The Forgotten King
Page 46
“Such is the way of men,” added Gylain, “To act is to satisfy pride, but pride is not grown by the acts of another.” He paused, then, looking into the distance, “Look, Lyndon, why is your fleet in such chaos?”
As Gylain spoke, the well-ordered columns of Hibernia’s fleet were degrading into a mess of disorganized ships. One vessel, in particular, was sailing in a strange, offbeat manner; and the others seemed to chase, though any real maneuvers were impossible in the crowded waters. The renegade ship suddenly broke free from the surrounding vessels, and once clear sped toward The Barber and the mouth of the harbor.
“I ordered no such actions, but we will see soon enough; for they approach us. Perhaps they have urgent news.”
“Those are the actions of a desperate man,” de Casanova said as he looked on, “And my heart chills to warn me that something ill is coming.”
“You have become a Romantic in your love, de Casanova,” Gylain laughed. “And now you view your emotions as the end of truth and reality. We will see, as your sovereign says.”
The ship was gaining speed as it came, dodging the other ships easily with its momentum. As it came up to The Barber , a voice rang out from the rigging:
“For king and country! We have them both, as good as gospel!” The man was in his mid-twenties, with long brown hair that flapped in the breeze and a splot of beard beneath his lower lip. But what made him unusual were his eyes: one blue, the other hazel.
“A thousand deaths!” cried Lyndon, the King of Hibernia, “A thousand deaths to me and mine. It is Lionel, my son, who yells such blasphemy!”
“Did you expect another, father?” for Lyndon and his ship were now close enough to overhear them. “Yet now it is not your tyranny I defile, but that of another,” and he held up his arm. There – shining in the sun – was the crown of Atilta, left securely in Gylain’s own flagship while he himself was out among his equals.
“The crown!” Gylain cried, “Admiral, follow that ship!” He dashed forward to the command deck and watched the fleeing ship – an Hibernian cruiser commandeered by Lionel – pass them like a dream. “Fools!” and he grabbed the Admiral’s bullhorn, held it to his mouth, and lava erupted from his lips, “Make sail! Make sail!”
“They give chase,” Lionel called down to his comrades, who were manning the sails and pushing the ship beyond its greatest speed. Any less would bring them death. He dropped the crown into the hands of another man who stood on the deck, then followed it himself. “The plan is working,” when he had regained his footing on the deck, “They follow in anger, de Garmia.”
“So I see,” laughed the latter. He was a dark-haired man with a Spanish crook in his nose; yet it was a dignified Spanish crook, and one which drew heavily on his Roman lips and chin. “So I see, but are we soon enough to make it work? Either way, if the wind fails, so will we.”
“But it will only grow stronger, friend, for we have need of it.”
“I feel the same, today, with the warmth of the wind and the sting of the sea to give me courage. I do not regret having followed my brother to defiance of the tyrant. If I find him, we will be reunited in this cause as we once were in its antagonist!”
Lionel kept his eyes on the pursuing ships. The Barber , first in the center of the fleet, was now in its rear; for the smaller ships were quicker in gaining their top speed.
“The cutters approach rapidly, but we can make the open seas before they overtake us. Once there our speed will double theirs. It is the others we have to fear. If The Barber reaches full speed, we will have little chance of escape.”
“But we will have reached Thunder Bay by then, and they will have been drawn into a battle for which they are not fully prepared. No, a ship of that size can only function on the high seas and we must only pass the Atiltian stretch.”
“There is little choice on our part,” Lionel said. “If their fleet reaches the Western March without provisions for a siege, they cannot make one. Their ships are all with them: if they break off to receive supplies we can take them. If not, the French will blockade them and they will starve.”
“But will the French come?”
“We cannot but hope.”
“Hope, hope, the immortal pope,” de Garmia laughed. “But who else will be our priest?”
They were interrupted by the cry of a sailor, coming from the stern, “They make headway, sirs.”
At that moment, an arrow struck the deck.
Chapter 81
Far ahead, and barely visible through the bright sun and sea, was a ship: its storm-cloud sails throwing it forward. The sea about the ship was empty and quiet, filled only with bird cries from the trees that hung nearby. But two hundred yards behind them was a line of pursuing ships, stretching backwards a mile until it ended with the lofty rails of The Barber . Gylain was its figurehead, his arms dragons and his eyes the sea. But his eyes were also closed: though he saw he did not look.
Several yards behind him a table was prepared upon the deck with a feast upon it, albeit untouched. Lyndon, Montague, and de Casanova still sat around it, the circle of power. Yet they had power only to have it; they commanded luxuries only to know they could. Sometimes they sat, and sometimes they stood, and sometimes they inspected the soldiers or studied charts of Thunder Bay. Only Gylain played the hermit, dueling the ocean with his stare; and he did not need his eyes to see, for he knew what was there. De Garmia and Lionel were only symbols of his fears: to lose the crown, the power, the strength; to have it clearly shown that, far from being God’s equal, he was not even the best of men. God was his enemy, weakness his foe.
“We will punish the rashness of youth, my friend,” Lyndon said, and in the silence their thoughts still lingered on the same subject. “We will punish him, and bring his mind to sanity. Then, when all is done, we will remake the crown a hundred times nobler, or a thousand. Money is of no account, for there is always more to take.”
“Nothing falls from a head without a purpose; and if every hair is numbered, how much more every crown? This is an omen, Lyndon: an omen that has been replayed a thousand different ways. Yet I see them. I know what is coming. Oh God, my enemy!” and his hands flew to the air like fate to the luckless. “Will you stab your own earth with the trident of the seas? Will you overturn the Pillars of Heracles and sink them to Hades? May it never be!” Gylain clenched his fists and fell silent, staring deeper into the sea as if he unwove its fabric with his piercing gaze and saw into the dimensions beyond.
“Has not my brother’s death not appeased your thoughts of predestination, Gylain?” Montague asked. “If Nicholas cannot retrieve this Holy Graal, can the rebel king meet another fate? Your rival is vanquished, your life secured.”
“Fool!” Gylain said lowly, his feeling not anger but resignation. “Fool, if you think I sent your brother for the Holy Graal, you are mistaken; if you think I sent him to the Cervennes peak for an ancient goblet, or even the blood of God, than you are gravely mistaken.”
Montague stood, “Then why was he sent?” and his voice betrayed his doubting heart.
“He was sent, on a mission of intelligence and divination, to the Titans. He went to see of the prophecies of the poets, of the Greeks, and he has not returned but in dream. What can this be, other than an ill omen and a mark of predestination? What has gone before will come again, and what has happened once will repeat a thousand times! Woe to us who live and woe to those who die. Above all, woe to the White Eagle!”
Montague stood and Gylain, hearing his surprise, broke his connection with the sea. “You are distraught? Then you see as I do.”
“No, though I have seen as you say. There was more when my brother appeared to me, but I did not understand, and so did not think it important.”
“Your hesitation breeds my impatience with this life, man!”
“My lord,” and Montague’s demeanor flinched, “He held a smooth, rectangular tablet in his hands as he spoke, with letters or symbols engraved upon it. I could not read
them, but they formed an outline of a White Eagle; and as you spoke just now, it recalled itself to my mind.”
“Can you remember what they were?”
“Yes, for they are engraved upon my mind as well.”
Montague began to trace what he had seen on a paper, symbols arranged in a box as if still upon the tablet. They were at once hieroglyphics and letters, and Gylain seemed to understand them. In a shaking voice, he read:
In the name of Uranos, by whom the trident of the nations will be sunk to the nether lands of Hades. The Pillars of Heracles has been sunk, and with it the gods of men. The Garden of Hesperides has been sunk, and with it the men of gods. Soon, the third and final remnant of the ancient world will be destroyed. Just as Eden was overrun by evil and sank, so will it be. Just as Atlantis was conquered by the Titans and sank, so will it become. The trident of the nations will pierce Hades.
Gylain was silent for a moment, then looked to the compass that sat beside the paper. “I cannot see the White Eagle,” he said, “But these figures have two meanings: one as symbols and one as letters; one as Egyptian hieroglyphics and one as Phoenician letters. It must come from the ancient race of strength, from Atlantis. Still, I can see no White Eagle.”
“Yet I saw it, and I drew it just as I remember.”
“What of the pyramids, if it is partly Egyptian?” Lyndon suggested, “Or of the temples of Ra?”
“Of course!” Gylain cried, making the connection. “For in each of those, each corner is placed precisely on one of the four geographic poles. Here,” he took the drawing and – using the compass as a guide – set it straight to the cardinal points: north, east, south, and west. The figures seemed to melt away, molded into a White Eagle with a lion’s head grasped in its talons.
Gylain fell into a pit in his mind. It was several minutes until he was rescued, suddenly, by a movement of Lyndon’s hand. The latter held a knife, with which he was carving idly upon the table.
“Let me see the knife,” Gylain said, and Lyndon handed it to him, though he also handed him a questioning look. The knife was a foot long, with half its length manifested in the handle, divided into ten rings or lines; then, upon the hilt, was an etching of a sky with ten stars. A small section stuck out on either side between the blade and the handle and on this portion was carved an ancient galley or ship of war.
Gylain held it in his hands and examined it minutely. After a time, and in a voice hardly audible, he asked, “From where does it come?”
“I found it on the beach of Hibernia, near my palace as I walked alone,” Lyndon answered. “It had washed ashore from the deep.”
Gylain opened his hand as the words lashed against his ears and courage. The knife came loose and fell to the deck, piercing three inches into the wood.
“So it comes,” Gylain paused, “The end draws near.”
“This is enough,” Montague slapped the table. “Can we fight if we fear to lose? Can we win if we think ourselves predestined not to? Look about us, Gylain, and see the forces which you master: there are two hundred ships in the fleet, each well-made and well-manned; there are above thirty thousand soldiers with us, as well as the five thousand already sent by foot. The rebels do not have even five thousand and the French are slow to come. Why do you fear destiny and fate when all that has befallen is a result of action, and that alone?”
Gylain expired into his chair and resumed his obsession with the sea. “How many times in the history of this warrior’s world have the few defeated the many? We have numbers, perhaps, but it is strength which wins wars. When the Israelites swept through Canaan, was it by their own strength? Were their voices truly strong enough to shatter walls, and their arms to part the seas? What God will do, he will do; and damnation to the man through whom he does things. Has it not been written, ‘The king will do as he pleases, he will exalt and magnify himself above every god, and will utter blasphemies against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined it must take place.’ And again, ‘At the time of the end, the King of the South will engage him in battle, and the King of the North will storm out against him, with chariots and cavalry and a great fleet of ships. He will invade many countries, and sweep through them as a flood.’” Gylain moaned aloud, then continued, “Am I not the King of the South; and you, Lyndon: are you not the King of the North? And he ! Do we not know who he is? And will he not finish what he has begun?”
“Such it is,” Lyndon said slowly, “That weakness is destroyed. But who is to say that we are the weaker? If it is God whom we battle, can we not overcome him? You say the Titans destroyed Atlantis? If so, gods can be destroyed. Let us face him in open combat and put his strength to the test. The rebels cannot overcome us; neither can this God you speak of.”
“For once, I hear truth!” and Montague rose to his feet in a passion. “You have been persecuted by God, you say? And if a man slapped your cheek, would you not devour him? Or if a man poked out your eye, would you not strike off his head? Then who is God, that he is outside of justice? I say, if he has persecuted you, let us strike him double hard; and if his stake is held with the rebels we will overcome them in blood and in anguish and thus defile his name – more so than he himself can do! Woe to him who has set his heart against us!”
“And lo!” de Casanova also stood, “Does one persecute an old man, whose teeth have long since gone the way of his hair? Or does one besiege an old woman, in love or in war? No, but only those who have strength to overthrow. Is it not, then, an admission of your strength that God himself is against you? Do you not see, that you are what he fears. His only weapon is your own fear of him. Throw that yoke aside, and yours will be easy and your burden light.”
Gylain stood and paced the side of the deck, looking over the rail to the raging sea below. He groaned. His bones were as the wood of the ship. “You who has damned us with sin and evil, who has judged us before we left our mother’s womb, who has stricken us for the purpose of your own glory: let it be! You may hold their staff above their heads, that it might not fall; but, by God, I hold my sword above my own, and surely it will fall!”
Silence.
“Look, we draw near,” Montague called just then from the bow. “Thunder Bay approaches, and Lionel’s ship enters it even now. The rebel fleet opens their ranks to let them pass, but it closes again behind them. Now the Hibernian fleet approaches, now the Atiltian. The ships speed on, but will they engage them at once? Yes, they charge in a fever.” He turned to Gylain, “Now is the time for orders, my lord; now is the time for action.”
“Keep the course,” Gylain returned, and he paced to make his plans.
A few moments passed before The Barber came up to the rest of the fleet and joined their ranks. The mouth of Thunder Bay was a quarter mile wide and filled with a dozen ships, among them The King’ s Arm , the Marins, and now Lionel’s ship. Their decks were lined with a large force of archers and soldiers. Yet this was partly an illusion, for the Atiltian rebels – archers by birth – had been trained to be sailors; so, rather than a truly large force, they had men of many helmets. Behind this line spread Thunder Bay, the same in which the previous battle of the rebellion occurred. It was not more than a mile deep and had no bank or shore on either side but that facing the castle; the others were barricaded by living pikes: trees growing to the very edge of the water. The rebels forces were drawn up on a rampart abutting the shore and in the castle itself. The ships were only meant to halt Gylain’s advance and prolong their defeat until something should intervene. As The Barber joined the ranks, a file of men appeared at the far end of the plain. At first a few, they grew until a whole legion of soldiers marched forward, donning the colors of Gylain.
“It is time,” the tyrant called in his booming voice. “It is time for strength, for hate, and for victory!”
As he spoke the sky grew dark and the long accumulating clouds broke forth in rain. The battle had begun.
Chapter 82
“The counsels of war are counsels of madness,” Milada began. “Still, we hold them, even as history holds us. Yet time flees us as we cannot flee our enemy, so we had best begin.”
“Alfonzo has led in defenses and so should lead in the council,” the Admiral added. “But I do not think more can be done than what he has already begun. We can only carry out his plans.”
Alfonzo stood, holding a paper in his hands: a design of the castle, a map of the area, and a chart of Thunder Bay. Everything was drawn in careful detail – nearing the point of pedantry – as it had been Alfonzo’s only occupation during lonely nights spent at the side of the dying Milada. Alfonzo spread it on the table that had been placed in the center of their circle, where it was carefully examined by all. Its detail was enough that he did not need to speak or explain it:
The castle was a square within a circle, for the building itself was square, though both the inner and outer walls were circular; a sentinel tower rose up on every side but the north, where stood the gate. The inner gate was on the southern side. It could only be reached by passing through the outer courtyard – the space between the inner and outer walls. The latter was more a corridor than courtyard, however, for it was covered and had murder holes communicating to the inner wall along its length. On the ground floor, the castle was circled by an inner hallway, through which the murder holes were operated. Within that was the central hall, broken into a main hall, pantries, armories, and servant’s quarters. Its ceiling was flat and equal in height to the inner walls, forming a platform upon which the keep was built: the second story and the towers above.