The Minstrel and the Mercenary

by David Scoles

  Abby spread her hands and worked them over her breasts and pulled down her bodice to display herself before him without modesty. “I will fuck you like you never before have dreamed was possible, Basarabi.” Radu smiled in spite of himself, but an idea formed on how to regain control of the situation that made his smile grow all the larger.

  “I have something else in mind, if you’ve a desire to earn some real coin, Abby the Virgin.” Abby’s smile was crooked, but her eyes twinkled.

  “Is there any greater desire in all the world, Basarabi?”

  ...

  After Abelard and two of his most trusted men exited the Inn via the secret passage, Gwilym in tow, the rest of the Red Swords turned their attention to draining what was left of the kegs. The Red Swords had learned to trust their fickle leader and so none had complained or rebelled when the English King had banished them from his service after Caen. The Red Swords didn’t care. They were after loot, women and life’s other pleasures.

  The Red Swords were men drawn from different parts of Germany, not only hailing from Upper Bavaria as their leader did, but from distant parts of Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, the Duchy of Austria as well as Thuringia and Meissen. All had surrendered their loyalty to their Kings or Margraves and even to the Pope himself for a sharp blade, a suit of Würzburg forged steel armor and a yellow tabard with a sword sewn in red thread stitched upon it.

  Idleness made them lazy and potent ale added to their lethargy. So when the exotic ‘Abby the Virgin’ descended part way down the stairs wearing a sardonic smile with lips tinged a deep elderberry red, black eyes rimmed with kohl and a hiked up skirt to reveal her legs to just above the knee, all eyes in the Inn were drawn to her. The other women scowled.

  “Your man upstairs has collapsed from exhaustion and he was so vocal about his prowess before!” Abby cried in mock disappointment. There was laughter and catcalls from the men and several of the other girls snorted and shook their heads at the consistency of typical male exaggeration and puffed up boasting.

  “Can satisfaction not be found from men of the Rhine? Or can their energies only be spent upon a battlefield?” Abby cried in mock sadness. A burly man whose great size set him apart from many of his fellows stood. He leered at Abby and patted his codpiece.

  “The honor of the Rhine is at stake, lads!” he cried. “The Boar of Brandenburg, Fritz von Witten, shall service this dust-skinned bitch and all of Acheux shall hear her screams of adulation!” There was more laughter and jeering as the Boar of Brandenburg started removing bits of armor.

  “Hold ‘Boring’ of Brandenburg!” Another man rose wobbly to his feet. He was not as big or as broad as Fritz von Witten, but next to him sat his mirror image. The identical brothers, Rudolph and Conrad of Trier had both competed the whole night to see who could drink the most. Both had made herculean efforts alternately drinking much, passing out, awaking and vomiting and repeating the process. Now both were ready to challenge each other to a different sort of contest involving opposite ends of Abby.

  Men were near insensible with their laughter now. Fritz von Witten’s swearing was lost in the cacophony even as he removed more clothing down to his undergarments, Rudolph and Conrad stumbled towards the stairs and others did the same ready to prove their own worth. Abby laughed and raised her hands to demand attention once more. Quickly, things died down again to hear what she had to say.

  “My Lords, the only solution is that I take you all on at once!” There was a moment of shocked silence then a mighty cheer nearly shook the rafters from their foundations. “However!” Abby called out once more. “Kindly bring only those swords you hope to use to our mutual benefit and leave the others upon yon tables. They shall be secure until satisfaction is secured!” There was another great cheer and steel hit the ground in great heaps.

  There was good natured pushing and shoving, but the Boar of Brandenburg roared and flexed well corded muscles now that his armor was removed and he was clad only in a sweat stained braies. Abby climbed back up the stairs slowly and deliberately, disappearing into the shadows above. The Boar and the Trier brothers were first up the stairs hot on her heels. He wheeled about before he too disappeared and roared to those below. “Form up on me, lads! We’ll cut a phalanx through those shapely legs while some of you take her from the front! We’ll meet in the middle and toast our victory ‘afore the night is over!”

  The steps were formed of wood and they creaked and groaned with the weight of many men. The Boar was two steps ahead of Conrad, his head lost in darkness when suddenly the Boar stopped and Conrad crashed into him.

  “Trottel!” Conrad hissed a curse at the Boar. “What are you…” Conrad wasn’t able to finish the sentence. The limp body of the Boar tumbled backwards causing Conrad, his brother Rudolph and several others to careen back down the steps.

  “Son of a bitch!” screamed Conrad as blood splattered over his face. The headless body flopped down on him and he smashed into Rudolph and the rest of the ill-fated and mostly nude Red Swords who had followed them onto the stairs. Conrad could only hold the corpse at arm’s length and stare at it in shock, but a trained soldier recovers from such sights quickly.

  “Get up! Get up and arm yourselves damnit! We are…” Conrad didn’t finish his statement for another body was hurtling down the steps, this one extending a sword out like a spear and holding an ax cocked back for a swing.

  “Hiyaaaargh!” bellowed Radu as he sank the blade’s edge of his ax into the skull of Conrad of Trier. With his sword, he stabbed downward into and through the man’s stomach so deeply it pierced through and into his twin Rudolph’s stomach as well. Rudolph screamed in surprise and pain, but could do nothing as he was now trapped by two corpses. The pain sobered him only enough to know that he was dying.

  Radu leapt upon the Boar’s back, then leapt again further down the stairs to land upon the chest of another sprawled Red Sword. The man’s scream cut short when Radu’s sword flashed down.

  The Inn was in chaos now. The wenches screamed and ran for the door. The Innkeeper, a well-paid and savvy man who had lived in the bandit haven of Acheux for many years, knew from experience when things were about to get very bad. He cursed his ill fortune and ran towards the back and the awaiting escape tunnel.

  Radu saw him run and with a swift movement buried his sword into another Red Sword who had struggled to find his feet. Radu released the blade’s quivering handle to draw a knife and throw it at the retreating Innkeep. It flew true and embedded itself in the man’s back. With a scream of pain the one-eyed man tumbled to the floor and lay still. Radu recovered his sword and set about the rest of his butchery.

  “Where is fucking Horseslayer?” Radu roared at one man whom he kicked in the stomach. The soldier doubled over in pain. Radu ducked the swing of another Red Sword. A solid punch from Radu’s fist laid that man unconscious. “Where is the minstrel?” Radu eyed the room through a haze of red and took stock. Five men down, four dead and several others still reeled from his surprise assault.

  From the top of the stairs Abby the Virgin looked down eyes wide and mouth agape. She had seen her share of death living in Acheux, but watching the blood run like a river from the headless body of the former Boar of Brandenburg and mix and mingle with that of Conrad and Rudolph Trier made her knees buckle. She sagged against the wall and gasped.

  Radu temporarily slowed his assault to demand his answers, but the Red Swords who remained knew whom they faced and did not feel the confidence their weight of numbers would normally bring. This was the mercenary Abelard had ranted about for days, yet had never fully committed to tracking down for revenge. Now that they were face to blood splattered face with the man, each of the remaining Red Sword mercenaries held their weapons uncertainly. They could all rush him at once, but who would lead the charge?

  “So what’s it to be then?” Radu asked through gritted teeth. Now that surprise was gone, it was up to intimidation. His body trembled slightly the way it always did after killing, but
Radu knew the Red Swords would see it as battle rage rather than what it really was. He held his fokos loosely in his right hand. His razor sharp arming sword he raised in his left and pointed it at his foes. “I’ll not ask you again!”

  “A passage leads down underground from the back room,” stammered one particularly young looking Red Sword. “An egress to the forest outside the town. Kapitän Abelard and the minstrel took this route.”

  “Be quiet!” snarled a more grizzled looking veteran, cuffing the lad upside his head. “Swords out and spread out to flank!” A graying veteran spat and fixed hate-filled blue eyes on Radu. “We’ll gut this weasel and serve him up to the Kapitän and see ourselves well rewarded for it! We are men of the Rhineland and we avenge the deaths of comrades with a merciless steel like that wielded by Saint Longinus upon Mount Golgotha!”

  Radu could see the men were finding their fire again and so acted first. Quicker than the eye could follow, the fokos flashed end over end through the air to embed itself in the chest of a Red Sword. Radu did not remain still, but instead followed the ax’s flight. First, he batted aside a slashing sword from another soldier, then followed through with a vertical slash into the man’s neck. Without pause, Radu reached out to rip the fokos with a wet squelch from the dying Red Sword’s chest. Both he and the man he had slashed in the neck fell simultaneously to the ground in a bloody heap. Four Red Swords remained.

  “Make for the horses!” shouted one Red Sword as he tore for the door.

  “Get the rest of the men in here!” shouted another, hot on his heels.

  “Stand your ground, you fucking dolts!” screamed the veteran, trying to reestablish his authority.

  “I’ll not die here in this shit hole, Bertolf!” shouted one of the departing men as he ran outside without a backward glance. Radu hadn’t moved to stop them. Instead, he faced off against the veteran Bertolf and the one remaining and clearly terrified Red Sword regular.

  “Easy now, Trutwin,” Bertolf hissed to his trembling companion. “Remember the Siege of Kaffa? Remember all those Mongol bastards howling for our blood and the sky dark with their arrows?” Trutwin nodded quickly, not taking his eyes off of Radu.

  “I remember you saved my life, Sergeant Bertolf. I would never have made it out of that city were it not for you and the Kapitän.”

  “Aye, that’s right lad and right now me and the Kapitän need you to remember your oath to the Red Swords and take this motherless pig down.” Bertolf grinned when he felt, rather than saw, Trutwin take a firm grip on his sword. Now Bertolf growled and readied himself for the fight of his life. He would attack first, giving the lad a chance to attack from the flank. He would have to hold out as long as he could against a younger and clearly stronger opponent, but the two of them would succeed and the honor of the Red Swords would be upheld.

  Bertolf felt the blade pierce through his back and stared down in amazement as it exited out through his chest. There was little time for him to wonder why as he pitched forward into darkness.

  Radu watched Bertolf’s lifeless body slam down onto a chair, shattering the chair with its dead weight. His face remained expressionless as he took in Trutwin’s pale, scared face.

  “I don’t want to die here,” Trutwin rasped, fighting down his panic. “The door to the cellar is in the back room. They’ve not been gone long. To hell with this company!” Trutwin spat. He snatched up his Red Sword tabard that had been laying on a table and threw it to the ground.

  “The Kapitän thinks the rest of us don’t know what has been going on, but everyone knew who it was that paid us to come here and sit on our hands! He’s out there meeting with some murderer if what I heard is true!” Trutwin licked his lips. Radu hadn’t stirred, nor had he lowered his weapons. Radu’s eyes flickered to the corpse of Bertolf lying on his side upon the dirt floor. Trutwin’s eyes followed his and the scrawny Red Sword paled. Where were Gotfrid and Wikman? Had they deserted him and already made off for their main camp near La Crotoy?

  “Did he really save your life?” Radu asked.

  “I… what?” Trutwin stammered.

  “Did you owe this man your life, whelp!” Radu roared, leveling his fokos at Trutwin’s head.

  “That was years ago. What does it matter now?” Radu’s sword stabbed forward catching Trutwin in the gut. Trutwin’s jaw clamped shut in pain and tears flooded his eyes. “I… did not want… to die.” As Trutwin began to slump forward on Radu’s blade, the tall mercenary withdrew it from the dying man.

  “Then you should have fought,” Radu answered coldly. For a moment Radu stood there surrounded by carnage. He had made of the Acheux Inn a charnel pit. Above, Abby the Virgin stuck her head out and looked around in amazement.

  “You killed them all.” Her words were a blunt statement of fact, but still she uttered them as though not comprehending the truth of the matter.

  “Take your money and get out,” Radu said without emotion. He never saw her nod and hurry back up the stairs to gather what few belongings she possessed and the small bag holding ten silver florins from Radu, a small fortune by her standards.

  Radu moved towards the back room and the hidden door with its tunnel. Nothing surprised him anymore. That Horseslayer worked with Hugo the Long was no more interesting to him than the fact that the Red Swords were now in the employ of the King of Bohemia. At nearly twenty years of age, Radu had already seen and learned far more about the realities of the world and all its myriad conspiracies than he had ever wanted. It was all just one more step on the path to the Nachzehrer and that was what mattered. All that could matter.

  Radu tossed aside empty crates to reveal the door in the floor. He refused to be distracted from his goals by either sympathy or politics. His sack would soon hold the head of Hugo the Long and his purse would bulge with coin. Those were the realities he chose to live by. Still the voice in his head was telling him to hurry for Gwilym’s sake and not the state of his purse. With a great heave, he opened the door and descended the rickety ladder.

  Radu fought to control his breathing and slow his racing heart. Friendships were a luxury for those whose lives were not constantly at risk. That young fop and his strange notions of chivalry and honor were preposterous! It was only because King Edward had thrown them together that he even entertained the notion of rescuing him. It wouldn’t do for the King’s little ‘spy’ to get killed after all.

  Radu found a lit torch sputtering in a metal bracket on the wall and snatched it up. Aye, Gwilym was probably right then invoking one of his obscure Saints to come and rescue him. Either that or running his mouth until either Hugo or Horseslayer silenced it for good. Radu picked up the pace, his torch throwing up frenzied shadows upon the wall. They capered like black clad demons surrounding a mass of darkness that unraveled and reformed over and over again. A never ending dance that only gave birth to more shadows that rose and fell with each twist of the torchlight and exhaled breath of the hurrying mercenary.

  Chapter 7

  By Saint Anthony of Padua, Patron Saint of the Lost, where am I? Gwilym was surrounded by darkness. His eyes were free to see what they could, but the forest they were in was thick with trees. So thick that they bent and stretched above them like a canopy of dry, twisted arms entwined with one another. Gwilym could smell campfires upon the wind, and the sickening smell of unwashed humans.

  Gwilym’s whole body ached from being slung across the back of Hugo the Long’s horse, but he forced himself to arch his back and try to see something, anything of what might be ahead of them. Hugo and the assassins led their horses through the darkness, seemingly from memory, for not one of them struck a light or uttered a word.

  Gwilym was too terrified to attempt to glean information from his captor. As he looked ahead, he soon saw the tell-tale flicker of campfires peeking out from between bush and tree. Their mysterious destination was at hand, but Gwilym felt no comfort about the approaching light and warmth.

  Not all peasants live in villages or cottages. S
ome peasants find they are not welcome within a commune of laborers and cultivators. Even villeins, that lowest of the low and little better than slaves, might find an easier time finding employment than those who dwelt in those places that were known as the scole. To say these were hovels would have been an insult to hovel dwellers and to call these people peasants would have earned one dirty looks and harsh words from freemen and villein alike.

  These were the vagrants and the scum that were not wanted behind walls or palisades and so they traveled during the day and huddled around meager fires by night. God and the church had long denied them sacrament and salvation, so they turned instead to forbidden heretical beliefs. Gwilym smelled strange vapors and heard strange chanting that made the myths horrifyingly real.

  Scole could be found all across Europe and were universally known as places that collected pagans, sorcerers, murderers, criminals and the parts of society that decent Christians preferred to believe didn’t exist. Yet exist they did and it was in one such scole that Dafydd ap Gwilym found himself.

  Gwilym recognized it for what it was immediately and his lip curled in disgust. Looking around, Gwilym saw old animal bones hanging from the trees, curing hides strung from branches, the flickering lights and smells of cook fires around which huddled figures draped in rags. Clothing, he would not have been surprised to learn, that had likely been robbed from the dead.

  Gwilym grunted in pain when the horse stopped. Hugo dismounted and yanked Gwilym off the horse. The minstrel collapsed in a heap on the ground. Every limb ached and he tasted blood in his mouth where he had bitten is tongue. Every muscle groaned in protest as he did his best to sit up.