Remembrance of an oath

CHAPTER 9

Remembrance of an oath

It was a sunny day of summer when the general-director received the recommendation documentation for the admission of a cadet under “unusual” conditions. The inscription form had been carefully filled and almost immediately archived. The boy that was accepted–no questions asked, was sitting in front of the general-director. Next to him was his protector with whom he had spent the last four years. It was clear in the young expression that he wasn’t entirely sure of this idea, but his opinion was irrelevant; it had been discussed for some time. His protector would only answer “I know how you feel, boy, but trust me. It’s for your own good, in fact, it’s the best thing you can do.” Those words didn’t give him any comfort.

“Then… it’s done.” The tutor was the first one to talk. The general-director closed the file cabinet behind him, he lay back on his seat and indifferently observed the man that just talked.

“That’s right, he is in. I will tell one of the officers aboard the academy to give him his equipment and show him his new home.” answered the general-director with a carefree tone.

The boy’s protector stood up from his seat, he placed his pate-shaped hat–which had been laying on his lap, under his left armpit and extended his hand to the general-director. It was notorious that he had three gold bars in his coat’s sleeve–two thick ones and one thinner in between, which also had a star above it.

“I thank your attention, general Steiner. Believe me that you do both the boy and myself a great favour.” said the man with a firm but sincere tone.

“Don’t mention it,” the general director shook his hand briefly, and then he let it go. “Karkas… you were there, right lieutenant commander Miloslav?”

Lieutenant commander Miloslav was slightly surprised by the sudden mention of his participation in the war. Various memories came to his mind, memories which he suppressed with all of his efforts.

“That’s right, general.” because the lieutenant commander was from another nation’s navy, he did not use the pronoun “my'' when referring to the general director. “I was the artillery officer on board the Slavianki. We shelled the city for four days and three nights straight. I know you were in charge of the brigade that led the assault on Karkas,” he looked to the boy who was tense with his look on the ground, on the edge of a burst of tears. “In fact, the three of us were there.”

“Well, we owed you that, besides that your shipping company is of great help for the cause.” answered the general-director, making a gesture with his hand. Lieutenant commander Miloslav clenched his fist with the mention of “the cause”.

“In that case, our small arrangement is done. I’ll take my leave then, general.” Lieutenant commander Miloslav turned to see the one last time to the boy as if with his bare stare he could say “I’m sorry”. He put on the plate-shaped hat and left, closing the door behind him. Involuntarily left a cloud of silence behind.

“Boy, what’s your name?” asked the general-director with a carefree tone.

“Friedrich.” the boy answered with a muttered voice, almost like a mumble.

“Just Friedrich?” the general-director insisted.

“Stahl… Stahlherz.” he had a hard time pronouncing his last name adequately. The general-director turned to see him firmly once he heard him, with special interest, afterwards he looked away as if it had lost any importance.

“I see.”

There were three knocks on the door, given with a precise force to be loud but not noisy. The general-director indicated to come in and the door opened slowly. A young officer bearing three silver stars on his shoulders–different to the general-director stars, entered; they belonged to the rank of captain of Lilisburg’s army–equivalent to a lieutenant of Kholodfiorde’s navy, one rank below lieutenant commander Miloslav. After entering, the young captain took off his kepi and held it with his left hand and saluted the general-director–without doing the hand gesture since he was inside and with his head uncovered– afterwards he placed himself behind Friedrich.

“Ah, captain Tobias, you will take him to his dorm,” the general director opened the file cabinet, he took out the folder where he placed the inscription papers and added some more that were on his desk’s drawer. He gave them to the captain’s hands. “In here there’s everything you need, I’ve also assigned him an academic group and an organic company,” The dorms and military activities distributed the cadets in different companies, with three in total. “Also make sure to provide his equipment. You know; uniforms, kepis, belts, a powder flask and a pair of boots. Afterwards, go to the armoury, ask the armourer which muskets are available and assign him one.

The captain nodded and placed a hand on Friedrich’s shoulder, who stood up without turning his gaze from the floor. The captain put on his kepi and left with the boy following him, like a homeless dog following the first person it encounters. The captain walked away, reading the folder that was handed to him, it contained all of Friedrich’s information, as some sort of mini-biography that surely lieutenant commander Miloslav had written and prepared to demonstrate the background Friedrich had. Upon reading it, the captain felt a small sting in his chest and a knot tied in his throat. He turned to Friedrich, who had not changed his behaviour during all of this period. “So it was because of that,” the captain thought, “that’s why acts like this.” Captain Tobias closed the folder and decided to focus on his task at hand. He spent the afternoon going throughout all of the academy with Friedrich, giving him his gear. Friedrich put on the distinctive cadet’s blue uniform. The captain brought together the academy’s photography team–whose camera was an enormous box with a tape equally as big, impossible to carry by just one man–, alongside the photographer. With a blinding flash, his portrait got impressed on the tape, which would be revealed on the pass of the afternoon to put it on his expedient.

It was starting to get dark when the captain and Friedrich finished all of their chores. The captain decided that it was time to take him to his dorm. They began walking down the stairs when the captain broke the silence.

“Hey, Friedrich… I’ve read a little bit of your folder, I know what you’ve been through,” Friedrich was notoriously taken with a low guard. “What I want to say is that, if you have any problem during your stay, tell me and I will help you. Okay?”

Friedrich only answered by nodding his head. Both arrived at the entrance of the dorms. The captain opened the door and then looked at the rooms’ list, which was on a paper sheet stuck on the wall. There was one room with a free bed, to which Friedrich directed. He knocked on the door and entered. The room’s only habitant had a small panic attack after seeing an officer entering his room, for which he was not prepared. Clumsily he got up from his bunk bed and tensely stood at attention. The captain moved his hand, rotating his wrist’s axis–the gesture that means “carry on with whatever you were doing”. The lad in underwear let out a sigh and liberated all tension from his body.

“Otto, starting today this will be your new roommate.” said the captain while pointing at Friedrich.

Friedrich observed the guy who had the name of “Otto”, he was about two centimetres taller than him–Friedrich was a metre and seventy-five; a bit chubby although he wasn’t fat he just had a voluminous complexion, his hair brown-coloured hair was abundant and parted in the middle with curls towards both sides of his head. Otto turned to Friedrich and greeted him with a nod of his head.

“What’s up. I’m Otto Wagner, although everyone calls me just Otto,” he extended his hand to shake Friedrich’s. “I was starting to wonder when I would get a roommate.”

“Friedrich… Stahlherz” he said in a doubtful tone while shaking his new partner’s hand.

“Well, looks like you two will get along. I’ll leave you guys.”

Friedrich turned to face captain Tobias. He got a horrible surprise that made him fall on his back.

“What’s the matter, Friedrich?” said the mayor Tobias while litres of blood were pouring out of his eye sockets and his mouth, like waterfalls. His flesh began to turn black and fall into pieces until only a burned body remained. Friedrich looked at Otto who was laying on the ground in a pool of blood. “If you had not abandoned us, maybe we would still be alive. You forsake your own kind when they most needed you. Don’t you have any respect for your oath as a soldier?”

Friedrich got up loudly, sitting on the bulk of blankets that remained warm with the chimney’s fire. Buggering dream! His mind had played him a low blow, using his memories that way. He hadn’t had any nightmares like that for months, he thought he got over them. He turned to the bed, Erika was still serenely asleep. He observed how the bulge of her chest and upper abdomen raised, then lowered, rhythmically and calmly. At that moment, Friedrich envied her. He lay back again and shut his eyes. It was useless, he could not get back to sleep no matter how much he tried. He threw the blanket that covered him to the other side of the room. To hell with it! He moved one of the wooden planks under the bed revealing a small compartment. Inside there was a small wooden box, worn by the passing of time. In the box, there was a revolver with distinctive markings on the hammer due to the constant friction over a long period of use, as well as three spare cylinders. The death instrument brought back bitter memories to Friedrich, which he pushed aside. He quickly checked all of the cylinder’s chambers in the gun; they were all unloaded. He pulled back the hammer which protested with the three-action loading clicks. After pulling the trigger, the hammer fell over the chamber’s nipple, which did not have any cap on it.

“Click!”

“At least this thing seems to still be working,” said Friedrich to himself.

With a grunt, he stretched and reached for the paper bags with the things that he had bought in town alongside Erika. He looked at the paper bags’ content. With Sophia, he bought the ingredients for the propellant, with the smith he bought the projectiles–conic bullets chambered in .479, the caps and a few straps of paper. He decided to spend the rest of the night loading the cylinders and preparing as many spare paper cartridges as he could.

***

In the war room inside Lilisburg’s castle, the king was anxiously awaiting the reciprocation from the small reconnaissance unit that had been sent to the Royal Military Academy. Two days prior communications with the academy were completely lost–a routinary exchange of messages through the telegraph that was done daily. It was assumed, rightly, that it meant an attack on the Royal Military Academy of Lilisburg. Naturally, the king’s biggest preoccupation was the well-being of his only daughter, Erika, who was present at the academy. His second concern was only one question: “Why?” He certainly had shown mercifulness after declaring himself victor during the hundredth war, twenty years ago. He could have obliterated the entire country alongside its inhabitants. The point of his alliance with Kholodfiorde was to have a quick and swift victory, with a minimal quantity of casualties for both sides. Did all of those talks about peace and prosperity between the two nations had been nothing more than an illusion for people stupidly credulous? How did they get the weapons for the attack, anyway? One of the few policies that he enforced over Kashkestan was to disarm entirely the nation–to avoid another war or reignite the flame. Certainly, his mandate as a king was notoriously less warlike compared to his forefathers; he believed in the power of reason and the use of dialogue for conflict resolution, although he perfectly knew that the use of force was sometimes a necessary measure. Because of that, many generals questioned if he could be a ruler worthy of commanding the army. With time he gained their trust.

The king walked in circles across the spacious room, with a map of the continent stuck on the wall and an enormous table in the middle. One of the soldiers from the expedition corps interrupted him, he carried a telegram. The young soldier–barely eighteen years old, was panting trying to catch his breath. He had surely run a good distance to deliver the message as quickly as possible. The king took it from his hand, he slowly inhaled and held his breath, he read: THE SECOND COMPANY, FOURTH BATTALION, THIRD DIVISION FROM THE RECONNAISSANCE AND EXPEDITION CORPS OF HIS MAJESTY’S ARMY REGRETS TO INFORM THAT THE ROYAL ACADEMY HAS BEEN RAZED DESPITE VALIANT EFFORTS TO DEFEND IT. CONTACT WITH SURVIVORS, WITHOUT SIGN OF YOUR HIGHNESS | ENORMOUS QUANTITY OF UNIDENTIFIED BODIES, PROCESS OF IDENTIFICATION WILL BE CARRIED OUT IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS. | ESTIMATED NUMBER OF LOSSES 150 DEAD BETWEEN OFFICERS, CADETS AND CIVILIAN PERSONNEL… He stopped reading and collapsed on his seat at the table’s head.

“The survivors… where are they?” He asked the soldier with an undertone, almost resigned.

“They arrived at Corolla just a few hours ago, they are in the army’s general quarters right now. Everyone is passing through a medical check; giving priority to the more gravely injured, of course,” the soldier stood at attention to answer, stiff as a stone. He was about to forget to say “Your highness” after finishing the sentence.

“Is Claudius among them?”

“Yes, your highness. The royal counsellor is with the survivors, so is general Steiner.”

“Call them immediately to the war room.” the soldier nodded and left, the king let his hand fall down the table on a fist. He muttered to himself: “I hope for the sake of those savages that my daughter is not one of those bodies.”

***

It has been a week since Friedrich and Erika arrived at Fischersville. Friedrich decided it was time to move; all the preparations had been meticulously done and verified. Also, they didn’t have any more time to spare. The plan in a nutshell was to walk a few kilometres northeast of Fischersville to a town called Weizensburg. In that town there was a train route that went through the border of the country into Kholodfiorde–conveniently receded from the more direct routes that, because of that, were the most populated and obvious to ambush them. Corolla was to the north of the country and south of the port city of Staubblatt, from which numerous imports from the two neighbouring countries arrived.

Why go through all that complicated manoeuvre and not just turn themselves into his Majesty’s army’s mercy? That’s how Friedrich would accomplish his part and would most certainly be compensated. He considered it at all times, but his instinct forbade him from taking this obvious course of action. He knew perfectly that the infantry troops were not as well trained as they were 20 or 30 years ago–a secondary effect of the demilitarisation after the war, and the “best” trained troops were ambushed at the Royal Academy. If that kashke group objective was one of such high profile one like the princess Erika, then they would send their best men so that they wouldn’t fail. That was such a high responsibility for soldiers that were barely trained to hold a rifle.

Both walked in silence through the trail that opened itself up in the middle of the forest, the sun illuminated their steps. Friedrich felt how the rusty key sounded in his pocket every time he took a step, he remembered closing the door and thinking that it would pass a long time before using it again. He turned to Erika, her clothes gave her a different aura to the one when he first met her in the dining room, the bow and quiver that she carried on her back gave her a menacing look, and to some degree, savage; her appearance was fierce, with that show of feminine will to do things her way. Friedrich liked seeing that version of her even if he didn’t want to admit it; seeing her full of strength and determination to fight. It was a surprise for Friedrich to learn how skilled she was with the bow and arrows. One afternoon she had taken the bow out of curiosity, Friedrich approached and tried to teach her: “Place your hand here. Yes, like that. Now stretch your arm and pull the string. When you are ready, let it go.” Then the cutting sound of the arrow breaking the barrier of sound was heard, followed by an impact twenty metres away. She had aimed and hit an arrow that Friedrich had shot previously, to a target painted on an old pine tree. She looked at him satisfied and vowed, to which he just shrugged and carried on with his chores.

Remembering it filled him with immense intrigue. Was it that she was really more than what she appeared? More than what Friedrich originally thought? Every leaf that both stepped on through the pathway sounded monotonous like a winding clock’s second hand.

“How did you learn to use a bow?” Friedrich spoke with the most casual tone he could use, although it couldn’t be denied that he felt genuine curiosity.

The wind started blowing with increasing intensity as if it swept away the words that just came out of Friedrich’s mouth. He was about to give up on the conversation when Erika broke the silence once more.

“I took lessons a few years ago. Father wanted me to learn things about the kingdom’s administration, the kind that no one likes and gets anyone bored. It was just fair that I’d learn something that I wanted, something that I liked. He opposed the idea because it was “not girly” but I did not care in the least.”

“Something you like, huh?” Friedrich showed doubt in his voice. Did he do what he wanted? Did what he liked doing? Despite asking himself in his mind he could not find a satisfactory answer for him. He did everything due to the circumstances, he did the necessary to survive.

What would he do with his life if things had been different? How would his life be if he had had the chance to choose his own future, like the rest? No matter how much he tried he couldn't imagine it. So many days had passed, so accustomed to his actual life that it was impossible to imagine himself in another place at that precise moment. That depressed him.

Erika noticed the immense melancholy on Friedrich’s face. She worried she had said something wrong so he would break that cold-as-ice facade, although she was happy to see him show himself more… human than she had initially anticipated.

“What would you like to do in ten years?” Erika suddenly asked. Friedrich got pulled out of his thoughts.

“I… I don’t know. Ten years is a long time.” Friedrich answered evasively.

“Come on, there must be something that you want to do at some point in your life, one of those kinds of goals that you have to realise before dying.” Erika insisted.

Friedrich let out a sigh, he rubbed his nose’s bridge with his fingers. He knew that he could not evade the conversation with his usual coldness; Erika was very persistent and was accustomed to always getting what she wanted.

“I’d like… I’d like to be a musician… Yeah! I’d like to be a musician because… uh… I like music…” generic and unconvincing. Erika chuckled.

“Oh, yeah? And what instrument do you play, you future musician?” Erika observed Friedrich firmly while talking in a mocking tone. “How do you pretend to make a living, huh?”

“Playing the mandolin” answered Friedrich with definitive confidence.

Erika started laughing out loud. She imagined that unsmiling boy dressed like a joker with garish-coloured clothing and a mandolin in hand.

“You? The mandolin? You don’t seem like the type of person that has the patience to sit down and learn how to play an instrument.”

“That’s what I think about you. I don’t think there’s anyone with enough patience to take the time to teach someone as annoying and egocentric as you.”

As soon as he finished that sentence he quickly shut his mouth, perhaps he had said one word too much. How would she react? Friedrich tensed his hands and waited; he waited for a slap, an insult or even a “Humph!” that show her displeasure. To his surprise, Erike appeared calmed and conserved. Was it that she didn’t hear him?

“You’re wrong,” she said in a tranquil tone, she had a small smile on her face. “Are you an idiot? If I know how to use a bow, of course I’ve had a mentor; in fact, I’ve had many. I’ve had teachers on different subjects; philosophy, science, administration, music, painting, literature, poetry and the list goes on. I bet that I have much more education than a brute gorilla like you.”

“I’m sure you do, whatever your highness says,” answered Friedrich uninterested.

“Besides, you taught me how to cook,” Erika added with a triumphant tone.

“Yes, I suppose you are right,” Friedrich sighed. “I learned to play the mandolin when I was eight, it was one of the things that I was taught by a friend of my father and he decided to pass on to me.”

Erika turned to see Friedrich again, once more he had that melancholic stare in his eyes. It was the first time he ever spoke about his past. Did that mean any progress? But, progress on what? Why should she be interested in Friedrich’s past? She couldn’t help but feel a bit curious to learn how Friedrich came to be who he was.

Friedrich did not say anything else, both kept walking in silence. Erika felt a slight frustration of achieving a slight opening on the shell in which Friedrich shielded himself and that it had closed shut immediately, without her being able to do anything. She wanted to ask who had taught him, how his parents were, and what his childhood was like; however, how Friedrich talked about his past made her desist. She came up with a way to lighten up the mood. With a quick wrist movement, she took out a recorder. She had a small shoulder bag under her cape where she carried her most precious belongings. She started playing a paused and melancholic melody, the wind played the accompaniment with the trees’ leaves. Friedrich limited himself to listening and contemplating the green around him. He closed his eyes and let himself be carried away by the sweet notes. How peaceful!

“Not bad at all. Seems like you know one or two things.”

Erika kept playing, not minding what Friedrich said. Eventually, they reached the exit out of the woods and the entrance to the small town of Weizensburg. An enormous windmill attracted the view to the centre of the set of houses. It was the typical architecture from the rural parts of Lilisburg: tile roofs, walls made out of cobblestone and doors and windows with huge blacksmith works made out of thick iron.

Almost at the same time, a pair of ankle boots stepped down to the platform of the train station. The ankle boots carried the weight of a sturdy man with a wide moustache, his eyes were covered by a round pair of glasses which the sun’s reflection made them shine. The man was carrying an enormous object covered with a khaki blanket over his shoulders, held by a thick leather belt. He turned both sides and a wide ear to ear smile showed big teeth, menacing and sharp. He had arrived at the right place.