The Relic Master

by Christopher Buckley

  “He died from the plague. Also my mother and my sister and the two brothers. I did not die because Papa had sent me to the convent in Heidelberg, to learn apothecary.

  “I returned to Schramberg. I got work in a tavern. It was there he saw me. Lothar, he who you saw last night.

  “He desired me. One night when I was leaving the tavern after finishing work, his men came for me.

  “I was kept in his castle. For I don’t know how long. Months. There was nothing I could do. Always the doors were locked. I tried to kill myself.”

  Magda held out a wrist. Scars.

  “Soon after, one night one of the servant women, she took pity and helped me to escape. I went to the marshal in Schramberg and told what happened. He said he was sorry for what happened, but could not do anything. Lothar is Count of Schramberg. And also he is godson to the King of Spain, who will become Emperor.

  “I hid with a friend, a girl who worked with me at the tavern. She told me, ‘They are saying you are a witch.’ Perhaps Lothar did this to protect himself. So I could not accuse him.

  “I left Schramberg. I thought to go to Basel, beyond the Empire. Perhaps find work in apothecary. There are many in Basel. But someone saw me and told. There is always a fear of witches. For days I was running. Until I saw your fire.”

  21

  Attack

  Dismas was awakened by a hand shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes. Cunrat.

  “They come.”

  Dismas stood. He heard. Horses, numerous. Worse was the other sound. Dogs. Not search hounds, but the local type, of Rottweil, bred for one purpose. He felt his bowels loosen and cursed his stupidity for lingering here instead of pushing on.

  The Landsknechte were lighting their fuses and loading arquebuses and cranking crossbows. The horse cart was parallel to the cliff face behind them.

  “Give a hand,” Cunrat commanded. Together they heaved it over onto its side, making a cover.

  “Can you handle one of these?” Dismas asked Magda. Without answering, she took the crossbow from him and began to load. Capable, this girl.

  Dürer, always the last to wake, rubbed his eyes.

  “What’s happening?”

  “It’s an attack, Nars. They have dogs.”

  “Christ, Dis.”

  Dürer had a horror of dogs, even tame lap creatures. He’d been bitten as a child.

  “Can you shoot?” Dismas asked him, holding out a crossbow.

  “No!” he said in a tone of helpless panic.

  Dismas grabbed a halberd, a long lancelike spear, razor-sharp at the tip.

  “Can you handle this?”

  Dürer’s face had gone the color of porridge.

  “I . . .”

  “Nars. They have dogs.” He thrust the halberd at him.

  Dürer took it, looking stricken.

  Cunrat was looking up at the cliff behind them. The far edge was some twenty-five yards from where they stood.

  “Nutker.” Cunrat made hand gestures, pointing at the cliff. Nutker nodded, grabbed a sack, and threw into it one of the small kegs, along with fuses, flints, matchbox, and bottles.

  “Quick,” Cunrat said, “before they clear the woods.”

  Nutker gathered up his bundle and ran, hunching low, to the edge of the cliff and disappeared.

  The sounds were close, now.

  Cunrat said, “Dogs first. Don’t waste your shot. Wait till you can smell them.”

  The riders burst out of the wood into the meadow, dogs bounding ahead of them.

  Dismas counted ten riders, four dogs. Seeing the overturned horse cart, the riders reined to a halt. The dogs continued.

  “Steady,” Cunrat said. “Unks, left. Dismas, right. I’ll take the middle. Steady, now. Steady . . .”

  The dogs were ten yards off, coming straight for them. Dismas saw their spiked collars.

  “For the love of Christ, shoot!” Dürer moaned.

  “Easy, Painter. Steady. Steady. Now.”

  The blasts from the three arquebuses were nearly simultaneous. Thunder, billows of acrid white smoke.

  They heard yelps but could not see through the smoke.

  Then came snarling.

  Dismas felt something strike him midsection, knocking him over. The dog was on him, trying to get at his throat. He could smell its breath. He got his hands around its neck, trying to avoid the snapping teeth. The collar spikes embedded in his hands. It was a powerful dog. Its jaws snapped, straining at Dismas’s throat. He couldn’t control it. Then it gave a squeal and fell away.

  Dismas looked up. Dürer was holding the shaft of the halberd, wriggling with the dog’s death throes. Dismas rolled over and plunged his dagger into its heart.

  Another dog had Unks by the shin. Unks cursed and brought his sword down onto its spine, severing it. Even dead, its jaws remained clamped around Unks’s shin. He pulled his dagger, inserted the blade between his leg and the mandible, and twisted it loose. His leg was drenched with blood.

  The smoke had cleared. The two other dogs lay dead, one with a bolt from Magda’s crossbow protruding from its forehead. Already she was reloading.

  “All right,” Cunrat said. “Now for those other dogs. Make your shots count.” Cunrat paused, grinned, and said to Dismas, “Hey, did you hear? I made a jest. I said make your shots count. And he is a count!”

  Dismas’s heart was trying to hammer its way out of his rib cage. It had been a long time since he had last been in combat. And here was Cunrat, amidst smoke and blood, making jokes. They were cool ones, sure, Landsknechte.

  Furious at the slaughter of his dogs, Lothar was barking commands at his men. Half dismounted and took cover.

  The first volley splintered the horse cart and pocked the cliff face behind them. A crossbow bolt brought down one of their horses. It thrashed in agony. Unks crawled over to it, exposing himself, to end its misery.

  Volleys continued without cease, each increasingly accurate, until it was too perilous to attempt to return fire.

  “So, it’s to be a siege,” Cunrat grunted. “Not so good for us. We’ve got to draw them closer. For Nutker.” He pointed at the top of the cliff. He sighed. “But how to do this, I don’t know.”

  The firing paused. Cunrat thrust his head above the wagon and shouted. “Hey, you girls. If you want a fight, stop hiding like cunts and come and give us one!”

  The answer came in a vicious volley of lead and bolts.

  “It appears they prefer to siege,” Cunrat observed. “I think we will be here for”—he laughed—“ever!” He was on his back, looking up at the cliff. “But not a bad place to die.”

  Magda stood.

  “Get down, girl,” Cunrat said.

  She walked out from behind the horse cart.

  A shot hit the cliff behind, missing her narrowly.

  Lothar shouted, “Fool! Hold your fire!”

  “Girl,” Cunrat hissed. “What are you doing?”

  Dismas murmured, “She’s giving herself up. To spare us.”

  Dismas stood. He raised his hands in surrender and walked out from the behind the wagon. If he could reach Magda, he might be able to pull her back to safety.

  “Christ,” Cunrat muttered. “They’re both mad. Painter, talk sense into them.”

  Magda continued to walk toward the attackers.

  “Unks, Painter. Do what I do,” Cunrat said.

  He stood up, arms held high, and stepped out from behind the horse cart. Unks did the same. Dürer made a sign of the cross and stood.

  Cunrat whispered, “Don’t advance. Hold your ground.”

  Magda’s back was to them. She didn’t see what was happening.

  Dismas kept walking toward her. He hissed, “Magda.”

  She stopped, turned, and saw them all with hands raised. She shook her head. No.

  Lothar was waving his men forward, spurring his horse.

  Magda turned to face Lothar. He walked his horse toward her, men following.

  In the next insta
nt Nutker’s bomb landed, fuse hissing.

  “Down!” Cunrat bellowed.

  • • •

  Dismas blinked open his eyes. His ears screamed. He lay still, not daring to move, afraid to discover a limb gone, or his insides piled on the ground beside him in a steaming mound.

  Despite the din in his head he could make out other sounds—familiar, urgent, steel on steel. He gasped for air and forced himself upright. He put his hands to his ears to stop the sound. They came away wet with blood.

  The pretty little meadow was now scorched ground strewn with men and horses, dead and dying. The wounded animals made pitiable sounds; men cursed and cried in agony. Amidst it all, fighting continued. Cunrat engaged two attackers. Unks grappled with another, using a rock for a weapon. Dismas looked. Where was Magda?

  He found her on the ground, still, limbs twisted. Blood flowed from her mouth, nose, and ears.

  Rage rose within him.

  Lothar. Dismas prayed he was still alive so that he could kill him.

  Through the din in his ears he heard something. He turned. A man came at him from the side, swinging a nail-studded mace. He heard the whoosh as it passed within inches of his skull.

  Dismas rolled. The attacker turned to strike again. Dismas lurched to his feet and sidestepped. As the man went by him, Dismas sank his dagger into the back of his neck.

  Dürer? Where was Dürer?

  By the cart, flat on his back, covered with debris. Dismas staggered to him, knelt, and shook him. Dürer’s eyes opened. He looked up at Dismas uncomprehendingly.

  Alive, God be thanked.

  Dismas stood and turned back to fight. Cunrat had dropped one of his attackers. Unks was on his feet, holding a rock slimy with brain matter. He tossed it away and picked up a sword and walked through the bodies of men and horses, plunging it into them, finishing those still alive.

  It was a scene Dismas had seen many times on a far vaster scale. Cunrat decapitated his remaining attacker and let out a great roar. It was over.

  Lothar? Where was Lothar?

  Dismas snatched a halberd from the ground. It felt familiar in his hand. This had been his principal weapon in his Reiselaufer days. He waded through the carnage, searching.

  He heard a sound from behind. He swung, nearly impaling Nutker. Nutker was breathing hard from running down from his perch atop the cliff.

  “The girl?” Nutker said.

  “Dead.”

  Nutker’s face crumpled. “No.”

  “Over here!”

  It was Unks. Dismas, Nutker, and Cunrat converged. There at Unks’s feet lay Count Lothar of Schramberg. Alive, just.

  His right arm was gone at the elbow. His face was shredded and blackened. Amidst the mask of gore, a single lidless eye looked up at them in horror and fear. His jaw moved. He tried to speak but there came only a gurgle of blood and lung froth.

  Unks looked at Cunrat. Finish him?

  Cunrat was breathing hard. He shook his head. It didn’t need saying. Let him linger in agony. Unks shrugged.

  The Landsknechte set about their looting.

  Dismas stood to savor Lothar’s death throes. He knelt on one knee beside him. His hand went into the fold of his monk’s habit, to reach for his dagger. He had never tortured a man before, much less a dying man.

  “Fray . . .”

  What was he saying?

  “Fray . . .”

  Dismas realized. He was saying friar.

  “Con . . .” With tremendous exertion, Lothar got out the word: “Confess . . .”

  Dismas recoiled. Christ in Heaven. Lothar thought he was a monk. He was asking him to hear his dying confession.

  Lothar’s jaw stopped working. The only trace of life was in the unblinking eye. It fixed on Dismas, desperate, pleading.

  The dagger dropped from Dismas’s hand. He stared. Then, without knowing why, he made a sign of the cross over the dying man and leaned into his ear and whispered, “Are you sorry for your sins?”

  The eye stared. The death rattle began.

  Dismas pronounced the words. “Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis, in nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritu Sancti. Amen.”

  A surge of foamy blood rose from Lothar’s mouth and he went still.

  Dismas stood. Then bent over and retched. The hissing in his ears became intolerable. He put his hands to them, staggered a few paces, and collapsed.

  When he opened his eyes, Cunrat and Nutker were kneeling beside him.

  “Dismas?”

  Cunrat shook him by the shoulder gently.

  “Dismas. She’s alive.”

  • • •

  With great effort, they righted the horse cart. They made bedding and lifted Magda onto it.

  Her bleeding had stopped. She could speak but her words were slurred and incoherent. She asked for her father and mother.

  Dürer spooned some of her mint tea into her mouth, which seemed to refresh her. She asked why it was so dark, though it was daylight. She said the bread must be ready now, and to take it from the oven. Presently she fell into a sleep from which they could not waken her.

  Cunrat and Nutker and Unks went about their spoils-taking methodically, without the usual whoop and halloo that usually accompanied Landsknecht looting. Then Nutker let out a yelp of delight. He’d found Lothar’s severed arm in the pond, being nibbled at by trout.

  He waded in after it and threw it on the ground.

  Dismas watched all this from the cart, where he sat, cradling Magda’s head, soothing her forehead with a cold cloth and praying.

  There were rings on the pudgy, bloody hand. Count Lothar was one for ornamentation. Dismas thought of Albrecht, whose own ten fingers were similarly festooned with fourteen rings, the largest being the one requiring the kiss of obeisance.

  Unks hacked the fingers off the hand, the more easily to remove the rings. Dismas looked away.

  There was other loot: a gold dagger; a sword of exquisite Toledo steel, hilt ornately engraved with an inscription from Lothar’s godfather, Charles, King of Spain, future Holy Roman Emperor. Medallions; buckles; pins; insigniae; and a soft leather purse embroidered with an L and a coronet. Nutker examined this and said it was made from the scrotum of a boar, and a jolly big boar, from the size of it. It jingled deliciously, with ducats. A fine haul.

  Spoils tallied, now came the business of the bodies.

  Grim: ten men, half as many horses, four dogs. Should they make a bonfire?

  Dismas said no. The smoke might draw others. And anyway the fire would leave too obvious a trace. Sure, searchers would come, Lothar being Lothar. Yet the prospect of getting all this meat into the ground was daunting.

  Unks—lazy fellow—proposed stripping them of clothes, boots, equipage, everything, burying that and leaving the corpses for the bears, boars, wolves, and carrion birds. A feast.

  Nutker pronounced this an inspired solution. But Dismas and Cunrat knew must be done. They had just killed the godson of one of the most powerful rulers on earth. It would not be prudent to leave his mortal remains as carrion.

  “But the horses,” Unks protested. “We’ll be here all day!”

  “And night,” Nutker added.

  A compromise was reached. They would hitch the dead horses to the live ones and drag them a distance into the forest, in various directions. The bears and wolves would take of those corpses.

  This done, they set to work to bury the dead. And, sure, it was a long day.

  To conceal the smell from search dogs, they burned pine branches over the bodies in the pit before filling in the earth. They covered the ground as best they could. At length the meadow was restored to some semblance of its former appearance. But it felt an evil place now, from which they were eager to be gone.

  They rested a spell before departing. Dürer sat beside Dismas on the cart seat, sketching while the Landsknechte packed up their weaponry.

  Dismas looked over at what he was drawing.

  It was the landscape he’d done the day befor
e. Now he had drawn a clump of grave markers, crosses, where the bodies were buried. Ten.

  “Christ, Nars.”

  “They were bastards. And I rejoice that they’re dead. But they were Christian bastards. There should be something to mark their graves.”

  “Why don’t you put in a fucking chapel, then?” Dismas said.

  Without looking up from his sketch, Dürer said, “Was that the sign of the cross you made over Lothar? Or were you swatting flies?”

  “I sent him to Hell.”

  “With a blessing. You should have stayed a monk.”

  “Planning to show that in Basel, are you?” Dismas said. “Why don’t you make an engraving and sell copies?”

  Dürer tore the page from the sketchpad, crumpled it, and tossed it from the cart.

  The Landsknechte mounted. They set off for Basel.

  • • •

  It was hard going in the dark. Magda remained unconscious. Dismas let Dürer take the reins and cradled her head in his lap. Several times he put his ear to her chest to see if she was still alive. He put a flask of water to her lips but it trickled down her chin.

  Nutker rode over. He looked stricken.

  “Is she . . . ?”

  Dismas shook his head.

  Nutker’s voice was plaintive. “I didn’t see her. I was making the bombs and putting in the powder and the fuses. I didn’t see her.”

  “It’s all right, Nutker. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but mine.”

  “What was she doing, walking to them?”

  “Trying to save us.”

  Nutker looked at her. He reached over from his saddle and brushed her cheek tenderly with his hand.

  “Don’t die, Little Sister.”

  • • •

  Noon the following day found them on the downslope out of the Black Forest, where the path improved.

  They moved as fast as they could without overly jostling her. With the mounts they’d taken from Lothar, they could spell the cart horses and keep going without rest. By late afternoon they saw the twin spires of the cathedral. At sundown they crossed the bridge over the Rhine into the city. At the gate, they were challenged by guards.