The High Crusade Page 7

  Being the only person with pretensions to reading the Wersgor alphabet, I busied myself with papers seized in the fortress offices. Meanwhile Sir Roger conferred with his captains and directed the most oafish serfs, who could not learn the new weapons, in certain construction work. The slow sunset was burning, turning half the sky gold, when he summoned me to his council board.

  I seated myself and looked at those gaunt hard faces. They were animated with fresh hope. My tongue clove to my mouth. Well I knew these captains. Most of all did I know how Sir Roger’s eyes danced — when hell was being hatched!

  “Have you learned what and where the principal castles of this planet are, Brother Parvus?” he asked me.

  “Yes, sire,” I told him. “There are but three, of which Ganturath was one.”

  “I can’t believe that!” exclaimed Sir Owain Montbelle. “Why, pirates alone would—”

  “You forget there are no separate kingdoms here, or even separate fiefs,” I answered. “All persons are directly subservient to the imperial government. The fortresses are only lodging for the sheriffs, who keep order among the populace and collect the taxes. True, these fortresses are also supposed to be defensive bases. They include docks for the great star ships, and warriors are stationed there. But the Wersgorix have fought no true war for a long time. They’ve merely bullied helpless savages. None of the other star-traveling races dare declare open war on them; only now and then does a skirmish occur on some remote planet. In short, three fortresses are ample for this whole world.”

  “How strong are they?” snapped Sir Roger.

  “There is one hight Stularax, on the other side of the globe, which is about like Ganturatfr. Then there is the main fortress, Darova, where this proconsul Huruga dwells. That one is by far the largest and strongest. I daresay it supplied most of the ships and warriors we see facing us.

  “Where is the next world inhabited by bluefaces?”

  “According to a book I studied, about twenty lightyears hence. Wersgorixan itself, the capital planet, is much farther off than that — farther away than Terra, even.”

  “But the far-speaker would inform their emperor at once of what’s happened, would it not?” asked Captain Bullard.

  “No,” I said. “The far-speaker acts only as fast as light. Messages between the stars must go by spaceship, which means that it would take a brace of weeks to inform Wersgorixan. Not that Huruga has done so. I overheard him speak to one of his court, to say they would keep this affair secret awhile.”

  “Aye,” said Sir Brian Fitz-Wilhiam. “The duke will seek to redeem himself for what we have done, by crushing us unaided ere he reports anything whatsoever. ’Tis a common enough way of thinking.”

  “If we hurt him badly enough, though, he II scream for help,” prophesied Sir Owain.

  “Just so,’ agreed Sir Roger. “And I’ve thought of a way to hurt him!”

  I realized gloomily that when my tongue had cloven to my mouth it knew what it was doing.

  “How can we fight?” asked Bullard. “We’ve no amount of devil-weapons to compare with what sits out on yon field. If need be, they could ram us, boat for boat, and count it no great loss.”

  “For which reason,” Sir Roger told him, “I propose a raid on the smaller fort, Stularax, to gain more weapons. ’Twill also jar Huruga out of his confidence.”

  “Or jar him into attacking us.”

  “’Tis a chance we must take. Come worst to worst, I’m not altogether terrified of another fight. See you not, our only chance is to act with boldness.”

  There was no great demurral. Sir Roger had had hours in which to jolly his folk. They were ready enough to accept his leadership again. But Sir Brian objected sensibly: “How can we effect any such raid? Yon castle lies thousands of miles hence. We cannot flit thither from our camp without being fired upon.”

  Sir Owain raised mocking brows. “Maybe you’ve a magic horse?” He smiled at Sir Roger.

  ’No. Another sort of beast. Hearken to me…

  That was a long night’s work for the yeomen. They put skids under one of the smaller spaceboats, hitched oxen to it, and dragged it forth as quietly as might be. Its passage across open fields was disguised by driving cattle around it, as if grazing them. Under cover of darkness, and by God’s grace, the ruse was sufficient. Once beneath the tall thick-crowned trees, with a screen of scouts who moved like shadows to warn of any blue soldiers — “They had the practice for it, poaching at home,” said Red John — the work was safer but also more hard. Not until nearly dawn was the boat several miles from camp, so far off that it could lift without being seen from Huruga’s field headquarters.

  Though the largest vessel which could possibly be moved thus, it was still too small to carry the most formidable weapons. However, Sir Roger had during the day examined the explosive shells fired by certain types of gun. He had had it explained to him by a terrified Wersgor engineer, how to arm the fuse thereon, so that it would go off on impact. The boat carried several of these — also a disassembled trebuchet which his artisans had constructed.

  Meanwhile, everyone not toiling with this was set to work strengthening our camp defenses. Even women and children were given shovels. Axes rang in the nearby forest. Long as the night was, it seemed even longer when we labored thus exhaustingly, stopping only to snatch a piece of bread or a wink of sleep. The Wersgorix observed that we were busy — it could not be avoided — but we tried to conceal from them what we actually did, lest they see we were merely ringing the lesser half of Ganturath with stakes, pits, caltrops, and chevaux-de-frise. When morning came, with full daylight, our installations were hidden from view by the long grass.

  I myself welcomed such backbreaking labor as a surcease from my fears. Yet my mind must worry them, like a dog with a bone. Was Sir Roger mad? There seemed to be so many things he had done awry. Yet, to each successive question, I found only the same answer as himself.

  Why had we not fled the moment we possessed Ganturath, instead of waiting till Huruga arrived and pinned us down? Because we had lost the way home and had no chance whatsoever of finding it without the help of skilled space sailors. (If it could be found at all.) Death was better than a blind blundering among the stars — where our ignorance would soon kill us anyway.

  Having gained a truce, why did Sir Roger run the gravest risk of its immediate breach by this attack on Stularax? Because it was plain the truce could not last very long. Given time to ponder what he had observed, Huruga must see through our pretensions and destroy us. Thrown off balance by our boldness, he might well continue to believe us more powerful than was the truth. Or if he elected to fight, we should have our hands strengthened by whatever arms were seized in the forthcoming raid.

  But did Sir Roger seriously expect so mad a plan to succeed? Only God and himself could answer that. I knew he was improvising as he went along. He was like a runner who stumbles and must all at once run even faster so as not to fall.

  But how splendidly he ran!

  That reflection soothed me. I committed my fate to Heaven and shoveled with a more peaceful heart.

  Just before dawn, as mist streamed among buildings and tents and long-snouted fire-bombards, under the first thin light creeping up the sky, Sir Roger saw his raiders off. They were twenty: Red John with the best of our yeomen, and Sir Owain Montbelle as chief. It was curious how that knight’s often faint heart always revived at the prospect of action. He was almost gay as a boy when he stood there wrapped in a long scarlet cloak, listening to his orders.

  “Go through the woods, keeping well under cover, to where the boat lies,” my lord told him. “Wait till noon, then fly off. You know how to use those unrolling maps for guide, eh? Well, then, when you come to this Stularax place — ’twill take an hour or so if you fly at what seems a reasonable speed hereabouts — land where you have cover. Give it a few shells from the trebuchet to reduce the outer defenses. Dash in afoot, while they’re still confused; seize what you can from the ars
enals, and return. If all is still peaceful hereabouts, lie quietly. If fighting has broken out, well, do what seems best.’

  “Indeed, sire.” Sir Owain clasped his hand. That gesture was not fated to occur between them again.

  As they stood there under darkling skies, a voice called: “Wait.” All the men turned their faces toward the inner buildings, where mist smoked thickly. Out of it came the Lady Catherine.

  “I have only now heard you were going,” she said to Sir Owain. “Must you — twenty men against a fortress?”

  “Twenty men—” He bowed, with a smile that lit his face like the sun — “and myself, and the memory of you, my lady!”

  The color crept up her pale countenance. She walked past a stone-stiff Sir Roger, to the younger knight, till she stood gazing up at him. All saw that her hands bled. She held a sword in them.

  “After I could no more lift a spade this night,” she whispered, “I helped twine bowstrings. I can give you no other token.”

  Sir Owain accepted it in a great silence. Having laid it within his shirt of chain mail, he kissed her scarred small fingers. Straightening, his cloak aswirl about him, he led his yeomen into the forest.

  Sir Roger had not moved. Lady Catherine nodded a little. “And you are going to sit at table today with the Wersgorix?” she asked him.

  She slipped away in the fog, back toward the pavilion which he no longer shared. He waited until she was quite out of sight before following.

  Chapter XII

  Our people made good use of the long morning to rest themselves. By now I could read Wersgor clocks, though not precisely sure how their units of time compared to Terrestrial hours. At high noon I mounted my paifrey and met Sir Roger to go to the conference. He was alone. “Methought we were to be a score,” I faltered.

  His countenance was wooden. “No more reason for that,” he said. “It may go ill for us in yon rendezvous, when Huruga learns of the raid. I’m sorry I must hazard you.”

  I was sorry, too, but wished not to spend time in self-pity which could be more usefully devoted to telling my beads.

  The same Wersgor officers awaited us within the any curtains. Huruga looked his surprise as we trod in. Where are your other negotiators? he asked sharply. “At their prayers,” I replied, which was belike true enough.

  “There goes that word again,” grumbled one of the blueskins. “What does it mean?”

  “Thus.” I illustrated by saying an Ave and marking it off on my rosary.

  “Some kind of calculating machine, I think,” said another Wersgor, “It may not be as primitive as it looks on the outside, either.”

  “But what does it calculate?” whispered a third one, his ears raised straight up with uneasiness.

  Huruga glared. This has gone far enough,” he snapped. “All night you were at work over there. If you plan some trick—”

  “Don’t you wish you had a plan?” I interrupted in my most Christianly sweet voice.

  As I hoped, this insolence rocked him back. We sat down.

  After chewing on it a moment, Huruga exclaimed: “About your prisoners. I am responsible for the safety of residents of this planet. I cannot possibly treat with creatures who hold Wersgorix captive. The first condition of any further negotiations must be their immediate release.”

  “’Tis a shame we cannot negotiate, then,” said Sir Roger via myself. “I don’t really want to destroy you.”

  ’You shall not leave this place until those captives are delivered to me,” said Huruga. I gasped. He smiled coldly. “I have soldiers on call, in case you, too, brought something like this.” He reached in his tunic and pulled out a pellet-throwing handgun. I stared down the muzzle and gulped.

  Sir Roger yawned. He buffed his nails on a silken sleeve. “What did he say?” he asked me.

  I told him. “Treachery,” I groaned. “We were all supposed to be unarmed.”

  ’Nay, remember no oaths were sworn. But tell his disgrace Duke Huruga that I foresaw this chance, and carry my own protection.” The baron pressed the ornate seal ring on his finger, and clenched his fist. “I have cocked it now. If my hand unclasps for any reason before ’tis uncocked again, the stone will burst with enough force to send us all flying past St. Peter.”

  Through clattering teeth, I got this mendacious message out. Huruga sprang to his feet. “Is this true?” he roared.

  “I-i-indeed it is,” I said. “B-b-by Mahomet I swear it.”

  The blue officers huddled together. From their frantic whispers I gathered that a bombshell as tiny as that sealstone was possible in theory, though no race known to the Wersgorix were skillful enough to make one.

  Calm prevailed at last. “Well,” said Huruga, “it looks like an impasse. I myself think you’re lying, but do not care to risk my life.” He slipped the little gun back in his tunic. “However, you must realize this is an impossible situation. If I can’t obtain the release of those prisoners myself, I shall be forced to refer this whole matter to the Imperium on Wersgorixan.”

  “You need not be so hasty,” Sir Roger told him. “We’ll keep our hostages carefully. You may send chirurgeons to look after their health. To be sure, we must ask you to sequestrate all your armament, as a guarantee of good faith. But in return, we’ll mount guard against the Saracens.”

  “The what?” Huruga wrinkled his bony forehead.

  “The Saracens. Heathen pirates. You’ve not encountered them? I find that hard to believe, for they range widely. Why, at this very minute a Saracen ship could be descending on your own planet, to pillage and burn—”

  Huruga jerked. He pulled an officer aside and whispered to him. This time I could not follow what was said. The officer hurried out.

  “Tell me more,” said Huruga.

  “With pleasure.” The baron leaned back in his seat. at cross-legged ease. I could never have achieved his calm. As nearly as I could gauge, Sir Owain’s boat must now be at Stularax; for recall how much slower this conversation was than I have written it, with all the translation, the pauses to explain some uncomprehended word, the search for a telling phrase.

  Yet Sir Roger spun out his yarn as if he had eternity. He explained that we English had fallen so savage! upon the Wersgorix because their unprovoked attac led us to think they must be new allies of the Saracens. Now that we understood otherwise, it was possible that in time England and Wersgorixan could reach agreement, alliance against this common menace.

  The blue officer dashed back inside. Through the door flap I saw soldiery in the alien camp hurrying to their posts; a roar of awakening machines came to my ears.

  “Well?” Huruga barked at his underling.

  “Reports — the far-speaker — outlying homes saw bright flash — Stularax gone — must have been a shell of the superpowered type—” The fellow blurted it out between his pantings.

  Sir Roger exchanged a look with me as I translated. Stularax gone? Utterly destroyed?

  Our aim had only been to retrieve some more weapons, especially light portable ones for our men-at-arms. But if everything had vanished in smoke…

  Sir Roger licked dry lips. “Tell him the Saracens must have landed, Brother Parvus,” he said.

  Huruga gave me no chance. Breast heaving with wrath, amber eyes turned blood-red, he stood shaking, pulled out his handgun again and screamed: “No more of this farce! Who else was with you? How many more spaceships have you?”

  Sir Roger uncoiled himself, till he loomed above the stumpy Wersgorix like an oak on a heath. He grinned, touched his signet ring meaningfully, and said: “Well, now, you can’t expect me to reveal that. Perhaps I’d best return to my camp, till your temper has cooled.”

  I could not phrase it so smoothly in my halting words. Huruga snarled: “Oh, no! Here you stay!”

  “I go.” Sir Roger shook his close-cropped head. “Incidentally, if for any reason I don’t return, my men have orders to kill all the prisoners.”

  Huruga heard me out. With a self-mastery I admired, he re
plied: “Go, then. But when you are back, we shall attack you. I do not propose to be caught between your camp on the ground and your friends in the sky.”

  “The hostages,” Sir Roger reminded him.

  “We shall attack,” repeated Huruga doggedly. “It will be entirely with ground forces — partly to spare those same prisoners, and partly, of course, because every spaceship and aircraft must get aloft and search for those attackers of Stularax. We will also refrain from using high-explosive weapons, lest we destroy the captives. But—” He stabbed a finger down upon the table. “Unless your weapons are far superior to what I think, we will overwhelm you with sheer numbers, if nothing else. I don’t believe you even have any armored wagons, only a few light ground cars captured at Ganturath. Remember, after the battle, such of your folk as survive will be our prisoners. If you have harmed a single one of those Wersgorix you hold, your people will die, very slowly. If you yourself are caught alive, Sir Roger de Tourneville, you will watch all of them die before you do yourself.”

  The baron heard me render this for him. The lips were very pale in his sunburned face. “Well, Brother Parvus,” he said in rather a small voice, “it’s not worked out as well as I hoped — though perhaps not quite as badly as I feared. Tell him that if he will indeed let us two return safely, and confine his attack to ground forces, and avoid high-explosive shells, our hostages shall be safe from anything but his own fire.”

  He added wryly: “I don’t think I could have made myself butcher helpless captives anyhow. But you need not tell him that.”

  Huruga merely jerked his head, an icy gesture, when I gave him the message. We two humans left, swung into the saddle and turned back. We held our horses to a walk, to prolong the truce and the feel of sunlight on our faces.

  “What happened at that Stularax castle, sire?” I whispered.

  “I know not,” said Sir Roger. “But I’ll hazard that the blue-faces spoke truly — and I didn’t believe it! — when they said one of their more powerful shells could wipe out an encampment. So the weapons we hoped to steal are gone. I can only pray that our poor raiders were not also caught in the blast. Now we can but defend ourselves.”