The Castle of Kings

by Oliver Pötzsch

  After a short rest, the company went on along the banks of a stream winding its way through a marshy valley. Only yesterday there had been a violent thunderstorm, so the oxen had to be taken out of the shafts of the cart again and again, and boards were then placed under its wheels to keep the heavy vehicle from sticking fast in the glutinous mud.

  At last, late in the evening, they reached the little village of Ramberg, ready to spend the night on its outskirts. The landsknechts brought the vehicles to a halt and wasted no time in setting up a small encampment. Campfires were lit, and soon a fragrantly aromatic stew was simmering in a pot hanging from a tripod, while some of the men sang hearty war songs. Later, when the castellan left the tent that had been put up for him and the count, he looked well satisfied. He was swaying slightly and humming one of his old tournament songs.

  “Well, master gunner?” Erfenstein called to Mathis, who was sitting beside one of the fires. “How does war feel to you? We went on many such feuds in my youth. Those were the days! Doesn’t this rejuvenate a man?”

  Mathis forced a smile. “I hope to live to be old enough to tell you.”

  “I hope so too. If not, we still have the count’s minstrel. I trust he’ll write us a long and warlike ode.” Erfenstein laughed, belched heartily, then turned to Ulrich Reichhart and got him to pour him another beaker of wine.

  The moon rose beyond the hills, and the landsknechts’ songs became louder and coarser. They frequently referred to priests and monks. All the men knew stories of fat clerics who stuffed their bellies while everyone else went short of food. The peasants, too, had tales to tell.

  “How about burning down the monastery on our way back from the Ramburg?” one of the Trifels peasants murmured so quietly that only Mathis and a few bystanders could hear it. “They’re robber knights there as well, and as bad as Black Hans, except that they go raiding with the cross, not the sword.”

  Some of the other peasants nodded agreement. “They’re all the same,” replied one. “We ought to do as the likes of us did down on the plain of the Rhine, where they set fire to a couple of monasteries, and—”

  “And ended on the gallows for their pains, with their bellies slit open,” interrupted a landsknecht who was the worse for drink. “Forget it and don’t talk so big. Things will stay the way they always were. Peasants bend their backs to toil, landsknechts fight, and meanwhile the abbots, counts, and dukes eat their fill.”

  “But maybe not for much longer,” said another peasant. “That Martin Luther is giving the pope his marching orders and no mistake. He’s the right kind of monk for me. You wait and see . . .”

  “Psst!” the landsknecht silenced him, pointing to the minstrel, who was just approaching their fire. “Here comes distinguished company.”

  The men bent back over their plates of stew. Melchior von Tanningen did not seem to have overheard what they were saying. He turned to Mathis, who was still sitting by the fire, and made him a slight bow, raising his cap.

  “My respects, Master Wielenbach,” he began. “Such, I believe, is your esteemed name?”

  Mathis nodded, unable to keep back a smile. No wonder Agnes liked this fellow. He sounded just like a herald from a bygone age. “Just call me Mathis, that’s fine,” he replied, gesturing to the minstrel to sit down on the ground beside him. The other men moved away, so that they were soon alone.

  “I have the utmost admiration for your handiwork,” said Melchior. “It is truly amazing to think what a man can do.” A frown spread over his freckled brow. “Even if what you do is not quite what I understand as the honorable way of fighting. But at least I suppose that makes it successful. I am correct there, am I not?” Melchior looked inquiringly at the young smith.

  Mathis felt himself going red in the face again, like the minstrel had seen through him. Damn it, why hadn’t he tested Fat Hedwig thoroughly at least once in advance? The stone cannonballs seemed to fit, but if just one of them stuck in the barrel of the gun, the whole thing would blow up.

  But at least then I won’t live to feel ashamed of myself . . .

  “Well . . . I’m assuming that the . . . the battle will turn out well,” he replied at last. “We shall have to wait until tomorrow to see.”

  Melchior von Tanningen nodded, and twirled the end of his little pointed beard. “Yes, the battle begins tomorrow. It will be noisy, dirty, and vicious. Not the kind of battle worth immortalizing in song. But the fact is, there are no such battles today. Maybe there never were.” He smiled dreamily and then pointed to something shining in the forest at the foot of the mountain opposite. “Do you see those lights? I’ll be bound those are Wertingen’s spies. By now he knows all about our weapons. Let’s hope that he doesn’t have a master gunner of his own. But if he does, I’m sure the gunner will not be half as good as you.”

  Mathis jumped. Sure enough, there was something shining on the slope. It seemed to be moving away from them, up the mountain and toward the castle, which was hidden from view by trees. If he narrowed his eyes and looked hard, he thought he could make out flickering lights.

  Black Hans was expecting them.

  When the sun set over Trifels Castle, Agnes lay awake in her bed for a long time, thinking of Mathis. How was he feeling at this moment? Would he come back to her safe and sound? She felt fear spreading through her, some of it for her father as well. In spite of his armor, he had looked so vulnerable beside the young count, so old and stooped. Philipp von Erfenstein might once have been a fine warrior. But the miracle of Guinegate was many decades in the past; times and weapons had changed since then, and she was afraid that her father was overestimating his abilities in battle. He was no longer a steely warrior, but an old man of almost sixty, even if he refused to believe that himself. In addition, he had only one eye, and God alone knew whether that would be good enough for ferocious hand-to-hand combat.

  She had not been dreaming so often in the last few weeks, probably in part because, after visiting the sick with Father Tristan, she slept very soundly. All the same, she kept seeing images from her dreams before her mind’s eye—the Guelph, Johann of Brunswick, a man to whom she felt strangely drawn, warning her against the ring; the words of the men planning to kill her and Johann; the reflection in the puddle of wine. She had seen a strange but yet familiar face there. Who in God’s name was she in the dream? If not herself, then who?

  Who are you?

  She slipped slowly into sleep as her fears changed into visions of violence. She saw Mathis standing beside the big gun, and suddenly the bronze broke into thousands of splinters, piercing his rib cage like spears. She saw her father riding over the battlefield headless, yet swinging his sword. Then these dreadful images died down, giving way to other and more real visions.

  ✦ ✦ ✦

  As she runs, Agnes catches a glimpse of Johann. Even in the darkness, it is easy to see his tense expression. Beads of sweat run down his forehead, his breath comes by fits and starts, he looks back at her again and again, signaling to her to run faster. Agnes remembers the men talking in the Knights’ House. They want to kill them. Her and Johann and the child.

  The child as well.

  At last they have reached the steep rocks at the far end of the castle. The rock wall falls sheer to the depths below here; it must be a drop of a hundred and twenty feet. There is nothing to be seen but the wavering darkness underneath.

  Only now does Agnes notice a leather bag on Johann’s back. It is open at the top, and moving slightly. Suddenly a shock of fair hair emerges from the opening, a small head turns her way, and two large, tearful eyes stare at her.

  There is a little boy about four years old in the rucksack, trembling with fear.

  Without knowing why, she puts a finger to her lips. The little boy, who had been about to start crying again, keeps his tears back. Meanwhile, Johann takes a rope out of another bag slung around him and ties it to a projecting carpenter’s nail. It drops into the depths without a sound.

  Now Agnes reali
zes that she, too, is carrying a bag. It is not particularly heavy. When she puts her hand inside it, she feels something about the length of a man’s forearm, wrapped in cloth. It is hard and angular. Looking at Johann again, she sees that he is already letting himself down the rock wall on the rope. Only the child’s hair is still in sight. There is a leaden, expectant silence in the air.

  She suddenly hears an ugly sound from down below. Stones fall, the child disappears from her field of vision, a suppressed cry of pain from Johann follows. He has obviously slipped on the smooth rock.

  And then the child does begin to cry.

  He wails and screams, howling in extreme fear, and the sound goes right through Agnes. It seems to climb the rocky walls, crawling up and over the castle walls, seeping in through the windows. Only a little later the alarm is raised. Footsteps fast approach.

  Agnes shoulders her bag, hurries to the rope, and lets herself down on it. Her hands burn like fire; it hurts so much that she almost lets go. The rock scrapes her shoulder and tears her dress. Farther down, she can make out a swaying black shape; Johann with the boy. He, too, seems to be falling rather than climbing down the rope. The forest floor can’t be far away.

  As Agnes tries to feel a glimmer of hope, something hisses only just past her face. A crossbow bolt. A second sticks in her full skirt. Then the rope begins to vibrate. Suddenly there is a jolt, and she falls several feet down. The swaying is stronger now.

  The rope, they are cutting through the rope!

  Shouts can now be heard up above. Another crossbow bolt only just misses her. How much farther to the ground? About forty feet? Too far to jump, anyway.

  At this moment there is another jolt, and then Agnes is falling fast. The ground comes closer and closer, like an open mouth, like a toothless, gigantic pair of jaws.

  And swallows her up.

  ✦ ✦ ✦

  When Agnes awoke in the middle of the night this time, she knew at once where she was and what had happened. Breathing heavily, she closed her eyes and tried to imprint everything she had seen on her memory. She didn’t want to forget any of it by tomorrow morning. Johann had obviously been fleeing, and he had had a fair-haired little boy with him. When the boy cried out in terror, Agnes had felt for a moment as if he were her own child. Could she be the mother of that boy in the dream? Was Johann his father? And why did they all have to escape from Trifels anyway?

  Agnes thought of the men in the Knights’ House talking in her dream from a few weeks ago. Instinctively, she flinched. The warning against the ring, the overheard conversation, the flight . . . The separate dreams seemed to fit together. They told a longer story, although she could not work out what it was. So far she had merely found out who the man she loved so much in her dream was.

  Agnes gave a start. Suddenly she knew where she could find an explanation of all these visions. The chronicle! She had put it back in the secret compartment in the library. Since then she had thought, several times, of taking it out again, but something had always prevented her: her father’s plans for her marriage, all her visits to the sick, and most of all the time she had spent with Mathis—all that had driven the chronicle from her thoughts.

  Excitedly, she got out of bed and blew on the still-hot embers in the warming pan that stood in a corner of her bower. Soon little flames were licking up from them. She lit a candle and left the room. It was much cooler out in the passage, even though it was nearly June. Agnes threw a woolen shawl around her shoulders and set off, holding the candle, for the library.

  Bur first she climbed down a narrow spiral staircase to the Knights’ House. The moon shone through the pointed arches of the windows, and outside, above the treetops, soft gray light showed. Agnes guessed that it was about four in the morning. The hall itself was still in total darkness. Empty and abandoned like this, it was even uncannier than in daylight. The stuffed boars’ heads mounted on the walls seemed to be looking angrily at her; the threadbare tapestries moved in a draft; and only a faint glow was left of the fire on the hearth.

  Barefoot, her toes cold, Agnes hurried through the hall and to another spiral staircase, this one leading up to the castle tower. Suddenly she stopped in alarm.

  There seemed to be a faint whimpering coming from somewhere.

  Agnes felt her heart miss a beat. The whimpering was almost like the crying of the child in her dream. But as she listened more closely, the sound changed. It was deeper now, like a woman weeping.

  And it came from somewhere below her, followed by a monotonous knocking.

  Knock, knock, knock . . .

  Agnes was in the grip of almost animal terror. She stumbled up the worn steps until at last she came to the fourth-floor landing. Running to the library door, she pressed the handle.

  It was locked.

  Knock, knock, knock . . .

  Desperately, she shook it, cursing her own stupidity. Of course Father Tristan had locked the library. How could she have expected it to be open in the middle of the night? All of a sudden she remembered that the old monk often left the key in an empty wine pitcher on a ledge in the anteroom. Searching the pitcher, sure enough, her fingers found it. She put the long, rusty key into the lock, opened the door, and entered the library.

  The familiar smell of the parchments immediately had a soothing effect on Agnes. Her fear went away, and immediately her sense of something uncanny seemed ridiculous. When she lit the wax-encrusted candleholder on the table, and warm light filled the library, she could almost laugh. How could she have let herself get into such a state? Surely the whimpering had been only the sound of the wind whistling through cracks in the stone, and there would be a natural explanation for the knocking as well.

  She still had no idea of the identity of the woman whose eyes she saw through in her dreams. Or of the men who clearly had designs on her life. It was all still a mystery. At least she thought she now knew that Johann and that woman had a child together, a boy of about four. Or wasn’t the little boy her son?

  Purposefully, Agnes went straight to the shelf with the false spine of Dante’s Inferno on it. She pulled it out, and the little secret door opened. Everything behind it was in the dark, but she managed to fish out the Historia Trifels from among the other books.

  She sat down at the old table, which was covered with parchments, and began leafing through the pages of the chronicle until she came to the chapter in which Johann was dubbed a knight. She skimmed the pages she had read last time again, looked at the faded picture of the Knights’ House once more, then turned the page—and stopped short.

  The following pages had been torn out.

  Agnes felt the irregular, ragged edges. There was no doubt of it: three pages were missing. The chapter began with the accolade of Johann of Brunswick in the late thirteenth century, and it was directly followed by the section on the fifteenth century.

  It was as if an entire century had been extinguished.

  Agnes frowned. Obviously, someone didn’t want her to know any more about Johann of Brunswick and the rest of his story at Trifels.

  But who?

  She was about to close the book and put it back again when a sound made her jump once more. It was the faint squeal of the door now being opened, as though by a ghostly hand. A bowed figure stood in the doorway.

  Father Tristan.

  For a moment it seemed to Agnes like the old monk was looking at her like someone unknown to him. But then his gaze cleared.

  “I had no idea that anyone else in this castle was up and about so early,” he began, smiling. “Are you anxious about Mathis? You’ll see, the lad will soon be back and . . .” His glance fell on the book on the table, and his expression darkened.

  “I see,” he said quietly.

  “I . . . I . . .” Agnes stammered. Then, shrugging, she gave up. “Very well, you’ve caught me. But I assure you, it was pure chance that I found that secret door. And why did you hide the book from me, anyway?”

  “Because it touches on matters th
at are better left alone.” The old monk went over to the table and drew the book toward him. “Enough blood has been shed already over the centuries.”

  “Did you tear out the pages?” asked Agnes.

  Father Tristan shook his head. “It was done long before my time. I expect someone wanted that dark chapter to be forgotten forever. Not a bad idea, either.”

  “What happened?”

  Groaning, the old man sat down on a stool beside her. He seemed to be wrestling with himself, and finally he raised his hands in a gesture of resignation. “Oh, very well, before you get everything here muddled up. You don’t give me any peace! In return, I expect you not to say a word to anyone about it, nor about the other books in this secret compartment. Understand?”

  Agnes nodded in silence. The old monk sighed, and then he began telling the tale in a low voice. As he spoke, he looked thoughtfully at the book as it still lay open, showing the picture of the accolade of young Johann of Brunswick.

  “Johann of Brunswick’s father, Bernwart, was a powerful man in the empire, descended from the only Guelph emperor, Otto IV. Bernwart of Brunswick sent his son to be a squire in this castle and to win his spurs here. But obviously, after becoming a knight, Johann made plans of his own.”

  “What kind of plans?” Agnes asked curiously.

  “Well . . . nothing was ever proved. But it’s said that Johann of Brunswick wanted to be the German king. As you know, the Guelphs had once been the most powerful family in the empire, along with the Staufers. After the terrible time when there was no emperor, however, not the Guelphs but the Habsburgs came to the throne. Johann is said to have plotted against the German king of the time, King Albrecht, who was unpopular. The young Guelph had already won the support of the very influential burgrave Reinhard von Hoheneck, castellan of Trifels at the time, and several princely houses. But the plot was discovered at the very last minute . . .” Father Tristan paused, and Agnes looked at him intently.