by Robert Adams
There was little I or anyone could do to make the larger pieces maneuverable for field service. That was when I suggested to Arthur that they had best be permanently emplaced and their large field crews and draft animals put to better use.
The heaviest guns I kept in the field are classed as demiculverins, are about ten feet long, and weigh over two and one half tons, exclusive of carriage. Depending upon type, the shot they throw weighs from eight to eleven pounds, and their effective range is somewhat less than six hundred meters. A good crew can fire all of six shots, the hour.
My experiments with light artillery, fashioned along the lines of what I can remember of King Gustavus Adolphus' leather guns, have been dismal failure, deadly to many of the brave men who volunteered to man them. Mr. Foster has persuaded me to desist of these experiments, although young Arthur would have backed me, had I considered it worthwhile to continue.
Mr. Webster is no more nor less than what he has seemed from the beginning. Mr. Foster, however, is proving disappointing in many ways. He cannot seem to observe the broad picture of events as they occur; his perspective is invariably narrow, shallow, ascientific, and disgustingly individual-oriented, and he becomes emotional to the point of total immaturity if others fail to agree with him.
In the above-mentioned matter of the leather guns, for instance, he refused to consider the necessity for my experiments; rather, he insisted upon morbidly dwelling on the inconsequential fact that some ten or twelve volunteer gunners had been killed or injured in the course of the project. When I told him that I had already decided to discontinue the test, he was briefly jovial. However, when I added that the project was only being suspended due to the imminent departure of the army on the southern campaign and that I fully intended further testing when again the circumstances were favorable, he threatened me. He promised to kill me himself if I did not personally apply the linstock to the next trial gun I had constructed.
When I then attempted to reason with him, to make it clear to him how infinitely much more valuable my genius is to the king, to England, to all this backward world, he not only interrupted me (most profanely, I might add), he struck me, three times, in the face and with his clenched fist. Had my own bodyguards and two of his officers not restrained him, I fear that he would have beaten me senseless.
Dear Arthur, when he heard of the incident, offered to have Mr. Foster summarily hanged, but, recalling the modest contributions he has made to all our welfares since our arrivals here, I chose rather to allow one of the King's champions to represent me in a duel; Mr. Foster killed my proxy, one Sir Herbert something-or-other, in about ten minutes' swordplay, but he lost part of his right ear, which will possibly serve as a reminder to him that neither young Arthur nor I will brook future interference from him in matters affecting the furtherance of the welfare of our kingdom.
——«»——«»——«»——
Shuddering, Krystal laid the letter aside unfinished. How like Bass not to have even mentioned any of the events related with such relish by the new-made Earl of Sussex, Professor William Collier, lest the news worry her. As for the Professor, he obviously had become unbalanced and in his present position of power would be highly dangerous; she resolved to send Bass a letter warning him to be very cautious around Collier when he could not avoid him altogether.
CHAPTER 4
Foster sagged in the saddle of his worn-out, foam-flecked warhorse. Behind the three widespread bars of his visor, his face was black with the residue of fired gunpowder, and copious outpourings of sweat had carved a crisscross of canyons through the dirt. His Winchester was empty, along with both horse pistols and all three magazines for his Colt, nor were there any shells remaining in his bandolier. His broadsword hung by its knot from his wrist, its long blade hacked and nicked and dulled from point to quillions with clotting red-brown stains.
Strung out on his flanks and to his rear was what was left of his command—all the horses as done-in as his own, the men gasping and wheezing, many of them bleeding as well, their swords dull and edgeless, their pistols and powder flasks empty.
Arctic wind, straight down from the frigid ocean wastes of Ultima Thule, lashed them with icy salt spray each time another wave came crashing in on the strand before them, driving the limp bodies of the slower Crusaders farther up onto sand littered with the debris of their faster companions' sudden departure.
Far, far out to the west, Foster could see, now and again, one or more of the long boats lifted high on the apex of a wave, before abruptly dropping from sight in the trough. Even farther out, beyond the range of any but the heaviest cannon, were anchored five or six of the High King's ships, more than ample to take off the pitiful remnant of the Irish army.
The first battle—was it only three days ago? It seemed at least a week—had been little short of a massacre of the invading Crusaders, who had been less an army than a huge raiding party—a bastard concoction composed of jailbirds and gutter scrapings and gentleman-adventurers, cutthroats and sneak-thieves and pirates, leavened by a horde of religious fanatics, with a thin streaking of regular soldiers of the Irish Royal Army, and a sprinkling of Continental mercenaries.
A good half of the heterogeneous mob had broken and ridden or run away as the first rounds of barshot had come howling from the heights whereon King Arthur's artillery was positioned to batter sanguineous gaps in the Irish lines. More had scattered to the winds when ordered units of dragoons had ridden in and poured two deadly pistol volleys against the straggling, vulnerable flanks, then regrouped and reloaded out of arquebus range.
With even the few western Crusaders in understandable confusion amid the turmoil of their fleeing countrymen, the opposing ranks of English foot suddenly turned to left and right and trotted aside to reveal the grinning mouths of two dozen minions and sakers—four-pounder and six-pounder cannon—and the grapeshot, caseshot, and shovelfuls of coarse gravel that they spewed into the close-packed ranks of gunmen and pikemen and halberdiers and swordsmen turned a partial rout into a general one.
The battle—if battle it could be called, thought Foster—had taken place a few miles east of Blackburn. The cavalry had been dispatched to prevent any large number of the fleeing Irish from reaching the Mersey, wherein lay their fleet.
"And we've been in the saddle damned near every hour since," ruminated Foster.
He realized that he and his men should have long since dismounted and begun walking their mounts, but he knew that to do so would be, for him at least, to fall flat on his face. Pulling listlessly at yellowed wisps of dune grass, Prideful, his bay gelding, appeared anything but, his pride and his spirit run out, like Foster's, in three grueling days of hack-and-slash and shoot-and-stab, of a few brief moments of sleep snatched fully clothed and armed on wet ground, too tired to heed the icy drizzle or the pains of a stomach wrestling with wolfed-down hunks of hard, stale bread, moldy cheese, and stinking stockfish, the whole washed down with mouthfuls of muddy ditchwater.
Foster licked his parched tongue over his cracked lips, dropped the reins on the neck of the played-out horse, and fumbled for his canteen. Found the empty cover.
"Foster, you dumb shit!" he muttered. "Now where in hell did you drop it?"
Then his dulled, fuzzy mind dredged up the memory. The memory of throwing back his head to suck greedily at the glorious water, only to have it ripped from his hand with a deafening clang, sent spinning through the air, to bounce crazily along the rocky ground, observed for but the split second before he and his men spurred for the copse from whence had come the shot, to hack the two mercenary musquetiers hiding there into bloody bundles of flesh and rags that steamed as the hot life fluids met the cold air.
Locating the brass chain and pulling the police whistle from the pocket of the chamois cloth shirt under his buff-coat, he blew a long, loud blast, followed by two short ones, a pause, then another long—his signal to dismount.
He kicked his right leg free of the offside stirrup and painfu
lly swung it over the pommel and the drooping head of Prideful. But when he slid to the ground, his legs buckled beneath him. Kneeling on the damp sand, he knew that he had reached the very end of his strength, knew that in another eye-blink he would be stretched full-length, sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion. He could already feel the waves sweeping over him, covering all thought, all sensation, nestling him, cuddling his weary body, soothing his aches and worries and cares. The soft, warm waves crooned a lullaby.
"Sleep" they whispered, "sleep. Forget the cold, the pain, the world. Forget all and sleep."
"Dammit, the men . . . my men, the horses! Got to find powder . . . find the army."
He took his lower lip between his teeth and bit it, bit harder, furiously. The hot, salt blood oozed over his coated teeth, wetted his parched tongue. He found himself gulping his own blood, avidly.
Grasping the stirrup leathers, he slowly hauled himself onto his clumsy, unfeeling feet, found the broadsword still hanging from his wrist and sheathed it, bloody or no. But it took him three tries to get the point of the blade between the lips of the scabbard, so tremulous were his hands.
He took hold of the cheek-piece of Prideful's bridle and began to walk the weakly resisting animal in a slow, erratic circle, wincing and mumbling curses as each new ache and agony made itself known. Gradually, one or two at a time, the troopers and officers up and down the strand commenced to emulate him . . . most of them, anyway. Some still sat on their horses or had fallen off and lay huddled beside them. Up to Foster's left, a horse had fallen and both horse and rider lay motionless.
Trudging up the shallow beachfront because the sand was there firmer and did not drag so heavily against his still-unsteady legs, he consciously focused his red-rimmed eyes on each man he passed, croaking a greeting to those he knew. Not all were his; other units from Sir Francis' Horse were intermixed, as well as strays from the North Wales Dragoons, the Glamorgan Lancers, slant-eyed mercenaries of the Totenkopf Schwadron of Reichsherzog Wolfgang—King Arthur's brother-in-law, furious with grief at the murder of his youngest sister—and even a few King's Own Heavy Horse—their gilded armor nicked and dented and spotted with rust, now, their showy finery tattered and sodden and as filthy as Foster's own clothing.
A hundred yards from his starting point, he heard, from somewhere far ahead, the unmistakable bass bellow of Sir Francis' aurochs horn, calling his officers to him: At almost the same instant, he spotted familiar trappings on a fallen horse.
The big, black mare was dead and Foster first thought the rider dead as well, until he noticed the shaking of the man's shoulders, the tight clasp of the arms about that stiffening neck—until he heard the gut-wrenching sobs.
Leaving Prideful where the gelding stood, he leaned over and gently shook the man, sucking enough blood from his tooth-torn lip to prime his throat for speech. "Guy, Guy, are you wounded? It's me, Bass, Bass Foster."
After a moment, the long-bodied man humped up his flat buttocks, got his short, slightly bowed legs under him, and came to his knees. He had thrown off his helmet, and the wind-driven spray had quickly plastered his dull hair to his dirty nape. Black blood was crusted over and beneath a shallow cut under one bleary, teary brown eye.
Gulping back a sob, he answered, "Nae, Bass, I be wi'oot wound. But m' puir, baw Bess be dead." Fresh tears trickled down his black-stubbled cheeks, his gaze wandering back to the dead warhorse, from the flank of which the spray and persistent drizzle were slowly laving away the wide streaks of foam.
Grabbing the shoulder of the buff-coat, Foster shook the man again, harder. "I'm sorry about your mare, Guy, but she's not the only dead thing on this beach; there's more dead horses, and dead or dying men, too. You're the first officer I've come across. You have to take command of our troop, rally them. And see if anyone has some powder; the scrub brush back yonder could be hiding a hundred Irishmen. I have to report to Sir Francis, immediately."
If the grieving man heard him, he gave no indication of the fact. Tenderly brushing grains of sand from off the glazing eye of the carcass, he sobbed, "Puir, gude beastie, faithful tae the last, y' were. Y' run y'r noble hairt oot, y' did. An' a' for me. Fie, braw lassie, ne'er wi' it be ane other like tae ya."
As the grief-stricken man's body inclined forward again, Foster took firm hold of the other shoulder as well and hauled him back onto his knees.
"Goddammitall, Squire Guy Dodd, you've got to take over command until I get back! Snap out of it, man. D'you hear me? I said, snap out of it!"
Still getting no reaction, Foster drew back his gauntleted right hand and dealt Dodd's gashed left cheek a stinging slap, followed by a backhand buffet to the right one, then again, with back and palm, and yet again. His blows reopened the clotted cut and fresh, bright-red blood poured over the old to drip from the square chin.
Then the brown eyes sparked with rage and, powered with a rush of adrenaline, the Northumbrian lieutenant stumbled to his feet, his hand fumbling for the hilt of his broadsword.
"Y' whoreson! I'll hae oot y'r wormy lights!"
Stepping over the outstretched neck of the dead mare, Foster again grabbed both the wide-spreading shoulders and shook the stocky little man, while lifting him from off his feet with a strength he would have doubted he could summon up.
"Now damn you, Guy, listen to me! I'm called to Sir Francis, to the south, there. The men have got to be rallied and you've got to do it; we could be attacked by hidden stragglers any minute. There's not another officer or sergeant in sight, so you're volunteered. Take over, now!"
Continuing up the beach, toward the sound of the rally-horn, Foster took the time to cursorily examine each corpse he came across, seeking potable water and gunpowder. That was how he happened upon the strange body.
It was the unusual pair of boots that first drew his attention to the particular corpse, lying well above the surf line among a huddle of other dead Irishmen, apparently a group that had made a suicidal stand, perhaps to allow some high-ranking notables to gain the safety of the sea.
Dazed with exhaustion, thirst, and hunger as he was, it took him a minute or so to comprehend just what was so odd about the boots on that one man. Then it came to him: in this world, every pair of indigenously fashioned boots or brogans he had seen were straight-sided; that is, each boot would fit either right or left foot . . . but not those of this dead man; like Foster's own, they were properly curved—one for only right, one for only left.
Trudging closer, he noted other unique features. For one thing, the boots were almost new; for another, stitched to the outside of each calf was a holster and each holster contained a miniature wheel-lock horse pistol—light, beautiful, and richly decorated they were, with bores looking to be about .50 caliber, smallbore for this time and place. Furthermore, the boots appeared to be about Foster's own size.
Deciding to take boots and pistols as well—the stripping of useful equipment or valuables from enemy slain was here commonplace and, indeed, part of a soldier's reward for winning battles—he had knelt to unbuckle the high straps when the gilded sword hilt attracted him. He drew the weapon and hefted it, then whistled soundlessly. The long, bluish blade bore blood streaks, so it certainly had been in use during these hellish three days, yet it still retained a razor edge and a sharp point. It looked about as long and as wide as any average broadsword, but it was so finely balanced as to feel feather-light even to his tired, aching muscles. On impulse, he worked the baldric of Kelly-green leather off the stiff corpse, slid the exceptional sword into its case, set it aside, and started to turn back to his original purpose.
But something drew his eyes back to the Irishman's torso. The dagger? He pulled it far enough out to see that it was of the same steel as the sword; he added it and its belt to his trophies. No, not the dagger, the hand. The cold, gray hand, its callused fingers splayed upon the hacked and dented breastplate. No, not the hand, either, the ring. Something about the ring.
At first, Foster involuntarily recoiled at the feel of
the cold, clammy, dead flesh, but he set himself to the task. At last he managed to wrench off the gold ring.
So poor was the light and so worn down the lettering that at first it seemed indecipherable. Then he painfully pit out the words MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY CLASS OF 1998!
Foster sank back onto his haunches, stunned, his mind in a whirl of inchoate, half-formed thoughts. How? Wh—Where? Who? Impossible, yet the proof of the possibility clenched in his hand.
"But how can I call anything impossible," he mused, "after all that happened last spring? I was born fifth of January, 1930, which makes me almost forty-six years old. This man is . . . was . . . at least my age, that tallies with the wear and tear of the ring; hell, it's smooth, in places."
"But 1998? Did I read it wrong? No, that's a nine, right, one, nine, nine, eight. Most guys finish college twenty-two, twenty-three. Christalmightydamn! This guy is . . . wasn't . . . hasn't been even born yet."
"I wonder . . . could he have had anything to do with happened to me, to us, all of us? Alive, God, think of the answers he might have given me. But, hell, all he does is be dead! Just complicate the problem."
The aurochs horn bellowed its summons yet again, [unclear] this time. He shook his head, rose again to his knees, and finished unbuckling the dead man's boot tops, worked them from the rigid legs, rose, and fastened them together. When were [missing] over Prideful's withers, he added his sword baldric, replacing them with the mysterious man's richer equipage. Attached to the dagger belt were a powder flask and a lacquered-leather box fitted for and containing a wad of greased-cloth patches, a dozen bullets, a [missing] mold for casting them, and the spanner for winding the tools' mechanisms, as well as a small flask of fine priming powder. Once two loaded and primed pistols were thrust under his belt and a keen, finely balanced sword hung at his side, he felt a good deal more confident that he could with deal whatever might lie ahead.
