From: Lysander@vnet.net (Lysander)

   Reply-To: Lysander@vnet.net

   Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories

   Subject: REPOST: Droit du Signeur part 5 (historical, non-sexual
violence)

   Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 12:15:41 GMT

   Organization: Hardly Any

   Message-ID: <48cpag$iuk@mindy.vnet.net>

   **********

   DROIT DU SIGNEUR

   by Lysander

   Part Five

   Heinrich's Tale:

   I was knighted at a very young age and was very proud of myself.  I had
even managed to beat my closest friend, Lothair, by a week.  However, it
was a time of peace, and there are few ways a young knight can prove
himself save on the battlefield.  There was not even a renegade robber
knight.  Naturally I was very disappointed, and despaired of ever matching
lance and steel against an opponent who wanted my blood.

   Until, that is, the pope called on all Christian nobles to go to
Palestine and liberate the Holy Lands from the heathen Saracens, as he
called them.  Every young knight tearing at the bit to be in battle
scrambled to raise enough gold to outfit himself properly and be off to
retake the land where Christ was born and lived.  Fortunately for me, my
father's lands were prosperous enough for him to afford armor and steed and
provisions for me, as well as provide a loan for Lothair, and his brother,
Rolfe.

   We three set out for Venice, where the Crusade was gathering.  We were
eager to see fabled Byzantium and then to kill every Saracen who was
defiling Palestine.

   The overland trip was uneventful (who would try to rob three young men
with blood in their eyes, after all?) and the voyage to Byzantium even less
so.  If only I could show you Byzantium, my loves.  You would have thought
God had placed some of his mansions on Earth, and put them all in one city.
No Florentine merchant in his wildest fantasies could imagine building the
least of the Byzantine palaces.

   We lingered in the city until spring, and then we set off through the
land of the Turk, down the coast, capturing strategic cities here and there
to use as bases.  I saw many men die, mostly Saracens, on that journey, and
I relished every drop of blood spilled before me.  More's the pity for my
soul.

   By the time we reached the border of the Holy Lands, autumn was upon us.
Most of the nobles wanted to halt the advance and settle in for winter,
when the rains would make the roads impassable.  My patron, Lord Lothair
(no relation to my friend) was eager to be back on the offensive while we
still had momentum and before the enemy could consolidate his forces. 
Myself, I was in no hurry.  Although I was not tired of the blood -- not at
all -- there was still whoring and drinking and gambling.  The soldier's
life certainly agreed with me, I thought.

   It turned out that Lord Lothair was probably right.  When we set out
again the following spring, we met fierce resistance, and every foot of
ground took as much time to seize as a league had taken the previous year.
I was bloodied for the first time during that campaign, and I lost many
friends.  But I was foolish enough to still love the life Providence had
given me.

   Jerusalem was our goal, but we were not going to reach it, we knew. 
Lord Lothair suggested a bold plan.  Instead of following the coast as the
enemy expected, we would go east through the mountains, flanking the enemy
and severing his supply lines.  Of course, our own position would be even
more tenuous, but morale was low.  We needed a bold victory desperately.

   There was an old Roman fortress up in the mountains.  That would be the
anchor for our lines.  Lord Lothair detailed a small army of five hundred
men, myself, Lothair and Rolfe among them.  Our commander would be Count
Helmut, a mediocre warrior at best, but one of the largest contributors to
the Crusade.  Lord Lothair was counting on the fort being lightly defended,
and considered five hundred men to be an acceptable loss if it wasn't.

   We set out in great spirits for our objective, knowing that the fortress
would fall to us like an overripe apple.  We were entirely successful in
sneaking up on the fortress.  The area was lightly

   patrolled and we managed to ambush the ones we came across.  The
Saracens had no idea we were coming.

   They didn't need to.  There were only about a hundred men in the
fortress, as Lothair and I saw from a ridge overlooking the structure.  It
had sheer cliffs on either side and a clear view of the north and south
approaches.  The walls were easily ten feet thick and made of stone.  Wide
trenches were cut on the open sides and ran from cliff to cliff.  The only
way past the fortress was through the fortress.  A hundred men could hold
that place forever, or at least until their supplies ran out.  It was
impossible, and we all knew it.

   What could not be taken by force, however, might be taken by guile. 
Lothair and I had spotted a narrow cut in the cliff that looked like it
might lead down to the fortress.  It was a treacherous climb down, but we
saw that, yes, there was a small door in the wall not twenty yards from the
cliff face.  I had no idea why someone would have cut their way through
that cliff (for there were definite toolmarks in the stone), but Lothair
surmised that the Romans had done it, possibly as a way to get messages
past the enemy.

   Whatever the reason for its existence, that cut would be our passkey
into the enemy hold.  Lothair's plan was brilliant.  Our physician and
priest, Father Marco, was an Italian, and looked much like a Saracen, and
his Arabic was very good.  We outfitted him in turban and robes and told
him to run up to the northern wall, screaming that a mighty Christian army
was close behind him.  A hundred knights riding as hard as they could and
dragging bushes would give proof to Marco's claims.  While all the Saracens
would naturally be gathered at the northern wall, the rest of us knights
and common soldiers would storm the small door Lothair and I had found,
taking the enemy by surprise and putting him in complete disarray.

   Lothair's plan worked perfectly.  Only a few Saracens managed to free
their blades before we were upon them.  Some managed to unbar the gate and
escape us, only to be run down and spitted on the lances of our horsed
contingent.  We gloried in the bloody victory.

   Not one Saracen escaped.  All were swiftly buried in the sandy ground
and the cross was soon flying over the mighty fortress.  Perhaps it would
have been better to let some of the enemy escape, because then perhaps they
could have warned their brothers to find another way through the mountains.

   As it was, a few days after the capture, an army of Saracens was at the
gate.  They looked battle-weary and bedraggled.  Obviously, they were on
their way home after a long season of campaigning.  And now we were in
their way.  Both sides set in for a long siege, but we were confident. 
After all, we had this strong fortress and we knew that we were soon to be
reinforced.  And while we had taken the stronghold easily, we would not
fall for the same deception.  All we had to do was hold our place until
relief came.

   We did not count on the deadly archery of the Saracens.  They went up to
the high cliffs and rained arrows down upon us.  Every archer of ours had
to have another man with him to hold a shield above their heads.  We
managed to get a few, but only by chance.  Our bows were just not strong
enough.  I have heard that the English free farmers have bows that can kill
a man at a thousand yards.  How I wish we had had a troop of them with us.

   It was the arrows that proved to be the death of us, the arrows and
cursed bad luck.  Flame arrows managed to set the casks of fortified wine
afire, burning much of our supplies.  Count Helmut was foolish enough to
want to parade the walls in front of the Saracen host.  A lucky arrow shot
took him through the top of the skull.  It was the only wound he ever
received in battle.  That was how I became commander.  We were a young
bunch, and only Lothair and I had been knights for any length of time.

   Not many of us went unwounded.  After the arrows had softened us up, the
assaults on the walls began.  I had never seen so many swordsmen.  They
rushed upon us so fast.  It seemed like they ignored the causeway
altogether and simply ran across the air of the trenches.  Ladders sprang
up along the wall like bees out of a hive.  We pushed one down and two more
arose.  The top of the wall, and then the courtyard was full of Saracens
screaming for our blood.  I took two cuts, but I don't remember them.  My
own sword was bloody from point to guard, but I don't remember using it. 
To that point, I knew exactly how many men I had killed.  I have no idea
how many lives I took that first day.

   The assaults continued every day, sometimes two or three times a day,
for weeks.  I'll never figure out where they got the wood for all the
ladders they set against that bloody north wall.  They always took more
casualties than we did.  But then, they were desperate.  They knew that
another army was coming to relieve us, and they were trapped against our
walls.  I knew relief was coming, and I was eager for it.  If I could have
left my sword sheathed forever, I would have given up my soul.  All of us
who survived, and there seemed to be damned few of us, felt the same way.
We had come to Palestine full of bloodlust, but we spent it all within
those walls.

   As I said, many of our supplies had been burned, but we lost more men
every day.  The only thing we had plenty of was water.  Water, ha!  The
most precious commodity in the desert, and we were practically drowning in
it, thanks to those seemingly bottomless Roman cisterns.  I would have
traded all of it for a single day of rest.

   How many times did I come close to losing my life?  I don't know.  A
score of men must have taken arrows while standing right next to me.  A
Saracen sword nearly took off the top of my head, if not for a someone
cleaving off his arm.  I don't know who that man was, or whether he was
noble or common, and he probably didn't know who I was, either.  All we
ever knew was that someone in a turban and desert robes was trying to kill
someone, and that someone was probably a friend.  A Saracen trying to kill
Satan himself would have been in danger from Christian steel.

   I'm not sure how long it was before we were down to only two hundred
walking wounded.  There were none among us who were not wounded.  Any day
now, I kept telling myself, Lord Lothair would come down that valley and
roll our tormentors up before him.  But he did not show, and still he did
not show.

   Father Marco and I were talking about the men too weak from their wounds
to hold a sword.  There were twenty now, and Marco was exhausted from
caring for them in addition to keeping enough men well enough to hold the
walls.  Lothair came running into the sickroom, his armor clanking; we all
slept in our armor, and it was heavier every day.  "Heinrich," he said.  "A
messenger got through.  His back was full of arrows, but he managed to give
us his message before he died."

   I could see his face, but I asked anyway.  "Good news, I hope?"

   Lothair shook his head.  "Lord Lothair was ambushed.  He had to retreat
back to Sidon.  We'll have no relief until spring."

   "Spring?" I repeated, unbelieving.  "We'll never hold out until spring."

   Lothair only nodded.  He knew that as well as I.

   I tried to put on a brave face.  I told Lothair and Marco to meet me in
my quarters after I had made my inspection rounds.  "Between the three of
us, we'll think of something." They didn't believe me, and neither did I,
but they agreed not to call my bluff.  The men had heard about the ambush.
Bad news travels faster than fever in an army camp.  I kept my face jovial
and told them we'd get out of this scrape.  They didn't believe me either.

   A knight went over to one of the cisterns for water.  Halfway there, he
fell, an arrow in his side.  I rushed over to him, calling for Marco.  We
reached the fallen man at the same time.  He convulsed a few seconds, then
stopped.  He was dead, from a relatively minor wound.  Marco jerked the
arrow free.  He examined the gory head closely, then sniffed at it.  He
spat in disgust and threw it away.  "Poison!"

   Poison!  Now, of all things, I had to deal with poisoned arrows.

   "You and Lothair and Rolfe to my quarters, now.  We're getting out of
here."

   Marco showed obvious relief.  I could understand it.  He had been
responsible for the lives, for the souls, of five hundred men.  Now almost
three hundred of them were dead.  With this new evil, he knew as well as I
that the other two hundred would soon join them if we remained in that
accursed hold.

   "We cannot stand here any longer." Lothair made a good show of staying
to the end as his duty demanded, but underneath, he was as eager as Marco
to be rid of that place.  Rolfe was even more obvious.  I ordered Lothair
to gather as many men as he thought capable for a charge out of the gate
and through the enemy ranks.  That charge would be a distraction for Rolfe
to lead the more badly wounded up through our secret path.  They were to
load the packhorses with a week's rations and as much water as they could
carry.  Then they were to empty the middens into the cisterns.  I would not
leave the enemy as strong a fortress as we had taken from him.

   "What about me, Heinrich?" Marco asked.  "Am I to go with Rolfe, or can
I stay here to care for those too weak to move."

   I covered my face with my hands, gathering strength.  "Father Marco," I
said, with none of my emotion rising from my heart to my mouth.  "Father
Marco, you will give those men as much poppy juice as it takes to put them
to sleep.  Then you will perform last rites for them.  Then I will send
them into the next world as painlessly as I can.  Then I hope you will
absolve me.  I will not leave those men to the mercy of heathens who have
found the water here undrinkable."

   Lothair and Rolfe were soldiers, like myself.  They knew how things
stood.  Marco was a priest, for all that he had spent life and death with
men of war.  But even he nodded his understanding.

   By nightfall, all was ready.  In the meantime, we had lost ten more men
to those arrows.  Rolfe set off first, led by a handful of scouts.  The
rest were with Lothair.  I wished them luck at the gate.  They gave a
mighty cry and charged out into the night.  I heard the screams of men and
horses as I helped Marco shut and bar the cedar gates.  Since then I have
always thought of horses' screams when I smell cedar.  They make a haunting
sound when they are in pain, you know.  It is even sadder to hear a horse
die in pain than it is a man.  Man has bred the rebellion out of horses, so
they go through life completely trusting us.  I think the screams are cries
of betrayal more than anything else.

   Well, I am just putting off the inevitable.  It happened years ago, so I
should have put it behind me.  But sometimes I wake up at night, my palms
sweating, and I swear it feels like blood soaking my hands.  Marco had
given them all heavy doses of poppy, and as he walked down the line of
beds, performing last rites, I followed close behind.  I grasped their
wrists in one hand and slit their throats with the other.  Marco never
looked at me; he just moved along -- one man after the other.  It was so...
efficient, the killing.  It is something that no German, no man, should
ever have to do.

   When the bloodletting was done, I stripped off my tunic, threw it into
one of the cisterns.  The sounds of battle were receding.  I knelt at
Marco's feet and took his hands in my bloody ones.  "Bless me, Father for I
have sinned.  It has been an hour since my last confession.  Since that
time I have killed twenty men." I listened to the battle outside the walls.
"That I know of.  Will you absolve me?"

   "My son," he said with a quivering voice.  "His Holiness absolved you of
any sin you may have need to commit on this Crusade.  But I do not think
even he could absolve you of this, no matter how grave the need.  No, I
cannot absolve you, but I do give you penance.  It is this: that you live,
that you live a long life, and that every day you remember those twenty
men. Now let me go.  I must wash my hands."

   He went to a cistern to clean the blood from his hands, just as the gate
broke apart.  The Saracens cut him down between one step and the next.  I
don't think he ever saw them.  Twenty-one.

   I turned and ran for the side door and the secret pass, soon to be a
secret no longer.  I ran up the steep incline, to find my horse tethered at
the top.  I quickly blessed Rolfe as I mounted and sped away.  I could see
down into the valley.  A track of white robes lay still in the moonlight.
The moon also glinted off many armored bodies.  How many deaths was I
responsible for this night?

   I didn't see the patrol.  They must have been going to their posts to
fire down on the now-Saracen fort.  All I knew was that my shoulder and
thigh suddenly went numb just before a pair of screams were cut off by my
gelding's hooves.

   By the time I reached the rendezvous, my shoulder and thigh were on
fire. Lothair and Rolfe were clasping one another, so I assumed they had
just joined up and were glad to see each other alive.  I, too, was happy to
see my old friends.  But my joy was tempered by the sight that greeted me.
About a hundred men remained alive, and more were slumped in their saddles
than sat straight.  To be honest, more had survived than I expected.  The
Saracens were more interested in the fort than they were in us.  But when I
thought of how many had died...  it withered my heart.

   Of course, I smiled at Lothair and Rolfe when they ran up to me.  They
were concerned about my wounds, but the arrows were not deeply embedded.  I
told them I would be able to sit my horse fine once they were removed. 
This was done in short and painful order.  We set off west, toward the sea.
We had deserted our post.  We could not return to Sidon.  I hoped to hire a
vessel to Egypt and then back to Germany.  We had no hope of travelling
overland very far.

   We were almost out of the mountains when the next calamity struck (curse
the day I ever set foot in Palestine!).  Lothair and I were walking our
horses.  Actually, I was riding Lothair's horse, and he was leading mine.
He had caught a stone in his hoof and was limping badly.  I heard a
horrible roar and was thrown to the ground as my mount reared.  A terrible
searing pain ran down my back.  The breath was knocked out of me as I hit
the ground, hard.  I think I must have blacked out for a moment, because
the next thing I knew, a huge lion was standing over my body.  I should
have been dead, but God must have blessed me.  Or, considering the penance
Marco had given, cursed me.

   My gelding lay nearby, dead, blood trickling from his opened throat. 
Black and white and brown fur hovered above me.  The ribs were plainly
showing through taut muscles.  The hunting must have been poor; I hoped we
-- the men -- had enough food.  I turned my head and saw a wall of men with
drawn bows.  "Put those away," I said in what I hoped was a quiet but
commanding voice.  They hesitated, but finally obeyed.  "Lothair, help me
up." My friend and his brother crawled toward me and took my outstretched
hands.  They pulled me from beneath the unmoving cat.  When we were clear,
I ordered the men to leave the canyon.  We all backed out, I last of all.

   The lion tore into the flesh of my horse and was quickly joined by a
female and three cubs, all as thin as he was.  Lothair stepped up behind me
and told me I had been injured again.  My tunic was slashed by four long
scratches down and across my back.  The blood was flowing more heavily than
I liked, but I shrugged him off as I watched another faithful companion
disappear by the mouthful.

   "Heinrich," Lothair said, gently.  "We have to go through this pass."

   "No." I turned to the men standing and sitting astride their steeds, all
watching me, their commander.  "No.  That lion is only doing what we
ourselves have done, defending his hold until he can defend it no more.  He
is my brother, as much as the rest of you.  And I am tired of seeing my
brothers die.  We'll find another way through these mountains.  Somebody
unload one of the packhorses and saddle it for me."

   Two days later, we had reached the sea after dodging many Saracen
patrols and a Christian one.  Fortune finally smiled upon us.  Moored
offshore were two small ships...  and they were riding high in the water,
empty.  Two small boats were pulled up on the beach, guarded by two men. 
They were as black as night, the first black men I had ever seen (though
they were fairly common in Cordoba).  We walked down to them, swords
sheathed and bows cased to show our friendliness.

   Their hands went to their swords, but the blades stayed in their belts.
I hailed them in Arabic.  One stepped forward.  He crossed his arms across
his bare muscular chest.  "What do you want?  You've destroyed the trade up
and down the coast; you'll get nothing more from us, for we have nothing
more."

   "All we want from you is passage.  And we will pay."

   He opened his arms and his mouth opened in a wide grin.  "Ah, yes.  I
should have known Allah would not make our water go bad without a reason!
Know that I am Abdul Mohammed al Saff, captain and owner of the Ivory
Dolphin and owner of the Nile Emerald.  And I am at your service -- for a
very reasonable price, of course."

   I was tired, we were all tired, but this Abdul's levity was infectious.
Despite myself, I smiled for the first time in ages; it felt good.  "I need
passage for a hundred men as to as near the Holy Roman Empire as you can
take us."

   "Germans, eh?  Well, I suppose I can take you as far as the Caliphate of
Cordoba.  You can make it overland from there."

   "Fine.  What is your price?"

   He considered for a moment, looking over us, as though counting the
coins in our purses.  "Your horses," he said at last and with finality.

   Now, a knight without a horse is not a knight, any more than a king with
no crown is still a king.  But when I looked at his face, I knew he would
take no other price.

   "Look, my friend.  I cannot carry those horses, and none of you looks
like you can ride all the way back to Germany.  Keep your coin and let me
sell the horses."

   I went back to my men and told them Mohammed's price.  As I expected,
all the knights, who now made up most of our band thanks to their superior
armor, were against the notion, and they were vocal in their protests.  I
held up my hand to cut them off.  "I like it no more than any of you.  But
we have no choice.  Some of us will die if we try to go overland.  The
wounded must have a chance to rest without having to worry about accidents
or Saracens or lions." A few men laughed at that.

   "I promise you this.  We will all be going home.  I will not rest until
that promise is fulfilled, but I need your help.  Take an oath with me.  An
oath that, like that lion, we will persevere together.  That we will
support one another, to the death.  We must rely on each other, my friends,
my brothers, for there is no one else."

   My companions all formed a tight circle around me.  As one, we raised
our left arms to the sun and held our right hands clasped to our hearts.  I
said the words which honor demands I never say again, and a hundred throats
repeated them.  We were bound together more closely than before.  I thanked
them all and kissed a few.  Then, with tears streaking the dirt on my face,
I, told them to unsaddle their mounts and tie them in a picket line.

   While my brothers did as I bade, I went back to the captain.  "They're
yours." I held my hand out to him to seal the bargain and gave my name only
as Sir Heinrich.

   Abdul Mohammed leaned forward slightly.  "You have no other name?" he
asked.

   "Were I in a position to give you my full name, I wouldn't have to give
over those horses."

   The black man moved in even closer, conspiratorially.  "Deserters, eh?"

   "Some might say," I replied, coldly.  I would not let a mere trader know
my shame.  "Others would say we were the ones who had been deserted."

   The other waved a hand.  "No matter.  The gold from your horses would be
no better were you true sons of the Prophet.  As soon as my men sell your
horses in Jerusalem, we can depart."

   I had not considered that our mounts would soon see battle again, but
against fellow Christians.  But what was done was done.  "Captain, I'm
afraid many of my men are badly wounded.  I would like to leave as soon as
possible, for their sake."

   Abdul pulled on his lip in thought.  "Very well.  The more grievous
wounded can board the Emerald and we will sail immediately.  The rest can
wait a few days, I suppose?"

   "Yes, thank you, Captain."

   "Fine.  Divide your men while I go to explain things to the Emerald's
captain.  But first, here comes my water party."

   Finally, thank God, we had left Palestine.  I would like to say that the
voyage to Iberia was uneventful, but it was not.  Lothair and I travelled
with the first group, so as to arrange for care of the wounded once we made
land, and to find employment for the rest of us.  Not long after we sailed,
the wound in my shoulder began to fester.  Every treatment we tried did no
good.  The wound got worse and worse.  It swelled to the size of a man's
head and was so tender the slightest touch sent me into convulsions of
pain.

   Thankfully, I succumbed to the fever and fell into a delirium, so I
remember little of most of the voyage.  Lothair later told me I issued
orders to ghosts as though I were still fighting the Saracens.  The best
physicians in Venice looked at me, to the detriment of our purse.  All they
could say was that it was a poison, but what kind, they had no idea.  They
provided potions that would keep me alive until we reached Cordoba.  Since
it was a Saracen poison, they were

   confident that the Moorish physicians would be able to cure me.  When I
later recovered, I thanked God we had escaped when we did, otherwise my men
would have all died slow painful deaths.  But for me, my wound was
fortunate, for I met my love as a result.

   Copyright 1993 by Lysander