Harald-ARC

by David Friedman

  "Such as?"

  "Playing beggar boy in the Imperial camp and bringing me a count of what I was fighting. And no, I don't need you to do that again just now; I know what they have. Scouting still to be done, some of it on foot. Messages to carry. Maybe help steal some horses in a day or two.

  "Speaking of which, I have to find an uncle of yours." Harald gave Asbjorn a brief hug, set off through the encampment.

  Half way to where he had left the mare, he saw Stephen, stopped a moment to talk.

  "Off to find some friends, back tomorrow. One thing like you to deal with—message to Ragnar, hills north of Eston valley, last little valley east—Knute knows where. Fourth steading up from the main road. Can't find Ragnar, find Jon, his mother, first steading up; they can pass it on. Tell Ragnar to signal our friends east of him—he knows—shut the gates. Rest of it as we planned. Have someone can get over the hills? Eston valley's crowded just now."

  "I can find someone to send. Ragnar in the fourth steading up Red Rock Creek. Tell him to signal east."

  Harald nodded. Almost as soon as Harald was out of sight, Stephen noticed another familiar face, stopped a moment.

  "Lord Stephen? Grandfather doesn't want me in the line, said I could carry messages. Don't suppose ...?"

  * * *

  "Stephen sent him off yesterday with my message. Asbjorn, Hen, Jon, all in one little valley in sight of an enemy army. We have a problem."

  Caralla considered the matter briefly.

  "So does the Emperor."

  "There is that. Good boys. Not exactly cautious."

  She looked at her father, responded more to tone than words.

  "Might be something I can do."

  Mischief

  Brand kindles brand till they burn out,

  Flame is quickened by flame:

  Tonio looked up, sniffed.

  "I smell smoke."

  His partner kept his eyes on the forest edge:

  "Of course you smell smoke; what do you think the army cooks over?"

  "This smells different. Leaves, like the meadow at home in the fall. Look."

  The other guard followed his finger. The plume was rising from somewhere past the near ridge above them, pouring lazily down the slope into the valley.

  "It is odd. Think the Karls are trying to fire the forest?"

  "Just one fire. I'll go tell Marko, see if he wants us to do something."

  Ten minutes later, half a squad of legionaries was moving warily up the slope through the woods. Nobody. Over the ridge a small clearing, a bonfire mostly burned out.

  Tonio felt something strike his shield, yelled out:

  "Archers. Shields up."

  More arrows from the woods beyond. One of the legionaries was kneeling behind his shield, a feathered shaft sticking out of his leg. The squad commander signaled the rest forward.

  By the time they rejoined the wounded man, the fire had mostly burned out. Tonio poked at it curiously while two of the others improvised a stretcher.

  * * *

  "I think your Majesty should see this."

  Tonio, eyes down, urged forward, held up his blistered hands.

  "Tell His Majesty what happened."

  The legionary hesitated, spoke:

  "It was the Karls, sir. Majesty. They had a bonfire upslope. Smelled funny. Officer took half a squad of us up to see. Two or three of them shot at us, ran away—one man hurt."

  "Did you have anything particular to do with the bonfire? Put your hands in the smoke, did you?"

  "No sir. Just poked it with my sword, make sure it was out, try to see what was in it."

  "And you then wiped off your sword blade, as a good soldier would."

  "Yes sir."

  The Emperor turned to the physician:

  "Anyone else?"

  "Not like that. But two soldiers, one the wounded man from his squad, had skin blisters, said they itched. After I saw Tonio ..."

  "Yes. There might be more—look into it. Not much we can do now. Next time ... "

  He turned to one of the other officers in the tent:

  "Karol. You said your savages wanted to get into the fun, kill someone."

  * * *

  "Everyone still all right?"

  The other two boys held out their hands; Asbjorn looked them over carefully.

  "Good. Poison weed doesn't do much to me, some people touch it, scratching all over for weeks. Careful not to touch, washed after, still a risk."

  "Do we do it again?" That was Hen.

  Asbjorn thought a moment:

  "Cleared out the big patch Jon knew about. Getting that much again a lot of work. This time we do it without the weed."

  "What good does that do? Oh."

  "Know where the enemy is going to be, half the battle."

  Their preparations took most of the day. When they were done, all three went swimming, then Asbjorn and Hen went upstream, Jon into the woods. When they met again at the empty house—Jon's mother and the farm animals were with a neighbor ten miles farther up the little valley—there were trout from the stream to clean and cook, two rabbits from Jon's snares.

  Hen pointed at the biggest trout:

  "I got that one. It really works. You just have to stay very still, everything but the fingers."

  Jon looked up from cleaning his rabbits:

  "Harald told me. Didn't ever show me though. Said he couldn't do it left handed."

  "Tomorrow, after the ambush. All three of us can go—if I can't make it work, 'Bjorn'll show you."

  Asbjorn held up a hand for silence, looked around, shook his head, went back to grilling fish over the fire.

  In the middle of the night Hen woke up. Smell of straw, animals. The barn door closing. Asbjorn's head appeared as he climbed up to the loft.

  "What is it?"

  "Nothing. Just scouting to be sure. Thought I saw something earlier, maybe not. Go to sleep—lots to do tomorrow."

  * * *

  The first legionary came out of the woods into the edge of the clearing, shield up. More. The line moved cautiously forward, shifting right to avoid the blowing smoke. One man stumbled, cursed, fell forward. Arrows out of the woods; he jerked, lay still. The others kept coming, more cautiously still. A sound of cracking branches, two of the remaining four waist deep into a pit. One of them screamed, reached down, lowering his shield; more arrows.

  Asbjorn saw a flicker of something off to the right, drew, released, yelled:

  "Run."

  He loosed a second arrow blind, followed his own order, cursing silently at the sound of the other two crashing through the woods ahead of him. No time to look back, skin crawling. Sunlight ahead. Through the small meadow. At the far side he turned, nocked, waited, sounds moving away, trying to remember.

  Three figures out of the woods at the far side, running. Painted faces, hide shields. He loosed, heard the arrow strike the shield, aimed lower, loosed. No time; he snatched for his dagger.

  One of the Bashkai dropped his axe, clutched at an arrow sprouting from his throat, stumbled, fell. The other two retreated back into the cover of the trees; Bjorn saw that one of them had an arrow in his leg.

  "Run."

  A stranger's voice. Glanced to one side. Mail, his own size, tunic gold brown. Another beyond. Longbows.

  "More coming. Run now, talk later."

  He saw them again clearly when all three came into the field below the house. Ladies of the Order, bow, quiver, sword. The one in the lead jumped the low stone wall, took cover behind it; a moment later she was joined by Asbjorn and the other.

  The first Lady turned to look back at the house, Jon and Hen staring wide-eyed. He had heard women compared to flowers; this one reminded him of a sword blade. Something familiar. Who? She called out in a low voice: "Hen. Form up with us; they may still be coming."

  Both boys picked up their bows, joined the three at the wall.

  Half an hour later, the second Lady lowered her bow, turned to Asbjorn.

  "
Want to check out the woods on the far side. Can you cover—stay behind, shoot anyone tries to kill me?"

  He nodded. She came over the wall, a weaving run to the forest edge; he followed.

  By the time they got back, the other three were sitting talking, Jon still watching the woods. The slender Lady stood up as they arrived; so did Hen:

  "'Bjorn, this is Elaina; 'Laina, Asbjorn."

  "And my sister's Kara. Caralla said she was afraid her crazy nephew would get Hen and his friend into trouble, asked me to come keep an eye on things."

  Hen looked up, spoke in a tone of honest astonishment.

  "She sent you to keep us out of trouble?"

  Kara glared at him; Elaina grinned.

  "Actually, she said that if Kara had kept me alive for the past four years, Asbjorn should be easy. She and Mother worry too much."

  Asbjorn stopped watching her, turned to Kara.

  "It was you in the woods last night?"

  She nodded.

  "Hammocks in the forest, wanted to scout things out a bit."

  Jon spoke: "You can have mother's bed if you want it; Hen and 'Bjorn are in the barn."

  Kara shook her head:

  "Woods are safer. Harder to find."

  High Tide

  The halt can manage a horse,

  the handless a flock,

  The deaf be a doughty fighter,

  To be blind is better than to burn on a pyre:

  There is nothing the dead can do.

  A room, a bed, a cradle. Two women arguing.

  "Please, my lady."

  "It won't work."

  "You could disguise yourself as a servant. A boy. They don't even know you're here. None of our people would tell."

  Anne looked at her affectionately, bent over the cradle, reached down. The baby found what she was looking for, fell silent again.

  "I haven't looked like a boy since I was thirteen, and certainly not at the moment. And you're forgetting Andrew. We don't know if any of his people are inside the castle—Captain Henry and the Lady Commander have been watching. But there are surely people of his, maybe Andrew himself, with the Emperor, and they know what I look like."

  "There must be some way. Hide in the dungeons maybe. His Majesty, Harald would say the same."

  "James might. Harald would expect me to meet His Imperial Majesty at the door of my chamber, greet him politely, and advise him to get out of my kingdom before my husband and his allies show up."

  She stopped a moment, thought.

  "Or perhaps to be feminine and incompetent. Flirt with my guards. Wait until we're on the road north, steal a horse, ride west. If the Imperials take the castle they'll go through all of it, including the dungeons—looking for loot if nothing else.

  "Better yet, do my best to see they don't take the castle. Men fight for things they can see. My daughter and I are going down now; you come too. Maybe Henry will try flirting with you again. You could do worse. Harald thinks well of him."

  Three flights above them, the open roof, a view over the ramparts:

  "More engines than yesterday—must have brought them up from the Eston siege. Archers too. They're going to try."

  The Lady Commander fell silent, turned, started down the tower stairs; the castle captain took one more look over the scene, followed her. Arrived in the courtyard, both started giving orders.

  With the front wall of his tent raised, the Emperor could see one side of the castle, the gate, both siege towers, the movable shed that would shelter the ram. Archers on the other side as well, but here where the slope up was gentlest was where the attack would come. Was coming. Pushed by hundreds of men, two siege towers crept towards the dirt ramps that led to the walls. As they came within arrowshot, a trumpet rang out. Too far to see, but he knew the besieging archers were pouring arrows at the top of the rampart, every arrow slot.

  Now the ram was in jerky motion as the men inside the shed lifted it, ran forward, dropped it. Almost to the moat, where the lifted drawbridge had been replaced by masses of earth and rock.

  The ram and its shed had stopped moving. More trumpet calls, men running back to the cover of the earthworks, runners from the command group. Something was wrong.

  In the castle courtyard, inside the gate, thirty rock throwers, each with a team of five men pulling, one Lady loading and aiming. A whistle. Over the sudden silence, the voice of the Lady Commander:

  "We got their ram. Engines against the wall, clear the courtyard, start shifting."

  The commander of the third legion heard a familiar voice, looked up. "Majesty."

  "What happened to the ram?"

  "Rocks. Lots of rocks. Karls must have a bunch of throwers inside the castle at ground level, where archers, bolt throwers can't reach them."

  "Can't we ...?" The Emperor saw where the commander was pointing.

  "I've ordered the engineers to start throwing over the wall at the courtyard behind the gate. Little engines don't have much range; I doubt they could have reached the ram from anywhere else. Slow—but a sling full of rocks does a lot of damage. Wouldn't want to be in that courtyard just now. I'm keeping the turtles back, just in case—rocks might go short. We'll stop throwing before they go in—job should be done by then."

  * * *

  On the top of the siege tower, trying to keep his footing as it jolted forwards, it occurred to Gerin that this was an honor he could have lived without. At least nobody was shooting at him; the archers on the castle wall had either been killed or, more likely, decided there were safer places to be. For himself, he could think of a lot of places safer than the top of a siege tower, first onto the wall.

  Looking back, he could see the turtles, masses of legionaries roofed with shields, beginning to move forward. The other tower had stuck, men heaving on it. The castle wall was getting closer, the captain yelling for the men to form up and move. The wooden wall that had been sheltering them swung down, became the bridge across the remaining gap, its far end resting on the castle wall. Shield up, in line, forward. This was it.

  As he came onto the wall, something struck his shield hard. Another. He could see the head of a crossbow bolt sticking through. Something glanced off the armor of his lower leg. The keep was at the other end of the castle—where the hell were they shooting from?

  A glance between the shields gave the answer. Under his feet, the stone of the castle wall. In front, fifteen feet of nothing. On the far side of the gap, a wooden wall, hanging in the air. Maybe the Karls really were sorcerers after all. A second look. The enemy archers were on a platform resting on a rough scaffolding of logs. At least one siege bow. An arrow glanced off his helm. The man beside him was down. Gerin dropped to his knees for better protection. Behind him the captain was yelling something. Stopped.

  A wooden box on wheels, ladder crowded with men, shields on their backs. At ground level the tower's back was open, more men crowded behind, shields over their heads. Something struck it a hard blow, a giant's spear through the front wall, massive iron head, tree trunk for a shaft. A second blow, a third, as the ram smashed a splintered hole in the front of the tower. Through it something dark that hit the wooden floor, broke, showered burning coals.

  * * *

  "One more day, Majesty. Two at most. We know their tricks now. If we throw enough rocks, they can't use the little engines against the ram and the turtles. Finish another tower. Fill in more of the moat—they won't know where we're coming. If it doesn't work, we can always use ladders."

  "How long will it take to fill in the moat all along this side? Assume you can borrow any men and gear you need from the other legions."

  The commander thought a moment.

  "Tomorrow to fill in. While they do it, I'll have a few hundred men carrying loads of rocks up from the river bed to the engines. Retrieve the ram and the shed tonight. Rebuild them tomorrow. Finish another tower. Get more big engines up from the city—start disassembling this evening, bring them up next morning, a day to reassemble and get t
he aim. By day after tomorrow we'll have two towers—maybe three. The ram and its shed. Enough big engines to shower rocks into the courtyard, anywhere they might set up throwers. We already have the bolt throwers and archers from the city; I can use one of their legions and my two for the attack, two others in reserve."

  "Do it."

  * * *

  In the castle courtyard a dozen stone throwers, each protected by a slanted roof of heavy beams, beside each a pile of rocks. Leonora, standing with her back against the castle wall, turned to the Lady beside her.