by Death
At the mention of his father, Wolfram turned his piercing gaze on Trauss, looking for any intent to offend. He raised his fist to strike. The big man was still grimacing in pain, but his eyes were open, challenging – and honest. As Trauss saw things, he hadn’t lied or exaggerated.
Wolfram tried to recall such a moment in the battle. His head throbbed with the effort. Then he gave up, unable to remember. No doubt he had been busy fighting other marauders at the time.
He returned his attention to Trauss, who looked around him. Suddenly aware of the men standing around them, Wolfram forced his fingers to unclench.
He eased himself up and addressed Drescher. ‘I’m damned if I know what this is about, but this ends now. Get whatever you need from wherever you can find it. Treat their wounds,’ he indicated Trauss and Gloeck, ‘then stay away from Konrad for the rest of the night. Are we clear?’
Drescher struggled again in Langmeier’s grip. Langmeier gasped but held tight, then squeezed his arms together, reminding Drescher of his strength. Drescher thought better of his predicament and then bowed his head. ‘Yes.’
Wolfram nodded to Langmeier, who released his grip. Drescher reached his hand to his neck, which seemed to be irritating him, then set about his task.
Langmeier grabbed at his left shoulder, which was causing him some discomfort. He got to his feet and stepped away from the fallen men to stand nearer to Heiner and the banner. The gathered crowd dispersed, their entertainment over.
Wolfram’s anger flared and then evaporated. He could not blame them. Their comrades had fought over some point of honour and they had stood in support. There was no shame there.
‘You took your time,’ Langmeier grumbled, behind him.
Wolfram turned to face the veteran. Langmeier had been his father’s brother-in-arms, always riding by his side or guarding his back. He had the distinction of having fought beside Heiner for longer than any other man in the korps, and they greatly respected him. Few others could have interrupted a vigil without condemnation.
Langmeier reached out his hand towards the standard. The wind flicked up around them at that instant and the banner snapped at him. He withdrew his hand and reappraised the banner as he would an opponent. Wolfram began to think he was wondering in which direction to circle it.
‘It’s an unholy trophy, Wolfram,’ he said. ‘I can’t say I’m comfortable riding through the Ulricsberg under this thing.’
‘You’re right,’ said Wolfram, dryly. ‘We should only fight marauders who can embroider properly.’
Langmeier stared at the banner a while longer, and then he got the joke and laughed. His shoulders shook stiffly, still sore.
‘You should get that seen to.’
‘No point,’ replied Langmeier. ‘I have reached the age where it will never heal completely. It will be one of those wounds that aches when rain or battle approaches. But you, you should get your head seen to. You’ve been jabbing your fingers into your temples all evening.’
‘Only when the men fight,’ said Wolfram. ‘Then it hurts. Why are they so restless?’
‘Perhaps it’s the spirits,’ Langmeier quipped. He produced a small wooden flask from a pouch, uncorked it and proffered it. Wolfram took the bottle. He sniffed at its neck.
‘What,’ he winced, ‘is this?’
‘It’s good. You’ll like it,’ said Langmeier, mischievously. ‘Does wonders for headaches.’
Wolfram took a swig. He spluttered some of it across Langmeier’s breastplate before he could cover his mouth completely. ‘Wonderful,’ he croaked. Both curious and anxious, he inspected the sticky amber liquid on his hand. ‘What is it?’
Langmeier grinned. He already had another flask in hand. ‘To your father,’ he said. Wolfram raised his flask in kind. ‘And Rothstein’s Pistoliers.’
They drank. The headache eased off.
‘Did you see my father draw his sabre?’
Langmeier considered a moment. ‘I don’t remember. Who do you believe?’
‘I should believe Konrad. He aimed and fired his pistol. I don’t know where Steffan’s attention was, but he was too close to the marauder to save himself.’
‘You want to believe your father saved him?’
‘That doesn’t matter. I’ve been walking the camp half the night. I’ve heard men argue about battles they’ve fought, victories they’ve won, glories they’ve achieved
but I’m sure most of it never happened. They’re not rowdy, or drunk, or upset. They’re just misremembering everything.’
He lowered his head, looking at the body in its fine scarlet cloak. ‘It’s his last ride tomorrow. Sitting on that white horse, propped up by that damned banner, escorted into his home city
’ Wolfram thought for a moment, sighed, and continued.‘ Surrounded by two hundred of his best friends who can’t remember what he’s done.’
Wolfram stopped talking, ashamed he’d failed to keep his doubts to himself, afraid to let any more slip. No one, not even this long-trusted friend, knew about his father’s malady and his desperation for a glorious end. He had only spoken to his father about it.
Langmeier took another swallow from his flask. ‘You’re keeping them together. No one’s shot anyone yet.’
‘Yet,’ repeated Wolfram.
‘Yet,’ agreed Langmeier, shrugging. Wolfram realised that Langmeier wasn’t simply in a congratulatory mood. There was something on his mind too, but it was neither grief nor pride. Langmeier leaned forward, smiling easily, and pointed a finger at Wolfram’s facial hair. ‘Wolfram,’ he said, ‘have you considered waxing that moustache?’
‘No,’ Wolfram said. He grimaced, working out what Langmeier was really getting at. Then things came together in his mind. ‘I thought that brawl was strange. You’ve been a fighting man longer than any man here. You know how to end squabbles. Konrad’s a big man, and ten years younger than Steffan. Young Magnus never fought a battle before today. He didn’t stand a chance against Konrad. So why did you take on Steffan? You wanted me involved,’ accused Wolfram. ‘You wanted to make me feel needed.’
Langmeier stopped smiling. He twitched uncomfortably. ‘Rothstein’s Pistoliers is a pistolkorps with a noble history, Wolfram, but it is also a name with a lineage, and you are now the last of that line. Without you it is only a name. I am proud of you and your father, for getting you your commission, but the korps ends with you. No one here can afford to buy it and its reputation. No one here wants it to end.’
‘You want to trap me in my own name, and keep me here for your own comfort?’ said Wolfram. ‘This was not what my father wanted.’
‘Your father wanted you to be a knight. To command respect. You could have ended the fight with just your voice. Instead you took a tumble in the muck with Trauss. I wonder now if you could command him into battle if we were attacked tomorrow.’
Wolfram’s eyes narrowed, but he did not rise to the bait. Nothing could be gained from it.
Instead he raised his flask. ‘To my father,’ he said, ‘and to the future.’
‘Better,’ said Langmeier. He repeated the sentiment. They drank.
Somewhere behind him, around another campfire, he heard more voices rising in anger. Two of the buglers, Wolfram recognised.
‘If he cannot play the full overtures into battle, he has no place playing them into the gates of the Ulricsberg!’
Predictably one’s fist cracked against the other’s skull, but by then Wolfram was rushing in, his head already pounding.
The clouds brightened in the east, shielding the sun.
For Wolfram Rothstein, the night had never ended. At shifts of the moons, he would retire the scouts and the sentries to let them sleep or enjoy the fires, and rouse their replacements from their warm blankets. Men continued to drink and argue. His headache came and went, usually with one disgruntled rider or the other being ordered to check the horses’ blankets and tack, or stand watch.
The arguments had been petty. Forgotten details from one skirmish or anot
her, the confusion of who killed what, or where. A few scuffles over seniority, and the right or rank to ride nearer to Heiner’s horse as they entered the city.
Ulric’s beard, but there were protocols for that! Traditions, ways to spare a grieving family of the frustrations of deciding which old friend took the senior position, and which feuds were more politically affordable. His head swam, unable to track the details.
‘You’re going around in circles, boy,’ Adler told him. The greybeard had returned to his saddle upon the tree stump where Herzkluge was still recounting his extraordinary battles, and had caught Wolfram’s attention during a circuit around the camp. ‘Sit down a while.’
‘I’ll stand,’ said Wolfram. He was in no mood to be talked down to. Langmeier hadn’t been the only man during the night to suggest he join the outriders instead of the knights. ‘Has he stopped talking at all?’
‘I doubt it. You’ll want to sit for this,’ Adler said. ‘I think Erik has a new opponent.’
Wolfram looked towards the blond pistolier. One of Herzkluge’s younger friends had just play-acted a fall to the ground, and Herzkluge was strutting in victory. Thirty others, sitting around the fire, had cheered or banged their pistol butts against their helmets in applause, and in the new silence Herzkluge began his latest tale.
‘The last beast was the biggest of them all,’ he started. He gestured to the largest man in the circle. ‘Reiniger, come here. The beast was twice as big as Reiniger, can you believe it? Reiniger, lift your thumbs to your ears, point your fingers to the stars. Yes, yes, he looked exactly like that!’
Reiniger grinned. Unlike Herzkluge, who had only supped enough to stop his throat from drying, Reiniger had indulged in somewhat more drink. He gambolled on the spot in pretence of riding a horse, and several young pistoliers cupped their hands in applause to make the clip-clop noise.
‘You don’t like Erik,’ said Wolfram to Adler. ‘You never have. You’ll find a way to spoil this story like all the others. Why can’t you just
do something else for one night?’
‘I enjoy his stories,’ Adler said. ‘You’re right, I can’t stand the man. Tremendously self-important. But he is good fun to listen to when he’s wrong.’
‘My pistol spent,’ said Herzkluge, theatrically returning the pointed fingers to his side, ‘I drew my sabre.’ The hand emerged again, forefingers touching the thumb as though holding a weapon, and flourished a figure eight. Absent an actual sword, the gesture was dramatically pathetic, but the young men cheered anyway. Except for Reiniger, who for his part had started to snort and growl.
‘The beast was huge,’ Herzkluge insisted. ‘Their leader, no doubt. With his thick right arm he wielded an immense sword, as long as a man is tall, twisted as a snake.’
A wavy branch of pale-coloured yew was produced. Reiniger held it like a weapon and flicked his wrist constantly to wobble the end. A few men sniggered. Reiniger made a number of more suggestive gestures at them, and more of the men sniggered.
‘Wolfram,’ Adler whispered, ‘I think, when the day is done, and you’ve taken up your commission, I might offer to buy the pistolkorps from you.’
Wolfram fought to retain his composure. Adler wasn’t a stupid man. As one of his father’s lieutenants, a certain shrewd counsel and independence of thought was required. What Adler had chosen to say, he was saying where everyone would try to ignore him.
‘I can’t afford your name, of course,’ he continued. ‘Rothstein’s Pistoliers ends with your father’s victory, as it should be. But the rest of us need keeping out of trouble.’
Reiniger was waving his branch in one hand, and had taken up another branch, aflame, from the fire in the other. Men were covering their bottles and their beards.
‘It’s not just a name and an academy,’ said Wolfram. ‘It’s a responsibility.’
‘I may have to settle down a little,’ Adler admitted, chuckling. ‘The only way I can make it work anyway is with a dowry. What do you think Erik will do when I ask for his sister’s hand in marriage?’
Wolfram smiled. ‘He’ll make sure that’s the only bit of her you get.’
Adler cackled dryly. ‘Yes. It’ll annoy him plenty. He’ll find a way to win from it, though. He’s quick-witted, that one.’
‘Quiet. Someone might hear you saying something nice about him.’
It didn’t appear so, though. The crowd was rapt with the action. Herzkluge sidestepped to circle Reiniger, right hand to right hand, fingers-sabre to sapwood. Some of the men were still making clip-clop noises.
‘I’ll tell you something, Wolfram,’ Adler confided. ‘Erik can’t remember the battle. Look at him. He’s prancing from side to side. He’s trying to picture Reiniger as the marauder, and he knows he’d have broken away or been killed. But he also has a crowd to please.’
Wolfram watched Herzkluge’s eyes, his focus on the big man in front of him, the ‘sword’, the torch. He only vaguely recalled such a marauder on the battlefield himself.
‘He’s been making up opponents all night. Reiniger, Horstern, they’ve all stepped up and fought him, and he’s beaten them all, but he can’t remember what he actually did in the heat of the moment. Ulric’s blood, I can’t remember what I did either.’
‘I charged him,’ said Herzkluge, fingers drawn back to swing at Reiniger. Reiniger held back the sapwood, posing as to take Herzkluge’s head off with it. Wolfram kept his attention on Herzkluge, on how much the young man was concentrating.
Herzkluge pulled his left hand up, fingers in another formation.
‘Stupid brute. My other pistol was still loaded!’
There was another cheer for Herzkluge’s cleverness in battle. Wolfram cheered. Adler didn’t, of course.
Herzkluge grabbed at Reiniger, reaching to grab the torch in one hand. ‘I pointed it into his chin,’ Herzkluge said, wrestling Reiniger around him, fingers to his throat, ‘and
’ The fingers folded into a fist and connected with Reiniger’s jaw. The big man smiled and fell over backwards, his fall broken by another man’s lap. Wine was spilled. They laughed.
‘And I took the banner!’ Herzkluge crowed triumphantly.
Wolfram’s head snapped up.
There were more cheers, at first, before the meaning of Herzkluge’s words sank in. Herzkluge was shaking the torch in his raised hand like a trophy, smiling. He was the last to notice the silence, or that his audience had grown in number, as men gathered to check that they had heard him correctly. The firelight reflected their faces, young and old.
Perhaps Erik Herzkluge realised the magnitude of his insult, in that moment; perhaps not.
Wolfram broke the silence, his words pained. ‘Heiner Rothstein cap–’
There was a shot, and Herzkluge’s body dropped.
It was Adler who had fired, pistol drawn and smoking, stood beside his commander.
‘Stupid brute,’ Adler said. He swore, and muttered something else, which only Wolfram heard. It involved a girl’s name.
Horstern cautiously crept across the embers and put his head over Herzkluge’s chest, listening for a heartbeat or sign of breathing. When he stood again he pointed his pistol at Adler.
Then thirty men, all of them young and the worse for drinking, stood and drew their pistols, pointing them at Adler.
Adler, and thirty more, all older and no better for drinking, raised their own pistols.
Wolfram, drawing his pistol, stood wondering where to point it.
And then they heard the sound of a bugle, and a shout from the eastern sentry.
‘Marauders!’
Thank Ulric, Wolfram thought; an enemy.
Rothstein’s Pistoliers retained enough discipline to move quickly and smartly. The remaining fires were doused. Pistols were holstered, sabres were checked, and flasks were returned to pouches in belts. Blankets were folded and stowed in saddlebags. Breastplates were fastened, lanyards were untangled and ruffles in sleeves were smoothed out. Men put on their helmets
and mounted their horses.
Wolfram and Langmeier stood at the edge of the camp. Langmeier had the spyglass.
‘How many?’ Wolfram asked.
‘Sixty, or near enough,’ said Langmeier. ‘They look ready for a fight.’
‘Good. Our orders were to find them and give them one,’ said Wolfram.
Numerically the pistoliers were superior, he thought, but some of them hadn’t slept and many had been drinking. He took in the lay of the land. The route east was rough but open ground, with plenty of space for a horseman to manoeuvre. The marauders were riding through the centre of the fold and directly towards the camp, staying far from the stretches of the Drakwald to their north and south.
Wolfram took the spyglass. The marauders’ mounts were huge, muscular creatures, black as ash, thundering across the ground. The warriors who rode them wore blood-matted furs over plates of bronze and iron and darkened oily leathers. They bore jagged-edged shields daubed in lava-coloured symbols, and were loosening long hammers from straps and sheaths.
He sought out the leader, the one who would be keeping them all in line. To his dismay the largest warrior was at the point of the charge, bellowing orders. Such a foe led by fear and purpose. The marauders were coming for them.
To the leader’s left rode a wizened fighter wearing a helm capped with rams’ horns, his beard white but stained a deep blood-red. He carried a bone-white staff. The icon at the top end of the staff was ornate but undeniably sharp.
Wolfram pointed out the fighter to Langmeier. ‘That’s the one who stabbed Heiner.’
‘Didn’t we kill him yesterday?’
‘Perhaps Ulric has gifted us the chance to kill him again.’
The remaining lieutenants gathered around them on horseback. As Adler joined the lieutenants, the younger pistoliers cued their horses to keep their distance, and to face him as he passed. If he noticed, he showed no sign of it.
The men, once mounted, congregated by lieutenants wearing the same colour sleeves. Adler wore blue sleeves. Several men had already exchanged coins and bottles for white-sleeved shirts.
Adler took a look at the advancing horde through the spyglass. ‘They could have waited until after breakfast,’ he said.
