Don Pedro had slowly come back to consciousness out of a drunken stupor in the midst of a great stench to discover to his chagrin that once again he had fouled his breeches and his bed. He had but just laved off his legs and lower body from a pail of tepid water, donned clean small clothes and breeches, and was breaking his fast with brandy and barley bread when his long-suffering squire knocked and entered, trailed by one of the men of the castillo garrison, this latter sweating, panting, and wide-eyed.
Breathing as shallowly as possible in the reek of the small, close, windowless room, Escudero Juan Gallinanes said, “Don Pedro, Alberto here has just come from the north gate. A party of about twenty Crusaders led on foot by a knight are just on the other side of the moat and are demanding entry and aid. The knight says that their ship went down in the storm of last night, which most likely accounts for a few screams that the winds brought down to us from the north while you were . . . ahhh, sleeping.
“They are mostly wearing Crusader surplices, Alberto says. All are torn, battered, and dusty, and some have bloody bandages, as well. Everything about them would seem consistent with the knight’s tale of shipwreck. Now true, Don Pedro, the storm was not all that severe, but then we know not in just what condition was the ship, either.”
Gallinanes knew that this last would bring a smile to the face of his knight, even in his hungover condition, for Don Pedro’s opinions concerning the numerous maritime disasters that the grand duke had had towed into Gijon-port over the last year or so were well known about the castillo.
“Alberto says that even as he left, the corporal and the rest were making to lower the bridge lest they further anger the knight, who seems to be either of Granada or Castilla . . . and you know how badly those types terrify humbler folk, even when they happen to be in a good mood. So the knight will no doubt present himself to you in all his superciliousness and in no long time, Don Pedro.”
Losing his brief smile, the Basque knight nodded and arose, then swayed for a moment, supporting himself against the table edge, while muttering curses damning all Spanish knights to the deepest, foulest pits of perdition. “A11 right, Juan, hold the bastard off as long as you can. I must change clothes. Have you seen my sword lately?”
Even as the squire and knight spoke, however, the corporal and his gate guard all lay dead in their blood and the column of Sir Ali’s main body of galloglaiches were trotting across the lowered drawbridge and streaming under the menacing points of the raised portcullis and through the angled tunnel beyond it to emerge within the castillo and fan out in small units seeking out the rest of the resident garrison.
They found them quickly enough, and most died without waking on the sacks of straw which were barrack beds.
Squire Juan’s final scream was drowned in a gurgle of his own blood, Sir Ali’s backhand stroke nearly decapitating him. Don Pedro had his head and both arms buried in the doeskin pourpoint into which he was wriggling when the slim dagger blade went in under his left scapula and pierced his heart. Of all the garrison of the castillo, only the two busy cooks were spared and encouraged to continue their accustomed tasks, though tightly guarded by the hungry raiders the while.
When a single rider appeared at the southern gate, Sir Ali had the man speedily admitted. Within the courtyard, however, the horseman took but a single look at the strange men, the scattered corpses, and frantically reined about, to earn a brace of crossbow quarrels in the back, whereupon Sir Ali cursed; he had wanted the obvious messenger alive, and now he could only hope that they would send another to seek after the first.
From the walls of the castillo, it could be seen that all the town was aboil as the four galleons sailed in from the sea. Up around a gleaming-white building that was probably the palace of this grand duke, men and horses were assembling, weapons and armor flashed in the morning sun, while bugles blared and drums rolled and horses neighed over a continuous, though distance-dim and incomprehensible babble of human voices.
Down on the ships at the quays and wharves and anchorages, men scurried hither and yon, running up ensigns, it seemed, while others worked on deck guns—which could mean expectation of imminent combat or not. Sir Ali had no way of ascertaining this and could do nothing about it in any case, since no one of the archaic battery left mounted in the castillo pointed toward the harbor or the town, and the monster bombards were’just too heavy to move to locations from which they would. Nor was Sir Ali at all sure that he would like to be the one to order men to try to serve and fire the ill-kept relics. All he was willing to do was to spike them all, then roll the balls and casks of powder out the embrasures to tumble down the cliff and so into the sea.
The second rider was more astute. He realized that something was wrong while still on the bridge, reined about, and was quarreled out of the saddle. The panicked horse galloped off toward the town, while the brace of galloglaiches dragged the still-twitching body into the castillo.
The third horseman did not arrive until the four galleons were already dropping anchor within the Gijdn harbor basin. Arriving astride a frisky red-bay palfrey, wearing silver-washed parade armor and a sword with a gilded, bejeweled hilt and a matching dagger, he was exactly the stripe of Spanish nobleman that Sir Ali had earlier aped so successfully.
Drawing rein in the castillo courtyard—which had by then been circumspectly cleared of cadavers—and barely deigning to glance at a rank of galloglaiches now garbed in garrison clothing and equipment and bearing a miscellany of polearms and crossbows and arquebuses, the Spaniard glared at Sir Ali and demanded to see Don Pedro de Haro at once, adding that he came directly from the grand duke himself.
“Don Pedro is not to be seen by anyone,” replied Sir Ali, adding, “He lies gravely ill in his quarters.”
“Donkey turds!” snapped Don Sergio coldly. “Either dead drunk or hungover, you mean. And just who in seven hells are you?”
Sir Ali extended his leg in a courtly bow, a mocking smile on his dark face. “Don Ali ibn Hussain de Al-Munecar y de Castro de Castilla, at your service, Don . . . ?”
“Don Sergio Mario Felipe Umberto de la Torre dc Fuentesauco y de Gata, Senor,” the rider replied a little less stiffly, now that he knew himself to be addressing a fellow Castilian knight. “The fame of your casa is well-known, Senor, but why have I not seen you before? There are few enough of us genuine hidalgos de Castilla hereabouts, amongst this rabble of Catalonians and Basque sheep-fuckers.”
Sir Ali thought it well to change the subject and did so: “What does his grace desire of me, Don Sergio?”
“Ah, yes, that matter. Don Ali, his grace dispatched me to tell you that it is past time for the salutes to be fired from the castillo in honor of our Roman visitors.”
“Salutes from this castillo are now impossible, Don Sergio.” Sir Ali grinned and added, “For the very good and sufficient reason that all those antique bombards have been thoroughly spiked and the powder and balls dumped down the cliff. Don Pedro is not really ill, nor yet drunk; he is dead, along with the rest of the garrison. The name I gave you was mostly an arrant lie told you with an abundance of joy in the telling. I actually hight Essayed Ali ibn Hussain, a knight of Arabia, in service as herald to his grace, Sir Sebastian Foster, Duke of Norfolk, Markgraf von Velegrad, Earl of Rutland, Baron of Strathtyne, and Lord Commander of the Royal Horse of his majesty, Arthur III Tudor, King of England and Wales. You, Don Sergio, unless you are of the opinion that you can digest a half-dozen crossbow quarrels so early in the day, are my prisoner; give me your parole and you can keep your sword.”
“But … but … but …” The red-faced, utterly flabbergasted Don Sergio could not seem to find words or get them out.
“We are come here,” Sir Ali further enlightened him, “to burn your master’s pitiful little armada where it floats and thus end his Crusade before it starts.”
“But the Kingdom of England and Wales is at peace with the Kingdom of Catalonia and Leon!” Don Sergio finally found words.
“Just so,” agreed Sir Ali mildly. “And this is a purely private action, mounted by my master against yours, nothing more.”