Short Story 1: The River

 

The River

Prince Sigismund, the second son of Johann Albrecht III, Emperor of Rhaetia, King of the Hermunduri and Heathobards, Grand Duke of Sorbia, and Count of Upper Frisia, softly pulled back on the reigns of his favourite gelding, Praetor.  The man, nearly in his second decade of life, gazed across the River Weichsel towards the Wend-Sudovian Commonwealth; there’re so many little villages on both sides of the river, how often do people cross?  Not armies, just people; just a love-struck boy desperate to speak to the pretty girl he’s spied across the water so many times.  Praetor snorted as his rider stared at the river and people who only appeared as little specs, hardly different from the stars he marvelled at when he was little.  For nearly an hour, the rider didn’t move as the sun came close to finishing its journey across the sky to reunite with the world below.  The entire time he imagined so many beautiful things about the villagers that made him want to smile, but he never did.

“Prince Zygmunt!” Sigismund recognized the thick accent of the sorcerer, Vytenis.  “I see you’re admiring your grandfather’s boarder.”

            “Perhaps,” Sigismund said softly, almost to himself.  “Have you come to welcome His Majesty once he fords the river?”  Almost certainly not; father probably dragged him here as a bargaining chip.

            “I hope my nephew will recognize me.  I haven’t seen him in so long.”  The Prince didn’t respond.  How could he say anything?  There wasn’t anything expedient to say that could ease the discomfort he felt.  It was expedient for Emperor Sigismund the Great to slaughter his way east until he stopped at this river; and now it was expedient for his sister to marry their king.  If she was lucky he would be kind and handsome, but that wasn’t important.  It was important that there were bigger dangers in the world; riders from the steppe atop steeds twice the size of Praetor and the increasingly powerful Seline Empire.  Everyone at court called the latter malevolent devil worshippers, but weren’t their gods just the version of ours who live on the moon?  The theological mysticism and pompous intellectualism that his younger brother revelled in had always tested Sigismund’s patience; sparring with swords and spears had always given his mind the greatest peace.  He had been so proud the very first time he parried his elder brother, Alaric’s strikes and defeated him in a spar.  For as long as the two of them remembered, they felt immense zeal for the prospect of their first great battle.  They would ride with all of the Empire’s finest knights and all of the glory in the world would be theirs.  For most of his life, Sigismund he would be warring with the Wends, but now it seemed that he would be fighting alongside their legendary winged hussars.  Perhaps far enough east that he could spy on the napping sun before its nightly bondage loosened to let it dance amongst the clouds on its way back home.     A cool breeze took him back to the ridge he had been perched on and the foreign sorcerer.

“The moon’s reflection in the river looks so peaceful, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

            The two of them held their vigil for a while longer.  It was now so dark that Sigismund could only see the rippling white on the river.  He felt his lips stick together when he tried to speak and his throat close around the words he was so desperate to ask, but so terrified to hear the answer for.

            “Does it hurt?”  The night stood witness to his courage.  “Does it hurt when you kill another man?”