The Castle of Kings

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Shocked, Mathis looked at the old master gunner from Trifels Castle. When Reichhart merely raised his eyebrows in a warning gesture, he said nothing.

  Jockel frowned suspiciously, but at last he nodded. “You’re right, better safe than sorry.” He gave a lordly wave of his three-fingered hand. “Now, off with you, before I regret my good deed.”

  With arms outspread, he turned to his supporters. “The clergy promised us the kingdom of heaven on Earth!” he shouted. “And nothing came of it. So now we’ll make hell hot for them. A cleansing fire to sweep all rulers from the face of the earth. Are you ready to tread that path with me?”

  The men roared like a single great animal.

  While the peasants rejoiced, Agnes walked over to the big monastery building with Mathis, Ulrich Reichhart, and the two guards. She stared straight ahead, her lips set in a frown. She would never let the men see her shed tears.

  She did not know which horrified her more: the fact that Father Tristan was dying or Mathis’s betrayal. She had known that he had joined the insurgents, but she would never have expected to find him here among murderers and hell-raisers. Yes, he had often talked about injustice and the imminent likelihood of the peasants rising, but it had always sounded so harmless. Now she saw what it really meant—murder, robbery, and the devastation of the countryside. Could she have been so mistaken about him?

  But then it occurred to her that soon none of her doubts would make any difference. The peasants would kill her to revenge themselves on her husband. Slowly, she fell victim to mortal fear. When she entered the cold, drafty corridors of the monastery, everything went dark before her eyes for a brief moment. She swayed on her feet, and Mathis caught her.

  “Are you—” he began, but Agnes pushed him away.

  “Leave me alone!” she snapped. “And don’t you ever touch me again.”

  Startled, Mathis stepped aside, and the two guards grinned.

  “Look at that, then—the little turtle dove pecks,” said Jannsen, nudging his friend in the ribs. “Well, we’ll soon teach her better.”

  Paulus uttered a coarse laugh, gave Agnes a push, and she made her way on, swaying down the monastery corridors, past the ruins of the refectory and several of the monks’ cells. Her shoulder was still throbbing from her fall, the wound on her forehead wouldn’t stop bleeding, but one thought kept her going: if she was to die soon, she at least wanted to know, first, what her dreams meant, and who Constanza was. Deep inside, she sensed that Constanza’s fate and her own were connected in some strange way.

  They finally reached the door of the infirmary. Paulus kicked it, and it swung open, creaking. A strong smell of incense, herbs, and excrement rose to Agnes’s nostrils. The room had been burned out, and in the smoky air it was difficult to see the rickety beds. A couple of the injured peasants looked up in alarm.

  “Where’s the monk?” asked Jannsen.

  Hesitantly, one of the monastery’s maidservants pointed to a corner where a single bed stood in the lingering smoke. The figure on it was as frail and withered as a scarecrow.

  “Father Tristan!” Agnes cried, starting toward the bed before Jannsen seized her shoulder.

  “Not so fast, little turtle dove,” he growled. “We want to be there when you pour out your heart.”

  “This is a confession, you blockhead. Have you forgotten?” Ulrich Reichhart propelled the startled guard toward the door. “If there’s still a spark of Christian charity in you, let’s go out and wait.”

  The four men did indeed go to wait outside the door, and Agnes approached the bed in the corner on her own. She knelt down, her heart beating fast, and took Father Tristan’s wrinkled hand. It was as cold as death. Drifting smoke from the incense enveloped them both, leaving the rest of the infirmary in twilight.

  “Father,” Agnes whispered. “Can you hear me?”

  Father Tristan had closed his eyes, but now he opened them, and looked at Agnes with a smile. A sigh of relief escaped his roughened lips.

  “I knew that God would hear my prayer,” he murmured. “Tell me, dear girl, do you have my letter?”

  Agnes frowned. “What letter, Father?”

  A coughing fit shook the old man. He brought up blood that dripped on the white sheet.

  “I . . . I wrote you a letter,” he gasped at last. “In the scriptorium. It is very important. I waited far too long to tell you everything. I wanted to . . . shield you. But it’s useless. The midwife Elsbeth Rechsteiner told me that they were after you. You must get away, Agnes. Leave the castle as soon as you can.”

  “Midwife?” Agnes shook her head. “Get away? I don’t understand . . .” Thoughts fluttered around in her mind like butterflies. She had wanted to know so much from Father Tristan, and now she heard only new puzzles.

  “I found a scrap of parchment from the old chronicle,” she began, faltering. “There were two names on it. Johann and Constanza. They ran away from the castle together. Father, who is Constanza? I have to know.”

  Father Tristan tried to smile. “She is closer to you than you may guess. Ask the canons of St. Goar, they can help you. You should find out at last who you really are. The . . . the document . . . it’s in their hands. The Brotherhood gave it to them . . . the Brotherhood . . .”

  His voice was failing. Agnes took his thin, wrinkled hand and held it fast.

  “Father!” she cried, in such an urgent voice that the other patients in the infirmary looked at them in alarm. “Father, you can’t leave me. Not now. Oh, God!”

  Tears poured down her face as the old man’s hand suddenly went limp. She heard a long, deep breath, and then his head fell to one side. An expression of ineffable peace spread over Father Tristan’s face.

  The other patients were silent, too, when they realized that the old man had left them. Even their coughing died down for a while. One of the monastery maidservants murmured a quiet prayer and dried the tears in her eyes.

  “Coindeta sui, si cum n’ai greu cossire, quar pauca son, iuvenete e tosa . . .”

  Without knowing why, Agnes found herself singing the old Occitanian lullaby that she had learned from her mother. She was still holding Father Tristan’s hand and caressing it gently. It was all over. He had not answered any of her many questions, but that hardly mattered. She would soon be seeing Father Tristan in Paradise, as well as her long-dead mother, her father . . . She smiled sadly. This was where it all ended.

  At that moment there was a mighty noise outside the infirmary, as if the devil himself were demanding entrance.

  Next moment, the door flew open.

  Mathis, waiting outside the infirmary, cursed Shepherd Jockel, himself, and the world in general. All the life had gone out of him when Agnes looked at him with hatred in her eyes. As she saw it, he was nothing but a murderer and hell-raiser, and damn it, she was right. One glance from her had brought down his whole false edifice of a just world, free peasants, and a revolt carried out with God’s blessing. As long as there were men like Jockel around, nothing would ever change. One commander would take over from the last—whether a bishop, a duke, or a beggar, men were all of them evil. Had he really thought that bloodshed and arson could usher in the kingdom of heaven on Earth? Now the woman he loved was about to be killed by men whose freedom he had once longed to see.

  They’re like animals, he thought. We’re none of us any better than animals . . .

  He was staring at the floor, downcast, when a gentle nudge in the ribs brought him back from his thoughts. Ulrich Reichhart was giving him a meaningful look. Reichhart’s eyes then went to the door on the opposite side of the passage. It had a bolt, and it looked massive. Mathis was at a loss.

  What in heaven’s name is his idea?

  “By my grandma’s ass, if I’d known this confession was going to take so long, I’d have had something to eat first,” said Reichhart in annoyance. “All that killing makes a man hungry.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “I’ll just go and get a nice fat sausage from th
e larder.”

  “Larder?” Jannsen looked at him suspiciously. “What larder?”

  Ulrich Reichhart pointed to the door opposite. “Didn’t Jockel tell you two? We put everything edible we could find in there.” He grinned. “Smoked ham and sausages, candied plums, dried cod, mead, cold roast meats . . .”

  Jannsen’s eyes popped out of his head as he heard this list of delicacies. “You’re joking, right?”

  “God, no!” laughed Reichhart. “Go and look for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  “Damn right I will.” Jannsen drew back the heavy bolt and opened the door. It was pitch dark on the other side, so that he had to go a step or so into the room to see anything.

  “Trying to make fun of me, are you?” he said. “There’s no sausages in here, this is only—”

  “The lumber room. I know.” Ulrich Reichhart gave the guard a kick on the buttocks that sent him falling forward with a cry. Flailing his arms, Jannsen landed among chests, ladders, shelves, and dusty pitchers that broke with a deafening crash.

  By now Mathis had understood the old master gunner’s plan. Swiftly drawing his dagger, he put it to the throat of the startled Paulus. “In there with you, and quick.” he snapped. “Before I spill your blood all over this passage.”

  With his hands in the air, Paulus stepped backward into the lumber room. Then, suddenly, he opened his mouth to shout for help. At the same moment, Reichhart hit him on the head with the flat of his sword. The guard toppled over on his back, and Mathis shot the bolt of the door after him. Already the bodyguards were knocking angrily.

  “We don’t have much time,” Reichhart said. “I was here earlier, during the looting. There’s a little door at the end of this passage leading into the laundry. We can reach the other side of the monastery from there. Fetch Agnes, and hurry up.”

  In a daze, Mathis nodded. Then he hurried into the infirmary. Agnes was still kneeling in the corner at the back of the room, beside Father Tristan’s bed. She turned in alarm and stared at him. The other patients and the two maidservants looked like they had been turned to stone. Open-mouthed, they gazed at the young man gasping for breath, and at the dagger in his hand.

  “Come on, quickly, Agnes!” shouted Mathis. “Get out of here.”

  When she did not reply he ran to her, took hold of her collar, and dragged her to the door. Only now did she seem to have overcome her fright.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she spat at him. “Leave me alone. I haven’t finished my confession yet. You’ll be killing me soon enough.”

  “No one’s going to kill you if you just get a move on.” Mathis pushed her along the passage toward the end of it, where Ulrich Reichhart was already waiting impatiently. Jannsen was still hammering against the bolted door of the lumber room.

  “We’re escaping,” explained Mathis breathlessly. “You, me, and old Reichhart here, so run!”

  They ran along the passage and slipped together through the low door leading into the laundry room.

  Mathis looked around frantically as the noise behind them grew louder. The large room, damp with steam, contained several washtubs, monks’ habits hung up to dry on several wooden poles, and in the corner a large fireplace where water could be heated in a vast cauldron. Only now did Mathis notice the steady, rushing sound that came from behind the habits drying on the wooden frames. Pushing the garments aside, he was surprised to see a narrow channel of water flowing right through the laundry, toward several wooden cubicles that could be easily recognized as latrines from the stink of them.

  “Devil take it!” cried Ulrich Reichhart, who had now reached the far end of the room and was flinging himself desperately against the door there. “It’s locked. We can’t get any farther this way.”

  Rapid footsteps now came from the other side of the passage to the infirmary. Mathis slammed the door through which they had come, and barricaded it with one of the wooden poles, jamming it under the catch. Soon after that, there was angry knocking.

  “Open up!” cried a furious Jannsen. “This minute, or we’ll burn you all inside the laundry here.”

  The door shook, and cracks showed in its frame. Mathis knew that it wouldn’t hold for long. He looked around in a panic.

  Where can we go? Through what mouse hole can we escape?

  His glance fell on the channel of water flowing by and passing under the latrines. Beside him, Ulrich Reichhart seemed to have had the same idea. He jumped in, and the water came up to his knees.

  “We’ll probably get stuck in petrified monastic shit,” he growled. “But I don’t see any other way out of here.”

  Agnes, who seemed to have calmed down a little by now, shook her head. “No one’s getting me to climb into that,” she said. “Who knows where this channel leads?”

  “It leads out to freedom,” Ulrich Reichhart said. “I’ve seen that for myself. They diverted the stream. It goes right under and through the monastery, coming out again on the other side. The monks use it for washing and relieving themselves.”

  “Suppose there’s a grating across the channel somewhere?” Agnes insisted.

  Something crashed into the door behind them. The blade of an axe came through the wood.

  “And anyway, who says I want to go with you murdering—” Agnes was going on, but at that moment Mathis pushed her, and she fell into the water with a cry of surprise. Ulrich Reichhart had already disappeared under the latrines.

  “Dive down!” Mathis called to Agnes. “Dive, or let Jockel burn you alive. Because that’s the very least he’ll do to us.”

  “Oh, Mathis, you . . . you . . .” Agnes’s voice was somewhere between terror and anger. Finally she took a deep breath and vanished under the latrines herself. As Mathis dove down after her, he heard the door breaking behind him, and shouts of triumph. Then all around him was dark.

  The water was so cold that his limbs hurt. Mathis pushed himself forward along the slippery sides of the channel, fearing all the time that he might suddenly come up against a weir or simply get stuck. But the current carried him on and on. Ahead of him he could faintly see the outline of a wriggling body, which he took to be Agnes. Air was running out; an invisible hand seemed to clutch his rib cage. There was still no end to the underground watercourse in sight. Nothing but hard rock around and above him.

  Just as the first stars started to dance in front of his eyes, it suddenly grew lighter again. Pushing off with his legs, Mathis came up above the surface of the water. Cold air streamed into his lungs, filling him with life. The bright sunlight shone on his face.

  When he looked up, Mathis saw Ulrich Reichhart about thirty feet ahead of him, helping Agnes out of the flowing water of the stream. She was coughing and spitting water, but at least she was alive. Fields stretched to the right and left of them. The monastery wall was only a stone’s throw away.

  Paddling like a dog, Mathis let himself drift a little way farther. Then he, too, climbed out of the stream and hurried after the other two, who had already reached the outer wall of the monastery, where the metal-casting workshop also stood. Pale, and still fighting for breath, Agnes glared at him.

  “I’ll never forgive you for this, Mathis Wielenbach,” she gasped. “First you join that band of murderers, then you almost drown me like a kitten.”

  “How about a little gratitude for a change?” retorted Mathis, equally breathless. “I just saved your life, but oh no, her ladyship the countess—”

  “Maybe you two could put off your argument to some other time,” Ulrich Reichhart interrupted, pointing to the wall. “We’re not safe until we’re on the other side of that. The forest begins then, and they won’t find us there.”

  He began climbing the wall, which was about nine feet high, with some protruding stones offering handholds. After a little hesitation, Mathis and Agnes followed him, with the castellan’s daughter casting Mathis furious glances. On the other side of the wall there was a muddy ditch, still full of lingering snow. They jumped dow
n, made a soft landing in the slush, and crawled to the outskirts of the forest, where they hid behind a group of bramble bushes.

  For a while all three lay there as though they were dead, but fighting for air. Mathis shivered. His wet shirt and hose clung to his skin. The others were no better off. Agnes was rubbing her icy arms and legs, and Mathis caught himself staring at her breasts. He could see the shape of them under her soaked doublet. Water dripped from her blonde hair to the ground, where it formed a puddle. At least the sun was shining now, and gave some warmth. But soon they heard the first shouts from the monastery.

  “They’re starting the chase,” Mathis gloomily said, sitting up. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll have escaped for nothing. Jockel will flay us alive.”

  “At least they have no dogs,” Ulrich Reichhart pointed out, frowning. “All the same, it would be good if we could go to ground somewhere for a while. There are a hell of a lot of them, and with all the snow still around we won’t make fast progress in the forest. If there was some kind of hiding place . . .”

  “I know one,” said Agnes suddenly. She had risen to her feet and was wringing out her wet hair. “It may not be very comfortable, but at least we’ll be safe there for the time being. Although the smell inside it leaves something to be desired.” She looked fiercely at Mathis, but then, finally, she gave a deep sigh. “Mathis Wielenbach, you’re as obstinate as a mule, you’re a dangerous insurgent, and absolutely unbearable. But for some reason or other I like you all the same. So if you insist on staying around me, then come with us if you like.”

  Without another word, they disappeared among the trees of the forest.

  ✦ 16 ✦

  The forest outside Eusserthal Monastery, the same day

  AFTER THEY’D TRAVELED A NUMBER of miles, Agnes, Mathis, and Ulrich Reichhart found themselves huddling together in the darkness of a cave, while the cries of their pursuers echoed far off in the forest and finally died away entirely.