“And you can bet your arse,” thought Bass, instinctively giving his armor-clad arms a rub to lay the goose flesh he felt arising on them, “that those castillo gunners know the ranges from shore to shore to the inch. All it will take them is one shot, no overs or unders, just one and we’ll be either minus a galleon or, at best, nursing a crippled ship back toward England . . . and it could just be one of mine as easily as not.”
The castillo had been described in some detail to Bass, Sir Paul Bigod, their sailing masters, captains, gentlemen, and staffs by Bar6n Melchoro, and in light of his descriptions—he had many times over the years been entertained by various of the Castillo’s commanders—it had been decided that should the landing party of galloglaiches somehow fail to take the place by night, no open attack by day would be essayed, lest they get themselves bogged down before those strong walls in a lengthy siege. For they must always recall that the King of Leon and Catalonia had troops not too far distant from Gij6n and that San Sebastian, a short sail to eastward, was that monarch’s principal naval base on the Bay of Biscay, with not a few fine, modern, well-found warships at instant readiness should word come of English pirates raiding this coast. And one of King Arthur’s closing injunctions had been to the effect that until matters within his kingdom were more stable, he wanted no formal troubles with other secular monarchs; a general crusade was one thing, a declaration of war for cause was another thing entirely. Should any of the ships involved in the attack on Gijon be sunk or run aground or prized, should any of the soldiers or crewmen or nobles be captured, they were completely on their own and King Arthur would disavow any slightest knowledge of them and their nefarious ventures into kingdoms with which the Crown was at peace. He was in no position to do or to say other.
As the grand duke, Don Esteban de Alcab6ria, meticulously inspected his personal guards, at the same time rapping out a stream of orders to three clerks concerning matters military, matters nautical, and matters domestic (that is, just what he wished served at the great feast for the newly arrived Papal allies), the town that rose up the terraces below the palace was aboil with its own preparations for the coming custom.
Innkeepers rolled out barrels and pipes of wines of varying qualities, slaughtered beasts and fowl, and heated up ovens for the baking of breadstuffs. Whores donned their finest and most revealing garments, and some of them even washed before dousing themselves with strong scents. As ordered by the agents of their grand duke, all households hung out brightly colored cloths from upper windows and balconies, while musicians and dancers gathered in the squares to await the official commencement of this unexpected fiesta.
In the basin, all of the ships were aswarm with life as flags and ensigns and banners and buntings of every description and a veritable rainbow of color were run up halyards and draped here and there, guns were polished, loaded with powder and waddings, run out ready for salutes of honor.
The faithful retainer, Fernando, pulled deferentially at his lord’s sleeve. “Your grace, the galloper has not yet returned from the casiillo and 1 feel … I fear that something is amiss with Don Pedro . . . ?”
The grand duke shrugged impatiently, foot already in stirrup, groom waiting to give him a leg up into the gilded saddle of his prancing, showy golden-chestnut barb. “Fernando, you maunder like some old crone! You know that the casiillo garrison is understrength; no doubt Don Pedro kept the galloper to fill out a guncrew. Or the man might have stopped at any of a score of places for any of a hundred reasons. Get you gone about your duties. If you have none, I’ll give you some, and that right speedily!”
But immediately the grand duke and his party had departed the palace environs, the still-worried Fernando dispatched a second, completely unauthorized galloper—this one a grizzled veteran—with orders to cautiously spy out the place at close range before making to enter it.
Down on Calle Embarcadero, Don Esteban drew up his guards and gentlemen in ranks and waited patiently, trying to ignore heat and sweat and insects while the four huge, elegant, high-masted galleons slowly maneuvered themselves about the cramped harbor in search of anchorages that suited their masters. At some length, they arranged themselves in an extended crescent, with one four-masted galleon standing out from the old wharf section and one out from the careening yard and drydock, the bow of each of these pointing roughly toward the harbor exit. The two three-masters lay off the long section of new wharves.
“Hummph!” remarked one of the grand duke’s gentlemen, Don Jos6 de Zuera. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that those ships were all afire, your grace. Look at all the smoke! We couldn’t see it when they sailed in, of course—the wind would’ve dispersed it—but with them anchoring, it’s there for any to see. What does your grace suppose it portends?”
“Incense, most likely,” opined Don Esteban languidly. “They are no doubt saying a mass to celebrate the safe conclusion of the voyage from Italy.”
“But aboard all four ships at the once, your grace?” probed Don Jos£. “It seems not a little odd, to me.”
“As you live longer around clerics, Don Jos£,” the grand duke stated, “you will find them to be a queer, singular breed given to habits and ways most odd to secular gentlemen.”
“Strange that they’ve not loosed off a single gun in salute as yet, your grace.” This statement came from another of the gentlemen, Don Nasir de Guadix. “They should have been firing from the moment they entered the channel, one would think.
“It is as I but just told Don Josl,” said the grand duke. “The clerical mind is right often difficult of the understanding of the laity, even of noble-bom laity. Look you, though, Don Nasir, they are making ready to salute; see, the gunports are all being opened and the guns run out.”
“I hope they loose all at once,” said Don Nasir. “What a fine, brave show that would be, eh, your grace?”
A thought then struck Don Esteban, and he beckoned to a young knight, saying, “Don Sergio, my compliments to Don Pedro at the castillo, please. Tell him that 1 feel it is long past time for him to fire salutes in the honor of our visitors.”
Reining about, the knight cantered off in the direction of the castillo, his silk-lined velvet cape floating out behind him.
Major Rupen Ademian, USA, returned to Virginia a few weeks before Christmas 1953. A bit surprised that Marge had not driven to meet him at Broad Street Station, he allowed a smiling redcap to wheel his footlocker and B-bag out to where a long line of taxis awaited, settled back, and gave the driver the address of the apartment to which Marge had moved some months after he had been recalled to active duty and sent to Korea to command a company of infantry in the war that was called a “police action.”
The thirty-two-year-old officer now wore ribbons denoting some impressive decorations, far more impressive to the knowing eye than the mere Bronze Star and Purple Heart from World War II. The taxi driver, a WWII vet himself, whistled softly between his teeth, then asked diffidently, “Welcome home, Major. How was it, sir? As bad as the big one?”
Rupen sighed. “Yes, it was bad. There’s no such thing as a good war, but this one was especially stupid, pointless. Nothing at all was accomplished to justify the expenditure of lives.”
“But we won, didn’t we, sir?” stated the driver.
“In a pig’s asshole we did!” was Rupen’s quick response. “It’s not over, man, not by a long shot. Those talks in Panmunjom are just a truce, a temporary cease-fire, not peace, so don’t let anybody kid you.
“By the way, driver, don’t take the gear out until I say so. My wife’s a nurse. She may be on duty at the hospital, and I don’t have a key to this new place yet, so unless she is home or I can find another way to get in, I may have to have you drive me out to my sister’s place on River Road.”
The driver crinkled up his forehead and, as they were just then stopped at a light, turned half around to look Rupen in the eyes. “Major, as one old soldier to another, you won’t spend as much to go out on River Road if you switch over to a county cab. I’m on a meter, see, and a run out there would end up as high as ten, fifteen, even twenty dollars.”