by Ben Hopkins
Tonight, I’m not the only Sternkammer member here. Reichard von Zabern and Lanzelin von Rappoltstein are carousing, trying their luck with the Countess’ Handmaidens.
The Count sweeps into the hallway with his hunting braves. He joins me at the High Table, nods towards Elise, who is sleeping on her feet, waiting behind the Countess in the shadows, longing for her bed and her babes. “Not tired of her yet?”
“No, Sebald.”
“When you get tired of her, give me a sign. We’ve all been dying to give her a poke.” He’s baiting me like one of his hunting quarries. His eyes are bloodshot, wild.
In our bedchamber behind the kitchens, Elise is too tired to make love, but not too tired to argue. “Take Tybolt away? He’s not yet two summers old! I’d rather die!”
“He needs a knightly education. He won’t get one here. Here he’ll just learn to whore and cheat.”
“Then take us from here! I beg you! Take us to the City, My Lord. Find me a house in the City. Let me live there. I can weave and sell cloth for a living, and bring up Tybolt and Ysolt myself.”
“I like you where you are. Where I can keep an eye on you. Where you’re under my protection. And in the City there are laws, statutes, Elise. She who has a home must needs register. And who do we write as the father of your children? Who is your husband? Where were you married?”
“I’ve told you! Ask Emmerich. There are ways round this. He’ll know.”
“What’s wrong with Schwanenstein?”
“I am a slave! This place is a whorehouse!”
“God damn you, what do you lack? The finest food and clothing? Warmth, space? The children are growing up in one of the finest castles of Alsace! It’s what every child in the City dreams of!”
“Then why take Tybolt away from here? If this is the Earthly Paradise?”
“He’s my Son! I’ll do with him as I please! He’ll be leaving on his third summer, and that is that!”
She throws herself on the pallet, scoops the children to her side. Sobs, wails, screams, the whole bloody repertoire.
† † †
He’s got me Thinking, that Schäffer has, and I don’t like it. Thinking makes my head hurt, and it gets in the way of Life. But what taste has Life now? All the salt and spice has been taken from it, grain by grain.
He’s right, that straw-haired bastard. The City is there for the taking. The merchants, the tradesmen, they all hate the Bishop now. Even the Bishop’s own ministers; the City Families who run the tolls, the mint, the courts of law, the Zorns, the Müllenheims; even they have begun to despise von Stahlem and his court of cronies and pocketing parasites. The Bishop stands alone, separated from his People, protected only by the clerics and the old Cathedral Chapter families, rotting on their ancient vines.
Lanzelin and Reichard are still snoring. It’s shortly after dawn and they’re not happy to be woken. Neither are the two village girls they’re entwined with, all on one mattress in the lower guestroom of Schwanenstein Keep.
“Come on boys, we’re going hunting.”
The girls groan, the boys grumble. But when we get the castle ferry across the Rhine and head for the Watzenau Forest, the boys start asking questions. After all, Watzenau is not a forest where one can chase the russet hart on galloping stallions, it’s a mess of bloody thickets and marshes, a place for dogged peasants to hunt down boars with sticks and spears, to snare rabbits and quiver at the hoot of an owl. It’s a forest such as haunts children’s stories, all thorns, kobolds and shadows.
Lanzelin yawns. “Watzenau? What the hell are we going to do there?”
“We’re hunting the Bandits, boys.”
That gives them pause.
I’ve never been to Watzenheim before. A desolate Rhine-bank village of stinking huts and pig slurry, crouching on the edge of the hostile forest. The only visible inhabitant, a twisted codger threading twine, stares at us as if we were the unholy Turk.
We follow the one narrow, pitted road into the forest. There’s an ancient Imperial milestone nearly covered with briars, and then, after that, the branches close in. Our horses have to trot through in single file.
“Volmar, Brother,” says Lanzelin. “They say the Bandits are two score swordsmen now. What good are we three against them?”
“One Knight is worth ten men, Lanzl.”
“That doesn’t reassure me. Did you argue with Elisl? Is that why we’re out here?”
I let the branch I’m pushing aside spring back and fly towards Lanzelin’s face. He ducks.
“Lanzl. Everyone else needs one hundred armed men and a Priest to say Communion before they can even go to hunt down a mouse. But we are Old Knights of Alsace, Lanzelin, and we are not afraid of a few footpads.”
I don’t need eyes in the back of my head to know that Lanzelin is sharing a look with Reichard. Well, let them think it, let them think I am mad. Maybe I am.
I am the Baron of Kronthal, my family goes back seventeen generations. True, the von Kronthal estate is not what it used to be, but my cold, dull marriage to the heiress of the von Moders has fixed that. I have more gold than I could ever spend in a lifetime, I can buy any woman I want, any wine, any indulgence, any pleasure. And instead I am here, in a dark forest, thinking of my Reputation.
This is the disease of Politics. And Schäffer has given me a fatal dose.
ANNO
1247
THE MASTER
(ANNO 1247. MANFRED GERBER VII)
The Baron von Kronthal doesn’t look bad for someone who has spent four months traipsing around Watzenau Forest: his hair long and clean, a freshly shaven chin. He doesn’t stand as they enter, doesn’t offer his hand, merely nods at their deferent bows. Slouches in Emmerich’s cushioned chair as if it’s a throne.
“Master Merchants, all, thank you for coming,” he says, once they have taken their place. Perched on benches, standing, leaning against the office walls of Schäffer and Associates in Ehle Street, the Merchants of Hagenburg, summoned by the Baron’s command.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t care much for this place. Hagenburg. It’s a stinking mess, and every day it gets worse. Someone should burn the whole place down and start again from scratch. Still, it is, for better or worse, my home. And as the son of one of the oldest families in Alsace I feel I have to protect our City. Our Bishop is more concerned with lining his friends’ pockets with silver and punishing porters who’ve had too much wine . . . ”
“Well said!” ventures Manfred, alongside a general muttering of approval.
“ . . . so it falls to me and my liegemen and fellow noblemen to take action against these Bandits.”
Baron Volmar von Kronthal stands from his chair, his feather-capped head nearly touches the office ceiling. He takes a goblet of wine from Emmerich Schäffer’s outstretched hand. “I and my brave Knights have reconnoitred the area on both banks of the Rhine, from Illingen and Schwanenstein to the Albe mouth and beyond, and from Rheinau to Watzenau forest, North towards Speyer. We have found many traces of the Bandit troop, we have engaged with them once, but as the odds were some forty to five, we withdrew. We have captured and questioned some seven men and boys we found making their way to and from the robber pack.”
The Merchants look amongst themselves, wary, eager.
“We have ascertained the following. There is a core group around the Bandit Leader. None of the men we captured had seen or met this man, whom they refer to simply as the Master. He keeps distant, makes the plans and dispenses both justice and booty throughout the band. His orders are carried out by a lieutenant, named Staubmantel, a man who bears the scars of war, and who, it is said, fought in the Crusades, an experienced fighter.
“At the centre, there is the Master, surrounded by his lieutenants and confidantes. Then there is the main attack troop, which is some dozen armoured fighters. Then, joining them, from all around, mer
cenaries, footpads, chancers, thieves. Anyone who wishes to try their luck for a small share of booty.
“The bandits have no base, no camp. They have some favoured places deep in the Watzenau forest, and sometimes venture to the marshes across-river from the Albe. They are always on the move. In the winter, they disband. In the summer, they reach some sixty strong. They have enslaved women who act as camp whores and cooks. They have boys who act as messengers.
“I and my men have identified their preferred resting places. We have plans of attack. To be sure of victory, we will need some ninety fighting men. Horses. Supplies. As soon as the winter is over, as soon as the snows have melted and the thaw waters lowered, we will be ready.
“A war chest will be placed in the Pfennigplatz Counting House, under armoured guard. I myself, Volmar von Kronthal, will place a hundred marks in the chest. For a short campaign, we need double that. For a longer campaign, we will see. But, Master Merchants, I hope to deliver a quick and glorious victory over these bloodsuckers. These parasites who are sucking the blood from Old Father Rhine.”
Applause. The Baron drinks from his goblet, whilst the Merchants of Hagenburg raise their hands in acclamation. Manfred’s eyes search out Schäffer’s.
Good work, my cunning friend.
† † †
The sullen boy, normally so fractious and quarrelsome, bursts into helpless sobs on the crowded Cologne quay. “Don’t leave me here, Father. Don’t leave me here.”
Can one credit it? Only that morning he had been grumbling that he couldn’t wait for Manfred to leave, stumbling round the Oferstolzens’ warehouse like a drunken dancing bear. And now he clings to Manfred like a suckling child.
The boy has inherited his mother’s dark hair, and now his father twines his hand in the locks that fall from the velvet cap. He tilts the tear-stained face towards his.
“Listen, Boy,” he says, “it’s not that bad. Herr Oferstolzen will take care of you.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Watch your tongue. Respect your elders.”
“I don’t want to stay here.”
“Boy. This Christmas just gone, you passed thirteen years. And with thirteen, your apprentice time begins.”
“Can’t I be apprenticed in Hagenburg?”
“You’re safer here. And the girls are prettier.” And yet a pain creeps through Manfred’s heart. He remembers his apprentice years and his own wretched tears when his father abandoned him on the Frankfurt quay.
But who can gainsay it? This is the Way of the World.
“Use your time well, Boy. Learn the trade.”
“I want to stay with you and Mother.”
“We’ve taught you all we can. You’ll be free of us here. You can get up to all kinds of mischief. With the girls.”
The shadow of a smirk twitches across his son’s young face. The fluff of a coming beard, now pearled with tears. Manfred’s hand, more tender now, washes the tears away. “I’ll be back before you know it, Boy. I’ll have business to do here in the summer. I’ll bring you some Lenzenbach cheese and a new summer cote. What colour do you want?”
“Blue.”
“Like Mother’s?”
The child nods, looks down, hiding further tears.
“Farewell, Boy. God be with you.” Manfred pats his son’s cheeks, walks to the barge, gives the signal to depart.
The ship heaves into the wide waters. The wind is with them today, a bright, steady breeze sweeping upriver. Tears fight at the gates of Manfred’s eyes, but he does not let them pass. He turns, showing his son a graven face of manly endurance, and waves.
His son stands alone at the end of the jetty. His body is stooped, rejected. A knife twists in Manfred’s heart, a terrible, keening pain.
† † †
Upriver from Cologne, against the flow of Old Father Rhine. A creeping pace, pulled by straining drays. The old boat captain tells river tales of underwater caves full of treasure guarded by River Nymphs and jealous Kobolds, golden-haired sirens singing sailors to their doom, whirlpools that form under the full moon, gateways to the other world.
But Manfred’s heard them all before. He sits on the bowsprit, wrapped in the captain’s skins shiny with linseed oil. On the Eifel and Taunus hills, winter is easing into Spring, the snows are melting. In the Rhine villages, in Bacharach and Bingen, the streets are bright with Carnival.
The Pirate Season will soon begin.
At Speyer, a surprise. The boat that Manfred boards is a pilgrim barge, carrying the Basel faithful back from the shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne. And at the aft end, sitting in inconspicuous silence, Meir Rosheimer and another Jew.
“I didn’t know that you had converted.”
Meir frowns, but recognises the joke with a shrug. “Just we thought this pilgrim boat the safest, and they take Jewish money too.”
“Well, we are travel companions.” Manfred sits down beside them. Meir’s troubled, pale companion shifts away on the bench, flinches as if Manfred had the Ague. Meir gestures with his hand; “My brother, Yitzhak, my colleague, Manfred Gerber.”
Manfred looks at Meir’s brother, curious to see the man that Emmerich has told tales about. A scholar taken with a raging fit on the steps of the synagogue, crying out that the Gentiles were coming to take the Jewish women. It took five men to restrain him and he was sent to a Rabbi in Speyer to be healed. Meir spreads his hands, turns them palms upwards towards Heaven. “My brother has been unwell, but he is now much recovered, thanks to God.”
“Thanks to God,” says Manfred and smiles at Yitzhak, who fidgets like a child with the hem of his cote. He mutters something that sounds like words of thanks, but one can hardly hear him over the sound of the boatmen’s cries. They are pulling away into the current of the river, punts and oars rising and falling . . .
“May I thank you personally,” says Meir over the sounds of the rushing waters, “for allowing Schäffer and Associates to keep its place in the River Trade Union.”
Manfred chuckles, pulls his earlobe. “But it’s a Christian company, Herr Rosheimer!”
“So I’ve heard, so I’ve heard,” says Rosheimer, and laughs. “And it’s nice of you to say so.”
“Your Christian mastiff Herr Schäffer made it quite clear to me. That if I cut you out, you’d close down your Rhine trade and concentrate on the Danube and the Rhône. He pointed out I’d lose one third of my custom overnight.”
“He’s very persuasive, is Herr Schäffer. He certainly always gets his way with me. I often wonder who is running our affairs, he or I.”
“I think he himself has probably forgotten, Herr Rosheimer.”
“I think you’re right, Herr Gerber. I think he has.”
The boat eases out of the strong counter-current and the gurgling, hissing waters fade into drifting silence. “Be my guests at the Inn at Leymersheim tonight.”
Meir’s hands rise in defensive thanks. “Thank you Herr Gerber, but we have our own food, and will sleep on the boat.”
Manfred turns away and grins to himself. You could offer the Jews a seventeen course meal and wine made from gold leaf and they’d still turn you down. It’s in their religion, they can’t eat or drink anything made by Christian hands. Once Schäffer tried to explain it all to him, you can’t eat bread at Easter, you can’t eat pigs or crayfish at all, and one bowl is for cheese and another for meat. It sounded like insanity.
But wherever they go, the Jews take care of their own. When Manfred travels to Mayenz or Speyer, he must find an Inn, pay for his food and his lodging, show generous hands and invite others to his table. Each trade trip costs a fortune. But the Jew, he embarks from his boat and walks to the Judengasse. And there he is given free bed and board, boys to delouse him, a place of honour in the synagogue, a bundle of letters and promissory notes to take with him to his next port of embarkation. H
e moves from one Judengasse to the next, always well-fed and watered.
† † †
The pilgrims join in prayer. Their priest leads them, singing softly. In the stern, the two Jews huddle over their book. Yitzhak Rosheimer’s eyes are closed in fervour, opening only rarely to glance at the page; he knows, it seems, the whole text by heart.
Manfred sits towards the bow, tense and quiet, like a figurehead. He and the Captain scan the trees for signs of attack. They have passed through the worst of it, through the Watzenau forest, where every cry of a crow or rasp of a magpie sends fingers of ice scuttling down your back.
“We’ll be in Rheinau soon, God willing,” whispers the Captain. “Not far now.”
“God willing,” whispers Manfred, kisses his Saint Christopher medallion. The sun is low in the sky, burnishing the canopy leaves. Ahead, another boat. Stranded by the shore. Its prow is against the rocks, its body twisted, its starboard gunwale dipping just below the surface of the waters. On the shore, a woman and a baby squat and wail. Two men pace up and down nervously, their eyes scanning the further horizon, hoping for aid. On the boat itself, nine more men and women clutch to the prow, try to push at the rocks, hoping to free the boat from grasp of the mud and stone.
One of the men on the shore turns and sees the pilgrims’ boat. He leaps for relief. “Here! Here!” he cries. “Help us, please! The pirates!”
The Captain nods to the helmsman to pull the tiller, alter the course towards the shipwrecked boat. “We can’t take them all on, there’s too many of them.”
Manfred stands, trying to see better. “Maybe we can tow their boat away from the rocks.”
“Is their hull not damaged?”
“It’s hard to tell.”
They pull alongside the stranded boat. On the shore, the woman with the baby wails, “Help us, help us. They took my husband!” A shiver of wind sweeps through the leaves.