The Mercenary's Claim (2 page)

The man approached. Kirsten got the feeling he was going to come closer, but then he abruptly stepped back again as if he had made up his mind about something. His next words revealed to her that he had. “She’ll do. I only wanted to make sure she had all the usual number of limbs and a voice a man doesn’t wince to wake up to.”

“I’ll do?” It came out as a whisper because all the air had seemed to go out of the room. Kirsten couldn’t get her breath. Here, in the middle of the night, in this shadowy room with only her parents and a few soldiers near, this man was looking at her like a piece of furniture he was thinking of buying. She had always known it was likely, even prudent that her parents would make a match for her, but she had assumed it would be among the nobles of the area, all of whom were known to her, at least by reputation. Surely, this man, dressed in rough traveling clothes the commoners wore, had no business examining her as if he might dare to dream that she might be his. “Wake up to? Mother?”

“There’s no time to explain,” Lady Helena murmured. “You’ve done well. Hold your tongue and trust me. Only a little longer now.”

Father Paulus entered the room, bowing to her parents before noticing the stranger and stepping back. As if the words were shocked out of him, he said, “Gustav Jager!”

The stranger stepped forward and clasped the priest’s hand. “It’s been a long time. I heard you’d taken vows, Sepp.”

Lord Ludolf’s eyebrows furrowed. “You know him?”

“I’m- I’m Father Paulus now,” the priest stammered, ignoring Ludolf. “And you! You’ve—”

“Been around a bit, yes. Long way from Landesdau, eh? You look like you’ve done all right for yourself. Priest to a noble family! Good for you! Now, looks like it’s my turn. I’m moving up in the world myself. Surprised old Steffan, too, I can tell you. Good to know the man who’s going to do the honors. I’ve got more of the old crowd with me, out in the forest, you know. Too bad you can’t come out and see them. They gave Steffan quite a welcome. But it’s too far to drag you out in the middle of the night to talk about the old days, eh?” The man called Gustav suddenly squared off in front of the priest. “We start out standing, don’t we? Kneeling comes later. Come on, Steffan. You can stand with me as witness. Varin would have been more fitting, but he’s with the troops. We need two, don’t we? One of these other guards will do for the other.”

“Witness?” Kirsten’s voice was small as her knees buckled.

“You know him, too, Steffan?” Her father’s scowl deepened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up, my lord. I might not have succeeded in finding him, but I knew if I could, all would be well. And I was right.” Steffan finished his low-voiced conversation with Ludolf and Helena while Gustav was busy conferring with the priest.

“You call this ‘well’?” Lady Helena hissed. “After what you said about him?”

“It could be that I exaggerated a little. I didn’t want you to think I was biased in his favor or felt divided loyalties. He was a childhood friend. Lord Ludolf is my liege. It is him and him only that I serve. Gustav will aid in that service.”

Lord Ludolf kept his voice low, but a hint of amusement was entering with just a shade of hope. “You said he could not be trusted.”

“He can’t. Not like one trusts a nobleman.” Steffan suppressed his grin. “But he knows how to get men to do what he wants. He’ll do what it takes to earn the reward you’ve promised. On that, we can rely.”

Kirsten saw Steffan take his place beside Gustav and heard what was going on around her, but none of it made sense. “Mother?”

Lady Helena ushered Kirsten over to stand in front of the priest. “We’ve no choice. This is your father’s command. It’s the only way.” Lady Helena glanced up at the tall man now grinning down at the priest. “The land and the title are more than what you need to join the ranks of the nobility. What are you going to do with a wife? Take her with you to the battlefield?”

Gustav answered in a carefully jovial tone. “No, of course not, my lady. I’ll leave her in your tender care until I can return for her and take her with me to my new manor, which you have so graciously given us for a wedding gift. It’s true, I will be busy saving my new father-in-law from a villain’s unjust assault, but at least I’ll have the inspiration of knowing I’m fighting for my bride and her family. My family! Otherwise why would I interfere in a battle not my own? A battle, may I add, that the king has not seen fit to end? A grave risk deserves a great reward.”

Even Kirsten, inexperienced as she was, could tell from his wooden courtesy and frozen smile that Gustav had given his terms and would accept no further negotiations. She forced herself to step forward, squeezing her mother’s hand one last time for luck, and turned to face the priest. “Father Paulus, I think we are in something of a hurry, so please don’t dally on my account. I am ready.”

Gustav looked down at her and smiled broadly. “Fine! Let’s get on with it, Sepp. I mean, Father Paulus!”

With the blood rushing in her ears, Kirsten could not hear the vows she spoke, much less the ones spoken by anyone else in the room, but she supposed it was Gustav she was married to when he leaned down and kissed her perfunctorily on the lips.

“Right, then,” declared her new husband. “That’s that. Steffan, lead me back to that most useful secret tunnel and I’ll try to squeeze through it the way I squeezed in here. I’ve got a siege to break and a war to win. Good night, all. And, you, wife! Get back to bed. No wife of mine is going to go wandering around a castle at this hour. Your hands were like ice when I held them just now.”

With that he was gone. Before Lady Helena was able to reach her, Kirsten had sunk to the floor.

* * *

Kirsten’s eyes fluttered open a few minutes later. “Mother? What just happened? I had the strangest dream. I dreamed there was a giant in the audience chamber and Father Paulus appeared and performed a wedding ceremony.

Lady Helena picked up her daughter’s hand to show her the ring that had been placed on her finger. “No dream, I’m afraid.”

“What happened? Why am I lying by the fire in the audience chamber, married to a common soldier?”

“He’s not a common soldier and believe me when I tell you, it was not our intent when we contacted him. That giant, as you call him, was Gustav Jager. He’s got a large and very rightly feared army of mercenaries at his command, though how in heaven’s name he keeps order with that easy-going grin of his, I’ll never know. The offer we sent him, by way of Sir Steffan, made no mention of you. We offered him lands in exchange for breaking the siege.”

“What lands did you offer? I thought Father’s holding were not very prosperous of late, what with all the fighting.”

“You knew about that? We had hoped to keep it from you. As it turns out, it wouldn’t have mattered if we had offered him the Garden of Eden. He wasn’t interested in just land. He wanted respectability, as he put it, which to him meant not only land, but a title to go with it and a noble wife to gain him access into society.”

Kirsten sat up, leaning on an elbow. Looking over to the table where once there might have been a plate of grapes or some sweet breads there was only a pitcher and a cup of water which she drank from gratefully. “I see. Well, it isn’t as if I didn’t know it was possible. What are we daughters for anyway, if not to be bartered off to the highest bidder? I hadn’t thought it would be done so quickly or so late at night.” The bitterness in her voice surprised even her.

“We had no choice, Kirsten. Surely you can see that. The siege. The war. It has to end. And there was no time to find another way. We never dreamed he would dare to enter the castle and negotiate, much less want you as a wife. But there he was, popped up out of nowhere like a stage devil in a pantomime.”

“Rather large for a demon. They’re usually short weedy little actors with raspy voices,” Kirsten commented with a smile. “This one is more like the Goliath.”

“Well, it’s a Goliath that’s on our side, for a change. We need a friend and this one… well, I don’t know. Your father flatly refused at first and I nearly fainted. I could just see Gustav storming off in a rage, but he didn’t. He merely smiled patiently and pressed his suit. Sir Steffan was strangely supportive, and I wondered at the time. Now we know that this Gustav seems to have made a lot of friends when he was a youth. He knew Sir Steffan’s family as well as Father Paulus when he was a lad. They seem to think well of him. And you can’t deny, he is handsome. You could have done worse with some of the choices your father had been contemplating.”

Kirsten looked at her mother and blushed hotly. “Now we’ll never know, will we? I might have fallen in love! It could have happened. Now it never will.”

Lady Helena gave her daughter a curious stare the younger woman did not understand. “I’m glad for your sake it didn’t. Then where would we have been? And only the young say ‘never’. Those of us who have seen a bit of life know that never is a very long time. Things change. I have a feeling young Sir Steffan may be right. Things may work out for the best. Gustav may turn out to be a good man.”

“And what makes you think such a thing? You’ve known him what, all of an hour or so?”

“When you fainted, he came back into the room to scoop you up and place you on this rug, then drag the whole thing closer to the fire. Not many men would have bothered or even heard. They should have been too far away to hear you fall.”

“Wonderful, a giant with better than average ears.”

Lady Helena stood and reached down to help her daughter up. “Come on then. There’s no use waiting here any longer. The men will be out all night, getting things ready for the dawn attack.”

“Dawn? He’s not wasting any time, is he? Well, I suppose we don’t have any time to waste.”

“If we did, you wouldn’t be a married woman now.”

Kirsten heard the sorrow in her mother’s voice and repented of her harsh tone earlier. “You didn’t know Vatti before you married him and look how that turned out! At least I know he’s a good fighter.” Then her spark of hope diminished again. “What if he isn’t as good as he’s supposed to be? What if he loses? I’ll be the wife of a vanquished foe.”

“You mean the widow, more likely. I don’t think he would surrender. I get the impression he wouldn’t notice the need for it even if it were upon him.”

Kirsten paled and her eyes grew wide. “And you and Vatti would… and all our people would… oh, Mutti, what can we do?”

“We can pray. Then we’ll get the bandages and herbs ready to care for the wounded. And make sure you remember how to open the trap door to the secret tunnel. It won’t come to that, but it doesn’t hurt to be ready for anything. Then make sure your knife is sharp and you’ve plenty of arrows for your bow.”

Kirsten found herself praying for the success of the man who had just forced her parents to give her away as a prize.

Chapter Two

Kirsten gazed nervously around the great hall but only when she thought no one was looking. The hastily decorated room glowed with as much warmth and color as her mother had been able to manage on short notice. Where usually other people of noble birth and wealthy commoners lined the tables, this night the hall was filled with rough looking men drinking ale and feasting on victuals Kirsten was sure they had to have brought themselves. There had not been half this amount of food left in the whole town before today’s battle. Now the siege was broken and for the first time in a long time, smiles and raucous laughter were the order of the day.

“Where is Gustav now?” Lady Helena asked her. She didn’t have to keep her voice down to ensure they were not overheard, so she merely leaned in a little to get Kirsten’s attention. “I’ve lost sight of him again.”

“He’s over there by the lord falconer and his lady. Those soldiers are going to frighten Seychat, petting her that way. Don’t they know she’s not a cat? She’s a noble bird.”

“I knew you’d be able to find him. You haven’t taken your eyes of him since he opened the gates in triumph.”

“When there’s a snake in the room, it’s best to know exactly where he is, don’t you think?”

“That snake saved all our lives. And see, he’s leading them away from the falcon, with a smile and a jest, obviously.”

Someone clanged his knife hilt on a shield and others took up the rhythm until Gustav approached Lord Ludolf and they both gave a mighty shout then raised a goblet to drink, exciting uproarious cheers from the crowd.

“Where did that custom come from?” Kirsten demanded. “I’ve never seen men do that before.”

“We’ve never celebrated the end of a siege before either. It’s just what men do. They sing songs and make up games as they drink. It gives them joy and eases the pain of battle.”

“These men aren’t wounded.”

“They’ve lost friends and comrades today. Of that, you can be sure. And killing takes its toll, no matter what men may say about battle being glorious. It’s good to feel alive after seeing so much… Well, anyway, it’s a custom I suppose Gustav and his men brought with them. Seems like Sir Steffan and Father Paulus understand it well enough.”

“Wherever he goes, the din gets louder and the shoving starts anew. There’s more ale on the floor than there is in their bellies. Filthy louts, all of them.” She turned her head away in disgust.

“Kirsten, you’re talking about the men who saved our realm from disaster. Please remember that.”

“But who’s going to save me from disaster?” Kirsten whined.

“What disaster is that, little one?” A jovial voice boomed behind them.

“How did you get there?” Kirsten asked petulantly. “I thought you were talking to my father.”

Gustav’s smile suddenly developed an edge of frost about it. “I was. Now I’m here. What disaster do you need saving from?”

At the same moment, both mother and daughter spoke. “The lack of a dance partner,” Lady Helena declared with an attempt at a merry chuckle.

“Wouldn’t you say that being given away in marriage to a complete stranger is a disaster?” Kirsten hissed. She turned a bitter scowl on Gustav but was stabbed with doubt a moment later. She knew her duty and insulting one’s husband wasn’t part of the responsibilities of a good wife. Glancing over at her mother’s shocked and frightened face, she drew breath to try to amend her statement, but Gustav interrupted her.