The Harp and the Blade (30 page)

“I’ll send someone,” he said. “Let your lads and their mounts rest up now.”

After seeing that my men had food and a place to bunk I napped a few hours myself, but I was up before noon. A troop that had been out scouting was just entering the gate, and I went over to listen while they made their report to the Abbot. They hadn’t caught sight of any foot soldiers yet, but they had seen two or three times more horsemen than had been around the day before.

“And there are doubtless a good few you didn’t see,” the Abbot said. “Are they mostly encamped or are they on the move to any particular point?”

“Most of them are to east of us, though I’m not positive they’re massing for attack from that point.” The fellow shook his head. “The woods is sure full of them!”

“The woods is a good place for them; let them stay there,” said the prelate. But they didn’t take advantage of his permission very long.

A small group of monks had been stationed a half mile off by the next of little houses which belonged to the villeins. Seemingly the leader of the enemy vanguard had looked the situation over and decided he could sweep away the defenders and fire the huts before we could mount and intercept. For the scouts were just taking their horses to the stables when a guard on the walls cried: “Raid! They’re raiding the cabins!”

“Many?” the Abbot snapped.

“Lots more than our outpost there.”

The churchman ran to look for himself while I sped to collect my men. They and a lot more were tumbling down out of the loft where they’d been taking their ease, and everybody started to scrambling and jostling to get his horse out into the court. “More of them!” the watcher informed us hysterically. “As many again!”

This was evidently going to be a real battle, but the Abbot was notably deliberate as he ordered men to their positions on the wall before he dispatched any to support the fathers by the shacks. I had fished my followers from the crowd expeditiously and had them marshaled, waiting. But the reserves had already gone before he turned to me. “Will you stay close at hand outside, Finnian? We won’t need any more men yonder.”

Some of my fellows, keyed up for fighting, began to grumble, but I silenced them. This was the Abbot’s hold, and he was in command. Still I didn’t want to miss what was going on, and I led the way swiftly to a point whence our view of the proceedings was complete.

The two large bodies of enemy horsemen were separated from each other by about a furlong. Estimating their numbers, I clicked my tongue. They’d outnumber those we had defending the position by a tremendous margin. In fact without depleting our garrison we simply couldn’t match them in numbers.

I looked at the Abbot, but he was following developments with stolid interest. And yet instead of withdrawing what was at most only a skirmishing force from the path of the enemy’s mounted army, he had ordered out patently inadequate support. It made me nervous; but he was a man who didn’t do things without knowing a reason, so I watched further.

For a while it looked a race as to which side would reach the cabins first, then it seemed to me that the invaders were slowing, deliberately letting our men beat them out. Only at that moment, so large and sudden had been the excitement, did I get around to realizing that the destruction of the shacks was not worth such a great effort on Chilbert’s part. And a careful look at the rear body showed me that it was swinging toward the abbey itself.

My trust in the prelate had so far not been misplaced. He had foreseen the enemy’s maneuver, and, due to the fact that he’d carefully played up to it, I assumed he had some countermove in mind. It would have to be a good one, for Chilbert’s thrust could be terribly disastrous to us. Naturally anybody could now see what they were up to, and they couldn’t actually get to the gates ahead of our retreating men. Not ahead of the first men, that is. But only two or three could ride in abreast, and while the rest waited their turn the fore could reap them by a charge.

Certainly they thought our fellows would run for it, for all at once even the leading raiders gave up pretense of driving toward the cabins and raced for the gates. That many of them we could beat back, saving our fleeing men by a sortie, but in the time required to do so their reserves could have a crack at storming the weakly defended walls.

I glanced at the Abbot again to find he was looking my way. “Feign flight,” he called down, “but stand off on the other side of the fort where they can’t see you. Then when they arrive do whatever seems reasonable.”

Just after we’d taken our station I heard the hoofs pounding, then blown horses snuffling before the gates. Sweeping all the way from the woods east they’d had a long sprint, and undoubtedly they’d been pushed hard all day. “The fools stayed where they were! We’ve cut ‘em off!” a voice I knew cried. The speaker was Chilbert himself.

“And now what are you going to do?” the Abbot asked him calmly.

The count laughed exultantly. “Chop ‘em into bits while you watch!”

“How are you going to catch them on those tired nags of yours?” the churchman asked contemptuously. “By the time you race back to where they won’t be waiting for you, you couldn’t run down a badger.”

The second section of raiders was galloping up, the sounds told us. “Hey! Chilbert,” one of them called “those fellows never even tried to make it here. They must have some reason for staying outside, eh?”

I had finally figured out the answer to that one, and Chilbert, with his general’s eye, would grasp it on the instant now that he’d paused to take stock. Taking a fort like the abbey was nothing that a man could do with one hand. If he dismounted enough men to make the effort a good one, the riders hovering around could charge in to raise the devil with him and drive off his horses. Still, having swooped on the fort with such dramatic speed, he couldn’t leave without making some sort of gesture.

“Come on,” he said angrily after naming the several men he wanted to accompany him, “we’ll look this box over.”

When I heard that man riding toward the side of the abbey where I saw skulking I knew just how I’d fill in the Abbot’s blank orders. Passing the word, I plunged for the corner and got there just in time to hit the little knot of reconnoiterers.

I made a vicious cut at the count himself, but the great bay saved him, rearing and whirling out of the ruck with amazing agility. Chilbert saw me, and the sudden recognition in his eyes was pure hate if I have ever looked on it. He tried to swing his mount back toward me, but it had been badly startled; and he could do nothing for a second against its frightened strength.

It and two more horses, one riderless, caromed into the rest, and that was all we really accomplished before we ran on with premeditated discretion. But the effect, if far from overwhelming, was good. By making the count flounder helplessly within a thumbed nose of his own men we had augmented their uneasy bafflement, the offshoot of having been generally outsmarted.

Some of them broke ranks to follow us but resisted at Chilbert’s savagely voiced command. He had more important projects in mind, and, looking back, I could see him grimly resume his tour of the fort. That completed, he merely ordered his men to stay where they were and remain alert.

He was not so ill off at that. He had been permitted to bring his army up in good order and to mass it before the gates, effectively sealing the abbey. If his footmen arrived before our reserves they need not fear a sortie. As for my men and the monks without the walls, we’d then be wrong no matter what we did. If we left to harry the foot troops his horsemen would have a free hand to storm the stronghold.

As defense for the Abbot’s strategy, beyond the immediate check it had served to bring about, there was the clear point that he was achieving the delay he wanted. And in the minor matter of the villeins’ cabins he had scored, having so far secured them from damage.

So balanced, each side hoping for the help that would mean decisive power, we passed an agonizingly long afternoon. I spent the first part of it with my head over my shoulder, looking for allies, and the second with an eye on Chilbert lest he try to snap me up in a surprise move. With several hours in which to recuperate, his horses might be ready for another swift charge. He wouldn’t abandon his strategic position, but a picked troop might bag my worst mounted men if I allowed it to get the jump on us.

Whether Chilbert actually contemplated such an attack I don’t know, for a shout from the wall did away with that interlude’s curious mixture of boredom and suspense. “Men from the west!” a monk cried joyfully. “Riders!”

With a yelp of pleasure and a sigh of relief, I turned to see. That would be our own vanguard sifting out of the woods in satisfying numbers. I looked excitedly toward the foe again, but, of course, Chilbert, his advantage nullified, was preparing to leave.

The newcomers were led by Conan himself, and when I saw that I hastened to meet him. “I thought I’d better come along with the van to make sure you weren’t bungling the business,” he greeted me.

“Why you might as well have stayed home,” I told him. “Why, we had Chilbert trapped right between us, and—”

He appraised the size of Chilbert’s departing force. “Trapped?” he asked politely.

“Safe as a bear with its tail in the ice.”

“Anything really happen?” he wanted to know.

“Mostly scouting and maneuvering so far, but if he finds his foot troops in amongst those trees there he’ll maybe be back again.”

“Jean should have ours here sometime in the morning,” he said, “and the rest of our horses should be along by dark tonight.”

“The Abbot would like to hear about that,” I suggested, and we cantered toward the gates.

T
HOSE
Chilbert was awaiting did arrive, our scouts reported, but by then night was crowding dusk. So while not relaxing vigilance, we set our minds forward to plan for the morning. Night is only an aid to an attacker if he be unexpected.

At once conferring and observing, a group of us could see the long line of the enemy camp fires flare up one by one against the black rim of the forest. To westward a similar but much smaller series of blazes showed where our own troops were bivouacked.

Conan turned to the Abbot. “I’ll harry them and squeeze them against your wall as best I may; but I don’t want to get tied up in a real melee till my walking boys come along.”

“Understood,” the Abbot nodded. “They’ve got to have adequate horse support when they come into the open.”

As we were trying to join our followers a little later Conan broke a thoughtful silence. “They’ve got more men than I figured they could muster. Chilbert must be reaching way out east.”

“They have a lot more than I’d like them to,” I said. “We’ll have plenty to do trying to check them until the rest of our army arrives—and maybe after that. Still they’ll be well occupied trying to take the abbey.”

“Perhaps. The walls are strong enough, but that place was built as a house of God first and only fortified as an afterthought when times got nasty. There’s neither hill, water, nor rock to abet the defenses. It just sits there like an egg laid on a flat stone. We’re lucky there’s a tough chick inside.”

“There could be better locations,” I admitted. “That level sweep on the north side is an invitation for attackers to gather around and put up scaling ladders.”

“That’s where they’ll operate from in the main,” he agreed. “Though if it’s a clear day they may try the east wall first while the sun’s low enough to be in the monks’ eyes.”

We were up when night started to fade. There was no rain, but it was going to be a gray day. “That means we take our stand to the north,” Conan said as we wolfed our breakfast. “And I don’t think they’ll keep us waiting long.”

The only moving things in a dim forest, we were drifting toward our post when a scout’s report vindicated my friend’s prophecy. The foe was preparing to move, and we speeded up in order to be ready for them. Because of the murk we couldn’t yet see them when we reached the clearing, and even the abbey looked to be no more than a curiously edifice-like arrangement of clouds.

We remained in the deeper obscurity under the trees and held our gazes eastward with the patience of sure expectation. The visibility improved rapidly, but our ears first gave notice of their proximity. Soon then we saw a great wave of them coming over a little rise, mounted men on each side of files of footmen, and another following as the first spilled down into a hollow. It was while they were emerging from this to the level on which the abbey stood that we met them. They heard us running, but though they were forcing their horses we were in the position of riding down hill at them.

We didn’t try to strike their entire front with our inferior numbers but instead attempted to fold up the nearest flank with the force of a phalanx hammering the wings of successive separated lines. It worked well, but all I can clearly remember is feeling my shield jarred by blows and seeing some of the enemy tumble to the ground. Then we were through them, completing a semicircle in our race back to the woods. If they wanted to follow us and put off the storming, well and good.

Some probably were for doing it, but Chilbert bawled orders to close ranks and keep on toward the monastery. Seeing that this was the case, we gathered again, cut an arc through the forest so as to be opposite the vulnerable wall, and approached to see what precautions had been taken against us.

Chilbert’s mounted troops had been augmented, too, since the previous day, and he could afford a considerable force to keep us from climbing on his back while he assailed the abbey. Having spotted us, they were prancing forward to be ready for us if we should choose to strike into the open again, when we suddenly recognized their leader.

The sight of him was too much for Conan’s usually cool head. “Gregory!” he shouted, surging forward with all of us pell mell at his heels. “Do you remember me, kinsman?”

No vituperation could have added anything to what was implied in the tone with which he uttered that one word, and Gregory felt the full, savage impact of it. Perhaps the disastrous results from his original betrayal had made him superstitious. At any rate he was an awed and miserable man who did not want to meet Conan. In place of giving the word to countercharge, as his men were expecting, he just sat there, vaguely fingering a sword he wasn’t going to draw.