APH - Resistance - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Who Should Follow Blindly Without Knowing The Destination


Then, as the man was sweeping down that wicked dagger towards her, he stopped abruptly. His eyes widened, his face paled and he coughed up blood. His whole body shook once from head to toe. His fingers spasmed around the hilt of the dagger before dropping it almost gently. He stood upright for a few heartbeats before his knees buckled and he crumpled to the ground.

By now, Mathilda was sobbing so hard she could hardly see what was going on around her. Her vision was blurred by tears and she more felt than saw the man falling to the ground. When a hand fell across her shoulder, she screeched.

“Mattie! Calm down, for God’s sake!”

Shaking, she looked up to see her brother’s face. She stared at him for a second as if she couldn’t recognize him. Very slowly, her gaze swept the scene around her. All the men that had been standing by the door were now bloody corpses on the ground. The one who had come after her with a dagger was also lying facedown on the dirt floor of the tent. The torch he had held was being rapidly put out by a healer with a bucket of water before its fire spread to the nearby wood cots. Everything happened so fast that she couldn’t make sense of it.

The enemy soldiers were all dead? She was alive? What the…?

“It’s fine, you’re fine,” Alfred assured her.

He had a commanding voice, the same as their father’s, and the sureness of his tone made her feel better. Alfred was here and he was assuming command of things. Mathilda managed to compose herself enough to get to her feet. Her legs felt like jelly and she had to put a hand on her brother’s arm not to crumble back to the ground. Her stomach still hurt from the blow but she managed a feeble smile for the sake of the onlookers.

The three healers had cowered behind the wooden desk, standing together like frightened children. The wounded soldiers who had gotten up in readiness to defend themselves were slowly sitting back down on their cot. Some of them were as pale as milk, clearly exhausted by such action. Others had pleased smirks on their face as if they had chased away the intruders by themselves.

Someone put a cup into her fingers and told her to drink. Numbly, Mathilda obeyed. A fiery liquid slid down her throat to settle like a lake of fire inside her stomach. It brought new tears her eyes and made her cough. However, it had a bracing effect. Her thoughts stopped spinning and she managed to get a grasp on herself. She finished the cup of bracing spicy wine with a grimace. Still shaken, she felt more like herself now.

“Thank you,” she said to Michelle, the one who had been quick-minded enough to bring her the wine. She then turned to her brother. “What happened?”

Alfred had clearly been sleeping when the attack happened. He was wearing trousers and an undershirt open at the throat with unlaced boots. His light blond hair was dishevelled with one strand standing upright. He wore no gloves, but his broadsword was firmly in his grasp. He had some blood on his left cheekbone that, thankfully, didn’t seem to be his and on the front of his undershirt. The blade of his sword was covered in crimson from tip to cross guard.

He shrugged. “There was an attack on the camp. Apparently, two different forces attacked at the same time. The one to the south was numerous and clumsy, which seemed odd to me. If you’re to send troops inside an enemy camp, you send the best. That’s when I heard from some panicked kid that he had spotted other rebels in the camp. I came here as soon as possible.” Then, despite it all, Alfred grinned. “I don’t understand why I hurried so much though; you seemed to have things well in hand.”

Of course, he meant her pathetic attempt at stealing the man’s sword. Mathilda groaned, but she couldn’t stop a small smile forming at her lips. “Oh, don’t make fun of me. I panicked. It was stupid, I should have waited for my knight in shining armour to rescue me.”

Alfred’s eyebrows rose high enough to disappear under his blond fringe. “Dan will be very happy that you call him your knight in shining armour.”

Mathilda gasped. “It was he who slew these men?!” she gestured towards the corpses at the door of the tent. “But he’s just a child!”

“He’s seventeen, and a very good swordsman. If it hadn’t been for him, I doubt I would have reached you in time.”

“Where is he? Has he been hurt?”

“I don’t think so. He’s checking around to make sure there aren’t any more soldiers.”

As if summoned, Dan, their cousin, walked in the tent, being careful not to step on the bloodied corpses littering the ground. He was a good-looking lad of seventeen with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. He was perhaps an inch shorter than Alfred, but with the broad shoulders of a swordsman. He had a scar atop the bridge of his nose, not acquired in battle but in a ridiculous incident in his childhood. It would give him a fierce appearance if not for his large dark eyes and perpetual big smile. As he walked in, he sheathed his sword back on the scabbard strapped to his back.

“There, all safe!” Dan said in his thick brogue. “There was a sentry near the northern gate but I dispatched him easily.”

“Good work,” Alfred admitted with a nod.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” Mathilda said, turning towards her cousin. She smiled. “Alfred tells me you are the one who saved us. You’ve been training hard and it shows. Thank you.”

Dan always wanted to impress people around him, especially his older cousins. He was tireless whenever he put his mind to accomplish something. His goal in life seemed to be as good a swordsman as Alfred, which forced him to train hard every day. It seemed to pay off however. Not so long ago, he had been clumsy and awkward with a blade. Now, he managed to kill five or six men on his own without getting a scratch on himself.

The compliment didn’t go unnoticed, and the young man beamed as bright as the sun. He bowed in front of Mathilda with a flourish.

“Anything to protect my dearest cousin!” he said earnestly.

Despite everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours, Mathilda managed a smile for her cousin. She felt exhausted, worn out and shaky. She was just coming to realise how close her brush with death had been. That man with the torch whose sword she had stolen had meant to kill her; she had seen it in his eyes. What scared her most however was that there had been no hatred in the man’s eyes. He hadn’t wanted to kill her simply because she wasn’t born in the same country as him; he had to kill her because she stood between him and someone he wished to protect. As she glanced at his corpse still lying on the ground, she couldn’t bring herself to feel hate for the man who could have killed her. Were their positions reversed, wouldn’t have she done the same?

More allied soldiers poured inside the medical tent, confused as to what had just happened. Alfred talked to them, not leaving out the part his sister had played in defending the wounded men. The soldiers looked at her with some kind of new respect as some smiled and others nodded as if nothing less were expected of her. Mathilda felt foolish; it wasn’t as if she had fought off all these rebels by herself. She simply stole a man’s sword only to have it knocked out of her hands. She didn’t say so however. She didn’t have the strength to.

Finally, the mess was cleaned up. The corpses of the rebels were taken away. Their clothes, weapons and any valuables they might have had on them would be looted, then their bodies would be burned to prevent the spread of any diseases. Michelle and the two male healers saw to the wounded soldiers who had tried to get up during the melee. Some bandages had to be changed and some poppy wine had to be given for sleep, but otherwise they would all be fine. The three healers, like the soldiers, looked at Mathilda with a new light of respect in their eyes.

“I’ll accompany you back to your tent,” Alfred said to his sister after everything had been cleared away. “Spirits run high after a fight.”

Mathilda glanced at Dan, unsure if she could speak up in front of him. Alfred nodded, and she realised he had informed their cousin about the enemy man they had rescued yesterday. (Was it only yesterday? It seemed like a lifetime ago.)

“I had to whack him across the head with the water pitcher to make sure he didn’t call out to his friends,” Mathilda said in a low voice to make sure nobody else in the tent heard her. “He’s lying on the floor, unconscious. I can’t leave him there.”

“Why won’t you finish him off?” Dan asked, frowning his bushy brows descending low. “He’ll bring nothing but trouble.”

Alfred rolled his eyes. “Because she’s gotten into her head that she has to make him better.” His exasperated tone of voice made it clear what he thought about his sister’s idea. “And if he’s really their king, it will make things much easier for us. The Dutchmen will be less inclined to fight if they don’t have their king to back them up.”

“That’s not how I see it,” Mathilda retorted, narrowing her eyes. “If I turn him off now, he’ll most likely die. It will stain my hands as much as if I had slain him myself with a sword. I’ve sworn an oath to heal and soothe pain, not to kill people! I won’t be an oath breaker.”

“You’re too kind-hearted for war,” Dan said simply. There was no reproach in his tone, thankfully.

“I know you might not see things the way I do,” she added softly, “but too many people have suffered already because of this stupid war. It has been going on for the last ten years. I can hardly remember what peace feels like. If I can ease one man’s suffering, then I will do it, be he enemy or ally.”

Talking about helping the enemy was treasonous talk. Men had been hanged for less. Nervously, both Dan and Alfred glanced around them to make sure they weren’t being overheard by one of the healers or one of the wounded men.

“What do you propose then?” Alfred asked.

He looks tired, Mathilda thought as she looked up at her older brother’s face. Alfred had just turned twenty, yet at this moment, in the quivering light of the torches, he looked ten years older. There were shadows underneath his blue eyes and a permanent worry line etched between his eyebrows.

“Rebellion,” Dan said seriously.

The word seemed to ring in the silent tent. It held a transfixing spell with a sharp edge. Rebellion either saved you or killed you, nothing in between. It was like a blade with only one sharp edge; either you got the blunted side of the blade or the whetted one.

Mathilda and Alfred remained silent as the word echoed around in their head. If they were honest, they had both thought about it for a long time. They both knew that there was no talking their father out of this war. He had been winning battle after battle for so long that he thought himself invincible. There was no reason for him to want to stop now that things were going so well. He would stop at nothing short of the whole world. And once he held the world in the palm of his hand, well, he’d still want more. He also said that steel spoke louder than words. If he were right, an armed rebellion was the only thing that could make him see reason. Even killing him probably wouldn’t change anything. Along the years, he had surrounded himself by other zealots as bent on world conquest as he was. Should he be struck down, they would only be too glad to continue his life’s work with renewed fervour. They too would have to taste the blade, and there still wasn’t a guarantee that it would stop the war. Someone inconsequent, maybe a foot soldier or even a stable boy, would rile up everybody else to continue what had been started ten years earlier.

“What have to think very carefully about what will happen next,” Alfred said after a long silent pause. “We can’t be hasty, otherwise we will only be killed.”

“It’s not the dying that scares me,” Dan admitted with a humourless smile. “It’s what they would put us through before that keeps me awake at night.”

It was known to all that the Emperor kept in his circle of intimates torturers who could make a man’s pain last for weeks until his mind went unhinged. Their screams of agony would ring through the camp day after day, until some of the soldiers begged the torturers to put an end to the poor bastard’s life.

The three of them knew that, despite being kin to the Emperor, should they foment rebellion, they would be handed without a second thought to the torturers. The Emperor would probably use them as an example to prove that even his family wasn’t allowed to plot against him. Their sufferings would be long and painful until they begged for the mercy of death.

Alfred’s grim expression didn’t change. He sighed deeply. “Let’s get some rest and we’ll talk about this later. Maybe one of us will come up with a plan.”

Mathilda nodded. “Alright. Good night, brother. Sleep well.” She turned to her cousin. “Good night to you too, Dan. Thank you again for saving all our lives.”

As if they hadn’t been discussing their doom a few seconds ago, Dan smiled brightly. “You’re welcome! Good night to you too and don’t stay up too late to look after your patient.”

Both men left the medical tent, and Mathilda was once again on her own. The three other healers had gone back to their work after tending to the wounded soldiers who had risen to defend them during the attack. Mathilda envied her brother and her cousin who would soon lay their head on their pillow for the remainder of the night. Every fibre of her body was exhausted and crying for rest. She could hardly keep her eyes open and her mind was a bit foggy. Yet, duty called and, as always, she answered. She went back to her patient, the king of the Dutch people if everything she had heard tonight was true, and painfully hoisted him back on his pallet. He had been knocked to the floor after she had whacked his head with the copper water pitcher. He was still unconscious, which was a good thing. She slipped him some milk of the poppy so he would sleep at least until morning. The water pitcher had broken the skin on his right temple, but the blood had already stopped. The wound was far from being dangerous. He probably wouldn’t have fainted from the blow if he hadn’t already been weakened.

Mathilda sat on her stool once again, glad to finally be off her feet. As soon as she was seated, she started nodding off, too tired to try to keep her eyes opened. All around her, the wounded soldiers were getting back to sleep, their soft breathing lulling her to sleep too. The usual noises of the camp seemed far away. She heard distant shouting, footsteps outside the canvas wall of the tent and some laughter. Those were the noises she was used to. It felt comforting after the eventful night she had just lived. And so, seated on the uncomfortable wooden stool, she slept.