Foreworld Saga 01 SideQuest Adventures No. 1 The lion in chains, the beast of Calarrava, the shield maiden

by HISTORY Stephenson, Neal

  He spoke English, expecting that she wouldn’t understand what he was saying.

  She poured carefully, dwelling overlong on her task, and was nearly finished when a boot was firmly placed against her behind. “Move,” the English speaker growled in German, firmly pushing her out of the way. Startled, she complied, realizing she had been blocking his view of the archers.

  The Germans were using crossbows, and she understood why the locals were agitated. The crossbow had better range and more power than a hunting bow. Less skill was required to shoot the crossbow, and she surmised that the village’s magistrate had, for reasons that were most likely financial in nature, opted to allow the Germans to compete in the village’s festival games with the heavier weapons. She glanced about, wondering if the English were using crossbows as well, and noticed several long staves strung with taut lines of hemp. Longbows.

  And the attitude of the competitors suddenly made sense. The locals were grumpy that crossbows were being used, putting their talents at a disadvantage, but the crossbowmen were also losing to a trio of drunk Englishmen who were using traditional bows, albeit ones that were nearly twice as tall as the hunting bows.

  One of the Germans raised his crossbow to his shoulder, laid his cheek against the stock, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon jerked in his hands, and the crowd fell silent for a second, everyone intently staring at the wooden post on the other side of the field. A distant thwok echoed back—the sound of the bolt burying itself in the wood—and the crowd cheered.

  Maria peered at the post. There were several rings drawn on the white circle, and on the edge of the innermost ring, there was a dark blot—the end of the crossbow bolt protruding from the target.

  The German grinned at the other competitors and then began the laborious process of drawing back the string on his crossbow. One of the Englishmen, the fair-haired one with a neat beard and an easy grin, made a disparaging remark about how the audience was going to age a day before the German finished reloading his weapon. One of the other Germans barked an insult in return, but his words were lost beneath the general laughter that swept through the crowd.

  The German with the crossbow ignored both the jibe and the crowd’s response. He raised his reloaded weapon to his shoulder and shot a second bolt. It struck the target in the middle of the second ring.

  The fair-haired Englishman made a rude noise, eliciting further glee from the audience.

  The German’s third shot pierced the center of the target, and the audience reacted with an extended silence. It was broken by a clapping sound from the fair-haired Englishman. “Nicely shot,” he called to the German. “I admire a man who can shoot under duress.”

  The German crossbowman had the grace to incline his head and thank the Englishman for his compliment.

  The long-legged Englishman had said nothing after admonishing Maria to get out of his way, and as the Germans returned to their chairs and their cups of wine, he unfolded himself from his seat. He strode over to Maria, pausing before her to inspect her face closely for a moment, and then he handed her his cup. She stared back at him, noting his crooked nose and his flashing green eyes. His hair was long and fell across his face, and his beard was a tangled mass of brown and red. He was an attractive man, and while he seemed to be aware of his beauty, he was not arrogant about his looks.

  Unlike King Richard, for instance.

  Suddenly flustered by his gaze, she accepted his cup. Her fingers brushed his, not entirely by accident, and she found herself offering him a shy smile as he put his hair back with his hand and turned to select one of the three longbows.

  It was nearly as tall as he, and pulling three arrows from a cloth bag filled with them, he walked to the same spot from which the German had shot his weapon. He stuck two arrows in the dirt in front of him, and laying the third across his bow, he turned to his companions. “How long did it take Gerhardt to shoot all three of his bolts?” he asked in German.

  “Several minutes,” the stockier of his companions replied. He had a heavyset face with a deep cleft in his bare chin, wide shoulders, and thick forearms. He reminded Maria of a bear.

  “An eternity,” the fair-haired one said with a laugh.

  “Indeed,” said the longbowman. “Would you be so kind as to count to twenty?” he asked the German crossbowman who had just finished shooting.

  “Twenty?” the German responded, somewhat confused.

  “I’ll do it,” Maria heard herself saying.

  The longbowman looked at her. “Even better,” he said with a grin. “An innocent observer. Count to twenty, please. As fast as you can.”

  Maria nodded. She took a deep breath as the longbowman turned to face the distant target. She began counting, the numbers spilling from her lips as fast as she could say them.

  The longbowman convulsed, seeming to collapse around his tall bow as he raised it, and then stretched his body out again—his back straight, his chest thrust up and out. The string of his bow sang, and she gasped slightly between “three” and “four.” His right hand dropped, grasping the fletching on one of his remaining arrows, and he repeated the same motion again. “Eight,” she said as the hard echo of the first arrow reached the crowd. There was no other sound than the creak of his bow, the tightening strain of his string, and her voice, calling out the numbers. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

  “Fourteen,” she said and stopped. He had released his third arrow already, and in the wake of her voice came the sound of it hitting the target. The noise was different from the other two. There was still the heavy report of the arrow striking the wood, but it was preceded by splintering noise. A brief crackle of wood breaking.

  The longbowman didn’t even bother to examine the target. He turned his back on the field and walked over to her, plucking his wine cup from her hands. “Thank you,” he said simply, raising the cup in salute and then taking a long drink from it.

  Around him, the crowd was starting to make noise. Isolated murmurs of wonder at first and then, like a spark landing on dry kindling, a whooshing noise as the audience erupted into loud cheers. Maria glanced past the longbowman, peering at the target.

  At first, she couldn’t make out where the longbowman’s arrows had landed, but then she realized all three arrows were buried deep in the wood, much deeper than the crossbow bolts had gone. All three were clustered in the center of the target. One above the center, one below, and the third had shattered the German’s crossbow bolt as it had pierced the very center of the target.

  “A most impressive display,” she said.

  He shrugged as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Tell me,” she said, raising one of her jugs to refill his cup. “Do your friends shoot as well?”

  “No,” he said with a large grin, “but not for a lack of trying.”

  “Ignore him,” said his broad friend who had risen from his seat and wandered over. “He only shoots like that when he is drunk. Most of the time, he can’t even draw his bow.”

  “You are jealous, John,” the longbowman replied good-naturedly, “because it only takes a few drinks for me to regain my skill. No amount of wine or practice will ever make you that good.”

  John clapped the other man on the back, smiling broadly at Maria. “He is a liar and a cad,” he said to her, “and you should not believe anything he says.”

  “I do not have to if he can shoot like that,” she said.

  “See, Robin,” John said, “she is only interested in what you can put on the table. She does not wonder of your expertise in other domestic areas.”

  “I wonder about a great many things,” Maria said, “but right now, I am wondering if there is more to your party than the other man over there.”

  “Who? Will?” John looked over his shoulder at the third longbowman. “He’ll do, in a pinch.”

  Ignoring John, Robin asked, “How many others?” all trace of levity gone from his voice. He appeared to be quite sober suddenly, and his gaze was fierce
and focused.

  “Enough to save the king of England,” she said, switching to English, ensuring that she had their attention and that no one else could understand what she was saying.

  The fire from the burning boat turned the water of the Rhine orange and yellow. Its railings and the lower third of its main mast were blackened, and tiny flowers of flame still danced around the upper portion of the thick pole. Tattered streamers of ash-streaked sail lingered near the very tip of the mast. The ship leaned to port, its hold filling slowly through the open holes in its hull. It would sink eventually, quenching the fire that slowly devoured its wooden frame. From the top of its half-burned mast, a flag bearing the imperial seal hung limply.

  The ship had been cut loose from its moorings at the Wesel docks when the fire had threatened to leap to other boats. On the dock, a line of armed men separated the swarm of locals from five other ships, flying the same flag, and a scattered mess of heavy barrels that had been rapidly off-loaded from the burning ship before it had been scuttled. The magistrates of Wesel, as well as the local militia, were attempting to maintain order, but the fear of fire about the other ships had created a smoldering panic onshore that was not dying very quickly.

  Otto Shynnagel leaned against a stone wall of a storehouse, watching the confusion. The ship that had been fired and scuttled was one of the treasure ships from England. Judging by the fury of activity that preceded the vessel being shoved back from the dock, he suspected the crew had managed to off-load the ship’s cargo, but now they were faced with having one-sixth of the imperial ransom sitting openly on the Wesel dock. Whoever was in charge of the treasure ships was certainly going to be worried that someone might discover what cargo he was transporting.

  Who knew what would happen then?

  Otto was curious as to how the fire had started. It seemed unlikely that a French spy could have gotten on board the ship. Had the fire truly been an accident? If he hadn’t been warned to watch out for such activity, he would have lamented the bad luck that had befallen the caravan, but he wouldn’t have suspected sabotage.

  He thought the imperial ambassadors would be trying to acquire another ship, and he was surprised when a wagon arrived and was ushered through the line of soldiers. Sailors began loading the cart, and when more wagons arrived, the sailors began off-loading barrels from the other boats.

  Otto didn’t understand why they weren’t going to continue by boat. Had the fire spooked them that badly? He thought about the routes they might take. They would travel along the eastern side of the Rhine. Would they cross the river at Duisburg and head for Kaarst, Bergheim, and Kerpen? It was a less-traveled route than along the path of the Rhine, but it would be quicker as the crow flew.

  It was also closer to France.

  It all started to make sense to Otto. The emperor had been right. The French were trying to steal the silver, and they had someone working for them in the imperial party. Someone making sure the caravan was heading right into an ambush.

  FIVE

  The rider met them along a muddy track outside of Cologne. His horse was covered in sweat, and the animal staggered awkwardly when the rider slid down the saddle. Feronantus eyed the horse sadly, wondering if its rider had pushed it too hard.

  The rider was a slight man named Domarus, who, unlike the rest of the company, had brought no maille with him. He wore a rough leather vest and bracers on his arms, and he carried only a bow, arrows, and a long knife. His saddle was nothing more than a leather frame and a blanket with a single strap around the horse’s barrel.

  He was a scout, and he ranged far ahead of the larger, slower-moving party.

  “They’re not on the river,” he reported to Geoffrey and the rest of the company. “I heard from several sources that there was a fire on board one of the ships when they reached Wesel. Four days ago. They unloaded and set off overland. On the other side of the river.”

  Rutger groaned and Feronantus shook his head. No wonder they hadn’t seen any sign of the imperial party. They were on the eastern side of the Rhine, while the Shield-Brethren were looking for them on the west side.

  Geoffrey remained unconcerned. “What about Koblenz and the gorge? Will they cross to this side there?”

  Feronantus did not know enough about the geography of the surrounding area, and he could only assume the Rhine passed into more mountainous terrain near a place called Koblenz. It sounded like the sort of place that would force a wagon party to make a significant detour. The question was, which direction?

  Rutger shook his head. “They wouldn’t wait that long. They’d cross earlier, or not at all. But if they didn’t, that would mean passing through Mainz and Worms.”

  “Easy to acquire more guards along that route,” Geoffrey said. “But they would also not be able to pass without scrutiny, which would slow them down.”

  “And they’d stop at Worms,” Rutger said. “The emperor has a palace there. There’d be no reason to take the ransom all the way to Speyer.”

  Geoffrey looked at Feronantus. “What do you think?” he asked. “You are the one who sees subterfuge afoot. If I were leading the wagons, I’d stick to the safe routes—more people friendly to the emperor, more men who could be called upon to join me.”

  Feronantus looked over his shoulder at the two dozen knights ranged behind them along the road. “I think it is odd that a complement of imperial guards who are all very much aware of the enormity of their cargo would lose their vessel to a fire.”

  “Accidents happen,” Geoffrey pointed out with a shrug.

  Feronantus stared at the Shield-Brethren quartermaster, trying to ascertain if the man was willfully unaware or simply testing his resolve and his ability to think carefully. It was obvious to Feronantus that the fire in Wesel had not been an accident. He knew it as clearly as he knew the sun would rise in the east. Was it the Vor that guided him, or was it just that obvious?

  “They’re on the western side of the Rhine already,” he said.

  “How can you be sure?” Geoffrey asked.

  Feronantus caught Rutger watching him carefully. “I am,” he said. It was too complicated to explain, but he could see all the pieces of his argument clearly. It made sense in his head. He had no doubt.

  In the first hour after the fire had started aboard the treasure ship, Willahelm had been concerned that someone might stumble upon the dead sailor in his cabin. But once the fire burst through the deck and began rampaging through the hold, he was no longer concerned that his part in the inferno that swept through the ship would be discovered. The sailor—one of the three navigators—had been sent by the captain, and there had been no time to learn anything more from the man. He glanced at the pile of oil-soaked blankets on the floor of Willahelm’s cabin and knew instantly what the imperial ambassador had been about to do. He tried to bolt for the door, and his cry of alarm turned into a rattling gurgle when Willahelm’s knife entered his back. Willahelm threw the man’s body on the oil-soaked pile, tossed a lit candle at the pile, and shut the door of his room as soon as he heard the growl of the oil igniting.

  The next hurdle was convincing the imperial guard and the other ambassadors to cross to the western shore of the Rhine. He had anticipated more discourse concerning his suggested route, but the other ambassadors were in such shock at the idea of sabotage that they eagerly agreed to his levelheaded proposal. The western route was less traveled, he argued. They could move quickly and would not be slowed by other caravans and crowded towns. Look at what had happened at Wesel, he said, it was so very difficult to guard their cargo when surrounded by so many people.

  Of course, it was actually easier for them to be ambushed along the western route, especially when the French did not have to cross the Rhine in order to attack them. They could commandeer the wagons and be in Leige before the emperor even knew his treasure had been stolen.

  In Leige, he would take his share of the treasure and hire an expensive carriage to convey him and his wealth to Paris, where the
king of France would personally thank him for providing the coin to finance an invasion of England.

  It was such a lovely thought, and it made him inordinately happy during the tedious days following the accident at Wesel. First, they couldn’t find enough wagons, and then there were problems with the oxen. Throughout the continued delays, Willahelm maintained a calm mien and a steady perseverance that the other ambassadors found comforting.

  If only they knew, he thought.

  Mid-afternoon on the fourth day after leaving Wesel, a shout went up the line, and Willahelm sat up in his saddle, peering ahead at the rider charging at them along the dusty road. It was one of their forward scouts, and his surcoat was stained with blood.

  “Ambush!” The cry spread through the caravan, and all around him, the imperial guard galvanized into defensive action. The drovers on the wagons began to whip their oxen harder, but they did not know where they were actually going, and in the following minutes, the wagon caravan descended into chaos as the oxen tried to flee and the imperial guard tried to drive the wagons into a more defensible unit.

  And then the ambushers were among them.

  Willahelm caught sight of men wearing blue-and-white surcoats. The drover on the wagon beside him screamed as two arrows struck him, and he tumbled off the plank of his wagon. The oxen, unaware they had lost their master, charged onward, and the wagon jounced as the wheels on the near side went over the fallen wagoner. Barrels shifted in the back, and one spilled out of the wagon, breaking as it hit the road. Silver scattered across the road, glittering in the afternoon light like a spray of water.