Morgarten (Book 2 of the Forest Knights) (24 page)

Leopold felt his eyes growing heavy. He sensed he
would sleep well tonight.

***

He waited a full hour after he heard the men leave
and the massive door slam shut. He had almost dozed off twice, but
had kept from doing so by biting his cheek. The pain reminded him
of what was at stake.

He knew he was granted certain liberties and
privileges because of who he was, and who his allies were. But he
was under no illusion that any of that would save him from
Leopold’s wrath. The Duke would not let all his preparation go to
waste. If he knew someone other than his trusted Klaus had even an
inkling as to what he planned, that man would not see another
sunrise.

So, he breathed, and waited, and ordered his limbs
to stop cramping. The cold from the flagstones pressing up against
his back had stopped bothering him long ago. When he finally tested
his muscles by rolling onto his side, blood seeped into all the
unused parts of his body.

It burned. He gritted his teeth and welcomed the
discomfort, for it meant he was alive. This too reminded him of
what was at risk.

When he was ready, he flipped the skirting of the
strategy table aside and rolled out from under it. In the darkness,
he could still make out the shapes of clay mountains and hills upon
the miniature landscape. One mound, in particular, stood out.

Morgarten.

As quietly as he could he walked to the door and,
holding his breath, he eased it open enough to glimpse into the
lighted hallway. Seeing no one, he slipped from the room.

The entire time, the bells on his shoes made not a
sound.

***

Sir Henri of Hunenberg sat up in his bed. It was
blacker than a pit of tar in his room, but he had no trouble
wrapping his fingers around the dagger handle hanging off one bed
post. He withdrew the blade silently and stared into the
darkness.

A soft rapping came once again from the door.

Someone was… knocking? At this hour?

The tapping came again. This time it had a playful
rhythm to it. Henri growled and threw back his blankets. He fumbled
in the dark for his night robe. He tied it about his waist, thrust
the dagger through his belt, and then made his way to the hearth.
He blew a small flame back to life, enough to light a candle, and
then went to the door. He unlatched it and eased it open partway,
keeping his foot lodged firmly behind its corner. He had to hold
his own candle up to see who was there, for the hallway was
shrouded in darkness and his late night visitor carried no light of
his own.

“You? I do not find this entertaining. What—”

The Habsburg Fool held his finger to his lips. His
white painted face stood out in the flickering candlelight like
that of a ghost. “Night is the best time to visit a Knight, my
lord. May I come in?” His voice was little more than a whisper.

“What do you want?”

“Oh, I cannot tell you all of that.” The little man
leaned against the door jamb and traced curved outlines with his
finger onto the heavy wooden door. “But I can tell you more than
enough to make you happy you invited me into your room.” He began
humming quietly to himself, turning his attention back to the door
and the finger artwork that only he could see.

Henri cursed, threw back the door, and beckoned the
simple man inside.

Seraina stood at the forest’s edge, on the outskirts
of Zug, and gazed out over a vast sea of soldiers erecting
thousands of tents. Darkness was less than an hour away, so there
was an urgency to their activities that gave the scene a frantic,
disorganized appearance. She could have been standing right in
their midst, instead of hidden in the shadows of a giant oak, and
no one would have noticed her.

Above the shouts of men and the sounds of horses,
far away, in the mountains above and to the south, she could hear
the deep notes of alphorns as Noll’s lookouts relayed messages from
peak to peak. She wondered how long it would take for Thomas to
hear the same notes she was listening to right now. How many horns
would it take to pass on the alarm?

Seraina sensed something behind her. Relief and
anger flowed through her, competing to see which would overcome the
other.

“Hello Gildas.”

Seraina did not turn around, but she heard the old
druid exhale. After a moment he came to stand with her and share in
the shadows of her tree. He wore a nondescript gray cloak, not his
usual white one. It allowed him to blend into his surroundings more
easily, Seraina thought, but it had not hidden him from her.

“There was a time when I could surprise you whenever
I wished,” Gildas said.

“And there was a time when I knew I could trust you
to tell me the truth,” Seraina said. She looked at her mentor, but
he turned away from her and stared at the army setting up camp in
the distance.

“Tell me you did not know Thomas was the Catalyst,”
Seraina said. She had meant it to come out sharp and scolding, but
instead, to her ears, she sounded like a little girl. Still, it
seemed to have the desired effect, for Gildas flinched at her
words, and when he looked at her, his eyes overflowed with
regret.

“I suspected, my child. Nothing more.”

“Why did you not tell me? You should have said
something before… before…”

Gildas took one of her hands in both of his and
turned to face her. “I could not, Seraina. For I could have just as
easily been wrong and
you
could have been right. I wanted to
say something, I truly did. But to do so could have caused an
unraveling of the Weave, with dire consequences neither one of us
could have predicted.”

“And what of this?” Seraina pointed to the Habsburg
army, thousands of men strong, spreading out before them as they
spoke. Cooking fires were beginning to pop up like fireflies in the
night. “Perhaps this is one of the dire consequences of which you
speak.”

She looked at Gildas. “This could be a war of my own
creation. What if this is not the time for the Helvetii to fight
back? Perhaps my people were meant to go into hiding and wait for
another hundred years. If I have misread the Weave, thousands will
die tomorrow and their blood will all be on my hands.”

Seraina looked out at the fires again and tears
broke free from both of her eyes. “I could not live with that,” she
said.

Gildas stepped in and put his arm around her
shoulders.

“I too have misread the Weave, and you will again
before this life is finished. No one can be expected to see all Her
patterns, but do not be so quick to doubt your abilities. And
besides. An occasional misreading of the Weave can have wonderful
results.”

He turned her head toward him and wiped her tears
with his finger. “I think Thomas Schwyzer, Catalyst or not, would
agree with me on that one.”

Seraina rapped the old druid in the chest with the
back of her hand. “How can you joke at a time like this?”

“Jokes should be strictly reserved for times like
these,” Gildas said, smiling. “Now, come here. Give an old man a
hug and then we had best be moving on. Time is short.”

Seraina made a show of resisting, but truth be told,
there was nothing she wanted more. She would have stayed wrapped in
the warmth of the old druid's arms for much longer, but he finally
broke the embrace.

“It is time, Seraina.”

“To the Mythen, then,” she said, wiping her eyes
once more.

Gildas nodded. “You go ahead. Someone must see that
Thomas knows Leopold has reached Zug. I will stop by to warn him
and then meet you on the mountain.”

Seraina frowned. “I heard the alphorns, so I am sure
they know by now.”

Gildas nodded, knowingly. “You are most likely
right. But since it is only an hour out of my way, I would like to
make sure. Now go. The others will be waiting.”

It was mid-afternoon and Thomas was in his tent when
the alphorns began. Seconds later, Noll ducked his head inside.

“You hear them?” Noll asked.

“How could I not,” Thomas said. “What do they
mean?”

“Leopold has reached Zug with a force eight thousand
strong. Three thousand of them mounted.”

Thomas nodded. It was no worse than they had been
expecting. The Confederate forces numbered just over eleven
hundred, with no cavalry to speak of. But Thomas had confidence in
their defenses. The men had worked tirelessly at their drills. They
would make Leopold’s army bleed, of that he had no doubt. Whether
or not it would be enough, that was another question.

An alphorn sounded again in the distance, and Noll
looked in its direction.

“What do we do?”

“Make our rounds as usual. Check on the men, then
eat a good meal and go to bed as early as possible.”

“That is it?”

Thomas shrugged. “We have done all we can. The
waiting is over. We are in God’s hands now.”

It was an hour past midnight when one of the Rubin
brothers woke Thomas. He spoke in an urgent whisper.

“Sir, you should come to the front wall.”

He could not tell whether it was Sepp or Marti, but
Thomas knew neither one of them excited easily. He shrugged off his
blanket and convinced his sleep-stiffened joints to get him on his
feet. Without pressing the young man for further details, he
followed him to the front gate of the wooden palisade.

Ruedi, Anton, and the other Rubin boy were already
there, standing on the narrow ledge built halfway up the wall. They
all stared at something in the darkness beyond. Thomas glanced at
the brother walking beside him, and again at the one on the wall.
He still had no idea who was who. When Anton saw Thomas approach,
he hopped off the ledge to give Thomas room to climb up.

“What is it?” Thomas asked, as he stepped up the
three split-log stairs to the ledge.

“A rider,” Anton said from below. “Probably their
advance scout come to survey the defenses.”

“Evening, Cap’n,” Ruedi said as Thomas slid in
between him and the Rubin boy. The bearded man had rested his war
bow between two of the sharpened poles used to build the palisade.
The string was drawn, and a black bolt sat in its groove, waiting
to be unleashed. Ruedi’s fingers tapped the stock of the weapon
tenderly. “Just say the word, and we can all go back to sleep.”

At first, Thomas saw nothing. There was only a
sliver of moonlight, but someone had already extinguished the
nearby torches on their side of the wall, so he was able to
separate out the shape of a man and horse from the darkness of the
forest.

“He is too far out,” Thomas said. “What is your
count?”

Ruedi nodded. “The man knows his ranges. But I
figure I could find him with six of every ten bolts. Nine of ten if
you just want the horse.”

Thomas shook his head. “Hold, for now.”
Six of
ten
was a very long distance in Ruedi’s measuring scale. The
scout would not get much useful information from that far out.
Especially, on a dark night such as this.

“How long has he been there?”

Ruedi nodded toward the brother. “He spotted him
first. Rubin?”

Apparently, Ruedi still could not tell the brothers
apart either.

“At least fifteen minutes, by now,” the boy
said.

“Any sign of a flag? Maybe he has come to offer
terms,” Anton said.

Thomas was just about to say that he would not be
accepting any terms offered in the cover of darkness by Leopold,
when Ruedi nudged his elbow and pointed at the shadow on the
road.

“Here we go,” Ruedi said.

The figure began walking his horse toward them, its
hooves echoed off the hard packed road, carrying far in the
stillness of the night. He nudged his horse into a trot, and the
echoes sounded like a drum roll.

“That is no messenger pony,” Ruedi said. “The man
rides a destrier.” He hefted his crossbow and placed it against his
shoulder.

The black figure’s horse broke into a gallop and
both horse and rider began to emerge from the night and take form.
He sits the saddle well, Thomas thought, just as the man let go of
his horse’s reins and raised a crossbow to his shoulder.

“He is attacking!” the Rubin boy said.

Ruedi sighted down the length of his war bow,
following the motion of the man and horse barreling toward them.
They were almost within normal crossbow range now. Thomas scoured
the woods, looking for others. But there was no one. What could he
possibly hope to accomplish by attacking the palisade
single-handedly? A young knight trying to make a name for himself?
Thomas had certainly seen men do madder things.

“Cap’n…?”

Just as he was about to tell Ruedi to put him down,
Thomas realized the man was not wearing armor. There was no glint
of metal anywhere on him, and he shifted around much too easily on
top of his war horse.

“Hold,” Thomas said. “Get your head down, Rubin.” He
decided he liked Ruedi’s efficient naming method for the brothers.
The boy crouched over, but kept one eye high enough to see above
the wall.

Still at full gallop, the attacker sighted down his
crossbow, and, raising himself slightly in his stirrups to steady
his aim, fired. The bolt thudded into the main gate of the
palisade, and sent vibrations through the wood to where they stood.
As soon as he let the shot go, he wheeled his charger around and
galloped back into the night. Like the man, the hoof beats soon
receded beyond the senses of everyone standing at the wall.

“Rubin,” Thomas said. “Get me that bolt.”

The boy did not move, but kept staring over the wall
into the darkness. Thomas was about to tell him again, when he
heard someone throw off the crossbar on the gate and pull it open.
He leaned out over the wall and saw the other Rubin boy digging at
the head of the crossbow bolt with his knife.