From the forefront of the platoon of cripples stepped Oily Shaftoe, and Foster reined up at sight of his one-armed sometime orderly. “How many children, now, Oily?”
Fingering his forelock, the man smiled shyly. “Still only the twa, milord. But me Mary be due tae foal soon, by Beltane we figgers. If it be a lad, might we ca’ the tyke Sebastian, milord?”
“I would be honored if you named your son after me, Oily. And when your good wife nears her time, be sure to bear her to my house, where my lady-wife can care for her properly.”
“As always, milord, I hears ever word an’ 111 obey.” The man drew himself up into near-military posture and rendered a hand salute, then extended that hand. Foster again shucked off his gauntlet, reined Bruiser’s head around to the other side, and leaned from his saddle to take the proffered clasp.
Tears brimming from his eyes, Oily wrung Foster’s hand and said chokedly, “A’ oor prayers gae wi’ ye, Lord Bass. I beg ye, dinna turn yer back ain them thrice-domned Scots, sir.”
Foster found that he must swallow hard to clear the lump from his throat. “Never fear, Oily. The Scot’s not yet spawned who can put paid to me. Expect my banner between Blood Moon and Snow Moon.”
Beyond the main gate, the column wove its way between and around the entrenchments, palisaded ramparts and batteries. Then, in what had once been the outer park until King Alexander’s army had chopped down most of the trees for fuel, drawn up on opposite sides of the road, they came upon the troopers—all mounted, packed and road-ready.
Following a brief inspection by Foster and the other officers, the column was formed up and set out southward.
At nightfall, they camped about the shattered, blackened remains of Heron Hall, and some of the officers and troopers, after killing or driving out the vermin, supped and settled into the littered ruin of the hall itself, but Foster could not feel comfortable in the place as now it was, peopled for him with the ghosts of so many happy evenings, so retired to the fine, new pavilion which his secret hoard of Irish loot had purchased after the defeat of the Crusaders’ southern army.
Nugai awaited him. The ugly but highly intelligent little man had, in the winter spent in attendance upon Krystal, learned to speak an English far more comprehensible to Foster than the dialects of many of his own officers and troops. While helping his lord to shed armor and outer clothing in the entry chamber of the pavilion, he said matter-of-factly, “Lord Bahss, two men await you in the next chamber. One , say that of old he knows my lord. Nor armed are they neither and truth Nugai thinks they speak with no harm meaning.”
Nugai delivered Foster’s armor to the trooper who waited outside to clean and oil it, while Foster laved the day’s accumulation of dust and dirt from face and hands in a bucket of cold water. Then, closely followed by the oriental—who, for all his protestations of trust in the motives of the visitors, kept his hands near to the cocked pistol and the kindjal knife in his belt—he lifted aside the canvas and entered the second chamber of the luxurious pavilion.
Two men in rough, dirty, ragged clothing confronted him. One was vaguely familiar, looking to be nearly as broad as he was tall, his body all big bones and rolling muscles, his face a single mass of hideous scar tissue, shiny in the lamplight. The other man was taller, flat-muscled, and far slimmer, his hair and eyes coal-black and his complexion a dark olive; his handsome face bore but a single scar, which began somewhere on his scalp and bore downward the full length of his left cheek to the very point of his chin.
The broad man’s scarred lips twisted. “Y’r ludship doesnae reckernize me eh? Nae wunner it be, neither. Heh heh! Mlud, I be Dan the Smith. How be the noble Captain Webster?”
Suddenly it all came back to Foster. That last night of cheer at Heron Hall—the fine dinner for which John Heron so vociferously apologized, the shared singing of bawdy songs by high table and low, the endless drinking, the quarterstaf! bouts, and Webster’s difficult victory in wrestling this very man, Dan Smith.