Morgarten (Book 2 of the Forest Knights) (14 page)

“They would never follow me.”

“They would if you were backed by Furst,
Stauffacher, Gertrude, and myself.”

Thomas shook his head. “You are the reason they are
all here, Noll. They follow you. I think the fools have come to
believe in your cause more strongly than you do.”

“Be careful, ferryman. No one believes we would be
better off out from under the Habsburgs than I do.”

“Then why this sudden back-stepping? Why give up
control of your own army?”

“Because if I lead them into battle, not one of them
will live through it! There. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Thomas remained silent. What could he say? For
perhaps the first time, he completely agreed with Noll
Melchthal.

Noll took a deep breath and when he spoke again his
voice was quiet and under control.

“I have been to Habsburg,” he said. “I saw the army
Leopold is building and I counted at least three thousand men.
Hardened soldiers. Not a farmer among them, I suspect.”

“It is early,” Thomas said. “The ranks could swell
to triple that just before they march.”

Noll became quiet and Thomas regretted saying what
he had. But it was the truth. Leopold would gather a few infantry
about him now as a precautionary measure, but horses would be too
expensive to keep all winter. His knights would flock to his banner
at the last moment. If the sight of simple infantry had unnerved
Noll, what would he think when faced with fully armored knights
mounted atop steel-clad war horses?

“I am in this to the end,” Noll said. “One way or
another I will make a stand. And I will do everything in my power
to give the men and women who side with me a fighting chance. Even
if that means relinquishing control of my army. I am wise enough to
know when I need help.”

“And foolish enough to ask me for it,” Thomas
said.

“There is no one else,” Noll said. “You are the only
one.”

“And what would you expect of me?” Thomas said. He
felt his heart quickening and his face flush. “I do not have God’s
ear any more than the next man, and the truth is, without His help
we will not hold Altdorf. It does not matter who leads the
defenses. You saw Leopold’s army yourself. He has the finest
fighting men in Christendom at his disposal. What do we have? A
partially built fortress with not half enough men to defend its
walls.”

“You speak as though the battle has already been
fought. If you feel our cause to be such folly, why do you
stay?”

“I do not have to explain my actions to you or any
other man,” Thomas said.

Noll stood and brushed off his breeches. “No,
ferryman, you do not. But do not expect any special treatment if
you intend to stay on as part of the Army of Free Men.”

Thomas turned his back on Noll and began to slide
under his blankets. “I have asked for nothing so far, and I do not
expect that to change,” he said.

Noll grunted and turned to leave, but whirled around
at the last moment. “And do not discount your countrymen so easily.
We are more resilient than you know.”

He tried to leave again, but after only a step, he
stopped and leveled a finger at Thomas. “And one more thing! If you
hurt Seraina, I swear I will come and kill you in your sleep.”

Thomas blinked and sat upright.
Why in God’s name
would I hurt Seraina?

Noll appeared to stomp away in the darkness after
that, but try as he might, Thomas could not hear a single footfall.
He rolled himself up in his blankets and pressed his back against
the heated wall of the forge.

He was warm and comfortable, yet sleep was a long
time coming.

Thomas and Seraina took the main road north to
Brunnen, and when they came to the site of Thomas’s ferry, they
stopped to rest. Thomas’s tent still stood, and when he poked his
head inside he was surprised to see his belongings still there.
That is, the few things that he had salvaged from the burned out
remains of his cabin.

He changed into a fresh tunic and strapped on his
belt knife. He also added another blanket to the bedroll he carried
slung over one shoulder. The days were still comfortable enough,
but the nights were not getting any warmer.

When he ducked back out of the tent, Seraina had
covered a boulder with a cloth and spread out some cheese and black
bread.

“You had best eat something,” she said. “Soon we
should stay off the road as much as possible, so you will need your
strength.”

Thomas spoke little during the simple meal, and when
they were done, he stood, eager to be away. His eyes settled on the
nearby woods for a moment. There were memories here: a forest
missing four score of trees, cut, limbed, and peeled by Pirmin and
himself. The work had taken them all spring and part of the
summer.

“You can come back here,” Seraina said, mistaking
his pause as a sign of him not wanting to leave. “You can rebuild
the ferry. The people of Schwyz would gladly help.” She spoke
quickly, her words full of hope.

A ferry.
It had been a childish dream,
nothing more.

“Altdorf is not your fight, Thomas, and Noll has
more than enough men. After we get the swords for them, you can
come back here. Rebuild. The people will need a ferryman.”

He looked at the yellowed end of a cut stump. He saw
Pirmin laughing, as the tree that used to be there fell in the
opposite direction Thomas had intended, and crushed their cooking
pots.

“We shall see,” Thomas said.

Seraina started, and looked to the road. Thomas
followed her eyes and saw what she was looking at: two people
walked toward them. After a moment, Seraina relaxed and waved.

“It is Sutter and… Mera, I think,” Seraina said,
shielding her eyes against the sun.

The innkeeper and his daughter joined them for their
simple meal. But Thomas had lost what little appetite he had. He
kept staring at the heavy packs Sutter and Mera carried.

“Where are you headed?” Thomas asked.

Sutter glanced out over the lake. It was Mera who
answered.

“We are on our way to Altdorf. Father has decided to
join Noll’s army and I insisted on going too. Someone has to feed
them all.” She gave her father a stern look.

Thomas and Seraina looked at one another. “This is
the very thing you said you would not do,” Thomas said.

“You are right that Noll could use your help,”
Seraina said, directing her words at Mera. “But Altdorf will be a
very dangerous place to be when the Austrians come. No one will be
safe.”

Thomas sensed she was trying to keep her voice calm.
Something that he should do as well, but he could not.

“Turn around right now and go back to your inn,
Sutter. Altdorf is no place for you. And definitely no place for a
father to allow his daughter to go,” Thomas said.

Sutter glared at Thomas. “You think I do not know
that? You have no right to tell me how to protect my own family.
Once Leopold has an army in Altdorf, do you really think he will
leave Schwyz alone and unscathed?”

“And you think Noll’s army can stop him? You are a
fool,” Thomas said.

“My father is no fool!” Mera said. “He believes in
Noll and his cause. As do I.”

Sutter put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder.

“But what about Vreni? Who is helping her look after
the inn?” Seraina said.

Sutter grunted. “What inn? It is no more than a
large house that eats firewood these days. Leopold has all but shut
down the roads to simple travelers, and he has put out the word
that merchants are to bypass Schwyz. Vreni is staying at her
cousin’s farm.”

“Then you should both join her there,” Thomas
said.

Sutter stood. “Come Mera. It is time to be on our
way.”

“I am sorry I yelled at you, Thomas,” Mera said.
“But if we do not help Noll, who will? He needs us.”

Thomas stared after them as they left.

Seraina touched his arm. “Do not worry. I will talk
to them both when we get back. We still have time to convince them
to leave Altdorf.”

Thomas did not hear her. He was thinking about what
Sutter had said, how he thought Leopold would march his army on
Schwyz once he had taken back the Altdorf fortress. Thomas knew
Sutter was wrong. Leopold would not do that.

He would go through Schwyz first. And it would
burn.

Thomas and Seraina walked in silence. They left the
road and entered the forest, passing an ancient mound of
moss-coated stones only a few steps from the modern path. The
remains of an old wall, or structure, built by a people whose time
had long since passed. A few minutes later, they came upon a
similar pile of rubble, and then a half hour later, another.

“Are we on some kind of an old roadway?” Thomas
asked.

Seraina nodded, but kept walking, weaving her way
unerringly through the trees and clumps of underbrush.

“People think the Romans brought us roads and
civilization,” she said. “Yet our Celtic warriors were feared for
the use of their one-horse war carts. You tell me, how could we
have horse-drawn carts with no roads? They may not have been as
straight, or hard-packed as the Romans built them, but they worked
well enough.”

“Those stones, then, they were walls,” Thomas
said.

“Yes. Built to keep the Romans out of our lands,”
Seraina said. “Unfortunately, they did not work.”

Against a vastly superior force, walls rarely did,
Thomas thought. They only postponed the inevitable.

They passed another mound and a chill went through
him as he imagined what it would have been like standing behind
that barricade as legions of Roman soldiers, perhaps the most
fearsome fighting force in history, came marching toward them. The
legionnaires were career soldiers, disciplined and drilled better
than any army before them. Their javelins would have come first.
Then an unstoppable red wall of interlocked shields, their short,
wide-bladed swords thrusting straight ahead at anything that came
in front of them. It would have been a spectacular sight.

He crossed himself and whispered a quick prayer for
the dead.

The Celts never had a chance.

They slept along a remote stretch of the Great
Lake’s shoreline that night and set out again at dawn. It was a
dazzling, blue-sky day and the sun reflecting off the lake had even
Thomas removing his cloak after only an hour of walking. Seraina
became quieter as the morning wore on, and she stopped several
times to gaze into the woods or look out over the lake. Thomas did
not interrupt her periods of silence, for he could tell by the
occasional smile, or shake of her head, that these were personal
moments for Seraina. Memories of a simpler time, perhaps.

Eventually, in early afternoon, they came to a small
tree-lined bay with a clear view across one arm of the water to a
rugged line of white peaks that seemed to float on the very lake
itself. Seraina dropped her pack on the pebbled beach. Then,
without a word, waded in without removing her sandals. She stood
with her hands on her hips and stared out over the emerald lake,
oblivious to how the water lapped at the hem of her dress. As her
auburn hair played in the breeze, and the sun danced off the
mountains, water, and Seraina all in equal measure, Thomas sat
where he stood, unable, or unwilling, to take his eyes off the
scene in front of him.

And then she began to take off her dress.

“Uh… ,” he had no words in mind, but thought he
should at least try to make some noise in case she had forgotten he
was there.

She turned and stepped back onto the beach, slipping
one arm out of her dress and revealing one creamy, lightly freckled
shoulder and the strap of her undergarment.

“This is it! I am sure of it, Thomas!”

Her green eyes flashed in the sunlight and the
brilliance of them, combined with the shimmering lake behind her,
made Thomas’s mouth go dry. She laughed, shrugged her other
shoulder free and undid her belt. She stepped out of her dress and
kicked it high up onto the shore.

Like a siren in some old sailor’s tale, she beckoned
to Thomas from the water’s edge wearing nothing but a thin, white
shift that the sun’s rays transformed into pure gossamer. The image
was soon shattered, however, when she ran into the water and began
splashing around, screaming and cursing at the coolness of it. She
let out another yelp, took a big mouthful of air, and plunged
beneath the surface.

The world went silent.

Seconds, shaped like minutes, passed, and Thomas
felt the dryness of his mouth spread to his throat. He stood up and
covered his eyes against the sun’s glare.

As he took a step toward the water, Seraina bounced
up a short distance away, her hair was slick against her head and
her mouth opened wide as she took in a deep breath. The water was
only waist deep, and the fabric of her shift was plastered tightly
to the contours of her body. While that image alone would have been
enough to fully occupy any man’s mind, Thomas found his gaze
drifting to what Seraina held in her hand high above her head: a
very long, and very old, sword.

With an enthusiastic shout, Seraina lobbed the sword
with both hands toward Thomas, and disappeared under the water
again.

By God, Mary, and all the angels in Heaven, what is
going on?

He managed to move his foot aside just in time as
the sword clattered up the beach to where he stood. He looked down.
It was a sword, all right. Ancient, and covered with a good deal of
rust, but it was a sword.

He looked up as another shout came from Seraina, and
another sword spun through the air toward him. This one did not
have near as much rust on it. In fact, it looked like someone had
just drawn it from a well-oiled scabbard.

By the time the third sword hit the beach, Thomas
had his shirt off and was unlacing his breeches. Seconds later, he
was screaming as the cold water took his breath away.