The Castle of Kings

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Agnes had found this hiding place, halfway between Eusserthal and Trifels, years ago on a hawking expedition. It was a cave once inhabited by a bear, now deserted, at the foot of a sandstone massif, and she used it as an occasional shelter if a sudden storm arose. Last fall, she had taken the precaution of building up a barrier of rocks to keep wild beasts out. Inside, there were some dry furs, dried fruit, and even a fireplace with a natural flue in the roof above, but they were not using that for fear of discovery. There was ice on the walls; down here it was still as cold as winter. The cave had a musty smell of dead leaves, mold, and decay.

  “I think they’ve given it up,” said Mathis wearily, wrapping himself in a bedraggled wild boar skin. “One way or another, I can’t hold out here any longer. I’m near freezing to death.”

  “I’d say we ought to wait another quarter of an hour before venturing out,” suggested Ulrich Reichhart.

  “And then where do we go?” Mathis laughed in desperation. “We’re outlaws, did you forget that, Ulrich? And now it’s not just the duke’s henchmen looking for us, but our own people too.” He looked at Agnes with a mixture of mockery and melancholy in his eyes. “At least you have somewhere to go.”

  “And suppose I don’t want to go there?”

  Agnes shot daggers at Mathis. Until now, she had said little, keeping her thoughts to herself. Now they came bursting out of her. “Did you ever stop to think what it’s like to be married to a tyrannical, cold-blooded murderer?” she cried. “A man who more than likely has my father on his conscience. Have you thought how it is for me, trapped in a cage, where I’ll grow gray and embittered, condemned to a life of silent patience? Did you ever think of that?”

  “At least you won’t have to starve,” retorted Mathis. “And there’s always a hot fire burning at Scharfenberg Castle.”

  “A hot fire, yes. While my heart slowly grows cold.”

  Quietly, Agnes looked at the icicles hanging from the roof of the cave, just above the entrance. The grief she felt for her dead father confessor weighed on her like a heavy burden. It was like a sheet of ice covered her heart.

  While they traveled, Mathis had given her the letter from Father Tristan. Though the water had damaged it greatly, it was still just legible. Blinking in the poor light, she skimmed the few lines.

  Agnes leaned against the cold rock wall behind her. In the hour since their escape, a decision had been slowly forming in her mind. Her father confessor’s letter had set off a train of thought that had long been slumbering within her. All at once she realized that in these last few weeks and months, she had been only a shadow of herself. She was living with a man who had driven her family to ruin, had presumably killed her father, and had robbed her of Trifels Castle. She had let him bribe her with expensive books, wine, and the prospect of a secure and comfortable life. How could she have sunk so low? This farce must end, even if it meant throwing her father’s dying wish to the four winds.

  Agnes nodded firmly. Father Tristan’s letter, and his last words, gave her a purpose in life again, a task to carry out. What was it the old monk had said to her on his deathbed?

  “You should find out at last who you really are.”

  After a long silence, she finally raised her head.

  “I’m not going back to Scharfenberg Castle,” she said resolutely.

  “How . . . what . . . what do you mean?” Mathis stared at her, astonished. “Are you out of your mind? Unlike us, you have a life ahead of you—a future. That’s not something to be lightly tossed away. And anyway, where would you go?”

  “To St. Goar.” Agnes pressed her lips firmly together. “I’m going to St. Goar. Father Tristan said I could find out more about my past there. Constanza, the ring . . . all of it is connected with me somehow or other. Oh, heavens!” She shook her head. “I don’t know much myself. I only know that I can’t go on living as I have been. Either I go away or I slowly turn to stone, if I don’t throw myself off the castle keep first. And if Father Tristan was right, there are people in pursuit of me anyway, so I have to get away from here.”

  “In pursuit of you?” Ulrich Reichhart wrinkled his brow. “What people? What do you mean?”

  “Father Tristan said the midwife Elsbeth Rechsteiner told him there was someone after me. He . . . he asked me to leave the castle and go to St. Goar. There’s a document there to do with my past. A document that used to be in the hands of some kind of brotherhood.” Agnes indicated the soaked and blood-stained letter in her hands. “This place St. Goar is a monastery on the Rhine, somewhere downstream near Bingen. He wrote about it.”

  The old master gunner laughed hoarsely. “Have you any idea how far from here Bingen is? Well over a hundred miles. And there’s war there, Lady Agnes. The peasants are coming together in bands everywhere. A young girl like you will soon be caught between two fronts.”

  “I’ll disguise myself as a man,” replied Agnes coolly. “I’ll hide my hair and wear doublet and hose. A traveling journeyman. That’s nothing unusual, even in times of war.”

  “And you really think we’ll let you go just like that?” Mathis shook his head. “Forget it.”

  “What are you going to do? Tie me up and leave me in this cave?” Agnes stuck her chin out. “I’m going wherever I please, understand?”

  “Of course you are. But not on your own.” Mathis had hesitated for only a moment. Now he grinned and winked at Ulrich Reichhart. “Because we’re going with you. Aren’t we, Ulrich?”

  The old master gunner looked up in surprise, and then sighed deeply. “Devil take it, I’m afraid my days as a rebel have come to a sudden end. And war is the only trade I know. So I’ll go on standing at the side of my lady the countess.” He put his head to one side. “If she’s agreeable to that.”

  “You . . . the two of you would go with me? You’d really do that?” Agnes felt her heart lift. All at once, her decision seemed less gloomy and hopeless than it had a few minutes ago.

  “I’ll go anywhere with you,” Mathis replied, smiling. “Mind you, I’d prefer sunny Venice, or for all I care Cologne or Mainz. But if you’re set on it, it’ll have to be that dusty monastery of yours. Anything’s better than living as an outlaw in the forests of the Wasgau, slowly starving to death.” He got to his feet. “Or freezing to death. Let’s get out of this icy cave at last.”

  Ulrich Reichhart rose, too, breathing heavily. Agnes hesitated for only a little while, then she stood up, smoothed down her shirt, which was still damp and clammy, and nodded decisively.

  “Then we’ll be off,” she said, bending low as she went to the mouth of the cave. “But first, for better or worse, I must pay a visit to my worthy husband’s castle.” With a resolute expression, she clenched her fists. “There’s something there that I don’t on any account want to leave behind, even though it’s only a little ring.”

  A good hour later, the three fugitives were climbing the steep, slippery slope that led to the Sonnenberg and its three castles. After some initial hesitation, Mathis and Ulrich Reichhart had agreed to follow Agnes into the lion’s den once more, although Reichhart in particular didn’t see why they should expose themselves to the danger of discovery by the count’s guards, just for the sake of a tiny trinket. But Agnes had insisted on taking the signet ring with her. She felt she could not possibly set out for St. Goar without it. Everything had begun with that ring, and she couldn’t leave it behind. Furthermore, Father Tristan had written about it in his letter, so it must be important.

  Since her marriage to Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck, the ring had been kept safely in her bower, in a jewel box under her bed. That, and the prospect of dry clothes and a little money, induced Agnes to return to Scharfenberg Castle for the last time.

  Brooding on her situation, she made her way through the dark forest, her clothes catching again and again on frozen twigs and branches. What had Father Tristan meant by his letter and his last words? What linked her to the ring, and to a woman called Constanza who had live
d three hundred years before her own time? And what was hidden behind all the dreams that had tormented her for so long? The answer to all those questions seemed to lie in St. Goar. What would happen after she reached the monastery, Agnes could not begin to imagine. She knew only that she must clear up the mystery.

  Evening twilight was falling. Snow persistently lingered in the shadow of the trees, and the ground was moist, so they made slow progress. Every step was an effort, but they wanted to avoid the known paths; there was too much danger of pursuers there. In some places they tried to obliterate their trail by wading through icy streams or dragging branches over the ground after them, but the result was far from satisfactory. More than once Agnes thought she heard Jockel and his band behind them, but it was only a startled deer or some other woodland creature.

  At times, Agnes felt as though she was in a trance. Grief for her dead father confessor weighed heavily on her, and only the cold and the danger of discovery kept her from constantly bursting into tears. Yet at the same time she sensed a new determination within her. It was as if she was drawing on her sorrow to give her fresh strength.

  I suppose I am finally growing up, she thought wryly.

  At last, between the tops of the trees, Trifels Castle loomed up in the evening light. It stood enthroned on the great plateau of rock, proud and impregnable. They made a long detour around it, and Agnes thought of all the dear memories that bound her to the castle. That dark building had been her home. Would she ever return to it?

  “How are you going to get into the castle?” Mathis asked, interrupting her melancholy thoughts as they approached nearby Scharfenberg Castle along a narrow path. “You can’t very well just knock at the front gate and ask your husband to bring you out the ring and a warm cloak.” He pointed to her torn, damp shirt and the wound on her forehead that she had sustained when she fell into the trap at Eusserthal. “And if the count sees you like this, he’ll ask questions. He may not be happy to let you go off again.”

  “I know this castle pretty well by now. There’s a small concealed door, and I have the key to it.” Agnes looked at him with a twinkle in her eyes. “After all, I’m not letting my dear husband tell me when I have to go to bed. It will be all right, wait and see.”

  The last quarter of a mile up to the castle was the most strenuous part of the climb. They made their way to the north side, where the land rose most steeply. There was no outer perimeter wall here, only a vertical rockface, ending deep down in a moat that ran in front of it. Once there may have been water in the moat, but now it was only a muddy ditch. Holding on to a root for support, Agnes let herself down into it and picked her way over to the other side, using some large rocks in the bed of the moat as steppingstones.

  “Now you know why I prefer doublet and hose to a gown,” she told the two men as they watched her from the side of the moat. “With fluttering skirts, I’d already have fallen flat on my face a dozen times.” She signaled to them to stay where they were. “You wait, and I won’t be long, I promise.”

  “What if Jockel and his men turn up?” asked Mathis.

  “If the peasants had really followed us, they’d have struck long before now. Trust me.”

  Agnes climbed up the other side of the ditch and approached the rockface, which was densely overgrown with ivy. Pushing the woody stems of the plants aside, she revealed a small, rusty iron door. When Scharfenberg Castle was under siege, men-at-arms had once sallied out from here, but now this entrance to the castle was known only to a few. Friedrich had told her about it in one of his more agreeable moods, and then she had stolen the key and, later, asked the smith in Annweiler to make her a copy of it. So far her husband had noticed nothing.

  The door squealed open, and damp, musty air streamed out. Agnes entered the dark passage beyond the door and groped her way forward. By now, she had gone along the tunnel carved into the rock here so often that she could have found her way with her eyes closed.

  The tunnel ended after about sixty feet. There was a trapdoor in the roof above it. Agnes opened the trapdoor and braced herself to clamber through, first looking cautiously around. The trapdoor led to an inconspicuous corner of the lower part of the castle, right below the battlements. Now, just after sunset, the lower bailey lay dark and deserted in front of her. A few chickens were cackling as they pecked up grain, and she heard the laughter of several watchmen in the distance.

  Agnes slipped through the narrow opening and hurried to the upper bailey, which was reached through another barred gate in the rock. A guard was doing his rounds there, looking bored. On recognizing Agnes, he stood at attention, seeming not to notice her torn, damp shirt in the dim light.

  “My lady,” he rasped. “What is your—”

  Agnes waved his question away. “Is my husband back yet?” she asked.

  The guard shook his head. “I’m afraid not, my lady, but we expect him anytime now. He meant to be back before nightfall.”

  “Ah, good. Don’t tell him I’m here already.” Agnes assumed her sweetest smile. “I want to surprise him in his bedchamber.”

  With a dutiful expression, the guard let her pass, and she ran up the stairs to the living quarters beside the tall keep. As she hurried along the drafty vaulted corridors, she once again saw, out of the corner of her eye, the costly tapestries, the mighty sets of antlers, and the gorgeous colorful paintings on the walls. Friedrich had built her a lovely cage. It was high time she broke out of it.

  Reaching under her bed, Agnes pulled out the chest containing her personal possessions, including the valuable book about falconry by Emperor Frederick II that Father Tristan had once given her. She reverently stroked the finely tanned leather of its binding. She would have to leave the book behind, like many other treasures.

  Like everything except the ring.

  She took the little box in which it had been lying for months out of the chest. When she finally put it around her neck on a silver chain, it felt both hot and cold on her skin. A strange shudder ran down her spine. It was like a mosaic stone had been fitted back into its original place.

  What is this ring doing to me?

  She looked around her magnificently furnished room for the last time, then hurried along the corridor to her husband’s chamber at the far end. As she had expected, its door was locked, but with provident foresight Agnes had had a second key made for this lock as well. She swiftly unlocked the door and went in.

  Friedrich’s bedchamber was the largest in the whole castle. Fragrant rushes were strewn on the floor, an earthenware pot full of glowing embers ensured that the room would be warm when he came home.

  Agnes turned to the three chests standing by the window wall and took out several garments at random. Friedrich was not too much larger than she was, and a couple of fur coats would surely fit Mathis and Ulrich Reichhart. In addition, they could always sell the expensive furs at a good profit.

  After making a bundle of the clothes and putting them in a sack, she finally turned to the drawer in the desk. She knew that her husband always kept at least a small sum of money there, and sure enough, she found a well-filled leather purse. When she opened it, dozens of gleaming golden guilders and ducats rolled toward her. She smiled and put the purse into the sack with the items of clothing. With as much money as that, they could even travel to distant Venice if need be.

  “You’re not leaving us for any length of time, are you? How regrettable.”

  The voice came from the unlocked door. Startled, Agnes dropped the sack and turned around. Melchior von Tanningen entered the room. With an expression of curiosity on his face, the minstrel scrutinized the open chests and the coats, shirts, and other garments spilling out of them. “Or are you tidying up after your husband? But there are servants for that.” Smiling, Melchior said, “Although I remember you don’t think yourself too fine to fetch wine from the kitchen.”

  “The fact is,” Agnes hesitantly began. “The fact is, I was looking for a warm coat, and then I saw all this disorder and
. . .” She fell silent, seeing Melchior’s eyes dwelling on her torn shirt.

  “Who did that to you?” he asked indignantly. “The count?”

  Agnes shook her head. “No, no, I just took a harmless fall on the stairs.”

  “And that sack you have with you?”

  “I . . . I . . .” Agnes realized that she was entangling herself ever deeper in her own lies. Melchior was watching her attentively. Finally she dropped onto the bed and raised her hands in a pleading gesture.

  “If I tell you a secret, will you promise to keep it?”

  The minstrel raised his right hand as if to swear a solemn oath and fell on his knees like a chivalrous knight of old. “By all that’s holy to me, by heaven, earth, and the German Empire, I swear that—”

  Agnes waved his oath away. “That’s good enough for me.” Briefly, she hesitated, and then went on quietly. “Dear Melchior, you have always been a good friend to me, but I must leave you now. I am turning my back on Scharfenberg Castle and my husband forever.”

  Astonished, Melchior looked at her. “You’re going away? But where will you go?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  The minstrel bowed even more deeply, and stood with his head bent, as if in prayer. “I will accompany you, even to the mouth of hell.”

  “You can’t do that,” Agnes sighed. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “That is exactly why I am going to accompany you. I would never allow a young woman to set off on a journey through the German Empire alone, not in times like these. Especially when she may possibly be pursued by her vengeful husband. In any case, I have been at this castle quite long enough. Minstrels must travel, or they have nothing to sing about.” Melchior von Tanningen rose and put his hand to his breast. Every inch of his body, something over five feet tall, expressed pride. “I once took an oath to protect the weak. Allow me to be your paladin.”