Following our amour – which is perhaps what Fleur would have called it, had she been able to speak – we gave our hosts more coin than they were due for their polite discretion. I was sad that their family had left them alone in Dresden and I hoped that they could use the money to alleviate their obvious loneliness.
‘I’m going to do it,’ was all I said to Elisabeth as I donned my leather armor and sword belt following breakfast. Her response was wordless: she simply nodded in approval.
In the end, I had no choice. I did not want to become a servant of the Emperor, and being a soldier would tie me down. I’d lose the personal freedom I’d always taken for granted. Yet the decision was made for me. Leipzig had taught me that I would meet my end on Godke’s blade if I did not improve my swordcraft and learn to fight with a novel technique, one that Godke had not imparted to me himself. I taught you everything you know – you will not be able to defeat me! Godke had said, and he’d been right. I needed to change my fighting style. Wallenstein’s army provided me with the opportunity for such learning, and protection in the meantime. A legitimate source of wealth would also help matters, though I was soon to learn that a soldier’s coin can be difficult to keep in one’s pocket.
I found Wallenstein in the city square once more. They had erected several marquees across the courtyard in anticipation of the rainfall which began as I approached. I ran a hand through my unkempt hair and brushed the dirt off of my trousers before I greeted my new master.
‘Duke Wallenstein,’ I greeted him. I had failed to address him by his proper title the previous day but if I was going to be a soldier in his employ I would have to be comfortable using it.
‘Karl of Bielefeld,’ he replied with a coy grin. I hated his smug expression, as if he had known that I would have no choice but to accept his proposal. It was that or face Godke in some godforsaken Saxon town smothered with drizzle. I would have to diverge from his teachings in order to beat him, and what better place was there to learn to fight than in an army? ‘I trust you slept well.’
‘Yes, Lord,’ I said. ‘I have come to gratefully accept your offer.’
‘Good news!’ he exclaimed. The clerk with whom he had been talking prior to my arrival winced at Wallenstein’s volume. ‘What do you offer me, Karl?’
I frowned again. After all, he was the one who had propositioned me. ‘Lord?’
‘What are your skills?’
‘I was a witch hunter, Lord.’
‘I do not employ witch hunters,’ Wallenstein said. ‘I may use them and pay them a one time fee, but I find them to be unreliable in the long-term and altogether too self-interested.’
‘Well,’ I said, struggling for ideas. ‘I can ride a horse. I can shoot a pistol, and use a sword.’ I indicated both weapons on my belt to reinforce what I was saying. ‘I can read and write, and I speak French and Bohemian.’
‘Ah, you are a learned man, Karl,’ Wallenstein said, unexpectedly in French.
‘You are generous, Lord,’ I replied in the same language.
‘Do you have land, Karl? Or a wife?’ he asked, switching back to German. I shook my head. ‘What about that lady who was on your horse yesterday?’
I shook my head again. ‘I left my love in Lothringen,’ I blurted out stupidly, using the German word for Lorraine. I don’t know why I said it, maybe I was feeling unnecessarily guilty about the events of the morning. I was clearly thinking about what I’d left behind when I had been too scared and too weak to face Godke before departing Metz. Maybe I hadn’t loved Fleur then, but the threat of imminent assassination can do powerful things to a man’s heart. I quickly added, ‘Lord.’
Thankfully Wallenstein ignored it. ‘An officer must have land, Karl. He must be grounded, he must have a stake in the success of this army. Alas, your skills in reading and writing and languages cannot serve me yet. With success, you will acquire land, as I have, but until then you may not command in my army.’
‘How else may I serve, Lord?’
‘Have you ever held a pike, Karl?’
I shook my head.
‘Have you killed someone with a musket, or an arquebus?’
‘No, Lord.’
‘Do you know how to fire a mortar?’
‘No, Lord.’
‘You say you are good with your pistol?’
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‘Yes, Lord.’
‘It is wheellock, yes? And you have a sword?’
‘Yes, Lord. Yes.’
‘Do you trust your horse, Karl?’
‘He is a good steed, Lord,’ I replied. I could sense where this was going. He had shown me why I could not serve in the infantry or in the artillery and why he had no use for witch hunters. There was only one role left for me to fill, and I was surprisingly well-equipped for it.
‘You shall join the cavalry,’ Wallenstein declared. ‘You will need armour.’
‘I have little coin, Lord,’ I said.
‘How little?’ he asked me, and I bowed my head.
‘Certainly not enough for a cuirass. I’d be hard-pressed to haggle a merchant down to be able to afford a harquebusier’s equipment,’ I replied.
‘You are not a harquebusier,’ he said. ‘You are bold and aggressive. You are a cuirassier, as I was.’
Was that why Wallenstein was throwing me this lifeline? Did he see some of himself in me? He was more than twenty years older than me, but twenty years ago he’d been a soldier in Hungary and it was only with the Bohemian Revolt that he had equipped a unit of cuirassiers and earned himself a name and the territory of Friedland. I had wondered why he gave me the time of day when he already had 16,000 men to control, but perhaps he saw something in me. He was not the type of leader to give speeches that would drive a man to enter a battle full of bloodthirsty rage, but he was still inspirational and he made me feel like I could achieve something good. And I wanted to do something good, to balance out all of the sins I’d committed.
‘Yes, Lord,’ I agreed.
‘I was low born, I understand. I will give you a loan for the armour. Five gulden should suffice,’ he said for the benefit of the clerk who had suddenly spurred into life and was hurriedly scrawling away on a heavily marked piece of paper. ‘You will receive three kreuzer each day, and a bonus for victories in battle and exemplary service.’
I nodded. Five gulden, or gold coins, was a lot of money and I wondered if I’d ever be able to pay Wallenstein back. As a good Catholic he would not charge interest, but even if I put half of my pay towards the loan it would still take me eighteen months to pay it back. Yet I could not fault Wallenstein for his offer of three kreuzer, three silver coins, per day, as that was a competitive rate for someone who had never fought in a pitched battle. Additionally, he was taking a big risk by giving me a loan with no insurance, though I knew that I would become a criminal if I took his money and ran. Perhaps this loan was his way of landing me, and ensuring that I had roots within his army and a motivation to succeed.
‘Purchase some armour,’ Wallenstein ordered.
‘Yes, Lord,’ I said one last time, and I departed.
So I was going to be a cuirassier, a heavily armoured cavalryman who usually carried a wheellock pistol and a sword. A gunpowder knight in the Catholic army, fighting to defend the Emperor and restore religious unity to his territories in Germany. I knew that their chest armour, the cuirass, could deflect enemy bullets and swords and this made them useful for cutting down disorganised gunmen and lighter cavalry.
Seeking instruction and assistance to buy my armour, I had to ask around until I found someone who was willing to help me. I had little idea how the army was structured, but I was soon introduced to a man called Johann Ritter. He was a giant. Johann was almost two metres tall and had shoulders possessed of a width that would best be measured in wingspan. He had nut-brown eyes to match his hair and was clean-shaven
We exchanged greetings and our names, and he sensed my confusion. ‘Don’t worry, there’s not much to it really. Mostly it’s sitting around waiting. The higher-ups don’t like to fight because battle is too risky, so they spend months manoeuvring to try and find a good position. I’ve been in Wallenstein’s army since White Mountain five years ago and I haven’t fired a shot in anger.’
Previously, I had fought as a rogue and had developed my fighting style to defend myself against aggrieved townsfolk armed with farming equipment. Now I was being thrown into a professional military unit and would be expected to fight as a unit with hundreds of other men. The idea was daunting, but it was my best chance of staying alive until Godke was killed by a witch’s family or gave up on trying to exact vengeance upon me, and the shift in focus would alter my sword technique to something less predictable to Godke.
‘That’s no good,’ I said, and Johann frowned as he waited for me to continue. ‘I’m in debt to Wallenstein. Without battle it will take me eighteen months to pay back his loan.’
‘Was his loan for armour?’ Johann asked, and I nodded. ‘Wallenstein is adept at building an army, and he has provided many soldiers with loans to secure their support and properly equip them. Yet no equipment is as expensive as that of a cuirassier. I can help you though, come.’
Johann led me through Dresden. Though Saxony was officially neutral in the conflict between the Emperor and the Danish and Protestant armies, there were men here from nearly every corner of the Empire, and it was to a group of Croatian cuirassiers that Johann took me. He bartered on my behalf and I was able to purchase much of the armour I needed second hand from the Croatians. They were willing to part with their armour for coin as most of them travelled with incomplete sets of armour anyway. Johann advised me that I would need cuisses, greaves and sabatons, to protect my vulnerable legs, but I could get by without rerebraces, couters, and vambraces to protect my arms.
‘They’re usually not able to repel a bullet anyway,’ he said. ‘So if you have any skill with that sword, the armour on your arms will only serve to slow you down.’
With Johann’s assistance I was able to purchase full leg and chest armour and a zischagge, a helmet with a rigid lobster-tail protecting the back of the neck, for my head for less than three gulden. He had effectively halved my debt, and I offered him a few kreuzer in thanks which he graciously refused.
‘You should use the money to reduce your debt,’ Johann suggested, but I shook my head.
Instead I let Johann take me to a courier who I paid to take a letter to Fleur in Metz. I told her that I was not going to be coming home as soon as I’d planned, and that when the forward payment of the rent I’d previously arranged elapsed she could use the money in the wall compartment to cover my share of the rent. I enclosed a gulden, which would cover the rent for at least a year, and I told her that I’d joined Wallenstein’s army. I said that I was no longer with Godke, but I could not bring myself to go into detail about what had happened. I didn’t mention Elisabeth.