The Ravens of Falkenau & Other Stories

by Jo Graham

  More interesting to me were the stars and their endless patterns, wherein a wise man could read the future and a foolish man see hopes. Alchemy interested me too, and history. My hand became fair from reading and writing dispatches, and at night when I could not sleep I read whatever came to hand — war and passion, descriptions of new lands across the seas for the winning, legends and bloody histories of things that happened long ago.

  Sometimes, in the darkness, they took on life to me and it seemed that I had lived there and been a part of those tales. Somewhere in the west I had died in Templar's mail at a contested river ford, or hidden restless in high Scottish hills, a bowman fighting for an exiled king. It seemed I had knelt breathless before a red-haired princess, or in woman's body borne a child in white Alexandria under a scorching sun, stood veiled on a galley sailing through crystal seas. But these were fancies, and did little more than beguile my dreams when all I could think of were battles.

  In the early spring just before my twenty-ninth birthday I was called into Prague. The Emperor had given command of all his forces to a new Generalissimo, Wallenstein, a mercenary who had begun fighting the Turks. He was the greatest soldier of the age.

  He was in his fifties then, lean and supple with the bitter strength of a man who has spent his youth at war and his age in courts. He had black eyes and a firm handshake.

  "Please sit down, Captain Von Marianburg," he said, gesturing to one of the two great carved chairs before the fire.

  I sat down opposite him then, taking care not to singe the Belgian lace at my boot tops on the fender.

  He wore a huge ruby on his hand that exactly matched the crimson sash of the Imperial army. "You come to me recommended," he said, "by Count Trcka, a very trustworthy soldier."

  I did not answer, only waited for him to continue.

  He watched me sharply. "You fought in Poland, I understand."

  "I did," I replied.

  "Against the infidel," he said.

  "Yes," I agreed. "But I do not care much for all that. One God is as good as another."

  Wallenstein laughed. "You are not a patriot, then."

  "I am a mercenary," I said. "I fight for gold. If you have heard that I will not commit my men to a hopeless fight, it is a matter of economics, that's all. I would be foolish to squander my livelihood."

  Wallenstein smiled thinly. "Yet you claim a nobleman's name and honor."

  "As do you," I replied.

  He laughed then and ordered the servant to pour us French brandy. Then he dismissed the man. "The Emperor," he said abruptly, "is a fool. So is the Pope. I could care less who sits on either throne. But I am Bohemian, and I have grown tired of Bohemia spoiled by eleven years of war. We must put an end to this."

  I shifted restlessly in the carved chair. "I have no love for the Swede," I said, "or for the Emperor. What is it to me who rules Bohemia? My price is gold, nothing more."

  Wallenstein watched me closely, pouring out a drop more of the brandy with long, elegant hands. "I have discovered," he said, "that men have more than one price. It occurs to me that there is something for which you might serve more faithfully than for gold."

  I laughed. "And what would that be, sir?"

  "Land," he said. "Land to call your own, to be your own and your heirs' forever, a hearth to retire to and money to sustain you when you are old." He spread his blue veined hands to the flames. "Believe me, you will be old."

  I stared at him, scarcely believing what I heard. Land was of all things the most impossible. I may as well have set my price at a Cardinal's robe.

  The Generalissimo continued on as though he had noticed nothing. "Those who serve me well, who are loyal to me, and through me to the Emperor, will be awarded lands of suitable size reclaimed by the Emperor from the rebel lords."

  "I see," I said quietly, as unbidden to my mind came the picture of green hills, herds of grazing horses, church towers against the morning sky. There was a sword blade between me and them.

  "Those who serve me faithfully," Wallenstein said.

  "I am your true man," I replied. "My word is my bond."

  "I would not have your bond," the old man said. "Hope of reward is better than any bond. Instead, I hold out to you this hope, and I give you command over two other companies besides your own. I have work for you, Captain."

  We met General von Mansfeld at Dessau in April, a deathtrap on the Elbe River, the acrid cannon smoke yellow against the fog. The fight was like a dream, scattered impressions of entrails in the mud, yellow streaks in the sky, and the booming of our guns.

  I took a musket ball through the left thigh, shattering the bone just below the socket. My Second, a Scotsman named McDonald, stood the surgeons off with a knife when they tried to amputate, so I did not die, but the bone set wrong, leaving me with a pit in my thigh the size of a plum and a ragged, ugly limp that would last me the rest of my life.

  It was nearly a year before I could walk again, and two before I could fight at all on foot. I learned to carry my authority from the saddle, as Wallenstein had made me a colonel when it was certain that I would live.

  My hair and beard were streaked with white now, but my spurs were gilded and my doublet was of black velvet, with wide falls of lace at the throat. I commanded eight hundred men in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor.

  Nineteen years had passed. In the spring of 1633 the tide of war again turned to Bohemia, and with the spring came my orders and dispatches. There, above Wallenstein's signature was the phrase. "In order to secure supply lines in our rear, and to break rebel support in the upcountry, you are hereby ordered to use whatever force you deem necessary to take the fortress of Falkenau."

  The old lord of Falkenau was long dead, and the lands had passed to a distant cousin, Lord Jindrich, who was married to the old lord's daughter. They were Protestant, and Jindrich had led troops in rebellion against the Emperor. It was certainly well within our rights to attack the castle.

  And so I came back to Falkenau in blazing summer heat, fighting our way up that long valley inch by bloody inch, resisted by more troops than I thought existed in that part of Bohemia. They attacked us encamped and melted away in daylight. Caltrips slowed our cavalry. Archers harassed us. Horses were hamstrung in the picket lines at night.

  All summer long, casualty by casualty, foul well by foul well, we fought beneath snow-topped mountains, while untouched and serene the fortress of Falkenau floated like a dream on a cloud. I do not know how many farmers' sons from Saxony and Poland looked on it as their last sight. I was ready to raze it to the ground.

  Week after week the dispatches were more insistent. "Why haven't you taken Falkenau?"

  "This Lord Jindrich," I wrote back, "Does not fight like the gentleman we have been led to believe he is. He fights like a bandit, always striking at us from cover, using the terrain to his advantage, drawing us into poor positions."

  Wallenstein's answer was brief. "Gain the advantage." He also sent three artillery pieces and a company of sappers.

  In August we were before Falkenau. I had replacements up from Prague, which was good, as I had lost two hundred men in this cursed valley. "Take the fortress without delay," Wallenstein instructed.

  A week later I wrote back by the light of one of the last tallow candles in the valley, alone at night in my tent, listening to the moans of my wounded. "The walls of Falkenau are twenty-five feet thick. The defenders are well-armed, and do not hesitate to make use of archaic weaponry like the crossbow if they think it is to their advantage. Today three of my men were seriously injured by a fall of boiling oil. The townspeople and farmers are against us, and I do not dare send a foraging party of less than fifty, as they do not return. Lord Jindrich has turned his peasants into soldiers."

  Wallenstein's reply was succinct. "Turn your soldiers into soldiers and take Falkenau."

  September came. The sappers blew a hole in the curtain wall with a huge charge of gunpowder. On a bright day smelling of autumn and powder smok
e, a flag of truce hung from the walls of Falkenau.

  An old guardsman with his arm in a sling came out to talk to us, picking his way over the piles of rubble. High above, on the castle walls where the freshening wind blew hair and cloaks back like pennants, half the still-living garrison waited. The guardsman looked uncertainly from McDonald in his splendid plumed hat to me on my white Andalusian.

  "I am in charge here," I said, the wind carrying my words away. "Captain Von Marianburg. You may address yourself to me."

  He looked up at me warily while I held Xavier in sharp check. "I've come to ask your terms for surrender."

  Beside me McDonald took a deep breath.

  "My terms are these," I said. "Falkenau and its defenders are to surrender to the Holy Roman Emperor, represented by his Generalissimo Von Wallenstein and by me. Falkenau and its contents are upon the mercy of the crown, and at their disposal." I raised my voice over the rising wind. "The Lord Jindrich is to surrender to me personally, alone."

  "But..." the man began.

  "Those are the Emperor's terms," I snapped. "Take them, or I will raze every stone to the foundations!" I wheeled Xavier and turned my back on him.

  McDonald pulled up beside me as the man made his way back inside the fortress. "Do you think they'll take it?"

  "They'd better," I said. "For four months they've been lucky. I'm out of patience with it. We've been tied up here too long."

  It was not long before an answer came.

  For the first time in months the gates of Falkenau opened. We waited.

  Out of the shadow of the gatehouse they walked slowly, a woman in a black dress leading a little boy by the hand, the nurse behind with a babe in arms. They walked carefully, keeping pace with the three-year-old's small steps, the woman's hair and clothes covered with black veils, the color of mourning.

  McDonald said something under his breath, but I did not hear him. The child's eyes were huge and dark, but he walked straight ahead holding onto his mother's hand. The wind stirred her clothes, her old fashioned square necked dress, and sent her veil flying out behind her like a banner, exposing the white line of her throat and her smooth red-bronze hair. She lifted her head then and did not look away.

  Blue eyes, I thought, more angry than frightened. She crossed the distance between us, and as I cursed and tried to pull Xavier in, she dragged the child to his knees beside her in the dirt almost beneath the Andalusian's hooves, the old black velvet billowing out around her.

  Xavier went up on two legs. I hauled him in, pulling him hard to the right, away from the child's bared and lowered head.

  "Where is your husband, Lady?" I demanded, calming Xavier to a nervous dance.

  Her voice was clear above the wind. "My lord husband was killed in April last, fighting for his King." She gestured to the child at her left hand. "This is my son, the Lord Jindrich. The babe you see is his brother, Karl. I am Izabela, the Lady of Falkenau." There was a tremor in her voice but it was still strong and carried to my men. "I surrender the fortress to you."

  You surrender nothing, Lady, I thought. You come before my men in your pride and your beauty to shame them that it has taken four months for Wallenstein's finest to subdue peasants, a woman, and two babes.

  "You do not know mercenaries, madam," I snapped. "Let us have no more of this display unless you would have rape and butchery within the castle walls." She paled a little at that, and I went on in a lower tone. "My men have been four months outside the gates of Falkenau. They think nothing of your pride, and as for your pretty children, they would as soon split their heads open as look at them. Have you gold in Falkenau?"

  She hesitated, and I leaned down to her. "Speak quickly, lady, as I have six hundred dogs on a single leash."

  She looked away. "There is some still. Only about 9,000 kroner."

  I did the math quickly in my head, rose in my stirrups so that they could all see me. "Men of Von Marianburg's Company!" I shouted. "The Lady Izabela of Falkenau has surrendered the fortress and agrees to pay a bounty for its ransom! Every man here is to have ten gold kroner from the treasury of Falkenau!"

  Their shout echoed off the gully and the stone walls before us.

  "Marianburg! Marianburg!"

  "In addition," I shouted, "We shall provision ourselves from their stores!"

  Izabela's head shot up defiantly, but she said nothing.

  "There will be," I continued, "no further looting or harassment of the populace, as this is now the property of the Emperor. Rape and pillage shall be rewarded with hanging. Do I make myself clear?"

  Silence reigned all around, broken by a little grumbling.

  "Ten gold kroner a man, as bounty for the fortress!" I shouted, "And the beef and wine of Falkenau!"

  They cheered me again, raucous this time.

  "McDonald, have the 1st company stand down from arms," I said. I looked down at Izabela. She looked ill. "Lady, give me your hand."

  For a moment I thought she would not, but then she raised her chin and put her hand in mine, and I raised her to her feet while the soldiers cheered around us, and at last I came in to Falkenau.

  The interior of the fortress was a mess, as might be expected after weeks of siege. The great hall stank of peasants and their livestock, too many human and animal bodies in too small a space.

  "These peasants are to be returned to their homes," I directed. "And the great hall is to be made habitable for a company of my men. The rest are to be lodged in the village. You will see to that, McDonald. The Lady Izabela will continue in her duties as chatelaine unless I have reason to remove her." I turned to the young woman in her old black dress. "Do not give me reason to remove you. It will go easier on your people under your supervision than mine." She nodded shortly, but I could see the taut fury in her face. "Lady," I said more quietly, "Do not even think of poison. I am the only thing that stands between you and worse. I will not loot this castle because it is of more worth to the Emperor intact than carried off piecemeal in rucksacks." I looked her up and down coldly. "And you are worth more to me as chatelaine than as whore. I am more interested in your spreading acres than your spread legs. The next captain might not feel the same."

  I turned away, but not before I saw the flush of humiliation mount in her face. As well, I thought. If this is not taken firmly in hand at the first there will be no controlling her, and I would rather have humiliation than bloodshed. Especially my own blood shed. She was not above poison.

  "You, your children and your ladies will continue to occupy your quarters. I would advise you to remain in them when not engaged in the business of running the castle. Chambers will be prepared for me and my officers. You will place at my disposal the rooms belonging to your late husband."

  "It will be done," she said, tight-lipped.

  It was. The chamber was in the westward tower, looking out over the valley, just at the corner where the tower joined the keep. It had a huge fireplace, louvers on the windows, Flemish tapestries of a stag hunt, and an enormous carven bed draped in green velvet. There was a table for my maps and papers, a leather chair, and a twisted iron floor stand to hold candles. I walked to the windows in the autumn afternoon and looked out across the chasm and the valley at the haze of colored mountains, the faint wreath of smoke that drifted like a dream across the river.

  There had been lights in this room nineteen years ago when I was a penniless boy and Izabela a babe in her cradle. She was born under the midwinter sign of Capricorn, a fire in the dead of winter's cold with flame colored hair.

  In the great chair of the old lord I wrote a letter to Wallenstein. "I have taken the fortress of Falkenau."

  The peace lasted six days. My men were quartered in the town and castle well enough. Food would be short for everyone in the valley this winter because of the interrupted harvest. Two of my men were flogged for stealing chickens, but other than that it was quiet, until the night Izabela tried to murder me.

  The room I had been given had only one door, which
I kept bolted on the inside while I slept, as mercenaries are not trusting sorts. I could not go to sleep until late, however, so I had only just banked the fire, blown out the candles and gone to bed when I heard a soft click. I did not open my eyes, only looked out from beneath the lashes as a panel in the eastward wall slid open on well-oiled hinges.

  With no light to guide her it was dark as the tomb. I could see the faint white shape of her nightdress, and I cursed myself for not wondering if this castle did not have, as so many did, a private passageway connecting the apartments of lord and lady.

  I didn't wonder for more than a second who my visitor was or what she wanted. I heard her listen to my even, sleeping breathing, heard the soft sound of the knife sliding clear of the scabbard. Two footsteps.

  Just before she landed on me I rolled to the side, the dagger sinking deep into the pillow, a cloud of feathers flying up. She twisted, but I had her wrist in my right hand and the heavy bed covers impeded her. She fought like a cat, twisting beneath me as I pinned her with my weight, bending her knife hand further and further back.

  "Do I have to break your wrist?" I said, jerking her by her long hair with my other hand and turning up her face to mine.

  Her knife hand unclenched, and I grabbed the dagger, throwing it back over my shoulder toward the fireplace.

  She bit my wrist hard enough to draw blood, and I hit her open-handed in the side of the head as she kicked and writhed beneath me.

  "I will not have this, madam," I panted.

  She looked up at me and I thought it was the moment where she would either spit in my face or burst into tears. Izabela did neither. She just looked at me with an expression that was quizzical and completely unafraid, her long slim legs wrapped around my body. I was not prepared for what I wanted, and there were no knives in it.

  I stood up, jerking her to her feet, all disheveled hair and torn nightdress. "Go to your chambers, madam," I rasped, and turned my back on her.

  For a moment there was silence, then the sound of the panel closing. I went to the fireplace and retrieved the dagger, but I did not put the clothes press in front of the secret door.