by Robert Adams
After a few minutes of standing and watching the accomplished metalworker go about the minor repairs needed on the oversized broadsword, Pete said, "Bass, yon's a true master smith; he could serve his king much better here than down south, shoeing horses."
Foster shrugged. "If you want to offer him a job, take it up with him personally; he's no soldier, he no longer has a home, and his liege lord is dead, slain by the Scots' army, last year. I brought him along with my force to keep him from starving in the countryside or turning brigand; he had no other options."
"By the bye, where are these fantastic pistols your letter bragged about? And I need some shells for my own brace, too."
Pete's test-firing was done on a field just beyond the city walls, where there was a low hillock to backstop bullets, balls, and other missiles. On a long table in a low-ceilinged wooden shed lay an assortment of small arms, with all the loading paraphernalia; from the dimness behind the table poked the brazen mouths of several light cannon.
Pete picked out at random a pair of the snaphaunce lock horse pistols and rapidly charged them with smooth, practiced motions of his stained, work-roughened hands.
"Now, Bass, look, these here pistols is sommat shorter an' lighter nor your reglar-model hoss pistol, for all they about seventy-five caliber. An' looky here, all the ramrods is brass, not wood, an' they all hinged to the barrl, too, so you caint lose 'em. You jest unscrews 'em out'n the fore ends, like this. See? Then, when you done, you jest screws 'em back in, no more o' this tryin' to poke the rods back in a pouch. Heanh, Bass, you shoot 'em."
Bass Foster took the proffered weapons and hefted them. "Nice balance, Pete." Cocking one of the primed pistols, he extended an arm, aimed at a man-sized wooden effigy some thirty yards distant, and squeezed the trigger.
The wedge of rosy flint clamped betwixt the jaws of the cock was propelled forward against the pan cover, its impact sending a hail of tiny sparks into the pan filled with fine-grained priming powder, and smoke spurted sideways from the pan a split second before the heavy pistol roared and bucked upward, launching its ball on a yard-long flame.
Downrange, splinters flew from the deep-seated target, and the tattered, weather-grayed Highland bonnet atop the "head" of the effigy was knocked askew by the impact of the weighty ball.
Foster's left hand had been forcefully shaking the other pistol of the pair, both right side up and upside down, jarring it against his booted thigh. Now he brought it, too, into his right hand, cocked, and fired. It performed no less well than had its mate. When he had looped the straps of powder flask, priming flask, and bullet bag round his neck, he called for his horse, mounted, and began to trot Bruiser up and down the field, all the while loading and priming the pair of pistols. Then he wheeled about and came in at a full-jarring gallop, reins in his teeth, to come to a rearing halt and discharge one pistol and then the other at the battered target.
After three repeats of this performance, he next reloaded, then hurled both weapons to the ground, hard. Dismounting, he picked them up, cocked, and fired. Both pistols spat, faithfully, despite the mistreatment, though the recoil now was heavier, due to powder fouling in the bores.
When he had turned over Bruiser to Nugai, he strode back to the waiting Pete Fairley, smiling. "If they all perform this well, we're in business. It's the devil to keep slowmatches going, not to mention dangerous as hell to reload with one of them clamped in the cock, and many a man has been killed before he could reload, reprime, span, and cock his wheel-lock. These pistols seem like just the ticket, Pete; they're quick and easy to reload, seem to be both tough and reliable, and they're hard-hitting without excessive kick. How many pairs have you got?"
"Thirty-one," answered Pete, then added, soberly, "But let's go back to my office and wet our throats. I got some bad news for you, too."
Later, in his cluttered little office, Pete gestured at the pair of flintlock pistols on his desk. "See? I made the barrels of these here set zackly the same len'th as your pistols you carried las' year. Better leave them old ones here—I might be able to use the parts like barrels and springs and all, but they ain't gon' be one damn sight of good to you, 'thout no shells for 'em."
Foster shook his head ruefully. "Replacing them with muzzle-loaders isn't going to hurt as much, morale-wise, as is the loss of a good, reliable, multi-shot sidearm, Pete. You can't imagine how reassuring it is to have personal firepower in reserve."
Pete nodded in sympathy. "If it 'uz any damn thang I could do, Bass . . . ? But, hell, it ain't but so miny times you c'n reload even them good, plastic shotshells, you know, they gits sorta frayed on the ends. B'sides, it looked like the more loaded ones I sent to you, the less empty ones you sent back."
Foster shrugged. "Pete, you can't understand or appreciate the utter confusion of a battle or a skirmish or a pursuit unless you've ridden one. At such times, usually, hanging on to spent shells was the last thing on my mind, I'm afraid."
"Naw, Bass, I ain't done no fightin' here and now, but I done my own share of't in Nam, so I c'n understan'. Hell, I'd of figgered enybody tol' me to save my brass had to be plumb loco, too."
"But cases ain't the end of it, Bass. I got me a pretty good bunch of boys, metalworkin'-wise, and I could prob'ly git tight with 'em and make us some sheet brass and make some cases, but I ain't got nuthin' near what it'd take, in know-how or in nuthin' elst, to make no primers . . . and, Bass, I got less'n a hunert an' fifty of them fuckers lef, for the shotshells, none a-tall what'll fit the cases for thet hawglaig." He gestured at the M1873 Colt Peacemaker bolstered at Foster's side. "How miny roun's you got left?"
Foster unsnapped a small leather belt pouch and gingerly fingered its contents, then sighed. "Twenty-two—sixteen in the pouch and six in the cylinder."
Pete scratched at his scalp with his cracked, dirty nails, then spread his hands on the crowded desktop and looked up at Foster. "Looky here, Bass, I'll tell you, you hang onta thet superposed pistol, heanh? I got what it takes to make you up 'tween ten and 'leven dozen shells, and then that'll be all she wrote. You keep them and thet superposed till you done run out'n ammo fer the hawglaig, then you jest have thet slant o' yourn fix up your holster to take it stead'n the Colt." His shoulders rose and fell. "Two shots is better'n none."
The next morning being fair and sunny, Pete accompanied Foster and his entourage on the easy three-hour ride southwest to the estate that Harold, Archbishop of York, had turned over to Buddy Webster. He rode beside Foster, red-eyed from lack of sleep—he and Dan Smith and Nugai had labored over the restoration of the huge sword Dan had brought from the peat-cutter far into the night, long after Foster and his bodyguard and staff had returned to the camp outside the city—but bubbling over with enthusiasm at the oriental's skills at intricate metalwork.
"I tell you, Bass, Dan Smith's a master and no mistakin' it. I still wawnts him fer my hashup and I a'ready done offered him a job, but he says he wawnts to tawk some to you and a feller name of Alley fore he gives me a answer. Yeah, ol' Dan's a past-master smith, he is, but thet Newgay, man o man, he suthin' elst!"
Foster smiled. "Nugai appears to be a man of truly endless talents, a Renaissance man par excellence."
Pete just stared at him blankly. "Well, I dunno nuthin' boyt thet last thing you said, I don' tawk nuthin' but Ainglish and Vietnamese and a lil' bit of Thai. Wanna Spick, see. But I do reckon thet ol' Newgay could do bout enythin' he set his min' to. You got eny ideer how hard it is to draw wire right, Bass?"
"No, Pete, I can't say that I do," he chuckled. "It's another of those things I guess I never really thought about."
"Wai, Bass, it ain't so bad fer copper or brass—all it takes is a strong man with a steady hand on the pincers, so he don't break or cut it after the firs' lenth done been drawed, and bout the same thin' goes fer sof iron. But when it comes to steel, buddy, thet's a whole different bawlgame, I tell you! And thet's why everbody here uses leaf springs or none a-tall and all the grips of the swords and dirks and all is wou
nd with brass wire."
——«»——«»——«»——
Nugai, face, bared torso, and arms sweat-shiny from the heat of the forge whereat Dan Smith was handling the strange tools to single out those that chanced to be to his liking for balance and weight, looked askance at the hanging chairs, dies, and pincers, then remarked to Pete, "Ach, Meister Fairley, most primitive this iss."
"Primitive?" yelped Pete. "Ever dang master smith in the damn Ridin's done come to see it and they done swore it's the bestes' wire-drawing' setup they ever seed."
Nugai just sniffed, his flat, yellow-brown face inscrutable. "Yust so, Engelant a primitive country iss."
"Well, goldurn it, lessee you do better, Mistuh Newgay!" Pete had demanded, stung in both personal and racial pride.
——«»——«»——«»——
After wetting a dusty throat from Foster's saddle bottle of brandy water, Pete went on with the tale. "Piss-pore thing bout drawin' wire t'way it's done here'bouts, Bass, is cain't no man, no matter how strong he is, git no single drawin' longera a few inches shortern his own arm length, and thet means it's allus some filin' and smoothin' down to do, speshly after the drawer starts on a-gettin' tired."
"Wai, ol' Newgay, he done fixted thet fer good and all, I tell you! Afore I hardly knowed whutall he wuz up to, he'd done took him a piecet of roun' pole and some odds and ends and done made him a windlass-like. After he'd filed down the end of a brass rod, he had drawed hisself near three foot of wire on my ol' setup, wrappted two, three inches of it rount a iron spike he'd done hammered in his pole, then he got on one crank and he got Dan Smith on t'other one and fore you could say 'pee-rurkey,' theyed done drawed thet whole, dang rod into the purtiest piecet of wire you ever set eyes to. Now ain't thet suthin', Bass?"
Without waiting for Foster to answer, Pete rushed on, saying, "Nother thang, too. While we all was a-workin' on thet sword, Newgay tolt me how I could set up the workin's of the Archbishop's grist mill for a-drawin' wire. After we was done and a-sertin' in my office a-havin' us some ale, him and me got to makin' us up some drawings on it, and you know, Bass, I'm rightly sure it's gonna work. And the bestest part is, if I can make up iron gears and shafts and all, I'm dang sur thet hashup would draw steel wire, eny dang gauge a body wants! And I'm a-gonna do 'er, come nex' winter, too."
CHAPTER 13
One day out of York, the rain commenced, never really hard but constant, day and night long, more than a week of it, turning roadside fields into shallow lakes and the roads themselves into treacherous quagmires pocked with seemingly bottomless pits of mud and filth, so that the leg of the journey from York to Leeds was one long travail—with both men and horses plastered with mud from top to bottom and end to end, camps cold for dearth of dry fuel, officers and other ranks shivering half sleepless through the dismal nights, while their bellies rumbled and complained at the wolfed-down chunks of hard bread, salt bacon, and sour, slimy cheese.
So woebegone and bedraggled was his command upon arrival in Leeds that Foster felt constrained to do that which he strongly disliked, though many commanders of royal forces had no such compunction and regularly exercised that right—he quartered his men upon the townsfolk and commandeered stables, barns, and vacant structures for his animals. Then, after a week of rest, recuperation, and warm food, he again took the road, anxious to reach the rendezvous near Manchester, marshal his squadrons, and proceed southeast to the siege lines still tight-drawn about London.
He had been pleased that there had been so little grumbling from the much put-upon folk of Leeds, relieved that his high-spirited command had precipitated but little trouble during their week of residence, and most gratified that Andrew Elliot had so well controlled his heterogeneous pack of border thieves and reavers that not one hanging had been necessary and only a bare half-dozen floggings.
Although it still grated hard on his twentieth-century sensibilities to order hangings and floggings, although he still threw up his last meal in the privacy of his tent or quarters each time he returned from his expected supervisory presence while a malefactor's back was publicly shredded to a soggy red pulp under the bite of the nine braided-leather tails of the whip, still his realistic nature forced him to realize that fear of rope and whip and sword and pistol was all that kept the wild, barbaric border Scots under any sort of discipline . . . or, for that matter, many of his own English and Welsh troopers.
At the rendezvous—the old royal campground, southeast of Manchester—Foster found the Midlands English contingents awaiting him, along with a few early, Northern Welsh . . . and a fresh surprise.
Baron Turlogh de Burgh's English was flawless and unaccented, and, for all his relaxed manner, flawless too was his courtesy and deportment. With his blue-black, wavy hair, beard, and mustachios and blue-gray eyes, he bore a striking resemblance to his Norman forebears who had, some four hundred years before, hacked out patents of Irish nobility with dripping swords and axes. Mid-thirtyish, de Burgh was widely traveled and fluent in at least a dozen languages.
Like another Baron—Melchoro Salazar, whose ransom had duly arrived at Whyffler Hall in full, in gold and accompanied by a letter of twenty chatty, friendly pages from the nobleman himself—whom Foster well remembered, de Burgh had interspersed and added to his education at several universities during numerous campaigns in large and small wars. Brief as had been their initial conversation, it had been enough to impress Foster that the Norman-Irishman was a seasoned soldier and a born leader, as thoroughly versed in the niceties of European warfare as he, no doubt, was in the fierce, savage, hit-and-run tactics which characterized most of the endless, internecine Irish conflicts.
When once Foster had read through King Arthur's letter of introduction, as well as the other letter, delivered clandestinely by one of the sovereign's corps of undercover messengers, he had summoned his principal lieutenants to his pavilion. After a long and sometimes heated discussion, he ordered wine and sent for de Burgh to join them.
Seated directly across the table from the newcomer and flanked by his officers, Foster tapped the two unfolded letters lying on the board before him.
"Baron de Burgh, one of these is familiar to you, of course, since you yourself bore it here from the royal camp on the Thames; the other came to me by way of a secret courier."
The Irishman smiled lazily. "Kings are the same, mein Herr Markgraf. All over the world, secrets are the very delight of the royal, I've found."
"His Highness has detailed, herein, your very commendable qualifications, as he did also in your letter of introduction. However, the King has left up to me the question of if and just how you should be employed. Whether I should allow you to summon and land your squadron, simply add you alone to my staff, or send you packing, which last was my first thought, sir."
There were some assenting grumbles from the Welsh and English officers. None of them had much liking for Irishmen of any description. But the matter had been thoroughly thrashed out; they all respected the Lord Commander of Horse and, barring some untoward happening, would hold their peace.
"You were most sagacious to not try to land your men before my arrival, Baron de Burgh, for all the lands between this place and the sea were ravaged by the Irish so-called Crusaders, not too long a time ago, and you may be assured that your welcomes would have been far from cordial."
De Burgh sighed, shaking his head of thick, shoulder-length hair. "Mein Herr von Velegrad, although the Crusade was preached the length and breadth of the country, the High King and most of the others ignored it, having their own fish to fry. The unfortunate circumstance to which you allude was entirely the doing of the late and lamented King Eamonn of Lagan. The venture was well underway before the High King had any inkling of it."
Foster nodded. "And he did not one damned thing to scotch it, either."
De Burgh sighed again. "Mein Herr, the relationships between the High King and the other kings in Ireland, it seems, have never been understood by many foreigners. Traditiona
lly, Tara has no real control over the actions of the other kings, who mount raids and make war when and as and upon whom they please. Though right often they are likened to King Arthur's earls and dukes or to the Emperor's herzogs, the actual situations are not the same, for Irish kings hold their lands by the force of their arms or by inheritance or both, not by way of oathings to Tara. True, the High King may suggest or request, but if he really insists upon having his way, his only means of being sure of getting it is outright war."
"And at the time of the crusading raid upon this coast, the armies of the High King were otherwise embroiled . . . in Munster, to be exact. Himself could do no more than to curse Eamonn of Lagan, at the time, though he did take other action later."
"You mentioned that this King of Lagan is dead," said Foster. "Who slew him, us or the High King?"
"Neither," answered de Burgh. "Though I am given to understand it was a near and damned chancy thing, his escape from these shores, after the defeat of his force. He got away with nought save his sword and the clothes upon his back, all else he owned he left behind—loot, gear, war chest, horse, and panoply. Ships' officers who watched the debacle on that beach through long-glasses say that Eamonn's bodyguard fell to the last man ensuring the escape of their coward king. Even Prince Emmett, who was an infamous warlock of an age beyond human reckoning and the great-great-grandfather of Eamonn, so they say, though he appeared no older than do I, was seen to fall upon that bloody strand."
"At any rate, King Eamonn's kingdom was neither large nor overly rich and neither he nor his father before him had exercised overmuch thrift, so he had been constrained to borrow heavily from certain agents of the Church in order to finance his Crusade, meaning to repay both principal and interest from the loot he had felt sure he'd bring back from England. But when return he did, it was as a royal pauper. With the bulk of even the royal jewels lost with his war chest, his only remaining assets were his lands and castle, and to these agents of the Church laid claim. But he resisted these just claims, attesting that his great-great-grandfather, Prince Emmett—who had actually affixed the royal signature and cipher to the documents—had not had his, Eamonn's, leave to do so, had been acting on his own as it were, and therefore had contracted an illegal loan. Eamonn did not deny receipt of the monies or subsequent use of them, only that he and his kingdom were responsible for repaying said monies."