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I Got My Buck

Written by Barry C. Swift

Herman sat at the fire, obviously enjoying its heat. When Wili sat beside him, he looked over at his friend. "What's tomorrow going to be like, I wonder. I hear these Swedes have some help from that Grantville place."

Wili twisted the stick he was holding. "I once met a man who claimed he'd been in Grantville. Don't remember his name; called him 'New Guy' the way we did everyone 'til they survived a couple of fights. Horst brought him over; said they'd been together with Tilly at Breitenfeld; that he was 'solid.'  Do you remember Horst? With him that was as much praise as you could hope for, so we made room at our fire. He seemed to know what he was doing; claimed a space for his blanket and went to work on his pike. Don't remember him saying much 'til someone said that the Swedes we'd be facing the next day came from somewhere called Grantville. It was the first I ever heard of the cursed place."

Herman took a sip of beer, then dunked a piece of bread in his stew. "So, what did this 'New Guy' have to say about the place?  I've heard all sorts of rumors." 

Wili shrugged. "He didn't say anything, at first, not 'til it was certain that the rest of us knew nothing about 'em. Then he said, 'I've been there. They may be fighting for the Swede, but they're not Swedish; they're some kind of English or Scots, but the town is in Thuringia.'"

Lucas, who was doing his usual imitation of a log on the other side of the firewood, interrupted. “I don’t believe those stories about them being wizards. And who cares if they’re Scot dogs or Saxon pigs?  Is this a mercenary unit?  How good are they?  Where have they fought?”

Wili shrugged again, even though it was impossible for Lucas to see it. “We figured that it was a good thing when he told us that, to his memory, they didn't hire mercenaries. After all, no town militia was going to stand up to a veteran unit like ours. But he disagreed. He claimed to have been the last survivor of a screw up when the squad he was in got separated from the rest of his company.”

Wili sat up straighter and his voice took on a higher pitch. "'There I was, alone with nothing but my wits and my knife. Fortunately, I'm good enough with the knife that I don't need more wits than I have. I set off, trying to get back to a friendly district and doing pretty well after a few days. I thought I was being careful until I got swept up by a scouting party from this Grantville. I'd wandered into their territory without knowing anything about them. I was angry with myself for getting careless, but was told later that they were more alert than most towns. I don't have much English, and that's what they mostly speak there, so I didn't understand much of what I saw.'" 

Herman looked over at him. “Wili, was this just before Horst’s last battle?  Did this guy talk like a priest, you know, someone who did a lot of reading?”

“Yeah, Herman. Why?”

“Because I remember him now. Horst tried to give him to us but Ludwig wouldn’t have him. Horst said that this guy had stood beside him in the hedgehog at Breitenfeld after a Swedish cannon broke Horst’s pike and killed the three men next to him. Ludwig didn’t want anyone under him who sounded like an officer, though.”

Wili gave his habitual shrug. “That’s more than Horst ever said to me. But then, he didn’t have to. If he said a man was solid, that was enough for me."

From behind the woodpile, Lucas could be clearly heard grumbling. “So what? Who cares about this ponce?  How good are these guys we’re going to kill tomorrow?”

Herman threw a bone from his stew over the woodpile. It missed Lucas, but the dog that jumped over the barrier, chasing it, didn’t.

Wili snorted. “Shut up, Lucas. I’m getting to it.”  Once again his voice took on a higher pitch as he recited a story that had dominated his thoughts for much of this campaign. "'The place is strange in ways I can't describe. I got lucky when the scouts brought me in. I must have given the right answers because their questioning didn't even start to get nasty. They had some strange notions though: they laundered my clothes for me and separated me from my lice and fleas. Then, since I had some coin, they sent me to this miser's house. At least, I think he must have been a miser because he was certainly rich enough not to need to rent rooms. On the other hand, the meal he served was better than I would expect from a miser, so what do I know?'"

            Wili knew he was a good mimic and once again sent a quick prayer of thanks for the teachers he had hated as a child. He had realized years ago that remembering things by rote was a potentially lifesaving skill. Potentially, nothing he thought. It did save my hide when I was chosen for the ‘dangerous’ job of taking a message from that suicidal idiot to headquarters. Well, maybe not suicidal, it ...