Heidelberg Effect

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  “For now,” Ella said.

  “Yes,” Greta said, smiling sadly. “For now.”

  The dungeon was a cavernous, windowless pit in the basement of the castle. The door to the cell had a small window criss-crossed with a grille of iron in the center of it. From the cold stone floor on which he lay, Rowan could see shadows flit past the grille in the hallway outside, but the window was too high up on the door to afford a glimpse of anyone walking by.

  Axel stood over him.

  “Ach, sie sind nicht ein Gärtner,” Axel said. He squatted next to Rowan so that they were eye to eye.

  Rowan’s hands were tied behind him. He was pretty sure his ribs were broken from the rough handling during transport to the castle, and he could feel a loose molar from where this asshole had hit him with his own gun. Rowan was surprised by how little fear he was feeling. What he did feel was a rage at the power of this one man to hurt innocent people and kill without consequences.

  Rowan glared at Axel, hoping the bastard would come just a little closer.

  “Wer schlafen Sie mit?” Axel said, his face smiling and relaxed. The two men flanking Axel laughed. Do you fuck the nun? MACROBUTTON HTMLDirect“Ficken Sie die Nonne?”

  Axel barked out a quick order over his shoulder without breaking eye contact with Rowan. He placed his hands on Rowan’s bare chest. Rowan flinched at his touch. Axel let his gaze crawl the length of Rowan stretched out on the filthy dungeon floor.

  Rowan felt the heat from a stove he hadn’t realized was there when one of the men standing behind Axel shifted position. He caught a glimpse of the red, violent flames as the oven door opened and closed. When he looked at Axel again, he could see he wanted him to know what was coming. He watched as Axel’s man held the glowing white hot poker up and away. Waiting.

  “Haltet ihn!” Axel ordered. Someone grabbed Rowan by both arms and started to haul him to his feet. Before he was fully steady, Rowan smashed his head into the man’s chin and lashed out with his foot toward Axel. But his reflexes were slow. His foot met only air. Another man materialized from nowhere holding a large wooden bat. He swung at Rowan. Rowan dodged it but not completely. In the back of his mind, he could hear Axel shouting, and then the lights in his brain went out in a dizzyingly sickening swirl of pain and darkness. Before he could sink to the floor, hands grabbed him and slammed him face first into the rock wall of the dungeon.

  “Wechet ihn auf!” Axel was screaming. “Wechet ihn auf!”

  Within seconds someone threw water in Rowan’s face. He woke up and realized his nose was broken. He was pressed firmly against the wall. Axel stood beside him and looked into his face. He was smiling, and in his hand, held so that Rowan could see, was the fiery branding iron.

  “Oh gut, sie leben noch,” he said. “Meine Frage ist: Wo sind die Nonnen?”

  Rowan licked his lips. He was pretty sure he didn’t have enough saliva left to spit in the face of this bastard.

  “Ja?” Axel said. “Ich Weiss dass Sie können mich verstehen. Wo sind die Nonnen?”

  “It may not be the answer you’re hoping for,” Rowan said, his voice just a whisper.

  Axel frowned and brought his face nose to nose with Rowan’s. “Was?”

  “But, go fuck yourself.” As soon as he saw the confusion on Axel’s face at the unfamiliar language, Rowan smashed his head into Axel’s mouth. Axel dropped the hot poker and put both hands to his face. Blood immediately spouted between his fingers.

  “Verbrennet ihn!” he screamed.

  All three men grabbed Rowan and pinned him again with his face to the wall. He saw one of them pick up the fiery poker.

  He closed his eyes. I love you, Ella, he thought fervently. I love you, girl.

  When the brand touched his left shoulder, he smelled burning flesh before he registered the pain. Then the agony in his shoulder exploded in a vortex of intense sensation that emanated in all directions at once. So invasive and complete was the severity of the pain that it screamed through every part of his body. With Ella’s name still on his lips and in his mind, Rowan fainted.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ella was the first to see Alice return. The novice was young and strong and was striding yards ahead of the elderly monk who struggled to climb the steep hill to the cave. Greta broke away to help him the last few steps to the clearing where they all sat outside the cave. The weather was cold and the nuns—many of whom were barefoot and dressed only in nightdresses—sat huddled together against the unmerciful wind.

  Alice carried a basket containing fresh bread, cheese, wine and two cups. The nuns swarmed her and began dividing up the food.

  Greta led Brother Albert to a large round stone on which he sat. Greta and Ella sat down beside him. One of the novices brought him a cup of wine.

  “All of Heidelberg looks for you this day,” he said, wheezing slightly and accepting the wine with a nod of thanks.

  “We expected as much,” Greta said. “The convent?”

  “Gone,” he said. “Destroyed in the fire.”

  “And the man they took?” Ella asked. “What news of him do you have?”

  The monk looked at Greta as if needing assurance that this strange woman could be trusted.

  “Please, Brother,” Greta said. “What have you heard?”

  The monk sighed and downed all of the wine from the cup before handing it to the novice for a refill.

  “Christof has survived his wounds. His brother is not to be held responsible.”

  “That explains a lot,” Ella said with disgust.

  “Krüger has decreed that you are all to be found and killed,” he said. “There is a bounty.”

  Greta sucked in a breath. Although it wasn’t a surprise, hearing it said out loud shook her.

  “The man they captured has been taken to the castle,” Brother Albert said.

  “He is still alive?” Ella asked. She clenched her fists in anguish.

  “He is,” the monk said. “But scheduled to die by fire in the square.”

  “They think he is a warlock?” Greta asked.

  The monk nodded.

  “When?” Ella asked. “When is he to die?”

  “Tomorrow at noon.”

  Ella fought against the feeling of futility and fear that threatened to overwhelm her.

  Greta took the man’s cup and beckoned to one of the novices to refill it. “Alright, Brother,” she said. “We need your help.”

  Brother Albert looked around the cave and the surrounding countryside. “Anything, Mother. You have but to ask.”

  The rest of the day was spent with Greta translating for Ella to the monk and explaining what they needed him to do. Greta reminded him that helping them would endanger himself and the other brothers. But she also stressed that he was their only hope. Midway into the day, it became clear that other monks would be needed if the plan was to succeed. Brother Albert penned a note outlining the men and materials he would need for Alice to take to the monastery.

  “Three letters, Brother,” Ella said, ticking them off on her fingers. “One from Axel to that guy Burkmeister he does business with rejoicing in his depraved activities with the Devil. We’ll send it to the magistrate again. Maybe he just needs a little encouragement.”

  The monk looked at Greta with confusion. “I cannot forge Axel’s writing,” he said. “I know not how the man writes.”

  “Don’t worry, Brother,” Ella said. “We got that covered. Where was I? Two.” She held up her fingers. “An anonymous letter to Krüger from ‘a concerned friend,’ suggesting he contact the midwife about the widely held belief of Axel’s illegitimacy.”

  “And finally,” Ella said, ignoring Brother Albert’s surprised expression, “we’ll need a letter also in Axel’s hand to the Sheriff of Heidelberg, revealing Krüger’s plot to kill Eric Reicher.”

  The monk looked from Greta to Ella and back again.

  “I will need more wine,” he said
.

  Before dinnertime, Brother Albert had dispatched four brother monks dressed as peasants to visit as many public houses as possible. Their assignment was to drink and talk openly about the rumored plot to kill Reicher. If questioned, they were instructed to say they heard the rumor bandied about in the streets and that everybody in Heidelberg knew about the plot.

  After these monks left, another sat inside the cave with a makeshift wooden desk and carefully wrote the letters Greta and Ella dictated to him. Ella could tell that, unlike Brother Albert, this man didn’t trust her nor did he understand why he was being instructed to create fictitious letters. When it came time to create Axel’s letter, Ella powered up her iPhone from the mail pouch and showed the seated man an enlarged depiction of the photograph she had taken of Axel’s writing.

  “You can see how he loops his ‘L’s really distinctively.” she said, showing the monk the screen. “What a narcissistic jerk. See?” She took her fingers to pinch the cellphone screen to enlarge the type.

  The man gaped in horror, first at the phone and then at her. “You…what is that? How are you able to—?”

  “Brother,” Ella said as patiently as she could, the vision of Rowan being manhandled in the front room of the burning nunnery clear in her memory. “You have Mother Superior’s word that I am on the side of the angels. This is just a gadget created in the Far East where they are much cleverer about these sorts of things than Europe is right now. No offense. I’m not creating magic, I’m just using a tool like you’d use a pen or a hammer or—”

  “I could not do such things with a pen!”

  “Okay, try not to be so literal, okay? Imagine what the cavemen with their sticks and stones would’ve said a thousand years ago if they could see you write on parchment today. Now, are you going to freak out about how or are you going to get busy and do it?”

  The monk gave Ella’s iPhone one more distrustful look and then picked up his pen.

  After it was dark, Greta brought Ella a pan of fried potatoes. Ella was surprised at how hungry she was. She wolfed the food down but looked worriedly over Greta’s shoulder at the open pasture.

  “Should you have a fire?” she said. “The brothers all agree that Axel’s men are looking for us everywhere.”

  “The wind blows the other direction for now. I have allowed it,” Greta said.

  Ella couldn’t help but notice how wan and tired her friend looked. Ella hadn’t take a moment to process the fact that Greta’s convent was gone, her nuns, and her own capture and death likely imminent.

  “How are you, Greta?”

  Greta looked at her with surprise. “How am I?” She looked around at the motley bunch of exhausted, tired and fearful women, and the handful of nervous monks in the waning light of the day. “I am determined,” she said, “that we will not end like this.”

  Ella took her hand and squeezed it. “Please, God,” she said.

  Rowan watched the rat at eye level. The rodent had probably had the satisfaction of Rowan’s seemingly lifeless body to scamper upon for the last several hours and wasn’t expecting the earth to move. When Rowan coughed, the animal twitched in his direction and fled the field. Rowan lay immobile, wondering what else had been done to him. He could tell by his muted cough that the blow to his head last night had deafened him at least temporarily.

  When he realized he couldn’t remember the trip to the castle, he figured he had been unconscious for at least part of it. As a result, he didn’t know if he was being held in a complex series of underground chambers or a single cell. Because it was cold and damp and smelled like a grave, he decided he must be underground. If, by some miracle, he were to escape his cell, he had no idea which way led to the castle exterior.

  Rowan took inventory of his condition. He could feel that several ribs were broken, that his nose was definitely broken, and that one eye was swollen completely shut. He had a cut on his lip, probably from when the gun smashed against his tooth. The cut was deep and still bleeding. His legs and arms were unbroken. The back of his left shoulder was on fire from last night’s session with Axel.

  God, he was a piece of work.

  He shifted his weight and slowly stood. He wasn’t pretty, but if he had to, he could still fight. He repositioned himself against the rough, damp wall of the chamber, feeling pain shoot up his legs and settle in his stomach. He could see that he’d already thrown up at least once.

  Torture for the sake of torture. Rowan had known people like that. But he’d never been chained to a wall helpless when he’d met them. He was afraid to examine the wound on his back because his fingers were filthy. Like most sadists, Axel knew that the true value of torture lay in creating the anticipation of pain. It seemed to Rowan that Axel had held the white hot poker to Rowan’s face for an hour as he taunted him in a language Rowan had no hope of understanding. When he finally put the brand to Rowan’s shoulder, Rowan’s first thought upon awakening was that as bad as it was it could have been a whole lot worse.

  Today, while there was no outside light to mark the time of day, his eyesight adjusted to the gloom enough to see what his nose had told him last night. Two men shared his cell with him. Both dead, one badly decomposed. The rats had been active most of the night.

  He remembered for a moment what Ella had said about deep emotion being the key to their time travel. Could it work now? Was there any way to escape this hell, his certain death? Was there any way to will himself to just reappear on the Hauptstrasse—through pure desire and extreme emotion—with a Pilsner and a dish of sushi on a sunlit table in front of him? He looked around the horror movie that had been his last six hours and felt fear and hopelessness flow over him. He closed his eyes and brought Ella’s face to mind. Because as long as she was still here in this time, even if it meant he died in this Godforsaken place, this is where he would stay.

  Chapter Twenty

  The next morning, it rained—a cold rain that leached the sky of all color and washed the dirt from the streets into homes and shops. The outline of Heidelberg Castle stood ghostly and forbidding against the grey sky.

  “How is it that it is spoken of in every public house in Heidelberg?” Krüger screeched as he pounded his hands in unrestrained fury atop the solid resistance of his desk.

  Mayer, unmindful of the accompanying spittle that flecked across his face as his lord ranted, stood silently in front of the desk. He knew the question posed was not for answering.

  “Where is Axel?” Krüger barked. “Where is the miscreant piece of lying filth I call my son?”

  “He sleeps, my lord. He questioned the gardener until late last night and celebrated his victory in the arms of his whore—”

  “Victory?! The nuns have all escaped! Is that not true?”

  “For now, my lord,” Mayer said. “Your son expects to—”

  “Silence!” Krüger raked the papers and books from his desk. “The fool has boasted of his intention to kill the King’s man! Is he mad?! It is spoken of all over Heidelberg!” He picked up a heavy seal from his desk and threw it at Mayer who was wise enough not to dodge it. “Wake him and bring him to me at once!”

  Mayer bowed, dripping blood from the wound on his face onto the ivory Isfahan carpet, and retreated to the hall. Outside, a footman stood holding a tray of correspondence. Mayer waved him away.

  “His lordship is not in a mood to read mail,” he said. He wiped the blood on his face with his handkerchief and walked without hurry to the stairs.

  Ella stood at the entrance to the cave and watched the rain. She was staring at the castle and trying to imagine what must be happening within.

  Today was the day they will kill him.

  Greta came up behind her. “All the letters have been delivered,” she said.

  Ella tore her eyes from the castle and frowned at Greta. “Something should be happening by now,” Ella said.

  “Perhaps it is,” Greta said, sitting on the ground at Ella’s feet.

  “How will we know?” Ella
asked. “Will the brothers come back and report what’s happening?”

  Alice, who had been sitting nearby, was on her feet in an instant. “Let me go,” she said. “Let me go to the town and see. No one will suspect I am a novice.”

  “No,” Greta said.

  Ella looked from novice to Greta.

  “No,” Greta said firmly to Ella.

  “How will we know if it worked?” Ella asked. “How long should we wait? Do we just stay up here and if they catch us and kill us then we know we failed?”

  “Ella,” Greta said gently, “the waiting is the hardest.”

  “Let me ask you,” Ella said, squinting in the distance, “Would they still be building the pyre in the marketplace if our letters were working?”

  Greta stood up and tried to see what Ella was seeing. “There is activity in the market square,” she said. “That is all.”

  “It occurs to me,” Ella said to Greta, “that discrediting Axel or revealing Krüger as a traitor really has nothing to do with whether or not the good people of Heidelberg decide they want to burn someone they believe to be a warlock.”

  Greta did not reply.

  Ella turned on her heel and went into the cave. She grabbed her mailbag and cloak and headed down the mountain.

  “Ella, no!” Greta called. “You can do nothing!”

  “I’ve heard that before!” Ella called, then disappeared into the rain and the thick gathering fog.

  “I told no one about what we discussed!” Axel said hotly to his father. “I know nothing of any gossip in town. I spoke not a word!”

  “Then how can it be that it is common knowledge in the streets of Heidelberg?” his father shouted. “You were the only one I told. If you didn’t spread the gossip then you must have told someone who did!”

  “I swear I did not!” Axel said. “But even if I had, so what? Who do we fear to punish us for whatever we may do?” Axel curled his lip at his father in a sneer. “You are afraid of gossip in the street, old man? You sound like Christof!”