Willard answered: “I do, and without your faulty orders and their strict obedience we might not have. For we journeyed three days to the mountain and were a day within. Had not your soldiers abducted us and taken us here without delay, we would still be two days from the coast. As it is, we have arrived in time to reach Atilta ere the end is decided.”
“Then my grief is assuaged; but I am not pleased with you in this, Captain Khalid.”
“My duty, sir.”
“Indeed, Vahan, he is a model soldier,” and Willard walked down the stairway. “I am well pleased with men of this type.” The King of Atilta approached the King of France, the latter preoccupied until this time with returning Vahan to his feet. The bureaucrat’s face was cut and his arms bleeding, but he was well.
“Uncle, I am pleased you have come,” Willard said.
“A few miles is not a great distance, for the sake of my brother’s son.”
“We will make servants of many more miles ere our presence is divided, so devotions can still be proved.” He paused. “I come to you as your nephew and as the King of Atilta; it is to you how I am received.”
“As both, and as a great warrior. Vahan has told me of your exploits and your exile. My brother would be proud if he lived, but as he died he will be revenged.”
“Your majesty,” Vahan turned to his king, “And, your majesty,” he turned to Willard, “We would be better served to finish this aboard The Bas Bleu , as we sail to Atilta. The squadron is ready.”
“Then we had best be aboard.”
“Without delay!” came from Patrick McConnell, who stood behind Willard.
“So this is the English rebel?” the French King gave Patrick a close look. “We will see more of you, later.” He turned to his nephew’s other comrades and his eyes could not pass Ivona. “There will be dessert this evening, after all,” he winked at Vahan. Yet Ivona’s eyes sent him backwards, for he was not used to being rebuffed by his feminine pursuits.
“Tonight our only feast is the blood of battle,” she said in a cold, prophetic tone, “And our dessert but death or victory.”
Willard met her with his eyes. “So it will be; let us go.”
Khalid’s battalion was the last of the garrison to be loaded. Everything was prepared for their boarding. A majestic vessel, The Bes Bleu ,sat in the river, waiting for their arrival. It was a galley of a hundred oars, a hundred feet from fore to foot and twenty-five across. Six masts were stationed across the deck and the sails were spread between them, rather than from the cross-trees of one. Much less rigging was needed and the sails could be swiveled from one mast to another to catch the wind at varying angles – a uniquely Atiltian ship, built for France by the late King Plantagenet. Below deck, the sleeping quarters had been commandeered for supplies. The entire fleet was at full strength. They could not spend the night aboard, perhaps, but they did not plan to. This was all done by Vahan Lee, whose strength in matters of detail and pedantry was unsurpassed. What he lacked in military prowess he made up in preparation.
Once on board, they went to the dining room – reserved for the king – and took their evening meal, in preparation for the coming battle. The King of France took the head of the table, with Willard to his right and Vahan Lee to his left. Ivona sat by Willard, then Horatio, Leggitt, and Captain Khalid. De Garcia took the foot of the table, and on the other side were Leggitt, Patrick, and Lydia. Their conversation proceeded as follows:
VAHAN: What has come of your journey? You return, but Montague does not.
WILLARD: He is no more, at least in this world.
KING: Montague destroyed?
WILLARD: He went to his god. The mountain was full of hideous creatures. He disappeared among them.
KING: So it is! My father was right to decree that none should approach that lonely peak. I will not revoke it, for there is unspeakable evil within.
WILLARD [with a smile]: Unspeakable, indeed.
VAHAN: And the Holy Graal?
WILLARD: We will see what comes of it. If Milada is healed, we will know.
IVONA: It is done.
KING [to Lydia]: And you, my glowing sun, are some royal creature, in blood as well as beauty?
LYDIA: Indeed, I am the daughter of the King of Hibernia, Emperor Lyndon.
KING [rising to his feet]: What! You keep strange company, Willard; I, however, disdain to keep spies within my circle, least of all to feed them from my table!
WILLARD: And do I? She is with us by chance.
PATRICK: Chance, and in the same degree as that which formed the heavens and the earth. She is by my side and by the side of my people. Birth is not worth, in royalty or in peasantry.
KING [sitting]: So I see. I will leave the politics of the Three Kingdoms to Vahan. But beware lest your loves lead you to wrong, Patrick McConnell. Even I, the king, must guard against the temptations of the flesh.
PATRICK [with a wavering voice]: I will take your majesty’s saintly lead in the matter.
The king seemed to linger on the precipice of anger; but, thinking of his dignity, pretended not to understand the young man’s remarks. The others did likewise. Silence fell like snow and through it their thoughts could not be seen. As they finished, the silence was shaken by a knock on the door. No one answered. It opened to reveal a windy old man, the Admiral of the fleet.
“Your majesty,” and he lowered his head in respect, “The storm has come full force and has churned the waves against us. We will be late reaching Atilta, if we can pass through at all. Not even my old comrade William Stuart could pass this storm, such is its temper!”
Chapter 80
“At last, it is time,” and Gylain took the hand of his ally and equal, the King of Hibernia.
“We will both bruise their heel and crush their skull,” the other returned.
They stood on the deck of a great warship, The Barber , the centerpiece of the navy of the Three Kingdoms. It was four hundred feet long and seventy-five wide, with three stories above water and four below. The materials were Atiltian – as were all good ships of the time – but the construction Hibernian. Atiltian sailors used swiveling masts, but foreign sailors could not handle them as well; instead, the largest ships used a system of multiple masts similar to the French King’s flagship. The masts were arranged in rows on either side of the ship, placed at equal distances from one another either along one side or across the center. Sails could be hung across the width of the ship or at an angle perpendicular to it; one system assisted in turning such a massive hull, the other in propelling it. Since the sails could be easily rotated, The Barber could turn almost in a complete circle when the sails and rudder were aligned together. Still, it was inferior to the Marins, for those did not need to tack or come about at all.
TheBarber stood in the center of Eden’s harbor, surrounded by two hundred battleships: half from Atilta, half from Hibernia. Hibernia had never been a sea power, and thus did not have as large a navy as France; Atilta, on the other hand, was a sea power whose navy had been diminished by its Admiral’s forced departure. Ships that had been in the Atiltian navy were now pirates haunting distant waters, or mercenaries for other nations. Hibernians were by nature precise, and were – as their ideas of beauty professed – enchanted by a uniform, consistent architecture. Their navy, therefore, was made of ships built from a single design. The Admiral of the fleet knew the exact proportions and abilities of each ship, and each captain could know what his comrades could achieve; the result was a systematic fighting force. The Hibernian navy was run as if it were an army: their formations, lines, and maneuvers came directly from the Emperor’s experience as a general. Each ship held a battalion of archers and of soldiers, with a limited number of sailors, and the ships were treated more like floating islands than maritime vessels. Yet what they gained in consistency and force they lost in genius. A single, dexterous ship could confound a whole fleet of this kind.