Chapter 29

We anchored off Oak Hall late in the day. Dusk was hanging on the horizon and everyone was tired. Thankfully, with the forewarning provided by Felicity, Oak Hall was ready to accept a second influx of refugees.

"So you are back already," Elsa Mueller said with a smile as she came and greeted me on the jetty. She kissed me on both cheeks and then went and greeted my mates in the same manner. I just stood by and watched until she was done.

"Thanks for the response," I stated as I waved towards the shore and the activity unfolding on the quay. "It's certainly appreciated and not just by me. The last couple of days have been hell for them and this reception is going to help smooth things over."

"So Felicity told us this morning when she showed up," Elsa replied giving me a smile. "Well, hopefully there won't be any more problems today and we can get these people settled into some temporary accommodations. Why don't you and your party head up to the keep and settle back in? Lord Barnabas is anxious to see you and my people have everything under control."

I agreed with an exception. I sent my party ahead with the menagerie and the princess and the three Minoan girls to get them all settled in while I stayed and introduced Elsa to Josh and Hugo. Once that was taken care of, I spoke to Sir Humphrey who was policing the disembarkation of the refugees. I took Tobias along and reintroduced the two men to each other. I left Tobias with the Captain of the City Watch to help ensure that there weren't any problems. I figured that between the city watch and Tobias' band of men that there shouldn't be any problems. It was only when that was done did I excuse myself and head up to the keep.

The first night back was kept simple. I met with Lord Barnabas in his private office and ate my supper with him while I spoke to him about my recent adventures. When I was done telling my tale, I brought up what I had suggested to Lord Omar and what he suggested to me. Lord Barnabas found this very interesting.

"I must agree with Lord Omar, my young friend," Lord Barnabas rasped over a cup of watered down wine. "The Minoan princes won't be an immediate threat, but they will be a threat none the less. They will seek revenge for the killing of their king and for your involvement in raising the slaves of Lufkin in rebellion. Sooner or later they will come looking for you and the princess."

"So I should leave Oak Hall and take the girl with me?" I asked bluntly.

"No, not at all my friend," Lord Barnabas replied waving my question off with his wine cup. "I don't think that at all. However, I do think that we will see trouble in the future and we should be prepared for it. This suggestion of an alliance between Izmir, Oak Hall, and Blue Harbour is one solution to the issue. It would mean that none of us will be forced to fight the Minoans alone, especially Izmir and Oak Hall. If as you believe, Izmir was spied upon by the Minoans then it is guaranteed that Izmir is already in danger of an attack as is Oak Hall. We will have to prepare to go to their aid if necessary. As for Lord Tailem and Blue Harbour, they will be a harder sell in this matter. Still your proposal is a good one and it should be pushed forward as quickly as can be."

"I know," I acknowledged after taking a sip of my wine. "I plan to travel to Blue Harbour as soon as these refugees are settled and I've spoken to Elsa Mueller and her people. I have plans for them and Oak Hall and the sooner I discuss it the safer Oak Hall will be."

"You have plans, you say?" Lord Barnabas muttered with an approving smile upon his face.

"Do you object?" I asked him bluntly. "Oak Hall is still yours and Elsa Mueller has sworn allegiance to you and not to me. I don't intend to tread on too many toes."

"No my young friend, I don't object," Lord Barnabas confessed, raising a hand to silence anything else I might say. "I am an old man and I know my time is short here and that Oak Hall will need solid leadership. I have failed in providing that until recently, having surrounded myself with mostly adventurers and men of greed. It has been refreshing to have the council of Fraulein Mueller and her fellow captains and it has been enjoyable watching you take charge. I know you can't stay and run things for me, but I am willing to listen to your plans. I'm certain that they will be in the best interest of Oak Hall and her people. But enough of that for tonight, I want to hear about the princess and her handmaids and the Lady Asana. From the sounds of it your bed is getting very full. You have bedded these four from Minos, haven't you? Tell me you have."

Of course I hadn't and I told him so and he ended up pooh-poohing me for my dereliction of duty to the women. Then I sat and listened for the next half hour to him telling me about his exploits in the bedroom, back when he was my age. I just sat and drank my wine and nodded at the appropriate places. When I finally got to bed, my mates were already asleep as were the four young ladies. I smiled and thanked the spirits and then went to sleep as well. The day had been long and tomorrow would be longer still. I needed sleep.

The next two days consisted of back to back meetings that stretched from dawn to dusk and beyond with every moment of my day occupied in discussions. I ended up meeting with almost everyone starting with Lord Barnabas and then working my way down. It seemed that everyone had a problem and I was the only one with the solution. Unfortunately it was entirely my fault. Instead of washing my hands of Oak Hall and never returning, I had come back and I'd come back with ideas that rocked the boat and stirred things up. That meant people wanted explanations and consoling and I was the only one available to give them and by the end of the day I was too tired to even attend to my mates. Fortunately, by the time I got to bed, they were fast asleep.

Everything I was involved in had long term ramifications for Oak Hall. I wanted to change the political structure of the city. Lord Barnabas had declared over and over again that when he finally died, that everything would fall apart and chaos would rule instead of reason. To prevent that from happening I proposed a new municipal council to replace the existing one. It would include a representative from each of the population groups, old and new, plus the merchants and fishermen, and the tradesmen. There would also be a military representative. Lord Barnabas was all for it as was Elsa Mueller, who was currently serving as his Seneschal. Naturally Barnabas teased me about wanting to replace the feudal system with a democratic one.

"No," I told him and the others at our meeting concerning the political makeup of Oak Hall, "I don't want to create a democracy here in Oak Hall or in this region. I do however want to bring about a representative monarchy where the men and women advising the lord speak for the people and not themselves. Hopefully it will allow for a more stable system of governance in the future and eliminate the threat of chaos that Lord Barnabas fears will occur upon his passing, something I hope not to witness in a long time."

To that a round of here-here was voiced by the other participants in the meeting. Of course raising that idea opened up another can of worms that needed solving. We all knew that the existing advisors would be opposed to it and that they might rebel against it. I suggested the need for spies. That got me both smiles and frowns from my listeners. Quickly I pointed out the necessity to everyone, noting that it was needed to learn what the disgruntled advisors might be up to once a municipal council was formed. We also had refugees who weren't happy and a few ex-pirates who might have their own plans for Oak Hall. Additionally we might also have spies in our midst from other city states such as Minos. In the end everyone agreed with me. It was left to Sir Humphrey and Tobias to come up with a team and to put them to work. I did however suggest that the city watch be expanded to include some of the more reliable members of the refugees and the ex-pirates. With the growing population, Sir Humphrey needed more men.

Governance and intelligence weren't the only topics that I ended up talking about during those long meetings. Another was defence. If Oak Hall was going to be in an alliance it needed something to offer and it needed to prove that it could stand on its own two feet in a crisis. We had the manpower but we needed focus and we needed the symbols that told others that we were powerful. While Oak Hall was a walled city, it was vulnerable from attack coming from the sea. We talked about crewing and arming more boats. Amongst the dozen Minoan vessels that we'd delivered up to the beaches of Oak Hall there were a couple that could easily be fitted out as warships. We also talked about improving the port's defences which were essentially non- existent and in building coastal observation towers that could serve as lookouts to give Oak Hall early warning of possible attacks. Of course this brought up questions about cost and who would pay for it and we ended up arranging for someone to assess the booty that Tobias and others had plundered from Lufkin and the Minoan capital during our raid. I was certain that the crown of Minos could pay for a couple of ballistae from Izmir at the very least.

The last thing we talked about in those two days of endless meetings was the future and my plans for it. This resulted in me calling for a census of everyone living in or about Oak Hall. The fact was that the majority of the people amongst the refugees and the ex-pirates were outworlders and a good number of them had skills that were going untapped. I explained that following our raids on the three pirate enclaves, Zahra had discovered several women in amongst the prisoners who were outworlders and after speaking to them, she'd learned that they had very valuable skills. Two had been elementary school teachers on their Earths while another one had been a certified nurse with emergency room experience. The final woman had been a police officer. I was certain that we'd find the same and more amongst the refugees and the ex-pirates. In this I pointed out that Elsa Mueller had an electrician in her group. We need to know about what skills people had to offer and make use of them. At the very least, we could insist that knowledgeable individuals write down what they remembered from their years of education and publish it so that others could benefit from it. In fact, in time it could be a commodity for Oak Hall. I was certain that others would pay dearly for knowledge that would lift them out of squalor. Again everyone agreed with me.

My last discussion was with Lord Barnabas. The old man and I ended up in his office again with me drinking his wine. We talked about the alliance and what would be expected from each of the signatories. Then we drafted a proposal document and I volunteered to take it to Blue Harbour and present it to Lord Tailem. I was the obvious choice and I knew it. Still I would have rather it be someone else. I decided a grav bike ride would speed things up and expedite matters. Happily Felicity agreed to take me. She had visions of having me alone to herself. Boy was she mistaken.

The hairs on the back of my neck were bristling even as we approached Blue Harbour. I knew something was up but I couldn't do much about it. There was no way for me to effectively communicate with Felicity in flight and I certainly couldn't let go of my grip on her while we were buzzing along at two hundred miles per hour. Technically compensators inside the grav bubble that surrounded the bike would have kept me from being thrown off my seat if I had let go, but mentally I wasn't willing to test that theory. Still I should have thought up someway to get Felicity to divert when we were on our final approach. It was the bells ringing throughout the city as we dropped down over the harbour that got me worried. Still Felicity kept taking us in and I just let her do it.

It was the hail of arrows that met us on landing that told me we were in trouble. We'd just landed in the courtyard of Lord Tailem's palace when two dozen men showed up all around us armed with bows. I'd just climbed off the back of the grav bike and had turned around when the arrows started flying. Instantly I shouted to Felicity to get out of there and thankfully she listened to me. Of course that left me stranded. Luckily I'd been still in the grav field of the bike when the arrows came at us. That meant that the majority of them were deflected away from both Felicity and I when they hit the field. The few that did hit me just bounced off my armour. That moment of luck gave me a fraction of an advantage and I took it.

I was armed and I had my shield and I was wearing armour and with my enhanced strength and speed and agility I was more than a match for any average man. I headed to my right as Felicity sped away. To my right was a flight of stairs that led up to the ramparts that surrounded the walls of Lord Tailem's palace. On those ramparts and on the steps leading up to them were men frantically drawing arrows from their quivers to nock to their bows. I didn't give them a chance. I drove my sword into the man directly in front of me and then pushed him off of the steps with my shield and then I pressed on. While I climbed the steps another couple of arrows slammed into me, but all of them struck armour and bounced off. I cut down the next man on the steps and then I reached the ramparts. There I was confronted by men who'd decided swords might work better than arrows. The first man charged me and I easily parried his blade to one side as he lunged towards me. As my sword dealt with his sword, I swiped across with my shield and struck him in the head. The man rocketed off the rampart and into open space. He hung there for the slightest fraction of a second and then pitched to the stones below, landing in a resounding thud. Again arrows spattered against me in a vain attempt to slow me down and again another swordsman came at me. This one I beat back with both my sword and my shield until he couldn't resist me anymore. As his defence crumbled I struck him down with a blow that cleaved an arm off his body. Screaming in horror and disbelief, the man went tumbling off of the ramparts and down onto the broad stones of the courtyard below. While his death wasn't instantaneous, it was spectacular. His life's blood spurted from his wound as he quickly bled out.

Luck only stayed with me for a little while. Arrows kept zipping at me and men kept rushing me and I kept beating them back and cutting them down, the whole time looking for an out. It didn't help that reinforcements had shown up while I was climbing the steps to the wall. They were on the ramparts and in the courtyard and outside the main gate waiting to cut me off if I tried to go over the wall. That's when I got hit. A crossbow bolt struck me in my head. The coif stopped the bolt from penetrating and the high tech padding absorbed most of the impact but it still knocked me off guard for a moment or two and left me disoriented. That's when an arrow buried itself into my left calf. The sudden pain made me cry out and that cry gave encouragement to the men attacking me. So did the fact that my leg gave out under me. My attackers saw an immediate opportunity and they took it. Two rushed me from the front and one came at me from the rear. I threw up my shield to block the attack from the front and thrust back my longsword towards the man rushing me from behind. He ended up impaling himself on my sword. As he started to crumple, I yanked my sword out of him and then brought it back around in a sweep. I cut low and took a leg off one of the men before me. He collapsed and then rolled off of the rampart to fall to his death on the stones below, screaming the whole time he fell. Then I forced myself to my feet and pressed on. The man still before me had been joined by another and the two of them were hammering at my shield. I could feel the shield beginning to give and I knew I was in trouble. As they brought their weapons up again to hack through my shield, I stepped back at the last moment and their blades cut through thin air. The move took them by surprise and before they could react, I lowered my shield and came over it in a swipe that took the head off of one man and made the other man jump back. That's when I got hit a second time. An arrow slammed into my thigh just below where my chainmail ended. I winced and staggered a bit in response to the impact and the pain. Seeing the advantage the man before me came at me once more and I was forced to throw up my shield in an attempt to protect myself. As I did another an arrow hit me; this time in the arm.