by Robert Adams
Chuckling, Foster waved his hand. "I thank you for the compliment, Geoff, but I do know the truth of the matter. I can only hope that when, and if, I assume my own holdings at Velegrad, I am so fortunate as to have fine men such as you to so competently handle my affairs as you handle those of Sir Francis."
Musgrave frowned and scratched at his close-cropped iron-gray hair. "Y'r lordship's pardon if I seem tae be speaking oot o' me place, but y'll gang far e'er y' finds a better, all-round man than y'r war-servant, Noogay—fr a' he be a cat-footed, slant-eyed heathen."
Foster tried not to show his surprise. He had been completely unaware that Musgrave and the silent, usually solitary Nugai had been as much together as this comment implied.
"Again, I thank you, Geoff," he said, gravely. "I trust Nugai with my life and"—he grinned to lighten the conversation—"he's not failed me . . . yet."
Foster turned to Majordomo Turnbull. "Henry, so long as the Lord Archbishop remains, he—and only he—is master of the house; should any of the other gentlemen issue orders contradicting his, courteously refer them to him. God willing, I'll see you both before the first snows."
Then, because such was expected, he turned his horse and paced slowly across the flagstones to where stood Krystal. Leaning from his saddle, he encircled her waist with the steel-encased right arm, lifted her up, and kissed her, thoroughly, to the lusty cheers of his gentlemen-officers and the assembled folk, one and all, noble and common.
With her arms clasped about his neck and her lips close to his ear, that he might hear her words above the raucous tumult, she said, "I love you, Bass Foster. Oh, God, I love you so very much! So take good care of yourself, for me and for little Joe. Don't be reckless and come back to me, to us . . . soon. I need you, Bass, I need you every moment of every day, I . . ." She sniffled. "Oh, dammit, I swore I wouldn't cry, not now, not until later. Put me down and get on your way before . . . before your armored sots swig so much ale they can't sit a horse!"
As he lowered her slowly, a mischievous twinkle came into her swimming eyes. "Those women over there are right, you know, you do cut a handsome figure, Sir Sebastian. The answer to a maiden's prayer. That's what you are, a knight in shining armor. And you'd better be damned glad that that armor is so hard to get off quickly, or I'd rape you in front of all of them."
Foster in the lead, trailed at a few paces distance by his bannerman and squad of bodyguards and, behind them, nearly two-score gentlemen-officers, the column walked their horses down the graveled way toward the main gate to the cheers and well-wishes of a heterogeneous throng of hall folk, farm folk from round about, Fort Whyffler commoner officers and other ranks, wild Scots of the treaty party, soldiers and servants of the English treaty negotiators, and a small knot of crippled veterans—the incomplete jetsam of many a hard-fought field who never again would ride out to war and who so eyed Foster's whole, sound, and heavily armed bodyguards enviously.
From the forefront of the platoon of cripples stepped Oily Shaftoe, and Foster reined up at sight of his one-armed sometime orderly. "How many children, now, Oily?"
Fingering his forelock, the man smiled shyly. "Still only the twa, milord. But me Mary be due tae foal soon, by Beltane we figgers. If it be a lad, might we ca' the tyke Sebastian, milord?"
"I would be honored if you named your son after me, Oily. And when your good wife nears her time, be sure to bear her to my house, where my lady wife can care for her properly."
"As always, milord, I hears ever word an' I'll obey." The man drew himself up into near-military posture and rendered a hand salute, then extended that hand. Foster again shucked off his gauntlet, reined Bruiser's head around to the other side, and leaned from his saddle to take the proffered clasp.
Tears brimming from his eyes, Oily wrung Foster's hand and said chokedly, "A' oor prayers gae wi' ye, Lord Bass. I beg ye, dinna turn yer back ain them thrice-domned Scots, sir."
Foster found that he must swallow hard to clear the lump from his throat. "Never fear, Oily. The Scot's not yet spawned who can put paid to me. Expect my banner between Blood Moon and Snow Moon."
Beyond the main gate, the column wove its way between and around the entrenchments, palisaded ramparts and batteries. Then, in what had once been the outer park until King Alexander's army had chopped down most of the trees for fuel, drawn up on opposite sides of the road, they came upon the troopers—all mounted, packed and road-ready.
Following a brief inspection by Foster and the other officers, the column was formed up and set out southward.
At nightfall, they camped about the shattered, blackened remains of Heron Hall, and some of the officers and troopers, after killing or driving out the vermin, supped and settled into the littered ruin of the hall itself, but Foster could not feel comfortable in the place as now it was, peopled for him with the ghosts of so many happy evenings, so retired to the fine, new pavilion which his secret hoard of Irish loot had purchased after the defeat of the Crusaders' southern army.
Nugai awaited him. The ugly but highly intelligent little man had, in the winter spent in attendance upon Krystal, learned to speak an English far more comprehensible to Foster than the dialects of many of his own officers and troops. While helping his lord to shed armor and outer clothing in the entry chamber of the pavilion, he said matter-of-factly, "Lord Bahss, two men await you in the next chamber. One say that of old he knows my lord. Nor armed are they neither and truth Nugai thinks they speak with no harm meaning."
Nugai delivered Foster's armor to the trooper who waited outside to clean and oil it, while Foster laved the day's accumulation of dust and dirt from face and hands in a bucket of cold water. Then, closely followed by the oriental—who, for all his protestations of trust in the motives of the visitors, kept his hands near to the cocked pistol and the kindjal knife in his belt—he lifted aside the canvas and entered the second chamber of the luxurious pavilion.
Two men in rough, dirty, ragged clothing confronted him. One was vaguely familiar, looking to be nearly as broad as he was tall, his body all big bones and rolling muscles, his face a single mass of hideous scar tissue, shiny in the lamplight. The other man was taller, flat-muscled, and far slimmer, his hair and eyes coal-black and his complexion a dark olive; his handsome face bore but a single scar, which began somewhere on his scalp and bore downward the full length of his left cheek to the very point of his chin.
The broad man's scarred lips twisted. "Y'r ludship doesnae reckernize me eh? Nae wunner it be, neither. Heh heh! Mlud, I be Dan the Smith. How be the noble Captain Webster?"
Suddenly it all came back to Foster. That last night of cheer at Heron Hall—the fine dinner for which John Heron so vociferously apologized, the shared singing of bawdy songs by high table and low, the endless drinking, the quarterstaff bouts, and Webster's difficult victory in wrestling this very man, Dan Smith.
When the newcomers had had their fill of the jerked beef, campaign biscuit, and ale—and Foster had never before seen one man eat so much of the tasteless fare at one sitting—Dan Smith launched into the promised tale of the fall of Heron Hall. He told of the completely unexpected attack by the screaming horde of savage, Highland irregulars composing part of King Alexander's Scottish army; told of how the folk of the hall had manned the inadequate walls and fired the cannon and swivels until the Scots were upon the walls and into the courtyard at their backs; told of how the hard-pressed men upon the walls had even then managed to turn some of the guns and pour hot death into the blood-mad mob of Highlanders attacking the hall itself.
Picking his teeth with a broken and dirty fingernail, the smith said, "Wha' chanceted then, Lud Forster, I canna say. I'd but turned tae throw a doomed Scot frae the wa', when the demiculv'rin blowed up and knockdted down part o' t' wa', an' Dan Smith under it all. Belike t' thrice-domned Scots bastids were o' a mind that not e'en a Dan Smith could live wi' a wa' an' cannon an' a' on him. But live, I did! But when I crawlted oot frae unner it a', the Scots were a' lang awa', the hall were sackted an' burnt oot a
n' nane save Dan Smith an' ain old tomcat were left alive."
Foster wrinkled his brow. "I was here, last autumn. Smith, on my way north to Whyffler Hall, yet I saw nothing of you."
The lips twisted again. "Belike I were oot arter food, m'lud; far an' awa I've had tae range fer sommat tae fill oor bellies."
The other man spoke in good, if accented, English. "Yes, Lord Forster, I do recall a visit by a troop of horse last autumn, but of course I had no way of knowing who you were or what your intentions, so I remained in hiding until your departure."
"As to that matter," inquired Foster, "just how did an Arabian knight come to be wandering alone about the wilds of Northumberland?"
Sir Ali ibn Hossain smiled languidly. "Lord Foster, like many a younger son, my life has been one of eking out a small, yearly stipend by competing in tournaments and on occasion selling my sword. Early last year, fortune found me in Rome and I hired on as a noble bodyguard in the entourage of Cardinal Mandojana, sailed with him to Edinburgh, and then marched south with that abomination that the Scots called an army."
"I had the misfortune to be wounded in the great battle to the south, and on the retreat I was loaded onto a wagon along with many another wounded gentlemen. The driver of that damned wagon should have been strangled at birth! He managed to hit every bump, boulder, and hole from the battlefield to the place at which he allowed the wagon to slip off a ford and into a stream. Most of the wounded drowned. That I did not can be attributed the Will of God; nor was even a cursory search made for any survivors, and I had died of loss of blood, exposure or both together, had not the good Master Smith here found me and cared for me."
"I can provide you no ransom, Lord Forster. My good horse was slain in battle and all that I now own mine own are my sword, a dirk, these boots, and some bits of poor clothing. Mayhap the Lord Cardinal would ransom me, but I'd not count on his mercy."
Foster shook his head. "Cardinal Mandojana was murdered by the Scots on the same night that they murdered King Alexander. Alexander's brother, James, now is King of Scotland, and his ministers are at this very moment finalizing a treaty of alliance with King Arthur's mediators. Be that as it may, Sir Ali, I have no desire for or need of your ransom, for my part, you are a free man. But how will you get back to Arabia, or wherever?"
Again the young Arab smiled. "There always are lords and captains in need of seasoned fighters, Lord Forster, in any land, at any time."
Foster was never to regret his next, impulsive words. "If your sword is for hire, Sir Ali, why not rent it to me? I ride to war and am ever in need of good men, noble or common."
"Only if the contract includes Master Smith," said Sir Ali. "I owe him much and he cannot live well or long here, in this ruin."
Foster nodded. "An honorable man always pays his debts. I'm beginning to like you already, Sir Ali, but I'd have taken Dan Smith along, at any rate. Good smiths are hard to come by, and besides, I know him of old. So, what do you ask for your services, sir knight?"
After the usual haggling, they settled on armor, pistols, clothing, and necessary gear as pay for a period of six months or the length of the campaign; in addition, Sir Ali would have the use of a charger until he could either seize one in battle or win enough loot to purchase one. His place would be with Foster's bodyguards for the nonce, while Dan Smith would take his place on the march with the pack train.
Foster did not lead his force directly south to the marshaling rendezvous at Manchester—rather did he ride southeast, toward York. For one reason, he was running perilously low on shells for his anachronistic sawed-off shotguns-cum-horse pistols; the other reason hinged upon Pete's last letter before the snows had effectively closed communications between Whyffler Hall and points south.
"While Buddy Webster is hobbling around, out on the Archbishop's farm, up to his knees in manure and loving every minute of it, this old boy's been busier than a one-armed paperhanger. After I come back from the King's camp, I put my factory in high gear, twenty-four hours a day—we got enough light to work nights with these reflectors I worked up—and, come spring, not only should we ought to have finished enough worked-over long guns and cylinder sets to give every one of the king's harkaybussers fourteen quick shots, but I should have at least five dozen pairs of them long-ass pistols altered from slowmatch to flintlock, like you and Buddy and me used to talk about. So you bring your boys down here on your way, next year, and I guarantee you a good half a hundred of them will have them a real edge on any other pistol-toters they run acrost."
So they marched onward, making fair time despite swollen streams and deep, seemingly endless mud. They came across no brigands, nor did the folk to be found working the fields in preparation for planting have much to report of any skulkers, for the winter had been both long and hard and, in a land all but denuded by the Scots' army last year, few if any of the bushwhacker bands had survived it.
The town of Hexham, pillaged and burned by Alexander's Scots just before his army met that of Arthur, was being rebuilt and was a buzzing hive of noise and activity. But with the arrival of the van of Foster's force, construction was abruptly given over to a rousing welcome for royal horse and—when it was established that the leader of this force was not only Lord Commander of King Arthur's Horse, but that very paladin who had smashed the left wing of the late and unlamented King Alexander's army, had turned that wing with only his squadron of cavalry and so, or so said many men, ensured the great victory wrought that night by English arms—the welcome became a tumultuous festival; nor were Foster and his men able to tear themselves away in less than three full days.
South of Hexham, the column's way lay along the range of small hills whereon had sat the Scottish reserves and baggage. Here and there among the heather and other rough growth gleamed a picked-white skull, and rib bones crunched now and again under the hoofs of the horses.
Dan Smith and some of his cronies ranged out in a thin skirmish line, afoot, on either flank of the column, seeking anything of value missed by earlier battlefield looters. With a yelp of triumph, the big man wrenched from the skeletal hand that had held it a long and heavy and very old cross-hilted sword—broken-pointed though it was and with the wood and leather of the grip rotted almost away from beneath the wire wrappings, still was there much good, reusable metal in the rusted blade.
The track wound downward, passing close by that little round flat-topped hill where, amid the heather, Foster had rested the remnants of his battered squadron, while straining to see through the fog-blanketed vale the course of the battle. Today, the sun shone brightly on a party of local men and boys assiduously cutting the peat whereon warhorses had trampled, whereon men had marched and charged and died, last year. The little stream that had run thick and clotting-red with those men's lifeblood now sparkled and gurgled between its banks with the clear water of the melted snows.
Farther on, on that plain where had been King Arthur's camp and the long beleaguered wagon fort, bones lay even more thickly than upon the hills. For a moment that was blessedly brief, Foster could hear again the drone and wail of the bagpipes, the demented shrieks of the charging Highlanders, the roar of the swivel guns, boomings of muskets and pistols, death cries of men, the nerve-wracking screaming of a wounded horse somewhere nearby in the flame-shot hell of fog and wreaths of lung-searing powder smoke.
That night, in their camp many miles south of that terrain of peat and death, Nugai ushered Dan Smith into Foster's pavilion. Before the Lord Commander of the King's Horse, the burly blacksmith laid an outsize sheathed broadsword.
"M'lud, ain o' t' Hexham peat-cutters come acrost this unner t' bones o' a horse, in t' bog. Dan Smith thought he'd seen it afore, so he git t' man a piecet of siller he'd won a-gamin', for't. Ain't many as could use a ol' bastid-sword for a broadsword. Be it Cap'n Webster's, m'lud?"
Foster drew the thick, broad, antique blade from its rotting scabbard. Smith had evidently spent some time and effort in cleaning the weapon, for the steel gleamed free of an
y speck of rust and gave off a smell of tallow.
He nodded. "Yes, Dan, I feel certain that this is Buddy's blade. He had thought the Scots had gotten it, while he lay with his broken leg pinned under his dead horse. I'm sure he'll be very pleased to have it back, for all that he's no longer a soldier."
But Dan Smith flatly refused the offer of a coin to replace the one he had paid a peat-cutter for the big sword. "Och, nae, m'lud. 'Twere foun' money, coom by t' dice. An't' noble Cap'n Webster be a frind o' old."
Foster nodded again. "Very well, Dan, if that's as you want it. But when we get to York, you'll give it to him."
With his troops encamped on the old royal campgrounds outside York—principally due to the presence of the Scottish contingent, for they could expect no less hostility here than they had suffered under at Whyffler Hall—Foster, his bodyguard and a few selected officers rode into the city and sought out Pete Fairley's manufactory.
Pete, clad in the same rough clothing as his horde of artisans and laborers, said, "Damn! Carey's gonna be mad as a wet hen he missed you. He's on the road down to Lunnun with a dozen new light nine-pounders and four rifled eighteens we worked up this past winter—an' they'll throw further an' straighter an' harder 'n anything these here folks is ever seen, too. Time you gets over to Manchester, then down to Lunnun, your own self, he'll probably be here or on the way back, so he won't get to see you, a-tall. Sheeit!"
In the long, wide, high-ceilinged building which once had been the riding hall of the archepiscopal residence complex, Foster stood amazed at the end of row upon row of heavy work tables, before which a hundred or more artisans were fitting Pete's version of the snaphaunce lock to horse pistols. The place was a hubbub of chatter in broad, north-country dialects, the clattering of tools and, from afar down at the other end of the room, the huffs of leather bellows and the clanging ring of hammer on anvil.
Feeling a pull upon his sleeve, Foster turned to confront Dan Smith. "M'lud, d'ye think Master Fairley would lemme make use o' his smithy? An' it be well-fitted, a minit or twa an' Dan Smith could have Cap'n Webster's big sword good as new."