The Marquis (28 page)

It was a three day ride from the pass in the mountains to the outskirts of Rasadi. As they rode they started to gather prisoners; squads sent back to see what had happened to the rest of the fyrd. Most gave up easily; only the Ancuman squad had to die, and that was on the morning of the third day. Conn had no intention of letting the Merians into his village without a fight so had instructed his Rasadi forces to set up a temporary line three hours outside of the village; designed to make the attacking forces bunch up and stop. They had reached that point. Conn sat on Balios looking toward the hill in front of him, some miles away. The Rasadi standard stood high and he could see lines of bowmen and flights of arrows coming from behind the temporary palisades.

He turned to Brictdred. ‘Give the order, we ride.’ He then led the way down the valley, settling Balios into a slow canter. Conn was confident that Sir Rab’s line would hold long enough for him to get there; the catapults would slow them down for a while anyway.

When Conn’s fyrd finally got in sight of Rab’s line, Conn could see that the Ancuman force was preparing to go around the line; it was an inconvenience more than anything and viewed by the Ancuman as reckless but an admirable suicidal tactic by the Rasadians. Only in hindsight would they see it as a tactic to separate the attacking fyrd into mouth size chunks. If any were alive to consider it later.

With the Ancuman cavalry heading to the right, Conn had his trumpeter sound out and started the charge; a little over three miles. When suddenly aware of the hostile enemy behind them, the Ancuman wiga turned their cavalry around and charged; not seeing Sir Rab’s company of Sagittari arrive over the hill to harry them from behind. Unimpeded by masses of Merians – who Conn didn’t want to kill – Conn’s wiga started firing at will; three hundred arrows every twenty seconds. Those that survived that onslaught then had to deal with the swords as the two lines of horses merged in a jarring clash of animal bodies and slicing swords. As the two lines separated, and turned to face each other again, there were less than fifty Ancuman left and they were quickly surrounded by a wall of grey horses.

Another wall of horses soon faced the Merians – whose horses were not as big or fast and had luckily observed the carnage from afar.  They pulled up their animals and milled around, seemingly leaderless, looking at the line of grey horses staring them down.

Conn addressed the Ancuman wiga.

‘If you want to all die, we are quite happy to kill you all like fish in a barrel from here. If you want to go home, I suggest that you all drop your weapons.’

A woman called out; she was from Axum because she had a haligdom under her armour; Conn felt the presence of her Gyden and shut her out.

‘We will not be theow. I will be no man’s whore.’

‘I am prepared to compromise. I have no desire to kill you. Surrender and I’ll arrange for a ship to take you home.’

She paused, surprised at the offer. ‘Why should we believe the word of a Priecuman?’

‘I am Conn il Taransay – I’m the Feorhhyrde. Unfortunately my word is sacrosanct.’

After a moment, the woman rode out. She stopped several yards away. ‘Take off your helmet. I will know if what you say is correct.’

Conn removed his helmet; a jingasa constructed kettle helmet with a padded coif. As soon as she saw his blonde hair, the Gyden recognized him and she almost fell from her horse.

‘I see Ashtoreth recognizes me.’

She righted herself, her pulse having doubled in moments. ‘How do you… what do …’ she then stopped talking long enough to regain control of her mind. Conn listened in as she wound back the volume of the Gyden. Conn continued.

‘Ashtoreth will only want you to kill me – so don’t listen to her. What is your name?’

‘Herfina, Herfina il Axum.’

‘Okay, Herfina; what do you choose? Head on back and we can slaughter you all or surrender. You will not be theow.’

She took a deep breath and looked around. ‘We have no choice. There is no honour in dying like an animal for slaughter.’

‘Very well, go back drop all your weapons on the ground and go and deal with your dead and wounded comrades. If you want a funeral pyre today, there is a lot of work to do.’

Conn turned and went to greet Sir Rab, tell him what had been discussed, and headed back over to Brictdred and his line of Kerchian wiga as they faced the two thousand plus Merians.

Conn trotted down to the line; the three Twacuman at his side, and he pulled up a few yards away from a line of wiga on horseback.

‘Where is the Mundborak?’  The Steward had to be dead – he was probably leading the cavalry charge.

They were confused at first, then someone found the answer. ‘She is dead.’

‘Her daughter?’

‘Dead too; they were both killed by the catapults.’

That made things simpler. ‘So Akelda, Mundbora of Shalala, is now the leading candidate to be Mundborak?’

After some discussion they agreed.

‘And she is in Shalala. Little use that is to me now. So who is the senior Mundbora here and now?’

After a while a small middle aged woman came forward. She identified herself as Theoilda, Akelda’s aunt.

‘Theoilda, you have a choice.’ Conn explained it to her and she didn’t take much convincing to realize that a peaceful solution was the best option, and he left her to organize her clan for the night. Conn returned to deal with his own not inconsiderable losses, albeit nothing like the Ancuman losses. He would love to be there when Herfina got to report to the Bretwalda. Despite that she was kin, dying here may end up being a better option for her.

~oo0oo~

Conn had lost too many of his young Kerchians – over twenty dead and a lot more injured. Most would recover, but he grieved for the ones that died. Twenty percent causalities was unacceptable in his eyes but he rationalized if by saying that a lot more would have died if the Ancuman had gotten into Rasadi, because the village was the home of thousands.

He stood with Brictdred and Sir Rab and they watched the funeral pyre. It was very large and they had everyone collecting timber for the almost four hundred bodies that were to be torched, and it burnt long into the night. Leaving the Merians to their own devices, Conn travelled into Rasadi with his prisoners, putting them into roundhouses with guards. A mixture of males and females, Herfina il Axum was the only Aebeling in the group. It transpired that the former Steward was her brother. In the morning, he had her brought to see him.

She bowed respectfully.

‘Herfina, we will be here for a few days as we work on returning the Merians home. Then we go and collect a ship for you to go home. Just thought you’d like to know.’

She bowed again and went to leave. She turned back.

‘Marquis – I don’t understand why you would let us live. There would be no one spared if the tables were turned.’

Conn nodded. ‘I understand that. But as a wise man once said, a pointless death is of no benefit to anyone.’

She looked at him in confusion. ‘Geirfrith? Why would you be using his words?’

‘I have his book; I’m translating it into Sythan. Axum is such a harsh language for the Priecuman to read. He also wrote that killing your enemy is not the only way to defeat him.’

She shook her head. ‘Do not think that you are defeating us. That will be your mistake.’

‘Herfina, thinking that I am not will have far greater consequences.’

~oo0oo~

Over the next few days, the Merians were sent home by the coast road as Conn determined how he would fulfil his promise to Herfina. Egwahl had returned from visiting Shalala and Utika; Conn had sent him there to advise Akelda that she needed to go to Utika with her wiga to take control as her mother and sister were dead.

‘The Ancuman have all departed Utika – as soon as they learnt of the defeat, they were basically driven from the village.’

‘So is Merin the only place with Ancuman now?’

Egwahl agreed.

Conn looked at Derryth. ‘You are kidding? How is that going to work?’

‘Not sure – but we will find a way. We leave tomorrow. We will take one junk and your cog, the rest can continue to take the horses and wiga back to Kerch. We’ll transfer into the cog outside of Merin.’

The junks had a lot of trips – the over two hundred Ancuman buckskins were all going to Kerch for a breeding program. Balios had already worked his way through most of the mares. The horse was definitely worse than a rabbit; and he made Conn feel like a monk.

Finally at sea, Conn had just returned to his cabin when a wiga knocked on his door.

‘Herfina is here, Marquis.’

‘Send her in.’

‘Do you wish me to stay outside?’

‘She is unarmed?’

‘She is.’

‘Then leave us.’

She had requested to see him and he had agreed. When she arrived Conn was surprised that she was not as well dressed as usual. The armour was off and the tunic loose, and there was a lot of woman under the tunic. Around her neck was still the haligdom. Conn decided to listen in.

‘Herfina, how can I help you?’

‘Well, Marquis, it seemed that I might have shown a complete lack of appreciation for you letting us live and I thought I could express my appreciation in some
other
way…other than simple words. A way that I’m sure you would enjoy.’ She demonstrated her intent hugging herself, and forcing most of her breasts out of the tunic. The words however were forced. Conn doubted that she had willingly been near a man since her “initiation” by a Folgere – and possibly her cousin the Bretwalda. More realistically those events could be described as rape, so he understood her apprehension.

Conn smiled. The voice in her head was very agreeable to the idea, and had possibly even initiated the plan. She wanted her to kill him during the throws of passion.

‘Are you sure that your Gyden is agreeable to you fornicating with me – if that is what you had in mind?’

She obviously decided that a picture tells a thousand words; she smiled; and opened the buttons of her tunic; her large breasts flowing out. Conn stood and walked behind her, cupping and caressing her breast as he passed. She flinched. He then poured two glasses of wine, and handed her one. She drank eagerly so he refilled her mug.

‘I’m tempted, Herfina, but you have to agree to do
anything
I want you to do... to make it worth my while….’

Sensing victory, she overstepped; the Gyden willing her on, victory within her grasp.

‘I will do
anything
you want… anything….’

‘Very well; first I want you to vow, with your Gyden as your guarantor, that you will do
nothing
to harm me…’

She stopped and looked at him in shock, and then tried to regain ground. ‘Of course I won’t try to harm you… you have my word.’

‘Not your word, your Gyden’s word.’

‘I can’t do that…’

‘Yes you can – just hold the haligdom that hangs between your breasts in your hand when you make your vow. That will suffice.’

The look of anguish on her face told him that he was right. He had no idea why he even thought of it, but obviously a vow holding the haligdom was a real one. He continued.

‘Remember, you said you would do
anything
. That was your word. The word of honour of an Axum wiga. If you break it, I will be able to claim wergild from your cousin the Bretwalda – if I understand the rules correctly… he will of course have to execute you for breaking your word as well… do I have that right?’

Colour drained from her face again and the Gyden screamed in her mind in frustration. How she hated him.

‘So make the vow, take off your clothes, or, alternatively, leave.’

She turned to leave and stopped when he spoke again. ‘Will an Ancuman ship’s captain even take an oath breaker on board, I wonder, I will have to ask.’

She turned back, her voice quivering with rage.  ‘The captain will toss me overboard alive – after the entire crew has used my body for whatever they want. It matters not if I were male or female.’

‘I suspect that is not a good thing. Herfina; this is something you started. I did not ask you here. I did not seek to take advance of your situation. I gave you life when others would have given you death. Despite that you have chosen to have every Ancuman on this ship executed – which they surely would have – so that Ashtoreth could have me killed. So you will understand why I find some satisfaction in being able to have you offer your body, and a very nice one it is too, to me
willingly.
So how do you intend to finish your gambit – with honour or in disgrace?’

She took a deep breath. She grasped her haligdom in her hand. Every word was laborious.  ‘I vow … that I… will do…nothing … to harm you.’ In her mind Ashtoreth was in torment. He had bested her again.

Conn then started to strip. ‘Great, now that is settled, take your clothes off. I haven’t been with a women in days. I have a lot of things I want you to do.’

~oo0oo~

Leaving the Ancuman on the junk guarded by Brictdred, Conn travelled into Merin harbour with Derryth on Egwahl’s cog. The harbour was good, and there were three Ancuman cogs tied up. Just what he needed. They found an inn near his ship, while a squad of Kerchian bowmen staying on board the vessel armed and ready to assist if necessary. Too many Twacuman could be problematic so he left the siblings on the cog.