Of Quests and Kings Read online

  Bagrat opened his mouth to protest, but the tone of his elder brother's voice, the look in his eyes, told him that it would do him no good to say anything. He just watched Rupen and Haigh walk away through the short, wide, brightly lit tunnel.

  As they came out into the somewhat less well-lit parking area, the two were confronted by a pack of some half-dozen young men—bearded (most of them, those old enough or sufficiently masculine to grow a decent crop of facial hair), shaggy, and grubby, dressed in a rare collection of military-surplus clothing, beads, rawhide, and either boots or homemade-looking sandals. Two of them hefted police-type billies, one bore a sawn-off pool cue and the foremost held an elegant-looking walking stick that Rupen was dead certain concealed a steel blade.

  "Man," crowed the scruffy blond boy with the cane, "don't they look pretty, like they just fell out of a bathtub. Not just coats and ties, three-piece suits, by damn. How fucking establishment can you get, huh?" Then, in a hard, cold voice to Rupen, "Whatta you two fuckers want over here? This building's been took over for the people by the Revolutionary Peace Committee. It and nothing in it belongs to you cocksuckers anymore, see?"

  Rupen slowed, stopped, stood stock-still, his system pumping with adrenaline, but not one trace of excitement in his stance, his demeanor, or his voice. Quietly, but firmly, he said, "I am not in any way connected with this college, young man. I am a visitor on this campus, and I have come to get my car, that dark-gray Mercury station wagon, over there behind you."

  The blond boy snarled. "Who the hell you think you are, you old faggot, with this 'young man' shit? My fucking daddy? You two get your ass back into that fucking tunnel or I'll spill your chitlins all over the floor!" With a sibilant zzweep he withdrew the blade from the mahogany cane and shook it at Rupen.

  He did not even have time to show shock at the sight of the PPK coming out of the shoulder holster in Rupen's hand before a noise so loud that it stunned him and all his pack and a spurt of flame from the muzzle of the pistol sped a lead slug that left a silvery smear on the concrete between his feet, then caromed off, whining like a banshee until the crashing of glass announced that it had found a lodgment somewhere among the parked automobiles.

  Both blade and cane dropping from his suddenly weak and nerveless grasp, the blond boy held both hands out toward Rupen and backed away on unsteady legs, shaking his head and stuttering, a damp stain spreading from his crotch and down the left leg of his baggy, filthy suntan slacks. Bypassing the elevator completely, the pack poured up the fire stairs at a speed of knots, leaving their billies and the pool cue on the floor of the parking facility along with the sword-cane.

  When he had negotiated the tunnel and come to a stop in the basement of the lecture hall, Paul Czernik remarked, "Company car or not, Rupen, you'd better get a good mechanic to look at that engine. That backfire over there was as loud as a gunshot. Did you have any trouble getting to the car?"

  Both hands on the wheel, Rupen shook his head. "There was a small reception committee, Paul. But they were all just posturing kids—I outbluffed them."

  Young Haigh Panoshian knew the truth of the matter, of course, but Uncle Rupen's stock had gone up a thousand percent during those few moments and only a quiet word was required to gain his instant silence on the matter, except among family members, naturally.

  * * * *

  "Would you have really shot the boy, Rupen?" asked the archbishop.

  "Him or any or all of them, had I felt I had to, Hal," replied Rupen, adding. "But I knew I wouldn't have to, that one, possibly two warning shots would assuredly do the trick with them. A hideaway weapon like that sword-cane is not designed or intended as a threat, it's to be drawn and immediately used. I could tell from the way he held and flourished it that he'd never really applied it to its true purpose before; he was making to slash at me with a stabbing weapon, one that didn't even have a true edge, so I knew I was confronting, at best, a thoroughly inexperienced amateur whose closest exposures to that kind of violence previously had most likely been watching movies or television."

  The Archbishop of York nodded. "You'll work out very well in this world, Rupen. You're truly a gentleman and gentle—which two do not always come in one package—but you can be as hard as tempered steel, without qualms or regret. You're a true survivor type."

  A smile flitted briefly across Rupen Ademian's olive-hued face. "I am pure Armenian, Der Hal, so what else could I be but a survivor? But back to how I met the woman who became my second wife."

  "After that hellish afternoon, Bagrat and I became very popular with the administration, the most of the faculty, and a fair number of the students of that college; we all had—to use a Civil War term—'seen the elephant together.' A few months later, when Ademian Enterprises found itself in dire need of a hefty income-tax deduction, Bagrat and I persuaded Kogh to donate it, or most of it, to the city college building fund, whereupon we all were in like Flynn, and that following June, they had Kogh speak at their commencement ceremony, then conferred honorary degrees on all three of us."

  "At the faculty-administration-alumni cocktail party that followed, that evening, Carolyn Foote Carter was introduced to me by someone or other. I don't know to this day exactly how the hell she got into that party, for she wasn't faculty or an alumna, just a graduate student in the Master of Social Work program offered by that college."

  "At twenty-six, Carolyn was a most attractive young woman, really far too young for me by the standards of that time and place, but she gave the impression of being much taken by me . . . and I fell for her wiles, too, there being no fool like an old fool, as the song says. I rationalized it all out to where it made good sense, of course. I'd refused, over the sixteen years since Marge's murder, to allow myself to become deeply involved or committed to any woman, so I had right often been very lonely, when I wasn't too busy to notice it. I was, by then, almost forty-eight years old and financially not too bad off for a foreign-born immigrant with not a hell of a lot of formal education, and I figured that if anybody had earned a few years of happiness, it was me."

  "Far from being an immigrant, Carolyn was come of the old Tidewater aristocracy—known as the FFV or First Families of Virginia. Some of her people still were holders of inherited land and wealth, but her parents seemed to have blown most of their own—they only owned the names, a modest home, and an inordinate amount of arrogance and pride of ancestry. Carolyn's father was a middling attorney connected with a prestigious Richmond law firm and most likely could have lived far more comfortably than he actually did, had he and his wife not felt obligated to maintain for themselves and their children a societal niche far above their existing means."

  "Neither of them nor Carolyn's siblings nor any of their relatives ever really liked me, but they all realized just why Carolyn was so intent on staking out a claim on me. I didn't, not for a good while. Even at the wedding reception—it and the wedding itself paid for by Carolyn's father, with money 'borrowed' from me—when I happened to overhear a brace of her aunts remarking that yes, it was nauseating to think of the poor little thing and a dirty foreigner, but that as I was well-to-do, it would be a good first marriage and the resultant alimony would allow her to live well long enough to find a man of her own class. I didn't manage to put two and two together properly."

  * * * *

  When il Duce, Timoteo di Bolgia, strode into the presence of His Grace Giosue di Rezzi, Archbishop of Munster, he already knew the news that he assumed he had been summoned to the archepiscopal palace to hear; one of his spies had sent word almost as soon as the swift ship had docked and the seals on the documents had been broken.

  When he had knelt, kissed the archbishop's ring, then arisen, the frail-looking clergyman said solemnly, "Your Grace di Bolgia, I have just received word from Cardinal d'Este. His Holiness Abdul II al-Zaman died three weeks agone. Due to certain administrative problems, no election has as yet been held or even scheduled, but it would seem that a committee chaired by His Grace Cardinal Pr
ospero Sicola has the reins firmly in hand."

  "The message goes on to say that I should board the vessel that brought the message and sail to Palermo, at once. But dare I leave Irland and Munster, Your Grace? Should I do so, will His Highness Tamhas of Munster still be alive when I return?"

  Timoteo shrugged. "Your Grace, the life or the death of any man, regardless his rank or calling, is finally in the hands of God."

  The slight man's eyes blazed. "Don't dare to fence with me, you godless heathen adulterer! I posed an understandable question and I'll have a straight answer of you, at least as straight and as truthful an answer as such a one as you could give."

  Timoteo nodded, his face looking grim. "All right, Your Grace, here it all is in a nutshell: I presently have no designs upon the life of Righ Tamhas; he has proved almost completely cooperative with his new council. As to just how long he will live, however, that is contingent upon how successful I and the other councilors are in restraining his perennial impulses to lead his FitzGerald Guards and his wild Rus-Goths in a suicidal daylight mounted charge against the fortifications of the Ard-Righ's siege forces. As well planned, laid-out, and defended as are those fortifications, the Righ and his minions' desire to attack them makes about as much sense as would the plans of a troop of bullfrogs to mount assault on a nest of vipers. In his redundant Irish way, the Righ continues to babble about the requirements of his honor, the need to drive the trespassing Meathians from the Sacred Soil of Munster, and some of his blatherings even make a sort of sense, in a silly, old-fashioned way. But as I pointed out to the royal ass on the last occasion he swore he would do it on the next morning, what matters satisfied honor or reclaimed land to a cold, well-hacked corpse?"

  "No, Your Grace, if you want a reasonably firm assurance that Righ Tamhas will be alive when you return from Palermo, should you choose to go, wring a vow out of the Righ that he will not, for any reason, leave the confines of the city walls."

  The speedy but virtually unarmed lugger conveying di Rezzi, his secretary, their servants, four bodyguards, Sir Ugo, and his two squires sailed directly to the island of Majorca. In the port of Palmas the archepiscopal party and their baggage were all transshipped to a waiting Genoan galleass, Spaventoso, all bristling with cannon.

  When he had formally welcomed di Rezzi aboard, the commander of the warship, one Sir Giorgio Predone, said bluntly, almost rudely, "Your Grace, this may not be either an easy or a pleasant voyage. The battling between Roman factions has spilled over, out of the city itself, you see. The triple-damned Moorish bastards have never needed much excuse to sail out and prey on honest shipping, and the mere unsupported rumor, without a single grain of truth to it, that old Abdul might have been poisoned has got them all—from Sidi Barani to Beni Saf—armed and at sea after gold and slaves and anything else they can lay hands on."

  "If it happens to us, it may well happen suddenly, so when I tell Your Grace to repair to his cabin and bar the door, I pray he does just that immediately, for his life is in my keeping on board this ship."

  Turning from di Rezzi, Predone demanded, "d'Orsini, is it, Sir Ugo? The Roman d'Orsinis? Then I take it you're a Knight of the Church, eh?" There was a barely discernible tinge of disgust and condescension in the Genoan's voice, for Papal knights quite often in the last hundred and fifty years had been nothing of the sort, their swords and gilded spurs mere baubles akin to their rings and bracelets and neck chains.

  Nodding his answers silently, Sir Ugo feigned to not notice the slighting tone, but one of his squires, himself a noble-born Roman, was not so temperate in nature.

  "My lord Predone," he burst out unbidden, "you should know that my puissant lord, Sir Ugo d'Orsini, is on loan to His Grace from the staff of the famous condottiere il Duce Sir Timoteo di Bolgia."

  "Is it so?" drawled Sir Giorgio. Smiling warmly, he said, "Your pardon, please, for my rudeness, Sir Ugo, but these be harder times than usual, and every non-fighter aboard makes for a bigger risk at sea. May I say that it is indeed an honor to have a man of your water aboard my ship. I have long admired, greatly respected, and avidly followed the career of the illustrious Duce di Bolgia. His exploits are bringing respect back to Italian arms and men-of-arms. When you are established in your place below, come back to the bridge here, pray. I would have you tour Spaventoso."

  Despite the dire warnings, however, the voyage was uneventful, though slow as compared to the lugger they had quitted at Palmas, until Sicily was already a dim smudge on the horizon. Then it was that three small, fast, maneuverable feluccas bore down upon them, the bow-chasers firing long before they had achieved even maximum range.

  Awakened by the nearby pealing of bugles and thunder-roll of a drum directly overhead, Sir Ugo was hardly on his feet when a staccato pounding on his door commenced. Throwing open the portal to the small, cramped sleeping space, the knight confronted a ten- or twelve-year-old officer trainee, who bobbed a short, hurried bow and gasped out his message.

  "M'Lord d'Orsini, if it pleases m'lord, Sir Giorgio urges that m'lord arm with haste, with haste, m'lord. Moorish pirates be coming up fast on the starboard, three of them, as fast as sail and oars can drive them." The white-faced youngster gulped and added, "There will be a sea fight . . . and soon."

  Once buckled and laced into three-quarter armor, with his preferred battle rapier and a brace of wheel-lock pistols at his waist, a dagger in each of his boot tops, and his helmet under his left arm, the tall, slender but wiry nobleman paced down the narrow corridor and tapped at the door to the larger cabin which housed the archbishop and most of his party.

  "Your Grace, the ship is about to be attacked by no less than three Moorish ships. If the Spaventoso be sunk or taken, your four guards will not do you much good, but up above, adding their weights and strength to the defending forces, who can say what prodigies they might wreak with me and my two squires?"

  After flourishing a salute and resheathing his rapier, Sir Ugo said, "Sir Giorgio, I am come with two squires and four men-at-arms, these last courtesy of His Grace di Rezzi. Also Monsignor Tedeschi, His Grace's secretary, will be up shortly, and he claims some degree of skill with a fowling piece."

  Captain Predone nodded, the still-unbuckled cheek-plates of his open-faced helm rattling to either side of his grin. "Is it so, Sir Ugo? Then the monsignor could do equally well, I trow, with a port piece—those swivels are all mostly nothing but oversized fowlers."

  Turning his head, he bawled, "Master gun captain, there'll be a priest up on deck shortly. Place him as gunner on a port or a base."

  To Ugo, he said, "You and your lot stay by me, and don't fret or go running off to the first fight you see. I fear me there'll be action and blood enough for us all, ere this engagement ends. I . . . will you look at that bugger, the middlemost one out there, pulling ahead of the other two? Why, I think he is going to try ramming us. Sailing master!"

  As Ugo d'Orsini and his men watched, one of the low sail-and-oar-propelled felucca-rigged frigatas bore down on them from the windward, all sails drawing and every long oar flashing, the two methods of power combined giving her a respectable speed. Although the other two frigatas continued to fire off-shots from their bow-chasers just as fast as the pieces could be reloaded, the lead vessel had ceased to fire, and knots of men could be seen gathering at midships and stern, bright steel of weapons and armor flashing in the light of the newly risen sun.

  Aboard the Spaventoso, the starboard bank of twenty huge oars pulled mightily, while those twenty on the port side backed water every bit as strongly, and the high, long, ponderous galleass slowly moved about in place, in an effort to present her prow to the attacker in time. When he felt the frigata to be within range Sir Giorgio ordered fire from those cannon that would bear properly, but every humming ball seemed to miss, although some splashed heartbreakingly close to the target.

  "Gunmen and moschettieri," roared Captain Predone, in a voice that Sir Ugo was certain could be heard as far away as Napoli, at least, "half an ounce of
gold to the man who knocks the steersman yonder on his keel end!"

  At this, the starboard rails became crowded with wheel-lock and matchlock-armed soldiery and not a few officers as well, for the offered reward was a princely sum indeed. After meticulously checking their priming, some tightening the springs of wheel-locks, others blowing on and tapping ash from slowmatches before clamping them into the arms, the firing began. The steersman must have had a charmed life, for after the first dozen or so balls fired at him, he still stood and held the tiller rock-steady. However, the knots of fighting men assembled in waist and stern had not been so lucky, some of them. Some six or seven were down, either lying still or thrashing upon the decks, and all of those still on their feet were quitting the raised steering deck as fast as they could jump into the waist.

  In a fury of frustration and fear for his vessel and men, Captain Predone himself stalked over to a base-piece, checked the priming of the long bronze inch-and-a-half-bored swivel gun, then snapped the question to the nearby gunner, "Solid or small shot?"

  Fingering his forelock respectfully, the barefoot man said, "Solid, leaden ball, and it please the noble captain."

  A grunt was Predone's only answer. Taking up a length of slow match, he blew it to a bright glow, then took up the cursive tail of the piece, leaned over, and squinted, sighting it, and abruptly jammed the lit end of the match into the powder-filled touchhole.

  The frigata was by now come terrifyingly close, so Ugo did not need a long-glass to see the beefy steersman thrown completely over the stern rail as the pound-or-so ball of hard-flung lead struck him. He could even see five or six men leap up from the overcrowded waist onto the steering deck, hands outstretched to grab at the swaying tiller.

  The sailing master of the galleass had seen what must come if none could reach the unguided tiller in time and had ordered the immediate shipping of both banks of oars. The shipping was barely accomplished in time to prevent damage or injury on the row decks of the Spaventoso.