“What? You know something? Speak!”
“Not now, I must think it through again. I listened to your story and have certain suspicions.”
“Speak, by God!”
“The mystery of your brother’s death resides in that charred document you rescued from the fire. Try to recall its contents—fragments of sentences, words, letters, anything. Decipher the document and I shall identify the culprit. Regard it as a favour.”
“Why are you doing me favours? And what do you expect in exchange?”
“For you to return the favour by influencing Scharley.”
“In what respect?”
“To reverse what happened, in order that I might return to my own form and my own world, the entire exorcism must be repeated as accurately as possible. The entire procedure—”
He was interrupted by the savage howling of a wolf in the undergrowth. And the ghastly screaming of the penitent.
They both set off at a run, and in spite of his corpulence, Samson couldn’t be overtaken. They flew into the gloomy thicket, making for the screams and the crack of breaking branches. And then they saw it.
Scharley was fighting a monster.
The huge beast—anthropoid, but covered in black fur—must have attacked him unexpectedly from behind, seizing Scharley with its shaggy, clawed paws in a terrible double nelson. With his neck bent so that his chin was sticking into his chest, the penitent had stopped screaming and was only wheezing, trying to keep his head out of range of the toothy, slavering jaws. He was fighting back, but ineffectively—the monster was holding him like a praying mantis, effectively immobilising one arm and seriously limiting the other. Despite that, Scharley was thrashing around like a weasel and elbowing the beast in its lupine face. He was also trying to land kicks, but his attempts were being thwarted by his trousers hanging down below his knees.
Reynevan stood petrified, paralysed by terror and indecision. Samson, however, entered the fray without a moment’s thought.
Once again, the giant moved with the speed of a python and the grace of a tiger. He reached the combatants in three bounds, punched the monster in its wolfish face, seized the astonished beast by its shaggy ears, wrenched it away from Scharley, twisted it around and kicked it, sending it flying towards the trunk of a pine tree, against which the creature slammed its head with a dull thud, showering needles all around. A human skull would have cracked like an egg from an impact like that, but the werewolf immediately sprang up, howled and launched itself at Samson. It didn’t attack, as one might have expected, with toothy jaws agape, but showered the giant with a hail of lightning-fast punches and kicks. Samson, unbelievably swift and agile for his size, parried and deflected them all.
“He fights…” grunted Scharley, as Reynevan tried to lift him. “He fights… like a Dominican.”
After deflecting a series of blows, Samson waited for a suitable moment and launched a counter-attack. A punch on the nose made the werewolf howl, a kick in the knee made it stagger and then a blow to the chest sent it flying into the trunk of the pine tree. There was a dull thud, but its skull remained intact. The monster roared and leaped, lowering its head like a charging bull, hoping to knock the giant over with its momentum. The attempt failed. Samson didn’t budge with the impact, but wound his arms around the werewolf. They stood like Theseus and the Minotaur, grunting, shoving each other and digging up the ground with their feet. Samson finally prevailed. He shoved the monster back and punched it, using his fist like a battering ram. There was a dull thud as its head met the trunk of the same pine tree. This time, Samson didn’t give the monster the chance to recover and attack. He leaped forward, aiming several powerful, accurate blows after which the werewolf found itself on all fours with Samson standing behind it. The creature’s rump, hairless and red, was the perfect target, impossible to miss, and Samson was wearing heavy boots. He kicked, and the werewolf squealed and flew through the air, smashing headfirst into the trunk of the hapless pine tree. Samson allowed it to get up just enough for it to offer its rump as a target again. He kicked it even harder this time. The werewolf tumbled down the slope, splashed into the river, waded out like a stag, squelched its way through the bog, crashed through the alders and fled into the forest. It howled once, from far away. Rather woefully, Reynevan thought.
Scharley stood up. He was pale. His hands were shaking and his calves trembling, but he quickly regained control of himself. He just swore softly, rubbing and massaging the back of his neck.
Samson approached him.
“Still in one piece?” he asked.
“The whoreson took me by surprise,” the penitent said, making excuses. “It came up from behind… Bruised my ribs a bit… But I would have handled it if not for those trousers…”
His companions’ knowing looks made him think again.
“I was on my last legs,” he admitted. “Almost broke my neck… Thanks for your help, friend. You saved me. To be honest, I could easily have lost my life—”
“Never mind your life—your arse was in greater danger,” interrupted Samson. “That lycanthrope is well known around here. As a human being, it had perverted tendencies, which remained with it in wolfish form. Now it lies in wait for someone to drop their trousers and expose their privates. The wretch usually seizes its victim from behind, holds him fast… And then… You understand.”
Scharley clearly understood, because he visibly shuddered. And then he smiled and held out his right hand to the giant.
The full moon shone enchantingly, the stream flowing through the valley like quicksilver in an alchemist’s crucible. Flames shot up and sparks showered from the campfire where logs and resinous branches crackled.
When Reynevan told Scharley what would be necessary to return their new friend to the great beyond, the penitent didn’t utter a single word of mockery or disapproval, restricting himself to a shake of the head and a few sighs that demonstrated his reservations about the enterprise. But he didn’t decline to participate. Reynevan took part with enthusiasm. And optimism. Premature optimism, as it turned out.
At the request of the strange giant, they repeated the entire exorcism ritual performed at the Benedictine priory in the hope that another transmogrification would occur, thereby returning Samson to his realm, and the idiot from the priory to his huge body. So they repeated the exorcism, trying not to leave anything out, including the curses and nonsense words Scharley had uttered in his desperation. Reynevan even struggled hard to recall and repeat the Arabic—or possibly pseudo-Arabic—he had cobbled together from sundry sources.
All to no avail.
Nothing happened. No vibrations or movements of the Power were felt. The only results were the squawks of birds and the snorting of the horses frightened by the exorcists’ cries. Astonishingly, the least disappointed appeared to be the most interested of the parties.
“It just goes to prove the theory that in magic spells, the meaning of the words and sound in general is slight,” he said. “The crucial factor is the spiritual predisposition, determination and strength of will. I believe—”
He broke off, as though waiting for questions or comments. They didn’t come.
“I believe I have no other choice but to stay with you,” he concluded. “I’ll have to accompany you, hoping that one day, one or both of you will manage to repeat what you achieved by accident in the priory chapel.”
Reynevan look anxiously at Scharley, but the penitent said nothing. He was silent for some time, adjusting the poultice of plantain leaves that Reynevan had placed on his scratched and bitten neck.
“Oh well,” he finally said, “I’m in your debt. Passing over the doubts you didn’t completely dispel, my friend, I have no objection to you joining us on our travels. To hell with who you are—you proved that you’ll do more good than harm on the road.”
The giant said nothing and bowed.
“So let us travel together in good cheer,” continued the penitent. “Although I ask that you refrain fr
om unduly ostentatious public declarations regarding your otherworldly origins. In fact, you ought—forgive my bluntness—to refrain from declaring anything at all, for your utterances are very disconcertingly at odds with your appearance.”
The giant bowed again.
“As I said, generally speaking I’m indifferent to who you really are, so I neither expect nor demand either confessions or disclosures. But I’d like to know what to call you.”
“Ask not after my name, it is secret,” Reynevan quoted softly, recalling the three forest witches and their prophecies.
“Indeed,” said the smiling giant. “Nomen meum, quod est mirabile… Samson is as good a name as any other. And my surname, why, I can owe my surname to your ingenuity and imagination, Scharley. Although I must confess, the very thought of honey makes me nauseous. Whenever I recall waking up in the chapel, with a sticky pot in my hands… But I’ll accept it. Samson Honey-Eater, at your service.”
Chapter Fourteen
Which describes events happening the same evening as those in the preceding chapter, but in a different place: in a city about eight miles away in a north-easterly direction as the crow flies. A glance at a map of Silesia, which the author warmly encourages the reader to take, will reveal which city is being discussed.
Alighting in the church belfry, the Wallcreeper had frightened the rooks; the big black birds took flight, cawing loudly, and glided down onto the roofs of houses, whirling like large flakes of soot drifting from a fire. The rooks had a numerical advantage and couldn’t easily be chased away from the spires. They would never have yielded to an ordinary wallcreeper. But the rooks realised at once that this was no ordinary wallcreeper.
A strong wind was blowing over Wrocław, driving dark clouds from Ślęża. The gusts rippled the grey water of the Odra, rocked the branches of a willow tree on Malt Island and swayed the reedbeds between the old river courses. The Wallcreeper spread its wings, squawked a challenge to the rooks circling over the roofs, soared up into the air, flew around the spire and landed on a cornice. Squeezing through the tracery of the window, it plummeted into the belfry’s dark depths and flew downwards, describing a breakneck spiral around the wooden staircase. It landed on the floor of the nave and transformed into a man with black hair and clothes.
The ostiary, an old man with skin like pale parchment, clacking his sandals and muttering to himself, approached from the altar. The Wallcreeper straightened up proudly. On seeing him, the ostiary paled even more, crossed himself, lowered his head and quickly withdrew towards the vestry. However, the clacking of sandals had alarmed the person the Wallcreeper was due to meet. A tall man with a short, pointed beard, wrapped in a cloak marked with the sign of a red cross and a star, emerged soundlessly from the chapel’s arcades. The Church of Saint Maciej in Wrocław belonged to the Knights Hospitaller cum Cruce et Stella, and their hospice was right beside the church.
“Adsumus,” the Wallcreeper greeted him in hushed tones.
“Adsumus,” the Teutonic Knight replied softly, bringing his hands together. “In the Lord’s name.”
“In the Lord’s name,” said the Wallcreeper, his head and shoulders twitching like a bird’s. “In the Lord’s name, Brother. What brings you here?”
“We are always ready,” said the Hospitaller in the same soft voice. “People keep coming. We diligently note down whatever information they bring.”
“And the Inquisition?”
“Suspects nothing. They have opened four new denunciation points, in four churches: Saint Adalbert’s, Saint Vincent’s, Saint Lazarus’s and Our Lady on the Sand’s. They won’t realise that ours is still functioning. On the same days and at the same hour, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, from the hour of—”
“I know when,” the Wallcreeper bluntly interrupted. “I have come at precisely the right hour. Direct me to the confessional, Brother. I’ll sit down, listen and find out what vexes the people.”
Barely a had minute passed before the first suppliant knelt at the screen.
“… has no respect for his superiors, Brother Titus… Once, God forgive him, he accused the prior himself of saying Mass under the influence, when the prior had only drunk a smidgeon—I mean, what’s a quart split between three? Then the prior ordered him to be watched closely, and for his cell to be searched in secret… And it revealed books and pamphlets hidden under the bed. Hard to believe… Wycliffe’s Trialogus… Huss’s De ecclesia… Lollardist and Waldensian writings… Whoever possesses and reads such things must be a secret Beghard. And since our superiors have ordered us to denounce Beghards, I am so doing… God forgive…”
“I humbly report that Gaston of Vaudenay, a troubadour who has inveigled his way into the good graces of the Duke of Głogów, is a soak, a bawd, a braggart, a heretic and a heathen. He panders to the lowest tastes of the peasantry with his pitiful doggerel, when God knows what they see in him or why his primitive rhymes are preferred to mine, written as they are by a native. Verily, the foreigner ought to be banished and return to his native Provence, for we have no need of his outlandish customs here!”
“… hid the fact that his brother is abroad, in Bohemia. And no wonder, for before 1419 his brother was deacon at Saint Štěpán’s in Prague. Now he also serves as a priest, but with Prokop in Tábor, he wears a beard, preaches out of doors without a chasuble or an alb and gives communion under both kinds. So, I ask, ought a good Catholic to conceal the fact that he has such a brother? And may I ask, can a good Catholic even have such a brother?”
“… and he said that the parish priest would sooner be able to see his own ear than receive a tithe from him, and a pox on those dissolute papists, and that the Hussites should give them what for and the sooner they come here the better. That’s what he said, I swear on all that’s holy. And what’s more, he’s a thief who pinched my goat… He says that’s a lie, says it’s his goat, but I know my own goat by the black smudge on her ear…”
“I wish to complain about Magda, Reverend… I mean my sister-in-law. Because she’s a shameless hussy… At night, when my brother-in-law mounts her in bed, she pants, moans, groans, screams and meows like a she-cat. It would be one thing if it only happened at night, but it happens during the day, too, at work, when she thinks no one’s looking… She throws down her hoe, bends over, grabs the fence and my brother-in-law lifts her frock onto her back and fucks her like a billy goat… Urgh, disgraceful… And my man’s eyes shine, I’ve seen him, and he licks his lips… Then I tell her, have some decency, you harlot, why do you turn the heads of other women’s husbands? And she says: satisfy your man properly, then he won’t start looking around or prick up his ears when other people have a roll in the hay. And she also said she has no intention of making love quietly, because it pleases her to moan and scream. And when the priest in the church declared that such pleasure is a sin, she said he must be a fool or insane, because pleasure can’t be a sin, since the Lord God created such things. When I told that to my neighbour, she said talk like that is naught but herizee and that I should inform on the harlot. So I am…”
“… he said that it can’t be the body of Christ on the altar in the church, because even if Jesus was a big as this cathedral, his body still wouldn’t suffice for all those Masses, for the priests would have eaten it all up themselves long since. He talked such rot, those were his very words, and God strike me down if I be lying. And if they tie him to the stake and burn him, I humbly ask for those three acres down by the stream to be mine… For they say, I hear, that services will be rewarded…”
“… Dzierżka, the widow of Zbylut of Szarada, who changed her name to ‘Dzierżka of Wirsing’ after her husband’s death, took over his stud and trades in horses. Is it right for a woman to make her living from industry and trade? To create competition for us—honest Catholics? Why does she prosper so, eh, when others do not? Because she sells horses to Czech Hussites! To heretics!”
“… it was only just passed at the Council of Siena and confirmed b
y royal edicts that all trade with Hussite Bohemia is forbidden, and that anyone who trades with Hussites will be punished monetarily and corporeally. Even that Polish pagan Jogaila punishes anyone who consorts with heretics, or sells them lead, weapons, salt or provisions with infamy, exile, loss of office and privilege. And here, in Silesia? The proud merchant lords disdain the embargos. They say profit is the main thing, and you can trade with the very Devil if it brings a profit. Do you want names? Let’s start with Tomasz Gernrode of Nysa, Mikołaj Neumarkt of Świdnica and Fabian Pfefferkorn of Niemodlin. And there were plenty of witnesses when Hanusz Throst of Racibórz accused the clergy of dissipation in the Moor’s Head in Wrocław, vicesima prima Iulii, at eventide…”
“… and they say: Urban Horn. They know him, he’s a rabble-rouser and a troublemaker, and probably a heretic and a convert. A Waldensian! A Beghard! His mother was a Beguine, they burned her in Świdnica after she confessed to vile practices under torture. She was named Roth, Małgorzata Roth. I saw that Horn, alias Roth, in Strzelin with my very own eyes. He incited the people to rebel and mocked the Pope. That Reinmar of Bielawa, a distant relative of Otto Beess, canon at Saint John the Baptist’s, was travelling with him. Bad as each other, both converts and heretics…”
Dusk was falling when the last petitioner left the Church of Saint Maciej. The Wallcreeper exited the confessional, stretched and handed the bearded Teutonic Knight a piece of paper covered in writing.
“Is Prior Dobeneck any better?”
“He is still laid low with sickness,” replied the Hospitaller. “In practice, Grzegorz Hejncze, also a Dominican, is the Inquisitor a Sede Apostolica.”
The Hospitaller’s mouth twisted slightly, as though he could taste something unpalatable. The Wallcreeper noticed. And the Hospitaller noticed that the Wallcreeper had noticed.
“A stripling, that Hejncze,” he explained a little hesitantly. “A formalist. Demands proof of everything, only very rarely does he send anyone to be tortured. Keeps finding suspects innocent and releasing them. He’s soft.”
The Tower of Fools Page 23