by Leo Perutz
Poker’s face darkened with anger.
“If you mean to annoy me, fellow,” he cried, “have a care or I’ll choke you! Six guilders and a half were all I got. The rest all went for bread and dripping and scraps of meat in the soup. The clerk struck them off in that godforsaken ledger of his.”
“His lordship, too, has cares and concerns in these costly, difficult days,” the man in the red jerkin said plaintively, pulling a long face. “Maintaining a princely household takes money, and where’s it to come from? The taxes on meat and ale have been pledged long ago, so the bishop’s demesne must pay. But you, sir, will not be the loser. Your dearest wishes will be granted before the day is out.”
“Find yourself a fool elsewhere,” Poker growled. “How would you know what I want?”
“You want a swift horse and a sword,” said the man in the red jerkin.
“Yes, and a brace of pistols,” Poker exclaimed in surprise, “but how the deuce did you know?”
“I read it in your eyes, sir,” said the man who claimed to be a waggoner. “And I know something else: you mean to steal the horse from a farmer’s stable.”
“Damn you!” Poker shouted. “How dare you say such a thing? Do you take me for a rogue?” Then, when it struck him that the man with the crooked mouth and bared teeth was telling the truth, he added, “I only meant to borrow it.”
“You must not burden your conscience needlessly, sir,” said the man in the red jerkin. “Turn left and keep straight on until you see the windmill and the miller’s house on the hill. Then go in and sit down. You need not trouble yourself further: the horse will be to hand, complete with saddle and harness.”
“I think you a liar and an impostor, fellow, but no matter,” said Poker. “I mean to see what lies behind your words.” And he took the road that led to the mill.
The axle of the great crab could be heard creaking a long way off and the windmill’s sails swooped and soared, but nothing else stirred, nor was there any living creature to be seen. Poker looked for the promised horse in stable and paddock, but to no avail. “It serves you right for believing such a cock-and-bull story!” he told himself. Storm clouds were gathering in the sky, so he retired to the miller’s house.
The parlour looked as if no one had set foot in it for many years. Cobwebs hung from the walls, the table and chairs, closet and chest were thickly coated with dust, and the broken shutters rattled in the wind. Poker looked about him for something to eat–he would have been content with a morsel of biscuit and a mug of wine–but all he found was an old, dog-eared pack of French playing cards. He tried to pass the time by playing a hand of piquet against himself, but he soon tired of it. He stretched out on the bench beside the stove, listened awhile to the crab creaking and the rain pattering down, and fell asleep.
He slept so soundly that he failed to wake up when the Swedish cavalier and Wryneck walked in with a jingle of spurs.
The Swedish cavalier, knowing that it could no longer be averted, had resigned himself to his fate. Now that he bore the brand-mark on his brow, the one place in the world still open to him was the bishop’s inferno, last resort of those destined for the gallows. Wryneck, however, was in an evil temper and unable to grasp, even now, why things had turned out so badly for them. While sitting there and waiting for the landlord or the miller to come and inquire their pleasure, he heaped his former captain with reproaches.
“My advice was sound, but you wouldn’t heed it. You could have become a general in the Swedish army–we’d have looted and plundered and made our fortunes. Look at you now! I haven’t seen you in as sorry a state since that time in Magdeburg Gaol.”
“Leave him be! You talk more nonsense in one breath than I in a year,” called Veiland, who had remained outside in the paddock and was rubbing down the horses after their hard ride.
The Swedish cavalier dabbed his forehead with a piece of cloth soaked in oil. His thoughts had strayed. It was night time, and he was in his daughter’s bedchamber. Maria Christine slipped out of bed and put her arms around his neck. He could feel her heart beating. “You’re here,” she whispered, soft as a breeze. “You’re here and I won’t let you go.” “But you must,” he replied, soft as the patter of raindrops. “I’ll come again, but I must rejoin the Swedish army. I have a horse that soars over hedges and stiles.” “In seven hours five hundred miles,” she whispered back.
He raised his head and the agreeable vision faded. The gibbet adorning his forehead could be seen in the clouded mirror on the wall above the closet.
“If only I could sink into eternal darkness and sleep for ever more,” he muttered.
“And what’s to become of us?” Wryneck demanded implacably. “We’re no use to you now. Do you still have your arcanum, Captain? Much luck it brought us! Take the thing and throw it out of the window–maybe a passing peasant will trip over it and break his neck. Where the devil’s that landlord? Why doesn’t he show himself when guests are in the house?”
He rose and walked across the room. Then he caught sight of Poker stretched out on the bench beside the stove.
“I don’t believe it!” he cried indignantly. “Here he is, fast asleep beside the stove. Wake up, fellow, you’ve got company. Bestir yourself and bring us something to drink!”
He kicked Poker hard in the ribs. Sleepily, Poker sat up. Fancying that he was still in the smeltery, and that the foreman had taken him by surprise, he struggled to his feet.
“Yes, it’s time,” he muttered. “Two hours are up and the furnace must be stoked.”
“Stoked or not, we’re here,” cried Wryneck. “See to it that we get something to drink. We’ve waited long enough.”
“At once, sir,” Poker grunted, still half asleep. “Coal into the stokehole, coal and yet more coal. The flames must be white, with no sparks or smoke. And now the ore, two heaped basketfuls of it . . .”
Wryneck shook his head and turned to the Swedish cavalier.
“Can you understand him, Captain?” he asked. “I can’t. I think he’s possessed by evil spirits.”
The Swedish cavalier glanced briefly at Poker’s face.
“That’s not the landlord,” he said. “From the way he raves about furnaces, I’d guess him to be a fugitive from the bishop’s inferno.”
Poker had recovered his wits by now and knew where he was.
“Good evening, sirs,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“To hell with your good evening,” growled Wryneck. “Where’s the landlord? We’ve sat here for God alone knows how long, and haven’t seen hide nor hair of him.”
“I don’t know where he is,” Poker replied. “He promised me a saddle-horse because I’ve a long ride ahead of me, but he hasn’t kept his word.”
“If you don’t have a horse, ride shanks’s pony,” snapped Wryneck, who was now a sworn enemy of the whole human race.
His sarcasm went unheeded. Poker was staring spellbound at the Swedish cavalier’s blue tunic.
“Am I mistaken, or have I the honour to address an officer of the Swedish Crown?” he asked. “Do you come from the army, sir?”
“Directly so,” said the Swedish cavalier, thinking the conversation closed.
“Are you wounded, sir?” asked Poker, pointing to the piece of cloth that hid the brand-mark.
“A mere scratch,” the Swedish cavalier replied with a shrug, but Wryneck, who considered no lie too brazen to foist on such an unwelcome inquisitor, said, “Three or four Tatars tried to split his skull with their curved sabres.”
“But he distinguished himself by fighting them off against all odds!” Poker exclaimed in high delight. “Yes indeed, a Swedish officer knows how to use his sword. Tell me, sir, do you bring news from headquarters? Has King Charles won another victory?”
“No,” said the Swedish cavalier, overcome with rage because this stranger persisted in pestering him with questions. “The Muscovites are driving our men before them on every front.”
“Is it possible? Have thing
s changed so much? How can it be?” Poker looked dismayed and dumbfounded. “What of General Lewenhaupt and Field Marshal Rehnskjold?”
“They’re at daggers drawn,” the Swedish cavalier told him.
“But the rank and file?”
“They’ve long been sick to death of war. They yearn to go home to their fields, and their officers, too, have had enough of fighting.”
“You must excuse me, sir, but I don’t understand you,” Poker said, looking angry and defiant. “Do you imply that the officers are reluctant to fight under a king before whom the whole world trembles?”
“No one trembles before him,” the Swedish cavalier replied, coldly and sarcastically. ‘What great feats has the king performed? He has ruined his country’s finances with his childish escapades, nothing more–everyone in the Swedish army says so.”
There was a brief silence. Then, in a calm, resolute voice, Poker said, “You lie, sir. You were never in the Swedish army.”
“Wryneck,” said the Swedish cavalier, turning to his servant, “I begin to find this fellow irksome. Get rid of him for me.”
Wryneck strode up to Poker and gripped him by the arm.
“Come, fellow,” he said. “For your health’s sake, go and take the air outside. The rain has stopped.”
With one effortless sweep of the arm, Poker sent Wryneck flying into a corner. Then he walked slowly over to the Swedish cavalier and confronted him, hands on hips.
“That was a lie,” he said, “an infamous lie–and leave your sausage-spit in its scabbard or I’ll break it in pieces for you! So you served with distinction in the Swedish army and were wounded in battle, were you? I wonder! Down where I come from, many of those that haul the carts are loath to show their foreheads. Let’s see what badge of honour or shame you are hiding!”
Very swiftly, he reached out and tore the strip of cloth from the other man’s head.
The Swedish cavalier jumped up and clapped a hand to the gibbet-mark, but it was too late. He let it fall.
And then, as they stood there in silence, face to face and eye to eye, recognition dawned.
“In Christ’s name!” the Swedish cavalier exclaimed. “Is it you?”
“Can it really be you, friend?” cried the other, much moved. “How comes it that I find you here?”
“It’s you, and I gave you up for dead!”
“And you, how did your life come to grief? What gaol do you come from? What galley?”
“Thank God you escaped the inferno, friend!”
“But did you not mean to join the Swedish army in my place?”
“It’s a long story. I thought my fortunes would be better served at home. If you could only forgive me for what I did to you!”
“What did you do to me? I’ve been through hell and survived it–I’m hardened in the fire. But tell me, friend, how I can help you?”
“No one can help me. I’m bound for the bishop’s inferno, where I shall hide myself away. And you, where are you off to?”
“The Swedish war. I mean to serve my king.”
“You’re ill provided for the journey.”
“No matter, friend, I’ll manage. Down there I learned to defy all the powers that be.”
“I have a horse–you must take it. My sword, my pistols, my valise, my purse, my two servants–all are yours.”
“That’s more than I need. Keep your valise and your purse. How can I ever thank you? But what of the arcanum I entrusted to you–what of Gustavus Adolphus’ bible?”
“Here it is, friend. Take it.”
“Thank heavens I have it again–now I can give it to the king in person. And you, friend . . .”
“Is the bargain struck?” said a grating voice. “If so, you must seal it with a glass.”
Behind them stood the miller in his red jerkin, a smile on his twisted lips and a glass of brandy wine in either hand.
Charles XII’s new-found officer took one of the glasses and raised it.
“I drink to you, friend,” he said. “May your courage survive the flames unscathed.”
“And may you and your sword prevail,” the other rejoined.
Then they took leave of each other.
The true Christian von Tornefeld rode off to the Swedish war with his two servants while a nameless man followed the miller into the bishop’s hellish domain.
Rain beat down and wind lashed the treetops as they made their way through the forest by the light of the miller’s lantern. His footsteps became ever slower. He stumbled over every stone, every root in his path, like one whose strength is ebbing away.
At last he paused beside a long, narrow hummock overgrown with tousled clumps of grass.
“You must go on alone,” he told his companion. “You’ll not lose your way now. Don’t heed me, I’ll stay here. This path is too much for me.”
“But it’s not the first time you’ve come this way,” said the nameless man.
“First or last, it’s too much for me–I can go no further,” groaned the miller. He sank down on the hummock and set the lantern beside him. “Another hundred paces and you’ll see flames darting from the smelting furnaces.”
“Is that a grave?” asked the nameless man. “I see no cross.”
“A man lies buried here in unconsecrated ground,” said the miller, “a man who, one ill-starred night, placed a rope about his own neck. Let me tell you how it happened. As the noose drew tight he heard the wind howl, ‘It’s a sin! It’s a sin!’ but by then it was too late. An owl beat on the window with its wings and cried, ‘The fire, the purifying fire!’ but by then it was all over with him.”
The miller’s head sank on to his chest and his voice became no louder than the snap of a dry twig.
“When folk saw him hanging there,” he went on, “they ran to the mayor, but he told them it was the hangman’s business: the hangman must cut him down, he said, not the parish. The district magistrate, for his part, decreed that the parish must do it because the dead man had not been executed. So there he continued to hang until the mayor came and ordered some poor soul to cut him down. He was buried in the forest, no one in the village knows where.”
The wind shook the trees, dislodging one shower of raindrops after another. The miller’s huddled form subsided more and more.
“He lies here in the earth awaiting God’s mercy,” he whispered. “Now go your way. Walk on for the space of two Paternosters and you’ll see the bishop’s servants. They’ll beat you–that’s their custom–but you must endure it. Afterwards, tell them that I’ve repaid the last pfennig of my debt to the bishop, and that I shall never return.”
The nameless man walked on through the forest for the space of two Paternosters, then paused and looked back. The lantern had gone out, and he could see neither the miller nor his grave. And then, as he continued on his way toward the darting flames, the bishop’s servants emerged from the trees.
Among the miscreants who fled the Emperor’s jurisdiction and sought refuge in the bishop’s inferno there were some who, on finding the work too hard for them and the fare too meagre, had the temerity to rebel against their foremen and set upon them with their fists, or even with cudgels. Accordingly, it had become common practice for all newcomers to be fettered forthwith. The stone-breakers wore leg-irons, the men that hauled the carts were manacled, and thus they remained day and night, both at work and at rest, until their spirit was broken and they learned to submit to the harshest discipline.
The nameless man, who did his work without demur, had his irons removed after only two weeks. A few hours later he escaped.
Only one who held his life cheap could have performed such a feat. Work went on day and night in the stamp-mill and around the smelting furnaces and limekilns, so it was impossible to steal past them unobserved. In the west, however, where the quarries lay, the diocesan estate was bounded by a precipitous wall of rock some three or four hundred feet high. The guards felt satisfied that no one could scale this in darkness, but the nameles
s man ascended a vertical cleft by moonlight. He toiled upwards in peril of his life, step by step, until he derived some measure of safety from the fir trees that clung to the rock half-way up. Once at the top he granted himself a few minutes’ rest. Then he hurried on, at first by way of remote forest paths and then along the highroad, hiding whenever anyone passed him. He reached Kleinroop Manor an hour after midnight.
He lurked among the bushes in the garden and waited till the old night watchman had gone his rounds, then knocked at the window of his daughter’s bedchamber.
This was the moment for which he had risked his life and would have to risk it again before the night was out. When he cupped Maria Christine’s face in his hands and a low cry of joy betokened that she had recognised him, the burden he bore by day was forgotten. The pangs of hunger, the heavy carts laden with stone, the rope that bit into his shoulder, the foremen’s blows, the shouts and imprecations of his companions in misfortune–all these had ceased to matter.
Maria Christine had much to ask and even more to tell.
“Have you come far? You’re tired, I expect. Where’s your horse? Where are the servants who rode with you? Had you come yesterday you would have seen me riding too–on the chestnut mare, twice up and down the stable yard, and I wasn’t frightened. There was a fair in the village. It was very droll. I wanted to dance too, but Mother wouldn’t let me. ‘Your father’s away at the war,’ she said. ‘Do you know what it is, a war?’ And I said I knew very well. A war is when the flags flutter and the drums go boom-boom-boom.”
He could not linger, having so far to go, though Maria Christine wept when he bade her adieu.
Early next morning, when the quarry foreman blew his bugle to signify that the day’s work had begun, the nameless man was ready and waiting beside his cart.
Three days went by before he tapped on the window at the same hour. Maria Christine, who had feared that he wouldn’t come again, gave a little exclamation of surprise and delight.
“Mother said I must have dreamt it,” she whispered. “People often visit you at night who cannot be seen by day, she told me. Grandfather and Grandmother went to heaven a long time ago, so if they come at night it’s a dream. Are you in heaven?”