by J. K. Swift
“I am sorry I yelled at you, Thomas,” Mera said. “But if we do not help Noll, who will? He needs us.”
Thomas stared after them as they left.
Seraina touched his arm. “Do not worry. I will talk to them both when we get back. We still have time to convince them to leave Altdorf.”
Thomas did not hear her. He was thinking about what Sutter had said, how he thought Leopold would march his army on Schwyz once he had taken back the Altdorf fortress. Thomas knew Sutter was wrong. Leopold would not do that.
He would go through Schwyz first. And it would burn.
Thomas and Seraina walked in silence. They left the road and entered the forest, passing an ancient mound of moss-coated stones only a few steps from the modern path. The remains of an old wall, or structure, built by a people whose time had long since passed. A few minutes later, they came upon a similar pile of rubble, and then a half hour later, another.
“Are we on some kind of an old roadway?” Thomas asked.
Seraina nodded, but kept walking, weaving her way unerringly through the trees and clumps of underbrush.
“People think the Romans brought us roads and civilization,” she said. “Yet our Celtic warriors were feared for the use of their one-horse war carts. You tell me, how could we have horse-drawn carts with no roads? They may not have been as straight, or hard-packed as the Romans built them, but they worked well enough.”
“Those stones, then, they were walls,” Thomas said.
“Yes. Built to keep the Romans out of our lands,” Seraina said. “Unfortunately, they did not work.”
Against a vastly superior force, walls rarely did, Thomas thought. They only postponed the inevitable.
They passed another mound and a chill went through him as he imagined what it would have been like standing behind that barricade as legions of Roman soldiers, perhaps the most fearsome fighting force in history, came marching toward them. The legionnaires were career soldiers, disciplined and drilled better than any army before them. Their javelins would have come first. Then an unstoppable red wall of interlocked shields, their short, wide-bladed swords thrusting straight ahead at anything that came in front of them. It would have been a spectacular sight.
He crossed himself and whispered a quick prayer for the dead.
The Celts never had a chance.
They slept along a remote stretch of the Great Lake’s shoreline that night and set out again at dawn. It was a dazzling, blue-sky day and the sun reflecting off the lake had even Thomas removing his cloak after only an hour of walking. Seraina became quieter as the morning wore on, and she stopped several times to gaze into the woods or look out over the lake. Thomas did not interrupt her periods of silence, for he could tell by the occasional smile, or shake of her head, that these were personal moments for Seraina. Memories of a simpler time, perhaps.
Eventually, in early afternoon, they came to a small tree-lined bay with a clear view across one arm of the water to a rugged line of white peaks that seemed to float on the very lake itself. Seraina dropped her pack on the pebbled beach. Then, without a word, waded in without removing her sandals. She stood with her hands on her hips and stared out over the emerald lake, oblivious to how the water lapped at the hem of her dress. As her auburn hair played in the breeze, and the sun danced off the mountains, water, and Seraina all in equal measure, Thomas sat where he stood, unable, or unwilling, to take his eyes off the scene in front of him.
And then she began to take off her dress.
“Uh… ,” he had no words in mind, but thought he should at least try to make some noise in case she had forgotten he was there.
She turned and stepped back onto the beach, slipping one arm out of her dress and revealing one creamy, lightly freckled shoulder and the strap of her undergarment.
“This is it! I am sure of it, Thomas!”
Her green eyes flashed in the sunlight and the brilliance of them, combined with the shimmering lake behind her, made Thomas’s mouth go dry. She laughed, shrugged her other shoulder free and undid her belt. She stepped out of her dress and kicked it high up onto the shore.
Like a siren in some old sailor’s tale, she beckoned to Thomas from the water’s edge wearing nothing but a thin, white shift that the sun’s rays transformed into pure gossamer. The image was soon shattered, however, when she ran into the water and began splashing around, screaming and cursing at the coolness of it. She let out another yelp, took a big mouthful of air, and plunged beneath the surface.
The world went silent.
Seconds, shaped like minutes, passed, and Thomas felt the dryness of his mouth spread to his throat. He stood up and covered his eyes against the sun’s glare.
As he took a step toward the water, Seraina bounced up a short distance away, her hair was slick against her head and her mouth opened wide as she took in a deep breath. The water was only waist deep, and the fabric of her shift was plastered tightly to the contours of her body. While that image alone would have been enough to fully occupy any man’s mind, Thomas found his gaze drifting to what Seraina held in her hand high above her head: a very long, and very old, sword.
With an enthusiastic shout, Seraina lobbed the sword with both hands toward Thomas, and disappeared under the water again.
By God, Mary, and all the angels in Heaven, what is going on?
He managed to move his foot aside just in time as the sword clattered up the beach to where he stood. He looked down. It was a sword, all right. Ancient, and covered with a good deal of rust, but it was a sword.
He looked up as another shout came from Seraina, and another sword spun through the air toward him. This one did not have near as much rust on it. In fact, it looked like someone had just drawn it from a well-oiled scabbard.
By the time the third sword hit the beach, Thomas had his shirt off and was unlacing his breeches. Seconds later, he was screaming as the cold water took his breath away.
Seraina laughed and splashed her way toward him.
“We found them!”
With a shriek of pure joy, she grabbed his hand and pulled him after her through the frigid water.
When they were done, the beach was filled with swords, like pieces of driftwood strewn about after a storm. Thomas was blue when he came out of the water, and his fingers could not work flint and steel, so Seraina had built a small, sheltered fire amongst the trees. Thomas had put his clothes back on and gave Seraina his blanket, which she wrapped about herself while her own clothes dried next to the fire. By the time darkness set in, they had finished a quick meal of melted cheese on toasted bread with berry jam.
Seraina was still high from the afternoon’s events and she talked non-stop.
“How did they get here?” Thomas asked, when he could get a word in.
“I cannot say for sure, but Gildas used to tell me stories of how some people would collect them after battles and hide them. Some tribes burned their dead, and they would often throw a warrior’s sword in a lake or river, as a way to maintain balance. And by not destroying the sword, it would be waiting for him to reclaim when he was reborn.”
“But how is it that they are in such good condition? The first few were quite rusty, but most of the others need only a slight filing and their edges honed.”
“It is the silt in this particular part of the lake,” Seraina said. “If they are buried under even a thin layer, it will protect them for centuries.”
Thomas stood and put two pieces of wood on the fire. He was still cold and would have given anything for a drink of Max’s kirsch.
“The question is, how do we get all of these back to Altdorf?” Seraina asked.
“I have given that some thought. How far are we from the Kussnacht? Specifically, the shoreline at the bottom of the road where I found you and Gissler?”
Seraina’s face darkened for a moment. The memory of being held prisoner in a cage wagon bound for a session with Leopold’s inquisitors would do that to anyone, Thomas thought.
; But then she looked up. Her eyes widened, the whites of them clearly visible in the firelight.
“You think the boat is still there?”
“How did you know I had the use of a boat?” Thomas did not recall telling her how he had overcome Leopold’s guards, with Ruedi’s help, and stolen the small sail boat.
“How else could you have gotten to me so fast? Surely they would have found it by now. Unless you took the time to hide it.”
“I was in something of a rush, so no, I did not conceal it very well. But I had some good speed when I ran it aground. It is a little further in the trees than one would normally expect to find a boat.” Some very good speed. Ungodly even.
Seraina smiled, like she had heard Thomas’s thought.
“We can hide the swords here, and try to find the boat tomorrow,” she said. “Then, you can put me and the swords ashore near Altdorf and you can take the boat back to your dock. It will be your new ferry.” She said it all matter-of-factly, like it was the most obvious of plans and had already been decided.
Well, it had not been decided by everyone.
“I mean to be in Altdorf when Leopold comes,” Thomas said. “I think you know that.”
Seraina turned her head and stared at the fire. “You cannot,” she said.
I cannot?
Thomas felt a laugh building inside. But it was a cruel, mocking thing and he refused to let it escape. “And why not? You heard Mera. Noll needs every sword he can gather.” And even then….
Seraina turned on him. “Because you cannot!”
She turned to stare at the fire once again and spoke to the flames. “I have seen something. Something terrible, and I do not pretend to understand it. But I believe if you are in Altdorf when the Austrians come, you will die, Thomas.”
“A lot of people will die. We are beyond that now,” Thomas said.
She pulled her knees up to her chin and looked over them at Thomas. “I know what you are doing,” she said. “You have given up, and this is your way of taking your own life.”
“That is a sin,” Thomas said. “And a ridiculous thought.”
“Is it? So you feel Noll’s army has nothing to fear. The Austrians will crash against the Altdorf fortress and be thrown back like drops of rain from oiled leather. Is that what you think, Thomas?”
The dark laugh that he had so far kept in check, finally crawled out of his throat. “We will be slaughtered to a man! Leopold will reclaim his precious fortress and take up where he left off. Nothing will have changed. That is what I have seen.”
Thomas stood and began feeding pieces of wood into the fire. He refused to look at Seraina, so it came as a surprise when he felt her hand on his arm. She moved her head so he was forced to look at her.
“No. That is not what the Weave has in store for us. You must believe me—that much I have seen and I know to be true.” Her voice cracked. “It is you, Thomas. You that I fear for. Please, I beg you. You have everything to lose by being part of this.”
Thomas gripped a stick of wood so tightly his forearm muscles cramped, but he could not let go. He tried to turn away but her small hand found the left side of his face and pulled him back to look at her. Somehow, the heat of her hand penetrated even through the childhood scar.
“Promise me,” she said. “No, you must swear. Swear to your God, that you will not stand upon the walls of the Altdorf fortress.”
As he watched her defiantly blink away the tears threatening the corners of her eyes, he knew then that she could have asked him for anything, and he would have given it to her. An image of Sutter and Mera came to him. They would be in Altdorf now, or close to it. Along with hundreds of other people Thomas did not know the names of, but people he had come to recognize all the same. Like the woman in the inn who had given him extra ‘meat’ in his porridge. When the Austrians finally did come, the lives of these people would be irrevocably changed for the worse. And that was the best case scenario.
He knew it was madness, but he would have to accept Noll’s offer.
“I swear…” he said.
Seraina let out a breath and a soft sigh at the same time, and while the sigh was still on her lips, she pulled Thomas’s face down to hers and kissed him. Thomas flinched at first, but the kiss lingered. Thomas had never known anything so soft in all his life. The wood in his hand dropped to the ground, and not knowing what else to do with them, he put his fingers to the side of her face.
Seraina pulled away from the kiss and smiled at Thomas, perhaps to suppress a laugh. She took his hand from her cheek and guided it slowly down the side of her body, all the way to the small of her back. Even though she had the thick wool blanket wrapped around her, the sensation of his hand sliding down over her ribs, skimming the side swell of her breast, and settling at the hollow of her lower back, filled Thomas with an urgent need to feel her pressed along the entire length of his body. He encircled her with both arms and pulled her in tight. Their lips found each other again.
Thomas opened his eyes. She had misunderstood him. His oath was not what she thought. He placed his hands on Seraina’s shoulders and gently broke the embrace. She stepped back, a puzzled look on her face.
“I did not swear to you because I wanted to… well… this—,”
Seraina cut him off by reaching out and putting her hand to his lips.
“Oh, Thomas. How could a man who has seen so much of this world, have experienced so little?”
She took Thomas’s hand and kissed it. The combination of the moistness of her lips and the cool night air set his palm on fire. She stepped back and, with a smooth roll of her shoulders, let the blanket slide off and fall to the ground. The firelight flickered across her nude body, turning her skin the same auburn shade as her hair for a split second, before plunging it back into shadows.
“Tonight, I think it is time to change that,” she said.
He had been searching for a way to tell her he had decided to accept Noll’s request to assume command of the confederate army. But when Seraina stepped in and kissed his neck, and he felt the warmth of her bare skin against him, all such thoughts fled from his mind, and he made no effort to reclaim them.
He was, after all, merely a servant of life.
Chapter 13
Seraina and Thomas crouched in the thickets and watched as three Habsburg soldiers sat in the sun pulling at pieces of dried meat for their midday meal. A small, single-masted boat bobbed a few yards offshore. Its sail was down and a long bow line tied to a nearby tree was the only thing stopping it from drifting away. Looking at the amount of ash burnt in the campfire pit, Seraina felt they could not have been here for more than one, perhaps two, nights.
If the boat had been grounded high up on the shore, as Thomas had said, then it were these soldiers who had slid it back into the water. If only she and Thomas had come a day or two earlier, Seraina thought, the boat would now be theirs.
She turned to tell Thomas to crawl back through the brush, but he was already standing. He turned his belt around so the long dagger was at his back. She whispered his name and he looked up. He put his finger to his lips, and then motioned for her to stay put. Before Seraina could stop him, he began walking noisily toward the soldiers. Trees bent and slapped at him, while twigs snapped under his boots.
Just when she was sure things could not get worse, she heard Thomas call out, startling more than one bird out of its nest.
“Hello at the camp!”
Seraina winced and dropped to her belly. She had been about to tell Thomas that they did not need the boat. They would find another way to transport the swords.
No one needed to die.
“Have you got a spare bit of that for a fellow traveler?” Thomas said, pointing at the dried meat in their hands.
There was a pause. Then one of the men answered. “Sorry, friend. This is the Duke’s food and we have no right to give it to every beggar that comes along.”
Seraina inched forward on her elbows until she had a c
lear view. The three soldiers all stood. Two were focused on Thomas, but the other had his hand on the handle of a dagger tucked into his sword belt. He was older, more experienced if not higher in rank, and he swept the forest on all sides with a suspicious gaze. Seraina held her breath when he looked right at her. But, after only a second, his eyes moved on, and he remained ignorant of her trembling only a few strides away. She mouthed a silent thank you to the trees for protecting her yet again.
Thomas stood in front of the men now; the dagger hanging off the back of his belt clearly visible to Seraina but hidden from the soldiers.
“Please, me lords. I would not ask, but I have been out here lost coming on three days now. With nothing but bark to fight the rumbling in my belly.”
“Why are you here?” one of the two younger soldiers asked.
Thomas swayed on his feet. “Looking for a goat that run off. Please, just a strip of that meat and I will be on my way.” He shuffled closer.
“You do not look like a goat herder to me. Now, get back, or you will have more than a rumbling belly to worry over.”
The soldier stepped forward and raised his hand. Thomas hunched over and put one arm up in a feeble attempt to ward off the man’s blow. Whether or not the soldier actually intended to strike Thomas was something Seraina would never know, for the man suddenly screamed out in pain. He remained rooted in place while his piercing cry shattered the forest stillness. Seraina finally understood the reason for his lack of movement: a dagger was sunk up to its handle in the soldier’s foot. Thomas had slammed his weapon clean through the man’s boot. The steel blade had pierced the top of his foot and exited through the leather sole, staking him to the ground. Thick blood crept over the dirty leather, making it glisten.
The older soldier began drawing his long dagger but, before he could get it all the way across his body, Thomas stepped in and, using both his hands, redirected the deadly tip into the man’s mouth. It slid in at an angle, piercing the man’s soft palate and continuing up through the base of his brain. He died instantly, but his legs kept him standing for a few seconds longer, until the blood drained out of them and he collapsed like a rotten tree.