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Jonathan clenched his teeth tightly together to prevent any agonized outburst to leave his mouth. He was the king. He couldn’t appear weak now. But by God, it hurt when the barber surgeon treated the wound that he had received on his upper arm.
One of Gustaf’s soldiers had been lucky and gotten a blow in on him. Jonathan looked briefly down at the wound that was gaping and red, but there didn’t seem to be any pus. He quickly turned his gaze away again. He had been lucky, though, that it was healing nicely. They had lost almost as many men to fever and infection as they had in the battle.
They had made a camp in the middle of the forest between dense fir trees. The tents that had survived had been put up, but most of the men, including Jonathan himself, were sleeping in makeshift bivouacs of thin, undressed spruce stems and fir branches. It provided a surprisingly well-insulated cover for the snow that seemed to be falling without end.
The barber surgeon started to dress his wound and the relief from the pain made Jonathan’s mind immediately turn to its favorite topic: Maria. How was it possible to love and hate someone at the same time? Jonathan’s mind had been pondering that every available moment it had. How could he love Maria and still hate her for what she had done to Valdemar? For the fact that she was still loyal to her brother?
When he was lying in the bivouac at night, he missed her so much that it felt like an ache in his body. There was an unease in his limbs, like something was always stirring under the skin and the only thing that could cure it was to put his arms around her again. He didn’t know how he had ever been able to sleep before he had met her. Now it would take him hours to fall asleep even though he was exhausted.
He spotted Peter Goodwin walking around a bonfire close by. Jonathan could tell from the certainty in his steps that he was walking straight towards him.
“Your Majesty,” Peter said as he sat down next to Jonathan on the tree trunk that made up the bench in the barber surgeon’s tent.
The last two weeks had turned him from Lord Goodwin to Peter. When they were alone, Peter would even call him Jonathan from time to time. He had never thought he could befriend someone so quickly, but Peter was one of the only people that Jonathan trusted now that Valdemar was dead.
He closed his eyes for a moment. It still seemed surreal that he would never see Valdemar again. Even though he had seen him dead and attended the funeral, he could still wake up in the morning and forget for a moment that Valdemar was dead. When he experienced something funny, and Lord knew there were not that many fun experiences in war, but still everyday something small happened and he wanted to tell it to Valdemar.
“Your Majesty,” Peter said again. Jonathan opened his eyes and was reminded where he was. He nodded, so that Peter could go on. “Our scouts have caught a couple of Lord Helmholdt’s scouts. They must know that we are hiding here.”
“We need to leave now,” Jonathan said.
Peter nodded.
“Will you give the orders?” Jonathan asked Peter who nodded again and quickly walked away. Shortly after he could hear men yelling through the camp that they needed to pack it up.
***
Jonathan looked at the cold and muddy men that made up his army. They were a sorry gathering indeed. Nowhere near the proud soldiers that they had been only a couple of weeks ago. At least Jonathan still had his horse, Fafner, but many of his men had lost their horses in the battle. They were therefore moving slowly through the forest.
He could only regret that he had been so impetuous. When Valdemar died, he had wanted nothing but revenge. He had pushed his commander-in-chief to lead the troops to where Lord Helmholdt’s army was, even though his commander had warned him against rushing it.
The longer they waited, the more people could join the army, and they needed all the men they could get; the commander-in-chief had tried to reason with him. But he couldn’t go against the orders of the king and in the end his army had sought out Lord Helmholdt’s and the battle had begun.
Jonathan had no recollection of how long it had gone on. He had been told that it was hours, but everything was a blur for him after the two armies had clashed. When he had been fighting, he hadn’t even had a feeling of who were winning or losing. It had all been about surviving. It had all been about getting in the next blow and cheating death just one more minute. He had kept fighting when his commander-in-chief had said that they needed to retreat. He couldn’t stop. This had to be the final battle. He had to win or die.
But when he was thrown from the horse, and no one knew whether he was dead or alive, the commander-in-chief had sounded the horn for the retreat and his soldiers had begun to draw back. Luckily for Jonathan Peter had seen him fall from the horse and had rescued him. They had ridden as fast as they could.
Jonathan sighed. He didn’t have an army; he didn’t have Maria. He had no reason to go on right now.
***
Maria was laughing at something that he had said. Jonathan couldn’t remember what it was, but he loved the sound of her laughter. They were in his bed. The curtain was drawn and he was admiring how a ray of sunshine played with her hair. As he watched her laughter changed. It got deeper, mocking. Her face began to transform and turned into her brother’s.
He could hear her laughter behind him and spun around and the same thing happened: her laughter changed, and her face turned into her brother’s. Suddenly Jonathan was surrounded by laughing and mocking mixtures of Maria and Lord Helmholdt. He ran to get away from them, but they would find him no matter where he hid.
“Your Majesty.”
Jonathan was suddenly in his mother’s chambers in the castle. He dug under a table where the tablecloth was so long that it reached the floor. They couldn’t find him here. But then he heard the laughter right in his ear. Maria’s laughter.
“Don’t change into your brother,” Jonathan said to her, holding on tightly to her shoulders.
“I won’t,” she said in the softest voice that he had ever heard her use and kissed him. It felt like warm honey and Jonathan wanted the kiss to go on forever. But then he heard the mocking laugh behind him and looked frightened, seeing Lord Helmholdt sitting behind him under the table. When he turned to look at Maria, she turned into her brother again.
“Your Majesty,” someone said and shook his shoulder. “Jonathan. Wake up, you are having a bad dream.”
Jonathan opened his eyes and looked confused at Peter. Why was Peter hiding under his mother’s table alongside him? Then everything rushed back, and Jonathan remembered where he was: in a quickly-built bivouac in the middle of a cold, damp winter forest. Without Maria, who was miles away and who he could never forgive, but also never forget, it seemed.
“Your Majesty,” Peter said again as Jonathan joined him and a few others at a small fire a moment later. “We have just heard that the queen and Anna Harold have been taken hostage by Lord Helmholdt.”
Jonathan looked at him, confused. He seemed to have difficulty waking up. Maria was on the island. Far away, but still too close, it seemed.
“Hostage?” He finally asked. “Are you sure that she is not there voluntarily?”
Peter shrugged.
“I can’t say,” he said. “We’ve heard that she has been taken hostage and that Lord Helmholdt is demanding a rather large ransom for her.”
Jonathan snorted.
“Only Lord Helmholdt would try a move like that,” he said. “And maybe my wife... It can only be a ruse to lure me out of hiding.”
“Indeed, Your Majesty,” Peter said. “What do you want us to do?”
Jonathan thought about it. He didn’t like the fact that Anna was there. He should not have let her go to the island with Maria. He had wanted her to remain at Haraldsborg, but Anna had insisted that she should go. She wanted to personally keep an eye on Maria.
“Has he demanded a ransom for the duchess as well?” he asked.
Peter looked at Lord Rosenkranz, who was evidently the one that had told Peter. Rosenkranz was in charge of Jonathan’s scouts and interrogations of enemy scouts. He was doing a remarkable job at it.
“I don’t know, Your Majesty,” Lord Rosenkranz said.
“Find out how much the ransom is for the duchess,” he said to Lord Rosenkranz. Turning to Peter, he continued: “And you’ll find out whether we can pay it. I don’t want my sister in the hands of that bastard one more minute than she has to be.”
Peter nodded, but no one else said anything.
“And the queen?” Peter finally prodded.
“We won’t do anything. We need to focus our energy on gathering our army and defeating Lord Helmholdt once and for all. I’m sure that the queen is doing well at her brother’s estate.”
Jonathan could see how Peter’s jaws clenched. He didn’t care to examine the expression on the faces of the other men.
“Your Majesty,” Peter ground out. “Might I have a word with you in private?”
Jonathan sighed but got up and walked away from the bonfire.
“You can’t treat her like this,” Peter said as soon as they were out of earshot from the others.
“I can, and I will,” Jonathan simply said and crossed his arms. He really didn’t want to discuss this with Peter. He knew that Peter cared more for Maria than he did for him, but in this instance, he felt that Peter’s love was blinding him.
“You have no way of knowing whether she is there voluntarily,” Peter hissed, in a tone of voice Jonathan had never heard him use before. It made him look at Peter’s face. He had never seen the man this furious before.
“Peter, even if she is not there voluntarily, Lord Helmholdt won’t do anything to her. He is her brother. She just showed him that she is loyal to him, not to me,” Jonathan said in a voice that he felt was remarkably patient, despite the fact that Peter was meddling in something that was clearly none of his business.
Peter crossed his arms too and leaned back on his feet. Being two inches taller than Jonathan he was looking slightly down at him. It annoyed Jonathan immensely. He wished they could sit back down and be more eye to eye, but there was nowhere to sit.
“I think you are oversimplifying things, because you are angry with her,” Peter said in a calm voice.
“I bloody well have every right to be angry with her. She killed my brother!” Jonathan shouted.
From the corner of his eye, he caught a motion at the bonfire and looked back in time to see Lord Rosenkranz, his commander-in-chief and the other men positioned there looking at him. Their heads snapped back just a second after.
“No, she didn’t kill your brother. Gustaf had him killed. She warned Gustaf to look out for him, and I understand your anger over that, but she didn’t kill him, and she didn’t wish him to die,” Peter was talking slowly and clearly.
Jonathan clenched his jaw and his fists. Even his shoulders felt tense with the rage that he tried to keep in. There was no way that he could answer Peter right now.
“You know this, Jonathan,” Peter added after a moment.
Jonathan turned his back to him, trying to hide the pain on his face. Somewhere deep down he knew that Maria had never intended for Valdemar to die, but he couldn’t simply let go of his anger. Every time she could choose between him and her brother, she chose her brother.
“What do you want me to do?” he said and could hear the helplessness in his voice.
“Tell Rosenkranz to figure out whether she is there voluntarily. That has to be our first move. It might also be a good strategy to prolong negotiations with Lord Helmholdt as long as possible.”
Jonathan nodded.
“Fine, will you tell him? I need a minute.”
Peter agreed. For a moment one of his hands rested on Jonathan’s shoulder. Then he was gone.