Broken Blades

by Aleksandr Voinov

  Armin gritted his teeth. What game was this? Saving face after last night, making sure everyone knew they were adversaries? A chance to humiliate him?

  Mark moved the foil from his left hand to his right, and met Armin’s eyes, and no, Armin didn’t believe he was out to humiliate him. There was something in Mark’s expression that Armin couldn’t quite read. A little nostalgia? A plea? God, he couldn’t begin to understand him, but he didn’t see any hostility, any attempt to use a match as some kind of weapon against him.

  Armin’s gaze drifted to the blade in Mark’s hand. Though he hadn’t fenced in years, and had lost his dominant arm, he had missed the sport. And, he thought as he met Mark’s eyes again, he’d hoped for a long, long time that the two of them would have the chance at a rematch someday. And he could think of few things that would irritate Holzknecht more.

  “A hand with my coat, Hauptmann.” He started to shrug it off.

  “You’re going to fence him?” Schäfer said under his breath, though he didn’t hesitate to help Armin.

  “I am.” Armin stood, letting his security officer take his coat.

  The Americans glanced at each other, wide-eyed. Some mumbled and muttered to each other, but Armin couldn’t understand them. He held out his hand. “A mask and a weapon, please.”

  Mark and his opponent locked eyes, and Mark nodded sharply. The other man quickly took off his mask, and then stripped off his jacket. He handed everything to Armin.

  In spite of his missing arm—and no small thanks to Schäfer —Armin managed to put on the jacket without any great lapses in dignity. He put on the mask. It smelled of sweaty leather and God knew how many years of storage and mothballs, but the familiar web of mesh took him back to happier years of his life. He had missed this more than he’d realized.

  He picked up the sword and tested the grip. It felt strange in his right hand, much like pens and forks had when he’d been forced to relearn everything he’d done with his left. Still, it felt good, the weight and the grip both familiar and alien.

  Once he’d acquainted his fingers with the grip and tested it a few times, maneuvering it with an untrained hand and wrist, he joined Mark on the piste. Mark had also moved his sword to his right hand, and he too seemed to be struggling to get used to it, but was still less clumsy than the other men had when they’d never touched a weapon like this at all.

  Through their masks, their eyes met. Here in this drafty castle, in enemy uniforms and weathered equipment, they couldn’t have been further from that casual match in Berlin all those years ago. Back when Armin’s uniform had been pristine, his body intact, and Mark was still a wild-eyed youth in search of Olympic glory. Back before they were as worn and rusty as the weapons in their hands.

  The American playing referee stood beside the piste. “Ready?”

  Both of them assumed the en garde position. Though his feet and hands were all wrong, it felt good. It felt right. Armin couldn’t help grinning beneath his mask, feeling that long dead competitiveness—something his fencing master had called a gentleman’s bloodlust—coming to the surface.

  Even through their masks, he could see that wild glint in Mark’s eye, so he wasn’t alone.

  Mark took a breath. “First to three wins.”

  Armin nodded.

  The other American took a step back. “En garde. Prêts. Allez.”

  Mark attacked immediately, and instinct took over and Armin parried the blade away. Somewhat clumsily—the tip grazed his elbow—but enough to keep it from his torso, and thus no point was awarded. Armin counter-attacked, but Mark too was able to deflect his weapon. Ever the aggressive one, Mark advanced. Only years of training made Armin retreat; all his ingrained fencing instincts couldn’t combat how alien it was to move away from Mark for any reason, regardless of the blades between them.

  He parried a series of attacks mostly thanks to his reflexes and the fact that Mark over-compensated for fighting with his off hand. It made his movements wider than they had to be, broadcasting clearly what he was going to do, but Armin knew that this was an advantage that meant very little in the long run. He likely did the same when he parried and counter-attacked and attacked. They both had to look inexperienced and maybe even ungainly.

  But those considerations bled away in all the things that were right—his feet moved on their own volition, like they’d never stumbled over rubble or frozen corpses. That most crucial of all skills—the instinctive mastery of distance and angles—was intact. As was the awareness of the rhythm of a bout—the advance/retreat in time with the opponent’s retreat/advance, and then the thrill of breaking off the retreat and launching into a counter-attack.

  That moment on knife’s edge when the attack either ran true or didn’t. When the opponent yielded to parry or attempted to regain the initiative. There was a visceral truth to it—a simplicity that wasn’t simple at all. But practice, experience and mastery could make complex patterns look simple; half the complexities too small, too fast for any casual observer.

  Mark scored with a huge, over-extending lunge, struggling to recover quickly, but Armin already acknowledged the hit and returned to his place in the middle of the piste.

  The gathered Americans—and a few Brits, judging by the accents—commented quietly amongst themselves, and they sounded impressed. With Mark? With Armin? With both? He didn’t know. He didn’t really care, either. Most of his focus was on regrouping, facing off, and preparing to level the score. It had been too long for him to remember Mark’s weaknesses and bad habits, but many of those had probably changed anyway. He could adapt quickly, and take advantage of those weaknesses. Preferably before Mark figured out his bad habits and compensated for those.

  Armin paused to roll his stiff shoulder. Behind Mark’s mask, his brow furrowed with obvious concern, and he took a breath like he was going to ask if Armin was all right. Armin glared at him, hoping he read the silent “don’t you dare,” and then adopted the en garde stance.

  Mark’s expression returned to a neutral one, then a fierce, determined one as he mirrored Armin’s position.

  As soon as they were given the word, they were both on the move. Mark started to attack, but Armin was slightly faster, forcing him to change the attack to a hasty and not terribly graceful retreat. Armin took advantage of him being off balance, and advanced again, which threw Mark off even more, and he wasn’t ready when Armin lunged, shoved Mark’s weapon hand out of the way, and thrust, shoving the dull tip of his sword into Mark’s chest.

  Mark grunted and stumbled back a step. Gingerly rubbing his “wound,” he swore and gestured with his other hand to acknowledge the point.

  Someone whistled. “C’mon, Driscoll. You’re not gonna let Germany beat us, are you?”

  Mark laughed. “Bout’s still young, boys. I’ll get him.”

  Armin chuckled. “Typical arrogant American.”

  “You bet, Kommandant.” Mark took his hand off the “wound” and returned to the en garde stance. “But you know, there’s a reason why we Americans are so arrogant.”

  “Is there?” Armin took the same stance. “And what reason is that, Captain?”

  Mark flashed a grin behind his mask. “Because we’re fucking Americans, and we deserve to be this arrogant.”

  Armin laughed. “So you say. Especially with all those gold medals in fencing, yes?”

  “Oooh,” came the collective response from the gathered men.

  Mark’s grin vanished. He squared his shoulders a bit. “Next Olympics.”

  “I see.” This time it was Armin who grinned. “Then perhaps the arrogance should wait until those Olympics, hmm?”

  No murmurs to support him, but he didn’t expect any. He was the villain in this piece. The best he could do was impress them. And what it did to their morale if Mark won—well, then they’d earned it.

  Mark scored again after a vicious series of attacks by finding a few inches’ worth of reach somewhere in his long body, and Armin raised his arm again, winc
ing a little when he lifted his hand. Mark’s blade had hit him hard and straight-on on the pec, and felt as if it might have been right on the nipple. That was quite inordinately painful—a lingering pain that promised one of those deep-tissue bruises that took weeks to get better. He didn’t want to imagine that Mark was worried about the pain, though, when Mark failed to parry his own lunge. Two to two. Whoever hit next was the winner.

  Armin returned to his position and gave Mark a small nod that might mean anything or everything. I’m all right, or I’m enjoying this, how about you?

  Mark, far from slowing down, immediately launched an attack, and while Armin managed to bind the blade in a circular parry, his grip wasn’t quite secure in his right hand, sweaty, too, in the glove. He damn near lost the blade, mortified down to his toes at that mistake.

  Mark, however, far from pressing his advantage as was his right and as just about every fencer would have done that Armin had ever crossed swords with, aborted his attack and stepped back, lowering the blade.

  They separated, each regaining his balance and Armin adjusting his grip. Facing off again, neither moved immediately. Mark raised his eyebrows a little, which would have been visible to Armin and no one else, and Armin offered the faintest nod.

  You all right?

  I am.

  Still, neither moved yet. They were both poised to attack, but didn’t.

  With a subtle flick of his wrist and a nudge from his fingers, Armin tapped Mark’s blade. Mark jumped. Then he returned the tap. Armin did it again, harder this time. When Mark went to tap back, Armin circled his blade around Mark’s and tapped it from the other side, prompting a muttered curse from Mark. Armin returned his blade to its starting position. Circled around again. Back to the starting position. Over the crossed weapons, he watched Mark’s face, suppressing a grin as Mark’s expression, what little of it he could really make out, tensed. His focus was on the swords, on Armin’s small motions and the undoubtedly infuriating—and distracting—taps.

  Mark tapped back hard enough to almost knock Armin’s blade aside, but Armin was expecting it, and lowered his weapon. Momentum kept Mark’s going, which gave Armin a clear path, and that was when he attacked.

  He advanced. Lunged. Thrust.

  Mark recovered faster than he’d anticipated, though, and blocked the thrust, his blade hitting Armin’s wrist and shoving it out of the way so the tip stabbed uselessly into the empty air beside Mark’s hip.

  Both men retreated, returning to their beginning stances.

  Mark barely gave Armin a chance to regain his balance before he attacked. Their feet scuffed across the stone floor, and their blades clanged violently together. They attacked, they parried, they retreated. Armin feinted an attack. When he had an opening, he took it, and lunged, thrusting for the exposed target area above Mark’s belt.

  But, in a series of flawless, graceful motions, Mark parried the thrust, riposted, and stabbed the winning point into Armin’s gut. Armin put up his hand.

  The men around them applauded, but not quite as enthusiastically as Armin had anticipated, given that their man had just defeated the Kommandant. Maybe they were just uncertain about being outwardly thrilled that he’d been beaten. Afraid there would be punishment if Armin was angry about the defeat. Hardly.

  Armin laid his weapon on the piste and took off his mask. He turned to hand it to the referee so he could shake Mark’s hand, but then he froze.

  Beside Schäfer, face carved from ice and stone, was Holzknecht.

  That certainly may have accounted for the lull in high spirits.

  Armin gave the man the smallest nod of acknowledgement he could muster, then shook Mark’s hand. “Well done, Captain Driscoll. I believe you owe me a rematch now.”

  Mark lifted his eyebrows, so pointedly not glancing toward Holzknecht that the message was more than clear. “I’m sure I can accommodate you, Kommandant.”

  In his more careless days, Armin would have laughed at the way to phrase this. He might even have told Mark, with a wink, that he knew Mark could. But such saucy exchanges belonged to bars in Berlin that had been closed down now for a good few years or were too dangerous for anybody of standing anyway.

  “Much obliged,” he responded instead, which was more in keeping with military decorum. He opened the jacket, prompting Schäfer to step closer and help him out of it again.

  This time, that odd sense of too close didn’t manifest when Schäfer helped him, so Armin relegated that first occurrence to his imagination, too. “Please do continue. I’m quite positive regarding the prospects of seeing some decent fencing being done in Ahlenstieg.”

  The Americans straightened a bit when he bid them a “Gentlemen” and turned away. Saluting would have been asking for too much, but maybe there was a little more mutual respect now.

  “A word, Kommandant,” Holzknecht said on the way out.

  “How urgent is it?”

  “Quite.”

  “In terms of time or in terms of gravity?”

  Holzknecht grunted with displeasure. “Gravity, sir.”

  “Then come to my office after noon Appell.” Armin glanced at him. “I believe that will be sufficient?”

  * * * *

  When Armin let himself into his office after Appell, Holzknecht was already there.

  Teeth grinding, Armin locked the door and faced him. “I wasn’t aware the SS was issued keys to every room in Ahlenstieg.”

  Holzknecht didn’t laugh. Impossibly, his already taut features tightened. “Is there a reason you wouldn’t want me in your office, Colonel?” His eyes slid toward Armin’s desk, and then met his gaze again. “Something to hide, perhaps?”

  Armin eyed him coolly. “Nothing to hide, Herr Obersturmbannführer. Simply marveling at how lax the SS has become on basic things such as manners.”

  Holzknecht’s lips thinned, nearly vanishing into a razor-thin line. “Considering how lax the Wehrmacht has become in other respects, I would suggest you watch your tongue.”

  “Watch your tongue, Colonel.” Armin stepped away from the door. “Anyhow. You wanted to discuss something?”

  “I did.” Holzknecht folded his arms across his chest. “I must say, Colonel, I haven’t seen many Kommandants who engage in games with their charges. These are prisoners of war, not children for you to play with.”

  “And as we’ve discussed before, I find a slightly more pleasant atmosphere keeps the men from revolting, which keeps my men—who you may have noticed are in rather short supply, let alone in the best of conditions—alive.”

  Holzknecht raised his chin slightly, glaring down his nose at Armin. “Is that also why no one within these walls gives proper salutes?”

  Ah, that damned matter of military decorum. But explaining that to a tree worshipper would take some effort.

  “Having only recently come into the control of the POW camps in Germany and the Greater Reich, you might not be aware of the history of this place. By which I don’t mean the role the castle played in the Thirty Years’ War, but its rather more recent history as a Kriegsgefangenlager.”

  A muscle twitched in the man’s face—impatience to be done with the history lesson already. SS soldiers were men of action, after all. Anything else went over their heads.

  Armin continued. “The man I replaced, Lieutenant-Colonel Fetzen, left this castle as a dying man. Now, granted, he was in his sixties, but he was an impeccable Prussian—who burned himself up trying to get these prisoners to salute and behave like white circus mice. He spent three years here locked in a battle of will and discipline with men who often feel they have nothing left to lose. There are men in this camp who’ve been behind wires since being picked up at Dunkirk. They don’t remember the rolling green hills of England anymore. Their only pleasure—apart from the rather intermittent Red Cross parcels—is to score a victory against a German. Any German. It makes them feel like they’re still contributing to the war effort. Breaking us down even a little bit, sowing doubts in our minds,
affecting morale in any way, is a victory in their minds. These are men whose world has shrunk down to the point where the slightest detail is blown out of all proportion. They broke Fetzen down. I briefly met him during the handover. He warned me of the post. I registered with some compassion that he died a few weeks later, as his heart finally gave out.” Armin shook his head. “They had Appells four times a day. Fetzen had the previous British SBO court-martialed for insubordination. After that, all hell broke loose. A mutiny meant fifteen POWs dead, twenty-seven wounded, three guards dead, five more wounded. And while I have one guard for every prisoner, these are old men, mostly, with bad knees, bad backs. Accountants and school teachers, not warriors. If I had the men to enforce discipline in your image—”

  “We all have to make do!” Holzknecht barked. “Fetzen should have been relieved sooner.”

  “I agree. But he wasn’t. And I’m here now, making do, as you say.” He narrowed some of the distance between himself and the Obersturmbannführer, locking eyes with him and refusing to back down. “And part of ‘making do,’ Herr Obersturmbannführer, is doing everything in my power to prevent uprisings and danger. If that means running my camp with a measure of diplomacy and—”

  “Diplomacy?” Holzknecht’s lips peeled back across his teeth. “These men don’t need diplomacy. They need discipline.” He was the one to move closer this time, stepping near enough that he almost drove Armin back, but Armin held his ground as the man went on. “What they do not need is a Kommandant who plays games with them, and speaks to them as he’d speak to his own men. They need to remember where they are, who they are, and who we are.”

  “And when I implement that discipline, will you be the one to write telegrams to the widows of all of my guards?” Armin barely kept his tone even. “Is this why you came here? To tell me that my prisoners are unruly and that perhaps I—”

  “You are familiar with Heinrich von Starck, yes?”