“I have not!” declared Vasil bluntly. “Still do I say that this artificial in … this nastiness that Dr. Panoshian told you about is, must be, just another new name for a kind of adultery; and adultery is a sin, Rupen! Go ask Der Mesrop, if you don’t believe me.
“No, I have arranged for two Armenian orphans to be brought to you from Syria. The boy is two years of age, the girl is still an infant. A man needs a family, it is good for him, better for his wife. You will see, my son, you will see.’1
It was probably fitting that it was the dead Haigh’s twin sister, Mariya, who first gave birth to a son and, of course, named the boy Haigh Vasil Panoshian. But Boghos politely declined the controlling share of Ademian Enterprises, which finally went to Kogh on the birth of his firstborn, Arsen David Ademian.
CHAPTER
THE NINTH
The aged archbishop combed at his long white beard with his fingers. “Our last conversation was, I believe, abruptly ended by some crisis that called me away, Mr. Ademian, but I recall all that you had told me of yourself up to that point. Your father had arranged for your adoption of two orphans and had settled a sum of some six thousand dollars per annum on you. Was that a goodly income, then?”
Rupen sipped at the goblet of sweet honey mead, savoring the barely perceptible tang of herbs. He nodded. “Der Hal, in 1948, fifteen hundred dollars every quarter was a princely sum indeed. Not that I intended to take it any longer than was absolutely necessary. I was at last able to talk my father into holding off on his ready-made family for me and Marge until I got an education of some kind better than just a high-school diploma.
“We moved down to Richmond, Marge and me, and I enrolled at a college there, under the GI Bill. She got a job as a nurse at one of the hospitals, and she and I both joined reserve units—active units, so as to draw a day’s pay for each weekly drill. It worked out fine for about a year, but I’m no scholar, not in any formal sense; when I found that I needed every available night to study, I started missing drills, and after a while they gave up on me and transferred me to the inactive reserves. I wasn’t even aware of it at the time, I was working my tail off trying to keep up academically, with classes full of bright kids just out of high school. I was succeeding, too, Der Hal. In June of 1950, I finished my sophomore year with really good grades. But then, all hell broke loose on me and a whole hell of a lot of other poor folks around the world, and by the time it was done, none of us and none of our lives was ever the same again/’
The Archbishop of York had been right about the desire of the king that Bass and his condotta go to Ireland, but the old man either had not known or had not bothered to tell Bass that the monarch had another task for him first, this one involving his flotilla.
Now, in company with Admiral Sir Paul Bigod and a sizable portion of his Royal Navy, the Norfolk Squadron was beating down toward Cape Penas and the Port of Gijon, which lay a little alee of that promontory.
“This Grand Duke of Le6n calls it a continuation of the Spanish portion of the Crusade of Abdul,” King Arthur had said, “but, gentles, it truly is more in the matter of a family and personal vendetta—vengeance against us for the death in battle of the elder brother of the grand duke, the late and unlamented Principe Alberto, who so disastrously led and wasted the cavalry of Count Wenceslaus’s army of Crusaders last year.
“Now the Crusade has cost Spain heavily, gentles, not only in treasure, but in noblemen, soldiers, horses, supplies, and equipment, not even to mention the three ships prized and generously presented to us by our valiant Lord Commander of the Royal Horse last year, or the several others taken by our Lord Admiral’s ships whilst the Spanishers tried to run up the Thames to resupply London.
“Now true, gentles, the Spanishers are possessed of a large fleet of ships, well found and modern, but the most of these are located in and about the waters of New Spain, whence comes the bulk of Spanish wealth. And if there had been any thought of bringing any of those warships eastward, despite the constant pressure put upon portions of New Spain by the Irish, French, Norse, and Portugees, who encroach further and ever further on the lands which the Spanishers falsely claim to own entire, that thought was forgotten completely after recent events.
“It would seem that several privately financed groups— predominantly French, though not representing the French Crown, at least not openly—dispatched to the west a number of heavily armed, heavily manned large galleons to cruise for prizes of opportunity, mount raids on coastal and riverine settlements, and suchlike. We know this for fact, because our own Duke of Norfolk and his flotilla overhauled, fought, and prized one such of these French pirates, and what little her log and papers failed to tell, the freed prisoners from her hold did.
“In consequence, gentles, this grand duke has been hard-pressed to find not only men, horses, and the sinews of war, but bottoms to bear what he could scrape up to our shores. The only thing for which he does not seem to lack in this venture -is money, it being a secret but ill kept that the Spanish Crown, the Caliph of Granada, the King of Morocco, and eke certain well-heeled, red-behatted clerics have been surreptitiously, albeit generously, befunding him.”
Burly Reichsherzog Wolfgang—brother-in-law to King Arthur by way of the monarch’s murdered wife, uncle of the present Holy Roman Emperor, Egon—snorted, “But tcheap at zee price, nonezeeless, mein Briider King. Gained hass Engelandt in zee last few years, zee appellation der Hackmesser … no, meatgrinder of armies. No matter how supposedly holy zee cause, no monarch his own subjects to cast unto such a certain death desires, now, I think.”
“Must so,” agreed King Arthur, “and in such a pass, a lunatic of the grand duke’s water is doubly valuable to those desirous of feeling to do something while actually doing nothing injurious to kingdom or subjects. Even so, gentles, the case of the grand duke’s project is a mite precarious, for one may not sail the seas aboard golden onzas, nor yet place armored ducatos astride dirhams, nor expect pesos to learn pike drill.
“He has, we have heard, emptied jails, freed slaves, impressed freemen of nearly every nonnoble rank and age, vainly offered unheard-of sums for mercenaries, and even offered amnesties to brigands and condemned felons in return for service. Now he does have a force of a sorry sort, most of which is presently encamped around and about the Basque coast port of Gijon.
“In order to transport his choice collection of gaol scrapings and gutter scum, the grand duke has bought and brought to Gijon the most complete assortment of antique ships recently assembled. It is said that some few of them sailed or were rowed into Gij6n unaided, but many had to be towed. He has truly scoured the sides and the bottom of the barrel to get these ships, and should he lose even a few of them, he can never hope to replace them and so must cancel, perforce, his entire ill-starred scheme.
“We have a plan, gentles, to bring to pass such a cancellation.”
When Bass got back to Norwich and placed their assignment to his own staff, he once more thanked the lucky star under which he had captured the then-Crusader Baron Melchoro years ago, for the Portuguese nobleman averred to know the Port of Gijon quite well and was able to elucidate certain things left unclear by the charts furnished Bass by agents of the king.
“It once was the Freeport of Gijon, friend Bass, a place in which any honest seaman—and many a one not so honest, as well—could sail in to take on water and victuals, sell loot or other cargoes, trade goods, and even careen ships or repair battle-wrought damages. Moreover, all these things might be accomplished in Gijon-port without worry of the unwelcome attentions of the Spanish Guarda Costa or payments of the heavy import-export levies exacted by Spanish customs officialdom. During a few years at sea in my wild and tempestuous youth, my shipmates and I made right frequent use of Gijon-port. Of course, that was a score of years agone, back when el Conde Don Hernan Padilla and his issue still held their patrimonial lands thereabouts.”
“They lost their lands in war, then?” asked Bass.