by S. A. Swann
“There's no time.” He dropped the basket into the furrow, seed spilling out of the upturned basket. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her toward the wall dividing the field, about five yards away. “Hide yourself, now!” He gave her a shove toward the wall.
She looked over her shoulder at him, and the panic in his face must have broken any hesitation she had. She ran toward the wall, vaulting over and ducking behind it with only a few seconds to spare.
Gedim wiped his hands on his trousers, trying to compose himself as he walked back toward his house. He prayed that none of the soldiers had seen her. He kept thinking back to his son's description of what those German bastards had done to her in the woods. He thought of the scratches on her neck and face, still fresh; the wounds in her temple and her shoulder, only just healed.
He asked the gods to grant him his son's restraint. It was going to be hard not to throttle these men who were approaching his farm.
***
Günter was not enjoying his day.
The first day, going through Johannisburg to “request” the cooperation of the Prûsans who had survived the sack of Mejdân eight years ago had been much better. Tradesmen weren't tied to their shops as the farmers were to the soil. Most all of them had an apprentice or a spouse to run things in their absence. Those who had to close their business at least did not suffer losing days of business that were more important than any others.
Out here, in the countryside that fed Johannisburg, asking these people to leave the farm was like asking them to give up their children. Günter faced tears and curses, and twice today had to bear men off their land in chains.
On the return loop to Johannisburg, they stopped at their tenth farm, the horse team drawing a long wagon that usually carried bales of straw and hay. Today it was half loaded with men, women, and one or two children. It would be completely full when they returned to Johannisburg tonight.
When he drew even with the gate in the stone wall encircling the small homestead, he raised his arm and called “Hold!” to the whole procession. He looked over the farm, seven or eight acres of freshly plowed earth with low stone walls snaking around and through the fields. A horse stood in the field, the square framework of an old harrow dug into the earth behind the beast.
A man walked toward them from the field. A woman opened the door to the cottage, a young girl of five or six peeking at him from behind her skirts.
This is not going to go well. Not well at all.
He knew the couple. Not personally, but he knew of them. Gedim and Burthe were the only married couple from Chief Radwen Seigson's household to have survived the fall of Mejdân whole. They even had taken in Radwen's only surviving child—
That meant that he needed to take everyone.
He dismounted and waited for Gedim to reach the cottage before he approached the gate. Gedim walked up and nodded at him without opening the gate. “Can I help you?”
Günter watched him survey the small procession. Unlike the one that had been through this area before, their job didn't include searching for the creature. Günter could see in Gedim's expression that he understood the difference. He probably knew most of the people who peered down at him from the old hay wagon.
“I'm Sergeant Günter Sejod—”
“Hognar's son. I know, I recognize you.”
Of course you do.
“I've been ordered to retrieve for questioning all people who survived the sack of Mejdân.”
Gedim's eyebrow rose. “I am in the middle of planting.”
Günter looked up at the wagon. “They were planting as well.”
“Do you people not want Johannisburg to eat?”
“A few days at most,” Günter said. “The Church requires it.”
Günter watched as Gedim surveyed the six mounted soldiers who accompanied the wagon. “It seems that I have no choice but to be a good Christian.” He opened the gate. “I will accompany you.”
Burthe stormed out of the cottage. “What do you think you're doing?”
Günter put his hand on Gedim's shoulder. “I'm sorry. Not just you.”
“You bastard,” Burthe spat at him. “What gives you the right—”
“The rule of this land by the Order, and the pope, give me the right,” Günter told her. Behind him, two of his men dismounted. “I need to bring back you, Gedim, your wife, and Uldolf.”
“Uldolf isn't here, you spineless—”
“Burthe!” Gedim snapped at her. “Think of our girl. Calm yourself.”
She looked as if she was going to spout more invective against Günter, but thought better of it. Günter looked away from her and at the cottage, where their daughter was quietly sobbing.
Günter shook his head. This is a disaster ...
“Sergeant, my son has gone into town. It's only the three of us here.”
“Son?” Günter looked up at him. Oh, Lord Radwen's child. “Uldolf, you mean? Is he due back soon?”
“He just left.”
“I see ...” Günter looked out at the field and narrowed his eyes. The horse still stood, and a basket was scattered in the furrow before it. That was a two-person job. And how likely was it that Gedim would allow even partly able-bodied help to go away to town right now? Why, in fact, would he be as agreeable as he was being?
“Hilde,” Burthe said abruptly. “We can't leave her here, alone. And our horse is still in the field.”
Günter looked at her and smiled. We both know she wouldn't be alone, now, would she?
“You can bring Hilde with you,” Günter said. “You will not be kept away more than a few days.”
Gedim and Burthe looked at each other. Then Gedim looked at him and said, “May we take care of our horse, and close up our house?”
Günter nodded.
In the end, Günter decided there was no point in making this scene even more difficult for the sake of someone who was little more than a child when the savagery of the Teutonic Order fell upon Mejdân. There was nothing that Uldolf might know that would be of any interest to Erhard or the bishop.
***
Lilly pressed against the stone wall, shaking, her eyes shut. She tried not to hear the men, or smell the horses. She tried to think of Ulfie, that he would come back.
He would come back, and everything would be all right.
“Why?” she whispered into the stones. Tears burning with the effort, she struggled with the single question. “Why?”
In her head she heard a colder voice. You know why.
“No.”
You can't forget me ...
“No!” She spat out the word, too loud. The men up there, by the road, would hurt her if they found her. Even worse, they might hurt Ulfie's parents.
Or Hilde.
Her fingers dug into the soil at the base of the wall, anger growing. If anyone got hurt—
On her hands and knees, she sucked in gasping breaths, eyes burning. She didn't want to be angry. With every nerve, with every bone, with every clenching muscle she did not want to be angry.
Listen to Ulfie's father. He said to hide. Listen to him now, how calm he's talking to the men on the road.
He smells of fear, the other one spoke in her head.
“He doesn't want th-them to hurt me,” she whispered into the earth.
We can hurt them first, the other told her.
“No. Don't. Please.”
We can hurt them enough that they will never hurt anyone, ever again.
Lilly buried her face in the soil and screamed into the ground, “Stop it!” Her voice was muffled, and she inhaled dirt, making her gag and cough.
She froze, thinking the men would hear her. She hugged herself, wheezing, leaning against the cold stones. She didn't even dare to peek, so she kept her eyes closed, listening.
Panic gripped her chest when she heard someone coming, walking across the earth. The horse snorted. She sucked in gasping breaths trying to be calm, be hidden.
They were coming for he
r.
Then she heard Ulfie's father whisper, “It's all right. Nothing to worry about.”
He was whispering to the horse, but she knew the words were for her. She listened as he led the horse away. Maybe the men were going to leave?
They did leave, but they took Ulfie's parents and Hilde with them. It was a long time after she had heard them leave before Lilly risked looking over the edge of the wall.
No one, just the horse in his pasture, craning his neck to reach some grass that was just outside the gate. She brushed the dirt off her clothes and her face, spitting out pieces of soil.
She was alone.
Ulfie would come back. He would know what to do.
But she had heard them talking. The men wanted Ulfie, too. The men wanted to take everyone from her. She shook her head. They couldn't take Ulfie away. They couldn't.
You need me.
“No,” she whispered. “I—I—I—” He voice kept catching on the word. She finished the thought in her head. I can do this myself.
Always, when something horrible happened, she let the other one take over, begged for her to take over. She might be frightened, but she was just as strong and smart as the other one. She could do it herself.
She could get help. She could find Ulfie.
You promised to stay.
No, I promised not to run away.
She wouldn't be running away, she'd be running to him. She stood next to the cottage and swallowed. Following Ulfie meant she would have to go in the same direction the men took his family. The men who wanted to hurt her.
The scar on her head hurt, and she absently rubbed at it.
When she caught up with them, she would just have to go through the woods, around them.
She walked to the edge of the road and walked through the gate. She looked off in the direction the men, and Ulfie, had gone. Not far. Not far at all, if she ran. She could run fast.
Lilly bent and pulled her skirts up, tying them high around her waist. Then she ran.
***
Lilly smelled the men before she was in sight of them. The sweat of the horses, the sour smell of tired men, the fear from the cartload of prisoners, all thick in the air above the road. She slowed, barely panting, and stepped off of the road and into the woods. There was no path here, and the underbrush caught at her legs. Branches whipped her face and tugged at her hair.
She pushed deeper, until she came across a small game trail that followed the road. She stayed on it, bending low, trying not to be heard. However, as she closed on the small caravan, she realized that the men probably couldn't hear her even if she tried to get their attention. Far out of sight to her right, through the woods, they traveled in the midst of a dissonant symphony of hoof-beats, creaking wagon wheels, and the babble of the people in the wagon.
Lilly strained and she heard Hilde's voice saying, “What about Lilly?”
Someone, Ulfie's father she thought, whispered, “Shh. Don't talk about that now.”
Lilly's vision blurred, and she ran faster down the game trail, getting ahead of these men. She ran until she could no longer hear the cacophony of their progress, and their smells were just a faint memory.
Safely ahead, she cut again through the underbrush and stepped out on the road. Running on the road, where other people traveled, was dangerous. She might be seen ...
But she had to follow Ulfie, and until she got close to him, the road was the only sure way she had to follow him. She could move much quicker on the road than she could in the woods. Besides, men were smelly and noisy, and if she paid attention she would notice someone else long before he noticed her.
Chapter 20
It seemed that every hour that passed served to show Uldolf what a bad idea coming to Johannisburg had been. The village was crawling with foreign soldiers, brother knights of the Order, secular knights, squires, bonded foot soldiers—and all were looking for Prûsans who had survived the sack of Mejdân. It was clear that Lankut was closer to the truth than Uldolf would have liked. Uldolf credited the fact that he was still a free man to his following Lankut's advice as to where to board for the night.
He had spent his first evening trading his furs, then acquiring a small narrow room from the proceeds. That night he had not slept well, waking up several times from now-constant nightmares that left him only the impression of an onrushing menace.
Upon waking and going to breakfast, he discovered that the dread he felt had more of a basis than a barely remembered dream. The gray-haired proprietor had whispered to him of the Germans who were taking all the Prûsans who had been present at the siege of Mejdân. The surviving son of Chief Radwen would obviously be of particular interest.
That day, while the soldiers went to and fro along every street in Johannisburg, Uldolf did not leave the house where he boarded. And that night, the nightmares were worse—though he still could not remember them.
The following day, the soldiers seemed to have completed their task. At least they didn't overwhelm the streets with their numbers.
Even so, he waited until early evening to slip from the house. He stuck to the narrowest alleys between houses, trying to stay out of sight without looking as if he was staying out of sight.
His winding journey stopped in the shadows next to an old timber-frame building facing the road out of Johannisburg. He could look out from the shadows, down the main road, toward the gate. He waited until he saw his friend Lankut take his post at the gate. Delaying his leave until his friend took that duty gave him one less thing to worry about as he slipped out of town.
He was freshly aware of just how conspicuous he was, a one-armed man known to nearly every Prûsan in town. Even the soldiers who didn't speak the language would be able to guess who he was. From a distance he was able to hide his missing arm under his cloak, but the moment a knight or some other soldier stopped him or tried to speak with him, his pathetic disguise would fall apart.
Worse, the Germans were no longer overwhelming the city in their search for the survivors of Mejdân. They had most likely spread their search into the countryside, and that meant it was no longer just Uldolf who was at risk.
It now meant his family.
The soldiers would come to his home and find them, and Lilly as well.
However hopeless it seemed, he had formed half a plan. He would slip out at dusk, just before the gates closed, and travel home under cover of night. If he beat the Germans to the farm, he could take Lilly and slip into the woods. He knew enough to survive out in the wilderness for several days at least. Enough to bypass any searches.
However, now that the sun was setting behind the gate, stretching shadows of trees and buildings toward him, he had another problem. Between him and the gate, on the main road, two German knights were talking.
If they had been knights of the Order they would soon be heading off to the keep for prayers and devotions, and whatever ascetic meals the warrior monks allowed themselves. However, this pair didn't wear the black cross of the Order. These two knights dressed in garish red and green and were under no such obligation. They showed no signs of taking their conversation elsewhere.
Uldolf huddled closer to the shadows, debating if he should move or wait for the Germans to walk away. They didn't appear to be actively searching for anything; they just stood next to the road talking to each other. But they had been talking for half an hour, and if Uldolf waited until after dusk and the gates were closed, he would draw even more attention trying to leave.
Because he held to the shadows, paying attention to the German knights, he didn't see Lilly until she was already walking through the main gate. He just glanced away from the Germans for a moment, and he saw her dyed hair blowing slightly in the breeze, skirts smeared with soil and leaves. Even at this distance, with the black that hid the white streak in her hair, he could still see the angry red scar that marred her temple.
No!
She had slipped behind a group of Dutch merchants entering the village, appare
ntly to keep from drawing attention. The idea might have had merit, if her peasant clothing had not been completely at odds with the furs of the merchants, and if she wasn't very obviously keeping the merchants' wagon between herself and the Germans up the road.
What are you doing, Lilly? he thought.
The moment someone tried to speak with her, ask her name or her business here ... He had to get to her before that happened.
The Germans hadn't paid her any attention, yet. The merchants had paused, debating among themselves. If they cared about the anonymous girl who entered the gate on their heels, they didn't show it. Lilly walked a few paces away, separating from their group, and looked around at the buildings, as if she was considering where to go.
By the gate, Lankut looked back in her direction, as if he realized that she wasn't part of the tradesmen he had just admitted.
No choice.
Uldolf pulled his cloak fully about himself, concealing his missing arm. He left his face uncovered, since the Germans would know him only by description. If he raised the cloak's hood in the daylight it would be even more notable than his absent arm.
He made an effort to calm his breathing and a racing heart, and began an unhurried stride down the main avenue of Johannisburg.
Lankut had decided to investigate. He left the other guards at the gate and began walking toward Lilly. The merchants settled their conversation and broke up into two smaller groups, dispersing down two separate alleys, parting like a curtain between the German knights and Lilly. The Germans were still talking to each other, neither looking toward Uldolf or Lilly.
Lankut was much closer to Lilly than Uldolf was, and Uldolf felt the copper taste of fear in his throat. He had hoped to reach Lilly before Lankut talked to her, but there was no way to close the distance in time without breaking into a sprint. Uldolf passed the two Germans, less than four yards away across the street. It took all his will to avoid looking at them as he passed.
Lankut walked up behind Lilly. She was still turning, away from him, surveying the village.
Uldolf heard Lankut say, “Excuse me, miss?”