The High Crusade Read online

  The ins and outs of what happened are too complex, too various from world to world, for this paltry record. But in essence, on each inhabited planet, the Wersgorix had destroyed whatever original civilization existed. Now the Wersgor system in turn was toppled. Into this vacuum — unreligion, anarchy, banditry, famine, the ever — present menace of a blueface return, the necessity of training the natives themselves to eke out our thin garrisons — Sir Roger stepped. He had a solution to these problems, one hammered out in Europe during those not dissimilar centuries after Rome fell: the feudal system.

  But just when he was thus laying the cornerstone of victory, it crumbled for him. God rest his soul! No more gallant knight ever lived. Even now, a lifetime later, tears dim my old eyes, and I were fain to hurry over this part of the chronicle. Since I witnessed so little, it would be excusable for me to do so.

  However, those who betrayed their lord did not rush into it. They stumbled. Had Sir Roger not been blind to all warning signs, it would never have happened. Therefore I shall not set it down in cold words, but fall back on the earlier (and, I think, truer) practice of inventing whole scenes, that folk now dust may live again and be known, not as abstract villainies, but as fallible souls: on whom perhaps God, at the very last, had mercy.

  We begin on Tharixan. The fleet had just departed to seize the first Wersgor colony of its long campaign. A Jair garrison occupied Darova. But those English women, children, and grandsires who had so valiantly held fast, were given what reward lay in Sir Roger s power. He moved them to that island where our kine were pastured. There they could dwell in woods and fields, erecting houses, herding, hunting, sowing and reaping, almost as if it were home. Lady Catherine was set to rule over them. She kept Branithar, of the Wersgor captives, as much to prevent his revealing too much to the Jairs as to continue giving instruction in his language. She also had a small fast spaceship for emergency use. Visits from the Jairs across the sea were discouraged, lest they observe too closely.

  It was a peaceful time, save in my lady’s heart.

  For her the great grief began the day after Sir Roger embarked. She walked across a flowery meadow, hearing wind sough in the trees. A pair of her maids followed behind. Through the woods came voices, the ring of an ax, the bark of a dog, but to her they seemed of dreamlike remoteness.

  Suddenly she halted. For a moment she could only stare. Then one hand stole to the crucifix on her breast. “Mary, have pity.” Her maids, well-trained, slipped back out of earshot.

  Sir Owain Montbelle hobbled from the glade. He was in his gayest garb, nothing but a sword to remind her of war. The crutch on which he leaned hardly interfered with his gracefulness as he swept off his plumed bonnet in a bow.

  “Ah,” he cried, “this instant the place has become Arcady, and old Hob the swineherd whom I just met is heathen Apollo, harping a hymn to the great witch Venus.

  “What’s this?” Catherine’s eyes were blue dismay. “Has the fleet returned?”

  “Nay.” Sir Owain shrugged. “Blame my own awkwardness yestre’en. I was frolicking about, playing ball, when I stumbled. My ankle twisted, and remains so weak and tender that I’d be useless in battle. Perforce I deputed my command to young Hugh Thorne and flitted hither in an aircraft. Now I must wait till I am healed, then borrow a ship and a Jair pilot to rejoin my comrades.”

  Catherine tried desperately to speak sober words. “In . … in his language lessons … Branithar has mentioned that the star folk have s-s-strange chirurgic arts.” She flushed like fire. “Their lenses can look even inside a living body … and they inject simples which heal the worst wound in days.”

  “I thought of that,” said Sir Owain. “For of course I would not be a laggard in war. But then I remembered my lord’s strict orders, that our entire hope depends for the nonce on convincing these demon races we are as learned as they.”

  She clasped the crucifix still tighter.

  “So I dared not ask help of their physicians,” he continued. “I told them instead that I remain behind to attend certain matters of moment, and carry this crutch as a penance for sin. When nature has healed me, I will depart. Though in truth, ’twill be like tearing out my own heart, to be from you.”

  “Does Sir Roger know?’

  He nodded. They passed hastily to something else. That nod was a black lie. Sir Roger did not know. None of his men dared tell him. I might have ventured it, for he would not strike a man of the cloth, but I was also ignorant. Since the baron avoided Sir Owain’s company these days, and had enough else to occupy his mind, he never thought of it. I suppose in his inmost soul he did not want to think of it.

  Whether Sir Owain really hurt his ankle, I dare not say. But it would be a strange coincidence. However, I doubt if he had planned his final treason in detail. Most likely his wish was to continue certain talks with Branithar and see what developed.

  He leaned close to Catherine. His laughter rang out. “Until I go,” he said, “I feel free to bless the accident.”

  She looked away, and trembled. “Why?”

  “I think you know.” He took her hand.

  She withdrew it. “I beg you, remember my husband is at war.”

  “Misdoubt me not!” he exclaimed. “I would sooner lie dead than be dishonored in your eyes.”

  “I could never … misdoubt … so courteous a knight.”

  ’Is that all I am? Courteous only? Amusing? A jester for your weary moments? Well-a-day, better Catherine’s fool than Venus’ lover. So let me then entertain you.” And he lifted his clear voice in a roundel to her praise.

  “No—” She moved from him, like a doe edging clear of the hunter. “I am … I gave pledges—”

  “In the courts of Love,” he said, “there is only one pledge, Love itself.” The sunlight burnished his hair.

  “I have two children to think of,” she begged.

  He grew somber. “Indeed, my lady. I’ve often dandied Robert and little Matilda on my knee. I hope I may do it again, while God allows.”

  She faced him afresh, almost crouching. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh — Nay.” He looked into the murmurous woods, whose leaves were of no shape or color ever seen on Earth. “I would not voice disloyalty.”

  “But the children!” This time it was she who seized his hand. “In Christ’s holy name, Owain, if you know aught, speak!”

  He kept his face turned from her. He had a fine profile. “I am not privy to any secrets, Catherine,” he said. “Belike you can judge the question better than I. For you know the baron best.”

  “Does anyone know him?” she asked in bitterness. He said, very low, “It seems to me that his dreams grow with each new turn of fate. At first he was content to fly to France and join the King. Then he would liberate the Holy Land. Brought here by evil fortune, he responded nobly: none can deny that. But having gained a respite. has he sought Terra again? No, he took this whole world. Now he is off to conquer suns. Where will it end?”

  “Where—” She could not continue. Nor could she pull her gaze from Sir Owain.

  The knight said, “God puts bounds to all things. Unlimited ambition is the egg of Satan, from which only woe can hatch. Does it not seem to you, my lady, when you lie sleepless at night, that we will overreach ourselves and be ruined?”

  After a long while he added: “Wherefore I say, Christ and His Mother help all the little children.”

  “What can we do?” she cried in her anguish. “We’ve lost our way to Earth!”

  “It might be found again,” he said.

  “In a hundred years of search?”

  He watched her in silence for a while before he answered:

  “I would not raise false hopes in so sweet a bosom. But from time to time I’ve conversed a little with Branithar. Our knowledge of each other’s tongues is but scant, and certes he does not trust any human overmuch. Yet … a few things he has said… make me think that perhaps the road home might be found.”

  “What?” Both
her frantic hands seized him. “How? Where? Owain, are you gone mad?”

  “No.” he said with studied roughness. “But let us suppose this be true, than Branithar can guide us despite all. He’ll not do so without a price, I suppose. Do you think Sir Roger would renounce his crusade and go quietly back to England?”

  “He— why—”

  “Has he not said again and yet again: while the Wersgor power remains, England lies m mortal danger? Would not the rediscovery of Terra only lead him to redouble his efforts? Nay, what use is it to learn our way back? The war would still continue, until it ended in our destruction.”

  She shuddered and crossed herself.

  “Since I am here,” Sir Owain finished, “I may as well try to learn if the homeward route can indeed be found. Perhaps you can think of some means to use that knowledge, ere it is too late.”

  He bade her a courtly good day, which she did not hear, and limped on into the forest.

  Chapter XVIII

  Many long Tharixanian days passed: weeks of Earth time. Having taken the first planet he aimed at, Sir Roger went on to the next. Here, while his allies distracted the enemy gunners, he stormed the main castle afoot, using foliage to conceal his approach. This was the place where Red John Hameward actually did rescue a captive princess. True, she had green hair and feathery antennae, nor was there any possibility of issue between her species and our own. But the humanlikeness, and exceeding gratitude, of the Vashtunari — who had just been in process of being conquered — did much to cheer lonely Englishmen. Whether or not the prohibitions of Leviticus are applicable is still being hotly debated.

  The Wersgorix counterattacked from space, basing their fleet in a ring of planetoids. Sir Roger had taken an opportunity while en route to turn off the artificial weight aboard ship and let his men practice movement under such conditions. So now, armored against vacuum, our bowmen made that famous raid called the Battle of the Meteors. Cloth-yard shafts pierced many a Wersgor spacesuit without fire-flash or magnetic force-pulse to give away a man’s position. With their base thus depleted of manpower, the enemy withdrew from the entire system. Admiral Beljad had grabbed off three other suns while they were occupied with this one, so their new retreat was a long one.

  And on Tharixan, Sir Owain Montbelle made himself pleasant to Lady Catherine. And he and Branithar felt each other out, cautiously, under pretext of language study. At last they thought they had touched mutual understanding.

  It remained to convince the baroness.

  I believe both moons had risen. Treetops were hoar with that radiance; double shadows reached across grass where dew glittered; by now, the night sounds had become familiar and peaceful. Lady Catherine left her pavilion, as often after her children were fallen asleep and she unable to. Wrapped in a hooded mantle, she walked down a lane intended for the street of the new village, past half-finished wattle huts that were blocks of shadow under the moons, and out onto a meadow through which ran a brook. The water flowed and sparkled with light; it chimed on rocks. She drank a warm strange smell of flowers, and remembered English hawthorn when they crowned the May Queen. She remembered standing on the pebble beach at Dover, newly wed, when her husband had embarked on a summer’s campaign, and waving and waving until the last sail was vanished. Now the stars were a colder shore, and no one would see her kerchief if it fluttered. She bent her head and told herself she would not weep.

  Harp strings jingled in the dark. Sir Owain trod forth. He had discarded his crutch, though he still affected a limp. A massy silver chain caught moonlight across his black velvet tunic, and she saw him smile.

  “Oho,” he said softly, “the nymphs and dryads are out!

  “Nay.” Despite all resolutions, she felt’ gladdened. His banter and flattery had lightened so many sad hours; they brought back her courtly girlhood. She fluttered protesting hands, knew she was being coy, but could not stop. “Nay, good knight, this is unseemly.”

  “Beneath such a sky, and in such a presence, nothing is unseemly,” he told her. “For we are assured there is no sin in Paradise.”

  “Speak not so!” Her pain came back redoubled. “If we have wandered anywhere, ’tis into hell.”

  “Wherever my lady is, there is Paradise.”

  “Is this any place to hold a Court of Love?” she gibed bitterly.

  “No.” He grew solemn in his turn. “Indeed, a tent — or a log cabin, when they complete it — is no place for her to dwell who commands all hearts. Nor are these marches a fit home for you… or your children. You should sit among roses as Queen of Love and Beauty, with a thousand knights breaking lances in your honor and a thousand minstrels singing your charms.

  She tried to protest, “’Twould be enough to see England again—’ but her voice would go no further.

  He stood gazing into the brook where twin moonpaths glided and shivered. At last he reached beneath his cloak. She saw steel gleam in his hand. An instant she shrank away. But he raised the crosshilt upward and said, in those rich tones he well knew how to use: “By this token of my Saviour and my honor, I swear you shall have your wish!”

  His blade sank. He stared at it. She could scarcely hear him when he added, “If you truly wish it.”

  “What do you mean?” She drew her mantle tight, as if the air were cold. Sir Owain’s gaiety was not the hoarse boisterousness of Sir Roger, and his present gravity was more eloquent than her husband’s stammering protestations. Yet briefly she felt afraid of Sir Owain, and would have given all her jewels to see the baron clank from the forest.

  “You never say plainly what you mean,” she whispered.

  He turned a face of disarming boyish ruefulness on her. “Mayhap I never learned the difficult art of blunt speech. But if now I hesitate, ’tis because I am loath to tell my lady that which is hard.”

  She straightened. For a moment, in the unreal light, she looked strangely like Sir Roger; it was his gesture. Then she was only Catherine, who said with forlorn courage, “Tell me anyhow.”

  “Branithar can find Terra again,” he said.

  She was not one to faint. But the stars wavered. She regained awareness leaning against Sir Owain’s breast. His arms enclosed her waist, and his lips moved along her cheek toward her mouth. She drew a little away, and he did not pursue his kiss. But she felt too weak to leave his embrace.

  “I call this hard news,” he said, “for reasons I’ve discussed erenow. Sir Roger will not give up his war.”

  “But he could send us home!” she gasped.

  Sir Owain looked bleak. “Think you he will? He needs every human soul to maintain his garrisons and keep up an appearance of strength. You recall what he proclaimed ere the fleet left Tharixan. As soon as a planet seems strongly enough held, he will send off people of this village to join those few men he has newly created dukes and knights. As for himself — oh, aye, he talks of ending England’s peril, but has he never spoken of making you a queen?”

  She could only sigh, remembering a few words let slip.

  ’Branithar himself shall explain.” Sir Owain whistled. The Wersgor stepped from a canebrake where he had waited. He could move about freely enough, since he had no hope of escaping the island. His stocky form was well clad in plundered raiment, which glittered as with a thousand tiny pearls. The round, hairless, longeared, snouted face no longer seemed ugly; the yellow eyes were even gay. By now Catherine could follow his language well enough for him to address her.

  “My lady will wonder how I could ever find my way back along a zigzag route taken through swarming uncharted stars,” he said. “When the navigator’s notes were lost at Ganturath, I myself despaired. So many suns, even of the type of your own, lie within the radius of our cruise, that random search might rec1uire a thousand years. This is the more true since nebulosities in space hide numbers of stars until one chances fairly close to them. To be sure, if any deck officers of my ship had survived, they could have narrowed down the search somewhat. But my own work was with the engines.
I saw stars only in casual glimpses, and they meant nothing to me. When I tricked your people — rue the day! — all I did was push an emergency control which instructed an automaton to pilot us hither.”

  A lift of excitement brought back impatience to Catherine. She pulled free of Sir Owain’s arms and snapped, “I’m not altogether a fool. My lord respected me enough to try to explain these things to me, however ill I listened. What news have you discovered?”

  “Not discovered,” said Branithar. “Remembered. ’Tis an idea which should have occurred to me erenow, but there was so much happening — Well… “Know, then, my lady, that there are certain beacon stars, brilliant enough to be visible throughout the spiral arm of the Via Galactica. They are used in navigation. Thus, if the suns called (by us) Ulovarna, Yariz, and Gratch, are seen to form a certain configuration with respect to each other, one must be in a certain region of space. Even a crude visual estimate of the angles would fix one’s position within twenty or so light-years. This is not too large a sphere to find a given yellow-dwarf sun like your own.”

  She nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. “Aye. Belike you think of bright stars like Sirius and Rigel…

  “The major stars in the sky of a planet may not be the ones I mean,” he warned. “They may simply happen to lie close by. Actually, a navigator would need a good sketch of your constellations, with numerous bright stars indicated by color (as seen from airless space). Given enough data, he could analyze and determine which must be the beacon giants. Then their relative positions would tell him where they had been observed from.”