The Enchanter General 03 - Merlin Redux

by Dave Duncan

  Then a tremendous crash had me on my feet, looking around in bewilderment. The park had vanished, and I was marooned in a tumultuous battle, under sunshine glaring hotter than a blacksmith’s forge. The air was full of dust, and noise, and missiles. The noise that had startled me was that of a great rock striking a city wall about three hundred yards away, and shattering into a hail of rubble. At least six great trebuchets were working, with sweating teams of men hauling the throwing arms down, loading projectiles into the slings, backing clear as the arms were released, the counterweights fell, and the arms soared up to hurl the projectiles. Then they would rush in to repeat the process. I was amazed by both their rate of fire and their accuracy, because every shot was battering almost the same spot.

  Up on the battlements, the Saracen defenders were far from idle—frantically spanning and loading their crossbows, then dodging out from behind the merlons to shoot through the crenels at the teams working the trebuchets. Those hardy souls were shielded by wooden bulwarks, but not completely, and every few minutes a man would fall and another come forward to take his place.

  The ground behind the artillery, where I seemed to be standing, was even more chaotic. Hundreds of crossbowmen were keeping up a counter barrage, but their work was much harder than the defenders’, because they were shooting upward, not downward, and they had only split seconds to aim and loose at a target. Horse-drawn wagons were bringing in ammunition and barrel after barrel of drinking water, and also carrying away the dead and wounded.

  Some men wore chain mail and helmets; most did not, while some were close to naked in the overpowering heat. A great majority of the Christians wore the white crusader cross of the English army, and most of the rest were French, bearing red crosses. I saw few of the green ones that denoted men from Flanders. So I knew that Richard had arrived at last, and the convincing detail of the scene told me that this was no prophecy, but a true vision of the hell on earth that was the siege of Acre. I thanked God that I was not present in the flesh. And yet, watching the screaming wounded being carried off the field, I wished I were, so as I could help the healers and save some brave lives.

  But why had the Myrddin Wyllt brought me here? Was I missing something?

  Perhaps that knight striding purposefully across the battlefield in approximately my direction? He certainly did not seem to be playing any sort of role in the battle. He wore a chain mail hauberk and carried a large shield emblazoned with heraldry I did not recognize. It concealed his face from me, because he was holding it high, between him and the Saracen crossbowmen on the walls.

  His destination, I decided, was a curious grouping of two men holding shields to protect what seemed to be a litter. Both shields were bristled like hedgehogs with spent arrows, and even as I watched one of the guardians raised his to catch yet another incoming. Clunk! All I could see of the litter’s occupant was his feet.

  But then there came the sharp crack of a crossbow being fired from behind the protective shields. The guardians watched its flight, then both cried out in triumph at the same time: “Got him!”

  “Well shot, sire!”

  Sire? I moved in closer until I could see this invalid archer. At first, I did not know him. He was old, and obviously deathly ill. Much of his hair and beard had fallen out; his feet and many of his fingers were bandaged; sunken cheeks showed that he had lost some teeth. He leered at his success, and passed his crossbow to a youth kneeling at his side, who gave him a spanned and loaded one in exchange. He muttered, “Water!” and the youth held a flask to the invalid’s lips.

  I recognized the voice of my king. He had aged at least ten years in the last two. Even without a proper examination I thought I could recognize the symptoms of the sailors’ disease— loss of hair and teeth, possibly even finger and toe nails. Probably no fever, for he would be unable to hold his crossbow steady enough to shoot straight if his hands were shaking. There were enchantments to treat the sailors’ malady, so where were all the healers? Richard was renowned as a crack shot with a crossbow, but surely he had plenty of marksmen in his army who could do what he was doing and let him retire to bed to recuperate?

  “The merlon between the third and fourth trebuchets, Lord King,” said one of the shield bearers. “He usually shoots through the right crenel, but sometimes the left. Ah! There he is . . .”

  For an instant a Saracen bowman in a black turban appeared in the battlements and shot his bolt, then quickly backed into safety again to reload. To hit so transient a target at that range would be marksmanship indeed, but before Richard could try, the shadow of the French knight fell over him.

  The newcomer saluted. “My Lord King! I bring sad news from His Grace, Philip, king of France, your overlord.”

  “He’s not my overlord here.” Richard spoke with difficulty, as if his mouth hurt. “What does he want now, more money?”

  “No, Your Grace. He deeply regrets to inform you that, on the insistence of his doctors, he will have to return in haste to France to recuperate from the sickness that has smitten both him and your noble self.”

  “I thought you said you came with sad news? Tell him I wish him God speed. Tell him also this: that I know some Frenchmen can fight, and I hope he will leave those men behind to fulfill the oaths that we all have sworn. He is welcome to take the rest of the cowards with him.”

  If the unfortunate knight blushed, his helmet concealed the fact. He started to protest, but I was lying on the warm grass and Lovise was fussing over me.

  “You swore you wouldn’t sing the Myrddin Wyllt again!”

  “And I haven’t,” I mumbled with a familiarly dry mouth. “I haven’t even been down to the crypt.”

  “So it’s happened again. What did it tell you this time?”

  I sat up and paused a moment to think. “I’m not sure. . . . Perhaps two things. Philip is going to head home very shortly, and if he doesn’t drown on the way, he will be Longchamp’s problem, not Richard’s. And secondly, I learned that if there’s a man in Christendom who can take Jerusalem back from the Saracens, his name is Lionheart.”

  Many weeks later I learned that Acre resisted even Richard’s expertise in the siege craft until July 12th, when it finally surrendered and the banners of England, France, and Austria were raised on the battlements. Duke Leopold had some claim to this honor, in that his contingent was the last remnant of the German army that had set out the previous year—led by Emperor Barbarossa, who had died on the journey—but Leopold was not a king, and his flag implied that he was entitled to a share of the plunder. Richard had Leopold’s banner removed and thrown into the moat, leaving only his own and Philip’s.

  After Acre fell, King Philip did sail away as he had said he would, although many of the French nobility remained, from a sense of honor and duty. Richard had brought the largest contingent to the Crusade and Phillip’s departure left him the undisputed leader of the Crusade.

  When negotiations with Saladin dragged on endlessly, Richard threatened to slaughter his 2,700 prisoners. Saladin still failed to come to terms—likely because he knew that Richard could not proceed with his mission until he had disposed of the captives somehow, and feeding them had to be a serious strain on his resources. So Richard carried out his threat, a day-long butchery that shocked all Christendom, even his own battle-hardened troops. Saladin promptly killed all his prisoners.

  Richard had established firm control of much of the coast, where he could be supplied by sea, but he resisted pleas to march on Jerusalem right away. Seeing the prior need to take Jaffa, which would be a vital coastal supply base, he left his sister, Joan, and queen, Berengaria, in Acre Castle and marched the army south. Saladin tried with little success to harry the crusaders’ march, but Richard’s fleet had already driven the Egyptian navy from the seas, so the crusaders could safely keep their right flank on the shore, and use their armored infantry to protect their left. The Saracens’ mounted archers were much faster and more nimble than the heavily-laden crusader horsemen, but th
ey could do little harm as long as the crusaders stayed in formation. Day after day the great column kept creeping along, past Haifa and Caesarea, through a countryside already razed by Saladin’s forces. Day after day the Saracens pestered it like mosquitoes, racing in on their smaller, more nimble horses, to shoot arrows at the Christians and then retire.

  On September 6th, the Christians passed unmolested through the Forest of Arsuf and on the other side found the entire Saracen army lined up in battle order. Saladin had decided to risk a head-to-head clash. At first the harassing continued, but in mid-morning, he gave the signal and the huge host charged. Yet still Richard managed to keep his forces in formation, despite frantic pleas, especially from his rearguard, who were suffering the brunt of the onslaught. His strategy, I was later told by men close to him, was to wait until the Saracens had exhausted their horses.

  To digress for a moment: battles are rare. Forget Alexander the Great and his Greek phalanx. Forget the Roman legions. Head-to-head clashes are unpredictable and dangerous. Henry II never fought a battle. Modern European warfare is based on castles. Whoever holds a castle controls the surrounding countryside, and his enemies must seize it before they can displace him. It was when the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller, and other Christians holding Jerusalem marched out of their strongholds to do battle with Saladin’s Saracens on July 4th, 1187, that they rediscovered this truth. In the ensuing disaster at the Horns of Hattin, the Christians were massacred. The Holy City fell in October of that year, to the horror of all Christendom.

  At Arsuf, Richard revenged the defeat at Hattin. Before he was ready, two knights in his rearguard, tormented beyond endurance, broke ranks and charged the Saracen horde. The people I spoke to all insisted that under most commanders this would have brought disaster, and the enemy would probably have rolled up the Crusader army like a rug. But Richard was up to the challenge. He raced back through the column, bellowing orders, and the Crusader host turned face and charged. And won a bloody victory.

  I am no tactician or strategist, but I later spoke with many who were there and who knew enough to judge, and they all insisted that his victory at Arsuf proved that he was the greatest warrior of his age. He had brought a huge army by sea, recovered Acre, and now had beaten Saladin at his own type of war as well. In siege warfare or battle, in tactics, logistics, or strategy, the Lionheart was simply the best.

  But now his luck had run out, exactly as the stars had foretold.

  1191

  early in January, the Loc hwær told us that John was back in England. I sent a warning to Longchamp, but he probably knew from other sources before my note arrived. John was still bound by Richard’s ban against entering England without Longchamp’s permission, but if Longchamp wanted to enforce this edict, he would have to chain the king’s brother in a dungeon, and even he did not dare try that.

  The justiciar’s new problem was entirely his own fault, because his tyrannical rule had gained John many friends in the land. Richard’s generosity had given his brother enormous financial resources, and few problems cannot be solved by gold. Soon he was parading around England, collecting castles like a ferreter netting rabbits. If Richard died on crusade, then John was going to seize the throne and baby Arthur could scream all he wanted. And if the rightful king survived and tried to claim his kingdom . . .

  Plantagenet family squabbles kill a lot of bystanders.

  One chilly evening in March, Lovise and I were sitting by a dwindling fire, reluctant to leave the warmth and withdraw to a cold bed. Lars had left home to live in residence, and the servants had all retired, so there were only the two of us old fogies in our empty nest. We were discussing those dark times and cursing Richard for neglecting his realm. In theory the Church’s Truce of God defended the lands of all crusaders during their absence and to molest them in any way was a major sin, but now John was stealing England, bite by bite.

  And my dear wife said, “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Obviously, the Church is not going to do anything, and you are still enchanter general. I thought you swore loyalty to King Richard?”

  At first, I thought she was joking. “So tell me what I can do.”

  “I am not the one you should ask.”

  “I thought you did not like me invoking that incantation.”

  “I am more worried when it invokes you without being asked, but if you can think of anything better to do, then I think you should do it.”

  She was not joking! I should have known her better, although she ought to have warned me when she expanded my responsibilities to include the political future of the empire. I rose, went down to my work room, and hurried back, shivering, with the Myrddin Wyllt scroll.

  “It’s cold down there,” I explained, and made myself comfortable on the hearth rug, leaning back against a pile of cushions. The floor was one place I couldn’t fall off of when I went into my trance. I began the chant, but soon regretted my choice of position so close to the fire. I pressed on, ignoring the heat. Before I reached the end I heard singing and smelled a curious medley of scents, of which I was only sure of two—roasted meat, and the odor of a large number of unwashed men. I was hotter than ever in my winter clothing.

  My eyes and ears seemed to be in a castle hall, filled with a large assemblage of warriors, many of them sporting crusaders’ crosses, red or white. Daylight, but not direct sunlight, was streaming in through wide unglazed windows, bringing a mid-summer heat that England never knew, especially in March. I was almost certainly looking at a crusader force, part of the English and French army led by King Richard, although I saw some unfamiliar surcoats and headgear that suggested other nations, possibly German. This host of two or three hundred had finished eating, but not yet drinking. A few brown-skinned slaves were moving among them, distributing wine or ale.

  Some notables adorned a high table, but they were vague to my sight, as unimportant details always were in Myrddin Wyllt prophecies. What mattered was that this packed hall was strangely still, intent on a couple of minstrels, who were strolling around between the tables, as minstrels do. They were singing a Provençal ballad together and each carried a gittern, although only the younger one was playing at that moment. Obviously they were very skilled if they could hold that normally rowdy audience in thrall. They were both blond. The younger, larger one was Lars of Pipewell, and the old one with the limp was me.

  If there was more to come I missed it, because the shock of seeing myself from the outside jerked me out of the trance. I probably cried out, because Lovise lowered her embroidery and demanded to know what was wrong.

  I collected my wits. “I seem to be destined to go on crusade.”

  “You? You’re not that sort of knight, Durwin. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “It is prophesied,” I insisted.

  “You’re far too old.”

  “I wasn’t a warrior in armor. I saw myself as a minstrel, entertaining the troops.” I was not about to tell her that Lars was with me, or not until I had spoken with him, anyway. I was face-to-face with the basic paradox in prophesy: could I block one of the Myrddin Wyllt’s predictions? It was to be a long time before I plucked up enough courage to try.

  “I suppose if the king sends for you . . .” Lovise glared at me as if this trance session had been my idea, not hers. “But he’d want you as a sage, not a minstrel.”

  “No chance. Richard will never send for me unless he needs someone to clean up after his horse.”

  “What nonsense! Why in the world do you say that?” Even a wife as skilled as mine must still depend on her husband’s status to establish her own place in society, and so must needs defend it.

  “Because I forced him to study Latin when he was a child. Because I stole his thunder when his father died—Queen Eleanor heard the news from me a week before his letters arrived, so he suspects me of spying on him. I am right at the bottom of his list of approved people.”

  “The
queen, then, perhaps? Can you think of any reason why she might want to smuggle an enchanter in somewhere by passing him off as a minstrel?” When anyone in England said, “the queen,” they still meant Eleanor. If Berengaria ever made it back to the west and bothered to visit England, we might have to change.

  “No, dear wife,” I said. “I cannot imagine that, but I can imagine a disgraced sage losing everything and having to sing for his supper.”

  The next day I went out and bought a gittern. I began taking lessons from a hungry-looking youngster who scraped out a living in the taverns and brothels of the town. With my experience in singing, I progressed well, although I often wished my fingers were younger.

  What Lovise and I had not known that evening was that help would soon be on the way. Queen Eleanor was already in Italy, and close to meeting up with her absentee son. Without doubt, she gave him a lambasting for putting that avaricious, overweening, despotic, idiotic, et cetera, Longchamp in charge of England.

  After delivering Queen-designate Berengaria to Sicily, Eleanor waited only four days before starting her return journey, and this time she traveled with Walter Coutances, who carried royal warrants intended to settle the English dispute. They traveled slowly, dallying in Rome to witness the enthroning of Pope Celestine III, and it was not until June that Walter landed in England, Eleanor having remained in Rouen, the capital of Normandy. Heaven knows, she deserved a rest after such a journey.

  I knew Walter well, for he had served as Archdeacon in Oxford for years. Although born in England, he was now arch-bishop of Rouen, and one of Richard’s most trusted familiares.He arrived just as Longchamp completed his siege of Lincoln Castle, whose constable—husband of my old friend Nicholaa de la Haye—was a fervent John supporter. Longchamp had imported mercenaries to besiege one of the royal castles. England was very close to civil war.