by Leo Perutz
The thief had seen enough. He stole out as noiselessly as a cat leaving a pigeon-loft. For a while he roamed among the farm buildings enclosing the courtyard, and what he saw convinced him that his lordship was threatened with ruin on every hand.
“His farmhands and their womenfolk are afraid of hard work–they’re worthless riff-raff, one and all. The grain is mouldering in the granary and their winter tasks have yet to be completed. They’ve chopped no wood. Flax should already be dried and broken at this time of year, yet they haven’t even pounded it. His lordship employs none but gluttons and drunkards. The master shepherd and his underlings enjoy milk soup and roast meat on workdays, and each has a big mug of ale set before him. Everything here is arsy-versy: the servants live in luxury while their master goes short. Thunder, lightning and hellfire, if only I were Herr von Krechwitz! The look of that cow-shed, too! Cows need fresh litter daily. As for calves, they have to be cosseted like new-born babes, but here . . .”
The door of the cow-shed opened and two men emerged. The thief barely had time to drop to the ground.
One of them appeared to be the bailiff charged with administering the estate, for he was laden like a mule with books of accounts. He had two in one hand and three beneath his arm, a stable lantern in the other hand, an ink-pot in his belt, and a brace of quill pens behind his ear. He stood submissively before the fork-bearded man whose sledge had passed the thief not long before.
“So he’s seen the state of the stables,” thought the thief, who was hugging the ground and shivering with cold. “Now for another thrashing! He looks as if he means to break the bailiff’s neck in a thousand places. If I were to stand up and tell him that the other buildings look worse still, and that one of his sheep has splenic fever . . . Ah, now for it!”
“You must be mad!” bellowed the fork-bearded man, so loudly that the startled bailiff dropped his ledgers in the snow. “Two hundred guilders? Spare me! Palm Sunday, that’s your day–that’s when you may show your face, but not before. Two hundred guilders? Where am I to find them, pray? D’you think my purse is a bottomless well? I lent your employer three hundred guilders on the morrow of Passion Sunday and another two hundred and twenty on St Leonard’s Day. Money spews from this house like smoke from a chimney.”
He paused to catch his breath, his face empurpled with rage and cold. The bailiff proceeded to plead with him in a piteous voice.
“As Your Excellency knows, the house is full of uninvited guests who expect to see roast meat and wine and omelettes on the table every day. The peasants, too, come pestering us for bread and seed-corn.”
“Tell your employer to sell a few rings and necklaces–they’ll fetch some money,” snapped the fork-bearded man. “Mine is strewn around the countryside. I’ve made loans far and wide and can’t call them in.”
“The rings and necklaces went to the Jew long ago,” sighed the bailiff. “We’ve sold the silver tankards and ewers, the coaches, carriages and chaises. We’ve borrowed the money for the autumn sowing from all and sundry, and we’ll have to repay twelve bushels for every ten. My employer thought that Your Excellency, being so kind and generous a godfather.”
“Hell’s bells!” cried the fork-bearded man. “So I’m your employer’s kind and generous godfather once more, am I? Perhaps, but where was/last year, when they buried your late lamented master? Where was I when Kaspar von Tschirnhaus carried his helmet and Peter von Dobschiitz supported his shield on the right and Baron von Bibran led his horse? Where was I when Georg von Rottkirch carried the escutcheon and Hans Üchtritz auf Tschirna the cross and sword? Where was I when Melchior Bafron supported his shield on the left and the Nostitzes and the Lilgenaus held his shroud in church? I had to lend the money for the velvet horse-cloths, and the banner of red double taffeta, and the preacher, and the wax candles. Two hundred and twenty guilders I lent, and in return I was privileged to sing ‘Now lay we him to rest’ in the choir. That was the only honour accorded me.”
The thief had heard enough. Far from being the lord of the manor, the man with the bulbous nose and the forked beard was a local money-lender–one of the breed that preyed on manorial estates, amassed money for themselves, and begrudged their neighbours a morsel of food and a roof overhead. “For shame!” muttered the thief. “A common moneylender, and I took him for a nobleman. How could my eyes have deceived me so! I must listen carefully, for the pair of them are hatching some crooked scheme. Their heads are as close together as nuts on a cedar tree–they look like Judas plotting with Iscariot.”
The Judas of a bailiff shuffled his feet in the snow while the Iscariot of a money-lender noisily blew his nose.
“Convey my respects to your employer,” said the moneylender, “and say that Baron von Saltza auf Diisterloh und Pencke declines to lend another thaler or guilder. He requires no orchards or grazing rights as surety, but if your employer were willing to sell Diana and Jason, the mare and the greyhound, he would give eighty guilders for them. If the mare and the greyhound are not for sale, so be it. Harness up and I’ll head for home.”
“God have mercy!” sighed the thief. “So he’s a nobleman. He styles himself baron and sports a coat of arms, but it doesn’t offend his sense of honour to practise common usury. I’m glad I’m not a nobleman of that kind–I’d sooner remain in the gutter.”
“Eighty guilders are little enough,” the bailiff said. “The dog alone is worth fifty, as Your Excellency must be aware.”
“I’ll pay eighty guilders, not a kreuzer more,” the moneylender declared. “It’s a bad bargain, for a saddle-horse and a hound cost more per day in food and upkeep than they profit their owner in a month.”
“But these particular beasts will be of profit to Your Excellency,” the bailiff said slyly, with a bleating laugh. “My employer will have to knock on your door for a sight of Jason and Diana, and that, I know, will be a daily occurrence. My employer will find life unbearable without them.”
“You think so?” said Fork-Beard. “Well, if your employer does come knocking at my door, 111 not be inhospitable. Tell your employer that Baron von Saltza resembles the basil in a herb garden: handle it roughly, and it stinks like the deuce and makes the eyes smart; stroke it gently, and it gives off a delicious scent.”
“I’ll harp on that every day,” the bailiff promised. “Make it a hundred and ten guilders, Your Excellency: eighty for my employer and thirty for me. I’ve always been Your Excellency’s faithful servant–I’ve always had Your Excellency’s interests at heart.”
“Twenty for you, that’s quite enough,” said Fork-Beard, whose mood appeared to have undergone a sudden change for the better. The two of them set off for the house while the thief half-rose and brushed the snow from his clothes.
“This is a sorry business,” he said to himself. “If every scoundrel on the estate had to wear a bell around his neck, no one would be able to hear himself speak. Poor Herr von Krechwitz! I’ll tell him that his sheep-shed’s a hotbed of disease, and his bailiff’s robbing him, and his godfather’s cheating him, and his workfolk are growing fat while he himself grows poorer by the day. He shall learn from my own lips how things stand with him. Whether or not he rewards me with a bowl of beer soup, I’ll do it for Christian charity’s sake.”
He got to his feet. A strange transformation had come over him. Mindful no longer of his errand for Tornefeld, he was now preoccupied with another mission. It seemed to him that he, a thief, was the only honest man on the estate, and as such he had resolved to speak to the lord of the manor.
Ordinarily, when entering a strange house, he would have crept inside as furtively as a mole invading a flower garden; on this occasion he made straight for the door, erect and fearless for the first time ever. He was an honest man requesting admittance–an honest man with some plain words in store for the lord of the manor.
But, just as he reached the door and was about to knock like anyone devoid of ill intent, it opened abruptly and two dragoons–two mortal enemies of him
self and all other vagrants–emerged carrying lanterns and nosebags. At sight of them the thief forgot his honest man’s role and felt a resurgence of his old, thievish fears. He took to his heels and ran off round the house, and the dragoons dropped their nosebags and ran after him. “Who’s there? Answer!” he heard them call. “Halt or I fire!” But he paid no heed. He had already turned the corner and was running for his life when he heard more voices ahead of him. That stopped him in his tracks.
“Where can I hide?” he gasped. “Where?”
Close to where he was standing the snow had been shovelled together into a mound. He flung himself down, burrowed his way into it, and lay there until the dragoons had gone by. “Where can the fellow be?” he heard them shouting. “Has the Devil carried him off?” At last, when all was quiet again, he cautiously raised his head. There was no sign of the dragoons, but they might reappear at any moment. He extricated himself from the mound of snow, wondering where next to hide. Above him, almost twice the height of a man from the ground, was a window with a broad sill. “If only I could reach that!” he thought. He took a run, leapt for the sill, and managed to catch hold of it. The wood was studded with broken glass and nails which tore his hands to ribbons, but he ignored the pain and hauled himself up. Once on the sill he expertly opened a broken shutter, then thrust his legs through until he felt his feet touch the floor.
It was thus–half-frozen and soaked to the skin, his lungs on fire, his hands bleeding, his limbs trembling with fear, cold, and exhaustion–that the thief first gained access to the house whose master he was to become less than two years hence. The room was filled with lumber of all kinds. For a while the thief simply stood there with no thought in mind save that he was bitterly cold, and that he had, as so often before in his wretched life, escaped the gallows by a hair’s-breadth. Yes, but for how long? He must find Herr von Krechwitz and speak with him, but his arch-foes the dragoons were billeted in this house and he risked running into them a second time. No matter. Being both unable and unwilling to retrace his steps, he must find Herr von Krechwitz come what might. He waited for his breathing to subside, then groped his way forward. His eyes having grown accustomed to the gloom, he made out a heavy, iron-bound door ahead of him. It was unlocked and ajar, and from the crack issued a faint, almost imperceptible shaft of reddish light. Its source was neither a candle nor an oil lamp, the thief could tell. There was a fire burning in the stove opposite the door, but that was all: the room was otherwise in darkness. No light meant no people, the thief told himself, for no one willingly sat in the dark. He breathed a quiet sigh of satisfaction. An empty room with a fire in the stove could not have been more welcome to someone so eager to warm himself and dry his clothes.
He stood there listening for another minute, then cautiously pushed open the heavy door and tiptoed over the threshold.
Yes, there was a wood fire burning in the stove. Its faint glow fell on a silver-cabinet standing against the wall, but this was empty. The thief pulled a face, then suddenly remembered that he had not come there to steal.
“It’s just as that fellow said,” he thought, smiling to himself. “Herr von Krechwitz has sold everything to the Jew–rings and necklaces, silver platters and ewers. He doesn’t live too badly for all that . . .”
He snuffed the air. He could smell wine, fresh bread, roast meat. Someone had eaten supper here and left some over for him, the thief. On the table were dishes, platters, glasses, and a pitcher of wine. Where could he be now, the man for whom the table had been laid and the stove lit? The thief surveyed the room. Something lying across a chair caught the light: a sword-blade. Beside the stove stood a lone riding boot. Between the two windows was a bed, and in that bed–the thief caught his breath–in that bed lay a man.
The thief kept his head. He was used to such contingencies, and sneaking through bedrooms without waking their occupants was part of his trade.
Except that the man in the bed was neither asleep nor alone. There were two people lying there, a man and a woman.
The thief didn’t stir. The man in the bed must surely be Herr von Krechwitz. His lordship had retired early after wining and dining well, and was now enjoying the company of his beloved wife. Being eager to have a word with him, the thief debated how best to make his presence known and open the conversation.
“God’s blessings on this house, sir,” he improvised softly, giving a little bow, then went off at a tangent. “My, will he leap out of bed when I tell him of the splenic fever in his sheep-shed! But that can wait. It isn’t time yet. First I want to see what the pair of them are up to.”
He listened, highly gratified that chance should so soon have guided him to Herr von Krechwitz. Rustling and whispering were all he heard at first. Then came a smothered yawn. The man in the bed sat up and stretched his arms.
Meantime, the thief embarked on another rehearsal of his speech. “Sir,” he muttered, “you lie abed in ignorance that there’s splenic fever in your sheep-shed. Your farmhands are ne’er-do-wells–they should all be . . . He broke off. “No! I can’t begin like that. That would be like putting my right foot in my left boot. First I must tell him where I come from and who sent me.”
“Why do you yawn so?” the girl in the bed said suddenly. “Is that your only skill? Why don’t you call me your darling, your angel, your sweetheart, your kitten, your rosebud and dearest delight? It was soon over, that great love of yours!”
Very softly, the thief essayed a new version of his litany. “May the Almighty look with favour on this house,” he mouthed. “I was sent here by Your Excellency’s cousin and godson, Herr von Tornefeld, who’s detained at the mill . . .”
“I promised you a cavalryman’s love,” said the man in the bed, “but a cavalryman’s love is short-lived. It’s no more enduring than grass in a meadow or dew on a field.”
“So I’m not your sweetheart and kitten and rosebud and dearest delight?”
“You’re as greedy for pretty speeches as a child for gruel and honey. Didn’t I present you with a silk ribbon seven ells long, and two twists of sugar, and a silver thaler with St George on it?”
“Yes, but you wearied of our sport too soon. Your oil is all used up and your little lamp has gone out. It didn’t burn for long.”
“Herr von Tornefeld–Your Excellency knows him,” muttered the thief, “he’s detained at the mill and requests an alamode coat and a braided hat and money and a carriage and horses . . .”
“That comes of fasting,” said the man in the bed. “I keep all fast days. I go in quest of salvation like a huntsman after wild boar–it makes a man forgetful of the pleasures of the flesh. When I’m rich I’ll employ a chaplain to pray and fast in my place.”
“Better employ a chaplain man enough to take your place when you bed a virgin.”
“That’s enough!” the man exclaimed with sudden vehemence. “You claim to have been a virgin? You think I failed to perceive you weren’t intact? Your flower wasn’t worth the plucking.”
“But that’s not all,” the thief muttered, still intent on Herr von Tornefeld. “He also wants a dressing-gown, Your Excellency, and some stockings and neckerchiefs and two wigs . . .”
“What a boorish thing to say!” cried the girl in the bed. “Virgin or not, you yourself aren’t intact. You’ve only one ear and one eye.”
“I got those wounds from my enemies,” the man said proudly, still incensed.
“And I got mine from my friends,” the girl retorted with a chuckle. At that the man bellowed with laughter, and for a while they remained unaware that a third person had joined in their merriment, for the thief found all this pillow-talk hilarious in the extreme.
“Hush!” the girl said suddenly. “What was that? There’s someone in the room.”
“You fool!” said the man. “Who would be here in the room? How could he have got in?”
“There’s someone in the room, I tell you–I heard him laugh,” the girl insisted. She sat up and peered into the gloo
m, and the faint glow from the stove fell on her white bosom.
“Lie down and leave me in peace,” the man told her. “I posted a dragoon outside the door–he wouldn’t have admitted anyone. With your ears, you’d hear fish singing in the sea.”
“There! There he is!” the girl cried in a piercing voice. She gripped her bedmate by the arm and pointed into the darkness. “There he is, over against the wall! Help, Help!”
The man tore himself free and leapt out of bed. His sword was in his hand in a trice.
“Hey, you there!” he called. “Who are you? What are you doing here? Stand still or I’ll slice you up and have you carried out piecemeal. Stay where you are or I’ll run you through the belly!”
The thief, seeing that things had taken an unforeseen turn, thought it high time to quit the shadows and tell his lordship who had sent him and on what business.
“God bless you, sir,” he said hurriedly, with a low but invisible bow. “Your Excellency’s godson sent me, so here I am at Your Excellency’s service. He’s waiting at the mill–”
“Balthazar!” called the man with the sword. “Come in here and strike a light! I wish to see this fellow who prates of God and godsons.”
“No light, no light!” the girl screeched, “I’m as naked as Eve.”
“Then back into Paradise with you!” said the man, thrusting her down in bed and tossing a blanket over her head. Meantime, the dragoon had hurried in and lit the wax candles on the table. The thief found himself confronted by a short, thickset man brandishing a sword, naked save for a shirt and a feathered hat.