The Iron Tempest (34 page)
Authors: Ron Miller
Now that it was safe to speak freely, the villagers showed no restraint in denouncing their deposed lord, in expressing their hate and anger. From every doorway and alley, more and more men and boys appeared, pouring into the open square until it was filled with the seething mob. No longer afraid to speak, they now protested the kidnapping or murder of their loved ones and, one by one, like mushrooms bravely springing up after a summer shower, weapons began appearing, first here and there, then every hand seemed to bear a flashing blade or a bludgeon. It was all the three knights could do to keep the mob from sweeping over the helpless prisoner like an angry tide. There was no thought of mercy—the trio simply did not want him to die
too
quickly.
Bradamant found herself wondering why such an enthusiastic army had not long before overwhelmed the evil lord, they obviously outnumbered his men ten to one.
Marfisa carried the bound man to a raised platform that overlooked the square (and once again Bradamant marveled at the prodigious strength in that sinuous body—the man must have weighed three hundred pounds even without his armor). There she removed the original bonds and, keeping an iron grip on her prisoner, stripped him naked. There was little danger of Marganor escaping: he was so terrified it was all he could do to stand. She retied the knots so tightly that Bradamant, who stood fifty paces away, could see his feet and hands turn bloat purply. Marfisat turned to the now-silently-expectant crowd and called for Jaudenes. The elderly woman painfully made her way to the platform and was helped up its steps. Someone, anticipating the Moor’s intentions, handed the old woman a sharply-pointed iron rod—evidently the skewer from some tavern’s spit. She shuffled over to the man whom she detested as much as any woman or man can loathe another human being. Marganor, who had been regaining a little of his composure, only had to glance at the crone’s face and he was on his knees, begging, whimpering, crying for mercy, his piggy eyes almost bursting from their sockets in his terror.
In five minutes the villain was covered with blood that seeped from a hundred different wounds, none of them fatal which, Bradamant concluded, was no doubt why Marfisa had insisted that the weak old woman be allowed to be the first to wreak her vengeance. Then, as a courtesy extended to a foreign visitor, Ullania and her handmaidens were invited to vent their rage as well. Marganor’s suffering at their hands was in direct proportion to their greater strength, which, unlike Jaudene’s, was in no way diminished by age or illness. When their weapons finally slipped from their wet hands, they fell to biting and scratching; yet, so powerful was the man that when the three women finally fell back exhausted Bradamant was amazed to see that he was still alive. Alive, but certainly no longer the fearsome creature he once was, this mewling, groveling, tattered thing. He looked like a bundle of bloody rags.
Just as some rivers are powerful torrents that can carry away houses, cattle and people, tear enormous stones from mountainsides and trees from their roots, but eventually reach the plains where they spread out, lose their strength and urgency so that a woman or child can cross it with impunity, so it was with the great Marganor. He had caused the strongest men to shudder until the strangers had arrived, beaten him to his knees, quelled his massive strength until now even the weakest child didn’t hesitate sticking a pin into him.
Leaving the man to what little remained of his fate, Bradamant and her friends turned their attention to the castle that loomed above them. As they climbed the steep steps they were met halfway by its chamberlain, who docilely and silently handed over its keys and a catalog of the furnishings and contents. These were turned over to the townspeople who didn’t hesitate to begin looting. Some of the treasures, however, Bradamant was careful to reserve for Ullania, who was surprised and pleased to discover her golden shield among them.
The knights agreed that they had successfully accomplished the mission they had set for themselves, perhaps even more successfully than they had anticipated. Before departing the town Bradamant and Marfisa searched out its leaders and extracted the promise that they would turn the administration of the village over to the women as soon as they returned. Indeed, all the existing laws pertaining to husband and wife were inverted. Marfisa made it quite clear that even rumor about this oath being broken would eventually reach her ears and they could count on her being less merciful than she had been today. Bradamant for her part insisted that the town fathers swear to God that no knight be allowed entrance to the village until he had taken an oath by whatever he held most sacred to be forever a friend to Woman and an enemy of Her enemies. If the knight happened to be married, then before he was allowed through the gates he had to swear to forever be subject to his wife and obedient to her every need. Marfisa promised to return in a year’s time and if either her’s or Bradamant’s laws were being flouted, even the slightest of them, the town could count on the immediate enactment of its postponed conflagration.
It is difficult to plumb Rashid’s thoughts and opinions concerning all of this, though it must have been something of a revelation—whoever would have thought that lovely, gentle, thoroughly Christian Bradamant—to say nothing of his own sister—harbored such unlikely, radical and for all he knew heretical ideas—he surely must have regarded it all as something of an ominous harbinger.
At Bradamant’s suggestion, their final act was to have Drusilla’s remains removed from the unhallowed tomb in which Marganor had disposed her and placed together with her husband’s in the finest corner the village church possessed. Above their new resting place Bradamant hung Marganor’s armor and shield as a trophy. Then, her work at last brought to a satisfactory conclusion, Bradamant and the two other knights mounted their horses and rode from the town. As she passed the blood-soaked platform, Bradamant saw that poor old Jaudenes had fallen asleep beside the huge, still-quivering body, the bloody pick still in her hand, exhausted from her happy work.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In which Bradamant and Rashid must again part company
and Marfisa tells a story
Once again Bradamant had to part with Rashid. It was perhaps even more difficult than it had ever been before, but she could not deny the necessity of it—for what little consolation that provided her grieving heart. Had his carefully-explained reason been anything other than the preservation of his honor she might have had some cause to find fault in their parting, to doubt that the fire of his passion burned less ardently in his breast than in hers. If he had wanted to go off to find great wealth, it would have meant to her that he valued gold and silver over the days they might have spent together. But it was, after all, a matter of his honor and it would have been to his discredit and shame if he chose to not defend it. And if she had insisted on his remaining with her, it would have been to her own discredit and shame, for, she knew, it would have been clear evidence that her love was shabby and trifling and her wisdom shallow.
If I truly cherish Rashid’s life above my own,
she repeated to herself, unconvincingly,
then I ought to value his honor above my pleasure in the same ratio that I hold honor above life—especially since life is preferable to any pleasure.
Rashid, she decided, must complete his sworn duty to his liege. It would only be to his shame if he deserted Agramant for no good reason. Also, it was her duty, she believed, not to insist that he remain with her—which she knew he would have done had she pressed the issue. The dereliction of her own duties to Charlemagne were still a source of much guilt and she couldn’t bring herself to ask someone she loved to undertake the same irresponsibility. That she more than half hoped he would on his own accord only added to her conflicted emotions. If he could not be with her now, she knew it would not be much longer before they would be together forever; but she also knew that if he stayed with her at the price of his honor she would never be entirely satisfied with him. Such were the arguments she wrestled with—and they relieved her pain as a bucket of oil quenches a fire.
So Rashid returned to Arles and Bradamant, in the company of Marfisa, returned to the service of Charlemagne.
Her reception was, if anything, more gladsome than the last. The wholesale slaughter of the Saracens at Arles and the subsequent embarrassment of Agramant (the upshot of the great battle Bradamant had instigated but had not seen the finish of) was already famous, as was the liberation of Marganor’s people. She was of course recognized long before she entered the Christian camp and adulation spread from her like the bow wave of a ship. Officers and soldiers poured from their tents, cheering, waving and calling her name. Bradamant responded with only a nod of her tawny head—duty insisted that she be there and fate insisted upon her adulation but she did not have to be happy about either. She noticed with some disapproval that for her part Marfisa did not deign to smile and wave at the crowding men, who were all but throwing themselves at the Moor’s feet.
As she and her companion approached the center of the camp where sat the great pavilion that marked Karl’s headquarters, Renaud, Richard, Reinhold and a dozen of her other relatives rushed to greet her. She dismounted and tolerated with grim courtesy the laudation that swept over her while Marfisa looked down with the supercilious amusement of the hawk she resembled.
After Renaud had embraced and kissed his sister, he asked who her companion was. “She looks awfully familiar,” he said.
“This is Marfisa,” Bradamant replied. “The great Saracen Amazon.”
“Good God!” he cried. “
Marfisa?
Marfisa is your prisoner?
The
Marfisa? The emperor will be very pleased, indeed!”
“No, no! She’s not my prisoner, Renaud. She’s here of her own free will. She’s come to join our cause.”
“Oh, really? Well, an even greater victory, sister! Karl will want to see both of you at once.”
“Good, for I want to see the emperor myself.”
The mention of Marfisa’s name was like a boulder dropped into a pond—a wave of excitement spread in ever-increasing velocity. Every tent in the camp was deserted as thousands shoved and craned their necks trying to catch even as much as a glimpse of the two near-mythical women—the gleaming Christian warrioress and the dark Saracen champion whose fame had been sung from Cathay to Cordova. There had not been many Christian knights or soldiers who had ever encountered Marfisa and lived to meet her a second time, which is why her name had been recognized while her person had not.
Renaud, Richard and the others had to plow a kind of furrow through the crowd to allow Bradamant and Marfisa access to Charlemagne’s tent. Even the sight of drawn swords was scarcely sufficient to discourage the curious, cheering mob. Only the appearance of the emperor himself served to quiet the throng, like oil spread over a troubled sea. He enfolded Bradamant into his enormous arms, then extended a hand in greeting to Marfisa who, for the first time in her life, dropped to her knees in obeisance—of all the kings and emperors she had met in her illustrious career, whether pagan or Christian, whatever their valor or wealth, none but Charlemagne had been accorded the honor of her bent knee and bowed head.
Inside the pavilion, every lord and paladin—including most of Bradamant’s brothers and cousins, with the exception of Roland (who was rumored to have gone mad as the result of some misbegotten romance)—were gathered in a broad semicircle around the dias that supported the emperor’s throne. Karl took his place and gestured for Bradamant and Marfisa to join him, thereby elevating both above every knight, prince, baron and king present, and not one gainsaid them the honor.
“My lord,” began Marfisa. “High and mighty Charlemagne, my glorious and august emperor, your white cross is honored from the Indian Ocean to the Pillars of Hercules, from snow-bound Scythia to arid Ethiopia. Nowhere does a juster monarch reign. Your unbounded fame has attracted honor and praise from the farthest end of the earth, as the needle of a compass is inexorably drawn toward the magnetic pole. Yet, I came originally not to honor you but to make war on you. I couldn’t allow any king, however just and mighty he may be, to hold any law other than my own. To this end I’ve drenched battlefield after battlefield with Christian blood and I would have continued this slaughter unabated if I hadn’t been befriended by one who has in turn made me your friend. I still had the hot blood of your good knights steaming on my hands when I learned my true origins and my relation to Rashid—and through him my relation to Lady Bradamant. But there’s more to my history than even she knows—how after I’d been stolen from Atalante I was sold as a slave to a Persian king, how I killed him when he attempted to rape me. I killed all his courtiers, too, for good measure, and forced his princes and princesses into exile with the result that I was able to take over his kingdom. By the time I was eighteen, I’d won six more kingdoms. By then, such was my pride and my greed, I determined to overthrow you, my lord, as well. I might’ve succeeded, I might’ve failed, but the point is moot now for I’ve learned that we’re related through my father, the first Rashid, who was both a kinsman of yours and a loyal vassal. And if my father was kin and vassal to Charlemagne, than so am I. I declare to you now that I’m putting aside all my jealousy, envy and hatred of your eminence. With your permission, I’ll be baptized in your faith after which I’ll return to my own kingdom and baptize it in turn. I’ll then make war against Agramant in Frankland, in Cordova, in Afric, in any place in the world where Mahomet and Trivigant are worshiped!”
Charlemagne was obviously deeply moved by this ardent speech and Bradamant was absolutely astonished at Marfisa’s suave and unexpected eloquence. She suspected, if perhaps a little meanly, that it had been long rehearsed. The emperor’s only reply was to stand and embrace the dark woman. He kissed her on her forehead and declared—to the enthusiastic cheers of everyone present—his acceptance of her as kinswoman and daughter.
The baptism took place only a few days later. The emperor personally oversaw the appointments and spared no lavishness. He sent to Paris for his bishops and their clergy, with instructions to school Marfisa in the details of her new faith. Archbishop Turpin himself made the journey from Rheims to perform the baptism and it was Charlemagne’s own hand that raised the newly-created Christian from the consecrating font. As she stepped from the altar, Bradamant handed her the greatest gift she possessed: her sword.
* * * * *
When Bradamant was summoned to Charlemagne’s headquarters some two weeks after Marfisa’s baptism, she knew with a foreboding certainty that he wanted to speak to her about Rashid. She felt that her worst fears were confirmed when she saw the big man wringing his hands fretfully. It took a great deal to worry an emperor who had conquered the better part of Europe. Need details about Charlemagne--some homely stuff.
“I’ve been sent an—ah—interesting proposal by King Agramant.”
“A proposal?”
“Yes. And since it concerns you, at least indirectly, I thought you had some right to know about it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Bear with me and you will, I hope. As you well know, this war with the Saracens has been going on for years—nearly as long as you’ve been alive—and its only real result has been the spilling of a sea of blood from both sides. It frightens me to think how many brave Christian souls have died in our cause, and to what end? What’ve we gained? The line between Christian and Saracen Europe goes one way now, another way later, like a tug-of-war between two equally matched opponents. This war with Agramant could go on for another decade with no more result than ten thousand more lives thrown away and a hundred more cities destroyed. Now Agramant has suggested a way by which we can end this fruitless conflict honorably, with no more lives lost than that of one man from either side.”
“I can’t imagine how that could be arranged, my lord,” said Bradamant, with a numbing feeling as to whom one of those men must surely be.
“Let’s see,” replied Karl, fumbling with a scrolled manuscript. “Dum dum dum. Here it is. Hm. You can read it for yourself, but in short he offers to end our dispute and prevent the shedding of the blood of endless numbers of men on both sides by putting into the field my boldest warrior against the boldest of his own. Dum de dum. Ah yes. These two knights will be proxies, each assuming the burden of their respective armies, fighting until one is victor, the other vanquished. Et cetera, et cetera. The pact that Agramant offers is that the sovereign of the loser must pay homage to that of the winner.
“I tell you, Bradamant,” he continued, spreading the parchment smoothly on the tabletop with his huge hands, “I confess that even though at the moment I hold a slight advantage over my enemy, I’m sorely tempted to accept this scheme. After all, I’m blessed with a superfluity of puissant champions, any one of whom would surely be more than a match for any of Agramant’s knights.”
“Who would you choose?”
“Renaud, I believe. Roland, of course, would be my first choice, but, well . . . I don’t think there’s any need to bring up his present troubles.”
“Yes,” agreed Bradamant, “my brother is second only to Roland. I think it’s just possible that I myself couldn’t beat him.”
“Modestly put, my dear. I’ve discussed Agramant’s proposal with my generals and they’ve agreed with me. I’d have the support of all my armies, who’re weary beyond measure, weary in body and soul. No one, from the highest rank to the commonest soldier, truly wants to see this war dragged on. They’d rightly prefer to spend what’s left of their lives in their homes with their families, whether that be castle or hut, highborn or low. Too, I fear my armies may eventually mutiny—would mutiny if it became known that I declined an offer such as this one. Already I feel as though my control is incomplete.”
“And when will this duel take place? Some months from now, I would imagine?”
“It’s set for next week.”
“
Set?
You’ve made your decision, then?”
“Yes, I have. I told Renaud not fifteen minutes ago.”
“And Agramant has chosen Rashid.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Of course . . .”
Even the indomitable Charlemagne was frightened at the transformation that took place before him, as though a conjuror had promised to turn a flower into a rabbit and had instead produced a tiger. All of the emperor’s pagan roots stirred beneath their church-imposed dormancy. He found long-forgotten talismanic Latin coming to his lips. This rush of superstitious awe seemed much more appropriate to the elemental spectacle of Bradamant’s fury than any Christian prayer. It was as though the emperor had dropped an ember into an urn of Greek fire—the girl seemed to burst into a golden flame, expanding to fill the chamber like an unbottled genie, her dark eyes like sunspots in that lambent face.
Charlemagne knew better than to insist on the formality of giving the girl permission to leave his presence—she was no longer wholly aware of where she was. She had no recollection of departing the emperor’s tent, or of charging through the camp like a stone flung from a catapult, or of throwing herself into her tent where, to Marfisa’s horror and astonishment, she gave unrestrained vent to her anger and frustration. Her face was as white and clammy-looking as cheese, her lips were pulled back from her gleaming teeth in a fearsome rictus as they ground like millstones. She tore her armor from her and threw it to the ground, ripped her tunic to shreds with her nails, which were torn from her fingertips. Bloody trails were splashed across her bared bosom. She pulled at her hair until it came free in tangled skeins. She grasped her sword in both hands and hacked at everything in sight. She chopped her bed into kindling and threatened to fell the central pole of the tent.
Fearing that her friend was having some sort of fit or seizure, was perhaps even in the possession of some demon, which was perhaps closer to the truth than she suspected, Marfisa grappled with Bradamant, trying to pin her arms to her sides; yet even her prodigious energy was scarcely sufficient to hold the thrashing body, slippery with blood and tears. Fortunately, Bradamant, in her frenzy, exhausted herself long before Marfisa’s strength gave out. She was thrown onto a bed by her terrified friend, where she lay, racked with strangling sobs.