The Promise Read Online Free PDF

glimmer of his old self.
    Günter looked away. Even as his friend lay dying, a flicker of anticipation flared in Günter’s breast. He would not, could not love her, but to possess her, rightfully …
    At what cost? Would Günter march behind Martin’s cold body to his grave one day, and then take his woman to wed the next? What kind of man was he? Did he want her that much?
    It shamed him to think it might be so.
    Guilt that somehow his actions or words had given him away overwhelmed him. Now Martin seemed aware of Günter’s betrayal, if only in thought and not in deed. He looked at his friend, who had waited, patient, during Günter’s silent musings.
    “Forgive me. I never meant—”
    “You have always been my friend,” Martin interrupted with quiet assurance. “I would have trusted her with you before any man, even if I had known this then. You would never have betrayed me.”
    Günter gazed at him in despair. Finally, he spoke. “Nay. I would have died before I allowed that to happen.” Just then, a notion stopped Günter cold. Alonsa gave every indication of disliking him. “She might not have me,” he murmured, ashamed at even voicing the thought aloud.
    “She will have you,” Martin said with a slight smile. “But she will not be had without difficulty. Still, promise me that you’ll do as I ask, and I know that it will be done. You don’t promise easily, my friend, but I know the promises you make, you’ll keep.”
    Günter sighed and rolled shoulders stiff with tension. “I need time to think—”
    Martin gripped Günter’s hand again, his skin as cold as alabaster. His eyes burned with purpose. “There is no time left. It must be now. Promise me.”
    Günter stared into his dying friend’s eyes, the bonds of loyalty and obligation drawing even tighter.
    “Yes,” he whispered. “I … promise.”
    Martin nodded. His grip on Günter’s hand went slack. He turned his eyes upwards and coughed again, only this time the cough did not stop—it grew worse, the rattle louder.
    “Alonsa!” Günter called out, dread clawing at his chest.
    He heard her running footsteps outside, and then Alonsa flung open the tent flap behind him and flew past. She grabbed a bowl of steaming herbs from beside Martin’s bedroll, dropped on her knees next to him, and set it near his head. She gripped his face in her hands.
    “Martin. Respire ! ” she commanded him, ordering him to inhale the steam while Günter willed for him to breathe, but it was all for naught. With one last look at his betrothed, Martin drew his final breath and was gone.

CHAPTER THREE
    T HEY BURIED M ARTIN JUST BEFORE DAWN, IN the rain.
    Secrecy was a necessity. In enemy territory, one never buried the bodies of comrades where irate villagers might find and desecrate them after the army had moved on. Hence, members of the Fähnlein carried the shrouded bodies of Martin and several others upon a bier of crossed pikes and shields deep into the hills.
    Mostly followers of Martin Luther, the religious reformer, the company employed no priest. Instead, at the head of a procession of several dozen people, a chaplain quietly intoned the burial rites as the mourners tried to prevent the sucking mud from claiming their shoes.
    Women and children of the dead wept quietly, trained by frequent loss to school their tears. Alonsa plodded behind Martin’s body in the wife’s place of honor, though she was not. She had rent the sleeve of her dress, a sign of grief for all to see.
    Günter glanced at her from time to time, concerned. She had not spoken for hours, and she shivered from the cold. He silently cursed the endless rain, the damned mud, the swollen clouds that wouldn’t cease. Death needed drama, he supposed, and Nature had chosen this display for Martin’s final act.
    Beside him, Alonsa stumbled, her feet sliding in the ooze. Günter caught her elbow to prevent her from falling. He tried not to be unnerved by the feel of her fragile bones in