‘About face!’ I commanded, turning Tencendur and kicking him into a gallop. Beside me, Johann repeated my command as a bullet pinged off of his cuirass. One of my other soldiers was less lucky and a shorter ranged bullet pierced his armour and felled him. He toppled from his horse, but his foot was still attached to the stirrup and the horse dragged his corpse across the road, conveniently blocking my warband from the view of many of the gunmen for a few precious seconds. The horse was eventually struck by Protestant arquebusiers and killed, but by then we were away. Our horses galloped back down the road, kicking up dust in their frenzied haste.

Once we were out of sight of the city I stopped the warband. I scanned them for injuries but, aside from a glancing wound across the shoulder of one cuirassier, we were in good shape, less the man we’d lost. We’d been lucky.

‘Ritter, lead us north, off the road. Take us up that hill,’ I commanded.

‘Wachtmeister?’ he, Johann, asked. ‘Should we not inform Wallenstein that the Protestants are already at Zerbst?’

I shook my head, thinking back to the detailed map on the banquet table in Wallenstein’s headquarters. ‘We don’t know that. There’s no way the whole army could be at Zerbst. This must be a vanguard or a forward scouting party. We need to scale that hill to get a good look at the town and see how many Danes are in the city.’

‘If there are soldiers in Zerbst, there will be men in that windmill,’ Johann cautioned me, motioning at the windmill barely visible upon the hill. ‘It commands a powerful view of the Zerbster lands east of the Elbe.’

‘The windmill’s garrison will be small,’ I said arrogantly. ‘If God is with us.’

‘If God is with us,’ Johann agreed. My reaffirmed faith had given me another way to connect with Johann and the rest of my men, most of whom were devout Catholics.

Johann led the twelve of us up the hill. We were concealed by trees for the most part, but a canny sentry would have noticed our approach. If that was the case, they would immediately send word to Zerbst of our intentions and we would have mere minutes to take the windmill and use it to scout the area.

‘Faster,’ I urged, and Johann picked up the pace.

We neared the end of the treeline, perhaps a hundred feet from the windmill, and I trotted forward to reclaim the point position from Johann. ‘We go quickly but quietly,’ I told my men. ‘Charge the windmill at full speed. Dismount behind cover and enter the building if the enemy is inside. There should only be a handful of them. Johann, I want a prisoner. We need to know Mansfeld’s intentions.’

My men nodded, and I thought that I’d picked well. None of them had said a word of complaint after our aborted entrance into Zerbst had led to a man’s death, and now they were following me into battle without question. Part of it was my rank, but that wouldn’t have stopped them from complaining if they’d wanted to, yet they did not. I was filled with confidence by their support and I drew my pistol.

‘For Rome,’ I said, quietly so as not to alert the sentries. The men repeated the sentiment and I led them out from behind the treeline, where we broke into a hard gallop. We were most of the way to the windmill when the first shots rang out from the building, but we were moving fast and none of them found their mark. I counted three soldiers and I used hand signals to command several of my men to split and pursue the two where were outside the windmill.

The third Danish gunmen was shooting out of the doorway to the windmill and I steered Tencendur towards him. He backed into the windmill as I approached and I rode Tencendur beside the door and dismounted carefully. Ten of my men had gone around the building to pursue the other two gunmen, but Johann was beside me and he had also dismounted.

‘On three,’ I said, preparing my pistol and motioning at the door. ‘One, two, three!’

Johann used his massive strength to kick the frail wooden door open and I immediately fired a shot from my wheellock pistol into the room to provide cover. The man inside cowered momentarily and even though my shot missed I charged bodily at him, sending us both sprawling to the floor before he could fire his own gun. We grappled until Johann arrived and put his pistol to the Dane’s head. He stopped struggling and I removed myself from his vicinity.

I dusted myself off and nodded my wordless thanks to Johann. He smiled and I tied the Dane’s hands before searching him for coin and weapons. I found a short knife and few kreuzer and I tossed some of these to Johann. Doubtless the rest of my men were looting the corpses of the other gunmen, but I had to keep the mission in mind.

The windmill was small but there were still stairs inside. I ascended them and found myself on a wooden platform looking out a window to Zerbst. It was several hundred metres away, but our elevation and the dearth of intervening trees gave me a good view of the town. Johann soon joined me on the platform, presumably having offloaded the responsibility of supervising our captive to another of my men.

‘There are soldiers coming this way,’ he said. I could see them, Danes saddling up and gathering on the road out of Zerbst. They’d obviously hear the gunfire and commotion at the windmill and realised that we hadn’t trotted back to Rosslau with our tails between our legs. As soon as they’d gathered twenty or thirty men they’d ride to the windmill we occupied.

‘It seems that I was right,’ I said. ‘I count Danes only in the dozens. There are perhaps 150 men here. The army must be a day or two behind.’

‘No more than that,’ Johann agreed. If the Protestant army was any further behind then only one or two men would be at Zerbst, just as Dessau had been visited by only one or two Danish scouts.

One of the enemy horsemen preparing to ride to the windmill caught my eye. He wore the colours of the Protestant Germans but he had a leather jerkin over his tunic which I recognised. A glance at the sword confirmed my suspicions, despite the distance.

‘Godke,’ I whispered. Then, louder, ‘that’s Godke.’

‘The man who you need to kill?’ Johann asked.

‘The man who needs to kill me,’ I added.

‘He’s in Protestant colours.’

‘I joined the army to get protection from him,’ I explained. ‘He’s clearly decided that the best way to get at me is to join the opposing army.’

It made sense though. Godke had always been a firm believer in the right to extract tax by whatever means necessary. We had done it at Reims, we had done it at Pilsen, and I had seen the after-effects of Mansfeld having funded an army through it in East Frisia. Mansfeld and Godke were a match made in Hell, or in Protestant Heaven, I guess. Though it was true that Godke was a Catholic, so was Mansfeld. Creed mattered little to such men. They fought for wealth and for status, and Godke also fought to reach me. I wondered if he still cared about capturing Elisabeth. Christian Wilhelm had probably let her slip from his mind as the two armies had converged upon his territory, and I had not seen him in Dessau the previous night.

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Yet somehow I guessed that Godke didn’t have the privilege of forgetting Elisabeth. In fact, I should have considered that he might join Mansfeld’s army to oppose me: as a witch hunter, Godke relied on his reputation to procure clients and give people a good opinion of his profession. I’d robbed him of that by rescuing not only Anjelica but also Elisabeth, and only by recapturing Elisabeth and punishing me could he restore his image. Certainly he couldn’t just wait, living in constant fear that each day could be the day of my reprisal. He had to get back to his life, and to do that he needed money to replace that which we’d stolen from his horse’s saddlebags, and an opportunity to kill me. The Danish army offered him both.

‘I’ll watch your back,’ Johann offered, and I put an hand on his shoulder in gratitude.

‘I have to kill him myself,’ I said. ‘He killed my father and I swore that I’d kill him.’

‘Then I’ll just make sure no one else interferes,’ Johann said, and I realised that I’d made a friend, my first true friend since my previous warband had fallen apart. Elisabeth was friendly to me, but I harboured no illusions that she would stay with me once Godke was dealt with. She was a strong-willed woman and she would not be content with sewing children’s trousers forever. Nor did I harbour any secret desire that she should remain at my side. It was like Hurland said, an object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit. She was beautiful, but she had been more beautiful when I’d had to abandon my livelihood and my mentor to save her. I also had the instructions of the priest to think about, and keeping temptation so close could only end badly.

Silence reigned for a few seconds and our conversation lapsed. The Protestants gathered more horses and Godke rode at their head as they left Zerbst. It was possible that he had also achieved a similar rank to Wachtmeister. Or maybe he was just eager for battle.

‘Time to go,’ I said and we descended the stairwell. ‘Saddle up!’

My warband had suffered no further casualties during the engagement with the three Danes at the windmill and now we remounted and fled the scene of the battle, heading back south for Rosslau before Godke’s men happened upon us. The Danish captive rode atop Tencendur, as I would ask none of my men to bear the burden when I would not.

When we arrived at Rosslau it was almost midday, and I let the men and horses stop to rest and eat. I was considering that Mansfeld wanted to cross the bridge between Rosslau and Dessau as it was the only way over the Elbe, and Wallenstein’s army would try to stop him. Either the battle would take place on the banks of the Elbe, or else Mansfeld would leave and seek a crossing elsewhere.

As such, while the men were eating, Johann and I led our Danish captive out of sight of the rest of our men and slouched him, against a tree. I didn’t want to have to extract the truth from him as that was altogether too similar to extracting a confession for my tastes. Thankfully the Dane felt no special loyalty to Mansfeld, and it took only the persuasion of Johann’s great sword and the loading of my pistol to set his mouth to work.

‘What does Mansfeld plan to do when he reaches Rosslau?’ I asked him.

‘He wants to cross the bridge. He knows that if he crosses the bridge Wallenstein will have to split his men across Saxony. Aschersleben, Kassel, Magdeburg, Halberstadt…’

None of that was suprising, but it did reinforce to me the necessity of preventing Mansfeld from crossing the Dessau Bridge so that Wallenstein could focus his army. I had to send word to Wallenstein of Mansfeld’s intentions as soon as possible. ‘What will he do if he finds that the bridge is defended?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, but Johann waved his sword to persuade the Dane to take a guess. ‘He’ll try and force his way across. We’re not equipped for a siege, and he wants to link up with the English and the Protestants in Kassel before Wallenstein can grow his army even more. Being on the eastern bank of the Elbe doesn’t help him at all. He won’t look for another crossing as that would delay the army too much.’

‘How many men does Mansfeld have?’

‘They say he has 12,000. ’

The man was no general and there was only so much information I could get out of him regarding Mansfeld’s plans. I decided to try a new tack. ‘Do you know a man named Godke? He would have joined your army in recent months. He’s German, has brown hair, blue eyes…’

‘I’ve met him, once or twice.’

‘Did he tell you why he joined the army?’

The Dane shook his head. ‘I heard he was a witch hunter. He only spoke to me once. He told me me to keep my eyes front while pissing.’

I sighed. Our captive knew little about Mansfeld or Godke. I holstered my pistol and lifted the man to his feet by the scruff of his neck. I looked him in the eye.

‘I’m going to let you go,’ I said. I was being generous, but I had a purpose in mind for the young soldier. ‘Find Godke the witch hunter and tell him that Karl is waiting for him. Tell him I’ll find him in the battle that is to come, and he should find me. I won’t let any of my men interfere with our business, and he shouldn’t either.’

‘Yes, I will.’

‘Tell him Karl of Bielefeld gave you that message. Say my name,’ I said, to make sure he had it right.

‘Karl of Bielefeld’.

‘That’s right. Now go, your scouts won’t be far behind,’ I said, and after a momentary pause the Dane ran in the opposite direction to my men, his arms still bound at the wrist. I let him fade into the distance before returning to my men.

‘The Dessau Bridge,’ Johann said as we walked.

‘We need to get word to Wallenstein, fast,’ I replied. As such I ordered the horses mounted and we set off across the bridge. On the other side, I found a group of farmers who were sowing the field south of the Elbe, near its confluence with the Mulde which ran perpendicular to it. There were about a dozen farmers within sight and I sent my men out to find more. I gave them one hour and when that time elapsed I had sixty men, mostly farmers, before me.

‘The Lord Wallenstein is bringing his army this way,’ I told them. ‘He will want a fort built at that bridge before he arrives.’ I pointed at the bridge over the Elbe. ‘You will all be paid for your work.’

One of them protested, ‘we don’t know how to build a fort.’

‘I will advise you in its construction,’ I said, though I really had no idea how a fort was to be built. I knew how to build a wooden palisade, however, as that was a relatively simple art, and if we constructed such a wall before the battle was fought I would have improved our chances of winning.

‘We need to inform Wallenstein of the Protestant’s advance,’ Johann said to me, out of earshot of the farmers.

‘Take one of the men and ride back to Magdeburg,’ I told him. ‘Tell Wallenstein that Mansfeld intends to cross the Elbe at Dessau and that he should send an advance force including artillery to the Dessau Bridge.’ Wallenstein’s army was spread out for hundreds of miles as he stretched himself thin trying to predict Mansfeld’s next move and billet his men as cheaply as possible. It would take him time to gather his army, and the bridge had to be held until their arrival.

‘Yes, Wachtmeister,’ Johann replied. ‘I’ll be back with ten thousand men.’

‘See that you are,’ I said, though I doubted that he would be. There were only six thousand men billeted in Magdeburg, and only those mounted on cavalry would arrive the next day.

Johann led one of my men back to their horses, where they saddled up and rode west.

I knew that this battle had to be won. It had to be won for the Catholics as the Protestant cause had been making progress in northern Germany. It had to be won for the Emperor because a Danish army had invaded its territory. And it had to be won for me because Godke was in the enemy army and we were sworn to kill each other. So I turned back to the sixty farmers and my remaining nine men.

‘It’s time to build a wall.’