"Would you really have gone to this Duke Roger the night?"
"If I thought it your will, Lord Airar."
"Lord, lord, I am no lord, but your playmate and gossip of Vagai as well you know." He was on his feet again, pacing, weariness forgotten. "How shall we solve this lecherous duke? For to hide here's slender device, he'd find you by some servant's tongue and call you again."
"I'll never go to him if you say nay."
He had reached the side of the room where the fireplace was. Now he spun to look on her unmoving as ever in the cross-legged chair, beautiful and passive. "Can you think of nothing, say nothing?" he cried and before she could answer was across the gap, had swept his arms round her and was kissing her on the lips, the first time without reply, but they melted under his touch and with a little contented sigh she relaxed in his arms and drew him closer.
"Gython," he whispered again as they drew breath, and kissed down her throat, and she made a vague movement toward the light so that he released her long enough to blow it out.
She gave him passion for passion unsparing, but as the world broke in a surf of delight he felt her suddenly tremble, and then she could hold it no longer, but burst into rending sobs. "Dearest," he said, lips close to her ear, but she turned her face:
"If it were Visto, if it were only Visto," she said in a new voice.
The next day Duke Roger showed himself only once from his apartments, and then with a frown portentous.
13 The Causeway: Baffle
ALL THE trumpets blew tiralira and the host went marching to the bridge-gate in the opposite order to that from the day of the weapon-showing, knights and barons of Salmonessa first, their pennons moving to the south wind. There had been a light snow for two days past, but now it was thawing and underfoot treacherous where the way was paved, so that horses stumbled to be pulled up amid the ring of steel, with many a swearing from their riders. Urdanezza went past in his gay armor that seemed more of tournament than battle, yet Airar must say he mustered them in all respects like a man of war, with "Ho, there!" and guidings to bring his heaviest armed to the head of the array, where they might bear the jar when the foemen were met. The Duke had lent the tallest man of his tall guard to bear the banner of the realm before this company; but his personal standard was farther back, where himself rode among his shaveheads.
There was this and that last preparation—Nene who had some broken scales in his mail-coat, and only on Airar's own intervention would the smiths' guild repair them without the laying down of money; Berni that had a cause of some sort with a merchant of the lower town— so there was no moment for Alvar's son to search for his heartbreak love among the spearmen, where it had been covenanted she should take her place. She had remained in his chamber mostly, but after that one night, he on the floor in a cloak, and few were the words spoken between them. But now the trumpet blew up and up, coming when far with a note of sadness in the mild winter weather; the gates were open and the spears of Carrhoene riding through. Alcides was at their head this day; Airar thought his dark triangular face looked sullen in the helmet-gap as he went past, and the hair with its white streak was hidden by the sallet. Lank Erb plucked his young leader's arm: "Master Airar, we lack a man. Ove Oxmouth is missing, nor can anyone find him."
Now the call was for Gentebbi; Airar swung into his saddle and lifted an arm as the free-fishers shouted and began to march behind. They were armed with their own spears, rather short than long, and could be used for casting; steel caps; target shields; and bows the gift of Duke Roger, who greatly favored Airar's plan of teaching them to shoot, since he had not overmuch archery of his own. They marched then, the gloomy tunnel of the walls echoing to their calls, out into pale sunlight beyond, and past the merchants' booths to where the marsh causeway runs through walls of giant reeds, higher than a man.
Once and again there was a halt as something or other checked the riders ahead, for they were in number above seven hundreds. A sergeant broidered with the Keystone of Carrhoene dropped back to grumble it was always so with these baronial people: they were already a watch late along their route and the sun would be westering before they reached the Mariolan fields—"and how is that time enough for full victory before dark?" At the next halt it was Visto:
"Where would Gython be?" he asked. "Not in the band."
Airar felt a catch of dreadful fear. "You were to be her guide and guard!" he cried. "I hold you account—"
"Nay, that you may not, master. My care was to begin when she joined us, and I can find none that has seen a do so. Your charge till then."
Before more could be said the trumpet blew again from Carrhoene ahead and once more the host began to move. Airar had only time to fling over his shoulder that Visto should drop back to seek for her among the exiles of Mariola, she might be in that next company behind, and led on again with a heart full of trouble and doubtful surmise. There was no chance, no possible chance, of himself turning back. Along their flanks by the way the red marsh of reeds had given place to quagmire pools in black ooze with tussocks growing out of it, no path there and the causeway backward crowded with men. The fishers round him were mostly in a high humor, with laughter and wild jest and a catch of song, though for most as for himself this was the first approach to battle; shouting greetings, as "How now, master magician, have you a spell to stop swords?" with other things not so gentle. But he could not share their mood, and though feeling clearly they might think him afraid, nothing he could make of the matter. The pale sun drove toward zenith and passed without any other event than that both red marsh and black fell away at their left to a region of interlocked lagoons, with a low island standing out from them at the edge of sight, and a house on it before which stood a woman to wave and wave as the companies went by. Shortly thereafter word came passing up the line from the Duke that all should pause and break bread. Airar got off his horse, somewhat stiff at the joints, and sat down with the Carrhoene sergeant, who grumbled again over a demi-bottle of sour wine from his own nation,'"That it were never so if our Captain Evimenes had the ordering of it. A march is a march and means of arrival, of which a sharp foe-man will haply be aware. Why, I remember how in the war with Poliolis we marched a day and night long till a man could hardly sit saddle—aye, and fought a battle at the end of it against—"
He stopped; here was Visto. "Not there, master, and seen by none, though this is not just positive, since so few among them know."
"But it could be," the Carrhoene sergeant went on, "that these Vulkings are not so quick warriors. I have never fought them. Their foot, mark you, they carry that big round shield with the spike in the center long and keen enough to jab a man. If one thrusts at you with his sword, beware that; the next stroke will be from the spiky shield and on the wrong side. Much adroit at beating off archery as well. They open order in pairs, and while one covers both with the big shield, the other casts those throwingstick javelins, all advancing till they have driven the archery apart, which must needs hold together for effect." Visto had waited. "Master Airar, what's to do?"
"Search, ask," Airar moved his hands and lurched to his feet. A thought struck him. "Ove Ox-mouth—where's he and who has deed."
A messenger came down the line from forward, crying that Alcides of Carrhoene asked haste, for time pressed. There were shouts and movement, Airar could hear how the wave passed along the marchers, not himself giving true thought to anything but Gython and where was she. But now all moved again and the trumpets sounded —not so cheerily as before, for musics like men had marched along. At the side lagoons vanished; there was nothing to see but cold marsh, reed and tussock alternate, either with little joy, and Airar thinking bleakly on the Salmonessan Duke and his devices.
There was a sound of shouting up ahead, not unmingled with hoots, and down the causeway, picking his way along the edge, came a man in a long white robe, with a circlet of gold on his head and bearing a carven chalice before him on the saddle. Behind came a second rider in ceremonial garb,
in whom Airar thought he recognized that same sheep-faced Imperial he had seen at the court the first day in Salmonessa. The leader stopped him, bowing in saddle, and asked whether he were captain of a company, but when Airar said yes to that, he held the chalice up:
"Then I command you in the name of the peace of the Empire, which is the peace of God, that you drink from thus veritable water of the Well of the Unicorn, as earnest that you will drink of the Well's self with no less than Count Vulk, the deputy of His Serene Imperial Majesty Auraris. Thus this impious war and manslaying shall be laid aside. But if you will not, then you shall be under the ban of the Empire and its luck of the Well."
Airar would not say yes or no to that, but bade the embassy pass on to Duke Roger as his liege lord, whereat the messenger, as though his blank face expected nothing else, urged his horse to push a way among the spearmen. The sheep-faced man turned in his saddle and crossed his fingers back, crying, "Ban, Ban!" Lank Erb, striding by Airar's saddle, said that was the worst of luck, but the young man was shaken by his own concerns, and what could he do in such a press under the near approach to battle with bad luck spells or good, as he said.
The day wore. Words were now falling thin, there was around only the tramp of marching men and spears held at various angles, so that Airar had time to wonder whether he and his band would bear themselves well in combat, a thought which would not come clear but mingled itself somehow in his mind with that of Gython. If he had not been thus concerned he might have noted more clearly how left and right little mammaries of solid ground and passes that might have been made by men's hands sprang here and there among the reeds, promising an end to their desolate march.
These bits of land were not less than numerous when the trumpets ahead called him from his reverie, blowing all at once, thrilling and discordant, with a sound of confused shouting under their blast. Airar could see the men of Carrhoene just ahead snap down their vizors. Erb came. "Tell them to dress bows," said Airar, feeling his own voice at the edge of cracking at the arrival of this long-awaited moment, "and push out where there is hard ground flankwards, since we are the cover for the Mariolans as they for the Duke."
It seemed that he turned his head but a tick of time to say this, yet, when he turned again, he was as though alone. A few backs of the Carrhoene riders moved ahead where the causeway was suddenly a causeway no longer, but a road bending northwest across a rolling slope, with shout and weapon-clang coming across it and a single flung dart pinned high by the eye against a red sky. A startled marsh bird went past with a long peening squeal, almost brushing his head. Someone plucked at his foot; he looked round again to see the fishers running out leftward among scattered boscage, some pausing to string bow and all confusion, but the man was pointing—"Look! God's name, look!"—and over the rise between a clump of willows at the marsh-edge and the northwest turn of the road came a clump of riders at a hand trot, with gay plumes in their headgear—the gentours.
Airar reached aback for his bow, being armed like the rest. "Stand!" cried Long Erb's voice, "and draw!" and Airar's bridle was being jerked back toward bush and reed, as on the other side he caught a glimpse of the first spears of Mariola lowering and heard the shout of the men that drove them.
The gentours did not draw back but spread, each striking his horse to gallop with a quirt he held in his left hand as they came in, at the last moment wheeling to fling javelins from throwing-crooks. Airar could not manage to wheel his horse and to nock shaft together. He saw a ragged volley of arrows go past from his fishers, badly drawn, with the darts coming low and very fast in the opposite direction, and it was more the animal than he that swerved to avoid one. There was a cry like "Aurrgh" by his side and the gentours were turning away, one with a great bound as an arrow stuck in his horse's rump.
The cry was Vardomil, that friendly man; he had one of those spears through his throat and was tearing at it with both hands, blood all over him and his face a mask. Airar went sick in the realization that war was no dainty sport as he had been taught, but horror and pain and the death of friends. Yet no time for that; there was cry and cry among the fishers in reed-clump and bushes, and he turned again to see coming across the rise a Vulking tercia.
Though he might outlive the ancient spider, it would not be to catch a grimmer sight; for they came not running, but in a quick-step march of utter confidence with their little flutes piping, straight for that joint where causeway became road and Rogai's Mariolans were spreading from march to line. "We are betrayed:" cried a young voice, going high. The Vulking line was long but perfectly formed so that all those fighting men seemed to move to the will of a single mind. They had helmets that flared up and short horsebrush plumes thereon; their shields were in order and so were their blades. From around behind them, pouring down the slope, covering their flank, followed a great river of people light-armed with a few bow-shot among them that paused to throw a shaft or two, but mostly they rushed without pause toward the free-fishers.
"Back!" cried Erb's voice. "The Vulking allies are too many," and Airar lighted down from his horse just as a shaft stood quivering in the ground by his side. That deserved a return; with a sudden great swell of anger drowning his horror, he pivoted to draw to the head and saw that the man who stood before his shaft stood no longer, but now all those Vulking allies were right upon him while from the side came a high shout and clash of metal as the spears of Mariola broke on the tercia's shields.
He felt Visto jerk his arm. "Back, back, they are too many," and was in a half-stumbling run among the bush and tussocks. An arrow hit a man of Gentebbi just ahead, but it must have been near spent, for it bounced from his armor and the man only stumbled, going down on his face with a splash in the oozy ground. Visto paused to reach him a hand; Airar set both feet and whirled round. A halfdozen of those allied men were close on their heels, but the nearest had a broad-blade spear, and as he paused to set both fists to the ungainly weapon, the young man had just time to speed the arrow he already held in hand. A poor draw, but it served, given the distance and the fellow's rush; it took him right in the face and down he went, with the one next behind stumbling across his legs, while of those still coming, one went to knee and threw up a shield and two or more dodged behind clumps lest another of those fell shafts should follow.
"Will you not stand?" cried Airar, but Visto: "No, no, they are too many. Come!" and he was running with the rest again, not knowing whither. But now the ground ahead grew so boggy they made poor work of it and presently right ahead was a patch of tall reeds that must be skirted on a path of ground spattered with foot-trodden dirty snow between reed and black marsh. Behind was one of the small hillocks. At its foot half a dozen of the free-fishers, most standing, but one lying flat on his back and another sitting his haunches with face buried in his hands. None had their bows and the sitting man neither helm nor spear.
"The pursuit's a-distanced," said Visto and made to kneel before Airar. "Master and friend, here is a second life I owe you."
"And I another," said the second companion, in whom Airar now had time to recognize one called Svarlog Longarm of Mjel; but one of the others growled sullen, "No lives owe we. Without un's womanish nonsense of archery we might just fight them down."
"Aye," cried Airar, "and with the hearts of something more than chickens you might have done so regardless. Twice now have I seen you free-fishers run, and each time from something that could be stopped with a little courage and an arrow. Nay, if you will finger your weapons, I have still a shaft of two left." He set his feet, but the sitting man looked up:
"The sharpsighted has right, Sewald," he said, "and we were more to consider returning than blame un that would keep us there. How goes it now?"
None answered, but glancing from face to face Airar could see all the fear that lay behind his own, but all knew it was not here at the causeways thev should have met a tercia. "Fear not well," said one. "Hark!"
From afar yet somehow near a shout rose up and fell again, but i
t was not the "Ullu-ullu!" that the men who follow the Winged Wolf of Dalarna use in victory, nor yet the measured bellow of Duke Roger's halberdiers, and on all faces there was less than cheer.
"Man does what man can," said Airar, "and I'm back to see what's done. Look you, men of Gentebbi, I'm but your straw leader and have no such skill as your own
Erb; but being your sworn captain, I say this—that Sewald, who is bold and brisk as any, shall run ahead; while I, who am the best archer, shall cover him from some twenty paces behind, with Svarlog and Visto to guard me with their spears from close onset, and the others after, since here there's naught to gain by staying."
He looked round and there was no naysay, so gave the word to move at once, Sewald for shame's sake leading. They switched round the pillars of red reeds, and keeping twilight on the left (for it was now falling dark) made gently toward the causeway. A pool of black marsh sprang up on the right and Sewald went softly, bending low; Airar kept a shaft on string, but nothing for maybe three hundred paces and then only a man evidently Mariolan by his colors, who had an arrow through his back and falling face down in the water had so died. The sight was not gladsome, but nothing was visible from the left, the west where the Vulking allies were, and but few sounds, most of them somewhat muffled under the evening.
Another clump of red-tuft marsh sprang at them. Sewald leading circled southward around it, and there was a scrambling sound while Airar held an arrow in leash till a voice cried "Who lives?" It was Gentebbi in accent so he himself answered, "The ring!" and half-drowned from wet and hiding came three more men of the band.
"Have you seen Erb?"
"No, nothing; but one of Mariola passed running."
They pressed on. It was now fast toward dark and none could miss that this was defeat and no mistake. A little later one of the flankers hauled another man from behind a bush at the edge of black marsh. He was a Mariolan upland man hight Tholkeil, who said Rogai had ridden into the Vulking swords at the first onset and been slain; the Duke was fled and Evimenes and Pleiander of Carrhoene both fallen. This depressed all mightily till Airar reflected the man could not possibly have seen so many things and said as much. But now it was falling full dark and Sewald came back from leading to report he could no longer find a way. They had best stop and gather round a fire for the night.
Well of the Unicorn Page 11
