by Robert Adams
"Meanwhile, I had sent the Duke of Norfolk and his condotta north to try to reason with my usually very unreasonable cousins, the Northern Ui Neills. When did fate have him arrive? Just on the very eve of a battle between the Righ of Ui Neill and the Righ of Breifne over some strip of marches along their shared border. Had it been me, I'd've sat back and let them beat each other into the ground, then taken my forces in and conquered them both, but not our Duke of Norfolk, oh, no, not him, goddam it."
"This Englishman proceeds to make peace between them, so impresses them both that they and their filids dig up some hoary, ancient bit of prophecy about the man who will come from beyond this world to finally unite all of Eireann, bring a long-lasting peace between all the righs, though he will never himself be a righ."
"Now this infernal mess of dog's-vomit in the west! I send him—because, after all, he is a famous and revered leader of warriors and owns too a well-qualified staff of noble officers—to look over the situation as regards this stalemated and hideously costly siege of Connachta's capital city, Gaillminh. So he goes, he sees, and he decides who and what is wrong there, right enough, confirming some of my own suspicions, too."
"But then, on his return journey, he runs across that damned Daveog of Ros Commain, with his ultimatums and threats. If the shoat out of that old boar Diugnan does have the Magical Jewel of Connachta . . . hell, he does, I'm certain of that, and that damned Flaithri, too; I hope he does to him what Flaithri had done to his brother, then keeps him around to further torment for a while, the old cur deserves no better. The usurper has no real friends in all of his stolen kingdom; only his possession of the Magical Jewel, the Dragon of Connachta, has kept him on his ill-gotten throne this long. So if that damned Daveog can get word to the nobles of Connachta that he has the Dragon, the bastards will have him crowned within the bare blinking of an eye, depend on it, and I'll be far deeper in the shit than I was to start."
"I don't know, maybe I should've backed Daveog when he came back from Europe after his sire was killed. Between us, we could surely have crushed Flaithri then, and now Daveog would be not only back on the throne of his ancestors, but he'd be in some measure beholden to me for the fact. But, at the time, it just seemed to me the better move to let Flaithri defeat Daveog and take enough of his lands that the Kingdom of Ros Commain would be reduced to a county at best and therefore there would be one less righ for me to move against when I was ready to move."
The Ard-Righ sighed gustily and fingered the plush-lined hole in the tray, the opening that was meant to hold the Dragon of Connachta. Sighing again, he then began to speak once more to the cold baubles of gold and precious stones.
"Well, the winter is approaching, anyway. I'll just summon the army and fleet back from Connachta. I'll have to cede those six baronies, too, I suppose, else I'd have to keep them constantly garrisoned, knowing Daveog. I'll even leave the bastard the siege guns . . . but they'll all be well spiked, too, damn him. I've won and lost battles, and I long ago learned that when you're faced with an impossible situation, the only sane thing to do is to withdraw in the best possible order, regroup, form new battle lines, and be ready to regain the offensive immediately an opening of any sort is presented you. That's the strategy called for by this situation, and that's what I have to do. But I don't have to like doing it, Goddam it all to the deepest, hottest, foulest pit that Satan owns!"
After he had calmed himself to rationality once more by deep breathing and fondling of his tray of jewels, he again began to speak to the stone walls and the treasure chests.
"But this Duke of Norfolk, now, what am I to do with him? When I consider all that he, with the very best of motives, has nonetheless cost me and my plans for Eireann, I often think that the best thing would be the arrangement of his quick, quiet demise, his and his principal officers'. But there's the problem: Eireann is a small, insular land wherein secrets are exceeding difficult to keep secret for long, no matter how elaborate the precautions taken, so all too soon, there would be speculation if nothing more that I had managed the deaths of at least three foreign noblemen, one the uncle of the Emperor and another very, very dear to Cousin Arthur, whose good favor I cannot yet afford to jeopardize. So what to do with this sometimes useful but always dangerous English nobleman? Send him back to England and Arthur? No, it goes against my grain to so easily, so willingly give up so much available force. Send him and his condotta back to Ulaid? No, Ulaid and Airgialla are lost to me and to Eireann for so long as Righ Roberto di Bolgia lives on and reigns on, for his newfound overlord is reputed to be quick to come to the aid of any threatened vassal and that terrible old man owns at least as powerful a host as do I; moreover, should I fight him, the goddam galloglaiches would desert my hosts, all of them, and should I have the luck to seem to be getting the best of old Aonghas, why he'd surely call in his plaguey vassals and their damned hosts, not to mention his allies and his vassals' allies. And against such numbers as those, well, that would be the very end of Brian and of Eireann, too, most likely."
"All right, then, send this Sassenach duke to Munster, perhaps, see if he can improve matters there? Maybe get the Dux di Bolgia to take his condotta back to Italy and cease plaguing me? Hah! Damned unlikely. Much more probably, this peace-loving warlord of Cousin Arthur's would make di Bolgia a fast friend, join the two condottas into one, and then I'd have a real threat, a mobile threat, ready to leap out of Munster at my very throat at any time."
"And not to Connachta, either. Not again, not for any purpose. Were I to so do, no doubt he'd bring that damned Daveog back here to replace me as Ard-Righ, and the way he's managed to cozen all the other righs of the north, they'd likely as not back him up, too. Already they and the filids are hailing this damned foreigner as a 'God-sent kingmaker for Eireann, the long-awaited one, he-who-moves-between-worlds,' whatever the hell that last means."
"So where is there to send this troublemaking man? Hmm. Why not . . . ? Yes, why not?"
Don Guillermo disliked having to sit and watch men flogged so early in the day, for what with the formal, military proceedings, the affairs invariably consumed at least an hour of the cooler mornings in which, without such a discipline formation, he usually got a good percentage of his necessary office work done before the interior areas of most of the near-windowless fort became so stifling. But in cases like this, ones wherein he had personally passed sentence, he felt it his duty to attend. And this matter was, indeed, of a serious nature, for humbler soldiers could be a childishly superstitious breed, and if talk of this fine fort being haunted by the ghost of the French officer who had blown its predecessor and himself up rather than surrender it to its present comandante, Don Guillermo himself, was allowed to continue in the barracks untrammeled, then soldiers would soon be deserting right and left; such had happened elsewhere, over the years.
Don Guillermo was a deeply religious man, and as such, he knew that ghosts and malignant revenants and specters did not, could not be. Men or women died, their bodies quickly became corruption, and their souls went on to purgatory or hell or, in very rare instances, directly to God in His Heaven; they did not ever linger about in the world of the living. A very wise old priest and imam had told him so when he was a young man, in Spain.
Of course, it could not be expected that a common, crude, profane soldier of mixed blood—some of them being as little as one-eighth Spanish or Moorish descent—and therefore cursed with all of the superstition, ghost-ridden, stubborn stupidity, and basic childishness of their principal and most inferior racial lines—a mere criollo could ever comprehend the civilized reasoning of a pious Spaniard or Moor; no, the only way to stop such dangerous speculation was to make malefactors to suffer and bleed and scream in the sight and sound of their base sorts. Let them think such thoughts as their simple minds would easily hold, but let them keep their big, flapping tongues under tight rein, was the opinion of the comandante.
At last the thing was done, the sentence fully carried out by the best efforts of a
Spanish braided fustigar alacròn—a real one, fabricated in the ancient city of Saragasso, wherein they had been made in exactly the same way since the time of the Old Roman Empire, done up of finished leather, not the rawhide of cheaper imitations, with leaden pellets and bronzen barbs permanently integrated in the tails.
As the knight stood up, he noted a tiny gobbet of bloody flesh adhering to the leg of his left boot and impatiently flicked the thing off with the tip of his stick. There was nothing he could do about the fine droplets of blood, however. He sighed. More time to be wasted going back to his quarters and changing boots, but far better that than to be plagued by following flies for the rest of the day. Next flogging, he must have his chair positioned differently. While his squire, Bruno, pulled off the boots and turned them over to a waiting slave to be cleaned and repolished, then fetched the other pair of everyday boots from the clothespress, Don Guillermo was thinking.
"Who in the hell is stealing all this cannon powder? And apropos the thefts, what in the names of twenty saints are they doing with it? Casks of gunpowder are, at best, heavy, bulky, unwieldy things; manpower alone cannot bear them easily or far under most conditions, they must be rolled, and rolling makes noise and the rollers have to be damned careful in the rolling, too, since the hoops are soft copper rather than tough iron. The town and the lands about it have been turned upside down and inside out repeatedly and devil a trace of that stolen powder to be found, over a ton of the precious stuff now missing. And doubling the locks and tripling the night guards on the magazine apparently does no good at all; the thieves still manage somehow to dance in and out with as much powder as they want, unseen, unheard, through solid walls and bolted doors with locks that look always to have been untouched.
"It's said in hoary legend that the white-robed white-skinned pagans that dwell somewhere north and west of here are capable of such impossibilities, but I've never put any stock in such tales . . . up until now, that is. But if it's true, if some of those witches have drifted down here, what would they want with my cannon powder, pray tell? They are said to not war or hunt or own even small arms, much less cannon; they live on only grain and plants, and indios are said either to virtually worship them or to avoid them like the plague."
"The Irish, directly north of here, seem to ignore these pagans, but the French, to the north of the Irish, have been actively if sporadically hunting them for at least a century now, trying to track them down and either convert or kill them off. If they've had any success on any of their expeditions into the interior, I've heard no word of it . . . and you know damned well that, being French, they'd be crowing their silly heads off if they'd succeeded in even the tiniest of ways."
"Don Felipe . . . where in the hell is that young man, I wonder? He is most conscientious, shows exceeding promise, so it is most unlike him to take so long at so commonplace a task as scouting out those damned, indio-arming, excommunicant interlopers upriver in the Shawnee lands. The lad should at least have sent a message down here to me if circumstances were going to delay his return. He would have, I am certain, knowing him well as I do, unless . . . ?"
"No, he is too astute and experienced a fighter, his party is too large and too well armed that at least a few would not have survived any attack or ambush that those indios and those whoever-they-ares could mount."
After standing and stamping down firmly into his boots, the comandante left his quarters for the second time that morning and strode briskly down the stonewalled corridor toward the business section of the fort. There was always much for him and his small staff to do and little enough time in which to do it. Days simply had too few hours, it seemed.
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH
Dwarfing almost all other shipping of any type, a towering warship and its companion vessels proceeded slowly up the River Liffey. At the naval quay, she was carefully warped in, and a party that a German might have described as "herrlischer, herrlischer Herren" alit and waited a bit impatiently until horses were found for them. Once mounted, the newcomers divided into two parties, one riding toward the Herrenhaus of the Empire's ambassador to the court of the High King and the other exiting the city and making directly for the camp of the English Herzog and his condotta.
"Ach, mein alte Freund, mein guter Kamerad, mein prdchtiger Vassall, Bass, it truly painful iss to leave you after so many goot years, but needed I am in und by the Empire. For me und mein Jungen, a great varship vaits in Dublin, und so return I must, this very day."
Bass was stunned. "It's not . . . ? Nothing's happened to Egon, has it, Wolfie? Pray God not!"
"New, nein." The Reichsherzog shook his head. "At last writing, mein Neffe und sovereign in Italy was und butchering Spanishchen, Moorischen, und their kind in great numbers. Nein, the Electors to call me back haf because of difficulties mit the Kalmyks. Because a blood brother I am to the Great Khan, better is thought that to deal with him be to me left. Also, two of the Kalmyks still mit me hiss grandsons are."
"But not all of mein Jungen to go back vish. Nugai und Yueh to stay mit you vould, of course. Nugai's nephew, Batu, vould stay mit Sir Ali, und his half brother in the service of Baron Melchoro vould remain. Some dreizehn more vould not for reasons various go back mit the rest; to order them I could und obey they vould assuredly, but to do such I vould prefer not to do. Ja, und so left am I mit a problem, for not efen goot Deutsch do the most of them to speak, far less Engelisch und Irisch so into your service vould you take these fine fighters, mein alte Freund! Much more vould my mind rest could I know that safe mit you they were, und happy in the service of a great lord that respect und admire they all do."
Bass and his entourage of course rode with Wolfgang and his Kalmyks to Dublin, through it, and so down to the naval basin on the south bank of the River Liffey. One by one, the smaller ships of the Empire's convoy were warped in close enough for each to receive its lading of Kalmyks, their gear, and their ponies.
Bass felt miserable. He knew already just how much he was going to miss this old and very dear friend, this man whom he had known longer than most of the other people in all this world. On the ride down to Dublin, he had tried to persuade the Reichsherzog to take back the Mark of Velegrad that he might bestow it and its lands and city upon a knight who could and would live there and see it prosper.
"Ach, nein, nein, Bass Foster, mein Vassall you are und mein Vassall you vill remain. The Mark in goot hands is in your absence, nefer to fear, Kamerad, und a strong garrison the Schloss holds, as alvays. Besides, as uncertain as is our vorld, Kamerad, gut it often iss to know that to haf a bolt-hole vun does, lands und assured safety in another realm; to villingly gif up such a possible salvation vun should not, nor vill I to let you do so. So say no vord more on this subject, Kamerad. So short is our remaining time, so let us to talk it avay mit other, more pleasant things. Ja? Ach, Ja."
When the last ship was loaded and the multi-decked warship was preparing to cast off the mooring lines, the tall, powerful Reichsherzog, his scarred face tear-drenched, sobbingly embraced and bussed each of them in turn—Don Diego, Sir Colum, Sir Liam, Sir Calum, Sir Conn, Sir Ali, Nugai, Yueh, Batu and his half brother, Ordei, Melchoro, and then Bass, once more. Wolfgang projected irresistible amounts of emotion—he cried and sobbed, wrenchingly, Bass cried, Melchoro cried, Sir Ali cried, Don Diego cried. Sir Colum cried, Sir Liam cried, Sir Calum cried, and Sir Conn cried. Nugai, Yueh, Batu, and Ordei did not cry, but began a soft, sad-sounding chant that was picked up by the Kalmyks aboard the smaller ships now waiting out offshore. Presently, all of the Empire noblemen and ship's officers, Wolfgang's squires, his page, and not a few of the common sailors were weeping, at which point the always very sensitive and emotional Irish on the quay began to cry, as well.
Obviously, Bass thought to himself on the slow ride back to his camp, no one had ever gotten around to telling the fierce, usually brave, and often violent warriors of this world that tears or any display of emotion was unmanly, that "real men" did not cry. It had taken him years to l
earn to overcome that stupid and unnatural admonition and he was very glad that his own son, little Joseph Foster, would never be burdened with so ridiculous a piece of emotional garbage. "I wonder how little Joe is making out in fosterage?" he half-whispered to himself. "And his . . . and Krystal, Krys, I wonder if she's any better. Damn, what a terrible thing, her cracking up like she did. The Krys I married and the one of the last few years were just not the same person at all. I wonder if it was my fault. Hal swears it wasn't, that she was never strung together too tight, in this world or the other one, and would've whacked out eventually anyway. But . . . I can't help but wonder . . . ?"
When he had returned to York after seeing Her Grace of Norfolk established in her tower suite at Whyffler Hall, with the two nuns of the nursing order and some ladies and commoner maids to care for her, Rupen had, at Sir Geoffrey's firm insistence, taken a couple of the Strathtyne Lancers with him. Therefore, on his next visit to the border, these lancers had guided him and his contingent of the Horse Guards of the Archbishop through the shorter but much more rugged and dangerous course of the cross-country route, that which he once before had ridden in company with Bass Foster and his wild Irish rogues.
A few months of warmth, care, access to bathing facilities, and frequent changes of clothing, as well as copious amounts of varied and well-prepared foods, had rendered the mad duchess into much more the image of the woman Rupen had first met at the Archbishop's country manor than the hag-like creature he had brought up here. She was clearly healthier, physically, but as he quickly discovered, she still was mad as a March hare, still precipitately violent, still very dangerous.