The Seven Magical Jewels of Ireland

  The Seven

  Magical Jewels of Ireland

  Robert Adams

  PROLOGUE

  Whyffler Hall, it had once been called, the stark, rectangular tower built of big blocks of gray native stone, in centuries long past—motte, stronghold, residence of the generations who had held this stretch of the blood-soaked Scottish Marches for king after king of England and Wales. But when first Bass Foster saw that tower, it had become only a rear wing of the enlarged Whyffler Hall, a rambling, gracious Renaissance residence, its wide windows glazed with diamond-shaped panes set in lead, its inner bailey transformed into a formal garden.

  From the first moment he set eyes upon it, Bass Foster had felt a strange compulsion to approach, to enter that ancient tower, that brooding stone edifice, but it was not until some years later that he was made privy to the knowledge that the very instrument which had drawn him and all the other people and objects from twentieth-century North America to England of the seventeenth century (though an England of a much-altered history from his own world of that period) was immured within the dank cellar of the tower.

  It was a savage, primitive world of war and death and seemingly senseless brutalities into which Bass and the nine other moderns were plunged, but he and most of the others were able to adapt. A woman died, one man was killed, another went mad, and a third was maimed in battle, but the other six men and women managed to carve new lives and careers for themselves out of this very strange world into which they had been inextricably cast.

  The arcane device spawned of far-future technology still squatted in the cellar of that ancient tower, its greenish glow providing the only light that had penetrated the chamber for the two and more generations since its single entry had been finally walled up and sealed by the authority of the then-reigning king.

  Only a bare handful of living men and a single woman knew the truth of what lay beyond those mortared stones impressed with the royal seal of the House of Tudor . . . they, and uncountable generations of scuttling vermin to which the cellar had been home.

  Although they welcomed the dim light cast by the chunky, rectangular, silver-gray device in what otherwise would have been utter, stygian darkness, the vermin otherwise tended to avoid it, for it often emitted sounds which hurt their sensitive ears.

  But of a day, a wild stoat came from out the park and over the wall surrounding the outer bailey of Whyffler Hall. The slender, supple, gray-brown beast had no slightest trouble in moving unseen by man up through the formal gardens to the environs of the Hall itself, for he was a hunter, an ambusher, a born killer, and had ingested the arts of stealth with his mother's milk.

  Near to the Hall, his keen nose detected the scent of rat, and he doggedly followed that scent a roundabout course to a burrow entry dug hard against a mossy, cyclopean stone. In a fraction of an eyeblink, the furry, snaky body had plunged into the earth in pursuit of his chosen prey.

  After exploring numerous chambers—all, alas, empty of rodents—and equally numerous intersecting tunnels, the stoat found that the larger, older, most heavily traveled main burrow, which had descended to some depth, began to incline upward once more, and was soon filled with the strong scent of many rodents ahead and a wan, strange light.

  The questing head the big hob stoat thrust out of the burrow hole in the packed-earth floor of the tower cellar chanced to come nose to quivering nose with a rat that had been on the very point of entering that hole. The rat leaped a full body length backward and shrilled a terrified scream. That scream and the sudden stench of the stoat's musk initiated a few chaotic moments of rodent pandemonium, with rats of all sizes and ages and of both sexes streaking in all directions and shrieking a chorus of terror.

  But fast as were the rats, the stoat hob was faster, and he had emerged into the midst of the panic and slain several smaller ones before most of the rest had found and fled down other holes. Now the only full-grown rats left in all the huge, open cellar were three which had taken sanctuary atop the glowing device, crouching and panting amongst the dust-coated knobs and levers and calibrated dial faces.

  No stoat ever had really good eyesight, but their other keen senses more than compensated for this lack, so this particular mustelid knew just where those rats were, how many they numbered, their sizes, ages, sex, and degree of terror. He also knew, after a hurried circuit of the base of their glowing aerie, that there was no way he could get to and at them whilst they remained up there. Four feet straight up was simply beyond his somewhat limited jumping abilities, and the unrelievedly smooth, hard surfaces would prevent him from climbing up to his prey.

  Frustrated and furious, the stoat chattered briefly to himself, then futilely jumped the less than a foot he could manage, vainly trying to get his stubby claws into the steel sides as he slid back down to thump onto the silvery disk on which the device reposed.

  Feeble as had been the attempt, nonetheless, it and the sounds of it had further terrified the three rats, driving them into a frenzy which suddenly erupted into a three-way battle to the death amongst them. The squealing, biting, clawing, furry ball rolled hither and yon amongst the control switches and buttons and levers and knobs thickly scattered over the top of the device. Scaly tails lashed as the three big rats fought on, heedless of what they struck or moved, heedless now, too, of the facts that the ear-hurting noises were become suddenly constant and louder, that the greenish glow was become much brighter.

  Below, the hob stoat waited, hoping that in their fury the rats would roll off to fall down within reach of his teeth.

  Far and far to the south of Whyffler Hall, within the long-besieged City of London, one of those three sleek rats would have brought a full onza of gold in almost any quarter in which it chanced to be hawked, for the siegelines had been drawn tightly about that city and its starving, frantic, and embattled inhabitants. Nor did there appear to be any hope of succor now, for the last remnants of last year's Crusading hosts were being relentlessly hunted down, while every attempt by the Papal forces to resupply the beleaguered city had been foiled, all ending in resupplying King Arthur's army instead.

  In the most recent incursion of a Papal supply fleet up the Thames, young Admiral Bigod's English fleet had lurked out of sight until the leased merchanters and their heavily armed escorts were well up the river. Then, while his line-of-battle ships and armed merchant vessels trailed the foreign ships just out of the range of the long guns, a dozen small, speedy galleys issued from out certain creek mouths and immediately engaged two of the four-masted galleons that composed the van of the fleet.

  Each of these galleys was equipped with but a single cannon, but these cannon were all of the superior sort manufactured at York by the redoubtable Master Fairley. The guns were breech-loaded and fired pointed, cylindrical projectiles—both solid and explosive-shell.

  The well-drilled crews handled the galleys with aplomb, scooting around the huge, high-sided, cumbersome galleons like so many waterbugs, discharging their breechloaders again and again to fearsome effect into their unmissable targets, while the return fire howled and hummed uselessly high over their heads.

  After watching his companion galleon shot almost to splinters, before either a lucky shell or one of the several blazing fires reached her magazine and she first exploded, then sank like a stone, Walid Dahub Pasha saw his own galleon's rudder blown away by one of the devilish shells. At that point, he ordered most of his men up from the gun decks, to be put to better use in fighting fires, manning the pumps, and tending the many wounded; there was no way of which he knew to fight with a ship you could not steer. He also had a sounding made, and, pale with the thought of less than a full fathom of water beneath his keel,
with the flowing tide pushing him farther and farther up the unfamiliar river, he had the fore anchor dropped.

  As the anchor chain rattled out into the river, Walid Dahub Pasha saw the dozen galleys back off from his now helpless ship, hold a brief, shouted, council of war, then set off toward the knot of merchanters and the remaining galleons. After that, he and those of his men still hale were all too busy saving their ship and stores and comrades to pay any attention to aught that befell the rest of the Papal fleet.

  While he hacked at a tangle of rigging and splintered yards—for Walid prided himself on never forgetting his antecedents nor asking his seamen to do aught that he would not himself do—he reflected that only the worst possible string of ill luck had gotten him and his fine ship involved in this Roman mess to begin. The Bishop of the East at Constantinople had nothing to do with the Roman Crusade, though he had given leave for any of his as had the desire to join in it. Walid certainly had never for a minute entertained any such desire, yet now he would in all likelihood lose his ship if not his life through being caught up in the Roman stupidity. The sultan in Anghara would be in no way pleased, either, when and if Walid returned to report the loss of ship, guns and all. A chill coursed through Walid's powerful body despite the heat engendered by his exertions, for he had seen strong men live for long hours after being impaled—screaming, pleading, babbling, dying by bare inches, while the remorseless wooden stake tore up through their bodies. He shuddered. That was no way for a decent Tripolitan seaman to die!

  Much later, he was on the main gun deck, supervising the drawing of the charges from several of his battery of bronze culverins, when Fahrooq al-Ahmar, a captain and the sole remaining officer of Walid's contingent of fighting men, found him with a message.

  Arrived on his quarterdeck, one look through his long-glass was enough to tell the tale. The remainder of the Papal fleet was once more sailing upriver, but no longer under Papal ensigns; each and every one of the ships and galleons now bore the personal banner of Arthur III Tudor, King of England and Wales. The fleet was being shepherded by some English galleons and frigates, while the squadron of galleys seemed to be beating in the general direction of Walid's crippled galleon. The thought flitted through his mind that perhaps they meant to give him and his no quarter, in which case he had unloaded those culverins too soon.

  He turned to a quartermaster. "Haul down that Roman rag and hoist Sultan Omar's banner in its proper place." Then, "Fahrooq, send a man down to tell them to get those culverins reloaded immediately, load the swivels, get yourself and your men armed for close combat, open the main arms chests for the seamen, and send a man to my cabin to help me get into my armor. They may kill us all in the end, but this particular batch of Franks will know they've come up against real men, by the beard of the Prophet and the tail of Christ's holy ass!"

  As the seamen and soldiers set to their tasks aboard the immobilized galleon, the row galleys crept across the intervening water. Closer they came, ever closer. When they were just beyond the effective range of a long eighteen-pounder culverin shot, they divided, half of them passing across the galleon's stern quarter to form a line on her port side, the others similarly positioned to menace her starboard side.

  Watching the deadly vessels through his fine long-glass, Walid could discern the raised platforms for the single gun that each galley mounted. Absently, he noted that they looked to be nine- or maybe twelve-pounders.

  With both his sides menaced properly, eleven of the galleys held their places, using their oars only enough to keep them in those places, while a single galley began to stroke slowly toward the galleon. No gunners stood on the platform; there was but a single man—helmetless, but wearing half-armor, sword, dagger, and pistols and holding the haft of a bladeless boarding pike to which a grayish-white square of cloth had been affixed.

  "Looks to be a herald of some kind," remarked Walid, then he ordered, "No one's to fire on them until and unless I say to do so. But keep your eyes on the other galleys, most especially on those off the port bow. We can lose nothing by hearing what this Frank bastard has to say to us."

  As the small galley neared, Walid thought to himself that some of the oarmen were easily the most villainous-looking humans he had ever set eyes to in a lifetime spent at sea and in some of the roughest ports in all the wide world. The herald, on the other hand, though his face was well scarred and his nose was canted and a bit crooked and though he might have looked fearsome if viewed alone, seemed to represent an uncommon degree of gentility when compared to the satanic-looking crew whose efforts propelled the galley.

  Then the rowcraft turned to starboard and came directly toward the galleon, and all that Walid could see were the backs of the rowers, the supposed herald, the steersman, and another he assumed to be the master on the minuscule steering deck at the stern.

  And on that small steering deck, Squire John Stakeley felt far more exposed to imminent death or maiming than ever he had even when spurring on at the very forefront of a cavalry charge. Though he was no true seaman and made no such pretensions, he well knew just how frail was this galley and her crew when one contemplated a hit by even a single ball from an eighteen-pounder culverin, and they were now within perfect range if that Roman bastard elected to pull his broadside or any part thereof.

  Of course, if he did that—fired on a herald—the rest of the squadron would proceed to pound the galleon to pieces, before boarding the hulk and butchering every man aboard her. But that would be of no help to Squire John and the noble herald and the gallowglasses who were rowing closer to the anchored warship with every stroke of the long, heavy sweeps.

  Hailing from an inland county and being thus conversant with damn-all of ships in general, Squire John failed to recognize the new, gaudy standard that had been run up to replace the even gaudier Papal one. But the herald saw it for what it was, and, as the galley came alongside the galleon, with a brace of brawny Irishmen contriving to keep her there against the tug of the current with boathooks and main strength, the herald shouted up at a swarthy, bearded man who stood by the rail with a glowing length of matchcord in one tar-stained hand and the other grasping the aiming rod of a swivel gun—a three-inch drake, mounted in the rail specifically to repel boarders.

  In purest Arabic, he demanded and threatened and insulted so meticulously that Walid and every man of his within the hearing immediately recognized a kindred ethnic spirit.

  "Throw me down a ladder at once, you sorry by-blow outcome of a diseased sow and a spavined camel's perversions, else I'll see you given that swivel gun and all within it as the hottest clyster that your foul fundament ever has known!"

  At Walid's curt nod of approval, the gunner laid aside his slowmatch and, grinning his own appreciation of the herald's admirably couched words, heaved down a rope ladder from the galleon's waist rail to the bobbing galley below.

  Leaving the white flag leaning against the gun carriage, the herald stepped onto the gunwale of the galley and ascended the swaying, jerking ladder as nimbly as any barefoot seaman, despite his heavy boots, armor, long-skirted buff-coat, and dangling weapons.

  As Fahrooq ushered the newcomer up onto the quarterdeck, Walid noted that the herald moved with a pantherish grace and so was most likely an exceeding deadly swordsman. Otherwise, he looked to be much akin to Walid himself.

  Both were of average height—some five and one-half feet from soles to pate—with black hair and eyes, swart skin, and fine, prominent noses, heads, hands, and feet a bit on the small side, fingers long and slender. Both men were possessed of slim waists and thick shoulders, but the herald also showed the flat thighs of a horseman and considerable facial scarring, more than Walid had managed to collect in his own lifetime.

  "Sahlahmoo aleikoom, Ohbtdhn. I am Sir Ali ibn Hussain."

  "Aleikoomah sahlahm." Walid intoned the ritual greeting, but then demanded, "By the flames of Gehenna, now, how is it that an Arabian knight is serving an excommunicated Prankish king who is making war—
rather successful war, but still war—upon the Holy Apostolic Church? Man, you risk your soul in the hereafter, not to contemplate what will be done to your body if you find yourself taken and brought before an ecclesiastical court."

  "Oh, I serve not King Arthur," was the reply. "At least, not directly. No, I have the great honor to be the herald of his grace, Sir Sebastian, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Rutland, Markgraf von Velegrad, Baron of Strathtyne, Knight of the Garter of the Kingdom of England and Wales, Noble Fellow of the Order of the Red Eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, and Lord Commander of Horse in the Armies of Arthur III Tudor, King of England and Wales."

  Walid shook his head. "How do you manage to remember all of that Prankish gibberish in its proper order. Sir Ali? Never mind, here's the kahvay—let's have a cup so we can at least trust each other here, on board my ship."

  When one seaman had set up the elaborately chased silver tray-table on its carven ebony legs, when another had set it with a trio of tiny gold-washed and bejeweled silver cups, then a brass brazier full of glowing coals was passed up from the firebox in the waist and a hideously scarred and pockmarked man of late middle years set about the preparation of the ceremonial food and drink.

  In the center of the table was set a smaller silver tray on which rested a few soaked and softened ship's biscuits and a bowl of coarse, brownish salt. First Walid, then Fahrooq took up a bit of biscuit between the fore and middle fingers of their right hands, dipped them in the salt, and proffered them to Sir Ali. The herald, for his part, accepted and slowly ate the offerings, then did the same to Walid and Fahrooq, in turn.

  Meantime, the man at the brazier had dropped a generous handful of dried coffee beans into a small, preheated iron skillet, wherein he had thoroughly roasted them, then dumped the almost scorched beans into a marble mortar and rapidly reduced them to coarse powder. The powder he had poured into a brass pot with a long wooden handle, adding some pint or so of water and a piece of a sugarloaf. When he had nestled the pot into an iron trivet above the bed of coals, he began to alternately blow upon the coals and carefully watch the contents of the pot.