The Ravens’ Banquet (14 page)

Only my little gipsy gave me reason for forbearance. And though I saw her only twice in those weeks at Göttingen, her comfort was worth more than the brave words of a hundred comrades and their courage of the cask.

“Have you still my charm?” she had asked me as she cradled my bloodied head upon the steps of St. Jacobi’s.

“Aye, and have worn it always,” I had told her.

“And it has safely brought you here to this place. Do you remember of my Telling all those months ago?”

“I do.”

“I have dreamt of your journey in the days since, man,” she whispered in my ear. “And there be more to tell.”

But Christoph and Balthazar were upon us by then, and pulled me from her embrace.

“Plenty of time to sport with whores after we reach the camp,” Balthazar had grumbled as they hauled me away in spite of my protests.

“Seek me outside the East Gate on the morrow!” Anya called to me as we parted.

What a misery awaited me at the camp. The tale of our most amazing escape did the rounds quickly, but interest soon turned to recrimination over the lost booty of the company. Poor Tollhagen was near upon strung up and the mutterings of the men went on long into the night. And I, spent in body and spirit, sunk ever deeper into despair. It seemed that all that I had sought was now lost to me. Samuel’s death lingered like a black spot upon my mind’s eye and robbed me of healing sleep.

I was desperate when I sought out Anya in the morning, anxious to hear her words. I no longer had desire to lie with her. She had passed from being a strumpet to something wholly else in my eyes. She would tell me how to go on.

I came upon the gipsy camp where she had said it would be. She was there as I wandered in, standing near to her wagon, and she turned and saw me before the sound of my footfalls had reached her. She was unchanged by the passing of a year, handsome and lusty, no delicate flower she. And again I saw those eyes, blue, liquid, and foreign to her olive skin and jet hair. But that is how I had remembered her so well and so long.

I sat upon a stool before her and sank my head into my hands. She pulled my head up and grasped my chin with her long fingers, studying my face with no expression upon her own. I saw then, and only then, that though her eyes showed strength and protection, they shone with neither gentleness nor sympathy.

“It is as I foretold,” she said quietly, releasing me.

“Fortuna has not smiled upon me as I wished,” I replied.

“You still take breath, man,” she scolded. “Was it not you who swore to play this game until its end?”

I said nothing.

“I spied you in my dreams,” she said. “It was a black vision. You and your comrades were in a great hall, much in darkness for it was lit by but one small window. Death was there too. Yet it was you who stood by Death’s side, his servant.”

“I was there, in the barn,” I whispered, the memory filling my head again.

She took my hand and led me into her wagon. Her skirt was coarse and black with fire soot, and as she climbed the little steps inside, the scent of her body mixed with that of cinnamon and cloves, wafted back to me.

I sat down and opened my purse as she seated herself opposite me, our knees touching. I pulled out a silver coin, the last but two, and handed it to her. But as her eyes fell upon it, she hesitated, her shoulders trembled, and she saw something else. Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes grew larger still. Then, just as quickly, she regained herself.

“What have you seen?” I asked, leaning even closer to her.

She looked at me, square on. “I have seen your treasure. I have seen what I could not see before. Give me your hand!”

I stretched out my scarred and dirty paw, my sword hand, and she took it in her left. She closed her eyes and lowered her head to her bosom. And then, slowly, came her Telling.

“You are an officer in the King’s army, even as I speak.”

I opened my mouth and as the first sound left my lips she hushed me sharply and continued.

“There is great War coming. Great and terrible battle to be joined. You will see this in full, I do fear.” Her brow knit together deeply, her eyes moving quickly underneath closed lids. “Soon, you will find new companions. These will take you to a waterfall of silver. But there be something else that lies there too. Something ancient, something that hides from the eyes of men.” Anya fell silent again.

“What do you see?” I whispered.

She opened her eyes and their light fell upon me again.

“Treasure and trial, man. You must take great care. Every footfall brings you nearer to your time of testing. And beware the guile of those around you, for I see an ill hand upon your shoulder even now, and it is fine and slender.” She gripped my forearm tightly and seized my other as well. “Pay heed to my words, keep my charm upon you and pray to God for Protection.”

I sat there, full of worry and dread. “But how am I to know this danger that you speak?”

Anya’s stern face melted away, replaced by a tender gaze. She reached up and touched my cheek and I saw at that moment a woman very old for her years. “Pay heed the word of someone who knows you well and long and true.”

“The only one who knew me that well is no more,” I told her.

“Then you must look to the one who dwells within you,” and she placed her hand upon my heart.

“Is there nothing more you can tell me?”

She lowered her eyes and shook her head.

“Will our paths cross again?” I asked her in a whisper.

She looked up. Her sapphire eyes seized hold of me again. She gave me a brief flash of a smile tinged with sadness. “That is something neither of us can know, man. The only fortune I cannot foretell is my own.”

I
RETURNED TO CAMP
to camp to find Lieutenant Tollhagen awaiting me.

“The Captain has agreed that you are the best choice to succeed Pentz. So that is that. You are a Corporal now, of my squadron.” He smiled. “I know you stood fast at Münden when I had half an army of Imperials on my arse. You saved my skin.” A cold chill ran through me down to my marrow. The first of the Telling had come to pass.

And the very next day dawned bright and warm as if summer had regained her memory and joined the world again. Galloping clouds cast the town in light and shadow in rapid succession and I took this lapis sky as an omen of changing wind and so likewise Fortune. I happened upon Andreas in the marketplace, and together we climbed the tower of St. Jacobi’s to spy out the surrounding land from the highest vantage in Göttingen. We entered the church tower from an east door and clambered up the many spiralling steps that led to the wooden bell tower. Upwards again, the next trap led to the watch room. We hauled ourselves up and stood in the chamber.

The shutters of the eight windows were opened wide and the light of the sun shone into this eyrie full. A large heap of bird shit beneath one wall revealed the roosting perch of a great owl up in the beams of the tower roof and I could just discern its brown body twitching in slumber as it huddled above us.

Andreas strode to a south window.

“Come here
Rikard
and look upon the land as does the falcon.”

The coverlet of the duchy lay rolling and full, many hues of green and gold. The hills to the south whence we had come after Münden stood dark and deep and ranged with ancient forests, far distant. Clouds raced before the sun, casting great rolling shadows across the land as we watched. I looked down and my hands at once tightened on the sill, so great was our height. The townsmen who bustled below were but specks to my eyes. I grew dizzy and pulled back so that I looked out upon the distant hills again.

Andreas chuckled at my uneasiness.

“You are not a falcon then, I see.”

“I prefer the ground to be under my feet, if truth be told,” I replied, leaning against the peeling shutter. Andreas resumed his gaze outwards.

“How did you come upon your life as a soldier?” I asked him.

He did not speak for a while, but kept staring into the sky.

“Aye, well, it is not a riddle that comes easily answered. For me, it was a path of many small steps, each one easily leading to the next. By the time I looked behind me I had gone so far that it seemed more trouble to turn back than go forwards.”

He pulled at his black beard and moustache as if to coax out Reason, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

“First it was the bounty for mustering – more coin than I had seen in a month or two, I remember. Then it was the chance to see other lands, to get rich without labouring for it, to kick someone and to get paid for it. Good drink on occasion and good food.” He looked at me with a strangely foreboding eye.

“You know of what I speak. We’re all here for what tomorrow may bring, aren’t we? The next baggage train to loot, the captured officer we can ransom. A rich whore to rob at the next halt. It is the Promise that keeps us all here, is it not
Rikard
? We all ride the Great Wheel.”

My heart again felt very empty. “I had come for more than that, and from farther away.”

“But now that you’re up to your boot tops in it, you have misplaced your Good Intentions, haven’t you? Pray listen, my friend, for I know of few old troopers that have either riches or good health. One can dice at this game for a good long while. But the risk increases with time. I know this, yet I play on. I have forgotten how to do anything else. So will you in time.”

Even as he finished his dark words, there was a loud flapping and a black thing rushed into our faces from out the window. We both leapt backwards as a great raven reared up an arm’s length from the aperture and squawked before recovering itself and shooting upwards. Andreas and I stepped forward and peered out of the window once again. Five of the black creatures hovered about the tower, seemingly motionless as they flew into the wind. One or two regarded us with their shiny jet eyes and raucously jeered their contempt. These creatures, and their cousins the rooks, seemed to be all about the town, alighting upon near every rooftop. I was confounded by such a gathering.

Andreas spoke quietly, visibly unnerved.

“The ravens’ table is one that moves with conquering armies. And the raven always knows from whence the next banquet is coming.”

Then, I saw his eyes settle and fix on something in the distance. And he quickly grasped my shoulder and thrust out his arm for me to sight down its length. There, still many leagues away and at the base of the hills, I spied the glint of pikes in the sun. Strung out mile upon mile along some road beyond sight, thousands of flashing points danced, a great serpent crawling upon the land.

General Tilly had come to Göttingen.

A
LL THAT HAD
happened to me in the year gone by, sixteen and twenty-five, all that I had seen, all that I had done, and all that I had considered Hell upon Earth; these would be as trivial as a swarm of horseflies compared to what was about to come to me. For as dark as my path had grown in this war, it was about to grow darker still. A narrow path. One the coldly beautiful Fortuna demanded that I tread alone.

I was spared the siege of Göttingen, an event that I must confess I had little urge to witness. Our army was whisked away one and all out of the east gate and onto the road north, to the town of Northeim, a good five leagues distant. After a dozen marches and counter-marches, on the twenty-third day of August, the assembled Foot and Horse of King Christian of Denmark made their camp on a wide plain within sight of the spires of Duderstadt.

What a miserable lot we had. Black clouds covered the sky and thunder rumbled, tumbling in from over the Harz mountains. The rain fell cold all morning as we set up our tents, but slackened off some in the afternoon. And even as we ate our daily ration, a great cry went through the camp, a burble that rippled and grew in intensity. A few of us hurriedly mounted our horses to get a better look at the cause of the uproar. Across the plain to the west, I watched a vast host enter the field. They bore many great standards of colour, and the sound of their drums carried all the way over to us in spite of the contrary wind. For two hours we watched them assemble, growing each minute and no more than two miles distant.

So it would happen here, I thought to myself. There was little appetite for breaking bread after watching the enemy encamp so close, so I drank only some weak beer. The rains played again upon us as the sky darkened into night, lit only from time to time by the flash of lightning. I watched more than one trooper cross himself in fear as the elements made clear their displeasure.

At the centre of our position stood an ancient stone watchtower where an old byway bisected our encampment. Someone had placed the King’s banner at its apex and I watched it lash wildly in the winds, fearful that it would rip from its staff and thus dismay the army it sought to embolden. In spite of the rain, fires began to spring up around the tower in the failing light. As full darkness descended, I stared on the fantastic sight of a great host in readiness: the great tower illuminated by thunder flashes, the gigantic standard of Christian the Fourth glimpsed for only a moment as it flapped loudly and the swarm of fires that surrounded the tower for as far as I could see.

Who could sleep thus? The company’s two other Corporals were not to be seen in the tent when I finally entered late in the night. I had maybe a few hours of solitude to me before the inevitable sounding of the drum. I wiped down my carbine and pistols yet again and prayed my powder would remain dry in the numbing dampness. My little candle, which gave but meagre light, was threatened constantly by the flapping of the tent walls in the stiff breeze that hammered away on the other side of the canvas. I sat on the creaking rack of wood and stretched out, my arms up over my forehead. I could hear the dull rumble of hundreds of soldiers in conversation, punctuated by closer cries and shouts and the occasional laugh.

As I lay there in the dim orange glow of my taper, I could see my breath roll out in a cloud. It had suddenly become unnaturally cold. So quickly, indeed, that I thought perhaps I had caught a chill. Others in the camp were dropping off in ones or twos from fever nearly each day. What protection had I? I wrapped my damp blanket closer about me and drew it up under my nose. I must have drifted off to sleep for a moment or two, and, feeling myself a-falling, awoke with a start.