The High Crusade

Chapter XIV

Sir Owain landed like some hero of a chanson come to earth. His exploits had not required much effort of him. While buzzing around in the middle of the Wersgor air fleet, he had even heated water over a brazier and shaved. Lithely now he walked, head erect, mailcoat shining, red cloak aflutter in the wind. Sir Roger met him near the knightly tents, battered, filthy, reeking, clotted with blood. His voice was hoarse from shouting. “My compliments, Sir Owain, on a most gallant action.”

The younger man swept him a bow — and changed it most subtly to Lady Catherine’s, as she emerged from our cheering throng. “I could have done no less,” murmured Sir Owain, “with a bowstring about my heart.”

The color mounted to her face. Sir Roger’s eyes flickered from one to another. Indeed, they made a fair couple. I saw his hands clench on the haft of his nicked and blunted sword.

“Go to your tent, madame,” he told his wife.

“There is still work to do among the wounded, sire,” she answered.

“You’ll work for anyone but your own husband and children, eh?” Sir Roger made an effort to sneer, but his lip was puffy where a pellet had glanced off the visor of his helmet. “Go to your tent, I say.”

Sir Owain looked shocked. “Those are not words to address a gentlewoman with, sire,” he protested.

“One of your plinking roundels were better?” grunted Sir Roger. “Or a whisper, to arrange an assignation?”

Lady Catherine grew quite pale. She took a long breath before words came. Silence fell upon those persons who stood within earshot. “I call God to witness that I am maligned,” she said. Her gown streamed with the haste of her stride. As she vanished into her pavilion, I heard the first sob.

Sir Owain stared at the baron with a kind of horror. “Have you lost your senses?” he breathed at last.

Sir Roger hunched thick shoulders, as if to raise a burden. “Not yet. Let my captains of battle meet with me when they’ve washed and supped. But it might be wisest, Sir Owain, if you would take charge of the camp guard.”

The knight bowed again. It was not an insulting gesture, but it reminded us all how Sir Roger ha transgressed good manners. He departed and took up his duties briskly. A watch was soon set. Thereafter Sir Owain took Branithar on a walk around the blasted Wersgor camp, to examine that equipment which had been far enough away to remain usable, The blueface had — even during the past few busy days — picked up more English. He talked, lamely but with great earnestness, and Sir Owain listened. I glimpsed this in the last dim twilight, as I hurried to the conference, but could not hear what was being said.

A fire burned high, and torches were stuck in the ground. The English chieftains sat around the trestle table with alien constellations winking to life overhead. I heard night sough in the forest. All the men were deathly tired, they slumped on the benches, but their eyes never left the baron.

Sir Roger stood up. Bathed, clad in fresh though plain garments, a sapphire ring arrogant on one finger, he betrayed himself only by the dullness of his tone. Though the words were brisk enough, his soul was not in them. I glanced toward the tent where Lady Catherine and his children lay, but darkness hid it.

“Once again,” said my lord, “God’s grace has aided us to win. In spite of all the destruction we wrought, we’ve more booty of cars and weapons than we can use. The army that came against us is broken, and only one fortress remains on this entire world!”

Sir Brian scratched his white-bristled chin. “Two can play that game of tossing explosives about,” he said. “Dare we remain here? As soon as they recover their wits, they’ll find means to fire on us.”

“True.” Sir Roger’s blond head nodded. “That’s one reason we must not linger. Another being that it’s an uncomfortable dwelling place at best. By all accounts, the castle at Darova is far larger, stronger, and better fitted. Once we’ve seized it, we need not fear shellfire. And even if Duke Huruga has no means left him whereby to bombard us here, we can be sure he’s now swallowed his pride and sent spaceships off to other stars for help. We can look for a Wersgor armada to come against us.” He affected not to notice the shudder that went among them, but finished, “For all these reasons, we want Darova for our own, intact.”

“To stand off the fleets of a hundred worlds?” cried Captain Bullard. “Nay, now, sire, your pride has curdled and turned to madness. I say, let’s get aloft ourselves while we can, and pray God that He will guide us back to Terra.”

Sir Roger struck the table with his fist. The noise cracked across all forest rustlings. “God’s wounds!” he roared. “On the day of a victory such as hasn’t been known since Richard the Lion Heart, you’d tuck tail between legs and run! I thought you a man!”

Bullard growled deep in his throat, “What did Richard gain in the end, save a ransom payment that ruined his country?” But Sir Brian Fitz-William heard him and muttered low, “I’ll hear no treason.” Bullard realized what he had said, bit his lip and fell silent. Meanwhile Sir Roger hastened on:

“The arsenals of Darova must have been stripped for the assault on us. Now we have nearly all which remains of their weapons, and we’ve killed off most of its garrison. Give them time, and they’ll rally. They’ll summon franklins and yeomen from all over the planet, and march against us. But at this moment, they must be in one hurly-burly. The best they’ll be able to do is man the ramparts against us. Counterattack is out of the question.

“So shall we sit outside Darova’s walls till their reinforcements come?” gibed a voice in the shadows.

“Better that than sit here, think you not?” Sir Roger’s laugh was forced, but a grim chuckle or two responded. And so it was decided.

Our worn-out folk got no sleep. At once they must start their toil, by the brilliant double moonlight. We found several of the great transport aircraft which had been only slightly damaged, being on the fringes of the blast. The artisans among our captives repaired them at spearpoint. Into these we rolled all the weapons and vehicles and other equipment we could. People, prisoners, and cattle followed. Well before midnight, our ships had lumbered into the sky, guarded by a cloud of other vessels with one or two men aboard each. We were none too soon. Hardly an hour after our departure — as we learned later — unmanned flyers loaded with the strongest explosives rained down upon the site of Ganturath.

A cautious pace, through heavens empty of hostile craft, brought us over an inland sea. Miles beyond it, in the middle of a rugged and thickly forested region, we raised Darova. Having been summoned to the control turret to interpret, I saw it in the vision screens, far ahead and far below but magnified to our sight.

We had flown to meet the sun, and dawn glowed pink behind the buildings. These were only ten, low, rounded structures of fused stone, their walls thick enough to withstand almost any blow. They were knitted together with reinforced tunnels. Indeed, nearly all that castle was deep underground, as self-contained as a spaceship. I saw an outer ring of gigantic bombards and missile launchers poke their snouts from sunken emplacements, and the force screen was up, like Satan’s parody of a halo. But this seemed mere trimming on the strength of the fortress itself. No aircraft were visible, save our own.

By now I, like most of us, had had some instruction in the use of the far-speaker. I tuned it until the image of a Wersgor officer appeared in its screen. He had obviously been trying to tune in on me, so we had lost several minutes. His face was pale, almost cerulean, and he gulped several times before he could ask: “What do you want?”

Sir Roger scowled. Bloodshot, dark-rimmed eyes, in a face whose flesh seemed melted away by care, gave him a frightful appearance. I having translated, he snapped: Huruga.

“We … we shall not surrender our grath. He told us so himself.”

“Brother Parvus, tell that idiot I only want to talk to the duke! A parley. Haven’t they any idea at all of civilized custom?”

The Wersgor gave us a hurt look, since I told him my lord’s exact words, but spoke into a little box and touched a series of buttons. His image was replaced with that of Huruga. The governor rubbed sleep from his eyes and said with forlorn courage, “Don’t expect to destroy this place as you did the others. Darova was built to be an ultimate strong point. The heaviest bombardment could only remove the aboveground works. If you attempt a direct assault, we can fill the air and the land with blasts and metal.”

Sir Roger nodded. “But how long can you maintain such a barrage? he asked mildly.

Huruga bared his sharp teeth. “Longer than you can mount the assault, you animal!”

“Nonetheless,” Sir Roger murmured, “I doubt if you’re equipped for a siege.” I could find no Wersgor term in my limited vocabulary for that last word, and Huruga seemed to have trouble understanding the circumlocutions by which I rendered it. When I explained why it took me so long to translate, Sir Roger nodded shrewdly.

“I suspected as much,” he said. “Look you, Brother Parvus. These starfaring nations have weapons nigh as powerful as St. Michael’s sword. They can blow up a city with one shell, and lay waste a shire with ten. But this being so, how could their battles ever be prolonged? Eh? Yon castle is built to take hammer blows. But a siege? Hardly!”

To the screen: “I shall establish myself near by, keeping watch on you. At the first sign of life from your castle, I’ll open fire. So ’twere best that your men stay underground all whiles. At any time you wish to surrender, call me on the far-speaker, and I’ll be pleased to extend the courtesies of war.”

Huruga grinned. I could almost read the thoughts behind that snout. The English were more than welcome to squat outside, till the avenging armada came! He blanked the screen.

We found a good camp site well beyond the horizon. It lay in a deep, sheltered valley, through which a river ran clean and cold and full of fish. Meadows were dotted throughout the forest; game was abundant, and off duty our men were free to hunt. For a few of those long days, I watched cheer blossom fresh among our people.

Sir Roger gave himself no rest. I think he dared not; for Lady Catherine left her children with their nurse and walked among bowers with Sir Owain. Not untended — they were careful of the proprieties — but her husband would glimpse them and turn to snarl a command at the nearest person.

Hidden away in these woods, our camp was safe enough from shellfire or missiles. Its tents and leantos, our weapons and tools, were not a large enough concentration of metal to be sniffed out by one of the Wersgor magnetic devices. Such of our aircraft as maintained watch on Darova, always landed elsewhere. We kept trebuchets loaded, in case any activity were revealed about the fortress; but Huruga was content to wait passive. Sometimes a daring enemy vessel passed overhead, having come from some other spot on the planet. But it never found any target for its explosives, and our own patrol soon forced it away.

Most of our strength — the great ships and guns and war-wagons — were elsewhere all this time. I myself did not see the hunting Sir Roger undertook. I stayed in camp, busying myself with such problems as teaching myself more Wersgor and Branithar more English. I also started classes in the Wersgor language for some of our more intelligent boys. Nor would I have wished to go on the baron’s expedition.

He had spacecraft and aircraft. He had bombards to fire both flame and shell. He had a few ponderous turtle-cars, which he hung with shields and pennons and manned with a cavalryman and four men-at-arms each. He went out across the continent and harried.

No isolated estate could withstand his attack. Looting and burning, he left desolation behind him. He killed many Wersgorix, but no more than necessary. The rest he stuffed captive into the huge transport ships. A few times, the franidins and yeomen tried to make a stand. They had hand weapons only; his host scattered them like chaff and chivvied them across their own fields. It took him only a few days and nights to devastate the entire land mass. Then he made a quick foray across an ocean, bombed and flamed whatever he chanced upon, and returned.

To me it seemed a cruel butchery, albeit no worse than this empire had done on many worlds. However, I own I have not always understood the logic of such things. Certainly what Sir Roger did was ordinary European practice in a rebellious province or a hostile foreign country. Yet when he landed in camp again, and his men swaggered forth loaded with jewels and rich fabrics, silver and gold, drunk on stolen liquor and boasting of what they had done, I went to Branithar.

“These new prisoners are beyond my power,” I said, “but tell your brothers of Ganturath that before the baron can destroy them, he must take off my own poor head.”

The Wersgor gave me a curious look. “What do you care for our sort?” he asked.

“God help me,” I replied. “I do not know, save that He must also have made you.”

Word of this reached my lord. He summoned me to the tent he now used instead of his pavilion. I saw forest glades choked with captives, milling about like sheep, mumbling and terrified under the English guns. True, their presence was a shield to us. Though the ships’ descent must now have revealed our location closely enough to Huruga’s magnifiers, Sir Roger had taken care that the governor knew what had happened. But I saw blueskin mothers holding little wailing blue cubs, and it was like a hand about my heart.

The baron sat on a stool, gnawing a haunch of beef. Light and shadow. filtered through leaves, checkered his face. “What’s this?” he cried. “Are you so fond of yon pigfaces you’ll not let me have those we caught at Ganturath?”

I squared my skinny shoulders. “If nothing else, sire,” I told him, “think how such a deed must harm your own soul.”

“What?” He raised his thick brows. “When was it ever forbidden to set free the captive?”

My turn came to gape. Sir Roger slapped one thigh, guffawing. “We’ll keep some few, like Branithar and the artisans, who’re useful to us. All the rest we’ll herd to Darova. Thousands and thousands. Don’t you imagine Huruga’s heart will melt with gratitude?”

I stood there in sunlight and tall grass, while “Haw, haw, haw!” bellowed about me.

So under the jeers and spear-prods of our men, that uncounted throng stumbled through beck and brake, until they emerged on cleared land and saw the distant mass of Darova. A few stepped out of the crowd, timorous. The English leaned grinning on their weapons. One Wersgor began to run. No one fired at him. Another broke away, and another. Then the entire swarm of them pelted toward the fortress.

That evening Huruga yielded.

“’Twas easy enough.’ Sir Roger chuckled. “I had him bottled up in there. I doubted he had more than just enough supplies, for siegecraft must be a lost art in this country. So, first, I showed him I could lay his whole planet waste — which he’d have to answer for even if we were conquered in the end. Then I gave him all those extra mouths to feed.” He slapped my back. When I had been picked up and dusted off, be said, “Well, Brother Parvus, now that we own this world, would you like to head its first abbey?”