The Ravens’ Banquet (19 page)

“Why are you in such haste to leave this place.” He asked. “Your army is fled the field of Lütter and Tilly’s men now drink the town.”

I knew in my heart he spoke the truth. The King of Denmark had staked everything on one last throw, and he had lost.

“What has happened?” I asked of him. For this Spirit knew what I could not hope to know.

A groaning sigh issued forth from the mouth of the Green Man, shivering the vines that embraced his head. “Valiantly your army fought, but the enemy shattered the Danish centre and the cavalry and the king fled the field. He sulks this day at Wolfenbüttel, away to the north with the remnants of his once great host. The Cause that you followed, Master Treadwell, is lost. The Emperor at Vienna now holds this land again.”

The gentle sting of tears came to my eyes. I could scarce recall what that Cause was that I had signed on to so long ago. I had lost everything but my life, bereft of companions or comfort, and abandoned in a strange land.

“What of Jacob and Andreas?” I asked.

“They both yet live,” replied the Green Man slowly, as if speaking laboured him.

I nodded, still clinging to my tree. “I am going to find them all. I must. I hold the colour of the company in my boot. It must be returned.”

“You have many leagues’ journey to find the Danish host with the enemy between you and them. You have lost your horse, and your arms.”

“There is nothing else I can do,” I croaked.

“There is always another way,” he replied, the leaves of his mantle rustling. “Think well upon your situation. Fortuna reigns not only on the battlefield but also in this very wood that surrounds you.”

“There’s nothing here but trees… and you,” I said.

The Green Man was patient. “And more besides. Look to those of the weaker sex. To those that have spared your life.”

“What can they offer me? They’re living in hovels of sticks and vanish into the air.”

The Green Man’s words were hard fought, as if the ivy that entwined his head was also choking his voice.

“They are... not what they seem to be,” he rasped. “Fortuna dwells with them. Good bye to you... I can tell thee no more.”

“Speak plainly, Samuel,” I said, still fearful, but also tiring of his riddles and jabberment.

But a cry from afar turned my head. Coming toward me was a band of women, those same souls who had vanquished the Croats one day ago. They came quickly to my side, and one stepped forward to take my elbow.

I half turned back to look at Samuel. But the Green Man was not there, only the tangle of greenery that everywhere blanketed the forest floor.

I turned again to look on my rescuer. She was as tall as I, long honey tresses untied and unkempt, framing a long dark face. Green eyes looked into mine, and she inclined her head slightly, gesturing that I should move forward. She was possessed of sharp cheeks and a proud Roman nose, the whole that while not pretty was not hard-favoured either.

“Come with us,” she said, softly, but her tone was not offering a choice. “It is not safe to wander when your head wound is yet unhealed.”

“Didn’t you see him?” I asked, my head suddenly aching again.

“There is naught else in this place but us,” she replied, pulling on my arm. “Your wound troubles you.”

I released my mossy tree and stepped forward with my new support of flesh and blood.

“How are you called?” I asked her.

“My name,” she replied, stopping for a moment and fixing me in her gaze, “is Rosemunde.”

C
HARLES
S
TUART IS
a fool. Though I write these words and know them to be treasonous, I’ve shed enough blood in his Cause to earn the right to do so. But I am the bigger fool. It was I who undertook the correspondence to the Danish prince, a naked artifice to gain favour with the King through his craven advisors.

My brother William tells me this day that my examination is to be held over for two more days because of other pressing business before the Committee. I believe that the likes of me must be but a small diversion to their more crucial offices of fabricating onerous new laws in contravention of England’s ancient constitution. I am not surprised that they leave me to wait their pleasure.

“They have read everything that you wrote,” said my brother, exasperated by my evident stupidity. “All of the letters. You openly invited discussion with the Danes for the purpose of their sending regiments here to fight alongside the King’s forces against his elected Parliament. Worse than this, you suggested safe ports where they could make entry without encountering opposition. Thirdly, you intimated that your motive in beginning the correspondence came from the highest authorities.”

I nodded. “Aye, I’ve written it all. And those foppish clowns, Lord Digby and the others, all playing at soldier. They managed to reveal all, to friend and enemy alike. But I’m the one who bears the brunt.”

My brother shook his head at me. “You sound hard-done, Richard. Do you deny that this was, by all definitions, a treasonous act to incite invasion of your own country?”

I scoffed aloud. “No more treasonous than to raise arms against our God-given Sovereign. Simpleton that he is.”

It was William’s turn to scoff. “That is disingenuous, brother. Our Cause is against those councilors who advise the King, not the King himself. The King must reconcile with his Parliament for this war to end.”

“Rogues,” I muttered. “Rogues and mealy-mouthed Saints in concordance. That is what your Cause has given us.”

William came round to my side and knelt next to my stool, close to my face.

“Your loyalty is an unrequited one. Think upon that. Are any of them worthy of your sacrifice, excepting His Majesty?”

I thought about this. “Nay,” I replied. “Not a soul among them.”

“Mark me, you have but one defence in this matter. You must make full disclosure to the Committee. You are to tell them that your past service to the Danish crown was wellknown and that the King’s advisors set you upon the correspondence in question. Against your better council.”

“That… would be an untruth,” I said quietly.

“Would it be? Search your heart, brother. Yours is the soldier’s defence. You serve those you are sworn to and obey their commands. It is they who have not upheld their part of the contract.”

His words touched an unhealed wound, a scabrous patch on my soul that still leached poison into my heart. The soldier’s defence, denunciation, and accusal. My brother did not know that I had embarked down that road before.

“I am a soldier, yes,” I said turning to face him, “but so too, a commander of men. It was a decision made of free will, my own free will.”

My brother’s glare softened a bit. He gripped my shoulder with firmness and for a moment I felt the years of bitterness melt away. But I held back.

“Richard,” he said, “You can be a soldier or you can be a martyr. They will assuredly hang you for a traitor unless you seize your chance when it is given. Save yourself.”

I pushed William’s hand from my shoulder and shook my head. I find myself sick at heart. I don’t know who to trust anymore. Parliament would use me as their cudgel against the Cause I have sworn to defend. Of that, I’m certain.

I
RETURNED TO
the encampment in the company of those strange women, who, unlike the perfumed whores of Nienburg and Hannover
,
stank of stale sweat and woodfire. These rustic sisters struck me as like those of some clerical Order. They said little, lived in poverty, and yet seemed directed by a higher Purpose. Who were these daughters of Artemis, secreted here by some unknown Design?

I was led back to my comrades again who, it appeared, had not made much of my disappearance. They were more of a mind to contemplate the arrival of the sisters rather than my deliverance from the forest.

The sisters around me were seven, dressed in russet hues, hair uncovered, sandalshod. Of the others Christoph had spoken of, I knew not. These women looked at us with no fear or worry in their eyes, which, I confess, took me as passing strange. Every woman ought to fear a soldier. This was unnatural boldness as it was unseemly in the fairer sex.

Rosemunde spoke. Not to Hartmann and the others, but most straight to Christoph, the challenge conveyed without hesitation through her large green eyes.

“He was wandering and could have come to harm. But we have found him again.”

Christoph seemed too confounded to reply or curse
.

There was great unease here, to be sure. They knew not quite which card to play nor, in truth, did we. None were, by any reckoning, mere slips of girls. Brown as berries, faces bony and well-lined, all were of marrying age and a few well past it. Their countenances told of hard toil and tears, and the hardships of their past could be read as one would draw a finger along a map.

I tried to push the fantastical image of Samuel from my mind’s eye. Why had the shades of the dead begun again to follow me as at Plymouth in my youth?

Do not tell a soul, boy! Do y’ hear me? Don’t tell anybody.

“Goodwife,” I began, looking at Rosemunde.
“
We owe you thanks for our safety and for the sharing of your food. Tell us what brings you into this place, so far from village or town.”

The women glanced at Rosemunde.

“It was you and your soldiers that trespassed here,” she answered. “So if fair be fair, then tell us of
your
intentions.” Her voice was hard and no smile adorned her words.

Christoph pushed forward.

“She gives a bold reply, Englishman. Everybody here knows that these forests belong to the Dukes of Braunschweig and not to any peasant folk.”

I placed my arm across his chest to bar his move.

“Have a care, Christoph,” I said to him quietly.

He growled an oath but held his ground.

I turned back to Rosemunde. “We’ll leave this place as soon as we’re whole again. As soon as we can. We will return to our regiment. That is the truth of it and if you and yours will spare us some fare this evening, we’ll trouble you no more.”

She looked from Christoph to me.

“We’ve borne your presence this long and another night matters little to us. Stay if you will.”

“And where live your families?” I asked of her. “Your menfolk… we have not seen any these two days.”

Rosemunde shifted her stance and smote me with a hard glare. A woman more sharp and untrusting I had not happened upon yet in my adventures.

“Menfolk you may not have seen, but don’t reason there’s any advantage in it for you. We look after ourselves as good as any can. Or has your memory suffered from the blow to your skull?”

Christoph laughed heartily. “Nay, woman, we have good recollection of your handiwork!”

Rosemunde nodded. “Then bear us no ill intent and nor shall we to you. We have dwelt here in this place for some months and so do call it our own.”

“And where exactly is this place,” I asked.

“This is the Kroeteberg,” said Rosemunde, “a few leagues west of the Rammelsberg and the town of Goslar. Know you the Rammelsberg?”

“
Aye,” spoke up Hartmann. “It is where all the gold and silver in the Empire is mined.”

Rosemunde took no notice of Hartmann’s reply but unslung the sack that she carried and walked to the fire with it, dropping it to the ground. She quietly spoke to her sisters and the band fell away at her command, some off to the hovels of sticks, others back to the forest.

We followed her to the fire.

“And what of the Rammelsberg?” asked Christoph.

She reached down and opened the bundle, revealing faggots for the fire. Picking up a log she tossed it onto the low flames and prodded it into place with her foot.

“Our men were miners there, and we lived at the foot of the mountain. There is a small village that lays a stone’s throw from the back gate of Goslar. One day, this past spring, soldiers came to the Rammelsberg. They took away many men, pressed into the service of the Emperor. We were told that the army needed men to dig saps, to tunnel under fortresses and the like. We never heard from our husbands again.”

Christoph shot me a knowing glance and I knew that the siege of Göttingen was on his lips. We both knew that Imperial miners had drowned by the score in their attempts to tunnel under the walls along the river there. I shook my head to warn him that he should bide his time and, though it was not in his habit, he obeyed me in this. More likely he too reasoned that the intelligence might be of better use to him later.

“Rosemunde,” I said, calling her name for the first time, “you have not told of how you got from there to here. Why have you left your village?”

She paused and straightened up her back. “You ask many questions that are of little concern to you.”

“Don’t feign insult, woman,” said Christoph as he sat down next to the fire. “It’s more than a little curious for a gaggle of goodwives to be on their own in a mountain forest. Answer my Corporal.”

She laughed. It was lusty, not false, and from deep in the heart. And there was no whiff of fear upon it.