ALTDORF (The Forest Knights: Book 1) (27 page)

“What would be your name lad?”

The boy eased himself down onto a pile of blackened straw.

“You can talk to me, or just listen to me. Either way suits me fine,” Pirmin said. “I suppose the bastards already got your tongue then, eh?”

“My name is Matthias,” the boy finally said.

“Is it now? Well, a good name that one. Right from the Holy Book itself.”

“You talk funny,” Matthias said.

Pirmin started. He turned his better eye toward the boy and looked closely. He wondered if the boy was a trick of the mind, like when men saw an oasis in the desert. Perhaps he was hurt worse than he thought. Maybe even dead.

“What did you say?”

“Your words, you say them strange.”

Thomas had told him the very same thing when they had first met. The memories of the long march came to Pirmin and he smiled, grateful to have them. For a moment they took him away from his dank cell and the pain wracking his body.

“A good friend said those same words to me when I was about your age.”

“What happened to him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is he dead?”

“No. Why would you say that?”

The boy shrugged. Pirmin grunted and changed the topic. “Tell me what you did to land in here Mathias.”

“Why should I?” The boy looked at Pirmin and stuck out his jaw. Pirmin noticed the beginning of a black eye and the remains of a handprint on the side of his face.

“Because you and me are going to be friends. Whether you like it or not.”

Mathias squinted at the big man across the dark cell. “I stole three bottles of wine,” he said.

“Wine?” Pirmin started laughing, but forced himself to stop because his ribs hurt something fierce. “Thought you were going to say bread, or a chicken, or something sensible. But wine? A lad like you is too young for wine. Who was it for?”

“I am plenty old enough. I was nine at winter’s end. And I drank a whole half before the Duke’s men found me.” He puffed out his skinny chest and sneered at Pirmin.

Pirmin laughed, and this time he welcomed the pain.

Chapter 30

T
HOMAS RODE west from the village of Schwyz until he hit the road leading south from Brunnen. A wave of anger passed through him as he thought of how much time he could save if only his ferry were operational. A half day at least. For now he would need to turn south at Brunnen and follow the road all the way to the end of the lake. From there he would curve around its lower arm until the road turned north once again towards Seelisberg.

It was well after dark by the time he came to the overgrown path branching off the main road that led into the grove where Seraina had her cabin. Thomas never would have found it if Sutter had not given him detailed directions.

The path itself was virtually invisible, but it was marked with a menhir, a man-sized, cylindrical rock moved to this location centuries ago by people long since forgotten. Some said the menhir were markers that warned of places best avoided, others said they were waystones that helped the dead pass from this world into the next.

Thomas dismounted and set flint and steel to the wick of his lantern. Pushing aside some low-hanging branches, and holding the lantern aloft before him, he led Sutter’s sturdy mountain pony into the bushes. Even though Thomas believed the stories surrounding menhir were nothing more than ridiculous Pagan beliefs belonging to another time, he found some measure of comfort in how his horse plunged onto the dark path without hesitation.

Fifteen minutes later the path branched off in three directions, forcing Thomas to choose one. Minutes later it branched again, and the trails seemed narrower. Another thirty minutes and Thomas was forced to admit he was lost.

At some point he had become turned around, and was no longer sure in which direction the road lay. Without the sun as a reference point he had no way of knowing. He slapped his open palm against the rough bark of a tree, one of many that crowded his path, and cursed himself for being so careless.

Thomas realized he had no hope now of stumbling upon Seraina’s cabin in the darkness, so he hung his lantern on a high branch and began scrounging for firewood. He would have to wait until morning.

Some time later, with his horse unsaddled and hobbled nearby, he huddled in front of his campfire. He rubbed his hands together and when he looked up a figure stood before him on the other side of the flames.

Startled, Thomas jumped to his feet, drew his knife and took a step back from the fire. Unfortunately, a low line of saplings tripped him up. With a yelp he crashed over backwards and landed in the undergrowth.

Lying on his back, with plants crisscrossing all around him like a spider’s web, he heard a woman’s surprised laugh.

“Seraina?”

He was answered by more laughter and finally, when she had herself under control, Seraina said, “Oh, Thomas. I am sorry, but the look on your face was wonderful. Something I shall never forget.”

Thomas sat up from his mattress of ferns and Seraina, after stifling another giggle, held out an arm and helped him to his feet. In her other arm she held a wool blanket.

“I thought you might need this tonight,” she said. “And when you failed to turn up at my door, for some reason or another, I decided to come to you.” Her eyes glistened in the dark with playful mischief, and Thomas was reminded of tales of men being seduced by beautiful creatures of the Fey.

He took the blanket, mumbling his gratitude, and for the first time in many hours felt himself relax. He had found Seraina, or rather, she had found him, and looking at her reflected in the flickering light of the fire, he felt a great weight lift. Then he remembered why he had come.

“Seraina, I need to find Noll. He and Pirmin are in trouble.”

The playfulness in her eyes faded, and as sorry as Thomas was to see it go, the concern for his friend took precedence.

“Well look no further ferryman,” a voice called out from the darkness, and this time Seraina jumped as high as Thomas. Her hand latched onto his forearm and stayed there.

Noll slipped out of the woods and walked towards them. “Noll, if I did not know better, I would say you were spying on us,” Seraina said.

“I wish I had time for that,” Noll said, stopping in front of them. He dropped his pack near the fire and leaned some sticks against it to shield the light. “Your fire is inviting every wanderer on the road for miles around.”

He avoided looking at Thomas. There was more movement behind Noll, and Vex wandered out of the woods. He made a circle around the campsite, hot on the trail of some forest creature, and then came to sit at Noll’s feet. Seraina’s nails bit into Thomas’s forearm.

Thomas looked down and something different about the dog caught his eye. The fur around his mouth seemed much darker than he remembered. He glanced at the dark woods, expecting Pirmin to come bursting through at any moment.

“He is not coming, ferryman,” Noll said, shaking his head.

Thomas looked back at Vex’s mouth, and in the flaring firelight realized it was lined in dried blood. A lot of blood.

If Seraina did not still have her hand on his arm, he would have killed Noll where he stood.

“Where
is Pirmin?
”

Chapter 31

T
HE JAILER, a compact, stoop-shouldered man with a tired face came for Pirmin and the boy that evening. Six Habsburg men-at-arms accompanied him; stern, disciplined soldiers who methodically locked Pirmin in a set of walking irons and then unchained him from the wall. As they hammered the bolts into place on his ankle cuffs, Pirmin eyed the jailer. He squinted and tried to bring his puffed up eyes into focus. He knew the man from somewhere.

“Heller. That your name? We met at Sutter’s in the Spring.”

The jailer raised his head and straightened up slowly, like a man with a secret who had just been found out.

“Was hoping you forgot,” he said.

“I never forget someone I drink with,” Pirmin said. “Unless he joins in late and I am so far into my cups there is no climbing out.”

Heller started to say something but was interrupted by the shrill hammering of a soldier driving a pin into place on one of Pirmin’s cuffs. When the hammering died off, Pirmin said, “I recall now, you said you were from Altdorf.”

Heller nodded. “Wish I could say I was glad to see you here Pirmin.”

Pirmin held out his manacled wrists. “So unfetter these and we will both feel much better.”

One of the men-at-arms stepped in and backhanded Pirmin across the face. “Enough talk, outlaw.” The blow dislodged a tooth loosened during his capture and opened up a cut on one of his gums. Blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth and then slowed to a standstill, like a hillside stream in the dead of winter.

The man who hit him wore a patch over one eye and he was bigger than any man in the room save Pirmin. His eye took on a mad glow when he saw Pirmin bleed and spit out his tooth. He laughed and Pirmin, smelling decaying meat on his breath, turned his head away.

He saw Mathias still standing against the far wall, shivering; his thin arms wrapped around himself and his eyes wide in fear.

“Hey, Mathias. Did you just run over here and slap me?”

The boy almost grinned, but the soldier’s face twisted and the glow in his one good eye turned to fire. He punched Pirmin in his wounded shoulder. Lightning coursed through Pirmin’s blood, sending a shockwave of pain throughout his entire body, and he doubled over, grimacing.

“That better big man? That feel like a boy’s fist to you?” The soldier grabbed the mallet from the soldier putting on the shackles and raised it over Pirmin’s uninjured shoulder. “Maybe we should even out the pain a bit so you can stand upright.”

“Put that down or the Duke will hear how you crippled his prisoner,” Heller said.

He strode between the men-at-arms and snatched the mallet from the one-eyed soldier, though he needed to raise himself on his toes to do so. The soldier glared down at Heller, but the threat seemed to register with him, and after a series of chest-heaving breaths he calmed himself. Turning back to Pirmin he grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked him upright. He leaned in close.

“Hear that, big man? The Duke wants to see you.” He pushed Pirmin towards the door, but with his ankles hobbled by the short length of chain between them, Pirmin stumbled and fell. He reached out with his hands to break his fall, but his shoulder caused him to scream out in pain. His arms folded and he collapsed onto the flagstone floor amidst a pile of filthy straw.