Thursday, August 26, 1683
Toby
Vienna
The Turks were tenacious; Toby had to give them that. They showed no shortage of courage as they charged at the retrenchments Toby and so many others had piled into the gap in the ravelin’s defenses.
Toby was out of grenades. Xavier’s musketeers were down to using their powder horns instead of the premeasured portions from their bandoliers. Several had put bayonets into the ends of their barrels to spear the enemy when they got through the chevaux-de-frise, bales, and gabions. The onrush was slowing, but for a while, the enemy had been coming so fast the men hadn’t had time to reload.
Toby crouched near a gabion to protect himself from Turkish arrows and used a pike to skewer a determined janissary. He shoved, then pulled the weapon from the dying man so he could use it again. Toby had been fighting hard for a long time, and he was exhausted, but he couldn’t give up until the enemy did.
But as the night grew ever darker, the Turks came to recognize that today, at least, the defenders would hold the ravelin. Gradually, between musket shots and thrusts with pikes and bayonets, the Turkish flood turned to a trickle and then subsided.
Xavier clapped him on the back. “You’re a fighter, Toby. You’re a fighter.”
“I’d rather be a joiner. And a groom.”
Xavier’s eyes widened. “Katja will think we aren’t coming.” He glanced at his men, some of them wounded. “You’d best get over there. I’ll come as soon as I can. If you can’t wait, I’ll understand.”
“We both want you to be there. We’ll wait. But I’d better make sure the priest hasn’t given up on us.”
Xavier didn’t hold Toby up anymore after that, but Captain Hafner did, and then Toby had to wait for reinforcements to make their way along the narrow, palisaded causeway that connected the ravelin to the inner defenses.
When he finally cleared the enceinte, he ran all the way to the church. He could sort out whether he had time to change and bathe after he apologized and made sure the priest was still there. At least he’d made it to the barber that morning, so he was clean-shaven. Maybe he’d be married while covered with dirt and grime. He could always bathe later, after the ceremony. His appearance wasn’t what he would have planned; nothing about this wedding was. Still, the fact that it was to happen was nothing short of a miracle, and it simply wouldn’t do to be picky about the details of a miracle.
Darkness had long ago wrapped the streets in shadows, but as he turned the corner and the church came into view, light shone from the windows. He caught sight of Katja outside the church and slowed. She wore a gown of shimmering fabric with a fitted bodice. The skirt was full, like a soft cloud, and the neckline was low, revealing bare shoulders and flawless skin. He wanted to pull her into an embrace, but he was too dirty, so he stopped in front of her. Only then did he notice her tears. She quickly wiped them away.
“I’m so sorry.” He needed to catch his breath, but he also had to explain. “I would have come sooner, but the Turks attacked again. Twice today. It was a near thing. I couldn’t leave while there was risk of them breaking into the city.”
She nodded, but the sorrow still showed on her face. “Of course you had to stay. I understand that.”
He pushed his hair back from his forehead. Something sticky pulled at his left temple. Turkish blood? “I had planned to bathe and change my clothes before I came. Maybe the priest will wait. Or we’ll be a mismatched pair.” They were a mismatched pair anyway, regardless of what he wore. He’d never forget it, but he’d have it spur him to gratitude rather than discouragement. He put his hands on her shoulders, awed that she had really agreed to marry him. “You look so beautiful, Katja.”
He kissed her cheek. He wanted to kiss her lips too, but she didn’t turn into him like normal. He didn’t press it. There would be time for kisses later. “Is the priest still waiting?”
Katja took a step away from him. “I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?” Did she mean she wanted him to clean up before he kissed her? “I’ll check with the priest, and then I’ll find a fountain or a well.” If there was time, he’d go back to the barracks and put on his best clothes, the ones he normally saved for Sunday.
“Toby, I can’t get married like this.”
“Katja . . .” She’d been so eager the day before. They both had been. Now it felt as if one of the arrows the janissaries had aimed in his direction had finally hit its target. “Do you mean you can’t marry someone in need of a bath? Can’t marry someone who makes you wait while he throws chevaux-de-frise and grenades at the janissaries? Or can’t marry me because I’m only a poor craftsman?”
“I thought you were dead.” She wiped at tears again, and exhaustion wove its way through her voice, making it tremble. “I was certain I would never see you again.”
Maybe she needed comfort more than she needed to keep her dress clean. Maybe she couldn’t get married until the fear subsided. He reached for her, but she took another step back.
He wanted to take her in his arms, wanted to cover those beautiful lips and elegant shoulders in kisses, wanted to take her hand and lead her into the church. “I don’t understand. I know I’m late, but I’m here now. I’m alive. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come earlier. I never would have kept you waiting if there had been a choice.”
She shook her head. “It’s not because there’s anything wrong with you, Toby. And it’s not because you were late. I understand. I understand all too well that as long as the Turks are camped without the city, they will control every aspect of our lives.”
Toby reached for her hand.
She let him take it, grasped his in exchange even, but the tears came again. “I thought you were dead, and it broke me. I’m not strong enough to go through that again. What would happen tomorrow? I’d be torn apart again, not knowing if you were coming back to me. I’d be useless at the convent, and even if you survived, I’d feel the same pain again the next night and the next while I waited and wondered if you were gone. I can’t say goodbye to you over and over again and wait and not know if you’re alive or dead. I can’t marry you when the both of us have one foot in the shadow of death and the doom of a fallen city hanging over our heads. I wanted to marry you, Toby, I did. I thought I could be strong enough.” She drew in a breath ragged with emotion. “I love you, but love isn’t enough. I need to have hope that you’ll come back to me. That you won’t be buried in a collapsing countermine or be skewered on the end of a Turkish spear.”
She was scared. He understood because he was scared too. But that didn’t mean they shouldn’t get married. “Love is enough, Katja. Enough for us to be happy now, with whatever time we have. I know it’s hard. I know we might have only days or weeks. But have faith; have courage. Don’t let our happiness be one more casualty of this war.” He ran his fingers from her elbow to her hand, but she pulled away.
Her tears continued to flow, but her voice held resolve. “I’m sorry, Toby. I’m so sorry. I hope that someday you can forgive me for being so weak. I’m not brave enough to tell you goodbye each morning when I might be sending you to your death. So I’ll just tell you goodbye this one last time, even though it breaks my heart, because it would be far worse to break my heart over and over again, every time you went away and I didn’t know if you were coming back.” She turned and rushed along the street.
Toby followed. He couldn’t let the woman he’d loved for twenty years just run away. “Katja, don’t do this. Let me help you through the fear. If you don’t want to get married tonight, we can wait, but don’t end things like this. We need each other.”
She stopped for an instant and glanced back at him. “Don’t make it any harder, Toby. Please, just let me go.”
Something about her tone and her words stopped him in his tracks. Her voice held desperation and despair—and finality. Hadn’t he wondered, before he’d proposed, if marriage in such a time was wise? She was begging him to let her go, begging for a reprieve from the pain associated with loving when it might not last. If he loved her—and he did—then oughtn’t he show it by honoring her wishes?
Katja’s heeled shoes were silent on the streets made of dirt and cannon craters now that all the cobblestones had been pulled up. Her shimmering blue train dragged in the dust. He didn’t follow her, even though he longed to so he could plead with her to be his bride and kiss her with enough passion to distract her from the pain she’d felt while waiting. But he stopped. As much as it hurt, he would let her go if it made things even the slightest bit easier for her.
He called out his own farewell. “I love you, Katharina Schor. And I always will. Never forget that. No matter how scared I am or how much pain I’m in, I will always love you.”
She paused, but she didn’t turn back. He waited, praying she would realize that she loved him too and that love was enough no matter how dim the hope or how strong the fear. But she continued away from him. Her head hung, but the boning in her bodice gave the rest of her the impeccable posture of a noblewoman.
Katja was everything he’d ever wanted, and she’d almost been his.
Almost.
Almost wasn’t enough.
He watched until she vanished from view, and even then, he kept his eyes fixed on where he’d last seen her. He kept hoping she would change her mind and come back to him, that hope would win out over fear.
The clatter of running footsteps pulled his eyes from where she’d disappeared. Xavier ran toward the church but slowed and changed directions when he saw Toby.
“Did I miss it?”
Toby opened his mouth to answer, but the words stuck in his throat.
“If you’re off to change, get on with it, man. We’ve already kept them waiting long enough, don’t you think?” Xavier drew closer, and the smile on his face disappeared. “What happened?”
“She called it off.”
“What?” Xavier’s mouth opened in surprise. “I’ll talk to her. I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t smooth over.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that.” Convincing Katja to fall in love with him had been like a dream, the most beautiful dream Toby could ever have conceived. But the dream was over now, and reality was creeping in. Happiness, joy, love—they were all gone. A single reality loomed in their place: the enemy at the gate, every day getting closer and closer to taking Vienna.