CHAPTER 9
With the Scottish ambassador in his chambers nursing his head and with the Reichsregent and three of the gentlemen-officers of the garrison ahorse in company with the gamekeeper and in pursuit of a small pack of wolves lately seen nearby the hall, Foster had sought out the Lord Archbishop and had been sipping and chatting with him for the last hour. The fire crackled on the hearth and a half-dozen iron loggerheads nestled in the coals, ready to rewarm the two men’s drinks.
“And,” continued Harold of York, “Mr. Fail-ley’s armorers are hard at work, this winter. He finally has perfected the new ignition system and is having it fitted onto every matchlock and serpentine they can lay hands upon; by spring, all the Royal Army musketeers and horsemen should be equipped either with wheellocks or these new locks, and he has even devised a means to apply his system to cannon.”
Foster asked, “How about his lightweight field guns? Has he gotten anywhere with them?”
The old man smiled. “Oh, yes, a score have already gone down to the army. Cast of fine bell bronze, they throw over nine full pounds of canister or grape, for all that the tube is a bare three feet long and weighs only a bit over fifteen stone. Mr. Carey, moreover, has outdone himself on design of the carriages for this new cannon. They are unlike any gun mount ever before seen, here. All the component parts are interchangeable, the carriages are amazingly strong when their lightness—between four and five hundredweight—be considered, and they even incorporate a spoked iron wheel with which the angle of the gun can be raised or lowered without those clumsy wedges gunners now use.”
“And Bud Webster?” asked Foster. “What of him?”
“I turned my archepiscopal estates over to him for as long as he wishes,” replied the churchman, while thrusting a glowing loggerhead into his cooling ale. “He is selectively breeding swine and kine and promises that within a few years, my herd will produce bigger, stronger oxen, more productive milch cows and larger, meatier porkers. He seems very happy, very content, though he still talks on occasion of returning to the army when his leg improves. But”—he slowly shook his white head—”I fear me that Captain Webster is crippled for life.”
“He was a good soldier, a good officer, and is missed by those who served with him,” nodded Foster. “But for all his prowess, he’s probably doing this kingdom, this world, more good on your farms, improving sources of food and draft animals, than he would be forking a horse and swinging a broadsword. 7 do those things, it’s all I seem to be any good at—killing and marshaling troops to do more killing. You didn’t get much of a bargain in me, did you?”
Harold’s smile abruptly became a frown. “Do not undervalue yourself and your very real accomplishments, Bass. Only overly civilized cultures, decadent and rotting, denigrate the master warrior, and you are such. You know what was the sole function of the royal horse of old, in battle—shock troops, pure and simple. You, as Lord Commander, have made of the heavy horse a tactical force, and thanks to the officers you have trained, the intelligent men you have inspired, even were you to depart tomorrow and never to return, the King’s Cavalry still would remain the very envy of other monarchs.”
Foster shook his head. “No, Hal, it was Collier who reorganized the army into units of manageable size, taught them drill—”
“Fagh!” snorted the churchman. “I was there, then, Bass. Did Collier ever do aught of the work? Nay, it was you and Webster drilled and redrilled day after day until you’d trained officers to do it for you. Oh, I grant you, the man was useful for some short while, but after Arthur and Wolfgang and I had picked his brain . . . now, do not misunderstand me, Bass, some of his huge store of knowledge was helpful, most definitely, and he was amply rewarded, I saw to that matter, since by then Arthur considered him a coward because he had refused to meet you at swordpoints.
“He’d have been allowed to keep those rewards, too, had he not tried to bully you, then so lost his wits as to publicly threaten the King. He could have had a good life—those lands he was granted are good ones—instead of howling away his remaining years in a monastery cell near Edinburgh.”