Elder Isles 2: The Green Pearl (25 page)

“I wish this were my only motive for coming,” said Lord Bodwy. “In truth, I am anxious for my bull Black Butz. Sturdevant, tell your story.”

Sturdevant said: “Sir, to make a long story short, yesterday Black Butz was taken from his pasture by four men in Clarrie green.”

Lord Loftus instantly became haughty. “What? Now, in spite of all, you accuse me of stealing your cattle?”

“By no means!” declared Lord Bodwy. “I give you far more respect than that. But you must agree that the circumstances are most puzzling. Sturdevant clearly saw the Clarrie green on men he could not recognize. The tracks lead into your lands, but fail at the River Swirling.”

“You are at liberty to search my premises, high and low,” declared Sir Loftus in the frostiest of voices. “I will question my herdsmen at once.”

“Sir Loftus, I am far less anxious to find Black Butz than to discover the motives for this peculiar act, and its perpetrators.” Despite many admirable qualities, Sir Loftus lacked easy adjustment to novel or less-than-obvious ideas. Sir Bodwy’s bull had been stolen; Sir Bodwy had come at once to him. The inference was direct: Sir Bodwy thought him a cattle-thief, despite hypocritical pronouncements to the contrary. Sir Loftus was further confounded when Black Butz was discovered in a shed at the back of his barn, slaughtered and drawn.

Transfixed with amazement, Sir Loftus at last found his tongue. He summoned his bailiff and ordered the payment of five silver florins to Sir Bodwy, though he still denied all personal responsibility for the deed.

Bodwy refused to accept the money. “You are clearly not guilty of this act; I could not bring myself to take your money. Instead I will send over a cart for the carcass and tomorrow it shall sing and sizzle on the spit.” On generous impulse he added: “Perhaps you, with others of your household, might care to visit Fian Gosse and join us at the feast. This stange occurrence might thereby have an effect opposite to that which was intended.”

“Sir, what do you mean by that?”

“Do you recall the self-styled Sir Shalles of Dahaut, who so clearly was an agent of Lyonesse?”

“I remember Shalles. The connection with King Casmir is not all so clear.”

“It is, of course, a speculation. I also speculate that Shalles was not the only agent at work here.”

Lord Loftus gave his head a shake of bafflement. “I will make a careful inquiry. Thank you for your invitation, but under the circumstances, while suspicion still hangs over my head, I fear that I must decline.”

“Sir Loftus, I would wager all I own that you are absolutely free of guilt in this episode! I reiterate my invitation: let poor Black Butz, who died an ignoble death, at least perform a useful post mortem service for both our houses.”

Sir Loftus’ obstinacy was notable; he considered his word, once spoken, to be fixed and irrevocable, thus he might never be accused of fickleness. “Pray excuse me, Sir Bodwy, but I will be uncomfortable until this mystery is fully clarified.”

Lord Bodwy returned to Fian Gosse. Five days passed; then a crofter lad rushed into the presence of Lord Bodwy with ominous news. Fourteen of Lord Loftus’ finest cattle had been stolen by night, and herded south. Crofters had identified the thieves as herdsmen from Fian Gosse, on the basis of their furtive manner, and because no other folk would be prone to such a deed.

Worse news was yet to come. Slevan Wilding, Loftus’ nephew, had followed the tracks into Gosse lands. At a place called Iron Tor, three men-at-arms in Fian Gosse livery loosed a flight of three arrows. Pierced three times, through heart, neck and eye, Slevan Wilding had fallen dead in his tracks. His comrades gave chase to the ambush party, but they were already fled.

Lord Loftus, learning of the ambush and examining the arrows, raised his clenched fists to the sky and sent riders over the moors and into remote glens to summon the fighting men of Clan Wilding to Castle Clarrie. King’s law or none, he vowed to avenge the death of Slevan Wilding and punish those who had stolen his cattle.

Lord Bodwy instantly sent messengers riding at speed for Doun Darric, then made Fian Gosse ready to withstand both assault and siege.

The riders came into Doun Darric on dying horses, arriving at midday. By good fortune a battalion of two hundred horsemen had been ready to ride toward the North Ulfland border, on general maneuvers; Aillas ordered them instead to Fian Gosse at top speed.

All through the bright afternoon rode the troop, halting at sunset for an hour’s rest, then up once more to ride by the light of the full moon: across Bruden Moor, up Werling River Road to Dead Man’s Moor, and away at a slant to the northeast. At midnight, winds began gusting and clouds obscured the moon; there was danger of plunging into a bottomless bog or riding headlong into a gully, and the troop took shelter in a spinney of tamarack, to huddle over reeking fires. At dawn the troop rode again, despite a driving wind and spatters of cold rain. With cloaks flapping, they pounded hard up Blue Murdoch Fell, and galloped under heavy gray clouds by a track across the heather. Two hours into the afternoon they arrived at Fian Gosse… only an hour after the investment of the place by Lord Loftus and his clansmen, in the number of a hundred. For the nonce they had assembled out of arrow range and were occupied at the building of ladders: particularly effective here, since the Fian Gosse walls were low and the defenders few. Lord Loftus doubted nothing but what the place must fall to the first onslaught, which he decided to conduct by the light of the moon.

The appearance of the king’s troops and the king himself destroyed his plans, and instantly he knew the bitterness of total defeat. If blood flowed now, the deepest torrent would be Wilding blood. What now? he asked himself. Withdraw? Fight? Parley? He could see nothing but humiliation.

In dejection and defiance Lord Loftus stood facing the king’s troops, helmet thrown back, hands resting on the pommel of his sword, point down in the turf between his feet.

A herald rode forward, dismounted with a brave flourish and faced Lord Loftus. “Sir: I speak with the voice of King Aillas. He commands you to sheath your sword, then come forward and render an explanation for your presence here. What message shall I bear to King Aillas?”

Lord Loftus made no reply. With savage force he sheathed his sword and marched across the ground. Aillas dismounted from his horse and stood waiting. All eyes, of the Wilding clansmen, of the Fian Gosse defenders, and of the royal troops, marked his every step.

At Fian Gosse the portcullis creaked up, and Lord Bodwy, with three retainers, came forth, and also approached King Aillas.

Lord Loftus came to a halt ten feet in front of Aillas. In silence, Lord Bodwy came up from the side.

Aillas spoke coldly: “Deliver your sword to Sir Glyn, who stands yonder. You are under arrest, and I charge you with conspiracy to effect an illegal assault and to commit acts of bloody violence.”

Lord Loftus stonily yielded his sword.

Aillas said: “I will listen to your defense.”

First Lord Loftus spoke, then Lord Bodwy, then Loftus once more, and Bodwy and finally Glannac; and now all the tale was told.

Aillas spoke in a voice more contemptuous than harsh: “Loftus, you are obstinate, over-proud and inflexible. You seem neither cruel nor vicious, merely hot-headed to a foolish degree. Can you gauge your luck that I arrived here when I did, before blood had been let? If a single life had been lost, I would have judged you guilty of murder and hanged you on the instant, and reduced your castle to broken stones.”

“The blood of my nephew Slevan was shed! Who will hang for this crime?”

“Who is the murderer?”

“One of the Gosse.”

“Never!” cried Bodwy. “I am not such a fool!”

“Exactly so,” said Aillas. “Only someone foolishly passionate, such as yourself, would fail to perceive the pattern of this crime, which was calculated to set you at odds and to cause me grief. You have posed me a predicament and I must walk a careful path between wisdom and blind justice, nor do I want to punish foolishness for its own sake. Further, Lord Pirmence gives you a clean bill in the matter of imprisonment and torture, which weighs heavily in your favor. So then: what assurances can you give that you will never again take up arms to work your private justice, except in self-defense, or in service of the king?”

Lord Loftus blurted: “What assurance can Bodwy give that he will steal no more of my cattle?”

Bodwy gave a laugh of sheer amusement. “Did you steal my bull Black Butz?”

“No, nor would I do such a thing.”

“No more would I steal from your herd.”

Loftus scowled off toward the hills. “You claim that this is all a prank?”

“Worse, far worse!” declared Lord Bodwy. “Someone planned that you should invest and overrun Fian Gosse, and then suffer the consequences, to the detriment of me, you, King Aillas and all the land.”

“I see the thrust of your reasoning. Only a madman could conceive a work so cunning!”

“Not a madman,” said Aillas. “Unless Torqual is mad.”

Lord Loftus blinked. ” ‘Torqual’? He is an outlaw!”

“In the service of Lyonesse. Speak now, Loftus! How will you assure me of your future faith, loyalty and obedience to the laws of the land?”

With poor grace, Lord Loftus knelt and pledged himself to the king’s service, by his honour and the reputation of his house.

“That must suit the case,” said Aillas. “Sir Bodwy, what do you say?”

“I have no fault to find, so long as there is an end to suspicion between Wilding and Gosse.”

“Very well, so be it. Sir Glyn, return to Sir Loftus his sword.”

His heart too full for words, Sir Loftus sheathed his sword.

Aillas said: “Our enemy is Torqual. He hides in North Ulfland and comes here to do dark deeds. I doubt not but what he watches at this moment from the mountain or the forest.

I ask that you both learn all you can of him. At this time we cannot enter North Ulfland, lest we provoke the Ska, for which we are not yet ready. Sooner or later, however, they will take heed of us; and I doubt they will consider our convenience.

“In the meantime, instruct your herdsmen and crofters to keep a sharp watch across the moors. Man, woman or child, whoever helps to trap Torqual, his fortune is made. Make this known, if you will. Also, warn your kin and your clans-folk of Torqual and his tricks.

“Now, Lord Loftus, I cannot let you go scot-free, for the sake of my reputation. First, I place you on probation for five years. Second, I fine you twenty gold crowns, to be paid into the royal treasury. Third, you must host a festival of friendship between your clans, at which no weapons may be displayed, and only soft words spoken. Let there be music and dancing and an end to the shedding of neighborly blood.”

Lord Bodwy turned to Loftus and extended his arm. “Here is my hand on it.”

Lord Loftus, still somewhat stiff and utterly humiliated, felt a sudden liberation from all which had gone before. In a pulse of generosity as warm as Bodwy’s own, he took the hand and clasped it. “You shall never find me lacking. I hope that we shall be good friends and neighbors.”

NO SOONER HAD AILLAS RETURNED to Doun Darric than his forebodings were realized in full degree, and his previous problems suddenly became trivial.

Aillas had long awaited a signal of Ska hostility to his rule, if only a skirmish or two, to test his mettle. Instead of a signal, the Ska dealt him a harsh and brutal blow: a challenge which allowed him only two responses. He could submit, thereby incurring ridicule and loss of face, or he could fight, which meant lunging into a conflict for which he was not yet ready.

The Ska action could not be considered a surprise. Aillas knew the Ska intimately; they considered themselves at war with the rest of the world, and took advantage of every opportunity to extend the range of their power. Since South Ulfland under King Aillas could only become stronger, his rule must be expunged promptly. As a first step, with minimum expenditure of force and Ska lives, they took the town Suarach on the south bank of the River Werling, hard by the border between the two Ulflands.

The Ska heretofore had left Suarach in peace, to serve as a neutral area where they might trade with the outer world. The town fortifications had long been broken; and Aillas, lacking both funds and troops for an adequate garrison, perforce had left Suarach undefended, hoping that the Ska would continue to regard the town as a neutral zone.

The Ska, however, moved suddenly, to make their policy in regard to South Ulfland unmistakable; they marched into Suarach with four regiments of mixed cavalry and foot soldiers, and took the town without resistance of any kind.

Immediately they impressed labor gangs from the town’s population and, working with that ferocious intensity characteristic of all their conduct, they repaired the fortifications, and Suarach became a mortal insult to Aillas and the dignity of his rule, which he could not ignore without a sad diminution of prestige.

For two days Aillas kept to his Doun Darric headquarters, calculating his options. An instant counterattack to retake Suarach by frontal assault seemed the least feasible of his choices. The Ska enjoyed short lines of communication; their warriors were superior to the raw Ulfish troops in every category by which soldiery could be measured: training, discipline, leadership, weaponry, and, most telling of all, the almost religious certainty of Ska invincibility. The Troice troops, so Aillas believed, matched the Ska more evenly, but still, in sheer fighting ability, could not be held equal to the Ska.

A Ska soldier feared one thing only, the disesteem of his fellows. He gained civil advancement primarily through his military exploits, and fought each battle with total ferocity, which disheartened his adversaries even before the battle was joined. Withal, the Ska among themselves were a gentle and law-abiding people, who lived to the tenets of a unique and complicated culture, with a written history ten thousand years old, and traditions far older. Originally a small tribe which followed the retreating glaciers north, they became the true indigenes of Scandinavia, only to be at last thrust out by the Ur-Goths (later the Scandinavians and Vikings, who adopted many Ska traits and skills, including the Ska long-boat). Ska traditions recalled battles with ‘cannibal ogres’… evidently Neanderthal tribesmen… who, so they were assured, interbred with all other tribes of true men, so that only Ska were of pure human descent, and all others hybrids, soiled by the infusion of Neanderthal blood. For further background to the fascinating Ska psychology and history, see the glossary in LYONESSE I: Suldrun’s Garden,