Chapter 17

"I can't believe Stephanie is going to be an accountant."

"It's better than graduating with a major in English Lit. I'm glad she switched. Now she can hope to get a decent job. When's she coming back?"

"She said that she wants to stay in town for a few days, so I'm supposed to take a U-haul over on the 12th.

"What do you want to do for our second anniversary?"

"You're supposed to surprise me with something romantic."

"Just be glad I remembered were married. I'm a guy, it's difficult."

"I still want my fairytale wedding."

"In fairytales the streets don't smell like shit."

"You said they cleaned it up."

"It's not so bad, I guess. I'm just saying --. Anyway, if we get stuck there for a couple of years your job is going to be affected, can you chance that?"

"I can afford to take a week long vacation this summer. That should be enough to get me back up to speed after we get back."

"Are you sure you want to do it?"

"You think I'm too delicate to use a chamber pot and eat beef jerky? I'm a baroness; I want to get married in my castle. Damn it."

"That's not the part I'm worried about. It's my other duties."

"I've convinced myself that you're like a fertility doctor, so as long as you don't look like you're having fun I promise not to scratch anyone's eyes out, including yours."

"Even though it's against the rules, Susan has promised to abstain on the outgoing stay, but I don't think she'll be able to stay celibate when we get back with the damsel."

"I still have trouble believing that those women are that keyed up about sex."

"Remember when you tore my clothes of on the kitchen floor? That is how they feel around a hero. They can't help it, even the ones who didn't like me. Their bodies still wanted me."

"I'll deal with it. I'm just so envious whenever I here Stephanie talk about it all. I also promise to do my duties as Hero's Companion."

"It will be nice to have sex when I'm there for once."

"I was talking about taking care of your horse, and cooking in camp."

"That will be nice too."

Rather than moving back in with her mother and sister, Stephanie had semipermanently moved in with Rolly and Rachel. She told her mother that it was closer to Topeka, and that was where she planned to look for a job. Paula and Tommy had a little one, and another on the way so it was probably for the best since that farmhouse would be a madhouse soon.

Stephanie was excited to go on her 'graduation present' as she called it. She had only been on one mission since the cattle drive, and that one had been pretty simple. Three bandits in the bushes – rescue from a campsite. She did get to put an arrow into one of the smelly, toothless, bad guys, and she stole their horses so Rolly could go Rambo II on their asses, but it was winter, so it was miserable.

She had continued to work out though. By the end of her college tenure she was the pride of several martial arts instructors in Madison. Most of the others she had written off after a few lessons.

Rolly had been on three missions in that time, mostly to see the countryside.

He had married Rachel as soon as she would let him. The boot company convinced her that it would be a good idea to get married at one of the rodeos as a p.r. event, and they offered to pick up a large part of the tab.

So Rachel and Rolly got married at a rodeo in Denver wearing shiny new Chisholm cowboy boots. Rolly's family was flown in for free. It wasn't quite as tacky as it as it could have been.

Rolly didn't want to take a chance on losing her again, or even seeing her temper flair, so it was nearly a year before she forced him to go on a mission. He was getting on her nerves not being himself, and Stephanie had missed out on a Christmas present so Rachel made them go as soon as school let out for the summer. Rachel wanted to know the day, but she wasn't going to sit at the kitchen table and wait. That was too nerve wracking. So Rolly did it before she got up in the morning. That gave him a whole day to recover his lost time while she was at work.

After that Rachel trusted him to only go when he felt a real need, and she gave him permission to go when she was out of town, confident (or deluded) that he wasn't going just for the sex.

On his last mission Rolly had heard through the grapevine that the gold rush was still going strong. His bank accounts had grown nicely, and back home he had been doing some research. Both Rachel and Stephanie had helped with ideas for how to best take advantage of the situation. So he decided that he and Steph should take a mission along the west coast so that he could visit Glen Mac.

Susan, who at twenty-two had grown to be an elegant and poised caretaker was overjoyed to see Stephanie again. Susan's look and actions no longer held any of the girlishness that they had before. She held more than a little respect and responsibility in her consulting position, and that showed in the way she carried herself. But when she and Stephanie got together they might as well have both been fifteen again, that is until they got into the war room.

There always seemed to be some damsel being held captive by the horsemen of the steppes. They were usually adopted into the tribe and spent their time milking horses until some hero from the east could sneak them away. And this time there was a damsel held on the coast of the inland sea, but Rolly didn't want to spend a month riding across the desert scrub of the central basin again.

The mission he decided on might be problematic. A damsel was being held in a pirate camp on the west coast, several days by ship south of Port Balkat. The pirates were northmen from one or more of the fjord settlements on the rugged coast between port Balkat and Safe Harbor. Rolly expected them to stay there all summer 'hunting' merchant ships. The longships of the northmen in summer and the stormy seas in winter were the reason that most of Safe Harbor's trade was in the opposite direction.

The pirates took one or more full crews of over forty warriors out to intercept a merchant vessel, and then they traded or sold the goods to smugglers further south. Their camp was on shore behind a tiny harbor, and near a small valley that was just large enough to have a stream, but the camp itself was backed by the steep hills of the Coastal Range. In front were underwater rock benches and large emergent rocks the size of buildings. Not only was the small harbor and valley hidden from sight on the ocean side by the rocks, but it didn't look like a boat could even reach shore without being torn to bits.

The plan was to lure at least one crew out to attack a helpless looking merchant vessel, and then while Rolly's boatload of knights took care of that crew of bad men, Rolly and another team would rappel down into the camp, surprise whoever was there, fight gloriously to victory, rescue the damsel, get picked up by the boat, and sail home. Rolly even had a complex tourney event planned to get the best men for the job. He would be feared by pirates far and wide afterwards.

When Rolly and Stephanie arrived in Glen MacTynnen, Sir George and Sir Geodfrey gave the hero and his companion bad news. There was barely a knight to be found in the valley. The manor lords and their first sons were busy selling whatever their lands could produce to the miners, while the younger sons, who could not expect an inheritance, had gone to the gold fields to seek their fortunes. Many of the free skilled craftsmen had gone too. There was hardly a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker to be found. The lords were actually bribing their serfs in currency to keep them from running off. The payments were a relatively small thing compared to the profits the lords were making, but it was a significant amount to someone who spent most of his life working from sun up to sun down just to feed himself.

As they traveled up the glen, Rolly put the word out that he needed volunteer knights no later than two weeks time, and there would be a grand ball in three weeks time. He really couldn't get out of attending a ball in his honor even in a depopulated barony.

His ministers informed him of the status of the valley:

The Minister of Health and Sanitation reported that things were going smoothly, for the most part.

The Minister of Agriculture had glowing reports for the first crop of the new foods, most of which were going to the mining camps. The culled potatoes, maize, and anything else that was not up to standards for human consumption went to the distilleries. The cornstalks were even being fed to the dairy cows. In the gold fields many of the more unsuccessful miners were almost living on parched corn. The dried hot peppers were gaining popularity, especially in a beef stew made with tomatoes and beans.

Rolly gave the minister plans for a treadle spinning wheel, and gave him seeds from the fiber hemp that grew wild on his farm in Kansas, so that they would have an additional fiber besides the wool and flax that was produced in the glen. Rolly suggested that they might drain some of the wetlands in the delta and grow the hemp there. The cattle company would have to do that since it was on their land and they would have to keep the cattle out of it. Miners needed sturdier clothing, and hemp canvas would do the trick. From experience Rolly and his school buddies knew that the hemp wasn't worth smoking, something he almost regretted, since it would be another source of income, but stoned gold miners don't dig as much gold.

The Minister of Trade reported that everyone was making money, but he thought more could be done, his people just didn't know how to do it. Their bookkeeping was a mess from the new companies and co-ops Rolly had started. Dealing with shareholders was complicated. Stephanie pointed out that they were still using simple techniques introduced by Fibonacci in the early 1200s when the switch from Roman numerals to Indo-Arabic numbers took place.

The minister did not want to listen to a woman tell him what his people were doing wrong, but after his baron had a word with him he reluctantly agreed to put a man on it. Rolly told him that he better make it three or four men.

Stephanie showed them easier ways to do calculations and organize their numbers. One key was to do double entry book keeping.

As soon as her pupils understood the concepts they reported back favorably to the minister. She then found herself teaching school to more men and fixing the barony's books for the next three weeks.

When the deadline for the call to arms came Rolly only had twenty souls, along with their squires. Rolly had knighted nearly half of the men that week.

There was no turning back so Rolly decide that he would use the squires as well as the knights. He would need every able body to pull off the rescue.

Training consisted of swimming, both on top and underwater, rock climbing, and rappelling. In their spare time he had them have breath holding contests.

All of the knights were proficient with arms, but most of the squires were not strong enough for heavy longbows, so he made sure that they were proficient with crossbows. He had Stephanie teach the boys the hand to hand techniques that worked best on larger opponents, and both taught the force how to be stealthy and kill in several different ways.

They used the wall of the castle to practice rappelling, and went into the mountains to practice easing down a steep slope without knocking rocks loose.

He waited as long as he thought practical before leaving.

They made good time to Port Balkat, where Rolly hired three sailors to go with him - men who felt that they could captain a boat if given the chance. Based on the ten miles a day that the cattle herd had taken, Rolly figured that with his band moving twice as fast they would be behind the pirate camp in two weeks time.

Along the way he expected to pick up supplies at two villages that had been there during the cattle drive, but when he got there the villages were nearly abandoned due to the gold rush, so the band got little in the way of supplies.

After reaching their mark on the map they turned west into the mountains.

Four days later the scouts could see the ocean. Luckily, one of them also spotted the landmarks of the pirate camp.

It took another four days for Rolly's army to be within striking distance. From that point they watched.

On the second day they saw a large boat, a northern merchant knarr, come up the coast from the south and turn in towards shore. Using its oars it snaked around the large rocks, and at two points men jumped out into the breakers and used ropes to guide the big boat around the submerged rock benches. Those men who couldn't be pulled back aboard had to wade and swim into shore.

The pirates had two lookout crews near the top of the ridge, one to the north and one to the south. The lookouts had signal fires ready to be lit to inform the camp that prey was coming. But there were only a few men on guard below, mainly to look for the smoke of the signal fires. The signal men on the ridge were rotated once a day, around sunset. They would stay there all night so that they could look for sails first thing in the morning. In all, Rolly counted seventy men, a few of whom seemed wounded.

At one point Rolly saw a merchant ship with a colored sail go by unmolested. Perhaps the sail was a signal to the pirates that it was a friend, possibly smugglers that fenced their booty.

It looked as if the pirates had three active boats, two longships that were 50-60 ft long and very narrow, and the boat they saw come into the harbor. That one was the same length as the others, but it was twice as wide and had higher sides. On the upper beach there were several boats that were overturned and propped up. Those acted as lean to shelters, and looked to be captured vessels. Some seemed to be damaged. Anchored in the small harbor were two more boats that looked to be inactive, both were merchant cogs.

The damsel and several other captives were doing camp work. They didn't appear to be in bad shape, and seemed to live under one of the over turned hulls.

Rolly guessed that the knarr that he had watched come into shore had sailed down the coast to trade the pirates' booty for supplies, or goods they could use back in their villages. He hoped that both longships would go out on attack. The longships had relatively little freeboard compared to the cogs they were attacking, which made it harder to board from them, but they were fast, and that was what counted. No doubt that the more spacious knarr was there to move the stolen cargo since it was more seaworthy on the open ocean and it could go into the trading ports without suspicion.

Rolly didn't see any way around fighting. He didn't have much food left for his boys, and it would be easy for the pirates to track them down if they grabbed the captives and headed back into the mountains. No doubt the pirate captain was enamored with the damsel by now. She appeared to be an exotic beauty with Asian features. Rolly just hoped that his men didn't starve before the pirates went after a ship.

It was a close thing, their starvation. Convoys of two to four vessels went past several times and it was two weeks before a lone ship was spotted. It looked as if it had been delayed in port because a convoy of three ships had passed the day before.

In the two weeks they had been waiting Rolly's men had scoured the mountains for game to eat, and were living on acorn mush and horsemeat. They had already slaughtered three horses, and were lucky that the pirates were living on seafood rather than hunting, or they might have been found out.

The sail was spotted early in the morning, and shortly there after the pirate camp was a beehive of activity.

It was time for Rolly's young men to go into action, and he prayed that he had trained them well enough. It was one thing to go into a dangerous situation with other men who enjoyed or even craved the challenge of risking their lives as he did. It was another to do it with men, or in this case, little more than boys, who were doing it out of a sense of duty. Any who had come along looking forward to adventure was disillusioned as soon as they started eating their horses. Everyone knew that once they went over the edge it was going to be 'kill or be killed.'

Two teams with crossbows went out to take care of the lookouts in case it was their practice to return to camp and join an attack crew.

The captain of the attack force did not wait for the lookouts to return, and as soon as the two longships were ready he started out.

Before the two boats could clear the harbor and get a good look back at the coastline, a team of a dozen knights rappelled down the hillside two hundred yards down the beach from the camp, in a spot where they would not be spotted. They quickly made their way up the coast but had to hole up when the first boat made it far enough out into the channel to see them. They then waited in hiding for three hours until the pirates were far enough off shore for them to continue.

When the knights were in sight of camp they hailed the guards and pretended to be castaways asking for help. That drew the five guards towards them.

Rolly and the rest of the knights rappelled down on the far side of camp and came up from behind. The out numbered guards were not given a chance to surrender, or to fight back.

"Seven down, sixty three to go." he thought to himself.

Rolly kept the three youngest squires up on the heights as lookouts. They were to throw rocks down to signal when the boats were at three different distances from shore, and to rappel down with a report if the pirates did something unexpected.

The merchant cog made a valiant effort to escape when it saw the sails coming towards it from land. It headed offshore hoping for bad weather or to find its convoy, but the weather was good and the ship was slowed by a heavy load that included gold from Port Balkat; and furs, walrus ivory, and whale oil from the pirates' homeland.

Once the grappling lines were in place the smaller merchant crew had little chance. Bows carried in waterproof skins were strung just before battle and kept the merchant defenders' heads down long enough for the grappling hooks to be thrown, the northmen used their shields to protect themselves from arrows during final approach, but when boarding, they preferred to have an axe in both hands.

By the time the returning boats were sighted Rolly's men were well fed and well rested, thanks to the abundant fish and shellfish in the shallow waters near shore.

When the ships were spotted coming back Rolly had Stephanie and three of the squires dress up in the captive women's clothing. The squires protested, so he asked them if they rather be live heroes, victorious by their wits, or if they preferred to be raped, skinned alive, and then tied to stakes so that crabs could chew on them as the tide came up, because that was what the pirates would do to them - dressed in women's clothing or not.

Several of the knights volunteered to wear the guard's clothing, mentioning that they didn't much want to be raped.

Other men hid in the boats that were afloat in the harbor and behind the over turned hulls on shore. The rest hid in bushes and reeds surrounding the camp.

The captured cog came first, and as it rounded the huge rock that hid the harbor Rolly signaled one of the 'guards' to chase the damsel up the beach. He also made it look like the other guards were busy trying to molest the captives.

Rolly anticipated that the pirate captain would be on the captured ship to make sure that it got into harbor safely. He was correct and from his hiding spot Rolly could see that the man was livid. Even while still some distance from the shore the captain started yelling at the man chasing his prized woman. He also screamed at his men to get the cog to shore faster.

As soon as the ship touched shore he and his second in command jumped onto the beach and chased after the impostor, who now had the damsel down in the bushes. As the other men were climbing out of the captured boat crossbow bolts came at them from men hidden everywhere. The knights on shore then exchanged their crossbows for spears carried by their squires and heaved those at the pirates before they could escape or come close enough to be dangerous.

When the captain and mate reached the damsel they too were filled with bolts. The dress clad squires had had their day.

The dead bodies were quickly stripped and dragged to cover, and more of the knights put on disguises.