The Eaorl (The Casere Book 2) (11 page)

‘And who in the Gyden’s name are you? And what are you doing here? And how did you get here?’

Conn noticed that he was only a young man, and he sent men to scout around. Good thinking, Conn thought. Not that any will return in a hurry. Conn ignored the questions for now.

‘I was hoping to speak to the Thane. Are you the Thane?’

‘There is no Thane here. But I asked …’

‘Then who is in charge, I want to speak to the person who is in charge. I’ll keep playing if you like …’ and he commenced to play ‘Highland Laddie’ – but this time in tune.

The young man waved him down. ‘All right, all right; stop playing … please. I am in charge. I am Njil, chief of this village.’

‘And who is the Eaorl?’

‘There is no Eaorl – hasn’t been for a hundred years.’

‘But I heard that there is a new Eaorl. Have you not heard? I hear he is coming to reclaim the demesne. I heard he was sending a hundred ships and a dozen wiga – or maybe the other way around. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to hear a little tune from m’ wee bagpipes?’ Conn proceeded to play a few more riffs.

‘Will you stop that infernal racket?’ Njil yelled, ‘and are you some kind of idiot – I keep telling you – there is no Eaorl. There never will be an Eaorl here.

‘Why not?’

‘No-one can get over the mountains and no one can get past the shoals. It is as simple as that.’

‘So how did I get here?’

Njil was exasperated. ‘I don’t know! How did you get here?’

‘Over the mountain. It was hard but we made it. It’s a long way from Trokia.’

‘Just you was it?’

‘No, me and five hundred others.’

‘I don’t believe that you have that many men here.’

Conn blew a note and twenty arrows imbedded themselves in the ground a foot in front of Njil. He leapt backwards.

Conn pointed to the arrows in the ground. ‘I have at least ‘that’ many.’

Confused, Njil continued. Conn admired his resolve. ‘So who are you again?’

‘I actually have a lot of titles – many more that I actually need. But you might know me best as the Thane of Atrak?’

Njil should have heard of the Thane of Atrak; every time he tried to attack one of the Thane’s cargo ships, he lost one of his. The brown sailed ships were bigger and faster than anything the pirate had. He probably hated the Thane of Atrak. It suddenly dawned on him; ‘You can’t be him – he is in Trokia fighting a war with the Gatinans, which he will lose.’

‘Sorry, Laddie, but you are out of touch. I won the war. And I’m here now, because, as my reward, I got to be Eaorl of Kuita. Lucky me! Would you believe it was the only one spare? Don’t you think that is wonderful – or perhaps you don’t. Anyway, you should surrender now.’

Njil was a little shocked at the suggestion. ‘I have three hundred men here – yours could be a short lived reign.’

‘Excuse me while I play a little tune’. When Conn had finished the notes, the sound of drums reverberated over the water. He had instructed his warships to play their drums on his command. They also lit up their ships, and the pirates could see the outline of boats lying low in the water. Conn had built these just for this purpose. The decks teamed with bowmen and on a command, a hundred arrow flew and landed in the roofs of the many longhouses.

‘Oh,’ Conn added, ‘the next volley will be fire and tar. Did I forget to mention that I brought a few ships with me as well?’

Njil and his men stood rock solid, shocked to the core. There were at least six ships in their harbour. It was beyond comprehension.

‘Yes, you did fail to mention that.’ Njil was starting to look for his men who he had sent scouting.

‘You men won’t be coming back. They are now my prisoners. Do you care to surrender or shall we kill some of you first?’

Conn could see the confusion on Njil’s face – last night he probably went to sleep in his own very own demesne – considered untouchable. Now he was contemplating losing everything and possible executed. Even in the moonlight, Conn could see the emotion on his face as he looked behind him to the many men, women and children that relied upon him.

Conn tried to be reassuring. ‘Oh, and I don’t intend to execute anyone. Unless you have been really, really, bad.’

He took a deep breath, and looked back. ‘No executions?’

‘Nope.’

He looked around again, took another deep breath and dropped his sword. Some of his men started to argue but he settled them down – and they slowly followed suit. As Conn’s ships were unloading several hundred wiga on to the shore, it was clear that it was a futile fight.

Njil then fell to his knees and placed his hands behind his neck. ‘What now?’

Conn indicated that he men should come out of hiding and soon the villagers could see even more of their foe; the seasoned wiga who had fought against the Gatinans, and if it could be believed, had won.

Conn walked toward the young man.

‘Stand up – that won’t be necessary. What I’d like is a mug of ale; your best please, and send some men to help tie up my ships over there.’

Though confused, Njil did as ordered and watched as Conn was joined by Derryth and Wilga. As he drew closer, Conn could see his reaction to Conn’s appearance.

‘So it is true – the Thane of Atrak is a feorrancund.’ He was even more started when he saw Derryth. ‘And he has a Twacuman with him – what is going on here.’

‘I grant that it might be a bit confusing – I am from a small island a long way over the sea called Taransay.’ He introduced his companions. ‘This is Derryth il Halani, Wilga il Melnik and Sherwin il Zedah. So where is your ale? Hopefully it is some of mine. I suspect that you know that I make the best ale in all Meshech. And as for Derryth, he is my bodyguard.’

Njil looked at the hundreds of men swarming through his village. ‘What are the rest of them then?’ he asked rhetorically.

Njil then silently led then to the longhus and as they entered, Conn noted that a lot of the residents had filed in and were obviously nervous and fearful as they crowded around the edge of the room. Conn sat with his companions in the centre, and a young girl brought over mugs of ale. Conn took a steady drink from the mug and emptied it fully. It was one of his, obviously one stolen from ‘not’ one of his ships.

He sat back; ‘I guess you are wondering what is going to happen to you all?’

Njil nodded.

‘Well, as I said, I’m not going to kill any of you, or sell you as Theow. After all, as Eoarl of Kuita, you are suddenly my vassals and thus my responsibility, and your crimes are my crimes. We will need to make reparations for that in time.’

There was an audible sigh of relief in the room. Not being executed was always an upside; not being theow was another.

‘And me?’ Njil asked.

‘I was thinking of giving you jobs on my ships. I hear you are all good sailor. Who know, one day you might even be a Captain.’

Njil was stunned. ‘You’re kidding? You would consider making me a captain on one of your ships?

‘Have you seen my ships?’

‘Yes, I have. I hate your ships – but they are beautiful. But why would you put me in charge of one of them?’

‘I have built a lot of ships and I need good people on them – capable people. I’m running short of true sailors. Despite the error of your ways, you are all reputedly good seamen.’

Still confused, Njil asked ‘What about here?’

‘I intend to build this into one of the richest demesne in Meshech, and I will need every hand I can get. We will have hundreds of people arriving over time to help us build. But we have to start somewhere, and I’d like to start with the people already here. If I kill you all, I’ll have no one to farm or dig or – bring me ale. It is surely better than being executed – or would you rather that? ‘

‘No, I would not rather be executed.’

‘Good, well tomorrow the work starts.’

Wilga had posted men around the village to secure it for the night and Conn organized Njil to send people from the village to go to the hamlets along the shore to ensure that no one did anything silly and got themselves killed. He then spent the rest of the night in consultation with Njil – he had a large piece of parchment brought out that was his map of the Earldom.

Njil shook his head. Nearly every island, reef and shoal was depicted.

‘This map is amazing – no wonder you ships got in. How did you get it?’

‘It is based on a map some two hundred years old. Anyway, tell me about Kuita; every villages, hamlets, existing farmland.’

By early light Conn mapped out a plan to return this forest back into the rich demesne it once was.

Njil was beside himself in confusion. His whole world had just been turned upside down.

‘Let me get this right. You are going to find people and bring them here to work, you are putting me and my men on ships to ferry people and goods around, and.., and you are going to start farming in Kuita – and you decided all this before breakfast!’

‘You have to admit that breakfast is very late today.’ It had taken Logistics some time to get the kitchens in order. Chefs can get very temperamental at time – it seemed to him that the Captain of the Catering Corp did more yelling at people than he did.

With a week a thousand men had arrived from Zedah to commence work. Sherwin also allowed any excess Zedah workers to travel to Kuita – Conn sent similar messages to the Eaorls of Futah, Gagah, Beroha, and Dor – offering good wages to men without employment. Soon hundreds started to arrive by road. Leaving Wilga in charge, Conn returned to Zedah with Sherwin.

He arrived back with sufficient time to wait for the birth of Halla’s twins – girls of course, and after a few weeks, returned to Kuita by ship, taking Fiona, Halla and the babies with him. The ship was loaded with supplied and even additional tilia from Gebal who had decided to seek their fortunes in a new demesne.

Conn moved his latest children in to a new home in the stone castle on the hillside; a dozen longhouses had been constructed – as well as stables and barracks for wiga and servants. A large area around the ancient palisades had been cleared of overgrowth to reveal a once grand donjon; albeit the timbers had rotted and there were no rooves. Masons worked rebuilding walls, while timbers cutters brought down thousands of logs from the hillside for conversion into planks and beams. When the Twacuman arrived, the donjon could be completed.

Docks had already been upgraded in the harbor, so that larger ships in Conn’s fleet could dock and unload easily as ships started to arrive daily with men and supplies. The village was soon bustling with activity.

With Kuita having a similar subtropical climate as Menia, his farming plans included expanding the production of sugar cane and introducing some new crops that he had been unable or unprepared to plant elsewhere – as the pineapples, palm oil, rubber, and bananas plants that he had carefully kept alive in Hama in specially built warehouses. Everything that Conn had brought with him would now be fully utilized – albeit it would take some time for everything to be transported to Kuita and then planted. But he had time.

Over the weeks, as more people arrived, the landscape changed quickly as forest disappeared into roads and farms, while the docks expanded with larger docks, warehouses, shops and Inns. Conn had almost fifty squads of Logistics and Engineers directing operations.

As soon as he could Conn sent Njil on a voyage with Eggar; who was surprised to find he had to take on a bunch of ex pirates as trainee sailors; but orders being orders, he filled his ships with timber, Kuita’s only export at this time, and perhaps somewhat hesitantly, headed west with his new crew.

As expected, Njil would not take long to master sailing the schooner, and after two voyages, Eggar informed Conn that the young man was ready to command his own ship.

Conn and Derryth collected Njil from one of the new Inns along the dock. He was sitting with a number of semi naked barmaids and sipping a drink. The room went silent as the pair entered the room – more out of respect than anger.

He dipped his head as Conn came to his table.

‘Eaorl – I didn’t know you wanted to see me?’

‘Not a problem. Come with me. I have something to show you.’

They walked to one of the newly constructed warehouses. Inside, Conn showed him a wooden model of one his latest ships. Conn had three ship yards was manufacturing a mixture of 65 feet Junks with a capacity of 80 tons of cargo, and a faster and sleeker 70 foot schooners with a capacity of 70 tons. When the shipyard moved from Ridlah to Menia, they started the third ship in his arsenal – over a hundred feet in length with a tonnage of a hundred and fifty tons. It was the largest ship ever seen in Meshech, and with a top speed of over 12 knots an hour, it was twenty percent faster than his existing ships.

‘What do you think of this?’ The model was a masterpiece of handiwork; a 1/20 scale replica of the actual vessel being built in Menia.

Njil stood in awe and he walked around the model slowly. ‘It is amazing. How big is it?’

‘Over 100 foot by 20 foot; she draws about twelve feet. Slightly more than most around here – hence the new docks’