The Wandering Harlot (The Marie Series Book 1)

by Iny Lorentz

  Marie shuddered, realizing how close her cousin had come to falling into this man’s hands. She knew it was time to carry out her plan if she wanted to take advantage of the commotion she had helped arrange. As the women started moving aside to make way for the kaiser, she stepped alongside Madeleine and raised her hand.

  “But how about the girls who have fallen into the hands of evil men and lost their virginity by force?” At the sound of Marie’s voice, the crowd surged forward again.

  Seeing a crowd of curious and expectant eyes upon her, she straightened up and climbed the cathedral stairs. She also saw her former fiancé, and he looked as if the earth had spewed out a demon in front of him. Her first accusation, however, was for someone else.

  Turning her back to Rupert Splendidus, she stood in front of Alban Pfefferhart. “I want information on the whereabouts of my cousin Hedwig Flühi, daughter of the master cooper Mombert Flühi.”

  “What’s this girl’s problem, Master Alban?” the kaiser asked abruptly.

  Alban Pfefferhart chewed on his lip nervously. “Your Majesty, that’s a story almost as puzzling as it is unpleasant. A few weeks ago, Hedwig Flühi was arrested for possible complicity in a murder and thrown into the tower, but she disappeared without a trace that same evening. It’s all a great mystery.”

  “Really?” Marie pulled Abbot Hugo’s scroll out from under her dress and held it out for Pfefferhart to see. “You no doubt know more about this matter than you care to admit.”

  While Pfefferhart stared at the document in confusion, Abbot Hugo let out a surprised shout and pressed his way through the crowd of men in front of him, trying to seize the paper. Just then, however, he was surrounded and stopped in his tracks by Count Eberhard’s bodyguards. Meanwhile, a bewildered Pfefferhart passed the document back to Marie.

  “I didn’t write this! Someone has played a dirty trick and signed my name.” He was so agitated, his voice almost broke.

  Swallowing hard, Marie wasn’t sure how to proceed. It seemed that Pfefferhart had indeed not prepared the order to extradite the girl. But before she could respond, the kaiser beckoned her over, taking the document from her hand and giving it to the bishop of Constance, who then read it aloud and looked questioningly at Pfefferhart.

  “That’s a vile counterfeit,” the councilman said again, holding his hand up to his throat as if his collar had suddenly become too tight.

  Marie glanced over at Waldkron, who had gotten himself under control again and was now wearing a placid expression. He was evidently certain that no one would connect him with the document.

  Throwing back her head, Marie smiled at Pfefferhart. “Perhaps I can jog your memory. A friend of mine took this document from Abbot Hugo von Waldkron’s personal servant, a fellow by the name of Selmo, after he had taken my cousin Hedwig from the tower.”

  “So the girl is still alive and unharmed?” When Marie nodded, Pfefferhart breathed an audible sigh of relief.

  Abbot Hugo shook his fist at Marie and bellowed, “Slander!”

  Marie was about to ask Pfefferhart to interrogate the tower guard, when a group of Michel’s palatine foot soldiers came marching toward the cathedral. In their midst was Selmo, shackled and screaming, and with them the tower guard, waving his arms as he ran alongside Michel. When the tower guard caught sight of Pfefferhart, he ruthlessly shoved his way through the prostitutes, who let out a torrent of curses. As soon as he reached the councilman and pointed at Selmo, however, the crowd fell silent.

  “Sir, that fellow in the cassock is the monk who took the girl. I recognize him with absolute certainty.”

  Pfefferhart looked Selmo over as the soldiers escorted him through the crowd of women, who backed away to make a clear path; he then turned to Michel, puzzled. “Who is he?”

  Marie answered for Michel. “That is the man I have just accused. He calls himself Selmo and is the servant of Abbot Hugo von Waldkron.”

  Pfefferhart ran up to Selmo and shook him. “Where did you get this document, you scoundrel?”

  “What document? I don’t know anything about it! I was illegally taken prisoner and dragged here . . .” Selmo’s voice was so indignant that he almost sounded innocent, but the look in his eyes as he glanced at Hugo gave him away. Pfefferhart pointed an accusing finger at the abbot. “This forgery comes from you! How did you get hold of the official seal of the city of Constance?”

  The abbot’s face turned dark red, and he addressed the kaiser. “I don’t have the slightest thing to do with this affair, nor does my servant. This is a conspiracy, Your Majesty, intended to harm your most loyal servants and thus the crown.”

  Looking uncertainly at the men, the kaiser seemed ready to believe the abbot, when Count Eberhard von Württemberg, who had been standing inconspicuously in the background, stepped up.

  “It’s one person’s word against the other, but a falsified seal is just as despicable as perjury. There’s a simple way to exonerate the abbot. You need only search his quarters here in Constance and his house in Maurach. If you find nothing there, it’s possible he is in fact a victim of slander.”

  The kaiser nodded and seemed relieved, as that opened the possibility of finally dispersing the crowd. But before he could give the order, Rupert Splendidus stepped forward.

  “Allow me to carry out this search, Your Majesty.”

  Sigismund opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Count Eberhard’s voice echoed across the square. “No, Your Majesty, don’t do that! That would be like putting a fox in charge of the henhouse!”

  Clenching his fists, the kaiser cast an admonishing glance at Eberhard, who bowed apologetically and pointed at Rupert. “I accuse Counselor Rupert Splendidus of perjury, forgery, slander, and incitement to murder, and I have enough proof to convict him. For one thing, he arranged the theft of the testament belonging to the knight Otmar von Mühringen and replaced it with a forgery that transferred Müringen’s possessions to Konrad von Keilburg, his half brother. In addition, through forged testaments and perjury, he has seized the domains of Dreieichen, Zenggen, Felde, among others, and turned all the land over to his father, Heinrich, and his half brother.”

  Marie was now smirking, and Rupert stared at her in disbelief, putting his hands to his head, and emitting a hollow-sounding laugh. “It sounds like you had bad dreams after enjoying too much to drink last night, Count Eberhard, or you wouldn’t be taking these fantasies seriously.”

  The Württemberg count didn’t deign to even glance at Rupert. “I have incontrovertible proof of these and other scandalous deeds carried out by the Keilburg bastard.”

  Marie was glad to have the count as her spokesman. If she had accused Rupert, he would have torn her argument to shreds, making her look ridiculous. But here, he couldn’t oppose the word of Eberhard von Württemberg, whose power and influence were even greater than that of Count Konrad von Keilburg. Just the same, she wasn’t willing to let the discussion turn into a noblemen’s quarrel over land and castles. Tugging on the kaiser’s coat, Marie curtsied and pointed at Rupert.

  “I accuse this man of murdering my father and depriving me of my honor and my inheritance.”

  “That is ridiculous,” shouted Rupert. He raised his hand and moved forward to strike Marie, but a few soldiers from Eberhard’s retinue quickly seized him.

  Alban Pfefferhart bowed before the kaiser. “Allow me to go search the abbot’s quarters.” After Sigismund granted the request, the councilman beckoned to Bodman to follow with some of his men. They were soon joined by Michel and some of his foot soldiers.

  Casting his eye over the dense crowd that had since doubled as curious citizens arrived, the kaiser gestured at his followers to go back inside the cathedral. Count Eberhard made sure his soldiers brought Master Rupert and the abbot inside, too, despite their furious objections. Marie watched them enter and didn’t know what to do. A nod from the count relieved
her from having to decide.

  Inside the cathedral, people looked around at a loss, and only the kaiser’s silent, grim presence on his throne kept them from loudly erupting into discussion. Count Eberhard von Württemberg, considered by some the instigator of the turmoil, garnered many curious and angered looks, while others stared at Marie, so out of place amidst the Reich dignitaries and Constance patricians in her yellow harlot’s ribbons. Some onlookers also excitedly nudged their neighbors, reminding them that Marie was the count’s regular bedmate.

  The Constance bishop, Friedrich von Zollern, stepped to the altar and began to pray, more to have something to do than out of a need to commune with God. Nearly an hour passed before the councilman and Michel finally returned with their retinues. As he walked in, Pfefferhart gingerly held a long wooden chest out in front of him as if afraid its contents would soil his clothing, and he laid the chest before the kaiser. After Sigismund gestured for him to unpack its contents and place each item on the bench, Pfefferhart removed seal after seal from the chest, each one seemingly an offense to him and the gathered noblemen.

  “The Abbot Hugo von Waldkron not only has the city seal of Constance but also those belonging to several noble families. It is highly unlikely that he acquired any of them legally.”

  Abbot Adalwig von Ottilien, who was sitting with Sir Dietmar and Lady Mechthild in the back of the south nave, stood up and hurried forward. “In the last twelve years, the Waldkron monastery has received an unusual number of large gifts that came as a surprise to many heirs whose families had been left in dire straits. I’m convinced the seal was used in the forgery of documents.”

  This accusation brought a number of noblemen to their feet, since many of them had been forced to give up good land and sometimes productive villages to the Waldkron monastery. They loudly proclaimed their demands, and it took quite a while before Eberhard von Württemberg and Bishop Friedrich von Zollern managed to calm them down.

  Pfefferhart beckoned to several of Michel’s palatine foot soldiers, and they brought in a secretary desk whose elaborate lathe work and inlaid wood had not held up well to their rough handling. Shouting angrily, Master Rupert tried to pull away from his guards.

  At Michel’s command, his men set the secretary desk down in front of the altar. “Since Master Rupert Splendidus was also accused of forgery, it seemed necessary to me to search his possessions as well. In so doing, I found this little secretary desk, in which we discovered several hollow secret compartments. Breaking one of them open, here’s what we found.” Michel handed Count Eberhard von Württemberg a document with a number of seals on it.

  Quickly glancing over it, Eberhard smiled as if all his assumptions had been confirmed. “This is the genuine testament of Kunos, a knight and uncle of Gottfried von Dreieichen, who was said to have bequeathed his possessions to Heinrich von Keilburg.”

  Marie was probably the only one to notice the hint of relief in Count Eberhard’s voice. This finding established Rupert’s guilt once and for all. Marie, too, was overjoyed even though she couldn’t help wondering why the man hadn’t destroyed the incriminating document long before. The obvious answer was extortion. Rupert could use such a document as a weapon against his half brother in case Konrad got weary of Rupert’s services.

  Kunos von Dreieichen’s testament wasn’t the only treasure in Rupert’s secretary desk. When servants smashed the valuable desk into pieces at the kaiser’s command, other documents appeared along with a bound volume of fine, handmade paper more than half-filled with Rupert’s clear handwriting.

  Sigismund looked at it briefly before handing it to Bishop Friedrich. “It appears to be Latin, but the words don’t make any sense to me.”

  The bishop frowned, staring at the first page, then muttered something and continued leafing through the volume. When he heard the kaiser impatiently clearing his throat, he looked up, startled, and closed the book with a resounding thud.

  “The text is written in a code like that used by the clergy for secret notes. Rupert Splendidus kept diaries, entering detailed notes on all of his actions. This document is a journal of his crimes. Yes, the man is guilty of everything as charged, along with many other illegal activities.”

  “Then we shall prosecute him and his accomplices.” Pounding the bench to reinforce his word, the kaiser ordered the guards to tie up both Rupert and the abbot and take them to his quarters.

  VII.

  The following days were one long nightmare for Marie. Locked in a room in Kaiser Sigismund’s quarters in the Petershausen monastery, she was given two meals a day and some water for washing, but was not even once allowed to leave the room. After her long years of wandering, she felt stifled within those four walls, especially since no one told her what was going to happen to her or even why she was being held. Was it because of her ties to Rupert Splendidus? Or her involvement in the prostitutes’ insurrection? Or could it be for some other reason? Imagining the worst, she saw herself once again tied to the pillory, being slowly whipped to death as Rupert looked on triumphantly in a nobleman’s clothes.

  If anyone had been allowed to visit her, her imprisonment wouldn’t have been so agonizing. After much urging, one of the taciturn nuns who brought her food told Marie that a courtesan whose description matched Hiltrud’s had been turned away several times at the door. On the third day, just as Marie thought she would go mad, Michel was able to get close to the locked door to her room and tell her that the kaiser had put off his departure for a few days in order to personally preside over the trial of Hugo von Waldkron and Rupert Splendidus.

  Count Konrad von Keilburg and some of Rupert’s accomplices had also been taken prisoner, including Utz, Hunold, Linhard, and Melcher. Michel told her that as soon as Utz had seen the instruments of torture, he’d admitted his crime against Marie as well as a few other misdeeds he had carried out on the counselor’s behalf. In addition, Linhard had confessed remorsefully, but Rupert and Utz still disputed everything despite the overwhelming evidence against them.

  The noblemen surrounding the kaiser, however, seemed less concerned about the just punishment of the criminals than the distribution of rich lands that the Keilburgs had seized. Marie had already guessed this, since she was able to hear the noisy quarreling of the noblemen from her room. These men were only concerned with their own well-being and in gaining even more power, and she loathed the way they treated everyone else as pawns in their game. Angry at her exclusion from the trial, she felt it was highly unjust—after all, her fate was also at stake.

  From time to time, when her fury subsided a bit, she would stop and wonder how it would all end. After the men who had violated her and condemned her to an itinerant harlot’s life had been found guilty and punished, her goal of these past few years would have been realized. What would happen after that, however, hung over her head like a threatening, black cloud. No matter what happened, she would not go back to working as a wandering whore. Yet for a homeless, dishonored woman, the only other way out was death.

  The fourth day began the same as the three before it. Awakened by knocking, Marie saw a nun open the door and bring in a tray of porridge. Without saying a word, the nun placed it on the table, reached for the previous night’s dishes, and disappeared just as silently as she had come.

  Marie was picking at her food when she heard another knock on the door and assumed the nun was back to bring her a fresh chamber pot and pick up her half-empty breakfast plate. Pushing away the rest of her porridge, she stood up and, to her amazement, four nuns in the garb of the Second Order of Saint Francis entered. Their faces seemed earnest, indeed a bit solemn, but not unfriendly.

  “Marie Schärer, we have been ordered to dress you and bring you to the judge.” The head nun nodded with the hint of a smile, but the very words sent a shiver down Marie’s back.

  Had she been indicted because she had been so bold as to return to Constance? Did they want to pun
ish her as one of the ringleaders of the prostitutes’ insurrection? Squaring her shoulders, she told herself she wasn’t going to be executed, since the pious sisters, not the bailiffs, had come for her. She took off her robe and was handed her best dress, but it had new, freshly dyed yellow ribbons on it. Putting it on and buttoning it, then defiantly jutting out her chin, Marie indicated that she was ready. The four nuns surrounded her like guards, leading her through endlessly long, deserted corridors until they reached the interior courtyard of the monastery where a covered travel coach was waiting for them.

  When Marie hesitated, the mother superior put her right hand on Marie’s shoulder and pushed her toward the vehicle. The coach was large enough for them all and, to Marie’s surprise, had upholstered seats since the nobles who ordinarily used this coach seemingly weren’t fond of bruised backsides. Trying not to worry about where they were going, Marie peered through a crack in the window leather and was surprised to see that the wagon was taking them over the Rhine Bridge into the city. Before long it stopped, and Marie recognized the place she hoped she’d never see again—the Dominican monastery on the island where she had once been tried and convicted.

  She noted that separation of the sexes was no longer strictly observed in the Constance monasteries. This became apparent as the nuns escorted her through the huge building to the same place where she had been sentenced more than five years before. It looked just as she remembered it, except that this time every seat was taken and court bailiffs and noblemen’s servants stood along the walls.

  The kaiser had taken his place on the throne decorated with the Reich’s symbol beneath a small baldachin. The golden coat of arms with the Reich’s black eagle that the kaiser wore on the chest of his long red surcoat seemed to stress how seriously he took this case. His face, however, looked impatient and weary, something that could not be said of the nobles around him.