Guardsmen of the King: A Historical Adventure Novel (George Glen's Adventures Book 1)

by Richard Bergen

  Then this day, the fate, the end. Dark red blood on bright white snow and the death of all my dreams.

  If there was a hell, I thought, I would meet my father there again, but this time I would face him with confidence - this time he would not be able to break me.

  But somehow the existence of an afterlife suddenly seemed absurd to me. I saw the chopping block some distance away and knew at the same moment that everything I had ever been would end there. After that there was nothing, only blackness.

  Next to the chopping block stood the huge figure of the executioner. His eyes were not visible in the dark slits, which made the sight of him even more frightening and gruesome than he already was. He had been leaning on the axe, the blood of the last victim still clinging to its sharp, curved blade. This also applied to the block. Its top was soaked in dark blood and whole tufts of human hair were stuck in some notches.

  The drum roll behind us faded.

  A priest approached us. He asked me and Richard if we had any sins to confess that we didn't want to take with us on our journey. Yes, he called it a journey. I still said yes and when I was done with my patricide story, the priest looked at me with an ashen face and said, "So may God forgive you for all your sins, amen."

  He let me kiss the crucifix and I saw out of the corner of my eye how he wiped it afterwards and made a hasty cross.

  Richard finished faster than I did and shocked the priest far less with his sins.

  Finally, a man in red robes stepped forward and declared, "You have both been found guilty of wilful burglary, as well as theft of another's property. All this was done maliciously and without respect for the property of others. For this you are now punished by death in the name of the King."

  "Is there no trial?" asked Richard of the robe-bearer, looking at him challengingly.

  The latter eyed my friend contemptuously. "That was the trial." At this, a diabolical smile played around his lips.

  He nodded to the jailers. They grabbed Richard and forced him to his knees. His head was turned to the side and placed on the bloody block. Desperately Richard tried to get back on his feet, but the prison guards were stronger than him.

  The red-clad man bent down to Richard and said to him quietly. "I advise you not to fight back, my boy. You certainly don't want the executioner to have to strike you two or three times before you breathe your last."

  These words had an effect. Richard took another deep breath, looked at me one last time and then closed his eyes.

  The executioner picked up his instrument of murder and swung it far above him.

  "Stop!" a powerful male organ resounded through the courtyard. I turned and recognised several royal guards, including the one who had recently interrogated me. The executioner let a disappointed groan escape from his hood and reluctantly put down the axe. The jailers let Richard get to his feet, who could not yet believe his luck.

  "What's going on?" asked the man in the red robe, who obviously didn't like the interruption very much.

  One of the Guardsmen said calmly, "These two are innocent. Captain Stephen Fletcher has personally instructed us to bring them to him."

  He handed the robe-bearer a document, which he skimmed. Finally he nodded. "All right, you can take them."

  A couple of Guardsmen approached us, dragging Richard and me behind them by our chains like dogs.

  I had no idea what was going on, but I thanked fate for this incredible turn of events.

  "If your purpose was to save us, you haven't come a moment too late," I finally said cheekily.

  The guardsman who had interrogated me said coolly: "We were present and waiting the whole time. It is always interesting to see someone face death. We didn't want to miss this spectacle at any price. Only in the face of death do you recognise a man's true character."

  I let the words sink in first and then asked curiously, "Where are you taking us?"

  "You'll see."

  Chapter 21

  Out of the Tower, right into a carriage. However, we were not freed from our chains, which prompted me to ask a corresponding question.

  "These are to remind you that you can always return to where we took you from," the guardsman said. The vehicle began to move, navigating the bumpy London streets.

  I looked at Richard and recognised my own disorientation in his confused face. What the hell was going on here? The man who had decided our execution yesterday was now saving us from it. Why? According to the current law, we deserved to die for breaking and entering. Why should the very side concerned want to save us from this fate?

  The carriage stopped after a good half hour in front of a building I knew all too well. It was the town house of Captain Stephen Fletcher.

  So we were brought back to the place where it had happened. I was still pondering the motives of the Guardsmen. Did they want to take the law into their own hands? Hardly, they would certainly not go to such trouble. Or did it have something to do with this letter? My thoughts were heating up.

  We were led through the building's portal and a magnificent reception hall to the wide-flanked staircase. In the daylight, the building looked extremely friendly and beautiful. The salon into which we were now taken was also strikingly friendly and flooded with the light of the morning sun. Nothing reminded me of the dark shadows I had tried to penetrate with my eyes at night.

  It took a while before anyone made an effort to see us. We stood stiffly in the area, awaiting any fate with confidence, insofar as it was not death.

  Finally a door was opened and an imposing guardsman entered, whom I immediately identified as Stephen Fletcher. He came towards us purposefully. When he stood directly in front of us, he examined our faces closely. "Now, you scoundrels, how does it feel to have escaped the executioner's axe?"

  "Good," Richard said.

  "A little hungry," I gave out a little too cheekily again, but already my stomach had been growling throughout the carriage ride. Apparently there was no meal at the Tower before the execution.

  "You will get a meal," Fletcher said. "But you'll have to earn it first. I hear you speak French?"

  "Not perfectly, but pretty well." That was an exaggeration, but if life dealt you a trump card, you should use it.

  "Good," he said, handing me a letter. I recognised the envelope immediately. It was clearly the document I had recently tried to steal.

  "Translate!", Fletcher urged me, watching with interest as I pulled the letterhead out of the envelope. I read the text silently at first and then translated aloud:

  Dear Captain Fletcher! The devil awaits his sacrifices where the water meets the cross. Bring them in the face of the second circle! With respect R.

  The men all listened to me eagerly and finally one of them said: "We are expected in Péronne in Picardy. The next circle, that means the next full moon. So we still have a month, not much, I must say. Not much."

  Fletcher nodded thoughtfully. "I don't want Darrieux to put a spoke in our wheel again."

  I was getting tired of the drivel. Without thinking of the consequences, I asked, "Who the hell is this Darrieux?"

  Fletcher looked at me and for a moment I thought he would instantly give the order to take us back to the execution site and let the executioner finish his day's work. But he must have changed his mind, because he nodded and said: "All right, you should know. Jean Darrieux is the commander of the French king's personal guard - the Musketeers, our declared arch-enemies."

  "What have we got to do with it?", I asked.

  "Well, it's embarrassing enough, but none of us speak any French. That document you just read out to us is an extremely secret message to us. So we couldn't entrust some translator with the task of translating it, because that would have left us with an unwelcome insider. Since you and your friend have already seen the letter anyway, it would have been foolish not to use your skills."

  "And now you want to kill us so we don't blab, don't you?" said I, cursing my own naivety.

  "We could easily do t
hat," Fletcher countered calmly. "But we don't intend to. We want you to work for us."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Well, as I see it, we need two volunteers who are completely unknown to the Musketeers and who can speak French. Two sacrifices to the devil, to be more precise." He looked first at me, then at Richard, and finally, grinning maliciously, said, "I think we've found our volunteers."

  P A R T * T H R E E

  Through the night

  Chapter 22

  It had become pitch dark. Night had descended softly over the open landscape of French Picardy, shrouding everything and everyone in its blackness.

  Our little travelling party consisted of five people: my newfound friend Richard, three Guardsmen of the English king in plain civilian clothes and me. The Guardsmen who had been accompanying us for some time now were so taciturn and closed that I had to consider all my fears and anxieties about this journey to be justified. What could one expect from a mission that began with the invitation 'The devil awaits his sacrifices'?

  I looked around the nocturnal area and remembered that this was the place my early teacher and lover Lady Isabelle had always raved about. I couldn't quite agree with her high opinion. This France didn't seem much different to me than England. The woods and the rain were very similar and the bandits and beggars we often encountered seemed even more starved than their English counterparts.

  Fortunately, it didn't look like rain that night. The canopy of stars spread cold and clear over us.

  At a place sheltered by trees, Tom, one of the Guardsmen, raised his hand, which was a general sign to stop and pay attention. Tom was the leader of our small troop. He was of medium stature and of a silent, thoughtful temperament. His hair and beard already showed streaks of grey, indicating that he was no longer the youngest. But there was always something nobly aristocratic about his bearing and habitus. So it was immediately obvious to outsiders who was in charge in the group. Tom was not a man of many words, but when he said something, it carried weight.

  We dismounted and for the hundredth time I admired the casual routine with which the Guardsmen got out of the saddle. Actually, I should have felt nothing but fear for these men, but I couldn't help but be caught again and again by the thought of wanting to be one of their own.

  Two of the Guardsmen now went straight into the forest to search for combustible material in the undergrowth, while the third stayed with us as a silent guard. These men had been doing this since the beginning of our journey. They never took their eyes off us, because they knew we would use every chance to escape. Although Captain Stephen Fletcher had assured us that our help would be needed, by now we felt like captives and as we steadily approached our destination of Péronne, the air to breathe was getting scarcer and scarcer.

  It took barely ten minutes and the two Guardsmen emerged from the undergrowth with a bundle of brushwood each. They piled it up in a small heap in the middle of the clearing and began the procedure of lighting the fire. Soon the small campfire was burning and we all took a seat around the warming site.

  The men speared a few patties they had taken from their saddlebags onto thin wooden sticks and held them into the crackling flames. Richard and I each received a patty and did the same with the baked goods.

  Now what I had not expected happened. Wilbur, one of the Guardsmen, who was huge and quite strong and obviously knew how to handle a blade, cleared his throat and then spoke: "Towards the end of tomorrow we will reach Péronne." He looked at me through the flames of the fire. "That will be the first time we need you then. I advise you not to blow this opportunity."

  "Don't worry!", I retorted. "We'll help if we can." I paused rhetorically for a moment, then said, "Of course, it would be much easier for us if we knew what it was all about. We've been with you for four weeks now and we still don't know anything."

  Wilbur narrowed his eyes slightly and then replied sharply, "You know as much as you need to know. The rest you will know when we see fit."

  Now the third guardsman joined in the conversation. I already knew this man from London. I had seen him in a tavern before our stay in the Tower, where he had seduced a pretty girl in no time. He was quite good-looking, with long black hair and an ever-present ironic tug around the corners of his mouth. The carefully trimmed chin and moustache showed me that he also seemed to be quite vain. His name was Vincent and he was the ladies' man of the little troupe, as I had learned from their few conversations. Now he said seriously: "Wilbur is right. Nevertheless, I would advise you not to feel fear. It is very unlikely that you will come to death in the following days."

  Suddenly my friend Richard raised his voice. He contorted his face and then asked, "Unlikely, but not impossible? Is that what you meant to say?"

  Vincent raised his eyebrows meaningfully and replied poetically, "Death can find you anytime, anywhere."

  "Why won't you tell us what it's all about?", I probed further. The Guardsmen had talked more in the last few moments than they had in the whole of the previous month. I wanted to take advantage of this talkativeness at any cost.

  "We have our orders," Tom replied resolutely.

  "Words like 'The devil awaits his sacrifices' don't sound like you have anything to worry about, though," I countered.

  "You have nothing to fear," Vincent repeated. "We are, after all, Guardsmen of the King of England. We are the best fencers under God's heaven and we stick together like brothers. We will protect you too."

  "That's supposed to reassure us?" asked Richard, furrowing his brow.

  "If it does not reassure you, you insult us," retorted Wilbur sharply, the glow of the fire playing on his broad, full-bearded face. "I can't blame you for not having heard of our fame. After all, you both crawled up from the street dirt. So I want to expand your knowledge. In London we are widely known and feared. We're the best men in the King's Guard. The hard core, so to speak. We're also known as the Three Guardsmen. But it is not only our great fighting skills that distinguish us. Above all, it is our code of honour: each one of us stands up for the collective and the collective stands up for each one of us. This is a law that none of us will ever violate."

  I was so impressed that I was unable to counter anything. The words of this man - this hero - had completely convinced me and removed any doubt about his credibility.

  We finished our meagre meals in silence and lay down as the last embers of the fire gradually died out.

  I lay on my back, hands clasped behind my head, staring thoughtfully at the starry sky. Just before sleep came for me, I murmured something into my fluffy beard. Only very softly, so that no one could hear it. Like a little prayer for protection. Smiling. "The Three Guardsmen."

  Chapter 23

  Blinding white light woke me rudely. I opened my eyes and the glaring fireball of the sun stabbed brutally into my pupils. I quickly turned away and looked around. Colourful spots danced before my eyes. I hadn't experienced such a sunny day in a long time. Apparently France was very different from cloudy England after all. Even the landscape where we had camped last night seemed more attractive and beautiful today. The green of the trees shone and an unsurpassed variety of colourful summer flowers sprang up from the lush grass. Wonderful, I thought.

  Someone grabbed me by the shoulder. It was Richard, looking at me with a grin. "Are you awake too?" he said gleefully.

  I could hardly understand his good mood. After all, today was the day I had been looking forward to with anxious anticipation. The Guardsmen's words had reassured me, but that didn't make me fearless. So I asked Richard angrily, "What are you grinning at?"

  "Just look around!" he said. "This country is beautiful."

  "Oh, you think so?", I retorted sourly.

  "Yes. The warmth, the beautiful landscape. This is how I imagine paradise to be," he enthused. "This is where I want to be buried."

  "If you long for it too much, your wish will come true sooner than you think," I said crossly.

  "Are you still afraid of this meeting w
ith the devil?" he asked me laughing.

  "Aren't you?"

  "No. The Guardsmen said they would protect us, didn't they? I see no reason to doubt their credibility."

  "Guess you have some learning to do." Once again I tried to sound as hardened as I could.

  As my eyes adjusted to the light of the sun, I looked around. The Guardsmen, led by the silent Tom, were already mounted and waiting for me.

  I hurried to do the same, because I didn't want to be seen as a weakling or a dreamer. I was a little angry with Richard. He could have woken me up. The guards always made a joke of letting me sleep late and then waiting saddled up. But Richard was my friend.

  When I was finally in the saddle, the small group started to move. I lightly pushed my boots into the turnouts of my good-natured, but already somewhat decrepit mare. So I formed the end of the group. Riding the animal still caused me some difficulty, for it was the first time I had been able to call such a distinguished means of transport as a horse my own. Back home in England I had never had anywhere near enough money to do so, and the whims of such a four-legged creature now amazed me every day.

  Our way led us through a slightly hilly landscape, which we crossed at a gallop. Dense woods were replaced by fields and small villages. The streams that had to be crossed were so narrow that no bridge was needed. None of the passers-by found our appearance strange, for we were all dressed like simple people: plain shirt, frayed hat, tattered trousers and unpolished boots without spurs. The Guardsmen concealed the only thing of great value to them in their rolled-up blanket - their rapiers. So far our ride had gone without any problems. The Guardsmen had never been forced to say anything in French, for they were incapable of doing so. Only I possessed this ability.