by J. K. Swift
“Morgarten?”
Leopold nodded. “The Schwyzers have been busy little builders, stacking up their wooden palisades and mud walls. They have managed to create a meager line of defenses that stretches from the Great Lake all the way to the western shore of Lake Aegeri. But that is where it ends.”
“Bah, we would only lose a few men taking those stick walls,” Klaus said. He had seen some of them and was not impressed.
“But why lose any? For every Austrian knight that falls off his horse and dies, years from now, there will be some ragged child sitting on the mud floor of his hut, listening to his grandfather regale him with tales of how he killed an honest to god nobleman.”
Klaus shrugged. He saw the sense in Leopold’s plan, but clearly did not care what tales might be told after he was gone.
“But no one is to know any part of this plan until we are on the road and headed east out of Zug. Is that understood?”
“Yes, my lord.”
It was simplicity in action, really. A scheme as old as violence itself. Make your opponent look somewhere and then run around behind him and slit his throat.
Leopold felt his eyes growing heavy. He sensed he would sleep well tonight.
***
He waited a full hour after he heard the men leave and the massive door slam shut. He had almost dozed off twice, but had kept from doing so by biting his cheek. The pain reminded him of what was at stake.
He knew he was granted certain liberties and privileges because of who he was, and who his allies were. But he was under no illusion that any of that would save him from Leopold’s wrath. The Duke would not let all his preparation go to waste. If he knew someone other than his trusted Klaus had even an inkling as to what he planned, that man would not see another sunrise.
So, he breathed, and waited, and ordered his limbs to stop cramping. The cold from the flagstones pressing up against his back had stopped bothering him long ago. When he finally tested his muscles by rolling onto his side, blood seeped into all the unused parts of his body.
It burned. He gritted his teeth and welcomed the discomfort, for it meant he was alive. This too reminded him of what was at risk.
When he was ready, he flipped the skirting of the strategy table aside and rolled out from under it. In the darkness, he could still make out the shapes of clay mountains and hills upon the miniature landscape. One mound, in particular, stood out.
Morgarten.
As quietly as he could he walked to the door and, holding his breath, he eased it open enough to glimpse into the lighted hallway. Seeing no one, he slipped from the room.
The entire time, the bells on his shoes made not a sound.
***
Sir Henri of Hunenberg sat up in his bed. It was blacker than a pit of tar in his room, but he had no trouble wrapping his fingers around the dagger handle hanging off one bed post. He withdrew the blade silently and stared into the darkness.
A soft rapping came once again from the door.
Someone was… knocking? At this hour?
The tapping came again. This time it had a playful rhythm to it. Henri growled and threw back his blankets. He fumbled in the dark for his night robe. He tied it about his waist, thrust the dagger through his belt, and then made his way to the hearth. He blew a small flame back to life, enough to light a candle, and then went to the door. He unlatched it and eased it open partway, keeping his foot lodged firmly behind its corner. He had to hold his own candle up to see who was there, for the hallway was shrouded in darkness and his late night visitor carried no light of his own.
“You? I do not find this entertaining. What—”
The Habsburg Fool held his finger to his lips. His white painted face stood out in the flickering candlelight like that of a ghost. “Night is the best time to visit a Knight, my lord. May I come in?” His voice was little more than a whisper.
“What do you want?”
“Oh, I cannot tell you all of that.” The little man leaned against the door jamb and traced curved outlines with his finger onto the heavy wooden door. “But I can tell you more than enough to make you happy you invited me into your room.” He began humming quietly to himself, turning his attention back to the door and the finger artwork that only he could see.
Henri cursed, threw back the door, and beckoned the simple man inside.
Chapter 22
Seraina stood at the forest’s edge, on the outskirts of Zug, and gazed out over a vast sea of soldiers erecting thousands of tents. Darkness was less than an hour away, so there was an urgency to their activities that gave the scene a frantic, disorganized appearance. She could have been standing right in their midst, instead of hidden in the shadows of a giant oak, and no one would have noticed her.
Above the shouts of men and the sounds of horses, far away, in the mountains above and to the south, she could hear the deep notes of alphorns as Noll’s lookouts relayed messages from peak to peak. She wondered how long it would take for Thomas to hear the same notes she was listening to right now. How many horns would it take to pass on the alarm?
Seraina sensed something behind her. Relief and anger flowed through her, competing to see which would overcome the other.
“Hello Gildas.”
Seraina did not turn around, but she heard the old druid exhale. After a moment he came to stand with her and share in the shadows of her tree. He wore a nondescript gray cloak, not his usual white one. It allowed him to blend into his surroundings more easily, Seraina thought, but it had not hidden him from her.
“There was a time when I could surprise you whenever I wished,” Gildas said.
“And there was a time when I knew I could trust you to tell me the truth,” Seraina said. She looked at her mentor, but he turned away from her and stared at the army setting up camp in the distance.
“Tell me you did not know Thomas was the Catalyst,” Seraina said. She had meant it to come out sharp and scolding, but instead, to her ears, she sounded like a little girl. Still, it seemed to have the desired effect, for Gildas flinched at her words, and when he looked at her, his eyes overflowed with regret.
“I suspected, my child. Nothing more.”
“Why did you not tell me? You should have said something before… before…”
Gildas took one of her hands in both of his and turned to face her. “I could not, Seraina. For I could have just as easily been wrong and you could have been right. I wanted to say something, I truly did. But to do so could have caused an unraveling of the Weave, with dire consequences neither one of us could have predicted.”
“And what of this?” Seraina pointed to the Habsburg army, thousands of men strong, spreading out before them as they spoke. Cooking fires were beginning to pop up like fireflies in the night. “Perhaps this is one of the dire consequences of which you speak.”
She looked at Gildas. “This could be a war of my own creation. What if this is not the time for the Helvetii to fight back? Perhaps my people were meant to go into hiding and wait for another hundred years. If I have misread the Weave, thousands will die tomorrow and their blood will all be on my hands.”
Seraina looked out at the fires again and tears broke free from both of her eyes. “I could not live with that,” she said.
Gildas stepped in and put his arm around her shoulders.
“I too have misread the Weave, and you will again before this life is finished. No one can be expected to see all Her patterns, but do not be so quick to doubt your abilities. And besides. An occasional misreading of the Weave can have wonderful results.”
He turned her head toward him and wiped her tears with his finger. “I think Thomas Schwyzer, Catalyst or not, would agree with me on that one.”
Seraina rapped the old druid in the chest with the back of her hand. “How can you joke at a time like this?”
“Jokes should be strictly reserved for times like these,” Gildas said, smiling. “Now, come here. Give an old man a hug and then we had best be moving on. Time is
short.”
Seraina made a show of resisting, but truth be told, there was nothing she wanted more. She would have stayed wrapped in the warmth of the old druid's arms for much longer, but he finally broke the embrace.
“It is time, Seraina.”
“To the Mythen, then,” she said, wiping her eyes once more.
Gildas nodded. “You go ahead. Someone must see that Thomas knows Leopold has reached Zug. I will stop by to warn him and then meet you on the mountain.”
Seraina frowned. “I heard the alphorns, so I am sure they know by now.”
Gildas nodded, knowingly. “You are most likely right. But since it is only an hour out of my way, I would like to make sure. Now go. The others will be waiting.”
Chapter 23
It was mid-afternoon and Thomas was in his tent when the alphorns began. Seconds later, Noll ducked his head inside.
“You hear them?” Noll asked.
“How could I not,” Thomas said. “What do they mean?”
“Leopold has reached Zug with a force eight thousand strong. Three thousand of them mounted.”
Thomas nodded. It was no worse than they had been expecting. The Confederate forces numbered just over eleven hundred, with no cavalry to speak of. But Thomas had confidence in their defenses. The men had worked tirelessly at their drills. They would make Leopold’s army bleed, of that he had no doubt. Whether or not it would be enough, that was another question.
An alphorn sounded again in the distance, and Noll looked in its direction.
“What do we do?”
“Make our rounds as usual. Check on the men, then eat a good meal and go to bed as early as possible.”
“That is it?”
Thomas shrugged. “We have done all we can. The waiting is over. We are in God’s hands now.”
It was an hour past midnight when one of the Rubin brothers woke Thomas. He spoke in an urgent whisper.
“Sir, you should come to the front wall.”
He could not tell whether it was Sepp or Marti, but Thomas knew neither one of them excited easily. He shrugged off his blanket and convinced his sleep-stiffened joints to get him on his feet. Without pressing the young man for further details, he followed him to the front gate of the wooden palisade.
Ruedi, Anton, and the other Rubin boy were already there, standing on the narrow ledge built halfway up the wall. They all stared at something in the darkness beyond. Thomas glanced at the brother walking beside him, and again at the one on the wall. He still had no idea who was who. When Anton saw Thomas approach, he hopped off the ledge to give Thomas room to climb up.
“What is it?” Thomas asked, as he stepped up the three split-log stairs to the ledge.
“A rider,” Anton said from below. “Probably their advance scout come to survey the defenses.”
“Evening, Cap’n,” Ruedi said as Thomas slid in between him and the Rubin boy. The bearded man had rested his war bow between two of the sharpened poles used to build the palisade. The string was drawn, and a black bolt sat in its groove, waiting to be unleashed. Ruedi’s fingers tapped the stock of the weapon tenderly. “Just say the word, and we can all go back to sleep.”
At first, Thomas saw nothing. There was only a sliver of moonlight, but someone had already extinguished the nearby torches on their side of the wall, so he was able to separate out the shape of a man and horse from the darkness of the forest.
“He is too far out,” Thomas said. “What is your count?”
Ruedi nodded. “The man knows his ranges. But I figure I could find him with six of every ten bolts. Nine of ten if you just want the horse.”
Thomas shook his head. “Hold, for now.” Six of ten was a very long distance in Ruedi’s measuring scale. The scout would not get much useful information from that far out. Especially, on a dark night such as this.
“How long has he been there?”
Ruedi nodded toward the brother. “He spotted him first. Rubin?”
Apparently, Ruedi still could not tell the brothers apart either.
“At least fifteen minutes, by now,” the boy said.
“Any sign of a flag? Maybe he has come to offer terms,” Anton said.
Thomas was just about to say that he would not be accepting any terms offered in the cover of darkness by Leopold, when Ruedi nudged his elbow and pointed at the shadow on the road.
“Here we go,” Ruedi said.
The figure began walking his horse toward them, its hooves echoed off the hard packed road, carrying far in the stillness of the night. He nudged his horse into a trot, and the echoes sounded like a drum roll.
“That is no messenger pony,” Ruedi said. “The man rides a destrier.” He hefted his crossbow and placed it against his shoulder.
The black figure’s horse broke into a gallop and both horse and rider began to emerge from the night and take form. He sits the saddle well, Thomas thought, just as the man let go of his horse’s reins and raised a crossbow to his shoulder.
“He is attacking!” the Rubin boy said.
Ruedi sighted down the length of his war bow, following the motion of the man and horse barreling toward them. They were almost within normal crossbow range now. Thomas scoured the woods, looking for others. But there was no one. What could he possibly hope to accomplish by attacking the palisade single-handedly? A young knight trying to make a name for himself? Thomas had certainly seen men do madder things.
“Cap’n…?”
Just as he was about to tell Ruedi to put him down, Thomas realized the man was not wearing armor. There was no glint of metal anywhere on him, and he shifted around much too easily on top of his war horse.
“Hold,” Thomas said. “Get your head down, Rubin.” He decided he liked Ruedi’s efficient naming method for the brothers. The boy crouched over, but kept one eye high enough to see above the wall.
Still at full gallop, the attacker sighted down his crossbow, and, raising himself slightly in his stirrups to steady his aim, fired. The bolt thudded into the main gate of the palisade, and sent vibrations through the wood to where they stood. As soon as he let the shot go, he wheeled his charger around and galloped back into the night. Like the man, the hoof beats soon receded beyond the senses of everyone standing at the wall.
“Rubin,” Thomas said. “Get me that bolt.”
The boy did not move, but kept staring over the wall into the darkness. Thomas was about to tell him again, when he heard someone throw off the crossbar on the gate and pull it open. He leaned out over the wall and saw the other Rubin boy digging at the head of the crossbow bolt with his knife.
Maybe tomorrow he would figure out a way to distinguish between the two of them, but for now, Ruedi’s system seemed to be working fine.
Seconds later, he came running back with the bolt in hand. Thomas jumped down and took it from him, then he and Anton looked it over in the light of a nearby torch.
“You think it might be a whistler?” Anton asked.
Thomas nodded, and held the bolt up to the light. “One that failed to whistle. Maybe a hastily constructed one.” He found what he was looking for; he twisted the iron point and the head came off. The shaft of the bolt was hollow, and inside was a piece of parchment. He fished it out carefully with the tip of his dagger and held it under the torch. Now Ruedi and the two brothers also crowded around, craning their necks to get a better look.
The characters were slanted, the penmanship unskilled. Much like his own, really. It took him a couple of tries to fully understand what it meant. And when he finally did discern its meaning, he prayed he was wrong.
By the blood of Mary.
“What does it say?” Anton asked.
“Rubin! Bring Noll here. Now.”
The two brothers looked at each other. “Which one of us, Sir?”
“Both! Carry him here if you must, but bring him now.”
While he waited for Noll to show up, Thomas began arranging several lanterns and torches so that they bathed a wide circle
of dirt in light.
“Someone get me another—”
“Lantern?” Gildas said. He held one out to Thomas on the end of his walking stick. “Will this one do?”
Thomas took a step back, and blinked. “Gildas? Where did you come from?” He immediately cast his eyes over the area behind the old man.
“She is not there, Thomas Schwyzer. You might as well stop looking.”
Thomas was about to ask who he meant, but something in the old man’s eyes would not let the words come out.
“Where is she?” Thomas asked.
“Safe. Is that not enough?”
A thousand questions burned in his mind, but they would have to wait. For just then the boys came back with a puffy-eyed Noll Melchthal lagging behind.
“Sleep did not find me easily, this day, ferryman. But I was finally dreaming of soft hands and the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and the next thing I know, Sepp and Marti’s callused paws are shaking me like an apple tree.”
Noll looked around and seemed to notice Gildas for the first time. “Who is the old fellow?”
“Some names are worth knowing, Arnold Melchthal. But mine is not one of those,” Gildas said.
Noll glanced at Thomas.
“He is right. Ignore him for the time being. We have more important things to worry about,” Thomas said.
Gildas nodded. “Agreed. Now, read us the message.”
With everyone gathered around, Thomas unrolled the small parchment. “First, let me say that I believe this to come from a man well-known to all of us that served in Outremer. And while we have not always seen eye to eye in the past, I trust that he would not lead us astray. We must heed his words.”
“Someone from the Levant? Who?” Anton asked.
“Sir Henri of Hunenberg,” Thomas said.
Ruedi let out a whistle. “Henri? Is he still alive?”
Noll scrubbed his face with his hands. “Very much alive. And he rides against us under Leopold’s banner. Go on. Read the note. Then we can decide whether or not to trust the man.”