By My Sword Alone by David Black (ebook reader ink TXT) 📕

mean Charles of Austria. However, Frederick, the Landgrave of Hesse, is apparently somewhat detached, and professes to Calvinism, although others say he is a more enlightened figure than that might suggest … but whatever, it means you should not have to answer too many questions there.’

Austria, he had been informed, would likely be no friend to his mission, or to him, after Innsbruck.

In the event, there had been no questions to answer, as he travelled through what appeared to be a magical, medieval fairyland; through mountains and forested valleys, through towns like Fulda.

Fulda was a wonder; a tiny confection of the medieval and the baroque, where all roads seemed to meet, nestling in rolling farmland. Another hub of wealth, in a rolling countryside so verdant and productive, it brought a memory and an ache for his own damp, scratchy home; all moss and ancient rock, a place of grind, existence and ignorance, but only because so great was the contrast.

And then it had been over the border into Thuringia and beyond, onto the eastern bend of the north German plain; endless flat, with the city of Leipzig and towns like Cottbus rising out of it like islands. Ever eastwards, into the Polish forests, where the landscape and the people became poorer, and the sullen wastes of it broken only by the city of Poznan, with its bustling markets and twin-steepled St Peter and St Paul Cathedral on an island in the Warta River.

And now, here was Warsaw. Finally.

His stomach clenched again. It was this thing that had been gnawing at him all those weeks and all those leagues; the prospect of what awaited him here – the young chevalier whose repute lay in battles fought and daring deeds executed with panache, but whose truth, he knew, was just one long anecdote of chance and bluff.

He was on his way to command a regiment of dragoons in the name of a king who was not his own. Him, a young man who had so far commanded nothing, not even his own destiny. And on his shoulders sat the expectations of two other kings, his own and that of France. Expectations that he discharge the roles of diplomat and spy in their names, in a great game he’d never played before. In foreign lands whose languages he did not speak and whose religion and politics were alien.

James Lindsay of Branter, a young man heading towards his thirties, an age at which so many others had achieved so much more.

His ambition to be a scholar had been thwarted, then his decision to place his sword and honour in the service of a noble cause had been dashed when that cause had eventually turned round and mocked him with all its shabby, shallow posturing.

These thoughts had haunted him the whole journey. But James Lindsay had never been one to let things discourage him for long. Stepping forward was what he’d always done. Yes, the future was filling him with trepidation, but then he could hardly remember a time when it hadn’t. All he knew was that acting was always better than fretting. So, although his stomach was all a-churn, he was full of resolve too.

How hard could a soldier’s life be? From what he’d already experienced, it was just a lot of marching to and fro, a lot of griping and whining and waiting, and from time to time maybe a little running away. And as for challenges of command? He’d seen on the field of battle the likes of Tullibardine and Lord George Murray, men he had once worshipped. How hard could command be?

And when it came to the great game – if those procrastinators, deceivers and self-serving scoundrels at the Palazzo del Re could play it, then why not him? If he chose to.

It was time to serve himself, like that rogue of a Frenchman had suggested when he’d handed over the purse and the sable coat. He hadn’t quite yet put a name to this new resolve, but he knew where it was taking him – or at least, he thought he did.

He was contemplating a future free of any loyalty to the House of Stuart, free of all future obligation to any foreign crown or duchy or principality – a future that was purely mercenary.

His little convoy was eventually swallowed into the constant tide of busy people heading in towards the city gates. No-one turned a head, they were used to strangers passing through, this being a place of commerce, and of learning too.

Once in the city James sent his servant, Silvio, off to find a comely inn somewhere near the middle of the town, while he set off to find the military headquarters and report to his regiment.

Silvio, his servant, was short, squat and swarthy in his shapeless hat and leather surcoat that he’d worn in heat and cold. He had not been a companion in any way. James had long ago given up on any conversation with him, the man being practically monosyllabic. All he knew was that Silvio understood French and spoke a guttural Italian. Apart from that, James had no idea where in the world he might have come from. He was a mongrel, who was not quite sullen and had been just efficient enough. He would be rid of him directly and replace him with a soldier who knew his duty – and his new regiment’s customs, too.

*

It was only a matter of time. One of those things you know is coming but that no amount of steeling yourself can ever prepare you.

Colonel Lindsay had set out at the head of two squadrons of his regiment to scout the roads to the north east of Warsaw early the day before. Last night they had bivouacked around a series of copses off the main road to Zambrow, some eight leagues from the city. And now, today,