Of Chiefs and Champions

by Robert Adams

  "It's Nugai," was the answer. "He heard of a place famous throughout the land for its varieties and quantities of herbs, and . . ."

  Bass sighed dispiritedly. "This business seems to be going badly from before the start of it. I pray that that's not an omen of what is to come, my old friend. Well then, tell Wolfie I said to pick out a good Kalmyk subordinate for you. That's the best I can do under present circumstances."

  It was a dark and dismal and forbidding place, a stretch of empty moorland just under the loom of hills that the Irish dignified as mountains. The chapman had sat there for hours, while his big ass avidly gorged on the coarse herbage of the place. At last, late in the day, he whom he had been awaiting so patiently arrived, though not by assback.

  The Elder One climbed from out his carrier, walked over to the chapman, and sank into a squat, facing him. "I thought it the better to come here by such method, especially since we two never had met since my appearance has been altered. I am Bmy601," he said in the tongue which, in all the length and breadth of Ireland, only he and his listener spoke or could comprehend. "Did you see whoever stole your carrier, then?"

  "No," said chapman. "I had left the carrier, set for total invisibility, in the hold of the ship that had conveyed me from the Low Countries to Corcaigh-port, Elder One. But when once I was into the city, I discovered that certain of my most reliable and valuable informants no longer lived, and so I returned to the ship in order to secure more gold with which to buy new informants. But the carrier was gone from the hold. It was then that I prepared and sent the message cylinder, and upon receiving your return cylinder, I purchased this beast and journeyed up here."

  The squatting man asked, "Can you get back to Corcaigh-port in time to sail back to the mainland aboard it? In Amsterdam, Unk882 keeps a projector strong enough to send you back to Provence or to our place in the east."

  "Elder One," the chapman replied, "I dare not set foot in the Kingdom of Munster again, especially not in Corcaigh city, for one of the old network of my informants who did remain extant told me that a large and most tempting reward will be paid to whoever delivers up the Provencal chapman who calls himself Guillaume de l'Orient alive and unharmed . . . and Elder One must know what that means they intend by me. It is said that at least two of my old informants were done to death under torture."

  "Yes," agreed the squatting man, "I understand, these are most primitive, barbaric, brutal beings among whom we out-agents move. Very well, then, let me fetch my own projector and I will send you a-journeying from here. Where would you prefer, Younger One, to Amsterdam or to York? The projector I have with me simply has not a sufficiency of range to waft you so far as Provence or farther. Now that I think of it, it might be better if you bode in York for a while, for another One is soon to come there to investigate the theft of that Younger One's carrier—that instance clearly an outright theft, since the perpetrator was seen in the very act by that Younger One."

  "Yes, I will do that, send you to York. Men are never surprised to see those of your supposed calling anywhere wherein folk of any station dwell, so your presence will not arouse curiosity or comment. I can even send your ass along, if you wish him, but let us wait until it be full dark, eh? You have a small metal pot? Good, let us start a modest fire and brew some herb tea with some of these fresh herbs I bear in this wallet."

  Baròn Melchoro and his command were only some two hours over the Mide-Airgialla border when a galloper was to be seen trailing a long plume of dust and bearing down upon the head of the column from the vanguard.

  Reining up, the galloglaich rendered his report to Sir Guy FitzWilliam in a guttural Hebridean Gaelic heavily sprinkled with Norse loanwords, then the knight from out the lands of the Northern Ui Neills turned in his saddle and gave Melchoro a rough translation.

  "My lord, it would seem that the road beyond yonder hill be blocked by a barrier of weighty timbers and guarded by a very plentitude of horse and foot, backed up by emplaced guns. Righ Roberto of Ulaid leads these troops and bids the commander of this force ride up and hear him, that his words may be borne back to the Ard-Righ. His Majesty of Ulaid goes on to state that although my lord's person would be completely safe did he ride up alone, he may nonetheless bring as numerous a guard as he may fancy. He knows that we are all of His Grace of Norfolk's condotta, he avers his full respect and admiration for His Grace, and emphasizes that he wishes no one of us ill and only will fight should we try to press forward on the road or bypass him toward Ard Macha."

  Melchoro heard FitzWilliam out, then nodded. "Righ Roberto is an honorable gentleman and guns have been known to fire by accident; therefore, the column will remain in place here, and I will ride up and hear him out. Would you, Sir Guy, and Feldwebel Tzingit be so good as to accompany me and the bannermen?"

  The Baron's estimate of Righ Roberto's military expertise went up several notches when he saw just where and in what order the blockade of the road had been managed. Formidable and well-built as it was, the timber barrier would have been bypassable and therefore most ineffective in many another spot along this road, but where it sat, anchored on either hand to thick, massive posts sunk deeply into the road's shoulders, ease of passage—or any passage at all, for that matter—could have been attained only by burning it or blasting it apart with cannon fire or, possibly, a brace of hefty petards to destroy the main supports. Burning would be difficult to impossible to achieve, for even at the distance, he could see that the barrier was dripping water into the wide pools at its base. The butcher's bill would be unthinkably high for any attempt at placing petards, and in order for his six minions to accomplish anything at all, they would have to go into battery virtually under the looming mouths of some dozen demiculverins cunningly emplaced on the side of the hill that arose hard by the left side of the road.

  The ground to the right of the road was a patent impossibility for horsemen, being a stretch of at least a mile of marshy bog and broad-spreading sheets of slimy, greenish water that continued on outward to almost the horizon. Along the extremely narrow widths of firmer ground closest to the raised roadway, Righ Roberto had had sunk a dense line of sharp-pointed stakes, all slanting outward from the gunmen and archers. More gunmen, axemen, and archers lined the hillside among and behind the cannon, and still more, plus some dozens of armored horsemen, were posted behind the timber barrier.

  Righ Roberto himself, in three-quarter plate armor, sat a tall destrier—one of the regal leopard-horses of the same ancient strain as the Duke of Norfolk's own treasured charger, Bruiser—under the barely moving silken folds of two royal banners. Some few armored and armed noblemen and gentlemen backed and flanked him, but no one weapon was uncased and most sat unhelmeted, which was reassuring to the approaching party.

  The new-made King of Ulaid toed his destrier a few yards ahead of his retainers and, smiling warmly, bespoke Melchoro as an equal, in a friendly, comradely, one-old-soldier-to-another fashion.

  "His Grace of Norfolk did not ride up here, then, Melchoro?"

  "No, Majesty," replied Melchoro. "His Grace follows with the rest of the condotta, the guns and the trains, as per the orders of the High King. Your Majesty must be aware that although his fine placements here will stop me and the cavalry, His Grace will go through them with the ease of feces through the proverbial goose."

  "It is my sincere wish that His Grace will not essay to do such," said Roberto di Bolgia earnestly, "for there is more here than is easily visible to you. I greatly admire and respect His Grace, and, in consequence, it would pain me to have to wreak ill upon him and his, but I cannot allow his or any others of the High King's forces into this so recently bereaved a kingdom."

  "Know you, Baron Melchoro, that this Kingdom of Airgialla now be under my protection in my office of regent for their infant king, Forrgus II, only legitimate son of the late Righ Ronan Ui Connaile."

  Melchoro just shook his head slowly. "By Your Majesty's leave, I must say that I much fear that he has taken leave of his senses in
this matter. Your Majesty's army is small, ill-balanced, and weak, his kingdom is small and poor, and Airgialla, though possessed of more wealth, has no army of any description, it all being presently in service with High King Brian's forces in Connachta."

  "The High King, Your Majesty must be aware, is a most acquisitive and stubborn monarch. He is possessed of substantial wealth, and even without this condotta, his army is large, well-balanced, modern in most of the important respects, thoroughly blooded, and powerful. He considers Airgialla to be his client state, and Your Majesty may be assured that he will respond quickly and awesomely to this gauntlet Your Majesty has here hurled down."

  "Your Majesty would stand no chance against the High King's armies alone, but now the lands to the immediate westward of Ulaid are come into the High King's camp, as well, so Your Majesty were well advised to precipitately withdraw, while still he can in peace and honor, without bloodshed and the disasters which a conquering army surely would wreak upon his lands and people."

  But Righ Roberto's smile never left his full lips, never ceased to sparkle in his dark eyes. "Thank you for your sincerity, Baron Melchoro, for your obvious solicitude for Ulaid and our people, but know you that the High King himself will be well advised to keep his armies of those of his northern cousins out of Ulaid and this Kingdom of Airgialla, for there now is more than our small, weak force with which to contend. The High King may move against an all but helpless calf and find that he has aroused a raging and deadly bull."

  The Baron arched an eyebrow quizzically. "Does Your Majesty deign to elucidate that cryptic admonition?"

  "Gladly." Righ Roberto grinned. "With the enthusiastic approval of our Grand Council of Ulaid, we and our privy councilors sailed to the Hebrides. There we ceded our Kingdom of Ulaid to Aonghas, Regulus of the Western Isles, and received them back as a feoff, so he now is our overlord and, we think, too tough a nut for even the High King to contemplate cracking without losing more teeth than he can easily afford to lose." Roberto paused to laugh loudly and merrily, then, still chuckling between words, added, "That bald fact should give Brian the Burly a bellyache of high kingly proportions, we would think. We would advise in friendship, Baron, that you try hard to not be the man who has to bear the word of this new order of affairs to his hairy royal ears."

  The cavalry column took its time on the return march, arriving at the camp of the Duke of Norfolk to find it in a roiling uproar. When Bass Foster had heard the dust-coated nobleman's report, he nodded tiredly. "All right, Melchoro, you did the best you could. Under those circumstances you've described, I wouldn't have mounted an attack or tried a bypass, either, rest assured of that fact."

  "Track down Master Buford, dictate a synopsis of your report to him or one of his scribes, sign it, seal it, and let a galloper bear it to Lagore or Tara or Dublin or wherever Brian's off to now. Ever since a letter arrived from Islay, in the Scottish Western Isles, on the very day you left here, Himself has been in a towering rage, and anyone with any sense has been steering clear of his presence, if at all possible."

  "You, of course, would know what was the gist of that letter. The Regulus of the Western Isles of Scotland has, it is said, more real power than King James of Scotland—in point of fact, King James is, himself, one of the vassals of the Regulus, holding lands in the central highlands in feoff from him."

  "Roberto di Bolgia is a most astute young man; had there been any earlier doubt of that fact, this is unimpeachable proof of it. He and everyone else with brains knew that if Brian found that he could not intimidate Roberto or buy him, he would move against him with the army, and had he, no matter how great a captain Roberto may have proven himself, the end would have been certain and quick for him and a free Ulaid."

  "It is now known that he made tentative overtures to the Northern Ui Neills to forge an alliance with them against Brian, but when the righ and ri of that kingdom chose to join Brian, Roberto was forced to think and act fast, and we know he did. If there is one man in these islands capable of daunting the ambitious, devious, unscrupulous, and grasping Ard-Righ, it is he they call with unabashed awe the Black Bull of the Hebrides, Sir Aonghas Mac Dhomhnuill, Regulus of the Isles, Earl of Ross and Sheriff of Inverness, now overlord of the kingdoms of Ulaid and Airgialla, as well."

  "This entire kingdom has been in a turmoil since Brian got that letter from the Regulus, you know. First off, he sent a Silver Moon Knight galloping over here to tell me to forget the trains and march at once on Ard Macha, and that galloper hadn't gotten out of camp when there came another of the same ilk to rescind that order. He did the same with his royal army in Connachta, first ordering them back here, then telling them to stay put, then telling them to stand by and be prepared to break off operations there and march on Airgialla and Ulaid."

  "Yesterday, they say, he was in Dublin-port arranging personally that all available transport barges be held for him and fitted out to carry horses and big guns. Hearing this, I sent off Wolfie aboard Butterfly bound for London with dispatches for King Arthur. Scotland and King James are now his allies, and I doubt that he would like me taking any part in an invasion of any lands of the Regulus, which I am certain is what Brian presently contemplates attempting. Naturally, his advisers are trying to discourage so mad a scheme, and it is said that he already has crippled one of them and nearly slain another in his excesses of rage, but the survivors are brave men, thank God, they're keeping after him, though obliquely, of course."

  Melchoro sighed. "It's a pity, my friend, Your Grace, a very great pity. Based upon his conduct of the last few months, I had begun to admire the Ard-Righ, had begun to consider him one of the few—if not indeed the only—modern, sophisticated, full rational monarchs in all this ever-troubled isle. It is a pity to realize that it all was but a facade, that at his primal core he is only another murderous, ill-controlled, and utterly mad scion of the dangerously interbred Irish nobility."

  "So, then, Bass, what course will we follow until you receive a firm order from King Arthur?"

  "Just what I'm doing now, Melchoro—giving every appearance of a preparation for imminently taking the field, while actually doing little save preparing for a possible speedy return to England. As I said, Brian has recalled the fleet from its interdictive duties off the coast of Connachta, his ships as well as the bulk of mine. Immediately my fleet reaches Liffeymouth, I want them notified to not proceed up the river without my personal order, and the same applies to Walid Pasha's squadron, which is presently in Liverpool. They are to lie off the coast and stand ready to take off the condotta at a moment's notice; since the High King has seized every barge to which his minions could lay hands and will, no doubt, continue to so do, we may well have to leave most of the horses and mules in Ireland, but I'll see them all replaced when once we are safely back in England, never you fear. I will, naturally, endeavor to find a way to take off the knights' destriers, despite everything."

  His brows wrinkled up, Melchoro inquired, "And what of Sir Lugaid Ui Drona and his condotta of foot, those whose contract the High King bought from Righ Roberto immediately after that monarch was coronated? Will we be taking them back to England with us, too?"

  "I'd like to," answered Bass. "He's a top-flight officer and his are good troops, but there are only so many bottoms to my fleet, so, no, I'll just have to leave them here. Besides, it was Brian's gold bought them, so by rights, they're his, not mine." Then the Duke of Norfolk paused a moment and grinned. "Although, as that condotta was originally one of mounted galloglaiches before the late and unlamented Righ Conan of Ulaid saw fit to sell their mounts from under them, I have already, and with Sir Lugaid's written consent, hired away a hundred or so of them to fill out the understrength unit I brought over here from England. My squadron officers all tell me that these new troopers are working out well and as harmoniously with the rest of the original squadron as galloglaiches ever will, and they all of them seem overjoyed to get their rumps back into saddles."

  Sitting side by side on we
athered blocks of masonry atop one of the low hills of ruins, their carriers bobbing and softly glowing nearby, John told Arsen, "They're not really mammoths, Arsen, at least not duplicates of any of the creatures that have been dug out the Siberian or Alaskan permafrost; they're none of them furry enough, for one thing—although, this may be just their lighter-weight summer pelage, of course. Their ears are far bigger than those of mammoths, and their tusks are far more like those of the straight-tusked elephant than they are like those of the classic mammoth."

  "I suppose, then," remarked Arsen with a touch of sourness, "that you're going to tell me those aren't buffalos and horses back there, either."

  John grinned. "You're half right. Those are not buffalo, they're bison, but not the kind of bison that are still alive in our world and time, those called Bison bison. Those huge critters back there are not Bison bison, not with those six-foot spreads of horns. I'd say they're either the Bison primogenus or the Bison latifrons."

  "As for those horses, I'll freely admit, I don't know what in the hell to make of the fuckers. With their big, blocky heads, their thickish legs, and their highly unusual coloring, they're like no other horse or mustang I've ever seen in the flesh or in pictures."

  John shook his head. "Of course, Arsen, I'm just an amateur, a hobbyist at this stuff, really. Too bad Bedros Yacubian didn't play with the band that night—he'd be in pig's paradise, here."

  "What do you mean?" demanded Arsen. "Is that stuck-up fucker into this shit, too?"

  John smiled. "You might say that, Arsen, you might well say that. He's a good bit deeper into it than I am or will ever be: he's a paleontologist, specializing in Pliocene and Pleistocene mammals and birds."