Horn of the River God: Book I of The Song of Agmar

by Frances Mason

  “We’ll likely lose many men and still not gain the city. You know I hate the Fiks as much as any man, but you’ll weaken your forces and have nothing to show for it.”

  “Always with Agmar what’s necessary can’t be done.” They turned and saw Kalogh standing at the nearest gate into the palisades.

  “You’ll lead the assault then?” Agmar asked.

  Aedgar whispered to Agmar, “We don’t want the men running away.”

  Kalogh puffed himself up, but his slight, short stature, combined with his perfectly combed hair, hanging down to his knees, which they knew he perfumed after washing daily – no one knew how he found the water sometimes – made the gesture comical rather than impressive. His overlarge mouth, wet from nervously licking lips, opened wide, the perfect aperture for disgorging bombast, and he said, “If my lord commands, I’ll lead the assault, and return to your house those honours too long forgotten.”

  Wulfstan and Aedgar cast a surprised look at Kalogh. It was unlike him to risk his own life for anything. Agmar was not surprised, suspecting the bard’s usual braggadocio had combined with clear eyed insight into Wulfstan’s character. Whatever else Kalogh was, he was usually a good judge of men, at least where his own safety demanded it. Expecting to be refused he could offer with affected bravery to face any peril.

  “Alright. You can lead the assault,” Wulfstan said.

  Now it was Agmar’s turn to be surprised. “My lord…”

  Wulfstan raised his hand to silence Agmar, giving him a hard look. “Do you challenge your lord?”

  “The address is a formality. You know I’m no man’s vassal.”

  “Oh?”

  “I serve those who stand against the Fiks.”

  “So your loyalty is in question.”

  “Not until Noot Seltica is rid of their ravages. My homeland, my beautiful homeland. Faar Perl the Fiks call it, “Our Jewel,” and a jewel it is, but it will never be theirs, and I’ll be the friend of their enemies till the last Fik settlement’s abandoned and the songs of my people fill the air once more.”

  “And the sooner I take Gleda and use their own blood to wash its stones of their filth the sooner I’ll be able to aid your homeland.”

  “We’re both men without a home. Whatever our differences, we share that.”

  “I’m serious about Kalogh, though.” Wulfstan, hobbled over on his crutches, grabbed the young bard and gently pushed him toward the siege tower.

  “I…I…” Kalogh stuttered.

  “I like the others want to see your courage, brave Kalogh.” He shooed him toward the belfry, then winked at Agmar and Aedgar. “Don’t worry. Fear of heights will keep him from the top. He’ll slip out the back when there are enough men to hide among.”

  The sound of cantering came from the east. A man rode up and vaulted off his horse, kneeling before Wulfstan as he landed. “My lord, a message from the capital arrived at Middle Hill Castle. Sir Renkle sent this.” He offered the sealed scroll to Wulfstan. “Regarding your lord, Augustyn.”

  “My lord!” Wulfstan roared. Several nearby men at arms turned at the sound of their lord’s anger, then quickly returned to their tasks, not eager to become the targets of it. Wulfstan ground his teeth and glared. The messenger lowered his head, holding the scroll out in a trembling hand. Wulfstan ignored the proffered message and snarled, “What duke bows to duke? My forefathers were dukes and theirs were kings. These are my lands, not those of a grasping scion of a silk merchant.” Wulfstan’s face was red and his eyes burned with an intense inner flame.

  “I only meant…,” started the messenger.

  “Silence! Did your duke give you leave to speak?” Wulfstan looked to where Kalogh was sneaking away from the belfry then hobbled toward him, dropping one crutch to punch him in the face as he turned. Kalogh fell, stunned. Then Wulfstan hopped closer, threw aside the second crutch to balance on one leg, picked the bard up by the neck and the seat of his breeches and threw him bodily toward the belfry. “You will fight,” he screamed, “and if you try to run away I’ll kill you myself and send your parts to the Fik scum who defile my city.” Then Wulfstan turned on Agmar, hopping and picking up his crutches, and limping toward the tall bard. Agmar’s hand went to his sword. Aedgar placed his hand on Agmar’s arm. “What,” hissed Wulfstan, “you would strike your lord?”

  Now it was Agmar’s turn to rage. He shook off Aedgar’s hand and in one giant stride closed the distance between himself and Wulfstan. The two men stood face to face, Wulfstan glaring up, Agmar glaring down. “I…am…no…man’s…slave,” Agmar said, viciously biting off each word, “I serve the defeat of your enemies, and you can thank me for that service or not, it’s all you’ll ever have of me. I don’t fight against one yoke to place another on my own neck.” Then he straightened up, his humour returned. “But if you want me to leave your conquest to a greater warrior,” he motioned with his head towards Kalogh, who was now shaking his head groggily, “to a great singer of songs of his own prowess, then I’ll leave. And perhaps the Seltic ships that blockade the port will follow me. We Selts…,” he looked disdainfully at Kalogh, “…those of us who carry more of our heritage than the talent for brave words. We true Selts, will never bow to any but our own.”

  The anger fled Wulfstan’s face and he sighed deeply. “Forgive me. You have ever been a loyal friend, and my men daily learn much bravery from your example. My anger is not for you.”

  “Nor mine for you.”

  Wulfstan snatched the scroll from the messenger and broke the seal. “If my chamberlain sent a note rather than forwarding the message that means Augustyn sent it by his magical bird. It must be urgent, and....” He read. “Damn the duke. He has summoned me…he thinks he can merely summon me, as though I were…”

  “A slave,” Agmar said.

  “Right. He demands I bring forces to deal with the rebellion…and…argh! ‘Whatever service else may be due your liege lord,’ he says. You see what humiliations I’m subject to, Agmar? He doesn’t ask for aid from a duke but demands service from a viscount. The thief returns to the house of the master and demands his gold. Will I never be rid of this insolence? A merchant’s son!”

  “Great grandson.”

  Wulfstan grunted. “A fine point about a less than noble man. He demands my substance from me while he breathes in the king’s ear that he only wants to save the kingdom, and holds my lands to aid me for the kingdom’s good. But will he ever let go his grip? Will I have to prise my inheritance from his dead, grasping hand? It is the hand of a merchant, isn’t it? A merchant grasps and so does Augustyn. So much like his ancestors. But he will not have what’s mine. When the Fiks are driven out I’ll drive him out. But even that’s delayed now. If only Augustyn would send men instead of demanding them this siege would be over before the week was out. This plague bubo on the backside of the kingdom would be pierced and all the pus of the pestilent Fiks would be wiped from the map. If only he would send men or Sol would not sit on his hands. Damn them both to the whorehouse pox! Gleda will rise again, but not if these savages are allowed to remain, pillaging their way across the realm, forever a threat to our peace.”

  Wulfstan continued reading. “‘The bird will only tell the rest to my lord.’ The merchant-duke must have some larger plan. He doesn’t want it widely known.”

  Aedgar said, “So what’ll we do, my lord?”

  “I’ll return to Middle Hill and hear what he plans. It seems friend Agmar will have his way. You’ll remain here and maintain the siege. I’ll have to take men with me, but I’ll leave enough to encircle the landward side. The garrisons will remain in the castles we’ve taken. You’ll starve the Fiks out, unless I return sooner with more men. Perhaps if I serve Augustyn’s plots in the capital he’ll provide the men we need to take the city. Send word to the Seltic ships to net the harbour, lest the vermin provide for themselves from the bounty of the sea. Soon their only feast will be starving rats.” He turned and yelled, “Callow. Come here.”

>   The bard quailed. “My lord?”

  “I’d have some entertainment on my travels.”

  Agmar raised an eyebrow. “There’ll be battles for him to run from?”

  “I need someone to kiss my arse properly. You lack the necessary talent. Callow’s a reliable man.”

  “If you want songs sung in tune I’d better go with you.”

  “Don’t you want to stay here and fight the Fiks?”

  “There’s little fighting to be done in a drawn out siege, and I’ve always wanted to see Thedra. City of giant buildings and moral midgets.”

  “That it is, and so much more. I grew up in the city. You’ll find more adventure in its streets than across the rest of the kingdom. But be careful with that quick wit of yours, they’ll not take well to your independent ways at court, especially not the mad king.”

  “It’s alright. I have experience enough of haughty nobles.”

  Wulfstan grinned. “I really should have you hanged.”

  “You’d ruin my voice.”

  “Ay, there’s that. So you’ll come with me to the capital, and sing me songs of unvanquished ancient heroes and ladies who honoured their husbands.”

  “Fiction has many pleasures,” Agmar said with a smile, “but better tales are coloured with truth.”

  Chapter 27: Conner Mac Naught: East of Es Wol

  Smoke rose from the sacked castle.

  Conner Mac Naught, for so he called himself, rallied his men below the keep and surveyed the scene. He was dressed in peasant clothes which concealed the chain mail from a distance and now carried a conical helmet under his arm that had been coated with muck to look like a hardened leather cap. His men were similarly attired.

  The castle garrison had mocked them the day before. They should have been sure of their own before throwing those jeers, and sending that barrel of shit and piss by catapult. A cook, whose wife had found more excitement in the arms of several castle soldiers than those of her fat husband, had betrayed the castle, slitting the throat of an unwary guard at a postern gate when the night was darkest, the prismatic rays of the moon hidden behind summer clouds, and letting the rebels in. Still, Conner’s men had had to fight hard, for the garrison was quickly called to arms and fell back to the sturdy stone keep. Some had fought a rear guard action and half a dozen of Conner’s better men had fallen. Then two score more had died scaling the walls of the keep when hot sand and stones had been poured on their heads. But the keep, though high, was on a mound of settled earth, not a solid stone foundation, and, while several sorties up scaling ladders had drawn the attention of the defenders, sappers had dug a tunnel under the southern wall, conveniently under the shelter of a kitchen some fool had allowed to be built by the stone walls of the keep. The treacherous cook’s elder son had shown them where the earthen floor was softest, while the cook’s wife had looked lasciviously on the working men, stripped down to the waist in the sweat tanged heat.

  One of Conner’s lieutenants dragged the castellan from the tower now, to the cheers and jeers of the rebels, whose number the cook and his sons had now joined. They would be of little value in a fight, but they would feed his soldiers well, and help dig trenches for transient fortifications. The cook’s wife would join the camp sluts, probably happily if the her husband’s complaints and her own glances were any indication.

  “Bow down to your king,” Conner said to the castellan.

  The castellan spat. “A king of scum you are.”

  Conner addressed his men, laughter resonantly filling his barrel chest, “He knows me well.”

  Conner’s men laughed raucously with him, and cheered. The men from the nearby village, who had been invited to join the rebels, and had obeyed the summons rather than die, laughed more nervously, enough to indicate loyalty to the cause. They would follow the rebel army for a while, eating better than they had for months, then some of them would slip away in the night. It mattered little. Many more would be enticed by the food and follow more and more willingly as their thews swelled with their diet.

  The last two years had been terrible with famine, and those who had survived were furious with the nobles who cared little for their pain and had let them starve instead of using their surplus stores to help. By now they were mostly moral degenerates from doing whatever was necessary to survive. Some had probably eaten their own wives and children. They were exactly the sort of men he needed.

  They had sacked a dozen castles in quick succession, mostly poorly manned motte and bailey’s, wooden palisades atop heaped mounds of dirt ringed by moats filled with brambles or stagnant, stinking water. But they all had stores of food, and the surrounding villages, if they had not joined, had many half-starved women and girls with husbands too weak to fight. Some of the women and girls had joined too, glad to be fucked by all and sundry for the good food they would earn. His men had stuffed their faces and satisfied their cocks better than ever in their lives. A few deaths along the way had not disheartened them much, since they had seen so much death from hunger in recent months. With a substantial core of professionals to train and lead them they were a more formidable force than the complacent aristocracy cared to admit.

  Conner said to the castellan, “A king of scum, yes, but a king I am, and you will bow. I am the true heir of this realm. And my men are good citizens. We will feast at the high tables, not starve in the fields. No more will we place the food on your tables. No more will we work for your pleasure. No more will the lords lord it over us. The throne will be mine and your women will be ours. Where is the lady of the castle.”

  “Here, King Conner.” Two men led out an elegantly dressed lady with hair elaborately styled beneath a gossamer thin hood; and a similarly attired teenage girl, but with her long hair loose, all the way down her back. The lady looked with haughty disdain on Conner, but the girl was clearly frightened.

  The other men wolf whistled.

  “Peasant scum!” the castellan spat again, but seeing his wife and daughter his expression changed from anger to despair. “You will never rule,” he whispered.

  “I will have what I want, as will my men. You provide well for our pleasure, whether you will or no.”

  “Forgive me,” the castellan said to his wife.

  The lady struggled free. But she did not run to her husband. Instead she whipped out a dagger. The two rebels who had escorted her and her daughter backed away, looks of affected fear on their faces. She turned one way then the other, threatening with the blade in all directions. Then she stepped toward her daughter and thrust the dagger into her heart.

  “You will never have her,” she screamed.

  The girl looked down with bafflement at the dagger in her breast, and slumped to the ground. The dagger slid out as she fell, and the castellan’s lady turned it on herself.

  Conner and all his men stared in stunned silence. Then the men howled in anger, having been denied the expected pleasures of rape. The castellan was on his feet as their attention was distracted, and disarmed and cut down the man who had dragged him out before turning on Conner. “She was a brave lady, and noble; something scum like you would never understand.”

  Conner parried the attack and riposted, driving the castellan back. The two men squared off, wary of each other’s skill. Then Conner smiled. The castellan looked down to see the blade protruding through his gut, his body unarmoured because of the unexpected call to arms. He collapsed.

  “Witness the death of nobility,” Conner cried out, raising his sword. The men cheered, but their cheers were less enthusiastic now. Most still stared at the two female corpses, wondering that they would rather die quickly from a dagger than slowly by the stabbing of a hundred cocks. “No more will the nobles rule. I am as much a king as any man to sit in Thedra’s great hall. Are you my men?”

  The men cheered, slightly louder than the last time.

  “Would you have women like these impale themselves gladly on your cocks?”

  They cheered, more loudly this time.
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br />   “Would you smash the proud men of this earth and stand high on the mountains of their corpses?”

  An even louder, more enthusiastic cheer.

  “To Thedra then we go.”

  They screamed their approval.

  One of the men was now prodding the castellan’s dead daughter. Another looked questioningly at him. “She’s still warm.” He started tearing off her clothes, and other men joined him. Soon others were fucking the dead mother.

  Conner turned away. He would leave them to their fun, what little they could find. He knew they would have preferred to hear these aristocratic women screaming while they were raped. But defiling their bodies would satisfy some of the intense lust after the fear of death so familiar to hardened soldiers.

  They would abandon the lands of Augustyn now, and pass through the forest of Es Wol. He had received a message this morning. He would gather his dispersed forces, collect what peasant arrow fodder he could to augment them, and march on Thedra.

  Chapter 28: Rose: Thedra

  Rose had taken holy orders.

  The abbess had said she would not begin as an oblate. “It is usual for young girls to begin as oblates, to learn the ways of Love in theory before practicing them, but you have seen so many of the mysteries of Love, though you did not perceive their truth. I will teach you what you have not learnt already through the direct grace of the goddess.”