Chapter 7
Temporary headquarters
Lady Protector of Silesia
Krakow, Poland
“For Chrissake,” grumbled Jeff Higgins. “Can’t these people make up their minds about anything?”
He glared at the door of their small apartment—a converted workshop, actually—in the Cloth Hall that served simultaneously as the temporary headquarters of the Silesian Guard as well as the Lady Protector of Silesia. Aside from a desk overloaded with papers and documents, most of the workspace of the headquarters consisted of the bed they shared. During Rebecca Abrabanel’s visit, she’d sat in the one chair in the room while Jeff and Gretchen had perched on the side of the bed.
As Jeff had put it when they moved in, theirs was a jury-rigged arrangement—with a hung jury. Once he explained the American idiom, Gretchen had been amused.
Mildly amused, anyway. Gretchen had a view of the world that was more philosophical than her husband’s. Stoicism squared, you might call it.
She studied her husband, for a moment. He didn’t notice, because he was still glaring at the door through which Rebecca had left just a short while ago. For all the love she had for Jeff, she’d understood for years that in some ways they were very different.
She was a revolutionary, and Jeff wasn’t. He shared most of her beliefs and political goals, certainly, and he was always supportive of her. But when all was said and done, he simply didn’t have the fire in his belly that she did.
Gretchen didn’t fault him for it. They came from two worlds quite foreign to each other. His had been a world which, for all its many faults, had been fundamentally a decent one. Hers had been savage; both brutal and profoundly unjust.
She hated that world. She would hate it until the day she died—and while she was alive, would do everything in her power to destroy it. Burn it to bedrock and pour salt over what was left. Early modern era delenda est.
So, when Rebecca proposed to them that they participate in overturning yet another portion of that despised world, Gretchen had been all for it. Immediately and unreservedly. Whereas Jeff had seen the proposal largely as a nuisance. Dammit, he already had a job to do!
He left off glaring at the door and looked at her. It didn’t take him more than a moment to understand what she was thinking. Whatever separated them, they were extremely close.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “We’ll do it. Tata will be in charge of Lower Silesia while we’re gone, and Thorsten Engler will take charge of its defense. And I’ll organize the troop movements we need. But as Napoleon said—or maybe Frederick the Great—an army marches on its stomach. Stomachs need to be filled, which means food either gets bought or stolen. And given that the Hangman tradition is at the heart of the Silesian Guard, we’re not going to be stealing. So, who’s going to finance all this? The last I looked—well, you and Tata looked—the coffers of the government of Lower Silesia would be ridiculed by homeless beggars.”
Gretchen grinned. “You don’t need to worry your little head about that.” She reached out and patted her husband on the head. Jeff scowled.
Now, she shrugged. “I’ll see to it, one way or the other. I’ll start by flying back to Breslau and giving Tata the news. While I’m at it, I’ll count the coins in the province’s treasure. That won’t take any time at all. Then… ”
She pursed her lips, thinking. “I’ll start with Ed Piazza in Magdeburg, I think. He’ll be easier to squeeze money out of than Gustav Adolf—unless the emperor takes it up as one of his hobby horses. Which…he might.”
“What about the kids?”
She shrugged. “We’ll figure something out. There’s always a way to have children taken care of.”
Different worlds. In the one Jeff had come from, Dr. Spock had been a big deal. In this one, he was more alien than a Vulcan.
Encampment at Kazimierz
Grand Army of the Sunrise
South of Krakow
Isaac had established Christian’s physical therapy through tedious work, a daily routine of supply management and exhaustive labor. “Bend at the hips, lift with your legs,” Isaac would say over and over as crates of newly acquired medical supplies needed to be off-loaded from wagons and piled near the hospital tent for inspection and ultimate use. And then, the unused portions would be repacked and placed on wagons in preparation for the inevitable march to…where? That, unfortunately, was still unknown.
Fortunate and unfortunate, as it turned out. Unfortunate because the army, the men, were getting restless, even the new recruits being put through daily drills. Fortunate, because Colonel Renz had accepted Isaac’s plea on Christian’s behalf and had simply assigned Christian to his company as captain with no threat of dismissal. Unfortunate, because Christian had yet to meet his men—many of whom were new—to get to know them. Doctor Isaac Kohen had not released Christian from his service, and as the days wore on, it seemed as if he never would.
“Must you constantly put me through these stretching exercises, Isaac?” Christian asked as they and other patients worked near a copse of trees that had been designated as the physical therapy center for the army. “It was my eye, face, and shoulder that were wounded. Not my legs.”
Isaac lifted Christian’s right leg into a bend and pressed it against the soldier’s abdomen. “Your entire body experienced a trauma, Christian. Your muscles are stiff everywhere.”
“People are beginning to talk,” Christian said, looking left and right and lowering his voice. “All this so-called therapy that you and the nurses are conducting. I’ve heard rumblings among the men. They think it’s…odd.”
Isaac chuckled and lowered Christian’s leg. He took the left leg and performed the same stretch. “There’s a lot of up-time medical practices that we down-timers find odd, even offensive. I care not. Let them talk. In the end, when those that have gone through my therapy sessions are back in the field facing the enemy, they will thank me and my cadre of odd nurses for our dedication to their physical well-being. Including you.”
“And when will I be put back in the field?”
Isaac paused, looked at Christian, and smiled. “When you’re ready.”
Christian didn’t bother pursuing the matter. He’d asked the question before and had gotten pretty much the same response each time.
“Now,” Isaac said, standing and stepping back a pace, “rise, remove your eye patch, and let’s check your reflexes and visual acuity.”
Christian rose, removed his eye patch, and took his normal position ten feet from Isaac. The doctor pulled a palm-sized rubber ball from his white coat, squeezed it, and tossed it underhand to Christian, who caught it perfectly.
Isaac stepped back five feet and tried again. Another five and again, until he was thirty feet away. He then began to toss overhand to the left, then right, left then right, forcing Christian to move quickly to seize the ball before it flew by. Over and over until Christian was panting. He caught nearly every throw to his left, but only about two-thirds to his right.
Isaac placed the ball back in his coat pocket and nodded. “Better than last time. Your energy is up. Your flexibility is good. Your visual acuity is excellent on your left side. Your right? Well, you still have some depth perception problems. You caught about seventy percent of my tosses.”
“If you tossed the ball better,” Christian said, gulping air to catch his breath, “I’d catch more.”
Isaac smiled. “I’m a doctor, not a baseball pitcher.”
“Baseball?”
“Yes, an up-time sport. You’ve never heard of it?”
Christian shook his head.
“I attended a few games during my residency in Magdeburg. It’s fun and sometimes quite exciting. Someday, perhaps I’ll recommend to General Roth that he implement an inter-army league. It would certainly give the men something to do in their free time.” He stepped up to Isaac. “Now, I want to check each eye to see how far you can see without blur. Just like before. And I want you to be honest, Christian. I can’t help you if you bend the truth.”
Bend the truth? The nerve of this guy! Christian was about to argue the point. Instead, he sighed and nodded. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Let me check your left eye first,” Isaac said. “Cover your right.”
Christian placed his hand over his right eye, making sure he did not press down too strongly. The swelling had gone down considerably. Isaac’s delicate stitching of the eyelid had proved successful, and the eye was in fine shape overall. But the right side of his face was still tender and all purple and black as if a big, beefy Lithuanian had worked over his face with a club.
Isaac stepped back five feet. He raised his arm. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three.”
“Good. Now, I will continue to back up. When I reach a place where my fingers become blurry, you tell me, all right?”
Christian nodded again.
Isaac slowly backed away. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. He was out one hundred feet before he stopped. It was a good distance, and obviously, Christian could not see the fingers as easily as he had done ten feet away, but no blur.
There was no need for Isaac to back up any farther. The left eye was fine.
“Now the right!”
Isaac began one hundred feet away and slowly walked closer. Blur, blur, blur…My God, when will it stop being this way? Christian could see Isaac’s body shape and even see the shape of his arm, his fingers. But there was no definition, no clarity. Just a fuzzy blob, that…“Yes! Now, I see you clearly.”
Isaac lowered his arm, smiled. “Good. That’s five feet farther than two days ago. Ten feet more than last week. You’re improving.” Isaac motioned to the wounded eye. “Let’s have a look.”
Christian moved his eyeball left, right, up, and down while Isaac leaned in with his small magnifying glass. “I sincerely wish that we had a fully qualified ophthalmologist on staff, but we don’t. I’ve done my best over the past few years to understand the human eye and all its many facets, but a certified professional, dedicated exclusively to the eye, would be ideal.
“The good news is, the eye can also heal faster than almost any other organ in the body. You’re on the mend, Christian von Jori. You’re on the mend.”
“Will I ever see as well out of the right as I do the left?” Christian asked. “Or is this permanent?”
Isaac sighed, shook his head. “I don’t have an answer for you on that. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
He was tired of waiting. Waiting for his body, his eye, to heal. Waiting for the opportunity to return to his regiment and take command of his company. Waiting for the generals of the army to decide when and if they would march again. And where? He was, in truth, a mercenary cavalryman, having served under General von Mercy for going on almost two years now, even before the creation of this Grand Army of the Sunrise. A mercenary lives and dies by his pay, Christian knew, and there were always armies elsewhere willing to pay more. A small stipend was being given out to all soldiers in General Roth’s army to keep them loyal and in place, but how long would that last? Colonel Renz had awarded him the position of captain, but if his men began drifting away due to “waiting” and short pay, there would be no company to return to.
Christian put his eye patch back on, put his boots back on, and collected his coat. “What’s for dinner tonight?”
Isaac snapped his fingers. “I forgot to tell you. I’m having dinner with Rabbi Gotkin, along with a half dozen or so prospective nurses and orderlies. You’re welcome to join us.”
Christian shook his head. “No, thank you, Isaac. If I have to endure another one of Gotkin’s kosher meals, I’ll—”
A persistent high-pitch whirl of propellers caught their attention. Christian shielded his left eye from the sun and looked up.
The plane was a dot on the horizon growing larger and larger until the sound of its engine was nearly deafening. Christian ducked as it flew past overhead, then felt foolish because it was not that close to the ground. He’d seen up-time aircraft before, on more than one occasion, but the sight of them always made the hair on his arms prickle.
“Marvelous,” he said, his eyes wide as lamplight.
Isaac nodded and smiled. “Yes, in more ways than one. General Morris Roth has returned.”