Crispin's Army

In spite of repeating his plan in countless villages and settlements over a wide area of country, and spending many days, often in rain and almost as often, during the latter part of the trip, standing in thick snow, instructing refugees and villagers alike in the use of blaster and zapper until their aim went off because they were all shaking with the cold, it nevertheless took a long time for Crispin to grasp that what he was proposing was really going to happen.

After meeting Gus and assuring himself that, far from being a lunatic, as he had at first suspected, the scientist was genuine in the belief that his idea would change the world, Crispin had rapidly formulated the plan for returning. They would take Gus back with a motley army made up of the dispossessed of Urbis and a large number of bored young men keen to see some excitement before shouldering the burden of responsibility.

Crispin had been surprised at the number of people ready and willing to pledge themselves to the cause of the Underground. He said as much to Charlie.

Charlie patted him on the back affectionately. “You’re too trusting, Crispin, old son, far too trusting. We can take it as read that a proportion of those who’ve sworn their loyalty to us are in fact Presidium sympathisers who will use us as their meal ticket, presumably till we get back to Urbis, and then they will stab us in the back.”

“Literally?” said Crispin.

Charlie nodded. “If the opportunity arises. We don’t even know what proportion of them will be that way, or how many of the village boys they will be able to influence. We will just have to keep our eyes and ears open. And trust no one.”

It was a stark reminder to Crispin of how vulnerable his own naivety made him. Being back in Vale had made him forget about the ways of the city, where being trusting was looked on as a failing rather than a virtue. Charlie brought it home to him that the band he would be leading back to Urbis would contain an unknown number of turncoats, and doubtless a fair few impressionable village boys who would willingly do their bidding. He felt comforted that he would be surrounded by an entourage of worldly wise Urbians who would do their best to keep him from harm.

There was another variable in the equation which Crispin knew he would ignore at his peril: Elizabeth. , he was well aware, was growing increasingly exasperated with being held prisoner in Vale while her destiny, so she told herself, was waiting back in Urbis. She had now got wind of Crispin’s plan to return in the spring, and was champing at the bit, anxious to be going. But what would be the effect, Crispin wondered, of her mingling with his recruits. Might it not be, he mused, that those whose loyalty to the Underground was questionable would identify her as a figurehead, the rightful Leader of the Presidium, to whose side they might rally in the pursuit of their own dubious ends? Elizabeth, he had no doubt, would be delighted to receive the support of men and women she could bribe with promises of positions of power, and with whom she need not bargain on ideological matters.

These concerns, together with other, more down-to-earth problems such as how to feed this army he had pulled together while it was on the march, plagued Crispin repeatedly during the long months of winter when Vale lay under a thick blanket of snow, and all communication with the world beyond its walls was impossible.

“Stop worrying,” Josie insisted. “You’ve set the wheels in motion, now the whole thing will come together of its own accord. You’ll see.”

“But I feel so responsible,” Crispin sighed. “It will be dangerous getting them over the mountains.”

“They know that,” said Josie. “Most of them have done it before, remember? Stop trying to carry the whole burden on your own shoulders.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Crispin, knowing that she was unquestionably right. But he didn’t stop worrying about things.

The winter dragged on. One year slowly came to an end, another stirred reluctantly into life. Karl grew physically, developing into a fine, solid baby, but his movements were dull and ponderous, and he seemed not to take the interest in the world around him that would be expected of a `normal’ child. He derived little stimulation from the brightly coloured wooden toys, the rattles and puzzles that were showered on him, but instead lay on the floor like a slug. Crispin regarded him sadly, pitiable in contrast to his other child, Frances, who was running joyfully towards her second birthday, chattering amiably all the while, and becoming extremely sociable.

Crispin, Josie, Tana and the others spent much of the short days and long cold nights huddled around the longhouse fire, engaged in long, serious conversations. The heavy drifts of snow precluded walks of any distance, and for the first time, significant food shortages were beginning to be felt in Vale, leaving them tired and listless. So they exercised their brains on each other.

They talked with Gus about his ideas, and he explained in some detail what might be achieved with his `nanotechnology’. His schemes seemed so far-fetched that Crispin and Tana were tempted to dismiss them as the stuff of fairy tales, but Josie, Cath and the rest of the Urbians were evidently taking them seriously. Josie confided to Crispin after one such discussion that no one else was in a position to make criticism of Gus’s ideas, as they all lacked any expertise in his field, but that he made it all sound at least plausible. The general opinion was that they would all believe it when they saw it happen.

When they were not talking to Gus about how Urbis was going to be changed physically, the Underground members in Vale could be found locked in debate with Elizabeth about the political restructuring which would follow her installation as leader of the Presidium. Elizabeth was made painfully aware that however distasteful many of the changes were to her, she would have no hope of attaining power without the Underground, and that if, once installed, she showed the least sign of double-crossing them, they would have no compunction in removing her. The reforms were being dictated to her: her sole input related to the procedural nuts and bolts reqired to implement those reforms.

The first day of Lilymoon had been designated as the day on which all those wishing to join the march back to Urbis would gather at Vale to set out. As the days gradually lengthened, and the snow began to thaw, Crispin felt his own spirits lifting, and he began to look forward with hope to the new enterprise he had instigated, and began to count the days. Josie observed the growing confidence which her man exuded, and smiled inwardly. Both were well aware of the difficulties and dangers to be faced, but they had conquered their doubts, which was a significant first step.

By mid-Chillwind, the snow had completely gone, the warm sun had evaporated the pools and puddles left behind, and buds and flowers had appeared in great profusion.

Towards the end of the month, the hordes began to appear, and a huge tent city sprang up in front of Vale’s defences. From all points of the compass they came, in numbers far greater than Crispin had dared hope for. They came in wagons, they came on horseback and they came on foot. Men, women and children, mostly Urbian refugees, but with no small number of village men ( and no more than a handful of village women ), armed with crossbows, knives, swords, pitchforks, and, here and there, the occasional laser weapon. They brought with them considerable supplies of food - dried, salted, smoked, and in some instances pickled - donated, it turned out, by villagers more than a little relieved to see them go. With careful rationing, and supplementation by whatever victuals they happened to find on the journey, it was estimated that the provisions should last for most, if not all, the trip back to the city.

Crispin and Charlie climbed up to one of the village’s watch towers to survey the scene. Although he had witnessed so much that was strange in Urbis, that had somehow seemed more acceptable to Crispin because it had all taken place so far away from everything that was familiar to him, so that it had seemed to him at times as if he had been living a dream. But all this was happening in the land that he had known since birth, and as such he found it that much more frightening.

“How many would you say are there, Charlie?” asked Crispin, his hands clenched tightly on the guardrail. Charlie stared down at the throng. He took so long to reply that Crispin thought that he was counting them one by one.

“I would say,” Charlie responded at length, “that there are not far short of five thousand people there.”

Five thousand! Crispin balked at the number. On reflection he realised that it was a useful number if he wanted to make a real difference to the state of affairs in the city, but at the same time, the larger the number, the more traitors there were likely to be amongst them. He looked at them. They seemed such an unwieldy mob, he wondered whether he was really making a huge mistake. In going around and recruiting them, a dozen or so at a time, he had been quite happy to present himself to them as their leader. But now he saw them for the first time en masse, he longed to pass the responsibility on to someone infinitely more capable, such as Charlie.

He turned and looked at Charlie, wishing he could speak his mind. Instead, he could only bring himself to ask a simple question. “How did you reach a figure of five thousand?”

“Quite simply,” Charlie smiled. “Just to get an approximation. In my mind I drew a rough grid over them, divided them up into twenty squares, then counted how many people there were in one square, which was two hundred and forty odd.”

Crispin marvelled. Clearly, Charlie’s mind was not clouded by apprehension the way his own was. He resolved to take a firmer grip on himself.

Somewhere distant, a cock crowed to greet the first glimmering of daylight on the eastern horizon. A hand, gentle but insistent on his shoulder, woke Crispin out of troubled dreams. He rubbed open sticky eyes to see Josie squatting by the bed in the lamplight, dressed in the fatigues she had been wearing on their flight from Urbis. She was ready for action, with her blaster belt already fastened round her slender waist.

She smiled and flicked a strand of light brown hair out of her eyes. “Hi,” she murmured. “Today’s the day.” She handed him a bowl of broth.

For a moment he stared at her in confusion before everything came crashing into place in his mind. Today was indeed the day. The first of Lilymoon.

Hastily he consumed his broth, then dressed in the clothes he had been wearing when they had left the city. As he pulled on his boots, he became aware of the sounds of movement outside the cottage, in particular the snorting of horses and the stamp of their hooves.

Closer, in the next room, he heard Karl complaining softly as Josie lifted him from his cot and began wrapping him up for the journey. And Crispin remembered that this, above all else, was why he had undertaken this venture. Considerations of the rightness of the cause in far distant Urbis, indeed, all other considerations, paled into insignificance when compared with the tantalising possibility of having his son made whole.

He strapped on his blaster and stepped outside. In front of his door, Charlie sat on his horse, holding the reins of Crispin’s, which stood saddled and waiting patiently. Beside them waited a wagon, on which sat Tana and Cath, and, in her own little seat between them, , bright eyed and eager for whatever excitement lay in store. Josie passed up Karl, and Cath laid him in a bed in the wagon, nestled alongside the two chainsaws, the rocket powered grappling hook and line, a mish-mash of Urbian weapons, food supplies, cooking pots, and Gus.

Crispin took one look at the scientist, sprawled comfortably among the flour sacks, and laughed. “Would you not be happier on a horse, Gus?” he inquired.

“Certainly not,” Gus retorted. “I don’t trust them.”

Josie climbed up onto the wagon, and Crispin mounted his horse. The gates of Vale swung open, and a mighty cheer erupted from beyond.

Crispin led the caravan out past the palings. Gone were the tents. Those who waited in the gloom sat on horseback or on wagons, or else they stood, waiting to form up into a column, a force on the march, an army which came to be known, inevitably, as Crispin’s Army.