Of Beginnings and Endings

by Robert Adams

  "Bows and arrows?" asked Don Guillermo dubiously, "Oh, I see, for use against other indios or unarmored men, eh?"

  The bald Irish man chuckled. "As you and yours will shortly see, my friends, these are no common, redman pagan bows . . . or arrows. No, these bows are capable of projecting an arrow with enough force to penetrate all grades of mail and, at close range, punch through some grades of plate."

  "Oh, really?" said Don Abdullah with a shake of his head and clear doubt in his tone. "A good crossbow can do that, or the extra-long bows of the Welsh and the English, but none other I've ever seen. Did you then equip and train them to crossbows? Long, hard years of training and endless practice are required to master the longer bows, and they are clumsy to manage in tight places, too."

  "Ah, but there is at least one other kind of long-range, armor-piercing bow, my good gentles," the Irish knight assured them, then enjoyed a long draft of wine before continuing. "Long years agone, a half-brother of my late sire came back to Eireann lacking half of one leg and his right hand, covered with scars and glory and rich with the loot of his years as a hired sword in service of the Holy Roman Empire."

  "Now this half-uncle of mine had served right much of his years on the eastern frontier, serving alongside the warriors of some khans while fighting other clans of Kalmyks and their ilk, as well as Suomi, Rus-Goths, Wild Turks, Uzbekhs, and full many another singular people of those endless flat plains and icy marshlands. He took a liking to me, just a mere little lad, then, and spun me many's the fine, exciting tale of his adventures and all the passing strange things he had learned in his campaignings and travels. Thank God that I own a very good memory, for one of those bits of knowledge from away back then has helped me and my Pagan Swords and Great Eireann mightily, lo, these many years later in this foreign land."

  "While the Kalmyks who are armed by and fight for the Empire—most of the time, at least—have been converted to the use of the light, one-hand crossbow, their wilder brethren and certain other of those eastern tribes and peoples still use a short bow of amazing strength of cast. These bows are basically wood, yet they can loose arrows half the length of those cloth-yard shafts needed for the longbows farther and more powerfully than any hand weapon other than crossbows or calivers."

  "How can this be so, Don Rogallach?" demanded Don Guillermo. "Are you certain that you recall the tale aright? And that it was not just merely a fantastical tale of imaginary wonders spun to amuse a small boy? Old men have been known to so behave."

  "Maybe not, Guillermo," said Abdullah slowly, "I tell you, now that my memory is prodded, I seem to recall something that a man I knew in Afriqa once said about his own mercenary days of long, long ago, when he served as a junior mercenary officer of an army raised by the Comnenus of the Greeks on some campaign to the north of the Pontus Euxinus. He, too, as I now recall, spoke in passing of short, stout bows that warriors could loose quickly from the backs of galloping ponies in armor-piercing hails. So, say on, Don Rogallach. Here, please allow me to refresh your wine cup."

  Don Abdullah just hoped that Guillermo would hold his peace for a little while, this time. A way in which to improve the effectiveness and power of the bows of their own hired-on indios could prove most useful to their arms and aims. They'd hear the over-voluble Irish knight out, learn all they could of the process from him, and then, once he was well on his way back to Irlande Grande, they'd query these Pagan Swords warriors in detail and, finally, take one of these newfangled bows apart, then see if they could do the same on the bows of their own indios. And someday soon, the Irish trespassers just might find themselves under attack by Spaniards and indios armed with short, armor-piercing bows and arrows. Of course, it would not be until after the combined Irish-Moorish-Spanish-Portuguese force had scotched thoroughly the French and their fire-armed indios.

  "So," the red-bearded man went on, willingly, "I personally took a few bows and experimented with them and the requisite materials until I determined the best ways of bonding the one to the others. I also set my smiths to fashioning arrowheads of bits of steel and wrought iron, for as you know, the stone heads shatter on armor, while the rare copper ones just bend."

  "At some length, I discovered that a glue that the pagans themselves used in securing the seams of their bark boats was the best for the purpose I had in mind. When once some of the leaders of the pagans had witnessed for themselves the length of cast and multiplied power of the refurbished bows, every one of them was eager to learn how to fashion for himself so deadly a bow."

  "It is amazingly simple, really, gentles; it involves merely the reinforcement of back and belly of the wooden bow with sinew and thin strips of horn."

  Don Guillermo's face had gone white as curds under his tan. He shook his head slowly and said in hushed tones, "God preserve us all, Don Rogallach, what have you done? Think on it, man, teaching indios how to fashion so incipiently dangerous a weapon, one that can let go arrows with enough force to pierce armor—why, this is equipping these pagan savages with something even more threatening to us all than giving them calivers and arquebuses; at least they cannot make more firearms with materials readily available to them, familiar to them. Who can now tell just how many a brave soldier or hardworking settler will die as result of this, your folly?"

  * * * *

  Even while the senior officers were drinking and talking within the fort, El Castillo de San Diego de Boca Osa, seamen and soldiers had towed the laden barge into the riverbank anchorage and warped it hard against the floating dock. Then the seamen rapidly took apart enough of the overhead framework to make it possible to lift out and float the fine whale-boats alongside, but as darkness was almost upon them, it was decided by Don Felipe that the other supplies and equipment which had been shipped aboard the barge would be left where they sat until morning gave them good light by which to work.

  Soggy-looking clouds rolling toward them from the west led him to order the frames quickly reassembled and the tarps all spread and tied down. Then he sent the seamen back to their ships and, after having the sergeants form up the soldiers, marched them back to the fort, they being closely observed all the way by half-drunken and very amused indios—their own from the south and the newer ones armed with basket-hiked swords and small, round shields who had arrived with the trespassing Irlandeses.

  It was as well that he had broken up the working party when he had, for soggy and water-laden as the clouds were, they moved very fast indeed. Hardly had the sunset pasar lista been completed on the parade ground just outside the Castillo walls, orders read, and those assembled dismissed to duties, barracks, or homes in the town than cold rain began to descend in seemingly solid sheets, while thunder rolled like unto a cannonade and bright-white lightning crackled all about.

  Teniente Don Felipe knew that the farmers and ranchers inland would doubtless be grateful for the rain, for there had been little enough of it so far this year, but he was soaked, chilled, and most appreciative of the cup of warm mulled wine proffered him by Don Abdullah's squire when he went up to render his report.

  "Alejandro," the Captain ordered his squire, "strike you fire to the hearth, there. It is growing chilly." Then, turning back to Don Felipe with a smile, he asked, "So, how much work and material will have to be put into that barge to make us a decent gun platform of it, my boy? Has the thing any decking at all in the waist?"

  "Capitàn," replied the younger man, "it is with exceeding pleasure that I report that that fine, sturdy barge is full-decked over a hold which extends from stern to stern and is all of fifteen hands high at its center though only some cubit or less closer to the sides. Though clearly not of European antecedents, it was well built by a master of solid oak, elm, hickory, and pine, mostly secured by trunnels, but with good-quality wrought-iron hardware, as well."

  "The sides will have to be pierced, of course, and reinforced where the recoil ropes will be fastened. As for the deck . . . well, as it now is laid and supported, it would likely be safe to mount ther
eon a battery, so long as they were of no heavier a weight than saqres."

  Don Abdullah frowned. "I had thought me more in terms of demicannon, anyway, or at least full culverins. I don't intend to just deface their stonework, dammit, I want to damage it enough to make a significant breach or three. A mere little saqre battery could burn powder and hurl little pecking-strength balls until hell freezes over solid without doing more than making ungodly amounts of noise and smoke. Will we be able to contrive to render that barge that strong? Or would we be better off using it for transport of men, powder, and victuals and constructing a log raft for the gun platform as we'd originally planned?"

  "Oh, it can be done, Capitàn," the young knight assured him. "First, another thickness of decking boards must be laid over the existing ones, and a good deal of the space in that hold will needs must be taken up by additional support timbers, while the sides of the barge, in addition to being pierced, will have to be strengthened too. Of course, all of this additional lumber and hardware, plus the weights of the guns, their trucks, powder, shot, equipment for them, the men to man them, and the barge with necessary supplies for them, all of these, sir, will unquestionably increase vastly both the draught and the towing weight of the barge."

  "Hmmm." Abdullah frowned and pinched at his lower lip above his oiled and curly chinbeard, his black eyes slitted. "Towing weight is and will be no problem, for not only can the gun crews row, but we will have fourscore more strong, sturdy indios to man the oars on the trip upriver, but the increased draught, that is another and a far stickier question. Up that far, the Rio Oso is of no consistent depth except in the main channel, and as you and I well know, the both of us, a severe storm flood can shift the location and the depth of that damned channel overnight. Remember that time that our pinnace grounded on its way back up to our slaving base on the isle?"

  "Even so, though, I like far more the idea of a real barge on which to mount the guns than I do that of some jury-rigged, decked-over raft of green timber on which to risk a baron's ransom worth of fine French guns. Therefore, we'll proceed with work on the Irish barge, I think, and if it become obvious that the mounting of demicannon will dangerously deepen the draught, well . . . maybe we'll arm it with those brace of culverin-reales, then fill out the rest of the battery with full culverins. That would cut the weight down."

  11

  Dear Ms. Foster,

  Bass Foster has earned a protracted and painful death for what he has done to you. To see you now, no one could believe you to be the beautiful, charming young professional woman whom first I saw so few, short years ago. I came back here to Whyffler Hall in hopes of making an opportunity to kill him for my own personal reasons, and, discovering that he had departed bare days prior to my arrival, I have remained to await his certain eventual return and my chance to even both my score and yours.

  All here say that you are mad, insane, but that I do not believe, for that is what they said also of me, and I know it to be entirely false. You see, Arthur—ungrateful, backbiting young poseur that he is, I discovered too late—feared me and what I might do were I to reach Edinburgh and the ear of the cardinal there. Therefore he arranged to have me taken and imprisoned by a group of vile savages in the Scottish Lowlands. In their brutal hands, I was forced to watch the demise of all of my gentlemen, watch them slowly murdered in drawn-out ways too despicable and nauseating to here detail to you. Aside from casual beatings, near-starvation, and immurement in an underground cell under revolting conditions, I was unharmed until it was firmly established that I would not be ransomed by either Arthur or Sir Francis Whyffler; not even that mealy-mouthed Harold, Archbishop of York, would dispatch the rather modest amount that would have delivered me from the foul clutches of those barbarians."

  "Once they were convinced that I would gain them no gold or silver, they commenced to take out their frustration and spite upon my helpless body. Although I am, of course, aware of your medical background, I still cannot bring myself to tell you exact details of the appalling, hideously agonizing things that those beasts did to me over the months that they held me, things which caused me to scream for the mercy of death, to piteously beg in vain, to pray, even, that whatever power there may be grant me the boon of death, of final surcease from the endless rounds of tortures, maimings, disfigurements, and mutilations. When it had borne its natural limit and much more, my mind retreated from the horror and pain that was become my waking and sleeping living nightmare of life, so that I was unaware of anything around me when a strong band of knights and their retainers attacked and conquered the verminous hold of my cruel captors, intending to free another nobleman who had already made good his escape from out their clutches.

  It was not until almost half a year later that I came back into my senses, and by that time I had been named a madman and was straitly confined to a tiny, cramped, vermin-ridden stone hut in a nursing-order monastery east of Edinburgh, where I was fed slops and kept naked and unwashed or shorn, seldom seeing more than mere chinks of light, lacking even the most primitive sanitary arrangements, forced to lick frost from off the walls to allay somewhat my constant thirst, with nothing to shield my body from the cold save a stone trough filled with damp, moldy straw. Nothing I said or did was taken into any account by the monks and lay brothers; actually, I could communicate only with those few who spoke Latin, after a fashion, for no one of them could understand any dialect of English. Forced to exist so abominably, caged like some wild beast, fed and cared for with less solicitude than any good husbandman of even this cold, callous, primitive world would render an ox, my mind took to retreating into itself again for periods of indeterminate length in sheer self-protection, its only means of self-defense against true insanity, I think you will agree.

  I remained so for years. Then, one stormy night, lightning set one or more of the buildings of the monastery aflame, and, fearful that the wind-driven fires would light the thatch of the huts, I suppose, one of the monks came down and began to open the barred doors of the hutches in which I and my fellow sufferers lay imprisoned. Understandably desperate to escape, I lured the monk into my hut and there strangled him into unconsciousness, took his warm, woolen hooded habit and his rough brogues, and, amid the chaos of the fires, fled the environs of the monastery.

  When my escape was discovered, armed men were sent to hunt me down like some wild beast. After they and their hounds had driven me to bay, I was bound with ropes and chains, beaten into a coma, and borne back to the monastery hung over the back of a mule. There arrived, they stripped me of my warm robe and threw me naked back into the same fetid kennel.

  Because of the losses of nursing brothers and buildings in the fires, it was decided to bear me to another monastery of the order, one much more distant from the border, located on an island off the western coast of Scotland. I was transported, still naked and with only straw and the filth encrusting my body to shield me from the weather, in a wheeled cage formerly used to hold a bear.

  Somewhere a bit northeast of Glasgow, I think, I once more escaped. While all the party slept, I moved silently about the night camp, stealing a tartan plaid, shirt, brogues, weapons, and a riding mule. I found by starlight a narrow track that looked to bear southwest and moved as fast as I could along it for the rest of that night. But then, on the next day, my mule came up lame, and thenceforth I was afoot.

  Because I still did not speak or even understand the guttural, ill-structured language of the Lowlands at all well, I avoided any contact with people, hiding in brushy ditches and woods whenever I saw or heard other travelers approaching from either direction, always more or less in fear of being again hunted down and taken back to my unjust captivity. Little brooks, rills, and springs are numerous in the area I traversed, so I seldom did thirst, but I very nearly starved before I chanced to catch a wandering chicken whose stringy flesh I was compelled to eat raw because I feared to build a fire; that fowl, a few mushrooms, and a fish of about five pounds' weight I cornered in the shallows of a br
ook and managed to fling ashore barehanded composed my only sustenance for the most of that long trip. But at least I felt I was free.

  * * * *

  "Free," breathed the haggard, graying, old-looking woman. She paused in her reading of the letter, which had been written on sheets of lined yellow paper—real paper, legal-pad-sized paper, so nostalgically familiar, so reminiscent of home. Home! Oh, God, home! Oh, God, if you really are there, if you really exist, please, oh, please, I pray you humbly, please send me back home, out of this rude, crude, hateful, comfortless world, before I die or become as truly disordered of the mind as all these barbarians think I am.

  You delivered your chosen people from the long captivity in Egypt; can't you deliver just this one . . . and Joe, little Joe, my son? Why do they keep Joe away from me? It's important that he start to be taught his Hebrew, he'll soon be six . . . or is it seven? . . . years old, after all. It's most likely that that lying motherfucker shithead of a so-called Archbishop, that dirty bastard Harold Kenmore, who now calls himself Harold of York, is just a goddam no-good anti-Semite, that's it. All these cocksuckers are bound to be anti-Semites, because if they aren't, how come there are no Jews anywhere in England I've heard of, huh?"

  "There's only me . . . all alone . . . so all alone. No one to talk to most of the time except those two thickheaded, muscle-bound, stupid, stinking nuns, or sometimes those even stupider common sluts who claim to be my maids. All of them always stink so bad, reek of old sweat and unwashed bodies and with breath that would gag a fucking maggot. If I wasn't so goddam filthy myself, I don't think I could stand even being in the same fucking room with them. At home, nobody'd . . ."

  "Oh, God, God, goddam you, God! Oh, please, please, please let me go back home. At home I can have a long, hot shower, a shower with real soap, shampoo, perfumed oil, bath gel even, I won't have to be smelling myself all the goddam time. My hair's grown back in, at least, but now my damn teeth are falling out and ache all the goddam time. And half or more of the new growth of hair is gray-white, let's face it, it would be white if it were ever really clean—and I'm not yet forty . . . I don't think; how the hell am I supposed to keep track of time here when there're no calendars, no fucking body seems to know or even care what year it is, and the damned months are called stupid things like Snow Moon, Wolf Moon, and shit like that? And I don't even menstruate anymore . . . ."