David Weber - The Excalibur Alternative

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The Excalibur Alternative

by David Weber

shorter version of this novel was

published as "Sir George and the

Dragon" in Foreign Legions, edited by

For Bobbie and Sharon, my two favorite

ladies.

-I-

Demon wind greeted pallid daylight with

hell howl fury. It was no true

daylight, although somewhere above the

clouds of seething black the sun had

heaved itself once more into the

heavens. It was only the devil's own

twilight, slashed with body-smashing

sheets of rain and spray, the rolling

concussion of thunder, the bellow of

wind, and the endless keen of rigging,

all punctuated by the sodden percussion

of torn canvas flailing to destruction.

Sir George Wincaster, Third Baron of

Wickworth, clung to a stay, feeling it

quiver and groan with strain while he

kept to his feet by raw, hopeless force

of will alone. The lifeline the

vessel's captain had lashed about him

when the hideous gale first burst upon

them yesterday morning had ringed his

chest in bruises, salt sores stung his

lips, and rain and spray had soaked

into his very marrow. He felt as if

heavy horse had charged over him and

back again, and despair was a leaden

fist about his heart. He had been too

ignorant to understand the captain's

terror when first the weather broke,

for he was a soldier, not a sailor. Now

he understood only too well, and he

watched almost numbly as the battered

cog, creaking and groaning in every

frame and stringer, corkscrewed down

yet another mountainous, slate-gray

wave, streaked with seething bands of

spray and foam, and buried its round-

cheeked prow deep. Water roared the

length of the hull, poison-green and

icy as death, plucking and jerking at

his limbs and groping after every man

on the staggering ship's deck. The

hungry sheet of destruction smashed

over Sir George, battering the breath

from him in yet another agonized grunt,

and then it was past and he threw his

head up, gasping and hacking on the

water which had forced itself into his

nostrils and eyes.

The cog fought her way once more up out

of the abyss, wallowing as the water

cascaded off her deck through buckled

rails. Broken cordage blew out, bar-

straight and deadly as flails on the

howling torrent of wind, and he heard

the hull crying out in torment. Sir

George was a landsman, yet even he felt

the ship's heavier motion, knew the

men-and women-laboring frantically at

the pumps and bailing with buckets,

bowls, even bare hands, were losing

ground steadily.

The vessel was doomed. All the ships of

his expedition were doomed ... and

there was nothing he could do about it.

The unexpected summer gale had caught

them at the worst possible moment, just

as they were rounding the Scilly Isles

on their way from Lancaster to

Normandy. There had been no warning, no

time to seek shelter, only the

desperate hope that they might somehow

ride out the storm's violence on the

open sea.

And that hope had failed.

Sir George had seen only one ship

actually die. He was uncertain which,

but he thought it had been Earl

Cathwall's flagship. He hoped he was

wrong. It was unlikely any of them

would survive, but Lord Cathwall was

more than the commander of the

expedition. He was also Sir George's

father-in-law, and they held one

another in deep and affectionate

respect. And perhaps Sir George was

wrong. The dying ship had been almost

close enough to hear the shrieks of its

doomed company even through the storm's

demented howl as it was pounded into

the depths, but the darkness and storm

fury, broken only by the glare of

forked lighting, had made exact

identification impossible.

Yet even though it was the only ship he

had seen destroyed, he was grimly

certain there had been others. Indeed,

he could see only one other vessel

still fighting its hopeless battle, and

he ground his teeth as yet another

heavy sea crashed over his own cog. The

impact staggered the ship, and a fresh

chorus of screams and prayers came

faintly from the men and women and

children packed below its streaming

deck. His wife Matilda and their son

Edward were in that dark, noisome

hellhole of crowded terror and vomit,

of gear come adrift and washing

seawater, and terror choked him as he

thought of them once again. He tried to

find the words of prayer, the way to

plead with God to save his wife and his

son. He did not beg for himself. It

wasn't his way, and his was the

responsibility for bringing them to

this in the first place. If God wanted

his life in exchange for those so much

dearer to him, it was a price he would

pay without a whimper.

Yet he knew it was a bargain he would

not be permitted. He and Matilda and

Edward would meet their ends together,

crushed by the soulless malice and

uncaring brutality of sea and wind, and

deep within him bitter protest

reproached the God who had decreed that

they should.

The cog shuddered and twitched, heaving

in the torment of over-strained timbers

and rigging, and Sir George looked up

as the ship's mate shouted something.

He couldn't make out the words, but he

knew it was a question, and he shook

himself like a sodden dog, struggling

to make his mind function. For all his

ignorance of the sea, he had found

himself doomed to command of the ship

when a falling spar killed the captain.

In fact, he'd done little more than

agree with the mate's suggestions,

lending his authority to the support of

a man who might-might!-know enough to

keep them alive a few hours more. But

the mate had needed that support,

needed someone else to assume the

ultimate responsibility, and that was

Sir George's job. To assume

responsibility. No, to acknowledge the

responsibility which was already his.

And so he made himself look as if he

were carefully considering whatever it

was the mate wanted to do this time,

then nodded vigorously.

The mate nodded back, then bellowed

orders at his exhausted, battered

handful of surviving sailors. Wind howl

and sea thunder thrashed the words into

meaningless fragments so far as Sir

George could tell, but two or three men

began clawing their way across the deck

to perform whatever task the mate had

decreed, and Sir George turned his face

back to the sea's tortured millrace. It

didn't really matter what the mate did,

he thought. At worst, a mistake would

cost them a few hours of life they

might otherwise have clung to; at best,

a brilliant maneuver might buy them an

hour or two they might not otherwise

have had. In the end, the result would

be the same.

He'd had such hopes, made so many

plans. A hard man, Sir George

Wincaster, and a determined one. A peer

of the realm, a young man who had

caught his monarch's favor at Dupplin

and the siege of Berwick at the age of

twenty-two, who'd been made a knight by

Edward III's own hand the next year on

the field of Halidon Hill. A man who'd

served with distinction at the Battle

of Sluys eight years later-although, he

thought with an edge of mordant humor

even now, if I'd learned a bit more

then of ships, I might have been wise

enough to stay home this time!-and

slogged through the bitterly

disappointing French campaign of 1340.

And a man who had returned with a

fortune from Henry of Denby's campaign

in Gascony five years later.

And a bloody lot of good it's done me

in the end, he thought bitterly,

remembering his gleaming plans. At

thirty-five, he was at the height of

his prowess, a hard bitten,

professional master of the soldier's

trade. A knight, yes, but the grandson

of a commoner who had won both

knighthood and barony the hard way and

himself a man who knew the reality of

war, not the minstrels' tales of

romance and chivalry. A man who fought

to win ... and understood the enormous

changes England and her lethal longbows

were about to introduce into the

continental princes' understanding of

the art of war.

And one who knew there were fortunes to

be made, lands and power to be won, in

the service of his King against Philip

of France. Despite the disappointments

of 1340, last year had proved Edward

III his grandfather's grandson, a

welcome relief after the weakness and

self indulgence of his father.

Longshanks would have approved of the

King, Sir George thought now. He

started slow, but now that Denby's

shown the way and he's chosen to beard

Philip alone, the lions of England will

make the French howl!

Perhaps they would, and certainly

Edward's claim to the throne of France

was better than Philip VI's, but Sir

George Wincaster would not win the

additional renown, or the added wealth

and power he had planned to pass to his

son, at his King's side. Not now. For

he and all the troops under his command

would find another fate, and no one

would ever know where and when they

actually perished.

The corpse light of storm-wracked

afternoon slid towards evening, and Sir

George realized dully that they had

somehow survived another day.

He was too exhausted even to feel

surprised ... and though he tried to

feel grateful, at least, a part of him

was anything but. Another night of

horror and fear, exhaustion and

desperate struggle, loomed, and even as

he gathered himself to face it, that

traitor part wanted only for it to end.

For it to be over.

To rest.

But there would be rest enough soon

enough, he reminded himself. An

eternity of it, if he was fortunate

enough to avoid Hell. He hoped he would

be, but he was also a realist-and a

soldier. And Heaven knew that even the

best of soldiers would face an arduous

stay in Purgatory, while the worst ...

He brushed the thought aside, not

without the wistful wish that he and

Father Timothy might have argued it out

one more time, and made himself peer

about. The second ship was still with

them, farther away as darkness

gathered, but still fighting its way

across the heaving gray waste, and he

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TheExcaliburAlternativebyDavidWeberCopyright(c)2002byDavidWeber.Ashorterversionofthisnovelwaspublishedas"SirGeorgeandtheDragon"inForeignLegions,editedbyDavidDrake,(c)2001.ForBobbieandSharon,mytwofavoriteladies.-I-Demonwindgreetedpalliddaylightwithhellhowlfury.Itwasnotruedaylight,althoughsomewhereabo...

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David Weber - The Excalibur Alternative

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