The High Crusade

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 replied: “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.”

He raised his plumed head. “Yet Englishmen have ever fought best with their backs to the wall.”