I was glad I was half deafened, for there is nothing that hurts the soul more than the sound of a man screaming as he burns.
Almost as bad were those fearfully burned but well enough to run. They ran maddened like dogs with their tails set alight by cruel children, not knowing where they went, only seeking respite from pain, or God’s mercy perhaps, neither of which I thought them likely to receive.
And then things got more interesting.
The white-hot heat was so intense it was setting off adjacent fires, tents catching like kindling, canvas flapping loose, pieces burning in the air like demented hellfire seagulls, carrying their deadly energy on down the line.
Men who were not injured came running from all corners of the camp with useless quantities of water, some even with wine goblets, attempting to douse the fires, which they could not even approach without staggering back at the intensity of the heat.
My position was becoming untenable. I was neither injured nor helping, so I slid quietly away in the confusion.
It was all most satisfactory. I hoped Aleksey was having the same luck.
When I reached the horse line, the next stage in my part of the plan, some of the horses were rearing and whinnying with distress. Even the most stoic twisted and turned in place, casting anxious glances at the urgent activity behind them. I could see the flames mirrored in Xavier’s wide eyes. I relieved the boy guarding the line by impressing upon him the fire would soon reach his position and he must run for his life. I waited until he’d shot off into the dark and then released all the horses. They cantered off away from the noise and flames as I held our two steady. I waited and waited. I grew increasingly anxious and many times started to retie the horses so I could plunge back into the burning camp to find Aleksey. So many things could go wrong. After an agony of expectation, I saw him running, leaping debris in his way, the flames silhouetting him.
He grinned at me and took his horse’s reins. “They are planning to ambush our line, Niko. They have blocked the head of a valley and will allow us to enter, then block the end and be waiting on the ridges. It will be a bloodbath.” He swung up into the saddle, desperate to be on his way and save his army. “Come on!” He disappeared into the darkness.
I grinned at his slim, disappearing figure and put a foot to my stirrup.
“Hello, Doctor.” I whirled around, my hand going to one of my knives, but I felt a thump on my head and then darkness as I sank to the ground.
I CAME around, bound and sick and lying upon the cold ground. I heard muffled voices, which were actually only muffled by the ringing still in my ears and the blow I had taken to the head. I tried to stifle a groan, but someone saw I was awake and pulled me to my knees. I peered up, and an icy trickle of fear ran down my spine. This was worse than I had thought: Rohanus, Aleksey’s inebriated officer. I spat toward his boots, and he stepped back. He did not appear at all drunk now.
“I knew you were no doctor, Hartmann. What is your mission?”
I don’t know whether I was more annoyed to have my medical skills questioned or to have been so easily caught. Both, I suspect. “I could ask the same of you, Colonel. What is your mission?”
He hit me. I reeled back, unable to save myself, for my arms were pinned behind my back, and I hit the ground hard. Rough hands pulled me to kneeling again.
“What is your mission?”
Clearly, this was going to get repetitive. I wondered when it would start to get serious. I had grown up with masters of torture. These people had no idea. Well, I have to admit that I hoped they did not. I spat out some blood. “I am here as a doctor, that is all.”
He nodded, turned as if to speak to someone, reeled around, and hit me again. I took the blow better, being prepared for it, and spat some more blood. “What is your mission?”
“I’m a—” More hitting and more spitting ensued. Suddenly the tent flap opened and a soldier came in. He said something into the colonel’s ear, and the questioning changed.
“Where is your servant?”
I looked down, praying Aleksey was well on his way back to the army with his information. Clearly Rohanus had not seen my “servant” in the flesh, and no one had thought to describe him. I was fairly sure that very tall, slim, handsome, and startling green eyes might rather give the prince away.
I debated the best thing to say and finally settled on, “He was caught in the fire.” I held the left side of my face toward him, so he could see the black powder burns. “I did not realize that the gunpowder was there.”
He hit me again. “Where is your servant?”
“In the fire! I can show you his body if you want.”
My fire had caused a great number of casualties, and one burned, shriveled man’s body would look much like another—pretending to search them would give Aleksey more time. He indicated for me to be pulled to my feet. I dwarfed the two soldiers holding my arms, and I felt I could take them despite the ties to my wrists. But this was not the time. I had to let Aleksey have a chance to get far away before they suspected him. They half dragged, half carried me down through the lines toward the scene of the fire, which was not out by any means. I did not think they would ever be able to stop the spread. I was tempted to suggest they create a firebreak and move the remaining tents and wagons, but it suited my purposes to let it all burn. With so many bodies, it was impossible to tell who anyone had been, and after poking around for a very long, useless amount of time, I told the colonel so. He nodded for me to be taken back to his tent.
I stumbled and fell on the way back a few times. It gave the impression I was a great deal more injured than I actually was. The questioning began again. Finally, as I reckoned that Aleksey was many miles away by now, I admitted that I had come to the camp to cause the explosion, that my mission was to destroy their gunpowder. I said we had been given information from our spies that they were carrying this lethal weapon of war, and that had been my target. He liked this, I could see. It fitted into his paranoia about his own work as a spy. He hit me again, just because he could.
There was commotion outside the tent, and he went to the flap and raised it. He spoke briefly in the local language and then went out, leaving me with my two guards. I curled up on the ground, groaning softly. Happy that I was no threat to them, they stood closer and began to talk together, sharing some bread. I had my knife in my hand by then. They had found all of them but this one, the inch-long blade I kept strapped tight to the highest part of my inner thigh. It had taken weeks and some unpleasant accidents to learn to wear this knife there, but it was well worth the effort. No man ever searches another man there, and it always stayed concealed. I could just access it, even with my hands behind my back. I had begun the more difficult task of sawing through the bindings that held me—awkward because of the angle I had to hold the blade—when the colonel came back in.
“Bring him.”
They dragged me to my feet once more and herded out of the tent. It was dawn, misty. The sun illuminated the faint scene of chaos. As soon as we left the tent, soldiers began to dismantle it. They had thought of the firebreak at last. The guards pushed me along toward a wagon, and I assumed they would take me with them for further questioning.
Then I saw the noose hanging from a makeshift gallows. They had upended one of the wagon beds and strung a rope around the shaft so it hung down, waiting. I could not saw at my bindings without being seen. Soldiers surrounded us, pushing and shoving and wanting to get a good position to view the execution.
I tried to speak to the colonel, but he rode too far ahead and could not hear me over the baying of the mob. Something hit me on the head. I think they had just told the men I set the fire. Many of their friends and colleagues had died. I didn’t rate my chances to actually get to the noose. I went down, my knees impacting the frosty ground. I groaned, rolled over, and almost completed my task, but as I was yanked to my feet, I lost the knife. My fingers, numb now from being bound too tightly, could not keep it in my grasp. The colon
el had mounted and circled me with a couple of other officers, beating down upon the heads of the mob, forcing a passage through to the wagon.
We reached it. They pushed me onto a small box, and a noose was fastened around my neck. The colonel shouted a command in the local language, and a roar of approval went up from the crowd. I looked up. The sky was a perfect pink, like a sliced salmon fished from a river in my distant homeland. I took a deep breath and smelled smoke and men and horses. It seemed fitting.
They kicked the box away from under me, and I fell, the noose tightening.
I think they had miscalculated. At well over six feet tall, my feet grazed the frosty ground just enough to stop me from choking. Some of the men laughed, but more were angry. One of the guards wrenched the noose from around my neck and dispatched a soldier to climb up the wagon bed and see if he could somehow make it shorter. I stood there, contemplating the sunrise. In the fall, the shock and expectation of death had made me attempt to jerk my hands up to my neck. My bindings had broken. My hands were free. At the moment, though, I could not quite work out how to turn this to my advantage. I was surrounded by a mob of baying soldiers intent on my death. Four mounted officers kept them back. So what I was supposed to do with my bare hands was beyond me.
One thing was for sure—I would not go down without a fight. I’d rather be beaten to death than hung, although it was a close thing, and hanging had its advantages too. Of course, they might be planning to cut me down whilst still alive and throw me to the mob anyway…. I was not in a very good frame of mind by this time.
Suddenly a commotion behind the mob caught my attention: a stray horse. I could not see too well because my face was covered with blood still streaming from my wounds, and both eyes were partly closed from swelling. But I’d know Xavier anywhere. I wet my mouth as best I could and called to him. He heard me. He could not work out why we were being separated by angry men. He was stepping daintily, trying to be polite, snorting with dismay. I saw a soldier grab him roughly by the mane. Xavier rose and dashed him in the head. Even with my poor vision, I saw the blood fly in an arc through the clear air. Then pandemonium broke out. Armies do not employ horses as cavalry because they are beautiful to look at. They use them because they terrify foot soldiers. Xavier had endured enough. He was a warhorse, and he went for the mob of men holding him back from me. He whirled around, leaped forward, and brained two more. The rest fell back.
At a gallop, Xavier reached me. He had no saddle, and that saved me. If he had been saddled, my instincts would not have kicked in as they did. I flew onto his back and twisted one hand in his mane as I had learned to do as a boy. Such instinct does not leave you, despite disuse. I lay low upon his naked back as he galloped through the camp. The ride was perilous, as he swerved and shied, reared and jumped. I could feel every muscle and almost read his mind as he ran. No one could catch him, for they had nothing to catch: no bridle, no reins, no stirrups.
We cleared the edge of the camp. I could hear pursuit. This was the easy part, though. I let him find his spirit, and he took off like an arrow in flight, all the stretch of his enormously long legs and powerful muscles. The sounds of pursuit faded, but I could hear another set of hoofbeats coming at us from the side. I glanced over. Aleksey lay low over the back of his warhorse, giving her free rein, urging her forward. We met, and our horses fell into a matched rhythm of speed until it seemed we were as one in this as we were now in all things.
CHAPTER 20
WHEN THERE was no sign of pursuit, we slowed to a walk.
I am ashamed to say I promptly fell off Xavier’s sweaty back and landed inelegantly on the frozen earth.
Aleksey was at my side before I could rise, his hands ripping at my clothes. In other circumstances, I would have enjoyed this. He was only searching me for injury, however, cursing me roundly, so it was not enjoyable at all.
Eventually, I batted away his concern and with some assistance regained my seat on Xavier.
Aleksey was working himself up to something. I could tell by the angry set of his back, and we walked the horses to recover. When he spoke, I understood the source of his anguish.
“I could not return for you, Niko, although I heard you were captured. I could not risk being captured myself and for knowledge of the planned attack not to reach our friends. Do you forgive me?”
I made to reply, but my lip split open on the attempt, and the inconvenience silenced me. He gave me a furious glance, as if my battering were extremely inconvenient for him, and added, “I knew Xavier would find you, so I released him. I was right in that, at least.”
I nodded, touching a fingertip to my lip. I couldn’t see much and blinked from one swollen eye to the other, testing my vision on distant trees.
I was in a bad way. I had only my shirt and breeches on, and my beating had been severe. Neither of us knew exactly where we were, and Aleksey was fraught with the need to find his army and use the intelligence we had been at such pains to win.
He didn’t need to be distracted by me.
I straightened my shoulders. “It all looks worse than it is. I am quite well. We need to ride hard now.”
Aleksey gave me such a look of approbation, a combination of love and admiration, that I felt invigorated already.
We kicked the horses to a gallop.
We had to ride.
The three days and two nights of our return to the army were very miserable for me. I could not even smile without pain. Pissing was agony. Aleksey said I need not do one and he would help me with the other, but that split my lip again, and I muttered, “You would smile too, if you had escaped a noose.”
“I would not be so foolish to put my head in one in the first place. Stop smiling, Niko! You need to heal.”
I ruffled his hair. “I cannot think what makes me smile so.”
WHEN WE arrived back in the lines, Aleksey was not initially recognized by his soldiers on sentry. I certainly wasn’t. It would take days more before my face became recognizable, and neither of us knew the daily password. I think we both realized how close we came to failing our mission in the worst way possible—being killed by our own sentries—and it made our return to camp somber rather than triumphant.
Aleksey immediately called a meeting of all his officers.
Maps were produced, and Aleksey used them to explain what the Saxefalia army was attempting to do. He had been right: it would have been wholesale slaughter. In this part of the world, armies fought wars with the trusted method of forming up into lines facing each other and then just marching forward. It seemed utterly alien to me. Wars I had fought had been stealthy, fluid, and constantly full of feints, counterattacks, confusion, and surprise. Here, war was like a formal dance with partners declared, the music decided upon, and only the skill of the step yet to be seen. The Saxefalia plan to set upon Aleksey’s army whilst they still trundled along the road—strung out, not in battle order, soldiers not in fighting squares, weapons not ready, cavalry not even mounted (possibly even playing with sticks and little balls)—was a revolutionary divergence from accepted practice. The question was, how could we best use the information we now had?
Half of Aleksey’s officers wanted to do to the enemy what they planned to do to us: ambush them while they traveled to ambush us. It was far too complicated to organize, however, and Aleksey knew this. Maneuvers such as the Saxefalians were about to attempt took years to practice with soldiery: new drills, new orders, and new use of weapons. The other half wanted to divert from the route along which we were expected and fall on the Saxefalian rear echelon, which Aleksey and I had just left. A victory was fairly guaranteed there, given our vastly superior numbers and their recent unfortunate fire. I could see Aleksey was tempted, especially when he looked at my face and recalled what had nearly happened to me.
Finally, when everyone had had a say, he turned back to me. “What do you think, Doctor? Any suggestions?”
“Me?” I glanced at the faces around the table. Perhaps a beaten f
ace wins you points with soldiers as much as the dick measuring. They all waited politely, not with the derision I had expected. “I think you should walk into the ambush.” I forestalled the collective intake of breath and continued, “Play them at their own game. Split your army. Send a small number into the valley masquerading as the whole: the wagons, the boys, and the old men. Place them on horses, in the wagons, spread them around and make them look more. Then take your main force around behind the ridge and attack the enemy from the rear as they attack us. They will charge with horses down from the side of the valley with great speed and force of penetration. You need to slow their advance by making the ground unavailable to them: concealed stakes, pits, whatever can be prepared in the time we have left.”
“You are the very devil, sir!” One of the older officers stood up, outraged. “General, we cannot allow this dishonor to taint our noble war. What this man suggests is nothing short of heathenish. I saw such things in Prague in forty-eight, and I will not be party to such—”
“Sit down, Major Pike, please. I value your input, as always, but I do not need to be reminded of my honor… on second thought, do not sit. You are all dismissed. Not you, Doctor. I want you to outline your idea for me again.”
I chuckled when the other officers had left.
I thought he was using a coded language to say that he wanted me for more personal reasons, but he was not. He wanted me to show him on the map what my plan would entail.
He looked up. “What?”
I shook my head. “I am a bad man, Aleksey. Ignore me. What do you want to know?”
He relented for a moment, checked that the tent flap was closed, and put his hands to my face.
“Is there somewhere you can suggest I kiss? It all looks a bit… battered.”
I smiled again, with a wince. “Oh, yes, I can very easily suggest somewhere for you to kiss.”
Color rose on his cheekbones, just a hint but all that his pale skin would allow. I tapped him on the nose. “We will save kissing until you are a famous general with new, shiny medals adorning your uniform.”
A Royal Affair Page 19