“The Balderites gained a few converts in parts of Wales and Cornwall, but on the whole they did not fare too wefl south of Scotland. The English folk were more apt to stone them than to listen to them, and quite a number were burnt by episcopal authorities, here and there. But the realm was then involved in one of the perennial wars with France, so the poor Borderers were on their own, militarily, for a long while. Too long a while, for many of them. Too long a while, at least, for Sir Hubert Whyffler, whose seared body Emmett and I cut down after we’d stunned the Balderites who had been torturing him, hoping that his screams would bring the remaining defenders down from the upper levels of the tower.
“Of course, Emmett and I did not know that there were people in the tower, above us, and we didn’t explore, because we were fearful that more opponents would come through that open door and trap us. Emmett did what I could not; he went from stunned body to stunned body, cutting throats. He spared only one of the better-dressed men, but bound him securely with the bloody ropes from off the body of Sir Hubert.
Then he urged me to sleep while he kept watch. I knew I could not, but I did, nonetheless. He wakened me half through the night and I watched while he slept, but no one came near the door. Though the bound man had recovered consciousness, I could not understand a word he said, nor, apparently, could he understand me; moreover, he seemed in dire fear of me—moaning, whining, and weeping whenever I came near to him.
The reason, of course, was our ‘glow,” but in all the excitement, Emmett and I had completely forgotten the radiance we emitted. For that reason, plus what I had unintentionally done to the two leaders—Scots knights, both of them, one, the chief of Clan Grant—we had completely broken the almost victorious besieging force, and although we knew it not, they were all headed back for the Highlands as fast as flesh and bone could bear them.
“As it happened, Whyffler Hall was one of only four border keeps that were not overrun by the Balderites before King Henry came north with his own army reinforced by French and Flemish Crusaders. When all the border keeps were once more in English hands and secure, Henry marched on to relieve the siege of Edinburgh, and went on to help King Robert scour Scotland of Balderites. That accomplished, the French, Flemish, and Burgundian Crusaders, along with six hundred English knights and several hundred Scots, sailed to the assistance of the Irish High King. Emmett sailed with them, but I—sickened almost to the point of insanity by all the carnage I had seen—stayed behind, in England.”
Bass said, “Pardon me, Hal, but I don’t see how any kind of war could be, could have been, more savage, bloodier, than our recent campaigns against the various Crusaders. You were in the very thick of a lot of it and, if it did bother you, you sure as hell didn’t show it.”
The Archbishop smiled fleetingly. “Violence no longer bothers me, Bass; I now realize that it is a fact of life. But in those days, when first I came here, I was in effect a forty-odd-year-old child—I had read of violence, heard of it, even, but so sheltered had been my existence that I never had seen a single instance of bloodshed. Possibly, you, Captain Webster, dear Krystal and the rest could not understand, coming as you did from a more primitive and far more violent period than did I, but my emotional trauma was devastating.”
Bass thought of the soul-sickness he had felt upon viewing by daylight what he and his men and the double-charged swivel-guns had wrought on the field near Hexham. “Yes, Hal, yes, I think I can. But, from what you’ve said, your friend O’Malley seemed unaffected.”
“Emmett O’Malley was an atavist, a throwback to your en or even before. He visibly blossomed here, proving as bloodthirsty and as savage as the people we had been projected among. He was knighted on the Field of Badenoch by King Robert himself, and could have returned to Scottish land! and titles, had he not elected to stay in Ireland, at the court of the High King.