The Harp and the Blade (31 page)

Then suddenly Conan’s imminence was too much for him. He whirled and bolted right through his own men, ruining the morale he had already impaired and spreading panic as he went. It was a rout almost before we hit them. Those we couldn’t catch to slay fled toward their main body, with Gregory leading them by two lengths. And so it happened that an army which had every right to think it was comfortably protected turned, startled, to find its rear guard thundering toward it, unchecking.

Chilbert, who had been directing preparations for the attack from behind the main lines, swung around, wild-eyed, and roared for them to halt. As I knocked a man from his horse and looked forward for another victim I witnessed an irony whose dimensions I could not then spare the leisure to appreciate. Quickly appraising the extent of the danger, and as swiftly discerning its source, the count dashed to intercept his fleeing lieutenant. As the latter perforce drew rein and hastily started to fabricate explanations, Chilbert heaved up the great axe he was carrying. Without opening his mouth to reprimand, curse, or otherwise give notice of his displeasure he delivered a blow which cleft Gregory’s steel cap and only bogged down somewhere in his chest.

But no measures were stern enough to stop that flight immediately, and Chilbert himself had to side-step or be run down. He tried to make the rest of his followers divide and let the rear guard through, then close in on us as we followed. But it was too late, and the stampeded men we were driving ran on to smash in among the ranks of their fellows and ride down comrades afoot.

Because of the confusion they scattered we were an organized body impinged on individuals who had to shift for themselves. And where they wanted to shift was out of our way. We on our part could no longer retreat. We had to have the wall at our backs before we halted and reversed our direction.

We gained the wall without difficulty, but in so doing we sacrificed the momentum that had been our most potent weapon. Nor could we hope to pick it up again on the charge back. By the time we’d turned to face them they were beginning to form ranks against us once more. Still, though they were in numbers to eat us alive once they had fully gelled, they would be no great danger to us for a few minutes. And if the Abbot was the man I thought he was this period of their disorganization would not be passed by.

Everything had happened so rapidly, with results as amazing to us as to them, that until the moment of our turning I hadn’t entirely comprehended what a blow luck had let us strike them. Having their rear guard routed almost before it took the field must have given them the idea that irresistible power was against them. There must have been something peculiarly unnerving, too, in the experience of being ridden down by their own comrades.

With the wall to keep us from being bothered from the rear, we were able to form an effective wedge and had no trouble in beating off such ill co-operating groups as tried to crush us. Elsewhere, however, Chilbert was doing a masterful job of reestablishing morale. A magnificent, huge figure on a magnificent, huge horse, he was savagely dominant. He didn’t shame so much as cow them into renewed aggressiveness. I think most of them were more afraid of that one man than they were of all of us, their avowed enemies.

Conan had his ear cocked, his face the picture of action waiting to happen. “He’ll come,” I said confidently. Then we heard it.

“Domino gloria!”
rang the cry from off to our left, and we knew the monks were boiling out to hammer the enemy into greater uncertainty.

“Come on!” Conan yelled, and we started boring into the mass, hewing furiously.

We were taking a line that would, we believed, unite us with the priests. If our two forces succeeded in meeting, the prefatory havoc would be a great blow in itself. And once combined we would be in position to tear even wider, less repairable holes in their divided array.

Chilbert appreciated the situation, of course, and rushed group after group into the shrinking space between us. The very fellows who were nipping at our heels were called off to take their places in the wedge he was driving. With each yard or so, therefore, the opposition was growing more stubborn. The value of our boldly followed-up opportunism was being abrogated by sheer numbers, cumbering the swift, decisive action which alone can render a markedly outnumbered force effective.

With that impatience with fact familiar to desperate need I wondered why things that were going to happen couldn’t happen when they would be of some use. Now was the moment for Jean to appear. The foe could spare no horsemen to rip into his men, and those men would supply just the added weight we wanted.

But Jean didn’t come, and Chilbert put yet more pressure on us. Satisfied with his marshaling efforts, he was at length, ready to take personal part in the battle; and he waved his heavy axe, shouting for men to follow. After a while, a tiring, winded man, I was no longer sanguine as to the outcome. We were practically stopped, and unless the monks were more successful the enemy might pin us back against the fort and whittle us down. I listened as best I could, but the Abbot’s deep, certain voice seemed no nearer.

Nevertheless, we were holding our own, if no longer accomplishing any more than that, and as long as we could keep from being crushed and scattered there was hope that we could wear them down. And then if our foot troops arrived—

Meanwhile the count was working his way along the battle front. He was striking an occasional blow, but mostly he was searching for something. From the vicious delight of his expression I knew what that something was when Conan abruptly plunged toward him with a challenging cry. Each of them, for this one time, had the same idea, arrived at the same reason: to kill the other would be at least half as good as winning the battle.

But encountering a picked man in a melee is difficult to achieve. It so happened that when Chilbert was finally able to sweep toward us in a surge of men and horses it was I that first encountered him. I slashed at him, missed him for the second time in two days, and cut short the resultant oath to duck under his axe. No doubt my impression was heightened by excitement, but it sounded like a high wind as it passed my ear. By the time I was ready to strike again he wasn’t the man I struck. We had been parted in the turmoil.

Some yards to my left Conan and Chilbert had at last succeeded in meeting and were struggling at once with their horses and each other. I began to fight my way toward them, but too many others were essaying to do the same thing for me to make swift headway. At such instants as I could spare from defending myself I watched a duel in which both men were hampered by the crush. They would be forced apart, then come together again, roaring for their respective followers to make room.

Skill at horsemanship was naturally discounted by the circumstances, but at that the bay nearly ended the fight. To my horror I saw him rear up and overbear Conan’s mount which staggered and fell back on its haunches. This was Chilbert’s moment, and he took a full, two-handed swing with all his tremendous might.

I felt as I had once felt when a wave had picked me off a viking ship and before I knew it was going to put me back. But Conan, instead of trying to keep his seat, had used his hands to vault backward and slide toward the rump. The blow that would have sliced him as a similar effort had split Gregory landed instead on the half-stunned, struggling horse.

The moment that it took Chilbert to pull his weapon from the now totally collapsing animal was his bad luck. Conan stretched out a hand to grip the axe’s handle, and so used Chilbert’s own strength to keep from being rolled on by his dead mount.

With a mighty wrench the count pulled his weapon out of the animal and away from Conan’s grasp, but by then my friend was braced, one foot on the ground and one foot on his fallen horse. Now it was he who was in a position for an overhead, two-handed sweep. He had the start of Chilbert by just that trifling edge that matters. He hewed the count’s left arm where it showed beyond the shield, and slashed again to lay open the thigh. His foeman tried to swing his axe with one hand, but it was easily warded. Conan’s answering cut took him in the face, and the combat was over.

Whether Chilbert was dead when he fell to the ground, or whether some horse’s hoof ground out what life was left in him nobody knew, and we were all too busy to find out. Chilbert’s men who were there to see were at first even too maddened to feel dismay at his loss. They surged at us in a furious effort to ride Conan under, we flung ourselves in front of him, and there were a bloody few moments before he was safely remounted on a masterless horse.

Once in the saddle he started to shout: “Chilbert’s dead!” And we all took up the cry. “Chilbert’s dead!”

This was not merely a boast of triumph; its purpose was to tell the count’s men they were leaderless, make them think what that meant, begin to wonder what they were going to do. It turned out that they weren’t going to do very much. When we drove at them again they commenced retreating; and I could hear the Abbot absolving the souls of the men he slew as he moved steadily nearer.

We chased them, but, once they had broken, our object was not to kill. Conan and I stopped soon, watching the flight and trying to realize that it was all over. After a few minutes we were joined by the prelate. He, too, was dazed by the suddenness of victory.

“Well, it’s done,” he said. “With Chilbert slain they won’t have another try at us.”

“No,” Conan agreed.

We lapsed into the inertia that follows completed violence. “I still don’t see how it happened,” the churchman said then.

“It was one of those things.” Conan tried to spit, but his mouth was too dry. “If there’d been any other man leading the rear guard it would have been different. “

“Who was he? I saw Chilbert kill him, but I didn’t get a good look at him.”

“Gregory,” I said.

The Abbot’s eyes grew round. I had never seen him laugh before, but he did then. “How Clovis would have enjoyed that,” he remarked wistfully, and all three of us gave a thought to that man before he spoke again. “So Gregory didn’t want to meet you?”

“No, but as I couldn’t foresee that, I didn’t really have any business charging him before the rest of his army was occupied with you at the abbey. Then when he turned, one thing lead to another. At that I wouldn’t have followed in so deeply if I hadn’t been sure of you.”

The Abbot accepted the tribute with a gesture. “Chilbert, though I don’t say he deserved better fortune, surely had a right to count on it. I thought for a while we’d be lucky to get off with a draw.”

“He was a capable bastard,” I said, and we let that stand for his epitaph.

We looked around. All of the enemy who could manage it were out of sight, together with most of our men, although some of the latter had hung back from the pursuit to round up riderless mounts. The people who’d been left in the monastery were out finding what of the men left on the field had enough life to make salvaging possible. The Abbot sighed.

“Before we have to find out how much in the way of friends and man power this victory has cost us— “

“And how many women we’ll have to tell that they’d better start looking for another man,” Conan took him up soberly.

“Yes, before that, too, and so while our only positive knowledge is of good, let us go over to that tree,” he pointed to an isolated oak, “and sit quietly to think of this new power we have.”

With those words he was no longer a comrade in arms but an older man and a priest. “A good idea, Father,” I said, using the term of respect for the first time since he had shown us Clovis’ head.

We dismounted to let our horses graze where they would. It wasn’t a far walk to the abbey, and they had earned their leisure. We stretched out in the shade, only then appraised of how worn we were. All of us had sundry nicks, scratches, and cuts of varying length and depth; but in view of what we had come through they didn’t seem worth a great deal of thought.

In a moment or so, however, the Abbot sat up, unbuckled his sword, and threw it from him. “It’s a futile hope in times like ours, but I trust I’ll never have to use that again. In any case I won’t have to use it as much from now on. There will be respites, and I can build as I have never had time to do before. The abbey will start to house scholars instead of soldiers as soon as I can find the men to teach.”

I raised up on one elbow. “I know the man for you!” I said excitedly, and launched into an enthusiastic description of Father Michael. “He’s the one to teach your teachers,” I concluded. “I’ve met scholars in my time but never one to touch him. And he’s wasted there, breaking his heart among louts who don’t know a poem from a papal bull.”

He eyed me with paternal indulgence. “There are more things to scholarship than poetry.”

I shrugged. He was a churchman, and in any event he had a right to his own opinion. I even had the caution to refrain from telling him that Father Michael did not think so. “But he’s your man,” I said earnestly. “You’ll never find a better.”

“I’ll send to see if he will come,” he promised. “What will you take from our success, Conan? Will you seize Chilbert’s land? The abbey wants none of it.”

“Nor do I, Father,” my friend said. He rolled over on his stomach, selected a piece of grass, and started chewing it.“I’ll offer alliance and what protection I can give to any man who wants to hold from me, but I’m not a conqueror. I have land, and there’s room enough for my friends to live uncrowded now that the master landgrabber has been done away with.

“Like yourself I know I’ll have to fight again, but I’m stronger now. It’ll take a great army to take that fort of mine, and nobody can stay long in my country who cannot take it. I’ll have my friends build of stone, too, and in the shadow of those stone forts our people will be safe, assured that when they marry the roof will stay above the heads of their wives and children.” His clenched hand hit the ground. “I’m only a chief because I can give them that thing as other men cannot or will not.”

“Excellent, my son,” the Abbot nodded, turning his attention to me. “And what will you do now, Finnian?” His eyes twinkled. “I recall that on the occasion of our first meeting you would have none of us. Will you find a place here to suit your requirements?”