“Sárai,” said Lady Nolána, who was pulling weeds with the rest of them, “go fetch a ladle of water for that poor old man. He looks half done in by the heat.”
She straightened up, removed her broad-browed hat, and wiped the sweat off her face.
“Yes, milady,” the girl said, hastening to the water trough. She was glad to have the break.
Nolána saw the servant carry a small bucket out to the traveler, and then suddenly drop it, putting both hands up to her face and giving a loud shriek.
“What is it?” her ladyship called out. “What...what’s the matter?”
Turning to two of her companions, she said: “Jéna, Nikê, grab your hoes and come with me.”
They ran out to where the road entered the estate, and then down the lane to where Sárai was saying something to the pilgrim.
“Who are...?” Nolána started to speak from twenty feet away, and then the man looked up and her heart skipped a beat.
“Oh, God!” she exclaimed. “Oh God Almighty! Maury! Is it really you?”
She had no memory of running the rest of the way and throwing her arms around him.
“Maury!” she said. “Lord above, what’s happened to you, my love?”
She had a hard time seeing through her tears.
“Ahh,” he croaked, as if unused to speaking anything at all. He quickly drank down what little water remained in the bucket.
“Sárai,” Nolána said, “go get some more water. Jéna, fetch the boys and Wyvin with the wagon. Quickly, quickly, now!”
To her husband, she said: “Lean on me, dearest, and I’ll get you into the shade.”
Finally he was able to respond to her original question.
“Have you heard naught of the war?” he asked.
“Just vague rumors of a battle out west somewhere,” she said. “Nothing else.”
“Then no one else has returned?” he asked.
“No one,” Nolána said. “What is it, Maurin? What’s happened? And where are your things?”
He sat down heavily under a tree.
“Too much to tell, my dear,” he said, “to say it all now. I’m so tired. My only thought was reaching you, and now that I have, I have nothing else to give....”
Then he fell asleep, his head sliding sideways onto her shoulder, nor did he wake when Wyvin finally arrived with old Nobber leading the wagon.
He slept for sixteen hours straight, woke to eat some broth and bread and sip a little wine, and then went back again to bed. On the third day, he was pale and worn, but talking and acting more like his usual self. He called to his wife.
“Lána,” he said, “I want you to send messages by courier to Countess Tirÿna, Lord Matán, Lady Pímay, Lady Zaménka, and the members of their respective families, asking them to join us here tomorrow afternoon. Then I’ll tell everyone at once what I know about the Pommerelian campaign.”
“Yes, husband,” Nolána said.
That evening they shared the dinner meal together for the first time in three months.
“Lord,” Maurin said, bowing his head and giving the invocation, “please bless this meal and honor this family. Accept our thanks for preserving my life and for showing me the way home. Grant Thy mercy unto those poor souls whose bodies now lie dead and unburied on the battlefield. Amen.”
“Amen,” his family said.
“Dáris,” he said to his younger son, “please pass the bread and cheese.”
At his insistence, they talked of ordinary things only, of how the crops were coming and which cows were a-milking and when the hot weather would break.
Afterwards, he sat with Nolána under a tree by the reservoir lake behind their house, sipping a cup of water, their backs propped against the bole of the great elm.
“I never thought to see you again,” he said, “to be here like this, to view the ducks swimming upon the water, to revel in our children, to feel the brush of your hair against my face.”
“Was it so awful?” she breathed quietly into his ear.
“You have no idea,” he replied, shuddering visibly at the memory.
He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
“But this, this somehow makes it all worthwhile,” he said, smelling the perfume of her breath.
The sun began to dip low behind the Carpates Mountains.
“The ’squitoes will be out soon,” Maurin said. “Best to turn in.”
“I’m in no hurry,” Lána sighed. “Why don’t we stay here a while? It’ll be dark soon, and Jéna will put the children to bed.”
“What about me?” he said, chuckling.
“Oh, I will put you to bed,” she whispered, kissing him.
“But I’m not sleepy,” Maurin said.
“Nor am I,” came the husky reply.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“MY NEWS IS NOT GOOD”
THE GATHERING
The next afternoon, their guests began to arrive. First came Tirÿna Countess of Kosnick and her two daughters, then Matán Lord Gándesa, and Pímay Lady Béçin, and Zaménka Lady Ya’os, plus their families and retainers, all of them members of or fiefs to the noble House of Kosnick. Other families from the immediate neighborhood also meandered through their gate as the afternoon progressed, bringing whatever spare food and drink they possessed, and helping in any way they could.
First they sat down to a feast of thanksgiving, the most sumptuous any of them had seen in a year, spread out on wooden tables near Lake Ézion, with over a hundred old men, women, and children participating. The atmosphere was subdued, since no one knew what had become of their menfolk, but they put as good a face upon the celebration as they could under the circumstance.
The children soon began to play along the shore, making up games to entertain themselves, and running and shouting to use up their spare energy. The adults watched quietly as the young ones laughed and the dogs barked in sheer enjoyment; the spectacle occasionally caused them to smile when they forgot themselves. A cool breeze began sweeping down from the nearby mountains late in the afternoon.
Finally, the moment they had all been waiting for arrived, and the women began gathering their offspring, and settling them down in loose family groups in a large semicircle under the trees. Many of them spread blankets over the grass to make a place to sit; the nobility picked separate spots just for themselves and theirs, while the rest of the folk intermingled.
Then Lord Maurin von Markstadt stepped to the center of the half-circle, and faced the multitude.
“You all know who am I,” he said, “and I know you. We’ve spent most of our lives together. Since it appears that I am the first of the Kosnicki men to find his way home, I have an obligation to tell you what happened out there, and what it was like. As you may have guessed, my news is not good.”
A low moan emanated from the assembled families, and some of the women held their children close.
“I do not have all of the answers that you seek,” he said, “except to tell you that others will almost certainly be following in my wake. I don’t know exactly how many, and in many cases, I don’t know exactly who. Where I have answers, I’ll give them to you honestly and straightforwardly.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“...AND IT IS CALLED KILLINGFORD”
THE PRELUDE
Lord Maurin paused for a moment, as if pondering where to begin. He wiped the sweat dripping from his brow.
“I have seen the face of Hell on earth,” he intoned, gazing around at the rapt faces of his audience, “and it is called Killingford.
“We left Paltyrrha on the first day of May, marching west towards the mountains. Although the rains were often heavy and the roads muddy, we made good time, and reached Myláßgorod without incident two weeks later. I met a funny little monk named Father Athanasios on the way, and we traveled much of the distance together, entertaining each other with our stories.
“Our boys were good and ready for a fight, let me tell you, and drilled to
gether as well as any unit I ever saw. Count Dónan kept everyone in line, but our brigade disciplined itself, if you know what I mean, because they believed in the righteousness of our cause.
“On the third night out, I was introduced to Prince Arkády, as good a commander as I’ve ever met, plus several of his brothers. Prince Nikolaí, the next youngest of the Tighrishi, was a big, burly warrior whose accomplishments were championed constantly by the men.
“I was not as impressed with the new Pommerelian king, who seemed to me overwhelmed with his new position and his own importance, and who didn’t show as much consideration for his own soldiers as the Tighrishi did.
“Myláßgorod was a mess. Our campground was full of mud and bugs, the provisions were spotty, and we were stuck there for several days. Finally, they moved us out early one morning. We had scarcely marched a mile towards the pass when word came that Prince Nikolaí had conquered the Pommerelian fort at the top. Now, that victory cheered us up a great deal, and we pushed forward with even greater vigor than before.
“It took us two days to traverse the mountains. There we set up temporary camp while the engineers built several devices on the cliff overlooking Borgösha, the Pommerelian fortress rooted down below. The next day they started lobbing huge stones over the wall, one of which, we learned later, killed their commander, the local count. The city was abandoned the next day, and we moved in immediately.
“We rousted out the spies and anti-Psairothi elements right quickly, that’s for sure, and lined their heads upon the city walls like so many pennants. King Kipriyán called that afternoon for a ceremony of accession, and we all gathered ’round the main town square, which had a huge elm tree right in the center. There King Humfried was proclaimed ruler of Pommerelia, and his son Prince Pankratz, who was up north commanding the Bolémi army, made Hereditary Prince. It was a grand sight.
“But then a storm came up suddenly as Humfried was making his lengthy speech, and lightning struck the great tree, splitting a branch loose. King Kipriyán was knocked senseless, and his chief physician, Fra Jánisar Cantárian, was crushed by the falling limb. The funeral for those who had perished at Borgösha, among them Cantárian, was held the very next day, with the patriarch himself presiding. At the same time, the papist Church of Saint Catalina the Centonist was reconsecrated as Saint Michaêl’s Cathedral, with the Protopresbyter Varlaám Njégosh being named the new bishop there. The Romanish clergy were given the opportunity of swearing allegiance to the Orthodox Church; those who refused were banished to the west. The conversion of Pommerelia to the true faith had finally begun.
“We spent several more days encamped outside the city, waiting for the rest of the army to clear the Skopélosz Pass. Then we proceeded slowly up the valley of the Spargö River to the fortress of Karkára. Although there were occasional attacks by Pommerelian irregulars on our left flank, the river helped to protect our forces, and we sloughed off their minor raids like a dog shakes off fleas.
“Karkára was a much tougher problem. Its position and height made it almost impregnable except for a prolonged siege from the Kórynthi side, where the flat valley floor permitted the great engines to be brought to bear on the twenty-foot stone walls. We tried several assaults from the Pommerelian side, but the steep canyon there put us at a great disadvantage. Finally, Prince Kiríll devised a plan whereby he would take a small force from Westmark up the canyon of the Vá’al, which allowed access to the relatively undefended north side of the fortress. Our brigade was one of those delegated to wait in the canyon below for Kiríll’s men to open the main gates.
“The attack was a great success. Using homemade ladders, Prince Kiríll was able to scale the northern walls undetected, and take the guardhouse over the main gate. Before the Pommerelians could react, Kiríll’s rangers had winched the portcullis far enough up where our men could start squeezing through. I’m proud to say that the Kosnicki troops acquitted themselves very well that day. We penetrated straight to the citadel, and cut down the Pommerelian commander, at which point all resistance ended. We had taken the last great castle before Balíxira!
“It took us several days to regroup, during which time we received the disappointing news of Duke Ferdinand’s defeat in the west, although we had never really counted on his support. As in Borgösha, Patriarch Avraäm soon sent the Latinate clergy packing, reconsecrating the old church of Saint Tyrranus under its new name of Saint Innokénty.
“And then we were heading northwest, ’round the point of the Läuterung Highlands, where we were supposed to meet Prince Ezzö’s army coming down from Einwegflasche. We had already heard that Lockenlöd Castle had been taken and its count killed, so we knew our boys were well on their way south.
“We stopped at a small abbey called Saint Paul’s, an establishment of the Verbenans, one of the more popular religious orders in Pommerelia, known especially for their gaily colored gardens and bright, yellow-and-green robes. We appropriated it as a command center after the monks had fled, leaving their trowels in place, since the compound was ideally located to service the supply columns coming from the north, the east, and the southeast, and set up camp around it. The patriarch immediately reconsecrated the chapel there to honor the name of Saint Paulinos the Persecuted, who had died a martyr to the Orthodox faith at the hands of the papists.
“On the next day, the eleventh of June, Prince Ezzö’s column arrived from the north, and the army was reunited. I tell you, it was a grand sight to see thirty thousand Kórynthi soldiers encamped in Pommerelia, ready to lay siege first to Balíxira and then to Rabestadt. King Kyprianos spoke to us the next day, exhorting us to do our best for the honor of Kórynthia and the glory of our families. Then Holy Patriarch Avraäm blessed everyone, and called upon God to endorse our great enterprise. We marched south two days later, flags flying in the breeze, a brave bunch of boys heading off to war.
“On the next day, we encountered a group of outriders from the Pommerelian army, who raided our scouting parties and then attacked our front units, but rode rapidly off when pressed. King Kipriyán held us back, wisely not allowing the different corps to get spread apart where they might be vulnerable to another attack. All day we had been following a fast, deep river called the Falling Water, which runs directly south to Balíxira.
“That night there was a great council of war, with all of the major officers discussing our various military options. Quite a number of our scouts had been killed earlier that day in the raid, including Sir Léka d’Örs, who knew the terrain better than anyone else, so we were without his valuable contributions. We thought we might encounter the main Pommerelian force sometime in the next few days, that they couldn’t let us get too close to Balíxira without making at least some effort to stop us. We knew that we outnumbered them by at least ten thousand men, so the general opinion was that we ought to close as quickly as possible, that such a conflict would be decisive, effectively ending the war. We were wrong.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“THIS HERE’S THE SCHILLING-FORD”
THE FIRST DAY: THE FEAST OF SAINT OUITOS
Lord Maurin cleared his throat, and paused long enough to take a long swig from a winesack. Then he asked for a stool, saying: “You will pardon me, gentlefolk, but my leg still troubles me.”
After he had found a comfortable position beneath a spreading chestnut tree, he continued with his story.
“At dawn on the next day, we broke camp as usual and resumed our march south. The skies were cloudless and the weather unseasonably hot. We had been having trouble finding sufficient supplies of good water for the last two days, since the walls of the river canyon were too steep to traverse easily, and the local creeks seemed to be drying up in the sun.
“For some hours that morning we saw nothing more than the usual distant outriders of the enemy, which we could neither touch nor stop, any more than they could ours, although I now believe that the attack against our scouts on the previous day had been a deliberate attempt by the Po
mmerelians to blind us to our surroundings.
“About midday there was a commotion behind us, near the end of the column, and I looked back to see a large dust cloud appear on our left flank. They had waited until much of our army had passed them by, and then attacked our rear, rolling up our trailing units like so much broken kindling.
“Their archers and infantry had been secreted in a hidden rill that ran parallel to our forces for about a mile or so, and they had simultaneously sent out their cavalry to attack our supply train. I could soon see the smoke from our burning wagons intermingling with the dust whirls. Such is the advantage of knowing the terrain in which one must fight.
“Although chaos reigned everywhere at first, Prince Nikolaí rallied our cavalry, who rode at full speed back along both sides of our lines. The enemy horsemen immediately broke off their attack when they saw our brave boys coming, and headed for cover to the east. When Nikolaí’s forces tried to follow, they were stopped with a barrage of arrows from a row of well-positioned archers, and had to withdraw until we could bring up our own men to support them. I estimate that he lost one-quarter of his horsemen to death or injury in that first barrage, plus several hundred mounts.
“Prince Arkády had not been idle during this time, and he was already trying to restore order to our badly disrupted rear guard, sending several brigades northeast to roust the enemy archers, and halting the main army’s advance. He ordered the lead units to wheel ponderously around in a circle, in order to cut off any escape to the southeast.
“Their longbowmen created havoc in our lines. As I have already mentioned, these archers had been hidden in a crack in the earth that had apparently been artificially widened and deepened, and they were almost impregnable until we were able to attack in force with our infantry. As we began to bring more of our might to bear on the Pommerelian lines, the enemy slowly withdrew under pressure, falling back to what I now believe were a series of previously-established retreat positions. They were taking very few casualties, while we were forced to advance through completely open fields covered with dry grass. The slaughter was immense.
Killingford: The Hieromonk's Tale, Book Two Page 13