ALTDORF (The Forest Knights Book 1)

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

  SPRING BURST upon the Alps like God was determined to thaw the Devil’s glaciers and drive the mighty stone crags back into the recesses of the earth once and for all. The green-covered slopes erupted in golden clusters of cowslips, interspersed with patches of blue grape hyacinths. Sparkling streams of the sweetest water trickled down every hill, and what seemed like an endless assortment of wild game suddenly appeared.

 To Thomas and Pirmin, after a lifetime of campaigning in the deserts of the Levant, it seemed like a miracle. They welcomed the heat and worked better in it.

 Thomas had convinced the old ferryman to sell his barge for twice what it was worth, making Thomas wish Max had been there to help him negotiate. During his life with the Order Thomas had very little experience with money and business dealings had always made him uncomfortable. It did not help matters when Pirmin finally saw the old barge Thomas had spent most of his savings on.

 “Thomi, Thomi. I agreed to help you fix up a boat. Not build one from scratch.”

 It was really no more than a rectangular raft of log floats covered with thick decking, most of which was rotting and in need of repair. It was large enough to carry five or six horses and perhaps ten men. The ferryman had connected it to a come-along system of ropes and pulleys hitched to a team of oxen on land. He was able to transport people across a narrow arm of the lake, and though it proved a safe way to cut almost two hours off the trip around the outside of the lake via the road, it could only cross at the same point every time.

 Thomas knew it was not much, but he had a weakness for boats of all shapes and sizes and in his mind he saw what they could be. He meant to unshackle this barge and sail her freely. To him anything still sitting above the water had a God-given right to sail.

 He was well versed in the mechanical laws that made sailing possible, but he did not credit their development to the ingenuity of men. Standing on the high side of a boat with the sails reefed in tight while she sailed almost straight into the wind was as close as one could get to God, for without His assistance, how else could a boat move forward with the wind blowing in your face, striving to halt your progress and spin you off in the opposite direction?

 “A little work never killed a man, but you never were one to understand that,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “Do not look down on her. She’s got good bones and once we fit her with a leeboard, mast and a lateen-rigged yard, she will cut through this lake fast enough.”

 “You mean to sail the beast? She will handle like what she is—a pile of logs held together with pitch! At least when she sinks and we have built up an appetite from our swim to shore, we will be able to eat the oxen.”

 “We could have…” Thomas said. “If I had the silver to buy them.”

 Pirmin groaned and held his head between his massive hands.

 “And where are you going to get good planks if you already spent all your coin?”

 Thomas picked up one of two old axes the ferryman had included in the deal. Holding it by the head, he pointed with the handle at the forest behind Pirmin.

 “We have a shipbuilder’s dream of resources. Have you ever in your life seen trees as tall and straight as that? Granted, it may take a little more effort than ready cut timber—”

 “You always insist on doing it the hard way, eh Captain?”

 “Ah, but the ability to work hard is God’s gift to the common man,” Thomas said smiling. The scar tightened on his skin, but under the hot sun and with only Pirmin standing before him, it felt good.