LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 1

      1618—Pilsen, Bohemia

      The cavernous void of silence engulfed him. Jack was aware of movement everywhere around him, yet his ears registered nothing—as if he lay in a soundless vacuum. It was more of an irritation, like bumbling his way around a dark and unfamiliar room, than a distressing concern. Jack was an experienced officer and battle-hardened physician; as such, a sober nature that was immune to panic and optimism owned his mind and soul like the marrow trapped within his bones. He believed his deafness was temporary and would pass.

      Raising his eyes to the dust that hung in the stillness like a translucent layer of fog, Jack was reminded of the frequent damp mists that cowled the country roads back home on wintry mornings—soothing, serene and just as starkly quiet as now. Through the gaping rift blown away from the crenellated battlement, he could make out cavalry soldiers cantering in orderly lines down in the distant southern valley. They were the enemy; he recognised their regimental colours despite the distortion of smoke-fogged air.

      Jack was distracted by a movement—visible but blurred by the dust—across the yard, inside the walls and watched with detached, mild curiosity as an old pikeman threw his pail of water to stifle flames stubbornly burning from a wooden cannon-wheel, the veteran’s pike cast temporarily aside on the cobblestones. Beyond him, a handful of musketeers fired randomly at targets hidden from view past the city walls, biting at their powder charges with blackened lips and reloading their guns in turn. He could tell from the recoil and spasmodic wisps of smoke—a scene saturated with commotion, yet eerie and cocooned in a powdery haze and confounding silence. Loath to move, Jack followed the line of ramparts further across to his left with his gaze. A soldier in a broad-brimmed hat stood taking aim from behind a merlon while his comrade—battle-dented morion strapped to his belt—struggled to push a siege-ladder away from the walls with his halberd.

      The deafened officer blinked, trying to clear the gritty dirt from his eyes, and realised that he had lost his hat. He felt naked without its protective shade. Damp strands of hair clung to his face like rivulets of wax running down a candle. He gazed methodically around him, taking in his immediate silent world and realised that he lay unceremoniously sprawled on a pile of rubble, head resting uncomfortably on a bent, upright musket. His neck was as taut as a bowstring and inflamed with pain. His sword was saddled on stone and half-hidden under a smoking wooden beam inches from his reach, and his pistol, still cocked, had been knocked from his hand. It lay where it had fallen, muzzle pointing safely down the temporarily abandoned parapet, its grip nestled across his forearm. He frowned as his memory tussled with what had happened.

      The first, distant, pockets of sound began to invade Jack’s consciousness as he started to stir. He felt as if stubborn wax was being cleansed from his ears, becoming aware of his pulse throbbing in the back of his head like a tedious pendulum. His thighs, buried under dusty planks, were sore. Jack kicked timorously, flinching with each dart of pain as he knocked some of the boards aside and sat up slowly. He leaned on his arms and surveyed the scene around him. A scowl modelled his face. He was covered with a canescent layer of dust and surrounded by litter. Broken masonry lay strewn about him like the remains of a village that had been shattered by a wild storm. The nearby pyramid of stacked cannon balls had miraculously escaped untouched, but Jack’s companion was not so fortunate. Jack’s cold smile evaporated as he recognised the fawn-gloved hand. The arm, motionless and only partially visible from above the elbow, protruded upright from under a pile of rocks and bricks like that of a puppeteer. The curled, lifeless fingers were parted, beckoning as if frozen by Medusa’s petrifying glare.

      “Goodbye, my friend,” Jack muttered, as much to himself as to his dead compatriot, slowly rising to his feet with a groan. Loose planks of timber slid off him. Brushing his curls from his eyes and wiping sweat and dust from his forehead, he looked around for his hat. He collecting his pistol and pulled his sword out from under the debris, struggling to wedge both into his broad belt. His head ached, and he grimaced as he loosened his left arm, pain stabbing at his shoulder, which he realised had been bruised from the fall. His elbow was throbbing misery.

      Tugging off his companion’s glove Jack removed his ring whilst miming a silent promise to return it to his friend’s wife in Hradec Králové when opportunity next allowed. A brief smile spread across his lips as he recalled the day of their wedding—all the joy that two young lovers could pray for bound by vows symbolised by polished bands that glinted fleetingly as he passed them to the groom. Jack dropped the golden band into his pocket and noticed his hat, dusty and crushed under a stone, yards away from where he had been thrown by the shell blast. He recalled all now—vividly.

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