The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

by Jesse Bullington

  From within came a knocking in response, to which Angelino softly whistled. The door swung open, and Angelino stepped into the dark interior. Rodrigo followed, then Hegel, with Manfried nervously gripping the pommel of his mace in one hand and holding the satchel of gold closer with the other. In the blackness someone closed the door behind him, and just before Manfried could draw his weapon a second door opened ahead of them, scalding their sensitive eyes with light.

  The small tavern had tables made of driftwood and a bar consisting of a dozen oars lashed together. Behind this stood a gnarled stump of a man whose curdled-yellow eyes bespoke blindness. A gargantuan man closed the second door behind them, the only other occupant a short, black-haired fellow drinking by the hearth. Angelino led them to his table and the barkeep brought ales, the ox looming over them. Manfried exchanged hateful glares with the muscle while Angelino and the short one carried on a hurried conversation in Italian, which Rodrigo unsuccessfully tried to join.

  Just when Manfried had resolved to call his adversary out Angelino turned to the Brothers and addressed them in German:

  “And this priest Barousse says you bring, is he to be trusted?”

  “More than most, but that ain’t sayin a whole lot.” Manfried slurped his ale.

  “But he traveled with you and that thing you returned to him?” Angelino insisted.

  “Thing?” Manfried narrowed his eyes.

  “That slant-eyed slattern,” the short man said in broken German.

  Sensing his brother tense up, Hegel quickly interjected. “Yeah, the priest was with us most a the trip.”

  “And,” Angelino frowned, “did anything unnatural befall you, either before or after he joined with you? Water-related, I mean; drownings, floods, that sort?”

  “Yeah, before-” Hegel winced as Manfried kicked him under the table, but he kicked back and continued. “Yeah, fore he come one a Barousse’s men drowned in a pool no deeper than a turnshoe-top, and my own brother here almost went the same.”

  “Told you, I was sleep-wanderin,” Manfried said, cheeks flushing under his beard.

  “And after he came with you?” Angelino pressed.

  “After, I don’t recollect nuthin cept-” Manfried viciously thumped Hegel behind the knee. “-cept my brother here almost drowned again in a river.” Hegel scowled at Manfried.

  “And where was the priest then?” the short one asked.

  “Oh, he’d just been shot for the second time.” Manfried glared at Hegel.

  The two Italians reverted to their tongue, prattling back and forth while the Grossbarts had their own private discussion on the importance of clarity of meaning as related to physical interactions. Rodrigo saw his brother in the bottom of his mug, and strengthened his resolve to have a solid pray on Ennio’s passing. The men turned back to the Grossbarts, who had likewise reached a consensus, welts and bruises rising on the thighs and calves of both.

  “Glad as I am to again serve my friend and captain,” Angelino addressed them, “that thing he keeps is no good to any man, and I won’t suffer to be in its presence any longer than I must. I tell you now as I told him, when the time comes for us and it to part company over the side it goes, no matter what he says. You two are his inspiration to finally be rid of it, and return to Arab lands besides, so we must all be agreed before we set out. I am the captain of my vessel, not he, and as long as you are on my ship and I am taking you to your goal you will obey my orders, not his. Agreed?”

  “See here-” Rodrigo started.

  “Do not mistake my tone for hostile, boy,” Angelino shot at Rodrigo. “I served the captain for more years than you’ve lived, and toiled beside your departed pa and absent uncle. I was one of the few who was with him on the boat he brought it back to, and I’m the only one of those present still drawing breath stead of brine, so I know of what I speak. One thing’s more important than coin, and that’s being alive to snatch more.”

  “We’s agreed,” said Hegel, nodding at the wisdom.

  “And you?” the short one asked Manfried.

  “Didn’t take your name,” Manfried drawled.

  “Giuseppe,” the diminutive fellow replied.

  “Well, Seppe,” Manfried began, even Hegel anticipatorily holding his breath, “I’s inclined to take my brother’s position. You and Angelino’s in our service to get us to Gyptland, with the arrangement bein we’ll do everythin in our power to keep us on course. Not bein familiar with such matters, we’ll defer to your judgment as we would a hired wagon driver.”

  Giuseppe’s already beady eyes tapered further but he held his tongue and turned to his employer. After looking from Grossbart to Grossbart Angelino’s face lightened and he raised his mug:

  “A sound agreement. Now which one of you is Heigel?”

  “That’s Hegel,” Manfried said, pointing to his brother.

  “And he’s Manfried,” said Hegel.

  “Good, good. I’m Angelino, as you already know. The one behind you is Merli, and he’ll be taking that gold off your shoulders.”

  “The Hell he will.” Manfried stood up.

  “Grossbarts.” Rodrigo stood as well. “These men would sooner steal from the Pope than the captain. Give them his property.”

  “That don’t mean nuthin at all,” Manfried retorted, “just said, honest-like, bein alive’s more important than anythin else, includin friendship.”

  “If you don’t give it to him,” Rodrigo growled, “you can’t very well carry more when we come back.”

  “Suppose there’s a hint a wisdom in that,” Hegel allowed, setting his satchel on the table. “So we leave yous to put this on the boat, then fetch the captain and come back?”

  “We sail tomorrow,” Angelino said firmly. “Captain might have no future here, and maybe I don’t either, but I’d just as soon not attract any more attention by leaving at night. At dawn I’ll fix it so my girl’s waiting at the dock right out that door.” He motioned to the latched front door none had entered through. “I’ll have Merli wait here so anytime after dawn you all come here and we push out. Course she’s a wee brim compared to Barousse’s, so we’ll have to hug the coast a little tighter, add a few days or weeks to the passage, but I’m staking my life alongside yours she’ll do us good, if a little cramped. So we’re straight on who’s coming, yeah?”

  Rodrigo nodded. “The captain’s contingent and you and yours.”

  “Good, good. We’ll load the gold, then, and make ready to depart. Well met, Grossbarts.” Angelino added something in Italian to Rodrigo, which he smiled faintly at before turning his satchel over to the men. To the Grossbarts it felt like dumping their war chest into a bottomless chasm but they had little choice. Escorting them to the back door, Angelino again embraced Rodrigo, shook the Grossbarts’ hands, and let them out.

  XX. Venetian Heartbreak

  A chill and salty wind stung their faces, any speed they gained from being unburdened of their gold negated by Rodrigo’s paranoia and unfamiliarity with the exact route home. Just as they rounded the last corner before the grate, Hegel experienced the familiar prickling of hairs and tightening of gut. Before he could say a word, over a dozen figures rushed from either side of the alley, swarming the trio.

  Rather than hacking into them, the attackers fell upon their waists with sharp rocks and rusty knives, trying to cut off their purses and weapons. None of the figures reached up to Rodrigo’s chest, and their stink gave them away for a band of street urchins. The first to reach them hurled a bowl of liquid into Rodrigo’s face, blinding him.

  Prepared for nothing more than drunken merchants returning from the Whores District, the children began screaming as Grossbart iron was in hand and use before they could be mobbed. In an instant the children were fleeing, but Manfried’s mace shattered a dawdler’s hip and sent him rolling. Hegel brought his pick down on another’s back, pinning him dead before he could blink. Manfried put a stop to the wailing of the injured boy by stomping his neck while Hegel poured water into
Rodrigo’s eyes.

  The pack split down the alleys, the cry of murder echoing off walls and into windows. Manfried snatched up Rodrigo while Hegel clumsily loaded his crossbow but they had all fled into the darkness. With Hegel watching their backs they hurried the short distance to the end of the alley, running off the dogs with sharp kicks. Bells began ringing, and as the half-blind Rodrigo felt through the muck for the loose bar they heard the approach of angry men. Rodrigo went down first and Manfried after but as Hegel knelt to unload his crossbow he heard footsteps. Crouching with his bow trained at the alley’s intersection, he saw a child hurry over to the boy Manfried had killed.

  Hegel bit his lip, the lad not twenty feet away but focused on his dead friend or brother. Placing one foot on the first rung, Hegel slipped the slightest bit and his pouch clinked against his side. The child’s head spun around, and in the moonlight Hegel saw a crying girl not yet ten years old. They stared at one another, the girl slowly standing while Hegel’s free hand snuck to his purse. The girl straightened as Hegel held up a gold coin. With an unspoken prayer on his lips, Hegel twisted the coin so it shone in the dimness, and then the girl twisted on her heels to flee.

  Hegel’s left hand dropped the coin and steadied the arbalest, and before the gold hit the street he fired. The coin still plummeting, Hegel knew he had acted too hastily, his shot off the mark. At the twang of his bow, however, the girl instinctively jumped to the side and caught the bolt in the nape of her neck.

  The coin bounced and the girl spun against the wall, hair swirling around her head, and to Hegel’s amazement her face was gone, replaced with that of Brennen-the murdered son of Heinrich the turnip farmer. Momentum propelled her into the wall and she slid down it, rolling to face Hegel. Brennen’s face had fled back over the mountains to his grave, her features still bulging but again unfamiliar and feminine. The head of the arrow shone at him under her raised chin before she slipped forward. Bubbles rose around her ears as she drowned in the widening pool of her own blood. The bells were almost upon them. Snatching up his dropped coin, Hegel descended the ladder and slid the bar back into place. Holding his breath, he scrambled down into darkness.

  The return took even longer, the children having stolen Rodrigo’s candle. In perfect darkness they picked their way back, Manfried taking the lead and Hegel assisting Rodrigo. They went back up the chute and into the glow of Barousse’s chambers, the man himself seated before the Virgin, eager for news. None were given to idle chatter, and the captain’s mood turned as acerbic as their odor. All three went to the bath in their wing that Barousse had prudently ordered for them. Despite going to bed immediately after their bath, each stayed up long into the night thinking of women-Rodrigo intent on the Virgin and how she might intercede on behalf of his dead brother, Manfried mulling on the so-called Nix’s song, and Hegel unable to free his mind of the girl he had ruthlessly murdered.

  The result of their nocturnal meditations was that none rose with the sun; instead all were roused later in the morning by the clamor of Barousse yelling in the foyer. Eighteen men waited outside the gate for admittance, men Barousse had no intention of letting in. The doge, a cardinal directly from Avignon, a chevalier from north of there, and fifteen of the doge’s guards waited impatiently, their words and the words of Barousse’s mercenaries rising to shouts. Rodrigo hurried outside after his captain while the Grossbarts made for the kitchen, disgusted their tugging at the bell rope had not summoned breakfast.

  The doge, whose name, despite common usage, was certainly not the Italian term for prostitute, smiled at the approaching Barousse, Cardinal Buñuel ineffectively counseling him against rashness. At his holy toady’s insistence, the doge had withdrawn the archers he had ordered to snipe from the rooftops, although usually the doge was anything but obedient to the Church. Times change, however, as they are wont to do, and doge and cardinal both hoped Venezia’s strained relations with the Papacy might be eased for their mutual benefit.

  Sir Jean Gosney sweated under his visor, not for the first time internally bemoaning the dictates of formality that forced him into his iron shell. The cardinal dismounted from his horse and stepped toward the gate, and the doge and the knight silently did the same.

  The pikemen bunched up on either side, their three betters standing before the gate with reins in hand to enter as gentlemen. Instead of ordering the gate opened, Barousse stopped before it and belched. The cardinal winced, the doge scowled, and the knight wrinkled his upturned nose.

  “What do I owe the pleasure, with my fast hardly broke?” Barousse asked.

  “Listen, Alexius,” the doge began, “you know why we’ve come, and any pretensions that you don’t will be seen as admission of guilt.”

  “It is Captain Barousse, if you do not mind, Doge Strafa-Doge,” Barousse said, flashing a smile at the cardinal. “And who are your guests?”

  “I am Cardinal Buñuel,” the red-frocked man said sharply.

  “And I am Sir Jean Gosney of Meaux.” The armored man bowed. “A chevalier in the service of the cardinal.”

  “Now that we’re acquainted, it’s time you turned over to us those whom, for the sake of this city’s honor as well as your own, we are willing to assume you were incarcerating on our behalf.” The doge clicked his boots together.

  “The Grossbarts.” Barousse’s smile widened. “And the priest who sought sanctuary here, yes?”

  “He is no longer a priest.” Cardinal Buñuel wiped sweat from his brow.

  The Grossbarts found Martyn in the kitchen wolfing down cold bacon with his left hand, the right one, which the Road Popes had injured, now lame and dangling. He sloshed a glass of wine in their direction and returned to his meal. Hegel poked his head outside while Manfried shouted into the cellar. Together they checked the servants’ quarters off the hall to the foyer. They were vacant of both people and belongings, irking the Brothers further.

  “Where’d they go, then?” Manfried demanded.

  “Dismissed.” Martyn swallowed. “This morning, sent them all off. Those men working in the garden last night as well.”

  “Stands to reason, I suppose,” said Hegel, he and Manfried sitting down beside Martyn to eat.

  Captain Barousse’s grin never faltered, unnerving Rodrigo even more than the wary doge. “With pleasure will I give them to you, for, as you say, I only meant to keep them until your arrival. Frankly, I began to worry I would have to send for you to relieve me of them, so slothful was your pacing.”

  “What?” The doge blinked, unprepared for this turn.

  “I suspected they might be ruffians, but without your confirmation I could do little but stall their departure. Then this lunatic ally of theirs arrives dressed as a priest and spouting six kinds of heresy, and I have to hold my sword for a full day and night until you deign to visit. Honestly, Strafalaria, any grudge you bear me should not have delayed your dutiful action to deliver me from such blasphemies.” Rodrigo covered his gaping mouth with his hand, never having seen Barousse so alert.

  “What is the delay we are now experiencing, then?” Cardinal Buñuel asked. The doge was overjoyed Barousse’s bluster had not distracted the cleric but was disappointed the use of the hated moniker Strafalaria went unnoticed.

  “This and nothing more,” Barousse said without pause. “Until this very moment I could not confirm the Grossbarts were indeed wanted by you. I would have my men bring them to you this instant but they are pious Christians like the rest of us, and refuse to lay hands upon the priest and those with his blessing, by whom I mean those bearded bastards, until such time as a higher authority, as it were, confirmed for them the priest was indeed a heretic and not simply, ah, confused.”

  “He has confirmed it!” The doge haughtily declared.

  “Only by assuming the priest lodged within is indeed the priest he seeks.” Barousse extended his palms. “So you see my conundrum?”

  “Did he give the name Martyn?” asked the cardinal.

  “He did not give any n
ame at all,” answered Barousse.

  “Then let us in and we’ll have a look!” said the exasperated doge.

  “I am not in the custom of taking orders when I have done nothing to deserve the overthrow of my command,” Barousse said, quickly adding, “but to prove I have done nothing wrong, I will gladly welcome you, revered cardinal, to enter as my guest and confirm the identity of the priest, at which time my men will take them out and give them to your men.”

  “What are you scheming?” the doge shouted, earning a stern look from the cardinal and a hidden smile from the chevalier.

  “And you would prove my innocence by invading my home and seizing those who you would dub my guests? A display born of perhaps pernicious intent?” Barousse fired back, Rodrigo nervously glancing at the assembled guards, who numbered nearly twice those in Barousse’s service.

  “Deranged or not, he seems far from stupid enough to bring all of Christendom down upon his head by doing me harm,” Buñuel whispered in the scarlet ear of the doge. Then, turning back to Barousse, he raised his voice. “And surely, as my host, you would consent to my bringing a guest whom I vouch for, the honorable Sir Jean?”

  “Without reservation, and the doge as well if-No?” Barousse masked his displeasure at Strafalaria’s shaking head with an even broader smile. “As you choose, then. Now, if I may have the good doge’s word his men will not attempt to storm my residence when I open the gate, we may get this over with and I may finish my repast.”

  “That’s fine.” The doge grimaced. “You have my word. If they are not returned with the felons in very short order you also have my word they will come in whether you open the gate or not.”

  Barousse waved his hand dismissively while the gate swung open, the captain’s men clearly as relieved as the doge’s that things had ended thus. The cardinal and the chevalier left their reins in Strafalaria’s hand, making him wish he had brought a page along. The gate clicked shut again, and Barousse winked at the fuming doge before escorting the men into the house. Rodrigo hurried around the side to the kitchen door, dumb-struck that the frenzied plan Barousse had whispered to him on the short walk to the meeting had unfolded so flawlessly but worried the Grossbarts would not be where the captain insisted they would be. Their presence in the kitchen was not surprising but still a relief, prone as the Grossbarts were to thwarting expectations.