The High Crusade Read online

  While Jair war leaders, wise men, and politicians sought to probe us for information, however courteously, an expedition hastened to Tharixan to see for itself what had happened. Lady Catherine received them with much pomp and allowed them to interview any Wersgorix they chose. She hid away only Branithar, who would have given too much truth. The rest, even Huruga, had nothing but a confused impression of irresistible onslaught.

  Being unfamiliar with the variations in human appearance, they did not realize that the Darova garrison was composed of our weakest. But they counted it and could hardly believe that so small a force as ours had accomplished all this. Surely we must have unknown powers in reserve! When they saw our neat herds, riders on horseback, women cooking over wood fires, they swallowed easily enough an explanation that we English preferred as much open-air simplicity of life as possible; it was an ideal of their own.

  Fortunate we were that the language barrier limited them to what they could observe of us with their eyes. Those lads learning Wersgor had, as yet, mastered too few words for inteffigible conversation. Many a commoner — or even warrior, it may be — would have blurted his own terror and ignorance, begged them to take him home again, had he been able. As it was, all detailed speech with the English must be filtered through myself. And I relayed Sir Roger’s cheerful arrogance.

  He did not hide from them that an avenging Wersgor fleet would soon fall on Darova. Rather, he boasted of it. His trap was set, he claimed. If Boda and the other starfaring planets would not help him spring it, he must call England for reinforcements.

  The idea of an armada from a totally unknown realm, entering their region of space, disquieted the Jair leaders. I make no doubt that some of them took us for mere adventurers, outlaws perhaps, who could actually count on no help from our birthplace. But then others must have argued:

  “Dare we stand by and take no hand in what is to happen? Even if they are pirates, these newcomers have conquered a planet, and show no fear of the whole Wersgor Empire. In every case, we must arm ourselves against the possibility that England is — despite their denials — as aggressive as the blueface nation. So would it not be best to strengthen ourselves by helping this Roger, occupying many planets and taking much booty? The only alternative seems to be to make alliance with Wersgor against him, and that is unthinkable!”

  Furthermore, the imagination of the Jair people was captured. They saw Sir Roger and his brilliant companions gallop down their sedate avenues. They heard of the defeat he had inflicted on their old enemies. Their folklore, which had long based itself on the fact that they knew only the smallest portion of the universe, predisposed them to believe that older and stronger races existed beyond their maps. Thus, when they heard that he urged war, they took fire and clamored for it. Boda was a true republic, not a sham one such as the Wersgor had. This popular voice rang loud in the parliament.

  The Wersgor ambassador protested. He threatened destruction. But he was far from home, the dispatches he sent would take time to arrive, and meanwhile crowds stoned his residence.

  Sir Roger himself conferred with two other emissaries. These were the representatives of the other starfaring nations, Ashenkoghli and Pr?°tans. The odd letters in the latter name are my own, standing respectively for a whistle and a grunt. I will let one such conversation stand for the many that took place.

  As usual, it was in the Wersgor language. I had more trouble interpreting than I was wont, since the Pr?°tan was in a box which maintained the heat and poisonous air he needed, and talked through a loudspeaker with an accent worse than my own. I never even tried to know his personal name or rank, for these involved concepts more subtle to the human mind than the books of Maimonides. I thought of him as Tertiary Eggmaster of the Northwest Hive, and privately I named him Ethelbert.

  We visitors were seated in a cool blue room, far above the city. While Ethelbert’s tentacled shape, dimly seen through glass, labored with formal courtesies, Sir Roger glanced out at the view. “Open windows, broad as a sally port,” he muttered. “What an opportunity! How I’d love to attack this place!”

  When our talk was begun, Ethelbert said: “I cannot commit the Hives to any policy. I can only send a recommendation. However, since our people have minds less individualistic than average, I may add that my recommendation will carry great weight. At the same time, I am correspondingly hard to convince.”

  We had already been given to understand this. As for the Ashenkoghli, they were divided into clans; their ambassador here was chief of one and could raise its fleet on his own authority. This so simplified our negotiations that we saw God’s purpose revealed. I daresay the confidence we gained thereby was itself a powerful asset to us.

  ’Surely you, good sir, are aware of the arguments we’ve given the Jairs,” Sir Roger said. “They’re no less applicable to Pur-Pur — whatever your by-our-lady planet is called.”

  I felt an exasperation, that he should throw on me the whole burden of pronunciation and polite rephrasing, and set myself a rosary in penance. Wersgor was so barbarous that I could still not think properly in it. Accordingly, when interpreting Sir Roger’s French, I first put the gist into my own boyhood English, then into stately Latin periods, on which firm foundation I could erect a Wersgor structure that Ethelbert mentally translated into Pr?°tan. Marvelous are the works of God.

  “The Hives have suffered,” admitted the ambassador. “The Wersgorix limit our space fleet and extraplanetary possessions; they exact a heavy tribute of rare metals. However, our home world is useless to them, so we have no fear of ultimate conquest like Boda and Ashenk. Why, should we provoke their wrath?”

  “I suppose these creatures have no idea of honor,” the baron grumbled to me, “so tell him he’ll be free of those restrictions and tribute, once Wersgorixan is overthrown.”

  “Obviously,” was the cold reply. “Yet the gain is too small, in comparison with the risk that our planet and its colonies may be bombarded.”

  “That risk will be much lessened, if all Wersgorixan’s foes act together. The enemy’ll be kept too busy to take offensive action.”

  “But no such alliance exists.”

  “I’ve reason to believe the Ashenkoghli lord here on Boda plans to join us. Then many other clans of theirs are sure to do likewise, if only to keep him from gaining too much power.”

  “Sire,” I protested in English, “you know that he of Ashenk is less than ready to stake his fleet on this gamble.”

  “Tell the monster here what I said, anyhow.”

  “My lord, it isn’t true!”

  “Ah, but we’ll make it come true; so ’tis no lie after all.”

  I choked on the casuistry but rendered it as required of me. Ethelbert shot back: “What makes you think so? He of Ashenk is known to be a cautious one.”

  “Certes.” It was a shame that the blandness of Sir Roger’s tone was wasted on those nonhuman ears. “Therefore he’s not about to announce his intention openly. But his staff… some of ’em blab, or can’t resist dropping a hint—”

  “This must be investigated!” said Ethelbert. I could all but read his thoughts. He would set his own spies, hireling Jairs, to work.

  We hied ourselves elsewhere and resumed some talks Sir Roger had been having with a young Ashenkogh. This fiery centaur was himself eager for a war in which he might win fame and wealth. He explained the details of organization, record-keeping, communication, which Sir Roger needed to know. Then the baron instructed him what documents to forge and leave for Ethelbert’s agents to find, what words to let fall in drunkenness, what clumsy attempts to make at bribing Jair officials… Erelong everyone but the Ashenkoghli ambassador himself knew that he was planning to join us.

  So Ethelbert sent a recommendation of war to Pr?°t. It went secretly, of course, but Sir Roger bribed the Jair inspector who passed diplomatic messages out in special boxes to the mailships. The inspector was promised an entire archipelago on Tharixan. That was a shrewd investment of my lord’s, fo
r it won him the right to show the Ashenkoghli chief that dispatch ere it continued on its way. Since Ethelbert had so much confidence in our cause, the chief sent for his own fleet and wrote letters inviting the lords of allied clans to do likewise.

  By now, the military intelligence of Boda knew what was going on. They could certainly not allow Pr?°t and Ashenk to reap so rich a harvest while their planet remained insignificant. Accordingly, they recommended that the Jairs also join the alliance. Thus urged, the parliament declared war on Wersgorixan.

  Sir Roger grinned all over his face. “’Twas easy to do,” he said when his captains praised him. “I needed but to inquire the way in which things are done hereabouts, which was never secret. Then the star-folk tumbled into snares which would not have fooled a half-witted prince of Germans.”

  “But how could that be, sire?” asked Sir Owain. “They’re older and stronger and wiser than we.”

  “The first two, granted,” nodded the baron. His humor was so good that he addressed even this knight with frank fellowship. “But the third, no. Where it comes to intrigue, I’m no master of it myself, no Italian. But the starfolk are like children.

  “And why? Well, on Earth there’ve been many nations and lords for many centuries, all at odds with each other, under a feudal system nigh too complicated to remember. Why’ve we fought so many wars in France? Because the Duke of Anjou was on the one hand the sovereign king of England and on the other hand a Frenchman! Think you what that led to; and yet ’tis really a minor example. On our Earth, we’ve perforce learned all the knavery there is to know.

  “But up here, for centuries, the Wersgorix have been the only real power. They conquered by only one method, crude obliteration of races which had not weapons to fight back. By sheer force — the accident that they had the largest domain — they imposed their will on the three other nations which possessed such military arts. These, being impotent, never even tried to plot against Wersgorixan. None of this has called for more statecraft or generalship than a snowball fight. It took no skill for me to play on simplicity, greed, dawning fear, and mutual rivalry.”

  ’You are too modest, sire.” Sir Owain smiled.

  “Argh!” The baron’s pleasure vanished. “Satan take such matters. The only important thing now is: here we sit, stewing, until the fleet is raised. And meanwhile the enemy is on his way!”

  Indeed, that was a nightmare time. We could not leave Boda to join our women and children in the fortress, for the alliance was still unstable. A hundred times Sir Roger must patch it up, often using means that would cost him dearly in the next life. The rest of us spent our time studying history, languages, geography (or should I say astrolo~’?), and the witchlike mechanic arts. This latter must be done on pretext of comparing local engines with those of our home, to the detriment of the former. Luckily, though not unnaturally — Sir Roger had extracted the information from officers and documents, ere we left Tharixan — certain of the arms we captured there were secret. Thus we could demonstrate an especially effective handgun or explosive ball and claim it was English, taking care that none of our allies got too close a look at it.

  The night the Jair liaison ship returned from Thanxan, with word that the enemy armada had arrived. Sir Roger went alone into his bedchamber. I do not know what happened, but next morning his sword needed sharpening and all the furniture lay in splinters.

  God granted, though, that we had not much longer to wait. The Bodavant fleet was already gathered in orbit. Now several dozen lean battlecraft from Ashenk arrived, and soon thereafter the boxlike vessels of Pr?°t lumbered in from their poisonous home world. We embarked and roared off to war.

  Our first glimpse of Darova, after we had fought past outlying Wersgor ships and into Tharixan’s atmosphere, made me doubt that aught was left to rescue. For hundreds of miles around the land lay black, ripped, and desolated. Rock bubbled molten wherever a shell had newly struck. That subtle death which can only be sensed with instruments had lain waste this entire continent, and would linger for years.

  But Darova was built to withstand such forces, and Lady Catherine had provisioned it well. I glimpsed a Wersgor flotilla as it screamed low above her forcefield. Their missiles burst close, causing the near-solid stone of the aboveground structures to flow on the outside — but leaving the interiors unharmed. The seared earth opened; bombards thrust out like viper tongues, spat lightning, and retracted ere fresh explosives could smite. Three Wersgor ships tumbled in ruin. Their wrecks were added to the carnage which was left from an attempt to storm this place on the ground.

  Then I saw no more smoke-veiled Darova. For the Wersgorix were upon us in force, and the combat moved up again into space.

  Strange was that battle. It was fought at unimaginable distances with fire-beams, cannon shells, unmanned missiles. Ships maneuvered under direction from artificial brains, so fast that only the weight-making fields prevented their crews from being smeared across the bulkheads. Hulls were blown open by near-misses, yet could not sink in airless space: the wounded portions sealed themselves off, and the remainder continued to shoot.

  Such was the usual way of space war. Sir Roger made an innovation. It had horrified the Jair admirals when he first proposed it, but he had insisted it was a standard English tactic — which it was, in a way. Actually, of course, he did it for fear that his men would otherwise betray their clumsiness with the hellweapons.

  So he disposed them in numerous small, exceedingly fast craft. Our over-all plan of battle was made highly unorthodox, for no other reason than to maneuver the enemy into certain positions. When that chance came, Sir Roger’s boats flitted into the heart of the Wersgor fleet. He lost some few, but the others continued their outrageous orbit, to the very flagship of the foe. It was a monstrous thing, almost a mile long, even big enough to carry force-field generators. But the English used explosives to punch through its hull. Then, in space armor, atop which the knights planted their crests — carrying sword, ax, halberd, and bow, as well as handguns — they boarded.

  They were not enough to seize that entire labyrinth of corridors and cabins. Yet they enjoyed themselves, suffered small loss (sailors out here being untrained in hand-to-hand fighting), and threw matters into a confusion which vastly aided our general assault. Eventually the crew abandoned that ship. Sir Roger saw them doing so and withdrew his own troop just before the hull was blown to bits.

  Only God and the more warlike saints know if his action proved decisive. The allied fleet was outnumbered and very much out-gunned, so every gain we made was valuable out of proportion. On the other hand, our attack had come as a surprise. And we had boxed the foe between ourselves and Darova, whose largest missiles flew into space itself to destroy Wersgor craft.

  I cannot describe the vision of St. George, for it was not my privilege to observe this. However, many a sober, trustworthy man-at-arms swore that he saw the holy knight ride down the Milky Way in a foam of stars and impale enemy ships on his lance like so many dragons. Be this as it may, after many hours which I remember but dimly, the Wersgonix gave up. They withdrew in good order, having lost perhaps a fourth of their fleet, and we did not pursue them far.

  Instead, we hovered above blackened Darova. Sir Roger and the chiefs of his allies went down in a boat. In the central underground hail, the English garrison, grimy and exhausted from days of battle, gave a feeble cheer. Lady Catherine took time to bathe and garb herself in her best, for honor’s sake. She swept out like a queen to greet the captains.

  But when she saw her husband, standing in dinted space armor against the chilly glow-light, her stride faltered. “My lord—”

  He took off his glazed helmet. The air tubes got somewhat in the way of his knightly gesture, as he tucked it under an arm and went to one knee before her. “No,” he cried aloud. “Say not that. Let me rather say, ‘My lady and love.’ ”

  She advanced like a sleepwalker. “Is the victory yours?”

  “No. Yours.”

  “A
nd now—”

  He rose, grimacing as the necessities~ clamped back down on him. “Conferences.” he said. “Repair of battle damage. Making of new ships, raising of more armies. Intrigues among allies, heads to knock together, laggards to hearten. And fighting to do, always fighting. Until, God willing, the bluefaces are whipped back to their home planet and submit—” He stopped. Her face had lost its quick lovely color. “But for tonight, my lady,” he said, unskillfully, though he must have rehearsed it many times, “I think we ye earned the right to be alone, that I may praise you.”

  She drew a shaken breath. “Did Sir Owain Montbelle live?” she asked. When he did not say no, she crossed herself, and a tiny smile flickered on her lips. Then she bade the alien captains welcome and held out her hand for them to kiss.

  Chapter XVII

  I come now to a grievous part of this history, and the most difficult to write. Nor was I present, save at the very end.

  This was because Sir Roger hurled himself into his crusade as if he fled from something — which in a way was true — and I was dragged with him like a leaf whirled along in a gale. I was his interpreter, but at every moment when we had naught else to do I became his teacher and would instruct him in Wersgor until my poor weak flesh could endure no more. My last glimpse, ere I toppled into sleep, would be of candlelight guttering on my lord’s haggard face. Then he would often as not summon a doctor of the Jair language, who would teach him until dawn. At this rate, it was not many weeks before he could curse hideously in both tongues.

  Meanwhile, he drove his allies nigh as hard as he did himself. The Wersgorix must be given no chance to recover. Planet after planet must be attacked, reduced, and garrisoned, so that the foe always fought off balance, on the defensive. In this task, we had much help from enslaved native populations. As a rule, these need only be given arms and leadership. Then they attacked their masters in such hordes, with such ferocity, that the latter fled to us for protection. Jairs, Ashenkoghli, and Pr?*tans were horrified. They had no experience in such matters; whereas Sir Roger had encountered the Jacquene in France. In their bewilderment, his fellow chieftains came more and more to accept his unquestioned leadership.