Boredom had been the reason Portis decided to take up the gate shift that afternoon. He and Tilly were glad to finally be on other duties than guarding the First Paladin’s Sword. Though, he was going to miss their mouse. The little thing was finally beginning to understand that house cheddar was far superior to that Swiss slop Tilly carried in his grimy pocket for the Lord knows how long before digging it out and giving it to him. He always lost when they would see which one the mouse went for. The Swiss was smellier, he guessed.
With all the time they had, they spent it either practicing in the armory or learning from the newcomers that were coming in by the droves from the East. It was like their little Bastion of Our Lady of Strasbourg had become the main post of a crusade instead of a border Cathedral of a small Kingdom in Christendom. Thousands of Paladins and Clerics were crossing the Rhine every week. At least, for a while. Their numbers had slowed once the kings across the river had begun protesting and diverting them north and south. Apparently, there were too many for them to feed or something.
He didn’t think too much into it. Strasbourg was safer with them. There would never be a battle like there was before again. Not with the Holy Sepulcher filling the streets with those red crosses and more points on the stars of their lowest ranking than the highest ranking had before their arrival. He never imagined that a Paladin younger than him would have four points! Four! He had yet to get his first.
One of the Paladins of the Holy Sepulcher, a young one with an accent so thick he had to have Marion translate for him, asked if he could have a day off from the gate. Portis volunteered. He wanted to do something. He was getting antsy. So many points on those stars. When he listened to their stories, sometimes with the looks less filled with pride at what greatness they had accomplished, but with the sorrows for what they had endured, he wished he had been there with them more. He wished he had suffered with them. He wished he had helped, wondering if he might have lifted some of that weight from them if he had.
It was just after he had gotten to the gate tower that the blizzard had set in. The winds tossed it with a fury from the southern mountains and within minutes, it seemed, the windows were frost and ice. They were struggling to keep fires lit. Their own furs and bundles were barely enough to keep them warm against the cold. And then, out of the fog of that windy blizzard, came the five young men, bare armed and crisp as snowmen, carried by the wind onto the road from the farm field. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
They grabbed every blanket, every pelt, every torch, anything they had to cover them. The baker had his cart ready for them before they got the five through the gate and they rushed them as quickly as they could to the Cathedral. Their hands—he wanted to weep for them, he had never seen anything like it—were charcoal pencils with sickly green clawed tips that had become twisted and wrangled. They had soldier’s boots, two of them had chain mail that had bitten into—no, fused—to their skin around their necks and on their arms. Crossbows with broken strings. Empty quivers. Trousers that had been torn and wounds with the signs of a Paladin’s healing.
Even as he helped to bring them to the infirmary entrance of the Cathedral, even as he and the Clerics, along with knights and monks, carried them inside, he wondered if they got them inside soon enough. The nuns rushed to move the beds closer to the hearth. The entire room was rearranged for them. And all he kept hearing was the same from two of them.
“The other one said the Princess’s name,” Portis regarded him with a pursed brow, his helmet under one arm. “But this one keeps saying your name for some reason.”
Nuns were changing their sweat soaked linens nearly as quickly as they were covering them, applying salves to their hands and feet while Clerics worked repeatedly on bringing their frostbitten fingers and toes back to life. One of the helpers had borrowed a blower from the academy to keep the hearth flame as bright as they could while monks continuously filed in with logs.
Mother Superior Felicia stood beside Portis with a heaviness in her weathered expression. “Why would five common villagers so desperately venture into a blizzard to reach me?”
Portis looked back to the big one, the one that had spoken the Princess’s name, apologizing over and over that he failed to save her. He shook his head, pinching his mouth to one side, “I’ve been asking myself the same. There was a letter on this one with a seal that had been broken off, but it was illegible.” He heaved a long sigh as he looked that one over. “And it had blood on it.”
“This isn’t something a Paladin’s healing can help with,” Felicia eyed him. “I wish it was. For now, all we can do is continue to fight against their fevers and pray that the Clerics are able to revitalize their limbs and the damage that was done. Have you sent word to your superiors of this?”
“Cleric Marion is speaking with the Paladin Commander now,” Portis nodded, still fixed on the big one that was one bed over. “He should be here any moment. May I stay anyway? I don’t want to leave. I…I’m worried for them.”
“I know,” Felicia touched his arm with a warmth, “Of course you may. Try not to impede our work. Stay as long as you like.”
Portis found a stool to sit on near the big one’s bed. It was a novice nun who was replacing the folded cloth over his forehead after wiping the sweat beading off it with the old one, which had soaked through so much that it spilled like it had been dunked in a bucket when she twisted it over the bowl. His fingers were still like twisted thorns but were beginning to regain their color at the knuckles as she applied an ointment to it in preparation for the Cleric to return to him from one of the others.
“I’m…sorry…Maud…save…you…” the big one’s voice was groaning whispers.
Save from what? Portis crinkled his brow at him.
“It’s true, then,” Tilly came up to beside him. “Who are they, do you know?”
“No idea,” Portis shrugged. “Villagers, by the look. Soldiers, maybe? They wear Paladinate boots. Crossbows were the Baron’s Men’s, though. Too young to be deserters. They…Wait, what about the sword?”
Tilly made a dismissive face and shrugged, “I put one of the Reds on it. They basically fight for it anyway. They’ve seen the place where Jesus was crucified and that’s what gets their goad. Odd sort, that lot.”
Portis drew in a breath. “Yeah.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off of the big one. They must have gone through literal hell to get here. Fought and struggled harder than anything he could imagine. The shear desperation. A whimper drew both of their eyes to one of the others as two nuns were peeling the chain mail from around their neck and bits of their arms, Clerics pressing glowing hands to heal the skin that had been peeled with it.
“Why didn’t they have coats?” Tilly shook his head. “They had armor, why wouldn’t they have the rest?”
“They…” He blinked as he thought over what he saw. Empty quivers, broken crossbows, wounds that had been healed…chain mail chafes without padding. “They probably did. Tilly,” he looked up to him, “I think they had to fight to get to us. I think they were on their last leg when we found them. Look at his leg, there. A Paladin healed him. They had quivers, crossbows. Those two had swords. At least, they did at one point. Something happened to them…something really bad has happened and they came here for a reason. They had a sealed letter. If only it was…if one of them would wake up and tell us.”
Tilly crouched down beside him. “Whose seal was on it? Do you know?”
Portis shook his head, “It was crushed. The letter itself was practically mush. We need to…”
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“Were you the one who found them?” The Paladin Commander stepped up to behind them with Marion at his side.
Portis and Tilly jumped to their feet and faced him. Cleric Marion, who had been part of Alice’s rescue during the Battle of Strasbourg, looked over the five beds with as much concern as Paladin Commander Ronald of the Six Points did. Both wore the tabards of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher.
“I did,” Portis nodded before Marion pointed.
“What do you know?” Ronald asked.
Portis went over everything he could think of. The way they appeared on the road, the letter with the seal that was indecipherable, the way they must have been armed, what he had heard them mumbling in their fevers…everything he could think of. He finished with, “Why they came looking for Mother Superior Felicia is the only thing I don’t understand but I know desperation when I see it and they were desperate. They were willing to fight to their last to get their message to her, whatever it is.”
Ronald nodded thoughtfully. “Cleric Marion, fetch Paladin Finnigan,” he said as he drew in a breath, “He’ll be in the barracks. Tell him it’s urgent.” To Portis as Marion sprinted out of the infirmary, “You two, get a bed set for him. Which one had the letter? Is it the same one who was saying that the Princess needs saving?”
“No,” Portis pointed, “That one says the Princess needs saving. That one had the letter and keeps saying the Mother Superior’s name.”
“Anything from the other three?”
Portis shrugged, “Not that I’ve heard.”
“Paladin Commander,” A novice nun stood from one of the beds with lowered eyes. “This one keeps speaking a name as well. ‘Anita’ he says. I'm going to need a Paladin’s healing for him. And, this one is muttering something that sounds like crow.”
Portis eyed the one saying 'Anita.' There was only one reason he would need a Paladin’s healing. The Clerics weren’t helping the frostbitten digits enough. They will have to amputate. Once the Commander gives him his orders and he's done with them, Portis will be that Paladin for him. Hopefully, one day, his 'Anita' will see him return the same as when he left.
“Anything from the third?”
“Nothing, Paladin Commander,” the novice nun answered. She went back to her knees and continued rubbing salve on the young man's feet.
“You don’t think he’s trying to say Talkro, do you?” Tilly was furrowing his brows. “That would be where the Princess is.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Ronald narrowed his eyes.
Marion came trotting back into the infirmary with Paladin Finnigan, who was tall, burly, and blonde haired, with an accent from the northern isles that made Tilly and Portis both confused and laugh at the same time. He was still tucking his sleep shirt into his trousers when he reached them, his bare feet slapping the wood floors with each running step.
“Paladin Commander?” Finnigan was blinking sleep from his eyes.
“Find a spare bed and enter—which one was carrying the letter again?” Ronald waited for Portis to point, then said with a nod toward him, “this one’s dreams. Find out where they were going and why. Everything you can but be quick about it. The Princess may be in danger.”
Finnigan nodded. He took a slow, studious look over the one, then rushed to one of the empty beds at the other end of the infirmary and stretched himself out in it with a yawn. Ronald sat in Portis’s stool. Portis and Tilly shared a look, then went to find themselves chairs at one of the many tables nearby. Marion meandered to one of the nuns and sparked up a whispering conversation with her that made her smile while she was rubbing salve between one of the five’s toes.
Finnigan shot upright and bolted from the bed. “TO ARMS!” He crashed through neighboring beds that were, thankfully, empty. His bare feet slipped from beneath him.
Ronald leapt from the stool. Portis and Tilly were on their feet.
“Talkro is surrounded!” Finnigan was yelling while struggling to get back on his feet. “The Order of Saint Olga! Call the Divine Rally! TO ARMS!”
Ronald took a single step with his head whipping toward the open door to the infirmary with a thunderous roar that boomed out into the halls beyond it, “CALL THE DIVINE RALLY! ALL ORDERS TO ARMS!”
Portis turned wide eyes that mirrored Tilly’s. “The Order of Saint Olga?”
“You two fought for the King in the battle last season, yes?” Ronald turned to them.
“We were with the artificers,” Tilly spoke for them.
“Whoever is the contact for the civilian forces, I task you to muster them,” Ronald planted a fist in Tilly’s breastplate. “As many volunteers as you can. Anyone you can. I’m taking all Paladinate forces. Only city guard is to remain. You gather as many as you can and march within the next seventy-two hours to reinforce us. That should be plenty of time. We need every able-bodied fighter to our aid. I’m sending word to the Cathedrals across the Rhine to answer the call. You two will join our forces with whatever you have. Use whatever the city has to arm them. Their God and King need them.” He shoved him back, “Go! Waste no time!”
He called after them as they sprinted through the door into the halls of the barracks between the infirmary and the Cathedral itself, “This is a Crusader’s campaign! Remember to say that God is calling for them!”
As the horn sounded, filling the air around them for a second time, Portis and Tilly scrambled around Clerics and Knights rushing through the barracks halls to get to their armors, dodging Paladins already fitting themselves with belts and spears. Of all the enemies, the mere mention of the Order of Saint Olga sent chills down their spines.
“Who would know who to ask?” Portis waited until they were in the knave of the Cathedral, where the bustle was a muffled roar. “I don’t remember us using any of the locals in the battle. And, Nina’s in Geneva.”
“I don’t know. We could try to find one of those street thugs she worked with in the prison before they’re executed, maybe,” Tilly shrugged. “They might know. Plus, it’s a crusade. They can fight for their pardon, too.”
“Brilliant idea,” Portis snapped his fingers. “That’s at least, what, a hundred? Then, another fifty if we go to the taverns and pubs.”
“I hate pubs. Not the sort you want in crusades, either. What about the docks?”
They both mulled it over, then made the same squished faces as they dismissed that idea.
Portis snapped his finger at another thought, “The slums has plenty of the sort we fed. They love Paladin Dietrich. They’d die for him if we ask.”
“Well, we don’t want them to die for him, now do we?”
“No, not really. Maybe choose different words when we ask.”
“Fight for him?”
“Fight for him.”
“It’ll probably be both.”
“The odds are likely.”
“We’ll ask the prisons first for sure,” they both agreed.
Cardinal Bruno shook his head at the two of them over crossed arms from the altar after setting his bible down with a long breath, “Or, perhaps, you could ask me.” He called over them to a monk beside the door to the bell tower, “Sound the bell for mass as soon as they finish the rally. Perhaps, this time, the Church can help in the one way that we’re best at.”
Portis and Tilly both raised crooked brows at him.
Cardinal Bruno nodded sheepishly, “I will make sure they understand that it will be the Paladinate who commands them, I promise.”
The two Paladins crossed their arms at him.
“You have my word!” he reassured them, crossing himself.
