The Ravens’ Banquet

by Clifford Beal

  Samuel stood, backed up a pace, and once again levelled the pistol at me. He shook his head. “Nay, I decline your offer. I can do as I please here in this place. This wretched land. That’s something I’ve learned in Germany. In this war justice finds many remedies.”

  My legs shook and my stomach felt like it would cast up its meagre contents on the floor at any moment, adding gross indignity to my imminent death. My sword hung at my back, my carbine under my leg, but to reach for either would no doubt hasten his pulling of the trigger. And he did mean to kill me, it was plain.

  Samuel’s eyes then began to fill with tears.

  “I could have killed you months ago. I could have. But like a good Christian I couldn’t bring myself to do you murder. That is why I left your service, you miserable bastard!”

  My heart sank, recalling all the sins of the past months. All the cruelty, the thievery, the killing. But the deeds of my father, related to me in righteous anger, the anger of wronged brother and mother’s son, these emptied me of a will to live. I rested my head against the bedstead. No more words or pleading could come out.

  A sound like a dog growl welled up from Samuel’s throat before he formed it into words. “I couldn’t let you get away with it. Not what you’ve done. I’ve taken your father’s money and I have taken yours,” he said, steadying himself and rubbing at his eye as if he meant to grind it out. Suddenly, he let out a harsh forced laugh.

  “My comrades have taken your wagon of treasure this hour and killed your comrades. I wanted to tell you that too! And now… I mean to take your life.”

  I watched him, without lifting my head, as he grasped the pistol butt with both hands.

  “Then take your revenge,” I told him, my mouth dry as dust, “you’ve come a long way to obtain it of me.”

  He inclined his head, he cursed me, his eyes welled up again with rage, but still, still he could not pull the trigger.

  “I never wanted to come on this voyage with you,” he moaned, “but the situation warranted it. I had to. But it was you who brought me to this hellish place! You!”

  I could see his hands clenching tighter round the firing piece.

  “You… you made me as monstrous as thee!”

  And then, I saw someone’s arm come around from behind Samuel. His pistol went off and the ball struck the wall at my back, blowing wood shards everywhere. Samuel was pulled backwards and I suddenly saw a silver flash at his neck. Then his face and doublet were sprayed in blood. I watched, ears ringing, as he slowly sank down and fell at my knees, his body twitching and his life pooling around me as if to envelop me.

  Christoph stood where Samuel had stood, holding his bloodied dagger.

  “You live,” he said, but whether it was with surprise or disappointment I cannot say.

  I remember leaning over and reaching out to Samuel’s form, and, I think I cried out in remorse and pain. Then it was Christoph that seized me by the shoulder and hauled me up, shaking me like a hare.

  “Fool! We must fly this place! The enemy is already on top of us!”

  I cannot remember the flight to the stables. I am sure that Christoph half dragged me there, cursing the whole of the way. We stumbled in to find Balthazar and about a dozen others leading the mounts outside.

  “Where is Tollhagen?” shouted Balthazar.

  “Dead as likely not,” said Christoph, grasping the bridle of a horse that was before him. “And where are the rest?”

  Balthazar shook his head.

  I managed to pull myself up into the saddle and fumbled with the lock of my carbine while the others mounted up and guided their mounts out of the stable. Then someone cried out, “There he is!” We all saw him. There was Lieutenant Tollhagen running down the middle of the street, sword in hand. At his back a company of Habsburger musketeers followed close-on.

  “Fly! Make for the gates!” cried Balthazar.

  The others turned their mounts to make for the dash to the town wall but Christoph barked out an order to halt them.

  “Let’s put a volley into them first! They’re not even mounted, you dogs.”

  I jerked my reins and turned back towards Christoph, then raised up my piece and advanced. All around me now seemed something out of a fevered dream. I had no thoughts for consequences. But only four other riders followed us, a sheepish Balthazar among them.

  The musketeers caught sight of us and ran to the side of the street. As soon as Tollhagen ran past, wheezing and gasping, we let our pieces crack. We were answered in kind and one of ours took a ball in the chest, knocking him out of the saddle. We wheeled around and rode for our lives. Tollhagen grabbed for the reins of the riderless mount, but he was bloodied and half near dead. Somehow he pulled himself up into the saddle and stuck his boots into the stirrups. We then pounded down the cobbles and came out near to the great squat tower at the southeast gate. It was deserted now of defenders and several of the troopers dismounted to raise the bar on the oaken doors.

  “Where is Corporal Pentz?” Christoph shouted as the Lieutenant struggled to wind his pistol, blood soaking his coat.

  “He’s dead. At the Mühlentor. The commander and a few hundred have retreated up to the castle. All is lost.”

  Christoph seized Tollhagen’s wrist. “The treasure?”

  “Lost!” replied the Lieutenant, breaking Christoph’s hold upon him. “And I nearly died trying to stop them from getting it!”

  “Pity they didn’t finish the job!” spat Christoph as he jerked away.

  “I shall see you hanged for that!” said Tollhagen, though the rest of us thought it unlikely given the situation. Even as we managed to lift the great bar from the gate, the enemy poured out of the streets into the square. I know not how I was not struck down, but lead flew about me thick and spattered on the gate and wall. Some five or six of us were cut down but we managed to open the gates, let loose a shot or two, and then spur our mounts through and out to freedom. We pounded across the wooden bridge that spanned the dry ditch and beat our horses for all their worth down the road and toward the forest.

  When we finally halted, we were deep into the woods and in near darkness. I collapsed at the base of a fir, shaking, and amazed to be yet alive.

  We were seven. Just seven. Not a word was spoken as we sat in the cool of the dark wood. The sound of the horses whinnying for water was muffled by a bed of pine needles that covered the ground. I crouched against the rough and sticky bark of a tree, heavy tears mixing with the sweat and blood that covered my face.

  I could not drive Samuel or his words from my mind. As they rang again and again in my ears, the ache in my stomach tightened harder. Whose Cause was the worthier? I knew the answer, and the shame of the truth burned me.

  I was glad to God of my ignorance as I sat there, hugging my piss and blood-stained breeches, that some two thousand good townsmen were slain that day and of the garrison of poor Münden town, we seven souls were the only ones to see the dawn.

  It took us two days to reach the gates of Göttingen. And I entered that town not much better off than a beggar, in possession of the clothes upon my back, my mount, my weapons, and a purse of three thalers. How they stared as we rode in. We were as ghosts, given up for carrion.

  Bones as cold as if it were still mid-winter and shivering in the saddle, I made my way through the streets. Our path was aimless and we rode towards the centre of the town, blindly. Samuel had insulted me, deserted my service, and tried to kill me, but the way he met his end ate away at me, the sight of him sinking to his knees, endlessly running around my head. Had his family not suffered enough degradation at the hands of my own?

  It seems we were all cheated in those times, and none more than Samuel Stone. And I recalled words that Andreas had once spoken: that the business of war is business and no mundane commerce less forgiving.

  I found myself at the foot of some great church and it was here my horse decided to go no further. I slowly slipped from the saddle, leaning over the beast’s neck. Acro
ss from me, not a stone’s throw from where I stood, I glimpsed someone I had not expected to see again.

  She stood near the steps and, as I staggered to her, the scent of pomanders filled my head.

  I could barely see her through the tears that filled my eyes and as I folded my arms about her form, she recognised me and dropped her basket to take me in. She remembered me.

  I cried as a babe in the arms of its mother and she pulled me down onto the church steps, my head to her bosom.

  “So it has come to pass,” she spoke into my ear. “The enemy is revealed and with it the truth.”

  She smelt of wood smoke and spice, and I melted into her thick woollen shawl.

  “I am lost, Anya,” I sobbed, her black tresses falling into my cracked lips.

  “Nay, man, you are found,” replied the gipsy, “and Fortune and Life be not yet done with you.”

  VII

  Whispers

  July 1626

  AT GÖTTINGEN, the days passed swiftly even as the weather grew foul. As bad a month of June as any could remember what with rain and wind driving all before it. And with the raging winds came ill tidings. Apart from my own sorrows, I came to believe that the scales of the gods were slowly swinging against the Danish and Protestant cause as well. First, Münden taken by the enemy and our regiments pulled northwards. Then, the word that the enemy was moving his entire host towards us to finish the rebellion against the Emperor for good.

  Only my little gipsy gave me reason for forbearance. And though I saw her only twice in those weeks at Göttingen, her comfort was worth more than the brave words of a hundred comrades and their courage of the cask.

  “Have you still my charm?” she had asked me as she cradled my bloodied head upon the steps of St. Jacobi’s.

  “Aye, and have worn it always,” I had told her.

  “And it has safely brought you here to this place. Do you remember of my Telling all those months ago?”

  “I do.”

  “I have dreamt of your journey in the days since, man,” she whispered in my ear. “And there be more to tell.”

  But Christoph and Balthazar were upon us by then, and pulled me from her embrace.

  “Plenty of time to sport with whores after we reach the camp,” Balthazar had grumbled as they hauled me away in spite of my protests.

  “Seek me outside the East Gate on the morrow!” Anya called to me as we parted.

  What a misery awaited me at the camp. The tale of our most amazing escape did the rounds quickly, but interest soon turned to recrimination over the lost booty of the company. Poor Tollhagen was near upon strung up and the mutterings of the men went on long into the night. And I, spent in body and spirit, sunk ever deeper into despair. It seemed that all that I had sought was now lost to me. Samuel’s death lingered like a black spot upon my mind’s eye and robbed me of healing sleep.

  I was desperate when I sought out Anya in the morning, anxious to hear her words. I no longer had desire to lie with her. She had passed from being a strumpet to something wholly else in my eyes. She would tell me how to go on.

  I came upon the gipsy camp where she had said it would be. She was there as I wandered in, standing near to her wagon, and she turned and saw me before the sound of my footfalls had reached her. She was unchanged by the passing of a year, handsome and lusty, no delicate flower she. And again I saw those eyes, blue, liquid, and foreign to her olive skin and jet hair. But that is how I had remembered her so well and so long.

  I sat upon a stool before her and sank my head into my hands. She pulled my head up and grasped my chin with her long fingers, studying my face with no expression upon her own. I saw then, and only then, that though her eyes showed strength and protection, they shone with neither gentleness nor sympathy.

  “It is as I foretold,” she said quietly, releasing me.

  “Fortuna has not smiled upon me as I wished,” I replied.

  “You still take breath, man,” she scolded. “Was it not you who swore to play this game until its end?”

  I said nothing.

  “I spied you in my dreams,” she said. “It was a black vision. You and your comrades were in a great hall, much in darkness for it was lit by but one small window. Death was there too. Yet it was you who stood by Death’s side, his servant.”

  “I was there, in the barn,” I whispered, the memory filling my head again.

  She took my hand and led me into her wagon. Her skirt was coarse and black with fire soot, and as she climbed the little steps inside, the scent of her body mixed with that of cinnamon and cloves, wafted back to me.

  I sat down and opened my purse as she seated herself opposite me, our knees touching. I pulled out a silver coin, the last but two, and handed it to her. But as her eyes fell upon it, she hesitated, her shoulders trembled, and she saw something else. Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes grew larger still. Then, just as quickly, she regained herself.

  “What have you seen?” I asked, leaning even closer to her.

  She looked at me, square on. “I have seen your treasure. I have seen what I could not see before. Give me your hand!”

  I stretched out my scarred and dirty paw, my sword hand, and she took it in her left. She closed her eyes and lowered her head to her bosom. And then, slowly, came her Telling.

  “You are an officer in the King’s army, even as I speak.”

  I opened my mouth and as the first sound left my lips she hushed me sharply and continued.

  “There is great War coming. Great and terrible battle to be joined. You will see this in full, I do fear.” Her brow knit together deeply, her eyes moving quickly underneath closed lids. “Soon, you will find new companions. These will take you to a waterfall of silver. But there be something else that lies there too. Something ancient, something that hides from the eyes of men.” Anya fell silent again.

  “What do you see?” I whispered.

  She opened her eyes and their light fell upon me again.

  “Treasure and trial, man. You must take great care. Every footfall brings you nearer to your time of testing. And beware the guile of those around you, for I see an ill hand upon your shoulder even now, and it is fine and slender.” She gripped my forearm tightly and seized my other as well. “Pay heed to my words, keep my charm upon you and pray to God for Protection.”

  I sat there, full of worry and dread. “But how am I to know this danger that you speak?”

  Anya’s stern face melted away, replaced by a tender gaze. She reached up and touched my cheek and I saw at that moment a woman very old for her years. “Pay heed the word of someone who knows you well and long and true.”

  “The only one who knew me that well is no more,” I told her.

  “Then you must look to the one who dwells within you,” and she placed her hand upon my heart.

  “Is there nothing more you can tell me?”

  She lowered her eyes and shook her head.

  “Will our paths cross again?” I asked her in a whisper.

  She looked up. Her sapphire eyes seized hold of me again. She gave me a brief flash of a smile tinged with sadness. “That is something neither of us can know, man. The only fortune I cannot foretell is my own.”

  I RETURNED TO CAMP to camp to find Lieutenant Tollhagen awaiting me.

  “The Captain has agreed that you are the best choice to succeed Pentz. So that is that. You are a Corporal now, of my squadron.” He smiled. “I know you stood fast at Münden when I had half an army of Imperials on my arse. You saved my skin.” A cold chill ran through me down to my marrow. The first of the Telling had come to pass.

  And the very next day dawned bright and warm as if summer had regained her memory and joined the world again. Galloping clouds cast the town in light and shadow in rapid succession and I took this lapis sky as an omen of changing wind and so likewise Fortune. I happened upon Andreas in the marketplace, and together we climbed the tower of St. Jacobi’s to spy out the surrounding land from the highest vantage in Gö
ttingen. We entered the church tower from an east door and clambered up the many spiralling steps that led to the wooden bell tower. Upwards again, the next trap led to the watch room. We hauled ourselves up and stood in the chamber.

  The shutters of the eight windows were opened wide and the light of the sun shone into this eyrie full. A large heap of bird shit beneath one wall revealed the roosting perch of a great owl up in the beams of the tower roof and I could just discern its brown body twitching in slumber as it huddled above us.

  Andreas strode to a south window.

  “Come here Rikard and look upon the land as does the falcon.”

  The coverlet of the duchy lay rolling and full, many hues of green and gold. The hills to the south whence we had come after Münden stood dark and deep and ranged with ancient forests, far distant. Clouds raced before the sun, casting great rolling shadows across the land as we watched. I looked down and my hands at once tightened on the sill, so great was our height. The townsmen who bustled below were but specks to my eyes. I grew dizzy and pulled back so that I looked out upon the distant hills again.

  Andreas chuckled at my uneasiness.

  “You are not a falcon then, I see.”

  “I prefer the ground to be under my feet, if truth be told,” I replied, leaning against the peeling shutter. Andreas resumed his gaze outwards.

  “How did you come upon your life as a soldier?” I asked him.

  He did not speak for a while, but kept staring into the sky.

  “Aye, well, it is not a riddle that comes easily answered. For me, it was a path of many small steps, each one easily leading to the next. By the time I looked behind me I had gone so far that it seemed more trouble to turn back than go forwards.”

  He pulled at his black beard and moustache as if to coax out Reason, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

  “First it was the bounty for mustering – more coin than I had seen in a month or two, I remember. Then it was the chance to see other lands, to get rich without labouring for it, to kick someone and to get paid for it. Good drink on occasion and good food.” He looked at me with a strangely foreboding eye.