Of Quests and Kings

by Robert Adams

  CHAPTER 11

  His every nerve drawn tense as wire, Bass sat his mount, watching Sir Ali ibn Hussain, clad in his white herald's tabard, pacing his barb mare at a slow walk, and trailed by one of his squires, who bore the headless lance shaft from which depended the plain white square of linen cloth. From time to time, the Duke of Norfolk shifted the long glass to scan the head of the now-halted column of mounted men of Ulaid, over and among whom now coiled serpentine spirals of gray smoke from countless slow matches. Then, as Sir Ali drew closer to his objective, Bass concentrated entirely upon the possible foemen, for if a single shot was tired up the road there, if but one blade flashed free, he must immediately give his Kalmyks and galloglaiches the order to loose a volley from their long guns, then charge close enough to deliver a few deadly caracoles or pistol volleys loosed by one rank at a time. And finally, had the foemen not already either charged or broken and fled, it would be, must be, blade work.

  But no one fired on or drew steel against the sacred person of the herald. Sir Ali sat his barb easily, his empty right hand gesticulating as he conversed with the riders gathered around him. Abruptly, the semicircle of mounted men opened enough for the Arabian knight to turn his mare about, and, now accompanied by three of the Ulaidians, he returned toward the spot whereon Bass sat his own horse, with Wolfgang and Baron Melchoro flanking him a bit to his rear.

  Carefully turning his head to allay any suspicion of sudden movement—for things still could quickly get very sticky if someone out there should even suspect possible treachery—Bass summoned Sir Conn to act as translator if such a need should arise in this coming parley.

  As the party led by Sir Ali got closer, Bass was able to see the faces of the three who had come back with him and make some hurried estimates of them, of with just what sorts of men he would presently be conversing and dealing.

  The two who trailed Sir Ali, with that knight's squire behind them, wore fair-quality three-quarter plate, with both halves of the visors open. Their scarred, weathered faces and that indescribable aura of the veteran marked them both as either professional soldiers or very close to such. As they drew still nearer, Bass could see that their plain armor was nicked and dented, scarred and showing competent field repair here and there, but not the slightest speck of rust. Their rounseys looked to be about as well bred as was Bass'.

  The man who rode a big mule beside Sir Ali was altogether of a different mold—florid of face, his cluniacal tonsure marking him as some degree of cleric, but for all, he rode fitted out in an antique byrnie so recently sanded and oiled that the steel rings looked like silver beneath the patina of road dust; the barrel helm that hung on its chain at his side was probably of more venerable age than even the byrnie, but it too had been scoured shiny and oiled.

  All three of the Ulaidians carried long horse pistols in pommel pipes. The two old soldiers' baldrics held broadswords with pierced steel baskets, while that of the florid, mule-mounted man was weighted down with a cross-hilted brand that would not have looked out of place on the First Crusade or at the Battle of Clontarf and thus blended well with his archaic armor.

  Bass squirmed uneasily in his sweat-damp saddle. If these men—leaders? spokesmen?—were examples, he might not be confronting some kind of army or guard at all, but rather a rather large pack of banditti of the stripe who often haunted roads in out-of-the-way places, trying to coerce or intimidate "tolls" for uncontested passage out of those too strong to be robbed and killed outright; such collections of lawless scum had plagued the English and Welsh countrysides all during and just after the civil war and foreign incursions until he and the Royal Horse had had the time to hunt them all out and exterminate them like the dangerous vermin they were.

  Arrived at last before his lord and leader. Sir Ali said, stiffly and formally, "Your Grace, these be the commanders of yonder force, which is all the cavalry that their army owns. It would seem that the Righ we seek and his still-loyal forces are at this moment besieged in the city up ahead there, Oentreib. These men lead the entire besieging force and rode out when they heard of our coming because they feared us to be mercenaries summoned from afar by the Righ, Conan, to take them from the rear and possibly break the siege."

  "The man beside me is a priest, Father Mochtae ui Connor of Mag-Bile, who has raised the common people of the countryside to fight in support of these two mercenary captains and their troops against the Righ and his coterie."

  "Captain Sir Lugaid ui Drona and his company were sent by this honorless fool of a Righ on a dismounted raid-in-force into Airgialla last month. They returned to Oentreib to discover that the all save penniless Righ had, in their absence, sold all their mounts and baggage beasts to a horse dealer out of the Ui Neill lands, across the River Ban, in order to raise enough money to pay the other two companies of mercenaries in his employ. Quite naturally, they at once took leave of Righ Conan and his city, seizing such horses and mules as they could along their way and shooting or cutting down any opposing their seizures or progress."

  "One of the other two companies, that of the other captain with Your Grace's herald, Sir Ringean Mac Iomhair, joined them, no longer willing to serve a forsworn employer of the likes of Righ Conan Mac Dallain, by-blow of a renegade, outlawed Ui Neill."

  "They pray that Your Grace may see fit to join them, for they sorely lack for horsemen of any description and the most of their trenches and homemade engines are manned by raw, untrained farmers and herdsmen and fishermen and suchlike."

  With Wolfgang, Sir Colum, Fahrooq, and a few troopers making fast tracks back to Ard Macha—Sir Colum to bring back the rest of the squadron, the baggage train, the field guns, and any spare horses available, the Reichsherzog to use his unquestioned powers of persuasion and debate to try to get the young Righ Ronan to recognize and exploit this splendid opportunity, to scrape up every fighting man, horse or mule, transportable cannon or bombard, cask of powder, every other weapon or tool that might be used in warfare and proceed with all haste into Ulaid to aid in the final ruination of his own kingdom's long-standing enemy, Righ Conan.

  Fahrooq, however, was to remain in Ard Macha only long enough to change horses, he and his escort, then to spur hard for Dublin, where lay the fleet brought by His Grace of Norfolk. Bass had been repeatedly assured by knowledgeable-sounding men that the River Ban, though too shallow the most of its length for ships of the battle line or large merchanters, would easily pass doggers, howkers, bugalets, belandres, pinks, luggers, and all manner of smaller craft. Indeed, the principal reason that Oentreib still stood against their arms and landward interdiction was that the city could be and had regularly been resupplied by small vessels sailing south on the Ban from the riverine port of Coleraine into Lough Neagh and offloading at the tiny port just below Oentreib, the roadway to which was protected by two lines of earthworks and palisades defended by light cannon and swivel-guns.

  Was the Ban deep enough for large warships as far as Coleraine, then? Yes, full galleons could easily sail up from the sea and unload cargoes there, Your Grace.

  Then, if all the countryside, noble and common, was up in arms against Righ Conan Mac Dallain, and if he was so impecunious, why did the merchants of Coleraine continue to supply him and Oentreib? They all are rabid supporters of Righ Conan, Your Grace, most are not of Ulaid at all, but out of Ui Neill lands, across the River Ban, and they would see all of our Ulaid as naught but a humble, exploited client state of the Ui Neills. Had we had enough men and guns, we would have interdicted Coleraine, as well as Oentreib.

  Dismounting some of his galloglaiches, Bass saw a party of river pilots, who all swore familiarity with the Ban, set out at the gallop for the headlands at the mouth of the river, but made certain that Captain Fahrooq knew them before he sent the other party southward.

  When the merchants and residents of Coleraine on Ban rubbed the sleep from their eyes and rose up from their beds of a morning, two huge, long, high, multi-decked men-of-war lay anchored in the channel of the Ban, alon
g with a number of smaller armed ships. All flew an unfamiliar ensign, looking like the arms of some noble house rather than those of a principality. One of the larger ones also flew the war banner of—of all kingdoms—Turkey. Pulling on hurriedly only enough for decency's sake, men, women, and hordes of children and slaves flocked down to docksides to view at closer range these new, strange ships on their river.

  Smoke rose thickly from both of the warships, rose in too much quantity for mere cook fires, thought some of the watchers uneasily. Then signal flags were run up the halyard, and immediately thereafter, gunport covers were raised and all the larboard guns run out on both of the huge liners. Steam poured out of most of the gaping muzzles, and the few men ashore who realized just what a horror this fact heralded—the reaction of red-hot solid iron cannonballs with water-soaked wads that prevented the shot from detonating the propellant charge prematurely—had barely the time to turn to run or take a breath to shout warning.

  Belowdecks on the Revenge and the Thunderer, double gun crews went about the ultra-dangerous business of preparing, transporting, loading, and firing red-hot shot into the houses, warehouses, careening basin, docks, and shipping, letting the smaller deck guns and swivels do for the screaming, roiling crowd ashore with loads of langrage and grape. But the perilous labors of the crews of the main batteries were brief, for within the space of time that it took to discharge two or three full broadsides from each of the two ships, the entire port was blazing merrily and the shores were thick with bleeding, still or feebly twitching bodies and pieces of bodies.

  Coleraine on Ban would not be sending any more ships up to offload at Oentreib, not for many a month to come.

  The roars of the heavy guns, only some twenty-five crow-flight miles away, were clearly heard that morning by both the besiegers and the besieged; the latter cheered lustily, knowing full well what the distant sounds portended, while the consensus within the city was that yet another day of rain was in the offing.

  Downriver, his first mission for Sebastian Bey thoroughly done—one might say done to a crisp—Walid Pasha led most of the fleet of His Grace out of the river and set sail, first bearing eastward, then southeastward. He and His Grace both had been very pleased to hear that Ulaid now no longer possessed warships of any consequence nor yet any really large pieces of coastal ordinance, all having been sold to the Ui Neills and various foreign parties to provide money for land forces to extend the borders of Ulaid at the expense of Airgialla.

  The townsmen of Benchor, on the southern shore of Lough Loig, first ran, hid, and cowered in an excess of terror at the strange, awesome fleet of warships, but when Ulaid pilots had been rowed ashore and had told that these foreign ships were come to aid in the overthrow of the well and widely hated Righ Conan, those same inhabitants all went a little mad with joy.

  The ships were piloted to safe anchorages, and, at his needs being translated, Walid Pasha was shown a narrow strip of beach below a low cliff, with a full six fathoms of water only twenty-five yards out from the beach. Within a few hours, demicannons and culverins were being rowed to the beach, heaved ashore in heavy-duty cargo nets, then winched to the cliff-top by sailors who did not lack for a host of willing, helpful hands and arms and backs from the men of Benchor and others come in from the smaller settlements and holdings round about Lough Loig. Others of the inhabitants of the country had been sent far and wide to bring back such draught oxen and sturdy wains as could be found, for roads hereabouts were few and poor and the shipboard gun trucks would be useless on them, so the guns, the trucks, powder, shot, and all related equipment needs must be transported by wain or on the backs of asses and men. But all here keenly aware that possession and use of such big, powerful, far-ranging cannon must speed the fall of Oentreib and so frighten Righ Conan that the Ui Neill bastard would remove the ring in which he had had mounted the sacred Ulaid Jewel and abdicate the throne he had seized and held for so many bitter years, with his hired, foreign warriors.

  Squire John Stakeley, once a cavalryman, had been discovered by Walid Pasha to be a born seaman, with a feel for a ship that cannot ever be taught by even the most accomplished instructors. The vastly experienced captain of the Turkish warship had kept the man aboard the Revenge until he had taught him the mechanics of ship handling and the basics of navigation, then had had him posted as one of the master's mates aboard Lioness, the ship of Sir John Hailley; then, when Sir John and both of the other mates had been slain during the mighty sea battle with the French galleon-liner now called Thunderer, Squire John had taken command, fought the ship better than well, and brought it, despite rather drastic damages, back to port.

  Being apprised of these sterling qualities and shining deeds by Walid Pasha, His Grace of Norfolk had knighted Squire John and had promised him a command whenever one should become vacant.

  When the prized Papal lugger had been repaired and refitted to His Grace's and Walid Pasha's instructions in Liverpool and sailed over to Dublin by seamen left behind for the purpose, Walid—knowing how busy was Sebastian Bey with other things—had had Sir John Stakeley brought to him and had given the Englishman command of the now-armed lugger, with its rakish rigging and sleek lines.

  Even with three Fairley-made breech-loading rifled cannon mounted on heavy wrought-iron swivel bases, and the dozen swivel guns now mounted along the rails, the lugger still drew far less water depth than was required for any of the liners and many of the other less sizable warships. That was why she was the only one of his ships that Walid Pasha would allow to essay the higher reaches of the River Ban, local pilots or no local pilots, and he had also admonished his newest ship captain to take great care, immediately turning back should he even feel discomfort with the journey.

  Two fishing boats had escaped the carnage and conflagration of Coleraine, and these Walid Pasha had had loaded with powder, shot, waddings, a few casks of langrage, and assorted other supplies, plus enough seamen to sail them and Fahrooq with a score and a half of his fighters. These vessels had closely trailed the once-Papal lugger, now rechristened Cassius.

  Sir John had experienced no trouble at all, all the soundings of his leadsman having shown more than enough water depth for his little ship all the way south to where the river began as an outlet for Lough Neagh. The wind having suddenly failed him, he set his men to the long sweeps with which the lugger was provided and moved out onto the waters of the freshwater lake, its waters colored brownish with the stain of peat deposits near into the shores, but being a grayish-blue farther out toward deep water. Trailed by the fishing vessels which, with the lack of a breeze, were being towed by oarsmen in the longboats, Sir John moved along to the eastward, keeping the passing northern shore in sight off his larboard.

  Following the advice of his native pilot, Sir John flew no ensign or banner of any description as he came within sight of the "Port" of Oentreib. It would have been laughable under other circumstances: three rickety listing wharves, supported if they could be called such by warping piles driven into the peat at the head of a little bay closest to the walled town. There were no warehouses or other port facilities of any description, only a cleared space at the lough-end of a more or less level dirt road and a couple of wattle-and-daub huts, out of which came a few men at sight of the lugger bearing in from the lough.

  The men started to come out on the longest, levelest wharf, then stopped in the cleared space when they saw the ship, propelled by the efforts of men straining at the sweeps, swing broadside to the shore and heard the rattling as the fore and aft anchors were dropped to the lough bed not far below.

  Possibly more prescient, certainly more than experienced at saving their hides in sticky situations, the gaggle of men scattered, running when they saw the gun crews begin to swivel about the tubes of the fore chaser rifle and one of the stern chasers. Their screams and cries of alarm quickly brought the full attention of the men manning the light cannon along the palisaded embankments guarding the road from landward assault, and a few of these men
began to try to start manhandling the guns on their clumsy carriages about so as to bring them to bear upon the now clearly hostile lugger out in the bay.

  But it was too late for them, even at the outset. There was a puff of white smoke from the bow chaser and a screaming shell struck and exploded, dismounting one of the six-pounders, the flying shards of iron casing killing or maiming every member of that gun crew and several caliver men besides.

  Another shell, hard on the heels of the first, but from the stern chaser, ploughed into the embankment before exploding, harming no men, but tumbling down ten or twelve feet of palisade stakes. As the guns kept firing and the shells kept exploding, with men screaming and bleeding, being blown apart, and dying all around them, those who had been manning the road and port defenses apparently decided almost as one that to longer remain at their posts would be suicidal, at best. In a formless mob, they started up the road to the lough gate at a dead run, making a splendid target for shrapnel-loaded rifles and swivel guns loaded with langrage. A few of the mob actually made it into Oentreib . . . possibly they attributed such good fortune to the vaunted luck of the Irish.

  But Cassius had not come through the action entirely unscatched, either. Two men had been killed and another seriously hurt when one of the rail-mounted port pieces had backfired, blowing apart its removable breech. Sir John himself, standing half the length of the lugger away, on the low afterdeck, had suffered a deep gash along his jawline from a piece of the gunmetal shrapnel. Holding a wad of his linen neckband pressed against the heavily bleeding wound, as clean-cut as if made with a sword, he carefully examined the port piece and, finding not the trace of even a hair crack, pronounced it safe for use, but advised all of the gunners to be exceedingly careful in checking each removable breech in turn and be certain that they were not double-loaded in use. Then he had Captain Fahrooq signaled to send over a boat to take off the wounded man and bring from the supply boats resupplies of shot and shell, plus three men to replace those he had lost.