Poul Anderson - The High Crusade

“I’m sorry, my dear,” he mumbled.

She turned her face from him.

Sir Owain arose. The knuckles stood forth pale on the hand that clutched his harp. “This have you led us to!” he shrilled. “To death and damnation beyond the sky! Are you satisfied?”

Sir Roger clapped hand on hilt. “Be still!” he roared. “All of you agreed with my plan. Not a one of you demurred. None were forced to come. We must all share the burden now, or God pity us!”

The younger knight muttered rebelliously but sat down again.

It was awesome how swiftly my lord rebounded from dismay to boldness. Of course it was a mask he put on for the others’ benefit; but how many men could have done that much? Truly he was a peerless leader. I attribute it to the blood of King William the Conqueror, a bastard grandson of whom wed an illegitimate daughter of that Earl Godfrey who was later outlawed for piracy, and so founded the noble de Tourneville house.

“Come, now,” said the baron with a degree of cheerfulness. “’Tis not so bad. We’ve but to act with steadfast hearts, and the day shall yet be ours. Remember, we hold a good number of captives, whom we can use as a bargaining point. If we must fight again, we’ve already proven they cannot withstand us under anything like equal conditions. I admit there are more of them, and that they have more skill with these craven hell-weapons. But what of that? ’Twill not be the first time brave men properly led have driven a seemingly stronger army from the field.”

“At the very worst, we can retreat. We have skyships enough, and can evade pursuit in the trackless deeps of space. But I’m fain to stay here, bargain shrewdly, fight where needful, and put my trust in Cod. Surely He, who stopped the sun for Joshua, can swat a million Wersgorix if it pleases Him: for His mercy endureth forever. After we’ve wrung terms from the foe, we’ll make them find our home for us and stuff our ships with gold. I say to you, hold fast! For the glory of God, the honor of England, and the enrichment of us all!”

He caught them up, bore them on the wave of his own spirit, and had them cheering him at the end. They crowded close, hands on his hands above his great shining sword, and swore to remain true till the danger was past. Thereafter an hour went in eager planning — most of it, alas, wasted, for God seldom brings that to pass which man expects. Finally all went to their rest.

I saw my lord take his wife’s arm to lead her into his pavilion. She spoke to him, a harsh whisper, she would not hear his protests but stood there denouncing him in the enemy night. The larger moon, already sinking, touched them with cold fire.

Sir Roger’s shoulders slumped. He turned and went slowly from her, wrapped himself in a saddle blanket, and slept in the dews of the field.

It was strange that a man among men was so helpless against a woman. He had something beaten and pitiful about him as he lay there. I thought it boded ill for us.

We had been too excited at first to pay attention, and afterward we slept too long. But when I woke again, finding it still dark, I checked the movement of stars against trees. Ah, how slowly! The night here was many times as long as on Earth.

This unnerved our folk badly enough in itself. The fact that we did not flee (by now, it could no longer be concealed that treason, rather than desire, had brought us hither) puzzled many. But at least they expected weeks to carry out whatever the baron decided. The shock, when enemy ships appeared even before dawn, was great.

“Be of good heart,” I counseled Red John, as he shivered with his bowman in the gray mists. “’Tis not that they have powers magical. You were warned of this at the captains’ council. ’Tis only that they can talk across hundreds of miles and fly such distances in minutes. So as soon as one of the fugitives reached another estate, the word of us went abroad.”

“Well,” said Red John, not unreasonably, “if that’s not magic, I’d like to know what is.”

“If magic, you need have no fear,” I answered, “for the black arts do not prevail against good Christian men. However, I tell you again, this is mere skill in the mechanic and warlike arts.”

“And those do prevail against g-g-good Christian men!” blubbered an archer. John cuffed him to silence, while I cursed my own clumsy tongue.

In that wan, tricky light, we could see many ships hovering, some of them as big as our broken Crusader. My knees drummed under my cassock. Of course, we were all inside the force screen of the smaller fort, which had never been turned off. Our gunners had already discovered that the fire-bombards placed here had controls as simple as any in the spaceship, and stood prepared to shoot. However, I knew we had no true defense. One of those very powerful explosive shells whereof I had heard hints could be fired. Or the Wersgorix might attack on foot, overwhelming us with sheer numbers.

Yet those ships did only hover, in utter silence under the unknown stars. When at length the first pale dawnlight streamed off their flanks, I left the bowmen and fumbled through dew-wet grass to the cavalry. Sir Roger sat peering heavenward from his saddle. He was armed cap-a-pie, helmet in the crook of an arm, and none could tell from his face how little sleep had been granted him.

“Good morning, Brother Parvus,” he said. “That was a long darkness.”

Sir Owain, mounted close by, wet his lips. He was pale. his large long-lashed eyes sunken in dark rims. “No midwinter night in England ever wore away so slowly,” he said, and crossed himself.

“The more daylight, then,” said Sir Roger. He seemed almost cheerful, now when he dealt with foemen rather than unruly womenfolk.

Sir Owain’s voice cracked across like a dry twig. “Why don’t they attack?” he yelled, “Why do they just wait up there?’

“It should be obvious. I never thought ’twould need mentioning,” said Sir Roger. “Have they not good reason to be afraid of us?”

“What?” I said. “Well, sire, of course we are Englishmen. However—” My glance traveled back, over the pitiful few tents pitched around the fortress walls; over ragged, sooty soldiers; over huddled women and grandsires, wailing children; over cattle, pigs, sheep, fowl, tended by cursing serfs; over pots where breakfast porridge bubbled — “However, my lord,” I finished, “at the moment we look more French.”

The baron grinned. “What do they know about French and English? For that matter, my father was at Bannockburn, where a handful of tattered Scottish pikemen broke the chivalry of King Edward II. Now all the Wersgorix know about us is that we have suddenly come from nowhere and — if Branithar’s boasts be true — done what no other host has ever achieved: taken one of their strongholds! Would you not move warily, were you their constable?”

The guffaw that went up among the horse troopers spread down to the foot, until our whole camp rocked with it. I saw how the enemy prisoners shuddered and shrank close together when that wolfish noise smote them.

As the sun rose, a few Wersgor boats landed very slowly and carefully, a mile or so away. We held our fire, so they took heart and sent out people who began to erect machinery on the field.

“Are you going to let them build a castle under our very noses?” cried Thomas Bullard.

“’Tis less likely they’ll attack us, if they feel a little more secure,” the baron answered. “I want it made plain that we’ll parley.” His smile turned wry. “Remember, friends, our best weapon now is our tongues.”

Soon the Wersgorix landed many ships in a circular formation-like those stonehenges which giants raised in England before the Flood — to form a camp walled by the eerie faint shimmer of a force screen, picketed by mobile bombards, and roofed by hovering warcraft. Only when this was done did they send a herald.