ALTDORF (The Forest Knights: Book 1)

by J. K. Swift

  He searched the Duke’s eyes for some sign of insanity, a glint of madness, but found nothing. They were clear, focused, and fiercely intelligent. And yet, somehow, he was convinced that by ridding the world of this beautiful young girl he had promoted himself in the eyes of God.

  “Come Gissler. Time to celebrate. Tonight you dine at my table. Ah—I almost forgot,” Leopold said and reached into his vestment and pulled out a purse that he tossed to Gissler. “Your payment. Stand by me and you will rise high, Hermann Gissler.”

  Hearing his full name spoken by a duke, and a Prince of the German Empire no less, made Gissler forget about the witch and stand a little taller.

  He caught the purse in one hand and then almost dropped it because of its weight. It was easily double what he had won at the tourney.

  All his life Gissler had followed orders. And what had the Knights of Saint John ever given him in return? Food, a place to sleep, and two sets of clothing. His rank in the brotherhood had never changed from bother-sergeant. He could never have been a true Hospitaller Knight, for only those of noble blood were permitted to rise past the rank of sergeant. He had given them everything; his obedience, his loyalty, his youth, even his name.

  He would never again be merely a Schwyzer, and that thought gave him great satisfaction. For to be a Schwyzer in the brotherhood was to be a slave. A front line soldier sent to test the strength of the enemy, to look after the Knights’ mounts and muck out the stables.

  Tonight he would sit at a duke’s table. Yes, he was still following orders, but he was being rewarded for his talents. And, once again, he owned his name. His true name. His throat tightened as he thought of his mother and father. If only his father were still alive to see him return the Gissler name to its past glory, all would be perfect. But his brother, Hugo yet lived.

  Gissler tightened his hand around the heavy purse. Soon, he would go back to his brother’s dismal hog farm and take him and his daughter away from their wretched life of poverty.

  ***

  Leopold stood above his scribe in the Habsburg castle library and watched him carefully transcribe his notes into the leather-bound volume Leopold had titled Malleus Maleficarum, ‘The Hammer of Witches’. Once finished, Leopold was confident it would be the Church’s greatest weapon against witchcraft ever assembled.

  “Be sure you list all who were present this day,” Leopold said. Reading in Latin had never been his strong point, but he could recognize names easily enough.

  There was a commotion at the door to the small library and Leopold looked to see Landenberg push through, snarling harsh words at a young scribe who trailed behind him. The scribe froze when he saw Leopold look up.

  “I am sorry my lord. The Vogt demanded entry and I…”

  “I had him!” Landenberg shouted. “He and one of his boys walked out of the trees right in front of us. I was—”

  Leopold held up a hand and cut him off. “Gather your quills, Bernard. It would seem Vogt Landenberg has some pressing matter to discuss.”

  Even in this place could he not find a moment’s peace?

  The scribe hastily blotted the page he had been working on, and keeping the manuscript open, carefully carried it from the room. He was not foolish enough to let the book out of his sight. Bernard was the only one permitted to touch Leopold’s tome, and he knew his life was forfeit should anything happen to it.

  “From the enthusiasm in your words, I can only assume you had another encounter with Arnold Melchthal.”

  “We crested a rise outside Brunnen and there he was. Him and one of his men just stood there. We stared at one another like startled cats, unsure what to do. They ran, we gave chase, and I put a bolt into his man’s back. That one’s thieving days have come to an end, I tell you that much. Beautiful shot. From horseback too, I might add.”

  “So Melchthal eluded you again? Is that why you have burst into my study? To bring news of such a noteworthy event?” Leopold said the words softly, with only the slightest trace of sarcasm. In truth, there were few things in this world he enjoyed more than seeing Landenberg squirm after being played for a fool.

  Landenberg threw up his hands. “He is more rabbit than man, that one. We lost him for a bit in the trees and when next we saw him he was half way across the lake on a ferry.”

  “What ferry?”

  “Some peasants set up a barge that crosses the waters near Brunnen.”

  “Who uses this ferry? Merchants?”

  “No, only locals I should think. The road runs along the water’s edge and merchants tend to be a distrusting sort. They would not risk their goods on those unpredictable waters.”

  Leopold sat in the chair Bernard had been in moments before and steepled his fingers in front of his face as he thought through what Landenberg told him.

  “Then burn it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Burn the ferry. As it stands now, Melchthal has beaten you. He escaped. By removing the method of his escape, you ensure that this particular tactic of his will never work again. Also, you send a message, a warning, to both Melchthal and, more importantly, to those who would harbor him.”

  Landenberg nodded. His thick lips spread into a grin clearly visible even through his shaggy, greying beard.

  “Consider it done. My lord.”

  Chapter 12

  ONCE EVERY MONTH Seraina would load up her mule and make the daylong journey into Schwyz. Once there, she would set up in the market, and sell fresh herbs from her garden, or ground up ingredients with her granite mortar and pestle to relieve people’s ailments. After, she would go to the homes of anyone that was too sick or injured to come to her stall in the market. Invariably, someone would offer her a bed or at least a barn full of straw to sleep in for the night. Early the next morning she would begin the trek home to her grove.

  But that was not the only time she had contact with the villagers. A few times every month someone would turn up on her doorstep looking for healing, or advice. These were usually men and women whose positions or circumstances made it difficult to seek her out in the public space of the market. Once, even a priest came all the way from Altdorf to see her when a stubborn lesion on his arm refused to scab over and heal. Seraina never refused anyone treatment, and that included Austrian soldiers that came to her stall in the market, although she was careful never to mention this to Noll.

  On this day, it was already noon when she set out from Schwyz for home, which meant it would be well past dark by the time she arrived at her cabin. Unless, of course, she took the Brunnen ferry. She smiled, knowing all too well this had been the plan of her private weave all along. She had slept late and tarried at the farm, helping Gertie and her infant daughter feed the chickens and then broke her fast with them before she finally took to the road.

  When she reached the crossing, she was disappointed to see no sign of the ferry. But just as she was about to go back to the road, a white sail peeked through the trees, moving steadily towards a small wharf jetting out into the green waters. The long, rectangular barge drifted up to the makeshift dock and a tall man holding a rope leapt gracefully from the ferry and tied it up to a post worn smooth and black. Unfortunately, he was not alone.

  Seraina bit her lip as she recognized his passengers, old man Menznau and his wife. The wind was up and the lake simmered with small waves as the couple stepped down gingerly, their legs unaccustomed to fighting the swells.

  Seraina pulled the hood of her cloak up and watched from the water’s edge as the old man reached into a sack and pulled out a loaf of dark bread. He handed it to the ferryman and they exchanged a few words, then Menznau and his wife wobbled down the dock. As they came towards her, the old couple made it a point not to look at Seraina, and she felt that if she had been standing on the dock, they may very well have pushed her into the water.

  Their son had died recently from the lung sickness. He had been caught stealing and was sentenced to do hard labor on the Altdorf fortress. Seraina had tried
to see him, but the soldiers would not let her anywhere near the prisoners. They assured her their own doctor would look after him. He did not, and the only reason the Menznaus learned of the fate of their son, was because a relative found his body mixed with the ever-growing pile of refuse heaped against an outer wall of the fortress.

  As the couple passed, she felt their grief surface and flare. Seraina watched their backs, hoping they might turn around and let her try and soothe their pain.

  “You wishing to go across? If so we leave now, as I would be back at this dock before nightfall.”

  She turned to see the ferryman running his hands along the mooring rope, head down and focused on it like his question had been directed to it instead of Seraina. But as she stepped down onto the ferry he held out his hand and she took it.

  Just then the barge lurched on the waves and she leaned into his grip to right herself. She laughed and not so much saw, but felt him smile at the sound. She looked up into his face and his eyes made her gasp. They were large and brown, with amber flecks, and would have been beautiful, but Seraina could see deeper than most people. Beneath the calm, swirled unfathomable darkness, and pain. There could be no doubt that his spirit had brushed up against evil.

  She blinked hard from the intensity of the man’s life. He immediately turned away, and as he did so Seraina noticed a long scar that stretched from beneath his eye to the bottom of his jaw.

  Oh you fool, she said to herself. He thought she had been staring at the old wound. He kept his back to her and prepared to cast off.

  “Best hold onto something. Wind has been unpredictable all day,” he said. His voice scratched in his throat, like he was not used to speaking.

  He pushed away from the dock with an ancient oar as scarred as his face, and then busied himself with adjusting the sail until it filled with wind. The ponderous barge plowed through the water at a slow, but steady pace. He rested one hand on the steerboard, making slight corrections now and again to keep the sail from spilling the wind, and asked where she would like to go.

  “The hanging rocks south of Seelisberg, if the waters permit.”

  “Ah. Going to see the old hag are you?”

  “Old hag?”

  He shrugged. “The only reason anyone goes to the hanging rocks is because some old pagan woman lives in those woods. Trades coin for magic potions some say.”

  Seraina laughed and the ferryman looked at her, his dark eyebrows arched upwards.

  “Magic,” she said, “is the name people give to something they do not understand. Some might say what you did for Noll’s young friend the other day was magic.”

  He gave her a dark look and crossed himself at the suggestion he might use magic.

  “So, you are one of the outlaw’s band, are you? One of his women?”

  “Are you asking if I am a whore that passes herself amongst Noll Melchthal and his men?” Seraina’s tone was light and sweet.

  The ferryman’s face reddened and he looked down at his hand on the tiller.

  “It was not my intention to compare you to that kind of woman,” he said, after a long pause.

  Seraina caught his eye and tipped her head to show she was not insulted. It had the desired effect of putting the man at ease.

  “Well, I am not a whore, but if I were, I would not be afraid to admit it. For a woman who sells herself is a survivor. Most often she has simply run out of options and is doing what she can to live.”

  He frowned at this. “There is always the nunnery,” he said. “She would be better off giving herself to God, rather than some sour-breathed drunk in an alley.”

  Seraina put a finger to the corner of her mouth and cocked her head. “I suppose she would be safe in a nunnery. For ‘sour-breathed drunks’ are never found within a House of God.” One side of her mouth turned up in a smile that the ferryman could not help but match with one of his own.

  “You do have a point,” he said.

  “You would know much better than I about Houses of God, for Noll tells me you were with the Hospitallers?”

  He nodded. “My whole life. What I can remember, that is.”

  “Do all Hospitallers study the healer’s craft?”

  He shrugged. “We are all required to spend time in the Hospitals. But some take to it more than others. I suppose I was one of those.”

  “Your teachers were Christian monks then?”

  “Some. But many of the Order’s physiks were Mohammedans.”

  Ah, that makes sense, Seraina thought.

  The Arabs were an old people with a culture stretching back thousands of years. They would have much knowledge to offer.

  “Do you miss your life across the sea?”

  “Do you always ask so many questions?”

  Seraina laughed and said, “I have been told that I do. We all have more questions than answers, but here is one answer I give to you freely, with no question attached. My name is Seraina.” She performed a mock curtsy. “You might say I am the gardener for this old hag you mentioned.”

  The ferryman grimaced and once again looked down at the tiller.

  “My apologies. I meant no disrespect to your mistress. I am Thomas,” he said. “Thomas Schwyzer.”

  He said his last name quietly, like a boy admitting to a theft.

  ***

  It was Thomas’s favorite time to be on the water. The sun was beginning its descent behind the Alps and soon the bright ball would disappear, yet enough light would remain to sail by for some time. So different from the saltwater-scented evenings of the Mid-Earth Sea, where few high mountains encroached on the coastline. There, once the sun had fled, the whole world went dark.

  Curious woman, Seraina, he thought. He remembered the sound of her innocent laughter and how her green eyes opened wide and flashed when she spoke, like the world was filled solely with beauty and wonder. He envied her that.

  Do all Hospitallers study the healer’s craft?

  All people experience a turning point in their lives. A precipice, where on one side lies the innocence of youth, and the other a sheer drop into the darkness that is life. For Thomas, that moment came when he learned to read.

  It had been during the waning days of Christian power in the Holy Lands. All the great Templar and Hospitaller fortresses had fallen. Beaufort, Akkar, Safed, even the once impregnable Krak des Chevaliers.

  The year was 1290 and the port city of Acre was the last Christian foothold in the Levant. Thomas was called into a meeting with the Knight Marshal of the Hospitaller forces, Brother Foulques de Villaret.

  Foulques had been raised within the Order in Outremer and was something of a legend amongst the other knights and sergeants, both for his skill at arms and his unwavering dedication. A Knight Justice at the age of eighteen, and a Knight Commander in his early twenties, he was recently appointed as Knight Marshal in the Holy Lands, the chief military adviser to the Grand Master. He had earned even the monks’ respect because he was one of the few fighting men who was able to read and write.

  So, in the summer of Thomas’s fourteenth year, it was with some trepidation that he answered a summons to meet with Foulques de Villaret in the Marshal’s keep office. Thomas had grown into a tall, lanky boy who may have been awkward if not for the physical rigors of his everyday training. Even so, he almost tripped as his foot snagged the edge of a lush Turkish carpet when he entered de Villaret’s office.

  He was used to the stone floor of his own dormitory, and the only place he had seen carpets, such as the one he stood upon, was hanging from one of the Arab merchant stalls in the city marketplace. In fact, the entire room reminded him of the eastern area of the bazaar. Sheer fabrics draped from the windows, allowing in ample light but diffusing it in a way that softened the grey stone room, and tapestries hung on every wall with multicolored motifs that matched those of the carpets. Elaborate candelabras were placed throughout the room and numerous feather pillows covered a seating area in one corner.

  Seated behind an orna
tely carved desk, even de Villaret himself looked like he had just stepped out of the bazaar. His usual black Hospitaller tunic was replaced by the loose-fitting silks and linens that the Arabs preferred, but his head was uncovered, leaving his mass of black hair to float unfettered around his head. He saw Thomas’s surprise at the room’s décor and his own mode of dress.

  “The East has much to offer,” de Villaret said, sweeping his arm across the room. “Why else would so many Franks come to these lands?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence as Thomas considered how to answer the knight, or if indeed it had even been a question. De Villaret stood, walked to the window, and looked out. “Your studies go well?”

  “Yes, Marshal,” Thomas said, finding his voice.

  “Weapons master Glynn speaks highly of your abilities,” de Villaret said, turning back to face Thom, his eyes probing. “Especially, with the dagger. Not the most noble of weapons though, I must say.”

  Thomas did not know what to say. He had no distinctive talent that made him stand out, like Pirmin’s great strength, Gissler’s uncanny speed with a sword, or Ruedi, who could hit figs with a crossbow from across the training ground.

  “I have been told you requested extra hours working in the hospital. Do you seek to replace your martial training with something you see as less strenuous?”

  “No, Marshal. I would use the hours I have free in the evening after Vespers.”

  De Villaret nodded. “It is good you have an interest in medicine, for that is the founding vocation of our order. However, God has willed you should become a soldier, not a physician. Do you understand this?”

  Thomas looked down at the ground. “Yes.”

  “How many patrols have you ridden out on?”

  “One a week for the past year.”

  “Have you taken the lives of any of the enemy?”

  Thomas looked up and one of his dark eyes twitched.

  “I have killed a boy,” he said finally. “Though I thought him a man at the time.”