Munro, gentleman adventurer

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Munro Ch 15 (net version)

Munro Chapter Fifteen

 

~ In which Munro is plagued by Swedish indecision

 

The coins he found on the body were a source of some cheer for Munro. At least the mission was replenishing their coffers. But as he said their to himself, it made him wonder again about Steiner, and concede that going to find him was not a good idea, Steiner knew to come to Ribniza, so that remained the only sensible rendezvous. He would have to go there no matter how much the Swedes irritated him. There was a flash of gold among the coins, the bandits were well provided for indeed, it was absolute confirmation that there was war in the offing. Not that he really doubted it, but it also reinforced the idea that what he still considered unthinkable was really happening. A sovereign, God-anointed prince was indeed trying to kidnap another God-anointed, sovereign prince. The world was turned upside down after all. The new century, some ten years old, was bringing in some awful new fashions.

 

He pocketed the coins, found some hard bread which he took a bite out of, serviceable, if rapidly losing any real taste, and no less than two replacements for his pistol. He decided to keep both, along with all the powder and shot, he had earned them, and the way things were going he was going to need all the firearms he could carry. He led the horse back to his own, a second horse would also be useful, and in the months since he had lost his last second mount he had missed her. The funds or opportunity to replace her had been sadly lacking. He would spend some time reorganising his saddle bags, and spreading the load, Christina no longer needed him. ‘Miss Dahlbergh’ he mentally corrected himself, as he glanced over his shoulder at the animated conversation she was having with the colonel, what was his name? He searched his memory, he was sure the colonel would take any opportunity to be rude to him again, and was determined to be the pinnacle of politeness himself. Silfverhielm, that was it. He finished his labours and was making himself known to his new horse, a smart mare, chestnut but darker than Steiner’s and a touch mottled, well looked after too. His old bay roan gelding came up and nudged him. “Jealous my friend?” he asked him, or maybe geldings should be better known as ‘it.’ He ruffling his mane, and pressing his face against its face. No he couldn’t be an ‘it’, but nor could he ever have a name. “Sure you know I love you best of all don’t you?” he whispered reassuringly.

 

He thought he heard his name called, but carried on nuzzling for a few seconds until he heard it for sure. “Herr Munro!” He turned and acknowledged her call, and leaving the horses to get acquainted he walked over to the knot of people she was standing at the edge of. The conversation had stopped, and they were watching him carefully as he approached. He walked slowly, head high, desperate to appear nonchalant and above their rudeness. He was also conscious that festooned with pistols and still covered by the grime of the road and the smoke-soot of the stink pot he looked more like a highwayman than a gentleman. She had a radiant smile, and it made him tingle a little to see it directed at him, even through her soot and grime streaked face. She looked totally happy, joyous, and as she brushed her now untied hair back out of her face she left a dirty smear on its pale brown sheen. He realised that his involvement with her was at an end, and he realised too that this upset him. This was a surprise, and not a pleasant one. The Colonel held out his hand to him. This was also a surprise. Munro looked at it, a little unsure.

“Herr Munro, I fear I was somewhat rude to you before, and I offer you my sincerest apologies. I was worried about my fiancée, which I am sure is something you understand. In the heat of the action and full of worry, I forgot my manners. I hope you will not find it unforgiveable?”

Munro, stunned by this news was at risk of being hideously rude himself, but found a smile and grabbed the man’s hand with firm friendliness, even though something inside him wanted to punch the Swede straight in his smile; even more than he had earlier wanted to punch him straight in his sneer.

“Colonel,” he said, with forced jocularity, “of course I understand, who would not be worried about the beautiful Miss Dahlbergh? Although I have learned she is quite the soldier, and I must entreat you earnestly not make her angry, as the consequences can be dire.” He wondered if she had told them of the man she had killed. Probably not, he decided, as they were all very cheery, and, as he made his jocose remark he saw she looked a little put out, as if there were parts of the last few days she would rather forget than celebrate. Well, he thought, if she wanted to return to being a genteel lady, it was none of his business. Besides, what well brought up young beauty wouldn’t want to forget the traumas of the past days, as well as the man most likely to bring it back to her mind. He tried to focus on being polite to Colonel Silfverhielm, but his head kept stinging with the disappointment that he was engaged to Christina. Munro’s introspective self had already attempted forcing him to address his feelings, but for once the subject was one where his open self held sway. The woman was a client and what’s more she was another man’s fiancée. That was an end to it. It was then that she fainted clean away. He and Silfverhielm almost clashed heads in their eagerness to prevent her fall, only Munro recollecting it was better a job for her fiancé than for him slowed his motion enough to prevent harm. Munro hurried to address Silfverhielm’s concern. “She is exhausted Colonel, I am sure it is nothing more. We were here in the house because she could not ride a step further. She rested only moments before we were besieged, I will warrant she needs a good night’s rest if not a good night followed by a good day too.”

The Swede had his unconscious fiancée cradled in his arms and acted as if she weighed nothing. “You look finished yourself Captain Munro, if you will forgive my impertinence.”

Munro found himself warming yet again to a Swedish officer, his eagerness to make amends for his rudeness and his earnest concern for Munro’s well-being were hard to dislike. These Swede’s produced good comradely officers, they were all hard to dislike.

“You have the right of it Colonel. A sleep will be welcome, bed or no bed.”

The Swede gestured at the house burning beside him, its flames having deceived them all as to the lateness of the hour. It had become full dark around them.

“I think the only bed has been burned Captain. Will the barn suffice?”

“Believe me Colonel a rock would suffice were it but dry.”

Silfverhielm smiled and carrying Christina led the way to the barn followed by a now stumbling Munro. The adrenaline had finally calculated it could stop flowing and retreat and his body was shutting down in its wake.

 

***

 

He awoke hearing an earnest conversation going on close by. He recognized Silfverhielm’s voice, but not the other. Not one of the troopers for sure. Another officer. Munro was too tired to even open his eyes, let alone try to work out the conversation, which was in Swedish. But two things brought him closer to the surface. Firstly, its earnestness seemed to have an urgency that lured him into its web. Secondly he realised he had heard Christina Dahlbergh’s voice, and that realisation would not let him slip back into unconsciousness. He heard his name a couple of times. The last time it seemed to be part of a question. But not a call to him. They were talking about him but not to him. Had they called? He struggled closer to the surface and sneaked an eye open. Through the tiniest of slits he saw the two Swedish officers looking at him.

“Gentlemen I am awake. May I be of some assistance?”

“Captain Munro, we did not intend to wake you, though we were sore tempted. We have been discussing the King, and we are already remiss that our discussions did not take place last night …”

“And how can I help?”

“Did Captain Dahlbergh tell you of the location of the King’s meeting with the Vizier’s agent?”

“Why no, he told me very little, he said Miss Dahlbergh knew all I needed to know, and that was a struggle to prise from her too, I can tell you! They were both as tight-lipped a pair of agents as you could wish for!”

“But I never knew anything of it!” Christina was aghast.

“You never knew anything of the King’s rendezvous?”

“No! I told you all I knew! I have never heard of any rendezvous!”

“So the fewer people that know a secret the better, surely?” Munro desperately wanted her not to blame herself for any failing.

“Herr Munro, Miss Dahlbergh has told us there is evidence of a plot to kidnap the King.”

“Yes, she told me that, though damned hard to believe that the world has fallen to such despicable tactics, even by Russians!”

“The King has gone off to a meeting, with just a handful of gentleman to guard him. A meeting that only Captain Dahlbergh knew details of. I myself knew only that it was to happen, no other detail.”

“Ulrik never told me of it, I swear!” Christina was aghast.

“Ah,” Munro suddenly fell in with Silfverhielm’s thinking. “But if no one but the King knows where he was supposed to go, then surely he is at less risk, not more?”

“Yes, there is truth in what you say, but when he left he had no more thought of being kidnapped than of being married. Or he would not have gone. I feel we must most certainly increase his guard, and yet the only person who knows the secret other than the king seems to be Captain Dahlbergh.”

“Then, Colonel, let me guide you back to where he is being nursed this very instant! Let us learn what we need to learn.”

“I will send back to Ribniza to see if they can track the King, we all saw him leave heading south, perhaps he can be caught and reinforced, or even turned back to safety.”

“I must come!” interjected Christina, and with one voice both Munro and Silfverhielm dismissed the notion.

“Christina,” said Silfverhielm softly, “I beg you most earnestly to go with Leutnant Ekman to Ribniza and bathe and sleep. Please. You have done enough heroics.”

“But Goran, he is my brother.”

“And he is my brother Drabant, I promise you I will look after him, and I am sure Herr Munro promises too, eh?” he looked at Munro.

“Na klar, Fraulein Dahlbergh,” he bowed as formally as a man as dirty as he was could. She looked totally crestfallen.

“You must rest Miss,” Munro continued, “Not two hours back you could not ride a yard further, and now you want to take on a two day journey? Think of the warm bed that awaits you in Ribniza.”

“You are right, Herr Munro, of course,” and she yawned a huge yawn, as if just the mention of a warm bed had tipped her over the edge, she blushed and apologised for her yawn, amid the laughter of those around her, the barn having seemed to come fully awake during their talk. Munro was impressed with the boyish joy they all took in having her around. He was not surprised that she was popular, only surprised that it irked him so.

“I bet you wish you could enjoy more sleep yourself, eh Munro?” Silfverhielm clapped him companionably on the back, and led him away from the girl. Munro looked over his shoulder, the only goodbye he was to be allowed, as she herself was swallowed up by willing helpers and led to a fresh horse. He turned to the Colonel. “I will yet sleep for a week, but let us each be reunited with our friends and comrades first.”

“Miss Dahlbergh tells me you left a giant to guard her brother. A German giant.”

“Steiner and I are close comrades, Colonel. I would trust him with my life.”

“Good, then let us go and meet him. Shall we leave in fifteen minutes? I must split my party and give the necessary orders.” Munro nodded and headed for the well he knew to be behind the house. He was beginning to realise the amount of soot and smoke that had infiltrated his lungs, and, he had awoken bone dry. He would drink a bucketful or two, and poor the same amount over himself. Then he might be able to survive the two day’s ride.

 

The ground water was cool, very cool, but despite the coolness of the well-water bath he had taken, Munro had still almost dozed leaning against the wall of the well, so much so that Silfverhielm’s approach startled him. He looked up, startled at a smiling friendly face he was already having difficulty disliking. “I regret I must force you to ride again so soon, Munro, but I have my duty to perform, and it cannot be performed without your help.”

Munro struggled to his feet. “Quite alright Colonel. A dragoon needs only 20 minutes to be as fresh as a daisy. I had the luxury of a full – if short – spring night.”

“Ah you were a dragoon, Miss Dahlbergh said you had been in the service of the British Queen, but she did not say in what arm. Which Regiment? If I may ask?”

“The Fifth Dragoons, Colonel.”

 

 

They were almost back at Munro’s horses now, and The Swede held the bridle of the newly acquired chestnut mare as Munro mounted her for the first time. He held it in a friendly companionable way. The man had few airs or graces, he was hard to dislike indeed.

“I am sure you saw a lot of action, we must talk of it when we are more at leisure, eh?”

Munro saluted down at him from the saddle, and, waited as the man nimbly mounted a cavalry horse that had seen better days. The retreat from Poltava had been hard on the horseflesh of the Swedish Army. He noted however that there were some remounts being towed astern of their group as they turned onto the road, the spoils of their little engagement no doubt. Munro was pleased he had made an early claim, it was likely the Scandinavian’s need for horses would make them quite rapacious, and they may have felt the victory, and therefore the spoils, were theirs. Munro had of course killed the mare’s owner, and would likely have killed anyone who had tried to prevent him taking possession of her. He had not, after all, at that precise moment been in the best of moods. Still they were all friends and allies now, and it was time to leave the girl behind. What future could he have offered such a girl anyway? He was a penniless soldier of fortune? At best he might have received a mercenary commission from the Swedes, and she was engaged to a Colonel, and a pretty handsome one at that. The girl, however, would not easily stay forgotten, and the mere impossibility of their being any future was not sufficient to even nudge her from his thoughts, let alone drive her from his mind.

 

As they made quick initial progress, Silfverhielm had led them off at a brisk military trot, back the way Munro had come. It was comforting to see he was part of a party that need be less fearful of meeting any of Rostoff’s men on the road. Munro never knew how many Swedes had arrived in such a timely way to rescue him and Christina, nor how many had become her escort to Ribniza, he did see that Silfverhielm had six men with him, making eight in total. They were all clearly hardy veterans, not just of the awful defeat and retreat from Poltava, but of the previous nine years of almost uninterrupted victories; experienced hard bitten troopers who would not be awed by anything less than a full troop of Russian horse. This was good for many reasons, but the two that most pleased Munro at this early stage, when his tired limbs were already beginning to murmur their displeasure, was the fact that they could travel in daylight, and sleep confidently in villages at night. This was such luxury after the three hard days preceding, and Munro’s buttocks, if not his heart, longed for a good bed. After an hour Silfverhielm slowed them to a walk. Munro, looking back to give his old companion the roan gelding  a smile, found himself admiring the man. He knew his business, conserved the horses well and took an easy attitude to his troop without weakening his authority. Danvers would have loved him. Munro refused to. As they walked Silfverhielm allowed himself to drop back along the column until he was alongside Munro.

“You really should be leading us Munro, after all, you’re the only one who knows here we are heading!”

“You need no guide for now. Around nightfall, a little before if we maintain our pace we will near a small village which Miss Dahlbergh and I by-passed. I suggest it as a place for a halt. If we set off early next day we can make the doctor’s village, a place called Balti, by nightfall and you will be reunited with Captain Dahlbergh. From tomorrow I will most certainly guide you.”

“You puzzle me Munro, I saw for myself earlier that you do not hang back in a fight, and yet you hang back on the road, as if you were the most junior soldier, when you are the most experienced of all of us. In this type of mission at least!”

 

Munro was silent, the truth of why he had avoided the increasingly more charming colonel was hardly to be spoken aloud.

“Of course, you are tired, and I intrude,” he looked sad as he pushed ahead again, although perhaps also rebuffed. Munro could not bear to be thought rude after the charming apology and the selfless efforts that had been made. Still less did he want this soldier, this clearly very accomplished soldier, to think him unsettled by a few nights of hard riding. He nudged the mare into a trot and came alongside the colonel as he reached the head of his little column.

“I was worried for our friends, Colonel, having left them alone and it made me somewhat quiet. This plot, and the sheer numbers of Peter’s agents make me fear for both their lives. I am sure you know that the man who makes the command decisions carries the heaviest conscience.”

The Colonel returned his gaze and smiled, a relieved smile that said he had given up his efforts at friendship as wasted and now was overjoyed at their reaped reward. But there was some other sadness too. Maybe he had made some hard command decisions himself that weighed yet heavy on him. “Come Munro, you made a good decision, with luck your action has saved the King, and you have most certainly saved my fiancée, for which I am forever in your debt.” Munro was astounded at the man’s ability to touch his most tender nerves. The Swede continued, “I own I had not thought of resting this night, but pushing on, I want to reach Balti and learn what we need to learn.”

“I think you are right Colonel,” Munro sighed, “I am sorry to admit my exhaustion was speaking. We must indeed press on and see our friends safe again as soon as we can.”

 “Munro, I know what you have done already, and I know you would not make your own, very understandable exhaustion an issue in this decision, I am sorry that it has even come up!”

“Colonel, I have seen a lot of Peter’s agents in the past few days, and while never in such great numbers as to worry us, it is not beyond the bounds of plausibility that we might find them all combined. I also learned them to be professional, accomplished and ruthless. I would want to engage them rested and able to manoeuvre as required without fear of the condition of my horses or my men.”

“You make a fair point, I will think on it.”

Munro was thankful for the end to conversation, and he fell to riding and resting, as probably all of them were doing aside from Silfverhielm, whose mind was doubtless full of fear for his Sovereign, and perhaps lust for his fiancée too.

 

Unluckily for Munro the solid pace they had maintained saw them at the hamlet a little too far ahead of nightfall, and Silfverhielm had no hesitation in pushing straight through after the briefest pause to question a farmer, who had seen many groups of rough looking men, sir, yes indeed sir, but not this past day sir.

As they left the village Silfverhielm assured him he had planned a rest stop, but only when it was dark, and only until dawn, he wanted to make the best time possible. Munro nodded, he regretted the bed enormously, but the squalid little hamlet that they passed through turned out to be hardly have been worth by passing two night’s before. He may have been passing up on a roof, but he doubted he was passing up much of a bed. Sleep though sounded good to him, ashamed as he was to admit it. He had slept so long and deep last night he felt he should have been ready for anything. But these five days had been too full. Not just of action, but of worry. His exhaustion had had the fine edge blunted, but it was still a blade in his body. So it was with some relief that he eventually unsaddled his horse and fed and watered both her and the gelding in the little beck they found about musket shot from the road on the north side. The Swedish scouting had been good. Since the rescue Munro had been constantly impressed by their diligent professionalism and he was happy to be in company with them until he found Steiner. Then he felt it would be best to move on.

 

It might not be believed in the great chateaux of France, or the rather dowdier stately homes of England, but a saddle makes a damn good pillow.  Munro had thought so from the first time he had used one for such a purpose. Of course it may have been because every time Munro slept with his saddle for a pillow he was pretty much exhausted and slept like a baby. Tired as he was he would have doubted that anything would wake him, feeling for the first time in a while both secure and guarded. However a dragoon’s training and instincts are not easily put to bed, and the whispered conversation between Silfverhielm and one of his men woke him almost instantly. Silfverhielm felt him wake, he had bivouacked only a couple of musket lengths away and turned to him. “My sentry has spotted a rider on the road. Well spotted him and then lost him. He says that one minute he was there and the next gone.”

“Steiner!”

“Can you be sure?”

“No, but I am sure that if Steiner had seen either your sentry, or maybe the glimmer of our fire, he would have gone to ground and circled away from us. As far as he is concerned he would assume any group would be the enemy.”

“But why is he alone? And not with Captain Dahlbergh?”

“We must bring him in and ask him Colonel.” Munro was on his feet now.

“But what if it is not him?”

“Well I shall be cautious in finding out, I promise you and you will send a man or two with me, eh?”

The Swede nodded and made a motion with his hand. Two troopers fell in alongside Munro, one wiping the sleep from his eyes, the other, the sentry, wide awake and somewhat aggrieved that he might have been seen by a rider. He had already told his Colonel such a thing was not possible. All Munro knew was that he was rankled, and as such a dangerous man on patrol. He told them to stay back and let him lead, and fortunately they understood his German.

 

They reached the road, and there was no one and nothing to be seen. Munro knew it was Steiner, although he could not explain his passionate sense of certainty. If he was right of course, they would not see him or hear him. Big as he was he could be silent. He would have dismounted and circled south, but kept the glimmer of light in view. He would see them walking in plain view in the moonlight. He would probably not recognise Munro though, not at any distance. That could be remedied. But Silfverhielm had a point, perhaps it was not Steiner. After all why would Steiner be alone and travelling at night? Munro knew that the doubts could never be answered, but if it was Steiner he didn’t want to miss him, so he did what felt like the lowest risk solution, and started to sing an old German drinking song that was much loved by the huge Hamburger. The two troopers were aghast and he heard them cock their carbines. He looked back and made a steadying motion with his hand that said calm down, everything is fine. But they didn’t look very calm. He was on the road now, and walking back eastwards, the way Steiner would be going. He had not walked more than a pistol shot when he heard the shout:

“If that isn’t you Munro, it is a dead man.”

“Ach! Ich bins!”

“Hande in oben bitte!”

“Steiner bist du dumm geworden, es ist Ich, Munro!”

“So it is, well met old friend!”

 

The huge man emerged from shadows and bushes that could surely never have hidden his huge frame and Munro was again astounded at his friend’s skills in the field. It was this confidence that assured him that only Steiner could have seen and evaded the Swedish sentry with such ease. But despite all the confidence Munro felt a wave of relief washing over him, had he been wrong, he might well have been dead.

“Well met indeed, but tell me why you are on the road and not with our Swedish friend?”

“He is dead, and I came to find you.”

“Dead?” Munro was surprised but hardly shocked, when he last saw him death’s door had been ajar. Still it was not good news: “That will not please his friends.”

“I supposed this noisy crowd of amateurs were Swedes when I realised it was you, I had taken them for more of Rostoff’s men at first.”

“Rostoff? He has been on the scene?”

“Ach Munro, there is much to tell you and little of it cheering. Let me tell you first alone.”

 

Munro did not want to make the Swede’s edgy, but could see the sense of knowing what there was to know first and without Swedish ears. He told the two troopers to go back to camp, and that he and Steiner would just go to fetch the German’s horse. It was in fact true, although it was a task that they made take longer than required, and as they did so Steiner told Munro all the details of his eventful few days.

 

“So you never heard the name of the rendezvous?”

“No.”

So Rostoff has a day’s start on us and he knows where he is going and we do not.”

“That is so.”

“This is not good. Did you learn any more about the Russian?”

“I know he is good at what he does, and I know I don’t want to meet him unless I have a loaded pistol in my hand. He is a nasty piece of work. But I did learn one other thing of use. I had my boy bring me the youth Radek, so I could see what he knew.”

“Good thinking, and…? Did you learn anything useful?”

“Well he says that a half day’s ride north of Grozno is Rostoff’s headquarters. They call it an old castle. At least he, Radek, called it a castle. He had not seen it, but he heard them speak of it, the Russians, as ‘the castle.’ I asked my boy and he said he thinks it’s an old fortified house from the days of the first siege of Vienna back in Suleiman’s time. I think we should find a troop and get them to pay Rostoff a visit. I am sure they will want revenge.”

“I am sure too. But let us consider for a while exactly what we tell our Swedish allies.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sadly, old friend I think our Swedish comrades may find the real truth unpalatable. While it may be excusable to give up such crucial secrets under torture, being left vulnerable because of an insane lust for a peasant girl is not. I suspect they will call you a liar. Then we are all in trouble.”

 

Steiner nodded, it made sense. “If they don’t believe Dahlbergh’s madness over the doctor’s wife then they will come to the question of why you were not there with him, stopping this disaster happening.” Steiner sucked on his teeth, that was a nasty thought. He had no desire to be accused of desertion and disbelieved as to the reason.

“The girl was a devil, and she bewitched him for sure, hard to believe for anyone.”

Munro nodded, “Women often are old friend, is it not written ‘As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.[1]’ I think we shall keep to the basic truth of the doctor’s betrayal, but we shall say you were absent at the start of it all because the doctor had sent you to buy medicines or herbs. The boy chased after you when he learned of the doctor’s plans. The rest we can say exactly as it happened.”

“Ja, It is a better story for them than the truth. Even I struggled to believe the truth and I saw it for myself!”

 

Comfortable the story was straight the two friends made their way back towards the camp. They were both more full of apprehension than at any time in the adventure. Somehow the danger of lies and diplomacy seemed more stressful than the danger of pistols and sabres.

                                                                                             

 

---

[1] Proverbs 11:22

Munro Ch 14 (net version)

Note… occasional readers – or those disturbed by Munro’s long absence from our webspace may have missed chapter 13 which went up yesterday…

Munro Chapter Fourteen

 

In which Steiner gets unwelcome news

 

Steiner had in fact taken a few short minutes to saddle up and be on his way north-east out of the village to join the main road, such as it was, not far from where he had last seen Munro.  He had not wanted to dawdle. Anger, resentment and no little worry for his friend on the road nearly three full days ahead of him had sped him on his way. One of the consequences was that as he joined the main road he recalled that despite a substantial breakfast, he was in fact getting hungry. Steiner was a big man, and had big appetites. His breakfast seemed a long while ago, and, in his haste to depart, he had neglected to fill his saddlebags with rations for the road. Steiner was not one for self-recrimination, and he failed to understand anyone who was. That his friend Munro was so skilful in that regard was always disconcerting. Steiner did not find other people to blame, but he had that wonderful facility not to see the point in blaming himself. He was currently revising his empty stomach from being a dim-witted oversight into being a conscious decision reflecting his disdain of all those he had left behind. The doctor was the best of the lot of them, and he wasn’t even a Christian! The woman was nothing but a harlot, and the Swede an idiot, and an overly proud, pompous idiot at that. He spat on their food. But food in general was not to be spat at. Going back never crossed his mind, he too could be proud after all! The solution came to him rather quickly as he traversed familiar ground. The inn where they had first met the Swede. It was out of his way, but not by much. He would have to find food somewhere on his road to catch up Munro, and he could pick up enough food there to last his whole journey to Ribniza.

 

Ribniza of course raised other thoughts, to which he turned his mind as he turned off the road towards the inn. Munro ought to be there by now. If he had survived. There had been half a dozen or so at the doctor’s house. It seemed likely there was more than one group out searching, and any group of half a dozen would likely be too many for Munro and the girl. Steiner was well known not, by nature to be a worrier, but he had missed Munro these past few days. Missed his brain, missed his decision-making, and, damn it all, he had missed his disquieting smile and his easy company.

 

So he fell to wondering if he must do without his friend. He realised that this was getting him nowhere, especially when the question begged itself. “What will you do alone Steiner, eh?’ He didn’t like that question. This country was not right for a lone man, it had been dangerous enough for two, and after his experiences of the last few days throwing his lot in with the Swedes seemed the most ridiculous idea. The speculation was disquieting, so, being Steiner, he simply stopped speculating and fell to thinking of food, and women. There would be a girl he could have at the inn. That appetite had not been satisfied for far too long, and his memories of the ridiculous grappling between Irena and Dahlbergh had stirred the need a few times already. He would be there well before nightfall, but maybe it was a good idea to rest up and eat well and then make an early start, after all the girl was not to be rushed, and in the back of his mind he felt sure that Munro was either dead or safe, and either way an hour or two would make no difference.

 

The girl had been good, meaty and friendly and fun. A description he could equally have applied to the stew he ate afterwards. Then he had had a good sleep, a sleep of good conscience, he told himself, So Steiner was feeling content as he loaded up his saddle bags with hard bread and hard cheese and cold greasy mutton. It was just before dawn, and he reckoned to push himself hard now and be in Ribniza before the second night on the road. As he mounted he saw the girl looking at him from the upper window, and that made him feel good too, he may have paid, but she would remember him fondly all the same. He nudged his horse into a walk and was in a minute or two edging out of the village and up the track that led to the main road. The same track he had travelled when they had just become four, the day he and Munro parted. It made him shudder. Maybe his conscious was not so clear, maybe the night with the girl was an indulgence at the expense of both Dahlbergh and Munro. God send Munro was safe. His prayer was earnest. He had a sense of walking over an old grave, and his unsettled mood was what he blamed when the boy made him start quite noticeably. 

 

He was sat on a rock with a young mule tethered to a gorse bush close by. He was, Steiner noticed, exactly where he could choose to be seen or not seen by someone leaving the village and heading for the main road. He stood up as Steiner approached and led his mule to cross the German’s path. The German slowed as soon as he realised it was the boy from the doctor’s village. The one who always knew everything. “What do you want boy?”

“I have news. You will pay.”

“That depends on the news, boy!”

“No, first pay!”

Steiner sighed. The young people today were so forward, so disrespectful to their elders and so covetous. No respect for the Commandments; that was the problem. He nudged his horse again. “I don’t need your news,” he said simply, “I am busy and have somewhere to go.”

The boy scrambled onto his mule, “this news you want!” he said, his voice urgent but not pleading. His confident assertion had piqued Steiner’s curiosity, but he kept his horse at a steady walk.

“Pay me first, if you no like news, you can catch me anyway can’t you, and take back money?”

“If I can take back the money, what difference does it make if I pay you first or not?”

“After this news you too busy to chase me!”

Damn the boy was a good haggler, but Steiner had spent nearly all his spare cash at the inn, on the woman, the bed, and the food. He took out a silver coin, but the boy shook his head disdainfully. Steiner took out a second, the boy shook his head still.

“Damn you boy, you should have come to me before I bought food and wine shouldn’t you? I have no more!”

“So then yes it is a bargain struck between us.” The boy’s language was formal now, as if honouring the solemnity of a contract, “Two coins and food, and if news good, you give more later.”

“You trust me to give you more later?”

“If you’re alive, yes.”

“If I am alive?” Steiner’s curiosity was afire. He threw the two coins towards the boy who caught one and fumbled the other, dropping quickly from the mule to recover it from the dusty path.

“The doctor,” the boy paused as he remounted.

“Yes? What of the doctor?”

“He betrays your friend, they are going to question and kill him.”

“I don’t believe you! Why would he do that? He swore his hands would not have my friend’s blood on them!”

“Yes, not his hands, Russian hands.”

“But why?”

“You know why. Your friend has cuckolded him. And the doctor came home and saw them.”

“And how do you know all this?”

“I heard him tell someone to take message to the Russians. He is giving them your friend. Also his wife. He has divorced her.”

Some things were becoming clear to Steiner. “He didn’t give you the message?”

“No, he gave Radek.”

Steiner smiled, a boy spurned is it seems also a dangerous thing. He reached into his pack and found a chunk of mutton, a piece of shoulder, the boy had earned it. “Eat then,” he said as he tossed it over. The boy made a good catch and fell to the mutton hungrily. “When did this happen?”

“Just after you left,” the boy’s mouth was full, but Steiner had never been sensitive about genteel eating habits, and realised that when the doctor came to see him in the garden, he had already seen the Swede and his wife. Now it all was clear. He had obviously come through the house, but, as he was walking back towards it, his wife came out of the house, and ran to greet him. She had not seen him as he passed through the house. But her husband had seen her, and the damnable Swede who was meant to be sleeping! So much of the doctor’s conversation and mood made sense now. “Where are the Russians? How long till they get there?”

The boy shrugged. “Radek went north, they were last in Grozno. No one can say where he will find them.”

“So we may already be too late?”

The boy shrugged. He had two silver coins and he had eaten. His day was already good. “Maybe, maybe not. I can show you short cut through the wood and across the hill.”

“Show me then.”

 

As he followed the boy Steiner asked himself why he was doing this. Only eighteen hours or so ago it had been ‘good riddance’ to the Swede as far as he was concerned. He wasn’t sure what drove him back. It was not going to be pretty what happened to the Swede, and the girl, if he was too late, and he wasn’t sure he could prevent it alone anyway, and he certainly wasn’t sure he cared any more about Dahlbergh, and still less about the harlot. He just knew that if Munro had been here with him, they would be going back. Equally he knew if the friends met again and he told Munro he had not gone back that he, Munro would give him, Steiner that disappointed look. So he went back. The decision seemed to make itself, what was giving him more concern was what he might be able to do if he was on time. And what a pretty pickle he might walk into if he was too late. However, this was likely to be honest combat, and that was not something that would give him sleepless nights.

 

The boy did indeed know the country well. He would be an asset to any hussar or dragoon troop campaigning around here. Maybe he would be the source of an edge that Steiner could use. He certainly needed an edge. The ride through the woods was quicker by far than the circuitous loop Steiner had taken keeping to tracks and paths. Admittedly some parts of it were tricky, and they had to walk the horses, but for much of it they made the same pace they would have made on the road. The woods were patchwork; in some parts dense, thick, dark and forbidding; in others bright with good ride-ways; a mixture of oak and linden and birch, with gorse and furze. Steiner was not one for birdsong or flowers, but he felt good on the ride. It was a good ride through good freikorps country with the promise of a good scrap at the end and the hard decisions already made. They hit one problem on the way back, where they had to negotiate a steep bank down to a brook that though narrow, was deepened by being forced through the steep rocky banks, and moving at pace. The boy’s mule made easier work of it than Steiner’s feisty chestnut, which was decidedly skittish about the whole business. Even this though did not prevent them being at the village far sooner than they would have managed on the roads. The only question was how far Radek would have travelled to find the villains. Steiner’s arrival time did not matter in an absolute way, only relative to the opposition. They emerged from the wood at the top of something best described as a cliff from which they had a marvellous view of the south of the village. The side they had never seen or traversed before on the more established paths. It was a steep escarpment and Steiner looked quizzically at the boy. “There is a path, you must lead your horse, but it’s a good path,”

“Very well, let us wait and see what we can see.” Steiner took out his telescope. It was small, and not of great quality, taken from a dead Albanian after a fracas on the road some eighteen months ago, but it was better than the naked eye.

 

It revealed bad news. There were horses outside the doctor’s house, five of them. Steiner was too late. “The doctor already has visitors,” he said.

The boy looked stunned, he clearly felt he had done all that could be done, been as fast as he could have been, he clearly hadn’t thought that after all his efforts he would have failed. “You don’t get your money back!” he said, somewhere between defiant and sullen.

“No, boy, forget the money. There may yet be a bigger reward for you.”

“Really? How? What do I have to do.”

“Well I am not sure yet, but I am going down there and going to do what can be done. It may well be that you and I share out some spoils.” The boy looked at him aghast. It had never occurred to him that the German would go into battle when the cause was already lost, and with odds of five to one it was even more stupid.  “I can’t fight them,” blurted out the boy, and it made Steiner smile.”No, of course not boy, but you can get me close to the doctor’s house without being seen, and that is all you need to do.”

“Yes, I can do that.”

 

The climb down from the cliff was circuitous, and Steiner did indeed have to walk his horse, but the route was better for that, being less in view of the village, although the time it took was irksome. Steiner could feel Dahlbergh’s time running out and he cursed. The boy took them along a gully, and Steiner, still leading his horse was reasonably confident it would take some prodigious ill-fortune for them to have been seen. The gully, though, petered out about pistol shot from the first building, a small barn on the southern edge. Steiner tied his horse to a bush a little way back in a deeper part of the gully, knowing he must proceed on foot. This was the risk, if he couldn’t escape in this direction, he would be afoot, and, most likely doomed. Going forward now was the all or nothing gamble, but this never gave him pause. He had made a decision that morning, and nothing that had happened would unmake it.  He saw to his pistols, checking the priming of both, and checked also that his awesome, ancient broadsword was easy in its sheath. He knew that every minute he took to prepare was a painful and potentially fatal minute for Dahlbergh, but he wanted to survive this, and rushing was no way to survive. He chewed on some hard goat’s cheese from the inn and said to the boy: “Once I can see the doctor’s house, from any side, you can leave me. All I need is that you take me that far. Agreed?”

“Yes.” Steiner emptied the rest of his purse into the boy’s outstretched palm. He had earned it, and Steiner was unlikely to need it. “If I am alive in an hour, there will be loot, and you will share, agreed?” The boy nodded a greedy ascent, but Steiner could tell the boy doubted this eventuality more than a little. Steiner spat out some hard rind of cheese, “Lead on.”

 

The boy knew every hiding space and unseen path through the village, just as Steiner suspected. He arrived across the square from the doctor’s house. “There,” said the boy. “Can you get me around the square without being seen?” The boy looked at him with a sneer, “You said just to get you where you can see the house.”

“Yes, I know, and now I am asking you to get me closer. Crossing the square is too exposed.”

The boy thought and said, “Yes, I can get you closer but as we go around, the chances of being seen by a villager are very great.”

“Better than being seen by the doctor or his visitors.”

“Follow.” Steiner followed.

 

About half way round they were seen. A woman, coming out of the back of her hovel with a hoe, to tend her vegetables, her eyes opened wide with terror. Steiner pointed his pistol at her, and held his finger to his lips in a universally understood gesture. She stood frozen to the spot. Steiner realised he needed to make things happen fast now. “Go!” he said to the boy, and walked straight at the terrified woman, passing her and going through her home and out the other side, now only a short distance from the doctor’s house and not in full view of it. If someone was searching for intruders he would be seen, but surely these villains were confident of not being disturbed? He hoped so. He rushed obliquely across the open space and found the shelter and shade of the house next up from the doctor. For a while his mind had been processing the options. What would the villains be doing? Sharing the girl? Questioning the Swede? Both? There were at least five after all, they could easily be doing both. And there could be more than five, he had seen five horses, but there might be others whose horses had been out of sight in the dead ground behind the house. Five was enough, he thought, with surprise he might take five. As he approached the house he realised there were two certainties in his head. First he didn’t care about the harlot. Second, he knew where the Swede was, and he was sure they wouldn’t have moved him. The questioning would be happening in that room on the front far side of the house. There was a third certainty, not one he consciously knew, it never crossed his mind. He didn’t expect to survive and didn’t care. That too would give him an edge. At just that moment Munro was explaining Pharsalus to Christina Dahlbergh.

 

It was at this point that he heard the scream, and it near curdled his blood, just as screams were said to. It was a man, although the strangled horror of the voice was barely human at all, but definitely male. Somehow he knew it was not the first scream. Just the first he had heard. He wondered about their dispositions, surely one would be on watch? Even if they felt confident in their security they would have one on watch?  If they did it was both problem and opportunity. A single watcher would be easy meat to Steiner and if he could be eliminated without him raising the alarm he would only have four left whilst still retaining the crucial element of surprise. As he left the shelter of this last house he could see the front of the doctor’s. He could see all along its length, and there was no one outside. He could hear the woman screaming now, although muffled. No wonder the village had been quiet, no householder would want to be seen by these villains when their blood was up. Still no one out front, did this mean no one on watch? Or merely that he was watching from inside? That was potentially worse. Steiner could envisage them seeing each other suddenly, through a window. Then what? A shout, a gunshot, all hell breaking loose? Best not dwelt upon. He got closer and became more fatalistic.  It would be what it would be.

 

He got to the house, and the window located this side of the front door was coming up ahead of him. Dare he look through it? He had to. He snatched a glance and then ducked back, the front room imprinted on his retina. His brain instinctively processed the images. Four of them were busy with the girl in the middle of the front room. Four, so lust and depravity had undermined their sense and there was no watcher. So maybe just one was making Dahlbergh scream in that hideous way. But Steiner knew he could not get to the side room without them knowing. His other option was the window in the side room, around the corner of the house. But the only way he could take the man in that room would be with his pistol, from the window, thereby warning everyone else. His rescue of the Swede would be at best temporary, as he would then be facing four, all warned and armed. There was no way he could get through the side window and rescue the Swede without being seen by whoever was in the room. He had to go for the four with the woman, they at least were totally distracted. His plan formed in his head as he approached the front door. He was certain enough of the strategy that even the next scream from Dahlbergh did not sway him from his course. The doctor of course, was nowhere to be seen, but surely he couldn’t have stayed to see his wife’s torment? No matter what she had done to him, no man could watch that.

 

He took his huge broadsword from its over-the-shoulder sheath and opened the front door slowly and quietly with his left hand and he was in the doorway and had not been seen. He took a pistol in his left hand and stepped into the room, still un-noticed. This stealth was not his style, it made him tense, and he wanted one dead, and soon, before they knew he was there. He crossed the space in two huge steps and one sweeping cut with the sword almost beheaded the nearest spectator, so engrossed with the entertainment that he was dead before he knew it. Steiner shot the second spectator with his pistol, at a range of less than a foot his brains splattered all over the man copulating with the girl. He paused in his thrusting but his last colleague, the one holding the girls arms looked up in terrified alarm. Steiner cut again with his sword, but his target was already rolling off the woman, and his motion meant that Steiner merely took a chunk out of his shoulder. The woman kicked out at the villain as he rolled away. The last one was scrabbling backwards towards the kitchen, not quite managing to rise to his feet a comical backwards crab motion. Steiner, fumbling for his last pistol had no time to be amused as the weapon was placed where he could reach it best with his right hand, not his left. The man was now back to the wall and using it to lever himself to his feet, his hand reaching for a wicked, ugly knife in his belt. Steiner lunged and cut with his broadsword again, taking the man in the chest. Behind him he sensed the side room door open. His sword had caught itself in a rib and was not coming free. Steiner cursed and left the sword, going for his pistol now with his right hand, it came easy, but he looked over his shoulder and saw the man emerge from the side room, pistol in hand. He was tall, taller than the others, and much better dressed. A proper Russian aristocrat, thought Steiner, and realised he had been beaten to the draw. He kept his forward momentum and crashed into the flimsy door to the kitchen with his shoulder, splintering it on contact and hurtling through to hit the dirt floor as the Russian’s ball passed over him, precisely where his back had been a second before. He rolled onto his back, raising his own weapon, but through the smoke of the two pistol shots and the splinters of the door he couldn’t get a proper bead on the Russian. Steiner was reluctant to use his last shot on a low odds attempt, especially as at least one of those in the front room was alive, even if injured.  That one appeared in Steiner’s view at that precise moment. Clearly injured, but with a pistol in his hands, albeit wavering. This was no time to take chances, so Steiner shot him cleanly in the chest from two yards away. Scrambling to his feet he headed back for the room, his best chance was to find a discarded pistol. It would be faster than reloading, albeit an uncertain strategy.

 

He entered the room and surveyed the scene, the man by the door still had Steiner’s broadsword wedged in his ribcage, but he had a pistol jutting from his belt. Steiner jerked it free and brought it to full cock, refusing to leave the relative safety of the doorway. The fifth man, the aristo as Steiner thought of him, was nowhere to be seen. The four in the room were very dead. The woman had crawled into the far corner and was just a sobbing ball of flesh. He was torn, he wanted to head for the side room, to Dahlbergh, but until he knew where the aristo was he dare not let down his guard.  He decided eventually to do it in a rush, and rushed through the front doorway into the open. The aristo was already at the edge of the dusty unkempt street, riding hell for leather. Steiner thought of taking aim, but realised it was pointless, besides, there might be a sixth. Then he heard the shout, it was the boy, and it was a warning. He ducked back through the door as the pistol ball struck the doorjamb. It came from behind him. There had been a sixth after all, he pushed his pistol arm back out through the door, thrust his head through just far enough to see the shape of his target and fired. His ball took the doctor in the head. A perfect, if lucky shot. He was dead before he hit the ground. Steiner was shocked. He hadn’t thought the doctor hated him too, not personally, and he hadn’t expected him to take personal part. Most of all he hadn’t expected him to be within earshot of the girl’s rape. Divorced or not. The boy was running across the square towards him. That felt comforting. The boy had strong survival instincts and he clearly thought the danger had passed. Just five after all. How fortunate, because even five had almost been one too many, thanks to the doctor. Time to see Dahlbergh, and already he was dreading it. The boy arrived at his side. “You won.” He said, and Steiner could not tell if he was surprised or not. “Yes, just.” 

“And I get to share?”

“Yes, you do, but first I must see my friend. So go fetch my horse. Now boy.”

The boy nodded and was gone.

 

Steiner walked back into the house and the woman looked up at him. “Thank you” she said. He ignored her. This was her doing. He still didn’t trust himself not to cut her throat. The side room was hard to approach. Steiner had seen a lot of battle, but he hadn’t seen torture. He had heard the stories of course, and the screaming he had heard had convinced him all the horror stories were totally true. But there was no screaming now, and he feared that all he had done had been for nothing, except vengeance. Vengeance, in this instance was not nothing, but it didn’t feel like much. He entered the room, and was nearly sick. The Swede’s body was a mess, and Steiner tried not to look at it in any detail. There was a knife protruding from his chest, the coup de grace no doubt, but as he neared he saw that Dahlbergh was alive, if only just. His chest was rising and falling very barely. Each breath was bringing a low gurgle, as if he was drowning in his own blood. Which in fact he was. “Steiner,” he gasped.

“Hush Captain Dahlbergh! Lie easy.”

“I told him Steiner!”

“What did you tell him?”

“Everything … Eventually.” He sobbed and the action caused him some deep inner pain and he cried out in a heartrending voice. Steiner could barely stop himself from fleeing. “I told him where the King would be.”

“But surely he is not alone in Ribniza, and your sister will be there by now to warn him! Rest easy.”

“No!” he sobbed again, but this time held back the cry. “I told him where the King would be, with just a small guard. Not even Christina knew that he planned to be there, I told no one. Except him.” The pain wracked his body, his eyes glazed. Steiner knew he was not long for this world, thank God. “Rostoff.”

“What?” Steiner was bemused.

“He is Rostoff, Peter’s personal torturer. He will take the King from the rendezvous. You must stop him. He knows.”

“Where?”

 

But there would be no answer. The last word had been emitted in an awful gurgle that caused a dribble of foamy blood to spill onto his chin. His chest fell quiet. His eyes were open and staring. Steiner felt so sick, but forced himself to close the eyes, and, ignoring the shattered fingers, the slashed chest, the wreckage of a once living human, he left the room. The woman, more than half-naked, her clothes roughly torn, was staring at him. He finally threw up.

“So he took you somewhere else after all didn’t he? Your rich foreign lover? Want to go and see where he got taken? Go on, go and look!”

She buried her head in her hands and sobbed loudly her body wracked with loud gasping sobs, hardly leaving her able to take real breath into her lungs. Steiner stopped in the doorway and turned back to her his voice full of venom:

 “By the way, you’re a widow.”

“Steiner, I never meant for it to happen. I just wanted a life.”

“Well you have a new life as a widow, what does he have?” he gestured to the room behind him. “The last life he had was in hell and it was your doing.”

“He used to beat me look.” She turned and through the sparse remains of her dress she showed him an awful series of welts on her back. “This was my husband not them.”

 

Steiner knew from the age of the scars she told the truth. She had just wanted to escape, she was just a woman strong enough not to tolerate what she was given by life, as many women around here would have. She just fought for more with the only weapons she had. But her tactics had played on Dahlbergh’s wound fever and driven a wedge between Steiner and the Swede. The wedge had led to Steiner’s withdrawal. A withdrawal he so deeply regretted, more than regretted. The withdrawal now lay heavy on his conscience. And it traced back to her. For Steiner her excuses were no excuse. He had no excuse but her. So she could have no excuse. He walked away his heart full of hate. Outweighing even the despair for poor brave Dahlbergh.

 

 

Munro Chapter 13 (Internet Version)

Munro Chapter Thirteen

 

~ Under Siege

 

He heard the crash of the back door, then realised it was actually the front door. Because a more muffled crash followed it which clearly came from further back. Had Munro waited downstairs he would have been caught between two fires and never even come close to making the half landing of the staircase let alone the top. The villains were no fools, and the early loss of their keenest man had made the remnant cautious in their assault. He looked at the girl: “Now the fun starts Miss Dahlbergh!”

“Fun?” She was almost incredulous at his nonchalance, “Do you think we have a chance?”

“Well the odds are not in our favour, but they won’t relish using the staircase, and it is about moral factors now. Have they the stomach to take us when they know they must lose two or three in the attempt?”

“And if they have?”

“Then they will take us Miss Dahlbergh,” he shrugged.

“Then perhaps if we have only a few moments left you might call me Christina.”

He looked at her for a while, and knew he would give his all to save this young woman, but he knew equally that without a miracle, he had only a matter of minutes left to enjoy her presence. He nodded at her and tensed for the rush of the stairs that didn’t come. Instead it fell very quiet down below. Morale down there might not be low, but they were not dealing with idiots or fanatics, either of whom would have come ahead in a mad rush. A minute, two, maybe five ticked past and Christina looked at him quizzically. He shrugged, and tried to stay focused and relaxed. He backed towards the little window located on the wall opposite the stairwell, all the time focused on the head of the stairs, just in case the anticipated rush were to come. He gave a quick nervous glance outside, but saw nothing.  Then came their call it was part German part Wallachian, Munro pieced together the crux of its meaning easily enough:

 

“We know you are just one man, you have no chance, you must surrender to us now!”

Munro smiled. Negotiation was time, and if they bought enough time maybe the miracle would come. “There are two of us, and we have enough pistols for all of you!” he called back.

“The woman says just one man, and she is far too scared to be lying to us!”

“Yes but my companion is a good shot, as one of your compatriots found out two nights ago. You will not find your task easy, and we do not feel much like surrendering.”

“If you make this hard for us, it will go all the harder on you, and on the girl!”

“Maybe it will,” Munro paused and played his best card, “but not all of you will be around to enjoy it, I can promise you that!”

He heard them begin a muttered conversation. He knew he had bought some time, but without the miracle, the end would be the same.

“Did he mean what I thought he meant Herr Munro?”

Munro looked at her, directly, forcefully, meaningfully, and said: “Christina, if they take us, it will go no harder than if we surrender, the end result is the same, believe me, I know this kind of rogue all too well. They want information from you and entertainment for themselves, even surrender will not prevent that, no matter what promises they make.” Her face paled noticeably as her imagination took hold. “Stand firm, Miss, they seek to unnerve us, so our shooting will be less good. You know full well that at this range you can take one of them, and that is all I ask of you.”

“Munro, I don’t want them to take me alive!”

He thought for a while. “Miss, what you do with your one shot is something only you can decide. But, I tell you this, my two shots are for two of them, and let the survivors do their damndest.” She swallowed hard, and he knew she was on the edge. If she cracked he too was lost, he couldn’t do this without her, let alone whilst propping up her morale. He had to do something, but what? He climbed on the bed, maybe he could get to the stairs, get off a shot and return with the odds improved. That would boost morale. “Munro!” he turned to her quizzically. “Don’t worry Munro. I am not going to faint like a girl.” By heaven, he thought, she was tough and once again his heart skipped. He was beginning to realise that even if all he did was lose a fight alongside her, some part of him at least would feel it a life well lived. He smiled and settled back into his own position of easy readiness. Alert, but not tense. They fell to waiting. Maybe Steiner would appear, he thought, it felt wrong not being alongside the big German berserker in his final fight.

 

The silence and waiting were broken by a crash against the far wall, by the window. Munro rushed to it and glanced out, nearly losing his head as a ball crashed into the woodwork not a hands-breadth from his face. He ducked back inside, having seen enough. They had found a ladder, probably ripped out from the barn, and thrust it against the wall just below the window. He had not been able to test it, but it felt too low to be pushed away by hand from the window itself, and in any case, trying to do so would mean certain death as they had the window covered by a pistol at least, maybe two, possibly a musket, maybe  even the old blunderbuss the wagoneer had carried. “Scaling ladder,” he said in answer to the girl’s unasked question. “They mean to come at us in two directions, the stairs and the window.”

She looked unabashed, she really had pulled herself together, “and your plan?” she asked coolly. Munro was somewhat flattered that she assumed so readily that he would have one; but he did, and maybe he was very good at this kind of work after all. Maybe he was the best help she could have had, even if it would not be quite enough.

“Stay back from the window, but the window is your post. Wait until the ruffian is climbing in before you shoot. He will likely feint the first time, to draw your fire. Hold your fire until he is committed to crossing the window, till he cannot slide back from the window’s edge to the ladder. Then kill him. I will guard the stairs, and I will not be able to help you. You must take that first man cleanly and surely.” She nodded. It was a job she knew she could do, and with no qualm or compunction. But for a while nothing happened. There was again silence. Munro was puzzled, maybe they were waiting, hoping he would try to shift the ladder and expose himself to fire, making their job simple. Maybe they were each unwilling to be first up the ladder, knowing that if the defence was done properly the first man must fall. All that was to the good in Munro’s eyes, the mad rush meant certain defeat for him and the girl, and the consolation of taking three, or even four of them with him, was no real consolation at all. Somehow he felt their caution gave him a moral advantage that might yet see him through, like Caesar at Pharsalus. “What of Caesar?” she asked him, and he was stunned to realise that at least some of his thinking had been spoken aloud. Silence still reigned below, and he told her a little of the preamble to the battle of Pharsalus. “Caesar was vastly outnumbered by Pompeii. His men were cut off from supply and Caesar told them before the battle that each of them had only two options, to win or to die – it was a good speech I think. It made them fight rather well. Pompeii’s men had food and a line of retreat, and it made them more cautious, made them more liable to take the safe option. The desperate man will always fight harder.”

“And we are desperate, and they are not.”

“Just so.”

“Caesar was right – it does make a difference.” She smiled at him and again they fell to waiting in silence, with yet more and bigger silence coming from below them. Time of course was not really on their side. The roads were full of Rostoff’s agents, the villains might be reinforced at any time. But two or three of them would still be forced to be first up the stairs, or first up the ladder. The reluctance of each of the enemy to be a dead hero remained Munro’s biggest weapon.

 

“What’s that smell? Burning?” She was the first to speak, but Munro had asked himself the same question a second earlier. He nodded, “Yes, burning.”

They was a squeal, a woman’s squeal, cut short abruptly, he suspected by a blow

“So they are going to burn us out after all?”

“I think not.” Despite the woman’s protests he did not think the house had been set ablaze.

“What then?”

“I suspect they have made a stinkpot somehow.”

“What is a stinkpot Herr Munro?”

“It can come in many forms – I think they will have amassed a bundle of flammable materials, covered in pitch if they can find some, and there would probably be some pitch somewhere in the farm. It is designed more to make smoke than fire. They will attempt to place it in this room, or at the top of the stairs.”

“And assault under cover of the smoke?” her nerves had returned.

“They may fancy we believe the house is aflame  or that the smoke alone will drive us from our lair into their arms. It can be very discomfiting, even suffocating in a confined space.”

“What do we do?”

“We will try to prevent them making too advantageous a placement.”

“And if we cannot?”

“Christina, please! One conundrum at a time I beg you!”

She collected herself. “I am sorry Munro, I am new to siege warfare.”

The smell was stronger now, and the first wisps of smoke came up the stairwell into the room. It did in fact stink quite badly, and the room would not be habitable for long if the pot itself found its way into their room. This was an ugly development. Munro wondered how they would try to deposit it, and was soon answered. The smell and smoke increased and he stood on the bed to get a better view. First he saw a billow of smoke. Then he realised the pot was quite small, and not a ‘pot’ at all, it was a piece of impressive improvisation, but it would serve. It was no more than a burning bundle of pitch soaked rags and junk. They had it poised on the end of a pitchfork, all very rustic, but effective enough. He knew the man carrying the pitchfork would be covered by pistols or muskets, they wouldn’t be so clever and then make such an elementary error. The question was could he get a shot at the man without himself being hit? He would not know until he saw the man, and by then it would be too late. The smoke was already getting thicker and more discomfiting; waiting too long might give them all the chance they needed to drop the burning mess close enough to suit their purpose. They were too cunning by half. He dare not wait much longer. He thrust both pistols into his belt, “Christina, help me!” He pulled the bedding off the bed and threw it into a corner. Then lifting the end of the bed away from the stairwell he briefly turned it into a vertical barrier. It would not fall down the stairs to the landing though being just too wide. “We must twist it!” she nodded and lent her hand and shoulder to the task, no more than three or four heartbeats later it slipped off the edge of the landing and crashed down the stairs.

 

Munro could not see exactly what happened, but he heard a shout of pain, a curse and a woman’s scream as the bed clattered and crashed down the stairs. Munro had hoped to place a barrier to the smoke pot on the half landing, but by a stroke of luck he had fared better. Crashing into the wall on the landing the bed had lost two legs and bounced, tottering for a second before resuming its downward path all the way down, clattering to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. Smoke still hung around the landing space, so he leapt down a few steps and let loose a pistol shot through the smoke into the downstairs room. He was not rewarded with any comforting cries, but as he clambered back up to safety the two return shots were very late and in no way a danger. He had hit nothing, but had given them pause, and he could tell the downstairs room was filling with smoke. He smiled, maybe they would be forced out into the open. He tossed the empty smoking pistol to the girl, knowing she would reload it smartly, she had proved she needed very little instruction, a veritable Valkyrie. He dashed for the window, maybe he could get a shot off. He hoped to spot some unsuspecting man choking on smoke as he escaped the lower floor by the front door. As he reached the window he again nearly lost his head, this time to an even closer shot that passed through the aperture and lodged itself into a roof beam. He thought better of looking for a target and threw himself back away from the window. That almost cost him the whole game. He needed to calm himself, to play chess not dice. He turned and checked the girl was safe. She was busy reloading and appeared not to even have noticed the incoming ball. He felt a certain joy of battle and unsheathing his sword returned to the top of the stairs just in case, but there was silence from below. They were still in the game, and had stung the enemy again. Maybe they would be stung into a mistake. It still remained their only real hope. Yet so far all the evidence said these people were experienced, cunning and knew what they were about. Nothing boded well. But still he smiled, and his gaiety infected the girl too. She held out a reloaded pistol and he sheathed his sword and took it, using it to throw a salute towards his hat brim. She beamed at him, and he felt even better. Some smoke still found its way up the stairs, but surprisingly little. “These rogues will need time to think of another ploy, but best to be ready, keep your eyes on the window, and I will take care of the stairs.”

 

The waiting felt like a decade but was probably only a quarter of an hour.

“Munro, there is someone coming up the ladder!”

He turned to her and saw she was pressed against the wall, he was relieved that she was not exposed at the aperture. “How can you tell?”

Her ear was pressed against the wall, “I can hear it, feel it, I am … I don’t know, but I am sure!”

“I see, come away and give yourself a good sight of the window. Remember, wait until the villain fills the whole window before you shoot!”

Before she could ascent there was a blur, and through the window came another bundle of smouldering rags, maybe even the same bundle as before, rescued from the wreckage downstairs. Either way, it was bad news. “Damn! I didn’t expect that!” he said aloud. Christina was staring at it in some alarm and already the smoke was beginning to fill the room. “Watch the window! Stay calm!”

She took aim, holding the pistol in both hands, he could see her aim was less steady than before. She had been unnerved. Even he felt a tinge of panic. This was not good. He was far from sure they would attack at all, certainly they would give the smoke time to drive them out into the open. How could he get rid of the stinkpot? He approached it, but the smoke made him choke before he got too close. Could he smother it with the bedding he had tossed into the corner? Perhaps, but it might equally ignite and make the situation far worse. It had to be worth a try.

 

He returned his pistol hammers to the un-cocked position, plunged them into his belt again and made for the corner. He gathered up the bedding and approached the smouldering mess in the centre of the floor. Christina’s eyes opened wide in horror as he dropped the bundle on top. For a while it suppressed both smoke and flame, and he shuffled the whole mess towards the stairs with his riding boots. They both visibly brightened with relief,  but as the bundle approached the stairs it started to separate, and as air once more reached the core it reignited with a sudden flare, and soon, before Munro could kick it closer to the stairs, it was properly ablaze, more so than before. Munro retreated from it. The heat had swallowed up the smoke to a certain extent which provided some instant respite. But in the absence of any outlet above them smoke would soon collect, and in any case the heat was growing, and soon the wooden floor would take hold, and then they would be completely lost. He pulled his pistols and retreated with the girl to the far corner of the room.  “What do we do?” she asked, her voice had become small, nervous, lost. He suspected his own voice would be far from impressive so he was relieved he had no idea know what to say. He didn’t fancy being shot on the ladder. He fancied more rushing through the smoke to the stairs and going that way. He didn’t want either of them taken alive. He knew that could not go well for them. He was readying himself for the charge, when he heard a gunshot, two gunshots, over the growing sound of the blaze in the room. No lead was flying around. He focused attention outside and heard some shouts, another gunshot. He dare not look out of the window, but all his battlefield instincts told him one of those moments arrived that must, as the bard of Avon had said, be taken at the flood.

 

“Follow me!” he nudged her away from the wall with his shoulder, but could not grab her as he dare not let go of his pistols. He must pray she was scared enough to want to stick with him, but not so scared as to be unable to move. He was off across the room, praying earnestly to God that she was behind him. He leapt through the smoke, past the scorching blaze, feeling the heat painfully against his left side, but the flames did not catch him properly. He hit the stairs half way down, and stumbled a little, falling sideways against the outside wall, the pistol in his left hand going off half cocked from the impact. He had no idea where the ball went, but not through him by the grace of God. He tossed it to one side, and used his left hand to fully cock the other pistol as he advanced down the stairs. Just as he was about to transfer it to his left hand and draw his sword he saw one of the villains by the window, his back to the room, aiming through the window with a pistol, a musket discarded by his right foot. Munro snapped off a shot, and at this range could not fail to hit, although he wasn’t sure where. The man spun around, and Munro saw he had taken him high in the left shoulder, clattering him against the wall, but now as he spun, he was raising his pistol again, this time towards Munro who covered the intervening space at a rush, hurling his empty pistol ahead of him. The man threw himself to one side to dodge the heavy missile and crashed his wounded shoulder against the wall again, throwing his pistol off to one side, but he had still not fired. Munro, not daring to pause to draw his sword crashed into the man at hull pelt and drove his head into the man’s face. He felt nose bone or cheek bone give way with a distinct noise and the man’s head snapped back against the wall, the double impact making him more than half witless Munro grabbed his pistol hand and wrenched the weapon free before the man could resist. He drove an elbow into the man’s ribs, and as the man doubled over, struck a shrewd blow with his knee that left the villain in a crumpled heap. At that moment the door opened with a crash and a man entered, or rather a long barrelled pistol entered with a man behind it, a man in distinctly European dress. The pistol veered towards Munro, who realised he was the target, and had no chance to prove his friendliness, he gave thought to dropping the ruffian’s pistol, but knew, instinctively, that it would not save him. He still had hold of it by the barrel, and knew it could never be transferred to a shooting grip in time, he was about to be killed, and by a rescuer at that. “How ironic,” he thought almost out loud. He heard the girl scream.

 

Fortunately so did the man, who had in fact heard his name called, and by a voice he knew. “Goran! No!”

 

The second syllable was a long drawn out scream, and it saved Munro’s life. The man turned to her, recognized her and she crashed into his arms. He let his aim drop as he gathered her up, embracing her almost, and she him. Munro, reprieved, held his arms wide from his body, the pistol still held by the barrel, as unthreatening as he could make it. He didn’t want to drop it, it was after all cocked and might kill somebody. He stood away from the window too, in case some over eager Swede sent a ball through it, for it was clear to him that the new arrivals were Swede’s. Doubtless from Ribniza, although what had brought them here, and at such a serendipitous time he had no idea, the words came to him unbidden, no matter how far Munro had run from God, His word was still there in close pursuit: “And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen.”[1]

The man, recollected to the fact that he was in action stood the girl back and turned back to Munro, again raising his pistol. The girl held onto his pistol arm. “He is a friend Goran.” Munro was not overly impressed, had Munro been unfriendly, the man would be dead, and ought to be well aware of the fact. Keeping his unthreatening posture with the pistol at arm’s length and still held by the barrel Munro gave as formal a bow as he could.

“This is Herr Munro, formerly of His Britannic Majesty’s service,” she said in an incongruously formal way.

“Herr Munro might I introduce Lieutenant-Colonel Goran Silfverhielm, of the South Skåne Cavalry, and of His Majesty King Charles’ Drabants.”

The Swede nodded a rather curt bow of his own and looked about him pistol at the ready. “There are none upstairs Goran, we came from there. Herr Munro has been escorting me, he has been a good friend.”

“They may be out back,” Munro said, recovering the pistol to a proper grip, “May I?”

“Be my guest,”

 

Munro headed for the back of the building, just as the first floorboard crashed down into the room. The girl jumped and retreated outside through the front door. Munro meanwhile pulled open the back door, and the Swedish Colonel passed by him.  There was no one to be seen and the two men patrolled a few yards towards the fields. Over towards the road they saw a fleeing horse and rider, fleeing westward, one at least had escaped. Confident that there were none left to threaten them the two men surveyed each other. The Swede was a tall lean soldierly man of about thirty summers. Perhaps young for a Colonel, but the Swedes went through officers quite quickly in war, and a well-born young man could progress rapidly. His hair was dark rather than fair, and his face was round with a wide friendly mouth. Indeed he would have looked like a friendly sort aside from the scowl he was wearing. Although he did not know it Munro looked none too friendly himself, in fact he would have been shocked to hear it, as his joy at rescue from a death he had almost already accepted was surely reason enough to be very cheerful, and he felt both joy and relief deep in his gut, along with a sudden chill. Death had been close. It was strange that it affected him so. It hadn’t been something he feared since Danvers. And he knew he felt truly relieved to be alive.

He wanted to get past the Colonel’s scowl, and held out his hand, “Well met, Colonel, you came none too late that is for sure!”

The scowl looked disdainfully at his hand, and walked away. Munro looked at his retreating back in extreme disgust. “Perhaps it is true,” he said to himself, “that no good turn goes unpunished.”

 

He headed back to the house, hoping he would rescue his pistols, but by the time he opened the back door, the blaze was more than casually prohibitive. The pistol he had taken from the villain was not a bad trade. Sturdy and long barrelled, if not elegant and fashionable. It was a fair swap for one, but he was a pistol down on the day’s exchanges so far, and that coupled with the challengeable rudeness of the Colonel instantly plunged his mood from joy to irritated depression. In fact the rudeness was most definitely challengeable, but Munro was not going to go down that road, he had had more than enough of such things. It came unbidden, he almost hated that it came, but the words were there without him thinking them: ‘For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?’ God’s word sat ill when so much blood had been spilt. As he made his way around the building he passed the woman weeping in the arms of her very angry husband. “Who will pay?” he asked angrily, thrusting out his arm at Munro. Munro was incredulous. “Ask your wife! Perhaps you should ask those she sold us to, if you can catch them.” Munro walked on but the man did not release his grip. Munro jerked his sleeve free and cocked his new pistol. “I advise you not to push me farmer,” he said. The farmer walked back a pace or two, arms held wide. Munro backed away from him, wary of the stab in the back, but the man turned to his weeping wife instead and fetched her the most vicious crack about the head. Munro felt no sympathy or remorse. She had sold them, whether through greed or fear or both, she would not have cried so much as a single tear for him or Christina. As he reached the front of the house, he saw Christina herself, talking animatedly to a group of Europeans, obviously all Swedes, numbering about a dozen. She did not seem to notice him so he went to the fallen body of the first rider he had shot. Perhaps there was a replacement for his second pistol to be liberated, or even some cash or food. He felt fearsomely hungry all of a sudden. Hungry, sullen and unwanted, perhaps it was best to get his horse and go and find Steiner.

 

 

 

 

---

[1] Luke 19:37

 

Munro Ch Twelve (Internet Version)

Munro Chapter Twelve

 

~ Unfamiliar territory for a warrior

 

Steiner had slept across the door to the examination room which had become the Swede’s quarters; thereby giving himself some comfort that whatever might have happened so far, he could prevent anything more happening overnight. But it was scant comfort. He felt exposed and out of his depth and unusually for him he slept uneasily. The following morning, as Munro was approaching a date with destiny at the farmhouse Steiner was waking to a certainty that he had to enter the fray here at the doctor’s house. He had to try to exert some control over events. His fear of betrayal was paramount in his mind. If betrayed he and the Swede would be lucky to escape alive, and much worse, might be taken alive. He was convinced that the Swede’s dalliance with the girl increases the risk of betrayal. He could not remove the Swede from the temptations, how he wished he could. He could not remove the girl from her own home either, how he wished he could. He knew as he awoke though that he had to do something. Cunning, plotting, mind games, none of those things were part of who Steiner felt himself to be, the thought of trying to find out what on earth this girl was playing at left him cold. He had become acutely aware last night while attempting to sleep that his fear that the doctor might discover the attachment between his wife and Dahlbergh and betray them was only part of the risk. The girl thwarted in whatever mad game she was playing with Dahlbergh might herself betray them. The whole arena was a nightmare. He would rather charge a battery of cannon than meddle in this intrigue.

 

Nevertheless he was resolved to do it, and he got an opportunity when the girl approached his bedding from the kitchen with a rough wooden tray. Breakfast, no doubt, and not for him neither, thought Steiner. He sat up and looked at her. She for her part looked straight through him. “I must give him tea and medication and some food,” she said simply, now looking at a point above his right shoulder. “We need to talk,” she shrugged at his words. “I don’t understand you,” he continued. “You have a good life. The doctor is a good man, even a good-looking man. No one else in any village for ten leagues could even give you half as much.”

“You have no idea you giant German oaf! Don’t talk about what you don’t know. It just makes you look ignorant.”

“Then explain to me!” Steiner’s request was earnest. Maybe if he understood it he would feel less helpless. Maybe if he understood it he could deal with it.

She looked at him in what he felt was disgust. His anger surged, how could she be disgusted with him? “I don’t need to explain anything to you, German.”

He grabbed her arm as she went to pass him, “No?”

She jerked free of his grip. “I am not staying here. I hate this, I am not some peasant who has to accept her life. I want more, I want better. I deserve it and I will take it! I wasn’t betrothed to him. I was bought by him. He paid my father for me. And he treats me like property.”

Steiner sighed as she continued. “I don’t mind so much, if he at least gave me a life. He could be a doctor anywhere! Even Vienna! And yet he stays here, not a day’s walk from my father’s house. This God-forsaken pile of goat dung on the face of the arse of the earth! He was meant to give me something better! I have paid price enough for something better!”

Steiner paused, this was beginning to make some sense. “I need to give him some medicine for the fever and to change the dressings.” Steiner moved to one side and let her at the door. “We need to talk some more. I am asking you, just to talk, and if you agree, I will leave you alone with him to do your work.” She said nothing, but her eyes assented and she entered the room.

 

The girl had ambitions; that much he could understand. He had assumed that any peasant girl from around here would have her ambition more than sated by marrying the doctor, but he had misjudged her. She had seen in the physician not just a step up from the hovel she had grown up in, not just a leap away from the subsistence living, but a passport to the good life. Maybe even Vienna. Instead she got the biggest house in town, but clearly married to a man whose ambition was to serve the poor in the land he grew up in. A man whose goodness was all used up by caring for those poor, for there was none left for his wife. He began to understand, but he still thought it was madness. This at least gave him some hope, because, surely, once persuaded that Dahlbergh was not the knight on white charger sent to rescue her from rural squalor she would return to dealing with the marriage that at least made her the richest and best dressed woman for a good few leagues. The Swede had no desire to remove her from this place, of that he was sure, and he hoped that he was only playing the games he was playing because of the delirium of the wound or the medication. He thought then of the girl, in the room, and wondered. “Ach love potions are just in fairy stories for children!”

He realised he had said it aloud and wondered if that was an indication of his real fears. He got up and went to the kitchen. He would find some food. He thought much more clearly when his stomach was full.

 

When Steiner’s stomach was full, having found some bread and some goat cheese in the kitchen, he decided leaving the girl had been a mistake. He had wanted to build some goodwill, maybe even a little mutual trust before he talked to her about the likelihood, or rather impossibility that Dahlbergh and he would be taking her out of this rural life she so obviously hated. But surely she was gone too long just for nursing?  As his fears hit a crescendo, she walked into the kitchen.

“How is the patient?”

“His fever is lower, and the wound shows no sign of real sickness, both are good things.”

“And he can travel?” Steiner knew this was optimistic, but he felt he needed to remind her that there was a job at hand.

“I would say not, but my husband,” she almost spat that word, “must decide. I would say if you put him on a horse now, you will kill him before the day is out.” Steiner nodded, “Do you seriously believe this man will take you away from this?”

”Why not? He thinks I am beautiful.”

“There are many beautiful women in Sweden too, and in Bender and Tirasopol and of course in Constantinople, what on earth makes you think that he will take a peasant girl with him? Beauty is not everything, girl, I can tell you that.”

“He knows I am saving his life. He is a man of honour.”

“Your husband saved his life, and his sense of honour will also recollect that you are in fact married, even if yours does not.”

She shrugged. Steiner was not sure how to react. Her situation was now clearer but he was still confused. He wanted to ask her about her marriage. But surely the issue wasn’t her marriage it was her designs on Dahlbergh. Her confidence seemed insane, far beyond optimism; she was surely in a fantasy world. Or was there something that she knew and he didn’t? She looked at him, coldly, confidently, unabashed by his views of her. She was as hard as nails, had doubtless always been a bright tough little vixen, now refined and hardened under her husband’s blows.  She wasn’t going to give in. She didn’t see she couldn’t win. But in failing she could be the death of all of them. He needed to talk to the Swede.

“Is he awake?”

“He was, but I told him to sleep, he must rest.”

“And were you letting him rest? It seems to me when I see you together you are exciting him not relaxing him! I have business to talk with him.”

“Do not turn him against me, or you will regret it!”

Steiner looked at her. He knew he could not give in to the urge to slap her. She would doubtless just shrug it off anyway, and it would drive her further from his influence. If he had any influence at all. This was a pretty spider’s web. One thing was clear, the doctor might betray them, or kill them, if he finds out, but she will almost certainly betray them if she thinks she has been cheated of her chance. And he daren’t so much as lay a finger on her, or the doctor would just have a different reason for becoming a dangerous enemy. Damn it, why wasn’t Munro here? Steiner would swap this mess for a fight with a dozen brigands any day.

“I am going to talk to him about his business, about his reason for being in here, being wounded on the road and lying here in this hellish place. Not about you.”

“Give me your word!”

“Girl, do not push me, because I will not answer for the consequences of that.”

He walked out, uncaring what she believed. He needed to hear from Dahlbergh now.

 

The Swede, however, was indeed sleeping, a deep sleep. Steiner called to him a few times from the door, then walked slowly over and felt his brow. His fever did feel lower, and that was indeed good, but his face remained very pale, ashen even. She was not wrong about riding, he really wasn’t ready, but he doubted she was helping his recovery, not while her own agenda remained unfulfilled. He returned to a now empty kitchen, and walking through, saw her keeping the weeds down among the vegetables, wielding a decidedly rustic hoe with a decidedly sulky face. The girl was not a happy wife, and surely the doctor could see that too? Of course he had bought her, paid for her, maybe such thoughts never crossed his mind. Steiner hated them both. The doctor may not have taken her as far as she wanted, but he had still taken her further than anyone else she had ever met before would have. Besides he was a Moslem, and she would not do well if he divorced her. He wondered if she had been born a Moslem too, or had converted as part of her father’s deal with the doctor? He wouldn’t put that past a man who sold his daughter, no matter how common the practice might be around here. He gave her a sweet smile as he passed her, which she returned with a scowl as he meandered slowly down to his usual sanctuary by the rosemary and lavender at the cave entrance. He needed to do more thinking. He knew that Dahlbergh would once again give him the proud, aristocratic treatment. He wanted to make a good argument; to make doing the right thing a clear and simple decision, not about rank or privilege or command or ego. These games of words were not his strength. He sat down in the shade to plan, safe in the sense that the Swede was too unconscious to be in any trouble for an hour or two.

 

He was woken from his reverie; although he would have denied actually sleeping; by the doctor, and felt instantly relieved. The husband’s return would end the wife’s flirtation soon enough. “I am glad to see you doctor,” he said doubting the doctor could begin to conceive how heartfelt those simple words truly were, “I feared not to see you before tomorrow, and I am worried for your patient, he seems still very fevered.”

“He seemed well enough to me,” the doctor seemed elsewhere, was definitely not himself, tired most likely from his riding thought Steiner.

“You have seen him?”

“I only looked in briefly, I did not want to disturb him,”

“Doctor I know that he needs rest, truly I do but I really need him to move as soon as possible,” again Steiner doubted the doctor could imagine how desperately true those words were.

The doctor looked into space for a while. Steiner found his expression indecipherable, and looked at him patiently, awaiting his response. He went on, hoping to prompt a response:

“I am sure you need to examine him again, to be certain. But his work is important, he will not thank us for keeping him alive if his mission fails.”

“Yes well, we must see what we must see.” The doctor turned on his heel and walked back to the house. The woman emerged from the kitchen door and looked quite startled to see her husband. ‘As well she might,’ thought Steiner with a sly grin. ‘That has cooked your goose my girl!’ She stood uncertain for a while, then ran but lacking confidence, to greet him. Steiner felt she needed to get a grip or she would give herself away, and surely she was too cunning for that. However husband and wife greeted one another cordially enough, and soon she ran in her gayest manner back to the kitchen. Steiner felt tea might be on the horizon, and headed that way himself.

 

When tea had been produced Steiner took hold of the cup made for Dahlbergh, “Let me take it, I am sure you and your wife want some time together alone,”

“He needs to be examined,” both doctor and wife replied at once, in unison, and the wife gave an embarrassed giggle and blushed, “Sorry husband,” she said, disingenuously, “I have become used to being a nurse it seems!”

Steiner avoided the marital and medical discussion by taking the tea and heading for the door, “I am sure it can wait a few minutes, let me wake him, he and I have not spoken properly for some while,” and with that he was out of the room. Besides, he was sure the doctor would want to bed his lithe young wife as soon as possible, just as Steiner would have wanted had he been away from a wife as beautiful as that. He was surprised to find the Swede awake. “I have brought tea,” he said, as if he was talking of doves and olive branches, he wanted to get them past the last conversation and its animosity, so he could talk sense to the man. “Tea is good,” said Dahlbergh. But his tone did not suggest the olive branch had been taken. Steiner hated him, very suddenly, with a fierce passion. Why was this man making him play this hideous game of words and diplomacy? He was a soldier for God’s sake, give him an enemy to kill rather than this torture! Indeed, give him a dozen enemies, straight from the gates of hell even, anything rather than this. “The doctor will examine you in a while,”

“He is back?” The Swede sounded rather startled.

“Yes, not long since,” Steiner sipped his tea, realising instantly that Dahlbergh was deeply disappointed, and that the problem had not only not gone away, it had got much, much worse.

“We need to get you back on a horse, and fast, Captain, I told him as much.”

“I cannot leave,” said the Swede in a sulky, stubborn voice.

“Really?”

“I am too sick.”

“Ach ja!” Steiner’s patience was evaporating at a rapid pace, he breathed deeply. His battle prayers were always to the old Gods of the Germans, no matter that he attended church like a good Lutheran. A warrior should pray to a warrior God. That was his theory, and in battle a man need the help of Wotan. But this was different, and he offered up a prayer to Luther’s Christ. The one you could speak to, man to man, not the Catholic Christ who wouldn’t hear you unless you spoke Latin. “Help me Jesus, or we are all dead,” he prayed simply, and was answered with a thought. What would Munro say? Munro was a clever dog, and he knew words as well as soldiering, and in thinking of his friend a strategy formed in his mind.

“Only three nights ago, you were bleeding like a stuck pig and swearing to God that your mission was so vital that you must ride, even though you had an ounce of lead in your body. And, today, with the bullet removed, and good medicine and good food and good sleep, you are too sick. Don’t let this get out, or doctors will have no more customers, Herr Dahlbergh.”

The Swede was stung by this. Clearly he felt his mission still drawing him. Steiner went for the jugular. “You are on King Carolus’ business are you not? He will be disappointed that your wound prevented you travelling to him.”

Maybe he had pushed too hard because Dahlbergh suddenly reverted to yesterday’s mood, “You are not a gentleman, you do not understand,” he said simply and disdainfully. Steiner resented this reversion to a high horse the man had no right to be sat upon and reacted with equal snappishness.

“Yes, that is true, I am no gentleman, Captain, but I understand duty well enough!”

“She cannot be left with that man! She is in danger!”

Steiner was stunned, so stunned he fell silent. What nonsense was this, the doctor was hardly going to kill his wife. What on earth had she told him? But more importantly how could danger to her, even if it was real, outweigh the man’s duty to his King? Steiner of course cared little for Kings, and had never, unlike Dahlbergh, spoken to one face to face, but he knew that for this sort of aristocrat duty and the King was a life force that no peasant girl could compete with. Were there such things as love potions after all? Had she plied him with such things? Was she a witch? Steiner had never believed much in witches before, but this was clearly something beyond his knowledge. He had to say something, so he said what was on his mind:
“Surely the King is more important than the girl!”

“I can do nothing now to help the King, I have been here too long, either Christina has reached him, or she has not, but I cannot reach him now in time to make a difference. I have failed the king already, haven’t I?” he glared at Steiner defiantly, and the big German saw real torment I his eyes. He saw too the fever on his brow, molten with sweat. This must be wound fever gone mad, literally. But it surely didn’t excuse dereliction of duty.

“Munro will take your sister to the rendezvous, or die in the attempt, and he does not die easy Captain, believe me.”

Dahlbergh appeared not to have heard him. “I have failed the King, but I do not need to fail this poor girl.”

“Poor girl?” Steiner was incredulous, “She is the luckiest peasant for ten leagues in any direction!”

“She was forced to marry him, she is virtually a slave. A poor Christian girl, to be used so abominably by a Mohamedan!”

“He loves her, you fool!”

Steiner had pushed too far, he knew the aristocratic Dahlbergh was not used to peasants calling him a fool, and in any case he had his own version of reality, and no peasant soldier was going to tell him he was wrong.

“Get out!” he screamed. “You are an insubordinate wretch! If you were one of my regiment you would have been flogged for much less!”

“Thankfully I am not, and God help all those in your regiment, you are an idiot. This is no time to be thinking with your cock!”

“Get out! You German peasant! You know nothing of chivalry. You don’t know the duties of a gentleman! If we hadn’t come to rescue you in the religious wars the Catholics would have murdered you all, you useless German peasants! Get out! Get out!”

Steiner swallowed his riposte, and turned on his heel. This man was not worth saving. He would go and find Munro in Ribniza. There perhaps a man could find some honest soldiering to be done. He left with the Swede still urging his departure, but his voice had become softer and more tormented and clearly pain was revisiting him. Steiner was beyond caring. All he wanted was his horse and to be gone. As he let the door slam behind him he saw the doctor emerge rushing from the kitchen, drawn no doubt by the noise. Steiner waited for him and barred his way. “He is very fevered doctor, he is delirious and talking at random.”

“Yes and doing it very loudly Herr Steiner, I need to see him.”

“Doctor, I am going to leave him with you for a few days.”

The doctor nodded and went to push past but Steiner’s arm still barred the way. “When I come back I want to find him well.”

“That is for Allah to decide.”

“Well I want you to do all that man can do to keep him alive doctor, he is very badly fevered and delirious. He says things he doesn’t understand. I want to know that I am leaving him in safe hands.”

The doctor looked at him blankly and again went to push past, but again Steiner’s huge arm was unyielding. The doctor looked him in the eye. “I am a doctor, Herr Steiner, I took an oath, if anything happens to your friend it will not be by my hand.”

Steiner stared at him searchingly for a moment, maybe just a second, and the doctor returned his stare evenly and unflustered. Steiner raised his arm and the doctor ducked under and entered the Swede’s room, where all was again silent. Steiner thought about returning, but his own hackles were up. Damn the aristocratic shit. He was going to Munro. Life would be back to normal if he was with Munro. He stalked angrily towards the back door and kicked over a chair that presumed to offer a hindrance to his path. The frail object clattered against the rough wall and fell to the floor in two or three pieces. ‘Damn the chair too.’

The girl was stood just inside the kitchen door, her face full of intense nervous anxiety that had would never become enough fear to overcome her defiance. She was as tough as a young brown bear, he thought, as he looked at her. She stepped back to allow him to pass, and he saw a small look flash across her face. What was it? Gloating? Victory? He was too angry already to let that pass and he span on his heel and stepped towards her. Her confidence fled as the huge gigantic German warrior loomed over her, but that was hardly to her shame, many men had cowered far more than she did. “I will come back here. I will be very unhappy if my friend is not well enough and sane enough to rejoin his King. You, girl, do not want to see me that unhappy, truly you do not.”

She tossed her head defiantly, and walked away. Steiner fancied he saw some fear, but not as much as he wanted to see. He thought of following her, but all that might do is draw the doctor’s attention to something untoward going on under his roof. The best hope now was that the doctor’s presence would stave off any more shenanigans. Steiner knew only that he could not stay a moment longer, or he would be the one that killed the damnable, lunatic, aristocratic Swedish arse! He stalked out of the back door, squinting into the sunlight. Their horses were both grazing loose in the small pasture beside the vegetable garden. His saddle was in the lean-to against the west side of the house. It would not take him long to get on the road, where he belonged.

 

Munro Ch Eleven (net version)

Munro Chapter Eleven

~ The road goes ever on and on.

Munro awoke slowly, which was good. His body was so tuned now that the sort of dangers signalled by subtle changes in his environment would start him awake. So coming slowly round, hearing the starlings and swallows, smelling the grass, feeling the breeze ruffling the fringes of the heather and gorse that surrounded the hiding place he had chosen for their rest; all of it made him feel he had made a good decision. He felt rested, he opened his eyes, the sun was much lower. This knowledge increased his sense of rest, he could see the girl’s body from the corner of his eye, gently rising and falling with deep, easy breathing, the breathing of a good restful sleep. Perhaps for the first time in two whole days Munro felt that the world was treating him well. He stretched. He revelled in it for a while, he imagined it was how the gamekeepers gun dogs felt, a big English Spaniel, waking , after a late breakfast and a good sleep in the heat of an August afternoon following a long morning in the gorse and heather flushing and pointing. He lay there a moment, listening; enjoying the peace. Then he rolled over and crept to the rim of the crest behind which they had rested and surveyed the road.

To the east, the way they must travel, a cart, likely drawn by a mule was disappearing behind some trees. The rest of the road was empty, most especially the direction they had come from. The sun was lower, and at this time of year full night would be somewhat shorter. He wanted to be on the road by dusk, there was some risk, but they had not travelled far since their dawn start, and he wanted to crack most of the distance to Ribniza before dawn. It would be slow going in the dark, but every day on the road increased the risk of failure, as well as the risk of being trapped by the enemy, an eventuality that could not, he felt, end well. They had used up their lucky escapes, of that much he was sure. He watched the girl for a while. Or rather her form, she too had shielded her face with her hat, and her manly outfit did nothing to reveal much of who she was. But he felt a certain calm unflustered joy just watching her breathe; the rising and falling of her chest was hypnotic. He wondered what her bosom was like. Then stopped himself. This was work, duty. He reached over and gently shook her with a soft “Fraulein.” She awoke at the second call, and turned to face him pushing her hat away from her face and blinking as the lowering sun caught the corner of her eyes, she smiled, and he was glad, “Herr Munro, I feel like I have slept for a week.” And she too stretched, as he had done, and it was positively feline, nothing like his own dog-like stretch. It was how he imagined the word leonine should be defined and indubitably distracting. He watched her, content and happy. She turned back to him. “When do we set off?”

He looked at the sun; “Soon. Just before dusk we will make our way down. The roads should be empty and I want to push on as fast as is safe for the horses, and so make a start while there is some light to see by.” He held out his water canteen, but she reached for her own. It was clearly important to her to show him she was a dependable campaigner, and not a girl who needed molly-coddling. He took a long drink, surprised his sleep in the sun could have made him so thirsty and lay back again, stretching once more. “I am going to go and do some personal things Miss, you may want to consider doing the same before we start.” She flushed as she sensed his meaning, and he considerately departed to avoid seeing her blush. Ladies of course did not speak of such things, but, when he returned she too had gone, and he waited for her and petted his tough bay roan gelding and fed him the last piece of turnip he had been saving as a treat.

They were on the road on schedule, just at dusk, give or take a moment, and they made good progress eastwards in the fading light. The road was far from good, but it was good enough to let the horses alternate trotting and walking for the last hour of decent light. They travelled in silence, Munro felt he had done enough talking, probably too much. The girl knew more about him than perhaps any woman since his mother. Perhaps her curiosity was sated, as she made no more enquiries. His curiosity continued to grow however. So as he concentrated on his gelding’s path. An accident to one of their mounts would be fatal to the mission and possibly to them as well. Eventually though his mind wandered back to thoughts of who she was. How she was when not travelling like a hunted fugitive, and later to what it must have been like to survive Poltava. He did not know much about the battle, save the Swedes had lost, retreated and subsequently most of the army had surrendered in some God forsaken place called Perevolochna. Battles were ugly at the best of times, even victories, and defeats were an awful thing, as were retreats. To go through all that must have been a frightening ordeal for any young woman, no matter how much sang froid she liked to display. As the last of the day disappeared they settled into a steady walk, each lost in thought, Munro alternating between thinking of her, and wondering what she was thinking. He knew there were only a few nameless hamlets on this road, which wound its way through some rough terrain until reaching Ribniza. A town spawned around a crossing of the Nistru. A river known more widely as the Dniester, the locals considered the Nistru their natural border to the Ukraine, or Transnistria, but like every border between Poland and the Bosphorus it was disputed. He had passed back across the Dniester himself with Steiner only a few weeks ago, but had travelled initially south to Orhei so he did not know this road and had no idea where they were exactly. This was something of a concern, thanks to Danvers’ training he never quite took his mind out of dragoon mode, always needing to know and understand the map, the terrain; always trying to assimilate his environment.

The owl startled him, coming as it did in total gliding silence, not even the beat of a wing. It curved in front of them, and Christina gave a small nervous shout then clapped her hand over her mouth guiltily. They both watched in some awe and wonder at the graceful predator, its tawny almost white underbelly had been fully exposed to them before it pirouetted about its centreline and settled on a new course, climbing steadily with a single graceful beat of its wings, and it disappeared into the gloom to rustle the branches of a nearby copse. Munro fancied he had seen something small and quite dead in its talons, maybe a dormouse. But then maybe it was just a fancy. Either way the owl broke their silence. “What a beautiful sight!” she said.

“Indeed Miss, and maybe a good omen.”

They exchanged smiles, and resumed the journey in silence, but somehow it was an easier and more companionable silence. The owl’s wings had dissipated both their gloom and the barrier that his frank reminiscences of Oudenarde had seemed to build between them, although it was a barrier of his making, not hers. Another half an hour and they saw sufficient glimmer of light ahead to sense rather than see the hamlet. Munro had no idea what it was called, but he was sure he was not going anywhere near it. His only question was whether they circled to the north, the left or to the right, and eventually, deciding no analysis made sense as he had no knowledge of the terrain either side her went to the left, because that was the way the owl had gone. It occurred to him that on such a basis many decisions are made, and maybe empires won and lost. What he ought to have realised was that the left, the north, had been towards the Carpathian foothills through whose rocky passes the Nistru was flowing down to Ribniza. Having rejoined the road after an uneventful, but hilly and arduous detour, Munro thought perhaps the decision was not one that would have changed empires, but then the owl, he was sure it was the same one, flashed past again, and it occurred to him that only knowing what would have happened had they circled to the right could confirm that the decision he made was unimportant. He gave himself a reprimand. Too much philosophy could paralyse decision making, he just had to do his duty and keep making decent progress. The moon, waning and gibbous was helpful in the main, perhaps perfect for their purposes, the full might have been too bright, and, in a week or so, the last quarter before the new moon might have been too dark. In any event it allowed them a decent pace, although some scudding clouds threw them into a darker night occasionally, but all-in-all their night vision coped well when the moon hid for a while, and they successfully passed another village, also by circling to their left.

Much as they had rested, night riding is hard work, and tiring, and by the time the first pink streaks had filled the eastern sky ahead of them they were both yawning. He turned to her and she broke off a yawn with an embarrassed flush. “We will look for some high ground off the road again as it gets lighter, and rest up during the day, I think Ribniza is just an hour or two now, but the daylight is too risky.”

As he finished speaking they crested a small rise and in a dip below them was a tiny hamlet no more than a dozen small buildings. “Can we not shelter there Herr Munro? I would kill for a bed!”

“Kill would you Miss? You might well have to!” His tone was as earnest as he could muster. “You know we are pursued, any village is a point of risk. You cannot trust anyone in a village not to betray you!”

“We too can offer money, for silence instead of betrayal!”

“They may betray us Miss either for money or out of fear, and the fact is taking your money won’t stop them taking Rostoff’s too, especially as every villager for miles around will be scared senseless of anyone like the men we have encountered.”

“Please Herr Munro, I hate to be a burden, but I need a bed, or I cannot go on. I can’t remember a time when life wasn’t like this.”

He looked at her hard, and he saw the ragged black smudges under her eyes, where before he had only seen her radiance and fresh good looks, he saw now the reality of a girl that has spent two long weeks, sleeping rough and living in fear. He was torn. He knew it was no real kindness to her to get her caught, especially so close to the rendezvous at Ribniza, but then he did suddenly doubt with total conviction that she could keep going much longer. He realised that the mere idea of there being a bed, any kind of bed to sleep in had seductively robbed her of all her remaining strength. Not that there could be too much left. He thought for a moment of suggesting they push on hard to Ribniza and get rested there, hopefully among friends, but as the idea crossed his mind he saw her eyes pleading with him.

“Very well Miss, let us find you a bed.” Maybe just for a few hours, then we might take a chance and push on to Ribniza before dark. Once we are sighted by people, any people, I hesitate to prolong our journey. We need to be with your friends as soon as we might be. Are you really sure you cannot make a two hour push?”

“I am really, truly sorry Herr Munro, but I swear to you, I am finished.”

He chose the large farm on the western outskirts. It had an impressive barn, and was most likely to provide a bed, or at least some straw that was not too verminous. In the back of his mind was also the hope, the faint but real hope, that the householder would be affluent enough not to need to betray them for easy money. Theorising, conjecture, none of it really consoled him. But he too was tired, more than tired. It was not just the lack of sleep, not even the hard riding, it was the care and responsibility of the mission. It had been a long night, and he knew her road had begun long before his. She had been carrying this responsibility for some nine or ten days. It was too much. Even this close to the goal he knew she couldn’t go on, so he would have to make the best of it. The man of the house was not there to welcome them, his wife explained her man had headed early for his fields, which stretched away to the north. Not many fields but more than anyone else around here, or so her voice seemed to say. The wife was about forty, or at least looked it, around here should could have been anything from twenty to fifty summers old. Her hair was dark black and mostly covered by her local headdress. She offered the barn, but Christina, unwisely, took out a gold coin. The woman snatched at it with a lean arm and a grimy hand that had seen more than a little cooking, scrubbing and field labour. Christina pulled her hand back. “I want a bed.” She said, “I will give you this coin for the bed.” Munro winced inside. It was too generous, and in being so, was more likely to arouse suspicion, greed and far too much cunning than a hard bargain would have done. But, the damage was done. He held his tongue, and merely observed as the woman led Christina up a rickety staircase to a small room with a big bed, at least big by local standards. The Swedish girl held out the coin and had it ripped rudely from her grasp. She barely noticed as she sat down and then fell gracefully backwards with a sigh. The bed was not ornate, it was not soft, it was not comfortable, it was probably not clean, but she smiled as she sank into its mattress. Munro stood awkwardly for a moment. He too was exhausted, and there was just one bed. But of course it was now broad daylight and he could not sleep here, he needed to keep watch. He leant over her to tell her he was going to scout the hamlet, and saw that she was already sleeping. There was deep contentment in her face, for perhaps the first time since he had met her. It softened the blackness of exhaustion around her eyes. She looked more lovely than ever. Carefully, although he doubt he could have woken her with a bucket of icy water, he moved her feet up onto the bed and shifted her as best he could into a position that looked more comfortable. He looked at her for a while, then busied himself re-filling their water, taking some hard cheese from the table downstairs. They had certainly paid for board as well as lodging. He stuck some fresh but hard black bread into each of their saddle bags and made sure both horses were in reach of food and water. The old woman had disappeared from the bedroom as soon as she got her money. Too much money. But maybe greed might work in his favour, maybe she wouldn’t even tell her husband. Maybe the half a year’s hard labour it represented might be her way out of this hovel.

She was nowhere to be seen as he walked down the dirt road to check out the hamlet and he realised that he had been unfair calling her home a hovel. It was almost palatial compared to the rest of the village. There were no more than a dozen buildings, pretty much all of them hovels of the most basic Wallachian kind. Christina had probably got the best, perhaps only, real bed in the hamlet. The houses were on either side of the dirt road, the majority to the south, each of them with a subsistence kitchen garden of some description. Further to the south there were some other grain fields, not large, and there were men labouring in them. Munro was eyed by some grubby women and even grubbier children as he traversed the whole place to the eastern end. It was a walk of no more than a couple of minutes. He walked brazenly. There was no point pretending that the whole place didn’t, or wouldn’t soon, know all about their arrival. Better to be obviously a soldier and well armed, maybe fear could work for them as well as money. It was in any case all he had as a strategy, other than prayer. He turned left off the road as he got to the far end of the village. He was afoot, the bay roan enjoying a well earned rest and feed in the farmyard.

North of the road, had been a good route for them in the night and he instinctively went that way again. There were ready approaches and exits from the village most of the way, but, frankly, the road was most likely where danger would come from, and the road east, theoretically, was the road to safety. Assuming the Swedes were actually there, just a two hour ride away. And the road from the west, from whence they had come, was where danger would come from. As he went back westward he became more cautious. He passed through the edge of his host’s fields, and saw him in the distance, he probably did not know he was a host yet. The fields would be a bad exit route, not good for horses, and while that might equally hinder any pursuers it might allow them to close within random shot, a risky proposition, even if mounted fire at any distance was only rarely a real danger. He filed the thought for the future, in case of need. As he got back to the road he saw them.

They crested the same rise he and the girl had crested an hour or so ago, and, as they had seen the hamlet, so these riders would see it. He muttered a curse aloud. It was the worst of all events. Unless they were Swedes. But surely Swedes would not be coming from the west? It was inconceivable these were Swedes, or any other flavour of friend. “Heaven help us now!” he said aloud and dropping off his path to the left he felt he would be in defilade as he made his way back to the farmhouse. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.”[1] He increased his pace and went back to Christina, feeling that escape was not possible. He could not possibly wake her and have her ready to leave before they arrived. Whoever they were.

He awoke her far less gently than he had the previous evening and she started violently, shaken from that deepest of sleeps, the sleep of deep mental and physical exhaustion. She looked awful, far from rested, she looked at him as if hurt that he could be so cruel as to wake her. “Riders,” he said, by way of simple explanation. She did not take it in, looked blankly at him her eyes slowly closing again. Another, harder, less friendly shake and she scowled back to waking. “Riders Miss Dahlbergh!”

“Swedes?” she said it in hope, but he could tell she knew he would not have woken her so had they been friends. He shook his head, “From the west, very unlikely.” She sighed, swung her legs over the side of the bed and plunged her head into her hands. “We must hurry, they will be here in minutes!”

She stood up and swayed, he held out his arms and she fell into them. Her body was warm, sweaty, dirty, bedraggled and exhausted, but it felt angelic to him. He held her, for a moment, a brief moment, something inside him said too brief, something else something more responsive to his training and his survival instincts, told him it was too long. He stood her up, held her back at arms length, looked into her eyes. “We must make haste!” She reached for her newly-filled canteen and took a long, long drink. “Ready.” She said, and he led her down the rickety staircase. “We will have to head out of the back, but then skirt the field and head north east…” as he was explaining his plan to her he emerged into the sunlight and realised that it was already a plan that could never work. The woman, their erstwhile host, was heading up the road towards the riders as fast as her little legs would carry her. And that was certainly fast enough. He calculated the distances in his mind. He and the girl could mount, but they would be very close by then, galloping as soon as they heard the woman’s story, the road would be closed off as a route and they would make slow progress out of the farm yard and skirting the ploughed field behind, it was almost certain the villains would be upon them. It would be very touch and go. In the future he would always wonder if his final decision was driven by her exhaustion. She just couldn’t run any more. He held up his hand, “Too late, the hag has betrayed us!”

“Damn her! What do we do Herr Munro?” He admired that she wasted no time blaming herself. It was all practicality. That would help in these last moments for it now, as he had long known it would be, a last stand was the only option. “Back upstairs. They can only come upstairs one at a time. It is our best chance!” She reversed course and clattered up the stairs. “I am going to observe here as long as I can, make ready upstairs.” He could already hear her cocking her pistol, and he already knew she could and would use it.

He stood at the doorway and saw the brief vignette of treachery and betrayal. The woman spoke, she gestured, the riders spurred themselves into a brisk gallop. There were six, and they would be here in a minute. He was relieved his judgement had been correct. He and Christina would never have been more than pistol shot ahead of them having stumbled their way out of the farmhouse and into the saddle. But he cursed himself for choosing their quarters for comfort and not for security. But even Munro at his most self-immolating would not waste energy on self recrimination at a time like this. He pondered his best move. Should he wait here, take one of them from the doorway? Give them some pause? Or head up and prepare the upper room for defence.

The arrival into the dusty space before the house of the leading rider made his mind up for him. This one would learn the price of being so keen. He was no more than ten yards away, maybe just seven, and as he pulled his horse harshly to a stop he leaned over to peer into the shadows around the doorway. Maybe he saw Munro and maybe he didn’t, but he would have seen the flash of Munro’s priming pan a split second before the ball took him in the chest, slightly left of centre, and threw him off his mount in a backward tumble that saw his legs jerked from the stirrups. He had turned a full backward somersault before landing, quite dead, half on his head and half on his shoulder just as his comrades arrived. This did indeed give them pause, as Munro had hoped. Two of them loosed off barely aimed pistol shots, but Munro did not even hear the balls hit the house, let alone put him at risk, but the remaining five pulled back from the house. Munro remained where he was, awaiting developments. The girl called to him in a strange sort of hushed shout, a ridiculous stealthiness which made him smile. “What is happening Herr Munro?”

“One down Miss, sadly five left to trouble us.”

“Are you coming up?”
“Shortly, when I see their motions.”

“Shall I reload for you?”

It was a good plan, “Aye, come and get my pistol but reload upstairs just in case.”

Within a second or two she was behind him, and he held the smoking pistol out towards her, she took it and he sensed her pausing as he switched his other pistol into his right hand. “Please, upstairs Miss. If I retreat, and at some stage I shall; I really don’t want to be competing with you on the stairs!” he heard her clatter up the stairs as he saw two of the riders heading round towards the back of the barn. The woman had told them there was a back door. His position here would soon be untenable. He hoped those in the front would get reckless and give him another shot before he had to retire, but they had seen the wages of recklessness already and were being, if anything ultra cautious. He waited until he felt sure those behind were dismounting. He thought maybe one of those would make a good victim, but the rear door was too far from the stairs. He dare not move back there and risk being cut off from his path of withdrawal. Besides he hated the idea of not being with the girl at the end, and surely this was the end. He heard a call from the back. Time to withdraw, and he raced for the stairs. Dropping the reckless one had indeed made them cautious so he had bought some useful time. He smiled at the girl, who was pointing two pistols at him, one being his own reloaded weapon, as he emerged into the small bedroom. “It is me, Miss,” he said needlessly, as she lowered the pistols, “help me move the bed”

It did not take them long to manoeuvre the bed across the top of the stair case. “Only one can come up the stairs at a time, and now he must climb over the bed too. The bed gives us cover from fire and commands the landing where they must turn about to mount the last 5 steps. Their numbers are not an advantage now!”

“What if they decide to burn us out?”

“Well that will serve the old hag out for her treachery won’t it?” he laughed. It couldn’t have been a very sane laugh. This was action, there was no fear or tension left in him, just the sense of all or nothing. The sense of needing to make a good final show, something Danvers would have been proud of. But it wasn’t just in honour of Danvers’ memory, it was for her. He wanted her to think well of him, even if it was their last moment. If his laugh was insane she shared his madness for she smiled broadly now, infected by his mood. “Yes the treacherous old witch deserves to have her house burned down. I just wish we weren’t in it Herr Munro.”

“One disaster at a time please Miss, they have not played a card in the game yet.” She stood back from the bed and leaned back against the far wall. Beside the tiny window, but clear of it, sensibly she had resisted the temptation to look out of it. She was singing softly, or chanting, in Swedish, but Munro knew instantly it was a psalm, the Swedish army, much like his own ancestors, were a psalm singing army. For a moment he wondered what psalm it was. He resolved to ask her later. If there was a later. He rather fancied it to be the 124^th, because if God was not with them now they would most definitely be overwhelmed. He laid his sword on the bed, within easy reach, and stood at ease, a pistol in each hand and awaited their move. How he wished Steiner was here, these villains would never beat the two of them together.

---

[1] Psalm 46 v 1-2

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Munro Chapter Ten (internet version)

Munro Chapter Ten

~ The complications of lust

Coming back to the present Munro’s thoughts though were full of Steiner rather than Danvers. He was still very worried, and, at precisely that moment, there was indeed cause for worry, although there was no conceivable way that Munro would have guessed at the cause. Because at that precise moment in time Steiner was muttering: “Damn the woman, and damn the Swede too!”

When they had left the cave behind the doctor’s vegetable and herb garden Steiner had given them both a hard look. It did not suit him to appear so prudish, after all he had drunk and whored his way across much of Europe. No man would call him a prude. But this was duty, not pleasure, and he saw neither a dutiful wife nor a dutiful officer. He wasn’t sure if the Swede’s wound and near delirium excused him. Maybe it did, but surely his mission and his knowledge of its importance and of the danger he lay in must outweigh that? But Steiner was no doctor, maybe delirium and pain outweighed everything. The girl he couldn’t work out. She was married to someone who was not only a kind, professional gentleman with manners but also clearly the wealthiest man in Balti, and maybe for miles around. She could not really entertain hope of much better could she? And even if she could, was there any real hope at all for her in the strange, wounded foreigner who might not even survive the night! She was striking enough, no doubt the local beauty, slender with a good bust and full lips. Tall too, almost a man’s height, although falling short of both Steiner himself and even Munro, but perhaps the equal of the Swede. Her hair was an auburn that would have attracted a lot of attention anywhere. Clearly it would not have surprised anyone around here that she married well. Steiner himself would have had no hesitation in bedding her had circumstances been otherwise.

Between them they manoeuvred Dahlbergh back out of the cave, and with a muffled cry he passed out. At least this time he had muffled his own cry, as Steiner had ensured the woman was by his feet. The girl turned defiantly to Steiner and said:

“I had to keep him quiet, he would have got us all killed!” Steiner looked at her hard, but said nothing. “You must not tell my husband, it would be bad for everyone, you and your friend included!”

Steiner shrugged and said, “I care nothing for you or for your husband, and I don’t care much for this idiot either, but I have a job to do woman, and, if you come between me and the job, it will most certainly end badly for you!” At this she pouted, rather fetchingly he thought, realising that she was that most dangerous of women, amoral and purely sexual. She hushed her excuses however, and they carried the comatose Dahlbergh back to the house in silence. At the time Steiner had prayed that perhaps when he awoke the Swedish officer would put the whole thing down as a delirious dream, solely the work of his pain and the medicinal herb-fuelled sleep. Then all might just be as if it had never happened; especially if the girl heeded Steiner’s warning; especially if the doctor paid close attention to his patient; and to his wife. A wife like that always needed attention, even Steiner knew that!

Steiner, being Steiner put it out of his mind for the evening, and ate a good dinner, prepared well by the girl, who he admitted as he ate, was not just a pretty face. He observed the doctor closely. Did he love his wife? Did she love him? Were they intimate still? He was not by nature, however, one of those who enjoy analysing life, or people. Steiner, being Steiner, interacted with his environment on a much more simplistic level. He drank, he ate, he fought and he screwed. At least that was how he thought of it. There never seemed to him much point to doing much else. Of course he did also love, although this was not something he would admit to. And it was perhaps love that brought his thoughts back to his friend Munro. He was dearly and honestly concerned for his friend. Travelling hard and fast on a dangerous road with nothing but that slip of a girl for company and comradeship, he worried for his friend. Of course he had seen the girl kill, but only from behind, and he could not see her being much use in a real fracas. Those blessed not be worriers worry little, but when worry does hit them, it hits them quite hard. Life without Munro would be much less fun, and involve making far too many decisions. Everyone loves in different ways and for different reasons, and Steiner would never have said to anyone that he loved Munro. But when he should have been observing the doctor and his wife he was imagining his friend, camped, as indeed he had been at that time, in a gully in the open. The doctor interrupted his reverie, perceptively:

“You are worried about your friend, I can tell.”

“Ach Ja, he will be all right. Munro is a tough man.” Steiner hoped the medical man was not as intuitive a mind reader when it came to his wife. Heaven knows what he might read in her thoughts. “You would rather be with him now than stuck here, eating with us.”

Steiner wondered whether he had become totally transparent. “Yes,” he admitted “that is true, but I am sure my friend is not eating nearly so well!” and he saluted the girl with his cup of water, wishing it was a strong red from the wine country in Hungary. Or the local Rara Neagru. Under the Ottomans wine production had been outlawed, but Balti had, historically been a great centre of wine growing and many local farmers still grew vines. The Rara Neagru had been very drinkable at the tavern last night. Was it really only last night? He realised that he was being observed, even as he was failing to observe. “My friend and I have a job to do. It is my job to be here and to protect our client. By the way, I must say that I am truly grateful for your good part in today’s excitement.” The doctor raised his own water in acknowledgement. Steiner wished he knew what had been going through the doctor’s mind, and he forced himself to watch closely as the doctor pushed his plate away empty and invited the girl to clear the table with a careless gesture. But his observations seemed to do little good, because by the end of the evening he had some instinctive feelings, but no sense of certainty. If forced he would bet that the doctor loved and lusted for his young wife still, and passionately at that, and that they were still intimate. Of course the girl, with guilt on her conscience may have been laying it on thick. But, when they disappeared upstairs at the end of the evening Steiner felt sure it was not just to sleep. He settled himself in the Swede’s room, on the floor, with his usual camp bedding, thankfully enhanced by a rather good fur that the doctor had pressed on him as he retired. Steiner didn’t need much persuading. It would soften the harshness of the floor very nicely. He looked up at the ceiling, confident that love making was going on above him. Confident and also jealous, as he hadn’t had a woman since they had left Buda. He looked over at the Swede. ‘You I understand,’ he said to himself, ‘who wouldn’t have done what you did with that beauty? Even more so half out of your wits, after all a man’s instincts are strong.’ He looked back at the ceiling. ‘You,’ he said remembering the woman passionately embracing Dahlbergh, ‘you were not just keeping him quiet! But, what is your reason? Can it really just be lust?’ Steiner was not by nature a deeply suspicious man, especially not where human nature was concerned. People were people, and as such were weak and sinful as a matter of course. He himself was most definitely sinful, although he never saw his own sinfulness as weak. But this woman puzzled him. She was risking too much. She had a life here with the doctor that every poor woman in Moldavia would snatch from her greedily in the blink of an eye. Surely it could not be just lust. Was she stupid? He wished he could see this through her eyes, but he couldn’t and, eventually, he slept. Had he known how badly the next day would begin, he would not have slept near so well.

A little after dawn Steiner was awoken by the doctor and his wife, the one moving rather stiffly and bearing some hot tea, and the other carrying his medical bag. Steiner’s eyebrows asked a question which the doctor answered:

“I have to go and do my rounds Herr Steiner, I am the only doctor for several leagues and I have patients in all the villages.”

Steiner was a little panicked, “But what of your patient here, he is in need of close attention, you said so yourself.”

“All that need doing can be done by my wife.”

Steiner’s panic grew. “But there may be a crisis, we moved him yesterday far too much, he was feverish and delirious!”

“Yes and we have given him all we can give him – I am hopeful he will sleep at least 24 hours, and I will be back within three days at the most, more likely just two.”

Three days, with the Swede being tended by the woman was more than Steiner could bear. “No! You must stay and care for him!”

The doctor looked at him quizzically, “Herr Steiner, I have told you my wife will do all that needs doing, you must allow me to get on with my work!”

Steiner backed off, his concern with the woman was that the doctor would discover her and the Swede in some form of embrace would be alienated and betrayal or worse would quickly follow. Alienating the man himself was no solution worth speaking of. And so it was that the doctor left and Steiner spent a morning trying to make sure that Dahlbergh and the girl were never left alone, but Dahlbergh stayed asleep, much as the doctor said he would, and eventually Steiner tired of being the chaperone.

After lunch, a plate of potatoes, and some more tea, the girl went to tend the garden, and Steiner found himself lured from the confines of the house by the freshness of the late spring afternoon and he too went into the garden. He sat in the shade of the house for a while, until she mentioned, very casually, that his presence was best not advertised, that passing people might be eager to send word to those who were hunting him. He ignored her, but, after a while he nonchalantly made his way down to the cave. Or rather the rosemary bush, and he lay there in its shade. Neither in the cave, nor exactly in the open either; not baked by the sun, but still feeling the warmth of the day. In a short while he was dozing, rather heavily. It was that doze which set the next phase of disaster in train. But Steiner, unlike Munro, did not hold much with self criticism and blame as a concept, let alone practice it so assiduously as to allow it to confuse and complicate his life. Everything was simpler for Steiner.

He never knew what awoke him, maybe it was his instinct for trouble, but if it was, it woke him only in time to witness it and not in time to prevent it. He started, and lay there for a while listening, what was going on? Had he heard something? After a moment or two of nothing but the buzz of insects, and the shrill calls of the starlings he decided there was nothing out of the ordinary, so he allowed himself a long, lazy, feline stretch before raising his head to look for the girl in the garden. As soon as he was satisfied she was nowhere to be seen his instincts told him he had better be fully awake and fast. He made his way across the garden in a few long strides. He opened the back door stealthily, he feared the worse, and he wanted to know if his fears were justified. He wanted to see what there was to see, and not what she might want him to see. He silently traversed the house. Easily enough in the kitchen with its dirt floors, somewhat more difficult in the main room with its relatively luxurious wooden boards. He still had not seen the girl. She might be above in the bedroom, or out in the village, or even in the Swede’s room for a perfectly good reason, after all she was his nurse. But when he threw open the door to the side room he was not at all surprised to see the erstwhile nurse in a passionate embrace with her patient. Their hands were fumbling passionately at each other’s garments, while their mouths were locked together in such a frenzy that it prompted Steiner to wonder if he looked like that when he was kissing a girl. Simultaneously it was hideously adolescent and laughably animal. Dignity was not a focus for Steiner’s life, but was there really so little dignity in passion? Passion so great that they did not realise for a few long moments that they had company. Steiner was not the type to be speechless, but this was not a comrade with a whore, when his response would be expected and also inoffensive. No matter how ribald. This was a different circumstance. Steiner clutched for the right phrase, and it came to him as the girl turned round her face opening wide with shock at his presence.

“And how is our patient doing? It seems he responds well to more personal medical aid.”

The girl leapt off Dahlbergh as if scalded and left the room in a blur of dishevelled clothes and tangled aurburn locks. She did not look at the German, and managed to escape through the door without so much as touching his immense figure. Steiner ignored her departure and looked at the Swede, but said nothing. The injured man seemed to take his silence for deference and said, rather imperiously:

“Don’t you knock?”

Steiner was having none of this, “Don’t you have any brains? Or were they shot?”

“Don’t be so impertinent, soldier!”

“Do not ‘soldier’ me! I am not one of your Swedish peasants in uniform! You have no command over me you damned aristocratic buffoon!”

“And you certainly have no command over me!”

“Then have some command over yourself, you may want to get killed, but only two days ago you were at pains to tell me you were on duty, that you had a mission, a vital mission!”

“Well I can’t go anywhere, can I? I am in the hands of your friend, aren’t I? What possible difference can it make how I spend my time here?” His brow was now awash in sweat which began to trickle down his flushed face in slow rivulets, like the opening drops of rain on a slate roof. His fever, or maybe just his embarrassment was high. Steiner might perhaps have worried about Dahlbergh’s health, might have wondered how much of his behaviour was driven by wound fever and delirium, but he was too angry and too worried. Worried that he was bringing disaster on them all.

“She is the wife of your doctor for the love of God! What if he finds out? He is going to be giving you things to drink!”

That brought the Swede up with a start, but he recovered. “He won’t find out!”

“No?”

“And if he does, and if he poisons me, what is that to you?”

“You think he will poison you and leave me to live? And what if instead he betrays us? Rostoff, or presumably Rostoff’s agents were already here once, yesterday when you were making free with his wife down in the cave our friend the doctor was telling them he had never seen us!”

The Swede finally went quiet. But Steiner felt it was the wound fever and not his cogent argument that silenced him. He looked to be on the threshold of a dead faint.

“Water, please Herr Steiner,” he mumbled, his face was now ashen white and Steiner thought of calling the girl as he lifted the cup of water from beside the bed to the Swede’s quivering lips. He managed a sip or too before he again slipped into unconsciousness. Steiner wet a cloth and mopped the wounded man’s brow which had broken out in beads of sweat. His forehead was burning up. He would need the girl, but this time he would stay in the room. He called out for her, but after a few moments of silence he decided he must go and look for her. He called again, and then she walked in.

“Your patient is burning with fever,” he told her, “perhaps he has had too much excitement?”

She took the cloth from him and took over mopping his brow. Steiner grabbed her harshly by the forearm, and wrenched her round to look at him. “What is your game, eh? Are you trying to kill him? What is the sense of this? Does your husband not make you happy? Do you think this sick man can make you happier?”

She ignored his questions and snatched her arm back from him. He reached for her again infuriated by her insolence, both infuriated and terrified by his inability to control the situation.

She evaded his reach, turned and spat words venomously at him:

“Do you want to have to explain to my husband how I bruised my arm?”

“Well if I have to explain that, we may as well explain all that has happened!”

She looked away sullenly. “What is your game?” he demanded again. Again she ignored him. He felt the anger well up inside him, but knew that anger would not help. He felt frustrated, annoyed, and still somewhat frightened that all this was going on around him and he could neither stop nor influence affairs at all. So it was that as Munro lay worrying about his friend atop a wooded knoll his friend came to be saying; ‘Damn the woman, and damn the Swede too!’ He stormed from the room; maybe he thought to himself, this is how peasants feel when warring armies campaign through their villages, stealing food, burning, maybe raping. They must feel they are even less than pawns, like things just happen to them. Like they have no control over life at all. It was not a good feeling. He needed to regroup. He needed to think. He wished to God Munro was there. He was in turmoil. Not just that he couldn’t control events, artillerymen didn’t expect to control events beyond serving the gun, but that he didn’t understand events. He was by the cave before he realised where he was. He crouched down and entered it, sitting with his back to the rocks, his eyes covering the rear of the house and the garden, and fell to cleaning his pistols. It was therapeutic if not helpful, a good soldier looked after his weapons and he increasingly felt he would be in need of them in this job, greatly in need of them.

As he calmed, and as he realised his mind was not grasping a way to deal with this, Steiner found himself thinking again of his friend. He wished Munro was here, but perhaps more significantly he wished he was wherever Munro was, on the open road, dealing face to face with whatever danger was abroad. Not wrestling with all these people and their warped minds. Give him an honest fight any day. But was Munro in an honest fight? And if he was could he cope alone? Try as he might he couldn’t consider the girl as changing any odds his friend might be facing, although he was at least certain she couldn’t be as much trouble as her damned brother. “I hope God is with you, Munro,” he said aloud, certain in his heart that no heavenly power was with him here in the doctor’s house.

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