1460: SWITZERLAND

Despite the cool autumn breeze that blew off nearby Lac Léman, sweat ran down
Christian’s muscles in steady streams, soaking his padded gambeson and causing it to itch liked Hades against his skin. He had been training his father’s men since morning. He was young for the responsibility—maybe too young—but Gregori Durand preferred to leave his own flesh and blood in charge. Since Christian was his only living son, that
meant the honor was his.

Though currently engaged in blocking a downward cut from a six-foot blade, Christian
caught sight of trouble from the corner of his eye.

“Hold,” he said to his training partner.

“Gladly,” William laughed, allowing the blunted tip of his weapon to drop to the bailey
dirt.

They fought in chainmail rather than plate armor, plate being more expensive to repair.
Conveniently, depending on your point of view, the iron ringed hauberks were no lighter
than forged steel. Added to that, the two-handed swords they swung were twice as heavy
as normal blades. The reason for this was simple. Stamina in battle spelled the difference
between life and death. If they used more weight during practice, normal weapons felt
easier. To gain that advantage, today they suffered. Though William was larger than
Christian, his face was just as red and sweaty beneath his helm.

“Left arm!” Christian called to Charles, who was struggling ineffectually against a taller
veteran.

“Merde,” Charles cursed. The soles of his boots slipped in the dirt as he went down flat.
With a happy chortle, Hans—the veteran—pressed the axe-head of his halberd into
Charles’s mail-clad chest. Charles’s orange hair—the bane of his existence, according to
him—had straggled from beneath his coif to plaster his face.

“He is stronger than me,” Charles said as Christian came to stand over him. “And Christ
knows how many stone.”

“You would not notice if you remembered you had two arms. In any case, you are faster
than he is. Why did you let him close with you that way?”

“We have been at this for hours,” Charles complained. “Forgive me if I grew weary.”

“Battles do not halt because you are weary,” Hans and Christian chimed in unison.

Laughing, Hans offered his felled opponent a hand up. The numerous scars that seamed
his cheeks made his grin a fierce thing to see.

“Walk until you catch your wind,” Christian said to Charles. “Then go work with the
pell.”

Charles groaned, because the pell was a hacking post and—while not as dangerous as
combat—it was one of the more grueling exercises he could be set to.

“Left arm strikes only,” Christian clarified. “I shall tell you when you may cease.”

“I shall tell you when you may cease,” Charles repeated in mincing tones, but Christian
knew he would obey. Charles only pretended to be contumacious. When the need arose,
he always fought valiantly.

“You stay with me,” Christian said to Hans, which wiped the grin from the warrior’s face.
“Charles did not give you enough of a challenge.”

“Ha!” Hans barked, recovering his humor. “The day you challenge me is the day I retire.”
With his hands spread wide on his halberd’s shaft, he brought up the weapon and began
to circle. At forty and a few years of age, he was built like an old prize bull. Even through
his chainmail chausses, Christian saw his thigh muscles bulge. “Do you worst, stripling.”

“Christian,” someone hissed through the continuing clatter of mock combat. “Your father
comes to the yard.”

Christian lowered his sword and turned. His father was indeed entering the bailey of their
fortified hillside house. Like his son, Gregori Durand was swarthy from his mingled
French and Italian blood—a common enough mixture here in Switzerland. Thanks to his
departed mother, who had been a Habsburg by-blow, Christian was a mite taller than his
father but far less broad. In contrast to his offspring’s litheness, Christian’s bearlike sire
walked as if each step ought to shake the ground.

Today he dangled a writhing burlap sack from one meaty hand.

The frightened yelps that issued from it had Christian’s stomach sinking like a stone.

“Scheisse,” Hans muttered beside him. “He found Lucy.”

Knowing there could be no delaying this confrontation, Christian closed the distance
between him and his father. Gregori’s expression was, as always, icy. His father never
showed his temper by losing it.

“Would you care to explain this?” he asked coolly.

“She is but a hound,” Christian said, striving for equal calm even as his heart thudded in
his chest. At this point, any pretense of continuing to practice ceased. The men were all
turned to him and his father, not drawing closer but watching. Whether by accident or
design, the five who most often fought in Christian’s Rotte stood nearest. Hans was the
exception among his silent supporters. Hans served in whatever group needed him.
Wanting to prove he was worthy of their espousal, Christian squared his shoulders. “I
thought the vineyard owner’s children might like to play with her.”

“I gave you an order,” his father said. “Are you saying you cannot obey me any better
than this dog?”

“She is still young, Father. She did not mean to ruin your hunt.”

“What she meant does not matter. She acted without discipline, and she cost me my prey.
The other dogs did not fail me the way she did.”

The other dogs lacked Lucy’s spirit—and her love for humans. She was smart and playful
and brought out the boy in men who had earned their keep killing strangers for more
years than Christian had drawn breath. Lucy had slept on one or another of the
mercenaries’ pallets since she was a puppy, had shared their food and sent them into gales
of laughter over her antics. Christian did not know a single member of their household
who had not slipped her a treat or two.

Except his father, of course. His father had no love for any creature that Christian knew.

“I will take the whipping,” Christian said. “This is my fault for letting the men make a pet
of her.”

His father stared at him, his eyes as black as wet stones. The back of Christian’s neck
tightened. Too late, he saw he should not have offered this.

“You will take the whipping,” his father repeated, his face gone blank.

Not knowing what else to say, Christian bowed his head in submission.

“Very well,” said his father. His hand gestured toward the men. “Hans, tie him to the
pell.”

The veteran soldier cursed too softly to make out which saint he was blaspheming. He did
not, however, hesitate to lead Christian off. All of them knew better than to stand against
their commander, for each other’s sake as well as their own. Christian did not resist his
mail tunic and shirt being stripped from him, nor did he protest when his best friend
Michael was ordered to wield the single-strand rawhide lash. This was simply another in
the endless series of tests his father was forever requiring them to pass. Whip your friend.
Kill this dog. Grovel until your knees grind down. The reward was never approval, but
just living another day. Christian even understood why his father did it. This world was a
hard and bloodthirsty place. Only those who commanded fealty could survive.

Hans’s motions were brisk as he bound Christian’s wrists together with a thick hemp
cord. Christian hugged the pell, the hacked wood post a support he would be grateful for
soon enough.

“Ready?” Michael asked, the single kindness he would permit himself to give.
Christian nodded and clenched his jaw.

His father ordered him to take twenty strokes, and Michael’s strong right arm ensured
they were hard enough to suit the elder Durand’s tastes. Once destined to become a
monk, Christian’s golden-haired friend grunted with the force it took to break Christian’s
skin. Luckily, Michael’s aim was precise. The leather stayed on his back and shoulders
and away from kidneys and spine. This whipping would neither kill him nor leave a
disabling scar. Christian would live to earn other ones.

His breath whined through his teeth by the fifteenth lash, his body jerking helplessly at
the pain. Christian tried to contain any other noises, not only because they would betray
weakness to his father, but because the evidence of his suffering would distress his friend.
Though Michael was a few years older than Christian, his heart would never be as hard.
Keeping silent was a luxury Christian fought for. Salt-sweat stung his wounds like acid as
Michael was obliged to cross stripes he had already made.

“Nineteen,” he counted, his voice ringing out as if he, too, were being struck.

Then he brought the last blow down.

Christian’s back was throbbing, the fiery heat of the lashes like snakes writhing on his
skin. He flinched when the blood from one rolled into the next.

“Water,” someone said quietly. A moment later, a bucket of blessed coolness was poured
on him.

Hans cut his wrists free, gripping Christian’s elbow just long enough to help him lock his
buckling knees and stand. The scarred old warrior’s face was angry, but only if you
looked closely. Nostrils flaring, Hans stepped away and stood at attention as soon as
Christian faced his father. Christian was shaky, but his head was high. He blinked until
the sweat cleared from his vision.

To his amazement, his father laughed.

“I give you this, son,” he said, almost sounding pleased. “You are no swooning lad.”

Christian had one shocked heartbeat to enjoy this rare piece of praise. His father’s
expression sobered as he once again lifted Lucy’s sack. He thrust it squirming in
Christian’s direction with his usual flinty look.

“Now,” he said. “Kill the dog.”

* * *

Afterward, Christian sat in the dirt with Lucy cradled in his lap. She was . . . She had
been a short-haired hound, white with liver-colored splotches. Her once perpetually
wagging tail hung limp, her body cooling under his petting hands.

Christian’s eyes were dry. If he had cried even as a child, he could not remember it.

“We will take her,” Philippe said. “Matthaus and I will bury her outside the walls under a
nice tree.”

“Bury her deep.” Christian’s instruction was distant but steady. “Else, some animal will
dig her up.”

“We will,” Philippe promised, easing Lucy’s slight weight from him. He glanced back
over his shoulder to where Matthaus waited, slim and tall . . . or perhaps his gaze scanned
the shadowed archway where Christian’s father might again emerge.

Christian found it difficult to care. Other hands helped him up, careful to support him
without touching his bleeding back. Christian’s eyes met Michael’s. His friend’s face was
tight and angry over the beating he had been forced to inflict. Christian suddenly felt
exhausted, as if he could drop where he stood and never get up again.

“Be not troubled,” he said to Michael. “No one else could have whipped me as well as
you.”

Michael snorted out a bitter laugh, then cleared the gawking servants from the bailey
entrance with a sharp command.

“Find Cook,” he snapped. “The young master’s wounds need tending.”

The staff scurried away even as the men half-carried, half-dragged their young master in.
Gregori Durand’s fortress was a thick-walled square built around a large courtyard. His
men-at-arms slept on the upper floors, three or four to a chamber close to the weapons
stores. They had never been attacked at home, but they all knew it might happen. No one
could doubt they had rivals among the area’s mercenary bands.

In these parts, war still brought in more gold than wine.

Christian was one of few with a private room, a narrow, stone-lined chamber with a
single window—monklike quarters, at best. The two most massive of the men, Hans and
William, laid him on his bed face down. Despite their care, Christian hissed with pain as
the muscles of his back shifted.

“St. Sebastian’s balls,” Hans swore darkly. “If your father weren’t such a good
commander . . .”

He was, though, sharp as an Venetian dagger on the battlefield and off. Gregori Durand
found them contracts and got them paid, not always an easy matter when the merchant
they had been escorting decided he would rather spend their fee on a new mistress.

“’s fine,” Christian mumbled into his mattress. “I shall sleep in tomorrow.”

Only Michael stayed while Cook came to clean his wounds and dress them in bandages.
He sat on the bed after she had finished, not touching Christian but probably wanting to.
Ferocious though he was in battle, Michael had a tender heart—and a tendency toward
guilt left over from his former failed calling.

“I am sorry,” he said now.

“You had to whip me,” Christian said. “If you had not, Father would have demanded
worse penance.”

“No. I am sorry your sacrifice failed to save Lucy.”

Christian’s hands curled into themselves. “She was just a dog. I should not have let you
men get attached to her.”

“Stop.”

Michael’s order was sharp. Christian rolled onto his side to look up at him. His friend’s
lean, ascetic face was flushed with intensity. “Do not turn into him, Christian. Your father
is no better than a beast. In truth, he has less soul than that dog you killed.”

“Do you want me to weep for her?” Christian asked, hard with scorn. “Do you think that
would change anything?”

“I want you to feel. Or pray. Anything human.” Michael covered his clenched hand.
“Your mother would not want you to grow cold like this.”

Against his will, Christian’s gaze slid to the wooden crucifix that hung on his wall. This
and a small gold ring were all that remained of the woman who had brought him into this
world. He had been seven when she died in childbed, trying to birth the third of his
brothers who had not lived. He still remembered his father saying good riddance to weak
stock. A burn flashed across his eyes, but he tightened his jaw swiftly.

“Let her pray for me,” he said. “Let her look down from heaven and pray for me.”

Christian tugged his hand back, and Michael rose. He paused, seeming as if he would
speak further. But the one-time monk could not bring himself to preach. As he put it, his
flesh had always been too weak to counsel others to holiness. Instead, his breath sighed
out of him and he left.

Christian knew he had disappointed his friend. He also knew he could not have
responded any other way. He wanted to survive, wanted to protect the men who relied on
him. If that meant hardening his heart, so be it. From what he could see, God and the
saints were a capricious lot anyway.

He rolled onto his face again, ordering his fists to relax. His right hand stroked the coarse
wool blanket on which he lay, fingers petting it until he recognized what he did. Pain
seized his rib cage worse than any scourge. He could feel Lucy’s fur again beneath his
fingers, could see her eyes turned trustingly up to his. She had thought herself safe up
until the instant he snapped her neck. She had thought herself safe with him.

The first sob tore from him, so harsh and strange he barely knew what it was. Tears came
with it and he could not stop them, though he fought hard enough. He could scarcely
breathe through the fit of sorrow, the violence of it taking him aback.

Stupid, to cry for a dog. Stupid and pointless.

His sole consolation was that no one was there to see.

* * *

Grace was on her feet, standing on the grass-clad stage beneath the magical movie screen.
She felt as if her cells were going to explode. Never had she felt more called to action—
or more helpless. Considering her recently ended life, that was no small claim.

“I should be there,” she said, so sure of it her voice vibrated. “You said he was my friend.
I should be there to comfort him.”

Her tuxedoed guide came toward her down the broad aisle steps, his expression smooth
and unreadable. “These events happened long ago.”

“You said you could do things for me if I allowed it. I’m willing to be sent to him.”

“I can’t send you like you think, Grace, not as a person.”

“But you can send me.”

He glanced at the screen where the young man named Christian lay racked with grief on
his narrow bed. “I can send you after a fashion. If that’s what you truly wish.”

“I promise you, it is.”

He looked at her, considering. “I didn’t expect you to ask this. There are . . . limitations
on this sort of thing. Time will stretch but not indefinitely.”

“I accept the limits. Don’t you want me to help him?”

She knew she had to convince him. She’d never had a friend that she could remember,
not one she’d been allowed to keep. Dead or not, she wanted to know this one.
Michael smiled, slowly, sweetly, his face abruptly so lovely that it hurt to look at it. “I
would like you to help him, yes.”

His words had power. This place she’d ended up in—the emerald grass, the plush red
seats, the flickering screen—melted around her like colored sugar left in the rain. For just
a moment she was frightened like the old days.

Holy cow! she thought.

And then her feet found solid ground again.

© 2010 by Emma Holly. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute this work in any manner or medium without written permission of the author.