by John Dalmas
Then Arno quit pointing the stunner at me, clipping it on his belt without saying anything.
"Where are we going?" I asked, in Norman now.
"To the castle of Roger of Hauteville, at Mileto, some twenty miles south of here."
"Will I meet Roger?"
"Roger and his elder brother Guiscard, the duke, are on Sicily, where they captured Palermo three months ago. Palermo is Sicily's greatest city-one of the world's greatest-and beautiful beyond words. I fought there. I led a squadron. Then the duke dubbed Roger the Count of Sicily. Roger will rule the island for him, though Guiscard, as duke, will keep Palermo as his own.
"Roger has said he will keep his castle at Mileto, where we are going now. It is no stronghold such as Normans build here, but its walls are thick, and he has no lack of men to defend it. And he controls the country far around.
"He has given me my own fief outside Palermo, where I am having a castle built of stone, atop a rocky hill. I have my own liege knights and sergeants there now, looking to it."
Arno had obviously come a long way in less than three years. He was peering at me as if trying to see what I thought of all this, but the moon was on the wrong side; my face was shadowed. "It is good land," he went on. "Much of it is lowland, nearly flat, with a mountain stream that carries water the year round. But there is no great marsh, and therefore, it is said, no fever. And because the lower slopes are northerly, the pasturage grows thicker and stays green longer."
"So you're going to remain a warrior after all," I said, "instead of becoming a merchant."
"Not so. I have become a baron, but I am also a merchant who raises destriers for our knights and sergeants. That's why I am here in Calabria just now, instead of on my own fief. I've been grazing my breeding herd on the count's land here until I should have my own. In town today I arranged to have them shipped to Palermo. Late tomorrow a ship will come to the wharf at Mileto, and we will load them."
"But most merchants are free men, isn't that so?" I asked. "While a baron is a vassal, owing military service to his liege lord."
For some seconds there was only the dull plodding of hooves on dirt, the occasional click of an iron shoe on stone. Then Arno answered. "No man is truly free. A merchant makes agreements with buyers and others, and owes them goods or services. He pays in money or goods for protection, and more often than not he owes the moneylender."
We rode a way farther without saying anything, Arno's eyes ahead. Finally, he looked at me again. "As a younger son I have no inheritance," he told me, "and my eldest brother is not a man of influence. For me, the road to wealth can best begin by swearing fealty to a great lord, preferably a conqueror, and making myself of special value to him. Also, both Guiscard and Roger are granting fiefs that have little to do with land. One great noble will build Guiscard a fleet with which to conquer Greece or possibly Africa. In my own case, in Sieu of military service, I may pay Roger in destriers if I wish.
"I caught Roger's eye on the battlefield at Misilmeri, nearly four years since, and happily, he had not forgotten me when I returned a year later with my first herd. Italian horses are not suited to our Norman tactics; they lack the weight and strength. So the destriers I brought were almost beyond price. My second herd was mostly brood mares, with only three great stallions. With them I…",
Deneen's voice spoke unexpectedly from the communicator at Arno's belt. He was so surprised he jerked, then reined in his horse. I stopped mine, too. I hadn't remembered to switch it to remote reception after I'd used it the last time on the ship.
"Larn, this is Javelin," she was saying. "Larn, this is Javelin. Over."
"I should answer her," I said.
He reached to his belt and took off the communicator, peering at it. "How is it used? I've forgotten."
"It's a different model from the one I had before. This one is military. Here," I added, reaching.
He scowled, holding it away from me. "Tell me," he said, "for I will not put it in your power."
"All right," I countered, "hold it in your hand and let me touch the magic places."
"Larn, what's the situation down there?" Deneen's voice went on. Obviously, she thought I had it on remote and that no one else was hearing her. She sounded somewhere between exasperated and worried. "Bubba says you're out in the countryside. I seem to have you located on the viewer-I presume it's you- with four other men on the road that goes south along the coast. Come in please, if you can. Over."
While she was saying that, Arno held the communicator out for me to touch. I opened the transmit switch and raised the volume a bit. "Okay, Arno," I told him. "Talk to her."
"Hello," he said in Evdashian. "I am Arno of Courmeron."
"What? Who are you? I can't understand you."
She could understand him all right. She wanted him to give me the communicator. But from his expression, he wasn't about to.
"You understand me so good as you must. I am Arno of Courmeron."
She did something with the switch, and the communicator made clicking noises, sharp and rapid.
"Larn, can you hear me?" she said. "What's going on there? Whose voice was that? Over."
He wasn't very happy with that either, but he held it out where I could talk into it.
"Hi, Deneen." I was speaking Evdashian too, slowly, so that Arno could more or less follow what I said. "That was Arno of Courmeron. And I didn't find him; he found me. He'd heard about me in an eating place, and surprised me when I was sleeping; he and three other Normans. He's got my stunner and blast pistol and communicator.
"Don't worry, though. Everything is all right so far. He and I are talking about things we might do together. Right now we're going to where he's staying."
Arno was watching me intently. I'd need to throw in some words he didn't know so he wouldn't understand what I had to say next, "I'll activate the remote if the opportunity presents. You palpitate the switch additionally after I enunciate the appellation of our telepathic quadruped."
I paused. It was desirable that Arno did understand what I said next, so this time I spoke simply. "Arno is holding me prisoner, sort of. He doesn't fully trust me and I don't fully trust him, but I think he and I can work something out together. Meanwhile, you follow us from above. You can use magic to know whether I've been harmed or not." Magic Arno accepted, more or less, while technology was foreign to him. I paused now for emphasis. "If I'm harmed," I continued, "you know what to do. And take good care of Bubba."
As soon as I said "Bubba"-the "appellation of our telepathic quadruped"-the speaker not only gave another series of clicks, but a loud squeal. I don't know how she did the squeal part.
"Here," I said to Arno. "I need to fix it."
He hesitated, then moved his horse closer so I could look the communicator over. Reaching, I switched it to remote. "There," I said. "That may fix it, or it may make it worse.
"Deneen," I added, "my communicator is acting up again. Same old problem-clicking noises. I've adjusted the gummox. If you can hear me, transmit again and let's see if it's working now. Over."
Both Arno and I looked at the communicator as if watching would help it work. Of course it didn't make a sound that he could hear. "Deneen," I said, "we do not receive you. Transmit again please. Over."
Her voice murmured in the privacy of my ear canal. "Well, brother mine, was that quiet enough for you? Cough if your remote is working. Over."
I coughed, cleared my throat, then looked at Arno, and he at me. "The amulet refuses to talk for now," I said in Norman, shaking my head. "I've had trouble with it before. It will work for a while, and then for no apparent reason it quits."
Of course Arno, being a Norman, was suspicious. I could read it in his face, even by moonlight.
I shrugged. "It will probably work all right later. Will it be all right for me to put it to rest? No use running down the power cell." The last two words were in Evdashian, of course. "That which gives it power," I added in Norman.
To him it was all
magic. I could almost smell his distrust as he nodded. "Do what you must," he said, "as long as I keep the amulet."
"If you insist," I answered, and reaching again, switched off the transmitter. The remote would continue to function.
As we started down the road, the remote murmured again. "Larn, I'm getting ready to give him a demonstration. You might want to prepare him so he won't think he's being attacked."
I had this natural urge to answer, but didn't. "Arno," I told him, "if I know Deneen, we can expect her to do something to prove her power to you. I'm sure she won't harm anyone, because we'd like to be your allies. But it may be pretty noisy, so be ready."
He nodded, saying nothing. It wasn't more than half a minute later that a spotlight caught us. Brislieu, taken by surprise, stopped his horse and drew his sword, glancing upward for a moment. Arno was too smart to look at the lamp even briefly; it would make his pupils contract. He looked only at the illuminated area of the ground. Their squires halted behind us; I don't know what they made of all this.
Then the light switched off.
Nothing more happened for a long minute. I sat holding the reins tight, waiting. If what I suspected happened next, my horse might easily start bucking; the average saddle gorn at home would have. Then the light came on again. This time it wasn't an intense and narrow beam, but spread to flood a grove of trees planted in rows not far from the road. I tensed, almost sensing Tarel at the weapons controls.
The dull "thud thud thud" of the heavy blaster punctuated the night, a series of twelve or fifteen shots in maybe six seconds. Energy bolts hissed, trees burst, fragments of wood whirred and plunked around. The horses, well trained, jerked and danced but settled down quickly. Then it was quiet, and the floodlight showed shattered stubs where the nearest trees had been, two hundred feet away.
After a moment it switched off again; only the dark was left. I wondered if any locals had seen what had happened, and what they'd make of it if they had.
The light came back on, its beam narrower again, to shine on a steep, rocky slope about a quarter mile away. Our eyes went to it. The blaster thudded again- one, two, three, four-the bolts slamming one after another into the bedrock. Shards flew, and above the target point a large slab broke loose to slide crashing to the foot of the slope.
Then once more it was dark.
"I think she's done now," I said quietly in Norman. "We have much more powerful weapons this time than before. And we are harder. We have seen our friends killed, and we are looking for allies."
As I said it I had a kind of feeling I'd never had before, a sort of dry emptiness that marked some kind of change in me. It wasn't especially bad, but it wasn't good either. There was a certain flavor of regret to it, but not a heavy sadness or anything like that. And with it came a sense of strength as well. I didn't think I'd ever be awed by Normans again. Impressed by them maybe, but not awed.
"Let us go on," Arno said, also in Norman. "We have miles to ride yet." His voice was quiet. He sounded more than just impressed; he sounded as if he had things to think about.
SEVENTEEN
A Norman sergeant, wearing helmet and hauberk, let us into Count Roger's castle at Mileto. I'd never been in a Norman-built stone castle, so I couldn't compare this with one of them. But it was a lot different from the timber castles that were usual in Normandy. The stone defensive wall was so thick that the small gate we went through was like an inky tunnel.
The grounds inside were like a big country estate with a wall around it. Arno told me it had been built for a Byzantine governor. There were no lights, not even a lamp by a door, and the moon was all but down, hidden by a hill. But even by simple starlight, the buildings were graceful, more beautiful than any I'd seen before on Fanglith.
I couldn't tell how many buildings there were. Quite a few. Some had wings, and courtyards of their own. There were gardens with privacy walls, and trees for fruit and shade. I could smell something in flower. But the walls had corner towers, one much larger than the others, to remind me that war was a way of life on Fanglith.
Arno had told me that Judith of Evreux, Roger's wife, really loved the place. I could understand that, especially if her father's castle in Normandy was like the castles I'd seen there. Arno didn't say so, but I got the idea that he liked this better, too.
We headed for the big stone tower. After Arno had warned the squires to say nothing about what had happened that night, they took the horses away to rub them down and feed them. Arno, Brislieu, and I went into the tower. Our "bedroom" was the large dark hall, lit by a single lamp-a bowl of oil with a cloth wick and a flickering small flame. I could make out other men sleeping-knights and sergeants no doubt. After each of us had gathered together his own little heap of the dry hay piled in a corner, Arno and Brislieu stripped off their hauberks. Then we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and lay down to sleep.
They didn't smell nearly as bad as the Norman knights I'd been among in Normandy, or the monks in Provence, as far as that was concerned. What dominated my nostrils was the hay-a clean, pleasant smell. I wondered if they'd learned about baths in this new country they'd conquered.
Arno:
It had been a long enough day, riding in to Reggio, arranging for a ship with a horse hold, rinding and capturing the star man, and riding back to Mileto. But my mind was roiling like a kettle over a fire, too full of thoughts just then for sleep.
The star man! He was ignorant, carried no sword, spoke inadequately, had only a vague idea what to say or do. Even with his sorcerous weapons, which on two occasions I'd deprived him of, and with his sister overhead in their sky boat, he should have been dead long before this. Instead, since the first hour I'd known him, he'd gone from one dangerous situation to another, slipping through each as if, in truth, he was guided by some angel, or the Holy Spirit Himself.
I remembered my old training master, Walter Ironfist, telling us that the only lasting luck was the luck you made for yourself. And while I accepted that, the knowledge did not seem particularly useful. But in the case of this Larn, certainly his luck was beyond mere chance.
I could wish I'd never met him; yet I had. I seemed drawn to him, and despite myself I liked him. And if he, in some way, created luck, one might do well to share a project with him.
Once I'd seen Sicily and come to know it a bit, seen how wealthy Saracen princes lived, and Jewish and Byzantine merchants, I too wanted wealth. And it seemed to me that I could best become wealthy by being a merchant. Fighting, living in the saddle, sleeping among the rocks with one's hauberk on, saddle for pillow, hand on sword hilt and one eye open-it all has a certain flavor. Yet while I admit to relishing it, it was a life I would willingly sacrifice for wealth.
Obtaining wealth, however, takes more than sacrifice, else there'd be far fewer poor. But I am nothing if not smart-smart even for a Norman. I knew I could learn to be a merchant. I could even see how to begin, for here was a great demand for war horses, while in Normandy there was a good supply. Even the Prankish animals were adequate, and at a lesser distance. And like every Norman knight, I knew destriers; knew them well. All I needed was money to buy them with, and the luck and will and toughness to get them here from the north.
The money to start with, I obtained from the Battle of Misilmeri, where we'd killed Saracens by the thousands-killed them till those who yet lived surrendered to us. We'd been reeling from exhaustion by then, hardly able to stay upright in the saddle. Our arms ached, seemingly beyond our power to raise for another blow.
Nonetheless we'd dismounted. The more experienced among us summoned the energy to begin searching the dead, and as the rest of us watched, our exhaustion was forgotten. Those of us recently from Normandy could hardly believe the coins and gems the Saracen knights carried in their purses to ransom themselves with if captured. We cut pieces from their robes, made bags of them, and emptied their purses into the bags. And the rings of gold and silver, many set with precious stones! How many fingers were cut free of how many dead
hands that day! We sergeants and knights chose the richest-looking bodies for our efforts, then left the poorer to the Lombard mercenaries and went to the quarters assigned to us.
And while, by Saracen standards, or Byzantine, or Jewish, we were not wealthy, any one of us was wealthier in gold, silver, and gems than almost anyone in Normandy.
I knew then how I could buy horses.
But that was not the end of it. For Roger had seen my strength and prowess in the battle-indeed, had heard of me from skirmishes earlier-and I was knighted. Beyond that, his brother Guiscard levied an unbelievable ransom on our prisoners, knowing it would be paid. And when in fact it was paid, Guiscard, royal in fact and power if not in title, distributed it among his army. I began to see myself not only with a great horse herd, but also sleeping on a soft bed, on silk sheets, with slaves and servants to tend my needs.
When I was able to obtain an audience with Roger, and tell him my plan to raise horses, he approved at once. For in every skirmish we were likely to have destriers killed or maimed, and their like were hard to come by in the south. And our Norman style of fighting depended on their size and strength and ferocity as much as on our heavier mail, our stouter swords. With our ranks closed and our great war horses between our thighs, we Normans are the greatest fighting men of all, not even excepting Varangians or Swabians, for all their fierceness and great frames.
If I could help solve the problem of enough good horses, Roger told me, then he would absolve me of the fealty I'd sworn him and let me go my way. I felt myself fortunate in having had such a noble lord, and in fact I was.
Then, on my way back to Normandy, I'd met the star man beside the road that comes down from the Cenis Pass into the valleys of Savoie. I could barely understand his speech, which was Provengal poorly spoken. He had seemed unarmed and as innocent as a girl- almost too innocent to survive beneath heaven. But then I learned what powers he held, glimpsed what force I might gain from him, and suddenly the life of a merchant seemed small and trivial. While wealth, it seems, was after all only part of what I wanted. Now I could see a kingdom, even an empire, waiting to be grasped by getting his weapons and skyboat into my hands. I had but to wait-bide patiently and strike when the time was right.