The Tirnano - Book 1 'FINN'
Page 17
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Outside the snow lay thick and deep. The cold creeping into the castle, the chill permeating through the thick stone walls, but it was unable to drive its icy bite any deeper into his already frozen bones.
With measured strides he made his way the length of the corridor following the young squire. A damp and penetrating mist followed him along the passageway at ankle level, swirling about the crashing steps of his iron clad boots as his heels struck the rough granite slabs of the floor. The corridor dimly lit by tallow lamps; flickering yellow circles of light creating grotesque shadows that danced on the walls around them. The acrid smell of burning animal fats saturated his senses.
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They were following him, as they always did.
Their crouching, crawling, hopping forms were at the periphery of his vision. Swivelling his eyes left and right they would disappear. They were only ever visible in the corners of his eyes.
But they were there; they were always there, following in their hundreds, whispering― eternally whispering.
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Daniel von Felden, Baron, Komtur das Schwertbrudern, commander of a battalion of two thousand fighting men, was haunted. His nights were full of nightmares; his nightmares full of their silent screams. Clamouring images of the Whisperers, each captured at the instant of death tore like a spinning kaleidoscope through every moment of his sleep. Awake he was denied relief, for his waking moments too were full of their whisperings. He dreaded the dark. It was then he would hear them scurrying closer to him, whispering. He had not slept from dusk to dawn since the day the witch had cursed Ulrich.
Most times he would lay in a cold sweat, dreading the moment that one of them finally touched him. Even now he could sense them following. The shades of every life that Ulrich had extinguished; each man, woman or child that had died as a result of a meeting with its razor sharp edge, with its needle sharp point…
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They were the Whisperers. They followed ― their bodies contorted and disfigured by the fatal wounds each had sustained. Those closest reaching out with ghostly arms he could almost feel them plucking the hem of his surcoat, almost feel them pulling at his belt, almost feel the grasping, insubstantial fingers, clawing and groping for Ulrich.
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The door to the meeting hall was abruptly before him. He drew his ornate jewelled dagger, with its forearm long blade from the sheath, which sat high on his right hip, the dagger, lifted from the belt of one of Saladin’s fierce Mamluk slave warriors some fifteen years beforehand, the moment after he had driven Ulrich deep into his ill-fated enemy’s throat.
He swallowed once, clearing his mouth of an unexpected rush of saliva.
The squire stepping to one side gestured for him to move forward. With his left hand, he reached over his shoulder and loosened Ulrich in its scabbard; he then struck the hilt of his dagger three times on the dark oak panels.
With a heavy clunk he heard the latch lifted from inside. The door began to swing inwards, away from him...
25.
Castle Dietrichstein.
1216AD
“Bring to me that young lad of whom you spoke; I need someone to at least hold my mirror when I shave, if nothing else.”
“You mean to eradicate that fungus?” said Michael pulling at his own beard, “Wonders never cease. There was I thinking it were to be a permanent fixture. Without a doubt it shows your age, the grey streaks are most becoming.”
“Are you going to find that boy? Or do I promote Johann to second in command?”
~
Daniel had been back at the castle for less than a week; acceptance of the Gondolvian Monarch’s gold still fresh in his mind. Preparations to move his mercenaries to the battle almost completed. Servants, Knechte, and the Lizard knights dashing in all directions, finalising the carrying and packing. Daniel stood like a rock in the middle of a rush of floodwater, watching the proceedings.
“Get those horses over here, lad, c’mon shift it! Do you think we have all day?” Casmir was in full voice. A young lad was struggling to lead four uncooperative carthorses to the front of a large, fully loaded wagon. Daniel stepped quickly to the lad’s side, grasping the traces in his powerful hands; he swung his weight towards the ground, bringing all four horses immediately under his control. Handing the leathers back to the lad, he went to turn away.
“Thank you, my Lord,” puffed the lad, his young face red with exertion.
Daniel turned back, “What’s your name, boy?”
“Milo Witt, Lord.”
“Ah, so you’re Jacob’s lad, I was looking to see you. Have you spoken to Sir Michael von Walden today?”
“No, Lord, I just but returned from the stable block with these beasts.”
“I have need of a new Knechte, or in your case it will probably be just man servant, for what you know about fighting and horses, could probably be written on my thumb nail, think you up to the post?”
The lad’s chin dropped to his chest, and he sighed loudly.
“Speak boy, are you fit for it?”
“Yes Lord,” said the lad, dark brown eyes looked straight into Daniel’s.
“Good, get those horses delivered, and then away with you to my quarters. I will attend shortly, I need to shave and take a bath. Ensure you have plenty of hot water; it has been a month since I felt soap on my body. It will probably be a month or more until I feel it again. Go on, move it.”
“Yes, Lord,” the lad fisted his chest, and with a more positive pull on the traces moved off, leading the now calmed horses into position.
“Bit soft, and a little chubby, but I’m sure you’ll toughen him up quite quickly,” said Michael with a large smile.
“Where did you just spring from? I thought I told you to get that lad to me hours ago?”
“Sorry my Lord, I was delayed with problems loading weapons from the armoury.”
“Problems?”
“None now.”
It was about an hour later, Daniel felt that preparations for the move were going well enough for him to take some time for himself. Leaving his more than capable quartermaster, Casmir in charge, he made his way to his personal quarters.
The lad showed he was adept with a shaving knife, and managed to complete his first duty without causing a single nick. The bath was ready, full of scalding water. Daniel did not notice the lad’s eyes widen or the flush that came to Milo’s cheeks, as he stripped and climbed gingerly into the large half barrel.
“C’mon lad, get that brush and soap moving, it won’t scrub my back on its own.”
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Ulrich vibrating in its scabbard alongside his sleeping skins woke the Baron. He grasped the sword’s hand grip and the buzzing ceased. His mind filled with a powerful impression that he should take a side trip away from the convoy of troops and wagons, deep into the mountains.
Ulrich was insistent. Insistent too, that Milo should accompany them.
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Their horses followed a narrow path without guidance, Daniel riding a full length ahead of Milo.
It was almost nightfall when they made camp. Each attended to their horse, Daniel then helped Milo by starting a small fire. The lad warmed some pre-prepared food, and they sat either side of the flickering flames eating in silence.
“Wir werden die Nacht in zwei Teile unterteilt, (We’ll split the night into two) you take the first watch. --- Anything out of the ordinary and I mean anything, wake me, scream, shout; but do not try to sort anything on your own. I need a squire not a liability.” Daniel spoke in the Randakeel, a language common to them both.
“Yes Lord.”
Rolling himself in his cloak, Daniel shuffled as close to the fire as he could without setting the close woven wool alight, and with a sheathed Ulrich in his arms allowed himself to sleep.
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They came without warning. In the dark behind his closed eyelids they began to ga
ther; they whispered, he struggled in his dream to hear them. The whispering was too hushed to make out the words, but he strained, knowing they wanted to say something. In his dream he couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there.
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Daniel opened his eyes.
Milo sat on a log the other side of the fire. Through slatted lids, Daniel lay observing his new body servant. The lad quietly dropped a short piece of wood on the fire, sparks momentarily flew upwards. The face that he watched looked soft and gentle in the flickering firelight, almost like a girl’s.
With an imperceptible start he suddenly saw the lad as a young woman, a woman masquerading as a lad. He forced the thought away as impossible; but not before a flush came to his cheeks, as he considered the times over the last few weeks when he had been brazenly male.
“Get some sleep,” he said brusquely, angry with himself for his foolish thoughts. “I’m awake now, I won’t go off again.”
“But it has been merely a few hours Lord, the moon not yet risen.”
"Soll ich mich immer wiederholen?" (Am I to always repeat myself?) He snarled.
Milo said nothing, but wrapped himself in his cloak, and lay close to the fire after placing another two small logs on the flames.
Daniel pulled his cloak around his shoulders. He held Ulrich across his knees, his hands involuntarily caressing the leather scabbard, the sword vibrated gently in an expression of pleasure.
The moon began to lift over the mountains, illuminating the bare rocks, reflecting off the snow filled clefts and ravines. A ghostly light fell across the scene, the black fir trees and star speckled sky contrasting garishly with the white landscape. His thoughts drifted to Helga, wondering what she was doing, how she looked in her sleep, the curve of her neck, the swell of her bosom.
Gently stroking the nondescript scabbard, his eyes grew heavy; the image of Helga, the only woman he had ever loved grew stronger. His mind filled with memories:
26.
Baroness Elfrida von Felden
1186AD
It was on my thirteenth birthday that I first took another’s life.
~
Have you ever known hatred? A real deep, all consuming hatred― the kind of hatred that keeps you focused on just one thing, the thing that you hate― or the person you hate. Have you known the kind of hatred that grips your innards with a smouldering, wrenching, eternal burning? If you have, then you will understand why I felt no remorse.
We were not evil. At least I didn’t think we were- Cornelius my brother; just two years younger than me, and I.
I’m sure we were just normal children, perhaps a little boisterous, for we had learned to love life; we would spend our days pretending we were powerful Knechte on our huge war horses, galloping and play fighting along the corridors and passages of the old castle. We would fight with whoever came near us with our wooden swords, laughing and screaming in our enjoyment of life.
Father used to smile a lot back then.
The sun I’m sure, shone brighter too.
We were young, happy and carefree, and best of all, mother loved us.
But that was before he came.
That was before he named us as evil, before he stole away our laughter, before he brought his sticks and began to beat us.
My mother Elfrida, Baroness Elfrida von Felden to give her correct title, died in childbirth.
They said it was a girl. I never saw her.
I can clearly remember being dragged by the nuns into my mother’s bedchamber to say farewell. Everything sat in its usual place. Rich tapestries still hanging on the walls, those beautiful bright pictures, which the women of the shore had woven, as loving gifts to my mother. Hanging exactly where they always had been. The scent of my mother, which I knew so well, was all around me, but it was overpowered by a sickly, metallic smell which I did not recognise.
How can you say goodbye to someone who doesn’t respond? Who doesn’t cover your face with loving kisses, to someone who is no longer there?
Most of all, I remember blood everywhere. Bed covers and towels lying haphazardly around her beautiful room where they had been thrown. They too were splattered with blood. It could only have been my mother’s blood. I felt offended at the sight of the disarray; it was besmirching the usually pristine perfection of her special space.
She lay across the bed with her head twisted to one side. Her face contorted. Her eyes open wide and staring. Her hair matted and wet with sweat. Her body covered with a sheet, it too was stained with blood.
I fought to be free to run to her. I tried to scream; but they forced silence upon me. Holding me and squeezing my arms as they held me still, forcing me to look at her. I screamed inside instead.
A priest, dressed in black was standing in the middle of my mother’s chamber. I was upset to see him, for mother allowed no men in her chamber― except for father that is.
A book, the colour of his garments was open in his hands; he read from it loudly, almost spitting the text. The words were in Latin, I recognised all but a few of them; he spoke of the dead rising again at the end of days. I took little notice of his words. My eyes were drinking in the horror from all around me.
He frightened me; he was tall and thin with a big nose and made me think of a crow. I hated crows from that day.
I didn’t want to wait until the end of days. I wanted her to rise now. I wanted my mother back. I wanted her to hold me in her arms, pressing me to her softness. I wanted to feel the touch of her hair as it blew in my face, to smell the sweetness of her breath as she whispered my name. “Daniel, mein kleiner Daniel, kommen Kuss Ihre Mutter gute Nacht,” (Daniel, my little Daniel, come kiss your mama goodnight) that is what I wanted to hear.
But it never came, she was silent. The priest droned on in his religious language.
~
It was but a day later when the priest and the nuns buried her.
They were buried together, my mother, and the baby that had killed her.
I stood holding my brother’s hand, together we wept; for we were still allowed to weep back then.
It was but a few days after they had shovelled the wet, black soil onto her cold, white uncovered face that my Father returned. I had shuddered and sobbed as I watched the filthy earth smear its blackness across her beautiful clear skin, the memory of that desecration lives with me even now.
I listened to the clatter of hooves outside the keep as he arrived. And then, following the heavy tread of his footsteps, I envisaged the route he took to his room. His door slammed shut with a crash that reverberated throughout the entire castle.
It was almost a week before he emerged.
It was the year of our Lord 1186, he said.
His face was hard, and his eyes were dull.
I was ten years old. It was more than three years before I saw him smile again.
27.
Pater Johann
1189AD
Father was away; again. What had Cornelius and I done that was so bad? So bad, that he spent every possible hour away from us.
Perhaps we were evil after all.
“You will stand there until you can say it correctly, do you understand?”
“Yes Pater, I understand,” I replied, my teeth chattered uncontrollably in the bitter cold.
From the moment he arrived I began to hate him.
He was Pater Johann, a close friend of the Abbot of Riga. He was our tutor of all things written and calculated. He rejoiced in the exegesis of the scriptures, extracting meanings which my young mind could never comprehend. He then revelled in beating me for my childish lack of perception.
I hated him more as each day passed.
He forbade us, my brother and me, to speak in our own language, Randakeel, the language of our parents and our ancestors, for we were Raandalist; the people of the coast. He insisted instead, that we speak das innere mund, the German, or worse still Latin and even Greek.
He used a switch constantly to emphasise
his teachings, either beating upon the table, or more usually on us.
Dependent upon his whim, the day would be spent entirely within whatever language he chose. He would never allow that with which we were comfortable; our mother’s tongue.
He was a cruel and heartless man and I hated him. He wore the plain spun, brown worsted of his order, not to display his faith, but to disguise his black and evil heart. He was a beast, not in stature, for he was short and thin like a trimmed beech sapling. But he was a beast in his heart.