When I then attempted to reason with him, to make it clear to him how infinitely much more valuable my genius is to the king, to England, to all this backward world, he not only interrupted me (most profanely, I might add), he struck me, three times, in the face and with his clenched fist. Had my own bodyguards and two of his officers not restrained him, I fear that he would have beaten me senseless.
Dear Arthur, when he heard of the incident, offered to have Mr. Foster summarily hanged, but, recalling the modest contributions he has made to all our welfares since our arrivals here, I chose rather to allow one of the King’s champions to represent me in a duel; Mr. Foster killed my proxy, one Sir Herbert something-or-other, in about ten minutes’ swordplay, but he lost part of his right ear, which will possibly serve as a reminder to him that neither young Arthur nor I will brook future interference from him in matters affecting the furtherance of the welfare of our kingdom.
Shuddering, Krystal laid the letter aside unfinished. How like Bass not to have even mentioned any of the events related with such relish by the new-made Earl of Sussex, Pro-essor William Collier, lest the news worry her. As for the Professor, he obviously had become unbalanced and in his present position of power would be highly dangerous; she resolved to send Bass a letter warning him to be very cautious around Collier when he could not avoid him altogether.
CHAPTER 4
Foster sagged in the saddle of his worn-out, foam-flecked warhorse. Behind the three widespread bars of his visor, his face was black with the residue of fired gunpowder, and copious outpourings of sweat had carved a crisscross of canyons through the dirt. His Winchester was empty, along with both horsepistols and all three magazines for his Colt, nor were there any shells remaining in his bandolier. His broadsword hung by its knot from his wrist, its long blade hacked and nicked and dulled from point to quillions with clotting red-brown stains.
Strung out on his flanks and to his rear was what was left of his command—all the horses as done-in as his own, the men gasping and wheezing, many of them bleeding as well, their swords dull and edgeless, their pistols and powder flasks empty.
Arctic wind, straight down from the frigid ocean wastes of Ultima Thule, lashed them with icy salt spray each time another wave came crashing in on the strand before them, driving the limp bodies of the slower Crusaders farther up onto sand littered with the debris of their faster companions’ sudden departure.
Far, far out to the west, Foster could sec, now and again, one or more of the long boats lifted high on the apex of a wave, before abruptly dropping from sight in the trough. Even farther out, beyond the range of any but the heaviest cannon, were anchored five or six of the High King’s ships, more than ample to take off the pitiful remnant of the Irish army.
The first battle—was it only three days ago?
It seemed at least a week—had been little short of a massacre of the invading Crusaders, who had been less an army than a huge raiding party—a bastard concoction composed of jailbirds and gutter scrapings and gentleman-adventurers, cutthroats and sneakthieves and pirates, leavened by a horde of religious fanatics, with a thin streaking of regular soldiers of the Irish Royal Army, and a sprinkling of Continental mercenaries.
A good half of the heterogeneous mob had broken and ridden or run away as the first rounds of barshot had come howling from the heights whereon King Arthur’s artillery was positioned to batter sanguineous gaps in the Irish lines. More bad scattered to the winds when ordered units of dragoons had ridden in- and poured two deadly pistol volleys against the straggling, vulnerable flanks, then regrouped and reloaded out of arquebus range.
With even the few western Crusaders in understandable confusion amid the turmoil of their fleeing countrymen, the opposing ranks of English foot suddenly turned to left and right and trotted aside to reveal the grinning mouths of two dozen minions and sakers—four-pounder and six-pounder cannon—and the grapeshot, caseshot, and shovelfuls of coarse gravel that they spewed into the close-packed ranks of gunmen and pikemen and halberdiers and swordsmen turned a partial rout into a general one.