ALTDORF (The Forest Knights: Book 1) (15 page)

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

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

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

“Old hag?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You do have a point,” he said.

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

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

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

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

“Your teachers were Christian monks then?”

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

Ah, that makes sense,
Seraina thought.

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

“Do you miss your life across the sea?”

“Do you always ask so many questions?”

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

Do all Hospitallers study the healer’s craft?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas looked down at the ground. “Yes.”

“How many patrols have you ridden out on?”

“One a week for the past year.”

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

Thomas looked up and one of his dark eyes twitched.

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

A month earlier his patrol had ridden to the rescue of an Italian caravan under attack by Bedouin raiders. His horse took an arrow in the lung and threw Thomas in front of the archer. He recovered, and without thinking thrust his sword into the raider’s guts, mortally wounding him. As the figure writhed in pain on the ground, his face covering came away, and Thomas saw his attacker was a young boy, no more than twelve years of age.

Both the horse and the boy took a long time to die.

“Boys grow into men. Men who would undermine the one true faith. You carried out God’s will and that is the end of it. Think no more on it, for there will be more. Many more.”

De Villaret turned back to the window and gazed out. “If I grant you permission to work extra hours in the hospital, then you must do something for me. You will learn to read and write. First in Latin, then Arabic.”

Thomas perked up, hardly believing his ears. He was going to learn to read! But he was not sure he had heard the knight correctly.

“Arabic, Commander?”

“Of course. Latin may be the word of God, but Arabic is the language of medicine. Although Frankish doctors are loath to admit it, the Arabian
hakim
are vastly superior. The works of the great Greek and Roman physicians have been lost to the West for centuries, but not to the East.”

“But the writings of Galen and Hippocrates have been translated to Latin,” Thomas said. “One of the monks showed us copies.”

“Copies, yes. Copies of Arabic texts. The originals are long lost, so the Latin versions are translations of Arabic works. I feel the Latin copies possess a sometimes diluting layer of interpretation that the Arabic texts never intended.”

“You have read them?”

“Yes, and so should you, provided it does not interfere with your military training. But not only the works of Galen and Hippocrates. Arabic medicine is the medicine of the Islamic world, not just the Arabs. That means that the Persians and Nestorians in the east and even the Spanish and Jews in the west have all contributed to Arabic medicine. You will become familiar with these works as well.”

Thomas was shocked. What de Villaret suggested was blasphemy. “Even the Jews? But they are the enemy of Christ.”

“So we are told. But as His soldiers, then is it not our duty to learn from the enemy? The truth is, as Hospitallers we owe the Jews and Moslems a great deal for keeping the knowledge of the ancients alive. Knowledge long ago lost in the west, due in no small part to the Church’s fear of the common man exploring the divine mysteries of the human body. The Church is content to have us refuse medical treatment and pray while sickness ravages our body, leaving our lives in the hands of God alone.”

There was a hard edge to de Villaret’s voice. Thomas glanced around the room, looking for any place that may conceal an eavesdropper. The talk made him nervous.

“But surely the Church’s position has changed. We are, after all, an exempt Order subject only to the Pope himself. If the Church was truly against the study of medicine, why would they have allowed the Hospitallers to form in the first place?”

De Villaret’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the youth before him and he shook his head. “Although both the Templars and the Hospitallers are sworn to poverty, we control vast fortunes that rival that of many monarchs. In fact, a good deal of that fortune has been earned by lending money to Kings. But often wealth is merely the illusion of power. For the moment only the Pope himself has the power to command us, but that will not always be so. Change is the only certainty in life.”

He turned to look out the window, and spoke quietly. “We tread softly here. Much softer than you can possibly imagine. Especially now. The Mohammedans are not the only wolf baying at our door.”

There was silence for a moment, and then de Villaret wheeled around. “But I did not summon you here to lecture. In return for me allowing you to study in the hospital, I have a task that you are to complete for me. But it is for me alone. No one is to know of our conversation today. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Marshal.” Thomas’s eyes darted around the room once before answering.

De Villaret reached down to his desk and lifted a rolled up scroll.

“First you must learn to read the three hundred names on this list. Then you will learn to write well enough to prepare your own list of the one hundred young men you think are the most suitable. They must be strong of arm and skilled in combat. But above all, loyal. Select only those you would trust with your life, and make no mistake on it, for that is precisely what you will be doing. You have sixty days to complete your task before we depart.”

Thomas’s head spun. “Depart Marshal? Where are we going?”

“Our hospice on the island of Cypress,” de Villaret said. His intense blue eyes dimmed and when he looked at Thomas he had a sad, faraway look. “Ready all your possessions to take with you, Thomas, for once we leave, Acre will no longer be your home.”

The Alpine wind suddenly changed direction and the ferry’s sail luffed, fluttering uselessly for a moment until the boom started a slow swing to the other side of the barge. So lost in thought of the past, Thomas did not see it until the last moment. He ducked, and the long beam, crafted from a young tree as thick as his leg, swung harmlessly overhead and the sail once again filled with wind.

Thomas cursed the ever-changing winds on the lake. The influence of the Alps could send breezes whistling in from any direction. He would have to pay more attention. The emerald waters were as unpredictable as they were beautiful.

With his hand clutched around the steerboard, Thomas stared out over the dark waters, but all he could really see was his quill tracing the names of one hundred Schwyzer youths onto parchment. They would become members of the newly created Hospitaller Navy, under the direction of the Order’s first Admiral, Foulques de Villaret.