Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. This story does though ;) Beta-edited by the lovely and amazing NightlySnow ^_^


Broken Love

Chapter 7

'And, to end thy cruel mocks,
Annihilate thee on the rocks,
And another form create
To be subservient to my fate.

'Let us agree to give up love,
And root up the Infernal Grove;
Then shall we return and see
The worlds of happy Eternity.

William Blake

Day broke. A thick, morning mist lay low over the encampment. Alfred strode through the camp, passing nervous sentries and a hastily built medical tent, which was surrounded by pools of blood; a reminiscence of last night.

We're no better, Alfred thought, and shook his head to chase away the image of Gilbert murdering those two Frenchmen. Alfred was still off-balance from the meeting with Gilbert this early morning, but determined to talk to Arthur. He spotted him surrounded by his lieutenants at a makeshift command post in a linen tent, barking orders, pulling things together. Arthur saw him too and offered a familiar nod, which Alfred returned, stone-faced. The group looked over and met Alfred's hard glare. Alfred was very much aware that they must have noticed the bruises and dried blood on his face, though no one seemed to care.

Arthur spoke, simply and clearly: "Antonio, detail men for outriders. We move out as soon as the wounded are ready. We have been here, wasting our time for too long now." Arthur looked tired and vigorous, a hardened veteran, marked with the blood and dirt of a recent battle. And armed to the teeth. A Brown Bess was slung over his shoulder, a sword and a dagger on his belt. "This hideout is no longer safe."

The Lieutenant saluted and rushed off.

Arthur rolled out a map for the remaining officers. "Corporal!"

Alfred leaped in. "Sir! What are my orders?"

Arthur leaned on his campaign table and drummed his fingers. "Fetch me some breakfast," he shouted for all to hear. "Then meet me in the backyard."

Alfred found Arthur's words a bitter pill to swallow, but said nothing, ducked out of the tent and obeyed.


Arthur shoved the last bite of breakfast into his mouth and sipped from his cup of tea. "You're angry with me," he observed.

Alfred wrinkled his nose and rubbed at his forehead, but kept his focus on molding bullets.

They sat in the backyard, alone at last, by the embers of last night's campfire. All the other men were already awake, some ate, some talked. Two women who were traveling with Gilbert's German soldiers were picking fallen apples into big wicker baskets.

Arthur finished his tea staring at an unopened bottle of French red wine that someone forgot by the fire. "If you don't want to speak to me now, that's alright..." he hesitated, "... alright with me. We'll talk later." He rose and headed over to the men.

Alfred took a bullet from the mold and put it on a stone to cool down. He watched Arthur from the distance. Arthur walked among the men, looking from face to face, nodding familiarly to several, surveying his brigade. Redcoats, fishermen, farmers, mountain men, Germans.

Arthur had a great walk, quick, rhythmic, taut with authority, as he moved without hellos across the encampment to the stakes with bound horses at the far end, dressed in his redcoat uniform, with high black riding boots, carrying his arms. His face was gray, urban, Socratic, his mouth pulled tight into an unreadable mask, his blond hair waving in the breeze, and he wore that three-horn-hat which he shoved to his forehead while inspecting the troops. No one could ever guess what was going on beneath that steely cold veneer.

Just as Alfred collected all the bullets and put them into his pouch and attached it to his weapons' belt, Arthur was returning. He called him and jerked his head for him to follow him. Together they walked over the backyard. Once out of sight of the men, Arthur lost his command bearing. "This is great!" he exclaimed with exasperation. "No surprise though... the meeting ended once again without any resolution. Gilbert doesn't want to move the wounded. Blast all! This is not a democracy! This is war! I really do wish there was someone around here who I did not have to always fight with. Seriously, they are all nut-burgers! What am I to do with them?"

"You could always accuse them of cowardice and flog them, you know?" Alfred offered.

They exchanged a look and Arthur gestured towards a barn, distant, guarded and well hidden behind a bulge. "I would like you to meet someone."

Alfred's face wrinkled. "My ghost," he answered in one breath.

Arthur grinned, "Oh, what a smart boy you are," and gestured for the sentry to open the doors.

The iron latch was lifted and placed to rest against one of the splinted walls supporting an even more cracked roof. The doors opened slowly with a long, lasting crack. Accompanied by a wave of sunlight colliding with clusters of dust Alfred took one slow step inside, flanked by Arthur.

The French colonel was all but a bloody figure, his hands tied behind his back, saggy, broken, and battered, in dirty and torn white and blue uniform. His pale face, once cherubic, handsome, aristocratic, now bloodied, strained and tired. But his eyes, his eyes were cunning.

"Hello, Francis." Arthur took a flintlock pistol from his holster and sat down onto a stool placed before the French colonel. He rested the pistol on his thigh: a beautiful piece, mahogany wood, and bronze engravings, produced for an occasion.

Alfred noticed that, face-to-face with the gun, Francis paled to an even whiter shade of white.

"You poor, poor, deluded man," Arthur continued, "misguided, and troublesome… but not dangerous… not anymore. Once, you have asked me about my resolve." He paused and started to prime the pistol. "In the forest, we advanced three times and killed almost fifty of your men at point blank range. We took your ground and your cannons. And now," he looked at the Frenchman's anguished face and offered the barest of smiles, "we're going to take your lives," he trained the pistol at his prisoner. "That is the measure of my resolve."

Francis didn't answer, he was looking at Arthur coldly, taking his measure, probably, waiting to see if Arthur was going to pull the trigger. Arthur was likely thinking over every scenario, every twist, and whether or not he could make this situation beneficial to him.

"We will free the American soil of the French, Francis," Arthur flared out. The malevolence in his voice was perceivable. "We will destroyed you. We will beat your little army to pulp. So what is your plan? To tame more wildlings? To come up with a new host? Where? How?"

The French colonel spat down to Arthur's feet. "Je préfère mettre mon pied dans ma bouche."

Arthur laughed out, calmly bathing in the Frenchman's anger. "Does anyone here bark French?" He looked around, shifting his aim, the sentries shook their heads impassively and Alfred tossed Arthur a discontented look.

"No one. You're alone, Francis, a little, alone, green frog." Arthur propped his chin with the one free hand and stared at the prisoner's face haunted by shadows. "I see. You've decided that you're not going to talk to me. Very well. I came here so we could chew the fat for an hour or so, so you would not feel too lonely." He picked the loading rod of the pistol and with great care extracted the bullet out of the barrel. He sighed. "Darn, Francis, you make my life difficult." It had been truly amazing how Arthur could master anything with the ease of an Englishman, if he had put his mind in it, his temper including. "I will leave you now, my friend, to your misery," he said calmly. "And in the morning, if you're still unwilling to cooperate, I'll give you a taste of committed justice, I promise you that." He stood, and nonchalantly blew out the powder of the barrel and holstered the pistol, resembling Gilbert very much in Alfred's mind. "And you know that I am a gentleman and I keep my promises."

Before Arthur left, he turned to Alfred and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Be so kind and give the Frog a pint of water," he pointed into a corner to a barrel with a wooden ladle placed on the rim. "So he doesn't perish before I'm done with him."

Alfred watched Arthur disappear around the entrance to the barn, and began, didn't know why exactly, talking to the French colonel, "Arthur was a wealthy man. The last thing he wanted was a war."

Francis, his hands achingly bound behind him, looked at Alfred with a combination of resoluteness and disdain.

Alfred propped his musket against the wall. "He was rich and powerful and he came to lead this campaign: one that upturned his privileged life upside down," and brought water. He crouched down beside the Frenchman and put the ladle to his chapped lips. "We will never return to what we had before."

Francis locked eyes with him. "Merci." He drank thankfully. "Merci." And greedy. He coughed, recovered, and sipped. And started to cough incessantly.

"You're welcome." Alfred gave him a pat on his back.

"Just put me out of my misery."

"You'll be alright. It's cold in here, no wonder you're sick. I will bring you blankets. And something to break your fast."

Francis shook his head and coughed once again and spitted red onto his breeches. "Jesus, I think a lung just came up."

"It's from your broken teeth."

"Ah."

Alfred added apologetically, "He wasn't like this always, you know. He lived by what he heard. He had his principles." Instantly, he rebuked himself for how pathetically stupid this had to sound to the Frenchman, and backed away.

But Francis smiled back. "Ah. That is, of course, your humble point of view. But yes, among other things, I suppose. Such a man becomes a legend." His smile rose into a grin. "Or a lunatic." And then he gave a laughter. "In Arthur's case, he was predisposed by Mother Nature to behave like a twat sometimes."

Alfred gave him a wry smile. "You were friends."

"Associates. We don't very much fall into the concept of friendship. Sharing a dinner or even have a smart talk about lousy weather with some redcoat would make me gassy."

Taking aback by the friendly approach, Alfred nervously played with the ladle, tossed it from the right hand to the left. "I'm sorry."

"Francis."

"I'm sorry, Francis."

Francis nodded. "Me too. Alfred, is it? Ugly business, doing one's duty."

"Yes, ugly business," Alfred acknowledged.

"I understand hatred, Alfred. I do." Francis said grimly. "I know what's coming. Arthur will make sure that I never see the light of day again. These are very bad times." Francis thought for himself and continued. "That being said, if we had killed each other in the battle, we wouldn't have this pleasant conversation now. Am I right?"

Alfred sat on Arthur's camp chair, struggling with himself. There is no honor in this.

"Frankly, you remind me of someone…" Francis continued talking but Alfred wasn't listening anymore.

A soft wind blew a few dead leaves along the ground and through the door of the barn. Alfred looked down, noticing the leaves, hearing the wind. He listened for a moment, not paying attention to the prisoner. The war had ripped apart in weeks what had been built in years, everything he'd learned had been drained, everything he thought was right, had been erased.

"He's about your age and looks very much like you. I love him like a son. I would like to see him again. But you know what they say, that which doesn't kill you makes you want to die. However, it is not the dying that is scary. It is the ´what if´. What if I do not die but am mortally wounded and lie in a pool of my own blood?"

Near mortifying shame and unsure of what to do next, Alfred stood and turned away, guilt-ridden. He put the ladle back in its place and leaned onto the barrel. The only sounds were Francis´ labored breathing, the rasp of the shovel outside (the wounded had not or would not live through the day) and the rustle of dead leaves blown along the ground by a soft wind. Then it hit him.

"What did you say? About your son." Alfred stared at the Frenchman, not knowing how to react.

"Well, he is, Matthew, not by blood but by everything else."

Alfred wanted to say one thing but something else came out. "He is my brother." His heart thumped in his ears like the loudest war drum. "Where… where is he?"

"Well," Francis paused and thought for a second, "at our encampment or riding out. I made him a dispatch rider."

Alfred ran his hands through his hair, a million thoughts raced through his head. "You won't die here," he said all of a sudden. Making sure the sentries went after Arthur, he stooped over Francis and repeated: "You won't die here. I will get you out."

Francis hesitated. "There is no certainty in times like this, mon ami." Mixtures of hope and caution on his face. "Besides, why would you do that?"

"Why not?" Alfred looked at him firmly, to make it perfectly clear that he meant what he said.

"Why... not?" Francis repeated slowly. "Why not leave me here?"

Alfred gripped Francis' arm. "To die? What kind of person would that make me?"

Francis shrugged. "Patriotic."

"Listen." Alfred strengthened himself. "I've been doing this for three years. I'm the best scout, the best horseman, the best shot, and the best scavenger. I know every deer path and swamp trail between the North and the South."

The Frenchman looked Alfred up and down. "You'll commit treason."

Alfred contemplated the situation and pressed his tongue against his teeth. Arthur will never forgive you for that, his doubt whispered. No, he will kill you. Alfred quashed it quickly like a mot. "To hell with that."

"To hell with that," Francis echoed. "Alright, mon ami. I put my life into your hands. Treat it carefully."

Alfred nodded reassuringly. "Now, please, tell me about Matthew."


Alfred's musket was cleaned and polished and lay on the bed with the rest of his gear ready for departure and a small envelope marked with Arthur's name. When he was much younger, he spent so much time hunting with that gun that it became a part of him. The Brown Bess didn't impose something alien or dangerous to him; it was a tool. And when the war came, he brought his hunting skills to a whole new level. There is no such hunt like the hunt for a man.

Despite fighting in the war, the war itself wasn't the only one thing his mind chewed on that night. It was the leaving. He couldn't possibly hope to stay after what he was about to do. Alfred sat in his room on the wooden breastwork and gazed out of the open window. It was a cold and pitch-dark night. If there really existed something that was called the ´calm before the storm´, then Alfred could feel it.

Hurrying steps were coming from the hallway outside. Then Arthur's voice, uttering sharp commands. That man never slept. And that, perhaps, Alfred could exploit tonight. Arthur had been busy the entire day, walking the perimeter of their encampment, posting the sentries on four points, working out a schedule, short watches, especially at night. If there ever was a chance to leave the encampment quietly and discretely, it was now.

When the din and bustle died down and no fires remained burning, the envelope went into Alfred's jacket pocket. Alfred took his musket, together with his tomahawk and a pair of pistols, hiding it all underneath a great coat. A few apples he had found before in the backyard, he put into his knapsack. Then he walked downstairs like on any other time. Just to see Gilbert fuming and storming out of the dining room, which served as Arthur's private quarters.

Arthur followed Gilbert with his eyes until he disappeared. Then threw a couple of logs into the fireplace on the far side of the dining room and sagged into a tattered couch the previous owners left before fleeing. "The two wounded have perished. Gilbert blames me for their death. He thinks I do not value his Germans' lives like my Englishmen's."

Alfred stepped into the light of the room. "Do you?"

The dancing flames in the fireplace crackled and threw long shadows and shafts of light across the room, playing on Arthur's face, turning him into a ghost-like apparition.

Alfred dropped his gear carefully and joined him, sitting down on the side of the couch.

Arthur was motionless, dark, watching the flames. It was a while before he replied. "I value theirs less than mine..." his eyes shifted to Alfred's, "... or yours."

There were several bottles scattered on the floor. Some empty, some half full. Arthur stretched and took one of the half empty ones, opened it and drank.

Alfred wanted to take it from him but Arthur shoved him away. He emptied the bottle and collapsed it on the floor. It broke into dozen shards. Arthur didn't seem to mind, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "When people look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are," he said and laughed bitterly. "I cannot blame them, how could I?"

"That it not true."

"It is..." Arthur looked for another bottle, "... but it doesn't matter," and was successful. "Here," he pushed the bottle into Alfred's hand. "Drink."

"To what?"

"To this theater," Arthur made an all-encompassing gesture. "The world is what it is, Alfred; a stage where every man must play a part. And mine is a glorious one." He thought aloud, idly running a finger across his chin. "With a pompous finale. One day, if I must die, I will encounter darkness boldly, and embrace it in my arms."

It made Alfred twist inside. Nonetheless, "Madeira," Alfred exchanged with Arthur an impressed look, rolled up his sleeves and drank.

"It was high time to get together and turn up a pint again." Arthur gave him a pat on his thigh and laughed out. Then accepted the Madeira, as it was his round to drink. "Bring on the fire," he muttered, gawked at the fireplace, and took three good gulps of the wine. "Bring on the hell... set everything ablaze so that no trace remains." He returned the bottle back to Alfred. "I've seen it all, Alfred."

Alfred hiccupped. "I don't understand." He was beginning to feel intoxicated and decided to put the bottle on the floor and leave it there.

„At the beginning of the war... the first summer when I left you and Mattie back home... we came across... this village. The door in the first house had been burst open. Broken windows. We poured inside, muskets brandished. No sign of occupants. We thundered through the parlor, up the stairs, nothing... Back down in the kitchen... food was cooking. We strode in the large dining room... the table was set, half-eaten food was on the plates, still warm, abandoned in mid-meal. Underneath the table I saw the first one: a mother, draped over her two young children. In the small dining room was another one, chamber maid, I think, naked, dead, still tied to the table." He and Alfred exchanged a long, silent look in the twilight.

"You don't have to," Alfred offered.

"No, I want to," Arthur insisted. "With hand signals, I directed my men to fan out. They did so, weaving through the abandoned village, weapons ready. Few riders cantered the perimeter of the cleared area around the first house. Over the rooftops in the distance a thin column of smoke was visible. We were unsure what we had found. I remember smelling pine needles. Along the way we checked every building, looked for some sign of life. Then we found the chapel... or better said, what remained of it. I was sidestepping some still-hot, charred beams. We had a reverend with us. He looked through the rubble. He staggered from it. Then I saw what he had. Bodies... Dozens of charred, blackened bodies, intertwined with the smoldering remains of the church... Those French bastards must have dragged half-a-dozen people out of the side streets... Several charred hands extended through a shattered window, as if grasping for escape... one of the hands was tiny... a child's hand..."

Alfred could only stare, offering no solace. Behind the windows, it poured heavily. The dining room was in an annex building with no floor above. The ceiling dripped.

Arthur rubbed his hands. "We, of course, tended to the dead. We dug out one hole in the small graveyard adjacent to the remains of the chapel, big enough to encompass all the remains. I swear when we started to pull the charred bodies out of the rubble, I...," he sniffed and gasped.

It was a strange sound, Alfred thought. Soft, muted. Alfred turned his head, listening, seeing the shimmer in Arthur's shifting eyes.

"After we were done, we were from head to toe filthy from the ashes."

On Arthur's face Alfred saw everything, every most horrendous image Arthur had, still was probably each time he closed his eyes.

"I swore on that day that I would let never anything like this happen to you and Matthew," Arthur gave another shuddering gasp. "And then he left us and it is only my fault. I've managed to get this far on my own, but..." He wiped his face and gestured for Alfred to hand the Madeira to him. "Ah, same plot, different story." And he drank. "I hate those stars of his. They mock my pain."

Alfred was torn. He looked at the window into the cold darkness, then back at Arthur, suddenly so small, vulnerable, too distant, and oblivious... Alfred couldn't wait. He had to go... he wavered... Then he took a last look at the window and holding back his own tears, he kneeled before the faltering Arthur.

"I don't know who I am anymore. Am I catholic or protestant?" Arthur cried. "Oh God, I don't know..."

"Shhh, It's all right." Alfred took him by his shoulders. "It's all right. It's alright."

Arthur avoided looking at Alfred and jerked away from him. "I don't know what we've been playing at. I don't know if you still love me. And I don't know what I'm going to do without that." Arthur gestured frantically. "And why can't the light in the fireplace just shut up?"

Alfred grabbed Arthur's face, torn between this love for Arthur that wanted him to stay and the other kind of love that propelled him to leave and betray his country. "You went through so much. But I know that if someone could be the one to make it through, it'd be you. And here you are... For a brand new start."

Little by little, bit-by-bit, Arthur calmed down; his arms slackened and embraced Alfred. "It's all my fault. Mine." He buried his tearing face in Alfred's shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I can't take it all away. I'm so sorry."

Alfred gave their embrace a squeeze. "I know."

"You are my life and I'd do anything for you. You do know that?" Arthur asked pleadingly, hugging still back.

Alfred, now drowning in his own tears, turned back to a misty eyed Arthur. "I know that. I am the happiest person in the world. I have my best friend with me, my family. I have you." And there comes a day I will have my true love with me too.

Some of the worries went off of Arthur's shoulders, some tension thinned out around Arthur's eyes, and there was an expression of hope and slight trepidation of his face. "Have you felt like your secrets give you away, everyone is looking and everyone is laughing?"

Step by step, Alfred too collected himself. "I think everyone feels the same." He blew his nose first, then fumbled in his knapsack and took out an apple. Using his knife he began to cut slices off the apple and ate them. He cut off a slice and offered it to Arthur who wouldn't take it, so Alfred put the slice between them.

"Thank you for doing this. Thank you for being you." After a long moment Arthur picked the slice up. "I seem unable to stand still lately." And ate it. "But I can't afford to be this unsteady. This cannot, and it will not happen again."

"Arthur." Alfred put away the knife and gently hugged him. "I want nothing more than all the three of us to sit here together again, to sleep in one house, me and Mattie listen to your stories, hanging on every word you say. That is where I want to be."

"Yes, Alfred. Me too."

And there went Alfred's pain, there went his chains, he saw them fall, heard the clatter of the links as they broke apart.

They sat for an hour, talked, reminisced, and drank, until Arthur complained that he would boycott Gilbert until he would evaporate into thin air.

Alfred decided to let the logs burn down to embers and rather covered Arthur with tattered quilts, and waited until Arthur fell asleep huddled against him. Finally, he let go of him, stood and lifted off the floor one random bottle of gin. As silently as he could, he began to walk away. As he was about to round the wall and disappear out of the dining room, he turned one last time to Arthur, "Goodbye, Arthur," he whispered, twisting up inside. From his jacket pocket he withdrew the small envelope marked with Arthur's name and placed it on the top of the bookshelf Arthur kept his maps in, and quietly and unnoticed, he slipped out through the back of the house.

In the meanwhile, the rain had stopped. The ground was still wet. A thick ground fog surrounded the house. The shadowed figures of two sentries appeared out of the mist, one of them holding a burning torch. The thick fog turned the torch into a diffused, floating ball of light. It illuminated a young, unshaven face. "Who goes there?"

"Corporal Jones," Alfred replied calmly.

Giving the two sentries who were guarding the prisoner the bottle of gin – compliments of the commanding officer – offering to take their shift and sending them to their comrades, was the easier part.

Francis was wounded, in the battle or by Arthur, dehydrated and undernourished, and so eager to escape that he heaved abruptly off the chair as soon as Alfred had cut the ropes, but swayed and Alfred had to catch him and ease him back on his feet. But his legs were weak and failed Francis again, and he fell to his knees and lost form.

"It doesn't matter how much it hurts," Alfred said coldly, treating an arm wound, the worst of all, retying a tourniquet and stanching an ugly flow of blood, and gestured at the other wounds. "We have to go. I will bandage you at a safe distance."

"How far...?" Francis's voice broke.

Alfred's eyes trailed through the barn and outside the door. "Few miles, at least." He brought out a flask and gave it to Francis hastily. "Get a good, long drink."

"Very well, just don't be surprised if I collapse down at your feet again." Francis sniffed at the flask's opening. "It's water," he acknowledged with surprise but drank mouthful.

"Of course, it's water. What did you think?"

"French Champagne would be nice?" Francis tried to joke buck started to cough and Alfred had to stifle his mouth. Francis then he let himself be hoisted and enwrapped in a - literally - great coat, at least, one size bigger. Supported by the young American, they sneaked out of the barn into the quiet, dark, moonless night.

The skies were clearing up and filling with stars. The pair stood in the shadow, looking out into the night, listening, and hearing nothing. Alfred glanced up at the clear skies, tracking his eyes from the Big Dipper to the North Star. Silently, he eased Francis out of the shadow and through the periphery of the darkened camp where a number of horses stood saddled and ready in case scouts were needed.

A sound. They stopped. Something moved in the underbrush. A fox tentatively came out of its den.

With one arm still propping the Frenchman, Alfred untied a horse and another one and together they straddled out of the encampment. Unseen, they passed the pickets. They ran, breathing hard, Alfred keeping a punishing, steady pace, pushing Francis until he could no more. Just as they were passing by a pond, Francis reeled and collapsed onto the dirt road.

"No, no, no, no, no." Alfred threw himself onto the ground next to him. "Get up! Francis! Goddammit! Get up! Get up!"

Francis averted his eyes. „I'm alright... I'm alright," he kept repeating like a prayer. „I... I'm..."

Alfred panickedly scanned the surroundings, listening for pickets, turning his head, and trying to imagine what is happening in the encampment they had left behind them. Above him, stars were still visible, but they were fading in the light of the pre-dawn glow from the horizon.

Alfred backed the mounts up around the nearest curve to the cover of the woods, and then quickly followed, grabbing Francis underneath the arms and dragging him through the grass. As he was laying him down onto the grass, a tremor went through Francis and he shivered. "Are you cold?"

"I'm alright... I'm..." Francis's eyes fluttered, and he went out like a candle. Alfred had to smack him across his face. Francis gasped for breath and continued as if nothing happened. "We have... we have to go... we... if they find..."

"Don't worry about that," Alfred loosened Francis belt, "You let me worry about that," loosened his collar, "You focus of staying awake, alright, buddy?" raised his legs and pushed a thick, dead branch under them. Then he went to the saddle and withdrew two blankets, two empty flasks and linen. "Stay here and stay quiet," he told Francis, covering him with blankets. "I'll be right back."

At the place where a tiny stream fed the pond, where the water was the clearest, Alfred filled the flasks again and hurried back. He soaked wet a piece of cloth and laid it behind Francis's neck.

Francis emptied what remained in the first flask. "Are we safe here?" he asked in a thin voice.

"They will never stop looking for us."

Alfred analytically evaluated the question and the remark as he cleaned Francis's wounds and applied field-dressings. "They will stop eventually. Winter is coming. They're going to have more urgent matters to dwell on."

Triage completed, Alfred wiped his own sweat off his brow, lounged in the cool grass and granted himself a couple of minutes. Then he thought of something. He stretched his arm for his knapsack, picked an apple out of it and started to cut slices. "Here, have one. It'll do you good. Tested and approved by Alfred F. Jones," he winked at the Frenchman.

"You know," Francis took the slice, "If you happened to have a loaf of Saint-Nectaire cheese, I´d really be tempted to kill you."

Alfred shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, it's just apples. And tobacco."

"I´d betray my king for a loaf of Saint-Nectaire." Francis took a long, shuddering breath. "Just a fragment of a life long passed, but it meant the world to me," and waved his hand to dismiss the thought.

Alfred cut off a slice for himself and chewed on it. "How is France?" Then he cut off another for Francis. That way he could keep them both occupied. And awake.

Francis closed his eyes for a moment. "Distant," he replied strangely sadly. "Beautiful and distant."

Alfred scanned the disappearing stars through the treetops, searching out the North Star, but in the increasingly harsh light of the day, he couldn't find it. So he turned his eyes back to Francis. "How are you feeling?"

Francis curled tighter into the blankets. "Small, weak, bloody vulnerable... But - as Germans use to say - I had a few beers but I'm cool to ride."

Alfred heaved Francis onto one of the horses, trying to be careful and not jostle him around much. "Here," he offered Francis his scraps of tobacco. "It tastes like shit but it'll put you together."

With all strength Francis had left, he was clinging to the saddle. "That is most kind of you but no. Thank you," he shook his head. "I don't want to vomit Billy here behind his ears. I'll rather have another apple, please."

Alfred gave him the last one he had. Then grabbed his own bridle and mounted up. They rode north, through a dark forest of old growth trees, and towards an abandoned settlement the name of which Alfred didn't remember.

The sun had risen but a heavy ground fog limited visibility to a few dozen yards. The two riders moved like ghosts.

They rode hard, galloping along a circuitous, barely visible dry trail and into the settlement. The town was deserted, no one, dead or alive, was visible. When they cantered up the slope in front of charred, cooled remains of a church and some graves, Alfred slowed down. "Forget about turning back and looking for your countrymen," he told Francis. "There will be skirmishers and flanking riders on the roads. Ride as fast as you can, that way, downhill. Hide in the brush by the river if you must, then make your way home."

Francis saluted. "Oui, mon commandant."

The wind got suddenly stronger, dispersing the milky fog, letting through few warm rays of the sun. Francis took a position next to Alfred. "I like you, kid. I will give you an advice. I don't do that very often, so you better consider yourself as lucky." Francis smirked. "Everyone has oceans to fly. As long as you have the heart to do it. Is it reckless? Maybe. But what do dreams know of boundaries? I look back and think about the hands I have held, the places I have seen, the vast lands whose dirt is caked on the bottom of my shoes. And you know what I see? No regrets."

Alfred made a wry face. "I can't erase and I can't rewind what happened. What makes you thing Matthew would forgive me?"

"Nothing. Alfred, if I could change the currents of our lives, if I could destroy the cruelty of fate, I wouldn't earn my bread by wallowing in the dirt. But," Francis made a grand gesture with his arms, "here's your chance for a new beginning."

Alfred brushed his mare on her neck absentmindedly; beautiful golden fur, silver mane, "I'm afraid the time without him killed all the faith I owned."

"Nonsense, mon ami. You have not forgotten each other through all of this. And you never thought you'd be here after all this time either. And yet. Here you are."

"What if I can't make him happy?"

"You will try."

"What if I will fail?"

"What if the sun won't come up tomorrow?" Francis offered a hand and Alfred shook it gladly. "I do wish you all the best, Alfred. The both of you."

"Goodbye, Francis. Good luck."

Francis nodded, snapped the reins and thundered off.

Alfred thought about Arthur, about deceiving him, and if it would break his heart, for a second there he might have wanted to turn and ride back. He wavered, walked his mare a couple of steps. As he watched the departing colonel, his resolve stiffened. With a hard yank of the reins, he jerked his mare's head around and spurred her and rode off in different direction. Without looking back.

To be continued...

Bavaria