The older woman tsked. “Dinna tell me what you are feeling, lassie. I have borne three children in my time, and I was more stubborn than you when it was my first. I almost lost her because I wouldna stop working.” She waved her hand. “Get yourself some water and take a break. If nothing else, go to your man's tent and get his clothes so they can wash them.”
“I can—”
“I know, I know. But listen ta someone who knows better this once. Have you eaten?”
Kirsten stood, rubbing her back. “I have an urge to eat well-sweetened fried sauerkraut.”
Maggie grinned. “Better than I was with my second. I had the urge to eat Yorkshire pudding with smoked fish and drank unsweetened lemon juice.” She motioned again. “Take the clothes to Liesel. Then sit down and after I make it, eat your sauerkraut. Do as I say.”
Kirsten had to admit, taking a break was what she wanted to do. And her cravings had gone from sublime to ridiculous. Honestly, just thinking about sauerkraut fried in lard with three spoons of honey made her mouth water. She trudged across the USE encampment, reaching Richard's tent. She was glad she had chosen the man; he had no interest in her as a woman as yet, at least when he'd found out everything about her he had done nothing. Even considering the first they had even spoken to each other was when he discovered her sleeping against his chest. She had expected…She shivered. After Simon, then Rolf, she had expected the worst. But he was a gentle man.
She gathered up his clothes, opening the bag looking for any more that needed cleaning. But she stopped when she saw the guns set on top. She took one of the heavy pistols out. A sleek well-inlaid piece of machinery. The dog had been latched back, and when she opened the pan as she had seen him do, her eyes widened. It was loaded! Hastily, she put it back and closed the bag. She would ask him tonight if there was more that needed washing.
“Kirsten?” She flinched away at the gentle voice.
“I was told to get your washing. I was going to check the bag, but thought I should wait to ask.” She was terrified he would beat her, even after all this time.
“That is all.” He pointed at the wool tunic trousers and shirt that lay on her knees. “But you should not exert yourself.”
“Maggie said Liesel would do them for you.”
“Be sure to thank her for me.”
"I will." She started to stand, and he was there, taking her arms and lifting her.
“Be careful.”
“I will. Thank you for your gentle pains.”
“It is nothing.”
****
Simon snarled as he saw the pregnant little sow walk from the tent, followed by the sergeant. He remembered the man from the previous week, dividing up the camp followers and sutlers, and especially the four wheel-lock pistols he had been carrying. Wheel-locks were expensive; a well-made one cost half again what you might pay for a musket. Fifteen florins each. Almost twenty-six livres. Over a hundred livres there for the taking.
So once he had sold his stock of beer and liquor, he would make his move.
And he would have a chance to indulge himself one last time.
****
Margaret Rourke, better known as Maggie, was in her element. While there were no ranks, all of the women who worked for the men of the Third Regiment thought of her as their commanding officer. Not bad for a girl who had followed her lover when he had gone to fight for Spain as one of the Wild Geese all those years ago. She had lost him in Flanders that first year, but like that now-dead man, she had not gone home, because she had found contentment in what she did.
She had been at the battle of Suhl, where the Swabian feint had been shattered, losing her second husband that day. But she still had two of the three children she had borne with him. The eldest, Bridget, was stirring one of the stew kettles. Johnnie was going to school in Grantville, and would graduate this year. Poor Michael had not even lived to see five. Perhaps if the Ring of Fire had happened a year earlier, he might have, because she had been told that the smallpox he had died from was well-known in their time and almost eradicated.
She seasoned the kettle she was at, then tasted it. Not right yet. She added some more herbs, tasted again. Better. “Keep at it, Gerta.” She walked toward the next. She paused at an angry voice.
****
Francesco Maria Broglia di Chieri, count of Revello, didn't understand why he had to deal with this. Of course, he had met Giulio Raimondo Mazarini during the Mantuan war, but he had never understood why he was suddenly important to the French! Mazarini, or how he now styled himself Mazarin, had sent him a letter from Paris asking him to come. That first meeting with the dread Cardinal Richelieu had been even more astounding. He would become a Field Marshal of France after this battle?
It was if God had told David at birth he would be king!
But not yet. The Duke of Angoulême refused to accept a foreign child as someone equal to him. Nor would Charles de la Porte. They had instead assigned him as a junior officer of a tercio.
But he had been made of sterner stuff than Le Duc or the cavalry. When the senior officer fled with the others, Francesco had rallied his tercio, put some spine into them, and charged as de la Porte had commanded, a brave act that had cost him his favorite horse to a stray musket ball. He was still pinned when one of the tedeschi dannati had caught him trying to move his Ercole off his leg!
He had told them; ask for a ransom and be damned! But instead of killing him they had moved the dead horse and moved him to the encampment where all of the Idiot Francese had been put.
So he found himself in the 'chow line.'
****
"Stew again? This is what you fools consider proper food?" It was one of the cavalrymen; a third or fourth son of some Italian laird from his accent, no doubt. But he was shouting at her Bridget, and no one did that without retribution. If they had brought their own women instead of just stealing them away, this wouldn't even be happening.
"We cannot feed you roasted meat every night," Bridget answered patiently. "We may have a lot of meat now, but it would spoil if it were not salted, so we have to make do with what supplies we have."
“Supplies!” Francesco raged, “That crauti the common Germans eat? Potatoes, carrots, turnips? It is bad enough eating something I would feed to my hounds in the first days, but you make swill for pigs today?”
Bridget stood tall, matching him glare for glare, though her voice was still polite. "We only have what was brought by the armies until the next supply wagons get here tomorrow. Besides, I doubt you have tasted a proper Irish stew in your life." The young woman lifted her ladle. "You remind me of my younger brother, God rest his soul. You have to be convinced to try anything new.” She extended it toward him.
“I do not need to taste the slops for my hogs to know what they are!” Broglia snatched it from her hand, and she barely got her hand up to stop the hot liquid from splashing into her eyes.
“Here now!” Maggie stormed forward. “Martha, see to Bridget.” She shoved him away. “Ye may be some rich man's byblow, but you will not treat ma girls like this! You will eat what we have, monsieur catamite, or you can eat nothing!”
Ignoring the shouting behind him, Broglia slapped Maggie hard enough to knock her off her feet, then pulled back his leg to kick her when something clipped his knees from behind, dropping him to the ground. Then a boot slammed into his chest, holding him bent over, his legs beneath him, and the point of a bayonet stopped mere inches from his nose.
“Halt!” The Italian stared at the point as Hartmann came up. “Kreiger, let him up. Maggie, are you injured?”
Maggie was already getting up, and from the fountain of curses in several languages, not that badly hurt. “He threw stew in me bairn's face! He's got the divvel's own luck I didnae have me carving knife!”
Hartmann glared at the man as he stood, then stepped forward, caught him by the collar and slapped him. “You struck me! No one—” he yelped in pain as Hartmann backhanded him. “Do you know who I am?”
He screamed.
Hartmann pulled the man forward until they were nose to nose. "I do not know, nor care where you were whelped, or what manner of dog sired you, bengel." He snarled. "you will not touch one of our women again. Not and keep your hand. Is that quite clear?"
Broglia looked him up and down scornfully. “If you had a social rank, I would meet you for this!”
Hartmann merely smiled, then slapped him again. "I will make it good how you will, when you will, and with what you will, junge. And your body will be put in a cask like that animal you lost fighting us to return home. Though I will try to keep you in one piece." He shoved hard enough to throw the man to the ground. "Maggie!"
“Yes, sergeant?”
“How is Bridget?”
“Her face is burned, but not badly.”
“Take her to the hospital. Then since our friend here does not like the good German food we are sharing with him, from this point on you will feed him only from remains of the French stores. It will take months before we can arrange to send all of those who can pay ransom home, perhaps he will enjoy his proper French bread and weevils with plain water instead. See to it.” Then he raised his voice.
“As for the rest of you, if I hear one more word of complaint from you, I will see about having you cook your own food!”
Hartmann bent to look down at the man. "The one person a smart soldier never makes angry is the cook."
His head jerked around at a shot. He was running toward it, drawing the one wheel lock he normally carried as a second shot went off.
****
Kirsten pulled down the clothing, folding them before walking back toward the tents. She had wanted to do them herself, but less than a minute into beating the shirt on the rocks of the stream had caused her back to flare up.
She was happy for the first time in longer than she remembered. She had a man who thought of her as something to protect rather than use. But everything balanced out. Again she felt the urge to run to the latrines. Honestly, she didn't know what was worse—a baby who thought sitting on her bladder was fun, one who thought it was fun to kick her internal organs when she tried to sleep, or making her want to mix the fried sauerkraut with stewed apples.
A hand landed on her shoulder. It was not as it had been before, someone touching her didn't mean—
She looked up, then felt terror override every instinct. “Simon.”
"Miss me?" He had that smile that meant she would be hurt. She wanted to scream, but her voice caught in her throat. "Be silent. We are going to rob your new love, then we will leave. Is that not perfect?"
Her heart froze. Simon had only one use for anything human; something to bleed, beg, and when he grew bored, die. She had heard enough from the other girls, of those who vanished those first few months. If she did not fight, she would die, the baby would die, and Richard would remember her as nothing but a thief. "No."
"No?" Simon asked, his smile broadening. "Do you think you can fight me little piglet?" He turned her face back to the front. "We will walk so politely to your sergeant's tent; then we will leave."
She knew it. But inside she quailed from that thought, hoping someone would rescue her. Her traitorous feet were moving forward, the tent closer. Then she was at the flap, Simon shoving it aside. “Where does he keep them?”
“Keep—” her cheek exploded in agony as he slapped her.
“The guns, you stupid sow. The more than a hundred livres I want!”
She shook her head. There was blood in her mouth, and she wanted to spit it out. But Simon would only enjoy it. "I will show you." She turned, kneeling. The bag was right there, and she loosened the strings, reaching inside.
He shoved her aside with a glad cry, snatching up two of them. “Only two? Where the hell are—” He turned.
She remembered what Richard had done, opening the pan, snapping the dog against the wheel. She hoped to God the spring was already wound as she pointed it at the stunned face and pulled the trigger.
****
Becker snapped around at the shot, and like his leader was running. He snatched a rifle from one of the surprised sentries, grabbing his own bayonet to fix. Hartmann's tent was right ahead, and he saw the spray of blood on the roof from a shot from inside it. He pulled open the flap, then dived as a second shot went through where he had been moments before. He could hear an animal wail of fear and rolled as a third shot tore into the sod.
He looked around as Hartmann charged up and wanted to warn him, but the sergeant dove into the tent.
Hartmann landed on his knees. He only looked at the man to assure he was dead. No worries there; you need a head to be dangerous. Then looked into Kirsten's terrified eyes. She looked back down the barrel, the empty pistol in her hand, her finger trying to pull the trigger over and over. He reached out, the barrel burning his hand as he gently pushed it down. He wanted to tell her to calm down, but she screamed in terror and flung herself into his arms. He held her, wordlessly stroking her hair, making just soft comforting sounds until she stopped crying.
****
About the Faces on the Cutting Room Floor, Number Six: Pirates as Prey by Charles E. Gannon
Much of the second half of 1635: The Papal Stakes involves defeating, avoiding, even stealing resources from, the plentiful pirates of the seventeenth-century Mediterranean. And while all the main scenes involving these scrapes and adventures were retained, some of the lesser ones could not be kept, even though characters referred to them.
This truncated story-telling was particularly pronounced in the events surrounding the operations team’s arrival on Mallorca and its subsequent attempts to contact local agents to facilitate the rescue of Frank and Giovanna Stone. One such excised scene was the capture of the pirates occupying the Caves of Arta, a necessary refuge and water source for the group. While not a major battle in terms of the plot development, it was a defining moment for Estuban Miro who, until this moment, had always lived more by his wits and words than by the sword…
By the end of that day, Estuban Miro knew that the Coves des Arta would live in his nightmares. Not because of the soaring, fluted columns formed from fused stalactites and stalagmites, not because of the ghostly faces that erosion had etched faintly into the sheer walls, or the sudden inky abysses that opened up before the team’s feet as they crept forward quietly into the dark. No: it was because here he at last he made his intimate acquaintance with killing--at very, very close range.
Miro had been sailing in pirate-infested waters since his teens and so had come under fire repeatedly. And had returned the same. But that had been in open air, at ranges of fifty yards or more.
This day, the team began by crawling forward into the caves of Arta, led by a once-local sailor named Miguel who was the only man on the expedition who had ever been in the Caves before. And he had only been there once.
But that turned out to be invaluable since Miguel proved to have a damned good memory. Twice he kept them from blithely crawling over ledges that would have led to fifty yard falls into stalagmite-toothed crevasses. About forty yards into the Caves, they caught sight of the glimmer of a fire up ahead, and the low sound of casual, intermittent conversation. The six of them—Miro, North, two Hibernians, and two Wild Geese—stopped to whisper and confirm their final plans.
What they had not seen ahead of time was the pirates’ sentry, who had apparently been dozing. A chunk of shadow seemed to jump out at them from the opposite wall; Estuban didn’t think, he simply drew the HP-35 North had given to him and fired three times. The shadow fell toward him, and, as one of the Hibernians uncovered a lantern, the lightless oblong shape turned into bearded man, chest bloodied, one eye crossing as they both rolled back into his head.
It didn’t matter that the man was smelly, unwashed, and had probably cheerfully raped and murdered his way around the shores of the Mediterranean: he was dead by Estuban’s hand, and fell into Estuban’s lap.
Who scrambled and clawed his way backward, pushing the body o
ff. After that, he didn’t really have very clear recollections of the sequence of following events. He remembered feeling like an ass for compromising their surprise attack, watched the two Wild Geese—Grogan and Dillon—charge forward, pistols and swords at the ready, heard—deafening in the cave—one of the Hibernians cutting loose with his .40-72 lever action and saw the first shadow that rose up into the low firelight go down just as fast, knocked over by that flurry of man-killing rounds.
North ran forward, gun secured in both hands, checking the flanks for other nooks or clefts such as the one the sentry had been hidden in. With surprise gone, the two Irishmen had gone ahead full speed, not checking the sides of the cave as they did. Speed was of the essence now, and the first rank had to trust in the thoroughness of the next rank in securing the flanks. Which meant Miro and the other Hibernian, neither of whom found any threats.
By the time the two of them got to the small cooking fire, the execution was over. For it had not been a battle: it had been—truly—an execution. Of the four pirates there, one had been drunk, and another asleep. Of the other two, the first one to stand had been gunned down by the Hibernian with the lever action rifle. By the time the other one had his weapon out, the Wild Geese were upon him; they hadn’t even needed to discharge their pistols. The sword wounds in the pirate’s belly were so deep and wide that his own digestive fluids were leaking out along with his blood. The next corsair—the drunkard—had been stupid enough to grab a hand toward his cutlass: the first Irishman’s sword had neatly taken off the hand; the second removed his head.
So now they were looking down at the last surviving pirate, who woke from what had evidently been pleasant dreams into his very worst nightmare: angry men, soaked in the blood of his mates, staring down at him with weapons out, teeth bared, and eyes bright with the fight-or-die rush of adrenaline. It was the terrified look in the raider’s eyes—and the uncertainty of what might happen in the next moment—that brought back the image of the pirate sentry’s dying face tumbling out of the darkness at Estuban, like a hammer of judgment falling toward him. It did not matter that there were more capital crimes upon that pirate’s balding head than there were hairs, or that it had been a life-or-death situation, or that (as the others pointed out gratefully later on, with many pats on the back) Estuban’s swift and immediate reaction had probably saved one or more of their lives. All he could recall was the face, its transition from being alive to being dead, and the terrible knowledge that he had been the architect of that change.
Grantville Gazette, Volume 68 Page 11