by Robert Adams
"Nein, danke, gut mein Herr Hauptmann Forster" the Emperor's brother had replied. "Enough for my house you have already done and repaid in time you vill be. But the vinter mild hass been, und the whoreson Scots anytime could march. Important it iss that your train reach York."
"As for Egon, if vell enough he iss ven I ride south, mit me he vill come . . . und the scharming Mistress Arabella, as veil." His big yellow teeth flashed. "If not, he vill a fine leutnant to Sir Francis make. Conduct of a siege goot seasoning for the boy vill be. Nicht wahr."
Foster left the bulk of his furniture behind, some in Whyffler Hall, some in his house. He had given up trying to reason out the whys and hows of the myriad impossibilities which confronted him whenever he considered that not only were all his electrical appliances and devices still functioning normally—heat, lights, air conditioning, refrigerator/freezer, washer/dryer, power tools, everything—but the taps still poured forth unlimited quantities of clear, fresh, chlorinated water.
Sir Francis and the Reichsherzog, however, did not question the source of the tap flow. "'Tis but God's mysterious will, Bass, wha' ither? Aye, glad be I tae hae sich, I trow, for ne'er did ony fort or castle or burgh hae tae much potable water. An' this be ane soorce the thrice-domned Scots cannae sully or stop."
"Ach, ja," the hulking German had nodded vigorous assent. "Vhen gone iss the food, rats roasted can be and boots boiled, but when wasser gone iss, surrender or die vun must."
Jack-of-all-trades Pete Fairley had taken apart the two truck trailers and worked the thin, light, strong sheet metal into six watertight, capacious, and relatively comfortable wagon bodies. He had then had three dozen sets of running gear reduced to component parts, had had a pair of master wagonmakers scrutinize and test every wheel-rim spoke, axletree, singletree, doubletree, bolster, pole, and hub. The six sets of running gear assembled from these parts were the best that the hand of man could fashion, and the leather springs on which the bodies were mounted were a wonder to all who beheld them.
One of these masterpieces was packed with the clothing and other possessions Foster was taking to York, one each was assigned as a trek-home to Foster and Krystal, Dave and Webster, Pete and the lusty young wench with whom he had been living for some months, Carey Carr and Susan.
Foster had first thought of taking Arbor Collier along, but Krystal had demurred, saying, "No, Bass, she'd never survive the trip. She's a very sick woman and has shown little improvement in response to anything I've tried to do for her. I think she hasn't got long to live, even here, but the kind of trip you say this is going to be would kill her in less than a week."
The trek started well—clear, if bitingly cold. During the first night out, the temperature rose amazingly, and though the dawn brought a fine, misty drizzle, all the men and women felt the unexpected warmth to be worth a little wetness. But as the day wore on, the rain became heavier, and soon feet and hooves and wheels were squishing into and dragging out of deep mud. The rain still poured as the soaked and bedraggled party went into the second night's camp, and in that night the temperature dropped, plunged at least—Foster figured—thirty-odd degrees. By morning, the rain had become pelting sleet and the wheels of heavy-laden wagons and wains were fast-frozen into the rock-hard earth the mud was become. Many had to be completely unloaded before straining teams could drag them free. It was almost noon before they were moving again.
And it got progressively worse . . . but arrive at their destination they did, most of them.
CHAPTER 6
Harold of York leaned both elbows on the gaming table as he studied the chessboard separating him from Foster; suddenly, the strong, slender fingers of his right hand swooped down to bring a tall, beautifully carved knight into position.
"Check," he smiled triumphantly.
After a brief moment, Foster's queen was moved out and the ivory knight joined the small host of captures, leaving the Archbishop only two pawns and a rook with which to defend the beleaguered king. Shortly, that king was boxed into an inescapable cul-de-sac. With a gusty sign, Harold tipped the six-inch-high, gold-crowned sovereignty onto its side. "Le roi est mort." At a wave of his hand, a silent, cat-footed servant stepped up to refill the goblets of his master and guest, then just as silently returned to his place near the door.
After savoring the rich Canary, the churchman remarked, "Your mind assuredly be on weightier matters, my son. You won but five of this night's seven encounters. Or doth my skill so wax, eh?"
Foster sipped politely, then set the silver goblet down. He would have preferred ale or even water to the sweet, sweet wine. He nodded. "Your game is definitely improving, Your Eminence. But you're right, I am thinking about something else."
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "The Lady Krystal and I, we . . . well, we must be married, and soon."
The Archbishop leaned back against the tall, canopied backrest of his heavy chair, his bushy-white eyebrows arching up. Smiling gently, he said, "May I ask the reason for this precipitate haste . . . or must I guess?" But when Foster would have replied, he waved his hand. "No, my son, that question was rhetorical. Of course you two shall be wed, by me, and this very night, and you so wish it."
But the wedding—a simple, beautiful ceremony—took place three nights later in one of the smaller chapels of the cathedral complex.
And at noon the following day, Reichsherzog Wolfgang arrived from the north.
Foster heard of the arrival long before the newcomers reached the Archbishop's commodious stone residence, and so was in the courtyard to greet the big, gruff German. For all that increasing numbers of Scot reavers had begun to roam the Northumbrian Marches, making life chancy and increasingly hazardous for natives and travelers alike, the Emperor's brother had, it developed, ridden that deadly gauntlet with but eight of his Mongol troopers.
Six of the flat-faced, bowlegged little men still rode at his back, though Foster noted that at least one was tied into his saddle, his jaws clenched and his black eyes dulled with pain. To two other saddles were lashed the frozen bodies of dead Mongols, while a rough, largish bundle covered with tartan was packed upon another riderless horse.
Wolfgang handled the reins of his tired charger with his right hand; his left arm was wrapped in dirty, blood-crusty bandages and tucked under his baldric, but his blue eyes lit with pleasure when he espied Foster in the doorway, and, tossing his reins to a waiting groom, he slid from the saddle and strode over, smiling.
"Ach, Herr Hauptmann Forster, to see again old friends iss gut, ja? Ach, ja! Gut hunting had mein jungen and me, sree-und-tventy heads of Scots, ve bring to decorate the gates. You veil are? Und the scharming Mistress Krystal von Kent?"
For all the royal duke's bluff heartiness, however, Foster saw him stumble twice as he ascended the steps, and the gauntleted hand that gripped his own was weak, devoid of the famous crushing grip.
Foster turned to the young pageboy assigned him. "Oliver, my compliments to my lady wife. Please tell her that I will be shortly arriving with Reichsherzog Wolfgang. Tell her as well that the Reichsherzog be wounded."
"Nonsense," snapped Wolfgang as the little page scuttled off. He gestured at the immobilized left arm. "This but a trifle be, the bones in the forearm broke, but the edge from my flesh my gut mail gauntlets kept; the other a clean vound iss, through muscle the bail vent und out und the bone unscathed iss."
Then belatedly, comprehension of what he had heard manifested itself in a yellow-toothed grin. "Lady vife? You? Und Mistress Krystal? Ach, goot, goot. My congratulations."
The two men proceeded toward Foster's quarters, Foster himself moving far more deliberately than usual, in order to spare Wolfgang's obviously failing strength. "And your godson, my lord? Egon, what of him? He was still too infirm to ride down with you?"
The big man vented a gasping chuckle. "Sound as a suit of proof iss the Jung, but stubborn, like all his House, hah! Mit me he rode into Schottlandt, to the hall of those schweinhunden who hiss troopers killed
und to take him for ransom tried. Efery man ve slew, their spawn into the snow ve drove out und their women too . . . vhen done mit them ve vere." He grinned wolfishly, then went on. "Goot looting vas that hall und a fine fire it made, after."
"But Egon, hah! Mit reavers ahorse over most of the Northumbria, Sir Francis to let hiss daughter now ride south vill not allow, und of rightness he iss. But Egon romantic iss as the jungen so often are, und he insists that to remain by his chosen lady he vill. So, mit him I left my faithful Amadeo und most of my goot Tartars. Most potent and solemn oaths did they svear to protect him and hiss lady, so fear not for our Egon."
Recalling the silent and immensely powerful Savoyard called Amadeo, who had been Wolfgang's personal servant and bodyguard for many years, not to mention the several dozens of Mongol horse archers who virtually worshiped their German commanders, Foster had not the slightest doubt that Egon von Hirschburg and Arabella Whyffler would be as safe as human flesh could wreak.
The snow melted, the streams rose over their banks, the rivers became boiling torrents of frigid water, laden with a flotsam of ice chunks and uprooted trees. Very gradually, a few bare degrees each succeeding week, the winds from off the far highlands shed their biting teeth and, here and there, tiny flowers began to show a bit of color.
As soon as the gaps were passable and the streams fordable, King Alexander led his host across the ancient boundary and into England. Thirty thousand fighting men followed his banner. There were a vast host of Highlanders, lean as winter wolves, unshod and barelegged in the cold mud, dirty, disheveled, usually bearded and armed only with dirks, cowhide targets, and a miscellany of archaic pole-arms. The most of them owned no single piece of armor; indeed, few owned even a rough shirt. Flat, feathered bonnets and the long, pleated, filthy tartans which were clothing and cloak by day and blanket by night were their sole attire.
The Lowland troops were mostly better clothed and armed, but there were far fewer of them. Since Alexander had yet to settle his multitudinous differences with certain powerful and influential lairds, they had flatly refused to either march with his invasion army or to allow their folk to do so. For that reason, the personal troops of the Papal Legate—two thousand Genovese crossbowmen and four thousand mercenary landesknechten—were a welcome addition, in the Scottish king's mind.
So, too, were the multitude of Crusader-noblemen of assorted nationalities—renegade Englishmen, Irish, French, Flemings, Burgundians, Scandinavians, Portuguese and Spaniards, Savoyards, Italians, Dalmatians, Croatians, Greeks and Bulgars, even a few Turkish and Egyptian knights—and the handful of tightly disciplined, ebon-skinned, Ghanaian mercenaries whom Papal agents had found for him to hire.
Withal, he was vastly deficient in cavalry—only a little over ten percentum of his army was mounted—and such artillery as he possessed was hardly worthy of the name. Nor could he safely get any of the heavy, clumsy, unwieldy bombards close enough to the well-designed defenses of Whyffler Hall to effectively reduce it. The two mass assaults launched against the place accomplished nothing save a couple of thousand dead and wounded Scots and a distinct plunge in the morale of the generally courageous but always volatile Highlanders.
Deciding Whyffler Hall too tough a nut to crack, Alexander left a contingent of his less dependable troops to invest the fort and marched on southeast with his reduced host. The English army met them just south of Hexham.
——«»——«»——«»——
Foster lay propped against his rolled sleeping bag, heedlessly dripping blood on the floor of his tattered pyramid tent, and wishing he had something more effective than a jug of captured whiskey to dull the waves of pain.
Nugai, the bodyguard-batman assigned to him by the Reichsherzog, had pulled off his master's left boot, unbuckled and removed the cuishe-plate and the knee-cop, and carefully cut away the blood-stiff trouser leg. Lacking water, he had sloshed a measure of the raw whiskey onto the cloth adhering to the long slash in Foster's leg—at which point only Foster's pride kept him from shrieking like a banshee and blasting headfirst through the roof like a rocket—then gently worried the fabric from the flesh. Ignoring the gush of fresh blood brought by his ministrations, the impassive little man had scooped a handful of a stinking brownish paste from an earthenware bowl. With strong yellow fingers, he had stretched open the mouth of the wound and stuffed it full of the concoction, then smeared more of it over the gash before bandaging the injured leg.
Foster had been afraid to ask the oriental what went to make up the paste, but within a few minutes after the treatment, his leg not only no longer pained him but was almost numb from foot to crotch. He thought, lying there alone, that he would never again hear a bagpipe without recalling the grim horror and chaos of the two-day battle against the Scots. And he did not even know who—if anyone!—had won, yet.
Camped on the marshy moor, the outnumbered English army had watched the flicker of fires in and about what was left of the town of Hexham through the hours of a drizzly night. And through all that night, those damned pipes had droned and wailed, while the wild, war-dancing Highlanders yelped and howled.
As the new day's sun peeked above the horizon, Arthur's army stood to arms and moved in disciplined ranks across the mile of slick, spongy earth toward the forming Scots.
Holding the fractious Bruiser tight-reined, Foster felt that his bladder would surely burst, and his mouth was dry as sand. He drew and balanced his blade, made certain his dirk was loose enough, checked the priming and the springs of his Irish wheel-locks, made certain that his horse pistols were loaded. Then he checked the Luger which had been Collier's and with which he had replaced the Colt, since the .45 ACP ammo was exhausted. These things done, he half-turned in the saddle and considered the alignment of his squadron, noted that they had trailed a bit behind the center and so gave Bruiser a bit more rein.
Looking forward, Foster wished he had his binoculars—they were on loan to King Arthur—for he could make out no details of the wing his squadron was advancing upon; his vision registered only a roiling mass of multihued tartans. But white steel flashed above and among the mob of shaggy men in soggy wool and the warcries in guttural Gaelic rang more clearly with every passing moment.
King Alexander's center was formed well before his wings had achieved anything approaching stability, and a galloper pounded up to Foster only a moment after he had brought his Squadron to a halt.
Walk. Draw pistols. Trot Gallop! Present pistols. FIRE! Right wheel. Right wheel. Right wheel. Walk. Replace pistols, Draw pistols. Trot Gallop! Present pistols. FIRE!
The two ordered volleys produced vast confusion in the ranks of the Highlanders who composed King Alexander's left wing. Numbers of the barbaric, ill-armed men ran out in pursuit of the withdrawing dragoons, waving glaives and bills and halberds, two-handed swords and war hammers. The various chiefs ran or rode out to belabor and curse their clansmen back into some sort of order, but some of those clansmen were gone berserk with battle-lust, and it was a slow and dangerous undertaking.
Blessed with a spine of the steadier Lowland axmen, the right wing held a bit better under the volleys of Webster's squadron. Both squadrons of dragoons had retired behind the infantry of their respective wings to reload their pistols when, with a horrific wailing of pipes and clamor of drums, the Scots commenced an advance along their entire front. At a distance still well beyond accurate musket range, the center halted long enough for the Genovese to pace forward and release their deadly quarrels.
But before the Scottish center could resume the advance, the front ranks of the English center opened and two dozen small field guns on odd-looking carriages were wheeled out and fired, their grape and chain-shot tearing sanguineous gaps in the ranks of the best Scottish troops upon the field. Then, smoothly, the guns were withdrawn from view of the battered and bemused enemy.
The right wing had halted when did the center, but the left had either not received, or—more likely, considering the self-willed and independent
Highland chiefs—chosen to ignore the command. Screaming threats and taunts, roaring their slogans and war cries, they rolled down upon the English right wing in a formless mob.
When the charging horde was a bit over a hundred yards away, fifty pairs of men paced deliberately forward of the formations of pikemen. When their partners had placed the rests firmly, the gunners rested the long barrels of their strangely shaped arquebuses in the forks, blew on their matches, aimed, and fired a ragged volley. Here and there, a Scot fell, but the chiefs had expected such a volley.
After their volley, the gunners were supposed to rapidly retire behind the pikewall to reload, if they had time, but these remained in place. If the Scots had been observing at close range, they would have seen each gunner draw back his serpentine, carefully turn the big, heavy iron cylinder affixed within the breech of his weapon, and shove it forward to fit tightly into the tapered rear of the barrel. After thumbing back the cover of a small pan at the rear of the cylinder and glancing down to make sure that it still was filled with priming powder, each gunner blew on his match, took aim, and fired.
By the time the seventh volley had been fired, and gunners and assistants were cooperating in fitting another iron cylinder to each arquebus, hundreds of clansmen were down, still or kicking and screaming, and most of the initial impetus of the advance had been lost. Justly renowned for their courage and tenacity, the Highlanders did continue the advance, but considerably more slowly. And this gave the gunners time to pour seven more withering volleys into the oncoming foe.
Even with their losses, however, the Scots still were far more numerous than the English right and, when it was obvious that they would vastly overlap and be able to flank the English formation, Foster's dragoons, reinforced with three troops of lancers, were ordered to charge.
