by Robert Adams
The old, old man shook his white-haired head yet again. "I do not understand, Bass. I can understand why she might have brought the four dozen booster capsules, since they can be very useful as general antibiotics and she had no idea just what kind of a world she was projecting into. But why in God's holy name she brought along enough longevity serum for four initial dosages, I cannot imagine?"
"Will they help you, Hal?" asked Bass.
The archbishop nodded slowly, his lips turning upward in a faint smile. "Oh, yes, my good friend, the capsules would prolong my life . . . if I choose to take them, that is. An intravenous injection of an eighth to a fourth of an initial dosage of the serum will do even more, serving to partially reverse the effects of aging already present in the body. It was to obtain the lab equipment and supplies to make this that poor Emmett O'Malley attempted to project the drug and chemical laboratory building from the Gamebird Project into this world and ended in what appeared total failure but actually succeeded in bringing you and the others here, years ago. Youth, the appearance at least of youth, meant so much to Emmett. It doesn't to me."
"So, no, Bass, I'll most likely just keep these longevity treatments and booster capsules as I did my own supply, years agone, for medical emergencies. Most of these other items she brought along are weapons of one sort or another, some of which I may be able to teach you the use of. You might want her canteen, too—it's unbreakable to the extent that I doubt even an arquebus ball would hole it."
"The thick brownish disks in the tubes are food concentrates spiked heavily with vitamins, minerals, and a powerful stimulant. A soldier such as you are may find them helpful, on occasion."
Bass fingered one of the disks—about the circumference of a dime and some four millimeters thick—dubiously; it did not look or feel or smell very appetizing to a well-fed man, but if he were hungry, now . . . "What do you do with these, Hal—chew them first or swallow them whole?"
"Either, Bass, though chewing them probably puts the stimulant into the bloodstream more quickly. They taste far better than you would suspect from sniffing them, incidentally. You should drink at least a pint of fluid after taking one."
"I think it best that I keep her writers, Bass. An archbishop stands less likely to be accused of witchcraft than do you. That is the same reason I'm keeping a number of other items for which I really have little or no use. But I am turning a couple of the heat-stunners over to you, along with an admonition to use them with due circumspection. I'll give you a supply of the power units—one size fits all the weapons, from the largest to the smallest—and I'll show you how to change them; never throw an expended one away, Bass, for a few days of exposure to strong sunlight will recharge them."
"I have a favor to ask of you, Hal," said Bass, "a very personal one. I'd like to park my wife and her household and my little son out on your estates, where Buddy Webster is, until the weather has warmed up enough to make Norwich Castle a little more habitable."
The archbishop displayed still-strong, though yellowed, teeth in a broad smile. "It will be my very own pleasure to have the delightful Dr. Krystal Kent Foster guesting at the estates for as long as she and you wish, Bass. I have always enjoyed her conversation, and it will be far easier for me to journey out to the estates for a few days than to find enough time for the long trip up to the Border Country. Why don't you plan to have her live there until you get back from Ireland?"
"Until I get back from Ireland?" shouted Bass. "Since when am I going to Ireland, dammit? Please, Hal, please tell me this is just a sick-humorous joke, please! Because if it's not, it's going to be your job to tell Krystal the when and where and, most importantly, the why of it all. What good am I to anyone in Ireland, Hal? Why, I can't even speak the language."
"You are a proven superlative military strategist and tactician, friend Bass," replied the archbishop soberly. "In addition, you are a fine warrior, personally brave, considerate of those under your command, and you therefore inspire loyalty. War leaders of your caliber are a rare and a precious treasure to monarchs, you must understand, living gems, as it were. And as you or I might loan a relative a bauble he admired, so is King Arthur loaning you—your unmatched abilities, that is—to his cousin King Brian VIII for a particular mission."
"What kind of mission, Hal?" demanded Bass, grim-faced.
"I really don't know," the archbishop answered. "Perhaps his majesty does, but if so his letter did not contain information of that nature—which is understandable, considering that he and I are not the only persons who can read Latin and this is, after all, a matter of state."
Bass stared hard at the aged man for a moment, then asked, "Hal, what would likely happen to me and my family if I refused to go? After all, I've been constantly at war or at least in the field every spring, summer, autumn, and sometimes winter since I got to this world. I think I deserve some years of peace and relaxation with my wife and my son. Poor Krys is becoming a bitch because of my long absences and her resultant loneliness, plus her difficulties in adapting to this world and her new station in life. Joe, my son, didn't even know who the hell I was after not seeing me for a year or more. Hal, I think I owe Krys and Joe as much as I owe Arthur . . . and a whole hell of a lot more than I'll ever owe the ard-righ, Brian. Brian the Burly, my galloglaiches call him."
"Bass, before I answer your last questions, let me say this: You say that you do not even speak the Irish language, yet you have just used two Irish terms, ard-righ and galloglaiches, and furthermore spoken them with exactly the proper accent; nor have you ever seemed to experience difficulty in mastering the various regional dialects of this English language, dissimilar as many of them are, one to the other. Sir Ali feels that you are well on the way to becoming fluent in basic Arabic. You seem to have acquired a decent command of German and not a little Khazan and Kalmyk from your man, Nugai, and from the Baron Melchoro a smattering of Portuguese and Spanish. You, my friend, are blessed with an ear for languages; you may not truly speak Irish, now, this minute, but if you put yourself to it, you will in short order."
"You have earned his majesty's gratitude many times over in your service to him, his just cause, and the kingdom, Bass, so I doubt that he would be overharsh were you to refuse his request in this instance . . . had you a reasonable reason to so refuse. But you do not, Bass. . . . Now, hold your tongue, let me finish, please."
"You, at least, have a living family to which to return at the eventual conclusion of hostilities. Arthur, alas, has only his memories of his young wife and infant children, all of them done to hideous deaths by his sister-in-law, Angela, his dead brother's demonic widow and her minions. Think you, also, on how many others of his majesty's loyal supporters have been as much or even more absent from their own families and lands as have you from yours."
"No, friend Bass, I strongly urge you to accept and carry out his majesty's request, in this instance. It is a reasonable assumption that you won't be in Brian's service long, in any case, for London soon must fall; that will be the bitter end of war in England, and Arthur most assuredly will want all his great captains and high nobility hard by him to aid him in setting the kingdom aright once more."
"So far as concerns her grace, your lady wife, I have learned a great deal concerning human nature in more than two centuries of living and dealing with human beings, so trust me to win her over in your absence."
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
When his grace, the Duke of Norfolk, and his road-weary column arrived back at Norwich Castle, Sir Richard Cromwell was awaiting them with an order to escort his grace to the presence of King Arthur III, at Greenwich Castle, his majesty's current residence.
But while sitting at meat with his own officers and Sir Richard, Bass declared, "I have just saddle-pounded my poor arse from here to the Scottish border and back by way of York, and I'm damned if I mean to further tenderize said arse so soon after such a ride, not when I've some fine, large, comfortable, and speedy ships moored half a day away from Norwich. The king
did not say specifically that you bear me to him on the back of a horse, now did he, Sir Richard?"
The king's emissary laid aside his knife, dabbed at his lips with a fine, linen panolino, and replied, "Why, no, your grace, no method of transport was specified in the royal orders. And speaking personally"—he grinned—"I would dearly love to go to Greenwich aboard one of the rightly renowned warships of your grace's flotilla. My troopers can take the horses back by land."
The matter was thus decided, and within the hour, Bass had dispatched a galloper to Walid Pasha, that Revenge might be ready to lift anchor and sail when he and his party arrived at the port.
Forewarned by Hal as to the reason for this royal summons, he left many of his usual entourage behind to attend to the preparation of the Squadron of Royal Tara Gallowglasses for what would most likely be another campaign—this one, however, on land and on horseback rather than at sea and aboard ships, though they all might do some of the latter too, for all he knew.
Abbot Fergus felt it to be his holy duty to personally escort the patently murderous, thankfully recaptured Sassenach madman to his nursing order's parent house, for all that the journey would take him across the widest width of the Kingdom of Scotland to the Western Isles. Having lost four brothers, some of his structures, and a number of his animals, the abbot simply felt that so proven-dangerous an afflicted one as Uilleam Kawlyer would be far better off in the larger, older, better-staffed parent house on the Holy Isle of Iona. Immuring him on Iona would serve a further purpose: Should he manage to again escape, there would be nowhere for him to go, precious few hiding places from which he might again stalk and murder the unwary, which was precisely how he had subsisted during his weeks at large.
The trip was made some easier for Fergus and the brothers who rode with him in that Sir Tormod, the Laird of MacGaraidh, had generously offered the loan of not only the five fine riding mules they all now forked, but an ancient wheeled bear cage in which to safely transport the madman to the far west, a span of sturdy draft oxen to draw it, and a sturdy lad to goad and tend the oxen and mules. The influential laird also had arranged for the defenseless monks to accompany a party of MacGhille Eoin clansmen back to Mull, the clansmen having served out the time that their chief had pledged them to the military service of King James. The noncombatants were to return in company with a similar party of MacDhughaill clansmen bound to Edinburgh to commence their year and a day of pledged service—which would protect them (and, incidentally, Sir Tormod's mules, oxen, bear cage, and serving lad) in traversing the still-wild stretches of the lowlands. Abbot Fergus was most thankful for the laird's generosity, and he had silently vowed to pray thrice every day for him and his.
The filthy, stinking, rag-clad madman spent most of the journey crouched in one corner of the tall iron-bound cage, muttering to himself in what either was gibberish or some heathen tongue which Fergus could not understand. Occasionally the lunatic would stand erect and scream out at the world in that same or some other variety of incomprehensible speech. But he did not often try to stand, for staying on his feet in the springless conveyance as it bounced and jounced from rut to rock to pothole along the ill-tended track was an effort foredoomed to failure, even given a plenitude of thick, stout oaken bars to which to cling.
To the knowledge of Abbot Fergus, this particular madman had never spoken an intelligible word to anyone from the very first day he had been brought to and placed in the care of the nursing order. Therefore, it was a distinct shock to the good abbot to hear himself addressed as he walked past the cage at dusk one day, addressed in excellent, if strangely accented, Latin.
Looking quickly about, he immediately realized that there was no one of the monks nearby and that the words could have come from none but the chained and caged Sassenach madman.
"You called me, my son?" he replied in the same tongue, still more than half convinced that the syllables uttered by the poor, murderous lunatic had only accidentally resembled Latin words.
"Is it your intention, Holy Father, that I die of the effects of exposure?" the madman inquired, sounding as sane and rational as any man Abbot Fergus had ever heard speak. "If you have no blankets to spare, can you not at least have this cage lined in straw or dried grass, wherein I can burrow when the cold winds of night beset me?"
The abbot caught himself beginning to move closer to the cage and hastily fell back a few paces, recalling that this pleasant-spoken man had, with only his bare hands, murdered a priest of God and at least seven other persons. "You are mad," he replied. "Lunatics, like beasts of the fields, feel not the ravages of weather, everyone knows that. Heat afflicts them not, nor cold."
With a rattling of chains, the madman shook his shaggy head and said, "Not so, good Father, there is no truth in that old, outmoded adage. And, in any case, I am not mad."
"Ah, but you are, my son, my poor son." Fergus assured the madman. "If anyone should know it is I, who heard you raving from the cell you inhabited in my order's house night after night for years. Yes, my son, you are indeed mad, alas."
"Have you any idea, Father, just who and what I am?" queried the madman.
Fergus nodded gravely. "I know that you are a Sassenach, most likely of noble birth, else the powerful men who send silver each year to defray the expenses of your care would not so do."
"Then know you this truth, as well, Father," said the madman, just as gravely, "I am William Collier, Earl of Sussex and loyal subject of the one and the only rightful King of England and Wales, Richard V. At great personal danger, I pretended loyalty to and liking for that disgusting thing, the Usurper who styles himself Arthur III, but through mischance, I was found out. While spurring hard for the border, I made the error of seeking a night's shelter, a sup of food, and a fresh mount at the hall of an old and trusted friend. My friend betrayed my trust and I was taken. But then, with me in custody, my captors thought more deeply on the matter and decided that a mere killing were too mild a punishment for me."
"Father, though you may know it not, for it is somewhat of a secret, the usurper is a foul, godless, Satan-serving warlock, and right many of his demon spawn serve him. The leader of my captors was one such he-witch, and there, that cursed night, did he wreak his evil will upon me, ensorcelling me, laying upon me a foul curse of madness to encompass most of my waking life, with brief snatches of sanity interspersing to torture me further with the realization of what I had become."
At the first mention of witchcraft, the old monk had crossed himself, an act he rapidly repeated each time any allusion to sorcery was made. Through lips become pale and tremulous, he half-whispered, "Och, my lord, I didnae ken!" His educated Latin was clear forgotten in his shock and horror at the revelations.
The man long supposed mad continued in a sad, wistful tone, "As for the howling of nights, Father, imagine how a man must feel when he awakens from dreams of the bygone days when he was a rich, respected peer, owning lands both broad and fair, living in comfort, faith, loyalty, and God-given peace with those he loved all about him; when such a man awakens shivering in cold, dark squalor, immured in a tiny, stone-walled cell, near naked and filthy, with no furnishings save a malodorous tick of straw and no companions save the vermin infesting his body, what then can such a man do but howl the long nights of torment away?"
Fergus had moved closer and closer as the sorry tale was spun. Now he was hard by the cage; extending a hand, he laid it upon the bony shoulder of the man he had thought mad and asked, "My poor, persecuted lord, what can I do to ease your unwarranted torment?"
"First of all, Father," replied the caged man, "withdraw to a safer distance, for such is my curse that reason can depart in a bare twinkling and madness return, and I would not have your blood on my hands."
"I would like to be let out and unchained long enough to wash. Surely, with four monks and two-score men about you can mount sufficient guard to restrain me should the unholy madness suddenly reafflict me the while."
"I will be in far more comfo
rt can this cage be scoured and a foot or so of straw or dried grass placed within it. And cannot one of the brothers trim my beard and hair and pick out some of the lice? Even the lowly ass sometimes is curried. Pleasant, also, would it be to have a clean cassock and a blanket or woolen war tartan in which to wrap my body of cold nights."
Three days after Bass Foster's departure for Norwich on the heels of a stormy final meeting and "discussion" with his wife, the Archbishop of York made one of his excessively rare visits to that portion of his estates being currently used by former Captain Buddy Webster and, most recently, by the Duchess of Norfolk, her son, and her household. His grace made the journey in a horse litter slung between two huge shire horses, while his capacious coach trundled along behind, crowded with ten men and women he had had brought in from the Abbey of St. Olaf; the other four, who seemed to know one end of a horse from the other, rode along behind the coach on rounseys.
Arrived at long last at their destination, the archbishop had his "guests" ushered into two connecting suites of rooms on the second floor of the wing he had sent retainers ahead to clean and open for his use. After personally ordering cold food, ale, and water for washing for them, he sent for the eldest and apparently most sensible of the lot.
Rupen Ademian, for all his fifty-odd years, was still a thick-limbed, powerful, intensely vital man; his hands were big and square, his palms and blunt fingers hard with callus. He was rapidly balding in the scalp area, but his beard and flaring mustache were thick and blue-black and a little curly, and he grew more and denser body hair than any human being that the archbishop had seen in more than two hundred years.
Judging solely from brief earlier conversations with him, Harold of York had hopes for this elder of the two Ademians. Unlike his nephew, Rupen was open-minded, adaptable, and, though clearly no stranger to violence, not easily prone to wreaking it.