“It is true?” Wilhelm thundered.
“Your father was not a man to brook refusal,” the man whimpered. “Nor are you, your grace. He ordered me to heal you. What was I to do?”
Wilhelm stood there, reeling in shock, as the full truth of what had happened sank in. Then he exploded at the guards.
“Throw him in a cell! I will deal with him later!”
The guards dragged the quivering man of the room. Then Wilhelm turned back to the girl.
“You can heal my legs? You can repair the damage your husband inflicted on me so I can walk on my own?”
She stared back at him.
“I believe so. My sister and I. But I will only do it if you swear to let us go and give up this vendetta against your brother.”
Wilhelm was in an absolute torrent of emotion. He desperately wanted his revenge against Erich. It had consumed his thoughts for a decade. But to walk again!
“I could cut your husband into pieces if you refuse me.”
“You were going to torture us anyway.” She straightened herself, glaring at him. “That is my offer. We will do nothing unless you agree to release us.”
The others in the room, the guards, the torturers, Erich, Ariel, and Astrid watched in silence as he warred with himself.
Finally he looked down at his ruined legs, and the metal abominations that encased them.
“If you can heal me . . . if I can walk again . . . I will let you go.”
“And you swear to leave my husband be?” she replied.
“I swear.”
“Swear it before God, on your soul.”
“I swear before Almighty God I want to walk again. If you can give that to me, I will give you what you want.”
“Let us go. We must be free to do this.”
Wilhelm turned to a guard. “If they do anything to harm me, kill him at once.”
The guard drew his sword and stood by his brother, who was watching all this in stunned disbelief. He directed the torturers to release the girls.
“Lie on this table,” one of them said. “You must remove your metal legs. They will interfere.”
Wilhelm swept the table clear of torture implements and sat down. He unbuckled his legs, praying he would never don them again. Then he lay down.
One girl stood on either side of him. They first joined hands, then rested them on his legs.
“Can you see?” one of them said after a few moments.
“The sinews and tendons. All cut.”
Wilhelm felt a painful tugging in his legs and gritted his teeth. Sparks of pain shot up and down his thighs. But at the same time, he could feel things moving, growing.
“The muscles are so weak,” one of them said.
“He has not used them.”
Quiet a moment.
“That one there. I am reattaching it.”
“And the one next to it.”
Another bolt of pain. His leg jerked with it. Then he gasped. His leg had moved.
“Now the other.”
More twinges down his thigh.
“There are several there.”
“Yes. All in a row.”
His left leg twitched. He realized in shock he could control his knee again, however weakly.
“Don’t move. We’re not done.”
“That last one.”
“I have it.”
A few more moments, a bit more pain.
“The muscles now.”
“I don’t know how much we can do.”
Wilhelm felt a wave of weakness wash over him, as if all the energy in his body was flowing downwards.
“A bit more?”
“Yes.”
Another wave. He felt faint.
“That’s all we can do, I think.”
They stepped back.
“We've repaired the damage,” the first one said. “But I am not sure you will be able to stand. Your muscles are so weak. We’ve done what we could, but it will take time to restore them to what they were.”
“You will be hungry,” her sister said. “You must eat as much as you can. Do not hold back, or the healing may unravel.”
Wilhelm sat up unevenly. His head swam. He realized he was ravenous. But first he needed to test his legs.
They answered him for the first time in a decade.
They were weak, so weak, and it hurt to move them. But he could move them. He sat there, stunned and disbelieving.
The girls were watching him, silent. He carefully swung one leg off the table, then the other. Gripping the table tightly, he tried putting some weight on them. They wobbled. But they held.
He could stand.
He could see he would not walk reliably yet, but he could feel in his bones he would be able to, in time. His legs worked again.
The guards and torturers gaped at him. Wilhelm looked over at the girls, dazed.
“You did it.”
“You must take care,” the first one said. “The healing will be fragile at first. Go slowly.”
He nodded. “I will.”
She looked at her sister, then Erich. “Now will you keep your promise and let us go?”
For a moment, Wilhelm reconsidered. His old anger with Erich was still hot. It flared anew at the thought of letting him go again after all this time.
But he had sworn an oath, before God and his men, and one did not break such things lightly. Unless he killed everyone present here, something he could not physically do, word would get out.
Hirelings worth having did not long serve an oathbreaker. And he still had the mage to vent his displeasure on. A mage he no longer much needed.
He took a deep breath and faced them.
“Your husband is not welcome in my lands. He has no rights or business here. But if you leave and never return, my quarrel with you is over.”
Part IV
33.
Erich checked his horse one last time. The jeweled rapier hung from the saddlebags, no longer needing to be hidden. The war knife hung by his side.
He had packed food, bedrolls, traveling gear. In the very bottom of one saddlebag was the money from the ogres and the bounty; in the bottom of the other was a sack of gold crowns Walther had given him. (“The girls’ dowry. Nothing to set you up in a life of leisure, to be sure, but enough to give you a good start together.”)
Ariel and Astrid stood by their horses. Their bags were packed with their things, in addition to most of their mother’s books from Walther’s library. He had gone through it, picking out one after another until Erich prevailed upon him to narrow the selection down to the ones that would be most useful.
Both wore leather breeches and shirts much like his, each with her hair back in a long braid. He had banished the dresses to their bags. On the road, he wanted them free to move. They had objected at first, not wanting to dress like men, but when he reminded them of the fight with Giancarlo’s sellswords, they relented. They were still not strong riders, but that was changing.
His wives wore new daggers at their hips, long and slim, that the smith had made for them at his direction. This was another thing he had insisted on, wanting them to be able to defend themselves if they were engaged physically as Giancarlo had done. They were only novices with their blades as yet, but they were learning quickly.
Shadow sat on her haunches beside the horses. Erich reached down to scratch behind her ears. She had waited in the forest while they were imprisoned in Jülich, emerging from trees when they left and joining them as if nothing had happened.
“I cannot convince you to stay a bit longer?” Walther asked. “The wedding feast is not vital, but it would be nice to have it at some point.”
“We can have it when we return, Father,” Astrid said.
“Which may be a long time.”
“We will be back,” Ariel said.
“Well, not too soon.” Walther laughed. “I need my sleep, and you three have been keeping me up at night.”
Ariel sighed. “Father, please sto
p.”
“I am happy you are so happy together. Allow me some satisfaction with that.”
The three of them climbed onto their horses.
“So you are truly going to Wittenburg?” he asked. “That is a journey of some weeks.”
“Yes,” Erich replied. “I do not trust Wilhelm to keep his oath forever, and I would prefer to put as much distance between us and Jülich as I can. Frederick of Saxony is reportedly seeking freeswords and free mages of skill. There is work to had, and things to be done.”
“They call him Frederick the Wise. I hope that appellation is accurate.”
Ariel leaned down and kissed Walther. Astrid did likewise. “Goodbye, Father,” she said. “Please take care.”
“I will be fine. I am going to see if I can teach Fortitude to keep house for me. I am sure that will keep me busy.”
Ariel rolled her eyes. “Please do not forget to eat as you usually do when you are tinkering.”
Walther laughed again and slapped his stomach. “I can stand to lose some girth.”
He and Erich shook hands roughly. “Take care of my girls. It is getting late in the year, so ride swiftly that you may avoid the winter snows.”
“We will.”
They turned and rode off down the street, toward the gate by the river, Shadow trotting along behind them. Hans Bergdahl watched them go, but no one saw him.
^-^-^
The End
^-^-^
Erich, Ariel, Astrid, and Shadow will return in The Witches’ Covenant: Twin Magic Book 2, coming in early 2015.
Historical Notes
This novel is set around 1520 at the very start of the Reformation. Duke Wilhelm von Jülich-Berg was a real person, but he actually died in 1511 at the age of 56. Wilhelm had two younger brothers, but the youngest, whose name was actually Gerhard, died in infancy. Wilhelm did indeed have great difficulty fathering children, and his marriage to Sibylle—which was his second—produced only a single daughter, Maria. This meant that under Salic law at the time, his house died out upon his death and the duchy passed to Maria’s husband, John of Cleves, becoming the united duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. (Wilhelm’s granddaughter Anne was the unfortunate Anne of Cleves, whom Henry VIII married and cast aside in 1540.) The precise difficulties of Wilhelm’s marriage bed as I have described them here are, of course, fictional.
Giancarlo Attendolo is a fictional character, but he is patterned after the many Italian mercenaries (condottieri originally meant contractor in Italian) who earned their fortunes fighting for the squabbling princes of the Holy Roman Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries.
The Universität zu Köln, founded in 1388, is one of the oldest in Europe and one of the first modern universities to be established. As it was chartered by the church and retained close ties to it until the 18th century (when it was temporarily closed by the invading French), it has certainly never counted magic amongst its scholarly disciplines.
Erich’s war knife, or Kriegsmesser (also known as a langes Messer, or long knife), was a weapon carried by professional soldiers in 15th and 16th century Germany. It was a large sword requiring substantial skill to use effectively, but it was a deadly weapon in the right hands.
About the Author
Michael Dalton is a professional journalist and editor who writes for readers of discriminating tastes.
Michael wrote his first piece of fiction in third grade, for which he was immediately accused of plagiarism by his teacher. Since then, he has been writing more or less steadily, interrupted only by occasional demands of work and family. Michael enjoys writing across genres, and often mixes science fiction, fantasy, and alternate history.
Michael lives with his family and multiple pets in Southern California. He blogs at michaeldaltonbooks.com and can be found on Twitter at @MikeDaltonBooks.
Other Books by Michael Dalton
The Teaser
Faith, Hope & Charity: A Novel of Virtue and Vice
Immaculate Deception
The Needle and the Dungeon
Vector
The Hunt
The Wisdom of Dogs: Stories
Roland: The Choice
Michael's books are available from fine ebook retailers.
Amazon: http://amazon.com/author/michaelsdalton
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/MichaelDalton
Thank You
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The Wizard's Daughters: Twin Magic: Book 1 Page 18
