by Robert Adams
The third month saw Flann swinging a thick, wide-bladed broadsword and a round, stout, foot-wide buckler with far more speed and synchronization of movements than Pandolfo often had seen in so new and inexperienced a pupil. The swordmaster could easily penetrate the Irishman's guard four times out of five tries, but his brother, Pasquale, whose expertise with the sword was about average for a professional soldier, proved lucky to do it more than twice out of the same number of attempts.
When he reported this to the captain and Timoteo had been out to watch the pupil and the two brothers at it, di Bolgia asked, "Well, what do you teach him now, swordmaster? Greatsword or short sword?"
Pandolfo had shaken his head. "Neither, Your Grace, they're not used all that much by gentlemen anymore. No, I think, Your Grace approving, I'll turn him over to Antonio to learn the use of axe, mace, and hammer. That is, unless Your Grace would prefer that he first learn the lance or mounted sword work."
"No, my good Pandolfo," di Bolgia had said, "he's not yet that accomplished a horseman; he'd like as not fall off his charger halfway down the lists. No, send him to Antonio, or let Pietro show him the finer, nastier points of using dirk or dagger, or do both. You might also get a man of about his size and build to teach him scientific wrestling—never can tell when that might be a useful thing to know, eh?"
"If he keeps up his present level of progress," Timoteo told Marc with unconcealed glee, "we may well have ourselves all three rolled into one—paladin, gentleman, and kinglet."
"Perhaps," commented the French knight dryly, then mused, "But who will teach him wisdom and find a cure for his provincial naiveté, my fine, Italian friend?"
The condottiere just shrugged. "Oh, he'll work out well enough, I trow, well enough, that is, for Irland. The only Irlandesi I have met so far who chanced to not be less than just somewhat provincial and naive has been the High King. As for wisdom, my old friend, that is what royal councils and royal advisers are for, you know."
"Another council, eh?" asked Marc. "And who on this one, besides you? I must serve fair warning to not include me; the papal lease on my ship, l'Impressionant, will soon expire, and, strictly in confidence, I must tell you that I already have been in receipt of orders from my sovereign king and lord to sail her elsewhere on another mission for the crown. How you and your men get back to Italy is going to be a matter that you and His Grace the Cardinal d'Este will have to work out between you."
"I'm not including me, either," declared the condottiere, but adding, "Well, at least not for long, just long enough perhaps to see this reign off to an auspicious start."
"Then who?" Marc relentlessly probed. "I doubt if you could rake up any experienced Normans willing to serve a non-Norman-descended king, even if said Norman would be acceptable to you and this Flann. So who will you choose? An aggregation, perhaps, of his fellow country bumpkins?"
"Well, the old monk who started all of this, who first brought Flann Mac Core Ui Fingen to my attention and told me of his claim to the blood-soaked throne of Munster, Brother Eagan. I've spoken with the old man several times recently and he has agreed to sit on the council; he also has made some suggestions of men to fill other places on that council, when formed. One of these is a man called Mouch Mac Collough who lives up near Cashel and is a brehav or expert on the Old Irish laws, which like their genealogies were apparently all memorized since the beginning rather than more logically written out for posterity."
Marc sighed and shook his head, saying, "To expect logic out of the dense head of any Irishman, one would have to expect pigs to sing in Church Latin."
"Brother Eagan says that the Old Irish kings were not expected to know the letter of the law, only to give judgments on the bases of the precedents recited by their brehav, you see," said Timoteo. "Then the venerable and learned monk has made some other suggestions for the royal council-to-be, as well. He also has asked that I sit on it for as long as I remain in Munster."
"Naturally, he did," remarked Marc, in a sardonic tone. "Old or not, he knows in just whose hands the real, corporeal power lies in this so-called Kingdom of Munster, so long as you and your condotta are about. And believe me, my friend, they will do all within their power to keep you and your soldiers here to protect them for just as long as possible, so I would not advise making any plans for any imminent voyage back to Italy."
"Ah, well," shrugged Timoteo, "both you and I know well that the royal treasury is well stocked, still, from the days of the late King Tamhas. If the new king and council want to pay my price for the continued protection of me and my condotta, who am I to say them nay? After all, that's the business we're in, you know. And for the most part, discounting only the revolt of the revolting FitzGerald ilk, it has been good, easy, bloodless duty for us all."
Marc smiled mockingly. "And this from the man who a few short months back was crying piteously of how he simply had to find a way in which to take his condotta back to help to flush the Spaniards, the Moors, and their barbaric hirelings from the sacred soil of his own, his native land. Has gold then become in so short a time more precious to you than your duchy, my lord Duce di Bolgia?"
"Not entirely," replied Timoteo. "Not that pure, hard, honest gold has not always been very dear to my heart, as it is to most any man's . . . or woman's, for that matter, especially, to any woman's. But news recently received from oversea leads me to the belief that Emperor Egon is doing a far better job than could I and my small condotta have wreaked to bring peace and order to Italy."
Marc grimaced and clenched his fists until the knuckles shone as white as new-fallen snow. "And at what horrendous cost? Did you also hear that that foul fiend of an emperor has also opened his easternmost marches and allowed hordes of barbarians—blood-mad Kalmyks and their infernal ilk—to pass freely through his lands that they might fall upon eastern France like wolves upon a sheepfold? That was not in any way, shape, or form the action of a God-loving Christian ruler. Why, he is as barbaric as the very pagans themselves."
The condottiere sighed, tiredly. "Marc, my friend, I am very sorry to have to say this truth, but what is just now happening in those afflicted parts of France is your own king's fault, to begin. Something had to be done to rein in the overweening Spanish and Moorish factions, lest all Italy be laid waste by them and their imported barbarians. Yet when Emperor Egon made known his intent to march down there with enough force to end it all, your king let it be known that, immediately the Emperor was gone, he meant to set his army to ravaging parts of the Empire and appropriating a few chunks of it here and there."
"At that point, the Emperor had a hard choice to make: He could either stay in the north with all his forces already assembled and let Italy go to hell, or he could march southwards on his mission of mercy toward Italy and the Church, knowing that without him there to protect them, his vassals were going to be suffering invasion and hard-pressed to hold their own from out French hands."
"And it's not as if he didn't give warning of just what he meant to do, would assuredly do, were he pressed hard enough by any other power. If you will but recall, Marc, he used these same Kalmyks to bring old Abdul to heel when His late and unlamented Holiness of Rome was making mumblings about preaching a crusade against the Empire and its then-new Emperor, who he felt showed entirely too much sympathy for England and Wales and their excommunicant king, Arthur."
"Therefore, one cannot but assume that your own monarch must have certainly known that he was playing with fire to offer his threats to Emperor Egon. Experience tells us that those reckless or feckless enough to play with fire frequently precipitate some costly conflagrations and often themselves get burnt, and this is precisely what has occurred in the case of your king, Marc."
"So when you wince at the cost of the pipers, Marc, blame not them so much as you blame the man who called the tune—your own, foolish king."
"If you are so very wise," sneered le Chevalier, coldly, "then why are you not a king, rather than just an expatriate nobleman who fights other
men's wars for hire like any commoner tradesman?"
"I did not enjoy hurting you, my friend," said Timoteo, with clear sincerity. "But a man, if he is a man, must face the truth squarely, and that which I have just said to you is nothing less than truth."
"As regards being a king, well, I could easily have made myself such some two or three times over in my checkered military career, even before I got to this pocket kingdom of Munster. Mine is just now the only strong force of any sort or description in all of the former FitzGerald holdings—I could declare myself king and hold these lands until hell froze over, did I so desire."
"Then why don't you, instead of playing at kingmaker?" snapped le Chevalier, in the same, cold, hostile tone. "The longer you stay in this land, the more like unto these disgusting Irish you are becoming, anyway. You are even so further debasing yourself as to learn to mouth the pig-grunts they choose to call their language, so it cannot be long until you begin to ape their barbaric culture as well, I fear me."
"You deplore the blood-soaked throne of the kings of Munster, yet I always have believed that, despite your solemnly sworn oaths to the contrary, you, your precious brother, and Sir Ugo d'Orsini somehow contrived to murder King Tamhas FitzGerald to serve your own devious, Italian purposes and to further the schemings of the High King, Brian VIII Ui Neill of Mide. And I cannot but wonder just how long King Sean FitzRobert would have continued to reign and live had not his own relatives done your killing for you a bit prematurely."
"When first I sailed here with you, your condotta, and the Afriqan condotta of cavalry, I had been given the impression by His Grace Cardinal d'Este, you, and Sir Ugo that you were being retained and sent here to further first the interests of the Church and second, those of the then-king of Munster against those of the High King, yet—save for the Afriqans who chose to remain in faith to their oaths to support the legitimate king of Munster, even to the death—I cannot see where you have served any interests than your own in all the time that you have been here. Before the murder of King Tamhas, you met clandestinely on at least three occasions with his sworn enemy, the High King, and since that regicide, you have taken to meeting with Brian openly."
"From the moment I landed you here on the docks of Corcaigh, you exerted no slightest effort to abide by the wishes of or even to get along with your erstwhile employers' local representative, Archbishop Giosue di Rezzi; rather, you boldly mocked and cruelly baited the poor, pious, earnest old man repeatedly; and was it not common knowledge that he died in Rome by the hands of members of the Spanish-Moorish Faction lest he be elevated to cardinal. I would deeply suspect that you had a hand in his death, too. Were I not under royal orders to immediately proceed elsewhere once the papal lease on His Majesty's warship be legally expired, I would sail her from Corcaigh directly to Palermo and say to His Grace d'Este precisely what I just have said to you, Your Grace di Bolgia."
Timoteo half-smiled. "Then perhaps I should thank the king of France for making it impossible for you to fill the ears of His Grace d'Este with your ill-conceived conglomeration of baseless assumptions, misunderstood actions, gossip, and out-and-out slander, perhaps, eh?"
"Sir Marc, like far too many Northern Europeans, you and the French nobility live too much in the past, or in what you imagine that past to have been. Most of us Southern Europeans, on the other hand, have become realistic adults who live in the present and plan for the future, recognizing fully that the dead past is truly dead along with all its usages, both the good and the bad, the true and the false, the actual and the fabled. His Grace d'Este is, like me, of the south, and were I you, when once your mission for your king be accomplished, I would sail directly for France and there stay, with your own, antique kind; for are you so unwise as to actually go to Palermo, to His Grace d'Este, with your slanders of me, I can tell you here and now almost exactly what will occur: His Grace will receive you graciously, hear you out to the last syllable, thank you profusely, and probably gift you handsomely . . . then see that you are quietly killed somewhere outside his palace and its immediate environs, lest the poison of your accusations possibly taint some of his own Irish schemes. I tell you this as the friend I thought I was to the friend I had thought you were, Sir Marc, as one, last gesture to friendship past. Now, if you please, good day. I have important things yet to do here."
CHAPTER THE NINTH
Sprung of sturdy, Northumbrian Borderer stock, Sir Geoffrey Musgrave, of a cadet branch of that powerful family, had served the House of Whyffler for the most of his sixty-odd years, though in present days he served in the same capacity—that of seneschal and intendens of both seat and lands—the Baron of Strathtyne, who also was Earl of Rutland, Markgraf von Velegrad, and Duke of Norfolk, Sir Bass Foster, Lord Commander of the Horse for His Royal Majesty, Arthur III Tudor, King of England and Wales.
Because it had always been Sir Geoffrey who had stayed behind to mind the everyday affairs of the lands that had originally been the knight's fee of Sir Francis Whyffler (that personage now being styled Sir Francis Whyffler, Duke of Northumberland and King Arthur's royal ambassador to the court of Egon, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, whose Empress was Sir Francis's daughter, Arabella,) while Sir Frances and Bass Foster went to war in support of the king, he had come to know quite well her whom he first had known simply as Mistress Krystal Kent, then as the Markgräfin Krystal, and, finally, as Her Grace Lady Krystal, the Duchess of Norfolk.
From the very earliest days, Sir Geoffrey—not yet knighted, then—had moved a little in awe of this woman who, though looking nowhere near to her age that was about half his own, seemed so talented at the arts of healing, was so consummate an organizer, always so gay and lighthearted in even the most trying of circumstances and seldom lacking for a jocular word to help dispel the gloom of hard times or unexpected reverses. As a younger son, come of a long line of younger sons, the stark, gray-haired warrior—who was little-traveled and most unsophisticated—had always most highly valued the friendship so freely proffered by the warm and outgoing Krystal Kent, but, cognizant as he always was of his lowly status, if the aging widower lusted after the striking woman, he did so only in his heart, unconsciously, for he never would do or even allow himself to think aught dishonorable.
Geoffrey had had great respect for Bass Foster, of course, even before that man had become his legal lord, overlord, and employer. If he had secretly envied the younger man's wedded possession of Krystal, he had valiantly thrust such impure and honorless thoughts—likely sent by some Imp of Hell to test his faith—away from him and had truly rejoiced at the birth of young Joseph Foster, as much as he had sincerely rejoiced in the knighting and progressive advancements of Sir Bass and Lady Krystal over the years.
But it all seemed to have come so fast. He had but barely gotten accustomed to the Marchioness of Velegrad title when a knight-herald of Arabian antecedents had come riding into Whyffler Hall leading a troop of fearsome Hebridean gallowglasses to announce that Sir Bass now was become Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Rutland, and Baron of Strathtyne (with the seat of said barony at Whyffler Hall) in addition to still holding his foreign, Empire title. Not only that, but the Arab had, on the express orders of his master, bade plain, humble Geoffrey Musgrave to his knees before him and laid upon him the buffet of knighthood—which accolade had been a something that poor Geoffrey had never expected and still was sometimes uncertain he really deserved or even wanted, though to his credit he considered it to be the wish of his liege lord, so bore the trappings of knighthood stoically and conducted himself in the honorable manner he always had, thus actually practicing a code of chivalry to which most other knights only gave lip service.
The old knight knew well that she who now was his liege lady keenly missed the companionship of Sir Bass. She had spoken of it all right often, and he always had tried in his humble way to dwell upon the necessary services that were required by His Majesty of his nobility in all times, but most especially in times of internal war and general turmoil such as these y
ears of late. However, nothing that he ever had said to her seemed to have helped her at all to bear her separation from her husband and lord resignedly as did most women in her position.
That had been the beginning, he knew, that inability for her to simply bear what must be borne, to come to realize that her suffering was just another facet of the awesome, crushing load of responsibility that always attended the possession of high civil or military rank. She had dwelt too long, too hard, too unceasingly upon her loneliness for Sir Bass, had seemed to come to truly believe that he stayed in the south by choice, not bothering apparently to reason that, as the south was where the Royal Horse of which he was Lord Commander was posted by king's order, her husband had no choice but to bide there near to his troops.
He had sighed as his liege lady kept post-riders virtually glued into their saddles as she penned and sent off letter after letter, each of them more carping and vituperative than its predecessors, to Archbishop Harold, Peter Fairley, Captain Buddy Webster, Reichsherzog Wolfgang, His Majesty, Sir Ali ibn Hussain, Carey Carr, and Sir Bass in patiently foredoomed attempts to force her husband to return to and stay permanently at Whyffler Hall. Her initial complaint was that she "had no one about to talk to," and that had been when Sir Geoffrey first had begun to suspect that her reason was becoming unbalanced, for in addition to the two Northumbrian knights' widows in attendance upon her, there were her flock of humbler maidservants, himself, chamberlain Henny Turnbull, the officers of the much-reduced royal artillery garrison still then lodged at Whyffler Hall, Father Edelbert Percy, the officers of the Strathtyne Lances, Sir Feach Mac Murrogh (who commanded her personal guard of gallowglasses), and scores of other servants and humble folk who would have been pleased and deeply honored to converse with the wife of their new baron.