Lands of Red and Gold #73: Taken For a Ride
“And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”
- Revelations 6:2, King James Version
* * *
7 May 1645 / 8th Year of Regent Gunya Yadji
Near Kirunmara [Terang, Victoria]
Durigal [Land of the Five Directions]
Bright, clear sunlight shone down on an open field. An open, dry field with lush grass growing tall in late autumn, still unmarred before the rapid turning of winter. Grass that was now about to be trampled underfoot by strange horses.
From his vantage on the nearest rise, Bidwadjari, Lord of Warmasters, could only smile. The last time he had looked over a field where horses were being ridden, it had been the field of battle, when One True Egg [Pieter Nuyts] had brought his force of Raw Men in a bid to seize Durigal itself. Before Gunya Yadji – it was safe to name the Regent in his own thoughts, if nowhere else – had won the great battle.
That field had been muddy and waterlogged, and that time, the sight of horses had brought fear to all the Junditmara warriors who beheld them. This time, the field was dry and ready for the Raw Men, and the sight of horses was entirely welcome.
The horse riders formed into a column, four abreast, to ride across the field. They moved at a pace faster than a man could walk, though much slower than the charging horses which Bidwadjari had seen at the last field of battle. The column changed direction twice as they crossed the field, turning first to the left and then to the right, the riders keeping formation behind their fellows, so that their line took on the appearance of a twisted serpent.
When they reached the far side of the field, the riders completed another slow wheel that turned them around, then changed formation from column to line. The leading horses halted while those behind spread out to each side, forming into four ranks that spread across the breadth of the field. They began to advance at a marvellous pace, much faster than a man could run.
“Magnificent,” Bidwadjari murmured.
A row of dummies stood in the middle of the field, awaiting the charge. When the first rank of horse riders drew near, they fired the thunder-weapons they called pistols; the rising smoke announced their actions long before the sound carried to Bidwadjari’s vantage. The front rank drew their swords as the charge reached the dummies. Metal flashed in the sunlight as they cut the rank of dummies apart.
“Now I know how Illalong must have felt, watching those beasts ride him to his death,” he said. Illalong had been a capable warmaster, but his army had been shattered by horses like these, with Illalong himself falling together with so many of his men. That defeat had been avenged, but at a terrible price.
Now, these magnificent, dangerous beasts rode for the Regent.
“Come. I wish to speak to the Inglidj commander.” Bidwadjari began to walk down the slope, and the cluster of other warmasters and bodyguards followed behind.
The Inglidj commander was waiting for them down the slope. Bidwadjari had only dealt with a handful of these Raw Men, but if he was any judge, this commander was a young man. A brown-haired, thin-moustached, very young man. An arrogant young man, by all reports.
Yet the Inglidj commander had royal blood in his homeland, which for reasons of state the Regent had chosen to recognise here in the Land, too. And such arrogance could be tolerated for a man who brought so many horsemen to command.
“Six hundred horsemen, and more on their way,” Bidwadjari murmured, as they neared the Inglidj commander. “With three hundred horse, One True Egg came close to breaking the Regency. Now we have double that number to march on Tjibarr.”
Bidwadjari bowed in the form which was respectful among the Inglidj. “Blood and honour, Prince Roo Predj.”
“I welcome you,” the Inglidj commander said in turn. He used the dominant form of the pronoun, much as he always used the commanding form of verbs. Part of the evidence of his arrogance. But so long as he fought and won battles for the Regent, little else mattered.
*
Prince Ruprecht, Duke of Cumberland [1], loved many things in life, but of those which were traditionally performed while still vertical, nothing could match riding a horse across an open field on a glorious day. Except perhaps when leading a regiment of cavalry into battle.
Today was not such a day, but he still had a column of cavalry behind him, following as he led them in a serpentine path across the open field. A display for the Yadji generals, to give them some appreciation of what cavalry could do. These savages did not even have horses of their own, and needed a proper education in what could be accomplished by a band of good men on good horses.
Ruprecht’s mind was only half aware of the orders he gave for the regiment to wheel left, then right across the field. His regiment. Men he had personally recruited, mostly from Germany, but with a few Englishmen and Italians among them.
Would-be recruits had been easy to find. So many soldiers were left over after the end of the war in Germany, seeking fresh opportunities to wield a sword in anger. Italy was quiet nowadays, and Poland could not absorb everyone.
Besides, fables of Aururian gold had spread widely across Europe. Tales strong enough to lure men around half the world. The right men, that is; Ruprecht had chosen only veterans. Six hundred already here among the Yadji, with three hundred more to follow.
The cavalry wheeled around at the far side of the field, and Ruprecht shouted out the order to change into line formation. Here was one of the joys of life! The men formed up and charged across the field. Ruprecht fired his pistol as they neared the targets, then drew his sword and cut down two of the dummies as he rode between them. He let his horse slow down after that, as the regiment crossed the rest of the field.
“Let’s see any of these savages stand up to that kind of charge!” he declared, but in German. A few of the natives had learned English., and the Yadji generals were coming down the slope. Ruprecht passed his horse’s reins to the nearest soldier, and went to meet them.
“Blood and honour, Prince Roo Predj,” said the white-haired senior Yadji general. Bidwadjari, that was his name.
“I welcome you,” Ruprecht said, in the Yadji language.
After the greetings, he signalled for the interpreter to step forward. In truth, though, he expected to have little need of the wiry little man. Ruprecht’s command of the Yadji language was far from perfect, but it was serviceable, and he learned more each day. Learning a fifth language posed few fears to a man who already spoke four, and that was without counting his limited Latin and Greek.
Bidwadjari said, “Your horsemen are most impressive. A spectacle which the Regent’s enemies will fear greatly.”
The interpreter started to translate, but Ruprecht waved him to silence. “They are well-trained, and-” he realised he did not know the Yadji word for veteran, but could not be bothered asking the interpreter “-have seen many battles.”
“Training is good. Discipline is better,” Bidwadjari said. “Did your men learn discipline through training, or in battle?”
“Some from each,” Ruprecht said.
This Yadji general was no fool, and speaking to him directly was so much better than through an interpreter. Others had warned him of the perils of speaking the Yadji language, how choosing the wrong word could be a mortal insult, but the prospect held no fear for him. He simply learned the forms of their language which showed command over others.
Recognising his princely rank had been part of Ruprecht’s price for coming here; to the Yadji, he was known as the prince who was second in line for the English throne. That position made him superior to anyone here except their emperor and his two sons. Ruprecht simply made sure that he did not speak the Yadji language in the presence of any of them; in any case, he had only met their emperor once, and did not expect to do so again until called back in triumph once the Dutch cats’ paws were defeated.
Bidwadjari waited for him to continue, so at length Ruprecht said, “All soldiers must be trained. But there was a great war fought in our...” He realised that the Yadji had no word for continent, and continued, “That is, fought near England. Germany, we call the nation. Most of my soldiers learned to fight in that war.”
Bidwadjari shook his head; Ruprecht had been in Aururia long enough to know that gesture meant the same as a nod did back in civilization. The Yadji general said, “And how many of those soldiers learned to withstand a charge?”
“Some,” Ruprecht said. “Muskets help. So do pikes. Long spears,” he added by way of explanation, but Bidwadjari was already shaking his head. He must have heard of pikes before. Strange. “But most of all, discipline.”
“Ah. Discipline our soldiers have, just as much as yours. Yet horsemen still won most battles when the Nedlandj invaded.”
Ruprecht shrugged. “Discipline helps. But it is not always enough.” He remained of the view that a good charge would break any of these native savages. The Yadji did have more military discipline than he had expected, but no natives in this Land of Gold had more than a handful of horses, and few had firearms. Discipline was hard to maintain when facing the unknown.
“A lesson which has already been taught to us,” Bidwadjari said. He added, “Tell me, why do you have your riders fire their pistols when they charge in? I doubt that your men can aim well when riding so fast.”
The prince chuckled, partly at the irony, but partly to hide just how disconcerting Bidwadjari was. The old savage was astute; no doubt about it. “They cannot aim at all. We just point our pistols in the right direction. The shots will bring them fear, not kill many enemies.”
“A tactic that will work once, perhaps twice,” Bidwadjari said. “Not more, not against the same soldiers.”
“I don’t plan to fight the same soldiers more than once,” Ruprecht said. How did the Yadji put it? “After they fight my horsemen, the next battle they fight will be their Last Battle [2].”
Bidwadjari laughed then, long and loudly. “Well said, my prince. But if some survive, and hold their ground in other battles? What then?”
“Then there is manoeuvre,” Ruprecht said. “Cavalry can move much faster than foot. If soldiers are prepared for a charge from the front, then bring the horse to their flanks, and hit them there.” Even well-disciplined infantry had difficulty holding if charged in the flank by cavalry; with these savages, he could guarantee that a flank charge would break them.
“And that always works?” Bidwadjari asked. “Even in Djer-ma-nee?”
Yes, this Yadji general was definitely no fool. The prince said, “Usually. Nothing is certain, though, save that we will all die some day.”
“Everyone has a Last Battle,” Bidwadjari said, in the tones of one reciting an ancient truism. “There is much we need to discuss of your horses and tactics, but they can wait. We will have much time on our march to learn from each other.”
Ruprecht doubted that these savages had anything to teach civilized men, but another thought pressed for his attention. “The Regent has confirmed his orders?”
“Yes. In two days’ time, we march for Jugara [Victor Harbor, South Australia] and the Nyalananga [River Murray] mouth. It is time to punish Tjibarr.”
* * *
By 1645 (by the European calendar), the Yadji had been at peace with their old rivals, Tjibarr, for almost thirty years. That was the longest period the two powers had been at peace – or, rather, between wars – in over two centuries. Warfare between the two countries was usually a much more frequent occurrence. The long delay only happened because of a combination of a mad Regent, a long and bitter civil war, and the disruptions of Old World diseases.
With the restoration of decent order within the Yadji realm, and the first shipments of arms from England, the period of not-war inevitably came to an end. The arrival of an ambitious prince from the far end of the world, and more precisely the six hundred or so crack cavalry he brought with him, only hastened the coming of war.
The Yadji troops were well-armed by their own standards, though with few of the muskets that they craved. They were well-supplied, too; their commanders had learned from previous failures where Yadji armies failed for want of supplies. With Bidwadjari in overall command, but with Prince Rupert determined to act as he wished for gold and glory, regardless of the Yadji general’s wishes.
Opposing them were the armies of Tjibarr. Outnumbered and less well-equipped than their rivals; Tjibarr only had about half of the Yadji Empire’s population, and their own Dutch allies had been slower to ship in arms than the English had been for their Yadji proxies. But Tjibarr had spent thirty years building fortifications, and had the advantage that the further the Yadji advanced, the longer grew their supply lines. The Yadji needed to bring goods over land by manpower or dogpower, while Tjibarr could keep itself supplied along the Nyalananga.
The conflict that followed had many names, depending on the people doing the naming. The people of Tjibarr called it, with varying senses of irony, the great unpleasantness. To the Yadji, it was named Bidwadjari’s War, to honour the great commander. To the English East India Company, and the English people back home, it was called Prince Rupert’s War, for the man who – to their understanding – commanded the war. The Dutch did not, for the moment, admit that they were involved in the war at all.
The first great battle was fought to capture Bunara [Goolwa], the riverine port which was the nearest by road to Jugara and the open sea. The armies of the Yadji were victorious, and the city was captured, though in keeping with ancient tradition it went unplundered. Tjibarr had built two forts between Bunara and Jugara, and Bidwadjari settled in to besiege them with his infantry. Prince Rupert had little patience for a siege, but led his cavalry in repeated sweeps of the countryside, sometimes engaging Tjibarr’s soldiers or factionaries, and sometimes just plundering people for the sake of it. It took a direct order from the Regent to forbid Prince Rupert from trying to raid Jugara itself.
The sieges took several months, but with no hope of resupply, in February 1646 Bidwadjari negotiated terms for the fort garrisons to surrender and be given safe conduct back to the Nyalananga. Jugara lay open to their armies, and the Nangu port-captain – effectively the mayor – proclaimed his recognition of the Regent’s authority over the port.
Two days later, word came that the kingdom of Gutjanal had declared war on the Yadji, and that its troops were advancing toward the gold mines of Djawrit [Bendigo].
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[1] Prince Rupert of the Rhine has been named Duke of Cumberland (as happened historically) to recognise that he is second in the line of succession to the English throne. Historically he was second in succession behind the future Charles II of England; allohistorically he is second behind his elder brother Frederick Henry survived (who historically died in a boating accident in 1629). Frederick Henry has been proclaimed Duke of Munster at the end of the Twenty Years’ War, and is also first in line to the English crown.
[2] The Yadji religion holds that after dying, people fight a final battle against the minions of the Firstborn (an evil god). The victors will go to join the Neverborn in the earth to await resurrection; the losers join the armies of night in the sky, under the Firstborn’s command.
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Thoughts?
