The Harp and the Blade (27 page)

After sending our guide to watch the harvester, with instructions to set fire to the crops if we should succeed in distracting them by an attack of some sort, we sat like ravens waiting for a battle to leave them corpses. It was doubtless exceedingly boring to some. I made myself comfortable, adream with my new prospects. I didn’t even bother to look very often, being certain my attention would be called to any important development. It was almost noon when that happened.

“Finnian!” Conan whispered excitedly. “What do you make of that?”

Peering forth, I was brought sharply back to actuality. A troop of horsemen was on the road, not departing from the fort but going towards it. This was something that called for a prompt decision. If they didn’t prove too numerous they might be the victims we were awaiting.

Gambling on the probability that Oliver’s watchers would be preoccupied with the men on the road, Conan risked sending a man up a tree to count the newcomers. Meanwhile every man stood to his horse.

Conan and I caught the man to silence his fall as he dropped to the ground. “Over twenty, maybe thirty,” was his report.

We numbered, thirty-five ourselves, which made attack feasible if we made sure of getting out from under before the garrison could help their friends. We looked at the fort once more to make certain. There was no excitement there, which meant that the newcomers were recognized allies, and therefore our foes.

“Our horses have had a good rest,” the Abbot said. “We should be able to charge-through and drive back before they can be reinforced. If we regain the woods before they catch up with us they’ll have a hard time cornering us.”

“They might not enjoy it if they do,” Conan observed. “We’ll hit them as they round the bend, I suppose?”

It was the obvious place, and the prelate nodded. “Give the signal,” he whispered as he turned toward his horse.

Our foe was still a good distance off, but the horses were moving at high speed. They were so patently making the old meal-time spurt that we grinned. “Those nags have their hearts set on hay,” Conan said with satisfaction. “They’re going to be hard to turn for anything so nonessential as a fight.”

I left him and returned with both our mounts. All the others were already astride, edging cautiously nearer to the clearing. We waited a moment longer, by which time the leaders were almost to the bend. Conan gave me a knee up and vaulted astraddle his own horse. “All right,” he said quietly.

Our crashing through the brush out into the open was their warning, but by the time they comprehended the extent of their danger we were well on our way. There was a stretch of barley to surge through first, then there was new stubble, and the horses could run. Meanwhile there were shouts from the wall and startled yells from the men on the road. The startled yells insured the riders startled horses and ones that had no liking for veering to face us. Their solution of the situation, as Conan had predicted, was to keep on bolting for the oats.

The drawback to that idea as far as the enemy was concerned was that we could undoubtedly reach them before they reached the fort; so unless they lined up for a countercharge we’d wash them away as a freshet does sand. They tried to meet us as soon as they decided they couldn’t avoid us, but, fighting their nervous and indignant horses, they couldn’t attain much momentum.

As I shrugged my shield into place and drew my sword, I was looking them over, mount and man. “There’s Oliver himself!” Jean cried with fierce triumph, but it wasn’t a rider that held my attention first. My eye was taken by a splendid bay, the finest horse I had ever seen. I didn’t need to strain to see who was on it. “Chilbert!” I called to Conan.

He looked, then headed directly for the count. “He’s mine, brother!” he cried, and I accepted that. Oliver was the one I would try for.

They did their best to meet us, as I’ve stated. For a moment I could see their wrathful or frantic expressions, those of men striving but knowing their hopeless disadvantage, and then we were on them. I don’t know whether I killed anyone on that charge or not. As Oliver had shifted his position by the time we encountered them I contented myself with indiscriminate hacking.

But the massed force of our run was terrific. We blasted them apart, knocking some from their mounts and riding them down, wounding some with our swords, killing others. “They got between us, God damn them! I had him, and they got between us!” I heard Conan lament as we turned to bite them again.

They had attempted to reorganize, but they were too hard hit. I heard Oliver shrieking excitedly and Chilbert crying orders in the peculiarly cold voice I remembered him using just before he murdered the Saxon youth. As I turned my mount I saw men issuing from the fort. No doubt the harvesters were on their way also, and well armed, too for no sane men would work in the open without weapons handy.

But we had time for one more good charge. However, they saw at the last moment that they couldn’t succeed in crystallizing effectively. Or rather Chilbert saw, and they scattered before us at his command. He was right, for though it proved utterly fatal to the fragment we caught, more escaped our compact onslaught than would have survived if they’d stood against us.

Chilbert himself killed a monk who sought to block his retreat, coolly avoided Conan’s attack and hazed the bay away at a terrific speed. My friend started to follow, but I had had that horse under me and knew what it could do. “No use!” I called. “He can be back from Rome before you’re halfway there.”

Conan was some strides ahead of me, but, remembering my knowledge, he turned to aid in making as much havoc as possible before we had to break away. But there was no one, we discovered, whom we could now catch with safety. The unmaimed and still mounted survivors were too near their swiftly approaching comrades to make following them worthwhile. Our men reined in to jeer loudly, and a few engaged in pilfering the dead and wounded.

But there was one major episode of the fight left. The Abbot had headed Oliver off and was remorselessly intercepting each dash to rejoin his friends which the redheaded man made. Finally the latter charged in desperation, and that was his undoing. The churchman warded a sword blow, then a second. A moment later he found the opening he wanted and swept his own blade through Oliver’s neck. The head actually lofted a little before it struck the ground, bounced and rolled.

Leaning from the saddle the prelate speared the head with his brand and held it high. “That’s for Clovis!” he shouted after Chilbert. He was no ritualist then.

We took one final survey of the possibilities and instantly decided they were and would remain unfavorable. Chilbert knew what he was doing and had stopped his mounted men until his foot troops from the fields, now nearly flush with them, could arrive to form a line which could fold and trap us if we were fools enough to ride into it.

Had I been in Chilbert’s place I would have done exactly what he did. The odds were that we would have been carried by the heat of success to essay further damage. But Oliver’s death had cooled most of us. Thirty thousand Olivers would not compensate for Father Clovis as a man, but in their value to their respective factions one could be crossed off against the other. Likewise two or three men lay dead for each of the fellows assassinated in Gregory’s fort, and others, if they survived, would not feel well for a long time. We had done as well as we could have hoped for and a little bit over. The more we lingered the more we would jeopardize our gains.

“Come on away!” Conan Ordered. “And make it fast!”

A few, made wild by triumph to the point where they considered themselves invincible, hesitated in wonder at this order for retreat. The Abbot glowered at them. “Anybody who wants to stay and fertilize Chilbert’s fields can do so,” he said. “The others will come along now!”

When we fled Chilbert was after, but that was more for the morale of his people than anything else. As mass tactics would be rendered impossible by the trees, his advantage in numbers would be largely nullified. Attacking us would resolve into a haphazard business with only such unpredictable gains or losses as would develop from a series of single combats. Or such would be the manner of it until the foot soldiers arrived. The latter could come in among us with knives and pikes to bring down our horses.

They would take a little time to arrive, however, and within the border of the woods we halted and faced our immediate pursuers for a stalemate. They were hoping still that foolhardiness would put us into their hands, and I could see Chilbert glaring fiercely willing us to stay where we were.

Conan winked at me. “Give them a sword song, brother,” he urged. We were gay with triumph as we had something of a right to be, seeing that the swift blow, which we had pushed ourselves hard to make possible, then waited cannily to deliver, had succeeded with a cost to us of but one man. The loss of Oliver would tell heavily on Chilbert not only because he had been a valuable lieutenant but because word of it would rapidly go everywhere, diminishing the count’s prestige. Scoring the first gains is always and naturally taken for a powerfully fair omen.

Feeling as I did, I welcomed Conan’s suggestion, and I saw that the monks were looking at me with as keen anticipations as our own men showed. At the moment there wasn’t a one of them from the Abbot on down who was thinking in any terms but those of a warrior. I looked at the enemy, who were also, though sullenly, giving me their attention, and I laughed. I would need no harp to help hold this audience. As for the song, it was easy to decide upon, for there was only one of the sort I’d ever made in French.

“Women save things; men are spillers,

Renders, breakers, cleavers, killers.

The sword knew that.

I was glad; my hand was ready,

For the call was stirring, heady

When the sword spoke.

‘Have done now with loving, laughing,

Hunting, sleeping, singing, quaffing, ‘

The sword said. ‘Seek!’

‘What?’ I asked, ‘should I be finding—

Land or cattle for my minding?’

The sword said: ‘No!’

‘Would you have a man my questing,

Met in pride but left unjesting?’

The sword said: ‘Yes!’

‘Would you have him broken, battered,

Carved, left bloodless, headless, shattered?’

The sword said: ‘Right!’

‘Any man could suit your needing

For a life let out by bleeding?’

The sword said: ‘Wrong!’

‘There’s a man for whom my hating

Might be ending him know sating,
’

The sword said: ‘Good!’

He was tall, a strong one, daring,

Facing us unawed, uncaring.

The sword said: ‘Strike!’

Smiling first, he soon was shrinking;

And as it bit deeply, drinking,

The sword said: ‘Ah!’

We were savage at his worsting,

And, though slaking, still a thirsting,

The sword said: ‘More!’

Finding man, we left him cuttings

Fit for kites at twilight gluttings.

The sword said: ‘Done!’ 
”

“Done!” all our men echoed at the top of their voices and cheered, while our foemen scowled at us, muttering. But Chilbert looked to see that his harvesters had almost caught up. His face lighted with the assurance that he had us, but Conan chuckled. “Good-by, Chilbert.”

“Home!” the Abbot ordered tersely, and we wheeled. Our scout, who had rejoined us to report the crops not dry enough for burning, led off briskly, and we swept after him. Chilbert followed us for a ways, but once again he was forced to concede that there was little gain in attacking, even if he could catch us, once his footmen were outdistanced. So he gave up, and we strung out in single file, tired men but talkatively delighted with ourselves.

The Abbot, whose stronghold was by far the nearest urged us to rest there before continuing on to the fort. Keenly as we were looking forward to reporting our success to those anxiously waiting at home, the good sense of the churchman’s suggestion was obvious. So we headed for the monastery, excitement seeping from us to leave us worn, drowsy riders.

W
E
were halfway home from the abbey the following day when we noticed considerable smoke a couple of hundred yards south of our path. Any sign of fire in a forest country must be investigated, so we promptly tethered our horses and went to take a look. It was a brush fire, fortunately already dying down for lack of wind, and we made short work of beating out what was left of it.

Jean looked around to make sure of his bearings. “Bertram lives around here,” he told Conan.

We were starting to leave as he made this remark, but Conan halted abruptly. “That’s the charcoal burner?”

“Yes,” Jean’s gesture indicated general rather than specific, knowledge. “But it’s not far from here,” he said positively. “It might be the source.”

“We’ll find out,” Conan stated, and we advanced gingerly, coughing because of the smoke but not too much bothered by the heat. The forest was moist enough to save the big trees from firing. Only the brush and some saplings had caught…

“There’s what’s left!” one of the men exclaimed, pointing to a small, smoke-misted clearing. There were undoubtedly the ashes of a shack there. As we approached I noticed that a couple of the base logs still glowed dully. With our smarting and weeping eyes we were slow to make out details or to tell wood from other charred matter, but suddenly Jean swore with hysterical horror. Any man would have under the circumstances. He had just stumbled over the badly crisped body of a woman.

In another minute we discovered the corpse of a child. “You can’t tell whether fire killed them or not,” Conan said, coughing. “Make a good search for Bertram.”

“Maybe he went to the fort to tell you about it,” someone suggested. But he hadn’t.