Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset

by Cooper, Edmund

  He wondered why it had been so necessary. It was more than simple desire, he thought hazily. It was, he supposed, an affirmation of love and life. He had seen much death and much horror. Now he had sought refuge from it in physical and emotional union. He remembered Alyx. He remembered Alyx with love. It was no disloyalty to Petrina. He remembered the Alyx of Mistress Fitzalan’s Leap. That was best way to remember her. The rest was nightmare …

  Afterwards, he and Petrina lay close, whispering, sharing. Someday, he would tell her about Alyx; and someday, she, too, would share the mourning. And together they would pick flowers in remembrance …

  Presently, the camp in the Misery – so appropriately named – became alive with activity. Women prepared hot food. Men looked to their weapons, consulted with each other, enquired of the latest news. Kentigern, Seigneur Fitzalan’s bailiff, had somehow managed to escape the destruction at the castle with nothing more than flesh-wounds in the leg and shoulder. In the absence of higher authority, Kentigern was considered by common consent to be the leader of the survivors. He was a capable man. Already, he had sent messengers to London to acquaint the Grand Council with the state of affairs. And he had sent men both east and west to ascertain the extent of the freebooters’ invasion.

  The stranger who had sailed with the freebooters was called Isidor. Once he had been mate on a four-masted barque plying along the European coast for the wine trade. His vessel had been taken by the freebooters off the coast of Spain with many casks of wine on board. The captain was hanged and the crew enslaved. Many of them had subsequently died of fevers and poor rations. Isidor was one of the last survivors.

  While Kentigern awaited the results of his communications, and while more people congregated in the Misery, Kieron sought information from Isidor. He wanted to know more about the freebooters.

  For more than a hundred years, so Isidor told him, the freebooters had been a pestilence in the Mediterranean Ocean. Though they were drawn from many countries and many creeds, they had these things in common: that each had put himself outside the law in the land of his birth, and that each had little liking for honest toil. For many years, though their acts of violence and theft had been terrible to those who had to endure them, the freebooters had not constituted a serious threat to the security of nations. They had sailed only in small groups consisting of two, perhaps three or four, vessels, despoiling only isolated communities and occupying captured territory only for so long as it took to organise a force sufficient to repel them. Frequently, when their strength was challenged, they would put to sea without giving battle. Their strength had lain in their very elusiveness.

  But, of recent years, their numbers had grown, and their strength had increased in an alarming fashion. They had become unified under the absolute command of a man who styled himself Admiral Death. No one knew his real name. No one knew from which country he came, for he spoke many languages, as if to the manner born.

  Admiral Death, according to Isidor, was still a young man, perhaps not yet thirty years old. Yet he had natural authority, the gift of commanding. In the space of a few years he had unified the numerous small groups of Mediterranean freebooters. He had transformed them into a seaborne nation, subject to its own laws, acknowledging the sovereignty of no other nation upon earth. Every man and woman in the freebooters had sworn absolute allegiance to him. His word was life or death.

  He held some curious notions. He would not tolerate children or pregnant women. Children, wherever he found them, were put to the sword. Women who were demonstrably pregnant when captured were likewise put to the sword. If they became pregnant later, they were thrown overboard. Clearly, Admiral Death had little interest in man’s greatest hope of immortality.

  His flag ship, from which Isidor had escaped, now lay anchored off Little Hampton. It was Admiral Death who had personally led the thrust inland to Arundel. It was Admiral Death who had devised the concerted attacks along the south coast of Britain.

  According to Isidor, it was Admiral Death’s intention to establish a semi-permanent colony on the shores of Britain, from which he would be able to conduct his attacks along the northern coasts of Europe. Ironically, he had chosen Britain because of the strength of the Luddite Church. He knew that the Luddites held machines to be anathema. Consequently, he knew also that the ability of the people on the island of Britain to defend themselves would be severely restricted. Admiral Death was a great believer in machines. He had much experience of their usefulness – in a purely destructive sense. He had the use of gunpowder and cannon; and his engineers had devised siege engines – ballistae and the like – capable of hurling explosive bombs against fortified positions. Admiral Death did not despise swords, bows, axes and crossbows; but he knew from experience that they were no match for bombshell and cannon. The god of war smiled not upon the righteous but upon superiority of weapons.

  Admiral Death, however, had one major weakness. It was a weakness common to all seafaring men. He was afraid of fire. But he was more than ordinarily afraid. He was unreasonably afraid. It was said that some years ago he had been plundering a Mediterranean French city and had been accidentally trapped in a waterfront warehouse when one of his men put it to the torch. It was said that, though Admiral Death eventually managed to escape, he had been severely burned, particularly about his legs, and that his manhood was gone from him for ever.

  Kieron, who had been listening to Isidor gloomily, brightened at this latest intelligence.

  ‘You have spoken with Kentigern of these matters?’

  ‘Ay, that I have. He has heard what you have heard and more.’

  ‘Then our task is clear. We must prey upon this madman’s fears. We must fire his ships and inflict such damage that, to his dying day – which, Ludd permitting, may be soon – he will have cause to regret that he came to these shores.’

  Isidor smiled. ‘Easily said, my friend. Because of his fear, the Admiral is doubly cautious. Such vessels as now lie tied up at Little Hampton are well protected. Other vessels lie out at anchor. Strict watch is kept. It will be hard to surprise them.’

  ‘We shall find a way,’ said Kieron. ‘We shall find a way. To know the enemy’s true weakness is surely half the battle.’

  5

  Kentigern had been a good bailiff, but he was not a good general. Now that Seigneur Fitzalan and his family were dead, Kentigern was regarded as the temporary leader of those who had survived, until Seigneur Fitzalan’s closest surviving relative laid claim to the lands and properties of the seigneurie. It therefore fell to Kentigern to determine how and when and if the forces of Admiral Death should be attacked and repulsed.

  Several hundred people had now rallied to the Misery. There were many women and children; but also there were two hundred or more men capable of bearing arms. Kentigern’s first thought was to send a sortie into Arundel to discover if the invaders had maintained any presence there and also to list the extent of the damage suffered by the town.

  He did not wish to risk many of his fighting force. So he called for twenty volunteers. Among those who stood forward and received his approval were Kieron, Sholto and Isidor.

  The twenty men approached Arundel with great caution. They carried swords, bows, crossbows, clubs. Their caution was unjustified. They found Arundel as Kieron had last seen it – deserted, except by the dead. Evidently, Admiral Death’s men had retired to Little Hampton, there to consolidate their defences.

  The party was led by Kentigern’s second-in-command, a man called Liam who had once been a captain of foot soldiers and had some skill in the art of fighting. When Liam had assured himself that none living remained in Arundel, he was of a mind to return to the Misery and report his findings to Kentigern. But Kieron spoke with him.

  It was a fine, bright day, but chilly. Sea birds had come inland. They pecked at corpses in the streets, and scratched and squabbled amid the desolation.

  ‘Master Liam, should we not bury our dead?’ asked Kieron.

  Liam gaze
d about him hopelessly. ‘I am commanded to report upon the state of the town and the castle, Kieron. Besides, we are but twenty men. It would take us more than two days to bury those who have fallen.’

  ‘Must we leave them to the sea birds and the weather?’ demanded Sholto. ‘I think not, captain. These were our folk. I will dig all day and all night, if need be. I am a strong man, and I will undertake to dig deep enough to bury twenty myself.’

  Kieron thought for a moment. ‘Liam is right, Sholto. We would exhaust ourselves trying to bury all the dead. We shall need our strength to avenge them … But suppose we collected the bodies. Suppose we burned them, perhaps in the castle yard. At least, we would save them from the sea birds; and there are enough of us to make our farewells to them in a civilised fashion.’

  ‘The invaders would see the smoke,’ objected Liam. ‘They might think that we have returned to our homes, and be tempted to make a second attack.’

  ‘It would take them more than an hour to march inland from the coast,’ Kieron pointed out. ‘When they first came, we were unprepared, expecting no attack. Men, women and children were butchered defenceless in the night. But if they came again, though there are not many of us, we are armed and ready. We know this country, and they do not. If we light the funeral pyre in the late afternoon, and if these freebooters march upon us, we can inflict much damage before we retire. It would be something to dispatch a score or two of murderers at the funeral of our friends.’

  ‘That is good reasoning,’ commented Isidor. ‘If they do not come, we have no difficulties. If they do come, we can kill a few before we retreat into the darkness.’

  Liam scratched his head. ‘Kentigern asked only for news. He gave no instruction as to the dead.’

  ‘Kentigern has much on his mind,’ observed Kieron mildly. ‘His concern is rightly with the living. But he is not a hard man. If he were here, I believe he would allow us to take care of our dead. He would not wish to see them reduced to carrion.’

  Liam made up his mind. ‘By the hammer, you are right, boy. Therefore, let us prepare a large bed of wood, which is all we can now offer these who were our friends.’

  There was plenty of wood available. Large stocks of logs were always in store at the castle. Also much half-burned timber lay around for the picking up. Presently, a very large platform of wood had been established in the castle yard. It was broad enough and long enough to support many bodies; and it rose almost the height of a man’s shoulders from the ground.

  Now came the more arduous and less pleasant task: the collecting of the bodies. Kieron, Sholto and two other men elected to gather the dead from the castle and its grounds. The remaining men split themselves into three groups and took hand carts to scour the town.

  There was one body that Kieron wished to deal with himself, alone; though he knew that it would break his heart.

  Alyx lay as he had left her, undisturbed. But she now bore little resemblance to the Alyx Fitzalan who had once been so full of life and love and sheer grace. The body was a pale, shrunken thing, grotesque, doll-like.

  The tears coursed down Kieron’s face. He forced himself to look so that the manner of her death would be burned into his brain for ever. There were the lips he had kissed. There were the breasts that had been held warmly against him.

  ‘Alyx, dear and lovely Alyx,’ he sobbed. ‘I will kill for you. If need be, I will spend my life killing for you, until the last of the animals who brought you to this has perished horribly, and the earth is clean.’

  He found some torn brocade hanging by a window, and wrapped her carefully. It was Indian cloth of gold and silver, a fitting shroud for a child of sunlight and movement.

  And when she was covered, all of her, he held her close for the last time. And as held her, he saw the picture: Mistress Fitzalan’s Leap. He marvelled that he had not noticed it before his first and last painting. It hung crazily from the wall, and had been slashed by a sword. But the damage was not irreparable. The canvas could be sewn, and fresh pigments would conceal the joining.

  Kieron knew that he could never paint like that again. It did not matter. The Alyx who lay in his arms was dead. But the Alyx of the portrait was alive in all the bloom and exuberance of youth. That was how she must now live, he told himself bitterly, caught like a fly in amber. When there was time, he would attend to the portrait; and a hundred years hence men would marvel at her grace and beauty.

  He lifted his burden and carried it out to the funeral pyre. The men had worked hard at their grim task. Already, the bodies were piled high. Kieron climbed on to the pyre, treading carefully so that he would not disturb the dead, and laid Alyx as near as he could to the body of her father.

  When he came down, Sholto and the others spoke to him, but he did not hear what they were saying.

  Men were sprinkling whale oil on the timbers. Presently all was ready.

  ‘Will someone say something?’ asked Liam.

  ‘I will say something.’ Kieron suddenly recollected what was happening. ‘I will say something. Before the torch is put to this pyre which will consume the remains of our loved ones and friends, I ask that all here will swear to take ten lives for one or to die in their efforts. We deal not with people but with animals. We deal with the instruments of death.’

  ‘It is a beautiful oath,’ said Isidor. ‘I swear.’

  ‘I also,’ said Sholto, ‘though Ludd knows we are not a fighting people.’

  The fire leaped high, and the men drew back from the heat, staring as if in a trance as the logs and timbers spit and cracked, and the flames roared like living creatures in the light wind.

  Liam had sent a man up to the watch tower to keep an eye on the river and the road to the sea and the flat coastal land; but the rest of the men stayed in the castle yard, held almost magically by the great wall of fire that now rose up to surround and consume the dead.

  The heat grew intense, and the men had to stand farther and farther back, while their faces became red and the sweat dried as it was formed.

  Great gouts of black smoke rose to the sky, sparks showered; and the fire of death roared with its own self-consuming life.

  ‘Farewell for ever,’ said Kieron silently. ‘If there is a life hereafter, as the neddies swear, may you again ride a fine horse, Alyx, on a June morning. And presently I will join you and paint such a picture of you held between earth and sky that all the ghosts of all the men who ever lived will marvel. But, forgive me, I think that life is only for the living; and so your final refuge is in the memories of those who have known and loved you.’

  The man who had been in the watch tower was speaking excitedly to Liam. Kieron emerged from his private thoughts to learn that, in the fading light, the watch man had seen a column of men marching from Little Hampton. He estimated that they would reach the castle within the half-hour.

  ‘If we are prudent,’ said Liam, ‘we will shortly depart from this place. We have fulfilled our task and more. We have seen to our dead, and we may retire with honour.’

  ‘Not I!’ shouted Kieron wildly. ‘I mourn my dead, and I am anxious to demand a reckoning.’

  Liam, a strong man, seized him by the shoulders and shook him. ‘Boy, your spirit is great, but you are half crazed with grief. We are twenty men. I am told a hundred or more march against us. They have weapons at the very least equal to ours and possibly superior. Now is not the time to fulfil your oath. Be patient. The time will come when we may strike.’

  Kieron broke his hold. ‘Sir, you are a good man, and you lead us. As you say, I am half crazed with grief. But grief sharpens my wits. These who march against us will have to come up the hill to the castle, will they not?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, we have burned our dead. May we not offer a similar accommodation to the freebooters? I am told that Admiral Death has little liking for fire.’

  ‘You speak in riddles, Kieron. Speak plain before we depart, taking you forcibly, if need be.’

  Kieron tried to accom
modate his thoughts. ‘They come against us, these freebooters, drawn by the sight of the funeral pyre. In the castle cellars there will doubtless still be many barrels of whale oil, along with logs and kindling. If we were to load four-wheel carts with the whale oil and with any substance that will burn, and if we were to wait until the freebooters were coming up the hill—’

  Liam grasped the idea instantly. ‘Kieron, your thoughts have some greatness.’ He turned to the rest. ‘Sholto, take what men you need and find three four-wheel carts quickly. Mangan, take the rest of the men into the castle, bring out what is left of the whale oil and any substance that will burn quickly.’

  Presently, the carts were loaded with barrels of oil, small wood, cloth and straw, and anything that would burn quickly. Then they were hauled out of the castle gate to the top of the hill, and were ready for launching down the road to the sea.

  The watch man reported that the freebooters were already crossing the bridge over the river Arun. Twilight came rapidly. It was hard to see down the length of the hill from the castle gate.

  ‘If the ruse does not work,’ said Liam, ‘we shall have to run for our lives. We cannot stand against so many.’

  ‘It will work,’ said Kieron with utter confidence. ‘The darkness comes fast, but that is no matter. Indeed it is to our advantage. We know their numbers, they do not know ours. In the darkness, and with chariots of fire bursting upon them, they will panic. Such as escape burning, we may easily put to the sword. Let us listen for their feet and their voices before we launch the attack. Let us hear their breathing.’