Free ALTDORF (The Forest Knights: Book 1) by J. K. Swift Page A

fifty pounds. His blows were ineffective and once the man recovered from the fall to the ground and the surprise of the boy’s ferociousness, he rolled the boy over and beat him without mercy until Pirmin’s hands fell limp at his side and blood flowed freely from his mouth and nose.
    The slaver stood up quickly, as though embarrassed, and produced a rope from his belt with several leather collars strung along its length. He kicked the stunned Pirmin over on his stomach and kneeled to slip one over Pirmin’s head, cinching the metal buckle in place at the back of his neck. The boy coughed into the dusty ground and moaned, but other than that did not try to fight back.
    Thomas stared at the big dog’s still form. Zora was dead, and already at that young age, Thomas knew well the consequences that went along with death. It meant that as soon as she was out of his sight, he would never see her again. And somehow he understood, without the smallest doubt that the man kneeling over Pirmin intended to take Thomas’s friend far away, to a place Pirmin did not want to go.
    “Good folk, the Sutters,” Pirmin said, bringing Thomas back to the moment. These days, Thomas hardly noticed his singsong Wallis accent, but others did. Especially women.
    “Their girl has a fondness for you,” Thomas said. “Though she is not much more than a child.”
    Pirmin laughed, a deep, honest sound that bubbled up from his soul and would put at ease anyone within earshot.
    “I have done nothing to encourage that. And even if I had, Mera will be of a marrying age in another season.”
    “Do not even think it. She is a child, and you older than her father.” Though, Thomas admitted to himself, Pirmin looked ten years younger than his age and his boyish good looks had faded little over the years.
    “Ah but she’s a beauty that one. Might be just the woman to pluck me out of this monk’s life I have been living all these years.”
    Thomas grunted. “I think you do not fully grasp the meaning of the word monk . Monks do not sleep through matins because they have been out all night whoring.”
    “Whoa. Easy now, Captain. I would appreciate it if you did not put me in the company of the common soldier. I do not have anything against whores, a necessary trade if you ask me, but one I prefer not to support. In fact, I have paid for a woman only twice in my life, once—”
    Thomas interrupted. “Once before you knew you could get it for free, and another time when your lovemaking was so rigorous you were sure you left the woman with child. I have heard the story more times than you have told it.”
    “Ah, yes of course. I know how you and the rest of the lads would whisper about me in the dark of the barracks after I had snuck out.”
    Thomas shook his head in denial, but there was some truth to the big man’s words. From a young age Pirmin had developed an appreciation for the fairer sex, and they for him, and so had a tendency to stray from the converted stables that had become the boys home in Acre’s Hospitaller fortress.
    By the time he was thirteen he was taller than most men and seemed to know every tavern and shopkeeper in the crowded city. How he managed to escape the fortress at night after the portcullis had been dropped, no one knew, but it was well known that he was the main supplier of goods sold by Max, who ran his own secret merchant stall in the barracks. For many boys, as well as some of the monks, who had lived most of their lives inside the Hospitaller fortress, Pirmin was their link to the outside world, and he played the part well.
    A natural entertainer, he told stories of tavern brawls and wild women that few believed, but they hung on every word nonetheless. And when he was led into the courtyard and forced to make what the Abbot termed the march of shame to the whipping post, he did so with his head held high and shoulders thrown back, like some mythical hero, as boys laughed and cheered him on. He never cried out