“You look like hell,” Rutger said from the doorway. Even against the gray of the outside, the quartermaster was a dark silhouette. “I warned you this was dangerous.”
“Someone has to reap what I sowed,” Andreas replied with a rueful attempt at a smile, quickly distorted by a grunt of pain. Unless he got up and did his exercises, come morning he would barely be able to move at all. “Better the consequences fall on my head,” he said.
“You sound like Percival,” Rutger chuckled, pulling up a chair.
“Percival? God and the Virgin, I hope not,” Andreas laughed in return. It hurt the tensed muscles in his midsection. Everything hurt just then. “Was he here before I arrived? Did he go with the others?”
Rutger nodded.
“Ach, I am sorry to have missed him,” Andreas said, “more so because we could use his sword arm right about now.” He leaned back and raised his own sword arm experimentally. The knuckles clicked again. Cracking roasted pigs’ feet-that’s what his knuckles sounded like. “At least now I can rest for a little while.”
Rutger shifted in his seat. His worn expression immediately told Andreas that something was wrong. “I don’t like that look, Rutger,” he said. “That look says no sleep and no food for a week, or worse. What’s happened?”
“We’ve just had word from Hunern,” Rutger sighed. “Your show of audacity has sufficed to intrigue the Khan. The gates to the arena open tomorrow.” He paused. “Your name is on the lists-high on the lists.”
The news hit Andreas like a fresh punch to the stomach. He stared blankly for a moment. He’d known in the back of his mind that this might happen, but somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that it could happen before he’d had the opportunity to get any real rest.
Andreas started to laugh. That hurt as well, and for a moment, he tried to hold it back, but to no avail. His shoulders quaked, and his abdomen spasmed as he shook with grim mirth at his circumstances. Then he threw his head back and laughed at the ceiling. Tears flowed from his eyes before he mastered himself and wiped them away. “God indeed pays the foolish their due,” he said after he regained control of his voice. Now he took a deep breath, and that hurt as well. “So be it.”
“You damn fool.” Rutger shook his head. “You’re in no shape to fight.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, pushing himself once more to his feet and stepping around like a drunken crane. His legs burned, but if there was real need, he could fight-perhaps even manage a burst or two of speed, if danger pressed. He’d regret it afterward, but this was no time for conserving strength. He had attracted the Khan’s attention, and if he was in the ring, perhaps those tiger eyes would not look so sharply upon the rest of his order.
“You’re pushing yourself too hard,” Rutger said again, more quietly. “You’re one of our best, but even the best can be broken and beaten. Be careful in the lists, Andreas. We can’t afford to lose anyone.”
Andreas flashed a rueful smile. “We’ll all be putting everything on one line of battle or another, sooner or later…I just need to live long enough to see it.” He laughed and felt a cough travel upward, doubling him over, which hurt even more. The injuries were piling up. He’d yet to break any bones or rip out hamstrings or sinews, however, which was a godsend.
“Look on the bright side,” Andreas went on. “Our plan worked. The arena is open and the bouts will begin anew. All eyes will be on the Circus.” And I will fight again, and harder, against opponents as dangerous as the Flower Knight-and he didn’t even want to kill me.
Rutger seemed to guess his thoughts. “I warned you about this,” he said. “Be cautious.”
“Caution won’t get us victory or success.” Andreas dropped forward onto his hands and flung his legs out behind him. He began his exercises against the protest of every muscle in his aching limbs and torso. Bruises cried out, innards rebelled at the sudden upset of their brief, cherished balance.
But his arm went beyond complaining and nearly folded under him. It had still not recovered enough. Don’t grumble. Plug on, he thought.
Rutger watched him for a long moment in silence.
He could feel the older man’s eyes on his back.
“There is a difference, Andreas,” he said, “between walking on the edge of a blade and dancing merrily across it like some caperer in a great hall. Do not mistake foolishness for courage.”
Andreas didn’t pause in his exercises. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
When he had finished, and his body was aflame all over, he sat back down gingerly on the pallet. Rutger handed him a cup of water. He downed it, thirsty as if he might never drink again.
“There is a boy called Hans who passes messages back and forth between myself and the Flower Knight,” Andreas said after a moment. Normally, he wouldn’t pass this on, as there was no need for anyone but himself to know. “Whatever happens here, I want him taken to Petraathen when this is over by whoever amongst us survives.” It was a grim thought, but he wanted the boy to have the chance, if that was what he wanted.
“You have my word,” Rutger said quietly.
In Hunern, the rats went unnoticed, and that was their strength. In the streets, Hans was invisible, and so he was left to his own devices. He was waiting right now at the base of the tree, the one place he knew would grant him a momentary sense of safety. It wasn’t much, but beneath these branches there was peace.
Hans had shown Andreas this tree, and the big knight’s reaction had confirmed its importance in a way that he had suspected on some level, but not understood, truly, until then.
Several other children were sleeping nearby, and Hans had taken care not to wake them. One of them was the last boy he had sent running to the fighter’s camp. The boy had taken a bad clout on the ear that had left the ear swollen like a vegetable, surrounded by a green, brown, and reddish bruise.
Hans watched him as he rested. He felt guilty about the boy’s injury, but getting the messages back and forth was important. Brother Andreas had told him so, and he was a good man.
The plan was actually very simple and was based on how Hans and the other children had gone about making sure they all had food during the bad times: send a different boy each time, each with a different story, bring the prize back, and divide it among all of them. While the Mongols closely watched the gate to their camp, they seldom interrogated the children who went in and out, running this or that little errand for the people inside. Sometimes they brought ale; other times they delivered something purchased from the local craftsmen.
Making sure that the boys knew which tent they were supposed to find, and remembered the words they were supposed to say, was not hard, because each boy didn’t have much to remember. “How many flowers?” they would ask, and Kim would tell them. The boy would return and tell Hans, and he would pass the news on to Andreas. It was simple, and so far, it had worked, but there was always the chance of something going wrong, and so Hans waited nervously beneath the tree, trying to comfort himself in its presence.
When Andreas had bid him run off behind the alehouse, he’d also worried and had come here, like now, to comfort himself. It was only later that the sounds of the fight at First Field had summoned him to witness Andreas’s duel with the Flower Knight.
It was after that that Andreas had asked him to organize the boys and run these messages-but not without obvious reluctance. He is afraid for me, Hans had thought with an unexpected glow of pride. But I am not the one facing the swords. Fearless for oneself, fear for others-that must be what it means to be a hero.
Knowing that he would have soon aroused suspicion if he did all the delivering himself, Hans had turned to the other rats of Hunern to help him, creating the system they used now. It had held up for a week, so far-and none of the boys had gotten hurt or captured.