213
Purpose, Plans
Rigel opened his eyes, annoyed at the touch on his shoulder that interrupted his dreamy semi-floating on the edge of the hot bathing pool. “Hey, Rye”, he said as he recognized the hand sliding to the center of his chest as his best friend slipped in behind him. “Yo, Rita”, he added as she slipped in to their left. His eyes didn’t linger long on her bare figure, his attention drawn by Ryan snugging him firmly on his lap and rubbing his abs, then a tongue tickled the edge of his right ear.
Rita laughed. “You two – I really believe the idea that we all got a little dose of Austin when we got Snatched! Before, Ryan would have gone down on you, Rigel, if you were frustrated by getting turned down by a girl, and if you were moderately or more drunk you might have done that for him, but you were never affectionate – where others could see, anyway”, she conceded. “Now you’re all but making out!”
“Ryan is, anyway”, Rigel responded, then sucked in his breath as fingers toyed with the edge of his genital hair. “So what’s up? Ryan’s in preventive comforting mode, and you came in together, and Anaph just materialized across from me, so you have an announcement you think I won’t want to hear.” His guess was confirmed when Ryan’s hands stopped teasing and crossed his chest, the arms they were attached to holding him firmly.
Rita looked past him. Rigel started to turn but not in time to be warned; a slim young body jumped over Ryan and landed sideways in Rigel's lap. “Hi, my lord”, Austin quipped, draping his left arm around Rigel’s shoulder and grabbing Rigel’s right knee with his other hand. “Too bad we can’t make this a frolicsome threesome.”
“When you’re old enough”, Rita admonished, wiping water from Austin’s arrival splash from her eyes. Austin pretended to pout, but broke into a laugh and planted a kiss on Rigel’s cheek. Rita rolled her eyes and cleared her throat.
“Yes, you might not like this. We’ve been talking, and here’s the situation: you might have to marry the Lost British Queen. Anaph. Shut it”, she said without turning, knowing the protest that was about to erupt from that direction. “I say ‘might’”, she continued to Rigel’s suddenly stony face, “because the point is to get their full cooperation–“
“Their obedience”, Austin suggested.
“Basically” Rita agreed. “If that means you being their king, or at least their queen’s consort, you have to. Remember, we’re all here for a purpose, and you need to be leading the Lost British for that.”
“But–“
“Hush. The Celts will come at your call, Osvaldo effectively made himself your vassal, and you have real vassals who will obey, but they’re not enough – you need the Lost British, too.”
“And the Quistadors”, Anaph added.
“And more”, Austin chimed in. “I think you should conquer the world!
“Okay, I’ll be serious”, he fired off before Rita could holler at him.
“Okay, why?” asked Rigel. “We can arm the Celts, and we have the new cannon....” He trailed off as he felt the shake of Ryan’s head against the back of his own.
“We don’t have the metal, bud”, came from behind him.
“But the Druids have been finding ore!”
“Not enough”, Anaph told him. “All that’s for the Celts.”
Ryan tipped Rigel and slid from beneath him, settling to his right. “You know all those wonderful toys we showed the villagers? All the tribes want them, so what we did was cause a shortage of iron. Thanks to Eraigh and the Hall, they’ve got three times as much ore to work with as before, but they want about eight times as much to meet the demand! Devon can’t make more rail, and we had to scrap some of what he had to get enough to melt the City alloy into to make something we could work – and that gave us just six new cannon. Sure, they have three times the range and the accuracy is up by about a third, but there are only six – and those six are going to help Antonio cream the Inquisitors and army when they attack this spring. The Lost British don’t have a huge supply, either, and neither do the Escobars. The only metals we’re good in are silver and gold, and that’s only because of the differences in values between the Escobars and the Quistadors, which means we make a couple hundred percent profit on every trade with either of them.
“But even if we had all the metal we wanted, we need more soldiers! Yes, the combined arms tactics we can do work great against small batches of Others, a lot better than old don Jadriano could do, but against an entire nest, or multiple nests? We’d get swarmed, just like he did at the end. The only way to stand against them in big numbers is with big numbers of our own, so we can hold an unbroken line.
“Even that would waste lives; we need major artillery support, enough to chop them into chunks we can hit like you did when you met Lord MacNeil. With all the nests the Scouts counted down south, we’d need all the men the Lost British can supply just for artillery! And that’s if we fight on a limited front with at least one end of our lines anchored on a body of water they can’t cross or get around. As far as we have to march....” Ryan shook his head.
“Okay how far?”
Anaph took Rigel’s question. “Remember how far we hiked to get here. Add in all the distances on the trips to find the Escobars and then the Lost British. Make that one long straight line. Picture that? It would be just getting us started.”
“So”, Ryan picked up, “we can’t fight on a limited front. We need an army big enough to march right through the middle of the Others, fighting all the way, and once we’re through their territory keep fighting all the people in the way, because they aren’t going to just let an army march through.”
“Rigel, the total dead just to march as far as Anaph said, fighting Others all the way, will be more than all the warriors the Celts can give you.” Rita’s melancholy tone brought understanding to Rigel in a way just the words couldn’t. “And that’s if your army is big enough to not just get overrun.”
“Which means you have to start with five times that many”, Austin stated firmly. He looked right at Rita. “So maybe he does have to conquer the world.”
Rigel shuddered at the thought of so much death. Looking across the water at Anaph, he sensed a sort of immensity he’d never noticed before. “Anaph, you went to the Stone again, didn’t you?”
He looked like a boy caught sneaking out when he’d been grounded. “Uh, yeah – how did you know?”
“You’re like... it’s like you’re a bundle of power or something. I figured you must have gotten that somewhere just recently, and the only place that makes sense is the Stone.”
“Secondary vibrations”, Ryan suggested. “It’s like the generators in a hydroelectric dam: you don’t feel the actual energy they make, but you hear the deep hum and feel the vibrations, and you know they’re powerful. I feel it, too.” He wiggled his hip against Rigel’s. “It kind of makes me... frisky. So, why did you go?”
“I have to deal with Urien”, was the simple reply. They all fell silent, remembering the destruction the renegade had caused, and the unleashed power it must have taken.
“Um, so... what’s the plan with the new cannon?” Rigel asked to break the silence.
Ryan grinned. “You’ll like it, bud. Austin, did the captain get here?”
The squire launched himself from Rigel’s lap onto the deck, using Rigel’s shoulders as a launching pad. Temptation succumbed to self-control as he managed to not quite brush Rigel’s face with penis and balls. Already running when his feet made contact, Austin hooked the stone doorway and spun into the dressing area. “¿Hola, Rodolfo, esta aqui?” he called.
“Si, estoy”, came the reply, followed by Austin’s laughter. A long moment later a trio approached the baths, Austin, Crystal, and Captain Rodolfo Montdragón, arms linked, the latter two wearing towels which Austin snatched away as they all stepped into the steamy water. “Señorita Crystal has been keeping me company – she said you would call.” As though at court, the captain assisted Crystal to step into the pool like a lady descending the steps at a royal ball.
“Captain Montdragón came up with most of the idea”, Ryan began, “though Rita added a beautiful touch!” He bowed to her from the waist. “It goes like this: we’ve let the Inquisitors’ spies learn about Antonio’s defenses, but only what we wanted them to know. If they have anything resembling competent officers, they’ll make some probing attacks to test what they’ve learned.”
“And they will find that their spies have been very good”, Montdragón continued. “I have trained Don Antonio’s defenders to make it seem so. But when they launch their real attack, they will learn how wrong they have been! They will lose heart, the attackers, and falter.”
Ryan took it again. “That’s when the cannon fire and blow their headquarters group to small bits of protoplasm.” Crystal giggled at the sight of Montdragón mouthing the unfamiliar word; Ryan grinned at her but went on. “So their attack is feeling like yelling ‘Run away!’” – he did his best Monty Python imitation – “and then their scum commanders who dragged them out to get killed become like Spam spread across half the battlefield, so they make like sheep and get the flock out of there.”
Montdragón shook his head at the unfamiliar phrases but gamely continued the account. “And as they flee, my best sharpshooters” – he pronounced the term carefully; obviously it was still new to him – “who are most all from Rigel’s Riders, terminate the earthly existence of any Inquisidores and their officers they can see. Then the rest surrender – but that is my Lady Rita’s part.”
Rita had moved to sit on the edge of the pool. Now she opened a satchel she’d set there earlier. “Maolmin sent this to me with a message she thought I’d find it useful.” What she drew out brought gasps and whistles.
“Oh, wow”, Austin breathed. “A crusader coat!”
“The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the temple of Solomon”, Ryan pronounced in awe. “A knight’s habit! Rita, you didn’t tell me Maolmin was part of this!”
Rita chuckled. “She always has surprises. Yes, this was what gave me the idea. Rigel, after the Inquisitor commanders are blown away, the army isn’t just going to surrender. But the cannons will fire seven times – seven volleys, like thunder. Then they’ll fall silent, and as attackers are streaming back from Antonio’s defenses, seventy-two knights wearing copies of this ride out in a line, and the leader declares that God has weighed the Inquisition and found it wanting.” The rise of her eyebrows told Rigel he was supposed to figure out the rest.
“Okay... seven bunches of thunder – seven is a holy number, so it’s supposed to be the thunder of God or Heaven. And there were seventy-two elders who served God in some legends, right? Crusaders were considered holy anyway, and the Templars were full-time crusaders, so they’re above question.” His face lit up. “And they’re on horses, which the Quistadors haven’t had since they retreated from the Others, so they must be sent by God – right? So when their leader announces God’s judgment, the soldiers will ask what they need to do, and he tells them to surrender!” He laughed. “You’re right, Rye – I love it! Psychological warfare.”
“And then Druids serving as monks take oaths from all the prisoners – and they’ll know which ones are lying”, Rita finished. “The lying ones get handed over to the Celts who come to help, and the rest get to return home. The oath is that they’ll never raise a weapon by command of an Inquisitor again – but will answer the call of the Templars.”
“And that kills the power of the Inquisition, once word gets around”, Ryan explained. “Then when you need the Quistadors to fight in your army, you send some Templars to bring them. After all, it will be a Crusade – really.”
“Wow”, Rigel said. “You guys have really talked this over, huh? Ganging up on me!" But he sad that with a grin. "So does that mean we can’t go south this year? I think Lord Kevin and Lady Meriel would be unhappy about that – not to mention Lumina, plus Eldon.”
“No, you can go south”, Ryan replied with a grin. “Just not a big showy expedition like last time, and not so close to the Others. You know a back way now, remember?”
“Then you can tell the queen she has to share you with Lady Meriel”, Austin quipped, "and–“ Ryan and Rigel both dunked him.
<image -- templar tunic/habit held out above steamy pool>
The tunic looks like this:
