The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

by Jesse Bullington

  “The good Virgin must a given you some extra brains while you was dead. Any rate, demons different from monsters. Look nuthin like anythin I ever seen.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Whereas the monsters we seen, namely our dinner and that mantiloup, they look like people what got beast parts,” said Manfried.

  “Fish ain’t a beast, we’s been over that,” Hegel pointed out.

  “By my fuckin faith, Hegel, you know what I mean! Part eel or snake or fish and part woman and part beast and part man is still closer to the same thing then that demon was to anythin, man or beast. Or fish.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So why’s monsters always a mix a man and critter?”

  “In our experience, that’s indeed been the case,” Hegel mused. “Operatin, as we now do, on the assumption that what we’s et is monster stead a witch.”

  “Right enough! I ain’t et no damn witch! Only the top part is witch, what we’s munchin is pure monster.”

  “Suppose so. But I harbor doubts as to whether that thing in the mountains had a witch’s head and a monster-cat’s body. Seemed what might a been a man become a monster.”

  “So it’s possible monsters is just men, be they heretics or witches, get turned into somethin.” Manfried bit his lip, staring at the pile of uneaten meat.

  “Or monsters might be beasts that change partly into men. Or women.”

  “That’s pushin reason a little hard,” Manfried argued. “I don’t believe it’s possible she was a fish what turned into a woman.”

  “But she didn’t speak. Fish don’t speak.”

  “And they don’t sing, neither. Sides, plenty a monsters I heard bout ain’t nuthin like men or women, just pure monster.”

  “Like what?” Hegel demanded.

  “Like dragons and unicorns and such.”

  “But we ain’t never seen’em, so they might be nuthin more than tales.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Manfried.

  “No, but hearin bout somethin don’t make it real. I know Mary’s real cause I seen Her, and I know demons’ real cause I seen one a them, and I know weird fuckin fish witches is-”

  “I follow, I follow,” Manfried groused. “But we knew witches was real fore we ever saw one, and sure enough, we was right on their account.”

  “Yeah,” Hegel allowed.

  “So monsters, in our experience, is part man and part beast, although the possibility exists they might be parts a other things all mixed together, like a basilisk. Part chicken and part dragon.”

  “That ain’t no basalisk, that’s a damn cockatrice.”

  “A what?!” Manfried laughed at his brother’s ignorance.

  “A cockatrice. Basilisk’s just a lizard, cept it poisons wells and such,” said Hegel.

  “That’s a scorpion! Although you’s half right-basilisk’ll kill you quick, but by turnin its eyes on you.”

  “What!?” Hegel shook his head. “Now I know you’s makin up lies cause any man a learnin’ll tell you straight a scorpion ain’t no reptile, it’s a worm.”

  “What worms you seen what have eyes and arms, huh?”

  “Sides from you?”

  The debate raged for some time, eventually deteriorating into a physical exchange. Hegel was happy to be alive and kicking his brother, and Manfried felt the same. When they took their shifts each thought of irrefutable points to make in the argument that qualified as such only in the loosest sense, considering they shared roughly the same opinion on this, as in most matters.

  When all below fell silent below deck Al-Gassur lit a tallow in the storeroom. By its scant light he cut Barousse’s bonds, and in a moment the captain had wrested the knife away and pinned Al-Gassur to the floor. The Arab’s misery that his suspicions regarding Barousse’s intentions had been proven true became compounded by stark fear as Barousse began acting even stranger.

  His face hovering above Al-Gassur’s, Barousse used the knife to slice open his own cheeks and brow, carving deep gashes that leaked blood into the Arab’s open mouth. Then the captain held the knife to the Arab’s throat and began licking Al-Gassur’s face, sucking on the ends of his mustache and prying open locked eyelids with a meaty tongue. Al-Gassur gasped when the salty appendage wriggled under and pressed against his eyeball, the jelly coming off on the rough tongue. Only the blade nicking his neck prevented the Arab from screaming; he was well aware that if he so much as coughed he would slit his own throat.

  Suddenly as the bizarre and lascivious assault had begun it ended, and Barousse reared to his feet. Al-Gassur cowered, begging his brother to forgive whatever trespasses he had inadvertently committed. Instead Barousse wildly cut through his own clothing with such vigor that in moments he stood nude before Al-Gassur, his old wounds and fresh cuts gleaming black in the candlelight. One hand gripping the knife, he seized Al-Gassur’s hand with the other and yanked him upright. He hugged the Arab, who shivered at the wet embrace, his filthy clothes now glistening with fresh blood.

  “In my travels I met a traveler,” Barousse whispered, releasing Al-Gassur and rushing to the scattered boxes. “I was a traveler, and he was a traveler, and for a short time we traveled together. Traveling. Travel, travel, the only life worth living. I had a wife, and two young boys but still I traveled, if you understand.”

  “I under-”

  “Traveling is best done with other travelers. The sea forces you among men, but not all are travelers at heart. The man, like me, was more than a man who travels because he can, but a traveler who travels because he must.”

  “I too have traveled. I must confess-”

  “He told me.” Barousse opened a box of jewelry and threw it against the wall, scattering a fortune along the floor. “I did not ask, just as you did not ask, but he told me, as I tell you.”

  Al-Gassur remained silent, watching the captain ransack the other boxes until he found the one containing his clothes, the last chest Sir Jean had made to discharge before he slipped, banged his head, and realized the ship had also calmed. Barousse began chortling with laughter, tears and rivulets of blood pooling around his bare knees. Al-Gassur brought the tallow closer while Barousse began tossing fur-trimmed tunics and boots around the room.

  “He knew I could not be fully happy, for I traveled despite my hard-fought wealth, my beloved family, my comfortable station. I think that is why, it must be why. Yet I wonder, often, often, especially after they died and I banished her, I wondered. You will fear the sea and her but more than that you will fear returning her, you will regret everything, as I regretted everything. Yet in the end, you will be as happy as I!” Barousse shook with laughter, his naked body matted with dried blood and waste.

  “East is their home. You travel to where ships are known to have sunk, spits of stone far out to sea, desolate island cliffs, hidden reefs that rape ships bellies, you go alone. I left my ship and all my men, and rowed close to a desolate island farther east than I had ever gone, past Cyprus, to the very brink of the Holy Land. There must be no moon, not even a shaving, when the sea is lit only by stars and your fear, and there you wait with a sturdy net.”

  The captain must have located his quarry, for he stopped rooting and leaned back, a thick black coat held in his shaking hand. He delicately ran the knife up and down it, prodding until the Arab heard a faint metallic jingle. Then the knife sank in and Barousse sank down, sliding his hand into the hole with the gentle air of a midwife assisting a small woman’s first child into the world. Al-Gassur’s candle reflected off something, and he peered over Barousse’s shoulder.

  “If you search it out you can find cable thin as rope but far stronger. You noose it over the end, and drop it into the sea. Ensure it is a ship’s length long, to reach her depths. Then you wait, but not long. When you feel the tugging haul it up, slowly and gently as the first time you made love to your wife. You will hear the splashing beside your boat and then you must cast the net, and carefully, for one chance is all a man is allowed. Haul it on board quick,
but do not look or all is lost! Above all, do not look until you have found a beach or rock where you can drag the net, and only then! And that, dear brother, is worth all sacrifices you have made and all tragedies you will suffer, the first sight of her! Only then will you return to your ship and the world of men, bringing what you have earned.”

  Al-Gassur held out his trembling hands and took the artifact. The sides of the small bottle were twisted and warped, and rather than having a stopper the neck ended in a smooth glass circle. A strange object sat in the bottom, a lump wrapped in sealskin, and the awed Arab saw that it exceeded the neck of the bottle in size. Either the bottle had been blown around it, or it had somehow grown after being sealed inside. Most curious of all, the glass felt warm to the touch, and pressing it to his cheek, Al-Gassur thought it pulsed like the chest of a small animal.

  “Always conceal it, from moon and sun and man alike. Here, with roof above and floor below and walls on all sides, here it is dangerous enough.” Barousse ripped a piece from the coat and covered the bottle in Al-Gassur’s palm. “Never let it see the open sky, even when you put it to use, keep it wrapped in cloth and let the sea strip it of its mantle. Now that you have seen it, never risk it again, never!”

  “Brother, I will never have faith in any but you.” Al-Gassur bowed.

  “I love to see the trembling of the tiny birds,” Barousse whispered in a strange accent, and before Al-Gassur could question his meaning warm liquid splashed the Arab’s face.

  “I’ll see you rest with her, brother,” Al-Gassur vowed, the room tinted burgundy from the blood in his eyes. Barousse flopped forward, the knife buried to the hilt in his bare chest. A fevered smile contrasted with the horror in his foggy eyes, and his lips continued to move long into the night. And so Captain Alexius Barousse left the world of men and Grossbarts, leaving his legacy in the hands of those who still praised his name.

  XXVI. The Children’s Crusade

  In the days that followed Heinrich’s donning of the flagellant’s robes, the boys remained obediently silent but would abduct any solitary travelers from the road and bring them before their stepfather, who would lecture the near-catatonic victims before allowing the twins to eat. With each gobbled victim the demon raged and worried at Heinrich to spare the potential converts but still the man overpowered his fiend. Heinrich’s fever never slackened, imbuing his limbs with an unwholesome vigor instead of weakening him, and without even noticing he lapsed into cannibalism when Brennen offered him the pinkest parts of the unfortunates they seized. The demoniac could no longer bear the sun, making the twins dig him deep burrows when no caves or thickets could be located. Worry plagued Heinrich, who had never seen a map but whose belly compelled him southward.

  The night after they passed a town half-ruined by fire, his boys raced ahead toward a campfire beside a small river. They were in grasslands now, which afforded them few places to hide during the day, and Heinrich would have forbidden their investigation had he not held out hope for discovering the Grossbarts before they eloped by ship. The customary shrieks were quickly silenced, and as he waited by the riverbank Heinrich’s excitement waned, suspecting as he did that a Grossbart may curse and shout but will not shriek even if his genitals are gnawed by piglets.

  The twins splashed through the current and deposited their charges before Heinrich, his disappointment sweetening at seeing their white vestments. Priests were better than nothing, but before he could launch into his diatribe they had rolled over, revealing their papal masks. Snatching them off, he peered into the unfocused, rolling eyes of the young men.

  After he splashed them with water and booted them several times they began to speak, Magnus and Brennen eagerly watching from the shadows. The gibberish they spouted made no sense to Heinrich, who sighed and resigned himself to never knowing how they came to be dressed in such a manner. After all, the yeoman-turned-prophet only recognized a pope’s attire from a triptych he had seen long before and for all he knew most residents of the Papal States dressed that way.

  Relieved to see an actual priest after being assaulted by devils, Paolo begged for mercy, explaining that only his desire to see his father avenged persuaded him to don the baggy garb of a Road Pope. Vittorio saw the beasts skulking in the weeds and knew at once this cruel-faced man could not be a priest, and so he tried to barter his friend’s soul in place of his. Heinrich raised his flail, knowing his words would be lost on these foreign heretics, when Paolo cursed their name, bowing his head and weeping.

  “What name did you speak?” Heinrich demanded, unaware that the witch’s tongue knew all others, and he now addressed the lads in Italian.

  “The Grossbarts!” wailed Paolo, tearing at the mud, his mind broken. “Those goddamn bastard Grossbarts! They burned us, they burned my father! They burned us! Bound and helpless, we could not get loose before!”

  Unfortunately, while they understood him, Heinrich had not nibbled Nicolette’s ear and so all he comprehended was the name Grossbart and the youth’s rage toward them. Seeing this gave the demoniac pause, however, and Vittorio joined in cursing them, his hatred genuine as they had murdered his cousin Giovanni-known to his victims as Clement.

  “Quit your barking!” commanded Heinrich, and the young men resumed their terrified prostrations, moaning and scratching at their faces in shock. “I only wish to know if you hate the Grossbarts more than you love the Virgin or your souls or the Great Demon of Heaven.”

  The two nodded vigorously, begging for mercy. Paolo tried to explain that before being set upon by monsters they had been journeying south in pursuit of the Grossbarts but Heinrich silenced him with a gentle flick of his scourge. He told them to merely shake their heads or nod, for he recognized that they understood his words. They nearly snapped their necks so vigorously did they assent.

  “Then you will be spared,” Heinrich said, and the twins wailed in disappointment until Heinrich commanded they be silent. “Put your masks back into place and swear to uphold my will in our quest to undo the Brothers Grossbart!”

  They swore and nodded, clumsily refitting their masks with hands bruised raw from the teeth of the twins. Turning to his boys, Heinrich insisted they do nothing to harm their disciples, but to ensure they did not flee he assigned Magnus to mind Vittorio and Brennen to Paolo. The brothers jumped back into sight, bringing on another fit of tears and convulsions from the would-be Road Popes.

  That night they took the sacrament of human flesh Heinrich offered, never suspecting the two abominations understood every word they whispered even if their master did not. Vittorio’s fear that they would have to kiss certain parts of the demons’ anatomies proved unfounded, although that was little succor. Escorting the novices back to their fire to retrieve their packs and weapons, Heinrich asked the lads if they knew which direction would take them to the sandy wastes of the Arab.

  Being a barber of deserved reputation, Paolo’s father had known and passed on everything he understood of the profession and, unlike many of his trade, he had acknowledged that many advances had returned from the Crusades along with relics and other, more physical rewards. Whereas the average bumpkin might have pointed vaguely southward and picked his nose, Paolo motioned east, nodding his head vigorously when Heinrich narrowed his eyes. The fellow again pointed east, then curved his arm south, which seemed to please Heinrich.

  They set off at once, the minds of the young popes irrevocably contaminated by the night’s horrid events. Without map or road they braved the wilds, Heinrich demanding the twins carry him over even the smallest stream rather than dampening his toes. Inexplicable impulses such as these beleaguered him and in the humid afternoons when sleep escaped him he would hear a soft, slithering voice that did not belong to him or any of those present, a whisper goading him to perform stranger rites still. Compromise was eventually brokered.

  Now when they passed villages one of the novices would be forced to attempt a clandestine entry to deposit hunks of Heinrich’s rotting flesh in the wells. Wh
ere this proved impossible Heinrich would grow irrational, and order his boys to kidnap individuals from outlying farms so he could embrace and kiss them wantonly until they retched. Then they would be released, under a warning that if they spoke of what they had witnessed the demons would appear before them but to remember all was the fault of the Grossbarts. Few ever spoke again, the plague taking their lives before they sufficiently recovered from their horrors to think properly, let alone communicate beyond moans. In this fashion the Great Mortality enjoyed a brief renaissance in those regions, Heinrich’s retinue leaving plague and ruin in their footsteps as they marched to war against the Grossbarts.

  XXVII. Rhodes to Gyptland

  Hegel awoke with a start, the fever finally broken upon his fire-bald pate. Looking around the dark room, he felt for his pick on the bed beside him and grew anxious at its absence. His armor lay draped over a nearby chair but when he attempted to stand his legs shuddered and he fell to the floor. Lying still for several moments, he listened to the drone of voices outside the door. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember what had happened before his illness but all he remembered was the vicious drubbing they had administered to the Arab at finding Barousse dead under his watch.

  The door flew open and Hegel’s eyes glazed at the brightness flowing in, the unmistakable silhouette of Manfried framed in sunlight. Then the door closed and Manfried helped him onto the bed, placing a bottle in his hands. Hegel drank and coughed, his brother grinning at him until he returned the wine.

  “What happened?” asked Hegel.

  “Her Will fuckin served.” Manfried had a sip. “Not up on the specifics, as I’s just risen myself. Seems maybe we shouldn’t a et that witch after all, tried to poison us even in death.”

  “Told you’s much. Probably why my recollections ain’t comin.”

  “Told me’s much? You certainly ain’t recollectin proper.”