The Ravens of Falkenau & Other Stories (6 page)

I read them.
 
I read them twice, turning the pages with careful hands.

"This is a letter," I said, "from Cardinal Richelieu to the Emperor."

"Just so," Trcka said.
 
"From that Richelieu who rules France in all but name.
 
To our Emperor."

"He offers money," I said, reading it again.
 
"A great deal of money.
 
And by the second one it has been accepted, one Catholic monarch to another.
 
Money and guns.
 
Money and cannon."
 
I looked up at Trcka, who bent over the table.
 
"France is allied with the Swedes against us.
 
They have already given them a great deal, otherwise they would have already withdrawn to their own country.
 
Richelieu has been the prop of their army for the last four years."

"And so?" Trcka asked.

"And now he would secretly support us?"
 
Wheels within wheels, a game I could parse too easily.
 
Far too easily.

"What does he gain by that?" Trcka asked quietly.

"You know well what he does," I said.
 
My mouth compressed into a thin line.
 
"He pays us to fight one another.
 
We dance like puppets on a string for his amusement.
 
No, not for his amusement, but for the good of France.
 
Sweden and Bohemia and Poland and all the states of the Empire tear one another apart like dogs in a fight, while France stands back unsullied, her wealth and her palaces intact.
 
He goads us to attack one another, to destroy our universities and kill our farmers, and all it costs him is a bit of gold!"

Trcka nodded.

"We are played for fools," I said.
 
My mind should not compass this, but it too easily did.
 
"Richelieu has played us all for fools.
 
We have spent a decade and more killing one another, Catholic and Protestant alike in the name of God, and it is nothing but Richelieu's game."
 
I looked up at him.
 
"Wallenstein knows?"

"Wallenstein knows," Trcka said.
 
"He gave me leave to speak to you."

I blinked.
 
I said the first thing that came to mind.
 
"Why?"

"Because he seeks a separate peace with the Swedes, and you are his man, not the Emperor's."
 

I let out a long breath.
 
"That is true," I said.
 
Wallenstein was a soldier and a good one, and I had not met Ferdinand.
 
He did not sully his hands with the likes of me.

"Will you support him?"

"Yes."
 
I looked down at the paper again, proof of the greatest treason.
 
Yes, we were but playthings for the great, but this…
 
"What if the king served the country, rather than the country the king?" I said.

"What, indeed?"
 
Trcka smiled.
 
"What if one could trade a bad king for a better?"

"That is indeed treason," I said, but there was no heat in it.
 
The Emperor was elected from among the nobles.
 
Why not a good rather than a bad?
 
Emperors had been deposed before.

"Perhaps the Emperor will see reason," Trcka said.
 
"After all, Wallenstein has an army, and he does not."

"Perhaps he will," I said.
 
It would take an army to countermand the effects of Richelieu's gold.
 
A man could live in exile very comfortably for the rest of his life on a tenth of it, or spend his days in pampered splendor at the Luxembourg.
 
I stood and gave Trcka my hand.
 
"I will stand with you," I said.

I returned to Falkenau on a late autumn day when the wind blew gusts around the towers, dead leaves chasing each other like goats on the mountains.
 
Cloaked and muffled, we got in ahead of the rain.
 
I was unsurprised to find my wife on the walls of Falkenau, looking north and west into the storm.
 
The freshening wind was laden with moisture, and her hair whipped in fine strands about her face like red gold against a sky of gray.

"What misfortune have you brought today?" Izabela asked me.

"Would that I could tell you," I said.
 
I put my hands upon the parapet and looked out at mountains and sky and all.
 
I had thought this might be mine, but a sword blade still stood between me and it, the treachery of kings.
 

And yet,
 
that orchard yonder might be replanted.
 
Apples would bear before too long, were there young trees transplanted from another.
 
Those fields had nothing wrong with them, merely the grain burned standing.
 
In the spring the stubble could be plowed under and the field would be as rich as ever.
 
Soon winter would come and water it all, cover everything beneath a pall of snow.
 
We would be short of supplies, but there was enough, I thought.
 
Barely enough.
 
And then spring would come with her healing cloak of green.

If this were mine I should love it with all my heart.
 
I should know it, each stone and each tree, each bridge and each well, the shape of each far peak against the sky seen only as they are from Falkenau.
 
When I die, my bones should molder here, becoming one with this land, a bit of me passing into dirt and leaf and tree, a tie that could not be broken though centuries should pass.

Izabela was looking at me sideways, a strange expression on her face.
 

"Politics, madam," I said.
 
No doubt it would please her to know that the Catholic Emperor was false to his own.
 
But the Protestant princes were no better.
 
They too were Richelieu's dupes.

"Why did you ask for the minister?" I asked, and added at her blank look, "rather than a priest?"

"Because I am Protestant," she said, as though that were obvious.
 

I shook my head.
 
There was a faint spatter of freckles on Izabela's nose courtesy of the summer sun that now faded from the sky.
 
"And that matters to you?"

"Yes."
 
Izabela folded her hands on the stone, lifting her face to the wind.
 
The sky had darkened with the clouds and coming night.
 
"I believe that every man and every woman comes before God on his or her own merits with no interventions, no dispensations and no allowances, with no witness to speak for them save their own deeds.
 
And I believe that God speaks to each of us as He wills.
 
We do not need a priest to stand intermediary between us and God, for we are each a precious child of His own creation."

"Born in sin to die in sin," I said.

"And yet through our actions are we redeemed, and by our faith saved," Izabela said.
 
There was a curious smile on her face, as though her skin was but a vessel for something luminous.
 
"Mine is not the God of fires and pits, but the God who so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him may not perish but have everlasting life."
 
She turned her eyes to mine.
 
"I did not understand that until I had sons of my own.
 
To give your own child, to give your own sweet son…
 
What love could be so strong that one would do so?"

"I don't know," I said.

Something in her face closed.
 
"And you will take my sons from me when you wish.
 
Do you think I do not know that you will kill them?"

I opened my mouth and shut it again.

"If you would have Falkenau pass to the heirs of your body, do you think I do not know what stands in your way?"
 
Her mouth narrowed to a thin line.
 
"They will not be the first boys killed by a murderous stepfather.
 
So you will see that I will do whatever will save them."

"I will do them no harm while you are cooperative," I managed.

She snorted.
 
"And when I have cooperated and you have got another son on me?
 
Do you think I will believe that?
 
Falkenau passes through the heirs of my body, not yours.
 
If you would truly own it, then you know what you must do.
 
And so do I."

"I think that is unlikely," I said.
 
I took a step closer, my side to her, looking into the eye of the north wind.
 
"I will not live so long.
 
What use in begetting a son when the time is already gone?
 
I am not a young man, Izabela, and there are endless battles before me.
 
Chances are I would not see it weaned.
 
In the spring I will be gone to war."

Unless there was peace.
 
Unless Wallenstein traded for peace.

She did not speak, only waited me out.
 
Unless there was a change in the stars, something marked in the wind.
 
Unless the world were transformed.
 
And yet I did not think it would be.
 
I thought there would be war.
 
What use in planting fields that would be trampled before the harvest?
 
What use in begetting children to be tiny corpses at the next turn of the tide?
 

Whatever I did, it would not matter.
 
And therein lay the crux of it.
 

I glanced at her sideways, so young and so certain.
 
"Do you never waver in your faith?"

Her eyes slid from mine and she leaned upon her elbows against the wall.
 
The first raindrops spattered around us in a gust of wind.
 
"Sometimes," she said.
 
"I waver."
 
She lifted her face to the rain and did not look at me.
 
"In the spring when my husband died and the armies came down upon us, I prayed to the Archangel Michael to send help not for me, but for my sons and for my people.
 
And instead there was you."

My throat closed and there was nothing I could say.
 
Above, the banners flew in the wind, billowing around the skirts of her black dress as though we were two ravens who perched there, carrion eaters poised above the carnage of the world.

Another spatter of rain, and I took her arm.
 
"Come inside, Izabela," I said.
 
"It is raining."

I went down and found McDonald in the stableyard.
 
"Walk with me," I said.

He followed me through the hall and up the stair, down a winding passage that zigzagged between parts of the castle built in different centuries, to the lord's chamber.
 
I closed the door behind us.
 
He looked at me with a frown.
 
"What's wrong?"

I told him all, Richelieu and the rest, pacing the room like a caged beast, from door to windows that looked on mountains and river.

When I was finished, McDonald sank into my chair beside the map table.
 
"A fine mess," he said.
 
Then he shrugged, eyes very blue.
 
"But what's in it for us?
 
Wallenstein's separate peace, I mean?
 
If he makes peace with the Swedes and Protestants, what becomes of us?"

For a moment I couldn't fathom what he was talking about.

McDonald gestured around the fine room.
 
"It's all well enough for you," he said.
 
"You've got your share.
 
You'll stay here and be Graf Falkenau married to a pretty wench and spend the rest of your life collecting taxes and siring fat children.
 
But what about those boys downstairs?
 
Most of them have never known any life except at arms.
 
They've got no prospects and no crafts.
 
If peace breaks out they've nothing to do except turn bandit.
 
What about your men, Georg?
 
Surely you're not so blinded by the Lady Izabela's spreading acres that you've forgotten about them?"

I drew a deep breath.
 
"You know as well as I that most of them will never have any more land than the grave they lie in.
 
You and I — we're rare birds, Jamie.
 
Old mercenaries.
 
Most of them won't live five years, much less retire rich men."

"But they might.
 
And that's the siren, my friend.
 
You heard her song and so did I.
 
One more battle, one more march, and we'll get our own.
 
Our ships will come in and we'll live on milk and honey.
 
As long as you keep believing it you'll keep fighting."
 
McDonald crossed his legs.
 
"I'm not so much worried for me.
 
I'd make a fine master at arms for Falkenau.
 
But you can't keep them all on.
 
What use is there for a company if peace breaks out?"