by Robert Adams
Rupen could not maintain silence at this. "What children, Papa? Oh, I get it now, you've changed your mind about the artificial insemination."
"I have not!" declared Vasil bluntly. "Still do I say that this artificial in . . . this nastiness that Dr. Panoshian told you about is, must be, just another new name for a kind of adultery; and adultery is a sin, Rupen! Go ask Der Mesrop, if you don't believe me."
"No, I have arranged for two Armenian orphans to be brought to you from Syria. The boy is two years of age, the girl is still an infant. A man needs a family, it is good for him, better for his wife. You will see, my son, you will see."
It was probably fitting that it was the dead Haigh's twin sister, Mariya, who first gave birth to a son and, of course, named the boy Haigh Vasil Panoshian. But Boghos politely declined the controlling share of Ademian Enterprises, which finally went to Kogh on the birth of his firstborn, Arsen David Ademian.
CHAPTER THE NINTH
The aged archbishop combed at his long white beard with his fingers. "Our last conversation was, I believe, abruptly ended by some crisis that called me away, Mr. Ademian, but I recall all that you had told me of yourself up to that point. Your father had arranged for your adoption of two orphans and had settled a sum of some six thousand dollars per annum on you. Was that a goodly income, then?"
Rupen sipped at the goblet of sweet honey mead, savoring the barely perceptible tang of herbs. He nodded. "Der Hal, in 1948, fifteen hundred dollars every quarter was a princely sum indeed. Not that I intended to take it any longer than was absolutely necessary. I was at last able to talk my father into holding off on his ready-made family for me and Marge until I got an education of some kind better than just a high-school diploma."
"We moved down to Richmond, Marge and me, and I enrolled at a college there, under the GI Bill. She got a job as a nurse at one of the hospitals, and she and I both joined reserve units—active units, so as to draw a day's pay for each weekly drill. It worked out fine for about a year, but I'm no scholar, not in any formal sense; when I found that I needed every available night to study, I started missing drills, and after a while they gave up on me and transferred me to the inactive reserves. I wasn't even aware of it at the time, I was working my tail off trying to keep up academically, with classes full of bright kids just out of high school. I was succeeding, too, Der Hal. In June of 1950, I finished my sophomore year with really good grades. But then, all hell broke loose on me and a whole hell of a lot of other poor folks around the world, and by the time it was done, none of us and none of our lives was ever the same again."
The Archbishop of York had been right about the desire of the king that Bass and his condotta go to Ireland, but the old man either had not known or had not bothered to tell Bass that the monarch had another task for him first, this one involving his flotilla.
Now, in company with Admiral Sir Paul Bigod and a sizable portion of his Royal Navy, the Norfolk Squadron was beating down toward Cape Penas and the Port of Gijon, which lay a little alee of that promontory.
"This Grand Duke of Leon calls it a continuation of the Spanish portion of the Crusade of Abdul," King Arthur had said, "but, gentles, it truly is more in the matter of a family and personal vendetta—vengeance against us for the death in battle of the elder brother of the grand duke, the late and unlamented Principe Alberto, who so disastrously led and wasted the cavalry of Count Wenceslaus' army of Crusaders last year."
"Now the Crusade has cost Spain heavily, gentles, not only in treasure, but in noblemen, soldiers, horses, supplies, and equipment, not even to mention the three ships prized and generously presented to us by our valiant Lord Commander of the Royal Horse last year, or the several others taken by our Lord Admiral's ships whilst the Spanishers tried to run up the Thames to resupply London."
"Now true, gentles, the Spanishers are possessed of a large fleet of ships, well found and modern, but the most of these are located in and about the waters of New Spain, whence comes the bulk of Spanish wealth. And if there had been any thought of bringing any of those warships eastward, despite the constant pressure put upon portions of New Spain by the Irish, French, Norse, and Portugees, who encroach further and ever further on the lands which the Spanishers falsely claim to own entire, that thought was forgotten completely after recent events."
"It would seem that several privately financed groups—predominantly French, though not representing the French Crown, at least not openly—dispatched to the west a number of heavily armed, heavily manned large galleons to cruise for prizes of opportunity, mount raids on coastal and riverine settlements, and suchlike. We know this for fact, because our own Duke of Norfolk and his flotilla overhauled, fought, and prized one such of these French pirates, and what little her log and papers failed to tell, the freed prisoners from her hold did."
"In consequence, gentles, this grand duke has been hard-pressed to find not only men, horses, and the sinews of war, but bottoms to bear what he could scrape up to our shores. The only thing for which he does not seem to lack in this venture is money, it being a secret but ill kept that the Spanish Crown, the Caliph of Granada, the King of Morocco, and even certain well-heeled, red-behatted clerics have been surreptitiously, albeit generously, befunding him."
Burly Reichsherzog Wolfgang—brother-in-law to King Arthur by way of the monarch's murdered wife, uncle of the present Holy Roman Emperor, Egon—snorted, "But tcheap at zee price, nonezeeless, mein Brüder King. Gained hass Engelandt in zee last few years, zee appellation der Hackmesser . . . no, meat-grinder of armies. No matter how supposedly holy zee cause, no monarch his own subjects to cast unto such a certain death desires, now, I think."
"Must so," agreed King Arthur, "and in such a pass, a lunatic of the grand duke's water is doubly valuable to those desirous of feeling to do something while actually doing nothing injurious to kingdom or subjects. Even so, gentles, the case of the grand duke's project is a mite precarious, for one may not sail the seas aboard golden onzas, nor yet place armored ducatos astride dirhams, nor expect pesos to learn pike drill."
"He has, we have heard, emptied jails, freed slaves, impressed freemen of nearly every non-noble rank and age, vainly offered unheard-of sums for mercenaries, and even offered amnesties to brigands and condemned felons in return for service. Now he does have a force of a sorry sort, most of which is presently encamped around and about the Basque coast port of Gijon."
"In order to transport his choice collection of gaol scrapings and gutter scum, the grand duke has bought and brought to Gijon the most complete assortment of antique ships recently assembled. It is said that some few of them sailed or were rowed into Gijon unaided, but many had to be towed. He has truly scoured the sides and the bottom of the barrel to get these ships, and should he lose even a few of them, he can never hope to replace them and so must cancel, perforce, his entire ill-starred scheme."
"We have a plan, gentles, to bring to pass such a cancellation."
When Bass got back to Norwich and placed their assignment to his own staff, he once more thanked the lucky star under which he had captured the then-Crusader Baron Melchoro years ago, for the Portuguese nobleman averred to know the Port of Gijon quite well and was able to elucidate certain things left unclear by the charts furnished Bass by agents of the king.
"It once was the Freeport of Gijon, friend Bass, a place in which any honest seaman—and many a one not so honest, as well—could sail in to take on water and victuals, sell loot or other cargoes, trade goods, and even careen ships or repair battle-wrought damages. Moreover, all these things might be accomplished in Gijon-port without worry of the unwelcome attentions of the Spanish Guarda Costa or payments of the heavy import-export levies exacted by Spanish customs officialdom. During a few years at sea in my wild and tempestuous youth, my shipmates and I made right frequent use of Gijon-port. Of course, that was a score of years agone, back when el Conde Don Hernan Padilla and his issue still held their patrimonial lands thereabouts."
"They l
ost their lands in war, then?" asked Bass.
"No, my friend." Melchoro shook his head. "Their relatives would never have permitted that; the family was quite old and was related to the royal houses of Castilla, Leon, Granada, and Navarre. Agents of the monarchs then reigning thoroughly investigated the sudden extinction of la Casa de Padilla and concluded that they all died along with not a few of their servants and retainers in the space of a bare fortnight of the effects of some rare and most deadly pest. For some year or more, the condado was administered for the King of Leon and Catalonia by a royal commissioner, then was added to the holdings of the ducado grande, which lands it abutted."
"Purely in the cause of sentiment, I had the ship that bore me and my party to Scotland enter the Port of Gijon, and I spied much activity, even then, last year, though of course I did not know or guess its purpose."
Walid Pasha, who still had somewhat less understandable English than did his captain of marines, spoke in Arabic, and Sir Ali translated. "The Pasha would know just what sort of harbor defenses this Gijon-port mounts, my lord Baron."
"At one time, years ago, under the rule of the condes" replied Melchoro, "they were muito formidable, they then had to be, when one is to consider the varieties of clientele entertained by the port, then. But I noted last year that the smaller fortaleza is become little more than a crumbling and uncared-for ruin, bare of any ordnance, while the larger, the main castillo, though in fair repair, has been stripped of all save only the very largest pieces, mostly aged bombards not suitable for shipboard use, though very dangerous enough if one chances to sail within range of the stones they cast."
"I could not understand the decrepitude of the port defenses then, but I do now. If Gijon is become no longer a trade port but rather a naval basin, marshaling port, and embarkation facility, then there is scant need to defend it with land fortifications, not with the intelligence abroad in Europe that all of the larger ships of the navy of England either were destroyed fighting each other in the early days of the civil war that preceded the crusade or were scuttled to prevent capture by one or the other side years agone."
"Naturally, his grace, the duque grande, lacks the current information of the numbers of galleons, carracks, flutes, and other larger ships now owned by or at the use of his majesty, King Arthur. And he, I take it, means to have Gijon attacked and razed before any Crusade can from there be launched? Therefore, when, my good friend, your grace, do we to set sail?"
Of a dark and rainy night, some of Paul Bigod's smaller vessels sailed into a tiny rockbound bay, holding their positions in the chop with sea anchors while the longboats they had towed ferried a well-armed party of three hundred galloglaiches onto the beach at the foot of the eroded cliffs.
The retainer who had drawn the chancy mission of awakening his grace, the most illustrious Don Esteban de Alcaboria, Duque Grande de Leon, did so by voice alone and from a fair distance, for the grand duke had been known to strike out at those who awakened him on many past occasions with pillow sword or hanger, often following up the slashes with a thrown dagger . . . and oft-times he did not miss.
When the nobleman had shoved and kicked away his bedmate—a plump young girl—and struggled more or less erect in the deep feather bed, to sit glaring out of bleary eyes at the man in the doorway, the retainer said, "Your grace, a coaster reports that a Papal fleet—five or six big galleons, at the least, with numerous smaller sail in company—are bearing in from the west, clearly bound for Gijon-port."
"Capital!" Don Esteban crowed, showing very bad teeth in a very broad smile that split his scarred, pox-ravaged face above his red-blond chin beard. "At last, the Holy See has recognized my efforts to enforce the will of his holiness upon the heretical inglises. With even four galleons, I can forget repairing and refining that woebegone collection of hulks down in the harbor and get to the holy business of crusading on enemy soil."
"Fernando, notify my captains to get their troops ready to go aboard ships upon my imminent command. My gentlemen and my guards are to assemble in the courtyard in parade dress, immediately; we will be on the quay to meet and to greet and to render all due honors to these, our brothers in the Faith."
"Uhhh . . . your grace, the castillo should long since have seen the fleet and at least signaled as much, but they have not." Fernando sounded worried, fearing the certain violent outburst should the Papal ships bypass Gijon-port as he secretly suspected that they would.
But Don Esteban shrugged even as he threw off the down coverlet and swung his hairy legs over the edge of the high bedstead. "Fret not, my old, you know as well as do I how often Don Pedro strives to climb into a bottle of brandy of nights and how long it takes him to resume normal life on the mornings after. Have a galloper sent to the castillo with my orders to draw the stones from out the guns and replace them with thick wads. I want salutes fired as the Papal fleet enters my harbor. Every ship with mounted guns is to do the same, you hear? That is my order, Fernando."
The entry channel to Gijon-port was well marked with buoys and wide enough for two galleons to sail abreast safely, so that was how they headed in—Revenge to starboard and Bigod's four-masted Royal Arthur to port, sails filled and drawing, embroidered, silken Papal ensigns and banners snapping in the stiff breeze, freshly painted and regilded upper works and hulls sparkling and gleaming brightly in the morning sun.
The leading pair were followed closely by another brace—the recently prized French four-master, now Thunderer, and another of Bigod's royal galleons, Honor of Wales.
They had lain off the harbor mouth as long as they thought they could without arousing wonder or suspicion while vainly awaiting the prearranged signals that would reassure them that the squat castillo had fallen to the galloglaiches, but now they simply sailed into Gijon-port, leaving the other galleon and the carracks to guard their rear and perhaps keep the castillo gunners so busy dodging balls and stone shards that the four galleons might emerge intact after doing their work in the harbor basin.
Inside the harbor, it was immediately clear that there would be but precious little space for maneuver of the huge galleons. The right side of the almost circular basin was all old stone quays, new wooden wharfs, and ships of every conceivable size, age, type, and degree of decrepitude tied up to those quays and wharves. The left side was a newly expanded careening yard and dry docking facility, and between right and left sides lay a section of some score or more of temporary floating wharves, these as crowded with ancient, battered, rotting ships as any of the other, more permanent structures. Moreover, those ships for which there was as yet no room at quay or wharf or dry dock, as well as the few either not needing extensive work or with repairs and refitting completed, lay anchored wherever space existed for them, most of them lashed gunwale to gunwale in order to conserve to the utmost that precious space.
Anxiously scanning, searching the shores to either side with the one pair of binoculars and several long-glasses, Bass and the sailing masters could spot no earthworks or any emplaced guns of any description. Apparently, the only, the sole fortification that Gijon-port any longer owned was that afforded by the castillo. Not that that measure of menace to the invading ships should be underestimated or discounted, for it was real, within narrow limits, true, but real nonetheless, that menace.
Stripped as the castillo now lay of the smaller-caliber, more accurate long guns—probably by the present lord of Gijon, the grand duke, so that he could mount them on his heterogeneous fleet—the fortification could return nothing more than arquebus fire so long as the galleons stayed within the harbor basin. It was when they essayed the exit-entrance channel again that the danger of those yawning metal maws grinning down from out their emplacements in those ancient stone walls would become most real and pressing.
Large as those black muzzles seemed at the distance, they were assuredly mostly the bombards—archaic, large-bored, primitive guns antedating true cannon and heavy, clumsy to handle, with barrel walls and breeches too weak to throw iron b
alls. Even so, if they happened to be manned and commanded by gunners of sufficient competence to hold fire until the targets came to bear, they were quite capable of achieving horrific damage to a galleon with but a single hit of a stone ball that might weigh as much as a quarter ton and be a foot or more in diameter. And there were at least a score of these monstrosities emplaced on the three lowest levels so as to cover the channel to and from Gijon-port, which fact stood to compensate partially for their slow rate of reloaded fire.
"And you can bet your arse," thought Bass, instinctively giving his armor-clad arms a rub to lay the goose flesh he felt arising on them, "that those castillo gunners know the ranges from shore to shore to the inch. All it will take them is one shot, no overs or unders, just one and we'll be either minus a galleon or, at best, nursing a crippled ship back toward England . . . and it could just be one of mine as easily as not."
The castillo had been described in some detail to Bass, Sir Paul Bigod, their sailing masters, captains, gentlemen, and staffs by Baròn Melchoro, and in light of his descriptions—he had many times over the years been entertained by various of the Castillo's commanders—it had been decided that should the landing party of galloglaiches somehow fail to take the place by night, no open attack by day would be essayed, lest they get themselves bogged down before those strong walls in a lengthy siege. For they must always recall that the King of Leon and Catalonia had troops not too far distant from Gijon and that San Sebastian, a short sail to eastward, was that monarch's principal naval base on the Bay of Biscay, with not a few fine, modern, well-found warships at instant readiness should word come of English pirates raiding this coast. And one of King Arthur's closing injunctions had been to the effect that until matters within his kingdom were more stable, he wanted no formal troubles with other secular monarchs; a general crusade was one thing, a declaration of war for cause was another thing entirely. Should any of the ships involved in the attack on Gijon be sunk or run aground or prized, should any of the soldiers or crewmen or nobles be captured, they were completely on their own and King Arthur would disavow any slightest knowledge of them and their nefarious ventures into kingdoms with which the Crown was at peace. He was in no position to do or to say other.