by Ben Hopkins
But they’re right. The whole thing, from start to finish, it was all just politicking and deals. Five hundred marks of stolen Jewish silver to buy the arms of the House of Habsburg in the first place! And then, in the end, clerks and secretaries haggling over the ransom contracts like grain traders at the Rhine Gate Harbour.
No Chivalry. Just Marks, Shillings and Pence.
In the end, they didn’t have any choice. One by one, the captured noblemen signed the contract and the renunciation, paid the ransom and rode off to their estates to nurse their wounded pride. Every day a wife, sister, brother or nephew of a prisoner would ride up to the Counting House from their country estates, and with resentful looks and bitter tears, empty pouches of silver coin, golden candlesticks, jewelled necklaces and bracelets into our brimming Victory Chest.
When the last prisoner had paid and left, Habsburg’s Clerk, Mistress Gerber and I went to the Pfennigplatz to divide the spoils. I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when Münzmeister Müllenheim doled out my share—enough to buy Heaven and Hell and have some farthings left over for Purgatory. Von Habsburg and I are now very rich men, and that draper woman Gerber who put up the Rosheimer silver to buy von Habsburg’s hand has more than doubled her investment—she’s now as wealthy as a Countess, and she a damned shepherd’s daughter.
I’ve not seen von Habsburg himself since the days after the battle. He’s been touring the townships and buying up land and allies, skirmishing with the Bishop of Basel about some property dispute in the Aargau. His Ambition seems so restless that I get exhausted just thinking about him. But I know I need to follow his footsteps. The war of arms is over, but the war of quill, ink and parchment has just begun.
† † †
Mists are creeping from the River Saar in the valley below. The sun will burn them all away once he rises over the eastern hills. It’s early spring and the forests are a mix of dark evergreen, light new leaf and pinkish blossom, a patchwork of colours. All very pretty if you have the whim for it, and today I’ve got a light heart and lungs full of cool morning air. It’s been an age since I rode out on my own, camped in the open under the stars like some lovesick young fool.
As I come into a village on the banks of the Saar, I catch up with the brushwood family; the four of them like worker ants carrying huge loads on their backs. They’re still singing, and, as I pass, the man and boy take their caps from their heads and bow, and the ladies curtsey. And I nod and call out, “God give you good day.”
In Hagenburg and around the city, they all know me. Even the hauliers, the carters, the peasants stooping in the fields, sifting the soil for pebbles and stones. They all call out and wave, “Von Kronthal! My Lord! God bless your hands! Strength to your arms!” But here in the Lorraine, I’m just some other nobleman kicking past on his fine horse from one castle to another.
I’m vain like the next man, no need to lie. But being No One for a while, to pass in cap-doffing silence, it’s not going to do me any harm. I’m riding alone with neither servant nor livery, even my sword tucked into the saddlebags, sheathed and hidden, trying not to attract attention.
The less they know in Hagenburg about this journey, the better.
† † †
Magistrate Vergersheim, what can I say? I do realise that the man works hard on my behalf and is therefore in some way deserving of my regard. But as soon as this wincing gibbon starts wheezing and whining like a punctured bagpipe, all I want to do is have him gagged with sackcloth.
“My Lord, I do notice that you still have no Baronial Court. No counsel, no advisers other than my good self,” he flutes at me, and spreads his long, whiskery hands. “And if the rumours are true, My Lord, you are in need of diplomatic counsel . . . I have some capable men I could present to you for interview, should you desire it. It seems, despite your popularity with the Common Man, you are not now held in high esteem by your fellow noblemen.”
This is the kind of importunate counsel I have to endure. Even that devil Schäffer never had the gall to advise me on how to deal with my own kind.
“I have no need of any more bloody pen-pushers and ink monkeys, Vergersheim. One is enough for the present.”
Vergersheim goes pale. “My Lord,” he says, his voice deepening with suppressed indignation, “there is no need for you to insult me.”
I seem to have prodded a boil. But he’s right, there’s no need to insult a twisting imp like him; it’s like hitting an oak tree at five paces. “Vergersheim, let’s keep this strictly business. You work on the bloody petition. And leave my fellow Lords to me.”
From white, his face swells to dark red, like a bruise. Like a big red cabbage.
And yet he’s not wrong about my fellow noblemen. Directly after the victory over von Kolzeck I was the toast of the Sternkammer, and they all lined up to drink Friendship and Brotherhood with me. But as the ransom gold rained into my coffers, and as the rumours spread that I had Prinzbach and half the von Kolzeck estate in my sights, the atmosphere slowly soured. There were dark mutterings in the corners of the Wine Room, backs were turned when I took my table, and many of my fellow Lords seemed to find it hard to look me in the eye.
On Pentecost Sunday we started drinking as soon as the Cathedral service was over. The cook of zum Sterne is from Lenzenbach, and he’d ordered half a dozen young, tender lambs to roast in the oven and serve with herbs and crumbled Lenzenbach cheese. It’s divine, and when he cooks it, the zum Sterne is always full.
By nightfall the place was like a harbour tavern, all drunkenness and abandon. Out of nowhere, von Ährenfeld sits himself down at my table, and says, “So who’s next, My Lord Baron? Which family?”
“What are you talking about?”
“First you end the line of Schwanenstein, and pillage their estate. Now it’s the von Kolzecks. Which noble house are you going to destroy next?”
“Yours, unless you watch your words, Reimbold.”
“The Horse Butcher of Wolfsbergen. Soon you’ll be selling noble blood by the pint.”
I launch myself at him, ready to pummel his face into the table, but Lanzelin and Reichard hold me back. I shout at him so much that I even froth at the mouth like a mad dog. Von Ährenfeld goes pale and flees into the night, and it takes everyone a good long time to talk me down from challenging him to mortal combat.
“We’re all drunk, Volle my brother,” says Lanzelin, clapping my shoulder, “it’s the Wine, it’s all just the Wine.”
But it isn’t, and I know it. The next morning, when I awake with a throbbing head and pitch black melancholy, I sit for a long time watching the shuffling Hagenburg crowds from my townhouse window. Since Wolfsbergen I have become one of the richest men in the Alsace. And like all wealthy men, it is my fate to be surrounded by envious enemies and grasping swine.
I need to build up friends and allies from scratch. And I need to secure my succession. My mind aches just thinking about it.
† † †
Someone must have ridden ahead to tell them I was coming, a lone Lord on a fine horse. Sir Raldingen himself canters out to meet me at the edge of his estate. As he recognises me, his face pales, and he nods sadly, as if reluctantly accepting a troubled Fate.
“I’ve been dreading this day, My Lord,” he says.
“Dreading?”
“Too strong a word, maybe. But we’ll miss him. He’s part of the family.”
We find Tybolt at the castle stables, grooming the plough horses, his breeches spattered with mud from the fields. When he sees me, he can’t quite believe his eyes. Drops the grooming brush, wipes his hands on his apron, looks everywhere except at me, embarrassed.
I dismount from Ashkelon and he kneels before me to kiss my hand. “I’m sorry, my Lord, I am dirty. If I knew you were coming . . . ”
“Never mind that. Stand up, my boy. Let me look at you.”
He stands, and I hold him at
arm’s length. He’s nearly as tall as me, thank the Lord, not a titch like his mother. But he’s got her eyes, soft and wounded-looking, and her thin auburn hair. A burr of fluff on his cheeks, the trace of a moustache, nothing much to show for his eighteen summers. Or is it seventeen? I can’t quite remember.
He’s a strange mixture, this Tybolt. Half man, half girl. Strongly built like me, but something womanish about him, soft and giving. Looks like he’s about to start crying. Or dreaming.
A mixture.
But that’s, I suppose, what Children are.
“Get your things ready, Boy. You’re coming with me.”
† † †
More haggling, more Trade. And now with Sir Raldingen. Payments on account, ten marks for Tybolt’s palfrey, three marks for his sword, compensation for loss of a hard-working farmhand. This must be what it’s like being Rich: you pay through the nose for everything. If you start bargaining, they eye you with a wounded look that seems to say, “What’s a few shillings to a Great Lord like you?”
But soon enough we’re on our way, back through the fields of the Lothringen plain, up to the forests of the Alsace border.
Me and my Son. My Son Tybolt. My Son.
God damn it, but it does something to me. To turn around in the saddle and see him riding beside me, my flesh and blood. He’s changed his clothes, has a dark green velvet riding coat, a feathered cap, long polished boots. A fine-looking boy. My eyes are always searching the road ahead, flicking into the sun-mottled shadows of the forests, looking for danger, for bandits and thieves.
Like I’m his Protector.
And I keep looking back at him, studying, assessing. “Don’t grip the reins so tightly, Boy. Makes you look like a girl. Like you’re afraid of falling. Let them loosely twine over your thumb. Like this.”
He looks at my hands, corrects his grip accordingly. Nods earnestly, almost bowing to me in his saddle. “Yes, My Lord.”
At the village on the banks of the Saar, the Brushwood Peasants are outside their little thatched farmstead, chattering away like a bunch of sparrows as they sort through their haul.
I rein in Ashkelon and stop a while to watch. Under the shelter of a wattle roof they are piling their sticks, and the children are making cakes of cow dung and straw to dry in the sun. Summer will soon be upon us, and there they are, already storing up their winter fuel.
“How much for a bundle of wood?” I ask. “We need later to make a fire.”
They all look up at me and Tybolt, their chattering stops. Their hands fumble at their filthy smocks, as if ashamed of their dirt.
“Take what you wish, My Lord,” says the father, in his Lothringian drawl. “We are honoured.”
“Tybolt, take enough for a good fire,” I say, and reach for my purse.
Tybolt dismounts, and with the help of the muttering, trembling mother, ties up a bundle of fuel.
“Take this,” I say to the father, and lean down to place six pennies in his hand. He falls to his knees, tears bursting from his eyes as if I’d just told him that his time had come to die.
† † †
“You know how to make a fire, don’t you?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“Well go on then. Here’s tinder and flint.”
Tybolt nods, takes the tinderbox in both hands, with a slight bow and genuflection as if receiving the Body of Christ. He’s gauche with me, reverent, like a valet or page.
“Tybolt.”
“Yes, My Lord?”
“You can call me ‘Father.’”
Tybolt’s soft eyes flick up at me in the dusk, a strange, bewildered look. I smile ruefully.
“I mean . . . when we’re alone.”
He nods, with a touch of sadness. And then sets off into the brush, looking for kindling.
We’ve left the road into a gully where the flames of our fire won’t be readily seen. The sun has set and the sky between the trees is spangled by the first stars.
Tybolt gets the fire going and I unpack the bread and sausage. I’m thinking of that peasant family, together night and day, and chattering away like the birds in the hedgerows. A family, working together, living together, singing together.
And me? My life? A chain, a chain of chess-moves. Get my Son from his guardians. Take the Prinzbach silver mines. Raise the money I need to buy an annulment from the Pope. Consolidate my lands and moneys. Secure my legacy, my line of Blood. And no one can know. No one can know about any of this. If my wife’s family catch wind of it before it’s done, there’ll be strife aplenty.
Tybolt looks at me, nervously. Sees me staring into the fire, the bread unbroken, the sausage uncut. “Father?”
The word trembles in the air, dances like a spark from the fire. I swallow, and utter three syllables that sound to me both magical and strange.
“Yes, my Son?”
“What are you thinking about?”
It’s a bloody good question. Lord save me, I should stop thinking. I’m getting too philosophical in my old age.
ORVIETO
(ANNO 1263. EUGENIUS VON ZABERN IX)
It is not with any pleasure that I find myself, once again, in Italy.
Early autumn storms protracted our journey. Afraid of the open seas, our barque crawled the waves of the Tyrrhenian Coast, lurching, pitching, surging the breaking crests. In my eyeless darkness, suspended on a hammock in the goods hold, weightlessly gliding and plunging into one unseen Abyss after another, I fancied myself Jonah in the belly of the whale.
I don’t think I have ever prayed quite so much in my life.
Jonah languished in the whale’s innards for three days and three nights. My ordeal lasted three times that long before the barque spat us out at some lonesome Sienese fishing port where the cries of the gulls sounded like souls in perdition and the ground beneath us seemed to pitch and weave as if it were the sea’s very echo. Here we ate fried fish and noodles in butter, drank tart Tuscan wine, and then lay two days and nights in shivering fever in the village priest’s mouldy vestry.
Jonah continued his journey on land to preach to the fallen, sinful city of Nineveh. I, however, marched on, guided by Hieronymus’ shaky, seasick hand, towards Orvieto, where Pope Urban IV has pitched his Papal Court. And for this I thank God with all my heart, that our present Holy Father has had the good sense never to set foot in the contemporary Nineveh, that depraved, vicious bordello, Rome.
† † †
Since my election to the Bishop’s throne, I have known no rest nor leisure. Gone are the quiet hours where Hieronymus would read to me from the Scriptures or the new treatises of scholars from Paris and Naples, gone are my diverting vigils by the window on Vogesen Street.
Now I reside in the Bishop’s Palace, and from Lauds to Compline, receive visitors, hear petitions, dictate and hear dictation of hundreds of letters, sit with ministers, councillors and clerics, give orders to my staff and my underlings, and, in any rare occasion where I find myself alone, discuss with myself the issues that weigh upon me, or turn in Prayer, hoping for divine inspiration, to the Lord.
Most pressing has been the need to heal the wounds of the recent conflict. To achieve this I, the Bishop, must concede powers to the City, but, so as not to appear too weak or over-pliant, must do so in moderation, and in the slow, ripening fullness of time. Here, I disappoint everyone. My noble colleagues and Canons by deliberately weakening our hand, and the Councillors, Guilds and Merchants, by giving them less than they desire.
Meanwhile I am carrying out an audit of the assets of the Diocese (what a falling off there has been here! I left the finances in a robust state in the Year of our Lord 1243, but in the intervening twenty years, profligacy and disorder have undone all my painstaking work), and am trying to find ways of increasing our income, and spending what we have on Works whose value will be of immediate benefit to the Citizens,
to assuage their angry thirst for reform.
Of great importance, both symbolic and financial, to the success of these plans has been the tacit support of the “Champion of Wolfsbergen” and the “Vanquisher of Schwanenstein,” the very wealthy Baron Volmar von Kronthal.
I invited him to see me shortly after my election. Not with any substantial feelings of optimism or excitement: I have spent too long in the company of the Knights of the Alsace to expect much more than a deficient understanding of the World As It Is, coupled with preening Arrogance and a rebarbative Vanity.
The Baron von Kronthal fulfilled many of my expectations, but frustrated others. It is true that his intellect is on the level of a middling Cathedral Schoolboy, but he has no pretentions to possess any wisdom, and thus has the charm of a dilatory student who knows he is nevertheless his Teacher’s Favourite.
“I wanted to come and see you anyway, Your Grace,” he says, casually kissing my ring. “May I sit?”
“Please do,” I say, gesturing in the direction of the polstered chair opposite, a throne-like object, reserved for special guests. I used to sit in it myself, in my conferences with Bishop Berthold.
“Why did you want to come and see me, My Lord Baron?”
I can hear him shifting in his chair, coughing. “Wine!” he calls to the servants who are, I gather, hovering in the antechamber.
“No value in mincing words, is there?” he grumbles. “I wanted to ask for your help in the matter . . . ” He pauses as his wine is poured, and waits for the servant to withdraw. Then he lowers his voice. “ . . . of the annulment of my marriage to the Baroness.”
This is a man who besieges impregnable castles, goes to war with his own Bishop overlord; he is neither cautious nor retiring. Nevertheless this is a precipitous opening sally by any measurement.