Excerpt: Many Distances

When Johann woke again, it was to the sound of a fist pounding against wood, and muffled shouting. Johann bolted upright, and took a moment to absorb his surroundings. Where—oh, right, he realized. He had spent the night in a guest room in the family wing of the capital castle for which Friedrich’s family was named. He stood up, shivering at the draft that filled the room. At some point during the night, the fire had gone out, and nobody had intruded to re-light it. He crossed the room, closed the floo, and gathered his scattered clothing.

Why had he woken so suddenly, again? Johann cursed his inability to function immediately upon waking, and scrubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Some kind of frantic noise… he listened carefully. Outside his door, the hall had gone utterly silent, and Johann wondered if he had not simply imagined the noise to begin with. Perhaps he had woken himself from a dream.

Shrugging, he assigned his wondering to a lost cause, and stumbled into the bathroom, where he found a brand new toothbrush, soap, and shaving supplies, all laid out next to the sink. He had always preferred cold water, but especially this morning, he felt the need to shock his sluggish body into wakefulness. He splashed water on his face, and then reached for the soap. After washing his face and shaving, he brushed his teeth, then dried off, and returned to the bedroom.

The clothing that Friedrich’s staff—or, rather, his father’s staff—had provided him with fit remarkably well considering how little they had seen him when they found it. The trousers were slightly loose and a little longer than he liked, but he grabbed the straps from his pants the previous day, and with the suspenders, they fit well enough. The shirt was a white collared tunic, with sleeves only a little on the long side, and a gray vest that fit perfectly. He pulled on the boots he had worn there, and then combed his hair with a brush he had found on the bedside table.

Suddenly, a pang in his stomach reminded Johann that he needed breakfast. He decided to find the dining area, or a servant, on his own, and reconnect with Friedrich when he rose. Johann checked himself in the mirror, and then opened the door.

What he saw made him stop in his tracks.

Friedrich’s door had been left wide open. Peering closer, Johann saw that not only had the hall entrance been left open, but the door from his sitting room to the actual bedroom was also ajar. Beyond that, Johann noticed, approaching cautiously, but within the bedroom, the bedclothes had been thrown aside with apparent haste, and the stand, on which, presumably, his night robe had hung, was lying on the ground.

“What in the world…?” Johann wondered aloud. He backed out of his friend’s room, and almost tripped. Beneath him was a single discarded slipper. He picked it up, slowly, confusion welling in his chest. What had happened? Had this been part of the chaos that had woken him from his own sleep?

“Uhm.”

Johann spun around, jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of a girl clearing her throat politely. Behind him stood the same servant he had seen the night before. “Can you tell me…”

“M—my lord sent me with breakfast for you, sir,” she cut in. “He sends his apologies, and begs you not to think he has forgotten you this morning.” She held the heavy tray a bit higher, and for the first time, Johann saw that it was set with a single meal. “Would you like it in your room, or somewhere else?”

“I…” Johann blinked, and then shook his head, ignoring her. “No, can you tell me what happened here?” She gaped, and blinked, but did not say anything. “Well? Where is Friedrich, at least?”

She blushed, slightly, and averted her eyes. “His fa—uh,” she shook her head. “I am sorry, sir, but I do not know if it is my place to share. Please just take your breakfast.” She cringed, and held it out without looking at him. Unfortunately, the single syllable was enough for Johann to guess.

“His father!” he demanded, and the red that flushed her face was enough for Johann to take off running down the hall. Had something happened to Herr von Trotzburg? He had seemed unhealthy the night before, yes, but Johann had hardly expected him to take a serious turn for the worse. He was awake, and interactive enough that it had seemed he could recover with a good bed rest and proper nutrition.

Anxiety curled in his stomach as he skidded around the corner, and down the hall to Friedrich’s father’s suite and spied further commotion down the hall. He pushed himself harder, and practically slid to a stop before the large group that had assembled and spilled out the door into the hall. It seemed that the entire staff had gathered there, and, judging from the quality of dress of the group nearest the rear, so had some of his own father’s peers on the council. Everyone had broken into smaller cliques, and everyone was chattering excitedly. The council members had their heads bowed together, and whispered in quick, secretive tones as they eyed the door to the bed chambers warily.

Just as Johann was about to abandon his courtesy altogether and shove through the crowd and force his way to his friend’s side (or, to where he assumed Friedrich would be, at any rate), an overwhelmed, desperate-sounding shout cut through the buzz like a wicked dagger.

“Get out!”

And, just like that, everything ceased. The servants and palace workers all froze in place, jaws open, arms hanging in the air mid gesture, pallor whitening and eyes turning slowly toward the door. A few more servants, a girl and two teen boys, came tumbling out of the room as if they had been forcibly ejected, as if the power of Friedrich’s yell had manifested in arms and shoved.

Johann himself was stunned. As surely as the shout itself had been shocking—and he had the idea that no matter how many times he heard its like, the sound of Friedrich raising his voice would never lose its sense of tremulous, crushing awe—it was as if none of these people had ever actually heard him raise his voice before.

Johann recovered himself first. The servants were still visibly shocked, some of them frozen into silence, some fighting the itch to turn and immediately discuss the development, and some caught between the twin notions to flee and to run to his side and offer assistance. The councilors—politicians, Johann thought, ever the same, no matter the country—appeared to recover second, and after a moment, one of them took a step forward.

“You heard him! Everyone leave, now!” The command leapt out of Johann’s chest before he even realized he was saying it. A few servants, noting the tone and his noble carriage, hastened to obey, but a few more lingered in confusion, unsure as to their obligation to obey what amounted to a virtual stranger. He hesitated a moment, the sureness of his position faltering… until one of the council members strode forward boldly, unimpressed with him. Johann felt his eyes widen, and dashed forward, grabbing the man by the forearm. “I mean it,” he said loudly, turning to look at the man’s companions, and then to everyone else still gathered. “If you are necessary, you will be notified. Until then, please leave my friend and me alone.” He turned on his best glare and aimed it at the staff, who fled.

The noblemen, however, would not be moved. The one he had forcibly grabbed yanked his arm away with a venomous glare. “And at whose pleasure,” he spat, “am I to be manhandled?” The rest of the group enclosed around him.

Johann drew himself up. Herr von Trotzburg had entreated him to do anything to help his son; now, it appeared, was his first test. “My name is Johann von Holz,” he said evenly, one eyebrow raised, doing his best to exude lazy confidence. Was that not how his father had always handled people like this? His father! As an afterthought, he added, “I believe you have the pleasure of knowing my father, Ulrich?”

There was a moment of tense silence, broken by a taller man behind the initial one. He had about a head on the first one who had spoken, and his face was obscured by a thick salt and pepper beard. “Your father is von Holz?” Johann nodded. “I did not know you were even on this side of the continent.” He said this with a tone that suggested the conversation was one he was only just barely putting up with out of the goodness of his heart.

“Yes,” piped in another, smaller one, from the side, “young Johann! I remember when you were only knee high.” He forced a kindly smile onto his face. “Why do you not let us handle this… tragedy… and take the time to reacquaint yourself with the country of Austera? You have been away so long, after all.”

Johann was irritated. “If you would excuse me, gentlemen, I…”

“Gentlemen!” someone suddenly cut in. Johann felt his eyebrows leap up his forehead. Friedrich, with a terrifying gray hue to his skin, leaned casually against the doorway, his posture dripping with false cheer that did not reach his eyes or the curl of his smile. “I am thrilled to see you have taken this opportunity to welcome my dear friend back into our esteemed country.”

There was some shifting, and a cough. “Of course,” someone managed. The atmosphere began to deflate, and Johann could feel himself beginning to breathe easier.

Friedrich made to turn around, and then froze, one long finger in the air, and spun back to face them. “Oh, I am sure Johann had the pleasure of telling you himself, my father’s personal selection to serve as my second?” He wrinkled his nose and winked. “Now, if you would excuse us, my friend and I have quite a lot to discuss in private.”

There was no arguing with that. The remaining group of men turned and strode away with all of their mustered dignity, eyeing Johann unreadably. After a few long moments, they turned the corner, and the sound of their clacking heels faded into the long halls of the von Trotzburg ancestral home.

Johann and Friedrich stood together in silence for a few minutes, the yellow morning sunlight flooding in through the picture window that ended the hall beside them, broken by the delicate patterns woven into the glass and by the dewdrops clinging stubbornly to the windowpane and the few leaves left on the sturdy oak that stood guard outside. A squirrel scampered lightly across one branch, and a bird fluttered away.

And then, the light began to catch peculiarly in Friedrich’s eyes, trembling there like the last strand in a spider’s web during a summer storm, ready to collapse, waiting for its own weight to prove insufficient against the winds battering against it. Johann watched and bit his lip, but said nothing as it finally spilled over, down his cheeks, plummeting down his chin to dot the floor. Friedrich leaned back against the door frame behind him, and did not make a noise until he slid down and hit the floor gracelessly, choking out a sob and covering his face with long, pale hands.