Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset (17 page)

Because of his stratagem with the fire-carts, Kieron had become a hero among the survivors at the Misery. Men almost twice his age looked upon him with respect and listened to his ideas and opinions. He was no longer regarded as a heretic, one who had come close to the stake. All that seemed to belong to a world that had gone for ever. But his new status meant little to Kieron. He remained cold inside, cold with memories of cruelty and horror and death, cold with the knowledge of his own dreadful desire to seek vengeance.

Petrina noticed the change in him more than anyone. On their fifth day at the Misery, they asked Brother Hildebrand to marry them. Their parents were dead, and they had no one left but each other. It seemed to Kieron a logical thing to do. He and Petrina would now be able to share the same bed and seek consolation in each other’s arms without idle tongues wagging and without the censure of the neddies. Kieron went through the ceremony mechanically, his thoughts seeming to be far away. A special little hut had been prepared for them by friends, and a small and sadly gay feast had been arranged. But when Kieron and his bride retired to bed that night, he took no joy in her ample breasts and rounded belly. He performed his duty with the same remote efficiency he had displayed at the wedding. And Petrina was left to weep silently in the dark.

On the following day, Kentigern held a council of war. He was tired of waiting for help that did not come, he was tired of living in the woods like an outcast, he was tired of seeing people look to him for decisions and miracles.

Kieron, though young, was invited to attend the council because of his undoubted talent for destruction.

Kentigern spoke first. ‘Friends, you know what answer we have received from the grand seigneurs. They will help us, but it will take time; and they require us to establish an army consisting of all capable of bearing arms in the seigneuries that have already been attacked. That, too, will take time. I for one am unwilling to wait and see our people rot while such armies are gathered. Since the freebooters have shown no inclination to hold Arundel, it is possible for us to return to our homes and attempt to rebuild them. But, if we did, it is certain that our activities would be observed. Admiral Death, as we know, maintains a careful watch. At the first sign of our presence, no doubt he would send a force against us. We were not strong enough to resist the first attack. We would hardly be strong enough to resist a second. I propose, therefore, that we ourselves mount an attack upon his vessels at Little Hampton. It will hardly be expected, and the element of surprise will surely afford us some advantage. I ask your opinions on these thoughts, my friends.’

Some spoke for an attack, arguing that there was little to be lost and much to be gained. Some spoke against an attack, arguing that there was much to be lost and little to be gained. Kieron listened to all the speakers attentively, but did not himself offer an opinion.

Finally, Kentigern addressed him directly. ‘Well, Kieron, as I have observed, you have listened hard and said nothing. You have already proved yourself a man of some inspiration in the matter of inflicting losses upon the enemy. Have you nothing to say?’

Kieron smiled. ‘I am, as you know, one who desires to annihilate the freebooters utterly. My own plans would take time to put into action, assuming that you would be agreeable to them, which I doubt.’

‘Tell us of your plans, then, that we may judge.’

‘You know that I have experimented with a hot-air balloon?’

Kentigern shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Surely it is a thing best forgotten.’

‘No, Kentigern, it is a thing to remember. These facts are also things to remember. Admiral Death is afraid of fire. He commands the sea and he commands the land. He does not command the air. I desire to build a hot-air balloon capable of carrying two men. When the wind is right, this hot-air balloon would drift over the fleet at Little Hampton, raining fire upon the ships. Wooden ships will burn. If Admiral Death is deprived of his ships, he is also deprived of a means of supply and a means of retreat. Then would be the time to attack by land.’

There were murmurs of shock and disapproval. Kieron’s recent exploits had made him into a hero. Men did not wish to be reminded of matters that had brought him close to the stake.

Brother Hildebrand was among those present. ‘Kieron, my brother,’ he said mildly, ‘Ludd moves in mysterious ways, and has enabled you to redeem yourself in heroic action, of which Holy Church will take great notice. Do not, I beg of you, relapse into previous heresy.’

‘Will Holy Church send us one thousand soldiers?’ demanded Kieron caustically. ‘Will the Divine Boy smash the ships of the freebooters with his divine hammer?’

‘Peace,’ said Kentigern anxiously. ‘We are not gathered here to discuss doctrine or heresy. We are here to devise a means of ridding us of those who have fallen upon us like locusts. Will anyone else advise us?’

‘Let us make use of Kieron’s stratagem at the castle,’ said someone. ‘Let us by dead of night take small boats down the Arun. Let us take small boats loaded with casks of whale oil, straw and other combustibles. Let us tie them “beneath the sterns of the freebooters” vessels and put them to the torch. Thus shall we inflict much damage.’

‘It will not work,’ said Kieron. ‘Their sentinels will be ready for us by sea, by river or by land. They cannot be ready for us by air.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Kentigern, ‘the suggestion is a good one, and the best I have heard this day. I propose to commit one hundred men and ten fire-boats to this enterprise. It is my task now to seek volunteers, for I will not command men who have little enthusiasm for the venture.’

Kieron was among the first to volunteer. Not because he had any faith in the venture, but because it might offer him another opportunity to kill freebooters.

The boats were launched into the Arun at night on the ebb. The Arun flowed swiftly, carrying the attacking party towards Little Hampton at better than five knots. For the major part of the journey, the men sat in the boats; but when they neared Little Hampton they slipped over the side and held on to the gunwales.

The water was icy cold, and many men had to bite hard on cloth or leather to stop their teeth chattering. Kentigern planned to let the boats drift, with the men hanging on to them, guiding them to the centre of the river. When Little Hampton was reached, swimmers would attach the fire-boats to their target vessels and fuses would be ignited so that the boats would not burst into flame until the men had had at least some chance to make their escape.

The plan, as Kieron had foreseen, depended too heavily on an element of surprise which it would be hard to obtain. The drifting fire-boats were discovered before they reached Little Hampton. They were discovered by a small patrol of freebooters, equipped with lanterns, and marching along the bank of the river.

The boats were plainly visible by lantern light; and besides, one of Kentigern’s men had sneezed. The freebooters began to use bows and muskets with terrible effect. The men in the water were too numbed with cold, too hampered by wet clothes and too disheartened to attempt any effective counter-attack. They scrambled for the farther bank, where they were picked off by bowmen and musketeers as they dragged themselves out of the river mud.

One sharp-witted freebooter, guessing the purpose of the boats, tossed his lantern into one of them. It burst mightily into flame; and the survivors of Kentigern’s unhappy band were now exposed as if by daylight. Some men did manage to struggle up the muddy bank and into the darkness; but many were killed in the water, and a few drowned, lacking the strength to swim.

Kieron, as soon as he had grasped what was happening, had the wit to lower his head for a while below water and drift on with his boat. Luckily it was not the one that was fired. Downstream, and away from the glare of the flames, he managed to scramble to the bank.

Though he was numb with cold and almost exhausted, he forced himself to run through the darkness, falling down many times, but always managing to pick himself up, somehow. His limbs ached and his skin froze. Running, he knew, would be the only way he could keep himself alive. There were times when he wished to lie down and rest, even to sleep; but he would not allow himself to do so, realising that if he did, he might never rise.

He arrived back at the Misery in a pitiable condition just after daylight. He was not the first survivor to be lucky enough to make his way back. Several had preceded him. Several would come after.

He did not recognize Petrina. He did not seem to recognize anyone or anything. His eyes were vacant; and it was as if blind instinct had kept him going and had made him seek the security of his own folk.

Someone was holding him, someone was talking to him. He did not know who, nor did he understand the words. He must be among friends, he told himself vaguely, otherwise he would likely have been killed. But in case he had fallen into some kind of trap, he tried to raise the sword that he held, the
sword that had not left his hand throughout that terrible journey down the river Arun.

He tried to raise the sword, and fell soundlessly. Petrina knelt by him, stroking him, weeping. She attempted to take the sword from his half-frozen fingers; but she could not.

He had a fever, and she nursed him for several days. At one time, the neddies thought him like to die. But he was young and strong; and Petrina warmed him with her body when the fever left him and he was held by a deathly chill. Presently, the chill faded and he became conscious and reasonable. He drank nourishing soup and felt a faint surge of strength in his limbs. He discovered, with some surprise, that he was destined to live.

One morning, he desired to wash himself and make himself presentable. Petrina brought him a mirror. He looked in it and was shocked to see the face of a stranger. A man with gaunt cheeks and deep lines on his face and forehead. A man with hair turning white.

It was a fine thing to have white hair when one was eighteen years old. How would he look when he was thirty? He shrugged. No matter. There was work to be done. Much, much work. What mattered was not how a man looked but what he had achieved.

Of the hundred men who set out on the ill-starred venture, but twenty-three returned, the rest being killed or taken. Kentigern was a broken man, his ability to make decisions seemingly paralysed by the magnitude of the disaster.

In various ways, the other seigneuries along the southern coast had fared quite as badly as the seigneurie of Arundel. Like the survivors of Arundel, the others had taken to the woods and to the downs, establishing temporary camps from which they made costly and at times disastrous counter-attacks upon the freebooters. The seigneuries had for so long been autonomous and self-sufficient that they had developed a fatal aversion to co-operating with each other and acting in unity. Their prejudices sprang from an almost racial fear of the evils of central government. For as far back as people could remember, seigneuries were united either by blood ties or by conquest; and it was a long time since any seigneur had been rash enough to attempt to subdue his neighbour by force of arms. Loose marital alliance had been both the strength and the weakness of the seigneurs. Now, confronted by invaders under a unified command, they were at a disadvantage.

It would be a considerable time, reasoned Kieron, before the people were able to abandon their traditional attitudes. A man from the next seigneurie was still regarded as a foreigner and treated with caution. How much more destruction would it take to make people realise that their only hope lay in working together? By the time people had come to their senses and the Grand Council had sent auxiliaries to aid them, Admiral Death would have an iron grip on the land he had conquered. And the people of Arundel, for whom he had the greatest concern, would remain fugitives, people of the woods, relapsing eventually into barbarism.

He had much time to reflect while he regained his strength and recovered from his illness. He began to take pleasure in Petrina once more, rejoicing in the sweet yielding of her body, giving her the seed of his loins and the love of his spirit. He did not need her to tell him when she had conceived. He knew. He had felt her body, relaxed yet taut, quivering joyfully beneath his. He had felt his seed leap joyfully into her womb, like salmon returning to the source of a known river.

One day he went to Kentigern. Now that he had hope of immortality, there was even more to fight for and to live for.

‘I am going to build a hot-air balloon, Kentigern. A very large hot-air balloon. I am going to float it over the ships of Admiral Death and rain fire upon them from the sky. I need help. I need you to command men to help me.’

Kentigern sat on a chair with a shawl round his shoulders, like Master Hobart. And, like Master Hobart, he coughed much and drank such strong spirits as were available to him.

‘A hot-air balloon is heresy,’ he said thickly. ‘Holy Church will burn you, and possibly me also.’

‘We are all dying,’ said Kieron. ‘No man lives for ever. And what help has Holy Church given us in this time of disaster?’

Kentigern hiccuped. ‘The neddies have prayed for us.’

‘Has their prayer destroyed one of the freebooters?’ demanded Kieron angrily.

‘Who can say?’

‘I can say. I would rather have one sword in my hand than the prayers of a hundred neddies behind me.’

‘You were right about the fire-boats … Kieron, forgive me. My mind is not too clear. Construct the hot-air balloon, if you must. My judgment is fled.’

‘And I can have the men?’

‘You shall have the men.’

‘And women to sew canvas and paper?’

‘Those also.’

‘And you will allow me to choose my time and place?’

‘I will allow you all these things,’ said Kentigern. ‘There is only one thing I will not allow you.’

‘What is that?’

‘Failure. There has been too much failure. We cannot stand more. So, Kieron, my boy, understand that you stake your life upon this enterprise. If you fail I, poor thing that I am, will personally disembowel you for having persuaded me to damn my immortal soul for nothing.’