* * *
The vermin infestation of the storehouse had been the last straw for Sieglinde. The fact that they also now lacked enough food to feed the few remaining animals and had to slaughter them had not helped either. Within days, their food stores had gone to almost nothing.
Each night since Humbert had shown her the state of the storehouse, she had not slept. Her hours of staring at the wooden beam above her had brought one conclusion. The Goddess had not only given up protecting them, she was now actively sabotaging them. There would be no one to save them; no miracle to end the siege.
Their deaths would be from starvation or from massacre. She had to choose which. As much faith as she had held in the wall, she had to face the fact that it was only that, a wall. It was not a protector. It could not fight off the invaders if they chose to renew their attacks. It could not feed the people. There were no true barriers left around them. What risk did she want to take?
The last time Adalbern had yelled at her haunted her. He had wanted to fight. He had wanted a chance to win. Hiding was not giving them a chance. The only guarantee was that the food would run out if they stayed hidden. There was no reason to believe the soldiers would just end the siege one day, though she was beyond understanding what the enemy soldiers were trying to accomplish. They had stopped their attacks and she still had not figured out why.
The Mintharchs needed to take a chance and they had to do it when there was enough of the season left to forage the forest if they won. She cringed and rubbed her hands over her face as she thought of the despair that would result if the people fought off the invaders only to starve anyway. They would starve anyway.
She had been afraid to make this decision but the lack of options made the necessary actions perfectly clear. Now that it had finally come to her, she realized how she should have done it long before; long before they lost members of their families to infections and fire and arrow wounds. She had been a coward but she was determined to make amends for it.
Within the hour, she stood in the smithy; Humbert at her side.
"We are going to fight," she explained to the smith. "We need you to take any metal you can find and make it into offensive weapons. The arrows alone will not be enough. We need more swords and daggers. Things for hand to hand combat."
The man swallowed and ran his thick, scarred fingers through his greased hair. "When?" he asked.
"Within the week," she said.
"And the children?"
"I will make arrangements in case we fail," she said quietly to keep the others from hearing.
He nodded his understanding.
She and Humbert left the smithy. Humbert decided to go help with the tending of the gardens. Though she normally would have helped, ordering the first preparations for battle made her feel weak. Now that she had vocalized the decision to others, she could not turn back. She walked to the manor, hoping to steal a moment of solitude.
No one took any notice of her as she climbed the spiral stairs. When she opened the door to the solar, everything within her went cold. A large man was seated upon Luitgard's bed. He had broad shoulders and long limbs but his face was wrinkled and drawn. The morning sun shining through the window illuminated his white hair.
"You have grown into such a tall lady," he said.
She pulled back, ready to run from the room and scream for help. Sense would have done so but something familiar about his blue eyes kept her where she was.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"You don't remember me?" he asked back. "You were very young at the time I suppose. But tell me, where has my sweet little Luitgard gone? My friend Arnold happened to meet her in Stare Mesto and found it quite odd that she had left the village."
Sieglinde stepped closer. "Lord Mintharch?"
He chuckled which led to a cough. "Not a name I have been called in a very long time," he said. "Sorry I have been gone for so long. It seems my problems have found their way to your gates despite my efforts. I am sorry for that, but hopefully it is not yet impossible to set it right."
"Where have you been? We were convinced you were dead. Luitgard was heartbroken when you never returned. Were you in Rome?"
He seemed surprised by her last question. "Why do you ask about Rome?"
"Because that is where Luitgard went," she said. "To look for you. She was convinced you were captive there."
His face turned from serious to murderous. "I knew she had gone off somewhere but why would she ever think that the place to go?"
Sieglinde explained about the Dominican who showed up in front of the gates and how Luitgard was convinced the Church had tortured information out of him. "Then she left and this army showed up," she finished.
"Of course they did," he said. "She was the only reason any of you were protected."
Sieglinde blinked. Her lack of understanding evoked a heavy sigh from him. The shutter banged against the casement as a breeze caught it.
"I had hoped I would never have to tell another soul this story," he said. "Years ago, when I was a different man, I fought at the Church's bidding. I did things that do not make me a proud man. Then, we were ordered to kill the Cathars. 'Kill them all. God will sort our his own,' we were told. As I stood looking down at the bloodied and lifeless body of a child, I hated myself. I had no idea how I had become such a monster. I had once thought myself noble and honourable. Killing children isn't honour." He stood and began to pace the room as he continued his story. "I suppose as punishment for my deeds, I found out after the battle that my son, who had been a soldier like me, had been cut down mistakenly by one of our own men. As heartbroken as I was, I knew I deserved it. I had dealt worse upon others. I had brought it upon myself and ensured that I would have nothing of worth left in my life. Broken, I made a pilgrimage to Rome, hoping to seek answers from God himself.
"When I got there, it was not God who answered me but one of the old Goddesses," he said. "She listened to my heartbreak and through that we began to discuss the nature of man. I told her that if there were no greed, man could live in peace. She thought me foolish but was willing to let me prove it. We made a deal. She told me to head north and bring with me any others I met who desired a peace that could not be found in their own homes. Oda, Ewald, and several others joined me and we continued to travel through the wild and deserted countryside. When we found a place to make our home, the Goddess would offer protection for those of my blood from the same horrible deaths I had inflicted upon others. With her protection, she said I would have a chance to make a peaceful society. If I failed, if inner discord ripped that society apart, she won and would have my soul.
"Finally, she gave me a dagger. The one tool that could be used to break the contract if I felt it necessary. The deal could only be broken in Rome."
Sieglinde had trouble comprehending it all. The words made sense but all of their years of tending the barrier seemed embarrassingly fruitless now. "It was Luitgard that made the barrier?" she asked.
"I never told anyone the truth about her," he said. "I could not place such a large burden upon such a young girl. I had hoped to tell her one day but then I was forced never to return and had to hope that her lack of knowledge would not endanger all of you. My worst nightmares are coming true." He stopped pacing and looked at her. "Where is the dagger? It is not in the chest where I left it."
Sieglinde swallowed. "It is in Rome," she said, "With Luitgard."
He bellowed, "What?"
"I gave it to her to keep her safe as she travelled. I did not trust the man she was travelling with."
His eyes darkened. "It was a Dominican who came here?" he said.
She nodded. "I think his name was Justin," she explained.
"Not a man named Merek?"
She shook her head.
"Unfortunately, that still does not comfort me," he said. "Merek had fought with me. He was not much more than a boy when I met him. He was alone and had no one to look after him. I tried to look out for him when I
could. As he got older, we fought alongside one another. He loved the fighting and loved having me there. But when we were ordered to kill the Cathars, I could not share the same enthusiasm he showed. It was the last time I saw him until I returned to Rome with Luitgard. He had joined the Dominicans because he said no one suspects them of anything. He found more protection and more freedom for his misdeeds under the guise of a travelling friar than of a warrior. He asked where I had disappeared to. He asked many questions.
"After Luitgard's parents died, I stood upon the shore of the lake in the middle of the night. I had not done enough for them. My own daughter was dead. The protections had still failed. In my grief, I walked into the marshy part of lake, intending to end my pain in this world but sense returned to me. Instead, I shot myself into the sky and flew to Stare Mesto to visit my friend. I was surprised to run into Merek again. I did not trust him; he still held onto my betrayal of leaving him the first time. I was worried about what he would do, so I treated him as a friend. We began drinking but he must have put something in my cup. I don't remember anything but I must have started to talk too much. I woke up, having passed out, and he was looking very smug. He began to talk about how excited he was to see my village himself and to see my little Luitgard again. I was terrified. He had no idea where the village was and needed me to take him. I refused. We fought and I fled. I did not trust even the Goddess' protections against a determined Merek. I also felt too much shame for endangering everyone with my stupidity. I fled to Frankfurt upon Oder where I have been living ever since."
Sieglinde felt sick to her stomach. Not only was Luitgard likely dead. This Merek seemed determined to destroy anything to do with Lord Mintharch.
"It looks like your old friend will get his wish," she said. "Within days, one way or another, we will be forced to fight."
Lord Mintharch nodded. "I know," he said. "But luckily I have arrived in time."
"Do you honestly believe the Goddess gave you wings?" she asked with a scoff.
He chuckled. "Yes," he said, "She did." He ignored her surprise as he continued, "They cannot help us now but I have another way. It is another piece of information I had one day hoped to share with Luitgard. There is a passage that leads from the Great Hall to the dying shack. We can get everyone through it and escape. We might be able to find somewhere else to start a new life."
Sieglinde's legs weakened. He was offering her exactly what she had told herself she wanted but strangely felt paralyzed by the news. She now knew what the hole in the dying shack really was. She had forgotten it entirely when the first fire had appeared in the woods the night the skies cleared. So many other things had seemed more important. Yet knowing what opportunity it gave them, she felt no better. Anyone with sense would have welcomed his announcement. He would be their saviour. They would live. They would carry on. Despite all those hopes, her heart could not stir to joy.
"No," she said. "This is our home."
Lord Mintharch was taken aback. "This is a bunch of wood piled on a patch of dirt," he said. "This peninsula doesn't matter if you are all alive."
"We are not all alive," she said. "We have already lost many. Adalbern was one of the first. I know you would remember him. His head was shot over that wall."
"And hopefully there will be no more of you to join him in death," he said.
"But where will we live?"
He scoffed with the same flick of his eyes that she had seen when Luitgard would scold her for being too soft. Much had changed since those times. "You can live anywhere," he said. "Those who founded this village wandered for months before we settled here. We nearly starved to death the first winter. But we stopped here because we felt that here we were safe. That has changed. There is no reason to stay."
"Aye, there is," she said. "My grandmother was born here. My mother was born here. I was born here. There is only one of us left alive aside from you who knows of any life beyond the limits of the barrier charms. You are asking us to leave all of our memories behind without a fight?"
"If it means you will live, then of course I do," he yelled. "Have you lost your sense. You would risk the lives of the children of this village for nostalgia?"
"No," she shouted back. "It is to end it here! What happens when they find us again? They found us once. Even if we survive the search for a new home, there is no reason to believe they will not find us again."
"And there is no reason to believe they will leave you alone even if you win. They know you are here now. If they do not kill you all this time, they will simply send more. They show no mercy to Cathars."
"But we are not Cathars," she said.
"That is what they have been told you are and it makes little difference now."
"And what happens when we leave?" She asked. "We are something to everyone. To the Christians we are Cathars. To the Norse we are Christians. Leaving does not land us anywhere safer than here. The wall still stands. Their weapons cannot damage it."
He nodded. "And they never would," he said. "I plucked my first scale and many more to make that wall. With the stone combined with dragon scales, it is indestructible. Putting that wall there was the only way the others felt safe enough to stop here. But there are other ways the soldiers can get into the village. They will not give up. They will find a way. You must leave."
"And we will find a way too," she shot back. "We have found special points. They are sharper than anything you have ever seen. They do not break. We can defeat them. I cannot take the advice of a delusional old man."
His eyes closed. "Many have thought the power of dragon scales the answer to their problems," he said. "I thought so too once. But they are no more a protection than one's wits. There are siege engines more powerful than an onager and even a dragon could not stop an army. If they fail now, they will send hundreds more men with more siege weapons. They will keep coming until you fail."
She took a deep breath. She thought of the dead she had seen. Unbidden, Felix's felled form was brought before her eyes. "I can't give up," she whispered, "But the children ... "
"Yes," he said, "We can get them out of the village today. Arnold is waiting with his cart on a road about an hour's walk north of the dying shack."
Her body shivered as she tried to keep her breathing steady. "They will need someone to care for them," she said. "Where will Arnold take them?"
"Frankfurt upon Oder."
"Some will need to stay and fight," she stressed.
"Why do you insist on sacrificing more people?" His voice shot up to yelling again. "Do you enjoy watching people die?"
"How dare you of all people say that to me! I have been here every day doing my best to help these people. I have never hurt any of them. I don't share your past, Lord Mintharch."
A shadow fell over his eyes. "What you have seen is nothing compared to what haunts my dreams. Don't you dare pretend to have the authority to lecture me. If I left this room right now, those people would flock to me and do whatever I asked of them. I can just tell them the truth about the passage and they will leave."
His delusions were even more apparent. They fed her determination. She said, "Those people are my family. I have never betrayed them. I have never walked out on them. You may be comfortable with running but it is not something I have ever had to do. None of those people have ever had to do that. You underestimate them."
"Then we should let them decide," he said with a reined in tone.
"Fine."
Within the half hour, the villagers were gathered in the hall. Oda's eyes were the widest of all and she could not look away from Lord Mintharch who stood confidently before what had once been Luitgard's chair.
The air within the hall was stale. The day had warmed considerably and the air had ceased moving. Even the central fire shot up straight with no wind to buffet it.
"My heart has ached these many years that I have been separated from you," Lord Mintharch began, "But I have returned to help you in these threatening times. There is a way
out of the village and to safety."
The silence of the hall was broken by whispers at this declaration.
"There is a passage that leads from this spot to the dying shack on the other side of the lake. We can have you all to safety before nightfall."
Sieglinde stepped forward. "We will be sending the children. Their parents may join them. Jessica and Heidi will be sent to take care of the others." She took a deep breath before giving her next appeal. "But I am not willing to give up our home so easily. I refuse to run. I refuse to give up to the likes of them. The men on the other side of that wall care nothing for us. They care nothing even for their own. They are willing to take our children from us. They are willing to watch us burn. They worship a god that loves them for the deaths they cause and showers them with gold and land for their efforts. If we run, the only places out there we will find ourselves are the homes of their kind. The only place free of such selfishness is here.
"I do not believe in their god. I am not willing to let them kill us all and be rewarded. No matter how long it takes, I will stand against them. If the Goddess has forsaken us, please do not lose hope because I have not forsaken you. I will never leave you. I will watch over you and do my best to guide us to safety. I will fight to my last breath to save everything that we have worked to create. Something I hope each of you will do for each other.
"If they come back and if that wall is breached, I hope there are those of you who will stand with me and kill any man who tries to come into our village. If you wish to flee with the children, I will not stop you but I will not respect you. If you are truly my family, you love our home as much as I do. If you love it as much as I do, you will stay and fight.
"Those of us honourable enough to stay will cut them down with as little mercy as they have shown us and any of their ranks who is not killed will be fleeing in terror to tell his god of the Mintharch Monsters. There will be legends of the ghosts in these lands that strike such fear, none will ever enter these woods again. It is time we stopped hiding. It is time we were seen!"
The remaining sentries gave a guttural cheer at her words. She had known they would stand by her. Humbert's sense of duty had been their example. Her eyes fell upon him. His arms were crossed against his chest as he stood in the back of the crowd and watched her. His eyes were vibrant.
She expected Lord Mintharch to rebut her speech and tell the people the same things he had told her. She expected him to speak of the value of life and the chance they were offered by starting elsewhere, but he had fallen silent. He too was watching her.
After several more moments, when the hall had begun to quiet once more, he announced, "The children and those going with them will leave tonight after the sun sets. Once through the passage, they must walk to the North until they come to a road. A dear friend will be waiting with a cart to take them to safety. If you intend to leave, fetch your belongings and make your arrangements."
The crowd dispersed. Aside from the sentries, the villagers had been stunned at this news. Her heart and stomach sank. Lord Mintharch was right. They would leave her and join him. Only those trained for this moment would stay.
Lord Mintharch turned and looked at the chair with the wyvern carved into the back of it. With both hands, he grabbed it and tossed it aside before kneeling upon the stones. He began to pick at the edge of one of the largest stones in the floor. After a moment, he became frustrated. "I need a pry bar," he said.
Sieglinde shouted out a request for a pry bar. Within minutes, Humbert was handing the metal rod to Lord Mintharch who jammed it into a gap between the stones and tried to pull the largest stone loose. "I need more help," he grunted. "I've lost the strength in my arms to do this."
Humbert was immediately at his side trying to help lift the stone. Within moments, the sentries had joined them and the stone was being lifted out of its place and set aside. Only a black hole remained.
"I never wanted to leave anything to chance," Lord Mintharch said. "It is quite far down. We will need a ladder for this end and one for the other."
"There is already one at the other," she explained. "We found the hole when the stone slab cracked and we tried to replace it. We never got a chance to actually use it before the Christians showed up. We will just need one for this side."
Humbert nodded at her words. "We should have enough supplies to make one," he said before signalling to the sentries to follow him as they set off to do just that.
Sieglinde looked into the blackness. "How did you ever make this?" she asked, sounding like an awestruck child even to herself.
"It's easy work for dragon claws, my girl," he said.
When she asked what he meant, he simply smiled. She was not sure if all his talk of dragon scales and claws was his way of teasing her or if he really believed he was one. He seemed content to let her wonder.
That night Jessica and Heidi gathered the children. They were joined by Valeska, Sigi, and Eckart's mother Anika; Marieke and Marlene's mother Eva; Corbinians; and Falk. Sieglinde's heart warmed. Corbinians and Falk had not even wanted to leave the fight. They did so simply to aid the children's safe passage. Every other Mintharch decided to stay. Even Anselm chose to stay despite two of his children being amongst the evacuees. His daughter Dana, a Goddess Maid, also insisted upon doing her part. Sieglinde had tried to convince Anselm otherwise but he would not be swayed. He had lost two children−one unborn−and his wife already. He could not face his youngest children again if he fled a failure.
Anselm's face was dry but Sieglinde could see the moistness of his eyes as he held his Henrik and Frauke close. He whispered his wisdom into their ears. He made no promises about when he would see them next. He told them simply to be strong. The hall, full with villagers who had come to say good-bye, was silent as he said his farewells to his boys. All were watching them.
Corbinians was the first to climb down. He tapped on the ladder when he reached the bottom. The first of the children, no more than six years old, began their descent. Some of the children began to cry when they reached the bottom. The passage was too dark and they were frightened. When Jessica and Heidi joined them, Sieglinde could hear the gentle words of comfort they gave.
She waited by the hole even after they had gone, listening to the echoes of the children's cries. She had never wanted to do this to them but she could not let them die as Felix had.
Though she stood by her conviction and still disagreed with Lord Mintharch, his words had renewed her guilt. No matter what she decided she would always hate herself for it. She just hoped that by taking a stand, she would hate herself a little less.
The echoes of the children faded away. Sieglinde remained.