by John Ringo
“So am I,” she said sadly. “Maybe… maybe soon, Herzer.”
“Not with me,” he said. “I was serious earlier. I like you but I don’t want… I don’t think we’re made for each other.”
“You’re in love with Rachel,” Shilan said, looking at him.
“She’s just a friend,” he said, closing his eyes again, surprised that a tear leaked out.
“Oh, you poor dumb hero,” she said quietly, stroking his face.
“A hero is somebody who does something they don’t have to,” Herzer replied, tightly. “A hero is somebody that is there when they’re needed. I’m not a hero. Please don’t call me one again. Please.”
“What is with you?” she asked, confused.
“It’s just… it’s hard to explain. But… I’m not a hero.”
“Sorry, Herzer, but I thought I was dead when that spear went through the boar. You’re always going to be my hero.”
Herzer shrugged and leaned back, unable to explain the welter of emotions that was running through his brain. The good news was that the wave of lust had receded, leaving him even tireder. “Mithras I wish I could sleep.”
“Don’t,” Shilan said. “I’ll be here if you need anything.”
Herzer nearly corrected “Almost anything” but thought better of it and just let his mind wander instead.
* * *
The next two days passed in a fog. Herzer remembered Dr. Daneh coming in and Rachel being there. Others came by but he had no real memory of who they were. He remembered being moved to a wagon and the jolting as it moved him somewhere, complaining querulously about the light. He remembered Shilan being there and one time when she was crying, quietly. He remembered trying to get her to stop crying, but couldn’t remember anything else, what she was crying about or when she had stopped. It wasn’t until the third day after the big roundup that he woke clear-headed. It was before dawn and Rachel was sitting on a more substantial, and more comfortable, chair, fast asleep. He took a deep breath and looked around, more aware that his headache was gone than anything else.
He was definitely out of the shed and in a substantial house of stone. There was an oil lamp on the cupboard across the room and tapestries on three of the walls. The bed was incredibly soft; he identified the mattress as eiderdown from some deep memory. He also realized that he must have taken a harder blow than he’d thought; the last few days were such a blur he must have had some brain trauma. Rare as it was, that used to be fairly repairable. Given the current conditions he was just really glad he’d actually survived.
There was a table by the bed with a jug and a cup. Picking up the cup he recognized water and gulped it down greedily; he was terribly parched. He sat up and fumbled for the jug, waking Rachel.
“I’ll get that for you,” she said, sleepily. “What are you doing awake?”
“Haven’t I been sleeping enough?” he asked, pouring the water shakily. His hands were trembling so badly, he got some of it on the coverlet. He gave up the cup and jug to Rachel and leaned back, overcome with weariness.
“You nearly died, stupid,” she said, pouring the water and holding the cup to his lips.
He had enough control to take the cup and drink from it again. “I had sort of figured that out.”
“How long have you been awake?” she asked, putting her hand on his forehead, gently. But the touch didn’t elicit any pain.
“Not long,” he replied. “Where am I?”
“In Dad’s house. It was the only place Mom felt you’d get enough rest. I need to check something.”
“Okay,” he said as she pulled back the coverlet. Only then did he realize he was naked and snatched at the bedclothes.
“First of all, you weren’t that modest in the baths,” she said with a chuckle. “Second, I’ve seen it for the last three days.”
“Oh,” he said as she pulled back the covers again. She took what looked like a knitting needle and applied it to the end to his toes, painfully. “Ow!”
“Good,” she said, working her way up his body. She checked all the extremities and various other apparently random spots. By the time she finished he was trembling in fatigue. Which really ticked him off. She covered him back up and put something in a notebook with a nod of satisfaction.
“Do I pass, Doctor?” he asked querulously.
“So far,” she replied with a tired smile. “We were really worried about your responses. The second day some of your extremities were fairly numb. That’s a bad sign. But it all has recovered. Try not to take too many more blows to the head, okay?”
“I will,” he said. “What happened?”
“There’s no way to tell for sure, but Mom thinks you developed a bruise on either the lining of the skull or the brain itself. It’s called subdural cerebral hematoma. Just call it a brain bruise. Sometimes those can kill. In your case it looks like you just have a harder head than should be possible. No slurring of the voice, pain stimuli all good. The only thing left is to check your reflexes and I’ll let Mom handle that.”
“How is she?” Herzer asked. “She looked… awful out at the roundup. I heard she lost a patient.”
“And you would have made two for two,” Rachel said sadly. “Bob Towback. He fell into a couple of logs and they flailed his chest and abdomen. It… took a while for him to go and there wasn’t anything we could do. It hit Mom hard. Losing you would have hit her harder, I think.”
“I don’t know why,” Herzer said quietly. “No, that’s stupid. I understand.”
“I know you do,” Rachel replied, quietly.
“Where’s Shilan?” he asked, to change the subject.
“Sleeping,” Rachel said with a chuckle. “You’ll have to wait to regain your strength anyway, Romeo.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” he said, lying. “I was just worried about her.”
“She was more worried about you,” Rachel said. “She’s been sitting in this chair most of the time. Mom sent her off to bed last night when it was pretty clear you were going to make it.”
“I need to go to the bathroom,” he said, suddenly. “Bad.”
“I’ll get a bedpan,” she said, getting up.
“How far is it to…” he paused.
“Dad actually has indoor plumbing,” Rachel said stepping out of the room. “But you’re not getting up.”
“The hell I’m not,” Herzer replied, irritably. He sat up and worked his legs out of the covers awkwardly. Nothing would go the way he wanted and he briefly was afraid the brain bruise or whatever had damaged his motor circuits. But after a moment, as the room seemed to revolve around him, he got them under control. Just disuse. That was all. Disuse.
He hung onto that mantra as he slid out of bed.
“Oh you idiot,” she said, grabbing him as he sagged. She had a strange and altogether unpleasant looking device in her hand which she tossed on the bed. “Damn, you’re heavy.”
“I can make it,” he said, gritting his teeth as the room started spinning again. “Where is it?”
“Just down the hall,” she said, getting her shoulder under his arm. “And go quiet. If you wake up Mother…”
“I’m already awake,” Dr. Daneh said from the door. “And you should be in bed.”
“I can make it to the jakes, Doctor,” Herzer said, straightening up then swaying and grabbing at Rachel.
“Idiot,” the doctor said, shaking her head. “But since I don’t want to be wrestling with you while you pee, I’ll help too.”
Between the three of them they managed to stagger to the bathroom and Herzer relieved himself in relative peace. He even snagged a towel off a rack and got it around his waist before he staggered out the door.
“Back to bed, you,” Dr. Daneh said, shaking her head. “The things people go through for privacy.”
By the time Herzer was back in bed he was willing to admit that maybe the strange device, a white porcelain… jug, sort of, with a tube that did not look large enough, might have been a
better idea.
“Get some rest,” Dr. Daneh said, wiping a piece of hair out of her face. “You’re going to need your strength.”
“Why?” Herzer asked with a sigh as he lay back down.
“Fredar got raided,” the doctor said. “That’s what had me up. Some brigands looted it and burned most of the buildings. We’re going to be having more refugees. Edmund has moved up the plan on building a real defense force. And he wants you on it.”
“Good,” Herzer said. He could feel sleep pulling at him but he felt that it was time for a good line. “Time to get back on the horse.”
“Idiot” was the last thing he heard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
On the fifth day after his accident, Herzer rebelled.
For two days after his head cleared up, Dr. Daneh had refused to let him get up and move around more than to the bathroom. But the fifth day he could make it that far just fine and felt more or less recovered. Rather less than more if pressed, he was still dreadfully weak, but that wasn’t going to get better by lying in bed.
In the afternoon, after one of Daneh’s “nurses” had left with his lunch, he was alone and apparently unguarded. Getting up he retrieved his mended clothes from the cupboard and went to find out what the repetitive banging sound was from behind the house.
He could hear clattering from the kitchen so he stepped out a side door and snuck around to the shed at the rear. He had expected to find one of the smith apprentices, even hopefully someone from his apprentice class, but it was Master Talbot himself standing at the anvil, hammering out a piece of bar-steel with a furious expression on his face.
Herzer started to step back but as he did Edmund looked up and nodded, distantly.
“I didn’t think you were supposed to be out of bed,” Talbot said, setting down the hammer and slipping the steel back into the coals in the forge.
“I suppose I’m AWOL,” Herzer replied, stepping into the shed. It was less crowded than he expected, containing not much more than a table, some buckets, the forge and the anvil. There were a few tools but not many. After a moment he took in bare patches on the floor and some recent wood work and realized that much of its contents had recently been removed. Down to the town and the growing smithies he supposed.
Despite the relative cool of the afternoon, it was hot as… well as a forge inside. He could feel sweat beading on his brow immediately and Edmund was drenched.
The smith nodded in understanding and took a drink of water from a jug, handing it over to the boy. “Well, if you think you’re recovered enough, you can work the bellows,” he said, nodding to the apparatus. “Put on an apron, though, or you’ll get sparks all in your clothes.”
Herzer felt that was within his capability. He grabbed a leather apron and examined the bellows. There was a convenient stool so he sat down and started pumping.
“Not so hard,” Edmund muttered, turning the steel. “You’ll get the fire too hot.”
Herzer slowed down the rhythm until he saw the smith nod, then stopped when Talbot pulled the steel, now glowing a low cherry-red, from the fire.
“Different types of steel form at different temperatures,” Edmund explained. “Right now, I’m just working the surface carbon into the bar.”
Herzer nodded as if he understood, wiping his face with his hands. Edmund wordlessly passed him a cloth and the jug.
“What are you making?” Herzer asked, drinking deeply. The water was cut with wine, very lightly, just enough to give it a bite. It felt refreshing after the plain water he’d been given for the last few days.
“Just a knife,” Edmund replied, an irritable expression on his face again. “It was come out here and bang on some metal or take the hammer and bang heads.”
Herzer watched in companionable silence as the smith hammered the metal out and then thrust it back in the fire.
“Pump,” Edmund said, glancing at him. “Although you look as if you’re already tiring out.”
“I am,” Herzer admitted. “But I don’t know why. All I’ve been doing is lying around.”
“A hard blow like that takes it right out of you,” the smith replied, turning the metal in the coals. “Daneh thought you should lie abed for another three or four days. I disagreed, but I wasn’t going to tell her.”
“I think at this point I need exercise more than rest,” Herzer gasped. The bellows were strongly sprung and his arm was already growing tired.
“Enough,” Talbot grunted, pulling the steel back out. “Do you know why the apprentice pumps the bellows?”
“No.”
“Pumping bellows is a very similar motion to hammering. It builds up the apprentice’s strength in specific muscle groups. Besides just being weak from your injury, you’re not used to using those muscles.”
“Well, great, another group to work out,” Herzer said with a wry grin, and took another sip of water. “So is the knife to stick in anyone in particular?”
“No,” Edmund said with a chuckle. “Although I can think of a few I wouldn’t mind handing it to point first.”
Herzer recognized it as an oblique negative reference, but not anything specific.
“Although,” Talbot said after a moment, banging on the steel a trifle harder, “most of them wouldn’t get the hint.”
Herzer nodded, not admitting that he didn’t either.
“Pump,” the smith said. “So, you heard we’re speeding up the deployment of the guard force?”
“Dr. Daneh told me,” Herzer said. He had caught his wind and in a way it was getting easier to pump than it had been at first. It was still hot as hell, though. “She said something about Fredar?”
“A group of brigands, I suppose you’d call them, hit it. I’d been out there just a couple of weeks ago. They had gotten the preliminary pronouncement of the Norau reformation and were making noises about the ‘violent nature’ of the proposals.”
“The defense requirement?” Herzer asked, stopping the bellows as the smith drew the steel out.
“Aye,” the smith admitted. “Their town council had taken a strictly nonviolent position; some of the reenactors who had stopped there moved when they did that and told me. I went over and tried to talk them out of it, the fools.” He slammed the hammer down twice, hard then stopped, setting it down and putting the steel back in the fire. “Get some more charcoal, would you?” he said, gesturing with his chin at a bucket in the corner.
Herzer got the charcoal and then looked at his hands. Not only they but his arms were covered in soot. “Going to be hard to get past the doctor like this.”
“We’ll wash you up, don’t worry,” Edmund replied, taking another drink. “Anyway, the… brigands killed most of the men, including the few skilled artisans, damnit, ran off with most of the women and left the children behind. Oh, and they burned everything down on their way out.”
“Rape, loot, pillage and burn,” Herzer said with a frown.
“Oh, yeah, they got it in the right order,” Edmund said, sticking the steel back in the fire. “Pump. It’s actually odd. Quite often raiders got the order out of sequence. Burning things down is quite fun under the circumstances; it’s keeping people from burning that is tough.”
Herzer looked at him sideways his brow furrowing. “That sounds like the voice of experience.”
“So we’ve moved up the schedule for the guard force,” Edmund said, ignoring the implied question. “You going to go for soldier?”
“Yes,” Herzer replied.
“Which kind?” Edmund asked.
“I don’t know what there’s going to be,” Herzer admitted. “I have sort of been out of the loop.”
“It’s going to be small,” Talbot replied. “We don’t need much right now. But I want it to be a good cadre for a larger force, so it’s going to be brutal training.”
“I’m up for it,” Herzer said as the smith paused.
“That’s what you think now,” Edmund snorted. “The main force will be two groups, archers
and line infantry. The archers will use longbows and the line infantry will be modeled, lightly, on the Roman infantry.”
“Legions?” Herzer said, with a grin. “Now that’s more like it!”
“Well, with your arm you’d make a hell of a bowman.” Edmund frowned.
“Fine, if they tell me I have to be an archer, I’ll be an archer,” Herzer replied. “But if I have the choice I’ll take the legions, thanks just the same.”
“Why?” Edmund set down the steel and really looked at the young man for the first time.
Herzer turned his face away from the regard and shrugged, his face hot. “I don’t know,” he temporized.
“Okay, tell me what you think.”
Herzer hesitated for a moment then shrugged again. “Legions… well archers. Archers sit back and hit the enemy at a distance. They don’t… close with them. They don’t get a grip on them. I… I trained with a bow, and, yeah, I’m even pretty good, but I always preferred to close with cold steel. I call it ‘iron hand.’ It’s just… my thing. Sometimes it was the wrong thing to do. But… it’s what I preferred.”
Edmund nodded again, an inscrutable expression on his face and picked up the steel. “Pump. The term you’re groping for is ‘shock infantry.’ There’s effectively two types, disciplined and undisciplined. Undisciplined is the Pict screaming forward with his axe raised overhead. That works, sometimes, against other undisciplined infantry. The other model is the phalanx, which advances in a steady force to take and hold ground. Iron hand… and I’ve heard the term before although you’d probably be surprised where it came from, iron hand is more about the screaming Pict. Can you grasp the difference?”
“Yes, sir,” Herzer replied. “But I’d still prefer the legions. The legions… well…” He paused and shrugged.
Edmund smiled at him and nodded. “Again, I’ve got the advantage on you. I’ve had years of reading, consideration and studying to define what you’re groping for. The legions are ‘where the rubber meets the road,’ another term that’s hard to define. They are what will, ultimately, decide the tide of battle.”