The Gravedigger’s Son and the Waif Girl 1

by Sam Feuerbach

  Farin asked: "Will I be allowed to watch?"

  Markan looked at him in surprise. "Hm, as a squire you’re not allowed to watch."

  "Pity."

  "As a squire you’re in the middle of it. Firstly, you’re by your knight’s side – there’s a lot to do during the competition."

  That sounded exciting. "And secondly?" asked Farin.

  "Secondly, you take part yourself – in the tournament of the squires. With lance and sword."

  The gravedigger’s son grimaced – if only he hadn’t asked.

  "I…I must confess, I don’t know too much about my future tasks, let alone about my training."

  "I never noticed." Markan grinned sympathetically. "The squires must dazzle in seven skills, just as a week has seven days. We’re standing in front of the training grounds for the fourth discipline."

  "Ah, and that would be?"

  "Is it really that hard to see? Climbing up ladders, ropes and poles. Flexibly and fleetly. Very useful when taking a castle."

  Well wasn’t that just great – Farin would never have thought of something like that. Knights went into war for the king – and squires followed their knights. The war didn’t care one way or another – but he’d be standing in the middle of it. Don’t lose courage and look the facts straight in the eye. Trying to sound as calm as possible, he posed his next question: "What are the other six disciplines about?"

  Markan looked at him, hands on his hips. "Do you know anything at all?" But then he softened when he saw Farin’s perplexed face. Apart from the obvious virtues like a firm belief and a pure heart, the squires learn to fulfil all that is required of them. First, mastery of weapon – at least sword and bow."

  Farin nodded although he would really rather have shaken his head.

  "Secondly, he must be able to swim and dive."

  Completely insane, but he’d at least be able to manage those, he’d often gone swimming in the great lake, and it had been no problem diving down to the bottom.

  "Third, discipline: the squire has to know about horses and their care, not forgetting acquiring excellent riding skills."

  You don’t say. He was super at that too, especially on his stomach with a bag over his head. At this point he really didn’t want to learn anymore about what the rest of the training involved.

  Markan continued mercilessly. "Fourthly – the afore-mentioned climbing exercises." He pointed at the course. "Fifthly, a squire has to be in tip-top physical shape. He has to be able to wrestle, jump and run."

  Farin nodded wearily. Anything about digging?

  "Sixthly – he has to know the running order and rules of the tournament. He must be ready to take part in the bohort."

  Bohort – laughable, no problem at all, he could bohort like no other. He just had to find out what it meant.

  Suddenly Markan was quiet.

  Farin agonized over whether he should risk asking about the seventh skill.

  Markan chuckled before relieving him of the decision: "The last one I’ve yet to describe – for some it’s the king of disciplines. A squire must be in possession of the best manners, be able to pay court, dance, and entertain the ladies with gallant conversation in any situation."

  Hee-hee, no problem, if I think of how eloquent and sophisticated you were with Annietta in front of the tavern.

  Stinker was back – chimera-scorn or not, this last discipline was the killer. He’d never grown up on or by a court. He knew nothing about the carrying-on of the nobility, and he understood ladies even less. He didn’t even understand women.

  What’s the difference, little worm?

  "When are the budding squires coming?"

  "The festivities will be taking place in springtime, so the squires will be arriving here at the end of February."

  He’d never learn what was demanded of him in ten years, never mind the ten weeks that he had.

  Impressive, all the things I can’t do!

  "The knight’s squires who live in the castle are here all year round of course. We can pay them a visit. Their practice exercises are beginning on the training field now."

  Ouch! The only thing Farin wanted to do was lock himself into his turret room.

  In the distance he could already hear screaming – screams of command, screams of pain, screams of victory. Behind the great hall and between the castle wall and the chapel was a free area where clamorous weapon training was in full swing, with quarterstaffs over two yards long. Fourteen young men were in a sweat despite the cold as they twirled their poles around and attacked each other from every direction. He imagined himself in the middle of this cudgelling crowd. They’d beat him to death in no time at all. The sounds of the massive sticks crashing into each other bespoke brutal pain. The wood creaked and groaned almost as loudly as the men. The succession of hits suggested a well-practised routine so that they didn’t injure each other, but their own pole would defensively deflect an oncoming attack.

  "The lads come from the upper nobility. All age groups train together, from their fourteenth year, when they are promoted from pages to squires. Those two over there…", Markan pointed at two young men, "…will be taking part in the spring."

  Farin stared at the pair, dumbfounded. They were wearing simple armour made from buckskin, had no helmets, were well-proportioned and moved as flowingly as the water in the stream of Heap. "They…they’re soon going to be real knights?"

  "FASTER!" roared the trainer more loudly than Farin had ever heard a person roar before.

  The speed of the movements accelerated further, arms and staffs were barely distinguishable.

  "FASTER!!!"

  Just watching was making him dizzy. With what strength and dynamism, the budding knights went about their work! He’d never learn that. He didn’t want to be beaten to a pulp and ridiculed here – he could get enough of that in Heap.

  "Enough for today. I’ll bring you back."

  Markan led him back to his tower and departed with the following: "If you have any other questions or you need anything, you’ll find me across the way in the main kitchen."

  "I’ve thought of something already. Is there a library here?"

  Markan’s eyebrows shot up to the top of the tower. "What business do you want there?"

  "Is there one?"

  "Oh, yes! But only a few know of its existence, and admittance without the permission of the lord of the castle is denied. At the very end of the great hall there’s a big room with the lord of the castle’s book collection. Be careful! Knight Emicho is very particular when it comes to his folios."

  "Books should be read and not locked away."

  "Talk to the lord of the castle about that. But bear this in mind – there is no reading contest in the great tournament, I’m pretty sure about that."

  "Thanks for your guidance," said Farin in farewell, closing the door to the tower bedchamber and sinking down on the bed.

  What was he doing here? So, this is what it felt like to be a fish out of water.

  In the early afternoon Farin entered the lord of the castle’s scriptorium. Just as the day before, the knight sat with a quill in his hand behind his desk, his eyes flitting between a folio opened before him and a sheet of paper. He paid no attention to his visitor.

  Farin stood awkwardly in front of the desk and waited. And waited. He became hot. It could have been because a cosy fire crackled in the hearth. It could also have been because the disregard was annoying him. It felt as if he was at the table in "The Warm Beer" except that there at least he was allowed to sit down. Biding his time, he looked at the two bearskins on the wall. Somewhere in the Worldly Kingdom there had to be white bears.

  Had an hour or a week passed by now? He couldn’t stand it any longer. "Do you have to write a lot as lord of the castle?"

  Emicho slowly raised his head. "Squires remain patient until spoken to by their knight, and don’t natter on uninvited in the meantime."

  He should have expected something like that.


  After a while the lord of the castle grunted: "The quill is mightier than the sword – many of my colleagues haven’t understood that yet." Then the knight stood up, went across the scriptorium to the hearth, took the poker with its lion-shaped grip from the wall, as well as a log from the wood basket and fed the little hearth fire. Then he hung the poker back in its place and turned towards Farin.

  Was he inviting him to speak now?

  "Uh…I have a few questions", began Farin.

  "I hate questions. I prefer answers."

  "Good – that’s why I’ll ask, and you’ll answer, please."

  Farin really didn’t like the vertical frown above the bridge of the knight’s nose. "Apologies, but was that too impertinent?"

  "Is that your first question?" The fingers of his left hand danced on top of his desk.

  A reasonable conversation with Emicho could easily be added as the eighth discipline in the squire training. "Markan showed me the castle and explained a few things. Sir, I…I would gladly be your shield bearer, but I am lacking many years as a page and squire."

  "So? And? Squires enquire to acquire, they know little about skills, little about knowledge, little about experience – which is why squires need to enquire – which is why they’re called squires." Both forefingers pointed at Farin. "Geddit?!"

  Another Emicho characteristic – knightly wit.

  "Uh…regarding the seven disciplines, I can hardly…"

  "AHA!" interrupted him loudly. A thundercloud scurried across Emicho’s face, the furrow over his nose deepened. "What can you hardly?"

  Be careful – the tone was that of a dragon, drawing in breath to breathe out fire.

  "’Fight, for example. I can’t fight."

  Emicho slammed the palm of his hand flat on the desk so that it banged and whanged. "What’s wrong with you, mole?"

  Farin shuddered, and not on account of the slap on the desk. "What…what do you mean?" Did he know something about Stinker?

  "If somebody behaves stupidly too often, then I might just take him to be stupid."

  "But…how did you know?"

  The knight took a little bell from the desk and jingled it. The sound was gentle and quiet, but still the door opened immediately, and a servant enquired: "Your wish, sir?"

  "Bring Liam here."

  "Certainly, sir."

  A moment later and a man wearing battered leather armour entered the scriptorium and bowed. He was of average size, had an average face and an average voice, Farin would have taken no notice of him in an average situation.

  Turning to his recalcitrant squire, Emicho said: "Shortly after my visit I put one of my spies in your village of Heap. After all, Gerlunda had lived there and died there, but more importantly…the raven turned up in your nest. Liam, tell my new squire what they say about the gravedigger’s son."

  "I obeyed your command and kept an eye out on the goings-on in the village. I’ve already reported to you about the re-appearance of Gerlunda’s body and the passing of the priest. What really amazed me was an anecdote in which the gravedigger’s son played the leading role. He got into a scrap with four of the villagers, strong young lads who never turned their noses up at the possibility of a fight. Quite coincidentally I was able to observe it from a distance."

  "Get to the point", ordered Emicho.

  "They really laid into your squire, he was already lying on the ground and it looked as if they wanted to smash his head in with a rock. Then it happened incredibly quickly – he flattened them one after another with perfectly aimed blows. I wanted to investigate this further and so I grabbed two of the attackers and questioned them independently of each other. One of them had his arm in a sling and behaved pretty stubbornly – he was so terrified of the gravedigger’s son he didn’t want to spill the beans at first. He changed his attitude once I’d given his broken arm intensive attention."

  "Very laudable. Get to the point!" The knight’s impatience echoed through the scriptorium.

  Liam continued quickly: "Both confirmed the other’s assessment that they just couldn’t explain how he, lying stretched out on the ground, was able to defeat them with a few well-aimed blows. They’d never seen anybody fight like that before."

  "That’ll do for now. We’ll talk in detail later, Liam. Especially, seeing as you still have to tell the gravedigger where his piece-of-art of a son has got to."

  Unfortunately, when Emicho said piece-of-art it sounded more like piece-of-shit.

  "Certainly, sir." Liam bowed.

  "Yes, it would be nice if my father and the villagers were informed," said Farin.

  "As if any one of them would miss you." While the door was closing, the knight gently dabbed the nib of the feather on the paper, and then asked in a voice that resembled his little bell: ’What am I to make of Liam’s story? You against four. Why do you keep hiding your light under a bushel?"

  Thoroughly dumbstruck, the gravedigger’s son stood there. A spy in Heap! How should he explain what happened? Should he tell of the chimera?

  Oh, do, that’ll be fun.

  It bothered him that his idea didn’t bother the voice. And so he kept his mouth shut regarding Stinker. He first wanted to find out more about the knight’s attitude regarding such subjects.

  "I’ve never fought with a sword, never mind with a lance."

  "You beat them with your bare fists." The knight folded his arms. "I’m sick of you standing here and telling me what you can’t do. Learn to do things or take a hike out of my castle."

  The knight’s expectations of him hadn’t lessened as a result of Liam’s anecdote, but Farin was under no illusion. Emicho’s words usually sounded hard and gruff, but when it came down to it, he always hit the nail on the head. Something within Farin woke up from its slumber. Was it ambition? Or the yearning for appreciation? Whatever, he was now determined to be a good squire, with all the bells and whistles.

  "Yes, sir, I understand." Farin summoned up courage. "Another question if you don’t mind. You own a library. Could you give me permission to visit it in my free time?"

  "I should have Markan’s tongue cut out, he talks much too much."

  "It’s not his fault, I asked him about it."

  "Hm…" Emicho’s mouth was widening but it looked like neither a grin nor a smile. "The mole can read! What’s of such burning interest to you?"

  "Books, uh…"

  So, books interest you in the library, then, it chuckled.

  Farin continued hastily: "…about mysterious things, for example. Inexplicable phenomena…uh, superstitions and so on." He stopped himself from asking directly about daemons or chimeras. Quick-tempered and unpredictable as the knight was, Farin was prepared for all possible reactions – just not the one that followed.

  "Are you pulling my leg?" whispered Emicho hoarsely, pressing the quill ever harder onto the desk until it snapped. "How do you know about my dark books?" Slowly, threateningly and with angry sparks coming from his eyes, the lord of the castle rose up.

  "What?" blinked Farin, innocently.

  "Only a handful of people are aware of the contents of my library, and two of them are dead already."

  The subliminal aggression caused Farin’s hairs to stand on end. "I don’t understand…"

  The lord of the castle was standing in front of him now, facing him and looming over him: "What does a mole want to do with such writings?"

  Think of something quick or he’ll have you beheaded.

  "Gerlunda. She tried to conjure up daemons in her hut. There was a pentagram on the floor and other signs of the supernatural. After that experience I just became more curious – I think she was a…witch."

  The knight stared at him stony-faced. Farin sensed through his whole body that the next instant would decide his fate. Did Emicho believe him?

  Well done.

  Was he hearing things or had Stinker really praised him?

  With eyes piercing into him, the lord of the castle announced: "Gravedigger’s son. You are a plag
ue, but there’s something about you that strikes a certain nerve. And I really mean it nicely. Although I damn well don’t like being nice. And really don’t like doing things I don’t like doing."

  Farin didn’t know what he should say, and so he asked anew: "Can I use your library now?"

  "I’ll decide on that later." The knight sat down again, he looked less angry and more thoughtful instead. "Have you anything else urgent you have to tell me?"

  His new friend Duke Turgenson immediately popped into his head, the nice king’s nincompoop, no, sorry, the old king’s nephew. Should he tell Emicho of the unpleasant encounter in the dining hall, or would it sound like a pitiful gripe? "No, everything is fine".

  "Good! I’ll give Drogdan the job of training you in the basics, he’ll look after you. We’ll see each other in three days again. Now go!" The lord of the castle took a new quill out of a tall glass and buried himself in his papers.

  Just like the day before, Farin left the scriptorium more confused than ever, but with a clear goal in front of his eyes. He wanted to become a good squire. Everything else would then take care of itself. Seven disciplines – yes, so?

  burning night

  I t was pitch-black when Aross lay down under the vagrants’ bridge. She felt out a few abandoned rags beside her and a torn blanket with which she covered herself without further ado. The material stank terribly of sweat but was better than nothing for keeping her warm. The covered location amplified the snoring sounds, and somewhere a man was babbling nonsense to himself. Yet the girl still fell asleep quickly, so great was her exhaustion and so necessary it was for her to recover sufficiently for her slight body to face the challenges of the following day.

  She got up before dawn and disappeared towards the harbour. She deliberately avoided questions and curious glances.

  On her favourite jetty in the little harbour basin she examined her face in the water by the light of the rising sun. Deep cuts on her forehead, welts on her cheeks and a blood-encrusted ear. She shrugged her shoulders – since when were rats beautiful?