Tom Swan And the Head of St. George Part Four: Rome
“The very first hint of light spread from a vague grey to the merest hint of pink, like the touch of colour on a pretty girl’s face before she kisses you.
The three Turkish galleys had rowed all night to close the distance, and now they were at ramming speed, and the froth at their prows was tinted the same grey and salmon pink as the rest of the world, and the sea appeared to be a thousand shades of black, and behind the standing rigging of the enemy galleys, a flock of migrating waterbirds rod...e the air. Just for a moment, Tom Swan watched them and wished that he, too, could just fly away.
Behind him, on the command deck, Ser Marco was rattling orders as fast as a Florentine auctioneer sells a dead man’s household items.
Swan continued to arm himself.
He’d slept in his doublet, and he stripped out of it, the lace-on sleeves sticking to his arms because in his hurry he’d forgotten to unlace the wrists. He tore them off, and Peter had his arming coat ready. Once, it had been a handsome garment of wode-dyed elkhide quilted to silk, but now it had been soaked in successive layers of sweat and blood, his and others’, and it smelt.MoreLess
The three Turkish galleys had rowed all night to close the distance, and now they were at ramming speed, and the froth at their prows was tinted the same grey and salmon pink as the rest of the world, and the sea appeared to be a thousand shades of black, and behind the standing rigging of the enemy galleys, a flock of migrating waterbirds rod...e the air. Just for a moment, Tom Swan watched them and wished that he, too, could just fly away.
Behind him, on the command deck, Ser Marco was rattling orders as fast as a Florentine auctioneer sells a dead man’s household items.
Swan continued to arm himself.
He’d slept in his doublet, and he stripped out of it, the lace-on sleeves sticking to his arms because in his hurry he’d forgotten to unlace the wrists. He tore them off, and Peter had his arming coat ready. Once, it had been a handsome garment of wode-dyed elkhide quilted to silk, but now it had been soaked in successive layers of sweat and blood, his and others’, and it smelt.MoreLess
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