Chapter 29: On the Road

I got to join in the fun and games! Once the army had landed and secured the foot of the avenue we brought in each of Jayport’s warships one at a time and unloaded the rest of our siege engines: the large trebuchet, the other catapult, and both arrow-engines. We kept our two shore bombardment ships with the small trebuchet and the catapult set up because they caused so much trouble, but we could move them onto solid ground if we needed them. The Commander wanted the two arrow-engines up front with him, as direct support for the men in the front lines.

The catapult was supposed to stay safely behind the lines and get used to help break up any strong point, but again it was expected to be firing at whatever tactical target the Commander and his fellow officers wanted.

Maggie, the big trebuchet, was only good as long-range artillery. It wasn’t that accurate, but it could throw a large stone a long, long way. It couldn’t be used for nearby targets, though. It acted pretty squirrelly if we dried to hit anything closer than a couple hundred yards away.

Back when the Jakes had been playing with it, learning how to get it to do what they wanted, we’d had a few accidents where Maggie’s payload came down closer to us than the target, and once it had released far too early, and the payload had gone almost straight up and then come down behind the machine. After that, nobody wanted to mess with short-range fire. If we had to hit something close, we’d back up a couple hundred yards first.

Also, we were thinking that once we were set up on solid dry land, we could try to put together and launch some firebombs. Either way, it wouldn’t be able to directly help the army. All it could do was make life more miserable for the defenders. And the innocent bystanders, if there were any.

Anyway, once the engines had been unloaded, Jayport’s warships went back to the strait to make sure that no one bothered the army from that direction.

I was in the big cleared area at the foot of the road helping the Jakes assemble the siege engines, okay, I was supervising some people who knew what they were doing and didn’t need any help, when three ships moored at the quay. It was Lord Black in his Honest Work, plus the two ships we’d sent looking for him.

Tom was up a ways with the army, pushing up the Royal Road towards Prince Alfred’s palace. So were most of his commanders. Tony was off on his end-around sweep. Eric was probably on Crossroads by now, trying to get his Damsel pregnant. I was the only executive available to talk.

I couldn’t help but notice that Andrew’s ship had a full crew now. It had a LOT more men on it than it needed, just to go fishing or selling a cargo. It wasn’t much of a warship to my mind, but if you thought of a warship as simply a cargo ship full of belligerent men, yeah it was a warship now.

However, Filo had let them past our patrol at the strait, so they must have given a good reason. Besides, two of our ships had escorted them and moored on either side of Andrew’s ship. I’d trust either one to deal with anything a single pirate ship could bring. It shouldn’t be a problem, but all the same I let our people know to keep an eye on these guys.

Andrew was transporting a man he introduced as Vernon, the Lord of North Harbor. Vernon was the guy who took over when we killed the last Lord of North Harbor and took Shark away from him. I had all kinds of questions about how that worked, but that was for a free evening with too much ale. Not now.

Much of what Andrew’s ship was carrying was Vernon’s personal guard. The man had a rather large retinue. I could see him wanting to feel safe when going abroad, but a hundred or so men was overkill if no one attacked him. And, who was going to attack him here in the Cut? Nobody except maybe the Prince’s men or our fleet, and either way a hundred men wasn’t going to save him.

Vernon was here to negotiate. Put bluntly, the Lord of North Harbor wanted ships. He NEEDED ships. The Cut was open water, sure, but it would get fished-out quickly if everyone who lived beside the Cut tried to feed themselves from it. They needed ships that could handle the open ocean and either go fishing outside of the Cut, or go trading elsewhere for food.

All this sounded reasonable to me, but what’s in it for us? We ended up sitting down under an awning and discussing things while we watched the Jakes test-firing Maggie. I’d never met Maggie, but when one of the Jayport gunners had heard how we’d named the trebuchets at Widemouth he’d proposed “Maggie!” for this one and several others had laughed and agreed. Listening to them explain exactly who Maggie was also on my to-do list.

I knew that Andrew had seen Bridgetown’s siege engines many times. He’d probably watched them exercised a few times. This was clearly the first time that Vernon had seen one used, though. We didn’t get anything done until he’d watched a couple of complete cycles, and then seen the Jakes unload the basket and hoist the frame up on four sets of wheels to move the whole assembly up the road some.

Maggie wasn’t exactly man-portable, but with wheels at all four corners she could be man-handled from place to place. We talked some as we watched the Jakes move Maggie up the road some. From their yelling we could tell that they were moving Maggie until they could see something off to the side. Once they had Maggie where they wanted her, they turned her until she was lined up and took the wheels off again.

Then they loaded the basket again, and started throwing big rocks at something we couldn’t see from where we were due to a building between us. Maggie would have thrown the rocks over that building, but the Jakes wanted to see their target.

I already knew what the target was and why, but our visitors didn’t. I suggested that we move our conference up the road some as well, so that we could see what was entertaining the Jakes. Andrew and Vernon were all for that! I had Aldo and my six bodyguards. Andrew had a couple of companions. Assistants? Henchmen? Vernon had his hundred-man guard.

I suggested that, unless his guard could win a fight against our complete army, he was no safer with his entire guard than he was with only two or three men. All they were doing was getting in the way and that maybe we could talk better without all of them blocking our view.

Vernon looked around and asked me why I needed six bodyguards if I was safely protected by our army. All I could do was wave at one of them to explain why they were here.

Their leader said “We don’t work for Duke Jason. We work for King Tom. The King is concerned that the Duke doesn’t worry enough about his own safety, and ordered us to protect him. And there are six of us because every time we get in a fight Duke Jason orders us into the lines to help. And we have to do it, because if we don’t then he does. And he gets all cut up and the King gets mad at all of us.”

“Yeah, what he said.”

Andrew added “I was Captain of one of the first Island ships they captured, six years ago now. I would have tried to attack and kill their captain, but I couldn’t tell who it was. Duke Jason was wearing the same armor, sword, and shield as most of his men.”

Vernon then asked “Are you a fighter, then?”

“Well, I’m getting there. I keep getting into fights, so I’m learning how to fight. I prefer to use two swords if I’m only facing one man, but in the ship-to-ship fights we usually form a shield wall to keep the enemy from getting loose, so I usually fight with shield and sword.”

“I have never faced a man who used two swords at once. If you can parry with either sword, then you can attack with the other sword at the same time. I’d like to see that, as long as I am just a spectator.”

“My King prefers that I not get into fights if I can avoid them. That’s why I have these friends here.” I waved at my bodyguards again.

“So, what must I do to get some ships? You appear to be the only people to have ships any more.”

“Surely Lord Black has told you what we are doing and why. North Isle and East Isle can no longer send ships to raid our people, because both islands have no ships. We captured or sank them all. And, since they have cut down all their trees for lumber they don’t have the trees to build more. They’d have to destroy their own buildings to get the lumber they needed. Neither of them will be sending ships to our shores for a long time even if they want to.”

“At South Isle, we were going to do the same thing but we met someone who was willing to promise to stop the raids if he was Prince of South Isle. We got rid of the last Prince so that Michael could have the job. The only way that we’d give you any ships would be if you just happened to be the Prince of Mountain Isle and you promised to not allow any pirate raids on our shores. We don’t care if you raid one of the other islands out here.”

“I would have thought it impossible for any attacker to remove Prince Alfred from his position, but I would have thought it impossible to do any of those other things, too. Are you going to do the same thing to all of the Isles?”

“If possible, yes. We are determined to end the pirate problem. Unfortunately, it’s getting late in the year. We’ve been out here for too long already. We’ve promised the men that we’d get them home for the harvest, so we need to be leaving soon. The rest of the Isles will probably have to wait until next summer.”

“I am beginning to believe that you can do what you say. Certainly, you convinced my men that losing all of our ships was better than losing all of our ships and our city. We still need ships, though, to feed our people.”

I was beginning to believe that he wasn’t going to shut up on his own. “Okay, you have told me that you need ships. You have told me why you need ships. I accept that you need ships. You have not yet told me how I, my men, or the people we are protecting back on Hunter Island would benefit by giving you ships. We took them away from you because of what you did with them. Without ships, your men cannot be pirates. Why should we give you more ships? With ships, they can be pirates again.”