The Castle of Kings

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Agnes herself had caught hold of the plinth of the column at the very last moment, and was now dangling by one hand above the roof below. She felt her strength gradually draining away from her. Her fingers tingled as though thousands of ants were running over them. In the end, sheer exhaustion made her let go and fall to the hard roof. She tumbled down the rough slate surface toward the gutter.

  “Murderer, Murderer!” Mathis shouted from above her.

  A gray shadow suddenly rose from one of the towers, came gliding toward her, and she lost consciousness.

  What in the world . . .

  The last thought to cross her mind was that the shadow seemed strangely familiar.

  And it let out a familiar screech.

  Mathis ran toward the count, and at the same moment, Agnes fell. Mathis felt as if a dagger were piercing his heart, and then he tackled the count, dragging him down to the floor.

  “Murderer, murderer!” he kept shouting, drumming his fists on Friedrich.

  For all his slender figure, the count was muscular and very strong. He flung Mathis across the gallery and drew his sword.

  “I’d really intended to take my time killing you,” Friedrich panted, still breathless from their collision. A thin trickle of blood ran from his split lip, where Mathis’s fist had made contact. “Well, too bad, it will have to be a quick death.”

  He thrust his blade at Mathis, who swerved at the last moment. Blind with hatred, Friedrich kept thrusting, so that Mathis was forced farther and farther back.

  I have no weapon left, not even that dagger, he thought desperately. What a fool I was not to bring the dead landsknecht’s sword up here with me.

  Finally all he could do was jump up on the parapet, where he would be out of the reach of the sword at least for a moment. But Friedrich followed him, clambering onto the parapet himself, and now he was on the other side of a column. From there, he tried to strike the fatal blow, but Mathis kept eluding him like a fish, darting back and forth behind the column. He peered down desperately, trying to get a glimpse of Agnes, but the furious count blocked his view.

  Oh God, don’t let her have fallen all the way to the ground. Then it will all have been for nothing.

  “She’s dead!” Friedrich gloated, interpreting the expression on his adversary’s face correctly. He laughed, derangement like poison in his eyes. “That woman will never torment me in my dreams again. Nor will you! You . . . Curse it, what’s that?”

  As Friedrich prepared to strike the final blow, a shadow suddenly passed along the gallery, a patch of black even darker than the dim light around him. A shrill, inhuman cry rang out, and feathers brushed Mathis in the face. The thing reached the count, who struck out wildly as a screeching, fluttering ball seemed to explode right before his eyes.

  “Get away! Get away!” shouted the count. “You come from hell, you damned creature!”

  As suddenly as it had come, the startled bird disappeared into the entablature of the gallery again. The whole thing happened so quickly that Mathis didn’t know whether it was really a living creature or a ghost.

  But the count was screaming in pain. The bird had gone for his face with its talons. He helplessly groped for his eyes, letting go of the column for a brief moment. As he did so he staggered, his right leg stepped into the void, and then his left leg.

  “You come from hell!” he screamed again. “From hell!”

  For a moment Friedrich seemed to hover in the air, and then he fell like a sack of flour. Only moments later he crashed on the roof below. Mathis saw the count rolling toward the sheer drop, flinging his arms out wildly but finding no handhold. As he slid over the edge, his fingers reached one last time for the gutter, winding around the leaden pipe like white worms.

  For a split second the scratched and bloody face of Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck appeared above the gutter, twisted into a grimace of madness and deathly fear.

  Then the darkness swallowed him up.

  Agnes was lying on the roof, dazed, when some large object struck it not far away from her. She heard a high scream, and then, suddenly, there was silence.

  Friedrich, she thought. That was Friedrich. He’s dead.

  Curiously, she felt no relief. She thought of the shadow, the inhuman screech above her, the furious bellowing of her husband.

  You come from hell, you damned creature . . .

  Could it be true? After so many months?

  She cautiously raised her head and tried to get her bearings. She was lying on the lower part of the roof, her limbs hurt from the impact when she fell, but the slight slope had ensured that she made a fairly soft landing. Nothing seemed to be broken. She tried to crawl farther up the slope, only to find herself sliding a considerable way down it. The morning dew had turned the slate slick. Agnes tried to push herself up again, only to slide back once more. Her feet could find no support, small stones rolled past her, and soon both her legs were dangling over the abyss. She desperately clawed at the wet slate, but she could feel sweat and the dew covering her hands with a slippery film.

  “Don’t move!” Mathis called from above her. “I’ll be right back.”

  She heard footsteps hastily running away. Panic arose in her, like a small, gnawing animal. What in heaven’s name was Mathis planning to do? Again, she slipped a little closer to the edge. She tried to become one with the slate underneath her, pressing close to the stone like a lizard, but it was no use. Once again she lost a hand’s breadth of support, as her own weight inexorably dragged her farther down.

  “Mathis, Mathis,” she shouted desperately. “Where are you? I’m falling!”

  Seconds became an eternity. Was this to be the end of her? After all that she had gone through? Had she really escaped from Black Hans, Barnabas, Shepherd Jockel, and finally her deranged husband, only to fall to her death from the roof of Speyer Cathedral? Agnes could almost have laughed in desperation, but she was unable to utter a sound. Fear was choking her.

  At last, when she had given up hope, she heard footsteps again, and a moment later the end of a rope slapped down on the roof beside her.

  “Grab hold of it, quick!” Mathis ordered.

  “I . . . I can’t,” sobbed Agnes, whose voice had come back by now. “If I let go I’ll fall.”

  “You must! Take it first in one hand, then the other. Trust me, it’ll be all right.”

  Agnes gritted her teeth. Finally she took her right hand off the slates of the roof and reached for the rope. At the same moment she slipped the last little way toward the abyss.

  “Nooooo . . .”

  Her fingertips slipped over the rough stone, leaving a trail of blood, but she felt no pain, only the naked fear of death. Suddenly she felt a projection, and clutched it convulsively. It was the leaden gutter. It shifted, and then gave way with a grating sound. Two hooks tore free from the cornice, and the gutter to the left of her came loose, so that Agnes was now dangling over the drop. The rope was only about a foot away from her.

  “For heaven’s sake, Agnes!” Mathis shouted above her. “Take hold of the rope.”

  Agnes looked down into the depths far below. The light of dawn was growing now, but the ground was still hidden by lingering mist, gray and wavering. The rooftops of some of the chapels emerged from it, and far in the east the morning sun shone on the Rhine with an almost unearthly radiance.

  It won’t hurt, thought Agnes. It won’t hurt at all. Only a short fall, a hollow thud . . .

  “Damn it, Agnes, grab the rope. If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me. I love you!”

  It was Mathis’s voice that brought her back to reality. She saw the rope directly in front of her, seeming to point like a warning finger. Agnes closed her eyes, screamed with fear through the morning mists . . .

  And jumped.

  The rope was so wet that she slid down it for a moment, and her heart skipped a beat. But then she clutched it firmly with her bleeding fingers, and her fall came to an abrupt halt. She swung gently
back and forth, like a bell, while the gutter stuck out beside her in the milky twilight. At the same moment there was a tug, and she felt herself being drawn steadily upward. Soon she was back on the slate roof.

  “Now make a loop and tie the rope around your waist,” Mathis said reassuringly. “There’s only a little way to go, and then you’ll be safe.”

  Trembling, Agnes did as he said. She made a loop with her bleeding fingertips, slipped it around her, and let him haul her up. At last she reached the gallery, where she collapsed, gasping. Mathis took her in his arms and held her so close to him that he robbed her of breath.

  “That’s the third time I’ve nearly lost you,” he whispered. “Never leave me again. Do you hear, Agnes? Never again.”

  He laid her gently down on the floor and kissed her. Only now did she feel the pain in her grazed fingertips, but it was almost pleasant. It showed that she was still alive.

  They lay like that for a long time on the floor of the narrow gallery, while the first birds began to sing. It was Agnes who finally spoke again, in a faltering voice.

  “I saw a flying shadow and heard a screech,” she said softly. “It sounded like Parcival’s cry in the old days.” She paused hopefully. “Mathis, do you think . . . was that Parcival?”

  Mathis shook his head. “Surely not. It must have been a kestrel that we disturbed up here, or maybe an owl or a jackdaw. Who knows? It all happened so fast that I didn’t get a good look at it.”

  “I thought Parcival . . .”

  “Had come back to you?” Mathis frowned thoughtfully. “Agnes, Speyer is a long way from Trifels. I do think Parcival was fond of you. So far as we can ever tell with animals. But would he have flown so far to defend his mistress?” He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed quietly. “Why not? Let’s say it was Parcival. It’s a good story, anyway. And . . .”

  He trailed off as they heard slow, dragging footsteps.

  Is this nightmare never going to end? Agnes thought desperately.

  Cautiously, Mathis got to his feet and picked up a stone that had broken away from the gallery during his fight. With the chunk of stone in his hand, he waited for the new arrival.

  Now they heard gasping breath, and a hacking cough quickly becoming louder. At last a man came around the corner of the gallery. He tottered rather than walked, clutching the columns, forcing himself on step by step. Blood dripped from him to the floor.

  It was Melchior von Tanningen.

  The slightly built minstrel was near death. The crossbow bolt was still in his shoulder, but his doublet also showed patches of red spattered across it. His right hand, still clutching his sword of Toledo steel, hung limp at his side. Nonetheless, he was smiling.

  “Ah, so I have found you in the end, Lady Agnes,” he said, attempting and failing to sketch a slight bow. He fell forward on his knees, coughing up blood. Laboriously, he hauled himself up again by one of the columns.

  “I was afraid I might have to rid you of your appalling husband,” he went on faintly. “But thank God, I see you have done that for yourself. How very kind of you . . .” Briefly, he closed his eyes, while blood continued to seep from his wounded shoulder. “Not that I would have feared a fight. But at the moment I . . . don’t feel quite fit for it.”

  “The count is dead,” Mathis said coolly. “And so, obviously, are the two men you were fighting.”

  Melchior nodded. “Irritating . . . gnats. They stung me. If it hadn’t been for the bolt . . .”

  “Maybe we ought to thank you,” Mathis interrupted him. “After all, you made sure that Agnes had a chance to get away. But somehow I can’t feel much gratitude.”

  “You . . . still don’t understand, Master Wielenbach.” Melchior’s face was as white as the stone behind him. “The . . . empire was in danger. I . . . I had no choice. But I owe you both an apology, all the same. I ought never to have allied myself to that madman. My eyes were opened at last only here in the cathedral. Your vision . . .” He smiled at Agnes, and made the sign of the cross. “I was privileged to witness a divine vision. Now I can die in peace.”

  Agnes took a step back. “I really don’t know whether it was a vision,” she hesitantly replied. “It may just have been chance. The lance was hidden in that gap. Someone could have found it before me.”

  Melchior shook his head. “It was a vision. A sign from God. No doubt of that.” Breathing with difficulty, he searched a pocket of his blood-stained doublet and finally brought out a crumpled, rolled-up document. “Your ancestral family tree, Lady Agnes,” he said. “Take it. Your fate, and the fate of the whole empire, now lie in the hands of God alone. The family tree will guide you and tell you what to do.” Once again the minstrel reached into his pocket. He took out the signet ring, and handed it and the document to Agnes. “Here, take this, too. It seems that the ring has brought me only misfortune. I never should have taken it from you. Can you forgive me?”

  Agnes took the parchment and the ring, which felt strangely cold in her fingers.

  “I forgive you,” she finally replied.

  “Thank you. You are very kind.” Melchior clutched one of the columns and gazed longingly at her. “The Holy Lance . . . might I see it once again?”

  “We don’t have it,” Mathis intervened. “We don’t want it, either. A little while ago I still thought that I could change the world with it. But that’s all over.” He pointed disparagingly toward the slate roof below them. “It’s lying there, somewhere in the gutter, where it will soon be covered with leaves, dust, and bird droppings. May it rot there for the next three hundred years. It’s all the same to me.”

  Melchior stared at him, open-mouthed. “But . . . the . . . Holy Lance,” he whispered. “It must not . . .”

  At that moment they heard a screech in the distance. It came closer, and finally a large bird appeared above the cupola, crossing in the light of the morning sun. Its wings were spread wide, and it swooped down to the roof below them at a steep angle. The dew on the roof reflected the sunlight into Agnes’s eyes, and she saw nothing but radiance below her. It was like a glittering sea into which the bird plunged. Suddenly it surfaced again, but it was still difficult to make the creature out clearly. A moment or so later, it was above them.

  It carried a gray bundle the length of a man’s forearm in its talons.

  “The Holy Lance,” Mathis breathed. “That bird has actually snatched up the Holy Lance.”

  One last time, the bird circled above them, and then it finally turned away, screeching once more as if in farewell, a falcon’s familiar cry. This time, Agnes felt sure of herself.

  “That was Parcival,” she said quietly, but firmly. “Parcival put us on the trail of the lance all that time ago, and now he is taking it away again.”

  Clinging to the parapet, Mathis leaned far out to see more, but the bird had already disappeared behind the towers.

  “Nonsense,” he replied. “That’s . . . not possible. It was larger than your falcon, more like a buzzard or an eagle. I expect it’s going to use it to build its nest, or thinks it’s something to eat. What you’re saying could happen only in stories.” He looked out over the rooftops of the city, to where swamps, cultivated fields, and forests reached far away. “I wonder where it will take the lance?” he murmured. “Maybe its eyrie is in some ruined castle.”

  Agnes smiled. “Not Trifels, I hope. I’ve had enough adventures. And as long as the forged lance is kept in Nuremberg, no one will miss it.”

  She turned to Melchior von Tanningen, who had collapsed on the floor of the gallery. The minstrel huddled against the wall, his empty, glazed eyes staring into the distance where the bird had disappeared. There was an expression of utter peace on his face.

  “He’s dead,” Mathis said after placing his hand on the minstrel’s breast to feel for a heartbeat. “It’s a miracle that he made his way up here at all, wounded as he was.” He shook his head, and then gently closed Melchior’s eyes. “What was he? A friend? A traitor? I could never entire
ly make him out.”

  “At least he was a good storyteller,” Agnes replied sadly. “I hope he saw the falcon, so that he could know how his story ended.” She sighed. “All stories come to an end some time.”

  “How about ours?” Mathis hesitantly asked.

  “Ours? Ours has only just begun.” She hesitated. “And it’s a story that will be played out in the future and not the past.”

  With determination, Agnes took the crumpled old sheet of parchment, and tore it into dozens of pieces, throwing them into the wind. The scraps of parchment drifted away like snowflakes and finally disappeared behind the cupola of the cathedral.

  Then she took Mathis by the hand, and they went along the gallery together to the eastern end, where the shining globe of the sun stood in the sky above the river Rhine, announcing the beginning of a new day.

  Agnes smiled. It was going to be the first good day in a long time.

  EPILOGUE

  A village somewhere on the Upper Rhine, May, Anno Domini 1526

  THE MIDDAY SUN, GOLDEN as stalks of wheat, shone down on the newly thatched reed roofs of the little hamlet, and barley was ripening in the surrounding fields. Agnes reclined on a small bench outside the village smithy, hearing the hammer come down on the anvil at regular intervals. It was a reassuring sound, in spite of its volume. There was something monotonous and soporific about it that, along with the warm sunlight, always made her eyes close.

  Peace, thought Agnes, lost in reverie. That sound means peace.

  It had been almost a year since she and Mathis had left Trifels forever. They had finally found a new home in a village on the Rhine. Exactly as Mathis had said, many parts of the country in south Germany were so devastated that the survivors were glad of any newcomer who would help to repair the damage. Almost all of this once pretty place, with its church, its inn, and some two dozen peasant houses, had been burned down by the landsknechts of the Swabian League. The former smith had joined the Palatinate Band of peasants, and never came home, so Mathis took his place. Together with the villagers, he and Agnes had felled trees in the nearby wood; rebuilt the houses to look better than before; dug up the burned, trampled fields and sowed fresh seed; and rounded up the runaway livestock wandering in the woods. The first of the cows had calved again in spring. Agnes smiled sadly. Life went on. It did not mourn the many dead who found their last resting place in the nearby graveyard.