by Robert Adams
Upon Bass' courteous refusal to partake of the thin supplies of the Irish count's irregulars, Sir Daveog had laughed quite merrily. "Och, Your Grace, Your Grace, this provender be but a gift of the Ard-Righ. Intended it were for Sir Mael, but it was a-thinking I was that the man needs not so much as Brian sends him, so lest he o'ereat and be afflicted with the plagued gout, I have me bouchals take modest toll of every supply train as comes acrost of me lands, I do. It's keeping us well supplied with food, His High Majesty does, not even to mention all the fine horses, waggons and wains, mules, oxen, and oddments of armor, small arms, and suchlike. Och, 'tis a rarely generous man the burly bastard is to me and mine. It's often I'm a-thinking that it's his guilty conscience a-plaguing him for helping one of Mide's oldest enemies break up the lands of one of his dynasty's oldest and best friends, I am."
And so the beeves were butchered and flayed and dressed for the thick greenwood spits and the recent enemies joined to drink High King Brian's ale, eat his beef and his bread, then sleep well under the stars riding high above the little vale and the hills rising up around it.
In his oral report, Bass laid it on the line to the High King. Conversing with his gentlemen and at some length with the charming and voluble Count Ros Commain had all gone to confirm his own beliefs that Brian was, to use an expression of his own world and times, playing both ends against the middle and truly out to benefit no one but Brian, in the end. He was become certain that the man had lied to him repeatedly, lied to King Arthur, and was very likely lying to his pet papal knight, as well.
"Your Majesty, the siege is not advancing toward any conclusion for a number of very good reasons, most of them the faults of Sir Mael and the commanders of your blockading fleet. This so-called blockade is proving completely ineffective, for the city is being almost nightly resupplied, rearmed, and reinforced by sea, by way of small craft that lie up during daylight hours, then dash in at night through shallows and shoal-waters of depths known to them, safe for them, but suicidal for most of your fleet to attempt."
"The Reichsherzog Wolfgang, of my staff, who has conducted more sieges than any other man I've met, states that Sir Mael has positioned his siege guns much too far back from the walls and so would risk bursting those guns did he have enough powder rammed into them to do an adequate job from where they sit. He has commenced not one set of approaching entrenchments from any point of his lines. Indeed, the only works he has thrown up at all are around his outer perimeter, intended to protect his camps from the incursions of irregulars."
"In conversation with Sir Mael and Sir Cellach, I determined that there were no great, crashing battles that lost them all their cavalry, as Your Majesty's parting words had led me to believe, rather did the squadron of galloglaiches desert en masse, while a serious tactical error on Sir Mael's part cost him all of the lancers and an equal number of mounted light infantry, as well."
Brian shrugged, frowning. "I only told you that which letters had told me, Your Grace of Norfolk. Why would the galloglaiches have deserted? They always are paid on time and in full in undipped coin. Or did those two foolish barons mistreat them, perhaps, do you think?"
Then Bass shrugged. "I have no way of knowing that last, of course, Your Majesty, but your barons tell that the desertion was a result of the galloglaiches hearing that the army was to be brought back to Dublin, enshipped, and thrown against the Regulus of the Isles."
Brian cracked a big, prominent knuckle, his face clouding. "The noble fools, Mael and Cellach, damn them both, didn't they tell the army that no such thing was actually my intent?"
"If they did, Your Majesty," replied Bass, "it is obvious that their words were not believed, it would seem."
"Where in the hell could that squadron have gotten to, then?" mused the Ard-Righ, "Had they sailed back for Lewis out of any port on this island, my agents would have heard of it and I would know. Nor have I had word of any unattached galloglaiches seeking employment anywhere or living off the countryside, even."
"No, Your Majesty," Bass informed him, "the mounted axemen found good employment almost at once with Count Ros Commain, who now is using them against Sir Mael and company to some great effect, I am given to understand. Granting that they all must possess some firm and rather detailed knowledge of that arc of encampments, I'd imagine that their new employers have found them to be quite a worthwhile investment."
"Daveog?" the High King almost shouted. "Daveog Mac Diugnan Ui Brehenny? You mean to say that that shoat is responsible for all these outrages against my army and supply trains? But his sire was my ally, and my sire's before me. He hates Righ Flaithri with a bottomless and unholy passion, too, so why would he fight to protect him and Gaillminh from my army? It boggles the mind, Your Grace, being beyond all comprehension of rational men. Huh! Wait, mayhap that's it, then. With all he's suffered over the years, mayhap the poor bouchal's wits have slipped away from him."
Bass shook his head. "I think otherwise, Your Majesty. I talked with Sir Daveog at some length, over parts of two days. He avers that, having seen more than enough of war in his lifetime, he would have gladly kept out of this one, had your troops not razed some of the homesteadings and a village of his vassals in the western parts of the Barony of Clonmacnowen. Sir Cellach's lancers also descended upon the hall of the baron of those lands, received his honorable surrender, then looted, raped, and, finally, burned the place down with the too-trusting baron nailed by hands and feet to a door."
"When told of this atrocity, Sir Daveog says that it was then he sent the flaming cross to rouse all his county. He says that not a few came to join his hosts from the baronies that had been his father's and now are held by Your Majesty or by Righ Flaithri, and then when the galloglaiches came riding by and were amenable to the taking of his pay, he found himself in command of a rather sizable force."
"But, dammit," expostulated the Ard-Righ, "surely that Sir Daveog has seen enough, experienced enough, over his years of soldiering to know that things like that just have a bad habit of happening in war. Surely he cannot believe that I or any of my noble officers attacked his lands deliberately? Clonmacnowen is, after all, a border barony; both Righ Flaithri and Daveog claim it, and both have held it at one time or another, too. I would imagine that the captain of Sir Cellach's lances, whoever that may be, thought himself quite legitimately despoiling Connachta lands. He could've come to me at Lagore or Tara, made supplication, and I'd've seen things made right again for him; he did not need to start making undeclared war upon my troops. In fact, had he—with all his vast and valuable experience—simply presented his lands all to me and taken them back in feoff, become one of my vassals, I'd've put him in charge of my army in Connachta."
"Your Majesty," said Bass slowly, wording this carefully, "he gave me the impression that he considered coming to you for redress, but then decided against it. He says that he does not trust Your Majesty and that any other Irishman who does is a deluded fool."
Bass tensed himself, knowing the Ard-Righ's often fiery temper. But he waited in vain for any outburst. Brian just shook his head and sighed.
"Och, the bouchal still holds against me my seizing of six of the baronies that were once part of the short-lived Kingdom of Ros Commain. He cannot seem to realize even yet that had I—an old friend and ally of his late sire—not taken them for Mide, Flaithri certainly would've taken them for his own as he took the most of the others, and then I'd've had that forsworn, land-hungry usurper of Connachta far closer to Tara than could've been easily borne."
"But that's neither here nor there, just now. I would imagine that he bade you offer terms of some sort, something that he wants me to grant him before he'll cease to harass my siege forces and seize my supply trains?"
"Yes, Your Majesty, he did," Bass said, grave-faced. "Sir Daveog, Count Ros Commain, demands immediate return of his baronies of Clonlogan, Shrule, Ardagh, West Kilkenny, Rathcline, and Moydow. He bids you withdraw all your troops from off the lands of Ros Commain and Connachta and a
ll ships from the coastal waters off the city of Gaillminh he . . ."
"He's protecting his bitter enemy, the man who murdered and debased his own blood kindred, seized much of his lands, and then depoiled the rest? He's protecting Righ Flaithri and Gaillminh?" burst out Brian, in astonishment. "If so, then I was right to begin, he's gone stark, staring mad!"
"Your Majesty," said Bass, in a lowered voice, "Righ Flaithri is no longer in Gaillminh; it is being held by his sons in his name. Righ Flaithri tried to sail west, to Magna Eireann, but his ship was flung back ashore somewhat north of its point of departure. He and a few other survivors sought shelter in a certain monastery, the abbot of which happened to be another son of the late Righ Diugnan, who had them all disarmed and conveyed to Sir Daveog. And he bade me tell Your Majesty that, as he now holds something he called 'an odd lump of amber with a dragon in it,' he is the rightful, God-chosen Righ of Connachta and he expects that all good and God-loving monarchs such as Your Majesty will see him soon in his lawful place."
"However, he adds, he is certain that he can bring about the peaceful capitulation of Gaillminh and, therefore, will not need your troops or ships to effect it; it is for this reason that he demands you withdraw them. However, he insists that the siege guns be left in place, their value to serve as at least partial reparations for the despoliation of the surrounding countryside."
"And if I don't do all these . . . these . . . these things!" Brian grated from between clenched teeth, while knots of jaw muscle worked under almost livid skin. He squeezed the arms of his cathedra so tightly in his powerful hands that three pieces of inlay popped out of the tormented wood to clatter down upon the floor, completely unnoticed. "Just what are the threats of this arrogant, presumptuous bastard, then?"
Bass steeled himself to not allow a single smile or, far worse, a chuckle, to show or escape him, for in Brian's present rage, such could very easily be fatal. "Then, Your Majesty, Sir Daveog says that he will simply continue his current strategy and tactics until the siege forces either are taken off by the fleet or surrender to him. Should it be the latter, he says that he will take everything of value of them, hold the noblemen and gentlemen to ransom, hire all the good troops to his service, and sell the rest for slaves to certain Europeans of his old acquaintance. Then, after his coronation, he will march his army eastward and take back the six named baronies, plus any others he fancies at the time. He sounds to be most sincere, Your Majesty. No threats, no bluster, no vituperation, only soberly worded notification of intent."
"May the Lord God smite him with every loathsome pest in all this world!" snarled the Ard-Righ, his features all twisted and jerking in his towering rage. Suddenly, he clenched a fist, raised it, and brought the side of it crashing down on the arm of the cathedra with such force as to tear it away from both the back and the seat and send it, shattered, tumbling across the floor with a great clatter that brought both the outer guards half through the door with ready pole-axes and looks of concern.
"Get to hell out of here and close those doors, you Gothic pigs!" roared the Ard-Righ. "If ever I want you, I'll send a swineherd after you!"
As the doors closed behind the Rus-Goth guardsmen, Brian sat up very erectly and took quite a few very deep breaths, before saying, "Your Grace, I take it Sir Daveog is gathering his host around and about the walled city of Ros Commain, then? And he is holding Righ Flaithri there, as well?"
"No, Your Majesty." Bass shook his head. "Count Ros Commain has dispersed his court. He and most of his barons and gentlemen live and move with his hosts about the countryside, biding nowhere for long. All that he would say of Righ Flaithri was that the fairies had shown him where to hide him away."
The Ard-Righ dismissed Bass without so much as one word of thanks for the long ride and his report. Then he just sat, brooding darkly, until he heard the portcullis at the outer gate creak up and the bridge slam down. At that, he came to his feet, opened the door, jerked a pole-axe from one of the guards, broke the thick haft, just below the iron bardings, over his knee, then slammed the door behind him and proceeded to use the weapon to demolish each and every stick of expensive furniture in the chamber, roaring curses and foul obscenities and horrible blasphemies in every language he knew, all the while.
Later, seated in his secret room, Brian the Burly handled his treasured symbols of Irish sovereignty, talking to them as to another human.
"Dammit, nothing at all has worked exactly right, exactly as I'd planned it, since that plaguey English duke came over here to Eireann. The only burdens I can't blame on him are the damned Italian mercenaries, the cursed di Bolgias—they were here before him. But back to him. When first he and his condotta arrived here, I sent him up to Ulaid to fetch back their Magical Jewel, by hook or by crook. Well, he brought it back, right enough, though by then the damned thing was nothing but an old yellow diamond with no iota of power or significance. The king it had come from was by then dead, murdered by one of his own, but there was a new king, one of the damned Italians, no less. One of the ancient, original Jewels, missing and unseen by any man for hundreds of years, turns up stuck into the bare foot of this foul Italian knight, so the idiotic northerner pigs crowned him their king. And as if that were not enough to pile upon me, he proceeds to give his kingdom to and take it back in feoff from, not me, the Ard-Righ of Eireann, as he should've done, but the Regulus of the goddam Hebrides, the Scottish Western Isles, by all that's holy."
"Then there is the still-unsolved murder of the Righ of Airgialla, my faithful liegeman and client, Ronan. The English duke had, in passing through Airgialla on my orders, been given the loan of a slave-girl bedwarmer by poor Ronan. He took a fancy to her, and on his march back through Airgialla from Ulaid, he and his condotta proceeded to tramp into Ard Macha, take away the slave-girl by force of arms, loot more than a hundred ounces of gold from the treasury, then all but sack the palace and city before they finally left. The duke stopped and robbed and terrorized no less than two of Ronan's messengers so that the Englishman had sent the slave-girl out of the realm long before I'd heard about it and could move to make him return her to her royal owner."
"Not only was Righ Ronan murdered that fell night up there, but his Ban-Righ and several of his noblemen as well, and his infant son disappeared along with the wet nurse. For a while, some senile lunatic who had been on the royal council, I think, was proclaiming himself Priest-King of Airgialla, coronated and crowned by God Almighty, according to him. But then none other than our sly, devious Italian, Righ Roberto of Ulaid, proceeds to take over Airgialla and announce that he intends to rule it as regent for Ronan's infant son, whom he is fostering in Ulaid, knowing that if I attack him, I'll shortly have the thrice-damned Regulus—that bloodthirsty old bastard Aonghas Mac Dhomhnuill—after me and Eireann if not the King of Scotland—who is another of that terrible old man's vassals—and my own blood-kin cousin, Arthur of England and Wales, too."
"It's clear as crystal to anyone that either Righ Roberto or his overlord, the Lord of the Isles, is guilty of having Ronan and all those others of his court cruelly murdered, but I have not yet reasoned out just why they did it, for Airgialla has never been all that rich a kingdom. They always made most of their income from slave-raiding, looting isolated island steadings, as had all their Norse ancestors from time immemorial, fishing and trading. So the realm is simply not much of a prize."
"It looked for a while as if the other Italian mercenary—Righ Roberto's elder brother, Sir Timoteo, Dux di Bolgia, was going to work out and help to advance my plans. When he and his managed to kill that mad Righ Tamhas FitzGerald so adroitly that it was widely mourned as a tragic accident—trust the poxy Italians for being fine and notably infamous assassins—then got the Magical Jewel, the Star of Munster, up here to me so that I could replace it with the copy I had had made, things looked extremely promising for Brian, yes they did."
"But hardly had our choice, Righ Sean FitzRobert, been crowned, than the damned FitzGeralds got him away from the mo
st of his guards on the pretext of electing him Ri of FitzGerald, then murdered him. They put Righ Sean's head on a spear, raised up a mob in Corcaigh, and somehow persuaded a light squadron of Afriqan mercenary horse to come over to them, then tried to kill off di Bolgia and all of his men. One of the Italians got away, out of Corcaigh, though, a young papal knight, Sir Ugo d'Orsini, and rode here to me more dead than alive. But by the time I, my gentlemen and guards, along with Duke Bass and most of his condotta got down to Corcaigh, that damned iron-hard, nine-lived Italian, di Bolgia, and his condotta had killed every FitzGerald in Corcaigh—which meant damned nearly every one of the males of that overly inbred ilk in all of Munster, God be praised—so there was nothing for it but to turn all of my force around and ride back to Lagore."
"I had just about decided to send agents down to Munster to seek out a man of the old line of kings of Munster, those who had reigned before the FitzGeralds. I was going to see him crowned, give him to know that he reigned only by my forbearance, and then all of southeastern Eireann would be mine in one way or another and Munster would be at peace within its own borders for the first time in near seven hundred years, with the common people and the new-old nobility elevated by this new-old-line king recognizing me as the man who had delivered them finally from the oppression of the Normans and, therefore, never dreaming of rising up against me."
"But now, but now, goddam him, that cursed Italian has stolen my thunder, may worms eat his lights! Some ancient monk came to him, it is said, babbling of some damned cow-herder who was the rightful Righ of Munster, and di Bolgia not only had the clod brought to Corcaigh, he has had him crowned Righ Flann of Munster. Worse luck, my own damned filids avow that the pig most assuredly is the true, hereditary Irish righ."
"So now I have no more power and influence in Munster than I had when the insane FitzGeralds ruled there, while that foreign bastard out of Italy is hailed as the savior of the kingdom, sits on the goddam royal council, and commands all of the warriors, too."