by Robert Adams
"Your Grace, now comes Sir Ugo d'Orsini bearing certain letters from the Italian Faction of the Roman Papacy," the priest announced loudly, then stepped aside that Sir Ugo might enter the chamber beyond.
As he entered, Sir Ugo was quite relieved that, despite the probing searches, no one had discovered the cunningly concealed compartment of the letter case which contained his patron's letter of last resort, the one which was never to have ever been, hopefully. It reposed unsuspected still tightly rolled within a cour bouilli tube that had, as the ostensible handle of the case, passed all scrutiny.
The prelate who sat in a cathedra against the far wall of the audience room did not give Sir Ugo the appearance of impossible age. Although his hair and beard were white and his face and finely kept hands both wrinkled and age-spotted, there looked to still be muscle on the tall, slender frame, and when he knelt to kiss the extended ring, he could feel strength in the fingers. The blue eyes were penetrating, and when he spoke, the voice was strong, rich-toned.
"So, Sir Ugo," said the Archbishop in rusty but easily understood Roman dialect, "you come from the Italian Faction, eh? Which one of the cardinals sent you, Prospero Sicola or Bartolomeo d'Este?"
"Both of them, actually, Your Grace," replied Sir Ugo, "but my official patron is Cardinal d'Este, Archbishop of Palermo. He prepared the letter I bear for Your Grace, but both he and Cardinal Sicola, Your Grace will note, signed and sealed it."
So saying, he took from the case the wax-sealed letter and diffidently proffered it, but a wave of the Archbishop's hand directed it to the burly, cassocked man who stood close beside his side. With a sharp knife, the functionary broke the wax and opened the vellum wrappings, then unfolded the ornate, beribboned letter and, careful to not look at the contents, handed it to his master.
When he had read most of the first page, the prelate turned to the equally burly cassocked man who stood at his other side and said, "Brother Cuthbert, please bring over a chair for Sir Ugo and have wine fetched for us all."
Reading, sipping wine, and occasionally throwing a look at Sir Ugo that could have meant much or nothing at all, the prelate finished the letter, carefully scrutinized the seals with a lens, then turned the sheet over and used the lens again, seeking to determine if another seal might once have been in their places. Satisfied, apparently, he then reread the entire lengthy missive from start to finish. Carefully folding the sheets, he handed them to the man who had opened the letter. Then he bespoke Sir Ugo.
"Close on a year has passed since the date on this letter, Sir Ugo. How is one to know that the press of affairs has not wrought changes in the sentiments herein expressed?"
Ugo nodded and set down his goblet. "Your Grace's understandable doubts and qualms were anticipated by my patron. I have here in my case a second letter prepared by him only two months past." He handed the second vellum package to the man with the letter-knife.
When he had read through the second and given the same more than thorough examination to its seals, this time comparing them and their signatures to the first letter's, he spoke again.
"Sir Ugo, these are weighty matters and they will require very much thought, ere I can even start to frame answers to the quite unexpected things offered by your patron and the others. Where are you lodged in York?"
"In a hostelry called the Sign of the Black Horse, in High Street, Your Grace," answered the knight.
"Well, I'll be wanting you much closer to Yorkminster than that, Sir Ugo, much closer indeed, that I may question you at length and at odd hours." He turned to the cleric called Cuthbert and ordered, "Brother, please see to it that accommodations appropriate to a noble envoy are prepared for Sir Ugo and his following, immediately. Send porters and guards to move his effects from his hostelry to his new suite and pay the demands of the hostler."
"Please, Your Grace," protested Sir Ugo, "my patron supplied me with quite adequate funds, and my squires and servants can easily shift my possessions . . ."
The prelate shushed him with a wave of a hand. "I am certain that you were well provided for by Bartolomeo d'Este, Sir Ugo—it is averred that he is rich as Croesus. Also, however, knowing the unfortunate proclivities of that pack of unhung thieves who arrange my audiences, I am more than sure that you had to lay out more than just a few full ounces of gold, ere you at last entered this chamber, so allow me to reimburse at least a fraction of that expense."
"What can I do save humbly thank Your Grace?" asked Ugo.
The Archbishop grinned. "Tell me how you liked your tour of our Royal Cannon Foundry and the new small arms that Sir Peter Fairley showed you."
He held up his hand as Sir Ugo opened his mouth to speak in reply and said, "But not now—after all, I do have other supplicants waiting, all of whom most likely paid almost as much as did you for their audiences. No, you'll dine with me this day and tell me your impressions of the foundry and the weapons then."
CHAPTER THE TENTH
Tight-drawn were the siege lines around the landward sides of the walled city of Gaillminh, seat of the kings of Connachta, while on the waters that lay just beyond, the interdicting ships prowled like hungry sea beasts. But the besiegers were themselves being besieged after a fashion, and strong defenses of mounding, ditching, and palisades had had to be erected all around their position to protect them from the Connachta forces not bottled up within the city.
Just below the crest of a rocky hill that lay just out of easy cannon shot of the impressive city defenses stood two of the Ard-Righ's officers, pointing out to Sir Bass Foster the directions from which most of the raids and attacks from out the surrounding countryside seemed to come.
Sir Mael Mac Grgachain, one of Brian the Burly's barons and overall commander of his army in Connachta, handed his brass-cased long-glass to the English condottiere, saying, "If Your Grace will peer off there to the northeast, he will note a hill on which are the grown-over remains of a ring fort of elder ages. At its north foot, not to be seen from here, there's a gap between it and the long ridge of which Your Grace can see only the steep, westernmost descent. Right many an attack of recent nights has come from out that gap."
"The buggers sneak out of there, quiet as a fox stalking a hen, drop visible sentries with crossbows, and no one knows that they're about until they've scaled the palisade and begun to fire stores or spike guns or murder men in their sleep. Then they flee before any organized force can be set upon them. Cowardly pigs!"
"And on yet other occasions," put in the other officer, another of the Ard-Righ's fighting barons, Sir Cellach Ui Domnaill, "they'll come boiling out of that gap in bright moonlight, roaring slogans and warcries, and while a force is being gathered to repel them, they will only shower down some arrows, loose off a few quarrels and handguns, then retreat as fast as they charged while another band that had moved in from another quarter in full silence strikes devastatingly against an unprotected part of our lines. Spineless assassin cowards, all of them."
Privately, though he of course did not voice the opinion, Bass thought that whoever was organizing and coordinating the hit-and-run night attacks was showing admirable qualities for this backward land and its intemperate inhabitants. For an outnumbered, ill-armed, and most likely ill-supplied force of men, such tactics were the only intelligent way to strike at the entrenched enemy and hope to live to strike again on another night.
What he actually asked was, "Surely, as large as is your force here available, you might have searched out the bases of these irregulars. Light cavalry or even infantry mounted on mules should have been adequate to the job, gentlemen."
Sir Cellach snarled wordlessly, while Sir Mael sighed and said, "Your Grace, we had"—he emphasized the use of the past tense—"two squadrons of light cavalry, one of lancers—raised by Sir Cellach, here, out of his own lands and ilk—and one of galloglaiches, and between them they razed every village and homesteading for eight leagues and more in an arc outward from our lines without ever finding so much as a bare trace of the cravens we
seek; the places none of them contained any men at all of a fighting age or condition, all of the inhabitants being women, children, old men, and a few cripples. Some few of them were brought back here, and I can state that not even under the severest of tortures would they admit to their menfolk being members of these cowardly raiders, insisting even in the extremes of their agonies that all of their men and boys were pent up in Gaillminh with the royal army."
"You stressed your onetime possession of cavalry, Sir Mael," inquired Bass. "Has it been detached, seconded to another area, perhaps?"
Sir Cellach began, then, to curse and blaspheme sulphurously, while Sir Mael just sighed more deeply and shook his head, his scarred face under the rim of his old-fashioned conical helmet mirroring his dejection and frustration.
"Your Grace, when the galloglaiches squadron heard the rumor of the Ard-Righ readying his forces to mount an invasion of Islay, of the lands of Regulus, they deserted, en masse, and I have reason to believe that they are fighting with the Connachta forces. The forsworn Scottish pig-turds!"
"As regards poor Sir Cellach's lancers, alas, with the mounted galloglaiches decamped and so much territory to cover, we decided to break the squadron into troops and reinforce them with some mule-mounted light infantry. This was clearly a mistake, for at various times and places, every one of those units has been set upon from ambush and either wiped out entirely or so decimated in strength as to be useless for aught serve camp-perimeter guards."
"So now we own no cavalry save the heavy, which we must save, hold back, in case the craven Connachtas yonder retrieve their misplaced manhood and elect to march out and fight us breast to breast as real men always do."
Bass reflected then that the High King might be progressive and of a modern military bent, but his senior officers assuredly were not. In Sir Mael's most recently spoken words he had branded himself the typical fire-eating, blood-hungry and stupid mediaeval warrior. He was be-deedouble-damned if he would place himself and his men under the command of this man or any others of his archaic breed.
"Sir Mael," he said finally, "I must tell you that, in the event of my report to Ard-Righ Brian does result in my condotta being posted here, to Connachta, it will be as an independent command, a completely independent command, no part of your army in any way, saving only perhaps that of supply and remount. That must be understood and accepted at the outset. Is this agreeable to you, sir?"
The overall commander sighed yet again and replied glumly, "Hell, what choice have I, Your Grace? Given a few more weeks of the infernal night-raiding of these cowardly Connachtas and all of my army will consist of men who sit wakeful all night, every night, then stagger about all day, every day, near useless for any purpose."
"Therefore, all right, I agree to Your Grace's terms, although I must most vociferously object on the grounds that, as supreme captain of His High Majesty's Connachta force, I should of rights be in direct charge of each and every one of the units involved therein. Ard-Righ Brian is still my monarch, however, and as ever I will follow the orders of my most puissant lord."
There were few words exchanged between Bass and the two barons on the tramp back to where they had left their horses and escorts, nor after that on the ride back to Sir Mael's headquarters area.
Not until they were ridden out well beyond any possible pickets did Bass say aught to his own officers, then he turned in his saddle and waved up Reichsherzog Wolfgang, Baron Melchoro, Sir Ali, Don Diego, Sir Colum, and Sir Liam to crowd as close to him as his Kalmyk bodyguards, Nugai and Yueh, would permit.
The hulking Wolfgang, uncle of the Holy Roman Emperor, onetime in-law of King Arthur III Tudor, and Bass' overlord for the Mark of Velegrad, was first to speak—for, although he had chosen to serve in a subordinate capacity in Ireland, his civil rank was actually a bit higher than Bass' dukedom. "Ach, Bass, the High King ill-served iss by those nobleborn Lumpen. Until Holle solid ice becomes, sit there they can without that city to fall they make it. Far too rocky for sapping is the ground about the walls, more sweet Wasser than efer they will, haf they, and the High Kink's fleet so very inefficient iss that food und arms und reinforcements almost efery day to reach them do. Und the grosser guns so far from the walls are emplaced that the balls little force have left when to reach the target they finally do, and often to fall short they do to utter vaste of powder. Pfagh, were such incompetents mine to command, not long their thick heads would they keep on their shoulders, Ja!"
Grimacing, Bass nodded. "For his time, that is, the time in which he seems to think he is living—roughly, the thirteenth century—Sir Mael, Baron Ardee, is a progressive officer. His chief complaints seem to be two of the most stupid I ever have heard. He is most upset it seems because the outnumbered garrison of the city back there will not sally out and commit suicide by fighting his force 'breast to breast, as real men should.' The pompous, posturing ass! And that other remnant of the Dark Ages, Sir Cellach, Baron Delvin, is no better and possibly worse. After having razed villages for at least twenty miles out from their siege lines—looting, burning, raping, torturing, killing, the whole nine yards of atrocities—they began sending out impossibly small mixed units of lancers and mounted light infantry and seem to be deeply offended that all of said units met with bad ends out there."
"That's why the dumb bug-tits want us, to prevent the irregulars from the countryside attacking the siege lines of nights, killing men, stealing weapons and supplies and disturbing the sleep of dunder-headed noble officers. My principal bit of advice to Brian is going to be that he get his original supreme commander, Count Ardgal, back here before the archaic codes of these two barons lead them to do something disastrous, like staging a full-scale assault on that city's walls and losing, thereby, half or better of the army."
Baròn Melchoro—who, before inheriting his father's barony in Portugal, had experienced some years as a roving gentleman-mercenary sword on three continents—spoke up informally, as befitted his status of old friend, oft-times battle companion, and sometime mentor of a man not born a noble. "Friend Bass, no matter what this High King avows his motives in besieging this city of Gaillminh—the high-royal personage avers only to receive from the King of Connachta his Symbol of Sovereignty, then to join his forces with those of the High King in peace and love and brotherhood—every officer and man with whom I spoke in all that siege camp is expecting and eagerly anticipating, when once the city does fall or capitulate, a full and completely untrammeled intaking, a sack of the fullest nature. The officers all aver that this very thing has oft-times been promised them, solemnly assured as reward to them, by this one who affects that antique, open-faced helmet, Sir Mael. One therefore is given pause to wonder if his monarch knows of these bloody-minded promises."
"Gentlemen," commented Bass slowly, his face set in a worried frown, "I wonder much of late about the verity of anything this High King says or has said, to me or to others; so very devious is he that it may well be he is deceiving his cousin, my king, as well, as to his true motives for prosecuting this warfare against every ruler on this island who refuses to bend the knee and render up his treasures on command."
"He swears to Arthur that he only seeks to be the kind of king of Ireland as Arthur is of all England and Wales, yet he must know that the best he ever can accomplish here, do what he will, is to become the kind of king that James of Scotland is. England, at least, owns a long history of unity under one strong monarch, while neither Ireland nor Scotland does."
"Within the last hundred years, there were eleven kingdoms vying with each other on this one smallish island, those, plus the little domain of the High King; now there are eight, including the much-expanded domain of Brian, but I am reliably informed that there almost never have been less than five kings here, and seldom has the High King been the greatest of those. So even if Brian temporarily succeeds in his grandiose schemings, just how long will it be before some client king, impatient at the strictures Brian lays down, goes about expelling or killing the High Ki
ng's men and takes back his lands for him and his people? And who is to say that, even if all the client-kings stay in line, some count or baron or clan chief will not take it into his head to start carving out a new kingdom off pieces of older ones, as not a few of his forebears have done for time immemorial?"
"A part of the reason that King Arthur sent us here, as you all know, was to help his dear cousin in holding Ireland against some possible assault by agents of Rome, yet since the demise of Pope Abdul I've seen precious few indications that Brian is making any slightest preparations to do battle of any kind with forces of Rome. Indeed, he has, since his private conversations with a certain papal knight said to be a courier for one of the Roman papal factions, been most reticent to allow any of the higher-ranking Irish clergy to return to take part in the negotiations proceeding at Yorkminster. This leads me to believe that His High Majesty has been in some manner bought back by Rome, so that here we are, in effect, serving the enemy rather than a friendly relative of King Arthur."
"Yes, Your Grace," agreed Sir Colum, Senior Captain of Bass's squadron of galloglaiches, "the Ard-Righ has changed mightily in late years. I recall that ere the squadron was sent to England, our then-chief, Sir Turlogh de Burgh, Baron Lune, and I waited upon the Ard-Righ. His High Majesty then was frothing with blood-thirsting rage at Rome and everyone connected therewith. These days, however, right many of those he then had had clapped into fetters and cells are restored to their places and their offices as if never those letters that threatened excommunication of the Ard-Righ, full interdiction of every soul loyal to him and a crusade to be preached against Ireland, had ever been writ. When last I visited Sir Turlogh on his barony, I remarked upon it all, and he, too, finds it passing strange."