The Castle of Kings

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Without further thought, he leapt to his feet, seized the heavy oak table with both hands, and overturned it. It was easier than he had expected. Wine glasses and beer tankards broke as they crashed to the floor. Everyone present began shouting and falling over in the general chaos. The bailiffs, who were only a few steps away from Shepherd Jockel by now, found themselves stumbling over chairs, cursing. Jockel looked around briefly and then, surprisingly fleet-footed in spite of his hump, he ran for the doorway where Bernwart Gessler still stood.

  “Stop him!” cried the mayor. “Damn it all, stop that man!”

  Gessler himself made a half-hearted attempt to grab Jockel by his shirt collar, but the shepherd eluded him and gave the slightly built mayor a push that sent him splashing into a pool of beer and wine. When Gessler had struggled to his feet, his cap hung askew over his face and his expensive fur-trimmed coat was smeared with dirt.

  “You’ll burn for this, heretic,” he snarled after the fleeing figure of Jockel. “You and your damned accomplices will burn for it, by God!”

  The mayor’s furious gaze wandered around the room and suddenly fixed on Mathis, who had flinched back in horror. “It was you!” Gessler cried. “You helped him. Seize that lad!”

  Once again Mathis reacted without stopping to think. He ducked down under the arm of one of the bailiffs reaching for him, jumped over the wailing apothecary Sperlin, who was searching desperately for his pince-nez, and raced to the doorway that was blocked by Bernwart Gessler. The mayor’s hand shot out to grab him, but Mathis moved faster. Sidestepping to avoid Gessler, he ran through the front room of the inn, where several of the old men stared as he passed, startled, and then he was out in the street and making for the millstream while the mayor shouted angrily.

  “Get hold of that fellow! He and Jockel mustn’t escape, or I’ll lock you all in the Hunger Tower with my own hands!”

  His heart thudding frantically, Mathis looked for a place to hide. He ducked into a nearby doorway for a moment to get his breath back, and then, behind a cart loaded with dung, he saw Shepherd Jockel crouching. The man who had always seemed so sure of himself was trembling. Like an animal brought to bay, he peered out anxiously from behind the stinking cart. When the shepherd recognized Mathis he breathed out, visibly relieved.

  “You must distract them, boy,” he whispered. “Go on, run!”

  “But then they’ll catch me,” Mathis replied uncertainly.

  “What d’you think will happen to you? A snotty boy with only the beginnings of a beard. At the most they’ll give you a thrashing, believe me.” Again, Jockel’s voice sounded as gentle and persuasive as Mathis had so often heard it. “But as for me, they’ll burn me at the stake, you heard it yourself. Will you do it, my boy? Tell me, will you do it?”

  Mathis nodded his head.

  “Then do as I told you and run, damn it. I’ll pay you back someday.”

  Briefly, Mathis hesitated, but when he saw the shepherd’s pleading eyes, he did run.

  “There he goes! There’s the boy! Stop him!”

  Mathis couldn’t believe his ears. It was Shepherd Jockel calling for the bailiffs at the top of his lungs. Was it only a trick to distract them from Jockel himself? Or had his hero shamefully betrayed him? Mathis had no time to wonder; he already heard footsteps coming after him. Without looking around, he turned into another alley, knocking over a couple of frames with leather hung out to dry on them as he did so. At last he saw the millstream ahead, but to his horror, two bailiffs were converging on him from the left, and another two from the right. In panic, Mathis looked around. Should he venture to jump over the broad millstream? If he missed the opposite bank by even a hair’s breadth, he was done for.

  He thought frantically, and then he noticed one of the millwheels nearby slowly churning through water clouded by garbage and excrement. Plucking up all his courage, Mathis flung himself on the slimy waterweed-covered wheel, clutched one of its struts, and let it lift him up. Ice-cold water ran over his face and hair. Once he reached the top of the wheel, he cautiously straightened up. For a moment, he had a view of the whole town from his unsteady vantage point, and then, with a mighty effort, he leapt to the opposite bank. The bailiffs, baffled, were left behind. Two of them adjusted their crossbows, but Mathis had already disappeared down a small side street.

  Passing several more startled townsfolk, he hurried along by the wall, down narrow, twisting paths, until at last, in a blind alley, a narrow opening overhung by ivy appeared ahead of him. He had often made his way out of Annweiler through that opening, when the gates were closed at six for curfew. Today it probably saved him from a dungeon, or worse.

  Mathis brushed the ivy aside and wriggled through the narrow gap until he somersaulted into the dried-up side of the moat. He made a soft landing in a heap of stinking refuse. Without caring what he looked like, he struggled up, climbed the side of the dry moat, and hurried toward the nearby wood of oak trees.

  Only when he could no longer see the town’s rooftops between the branches of the oaks did Mathis feel safe. But he knew that his sense of security was misleading and would not last long. Never mind what might yet happen, after today his life would never be the same.

  Mathis had become a wanted rebel.

  “And the houses there are as high as the tallest trees. You simply can’t imagine it. Elisabeth thinks that people in Cologne all eat with silver spoons. She was at a banquet like that herself, well, only as a servant, of course, but she really saw those spoons, she can swear to it. And the dishes and pans are all made of gold, she says . . .”

  Agnes closed her eyes as this torrent of words from her lady’s maid, Margarethe, went relentlessly on. They were in her bower, where the dim morning sunlight came in through the windows. Now and then the castellan’s daughter nodded, simulating interest, but mostly she kept silent as she let Margarethe strip the wine-red linen gown with its velvet-trimmed sleeves off her. It was the only expensive dress that she possessed. Philipp von Erfenstein had bought it from a Flemish merchant traveling through the countryside, and the merchant had asked a fortune for it. Purely to please her father, Agnes always wore it for the divine service held for a small congregation in the castle chapel every Sunday.

  Since the castle chaplain, Father Tristan, her confessor, had been away at Eusserthal monastery for some weeks, his place was taken by a young monk who always fell into a fit of nervous stammering at the sight of Agnes. She had stoically allowed the service, like Margarethe’s flood of gossip, to wash over her while her thoughts kept circling around her strange dream of three nights ago. The precious red gown had reminded her of it. The magnificently clad guests in the Knights’ House at Trifels, the songs that had been sung, indeed the whole dream had been so uncannily realistic. In particular, Agnes couldn’t get the young man in the chainmail shirt, the hauberk, out of her head.

  Under the linden tree, on the moorland, there we made a bed for two . . .

  “Elisabeth says Cologne is the biggest city in the world. However far you walk, there are houses everywhere. You can get lost there as you might in a forest. They say people have died of hunger and thirst because they couldn’t find their way home again . . .”

  As Margarethe poured out her never-ending cascade of words, she carefully undid the polished horn and silver buttons. Ever since her cousin Elisabeth, who worked as a maidservant for a trading company based in Worms, had told her about the distant city of Cologne, Margarethe could talk of nothing else. She had been lady’s maid to Agnes for many years now. As she was only a little older than her mistress, they had sometimes played with dolls together in the past. But even then, Margarethe had been too frivolous and talkative to be a real companion to Agnes. As the daughter of a weaver of woolen cloth in Annweiler, she dreamed of a faithful and, above all, rich husband who could offer her something better than life as a servant in a drafty castle.

  “And the privies they have in Cologne are nothing like the stinking cesspits we use here in the W
asgau hills,” she continued. “In this castle we can think ourselves lucky if we don’t fall into the sewage below, along with the plank of rotten wood we were sitting on.” She winked at her mistress. “But I hear that things will soon be changing for you.”

  Agnes was immediately alert again. She turned to Margarethe and stared.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well . . . your father has let slip this and that . . .”

  “Have you been listening at doors again, Margarethe?”

  Under the stern gaze of Agnes, Margarethe seemed to shrink visibly. “I was just standing close to the doorway when your father and his steward were talking. I mean, Master von Heidelsheim isn’t a bad match . . .”

  Agnes took Margarethe’s arm in a firm grip. “Are you saying that my father is really marrying me off to Heidelsheim?”

  “Not marrying you off, no. They were discussing your future, that’s all. And Master Heidelsheim wouldn’t even expect a dowry.” Suddenly a touch of mockery came into Margarethe’s eyes, and her lips curled. “I think you should be glad the steward is making such a handsome offer. In your place—”

  “I am not going to marry Heidelsheim. A pale-faced clerk who smells of onions—never! If there has to be a wedding, then let my father look around for a knight, or the son of a lord of his own rank.” Agnes turned brusquely away from her maid. “Now bring me my doublet and hose for riding. I’m in urgent need of some fresh air.”

  Margarethe gasped a few times, like a fish on dry land, and then nodded coolly. “Doublet and hose for riding. Just as my lady wants,” she murmured in a deliberately formal tone, but shook her head.

  “If you have anything to say, then say it,” Agnes commanded.

  “Well . . .” Margarethe was struggling with herself, but then she did speak her mind. “A woman in doublet and hose . . . that’s not right and fitting. And that falcon of yours. All that is man’s business.” She lowered her voice to a confidential tone. “It may interest you to know, mistress, that tongues are already wagging about you in Annweiler.”

  “I imagine your own tongue has played a not inconsiderable part in that.” Agnes pulled the unbuttoned gown off over her shoulders, so that she was standing in the drafty bower in nothing but her thin shift. For a moment she thought of reproving Margarethe for her boldness, but then she brushed the idea aside. They had known each other too long, and furthermore she couldn’t risk Margarethe telling her father about her occasional secret rides. Theirs was a tacit understanding, and Margarethe’s reward was that from time to time she could speak disrespectfully to her mistress.

  “Now, bring me those garments,” said Agnes roughly. “And for heaven’s sake make sure that no one sees you.”

  “As you please, my lady.”

  Without another word, Margarethe turned away and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Shivering, Agnes sank on her bed, the blood pulsing in her temples. So it was true, and Heidelsheim had not been making it all up. Her father did indeed want to marry her to his steward. The mere idea filled her with revulsion. She wound her arms around her torso and drew up her knees, curling into a ball as if that would make her as small as a chick in an egg, protected by the eggshell from the outside world. Why couldn’t everything stay the way it used to be, when she had her falcon, her father’s fast horse, the forest, and a castle full of stories? That was enough for her. But of course she knew that marriage was inevitable. Without a husband beside her, she could never keep Trifels Castle.

  Briefly, she saw Mathis in her mind’s eye, but thinking about him was painful. He was the only man she really liked to be with. It had been like that in their childhood, when they used to play at being prince and princess in the castle cellars, with a mossy rock as the bridal altar and a bunch of wild roses in front of it. But even then they had known that a real marriage between them was out of the question. Agnes was the castellan’s daughter, while Mathis was only the son of the castle smith.

  The squeal of the door roused Agnes from her thoughts. She sat up and nodded to Margarethe as the maid came in, handing her the doublet and hose without a word, still obviously cross with her mistress.

  “Thank you, Margarethe,” Agnes muttered. “And I’m sorry for the way I spoke just now. Things have been difficult for me recently.”

  Margarethe gave her a thin smile. She was never angry with Agnes for long, but all the same she couldn’t refrain from making a cutting remark. “No need to apologize. Not to a stupid maidservant.” She bowed deeply. “Behave yourself, my lady.”

  She quietly closed the door, as Agnes hastily began putting on the doublet and hose. She had made the hose, a pair of leather leggings, for herself last winter. They fitted like a second skin and were much more practical for riding than a woman’s long, flowing skirts. Thus clad, she hurried down the spiral staircase to the castle courtyard, where Parcival’s aviary stood beside the dog kennel.

  She would have loved to take Parcival with her, but after his long flight a few days ago the little falcon was still too weak. In the meantime Agnes had mended his tail feathers and was spoiling him by feeding him raw blackbirds’ livers, but now, when she went into the aviary, she sensed at once that it would take Parcival a little longer to recover. In addition, he had begun his annual molt, and some of his smaller feathers had already fallen out. He fluttered for a moment and uttered a soft cry, but then he sat still on his perch. Agnes had picked up a few pieces of meat for him in the kitchen, and now the little falcon ate them greedily.

  “Where in the world did you go, Parcival?” she murmured thoughtfully as she fed him the raw, bloody strips of meat. “What happened to you out there?” She shook her head. “What a pity you can’t talk. I’m sure you would have an interesting story to tell. Al reveire!”

  Whispering this Occitanian farewell to him, she closed the grating of his aviary and ran over to the stables. She must get out. Out into the woods, alone on a fast horse, even though the memory of her encounter with the robber knight Hans von Wertingen still sent a shudder down her spine. All the same, she felt that the castle walls would slowly press her to death if she spent as much as a moment longer in Trifels.

  The stables were right beside the former Knights’ House at the back of the castle courtyard. Agnes opened the grating over the doorway and, closing her eyes, breathed in the smell of straw, wood, and dung. Once a dozen fine horses must have been stabled here, but now there were only three, one of them lame and another so old that the knacker would soon have to be sent for. The big chestnut munching his oats happily in the right-hand box belonged to Agnes’s father. He had allowed her to take him out now and then, but he had no idea how often she really went riding on the animal. At the moment Philipp von Erfenstein had ridden out on the old gray horse to Neukastell to ask the ducal steward there for a reduction in his dues. The knight had sensibly left his own horse at Trifels Castle. The value represented by the chestnut might give the steward the wrong idea.

  “It’s all right, Taramis,” Agnes soothed the tall chestnut, who began to whinny with pleasure at the sight of her. “We’re going for a little ride, what do you say?”

  She put a slice of dried apple that she had taken from the kitchen in the horse’s mouth. When she heard footsteps behind her she turned, expecting to see the old groom, Radolph. But it was Martin von Heidelsheim approaching.

  Before Agnes could react, the steward was inside the stable, closing the door behind him. Dim daylight filtered in through the rotting boards and cast a shadow on his face. Agnes felt a lump in her throat.

  “Margarethe told me you would be here,” he began with a smile. “She sends her greetings.” On seeing Agnes’s indignant expression he raised his hands in apology. “Don’t be cross with her. She only wants the best for you.”

  “Apparently everyone at Trifels Castle only wants the best for me.” Agnes defiantly folded her arms and scrutinized Heidelsheim as she leaned against one of the crossbeams. She was trying to fight
down her fear, but her voice trembled slightly. “Well, what now? Are you going to assault me again? If you so much as touch my little finger, I shall scream so loud that my father will break all your bones.”

  “But unfortunately your father is in Neukastell just now, and he’ll have difficulty in hearing you.” Heidelsheim grinned. “Don’t worry. No harm will come to you.”

  He pointed invitingly to a bale of straw in a corner nearby. When Agnes made no move, he sat down on it himself, sighing.

  “I’m sincerely sorry for what happened the other day,” he began gently. “It . . . was a mistake, believe me. I am a man of honor.” He struck himself on the chest. “All the same, my offer was honestly meant.”

  Agnes stared straight ahead, her arms still crossed. She was feverishly wondering how she could crush Heidelsheim’s expectations once and for all.

  “Forget it. I . . . I am already promised to another,” she suddenly said. At the same time she knew how ridiculous that was. A word to her father, and Heidelsheim would know that she had lied to him. But the steward stopped short. He seemed to be struggling with himself, and then his mouth suddenly twisted in an unpleasant smile.

  “Indeed? And to whom are you promised?” he asked in a deliberately light tone. “To the noble Sir Lancelot, or maybe King Arthur himself? No, wait! Surely not that dirty son of the smith, the lad you like to go around with?” His grin abruptly disappeared, and a serious, urgent undertone came into his voice. “Agnes, understand this. I am the best you can get. Not everyone is willing to marry the daydreaming daughter of a castellan, and what’s more, one who has nothing to bring to her marriage but a falcon and a few gowns that not even a girl herding goats would want to wear.” He looked with contempt at the stained hose that Agnes wore. “Think it over. I won’t ask again.”