, and with his right hand drew back his foreskin.
    ‘I christen you Aboli, lord of the chickens!’ He imitated his own father’s preaching tone faithfully, and directed a stream of yellow urine into the open wound.
    Although Hal knew how it stung, for Aboli had done the same many times for him, the black features remained impassive. Hal irrigated the wound with the very last drop and then hoisted his
breeches. He knew how efficacious this tribal remedy of Aboli’s was. The first time it had been used on him he had been repelled by it, but in all the years since then he had never seen a
wound so treated mortify.
    He took up the needle and twine, and while Aboli held the