The High Crusade Read online

  I saw my lord take his wife’s arm to lead her into his pavilion. She spoke to him, a harsh whisper, she would not hear his protests but stood there denouncing him in the enemy night. The larger moon, already sinking, touched them with cold fire.

  Sir Roger’s shoulders slumped. He turned and went slowly from her, wrapped himself in a saddle blanket, and slept in the dews of the field.

  It was strange that a man among men was so helpless against a woman. He had something beaten and pitiful about him as he lay there. I thought it boded ill for us.

  Chapter VIII

  We had been too excited at first to pay attention, and afterward we slept too long. But when I woke again, finding it still dark, I checked the movement of stars against trees. Ah, how slowly! The night here was many times as long as on Earth.

  This unnerved our folk badly enough in itself. The fact that we did not flee (by now, it could no longer be concealed that treason, rather than desire, had brought us hither) puzzled many. But at least they expected weeks to carry out whatever the baron decided. The shock, when enemy ships appeared even before dawn, was great.

  “Be of good heart,” I counseled Red John, as he shivered with his bowman in the gray mists. “’Tis not that they have powers magical. You were warned of this at the captains’ council. ’Tis only that they can talk across hundreds of miles and fly such distances in minutes. So as soon as one of the fugitives reached another estate, the word of us went abroad.”

  “Well,” said Red John, not unreasonably, “if that’s not magic, I’d like to know what is.”

  “If magic, you need have no fear,” I answered, “for the black arts do not prevail against good Christian men. However, I tell you again, this is mere skill in the mechanic and warlike arts.”

  “And those do prevail against g-g-good Christian men!” blubbered an archer. John cuffed him to silence, while I cursed my own clumsy tongue.

  In that wan, tricky light, we could see many ships hovering, some of them as big as our broken Crusader. My knees drummed under my cassock. Of course, we were all inside the force screen of the smaller fort, which had never been turned off. Our gunners had already discovered that the fire-bombards placed here had controls as simple as any in the spaceship, and stood prepared to shoot. However, I knew we had no true defense. One of those very powerful explosive shells whereof I had heard hints could be fired. Or the Wersgorix might attack on foot, overwhelming us with sheer numbers.

  Yet those ships did only hover, in utter silence under the unknown stars. When at length the first pale dawnlight streamed off their flanks, I left the bowmen and fumbled through dew-wet grass to the cavalry. Sir Roger sat peering heavenward from his saddle. He was armed cap-a-pie, helmet in the crook of an arm, and none could tell from his face how little sleep had been granted him.

  “Good morning, Brother Parvus,” he said. “That was a long darkness.”

  Sir Owain, mounted close by, wet his lips. He was pale. his large long-lashed eyes sunken in dark rims. “No midwinter night in England ever wore away so slowly,” he said, and crossed himself.

  “The more daylight, then,” said Sir Roger. He seemed almost cheerful, now when he dealt with foemen rather than unruly womenfolk.

  Sir Owain’s voice cracked across like a dry twig. “Why don’t they attack?” he yelled, “Why do they just wait up there?’

  “It should be obvious. I never thought ’twould need mentioning,” said Sir Roger. “Have they not good reason to be afraid of us?”

  “What?” I said. “Well, sire, of course we are Englishmen. However—” My glance traveled back, over the pitiful few tents pitched around the fortress walls; over ragged, sooty soldiers; over huddled women and grandsires, wailing children; over cattle, pigs, sheep, fowl, tended by cursing serfs; over pots where breakfast porridge bubbled — “However, my lord,” I finished, “at the moment we look more French.”

  The baron grinned. “What do they know about French and English? For that matter, my father was at Bannockburn, where a handful of tattered Scottish pikemen broke the chivalry of King Edward II. Now all the Wersgorix know about us is that we have suddenly come from nowhere and — if Branithar’s boasts be true — done what no other host has ever achieved: taken one of their strongholds! Would you not move warily, were you their constable?”

  The guffaw that went up among the horse troopers spread down to the foot, until our whole camp rocked with it. I saw how the enemy prisoners shuddered and shrank close together when that wolfish noise smote them.

  As the sun rose, a few Wersgor boats landed very slowly and carefully, a mile or so away. We held our fire, so they took heart and sent out people who began to erect machinery on the field.

  “Are you going to let them build a castle under our very noses?” cried Thomas Bullard.

  “’Tis less likely they’ll attack us, if they feel a little more secure,” the baron answered. “I want it made plain that we’ll parley.” His smile turned wry. “Remember, friends, our best weapon now is our tongues.”

  Soon the Wersgorix landed many ships in a circular formation-like those stonehenges which giants raised in England before the Flood — to form a camp walled by the eerie faint shimmer of a force screen, picketed by mobile bombards, and roofed by hovering warcraft. Only when this was done did they send a herald.

  The squat shape strode boldly enough across the meadows, though well aware that we could shoot him down. His metallic garments were dazzling in the morning sun, but we discerned his empty hands held open. Sir Roger himself rode forth, accompanied by myself gulping Our Fathers on a palfrey.

  The Wersgor shied a trifle, as the huge black stallion and the iron tower astride it loomed above him. Then he gathered a shaky breath and said, “If you behave yourselves, I will not destroy you for the space of this discussion.

  Sir Roger laughed when I had fumblingly translated. “Tell him,” he ordered me, “that I in turn will hold my private lightnings in check, though they are so powerful I can’t swear they may not trickle forth and blast his camp to ruin if he moves too swiftly.”

  “But you haven’t any such lightnings at your command, sire,” I protested. “It wouldn’t be honest to claim you do.”

  “You will render my words faithfully and with a straight face, Brother Parvus,” he said, “or discover something about thunderbolts.”

  I obeyed. In what follows I shall as usual make no note of the difficulties of translation. My Wersgor vocabulary was limited, and I daresay my grammar was ludicrous. In all events, I was only the parchment on which these puissant ones wrote, erased, and wrote again. Aye, in truth I felt like a palimpsest ere that hour was done.

  Oh, the things I was forced to say! Above all men do I reverence that valiant and gentle knight Sir Roger de Tourneville. Yet when he blandly spoke of his English estate — the small one, which only took up three planets — and of his personal defense of Roncesvaux against four million paynim, and his singlehanded capture of Constantinople on a wager, and the time guesting in France when he accepted his host’s invitation to exercise the droit de seigneur for two hundred peasant weddings on the same day — and more and more — his words nigh choked me, though I am accounted well versed both in courtly romances and the lives of the saints. My sole consolation was that little of this shameless mendacity got through the language difficulties, the Wersgor herald understanding merely (after a few attempts to impress us) that here was a person who could outbiuster him any day of the week.

  Therefore he agreed on behalf of his lord that there would be a truce while matters were discussed in a shelter to be erected midway between the two camps. Each side might send a score of people thither at high noon, unarmed. While the truce lasted, no ships were to be flown within sight of either camp.

  “So!” exclaimed Sir Roger gaily, as we cantered back. “I’ve not done so ill, have I?”

  “K-k-k-k,” I answered. He slowed to a smoother pace, and I tried again: “Indeed, sire, St. George — or more likely, I fear
, St. Dismas, patron of thieves — must have watched over you. And yet—”

  “Yes?” he prompted me. “Be not afraid to speak your mind, Brother Parvus.” With a kindness wholly unmerited: “Ofttimes I think you’ve more head on those skinny shoulders than all my captains lumped together.”

  ’Well, my lord,” I blurted, “you’ve wrung concessions from them for a while. As you foretold, they are being cautious whilst they study us. And yet, how long can we hope to fool them? They have been an imperial race for centuries. They must have experience of many strange peoples living under many different conditions. From our small numbers, our antiquated weapons, our lack of home-built spaceships, will they not soon deduce the truth and attack us with overwhelming force?”

  His lips thinned. He looked toward the pavilion which housed his lady and children.

  “Of course,” he said. “I hope but to stay their hand a short while.”

  “And what then?” I pursued him.

  “I don’t know.” Whirling on me, fierce as a stooping hawk, he added: “But ’tis my secret, d’ you understand? I tell it to you as if in confession. Let it come out, let our folk know how troubled and planless I truly am … and we’re all done.”

  I nodded. Sir Roger struck spurs to his horse and galloped into camp, shouting like a boy.

  Chapter IX

  During the long wait before Tharixan reached its noontide, my master summoned his captains to a council. A trestle table was erected before the central building, and there we all sat.

  “By God’s grace,” he said, “we’re spared awhile. You’ll note that I’ve even made them land all their ships. I’ll wrangle to win us as much more respite as may be. That time must be put to use. We must strengthen our defenses. Also, we’ll ransack this fort, seeking especially maps, books, and other sources of information. Those of our men who’re at all gifted in the mechanic arts must study and test every machine we find, so that we can learn how to erect force screens and fly and otherwise match our foes. But all this has to be done secretly, in places hidden from enemy eyes. For if ever they learn we don’t already know all about such implements—” He smiled and drew a finger across his throat.

  Good Father Simon, his chaplain, turned a little green. “Must you?” he said faintly.

  Sir Roger nodded at him. “I’ve work for you, too. I shall need Brother Parvus to interpret Wersgor for me. But we have one prisoner, Branithar, who speaks Latin—”

  “I would not say that, sire,” I interrupted. “His declensions are atrocious, and what he does to irregular verbs may not be described in gentle company.”

  “Nevertheless, until he’s mastered enough English, a cleric is needed to talk to him. You see, he must explain whatever our students of the captured engines do not understand, and must interpret for any other Wersgor prisoners whom we may question.”

  “Ah, but will he do so?” said Father Simon. “He is a most recalcitrant heathen, my son, if indeed he has any soul at all. Why, only a few days ago on the ship, in hopes of softening his hard heart, I stood in his cell reading aloud the generations from Adam to Noah, and had scarcely gotten past Jared when I saw that he had fallen asleep!’

  “Have him brought hither,” commanded my lord. “Also, find One-Eyed Hubert and tell him to come in full regalia.”

  While we waited, talking in hushed voices, Alfred Edgarson noticed how I sat quiet. “Well, now, Brother Parvus,” he boomed, “what ails you? Methinks you’ve little to fear, being a godly fellow. Even the rest of us, if we conduct ourselves well, have naught to fear but a sweating time in Purgatory. And then we’ll join St. Michael at sentry-go on heaven’s walls. Not so?”

  I was loath to dishearten them by voicing what had occurred to me, but when they insisted, I said, “Alas, good men, worse may already have befallen us.”

  “Well?” barked Sir Brian Fitz-William. “What is it? Don’t just sit there sniveling!”

  “We had no sure way to tell time on the voyage hither,” I whispered. “Hourglasses are too inaccurate, and since reaching this devil-made place we’ve neglected even to turn them. How long is the day here? What time is it on our earth?”

  Sir Brian looked a trifle blank. “Indeed, I know not. What of it?”

  “I presume you had a haunch of beef to break your fast,” I said. “Are you sure it is not Friday?”

  They gasped and regarded each other with round eyes.

  “When is it Sunday?” I cried. “Will you tell me the date of Advent? How shall we observe Lent and Easter, with two moons morris-dancing about to confuse the issue?”

  Thomas Bullard buried his face in his hands. “We’re ruined!”

  Sir Roger stood up. “No!” he shouted into the strickenness. “I’m no priest, nor even very godly. But did not Our Lord himself say the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath?”

  Father Simon looked doubtful. “I can grant special dispensations under extraordinary circumstances,” he said, “but I am really not sure how far I can strain such powers.”

  “I like it not,” mumbled Bullard. “I take this to be a sign that Cod has turned His face from us, withdrawing the due times of the fasts and sacraments.”

  Sir Roger grew red. He stood a moment more, watching the courage drain from his men like wine from a broken cup. Then he calmed himself, laughed aloud, and cried:

  “Did not Our Lord command His followers to go forth as far as they were able, bringing His word, and He would be with them always? But let’s not bandy texts. Perhaps we are venially sinning in this matter. Well, if that be so, a man should not grovel but should make amends. We’ll make costly offerings in atonement. To get the means for such offerings … have we not the entire Wersgor Empire to hand, to squeeze for a ransom till its yellow eyes pop? This proves that God Himself has commanded us to this war!” He drew his sword, blinding in the daylight, and held it before him hilt uppermost. “By this, my knightly sigil and arm, which is also the sign of the Cross, I vow to do battle for God’s glory!”

  He tossed the weapon so it swung glittering in the hot air, caught it again and swung it so it shrieked. “With this blade will I fight!”

  The men gave him a rather feeble cheer. Only glum Bullard hung back. Sir Roger leaned down to that captain, and I heard him hiss: “The clinching proof of my reasoning is, that I’ll cut anyone who argues further into dogmeat.”

  Actually, I felt that in his crude way my master had gasped truth. In my spare time I would recast his logic into proper syllogistic form, to make sure; but meanwhile I was much encouraged, and the others were at least not demoralized.

  Now a man-at-arms fetched Branithar, who stood glaring at us. “Good day,” said Sir Roger mildly, through me. “We shall want you to help interrogate prisoners and instruct us in our studies of captured engines.”

  The Wersgor drew himself up with a warrior’s pride. “Save your breath,” he spat. “Behead me and be done with it. I misjudged your capabilities once, and it has cost many lives of my people. I shall not betray them further.’

  Sir Roger nodded. “I looked for such an answer,” he said. “What became of One-Eyed Hubert?”

  “Here I am, sire, here I am, here’s good old Hubert,” and the baron’s executioner hobbled up, adjusting his hood. The ax was tucked under one scrawny arm, and the noosed rope laid around his hump. “I was only wandering about, sire, picking flowers for me youngest grandchild, sire. You know her, the little girl with long gold curls and she’s so honeysweet fond o’ daisies. I hoped I could find one or other o’ these paynim blooms might remind her o’ our dear Lincolnshire daisies, and we could weave a daisy chain together—”

  “I’ve work for you,” said Sir Roger.

  “Ah, yes, sire, yes, yes, indeed.” The old man’s single rheumy eye blinked about, he rubbed his hands and chuckled. “Ah, thank you, sire! ’Tis not that I mean to criticize, that ain’t old Hubert’s place, and he knows his humble place, him who has served man and boy, and his father and grandsire afore
him, executioners to the noble de Tournevilles. No, sire, I knows me place and I keeps it as Holy Writ commands. But Cod’s truth, you’ve kept poor old Hubert very idle all these years. Now your father, sire, Sir Raymond, him we called Raymond Red-Hand, there was a man what appreciated art! Though I remember his father, your grandsire, me lord, old Nevil Rip-Talon, and his justice was the talk o’ three shires. In his day, sire, the commons knew their place and gentlefolk could get a decent servant at a decent wage, not like now when you let ’em off with a fine or maybe a day in the stocks. Why, ’tis a scandal—”

  “Enough,” said Sir Roger. “The blueface here is stubborn. Can you persuade him?”

  “Well, sire! Well, well, well!” Hubert sucked toothless gums with a pure and simple delight. He walked around our rigid captive, studying him from all angles, “Well, sire, now this is another matter, ’tis like the good old days come back, ’tis, yes, yes, yes, Heaven bless my good kind master! Now o’ course I took little equipment with me, only a few thumbscrews and pincers and suchlike, but it won’t take me no time, sire, to knock together a rack. And maybe we can get a nice kettle of oil. I always says, sire, on a cold gray day there ain’t nothing so cozy as a glowing brazier and a nice hot kettle of oil. I think o’ my dear old daddy and I gets tears in this old eye, yes, sire, that I do. Let me see, let me see, tum-te-tum-te-tum.” He began measuring Branithar with his rope.

  The Wersgor flinched away. His smattering of English was enough to give him the drift of conversation. “You won’t!’ he yelled. “No civilized folk would ever—”

  “Now let’s just see your hand, if you please.” Hubert took a thumbscrew from his pouch and held it against the blue fingers. “Yes, yes, ’twill fit snug and proper.” He unpacked an array of little knives. “Sumer is icumen in,” he hummed, “ihude sing cucu.”