He stopped speaking and waited. Herrac pondered the map, tracing with his finger in the air above portions of it here and there.
"It may work—but I know of nothing that is sure in war plans," he said at last. "So that this of yours may as well be ours as anything else."
He raised his eyes from the map to look directly at Jim.
''You realize," he said, "the Borderers will expect as their pay for being in the battle the right to take the gold that you have brought to give to the Hollow Men. Will the Little Men be wanting this also?"
"I asked Dafydd about that on our ride back just now from seeing the Hollow Men," said Jim. "Dafydd says he doesn't believe the Little Men have any use for gold. They want only to clear enemies from their land—the enemies who are the Hollow Men—so that their wives and children will be out of danger and they can all live in peace. Their attitude toward gold is different from that of ours."
"God knows, it is a fair thing to hear," said Herrac, with another sigh, "that any people at all do not go mad at the prospect of gaining gold. You had best make sure of this. But if it is so, then a large danger between the two forces will no longer be there."
"I intend to," said Jim. "Tomorrow I'll go see the Little Men again, to tell them of the time—ten days from tomorrow, with a council the night before the attack. Meanwhile, will you go to the Borderers, and get them to recruit as many men as they think they need?"
"I will do so," said Herrac.
"Good," said Jim. "Also, as soon as I'm back from the Little Men, I'll go with you to talk to the Borderers myself, taking Dafydd along to speak for them as much as possible. It may well be that they'll believe what he tells them, where they wouldn't believe the same thing from a Little Man. The only thing is, one or more of the Little Men may want to come with Dafydd to that meeting, to make sure that they've got their own people listening to how the Borderers react."
"I know not how the Borderers will accept Little Men being at their councils," said Herrac.
"You have to convince them that they have to let some of them in. The leaders, at least," said Jim. "Also, speaking of leaders, I feel it most important you be the leader of the Borderers in this."
Herrac hesitated.
"I have avoided being such, though I know many would like me to lead," he said thoughtfully. "But a leader makes enemies whether he intends it or not; and I wanted to start no arguments or feuds that my sons would have to deal with after I was gone. I have always let Sir John the Graeme do the leading."
"This time," said Jim, "it has to be you. You remember my meeting with Sir John the Graeme. He'll be determined to go his own way, if only to show that he's not being pushed into anything by me. You, on the other hand, understanding the necessity of the thing, will do as we've privily agreed between us you should."
"Well…" Herrac hesitated once more. "Very well. I will offer to be the leader. But enough must decide to follow me; and it must not anger Sir John too much. For he is powerful on the Border locally, and I do not wish my sons to have him for an enemy. Also, if he pulled out of the endeavor, some others would go with him—and we need all those we can get."
"He struck me as a wise man," said Jim. "One who wouldn't hesitate to use strength and force to get what he wants; but one who also knows when to bend with the prevailing wind. I think if there seems to be a general attitude that wants you as leader, he won't make any real effort to oppose you."
"You read him well," said Herrac with a little smile, looking at Jim. "One would think you had been on the Border all your life."
"As you know, I haven't," said Jim. "But from what I've seen, men are pretty much the same everywhere, when it comes to leading or following. In the end most followers want to follow the leader they trust the most; and I believe that the Borderers have a greater trust in you than in anyone else."
"It may be so," said Herrac. "We'll hope so. I may take this map to show the Borderers?"
"I would be pleased to have you do so," said Jim. "It was with that idea in mind that I drew it."
They went back to the high table in the Great Hall. It was getting close to dinner time; and Herrac took his customary center position at the high table. Jim sat down beside him. Since they had left, Lachlan and the other de Mer sons had joined the group. The table was lively with talk; and soon Herrac himself was drawn into it.
Jim said nothing. He was no longer watching Liseth, or MacDougall, or even Brian. His mind was full of how he would go about dealing with the Little Men tomorrow and what; he would say to them.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jim found even more trouble in dealing with the Little Men the next day than he had expected.
"—How many of these Borderers are there at this meeting you want us to join them in?" asked Ardac, son of Lutel, when they were met at the valley entrance again. Jim and Dafydd had found their way to them, once more with Snorrl's help, and it was shortly before noon.
"There were eight at the first meeting. They expect more for this. At a guess the figure could go as high as eighteen instead of eight," said Jim.
"In that case," said Ardac, "we take eighteen of our schiltron leaders to meet with them."
Jim had expected that they would want representation; but not on this scale.
"That's not a wise thing to do," he said. "Three or four of you, maybe. Possibly even five. But not more than that if you really are willing to join them in this battle to exterminate the Hollow Men."
"And why shouldn't we have as many of us there as there are of them?" demanded Ardac. "We will be providing half the fighting men, at least; and if I know the Borderers, probably more than half. As I said to you, I think, at some earlier time, we could handle this matter by ourselves."
"But not as surely," argued Jim, "let alone the fact that if you do it alone, nothing will have been accomplished to draw your people and the Borderers closer together. And as a magician, I think I told you I see the time coming when the two of you must fight side by side in larger wars."
"So!" said Ardac. He half turned to look at the five white-bearded Little Men, this time standing more than five feet behind him. He turned back to Jim.
"They hunt us down on sight like animals. They circulate a thousand evil stories about us. They blame us for many things, for which, like the stories, we are not responsible and which are untrue. But we must go to a meeting under-represented while they do not?"
"Sir James is only telling you the way of the minds of these men," put in Dafydd, standing beside Jim.
"Are we not men too?" blazed Ardac. "We have preyed on no others, through thousands of years. Always they have preyed on us. Rome crushed us with an iron heel. The Northmen, the Scotti, the Picti, all came to find and attack us, to take our lands and anything else we had. We did no more than fight them off."
He paused for a second, then went on in a calmer voice.
"Until we saw that there would be no peace until they were driven further back than their own borders; and so we spread out down as far as…"
He pronounced a name sounding very much like Dafydd's name of "Kingdom of the Sea-washed Mountains," in the same tongue as Dafydd had named himself. It was eerie to Jim to hear it coming so easily from the lips of the bearded Little Man, when he and Herrac and everyone else had struggled to say it with no success.
"… There we found a people—your people!"
He looked at Dafydd.
"A people who did not attack us, a people who treated us like other men, which is what we are—forbye we have a little magic picked up over the centuries to aid us to stay alive. Yet are we MEN! And these were the only ones who welcomed us as like them. So we lived in harmony with them until their land sank under the sea. But by that time we were drawing back under new invasions, this time by the Normans so that we shrank up here into this territory, this heartland, where we will die before we give another yard. But mark what I just said—we are men! Men! Just as the Borderers are men. This, they must understand!"
"Indeed, I believe they will come to it," said Dafydd softly, "but slowly, mark you, for it is the way of mankind—your people and mine, included—not to change their minds on large matters suddenly, but only slowly over a period of time as the truth begins to soak through to them."
"If you like," he went on, "Sir James or I will ask it as a special favor, that you come yourself with no more than three or four others. Bear in mind, you will have me there to speak for you, and they recognize me as being far above them in rank. Have no fear that you will be under-represented."
"We must talk of this!" said Ardac. He whirled about to the five white-beards; and together they went off to a distance, large enough so that they could not be overheard. They talked for some time. Meanwhile, Jim and Dafydd stood in the full glare of the mounting sunlight and the day warmed to where Jim, at least, was uncomfortable in his clothing and his armor.
Finally, Ardac came back, with the five old ones moving up also, just behind him.
"We place it upon your honor"—and once more he uttered the name that neither Jim nor anyone else not a Little Man or Dafydd had been able to speak—"to hold good on your promise that we will not be under-represented there if I only come, and three or four others with me. But I warn you, we will take no scornful remarks, no allusions to us as being any less than men. Promise me also that you will warn your Borderers will be made aware of this in advance, before we all speak."
"I promise," said Dafydd, "by the honor of my name—" Once more the liquid syllables. He turned to Jim. "Sir James?"
"You have my promise also," said Jim. "On my honor be it—the Borderers will respect you or I myself will declare the meeting closed."
"And will they listen to you when you say that?" asked Ardac.
"They'll listen," Jim said. For a moment he felt a sudden flush of heat and anger inside him. "I am a man of magic. I can close any such meeting, whether those there like it or not!"
There was a pause.
"Then," said Ardac, "we are in your hands. I will be there on the appointed evening, with at least three other leaders of our schiltrons. The plan of battle of which you have told me will suit us. If it is changed, then perhaps we do not fight together after all—unless the change suggested is one we find even more agreeable. On your honors be it, Sir James Eckert, and—"
A final time, he used Dafydd's ancient title and name.
On the way back to the castle, Jim rode silent for some time. He was foreseeing great difficulty with the Borderers. Finally, it was Dafydd who broke the silence.
"Will you try to understand them, James?" Dafydd said, as their horses paced side by side.
Jim was touched. It was seldom the bowman addressed him without prefacing his name with a "Sir." Then Jim remembered that for the moment Dafydd could be speaking from the standpoint of the Prince of the unpronounceable name, which gave him every right to address Jim as an equal, or even subordinate. Nonetheless, the feeling of being touched remained. He had no need to ask who Dafydd had meant by "them."
"Believe me, Dafydd, I will," he said. "I do understand the Little Men's viewpoint; at least as far as someone who's not one of them can. I can't pretend to know it as they know it, because I've never had to live as they've had to live, all these generations."
He looked at Dafydd, hoping the other would believe him.
"But certainly they've the right to any form of representation they like. They've more than earned that over the centuries. Only, unfortunately, we're face-to-face not with what's right, but with what'll work. I tell you, Dafydd, I can't explain it, but I'm positive that the Little Men and the Borderers are eventually going to have to work hand-in-hand, come to be friends and—maybe even become one people, someday; so that perhaps there may not be any more Little Men; but just occasionally a Borderer, shorter than he might otherwise be."
"You may be right, James—I don't know," said Dafydd. "I've no real connection myself, now, with that kingdom sunk beneath the waves that they speak of. Those of us who chose the land lost touch with our people below long since. But we still feel a living bond with them; and I still feel a living bond with the Little Men. In the end, if they are to survive—if their blood is to survive in the veins of people to live after us, they must, like all of us, become acknowledged as one of the race of men, and indistinguishable from those around them."
Jim and Dafydd rode on together, after that, in silence. It was all very well, thought Jim, for him and Dafydd to philosophize on the future of the Little Men. But, as he had just said, what they dealt with were the realities of the here and now; and the fact that the Borderers would not take easily to the idea of giving the Little Men anything like an equal say in the battle.
Somehow, the Borderers must be brought to allow this. Desperately, Jim wished that he had the unlimited magic account that he had once taken for granted he had, during the former year in France, when he had used magic whenever he felt like it.
He was having to do all this, now, with nothing but the advantage his twentieth-century knowledge of things gave him—that and his own native wits. He could also do, he thought wryly, with a slight improvement in the native-wit department. Because, right now, he did not see exactly how he would bring the other Borderers around. But he must try.
His fears turned out to be only too justified the following evening after they had returned to Castle de Mer, and ridden off to another nearby castle built around a peel tower, where a further meeting of the Borderers was being held. This time there were some twenty-four of them in the room. Evidently the word had spread and more of those who could join in had put in an appearance.
There were so many, in fact, that only about twelve could be accommodated at the heavy, oak-topped rectangular table at which there were benches. The rest had to stand around the sides and toward the back of the hall where they met. Herrac, Jim and Dafydd were given benches—Dafydd only reluctantly, and that on the basis of his supposedly high rank as the Prince of a far country. Aware of the reluctance, Dafydd said that he would rather stand, and graciously offered his bench to Sir John the Graeme, who took it with polite, but rather cold, thanks.
Dafydd remained standing, behind Jim and Herrac. His bow was still over his shoulder and his quiver at his side. He had not taken them off because none of the others around him had taken off their swords; in spite of the polite rule that when visiting a neighbor the sword was removed, even if other weapons were carried about the person. As at the earlier meeting, it seemed to be generally conceded that this was a council of war, rather than a neighborly visit.
The meeting started out with a number of introductions of Jim and Dafydd to those who had not been there before. By this time, Jim had forgotten all but the names of a few of those he had met, but the ones he did remember, like William of Berwick, a round-faced, round-bodied man in his forties, under thinning gray hair, stuck firmly in his mind.
That part of the business over, Herrac spoke—and there was an almost instant silence as he began to explain that since their first meeting, Jim had seen and made arrangements both with the Hollow Men and with the Little Men; and they should all appreciate this effort for which he had been uniquely equipped, being magician as well as knight. He then turned the speaker's position over to Jim so that Jim could tell them about both meetings.
Jim stood up, to make sure that everyone in the room could not only hear but see him, and again told them first the plan, which was to entice all the Hollow Men to this one particular spot where they could be trapped, under the guise of paying them the first installment of Scottish money; then described how his encounter had gone with Eshan, the leader of the Hollow Men.
They listened without a word, and when he finished there were some murmurs of pleasure and approval from around the table and those standing back from it.
"That was well done," said Sir John, his voice carrying easily through the room. "And I understand from Sir Herrac that it was only the next day ye saw and talked with the Little Men?"
"Tha
t's so," answered Jim. He was about to mention that Herrac had been with him, when he realized that the "ye" that Sir John had used, in this case, was a plural pronoun. "As you know, Sir John, and perhaps some of these other knights also, Sir Herrac was with me, as well as his Highness here, the Prince Merlion."
He paused for just a second. But there was no sound from those in the room to give him an indication of how his words were being received. He went on.
"We talked with Ardac, son of Lutel, and the five chief advisors of the Little Men. I told them everything I had done so far, and gave the date for which the destruction of the Hollow Men had been set… I did not firmly set a time for a final council just before the battle," he wound up, "but I suggest it take place the night before. I will send that message to them if the rest of you agree."
He paused. Now was the time to face them with it.
"I also suggest that the meeting be made at the Castle de Mer, which I suppose to be most appropriate, as I understand that you will probably be choosing Sir Herrac here as your battle leader."
For a moment there was silence. Then there were a few scattered cries of "Yes!" here and there about the room; followed almost immediately by a flood of voices agreeing with the selection. Sir John, who had opened his mouth to speak, sank back on his bench, closing his mouth, with a slight frown on his face.
"I think," said Sir John unexpectedly, "that we have yet to hear Sir Herrac himself agree to taking that responsibility. Do you, Sir Herrac?"
Herrac's deep and powerful voice rang almost unexpectedly through the Hall.
"I am not one that likes to be a leader," he said. "I think all here know that. My duty is to my family and my heritage which is my castle and its lands. Nonetheless, in this case, where it is so important that the Hollow Men be finished once and for all, I do accept!"
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