by Robert Adams
Arsen shrugged. "Maybe . . . but I'd say the adrenaline high has the most to do with it. That's why a whitetail buck will keep on running for miles, even after a thirty-ought-six slug has blown his heart into fucking pieces, or why a grizzly bear that's dead on his feet will still come after the hunter . . . and get him, sometimes, too, at least that's what I heard my Uncle Boghos say once, and he's hunted all over the world, too."
"But you and me today, Mike, we've got us our own fucking hunting to do. You head downriver on that side of the thing and I'll do the same thing on the other side. Don't just look on the river itself—those Spanish greasers could of got cagey, they might be figgering that since they've only seen carriers during the day, we can only fly during the day, so they may be traveling at nights and laying up somewheres during the days."
"Now they must of brushed over the most of their footprints around here, but the ones they missed was all made when the ground was real soft, so the fuckers prob'ly was here during that long, drizzly time the end of last week, I figger, so that means they've had two, three days at the most to travel, and, even with the current, they couldn't of got more than about down to where that deep, clear creek joins the river, I don't think, so we won't go down much past there, then we'll turn around and come back up on opposite sides—maybe that way one of us will see something the other one might've missed, see. The one as sees the fuckers or their goddam boats'll let the other one know where he's at and then the both of us will crisscross all around and make sure how many of the fuckers it is and see if we can find out what the hell they're up to up here. When we get back, maybe we oughta take some of the Creek braves off the fort construction and send them out to get us a few prisoners, huh? We don't want to have a bunch of the fuckers come barrel-assing out of the woods sometime in the middle of the goddam night or something, you know."
Mike shook his head. "Naw, Arsen, way things looks around here, it ain't that many of the fuckers. I don't think they're up here to fight or nothing, they're prob'ly just a long-range patrol, so their fucking officers'll know what we're up to, see. The way we tromped them on this here island, I don't figger they're gonna come back in less strength than was here that night, and prob'ly a whole pisspot more, was I them."
Neither man saw anything much on the downriver patrol. Once, both swung abruptly out into mid-channel at the sight of a longboat, but closer scrutiny showed it to be empty even of oars and they at length decided that it was just one of the ones left moored to posts at the island that had finally broken loose and been carried away by the current. Nonetheless, Arsen used one of the carrier's weapons to blast out most of the boat's bottom planking.
They went down a few miles beyond the confluence of the river and the tributary, then switched banks and started back upstream, sailing along fairly low along the banks, with the magnifiers set for five yards. Arsen had come back up well past the island before he saw anything other than trees, brush, a few animals of various sorts, and a vast assortment of birds. Then, only a mile or so from the site of the fort and village, he saw something singularly odd.
Swooping in closer and at almost ground level, he saw them: four longboats, their swivels all dismounted and laid in the boats along with the oars, the tillers, and numerous small kegs and other impedimenta, all skillfully camouflaged with fresh-cut brush, small trees, and driftwood. Taking careful bearings, he turned and skimmed off to find Mike.
Don Felipe, done with his second day of quietly observing the fort-building project from a distance, was tramping back toward the cold camp some fifty yards back from the riverbank and the beached boats when the clear noise of someone approaching sent him and his companions prone into the brush flanking the game trail they had been using, single-file. From behind his chosen tree, the knight spotted the runner and stood up, replacing the ready pistol in his belt.
"Damn your lights!" he hissed at his other squire, Rudolfo, who had been left in the camp that day. "You make more noise than a herd of stampeding cattle, you . . ."
Then he saw the stark fear in the eyes of the younger man and snapped, "All right, what's happened, Rudolfo?"
The auburn-haired, somewhat gangly boy gulped and said, "M . . . my lord, two of the glowing silver things, they . . . they're at the camp. They disarmed everyone and asked who was in charge. I didn't . . . I said nothing, my lord, but he . . . one of the oarsmen told them that Don Felipe leads and was . . . is out with a large force that could attack and save us at any time. Then the men in the silver helmets said that I should find you and tell you that if you attack, they will kill everyone." He gulped again and asked, "Does . . . will my lord at . . . attack them?"
The knight laughed harshly. "With what, pray tell, Rudolfo?" He waved at his other squire and the four men who had been with him on surveillance that day. "With the six of you, seven pistols and a few dirks? Besides, balls just bounce off those silver things, indio arrows, too. I'm certain that that oarsman meant us all well with his bluffing lies, but he should have told the truth, even so."
Leading the way, Don Felipe took his course back toward his camp. But just out of sight of it, the knight had his men place their pistols, their powder and balls, and all save one knife each in the convenient hollow of a dead tree, then added both his own pistols, accessories, and his big dirk to the hoard and saw fallen leaves heaped over the lot before proceeding on, then remembered the long-glass and had one of the squires go back and place it too under the leaves with the hidden weapons.
When the seven Spaniards filed into the clearing and approached the carriers, Arsen said, "Mike, take it up and see if you can tell how many are hiding out there and how well armed they are, huh?"
Grinning, he said to the knight, "Well, Don Felipe, we meet again. Damn, but you bastards are stubborn. You got your tail singed first, just a little way upriver from here, then again a few days later out on the river, then the whole lot of you got either killed or driven off that island, and still you're coming back for more. What do I have to do, kill all of you to keep you off this stretch of river?"
Don Felipe drew himself up and cleared his throat.
"It is not in any way your land to hold, trespasser. All of this land was given by the Holy See into the sole domain of the Spanish Crown and the Caliphate of Granada. Any other European or Afriqan not here for the specific purpose of serving Spain or Granada is automatically excommunicated until the day he leave, confess his sins, and perform adequate penance. This is Spanish land and we will defend it from all foreign interlopers who so transgress as to disturb and corrupt the indigenous pagans."
"Disturb and corrupt, huh?" sneered Arsen. "While all you fuckers have in mind is to kill the ones you don't make slaves out of, huh?"
Don Felipe shook his head. "Not so, excommunicant. All that a pagan need do is profess his Christian faith and he becomes free at that moment."
"Free to immediately be returned home?" demanded Arsen.
"Well . . . no, not immediately," answered the knight. "He must be further instructed and straitly questioned to establish that his profession be genuine and not just a prevaricant ploy, that he truly understands his new faith and has unquestionably received a Calling to go back and strive to bring his people from out of the darkness of paganism into the truth and light of Christianity."
"And, of course, the poor fucker is kept in servitude to you cocksuckers meantime, right?" Arsen's tone was scathing.
The Spanish knight shrugged. "Life is hard, my lord. In order that all stay fed, all must perform chores of some sort, from the highest to the lowliest. Such is God's Will."
"Well," Arsen said bluntly, "I'm not an excommunicant because I never was one of your fucking communicants to start out with, see. I'm a Monophysite, not a fucking Roman Catholic, and as far as I'm concerned, buster, your fucking Pope and your mother-fucking king and his bunghole buddy in Granada can all go take a flying fuck for all I care about them and how they feel like they own this country lock, stock, and fucking barrel. You just tell you
r own fucking top dog that I said unless he wants to see a whole fucking lot of dead Spanish and Moors laying around here and feeding the buzzards and the possums, he better had just keep them to hell out of this part of the country. I don't like killing, you understand, but a man's gotta do what the fuck he's gotta do, too."
Mike returned then, and catching Arsen's eye, shook his head significantly. No hostiles out in the woods, then.
"I ain't gonna take all your guns away from you like I done the first time," said Arsen. "Just the swivels is in your boats and all the gunpowder you can't carry with you. You and your men go down now and take enough powder to fill up all of your flasks and all the food and supplies you think you can carry, then you can just start hiking back to the coast, because your fucking boats won't be no good to no fucking body once I'm done with them today. I catch any fucking one of you fuckers around here again, you're dead meat. Get me? You understand, Don Felipe? Well, okay, get going, now!"
Leaving Mike Sikeena to oversee the carrying out of his orders by the Spanish, Arsen revisited the island long enough to sink every boat he could see, then sailed back upriver. He had said "walk" and that had been exactly what he had meant. It would be a long, time-consuming walk for the Spaniards, much longer and infinitely harder than had been their trip upriver. "Tough titty for them," he thought. "But if I was their CO, I wouldn't do diddly-squat until my patrol had got back and been debriefed, so the longer it takes Don Felipe and his sad sacks to drag-ass in, the longer we'll have here to get ready for when they come back up here to try and retake this stretch of river away from us. At least, I got me four new swivel guns out of this deal today."
Sir Timoteo, il Duce di Bolgia, had talked with the man that Lieutenant Pasquale di Forio and his mounted axemen had escorted back to Corcaigh from the countryside, he and le Chevalier Marc had chatted, walked, eaten, and ridden with the man. Marc had found him distressingly provincial, very peasant-like, and speaking atrocious Norman French; had it been entirely up to the judgment of the French knight, the yokel would have been thanked for coming, gifted a small purse, and sent back to tend his small herd of scrawny kine.
But Captain-of-foot Timoteo liked the man, Flann Mac Core Ui Fingen, cowherd, farmer, and hereditary Irish king of Munster. Years spent at interviewing prospective recruits for his condottas had given the condottiere a usually reliable sixth sense about men, common or gentle or noble, and he thought to see definite potential in the blunt, honest, open man of thirty-odd years.
True, he did not speak the archaic Norman French that had been the courtly language here in Munster, while still the FitzGeralds and their ilk had ruled, but certain remaining palace functionaries had averred to Timoteo and Marc that Flann's command of the Irish tongue was so good as to make him sound almost like a scholar, and he could both read and write that language, as well.
Also true, the man was more than just a little rough around the edges, this Timoteo was perfectly willing to admit to anyone. On the occasion of his first meal at the palace in Corcaigh, Marc had sat in utter silence, appalled at the Irishman's eating habits—which he later, privately, had compared very unfavorably to those of a starving boar-hog scavenging the high carcass of a stag. On reflection, Timoteo thought the statement at least contained one apt simile, for the man was little more than skin, bones, and sinew, and the presence of so much free food at once might have unhinged him a bit.
After the French knight had gone back to his ship to sleep that night, the condottiere had had the table laid once more and then had given the claimant to the Munster crown a crash course in proper manners at high table. He demonstrated the accepted usages of knife, two-tined skewer, spoon, and panoplino-cloth, lectured him on the necessity of using only two fingers and the thumb of only one hand when not using utensils and of the utter gaucheness of plunging one's hand wrist-deep into a bowl to lift out stewed meat. Bones, he said, must be removed from one's mouth and placed upon the appropriate receptacle, not simply spat out upon the carpet beside one's chair. Before drinking from a common cup—those having two handles—one should always make use of the panoplino to thoroughly clean one's lips and beard of grease and food particles. Should one feel the need to rinse one's mouth, one should call for a page or servant to bring a spittoon, not just swish a mouthful of wine about in one's mouth and spit it out onto the carpet. Small pastries should be knifed into pieces suitable to handling with skewer or spoon, not just picked up and bitten into, leaving grease and juices to run out and down into beard and onto clothing. Also, large chunks or thick slices of meat should be cut into smaller pieces upon the platter or trencher, not stuffed into one's mouth until it would hold no more and then bitten off or sliced off at the teeth.
He had spoken and demonstrated these points while he had eaten, then had had Flann served and had prompted him while he ate. He had found the basically sharp commoner-come-(distantly)-of-kings to be a quick study, and when next Marc had shared Timoteo's board with the man, he had remarked to the condottiere that the bumpkin was just possibly able to learn the easier things, now if he could only learn a decent French . . .
The man had arrived at the palace clad just as he had been when the axeman had found him—a torn and faded shirt, old, frayed kilt, and rough hide brogans, with only his hairy shanks between them and the ragged lower hem of the kilt. His long-unshorn hair was matted and as dirty and flea-bitten as the rest of him. The first thing that Timoteo had done was to turn him over to servants along with orders to wash him, shear him, shave him, delouse him, and try to find suitable clothing for a gentleman for him, then burn his rags and the fleas and seam-squirrels to which foul vermin they most assuredly gave lodgments.
The late King Tamhas FitzGerald had been a much taller, far beefier man than this Flann Mac Core Ui Fingen, and only his boots had been a fit, but the clothing of King Sean FitzRobert—who had been both shorter and a bit slighter in build—could be made to cover the flesh of Flann, though it hung a bit here and there, so emaciated was he, but outside the palace itself, most of the ill-fitting clothing could be and in practice was covered by a wide cloak.
Seeing how quickly the man had begun to learn the complicated customs of the high table, the Italian condottiere set him to a couple of hours each day with the brother of the officer who had sought him out and brought him in. Lieutenant Pandolfo di Forio was a renowned master of the sword, and his function in the condotta had for long been that of giving all of the soldiers at least a close familiarity with the weapon, while honing the skills of the officers to as keen as possible a skill. If nothing else, thought Timoteo, learning the light sword would at least add a bit of grace and balance to the Irishman's posture and movements.
After the first such session, Pandolfo had come back to his captain with a broad smile, despite a swelling bump on the side of his pate, a trace of blood-trickle still in his beard, and a certain stiffness of movement that denoted sore limbs.
"I can see promise in the Irishman, Your Grace. I usually, as Your Grace is aware, try a man first with a weapon of which he has a scintilla of knowledge, and he said that he knew somewhat of the pike and the poleax, but was best with the quarterstave, so that is how I took him on."
"Your Grace, the man's fighting style is completely unorthodox; I've never before seen anyone handle the staff like that. But also he is as fast and elusive as a greased shoat. I've the lumps and the bruises to warrant that, and I can only thank God that I didn't try him with the pike or long-axe, else Your Grace might just now be seeking a new swordmaster for the condotta. I mean to start him on the blunted small sword on the morrow. Once he's mastered the fundamentals and if Your Grace so desire it, I'll go on with him to the Florentine drill-rapier and left-hand dagger—before essaying to teach him broadsword and buckler."
Timoteo shrugged. "Familiarize the man at least with the broadsword, but I can see no need to go farther. I'm trying to make a presentable gentleman out of him, not a blood-hungry paladin like the late King Tamhas and the rest of the inbr
ed, lunatic FitzWhatevers in this pocket kingdom."
After a month of regular feeding and days that started early and ended late and during almost every hour of which he was being tutored or drilled by someone in something, Flann Mac Core Ui Fingen had gained weight and was developing muscles in places that a cowherd and farmer usually did not need them. He had not yet reached graduation from the blunted small sword, but Pandolfo expressed pleasure with his latest pupil's progress nonetheless. The king-to-be ("Possibly," thought Timoteo, sometimes) had at least learned to take a certain amount of pride in his appearance and now washed at least once and, sometimes, twice each week without prompting.
Another month saw him beginning to fill out King Sean FitzRobert's clothes, spending his few free moments practicing alone or seeking out Pandolfo in order to learn more of the intricate art of the sword-and-dagger fencing. One of the palace functionaries who was tutoring the man in the old dialect of Norman French used at the courts of many of the other Irish kinglets told di Bolgia that the man was at least trying to learn and that, therefore, he had hope that he might, someday, accomplish his task. He still fell off any horse that moved faster than a walk with discouraging frequency, but Timoteo noted with approval that the man did not lack for guts, and each time he fell off, he limped far enough to catch the horse and mount again . . . usually to fall off shortly again, then stubbornly repeat the punishing process. Encouragingly, the condottiere remarked to the Irishman that though all of the gentlemen and nobility learned it at a far younger age, everyone learned to stay on a horse in exactly the selfsame embarrassing, painful way.