Chapter 21
Even Sieglinde had realized Adalbern was likely right. Humbert's injuries had been too infected. If he had come to her with such a cut when it had first happened, she had no doubt he would have recovered. Despite her insistence to Adalbern that Humbert would survive, as she checked his wound and watched him through his fever, even she knew the life she had hoped for the two of them was likely impossible. Watching him die slowly before her seemed the only possibility left and it did not even take the efforts of an invading army.
She ignored the shafts of sunlight poking around the door. Humbert's fever had not broken but he had made it through the night. She checked his wound, having to try several times to pick up the edge of the wrappings with her fingers. In the darkness, there was little evidence of change.
The door creaked open and she was blinded as she looked up.
"I brought you some bread," Adalbern said.
She had trouble making out the bread in his silhouette. When she realized the round thing at the end of his arm was not his hand, she took it.
"Thank you," she said. "Now please close the door. I do not want the others to see him."
"Not until you have left yourself," Adalbern said. "The others can live without me for the morning. Go find your bed. I will watch him."
Sieglinde did not get up. She set the roll of bread down next to her and looked back at Humbert. "He is just sleeping," she said. "I can keep watching him."
"And I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you up to your room and tie you there," Adalbern replied with such force that she knew he meant it.
"I need to do this," she said quietly. "I need to stay with him. He needs me to stay with him."
"And your people who are still under the constant threat of war waged by unknown foes need you," he said. "I have indulged both of you in this matter enough. If you want me to keep his confidence, then you will do as I say and get to your bed. I will send for you if anything changes."
Sieglinde's mind was foggy and she felt it terrifically unfair for him to use that so effectively to his advantage. Neither her mind nor her heart could decide. As she felt her muscles weaken, she was forced to concede. She pushed herself to her feet. Adalbern grabbed her arm to steady her but she said nothing.
Her guilt wanted to keep her awake and torture her for leaving Humbert. Her body could not be bothered by the effort. She fell asleep the moment she lay down upon her bed.
A second later, her door creaked. She jolted upright. The room around her looked like gray and brown blobs oscillating together. The door opened wide and her vision cleared. Her mother Lilli walked into the room.
"I have been sent to fetch you," she said. "There is something happening. They need you on the wall."
Sieglinde jumped from her bed and ran by her mother and out of the room. It was still daylight out but it was not morning as it had been when she had come to her room. The sunlight spoke more of midday.
As she hurried down the manor steps, she saw Adalbern running towards the gate.
"Adalbern!" she bellowed.
He stopped and turned to look at her.
"Where are you going?" she asked as she ran up to him. "Someone needs to stay with Humbert."
"Yes," he said. "Someone does but it cannot be you or I."
She was panting but her chest constricted painfully, angry that it could not pull in more air. "You promised," she wheezed.
"Confidence is a luxury if those walls are being attacked," he argued. "Besides, I asked my wife to care for him. Now get your head where it needs to be!" He resumed his run towards the gate. Sieglinde, her cheeks hot from more than her exertion, followed.
As they reached the battlements and Dominik, the eldest of the sentries, approached them, a large crack echoed over the forest before being followed by a creak. They all looked in the direction of the sound. One of the tallest trees in the canopy began to fall. The branches snapped as it hit other trees on its way down and a loud boom announced its arrival upon the ground.
"That is the third one they have cut down," Dominik told them.
"Are they getting firewood?" Sieglinde asked, knowing she would not have been sought for such mundane activity.
"Why have they not done this before then?" Dominik asked.
Adalbern scratched his chin. "They have been burning enough fires to need the wood," he said, "But you are right, Dominik. We have heard nothing from them before now."
"What does it mean?" Sieglinde asked, not sure if either of them could answer.
"I'm concerned this means they will attack soon," Adalbern said. "I think I was right before. There was no army out there. They were trying to trick us into hiding."
Sieglinde crossed her arms. "Then who is felling those trees?" she asked.
"An army," he replied.
She raised a brow. "You just said ... "
"I said there wasn't an army. Now, I think there is."
She looked over the forest once more. "How much time do you think we have now?"
"We have no way of knowing," he said before turning to Dominik. "Gather more of the sentries and send them to check the perimeter of the village. We need to make sure there are no weaknesses that have gone unnoticed."
Sieglinde's heart nearly seized. "There are farmers in the fields today," she said.
Adalbern nodded and his lips pursed. "Six of them, I believe," he said. "But I cannot send anyone to help them now. I have no one to spare if we are to keep the village protected."
She swallowed hard. As much as she did not like it. She had to agree.
The sounds of chopping and tree-felling continued throughout the afternoon but nothing had changed. As Sieglinde could do little for those in the field but wait and Adalbern had seen to it that the village was as prepared as it could be for an attack, she returned to Humbert's side.
Adalbern's wife, Jessica, had given her an unrelenting hug before leaving the two of them alone. She had said nothing.
Humbert's body was not shaking as much though the fire in the room was small and did little to provide heat. Even the sweat on his forehead glistened less but she did not dare hope. His skin still felt wrong to the touch and he remained in a deep sleep.
There was a knock. When she asked who it was, Adalbern whispered back as he opened the door. He had come to give her a report.
There was no evidence of foul play anywhere near their defences or the manor, however, the sun had set long ago and those in the fields had yet to return.
Now that she had to consider the matter. She was not comfortable leaving them.
Sieglinde whispered, "We need to send someone to help them get home."
"They might already be dead," Adalbern said. "If we send more, they may die too."
"So what do we do?" she asked, her voice becoming unintentionally louder. "Just seal the gate and stay hidden in here as long as possible? Are you not the one who yelled at me that you wanted the chance to fight? Are you not the one who weeks ago risked the lives of men in a dark forest all for the greater good?"
"Yes," Adalbern shouted back. "I did all of that because I had to, to ensure our survival. My life does not matter if our people go on so I risked it when it seemed sensible to do so. The life of a few men do not matter if it means protecting their families. But sending anyone out now would risk everyone in here for a few out there."
"A few out there? Do you not even remember their names? We have been talking in generalities for far too long. Archers, sentries, men, women. We have forgotten that each and every one of them has a name. Each and every one of them is someone we have known our whole lives and have loved. Those people in the fields are Olga, and Ida, and Angelika, and Johan, and Kevin, and Ferdinand ... " She was forced to gasp for breath to continue. "How can you just dismiss them so easily simply because their bodies are on the wrong side of a damn wall?"
"You were willing to dismiss every one of us today the moment you thought of him," he said as he gestured with a solid hand to Humbert. "You did not
care that we were needed on the wall. It could have been anything. Those upon the wall could already have been dead, their bodies giving us a new red waterfall. You thought of him and none of that mattered to you anymore. Are you our leader, Sieglinde, or his lover? Which is it?"
She could not help but look at Humbert. Her lips were trembling. Her fingers were trembling. Her chest twisted into a tight point. "I ... "
"You have proven you cannot have both," Adalbern said cruelly. "You must choose and if you choose yourself, your people will die."
"I ... "
Adalbern straightened. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet but firm. "I will send my wife to care for him until he has recovered."
Reflexively, she grabbed Humbert's hand in hers and squeezed. She wanted to scream at Adalbern. How dare he talk to her this way? How dare he treat her so horribly? How dare he treat Humbert's life with such little regard? But the words would not come. The breath to carry them was stuck. Her lips trembled too hard to form the sounds. Cold shot down her cheeks and dripped onto her hand covering Humbert's.
"Go to the manor," Adalbern said. "I will give you daily updates of his condition but it will be someone else who tends to him. You need to focus on the threat outside those walls."
She wanted to lift Humbert's hand to her lips but Adalbern's appraisal was still piercing into her from the doorway. Her muscles were too weak to lift it. She closed her eyes and breathed.
"Goodnight, Adalbern," she said as she set Humbert's hand down and pushed herself to her feet.
He stepped aside to allow her to pass.
The walk back to the manor was slowed by her need to concentrate upon each step. Every curve of her ankles and flex of her legs took deliberate effort. The climbing of the stairs to her room was nearly impossible. By the time she closed the door behind her and leaned back against it, the tears would not come. She had forced herself to stay calm too long. As close as she had been to sobbing in Humbert's shack, she was now entirely numb.
She walked to her bed and slowly lowered herself onto it. She did not bother to change her clothes. She had not lit a candle so the room was already dark. Sleep did not come.
Adalbern's words were bouncing around the inside of her mind. As the echo repeated, as she forced herself to see his point of view, clarity came to her.
He was right that she had not been focused on her real job. Humbert had become a distraction she could not afford. But she was no more convinced that he was right to leave the others to die in the fields. If they were not dead, if they were simply hurt or captured, how could she just leave them and not try to help them? How would they feel to know that they were left to hell so easily?
She got out of bed and walked back out of the manor, this time no longer in the weakened haze of shock and pain. She knew what needed to be done.
Adalbern's house was dark and her banging upon his door echoed through the village. She winced for a moment as she worried about waking the others, but the mission was too important to wait.
After much rustling, the door opened. Adalbern, holding a lit candle, was blinking back at her.
"Perhaps Christians are content sacrificing their kin without a thought but I will not have a single Mintharch lying in the sun being pecked at by the crows. Our people have always been about being better than that. We care for each other and we do not sacrifice or kill those of our own. Luitgard is gone. I am the new leader of the Mintharchs. Now get dressed, get a band of your men together, and go find our family."
He blinked. Then nodded. "Immediately," he said.