APH - Resistance - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad.

It was three days later that Klaas was strong enough to rise from his bed. By that time, he was growing restless and bored on his tiny cot. He was still weak though, but Mathilda had no good medical reason to refuse him. To be honest, she needed him out the medical tent as soon as possible. There were too many ears in there to have a private conversation anyway, and she had precious little time to spend with her patients. While Klaas laid on his cot, healing, she had been pestered by the older ladies who had come with the other camp followers. The news of her upcoming wedding had spread like fire in a dry field. Every married woman who wasn’t a soldier or a healer wanted to congratulate her and to give her advice. They clustered around her from dawn to dusk, chattering endlessly and crowding her tent until she wanted to scream. Mathilda had never been a people person. Even in her youth, she had been ridiculously shy. She disliked strangers and talking to them was akin to torture. It probably came from being too sheltered, Alfred had told her once, and Mathilda was inclined to believe it. Before the war began, she had lived only with very close family and a few servants in one of her father’s castle in London. There had been very few visitors. The faces rarely changed, and therefore she had grown used to see always the same people.

These women were mostly nice to be honest. Some sensed that Mathilda was shy, for they weren’t too forceful with her. Others didn’t sense it or simply didn’t care. They barged inside her tent without being announced, asked her embarrassing questions or simply said embarrassing things. To her horror, she had realised that a lot of highborn ladies were as vulgar as lowborn soldiers. They said things that made her blush madly and to which she had no way to answer. Most of the ladies however didn’t understand her passion for the healing arts. They didn’t understand why she liked to spend her days in a crowded tent full of bloody stinky men to sew up their cuts, bound their wounds and cut off their rotten limbs. It wasn’t something that was easily explained however. She had no ready words, so she gave up trying to make them understand. So, they focused on teaching her the most important womanly arts; such as dancing, sewing, painting and singing.

Mathilda was good at sewing; it was a lot easier to thread a needle through fabric than through skin after all. She found it relaxing and it allowed her mind to wander while her fingers worked. Dancing wasn’t too bad either. She had loved dancing when she had been younger, and had been quite skilled at it. To her surprise, the steps came back to her fast. Her mind might have forgotten but her body had not. She found she quite liked the dancing lessons and the ladies were pleased with her success (and probably very pleased to report all of this to her father, who seemed uncharacteristically anxious about this marriage). Alfred was a very good dance partner. Her brother was the kind of man who was perfect. He succeeded at the first try at everything he tried. It sometimes infuriated her, but it usually meant he could help if she had difficulties. Alfred was a good dancer. He was tall and graceful and never stepped on her toes. He could even be gallant when he wasn’t busy teasing her. Some of the ladies looked quite jealous when she danced with her brother. He was popular amongst the female part of the army after all.  

Painting and singing were two very different matters however. She was horrible at both. She had a ridiculously soft voice which was good for lullabies and very little else. As for painting, while her hand was steady as she held the brush, it refused to form even the simplest of shapes. A circle became an oval and a square a rectangle. Flowers looked like formless blotches of colour on the canvas, and portraits looked like faces straight out of a nightmare. And since singing and painting weren’t manly at all, Alfred had no way of helping her. His singing voice was horrible anyway; high and whiny as it was. As for his painting, he had once said that he preferred sculpting; sculpting into human bodies with his sword that is.

While other young ladies were taught French and Latin, Mathilda was taught Dutch. It had never occurred to her that she might have to learn that harsh language actually. But she realised it was only expected of her; her husband was a Dutchman after all. He might be able to understand English, but that didn’t mean everybody else at court did. Younger, Mathilda had been taught French and spoke it fluently, but Dutch was a very different matter. While French was all soft syllables, Dutch was harsh and hard guttural noises. With practice, she didn’t doubt she’d manage to write and read it, but speaking it properly would take years. She knew she wouldn’t marry that Dutch counsellor, of course, but she nonetheless made an effort to learn.

So, amongst all this whirlwind of new learning, Mathilda had very little time for her patients. But she was glad when Klaas asked her if he could leave his sickbed. She accepted, because he was strong and growing stronger every day. A man like him needed to be up and about to gain back his strength. Lying in bed would only distress him and perhaps even hinder his healing. He had to be cautious however not to overtire himself.

Mathilda might have been busy, but the needlework she had to practice everyday had given her ample time to think. After men had been released from the medical tent, they were usually given back to the unit to which they belonged before being wounded. If they had been crippled or somehow their injury prevented them from going back to their commander, they were given other tasks. No man was allowed to remain idle for long in the host. She had witnessed a legless man given kitchen duties. The high cook had said that the man could sit on a stool and cut vegetables or fruits or meat or even stir broths and stews and soups. So, once released from the medical tent, Klaas would have to ‘reintegrate’ his unit. The problem was that the idiot had no unit. That he was an enemy! Mathilda couldn’t let him wander around the camp twiddling his thumbs. People would ask questions. So, she had come up with a very simple plan: this wounded soldier she had nursed back to health had suffered a concussion. He experienced violent headaches and long-term memory losses. He could hardly even remember his own name, much less the unit to which he used to belong to. He knew he was a fighter and could use a sword well. And so, Mathilda, in her infinite kindness and love for her patients, had decided to take him on as a bodyguard. She was ever so scared after the sneak attack on the camp last week.

This was what she told the other healers and what she wrote in the ledger. She knew her father would see this sooner or later, but she was quite confident that he wouldn’t question it. If anything, he’d probably be relieved that this man be put to good work despite his confused state of mind. God knew the other healers seemed to approve of her decision. There were so many people in the war host that it was impossible to know all their names and their faces. Even the generals had long ago lost count of their soldiers. Alfred, to strengthen her story, said here and there that he vaguely remembered the wounded man from the battlefield, although he’d be dammed if he knew which unit he belonged to.

And so, Klaas was given clean clothes, a good jacket and a broadsword. Mathilda had told him of her plan, of course, so he could play along. It hadn’t seemed to please him at first. Becoming a lowly bodyguard after being a king was quite the insult, but he couldn’t come up with a better plan himself. There was no way he could leave the camp on his own, for he’d be captured again by one of the emperor’s patrols, or worse, one of the Dutch patrols sent from Amsterdam. Should he be captured, what would the counsellor who had taken his throne do? If the two princesses had fled the royal castle, it meant that they knew the counsellor would cling to his new seat with everything he had. The real king would be brought to him and probably executed on the spot. Nobody would mourn a man already thought to be dead.

Klaas, despite all appearances, was smart. He had gritted his teeth at Mathilda’s calm reasoning before finally admitting that she might be right. And anyway, he wasn’t strong enough yet to chance an escape. The part about the headaches hadn’t been a lie either; the wound sustained to the forehead pained him often and he stubbornly refused to take anything to dull the throbbing. If he didn’t get captured by a patrol, he might simply fall off his horse, break his leg and die somewhere alone.

Mathilda hadn’t told him exactly who she was, but Klaas had more or less guessed. Very few people could actually decide to take on a bodyguard with nobody questioning the decision. Very few people would also be privy to the emperor’s plans. She was a woman, she ordered people around without realising it, she knew of the emperor’s plans before everybody else and she was soon to be married. He hadn’t asked her directly if she was a princess, and she hadn’t answered straight, but they both knew the truth.

Theoretically, Klaas’ station was above Mathilda’s, and she should have been the one taking the orders. Practically however, this was impossible. Klaas’ true identity had to remain hidden at all costs. It was easy to see it didn’t please the man to have to bow to a girl. His face was set in a perpetual frown of displeasure and he sneered whenever she turned her back. But he did as he was told like the good bodyguard he was supposed to be. His very life depended on it, and Klaas van Rijn wanted to live.

“How long before I can leave?” Klaas asked for perhaps the tenth time that day.

It had snowed earlier in the morning, but it had all melted as the sun rose higher in the sky. Snow had turned the ground to mud. The sky was still a dark grey, promising either more snow or cold rain. The camp had been lured into a lull by the moody weather. It was cold outside and damp inside no matter how many fires were lit. Soldiers who had guard duty outside huddled under their thick cloaks while looking miserable. The servants hurried between tents, their breaths making little puffs of white in front of their faces. A hush seemed to have fallen at the same time as the snow did.

Mathilda didn’t really mind the cold. She had never. In fact, she preferred winter to summer. Winter would be her favourite season if it didn’t mean long cruel marches in the snow, frozen toes and fingers, colds and runny noses. Winter was peaceful and clean. The cold air seemed to cleanse everything. She longed for a winter when she could simply wear a thick cloak and walk around in the snow, breathing in the cold air and taking in the beauty of the white landscapes.

She looked up from her sewing at Klaas’ question. There were only the two of them in her tent right now. Technically, it wasn’t proper for an unmarried woman to be alone with a man, but this rule didn’t seem to be taken in consideration when the man was a bodyguard. “At least another five days. You’re healing, but you’re still not strong enough to ride a fortnight to reach Amsterdam. And anyway, you’d only get killed somewhere along the way.”

Klaas glared at her as his hand rested on the cross guard of his sword. The borrowed clothes he had on didn’t look very good on him. He wore a red woollen tunic, faded but of good quality, and white trousers tucked in knee-high leather boots (those had been his). Over the tunic he wore an old leather jacket, brown and similar to the one he had been wearing when he had been found buried under the corpses. Klaas was a tall man, much taller than Mathilda had first thought, and he was broad of shoulders. The tunic looked a bit too tight on him, and red wasn’t his colour. The trousers were old and threadbare at the knees. He wore a scarf, lined blue and white. It had been rolled up and hidden in one of his coat’s pockets and had escaped most of the damages his other clothes had sustained during the battle. However, it had had to be washed because it had smelt of death. Klaas refused to throw it away, and Mathilda had given it to one of the washerwomen just to be nice. The scarf didn’t fit with the rest of his clothes however. Right now, poor Klaas van Rijn looked more like a ragged sellsword rather than a king. Yet he held himself with pride, and being told that he could be killed like a common human being insulted him.

“I’m not that weak,” he retorted.

Mathilda sighed deeply and rested the embroidery she had been working on on her lap. They have had that conversation thousands of times already. She was growing tired of it. Either Klaas was being ridiculously stubborn or she was mistaken in thinking he was smart.

“I never said you were weak. Listen, I have a plan in mind. You’ll be told of it as soon as it is ready. I know you dislike the situation, but so do I.”

Klaas snorted. “You’re the one to talk. You aren’t the one having to play the slow-witted bodyguard.”

She had to swallow back a smile. “I would play that role gladly if it meant keeping my head on my shoulders,” she retorted. “However, I wasn’t the one idiotic enough to get captured by the enemy.”

He bristled at that. “Of course not! You don’t fight, so there’s no chance you could be taken prisoner.”

“Take heed then; give up your sword and pick up a suturing needle.”

Klaas’ only answer to this jape was a glare. Mathilda only smiled in return. They lapsed back in silence as he stood by the door with his back straight and a bored look on his face. Mathilda resumed her needlework. She felt restless. She didn’t want to sit there meekly to pull a thread. A good walk outside in the cold would be bracing, but outside the few people there would feel forced to congratulate her again on her wedding. It hadn’t begun yet and she was already tired of it.

“What does Amsterdam look like?” Mathilda asked without raising her eyes.

“It’s a city that’s built on water,” Klaas answered after a silence. “There are a lot of bridges and houses are built close to the water edge. Traffic is mostly barges on the canals. It’s big, with a lot of famous painters and famous places.”

There was some kind of pride in the man’s voice, alongside a point of sadness. Mathilda realised he probably missed his home city more than he showed. She hesitated, not knowing if talking about it made him feel better or if it simply twisted the knife in the wound.

“I’ve heard it is beautiful,” she said carefully. “Holland seems like a beautiful country from what I’ve seen so far.”

Klaas favoured her with a suspicious glance. “It’ll be ugly if your army keeps on trampling and destroying everything.”

“It is not my army,” Mathilda replied hotly. “I’m sick of that war as much as you are. I only want to go home, but my father will hear none of it. He won’t rest until all of Europe is his. In spring, he will march on France. And if France falls, he will have accomplished his life’s dream. Don’t think for a minute that he will stop at Europe however. He already owns a colony in the New World. He will probably try to retake the one he’s lost. Next, he might turn his attention towards Asia. Bringing China or, heaven forbid, Russia, in his empire would make him nearly invincible. Even if he were to die, someone would take up his work to continue. It wouldn’t be my brother or me, but someone else would. I only want to go home, and for these people to go home too. We’ve been away from England for almost ten years now. Some of our soldiers have children they have never seen.”

She hadn’t meant to say all that to be honest. She just didn’t want him to think that she approved of her father’s work. She wanted him to know that she hated war, that it made her heartsick and sad.

“If your father dies,” Klaas said, “won’t your brother inherit his throne?”

Mathilda shook her head. “Alfred is a bastard. If I were a man, the throne would be passed down to me. As a woman however, I have no right to it. My children would be next in line if my father doesn’t have any more children.”

“Then teach your children to despise war too.”

“Oh, please, you can’t be that naïve. If I were to have children, my father – or someone like him – would foster them and turn them into conquerors too.”

Klaas didn’t say anything, and Mathilda was grateful. All this talk of never-ending war depressed her. She was usually a cheerful person, but these past few days, reality had found a way under her skin. She wished Alfred or Dan would be here to cheer her up. Alfred was always witty and Dan had a way to make her laugh. Both of them had been sent out on patrols however and would be back only on the morrow or the day after. Klaas wasn’t of very good company sadly. He was always brisk and sometimes even a bit cruel. He never guarded his tongue and didn’t mince his words for politeness’ sake. His accent made his speech seem even harsher, and it had taken her quite a long time to grow accustomed to it.

A loud clanging noise had Mathilda nearly jump out of her skin. Her needled pricked her thumb but the adrenaline coursing through her body hid the pain well. She got to her feet without even realising it. Beside the door, Klaas was frowning, one hand still resting on the hilt of his sword.