Of Quests and Kings Page 3

  "Not that Carey is in York that much of the time. He told me once that he became a trucker because he liked traveling, didn't like being in one place for any length of time, and he's the same man here as he was there. I guess he knows the road from York to Norwich or London better than any other man; summer, winter, spring, or fall, good weather or foul, he's always on the move between York and here or York and the King's camp, bringing new innovations of his and Pete's and Dave's and teaching the recipients how to use them properly and safely."

  "Krystal?" Foster sighed to himself. "Despite our son, little Joe, if I had it to do all over again, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't . . . I think. Krystal could've contributed—still could contribute, for that matter—so much to the suffering folks of this world. She's a doctor of medicine, a trained psychiatrist, and, in a pinch, a damned good battlefield surgeon. The surgeons of this world are bloody-handed butchers who know next to nothing of human anatomy or of the causes of infection, while those quacks who call themselves physicians are, when they're not poisoning people with their henbane-and-mummy-dust pills, not one whit better than camp-meeting faith healers. With the assured backing of Hal—who, under the present circumstances, is as good as Pope of England and Wales—she could accomplish true miracles in the fields of medicine, surgery, and the like, but she doesn't; all she does is sit around and get bored and bitch and rail at me in letters about ignoring her. And what the hell does she want me to do? Should I tell the king that I can't do his bidding because my wife is bored and lonely and demands that I be constantly nearby to bitch at in person rather than via post-rider?"

  "I guess that the kernel of the matter is that Krys just isn't very flexible, as easily adaptable to new and strange situations as the rest of us proved to be when put to the test. To her way of thinking, marriage means togetherness, total togetherness—she said once that her mother and father were never parted for more than a few days at a time in nearly thirty years of marriage—and I just've failed to get through to her that this is not twentieth-century New York or America, even, but roughly England, roughly in the seventeenth century, and in a state of warring and invasions with more invasions threatening."

  "One thing, of course, is that she just doesn't have enough to do to occupy her mind and her days. She refused to live at my castle in Rutland because it was too primitive to suit her—I guess she never even thought of having it renovated into a more comfortable residence, she just left and went back to Whyffler Hall. And up there, Sir Geoff and Henny Turnbull and Oily Shaftoe commanding a hundred or more well-trained servants between them keep the place running like oiled clockwork."

  "That was why I tried to persuade her to start a training program to impart of her knowledge to the local midwives and maybe help to cut down on the appalling losses of newborn babies and their mothers that are so common in this world. But after only a couple of weeks, she'd come up with every cockamamie reason you could imagine why she couldn't keep it up—the midwives were all stupid slatterns, know-it-alls, impossibly superstitious, religious fanatics, there was too much of a language barrier, they all were filthy and the stench of a roomful of them gagged her, and on and on ad infinitum, ad nauseam. I guess she'd rather just sit around and feel sorry for herself and bitch at me than try to do something useful or helpful."

  "And it's been damned near the same story since I prevailed upon Hal to let her and our son and her retinue live on the episcopal estate with Bud Webster. Bud tried to get her interested in stock-breeding . . . vainly, as it turned out. Hal, God bless him, took time that he didn't really have to spare to patiently explain to her just why it was necessary that I be so often gone for so long on the King's business, and for all the good it did anyone, he might as well've been talking to one of Bud Webster's aurochs bull-calves."

  Melchoro Salazar and Don Diego, the Castilian having but just arrived back in York with Hal and his retinue from Whyffler Hall, had lived on the estate for a few weeks and tried to interest the Duchess of Norfolk in the ancient art of falconry, only to have her deride their sport as barbaric, bloodthirsty foolishness. Both had still provided some diversion to Krystal, however, until a chance remark informed her that both of them either did own or had owned some slaves—a practice still quite common outside England, Wales, and Scotland, in this world—whereupon she had made things so unpleasant for the two well-meaning and now confused noblemen that they left the estate, collected the troop of galloglaiches lent by Bass to Hal for safety in traversing the still-wild and virtually lawless north country between Whyffler Hall and York, and set out for Norwich. As delicately as possible, Baron Melchoro suggested to Bass that his lady wife was become a bit mad.

  "But good old Hal, he doesn't give up." thought Bass. "He said in the letter he sent down with Melchoro that immediately he can spare the man, he means to send Rupen Ademian out there to live on the estate for a while, figuring I guess that a relatively urbane man from the same world and time as Krys can maybe settle her down to the realization that she's going to have to live the rest of her life in this world and among these people so she'd better start making the best of it, maybe doing something to improve conditions in it."

  "Damned funny about the rest of that bunch of twentieth-century types that were jerked into this world after the rest of us. Every one of them, male and female, just disappeared with the sole exceptions of Rupen and one woman; and nobody since has seen or found or come across, despite thorough, full-scale searches, nary a thread or trace of any of them. One minute it would seem they were all in a guarded suite of rooms in the palace there on the archepiscopal estate, and the next minute, poof, they were gone. I get gooseflesh just thinking of the matter. My house, which was brought here with me, disappeared from here in almost the same way, but it couldn't've been that projector that brought us here and sent the house back and then brought the second bunch here, because by the time they disappeared, that projector was in pieces in Hal's lab in York . . . at least, I don't think it could've." He shuddered. "There's just still so damned much that I—none of us, really—know about this business of projections."

  Little did His Grace Sir Bass Foster, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Rutland, Markgraf von Velegrad, Baron of Strathtyne, Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Order of the Roten Adler and Lord Commander of the Horse know just how right he was—just how little any of them, even Harold, Archbishop of York, knew.

  * * * *

  Some weeks previously and many leagues to the north of that Norwich drill field, a wrinkled, white-haired and -bearded old man wearing the garb of a high-ranking churchman sat in converse with an olive-skinned man of middle years in a candle-lit chamber of the archepiscopal palace, Yorkminster.

  "Well, we did all we could do, I guess." opined Rupen Ademian. "I just hope it works, because after all you've told me about those people of your time in the world you come from, I sure as hell don't want to run into any living ones in this world and time."

  "Oh, it will work, Rupen," Harold, Archbishop of York, assured him confidently. "I cannot but wish I'd thought of something like this many years ago. Had I, then you and your unfortunate friends and relatives would never have been projected into this world, but would've remained safe where you all belonged."

  "What do you think really happened to the others, Hal—to Kogh and John and the rest? Could agents of the Roman Church have gotten into the country palace and gotten them all out without anybody seeing them go? If so, then how?"

  The old man sighed and shook his head. "No, Rupen, as I have told you before, I think that the Church had nothing to do with it, and all the rumors that float around and about my palace be damned. No, I think that they were snapped back to where they and you came from by way of some quirk in the new, replacement device that—all unbeknownst to us, then—was at that time squatting in the tower cellar beside the two dead men from my world and time."

  "But Hal," queried Rupen, "in that case, why wasn't I jerked back too, me and Jenny Bostwick, huh?"

  The archbi
shop could only sigh once more and again shake his old head. "Were Emmett O'Malley still extant, Rupen, perhaps he could answer your questions. I cannot. My knowledge of the workings of the projection devices—along with a plethora of others—was always most limited; in the time and place from which I came, knowledge had become very specialized, nor were specialists in one field encouraged to dabble in other fields very often. That poor Emmett was given a measure of training and experience outside his field was a fluke of sorts. An even bigger fluke was that, with his limited knowledge and training and under a great deal of stress, he was able to project us into this world at all and not put us inside the stone foundation of that old tower keep."

  "What would've happened if he had done so, Hal?" asked Rupen.

  The old man shivered. "Immediate death for both of us and the most hellacious explosion this world has ever seen short of a volcanic eruption, perhaps. There would have been but precious little left of that tower, Rupen. Understand, these devices are not perfected, by any means. Most of the work is still in the experimental stage, and precise control of projections is still a virtual impossibility, in the majority of cases, which is why I seriously doubt that the ones back in that world and time will make any efforts to change the settings of the projector to escape our diabolical trap. No, they'll lose every human or animal they project until they decide that the hideous expense they will be incurring is just making further attempts unfeasible. The costs had already brought about virtual suspension of the project at the time Emmett and I trespassed into the facility and projected ourselves to here. I think that it was only the unremittingly vindictive nature of the very powerful security establishment that got the project started again even on a limited basis; they must have been determined to get us back for the mind-destroying torture that they label 'reeducation,' and if any group of the twenty-first-century United States of America possesses the power to reactivate suspended projects, it is assuredly them."

  "Pardon me, it is not really my affair, Hal, but I must ask, nonetheless. These security people—your voice conveys such hatred for them. They are the reason you left your world and time, then?" Rupen's voice was gentle and he added, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, of course."

  The archbishop grimaced. "I . . . I'll tell you all about it . . . someday, soon, but not tonight. All right? Tonight I want you to tell me the remainder of your own story. What happened with you after you came back to your country and began to run the new business in the new location? What was the name of that city?"

  "Richmond, Hal, Richmond, Virginia," replied Rupen. "Confederate States Armaments Associates of Richmond finally set up operations in a building only blocks from the capitol of the Commonwealth of Virginia and only a few blocks farther than that from the once White House of the Confederacy."

  "My brother-in-law, Dr. Boghos Panoshian, and some of his real-estate friends had helped me find the place. During the American Civil War, a hundred years before, the area had been a fashionable residential area, but a century is a long time, and by then the area was mostly commercial, light industrial and a few warehouses, with almost all of the old homes having been long since torn down for new construction."

  "What I, or rather, we, lucked into was an original forty-odd-room mansion—the main house and one wing, that is, the other wing and all of the outbuildings having been destroyed after the land they sat on was sold many decades before us. Although it was way too much space for us then, in the beginning, the rent was dirt-cheap and I could see where it could save us money to start with. We could use the big, high-ceilinged rooms of the empty, dusty old mansion proper for a warehouse. The front doors were wide and opened right onto the street, and the place was a very short distance from the deepwater port on the James River, too. The agent for the owners readily agreed to do any reasonable amount of strengthening of the floors and supports so they would safely hold cases of rifles and pistols for us if we'd sign a five-year lease for the property, which sounded good to me and my brother, Bagrat."

  "Somebody, within fairly recent times, had more or less modernized the remaining wing and bricked up the doorways leading from it into the main mansion. They had put in electrical wiring, modern plumbing, two baths, and a complete kitchen in the back. I figured we could use this wing for our offices and retail outlet and maybe even put in a small shop for customizing the guns, eventually."

  "The agent was a pretty nice fellow, and he leveled with me . . . up to a point. He said that one reason we could get the building so cheap was that there was no parking lot, no loading dock, nor any way to put one in without making more structural changes to the mansion than the owners would countenance. I couldn't see how this would adversely affect our operations, though, because we wouldn't be in need of delivery vehicles on any large scale, we could park our cars at curbside, and as long as that front door was wide enough to pass cases of rifles, the trucks that brought them up from the deepwater terminal could just pull up on the street in front of the mansion. So we signed the lease, paid six months' rent in advance, and leased office furniture and equipment while a contractor did what was necessary to make the first floor of the old house strong enough to take the weight of the guns and all, and by the time the first load of rifles and revolvers and equipment came from Italy, we were about ready for them."

  * * * *

  Rupen and Bagrat, however, ran into problems almost immediately. The cases of arms were stacked in the paint-smelly rooms of the old house. All of the Richmond, Virginia, area is generally damp to one degree or another, and this area, not too far removed from the river, was especially so, and moisture in the air breeds rust on iron and steel, verdigris on copper and brass. He and Bagrat and two newly hired employees spent one entire weekend at the strenuous, exceedingly messy job of opening crates, unpacking rifles and pistols, coating all the metal surfaces with Cosmoline, then repacking them. Another weekend went to shrink-packing smaller items—powder flasks, bullet molds, reproduction brass belt buckles, hat badges and insignia—in plastic with tiny packets of silica gel.

  The initial shipment thus protected, Rupen fired off a cable to the manufacturers requesting similar protective packing for all of the shipments yet to come. Advertising of various natures had been commenced as soon as the two brothers had obtained an area post office box and orders were already trickling in even as the arms crates were winched up out of the holds of the ship. In the beginning, these were mostly on the basis of Bagrat Ademian's presidency of the company—he being well known in muzzle-loading circles around the country—but the Italian firms contracted by Rupen were producing a quality product, the weapons were well finished, handsomely fitted, and straight-shooting, so soon they were virtually selling themselves to people who had never before met or heard of Bagrat Ademian.

  Slightly less than one year after commencing operations, the two knew that the business was a success, and Bagrat left Rupen in sole charge while he was back north to move his family and effects down and into a house he had rented from Boghos, who had started to dabble in real-estate investments. As soon as he and they were back in Richmond and settled, it was Rupen's turn to leave . . . for Italy, to award new contracts and arrange for the manufacture of additional items to supplement their line of reproduction weapons and accessories. He also took along a want list of certain weapons-related oddities and rarities desired by one or more of his private file of wealthy American collectors, just on the off chance.

  "Flintlock?" yelped Bargrat, holding up one of the roughed-out prototype weapons he had just uncrated. "Are you outa your frigging mind, Rupen? They didn't use no flintlocks in the fucking Civil War!"

  "How would you know?" asked Rupen mildly. "I would imagine that did we know as much as you seem to think you do, those poor, ill-armed bastards of the Confederate States Army used any damned thing they could lay hands to, especially toward the end of the war. But that's neither here nor there, little brother; that's not why I got that prototype and a firm quotation."

/>   "We're doing very well now, even though the actual Civil War Centennial is fast winding down. Apparently, we and the other arms companies that are in this repro business just happened to tap a market that had been lying dormant and unsuspected for years. But, as the song says, there are even bigger things still ahead."

  "Think, Bagrat. In about ten years, the Bicentennial of the American Revolution will be celebrated, and brother, they did use flintlocks in that war. I know—I took the time to read up on it. That's the Brown Bess British musket you're holding there. There's also a Charleville French musket, a Pennsylvania-pattern rifle, and a couple of different flintlock pistols, too."

  Bagrat nodded and grinned, saying. "Now who's the devious Yankee-Armenian, huh? This does look like a good piece, too." He drew back the cock of the lock and raised the frizzen to expose the priming pan. "When we got everything uncrated, let's see if we can find us some flints and cast some balls and drive out to the place near the airport and shoot these some."

  At the end of their second, record-breaking year of unprecedented sales, brother Kogh Ademian journeyed down to Richmond, hat in hand, visibly eating crow and insisting that it was a familial responsibility for Rupen and Bagrat to keep all the Ademian businesses in the family, not to mention taking advantage of the wealth and influence of his Ademian Enterprises, Incorporated.

  So anxious was the family tycoon to get in on Confederate States Armaments that he put his normally knife-sharp brain into neutral and allowed his two brothers to horn-swoggle him ruthlessly. He wound up owning three-twelfths of Confederate States Armaments while Rupen and Bagrat both got back the shares in Rappahannock Arms that they had sold in order to finance Confederate States Armaments in the beginning, plus which the small Richmond firm also got access to the immense amounts of Ademian Enterprises' lines of credit . . . none to soon, either, as it quickly developed early in the third year.