“The man beside me is a priest. Father Mochtae ui Connor of Mag-Bile, who has raised the common people of the countryside to fight in support of these two mercenary captains and their troops against the Righ and his coterie.
“Captain Sir Lugaid ui Drona and his company were sent by this honorless fool of a Righ on a dismounted raid-in-force into AirgiaJla last month. They returned to Oentreib to discover that the all save penniless Righ had, in their absence, sold all their mounts and baggage beasts to a horse dealer out of the Ui Neill lands, across the River Ban, in order to raise enough money to pay the other two companies of mercenaries in his employ. Quite naturally, they at once took leave of Righ Conan and his city, seizing such horses and mules as they could along their way and shooting or cutting down any opposing their seizures or progress.
“One of the other two companies, that of the other captain with Your Grace’s herald. Sir Ringean Mac iomhair, joined them, no longer willing to serve a forsworn employer of the likes of Righ Conan Mac Dallain, by-blow of a renegade, outlawed Ui Neill.
“They pray that Your Grace may see fit to join them, for they sorely lack for horsemen of any description and the most of their trenches and homemade engines are manned by raw. untrained farmers and herdsmen and fishermen and suchlike.”
With Wolfgang. Sir Colum, Fahrooq, and a few troopers making fast tracks back to Ard Macha—Sir Colum to bring back the rest of the squadron, the baggage train, the field guns, and any spare horses available, the Reichsherzog to use his unquestioned powers of persuasion and debate to try to get the young Righ Ronan to recognize and exploit this splendid opportunity, to scrape up every fighting man, horse or mule, transportable cannon or bombard, cask of powder, every other weapon or tool that might be used in warfare and proceed with all haste into Ulaid to aid in the final ruination of his own kingdom’s long-standing enemy, Righ Conan.
Fahrooq, however, was to remain in Ard Macha only long enough to change horses, he and his escort, then to spur hard for Dublin, where lay the fleet brought by His Grace of Norfolk. Bass had been repeatedly assured by knowledgeable-sounding men that the River Ban, though too shallow the most of its length for ships of the battle line or large merchanters. would easily pass doggers, howkers, bugalets, belandres, pinks, luggers, and all manner of smaller craft. Indeed, the principal reason that Oentreib still stood against their arms and landward interdiction was that the city could be and had regularly been resupplied by small vessels sailing south on the Ban from the riverine port of Coleraine into Lough Neagh and offloading at the tiny port just below Oentreib. the roadway to which was protected by two lines of earthworks and palisades defended by light cannon and swivelguns.
Was the Ban deep enough for large warships as far as Coleraine, then? Yes, full galleons could easily sail up from the sea and unload cargoes there. Your Grace.
Then, if all the countryside, noble and common, was up in arms against Righ Conan Mac Dallain. and if he was so impecunious, why did the merchants of Coleraine continue to supply him and Oentreib? They all are rabid supporters of Righ Conan, Your Grace, most are not of Ulaid at all, but out of Ui Neill lands, across the River Ban, and they would see all of our Ulaid as naught but a humble, exploited client state of the Ui Neills. Had we had enough men and guns, we would have interdicted Coleraine, as well as Oentreib.
Dismounting some of his galloglaiches, Bass saw a party of river pilots, who all swore familiarity with the Ban. set out at the gallop for the headlands at the mouth of the river, but made certain that Captain Fahrooq knew them before he sent the other party southward.
When the merchants and residents of Coleraine on Ban rubbed the sleep from their eyes and rose up from their beds of a morning, two huge, long, high, multidecked men-of-war lay anchored in the channel of the Bann, along with a number of smaller armed ships. All flew an unfamiliar ensign, looking like the arms of some noble house rather than those of a principality. One of the larger ones also flew the war banner of—of all kingdoms—Turkey. Pulling on hurriedly only enough for decency’s sake, men, women, and hordes of children and slaves flocked down to docksides to view at closer range these new, strange ships on their river.
Smoke rose thickly from both of the warships, rose in too much quantity for mere cookfires, thought some of the watchers uneasily. Then signal flags were run up the halyard, and immediately thereafter, gunport covers were raised and all the larboard guns run out on both of the huge liners. Steam poured out of most of the gaping muzzles, and the few men ashore who realized just what a horror this fact heralded—the reaction of red-hot solid iron can-nonballs with water-soaked wads that prevented the shot from detonating the propellant charge prematurely—had barely the time to turn to run or take a breath to shout warning.
Belowdecks on the Revenge and the Thunderer, double gun crews went about the ultradangerous business of preparing, transporting, loading, and firing red-hot shot into the houses, warehouses, careening basin, docks, and shipping, letting the smaller deck guns and swivels do for the screaming, roiling crowd ashore with loads of langrage and grape. But the perilous labors of the crews of the main batteries were brief, for within the space of time that it took to discharge two or three full broadsides from each of the two ships, the entire port was blazing merrily and the shores were thick with bleeding, still or feebly twitching bodies and pieces of bodies.
Coleraine on Ban would not be sending any more ships up to offload at Oentreib, not for many a month to come.
The roars of the heavy guns, only some twenty-five crow-flight miles away, were clearly heard that morning by both the besiegers and the besieged; the latter cheered lustily, knowing full well what the distant sounds portended, while the consensus within the city was that yet another day of rain was in the offing.
Downriver, his first mission for Sebastian Bey thoroughly done—one might say done to a crisp—Walid Pasha led most of the fleet of His Grace out of the river and set sail, first bearing eastward, then southeastward. He and His Grace both had been very pleased to hear that Ulaid now no longer possessed warships of any consequence nor yet any really large pieces of coastal ordinance, all having been sold to the Ui Neills and various foreign parties to provide money for land forces to extend the borders of Ulaid at the expense of Airgialla.
The townsmen of Benchor, on the southern shore of Lough Loig, first ran, hid, and cowered in an excess of terror at the strange, awesome fleet of warships, but when Ulaid pilots had been rowed ashore and had told that these foreign ships were come to aid in the overthrow of the well and widely hated Righ Conan. those same inhabitants all went a little mad with joy.
The ships were piloted to safe anchorages, and. at his needs being translated, Walid Pasha was shown a narrow strip of beach below a low cliff, with a full six fathoms of water only twenty-five yards out from the beach. Within a few hours, demicannons and culverins were being rowed to the beach, heaved ashore in heavy-duty cargo nets, then winched to the clifftop by sailors who did not lack for a host of willing, helpful hands and arms and backs from the men of Benchor and others come in from the smaller settlements and holdings round about Lough Loig. Others of the inhabitants of the country had been sent far and wide to bring back such draught oxen and sturdy wains as could be found, for roads hereabouts were few and poor and the shipboard gun trucks would be useless on them, so the guns, the trucks, powder, shot, and all related equipment needs must be transported by wain or on the backs of asses and men. But all here keenly aware that possession and use of such big. powerful, far-ranging cannon must speed the fall of Oentreib and so frighten Righ Conan that the Ui Neill bastard would remove the ring in which he had had mounted the sacred Ulaid Jewel and abdicate the throne he had seized and held for so many bitter years, with his hired, foreign warriors.
Squire John Stakeley, once a cavalryman, had been discovered by Walid Pasha to be a born seaman, with a feel for a ship that cannot ever be taught by even the most accomplished instructors. The vastly experienced captain of the Turkish warship had kept the man aboard the Revenge until he had taught him the mechanics of ship handling and the basics of navigation, then had had him posted as one of the master’s mates aboard Lioness, the ship of Sir John Hailley; then, when Sir John and both of the other mates had been slain during the mighty sea battle with the French galleon-liner now called Thunderer, Squire John had taken command, fought the ship better than well, and brought it, despite rather drastic damages, back to port.