The Ravens of Falkenau & Other Stories by Jo Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

they've nothing to do except turn bandit.   What about your men, Georg?   Surely you're not so blinded by the Lady Izabela's spreading acres that you've forgotten about them?"
    I drew a deep breath.   "You know as well as I that most of them will never have any more land than the grave they lie in.   You and I — we're rare birds, Jamie.   Old mercenaries.   Most of them won't live five years, much less retire rich men."
    "But they might.   And that's the siren, my friend.   You heard her song and so did I.   One more battle, one more march, and we'll get our own.   Our ships will come in and we'll live on milk and honey.   As long as you keep believing it you'll keep fighting."   McDonald crossed his legs.   "I'm not so much worried for me.   I'd make a fine master at arms for Falkenau.   But you can't keep them all on.   What use is there for a company if peace breaks out?"
    "I never believed that," I said sharply.   "I never believed there was anything for me except a grave."
    McDonald shrugged.   "And yet here you are, Graf Falkenau.   Mayhap you didn't believe it, but you did it all the same.   You've a rare kind of stubbornness to you and a quicksilver wit behind those black Bavarian eyes.   I said to myself, there's a man who's lucky, so I'll stand behind him.   It's paid off so far.   But you know as well as I that fear of you is the only thing that's keeping some of those lads from torching castle and village both."   He shook his head.   "You can't turn off an army of mercenaries, Georg."
    "Don't you think Wallenstein knows that?" I asked.   "He's twenty years longer at this game than we, and the canniest man in the empire.   If he's seeking terms he has a plan.   Perhaps we'll turn this around and attack Richelieu, give him back a bit of what he's handed out."   I paced over to the window again.   "In which case you've got the company, my friend.   I'll take myself out and you'll be captain.   And the boys can do as they wish — sign on with you or muster out."
    "They'll sign on, most of them," McDonald said.   He gave me a gap toothed smile.   "You'll retire, and I'm for a field in the Elsass."
    "Unless you'd rather be master at arms for Falkenau," I said.
    He shook his head.   "Not me.   I'm a gambling man, Georg.   One more throw of the dice to make me king!"
    A shiver ran down my spine, as though we had spoken of this before.   Perhaps we had, only I did not remember it.   "Sometimes it's better to leave the table when you're winning," I said.   "To leave off grasping for the ring of fire and be content with what you have, rather than risk all and lose all."
    "Maybe so," he said, but when it came to that I thought he would not stay.

    Winter came, blowing in on the heels of the storm that had followed me, a hard freeze and a light snow, just enough to coat the cobblestones in the night and give a taste of what was to come.   We had problems of fodder, and I sent McDonald around with Izabela's factor to see what they could buy up from outlying farms where our army had not yet been.   McDonald didn't ask if he could just take it.   After all, I was their overlord now, and stealing from my own peasants would be foolish.   It would be stealing from myself.
    Advent came, and Christmastide.   The cheer was perhaps the ghost of what it would have been in a normal year, but we were settling in to some kind of truce.   Izabela's people did not hurry through the hall anymore without speaking, their eyes averted.   There were fewer crude jests and more flirtation.   I'd hang a man for rape, but a word here and there, a strong back to carry a heavy load of laundry upstairs, a word from a handsome fellow…   Some would find their Christmas cheer.
    Not I.   Izabela spent one night in seven in my room for form's sake, lest people talk, but I had not touched her.   Usually we did not speak at all, merely slept back to back in the big curtained bed without a word said, our