by E R Eddison
And first because the free towns in these outlaid parts should learn to fear him, nor trust too securely in the princes of the north, Ercles and Aramond, that still cloaked them underneath their wings, and because he would secure his rear and left flank a little ere adventure far south with an army that was all head and very little body, he rode in a sudden foray south to Abaraima. Here had Ercles last summer put down the captal and other great men that held the city in the Vicar’s interest, and in their rooms placed other his own creatures. But the more part of the townsfolk, who passed nothing on Prince Ercles and much less passed they on the Vicar, but desired nothing better than be let live at ease with their pleasant houses and gardens and fishponds and wives and children and delicate dogs and beasts tamed to the hand which they have in deliciis, beholding this army suddenly at their gates, and knowing their defences weak, and hearing now the word of Lessingham that if they were taken by force they should all die and the town burnt and spoiled without mercy, upon that present terror threw open their gates to him. Lessingham, that was well served by intelligencers here as otherwhere these many months past, and judged, both from these and from his own seeing and hearing, the temper and inclination of the people, sternly withheld his soldiers from all cruelty against them so as not a man should suffer harm whether of body or goods. Only some few towers he flatted to the ground, and seized those principal persons, unquiet, busy, and high-climbing spirits, who had sided themselves and sworn to Ercles. These, to the number of seven, he caused to be brought before him in the great paven square before the courthouse, where he, armed from heel to throat in black armour and with all his soldiers arrayed under weapons about him, sat in state. Whereupon, after proclamation at large of their fault, these seven were by his command thrown down and unheaded with axes and so hanged along the wall in that place, for a warning to who would be warned. Which being done, and a baily and officers brought in and sworn in name of the Lord Horius Parry to the Queen’s allegiance, Lessingham wore no more these dreadful looks but showed himself so cheerfully that within a few days’ time every man in that city was joyful to behold him. Well nigh a hundred horse were added to him now, gathered of their own free will from Abaraima and the townships thereabout.
But barely seven days tarried Lessingham in Abaraima: then, for a knock of the iron gauntlet upon Aramond’s door to let him know the Queen’s Captain-General was afoot now and to be reckoned withal, he turned upon the sudden eastwards and in a day’s hard riding came through the hills of the Mortelf down upon the rich open city of Bagort. This is the quiet heart of Aramond’s country: a mediterrane or inland secret valley where not in twenty years till that day had an enemy’s foot trodden; so that they listened secure to all rumours of unpeace without; and here had Prince Aramond his delicate lodge beside the salt lakes of Methmarsk. And here, in his unprepared idleness and with but a very small force at hand, the prince had but time to take boat and escape down the lake ere Lessingham’s black riders were in the city. Lessingham took great store of minted money and precious stones and costly treasure besides, and took away too all weapons and armour he might come by, but the town he spared, and seeing they made no defence against him there was no man lost his life there. In Bagort he stayed three nights and refreshed his army, and upon Wednesday the eighteenth of April departed again by the same way west to Abaraima.
Upon Saturday night he stood with his army before Veiring gates. Here was Roquez nigh a twelvemonth set in power by Ercles after much strife and blood-letting: his wife a Meszrian, cousin german to the Lord Melates: she was a cruel lady, and had of late so wrought with Roquez and, through him, with them of the prince’s party as that they were in purpose shortly to do somewhat against such as they loved not, that the streets should run again with blood. Lessingham sent in a herald under safe conduct to speak with them at the barriers, straitly enjoining them, on pain of their lives and goods and to be reputed enemies of the Queen’s highness, that they should deliver up the town to him as Captain-General, and that within the space of one hour after the morrow’s sunrise. Which Roquez denying, and speaking great words against him, there began to be a tumult in the town all night, and they of the Vicar’s upholding rose up and made head against Roquez; in so much that a little before sunrise, while the issue stood yet in doubt, some suddenly surprising a gatehouse opened the gates to Lessingham. But when Lessingham and his were come in to help them, then almost nothing held against them. In that battle fell Roquez, and when they of his following knew this, in despair of speed they gave back till they were come to the keep and there shut themselves in and shot from the walls and loop-holes. Lessingham let fetch wood and firing to burn them up; so, when the fire began to take and they saw there was nought to do but surrender themselves, they came down and surrendered to his discretion.
In those days was Veiring a strong town as for walls, being by nature well postured too in a bend of the river, whereby it is from three sides hard to come at. But in length and breadth within the walls and in number of folk that dwell therein it is but as a platter to a table-top as beside Telia or Abaraima. Lessingham made but short work, after the taking of the keep, of quieting the town. With the late ruling party he had little trouble: ready enough were they to go each to his own house and fare with hidden head, not to draw eyes which might single him out for retribution. But they that had been for the Vicar, seeing good harvest now beyond hope or dreams, and the readier because of that to make haste to cut it down and in it, began like jack sauces to jet the Streets, quick to beat or kill any that should displease them or withsay anything that they would do. Even in the eye of the Captain-General’s self or his own men-at-arms, as at great dogs little tykes should snar, would these flaunt their roynish fashions, their bawdry, and their insolences. To end it, Lessingham proclaimed upon trumpets through and about the town that whoso, save only soldiers of his, should after the third hour before noon be found in the streets with weapon upon him, were it but a hand-dagger, that should be his death. By noon had a score been hanged in the streets for this offence: ’twixt noon and mid-even, two more. That ended it. Of general turmoil indeed, there was none later than breakfast-time, when there gathered a band together before Roquez’s house supposing to have had out his lady, who with some of her household there sought safety, and quite her for those things they thought she had devised against them. But Lessingham, riding to and about with a troop of horse, so that while yet any spark smouldered of disorder he might with his own eye see it to tread it out, came thither, as God would have it, in the nick of time when they had beat in the door and were upon dragging her forth. He, upon sight of such a beastish act against a lady, was as if taken in berserk-gang: with bloody rage suddenly surprised them as he had been a wolf or a lion, and in such good coin paid them, that seven men shortly lay dead or bleeding under his feet as with one arm he bore off that lady, harmless but swooning, while in his other hand the reddened sword boded ill to any man that would nigh him near. Next morning Lessingham sent her with a conduct over land to Megra, for safety until means should offer for her faring south to Meszria to her kith and kin. He set Meron in Roquez’s stead, captain of Veiring, and, because of the fury of their factions there, left him fifty horse to his bodyguard and to cow them. Three-and-thirty citizens of Ercles’ faction Lessingham condemned to exile perpetual with loss of all their belongings: two hundred more to like banishment, but with leave to carry away their goods and chattels. Five he sent to be hewn of their heads in the public market-place; two of whom suffered that punishment not as traitors to the Vicar, but for divers outrages and cruelties acted by them out of private malice upon Lessingham’s entry into Veiring and under cover of their espousing of his cause. It was the talk of men that Lessingham had shown by his dealings in Veiring that he was a lord both just and fearless, and wise besides and merciful, and terrible besides in season. And now was good settled peace in Veiring as had not been for many a year.
It being now near the fourth week ended since he came down f
rom the Wold, and news of these doings flown before him about the countryside, he made haste to depart out of Veiring by the highway southward. The second of May he came to Lailma which opened gates to him: and here came word to him that Ercles himself was come down from Eldir and held the Swaleback passage by the shore of Arrowfirth. Next day Lessingham moved south, going gingerly with espials before him to feel the way, and pitched for the night a little beside Memmering, where steep and stony hills, covered all with thick-grown trackless forest, begin to close in westwards toward the sea shore. Here in the morning he had sure tidings that the prince was fallen back southwards. But while he waited to satisfy himself of this, came Daiman, ridden in huge haste from Telia upon word brought thither of Lessingham’s march south, with this news now: that the lord Admiral was come round about by sea from Kessarey up to Kaima and was there disembarked the week before with a great army of as some said three thousand, others four thousand, men. Lessingham upon these tidings resolved, now that the passages of Swaleback were opened to him, swiftly and at all hazards to come through; seeing that if with so great forces they should once be closed against him he were as good pack home again to Rialmar. Upon which resolution, he struck camp and came, without sight or rumour of an enemy, through the highway past the head of the firth and pitched in strong ground rising amid open fields apt to the use of horse-soldiers some five miles west of Eldir.
He stood now in this case. Ercles, not with a handful of horse, as had at first been bruited, but with an army more than two thousand strong, was retired not to his hill fortress of Eldir but to Leveringay, seven leagues or more to the south, where, astride of the main high road southwards, he awaited Lessingham, and in the meantime burned and harried that countryside where folk yet held firm for the Vicar. Upon the other part, west-away, the Admiral was reported moving leisurely up the wide lowland vales of Fitheryside. Between these forces, each by much outnumbering his own, was Lessingham now in danger to be taken as the nut in the crackers; or if, eluding Ercles, he should escape away southwards, then to be shut in betwixt their united power and the Chancellor’s that maintained siege before Laimak. All weighed, he chose to fight both; and Ercles first, the rather for two respects: the one, for that Ercles lay the nigher at hand, the other, because they that dwelt about Leveringay and Mornagay were of a tried loyalty, and, a victory once had there, they were like to take heart and flock to the Queen’s banner. But now, going about to fight Ercles, he was resolved that the time and ground and manner of their fighting should be not Ercles’s but his.
Lessingham struck camp in the misty early dawn of Friday, marched by the road south a mile or so, then turning suddenly north-eastward behind Proud Eldir, the little black crag that stands on the last spur of the ridge that runs south-west for two leagues or more from Eldir itself, took to the rocky upland valley of Nivararnadale and so came with his army up into the bare wild hill-country that goes up to the watershed of Swaleback. The spring was late, and there were still snowdrifts where the gills look northwards, and ice sometimes in the passes. A wind sprang up out of the north-east, bringing hail and sleet in swirls. Breath of man and horse blew misty on the ice-cold air, and the beards and mustachios of Lessingham and his men were stiffened with hoar-frost. Their march was due east among the heights till past noon, then in a sweep south-east, south, and so down south-westward from Stoopland Brink. In the failing light they rode down to the fir-wood’s edge that fringes the open pasture-lands of Leveringay. The wood and the gathering darkness covered thejr presence: cold they supped and ill, and cold they laid them down.
Ercles’s pickets came in to report no enemy this side of Eldir. None the less, as night wore, Ercles began to be ware of somewhat afoot. About the third hour after midnight he summoned his captains and upon counsel taken bade make all ready and so be in posture to join battle, if need be, at point of day. Lessingham waked all night maintaining a kind of fretting skirmishes all night long against Ercles’s outposts, as if he feared nothing so much as that Ercles should carry away his army westwards ere battle could be joined, and so touch hands with Jeronimy; for, call it a fine rashness against so great odds to fight with either, Ercles or Jeronimy, to have fought with both at once had been plain madness. But Ercles and his held good espial north-westward along the high road, mindful too of these threatenings from the wood upon their right north-eastward, which yet they supposed belike (since, when the sun is set, all beasts are in the shade) sheltered but some country levies gathered to harry the prince’s march and take any stragglers they might hap upon. No man was so fantastical as look that way for Lessingham, last seen at Arrowfirth head, or imagine he and his army could cross, like a flight of battle-cranes, with such suddenness and in such weather and thus early in the year, so wild a tract of mountain and surprise the prince’s army upon the flank.
At spring of day Lessingham drew up his men before the wood and let blow up the war-blast. Ercles disposed his battle hastily as best he might, his main battle in the centre, the levies from the free towns upon the wings. His main battle, that had in it his own bodyguard of two hundred chosen men and was all of old tried soldiers, alone outwent in numbers the whole vicarial army under Lessingham which, like a mighty storm thundering from out of the north-east, now fiercely assaulted them. Under that onslaught, this main battle alone of Ercles’s held ground: the levies, beginning to be cut down in heaps, presently broke. In an hour, the field was won. Lessingham carried the pursuit to the out-fields of Mornagay and about by Shottenshaw and Hangwater and the Riddering valley. Some fled east to the fell with Brandremart at their heels: some scattered westwards: some fled into the tower of Leveringay. The prince himself escaped to Eldir. There were, by estimation, slain in that battle, and in the rout, seven or eight hundred of his army: scarce had it been more had every soldier of Lessingham’s slain his man. Of Lessingham’s side but three lost their lives: but one of these was Hortensius, to the Queen a servant of price.
Twelve days Lessingham rested his army after that battle. Men drew to him from the countryside, and he was now fourteen or fifteen hundred strong. Last news of the Admiral was that he had, of all arms, somewhat less than three thousand men, and lay this night, the eighteenth of May, but ten miles off, at Rangby. The next morning Lessingham said to his men, ‘You have come south with me upon an enterprise to throw down them that would o’erset the ancient governance of this land of Rerek, and to bring again the Queen’s peace upon all this land, like as it was when we fared north last summer to Rialmar. Them that followed and obeyed Prince Ercles, when he would poll pill and shave the Queen’s subjects in these parts about Leveringay and Mornagay, we have bloodily overthrown. Now there be many a hundred men here that follow me in war who have their belongings ’twixt these parts and the coastlands. For sake of these that have served me truly in every tide, loth should I be to bid ’em fare south now and leave their homes and families to the Admiral and his hired fighters out of Fingiswold or Meszria, that are not friends nor well willers of yours. Nor I like it not we should turn our back on these pick-purses: leave ’em so, when they have gotten our money, then to strike us in the brain from behind. If it be odds against us, I care not, seeing that which was seen o’ Saturday two weeks. But now is no time to play the litherby now, or lazy lubber. We must on, and we must in, and we must in deep: huddle blow upon blow. And now, if there be a man had rather turn back now ’stead of follow me against the Admiral, let him stand forth. I will bid him go in peace.’ But the whole army roared with a great shouting that they would follow him and drive the Admiral back into the sea.
The Lord Jeronimy, considering with himself that he had force of men sufficient to crush Lessingham: that Lessingham even so was eager for battle, and moved now upon Rangby to engage him: that a patient outlengthing of delays is of good effect to wear down such rash hasty spirits: that westward the landfolk bore slacker allegiance to the house of Parry than they of these more inner parts: that being enticed westward Lessingham would be the less likely to d
raw to any dangerous head, and that the face of the land there, standing much in mud and ooze and much cut about with streams, was less fit for horsemen, wherein was the main power of Lessingham but the Admiral’s weakness: weighing these things, the Lord Jeronimy wisely refused battle and fell back north-westwards, drawing Lessingham after him towards Telia. A little beyond Arminy he changed his course leftward and lay that night at Bank. Lessingham, willing to force battle ere the Admiral should win to Kaima, came by swift marching across to the coast-road at Minearness, three or four leagues east of Kaima castle and betwixt it and Jeronimy; but Jeronimy, still holding his enemy off, swung now south-eastward into Fitheryside again and the open marish lakelands and streamlands. Lessingham, thus drawn in a circle into this little habited and little friendly countryside, could gather little sure tidings now, save by his own men’s eyes and tongues. He came at evening of the twenty-second of May to the farm at Ridinghead, that sits on a rise between the low lands of Westerwater and the Fithery. It was a dank unseasonable misty evening. The farm was deserted and no intelligence to be had. With the fall of darkness the rain began in a heavy downpour, and so settled in for the night. Lessingham supposed the Admiral heading now for Streamsteads, whither next morning he was minded to follow him. But not to be caught by any means at unawares in so thick and water-curtained a night of darkness, he threw out his sentinels and outposts far afield upon every hand with command to maintain an alert through every hour till morning.
