Tales Before Tolkien (53 page)

The night promised a windless morrow. Tor decided not to risk another battle and in such airs as there were labored to seaward, hunting for wind and fog. In calm weather he would be no match for the beaked craft of Kilikash. The latter returned to Ailsea Island to restore his fleet so far as was possible. After a week he set out again, keeping his ships together. Meanwhile Tor had sailed for Stornsea and was ahead of Kilikash and to seaward, waiting and hoping for a southwest wind. Here luck failed. He was passed and the extraordinary thing is that his enemy did not know it, so far out to sea were the allies.

Kilikash put in at Storn Bay, and burnt the town. This, the first taste of war that the people of that nation had, was of importance later. It was an unfortunate move, for it enabled Tor to get to windward again. The Karain waited another week and then set out for Shores. This town they also burnt. The southwest winds were beginning. They determined to wait for a calm before seeking Islandia Bay. Two weeks passed. Raiding parties penetrated far into Niven and Alban. At last Kilikash decided the time was ripe to move. His ships kept well together, and the sea was smooth. Tor, in Selding Bay, prayed for wind, informed of his approach by signal fires. Kilikash, hugging the shore in a light mist, mistook Naba Point for the entrance to Islandia Bay. His fleet crowded into the corner of the coast to the west of that promontory. A fresh wind sprang up suddenly and Tor set sail. Kilikash was in the bad position of having to turn his line across the front of an enemy waiting to pounce, or to seek that enemy boldly against a heavy wind, or else to retreat opening his rear to the same sort of attack as had been his defeat before. He chose the second course and his ships made for Tor, who promptly took up the challenge. Had Kilikash been able to bring his ships forward in line abreast and not in an irregular mass tending to line ahead he might have won, but the mistake off Naba Point made this impossible. Bearing down on the van of his line in overwhelming force, Tor's ships, with plenty of wind to give them way, dodged the unwieldy beaks of the enemy heading into the wind, and as before crashed along the oars. This charge discouraged the Karain, and when it was over they were no match for their opponents. In the general melee that followed, many fought bravely, but the allies had bravery and skill both, and manageable ships against many that were disabled. It was a glorious, heroic fight with legends innumerable. It became soon a series of duels, two allied ships seeking to lay aboard one enemy and finish him before aid came. It lasted all night, and the next morning showed a sea covered with wreckage for miles, duels still going on, and such Karain ships as were not engaged making off to the eastward. This great and decisive victory was won on Juny 22nd. It completely broke the Karain sea power. Some two hundred and fifty ships were captured or destroyed and some twenty-five thousand men perished. On the allied side, fifty ships were lost and some three thousand lost their lives. Miltain was cleared, and eventually Carran. The queen was with her armies. She publicly announced at Madly on the day when the last rearguard of the Karain crossed the pass, that she was to marry Tor on the first day of the new year. It was a great moment. After seven years she had defeated her nation's greatest foe. All Islandia rejoiced.

   

Here we may speak of Alwina's compact with Tor, which was consummated by her marriage in Janvry. It was of far-reaching consequences and the wedding, which was one of its features, was largely a political matter; and yet, on the side of Tor at least, there was also a personal element. How far love and desire induced him to act is an insoluble problem. That it was of strong influence seems certain.

By building up an Islandian fleet the queen had been astute. The Winder vessels were no longer essential, and could almost have been dispensed with at the time of the compact. Not only had Islandia shown her power to do without them, but she had proved that, without her, Winder was in danger and that Winder, if too hostile, might suffer disaster. Tor, on marrying Alwina, gained more for his country than he lost. The incorporation of Winder into Islandia was the essential condition of the agreement. It meant to the people of that land the loss of their immunity from taxation and of their ship money, but it brought them equality in trade, the protection of brothers-in-arms, and a chance of seating their leading family on the throne. With much reduced bargaining power, they could scarcely complain of being overreached by their chief's compact.

Thus Alwina accomplished the dearest wish of her father, and for her people the addition of a seafaring folk as part of themselves. Tor, allowed to remain prince of Winder till his death, gained the woman he desired and kingship for his sons.

The only sufferer by the transaction was the doughty Marriner. He was sacrificed. It is not wholly to the queen's credit that she made no special effort to reward him. He no longer was admiral of the Islandian fleet, second to none, but a subordinate of Tor's. This was too much for him and he retired to his valley facing the sea, Hoe Bay.

The wedding took place. The council ratified the queen's agreement, and on the day of marriage the necessary acts were done to incorporate Winder into Islandia.

There followed a few months of festivity and rejoicing. The queen was gayest of the gay in a gay court, but not for long. Having ousted the enemy, most were content, but not she, for early in Marth she set out with Tor on a journey through her country, including a visit to her cousin Dorn XI which resulted in a complete healing of the breach between their families. She also visited, for the first time in many years, her disgraced mother, who told her according to legend that her body was “Dorn,” but the heart and head were of the accursed race of Alwin. But Alwina was concerned with other matters. She preached everywhere to an unwilling people the necessity of invasion. She made slow progress, but little by little convinced the intelligent that the only chance to win security was to crush the Karain beyond chance of recovery. More immediately profitable was her effort to consolidate the fleets of Islandia and Winder into a unified effective force. Her husband assisted her in this effort. Lastly, she journeyed to Storn, and by a judicious mixture of cajolery and threats disposed the people of that rocky rainy land to annexation.

   

She returned to The City in mid Sorn, and In Octen her first child, a daughter, was born. The opening of the next year saw Winder an integral part of Islandia and thither in Janvry the queen with her baby at her breast journeyed, and won the people to her, tactfully coming as the wife of their prince rather than as the powerful queen of a nation of which they were a small part. She continued her journeying to work up the warlike spirit, returning in the summer to The City.

The brilliant period of Islandian literature began at this time. Like Athens after the Persians and England after the Armada, an intense period of creativity began. Its tone at first was ardently patriotic, an inspiration traceable to Islandia's Gloriana far more closely than that of Elizabethan England to hers. Deming and Dury wrote stirring poems full of the epic war spirit in 1330, and stimulated many imitators.

On Janvry 1st the queen found herself ruler of all the lands south of the great range, with her dogs of war ready to loose. The army, under Strale, began to gather in Carran late in 1330. The fleet was already in rendezvous at Miltain.

Learning that the Karain in Mobono were fast preparing defences at the queen's command and without waiting till melting snow left open the roads of Miltain, in Febry, both moved. The campaign began badly. The Karain held the narrow passes along the sea, and the fleet was kept back by impossible storms. The queen, furious with delay, went forward to the front, and in Avrilis at Madly amid the army gave birth to her second child, another daughter. The child was premature by some time, and though it survived, it endangered its mother's life.

As soon as she could move she went to the front, and so inspired her army that in late Maya they broke the Karain lines and poured into the country. Fifty-six years before, Alwina's legendary great-grandfather had come this road and never returned. Such of his followers as had escaped remembered what they had seen. Except as slaves, no Islandians had ever entered Mobono. Nothing was known of it, except what rumor had to say and a distant view from the mountains to show.

The province thus entered caused extraordinary astonishment. It was populous and fertile beyond all expectations, but for all that it offered no resistance. The Islandians were suffered to reach the walls of its heart—Mobono—and the city was ill prepared to stand the siege which was at once begun.

It was apparent that the city was crowded, and that it was doomed unless food could come in. On the land side access was blocked, but to seaward the Karain fleet still moved out and in sailing north to unknown parts for grain. To cut those off required the Islandian fleet. It was slow in coming. The queen, with the army and suckling her second child, sent message after message to her husband. Finally, in Julian, he came and the situation at once changed. The Islandian army was suffering badly, with hordes of Demiji in turn investing it. Outside the harbor of Mobono, Tor fought his finest fight, proving that his delay was wise. Wind and weather was just as he would wish, and every ship was perfectly equipped and ready. The Karain fleet, only slightly inferior, was annihilated in a very short time with only slight loss. The city was now completely invested.

The city must have contained two hundred thousand persons of mixed blood. Many of the Islandian slaves there had forgotten their homes, but there were also many who prayed for deliverance. To rescue these people had been the hope of Alwina and her father, but to find any who preferred to stay was a rude surprise. Among these last was one of the wives of Kilikash, a woman of strong character—in the defence of the palace she took a conspicuous part.

There was ill-feeling between the Winder manned fleet and the army, there were clashes in the streets and indescribable scenes. Alwina, meeting her husband, blamed him for the excess of his men and ordered him to take them away. There was evidently a sharp and terrible contest of wills, but Tor obeyed and in a few days the fleet withdrew and Tor went with them.

The queen's position was a terrible one. Now that Mobono was captured what was to be done with it? Neither she nor anyone in her suite were trained to govern a conquered province. She had an army straining for revenge in a seductive city amid a population as large within its environs as all Islandia. Not least, she had a young and sickly baby.

Against the desires of most of her counsellors, she ordered no general massacre. She even spared Kilikash for the present, nor did she ostensibly displace him. She in fact followed roughly the only precedent she had, an Islandian province, and keeping intact the machinery of the Karain state retained through it a control that would have been impossible if an Islandian replaced every Karain functionary.

The queen settled down in Mobono to work out her future policy—Karain must be made harmless and quiet, and the road to the mines must be kept open. For two years and a half the queen did not return to her own capital. In Janvy, 1332 and again in 1333 she met the National Council at Miltain. At the first meeting she obtained ratification for all she had done without great difficulty and with her successes still fresh in men's minds. Yet even then there were proponents of a policy of ruthlessness and massacre, and from a purely utilitarian point of view such a course seemed logical. But Alwina said characteristically, “There is no sucking the juice from an orange stamped under heel.”

But it cannot be doubted that there were other reasons for Alwina's staying. One was her quarrel with Tor. There were other causes also—the capture of Mobono revealed another world known but dimly to the Islandians, the coastal cities to the north. Alwina's imagination was fired and later her ambition. There can be no doubt that this young queen, lonely because of her farsightedness and up to now so intensely practical, began to nourish dreams of an empire. There had already been breaks in the continuity of her good sense, evidenced by occasional wildness. The city where she dwelt was not conducive to reason, even to this day it is a strangely seductive place. What must it have been in its glory! A place of singers and dancers and its own weird erotic langor, poets, love and wine, it was something totally different to an Islandian. And the queen was surrounded by idolaters; many of her literary court had joined her. And not the least sinister influence was the son of Kilikash, Ahmid, a young man of great personal beauty, who, given more freedom than his father, doubtless laid deep plans with him.

   

The years that Alwina spent away from her capital, keeping her court at Mobono, truly started the literary and artistic movement of her time. Poets like Snetting were of a different order than Deming, a realistic school began to produce, and this movement led eventually in the next reign to the truly great work of the younger Bodwin. That the queen was the inspiration of much of this movement is clear. She encouraged the young men with every way in her power.

But the best that can be said for her is that she was far from wise. Those that admire her wish that there was certain proof that her behavior at Mobono was not as it seemed. The German historian Schlauter, who has given her period great study, believes the proof is uncontrovertable that she carried on liaisons with a number of men including Strale, young Mora, Deming, and even Ahmid, and others. But as sure as there is no proof that she did not misconduct herself there is equally no proof that she did. Yet it must be admitted that there is much against her. Most damning of all, because most sinister, is her relation with Ahmid. This man had connections in the west, in Kilik and elsewhere. He was anxious of course to reestablish his dynasty. It seems clear that he proposed to the queen a joint enterprise against all parts of the continent. She probably dallied with these ideas to a certain extent.