The Landsknechte were wobbly and spent, having been unable to resist a valedictory night of libidinous mayhem. Dismas settled the bill. In the event there were inquiries, he told the proprietress a lie, that they were on their way north, to Freiberg.
They left by the St. Alban’s gate, cleared their nostrils of the stench of paper mill, and rode west. In ten miles they reached the St. Gunther well, and took the southwest road that led over the Jura.
They were a glum party. The Landsknechte were so hungover from their debauch it was all they could do to stay upright in their saddles. Dismas and Dürer rode together in the cart, each silent within his own melancholy; Dürer asking himself why in God’s name he was continuing on, Dismas miserable and self-loathing at deceiving Magda. It was no comfort to him that he’d done it for her own good. Even Dürer, sunk in his own gloom, noticed his friend’s.
“What’s eating at you, then?”
Dismas didn’t answer. He had not shared with Dürer what had passed between him and Magda.
“There’s a sight to cheer your cowherder heart,” Dürer said, pointing over his left shoulder at the Alps, rising white and clean into the blue sky. Dismas barely glanced. It annoyed Dürer that Dismas’s spirits should be lower than his own when he had made such a noble sacrifice. He said, “Oh, cheer up. I don’t want to dance with death any more than you.”
Dürer studied his friend’s face, as he would if he were painting it. Painters read men’s souls, and he saw this was neither dejection nor fear at the prospect of death.
“Ah. The girl.”
Dismas sighed. Yes, the girl.
“Well, I miss her, too,” Dürer said, shoehorning himself into Dismas’s misery. “Splendid lass. And after everything she endured at the hands of that pig. Sure, he’s squealing in Hell. I hope Hell does look like Bosch’s vision.” After a pause he said, “I’d have liked to do her portrait. What a beauty she is. What a wife she’ll make some fellow. Maybe she and Paracelsus—”
“Nars. Please, shut up.”
“Smitten! As I thought. Well, well, Dismas has a heart after all. Fine time to fall in love. But all right. Let’s turn around and go back to Basel. I’ll make a wedding portrait of the two of you. No charge. My present.”
Dismas said nothing.
“Well, does she love you?”
“Can’t you be quiet?”
“I think she must, the way she looks at you. Painters know these things.”
“Am I to have no peace? She’d have looked that way at anyone who helped her. Look, Nars, I don’t want to talk about this.”
“If she does love you, why don’t we—?”
“She does not love me! Gratitude is different from love. Love is . . .”
“Yes? Please, go on. Tell me about love.”
Dismas groaned.
“What a fraud you are, Nars. You only want us to turn around so you won’t end up on the fucking gallows with me in Chambéry. Gallows, if we’re lucky. More likely, they’ll break us on the wheel. From the bottom.”
“All right. Very well. I confess. I confess, yes, that I would rather not die on the fucking gallows or be broken on the wheel—from the bottom. But don’t lecture to me about love. If Cupid were a Swiss, he’d fire his arrows into mountain goats.”
“What are you two squabbling about?” Cunrat said, from behind. “You sound like hens. Can’t you be quiet? My head is coming off.”
• • •
They made camp and ate a cold, joyless supper.
“I miss Little Sister,” Cunrat said.
“And her cooking,” Unks said.
“Why didn’t she come with us?” Nutker asked.
Dismas said nothing.
Cunrat said, “What’s the plan, then? How are we going to steal this rag? Everyone I spoke to in Basel said it can’t be done.”
Dismas stared.
“What can you mean by ‘everyone I spoke to said it can’t be done’? God in Heaven, Cunrat. Did you tell what we’re up to?”
“Don’t wet yourself, man. I made some inquiries, is all. It’s only diligence.”
Dismas shook his head. “God save us.”
“I like to know what I’m walking into. And everyone I spoke to said it’s locked tighter than convent cunny. So I am asking—what’s our plan?”
“The plan,” Dismas said. “Very well. Since you ask, the plan is to stop and ask everyone between here and Chambéry for their suggestions on how to steal it. Then we will take all the suggestions, from all the people we have asked, and select the most clever. For good measure, we will also ask the Duke of Savoy himself if he has a proposal for how we can steal his Shroud. There is the plan.”
“There’s no call for insults.”
“That wasn’t an insult. Here is an insult—you are an imbecile, Cunrat.”
“Steady, Reiselaufer.”
Dürer said, “Hey, hey, now. Everybody, cool down.”
Dismas and Cunrat were on their feet.
“Say that again.”
“You are an imbecile. Want it one more time? I’ll say it slowly, so you can understand.”
Dürer put himself between them. There was shoving. Cunrat threw the first punch, which glanced off Dürer’s ear. Soon they were flailing and the three of them went down into the dirt, rolling in and out of the edge of the fire, Dürer wedged between the combatants. Nutker and Unks looked on amused, arms folded, happy to have entertainment on an otherwise sour evening.
The melee continued amidst snarls and curses and scattered embers.
Nutker and Unks deliberated whether it would be disloyal to Cunrat to wager on the Reiselaufer. Then at the edge of the fire emerged a rider on horseback. They reached for their weapons.
Nutker laughed and said to the three on the ground, “We have company.”
Cunrat, Dismas, and the hapless Dürer paused and looked up blinkingly from their Laocoön-like entwinement.
Magda took in the scene before her. Nutker was already at her side, helping her off her mount. A second horse was tethered behind, laden.
Grunting and cursing, Dürer untangled himself from between Dismas’s and Cunrat’s grip. He stood covered with dirt and debris.
“Master Dürer,” Magda said. “You are on fire.”
The edge of his tunic was in flames. Dürer slapped at it with the flat of his hand.
Dismas and Cunrat remained frozen on the ground, staring at Magda, each still gripping some part of the other.
Dürer muttered, “Silk. Ruined!”
• • •
Later, when they were all bedded down for the night by the fire, Magda and Dismas lay next to each other, apart from the others.
“It’s good I came when I did,” she said. “Or all I would have found of you was ash.”
Dismas said nothing.
“You shouldn’t have, girl.”
“Are we back to calling me ‘girl’?”
“How did you know what road to take?”
Now she did sound like a girl, happily revealing what a clever thing she had been. “The first night in the forest, while you and Nars slept, I stayed awake, listening to the boys talking. About Chambéry. About the Shroud.”
“All along, you knew? Then why did you ask me where I was going?”
“So I would know.”
“But you already knew.”
“Not that. If you cared for me. When you wouldn’t tell me, then I knew that you did care. When you left the surgery last night, I saw your face. I knew that you were lying about when we would leave.”
“Magda—”
She put a finger to his lips. “Shh.” She took away her finger and put her lips to his.
They were quiet for a while, watching the stars.
“You came heavy,” Dismas said, indicating her packhorse. “What’s all that? Fancy dresses for the court of Duke Charles?”
“Gifts from Paracelsus.”
“You told Paracelsus? God in Heaven, is there anyone in Basel who does not
know our mission?”
“I didn’t tell him it was Chambéry. Or about the Shroud.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you are on a quest.”
“Is that what it is?”
“To free someone. Someone who is locked up and very closely guarded. Maybe what I told him is not completely the truth. But Jesus is ‘someone,’ yes? And you say that relics are living things. So he is alive, in the Shroud. And the Shroud is locked up. Which makes him a prisoner. So it’s not such a lie. Is it?”
Dismas smiled. “Who taught you to reason in such a way? Was your tutor Satan?”
Magda continued, delighted.
“He was so curious, Paracelsus! He knew I was being mysterious. He kept asking, who are you going to free? I said to him I couldn’t tell more. But still he kept asking. Finally he said, ‘Aha! You are going to the château at Chillon!’ On the Geneva lake. So I pretended. I made a face like this—You know! I said to him, ‘Um . . . well . . . ,’ so he would think that he had guessed correctly. He was so pleased. It’s funny. Don’t you think?”
“Magda. I don’t find anything funny about any of this.”
“Ah, yes. I forgot. You are Swiss.”
“It’s not that.”
“Well, I think it is funny. Because, you see, it’s in the castle at Chillon that the dukes of Savoy keep their special prisoners. So Paracelsus thinks that we are attempting to free a prisoner of the Duke of Savoy.”
“This is amusing?”
“You are Swiss. Don’t you see? We’re freeing a prisoner in a different castle of the Duke of Savoy. So Paracelsus is clever even when he is wrong.”
“Magda, I must tell you a story.”
“Yes, if you like.”
“It’s not a nice story. But it’s one you must hear.”
“Very well.”
“The Shroud is the most closely guarded relic in Europe.”
“Yes, it will not be easy.”
“We will be caught. I told you this in Basel. So now I must tell you what will happen after we are caught. They will want to make an example. Have you ever seen a man broken on the wheel?”
Magda said nothing.
“On the way to the scaffold, in the cart, the executioner takes nips of your flesh with red-hot pincers. For such a crime as this, there would be at least three nips. Perhaps four. So you are almost dead when they stake you to the ground.”
“Dismas—”
“They put flat pieces of wood under your elbows and knees. Then the executioner lifts up the heavy wheel and he goes to work. If the judges have been merciful, they will decree that he start ‘from the top.’ One blow to the head and it’s over. But if the offense is grave, as this would be considered, then the judges demand ‘from the bottom.’ First your feet. The ankles. The legs. The knees. And so on.”
“Stop, Dismas.”
“In Nuremberg once I saw such an execution. The victim was still alive, even after perhaps thirty blows. I can still hear his screams. It was monstrous. Because you are a woman, maybe they would commute your sentence to being burned alive. But maybe not.”
Magda rolled away from him. He made a pillow of sacking and put it under her head and covered her with an extra blanket, then went to sleep by the others.
Dürer said, “What a fine bedtime story. You really are a swine. Now I will have nightmares.”
“You earned yours.”
Dismas closed his eyes and prayed to St. Catherine—she who had been broken on the wheel—that this girl whom he loved would be gone in the morning. But dawn found Magda still there, crouched over the fire, making a good breakfast for her men.
25
The Bauges
Three weeks after leaving Basel, Dismas and Cunrat stood on a mountain ridge high in the Bauges massif, looking down on Chambéry, capital of the Duchy of Savoy. They’d gone on ahead of the others to make a reconnaissance. Tomorrow they would enter the city.
It had been a tiring journey, by way of Neuchâtel, Fribourg, Lausanne, Geneva, Annecy, and the Bauges. Outside the Empire, they felt secure enough to lodge in towns. The Landsknechte happily took the occasion to sample every bawdy house along the way, fortified by their phallus tonic. Dismas wondered at the fortune this rampant venery must be costing them. But his mind was on other things.
“It seems we are not the only pilgrims coming to venerate the Shroud,” Dismas observed.
“God in Heaven,” Cunrat said, marveling at the sight below. “It’s like two armies converging.”
Chambéry stood at one of the great intersections of Europe, near a pass formed by the Bauges on the north and the Chartreuse massif on the south. The river Leysse bordered the city’s eastern side.
Here was the crossroads for French armies bringing war into Italy and for Italian armies bringing war into France. At the moment, there was peace, but peace was always momentary. Dominating Chambéry’s western side was the ancestral castle of the dukes of Savoy. Dismas imagined the present Duke Charles, awaking each morning and nervously looking out his bedchamber window, bowels in a knot, praying not to see an army marching toward him under the banner of François, King of France. It occurred to Dismas that four years before, François had walked all the way here from Lyon, dressed in the white tunic of a pilgrim, to give thanks at the Shroud for his victory at the Battle of Marignano. That he had done this must concern Charles, for it showed how greatly François esteemed the Shroud of Chambéry. And what kings esteem, they seek to possess.
From this height, Dismas and Cunrat had a clear view of the roads leading into Chambéry from the north and south. Both teemed with pilgrims and caravans. It was a spectacle, sure. The only time Dismas had seen such crowds was in Rome, where he chanced to be in the days after the death of Pope Julius II.
“The Duke must be happy,” Dismas said. “All those coins, marching to his coffers.”
Cunrat nodded. “That’ll mean guards everywhere,” Cunrat said. “On top of the regular chapel guard.” He sighed. “Well, Reiselaufer, how are we going to do this thing?”
“We’re monks. Pray for a miracle?”
“Who do you pray to, for this? Is there a patron saint of shroud-stealers?”
Dismas considered. “There’s Saint Mark. He’s not strictly speaking the patron of relic thieves. Seven hundred years ago, some fellows translated him from Alexandria to Venice. There was the greatest translation of all. So we could pray to him. Or to the clever lads who did it. Two merchants of Venice and two Greeks—one a priest, the other a monk. See, they feared that the Turks, who had taken Alexandria, would destroy the shrine of Saint Mark. So the priest and the monk switched Saint Mark’s body with that of Saint Claudia.”
“Why would they put another saint in his shrine?”
“Ah. The remains of a saint always give off a fragrant smell. In theory. They put Saint Claudia in so there would be a continuation of good aroma from the tomb.”
Cunrat shook his head.
Dismas went on. “The two Venetians got Saint Mark aboard their ship. They put him in a chest and covered him over with pork. Clever, eh? When the Moors opened the trunk to inspect it, they saw all this pork and went paugh! For Moors, pig meat is an abomination. They closed the chest and told them to fuck off out of Alexandria. But I don’t think pork will help us with this translation.”
Dismas and Cunrat climbed back down to rejoin the others and told them what they had seen, the great crowds streaming into Chambéry.
• • •
They camped that night by a stream that descended a ravine to the outskirts of the town. There was not much talk around the fire. They were tired. Despite having finally arrived at Chambéry, Dismas was in a somber mood. A month of thinking had yet to produce a plan for the translation.
He kept up a show of confidence, not wanting to cause despair in his comrades. He had privately resolved this much: that if he failed to come up with a plan, he would spare them. Hurl himself alone at the Shroud when it went up on di
splay, get it over with quickly, go down in a hail of arrows. Better that than breaking on the wheel. His penance would be done, Magda and Nars and the lads could escape. Dismas’s secret plan made his gloom less.
It was a fine view from their camp. The sunset turned the sky purple. The fading light cast long shadows across the northern slopes of the Chartreuse range and lit fire to the gold-leafed spires of Chambéry.
Dismas looked over at Dürer. As usual he was sketching.
“Landscape?”
“Landscapes bore me.”
Dismas got up to stretch his legs. He walked over and crouched behind Dürer to see what he was drawing. A portrait of Magda, done with colored chalk.
“Not bad.”
“Of course it’s ‘not bad.’ ” Dürer had grown touchy the closer they got to Chambéry, perhaps contemplating his own dance with death. Dismas hoped that some of Nars’s mood might stem from remorse at having caused this predicament.
His rendering of Magda’s ginger ringlets was deft. Now Dismas had an insight that made him smile. Magda’s hair was so similar to Dürer’s that painting her was an excuse for yet another self-portrait.
“It’s good, the way you’ve got the light on her hair. Gold, like.”
“It’s titian.”
“What’s that?”
“The color of her hair. But why should you know this?”
“Titian. It’s an odd name for a color.”
“He’s a painter. In Venice. He’s a friend.”
“Magda,” Dismas said, “did you know that your hair is the color of a painter in Venice?”
She was sitting across from them by the fire, doing needlework. She said without looking up, “My father used to call me Little Ginger.”
“There’s not much light left,” Dürer said.
“Then you’d best work fast,” Dismas said, sitting down. “Good practice, for down there.”
The sun set behind the Chartreuse massif. Dürer continued to work by the light of the fire. When it was finished he handed it to Magda. She blushed.
“It’s . . .”
“You may say. Beautiful.”
“You have such talent, Master Dürer.”
Dismas groaned. “Oh, don’t tell him that. He’ll be even more insufferable. Give it here. I will be the judge.”
The Relic Master Page 17
