"I will remember that," said the other man and saluted him in the pagan fashion-touching heart, lips, and brow with a grace that any perfumed courtier from the south of France might envy.
He drew in a deep breath, looked up at the sky, flying the same banners it had flown the night Bohemond won his city, and veiled the lower part of his face once more.
"I have found out what I wished to learn," he said. "Are you well enough to walk down alone to where you're quartered?"
"Walk?" Bohemond replied, as he gazed down the way he had come a long night before. "I could fly!" Then, as the other man laughed, he added hastily, "But I won't!"
"I never expected it," he answered. "But I am pleased to hear you are well. If you feel the need, send a messenger to the citadel. Some physicians still survive. May God be with you."
To Bohemond's surprise, he used the proper word, not "Allah."
Tancred came riding toward Bohemond and the assembled lords with the sort of eagerness you beat out of pages and worked out of squires. His horse's hooves struck sparks from the city's stones, but though it stumbled, it didn't fall.
"Hell of a way to use a good horse," Bohemond muttered. Didn't Tancred realize this idiocy reflected badly on his uncle?
"Uncle! My lord!" he was shouting.
Splendid. Now, he was interrupting a council to which he hadn't been invited, and Raymond was already shooting Bohemond little «control-your-nephew» glares that Adhemar was bound to have to back up.
Tancred reined in so suddenly that the horse reared, sending him into a fall that only a knight's skill turned into a form of dismount.
"They're surrendering up there!" he shouted. "The citadel! The flag's up, not Raymond's but my lord uncle's! The gates are open, and the commander swears he'll yield to Bohemond or no one."
Adhemar rose, his face transfigured.
Jesu,not another three-day fast, Bohemond thought and cast round for a distraction.
"Assemble our men, nephew."
"They're coming," Tancred said, his eyes ablaze. He, like Bohemond, knew what it was to be poor, to want, and to hack and fight to win one's heart's desire.
Bohemond could hear heavy footsteps. He could see crowds approaching, faces he knew, voices he recognized, and some he saw only in his heart.
"My lords, with your permission," he began. Christ, he was a boy again, on his first campaign, with all his dreams untarnished. Joy erupted in him. Generous enough to give the others grace, even the sour, disappointed Raymond, Bohemond shouted, "Not by my hands, not by our hands… non nobis, Domine… sing it, you bastards! Sing with all your hearts!"
As the knights, any one of whom would have regarded the name of bastard as sufficient reason to fight to the death, burst into song, Bohemond marched them up the battered streets of Antioch and didn't halt before he reached the citadel. The hell with the leg. He'd have time to collapse later, and skilled pagan physicians to attend him.
Behind them rose the cheering of the host. For some, the cheer would be their last word-no bad way to go.
Do you see that, Father? First, a princedom, and now this public glory.
Adhemar would counsel him to avoid the sin of pride. He would try not to show just how proud he was.
And please God he could manage not to burst out laughing.
The pagans formed up in a double line from the citadel's gates. Even in surrender, they were splendidly tricked out in fine silks and gleaming mail and swords the knights would make them surrender unless Bohemond stepped in. The wailing of those weird pipes they carried and the rapid beating of their round drums erupted all about the citadel as their commander walked through the gates.
So this was Achmed ibn Merwine: a bronzed man, silk-robed, long-eyed, his face half-veiled. As Bohemond waited, he unhelmed and removed the scarf that hid his face.
"You!" Bohemond gave in to the great shout of laughter he'd felt building since Tancred almost fell off his horse and bounded forward.
"Some soldiers told me you were the true commander, the only leader, of the Franks. And then I met you and saw for myself that, truly, you would not be defeated."
"And they were right," Bohemond said. It wasn't his fault if this emir wanted to rub salt in Raymond de Saint Gilles' wounds, now, was it?
"I cannot endure the destruction of more of my men. Or of this city. It is written that you shall rule Antioch, and thus…" The man removed his sword from his belt, knelt, and offered it to Bohemond.
He took it, drew it and heard the sweet rush of fine steel cutting air, then held it over the enemy commander, who was certainly no djinni.
"So," he asked, "what shall it be? We can give you safe conduct out of here-no doubt Kerbogha will receive you. Or will you stay with us and be baptized in the True Faith?"
Achmed ibn Merwine saluted Bohemond, heart, lips, and brow, the way he had the night before. "My lord, I offer you another godson named Bohemond. If you are willing to stand with me before the altar."
Heedless of Tancred's sudden watchfulness or Raymond's glare, Bohemond strode forward.
"I would be honored," he said.
He raised the emir, drew him into an embrace.
"My son," he intoned formally, and damned near broke his hand thumping him on the back, thanks to the fine steel sewn into ibn Merwine's fancy coat. Despite the ache in his hand, he could feel laughter under the silk and the steel.
Another one from whom I'll have to guard my back, thought Bohemond, Prince of Antioch. The sounds of rejoicing rose all around him. The killing would probably resume tomorrow.
Twelve Legions of Angels
R. M. Meluch
"What the hell am I reading here?" The Reichsmarschall turned back to the cover page of the offensive manuscript.Twelve Legions of Angels the damned thing was titled. Small eyes glinted blue tracer rounds at the Oberstleutnant who had brought it. "What is this slop?"
The Oberstleutnant blanched. May have made a mistake coming here. Still, he had drawn the short straw. Nowhere to go but forward. "It is a work of-oh, what to call it? — speculative fiction,I suppose."
"It's sedition! Why did you bring this to me? Turn the swine over to the Gestapo!"
"The swine is one of ours."
The small eyes grew as wide as they could. "German?"
"No, Herr Reichsmarschall. Air man."
The flare of anger subsided to a troubled scowl. The Gestapo thugs were out of the question now. The Luftwaffe took care of its own problems. "English?"
The Oberstleutnant gave a brisk nod. "Former C in C of the RAF Fighter Command. Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding-retired. The RAF sacked him directly after Dunkirk."
The scowl deepened. Dunkirk. Not Hermann Goering's finest hour. He had let the British Expeditionary Force escape across the Channel-even with the lack of British air cover.
That lack got the RAF flyboys rightly spat upon in their own streets, while all of England exalted the miracle of the boats.
Always astonishing what the British will call a miracle. They had abandoned thousands of French allies on the beach, and though they had managed to ferry a quarter million British soldiers across the Channel, it was still a bloody retreat! Those quarter million soldiers had not been enough to turn away Goering's Eagle Attack! Nor that of the Sealion. Queer sort of miracle, that.
"Why was this Dowding relieved from command?" Goering demanded.
"The RAF forced him into retirement for refusing to send Spitfires to France."
"Do you mean he had Spitfires to send and he didn't? His best aircraft? Was he trying to help the Reich?"