Munro, gentleman adventurer

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Munro Chapter Seven (part two) Internet Version

“Captain! You are injured, we must get you to cover!”
The Swede answered, still there was no discernible meaning. But it was belligerent and worryingly loud.
“Captain, this is a matter of duty, you must keep silent!”
Dahlbergh, as Steiner hoped he must, responded to the word duty, and fell silent, well almost silent. There was still a rambling, murmuring noise he probably had no idea he was making in his fevered state, but Steiner hoped it was soft enough in volume not to cause a disaster. With a motion of his head the German signalled to the doctor and his wife, and they resumed their positions at the patient’s now stilled feet.

The journey through the doctor’s well tended herb and vegetable garden took ages, or so it seemed. Irritatingly the doctor skirted his herb beds with meticulous care, and scowled at Steiner at least once when he attempted to cut a corner. Steiner could now see the pile of rocks. Thankfully, as the doctor had promised, it looked exactly like a pile of rocks that had slid down from the ridge that rose steeply from the bottom of the garden up towards the north. It was no guarantee it would not been seen and searched, but hiding there would have been a chance worth taking even if it hadn’t been their only choice. Of course it was their only choice, and as such it made Steiner feel strangely more comforted. He had done all he could do, he was used to letting fate take its course once all had been done. It was the solid and steady rod of steel that ran through his personality. As they neared a clump of what looked like lavender but smelt like rosemary the doctor said. “I will go back to the house now. The entrance is too narrow for us to enter this way. You must drag him through.” He looked at his wife, and was gone, leaving the Swede’s feet on the ground. At some stage Dahlbergh seemed to have lost consciousness again, but he was not totally gone. His eyelids flickered, he was not out, but accepting and maybe controlling his pain with an admirable stoic sang froid.  Steiner worked his way around until his back was to the bushes, which he saw were both rosemary and lavender, overgrown wild and entangled. He felt the girl’s touch on his back, and she subtly guided him as he backed into the bush. A step or too later, as he was emerging out the other side with nothing but the most negligible of scratches. Her hand on his neck indicated he should duck and he struggled a few more steps, barely managing the Swede, who had started to murmur again after catching his hip on a rock. Steiner could see he was completely inside what was, effectively, a cave. He let down the Swede and looked up to see how much head room there was. He yearned desperately to stretch his aching back, but quickly saw there wasn’t enough headroom. Behind him the girl was in the farthest corner of the cave. Steiner shrugged off the spasm in his lower back and grabbed Dahlbergh again. With all his remaining muscle power, all he could manage at least in this awful bent double position he finally wrestled him back to the girl, his muscles screaming more than ever in his life. And he had dragged a siege gun up a muddy hillside before now. “Tend him,” he said simply and he stumbled staggered and crouched his way back to the opening of the cave. There he dragged his pistol from his belt and used it to move a rosemary branch from his field of view. The doctor was nowhere to be seen, presumably inside the house again. Now it was just a matter of waiting. The soldier’s lot in life. Waiting. Waiting, then killing, or dying, or maybe just being scared to death for a few minutes. The Swede murmured again. Not as loud as he had, but still worrying enough. Steiner turned to look back and fixed the girl with a sharp stare that simply said your problem. It was a struggle to unsheathe the massive broadsword in the tight confines of the cave, even at the entrance, and he had to be careful not to disturb the bushes too much in case he was seen, but in a while he had his sword on the ground by his right side. The pistol was returned to his hand and set at half cock. He had a second pistol, a prize from the fight at the tavern, in his waist band.

Steiner had no watch, but he knew the sun had hardly moved when he felt the first eternity of waiting had passed. Lord how he hated the waiting. But sometime before the second eternity passed the waiting was over. He saw the back door open again, and into the light, ducking slightly as they passed under the low sloping roof came one, then two, then three men. Men of the type they had fought the other night. A type so well known to Steiner he knew them before they even emerged fully from the shadows. The doctor followed them. He was clearly talking. But they were clearly not listening. Or were they? Had the doctor betrayed them? Surely he would not with his wife here too? No words were distinguishable and the whole party seemed to be heading determinedly this way. Without taking his eyes off the approaching group Steiner reached out a hand and reassured himself the sword was in reach and briefly touched the butt of his second pistol with the barrel of the one in his hand. He was as ready as he could be. But surely the doctor would not have betrayed them.  It was inconceivable he would endanger his wife. But how sure could you be? Steiner took a deep breath. He knew he needed to stop worrying. Just react. Be ready. The men stopped, turned and gesticulated at the doctor. One of them brandished a pistol. Steiner was comforted. Not the dumb show of a betrayal that is for sure. The doctor held up his arms, clearly placating them, then he backed back into the house. The final shrug he gave as he left Steiner felt was aimed at him, and not at the banditti. He was on his own, well he and the girl and the sick babbling and quite useless Dahlbergh; all of them in it together. The men meandered across the herb and vegetable garden, somewhat aimlessly. Taking no care of the doctor’s carefully tended cultivations. Steiner wondered how much that was infuriating the doctor. Or was he more concerned that his wife might be found by these villains? Two of them seemed to turn back, but one kept coming. Steiner tensed. The man turned. And gestured over his shoulder at Steiner himself, or so it seemed. And then came on. And just then, of all the times possible, the Swede came fully awake, if not conscious in any rational sense, and he cried out. Not so loud, but loud enough. Steiner turned back and looked at the girl again. Your damn problem! But this time his eyes conveyed the message in something of a silent scream. He turned back and the bandit was closing, and Dahlbergh cried out again. And this time it was loud. Steiner flashed the girl a look: Do something! Once again he turned to observe as the bandit got closer, and closer. There was the beginning of another cry and Steiner nearly shouted aloud himself in anger and frustration, but it was cut off before it really started, and Steiner breathed a little easier as the man approached in what was now a comforting silence. He was within an easy point blank pistol shot now. Steiner was confident he could drop him instantly, but of course that would be the beginning of the problems, not the end of them. Nevertheless he eased the hammer of the pistol back to full cock. To him, totally on edge, the click sounded like a rock hitting the side of a church bell. But there was still silence from behind him. Steiner did not hear the call, but the bandit did. A call from behind him. He stopped dead in his tracks and spun on his heel, all the while the middle of his torso was picked out through the foliage of the rosemary by Steiner’s eye along the length of the pistol barrel. The merest squeeze and he would be a dead man. Steiner could hear him arguing with someone. He dare not look behind him, but there was still silence. He was as concerned as much by the unexpected silence as he had been by the Swede’s ever louder delirium. Well almost. But he dare not take his eyes off the bandit. The whole world seemed to teeter on the fulcrum of this moment. Steiner was like an ancient catapult, its spring wound and tense, waiting the release of the lock to unloose what would be the end of his world, no matter how many he took with him. If there were any more than the three he had seen, he could not survive a fight, and with Dahlbergh he could never escape. Running alone never entered his head, just the look Munro would give him if he did so would be enough. Then, with a final grumble the bandit set off back towards the house, his back slowly becoming a smaller and smaller target and with no warning at all the tension drained away completely. Although the situation was far from resolved Steiner’s senses told him the crisis had passed. He kept his pistol trained on the retreating torso all the way to the kitchen door. Finally he could turn back to observe the Swede, at which point those same instincts told him something bad had happened. Perhaps as bad as discovery itself.

Dahlbergh and the girl were wrapped in what could only be described as an embrace, a passionate embrace. Each mouth hungrily devouring the other, and at least one of the woman’s hands buried deep where a married woman’s hand should not be buried. Of course that had indeed silenced the Swede, but, Steiner just knew this was not good news. He stared for a while, fundamentally dumbfounded, even though he could imagine how it had happened, the woman had been unable to keep Dahlbergh quiet with words, or a hand over his mouth, so she had used her mouth to cover his mouth. The cunning was impressive, but maybe there was cunning upon cunning? Certainly the Swede had responded, what man would not? Delirious or otherwise. Then the woman caught sight of Steiner’s stare, and started back. Steiner saw the look in her eyes, a little guilt, a lot of cunning, hardly any self consciousness. He knew then that this could not possibly end well.

.

Munro Chapter Seven (part One) Internet version

Munro Chapter Seven

~ Unexpected developments at the doctor’s house

Munro’s thoughts were not entirely prophetic, because it was actually the previous day, while Munro was navigating the thorn scrub around the gully that things had developed at the doctor’s house in surprising and alarming ways.

Steiner was sitting in the front room of the doctor’s house feeling quite content. He had eaten rather well at the doctor’s table. The Swede Dahlbergh had politely passed out and been no trouble, and the doctor’s wife was a fetching little beauty to observe, although he made sure his observations were very subtle. The Moldavian national dress did nothing to flatter a woman. But she needed little help. She was a catch all right, and Steiner, knowing his own feelings, naturally assumed the doctor would be a jealous man hence the subtlety of his perusal of the wench. But he had spotted her occasionally looking his way, and like any man he was affected, but only so far. Steiner was not a romantic. His experience of women was a world removed from romance, and much of it involved the exchange of coin. Besides, this was a matter of duty, and duty and women didn’t mix. He took a long drink of water, his annoyance at the doctor’s religious resistance to even medicinal alcohol in his house having long passed, and burped loudly. He turned to the woman. “Your pardon Mrs Doctor,” he said, somewhat formally. “Irena,” she replied, “my name is Irena.” He nodded, feeling it unnecessary to beg pardon a second time. “Do you care for some more water?” she asked him. By Heaven she was a fussy thing, he thought and shook his head. “Your friend may need some. I shall go to him.” Steiner shrugged, he was convinced the Swede needed sleep more than he needed water, but he was no doctor, what business was it of his? He gazed serenely out of the window as she left the room. The shadows had shortened as much as shadows shorten and the height of the sun had been seen off in a house protected and kept cool by its overhanging roof. The worst excesses of the fierce sunlight had been kept at bay and now the shadows were lengthening again.

Steiner surveyed the room, not for the first time, his boredom was growing by the minute now he had eaten. A nap would cure it, at least for a while. His first scan had been instinctive, practical and largely military by nature. This was the main room of the house. The front door opened onto it. On one side, the right as you entered from the square, was the room in which the doctor had examined Dahlbergh, and in which the patient now slept. Toward the back was the kitchen, with a door backing onto a herb and vegetable garden. Steiner assumed the herbs would be both medicinal and culinary, although culinary was not a word he ever used. He knew the Ottomans; the Muslims generally, were more enlightened about such things as medicine. Of course his grandmother had known more about medicine than most doctors in Hamburg, and all she ever did was boil herbs in a pot! The west has un-learned much wisdom in the search for knowledge he thought, and smiled at his own profundity. Although profundity was not a word he ever used either. In the ceiling of the room, to the left of the entrance to the kitchen, not far enough over as to be in the corner of the room was a trap door. This apparently led into the simple planked floored rooms above. Steiner had not been up there, but he understood there were two rooms, sleeping quarters for the doctor and his wife. Worryingly, the upper floor was reached in a more formal way by a wooden staircase which ran along the left wall of the house. Left that is if you were stood facing the front door, the opposite side to the consulting room. There were no windows in that wall at ground floor level, and the staircase was a total blind spot for anyone planning a defence of the building. Attackers could approach the house unseen and access the upper rooms unhindered unless the upper rooms were manned and defended. It was a sturdy house, shot proof he would say, but not defendable by one man, not even two, and absolutely not by him, a wounded Swede a doctor and a nubile young woman. There would need to be another plan for that eventuality. But plans were Munro’s department, and Munro wasn’t here. Steiner pondered that for a moment or two. He knew enough of strategy to know he had been right to oppose the division of their forces, but worrying was not in his nature. So he had fallen to thinking of the rather good stew the girl had fed him. Mutton, needless to say, hot and spicy, needless to say, but decent enough and filling, and there had been second helpings too. Then he fell to thinking of the girl and now, he was surveying the room again, with a different eye.

The walls were roughly plastered, as were the walls on the room next door, yet more sign of wealth, although the kitchen was not, just the usual rustic daub filling the gaps in the wooden walls. Upstairs he knew was a bare planked floor as he had heard the doctor walking around above him. The floor was planked down here too, and although the planks were rough they were well sanded if unpolished. Marked by one or two stains (clearly dried blood as any soldier of Steiner’s experience could tell), but there probably weren’t many houses with a planked floor in Balti. Slightly off centre was a rug, which Steiner felt must have come from Constantinople. Off-centre most likely because it was hiding some more stains. What was a doctor’s house without a little blood? But the rug was also wealth, Steiner was no rug expert, but he knew for sure that if he was sacking the village he would take the rug intact. It made him frown a little. Somehow, Steiner felt, this house, and this doctor did not fit in this grubby little town at all. On the wall above the hearth was a painting, not a particularly good painting, as even Steiner could tell, and Steiner’s appreciation of art was based purely on how easy it was to plunder and how much it might sell for. But Steiner knew it was the only portrait in the town. It was probably the only portrait for ten leagues in any direction, which made it noteworthy enough. Clearly it was some ancestor of the doctor. Not that there was any real family resemblance, but who has a portrait of a stranger in their living room? Especially a bad portrait. But the man was a westerner, that was for sure and dressed as if he had known Wallenstein himself. Perhaps he had. This doctor was not from Constantinople or Damascus that was for sure. Our doctor was a westerner, yet also a Moslem. And, well trained, as Moslem doctors so often were. Steiner for one would be happy to have him ahead of any regimental medical officer he had ever served with. Drunks and butchers to a man they were. There was a story here, and a more curious man would have wanted to know what it was. Steiner was not, however even a mildly curious man. There were entirely practical issues here. The Swede needed healing, which meant time. Then he needed to reunite the man with the sister, and himself with Munro. Then they would get paid. Then they would eat and drink. After that it was all God’s plan and not for Steiner to worry about.

So, with worry eliminated from the list of things that might be done, Steiner considered a nap, had been considering it an hour or more, but, this was as he had told himself already, duty, and duty and sleep did not mix, at least not just yet. His eyes closed a little though, he was just below the surface of wakefulness. Not seeing anything, but aware of everything. So when the tap on the door came he was on his feet, his right hand full of that huge ancient sword and his left grasping one of his pistols, all within a heartbeat, perhaps two. He considered opening the door, but rapidly discarded the idea as foolhardy. Instead he pressed himself against the wall so that, as the door opened, he would be hidden from anyone entering by the swinging door itself. There he waited as another tap broke the silence, this one much louder.

The girl came in from the kitchen and looked at him, then at the door, then back at him. Her face was a question, and there was a clear trace of fear. Meanwhile, above he heard the doctor moving across the room. Steiner knew he was heading for the external staircase. This was clearly best left to him at this stage. He gave the girl a faint head shake, and she stood where she was, looking now at the door, as if she expected it to burst open. Steiner half expected that himself, particularly as there came a third and now obviously loud, firm rap on it. The visitor was getting impatient. Steiner felt an age had passed since he heard the doctor. Maybe he had just fled? Surely not. His stomach tightened, his muscles tensed. His blood started to pump a with more ferocity, he lifted his sword arm to his pistol hand, and, as quietly as he could forced the hammer back to the cocked position with the edge of his palm. This was taking far too long. Then he heard the doctor’s voice, but not what he said. The conversation was not loud, and muffled enough by the door to be more than a hum of voices. His tension lessened, but not by much, his ignorance of the flow of the dialogue kept him sufficiently on edge. He was as cocked and ready to explode as the pistol in his left hand.

When the door opened Steiner was ready for anything. Anything, except perhaps the doctor walking in, perfectly calm and all alone. Steiner’s deflation was palpable, but short lived.

“Trouble,” Said the doctor simply, “Riders, approaching the village from the east.”

“What sort of riders?”

“The troublesome sort I would expect. The boy came to warn me.”

“Why did he come to warn you?”

“He is not a foolish boy, in fact he is rather bright, I have quite high hopes for him. He knows that where one sort of trouble has come another is likely to follow it. You were here, so he came here. He wanted to be paid, of course, and who better to pay him than the friends or the enemies of those coming?”

Steiner moved on rapidly, “how many?”

“Too many to be fought Herr Steiner. Six or seven he says. You have five or ten minutes”

“I cannot leave my comrade.”

“No, we must hide you.”

“Where?”

There is a place at the foot of my vegetable garden. From the house, indeed from most of the garden it looks like a rock fall from the low ridge that rises there. It is in fact a fallen cairn, and the rosemary and lavender has grown across an entrance to a covered place. If we hurry we can get you and your wounded comrade there in time.

“Do your villagers know of this place?”

“Some do.”

“And won’t they betray us?”

The doctor shrugged. “If you are betrayed you have no chance, there or here.”

Steiner nodded. “You will help me with the patient?”
“Yes, and I will send my wife with you, to tend him and help keep him quiet.”

And for other reasons too, thought Steiner, a good looking woman and a band of cut-throats was not a combination any husband would relish.

“We don’t have much time,” Steiner was all decision and haste now and set off for the Swede’s room, followed by the doctor, who beckoned to his wife. His rapid long strides covered the planked floor in seconds, and he was waiting with his hands under the Swedes armpits when the pair entered the room, “hurry!” he snapped.

“You must be careful!” rapped the doctor, “he is in fragile condition.”

“Doctor, was it not you who just said how little chance we have if they find us? If we are not in hiding before these men arrive in this house he will be dead anyway, and likely so will I. So will you be, and her!” he nodded at the girl. The doctor said nothing but he and his wife each took one of the Swede’s legs and on a signal from the German they lifted him as smoothly as was possible and manoeuvred him out the door and across the main room. Progress was slow, and Steiner could feel his every nerve end begin to jangle. If he was attacked he would prefer his hands full of weapons rather than an unconscious Swedish aristocrat. The doctor, reaching behind him for the clasp that closed the door between the main room and the kitchen was fumbling awkwardly, understandably even, but Steiner felt his irritation glow like an ember from the fire inspired by a warm breeze. “Hurry!” he hissed, but the doctor, seeming to remain calmer than the soldier, ignored him and paid heed only to the task ahead of him, or rather given he was walking backwards, the task behind him. That thought relaxed Steiner incredibly, and he smiled, a smile which grew bigger as the door suddenly was open. The old gods smiled on them then, as the back door from the kitchen was already open, but Steiner’s joy was short lived because in rounding the rough wooden table in the centre of the kitchen they jarred the Swede and he awoke, and immediately started struggling. Then with the struggling came the babbling. “Damn!” snapped Steiner. The girl let slip of his left leg as Dahlbergh lashed out with it viciously. For a step or two the doctor and the soldier kept him up and moving, but, as the doctor stumbled on the threshold of the back door he too let slip his grip. The Swede’s second foot crashed to the ground, but he could not find the energy or strength to stand. He stammered a few words, but they were barely intelligible at all although Steiner recognised them as Swedish. He couldn’t push the Swede’s dead weight from this angle; he would have to either get his team back in harness or swing around and start dragging. He leaned over and hissed sharply in the Swede’s ear:

“Captain! You are injured, we must get you to cover!”

The Swede answered, still there was no discernible meaning. But it was belligerent and worryingly loud.

“Captain, this is a matter of duty, you must keep silent!”

Munro Chapter Six (part two) internet version

Munro Chapter six continued....

After a minute or so she said, “Let me tell you all I know. If we are parted you must forget me and think only of the message and its delivery. I must insist on this.”
“It is difficult for a gentleman to leave a lady in distress Miss Dahlbergh.”
“Ha! Only last night you suggested I told you the message just so you could indeed deliver it if I were to fall!”
“I didn’t say I would not do so Miss, I said, it would be difficult to leave you,” he paused, he almost added how very difficult it would be, but even the silence seemed to make his point.
“I must insist, Herr Munro!”
He nodded, “I am a soldier Miss, I need no instructions on the obligations of duty.”
“I have your word?”
“You do”

The story was not long, but it was complex. In the main it was a Russian attack on the Ottomans. But, for the Swedes, there were clear overtones. A convincing Russian victory would leave the surrender of Charles by his hosts a very lucrative peace conference bargaining chip. And if Peter had Charles, Charles would never see Sweden again. In specific terms Constantine Brancovo of Wallachia had committed himself to aid Peter to the tune of 30,000 men and assume significant responsibility for supplying the Russian advance, albeit at Peter’s expense. Demetrius Cantemir of Moldavia was providing 10,000 men. The best guess was that Peter would be providing just over 20 regiments and 140 squadrons of cavalry, altogether a force approaching 100,000 troops. More than the Porte could muster locally and more than the bare brigade of Swedes at Bender by a factor of fifty at least. There was more. The initial campaign might not in fact be directed at the Balkans, but at the Crimea. This was not necessarily good news. Charles’ safety depended on Ottoman victories, she explained, giving Constantinople warning of the Crimea was at least as important as warning Charles himself. It was also true that the Khan of the Crimea hated the Russians with a vengeance and was an ally it made sense to warn. Ever since the peace of 1700 had curtailed his lucrative raiding into the Ukraine he had been itching to wage war on Peter. He was a reinforcing voice to Poniatowski, Charles’ envoy at the Sublime Porte. But such a warning had to come from Charles. Both the Sultan and the Khan needed to know that Charles was a true friend. Peter would likely provoke a massive Cossack incursion into the Crimea led by the Ukrainian Hetman Skoropadsky, supported by around 8,000 Russians, mainly dragoons, under the Russian general Buturlin. All striking at the heart of the Porte’s Tartar vassals. This was dangerous, as it would prevent a mobile Tartar raiding force operating against Peter’s flanks which would be their most effective role. Munro nodded through it all. It made sense again, any dragoon could see the basic strategy clearly enough, and he knew enough of Tartar light cavalry to have the utmost respect for them. Much better they were harrying advancing Russian flanks than defending their own villages. Worse still a similar attack would be made on the Kuban involving the Russian Admiral Graf Apraksin with 6,000 Russians, 5,000 Don Cossacks and probably the Kalmyk Khan too.
“Have you understood this Herr Munro?”
“I have Miss Dahlbergh!”
“How much do you remember?”
“I have the generalities of the plan clear in my head. I may make some errors of names or numbers.”
“That will have to do for now. When we next stop I will test you, and if necessary run through the whole thing again!”
“You have this on paper?”
“No! My brother insisted on no papers, we committed it all to memory.”

Munro was unconvinced of the sense of this, but he said nothing, merely waited. He sensed there was more. Eventually she continued. “More specifically, concerning my country is news we have of a plan to kidnap the King.”
“Kidnap?” Munro was astounded, Kings did not kidnap Kings! But then, he recollected he was in Moldavia, not the low countries. The rules here were different, insofar as there were no rules at all. She continued: “Peter has already paid Brancovo much gold, with the promise of more if his agents can apprehend the King. He is to be taken to a small castle near the border at Braila.”
“But surely he is miles from the border?”
“It is to be hoped so, but we are sure that a confidential message was sent to him which will bring him close to the border. A genuine message, apparently, but one that has become known to Peter’s agents.”
“What sort of message?”
“That sir, I cannot tell you?”
“Cannot or will not?
She remained silent. He shrugged. “It matters little, if he is kidnapped, the war will be immaterial. Surely he cannot be so foolish as to risk himself?”
“The King, Herr Munro is known to be somewhat …” she paused, “…headstrong. I wonder you had not heard?” Munro smiled wryly at her irony. The world had heard of Charles’ rashness. He was most certainly described more often as mad than as headstrong. He was beyond question a military genius. The world’s greatest general, John Churchill himself had said so. Yes, it was easy to believe he could gallop off to the border on a whim. “You say there are the King’s envoys and aides in Moldavia, to rendezvous with us. Are you saying the King may be with them?”
“Truthfully I have no idea where the King might be. I just know we must warn his aides of the whole story. The Russian invasion, the Wallachian treachery, the Crimea, and of course the kidnap.  I must, I must pass on my message!”
Munro was silent. He was sure he could already remember enough, but learning the details would be good. He wished Steiner was there. It was clearly a mistake to have separated. Dividing forces was always the act of a fool. He cursed himself. They should have left Ulrik to fend for himself and made sure the message got through with Christina. But, he reflected, when he made his error he really hadn’t known what was at stake. And now he did, he missed the comforting bulk of Steiner beside him. Worse still, was the gut wrenching question of whether Steiner was facing the eight Moldavian cut-throats with only a critically ill Swede to help him?  He would ever forgive himself if he had lost Steiner. He slipped into a moody silence for the next few hours, so obsessed with his error and his fear that he failed to notice that she was taking a turn wishing her companion might smile again.

At the height of the sun the heat was again becoming difficult, with no sign of any weather that might have disquieted a sailor, and Munro, seeing a wooded knoll a little south of the road decided it would be best to hide up for the heat of the day and rest. He could watch the road for pursuers, and they could both catch up on the sleep they had been missing. Christina did not demur, which surprised him, knowing her sense of urgency for her message. He could not tell how her opinion of him was forming. She had a trust in his honour, and in his abilities. She accepted his advice now without a murmur.

A quarter hour after leaving the road they were sat under a tree on the knoll. They could see the road through the overhanging branches, but the scrub and the shadows would prevent them being seen from the road. Unless a particularly sharp eye, or a particularly cautious and meticulous foe was hunting them. “Danvers would have sent a file to scour the copse,” thought Munro, wondering that Danvers was so often in his mind today. As if reading that mind she said:
“You said you were a soldier in the English Army Herr Munro you must have seen many engagements in the war with France.”
“You should rest up Miss Dahlbergh we will have a long night of travel ahead. It will be safer than daylight, believe me. Being unseen is our best hope.”
“As we are comrades Herr Munro, I am curious as to your record, after all we serve now together His Majesty King Charles.”
He stiffened. “Are you asking me why I no longer serve the Queen Madam?”
“No, I was merely asking about the service you had seen.” She replied in a calm reasoned voice, she smiled. His hackles softened and lowered, she was very charming when she smiled. “Yes,” he said softly. “I saw much action, too much perhaps, and some of it damn ugly.” His voice showed sadness now, not anger.
She frowned a little, “You did not like the soldier’s life, but surely this life is as hard, if not harder, and with less reward, and less honour!”
“Honour? You would not speak of honour if you had been on the counterscarp at Lille Miss Dahlbergh. I saw no honour there, just blood, rivers of it, blood and death and fear and terror and horror. Plenty of all that. But honour? No. There was no honour.”
“I saw the disaster at Poltava remember Herr Munro, I have seen blood and chaos myself.”
“Ah yes, Poltava, I heard it was a mess, will you tell me of it?”
“I will, but I have been speaking to you all day, surely it is my turn to listen now? I do not seek to pry, if Lille distresses you then tell of other things. How long did you serve?”
He paused thinking back.  It was a long time ago, and for much of that time he hadn’t thought it ugly. He had loved near every waking moment. He must have smiled, for she said:
“Some of the memories at least are fond?”
“Yes Miss,” he smiled a little more. “For years it was a great life, a vocation I had chosen, a home I had found, having never had a home at home before, as it were.”
At those words he again became pensive, and she paused in her questioning, backing off a pace or two in her mind, giving him space for what seemed more difficult memories. It was a strange remark to a girl of good family surrounded by siblings and loving parents. How could a gentleman have never had a home? The memory clearly pained him, and she forced back her curiosity.

The silence dragged on a few moments, then she asked him what she hoped was a safe question:
“Were you at the great victory at Blenheim?”
He smiled. “I was Miss, after a fashion, we dragoons did not have so much to do that day, at least not my Regiment, though we had a sharp skirmish or two in the pursuit. Ramillies I was at also, and Oudenarde. All Sir John, I mean the Duke of course, Marlborough. I was at all of his victories apart from Malplaquet. I had left by then.”
“So what can you tell me of Blenheim?”
“Not much, but I saw plenty at Oudenarde.”
“So tell me of Oudenarde.”
“I lost my best friend at Oudenarde.”
She regretted her question and said as much to him. But Oudenarde was clearly something different to the counterscarp at Lille, for he seemed fine with it. “It’s all of a piece Miss. He was lost doing his duty and if you had asked him that is how he would have said he wanted to die. Though perhaps he should not have been lost at all.” He fell silent, then seemed to come back with a start. Smiling with his lips, although not with his eyes he said: “It was a sharp little skirmish that played no small part in the Duke’s victory though I say it as perhaps shouldn’t.”
“Then I should very much like to hear of this skirmish, and of your best friend too, if you would care to tell me?”
He sat for a while, saying nothing, his eyes glued to the road, but she knew he had heard, and, somehow, she knew he was not upset. So she waited for him to find the right words to begin. Such stories she knew from experience were always hard to begin. But it was not just the hard beginning, although it was a hard beginning, it was the emptiness of the road. He was sure that the ambushers had gone the other way, and he was worried about Steiner.

Munro Chapter Six (part one) internet version

Munro Chapter Six

 

~ Comrades on a dusty and dangerous road

 

 

 

Munro felt calm as he first sensed the sun under the horizon. He knew the first tinge of dawn would be in about a half hour. It had been a trouble free night, and Christina, for so he was beginning to think of her, had given him a good rest. He had jerked instantly awake and alert at her touch, a dragoon’s sleep and a dragoon’s awakening. But he felt rested, even if it had been just a couple of hours.  Now a few cold and dull and very typical night watch hours later he woke her gently. She too started and the pistol in her hand came up in an automatic reflex that totally took him aback. She was ready, but she was clearly frayed. He wished he could let her rest longer.

“Steady on Miss, it’s Munro, I’d rather not be shot today!”

She sank back onto the ground, her lynx blanket softening the impact somewhat luxuriously for the circumstances. Munro was quite jealous of it. She closed her eyes again.

“It’s time to leave Miss,” Munro was firm. She sighed and nodded, her eyes remained shut. Then a deep breath and she sat up, as awake as him. “I am with you Herr Munro.”

“Gott sei dank!”

She smiled. “Why thank you Herr Munro, an early start is always made easier by some gallantry,”

Munro felt himself flush, his thoughts had been automatic, a reflex, and he had no idea what sort of trigger had let them become words. He handed her water canteen to her, and she swallowed greedily.

“We must lead the horses out of the gully and back to the road, the ground is too dangerous to ride them in the dark. We mount at the roadside and resume our journey. We need water for us, but mainly for the horses. Alles klar?”

“Alles klar”
He looked at her expectantly.

“There is a lot to tell.”

“We have time only for the briefest précis Miss, we must be on the road before first real light.”

“Alles klar,” she said again, “If it should be that only you reach the King’s messengers you must tell them that Peter of Russia has signed alliances with both Brancovo of Wallachia and Cantemir of Moldavia. They will rebel against the Sultan and aid an invasion by Peter next spring at the latest. There is some talk it might be this year, but we cannot cry wolf. Do you see? Better to say the plan is for spring. If there is a surprise attack within a month or two to catch the end of the campaigning season, at least the plan will be known allowing a better response.” She spoke as if she had learnt it by rote. She must have heard Dahlbergh recite it often, but she also sounded as if she understood the military facts. She had been in the field long enough.

“Miss Dahlbergh, we are in Cantemir’s lands. This is Moldavia.”

“I am not stupid Herr Munro!”

“Every hand will be against us!”

“No!” She was vehement. “Just Peter’s agents and their hirelings. Cantemir cannot reveal his treachery until Peter of Russia’s army is on hand. If he does he risks the vengeance of the Sultan!”

“That didn’t seem to bother him last year when Peter ambushed Swedish troops in his lands?”

 “He is already under suspicion after the scandal of that Russian raid; my brother is sure he will be more circumspect now. He thinks Cantemir must be above reproach until Peter enters his lands with massive force behind him.”

Munro bit his lower lip. Plausible enough. The Russians had already raided into the land towards the river Pruth and taken Swedish captives quite illegally. He held out a hand. She rose to her feet, unaided, but took his offered hunk of bread and gnawed eagerly at its tough crust as she made her way to her mare.  The mare was as tough as the bread, having carried her many miles and she loved and trusted her. Yet, like Munro’s gelding, the beast had been given no name. She had learned on the retreat from Poltava there was no time for sentimentality. She fondled the muzzle and copied Munro as he wrapped his cloak around the head of his mount.  Both horses were nervous as they made their way across the rock strewn gully, but both passed up through the thorn scrub without complaint. Indeed passing through with far more ease than their downward journey the night before, as if the previous experience had been already learnt. Good intelligent horses Munro thought and was comforted. They would need good intelligent and very hardy horses on this road. The couple quickly whipped off the head coverings, and both horses threw their heads up together in joint relief; a ballet that was almost filial. Animals made friends faster than people, Munro was reminded as he quickly muffled all the metalwork of bridles and stirrups. Now the first flush of sun really was discernible, the sky was taking on a pink tinge. “Sailor take warning,” thought Munro, wondering if they would have another of those very evil squalls like that of yesterday before his thoughts drifted onto more worrying issues.

 

Christina Dahlbergh’s story was probably good news for the Swedish diplomatic cause; especially if Charles could be seen to be the bearer – in good time – of a warning to the Porte. But bad news for those gentlemen adventurers caught in the middle of Cantemir’s lands surrounded by villains all eager to maintain the secret through the simple expedient of killing the messengers. It was all in all though, even for the most casual of students of eastern diplomacy, not unexpected. Peter had ambitions in the Balkans. He was taking a risk positioning himself as ‘The Christians’ liberator’, especially with Brancovo and Cantemir as allies. Brancovo was rumoured to have poisoned his predecessor, and the pair hated each other vehemently. They had but one thing in common, a desire for the lordship over their lands to become hereditary and not in the gift of the Porte. So the Ottoman Christian vassal Lords, if not their subjects, might easily be persuaded of some value in replacing allegiance to the Porte with allegiance to Russia. It all made sense, in theory at least. But Munro had already learned that the religious card was a complex play, here in the Balkans, a finesse at best. The Porte was very tolerant of the Christian minorities, indeed many Greeks were employed by the government, too many according to some senior Ottomans. The Orthodox worshippers were probably more resentful of Habsburg Catholicism than Ottoman Mohammedism. Whatever the complexities of the political-religious situation Munro and the girl were deep in the midst of enemy territory and knee deep in intrigue. Certainly not where any sane adventurer would chose to be. But what true adventurer could be said to be truly sane?  He felt the blood quicken in his veins. Fear? Yes, but also life itself, lived as it should be. It was if the very thought started the dawn chorus. Suddenly the noise of a waking world was all over.

 

They had to make good time; they had to hand over this news and then stay close to the Swedes until the dust settled. It was easy enough in concept, but it was still a long way to Ribniza, and so far not a day had passed without a brush with the so-called agents of this devil Rostov. There were a damnably large number of agents, he thought. So far she had not told him much more than her brother. But for now it was enough to know that Ribniza was their first chance at a safe delivery of the message. He hoped the Swedish messengers were there. Even as his mind raced his eyes scanned the lightening gloom and his ears strained for some noise made neither by them nor by nature. The faint jingle of horse furniture, heard so much more clearly and from further off at dawn than at any other time. Dawn was always when the professionals did their best work he thought, remembering Danvers, who had taught him his dragoon work in the year two. Now there was a real dragoon. There was little Danvers didn’t know about campaigning, patrolling or vedette work. He was mentor, sage and eventually friend to Munro, and now of course, like a good few others, he was dead. Unlike many of the deaths though, Danvers had not fallen at Lille. Danvers had died a couple of months before at Oudenarde. In a far more civilised encounter. Just as dead of course.

 

By now they had reached the road, and in tandem, with the same filial togetherness that their horses had shown, Munro and Christina both swung into their saddles. Munro wheeled to look back the way he assumed their pursuers would be returning from. He waved the girl on towards the bridge, the scene of yesterday’s near ambush, a league or so ahead of them again. He waited a moment, a long moment, then feeling sure that if there were villains waiting they would have pounced by now, he wheeled again and spurred into a canter, swiftly catching the Swedish girl, and signalling his intentions by gliding effortlessly past her. She responded with a jab of her own spurs and was beside him in a few seconds. He leaned over. “I want to be back across that bridge before full light. I want to see if we can fill our water there too!” The pace was too brisk for conversation, so she tucked her head lower out of the breeze of her own progress, settled her wide brimmed hat more firmly atop her head and kept pace with him.

 

They reached the bridge without incident. Munro, comforted by their clean escape from hiding plunged onto the bridge without caution, pulled his horse up sharply as it crossed back onto the dirt road and slid off and scrambled down the bank all in one motion. There was indeed water. Not much more than a trickle, but enough. It had probably been bone dry before the squall last afternoon. He filled his water canteen quickly and waved for hers. She threw it down and remained mounted, looking back the way they had came. “They would be on us before now if they had been waiting,” Munro said.

“I was thinking of my brother.”

Munro cursed inwardly at his insensitivity. Perhaps they had fooled the pursuers too well. Perhaps they had clattered on all the way to Balti and found the house in which her brother lay ill. Her brother and Steiner. Also odds of two against eight. But hopefully the doctor’s house would be defensible. Defensible if the doctor didn’t betray them that is.  Munro cursed again. He looked up and saw her looking down at him. He knew she had thought the same thoughts. He put up a hand onto the planks of the bridge to clamber up onto it. It looked far less rickety in the half light of dawn, but a timber, rotted with beetle, came away in his hand and dumped him back into the ditch. He could imagine the damp and doubtless spreading stain on his buttocks and cringed at the embarrassment and cursed. She smiled. He was glad she could smile. “I know you are worried about your brother Miss Dahlbergh …”

“I know my duty in this matter Herr Munro,” she said sharply. “Shall we water the horses?”

This of course made sense, Munro was rather annoyed he had failed in the proper sense of duty of a cavalryman to look first to his mount. He consoled himself with a gruff internal “Dragoons are not cavalry” in an silent impersonation of a pompous Horseguard.  It was also problematic. The bank by the bridge was too steep and tricky for the mounts. They could not afford any kind of accident to a horse. He was reluctant to lose too much time, he wanted distance along this road as soon as possible, but, distance would also be better served with well-watered horses. He nodded at her. “Choose a direction Miss, up trickle or down?”

She smiled and nudged her mount southward, “Up trickle I think Herr Munro”

In fact it was just five or ten minutes that brought them to a place where the horses could safely stumble down to the water, which looked somewhat more robust as a stream than it had by the bridge.

“At last” said the girl, obviously conscious of the delay.

“’He sends the springs into the valleys, they flow among the hills, they give drink to every beast of the field’[1], as the psalmist tells us Miss.”

This time she felt compelled to comment: “I never took you for a biblical man Herr Munro, but your knowledge of the psalms is impressive,” she said, although her voice made it a question and not a statement. Munro smiled. For now he preferred it as a statement, it was too complicated a question for this time and this place and he remained silent as their mounts made a stumbling way down to the water and showed their true thirst immediately. Munro felt sure the delay had been worth it. These mounts needed the rest they had last night, and needed this drink every bit as much. He could sense she was irritated by his silence, by his letting her veiled question slide. He knew her breeding didn’t allow her to repeat it as a direct question, but he sensed her femininity was about to overrule her breeding. So he started a new hare.

“You ride well Miss Dahlbergh, I hope it doesn’t offend you to say you ride like a cavalryman.”

“I was taught by a cavalryman, my brother, we come from a long line of cavalrymen, Herr Munro,” her voice showed a residue of irritation, but her face had softened, a smile flirted in her eyes, if not her lips. Her mare lifted its head and she took her bridle and nimbly led her up the bank, she was mounted in a swift, agile, boyish and yet still elegant movement and she spurred the mare, hitting a gallop within a few steps. It took Munro ten minutes to draw level then he held out a hand, making a dragoon signal for a slower pace, and somehow she fathomed his meaning. “We cannot blow the horses; we must walk for an hour.”

 

After a minute or so she said, “Let me tell you all I know. If we are parted you must forget me and think only of the message and its delivery. I must insist on this.”

---

[1] Psalm 104 KJV

Munro Chapter Five (part two) internet version

The two musketeers raised their weapons. Munro looked at Christina and the pair, as one, wrenched the heads of their horses round and spurred them back the way they had come. They heard the two gunshots, but didn’t even feel a whiff of breeze from the leaden balls. Munro had judged the distance well. Munro urged his gelding into a gallop and the girl followed suit, but after a hundred yards or so he eased off and looked back over his shoulder. The musketeers had clambered onto the wagon, and were busy reloading, but it would be a slow process. The ageing wagon and the rutted road between them were flinging them un-ceremonially around and they had to keep thrusting out hands to prevent themselves being bounced clean off the ill-built conveyance. In the distance Munro could see the other two loping at a steady pace off to the left, the north. He turned back and kept on at a steady canter. The pace of the two men struggling over the broken ground going for the horses suggested they were not that close. He allowed himself a smile. In twenty minutes of cantering they had lost sight of the pursuit. But he maintained the steady canter. He could not be sure when they would be properly mounted again, and the enemy’s horses were probably better rested having spent perhaps a day  waiting, while he and Christina had been on the road almost a full day. He was relieved when he rounded the foot of a low rise and, to the north of the road, his right hand side, opened up an expanse of gorse, furze, bracken and trees, low trees, unknown low trees. The ground was rough full of stubble, and rocks, even the odd boulder, it would have made better ambush terrain surely? That thought made him nervous, but he was committed and turned his mind to positive thoughts instead. He was confident their tracks would not be obvious, although a good tracker surely would seek them out. He was betting they were not going to stop to look. He pushed them on at a faster pace for another musket-shot. Then he jerked his reins and pulled off the road and into the rough, right at the further, western end, so they would be retracing their route somewhat as they entered the midst of it. Ahead he saw some slightly higher ground, a conical knoll. It had less cover, but they could conceal the horses in the defilade on the blind side, and he would rather be on the high ground if he was forced to make a stand. He made a beeline for it. He looked back – still no pursuit, but how long? The couple must be out of sight before they appeared. His anxiety mounted. His heart started to pound. He knew the last stand option would be just that. His last stand. He and the girl against six, probably seven or eight depending how many had been minding the horses, none of those sets of odds was really any option at all.

 

Then he saw it, the gully. He almost didn’t see it, and that was the best part. In the gloom of the coming evening it would be totally invisible, he was sure. The tangle of gorse was rooted in a rock crevice, and the crevice drew his eye, and then his eye was drawn to the obvious darkness behind and beyond. He veered toward it, could he get the horses past the thorn scrub? He would have to. He looked at the girl. “Do as I do.”

He wrapped his cloak around the head of his gelding and urged her down through the outer branches. As soon as he was through he saw the gully properly. It was rock strewn, a potential death trap for horses unless carefully led. He slipped off the gelding, trusting him to pick his careful way through and he plunged back into the bush, grabbing the reins of Christina’s unwilling mare and practically dragging her back with him into the gully. For a brief second, but not brief enough to prevent a shock wave of fear drenching his system, he thought she wouldn’t come. Then in a burst of energy and a shower of leaves and thorns she was through. Ignoring the grit and dust hurled into his eyes he rapidly dragged Christina off her mare, and freed from control the beast walked skittishly, but carefully towards Munro’s gelding. Christina fell into his arms, and for a brief moment, as brief as the one that gave him such fear earlier, he felt her warmth, her breath, her pulse, almost. He held her, for a brief moment. A moment as brief as all those other moments had been; but perhaps a pulse or two longer than a gentleman would think proper. Or a gentlewoman. She looked up at him, but said nothing. She gave nothing away at all. He pulled her lower, eager for them to be out of sight of the road and turned away following the horses deeper down the gully. He was confident that down here they could not be seen from the road. But what if their pursuers had ridden into view just in time to see them disappear? If so the next ten or fifteen minutes would be crucial, or fatal, he thought. He hurried her down, over the stone strewn gully floor as deep into it as he could go. The gorse and scrub overhung the gully in a wild tangle, it was perfect, unless they had been seen entering, in which case it was a death trap. Lower down he saw the overhanging rock. Not quite a cave, but a great shelter, and it meant they couldn’t be outflanked. Further still a flat round space, wider, more open, which the horses had already found and which offered some edible scrub they were already busy sampling. He let go of her hand and she crouched under the overhang without prompting. His look told her to wait, and he spun on a heel and made his way back towards their point of entry. He wanted to see what he could see. Being hidden was all well and good, but an observation post would make it ideal. He crawled low as he approached the gorse tangle they had come through, his hand reaching for his telescope, before realising it was not necessary. There was no view of any note. He could not see the road, he could barely see as far as he could throw a 24 pounder siege ball, which was by no means far. It was comforting in that it meant they themselves were invisible to all but someone stumbling upon them, but unsettling that the stumble would itself be the first warning they had. Perhaps the higher ground would have been better after all. He dismissed the thought. The bed was made, it was time to lie as comfortably as was possible. And lie he did, settling into the crevice to watch as far as he could see for the time it would take the enemy to be upon them, if they had been seen to leave the road for cover. He looked up at the late afternoon sun. He wanted to give it fifteen minutes, but in the end felt he was there more like a half hour, he checked the priming of his pistols at least twice, but eventually he decided they were safe, at least for a while. He made his way back to the girl.

 

She sat there calmly, but her pistol was in her hand. It looked enormous against her tiny gloved hands with their elegant fingers. Her look was a question.

“They could not have seen us, or they would have been upon us by now. But surely they will notice that our trail is lost?”

“At worst yes, and quickly too, and when they do this rough ground will be the most obvious place to look for us. But the worst is far from certain.” Her look questioned him again. “Well in hot pursuit, especially on a road, you don’t look for tracks. It may be a league or two before they smell the rat. It may get dark before they smell the rat, and then they may think it is the night that covers our tracks. Even if they return I don’t think they will enter this terrain in the dark.”

“You don’t expect them to be scared of the dark Herr Munro, surely!”

“Not scared, but wary. I suspect they know we will not go quietly, they may know that others of their number have already been killed. They may know we are not easy meat. Wandering into this tangle in the dark removes too much of their advantage of numbers. Besides finding us in here in the dark would be an accident, a most horrible accident for us, but still an unlikely accident. In truth our worst case is them moving in at sunrise.”

She thought for a while. “So do we resume the road now? Try to put distance between us and them?”

“No Miss Dahlbergh, we must wait till the first hint of dawn in the night sky.”

“Why?”

“Well I cannot be sure if they have even passed us. We could emerge into their hands. And our mounts need rest, the hours we rest them here in relative safety will stand us in good stead if we have to make a run for it any time tomorrow.”

“And if they are camped on the road waiting for us?”

“Well then we are unlucky travellers whom God has forsaken Miss.” He paused, looking at her face, it was still calm, but he could see the pinpricks of panic flicker in her eyes. She felt trapped, the road suddenly seemed safer to her. “Miss Dahlbergh, truly, we have no perfect solution, no faultless plan exists, but resting us and the horses makes most sense. And even if they come and search they may never find us here. I myself only saw the gully by the merest chance. And, if we are so forsaken as to be found down here, they can only come at us two or three at a time. Out there,” he waved a hand airily, at the world beyond the gully, “they can be seven or eight to two.”

She pondered, but not for long. She signalled her agreement, or her compliance or perhaps just a grudging acceptance with a change of subject:

“I am quite starved Herr Munro.”

“Then let us eat, such as we have to eat.  Miss Dahlbergh I regret your dinner will be served cold.” He didn’t expect a complaint, he knew should understand why there would be no fire, but part of him wished the girl within her had forced her way past the campaigner. He felt it would be nice to spend an evening with a girl and not a comrade. Such was life. He moved down to where the horses were grazing on their scant fare, still crouching instinctively at first, then, catching himself, raising to his full height, the gully was deep enough. He felt sheepish. “Damn this girl is making me a skittish colt”. He dismissed the thought as fast as it entered his head. He needed his wits about him.

 

They feasted, such as they could, on hard sausage and harder bread. The girl surprised him with some carrots and a kohlrabi from the pocket of her riding habit. They were far from fresh, but the reassuring crunching sounds made him feel his taste buds were alive again. A mouthful or two of water and the feast was complete. She said, “I feel surprisingly secure Herr Munro, but surely we are still in great danger?”

“A full belly can be very cheering Miss Dahlbergh. I often found so anyway. But we are not secure, we must trust our safety to a higher deliverer, I believe the Psalmist says: ‘mine eyes are unto thee, O God the Lord: in thee is my trust; leave not my soul destitute. Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, whilst that I withal escape.[1]’”

He did not notice her quizzical look.

 

The weather had turned chilly, as it always did here even after an unseasonably hot spring day there remained an equal chance of an unseasonably cold spring night. It reminded him of England, if somewhat more regularly extreme. The sky had darkened, and very suddenly too. He offered his cloak to the Swedish girl, but she shook her head and went to her mare, returning with what looked like a lynx skin cloak from her sadly bow. “This has kept me warm in worse cold than this,” she said simply. He hunkered down in his own cloak, and grinned, “I warrant it has Miss.”

They again sat in silence for a while until he said:

“I want to be awake in the second watch Miss, so I can judge the light and fix the right time to head back to the road. I do, however need at least a little rest, will you manage to stay awake for an hour or two?”

She stifled an indignant retort and put her pride-filled irritation to one side. This man was helping her and had seen so far only danger and no sign of any reward, snapping at him made no sense.  “Of course, I can stay awake as long as you need.”

“I need a couple of hours, three would be ideal.” She nodded her assent.

“But I believe Miss Dahlbergh we need to discuss more before we rest. I think it is clear that today, had it fallen out differently could have seen us separate. It could see you go down, or be lost. If you were unhorsed would you want me to come back for you?”
“No, you must get to the King!”

“Indeed Miss? And were I to do so, what in fact would I tell him? Apart from news of your death? It really is necessary for me to know what is happening!”

She sat in silence. He was irritated. The full realisation that he was risking his life and yet not trusted was irksome to say the least. But he kept a calm silence.

“Herr Munro, I am sure you are right, it is time you knew. But I have sworn such oaths of secrecy. My brother has impressed upon me over and over again, ad infinitum, as it were, that secrecy is of the essence. Would you allow me to ponder this till dawn? I am sorry, but it is not easy, I do not feel I have permission to say anything, and yet can see that saying something may indeed be the right thing.”

He sighed. “Of course Miss Dahlbergh. I shall get some rest while you ponder. Please awaken me in a couple of hours, or immediately if you feel that you cannot stay awake.”

“Of course, and what are my duties on watch?” Her confidence impressed him, she appeared to enjoy the trust, not seeing that it was desperation and not trust that defined his request for her to take a watch. She was proud, she was confident in the field. She was impressing him, and he knew it was not just some form of lust. It was deserved confidence.
“Keep the loaded pistols to hand, and shoot the first man to show his face. That should be sufficient to wake me!”

She smiled, and he was glad to see it. Surprisingly glad. Or perhaps unsurprisingly. It provoked his own mouth to break into a grin of genuine happiness. She smiled back, and he felt a joy that really did surprise him. He hoped it would not keep him from sleep.  But then when he was on patrol he had always managed to snatch his rest whenever and wherever, even mounted in the rain on one occasion.

He buried himself into a tangle of scrub, insulating himself from the ground, which was growing colder. He pulled his hat over his face, kept a pistol albeit un-cocked, in his hand, and closed his eyes. He slept within minutes, a deep dreamless and surprisingly untroubled sleep.

 

 

---

[1] Psalm 141 KJV

Munro Chapter Five (part one) internet version

Munro Chapter Five

 

~ In which new friendships are formed.

 

 

Back up on the high ground Munro looked at Christina for a while, and she coolly returned his gaze. He was surprised, but then decided he shouldn’t have been. After all it was only yesterday he saw her kill a man. Unsurprisingly, she had reacted badly. What woman wouldn’t? Let alone a genteel noblewoman of the Swedish Court. But Munro knew only too well that no one was the same after taking a life. There was innocence gone forever. Like virginity, only worse. Only God could ever repair the damage. So he looked at her as she returned his gaze.  The first day he remembered thinking her not a classic beauty, more striking than beautiful, and now he was revising his opinion. The chin had looked strong, perhaps too strong, but now he saw it as defined, sculpted, leonine, as indeed was her luscious pale brown hair. She had tied it up under her wide brimmed hat again, although the brim was no longer pulled right down to hide or disguise her femininity. It was as if that decision itself had opened up her features. Her smile seemed brighter, although still understandably it was a rare smile in the present crisis. Although he hadn’t really seen her hair at its full potential, he knew it would be a lustrous shiny pale brown that in certain lights was almost honey blonde. Perhaps leonine was not an accurate description of her colour, but it was accurate in heart. Her eyes were blue, of course, she was Swedish after all, but as he looked at her he saw there was a grey tinge to the blue. The blue was not at all classical, far from cobalt, but that seemed just to add to the charm. Although the grey-blue eyes were somewhat jaded from care, Munro thought that was only reasonable, after all, he didn’t know exactly what she had been through these past days, aside from the most recent night, and that was certainly bad enough. He pulled himself up with a start. He looked away. He could not help but suspect that she was not Ulrik’s sister, he didn’t know why, he found himself pondering. Then he reminded himself that he was, in effect, on duty. She smiled as he turned away, like all women she could sense admiration. But was it more? She broke the silence: “Mr Munro, we should be on our way should we not?”

“Indeed Miss Dahlbergh,” he nudged his horse. It was a roan gelding that had travelled a lifetime or two of dusty roads with him, but had never been honoured with a name. He reined it into a tight turn and urged it to trot down the other side of the hillock, Steiner having long descended the side facing the sprawling clutch of buildings that was all the town of Balti was. “We will not reach Ribniza before nightfall; indeed it will be tomorrow nightfall before we reach it, if we keep a reasonable pace. So we need to find a resting place tonight. My concern, after the events at the tavern last night is that all such places are being watched. I fear even if the details of this mission of you and your brother remains secret, the mission itself is no secret at all.”

“I warrant you are right Herr Munro! So let us do as you say and avoid inns and villages.”

“You will forgive my impertinence Miss Dahlbergh, but have you much experience of campaigning?”

“I have enough, Herr Munro, I have been with my brother for many years abroad. I will survive in the field.”

Munro took the opening. “You must be very close to your brother Miss Dahlbergh, to face such hardships. You must love him very much…”

“Our family has a history of service to the Crown, Herr Munro,”

“Even on the female side of the hearth?”

“Ah, well, the hearth had less attraction after my father and mother and young brother all died of the ague in the year one, shortly after Narva.”

“I am sorry.”

She shrugged. It was a tired gesture, resigned, it saddened him that she was so beyond grief, even of such momentous bereavement. “It was a lifetime ago.”

“So you came to the army after that?”

“Yes, I arrived during the negotiations for the first treaty with Augustus at Altranstadt. I have been here ever since, right up to Poltava and the retreat.”

“You were there? At Poltava?” He was stunned, this girl had indeed seen campaigning, and, at its worst. She shrugged again, then nodded, the resignation, the tiredness, was the same as for the loss of her family. She was used to death, even if last night had been her first time she had played the role of the reaper. Her smile was so distant now, and Munro realised he missed it and wanted to see it again. There followed a silence. And he let it drift on the warm breeze, the smile was gone and he had the sense to know he could not lure it back with mere guile. They had ridden down the slope and were on the road, such as it was. After a while he said simply. “We will sleep in the open tonight, I will look for a place.”

 

She nodded.

 

*****

 

His nervousness seemed unfounded. They had been on the road for a few hours, making a steady but not overly urgent pace; a good dragoon forced march pace but no more.  The predicted and long-awaited rainstorm had been brief but violent. It had been one of those refreshing, intense and overpowering squalls. It cleared the muggy heat that had been so oppressive, and added to the dark silence that hung over Munro like a shroud. Of course they paid a price for their refreshment, the rain was like a solid wall of wetness, a waterfall that carried such volume that it seemed to soak through every layer of clothing, no matter how thick, in a matter of moments. They were far from comfortable and shelter was not to be had. There were some isolated trees, even some clumps of tree and brush, but the first vicious stab of jagged lightning ensured they stayed clear of them. Although a lightning strike might be rare, the few trees offered to make such little difference to their soaking that the risk seemed not worth the effort to leave the road. Certainly the storm was right above them for a while, the lightning and thunder near simultaneous, the flashes scarring what had become a pitch black sky and shedding a brilliant yet ominous light on the rutted and ill-kept road, casting shadows that seemed to harbour evil. It ended as suddenly as it began, and within minutes of the sudden end of the waterfall of rain there was again a bright warm sun in the sky. That had been a couple of leagues back and for a while steam had risen gently from their sodden and now sun-warmed clothes. Munro imagined they looked like a small cloud from a distance. It made him smile, but his smile neither provoked hers, not even a question about what amused him, she was lost to him for now. He went back to the considering the road. Already the puddles were draining and drying; so fast it was almost visible. The roan gelding was already shedding shards of dried mud that had collected on his hooves. A mere hour ago the downpour had turned the dirt road into a morass. Now the road was again hard dirt and each footfall saw the hooves become a little cleaner. The sun was going to be just as hot. It was a depressing thought, although as the final clouds scudded beyond the eastern horizon ahead of him he felt the sunshine should make him cheerful, but somehow it could not, not if she didn’t smile.

 

 They had seen no one. They had been silent. Munro did not feel he could in all conscience start a conversation. His last two gambits had unearthed family bereavement and Poltava. No commander throws his troops into the breach a third time after two such bloody repulses. She had not offered another line of attack. She looked calm, her sadness even seemed to have drifted off into the grime and dust of the poor road mixed with the steam from her damp clothes. But she did not speak to him, nor look at him. Silence reigned for those hours until Munro saw the faint dust cloud emerge from around a bluff about a league ahead. Definitely not a cloud caused by steaming clothes. He said simply, “Wait.” And she reined in beside him as he observed, at first with naked eye and then with a small telescope. This was his own cheap and worn glass, not Dahlbergh’s impressive object and it was some minutes before he discerned the wagon through the dust. His manners had been too fine to have borrowed the Swede’s as he lay unconscious on the doctor’s table, but he regretted the niceness now.

“Just a wagon.” He nudged his gelding into an easy walk. She kept pace with him. They approached the wagon steadily until it pulled off the road just shy of a rickety plank bridge that crossed what looked like a dry gully. Munro was still at the outer range of a battalion gun from the wagon, maybe four hundred yards; although the range would close fast if they and the wagon were both in motion. They were just within musket shot before he questioned himself as to why the wagon had stopped. Initially he dismissed it, he was being too anxious. It had stopped merely because not all of them could fit on the rickety old plank bridge. But such anxiety had kept him alive for many years. Why stop when even the slowest of wagons would have cleared the bridge long before he and Christina had reached it? His decision seemed to make itself. “Wait,” he said again and he stopped his gelding, with Christina alongside him. He rested his hands on his saddle bow. He made no move for his weapons. He merely waited. The bridge was beyond pistol range. Well beyond, but within long musket-shot. He waited calmly. He could see no musket, and it would have taken a damn good shot, or a battalion volley to put the couple much at risk.

After a minute she asked: “You think it’s a trap?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not right, something is not right.”

The wagoneer gave them a cheery wave. “That is definitely not right!” She nodded, she too knew such friendliness was an exception on these roads, especially in these years of strife. The wagoneer held up a wineskin. Beckoned the couple with what Munro sensed was his finest welcoming smile. Munro unhooked his water canteen from his saddle and toasted the wagoneer with it, before taking a sip. “Drink,” he said to the girl and then “Tie down your canteen so it cannot come loose in a gallop. Make sure you are ready to fly.” She did as he asked, unquestioningly. She knew this was the time to be a good soldier.

The wagon started to approach again, the four mules straining to get the wheels moving back onto the dirt track from the rougher ground in which it had waited. The wagoneer urged them on with a whip, his friendliness all gone. “If it is a trap the others will be under the bridge. I do not think they can have horses down there too, so if they pursue we can outdistance them easily if they are on foot. More likely they will head for the horses first, and I can see nowhere close that they can be hidden. This gives us most of the trump cards Miss Dahlbergh.”

“Most?”

“Well if it is a trap, there will be more of them, more, I suspect, than I can take on. So I would rather evade them than confront them.”

She looked at him sharply. He knew she wanted to tell him he was not going to be fighting alone, and he admired her greatly, both for feeling it and as much again for not saying it. She held her tongue well. “So what is your plan?” she asked.

“We will withdraw, slowly, about a league and a half back there was a stretch of rough ground, light infantry country to the north of the road. We will get there. If they are in close pursuit we can try to find a place to make a stand. If they are not we will cover our tracks and hope their hurried pursuit takes them straight past, preferably the latter.” With that he started to back his horse away from the bridge. She followed suit. The wagoneer responded with a harsh cry, directed perhaps at his recalcitrant mules. There was some frantic whipping of the animals. But the mules were indifferent. Another cry as the wagon creaked and rattled onto the timbers of the bridge, and then they all emerged, four of them, from under the bridge. Two with long muskets, the other two armed with pistols.  A fifth emerged from under the canvas at the back of the wagon. He had what looked to be a blunderbuss. The two musketeers raised their weapons. Munro looked at Christina and the pair, as one, wrenched the heads of their horses round and spurred them back the way they had come.

Munro Chapter Four (part two) internet version

“You are Munro, are you not?” he said, and even with his very basic English Steiner knew the tone was intentionally rude, argumentative and overbearing. He received no answer. He repeated his question, with the same result. He banged a big ugly fist down on the table. “Answer me sir!” The power of the blow caused the drinker’s tankard to make a small convulsive leap in the air, the wine inside made a somewhat larger leap, and a goodly portion of it came to rest outside its former home. Steiner was unsettled at that memory, why did the recollection of a little spilled wine make him so uneasy? But the past was still fixed in his head.

“You have spilled my drink.”

“Are you Munro?”

“I am. And you have spilled my drink,” he sounded as if it was the most recent in a long line of drinks. Perhaps that emboldened the fat redcoat.

“I don’t care a farthing for your drink, Munro, you resigned from Cadogan’s Dragoons?”

“I did. Do I not have that right?” suddenly he sounded a lot less drunk.

“They say it is because you are a coward.”

“This ‘they’ you speak of, they don’t seem to say it to my face,” and at this point he sounded very sober indeed. Steiner knew this was going to be fun.

The redcoat paused, he was on the brink of a step that might not be retraceable.

“I am saying it to your face!” the deed was done. He seemed to swell, like some peacock competing for territory or showing off to a hen. But there were no pea-hens to be seen. Even the flame haired girl had made herself scarce. “Do you have some other explanation for the stories told at every bivouac?”

“I do not choose to explain myself to you sir, nor to ‘them’, whoever ‘they’ are. And you have spilled my drink.”

“Damn your drink Munro, and damn you, you coward, don’t you realise there is still a war on, and you have duties and obligations!”

Munro looked up at him, a look of resignation coming slowly over his features. He sat for a second or two as if in deep thought.

“I tell you what,” he said. “We don’t need to quarrel. I will forgive you for spilling my drink. I will forgive you for shouting at me like a bloody servant, and you can forgive me for resigning my commission. So be a good fellow and go and sit down!”

“Is that the tone you took with my cousin Collins when you were in Cambridge, you worthless bastard.”

“You know I am glad you said that, because this was making no sense to me at all.”

It still made no sense to Steiner, but then he had not heard of the duel in Cambridge that had set Munro on his path to Cadogan’s dragoons. Munro himself was pondering the irony that a duel had preceded his army career and now a duel would provide the full stop at the end of that career.

“If your cousin Collins had not called me a cheat and a liar he would be alive.”

“Well I am calling you a coward, a cheat and a liar!”

Munro winced. “I really am going to have to ask you to apologise now,”

“Go to hell!” the fat man was really angry now, Munro’s soothing quiet voice had done more harm than good, if good had been his intent, Steiner would never be sure. “I apologize for nothing, if you require redress I suggest you send a second to speak to my friend Lieutenant Villiers. Assuming you have any friends left!”

“How wonderfully formal! I do seem to be short of a good second right now. Perhaps you won’t be too offended if I make an appointment to kill you directly with your friend?”

“I knew it was too much to expect you to behave like a gentleman,” the fat redcoat was seething. Munro’s calmness and lack of anger had poured hot coals on his head, just as the writer of the Book of Proverbs said it would in the Bible. Steiner felt he was going to be cheated of his fun. He stood up and said in his good if heavily accented English:

“I will be the second!”

The antagonists paused to look at him, in all his imposing might. They were, it was clear, quite taken aback. Steiner was used to this, not many people saw humans his size. He wandered over to the fat redcoat’s friend and said simply:

“Duel?”

Villiers looked towards his friend who nodded.

“When?”

“Now dammit!”  

“I really don’t desire to kill you, you know.” Said Munro, softly.

“Well unfortunately for you, you gutless vermin, I have every intention of killing you! Outside!” He stormed off, barging through chairs and scattering them like a human cannonball ploughing through a rank of grenadiers, while other bystanders swerved back to keep out of his way. Munro stood slowly and picking up a pack from the floor, he wandered towards Steiner. “He really has an unfortunate way with the furniture,” in near perfect German, albeit rather tainted with the accent of Hessen, thought Steiner, who, though most definitely ‘of the people’ was rather snobbish about his own Hamburger Hochdeutsch. “Stimmt!” he said simply with a huge grin. And followed Munro out into the daylight in a snakelike parade led by the still un-named fat redcoat who was followed by Villiers with the two in civilian dress bringing up the rear albeit only briefly for a file of eager onlookers soon debouched from the inn behind them. The sun felt bright on Steiner’s eyes after the gloom of the Auberge. Munro’s response was to thrust his dragoon tricorne back onto his head. Steiner noticed all the lace and military insignia had been ripped from it none too subtly. Steiner said “swords?” in a soft voice with a questioning lilt. He knew a seconds duty, clearly his man would have an advantage with the sword, his portly opponent could hardly be agile. “macht nichts” replied Munro, “it doesn’t matter, don’t argue, mach keine sorge.” He walked purposefully towards the redcoats. Villiers was saying: “Neither of them are gentlemen in the accepted sense, why don’t we get Sergeant Atkins to organise a platoon to thrash them both?”

Steiner pretended he had either not heard or not understood and stood before them smiling his best simpleton’s smile. He found many people liked to assume that God had given him less brains to compensate for his over-generous portion of brawn, and he frequently encouraged them in that belief. Villiers looked him up and down disdainfully. “My man has choice of weapons and he chooses pistols. We have a matched pair, made by William Clarke in London, who I am sure you know is the finest maker of duelling pistols in Europe, if not the world,” he paused for Steiner’s assent, but not actually long enough to let the German make one. “My man is bringing them from the baggage. You will load them with me?” he clearly assumed Steiner had never officiated at a duel of gentlemen before. Of course he was right, but Steiner was nevertheless affronted. He wasn’t an idiot for all love! He said. “In England seconds fight too? In Germany we fight too” His grin was more than just mischievous.

Villiers looked him up and down, and Steiner made it all too clear that he really wanted the answer to be affirmative, and looked suitably downcast when Villiers said: “no”.

“Schade,” was all he said, “shame,” and joined in the loading of the newly arrived pistols with a big grin. He really did hope he had a chance to teach the redcoat some manners. Villiers said, “I should warn you my man is a killer. He can shoot the ace out of the ace of spades at twenty paces!”

“He is not shooting at playing cards today.”

“This is his third outing in my acquaintance, and I know of half a dozen others. All fatal to his opponent. Perhaps your man might agree to swallow the insult?”

Steiner shrugged and made his way back across the courtyard. He allowed he had misjudged the portly redcoat. Not merely an arrogant drunk. An arrogant bully, a man who liked to kill in the semi-legal guise of a duel. He probably always picked loners like this one, men whose families wouldn’t have anything to say. Somehow he still felt this time the bully had chosen his victim unwisely. But he still didn’t know why he had such confidence. “Herr Munro.” He clicked his heels with more formality than he usually mustered and presented him the pistol. “I have myself loaded it, and checked priming and flint, es ist voll in Ordnung.” Munro  nodded and hefted it in his palm. It was perfectly balanced, clearly one of Clarke’s finest pieces. “The fat man has used them before, it gives him advantage.” Munro nodded. “His friend says he has killed before.” Munro nodded again.  Steiner looked at him and realised that what he saw was not bravado, not even steady courage. His eyes were dead already. Perhaps he had died enough in the war, although at that moment in history Steiner had not known about the counterscarp at Lille, nor the marshy stream at Oudenarde, at least not from Munro’s perspective. But, thinking back now, as he wended his way down the Moldavian hillside he wondered if that was not what it was about. He had seen the look often enough since and it still un-nerved him.

 

Munro went to leave the shadows of the tavern and move into the light, and Steiner grabbed his arm. “My friend.” The ice cold gaze descended on him. “I am a soldier too. I know this look. I know you don’t care. But listen. When you end this life, it should not be for him.” The last word was said as if the German was spitting bile into the gutter. Munro looked across at his opponent. He still did not know his name. He still did not care. But the German was right, he was a typical arrogant pig of a militarily ignorant British officer. The worst kind of pompous landed gentry. He had hated them when he was at University studying. Later, after the scandal at Cambridge when his Scottish landed gentry father had washed his hands of him, after all you cannot be disowned when you are a bastard, Munro had hated them even more. The German was right, it shouldn’t be for him. He was stood trying to give himself the advantage of the light, positioning the sun in Munro’s eyes, but Steiner was no fool, and tut-tutted as he shook his finger in disapprobation and disagreement. Some other redcoats had arrived. Ordinary soldiers, one of them called out: “Mind your own business Dutchy!”

Steiner was hoping someone was going to give him an excuse very soon. But for now he ignored them and manoeuvred the alignment so the light was neutral.

They stood 20 paces apart. It didn’t have to be fatal, an average shot might easily miss a man sized target at that range, but Villiers had said his man was a killer. Steiner looked at his man, and thought again. “He is already dead, this won’t even hurt.”

 

Villiers called out in a distinct, precise and officious voice:

“Present your weapons!”

The fat man took careful aim. Munro didn’t move. Steiner felt his worst fears confirmed. Villiers called again,

“I said present your weapons sir!”

Munro looked at him. Steiner could feel the skin crawl on the back of his neck. The man had changed in an instant. His eyes revealed a man in another place, in a world where all his being was focused on one event, this event, this little matter of life and death. His antagonist saw it, Villiers too, they all sensed it. Steiner could see the first flicker of doubt, nerves and fear in the fat man. His mortality was revealed to him, and he felt it deeply. Was that a tremor in his hand? Munro snapped back: “Get on with it!” He turned back to his antagonist just as Villiers called “Fire!” and in a smooth motion he raised the pistol as the other’s fired with a booming explosion. Munro’s went off a split second later. The courtyard resounded with the twin and slightly off-set explosions, the shots seemed to rebound off the high walls for an age. The black smoke eddied over the duelling ground. Steiner had been looking at Munro, unable to take his eyes off him, so he had not seen Munro’s ball take the fat redcoat just below the right eye and hurl him backwards seven or eight feet where he caromed off a sutler’s wagon, spun a full turn and a half around and sank so very slowly and quite dead on the ground. The flame haired girl had seen it however, and it was her scream that made Steiner aware that Munro had killed his opponent. He rushed over to Munro. “Are you hit?”

“No. But he has ruined my sleeve.” He looked down at a charred hole that scarred the well worn sleeve of his right hand. The ball could not have missed flesh by more than the breadth of a silk thread. The redcoat’s deadliness had wavered by that much, maybe the tremor Steiner had seen had been all that was needed, but Steiner felt sure that the furies wanted this man to live. Out of the corner of his eye Steiner saw, or did he rather feel the handful of red-coated soldiers move angrily towards them motioned by Villiers. Steiner spun to face them, and with a rapidity no one ever expected of him he had two pistols in his hand. One of them he pointed straight at Villiers. “Behave like a gentleman, or behave like a dead man. I give you the choice.”  Even with his sparse English Steiner had made the word gentleman sound like an insult. The other waved airily at the clutch of redcoats, who, bereft of their muskets suddenly realised they had turned up at a gunfight equipped only for a brawl. Villiers looked back at the German. It didn’t take a genius to know that the big man was itching to kill him.

“Enough Sergeant!” he called. And, as suddenly as it began, it was over.

Steiner turned back to his duellist, “Herr Munro, we find some other Kneipe to celebrate, no?” and patted him on the back.

Munro smiled. “Indeed, a splendid plan.” But there was no joy in the smile. Steiner wouldn’t see joy for quite some time.

 

He slid off his horse and banged on the doctor’s door just as the first spatters of rain bounced off the low roof that overhung the front of the house.

***

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Munro Chapter Four

 

In which we learn of how our adventurers first met

 

“I think its best I stay with you,” Steiner said simply, looking piercingly at munro, while Munro gazed back down at Balti from the hill. Steiner continued more pointedly: “The road will be dangerous and we know this Rostoff doesn’t send his ruffians in one’s or two’s. He sends them in sixes and sevens, maybe even more.”

“I know, but Dahlbergh could be betrayed any day, any minute even!”

“And if he is then there will I be, alone against a half dozen with a sick man to help, and there will you be, with only a girl against another half dozen!  It makes no sense.”

“I can’t leave him while he can’t even raise an arm!”

“We must all stay!” interjected Christina, “At least until he can fight!”

“Miss Dahlbergh, he would not want that! He has a mission. And, I believe so do you!”

She slumped back in the saddle. The need to choose between her mission and her brother was tearing her apart and it showed in her whole demeanour. She knew the mission and it mattered to her as much as it did to him. But did it matter to her as much as he mattered to her?

 

An uneasy silence fell, broken by a pair of courting larks, their noise belying their size. Their cares at least were more mundane and their desires much easier to satisfy. For the troubled human souls, there was no right answer. Not even Steiner wanted to leave Dahlbergh alone, he was merely the only one who voiced what they were all thinking about dividing forces. It was a bad idea, but there didn’t seem to be any good ideas on offer to the party. The weather had turned as gloomy as the party. The sun of the past few days seemed to have been swallowed up in a grey swamp of cloud, some of it dark and angry. Maybe a thunderstorm, thought Munro, who was first to break the silence.

“Steiner, go back to him, at least until he is awake and alert. Then follow on. You will catch us soon enough. I do not think his sister can leave him, and I am far from sure I can myself, damn it all! He’s a brave man, he deserves better!”

The girl sighed with relief, and Steiner sniffed. He wouldn’t argue, he had made his point, and that was enough, as usual Munro’s instincts were worth trusting. “How will I find you?” was all he said.

Munro turned to the girl. “Miss Dahlbergh,” he was all politeness, “I know that your brother has impressed the secrecy of this mission on you, and as a gentleman I feel inhibited from any natural curiosity being put into words. But, I believe Herr Steiner and I are now comrades if not family. We need to know everything if we are to manage all this.”

She looked stressed, uncomfortable, her cheeks flushed. She had indeed been sworn to secrecy. Worse still, for days her brother had reinforced the sensitivity and confidentiality of their task. To tell anything was difficult, to tell all virtually impossible.

“I can’t,” were her eventual soft and hesitant words.

Steiner, never one for polite niceties, and of course not caring whether he was considered a gentleman had little truck with this.

“Verdammt! Munro, let’s go on our way. Why am I risking my life to defend her Verdammte Brueder?”

“Steiner,” Munro chided softly, but he turned to the girl again. “Miss Dahlbergh, my friend is harsh, he means no ill will, it is his way. They are like that in Hamburg, apparently.” He smiled what he hoped was his best and most disarming smile. “But he does have a point. We are all in equal danger now, and, although I hesitate to mention the point let alone belabour it, but you alone cannot complete this mission!”

Her visible stress increased, she groaned. Munro reached out a hand. “Let me make you an offer as a gentleman to a lady; an honourable offer.” His pause turned it into a question, and his words recollected the lady to her station in life and the import of her role. She drew herself up.

“You may Herr Munro”

“We need to send Herr Steiner to your brother, but Herr Steiner needs to know where to find us, because if the villains who attacked you last night have companions, and we can be sure they do, then we will need him with us as soon as we can get him. Agreed?”

She nodded.

“Your brother has told me that Peter of Russia plans a surprise attack, that alliances have been made. He said nothing more, but I am sure there was more.”

She waited silent and unmoving. Munro was impressed with her calmness and the solidity with which she made sure she gave no hint of anything away. He continued.

“I ask you not to tell us everything. I ask you to tell us enough to enable us to make some plans for rendezvous with Herr Steiner, I ask you to tell us enough that he can follow and improvise where needs be. I ask you to keep back anything you feel honour bound to keep secret, but…” he raised his voice a little as she leaned forward to agree, “…but, I ask you, on your honour, to keep nothing back that we need to know in order to have the best chance of survival. On my honour, I ask to know no secrets other than those that might keep me- and you - alive!”

She smiled. “I will tell you this, we have three villages at which we may make rendezvous with members of the King’s closest entourage. I will tell you their names, and you can plan whatever you need to plan now between you. But Herr Steiner need know nothing more than that, and if he is captured he can reveal nothing more than that.”

“Tell me the names of the villages and I will go to your brother. Munro, I will catch you as soon as I can.”

“Please make sure he is safe Herr Steiner, I beg you, my brother is all I have in this world now.”

Steiner softened, but only Munro could tell. He memorised the names of the villages, paused briefly to clasp Munro’s hand, and was gone.

 

“Miss Dahlbergh, those places are on the road to Tiraspol and Bender, albeit not by our most direct route, as Ribniza, the largest of them, is a day’s ride out of our way. I believe His Majesty is at Bender? We need to head east and make good progress before nightfall. With permission?” He set off at a fast trot, leaving her to keep up. He had already seen her shoot a man in the back. He didn’t feel keeping up would be her problem. He was more worried about the storm. He was more certain than ever it would come, and while it would be a welcome clearing of the hideous heat they had rode through so far, it would make for a wet, ugly, cold and unpleasant journey to the place he had in mind for their first night. He only hoped it would be over with quickly, because he was sure inns, taverns and the like were not the way to travel on this particular journey, besides the terrain between here and Ribniza was both rugged and sparsely populated. A night exposed to the elements called for kinder elements than he sensed were approaching. This spurred him to canter for a while down the easy slope, and effortlessly she drew alongside him. He was impressed. She rode well. He liked her quite as much as her brother. Indeed, his fondness for her was somewhat different, as was to be expected of a gallant gentleman in the company of a splendid, striking and feisty woman of noble birth who has the voice of a siren and the riding ability of a hussar.  Well,  adventure really is upon us, he thought, I hope it is not a dose too rich for our bellies.

 

Riding down a different slope, heading west towards Balti; a more dangerous and rock studded slope; Steiner maintained a walk, at one stage he thought of leading his sturdy mare, but he saw his way clear all of a sudden and clattered past a clump of gorse onto the track that skirted the valley and led into town. Munro had given him directions and he would find the doctor’s house without need of an urchin guide. He was not much given to worry, or pondering, or even forethought. He never had been. He always knew what to do when the fighting started. When he met Munro he knew right away that here was a man who could take his share of worrying and pondering. Munro was a good sort of Mensch. For an officer. Steiner smiled. Their first meeting had been fun, great fun.

 

It was back in the year eight. A few weeks after the end of the great siege of Lille. Steiner had been there as a hired civilian gunner. Not many took him for a gunner. But he had served the guns most of his military life. At first they thought him just useful for carrying ammunition for the siege pieces. But over time he had learned his profession well, and could easily have commanded a battery, if only someone had bothered to ask. He had been hired for the siege works at Lille. Steiner had no bad memories of the siege himself, his cannon were far from the bloodbath on the counterscarp. He knew of course that Munro had many bad memories of it. He’d heard the nightmares a few times too. But Lille had been weeks before they met. A couple of weeks at least. He wasn’t good at remembering those details, but he remembered the tavern well. Don’t ask him what it was called. It was a verdammte tavern, in Flanders, he had been in every damned one of them and they were all the same. Steiner had been paid off, and had almost been paid all he was owed. He could have stayed on and hoped for full makeup, but he was old soldier enough to take the bird in the hand and break early for winter. He had fancied heading east anyway. He had heard there were lots of freelance opportunities, and he had picked up a lot of the lingo in the Imperial Service, most of it fighting the Turks in Moldavia and Wallachia. Anyway, he had most of his wages and was heading east, and he had stopped for a few drinks, after all a man needs to keep his spirits up when travelling. There was a girl too he remembered. Flaming red hair and a laugh that made Steiner think of pure sin. But of course his memories now, coloured as they were by events, were mostly of the silent drinking man in the corner.

 

Steiner had seen plenty of silent drinking men in his time; the ones drinking to forget and the ones drinking to remember. The ones drinking in rage and the ones drinking in sorrow. The ones drinking from too much love and the ones drinking from too much hate. And what the hell difference was there between those two eh? That’s something Steiner would like to know. Steiner knew all those silent drinkers. Damn it, he had been most of those drinkers himself at one time or another. But this one was different, so different that he distracted Steiner almost unforgivably from his conquest of the redhead. The man was tall, not as tall as Steiner of course, hardly anyone was, but taller than most. His hair was a sort of non-descript mousey colour that had been a little bleached in the summer sun. The hair was kept very short, like a man might keep hair under a wig. But he did not look like a wig wearer, he did not look like an officer at all. His features were strong, but also soft, he was handsome in an unassuming way if you ignored the slight tilt to his nose, evidence of a minor break in years past. The ladies’ heads wouldn’t turn as he walked past, but once they had seen him they would notice him well enough. He looked like he hadn’t smiled in a hundred years and wouldn’t smile again until snow-sleighs were fashionable in hell. Clearly he was, or had been, a soldier. A soldier could always tell. Steiner had him down as a dragoon, but could not have explained why. The drinker drank, but did not get drunk. His head was up, but his eyes saw nothing. The world he was in was not the same world as the rest of us, Steiner thought, and settled in to distract himself with the man and the flame haired girl. One or other would provide for some diversion. He was sure of it.

 

When the red-coated Englishmen came in he saw the drinker stiffen. The drinker hadn’t seen them, not in any way normal people would understand, his eyes still saw nothing, but he knew they had walked in, and he knew they were English, and Steiner knew the man wasn’t happy. At that point Steiner also knew the drinker was English himself, he just knew, and he would brook none of the nationalistic arguments those English liked to trick you with. To Steiner they were all English, he held no truck with all this Scottish and Irish nonsense, this was just to confuse honest men. They were all Englishmen in their redcoats. Verdammt even the mad Irishmen who fought for France, what did they call themselves? The Wild Geese? Yes, that was it. Well even those madmen wore redcoats!

 

The redcoats sat down, noisily, as they always did, and ordered wine, noisily, as they always did. In loud slow English. The drinker showed no sign of noticing, but Steiner knew he had, and when the redcoats noticed the drinker it became obvious to everyone that their conversation made him its subject.  So obvious that over a few sentences, each somewhat louder and more pointed, all other conversation ceased. But the drinker remained oblivious, unaware or at least unmindful. The redcoats didn’t like that at all, and Steiner grinned inwardly, this is going to get interesting, he thought, maybe even fun. One of them he recalled was stockily built. He paused, at the time he had thought of him as the fat one, but Steiner could be sensitive about size, when he was a boy he had often been called ‘fatty’. It hurt, he recalled, although when he had sprung up into the broad-chested Linden tree he now was in late teenage he also recalled no one any longer called him anything likely to offend.  Anyway when the stockier fellow got up, he did so with a showy backward push to his chair. The sudden movement made the drinker’s eyes flicker, as if his sense for danger overrode his seeming coma. But his eyes still ignored the redcoat, fixing instead on his chair. It had slid backwards as the redcoats rather formidable nether regions shoved it, and, the legs running up against a knot or blemish or flaw in the floorboards. It paused in its run, teetered, as the back retained its momentum after the legs had lost all theirs. It seemed to hang in the air for an age, perhaps an eon, but Steiner was never clear on what an eon actually was. But there hung the chair, with the drinker’s eyes fixed on it, and Steiner’s eyes drawn to it by the intensity of the man’s gaze. Then, at a speed that appeared far slower than Mr Newton had allowed gravity to generate it toppled, and in the silence of the once noisy tavern it crashed to earth with a thud that seemed both ringing and wooden, the sound distorted by the low beams. In the time it had taken to fall the redcoat arrived before the drinker.

“You are Munro, are you not?” he said, and even with his very basic English Steiner knew the tone was intentionally rude, argumentative and overbearing. He received no answer. He repeated his question, with the same result. He banged a big ugly fist down on the table. “Answer me sir!” The power of the blow caused the drinker’s tankard to make a small convulsive leap in the air, the wine inside made a somewhat larger leap, and a goodly portion of it came to rest outside its former home. Steiner was unsettled at that memory, why did the recollection of a little spilled wine make him so uneasy? But the past was still fixed in his head.

“You have spilled my drink.”

****

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