by Dan Davis
“I can do no more than wish that God goes with you.”
They nodded, sadly.
Walt approached and began to build up the fire.
“Was it you?” he asked them. “Was it you what poisoned the wells?”
“Walter,” I chided him. “We are guests at their fire, are we not?”
He was surprised. “But they be Jews, sir. I mean no harm by asking but ain’t it a fair question? I just want to know, is all.”
“We poison nothing,” the man said. “Never. Nothing.”
I nodded. “It would not be the likes of these good folk, Walt. It would have been the elders and the priests of their tribe who did the poisoning. Besides, the learned physicians are certain that the pestilence is due to miasmas released from within the Earth, due to an alignment of the planets.”
“Our elders poisoned nothing,” the man said, sullenly. “We are innocent.”
Walt scoffed. “The Jews might be many things but they ain’t innocent, sir. We let you live in our towns, let you grow rich off our backs. You people are like fleas infesting our clothes, feasting on our blood. And this is how you repay us?”
Him and his boy stirred again but I knew they would do nothing. They were weaklings and soon they would be taken on the road and they would be murdered, for one reason or another.
“Leave them be, Walt,” I said. “You are right that their people are never to be trusted by good Christian folk but here before us is nothing but a poor family who need our charity.”
“Charity is for Christians, sir,” Walt said, with such certainty that I hesitated to correct him. Possibly he was right, for I was never much of a theologian. “What was your profession, sir? Were you a money lender?”
“I am a goldsmith,” he said, with pride.
“There you are, then, Sir Richard,” Walt said, immensely pleased with himself. “A bloody goldsmith. What more do you want, eh? I never understood none of it my whole life. What do you want to live in our towns for anyway, goldsmith? Living protected by our walls, protected by our soldiers, eating our bread what we grew with our own hands. And what do we get for it?” He held up a hand and counted off on his fingers. “You steal our babies for your blood magic, you poison our fountains and wells and kill us off for no reason, you creep about at night changing into animals, you pretend to be one of us when it suits you while at the same time you demand special treatment because you ain’t Christians, and… and…” he flailed around, desperate to find a fifth outrage so he could close his thumb also. “And usury. I cannot fathom why we allow them in our kingdoms at all, Sir Richard, can you? Of all the people of the world, the least trustworthy of all are—”
“All right, Walt,” I said, “that’s quite enough of your philosophising for one night, I think.” I turned to the woman. “I do apologise for my servant. You will please excuse his shamelessness and general uncouthness. His intellectual deficiencies come not only from the lowness of his birth but I fear he is also halfway to being a Welshman.”
The rain eased off and then stopped halfway through the night. Walt and I took turns to sleep because even though the man was weak, his son or the wife had enough heart to run us through and steal our horses if we let our guard down. Jews were devious, it was common knowledge, and I still wondered if the man could be trusted. They, too, watched us warily through to morning.
As we packed our belongings and prepared the horses in the halflight beneath the saturated, heavy forest, I watched askance as they loaded their sawbacked old pony.
“You said your guards stole everything from you,” I said. It was quite clear that they had secreted something of value on their persons that the guards did not find, which they then used to purchase the packhorse and other supplies. If they had remaining valuables then I meant to impress on them that they needed to invest in protection, in spite of their previous failure in that regard. “How much do you have left?”
“Nothing,” the man said, bitterly. “Be on your way, now.”
“You cheeky bastard,” Walt said, placing his hand on his sword hilt. “You be speaking to a great lord and you will show him the proper respect or I’ll knock you into next week. You and your shit-brained boy. Hear that, lad? You want a thrashing and all, I take it?”
Stepping between them, I spoke to my soldier servant. “Peace, Walter.”
He muttered under his breath but calmed himself and carried on doing his duty.
“Go on, then,” I said to the family, indicating the track back to the road. The man pushed his wife and the girl ahead of him and I was pleased to see his fear that I would do him harm. The boy led the horse by me and I stepped in his way. He was about thirteen and had his mother’s good looks though he had the weak build and narrow chest of his people. His bitterness and anger and fear were understandable, considering what was happening in the world.
“Your father cannot protect your mother and sister,” I said to him and I handed over one of my swords.
The lad was shocked but he snatched it quickly enough and hurried by me. He did not thank me.
“Why in the name of God did you do that, Sir Richard?” Walt asked, incredulous.
“It was a useless old sword,” I said.
“I liked that sword,” Walt said.
Blamed as they were for the plague, Jews were soon being massacred from Toulon to Barcelona and from Flanders to Basel and Strasbourg. Many were burned in their homes by the terrified townsfolk who believed that they were protecting themselves and their families while also taking revenge for the Christian deaths already caused. Others were executed by their towns or hacked down by angry mobs.
The Church pronounced that Jews were innocent of spreading the plague and the nobility of Europe issued edicts condemning the violence and sought to protect the victims.
In some places, such as Mainz, the Jews took the initiative and murdered the townsfolk first, resulting in massive reprisals from the populace. In more generous places, the Jews were given the chance to renounce their faith and become Christians, which many did. Those that did not were then righteously slaughtered. Tensions were so high that in other towns the Jews barricaded themselves in their own homes before killing themselves and their families rather than to allow the townsfolk the satisfaction of committing the acts themselves. Some even burned their homes down around themselves to deny the Christians the plunder of their worldly goods.
In time, the massacres lost momentum and ceased. Perhaps the townsfolk finally noticed that the Jewish people also died from the pestilence in great numbers. And it is the nature of mass hysteria that its manic energies cannot be maintained for long.
All of this began the eastward movement of Europe's Jewry to Poland and Russia. I do not know why the Poles gave refuge to the Jews. Walt had questioned why they wanted to live in Christian towns at all but it was clear to me. The Saracens had conquered the Holy Land and being subjugated by the Mohammedans was far worse than living amongst us, good and tolerant Christian folk. Still, they did not truly belong anywhere in Europe and they never would do, because it was not their land. They would always be regarded as strangers amongst us.
As I rode away that morning, I reflected that their plight as a people in some small way reflected my own. I was a man who did not belong but who had nowhere else to go. I existed within my society while forever being outside of it. In order to avoid persecution, I was forced to sometimes pretend to be something that I was not. Perhaps that was why I felt such sympathy for them, despite their dourness and possible hand in causing or spreading the pestilence.
It is likely that the family we met were murdered by robbers before they had gotten very much further along the road to the East. In the dark depths of that plague, strangers of any kind meant danger for desperate locals and had little value beyond what could be taken from them.
Shortly after our encounter with those poor people, Walter and I fell to calamity and sudden violence.
***
It was an ordinary enou
gh village, from a distance. A small number of painted timber houses, some rather large, clustered about a fine stone church. The river was clear and fresh and swift flowing before widening and slowing as it passed by the village.
“Graves, sir,” Walt said, nodding to them as if I had not seen it. As if I had not already smelt the death.
“Let us pray that some yet live,” I said.
It seemed at first that the place had fallen entirely but there was woodsmoke in the air and a large goat stood tethered to a post in a garden, chewing and watching us pass with its evil eyes. In the village square before the church, I felt other eyes on me. Human eyes, I was certain of it.
“Good day,” I called out, in as friendly a shout as possible, hoping one of the survivors spoke French. “We are simple travellers looking to purchase supplies. Can you help us, please?”
A scraping sound brought me around to face the church as a priest emerged in his robe, wiping his mouth on a cloth. When I raised my hand in greeting, he smiled and came out from the church door, holding his cloth to his mouth.
“You are welcome,” he said from behind his cloth. “Welcome indeed, sirs, to Wolfach. You come from France? In the name of God, I pray that you have news of how the plague fares there?”
“France, yes,” I replied. “My name is Richard and this is my servant.”
The priest was looking at me very strangely and I thought that he had detected the form of Norman French I spoke and perhaps even suspected that I was an Englishmen. His own version of French was quite different from mine, rather idiosyncratic in truth, with strange turns of phrase and I had to listen carefully to catch his meanings.
“Ah, pray forgive my manners. It has been the most trying time I have ever known and my mind is not what it was. My name is Peter. You must be hungry and tired from the road. Come, come. We shall find you something.”
I dismounted and made for the church.
“No,” Peter said. “Not there. We shall go to the inn. My brother is the innkeeper and he will have what we need.”
The priest was a well-made fellow and no mistake. Almost of a height with me and broad in the shoulder. Still, not all men who are built for war are suited to it and he seemed to have the manner of a village priest, though he did look fair harrowed by the deaths. The doors to most of the houses were closed and marked with a cross.
“Have many survived, sir?” I asked. Our horses hooves echoed from the plastered walls of the houses.
“Some yet live and breathe, praise God,” Peter said. “Enough to keep us alive, as long as no more perish. The dead are with the gods and the village will go on. And that is what matters.” He raised his voice as we approached the inn. “Christman! We have visitors.”
Before we reached the door, a huge man emerged. He had the look of his brother but taller, broader, with a skull like a granite boulder and arms like tree trunks. He wore a leather apron spattered with blood. When he spoke to his brother in their guttural tongue, his voice was as deep as the lowing of a bullock. After giving us a hostile glare, he ducked back inside.
“So many have died,” Peter said. “We who are left must take on the work of the dead. The slaughterman and his sons died months ago. Here, let us sit on the benches out front so we do not have to smell the stench within. I have had my fill of death.”
Walt tied the horses and began brushing them down rather than join me and the priest at the bench outside the inn. I knew then that Walt felt it too.
Something was wrong.
“Your brother is a giant, I see,” I said to Peter as we sat. I made sure to face the doorway so the innkeeper could not come up behind me. “Are all men in these parts so well made, sir?”
He tilted his head. “Not all. Our father is a large man and all men grow from their father’s seed. You yourself come from good stock.”
I nodded. “Your father lives?”
Peter looked up at the sky. “Our father lives in another place and we do not know if he lives or if he has died. But I think that he lives.” He looked at me suddenly. “To where do you go?”
“We are looking for the town named Freiburg. It is south of here, is that correct?”
“Southwest, beyond this valley toward the Rhine. Three days on good horses, if you are not running. What business do you have there? Are you expected by anyone?”
I sat back and allowed my right hand to fall into my lap so that it was close to my dagger. “Our business is that we are looking for a man.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Walt turn to me and shake his head ever so slightly. I knew he trusted this man not a bit and neither did I but he was the first local we had found for days and even if he meant trouble, I thought we could fight our way out. Even the largest mortal, like his brother, was little when compared to my immortal strength.
“A man, you say?” Peter replied, speaking with forced lightness. “What man is that?”
“In truth, I do not know if he is a man at all. For they call him the Ancient One and also the Wolf Man.”
The priest froze and stayed perfectly still. It seemed as though the very air around us stopped moving and a silence descended over the village. “Where did you hear those names? Why do you seek him?”
“I would be delighted to tell you. If you know where I might find him. What did you say the name of this village is, sir?”
He chewed on his bottom lip before replying. “Wolfach.”
“Wolfach, I see. And is that name related to the tales of the—”
I was cut short by a cry of warning from Walt.
“Watch out, sir!”
The giant brother, Christman, came charging around the corner of the inn behind me, moving with such speed that I barely had time to register the sight of him. His face, contorted with rage into a savage grin, filled my vision as I jumped up, knocking the bench down behind me and swinging the heavy pine table into the great charging mass.
It crashed into him but he knocked it aside without slowing and threw his weight onto me, wrapping his monstrous great arms about me and dragging me to the floor.
His grip was inhuman.
He held me from behind, so that his back was upon the ground and my heels drummed against the floor. Both of my arms trapped against my body, I struggled and heaved against him. The air was crushed from my chest and I fought for a breath. He may as well have been made from stone. Never, in all my life, had I felt such strength. Not even William’s immortals had been so possessed with might. I used the back of my head to hammer at him but met only the flesh of his chest and shoulder.
From the corner of my eye I saw Peter rush to Walt and knock him down with a single blow.
Christman the giant squeezed hard, panting his bloody breath into my ear. I fought to strike him, any part of him, with my feet. Tried to roll him over so I might stand and throw him. I could find no purchase.
I was dying. Suffocating. My vision growing dark at the edges.
Walt leapt up, ran quickly to the nearest saddle and grabbed for a weapon. It was not there. I had gifted it to the boy on the road.
Peter stepped up behind him and stabbed a dagger into his back, over and over. Stabbing him in the chest and belly as he fell beneath the hooves of the terrified horses. Stabbed him a dozen times.
The giant grunted and squeezed harder, popping ribs and dislocating one of my shoulders.
I could not take a breath.
The world turned black.
13. The Ancient One
The pain told me that I was not dead.
Not yet.
I came back to myself slowly. Somehow, I sensed that I had been out cold for some time. Men on either side of me, holding me up between them, dragged me forward deeper into the blackness of a tunnel. The bare rock on either side and the rough floor beneath suggested I was in a cave.
My hands were bound. I was naked and shivering. The pain in my crushed chest and disjointed shoulder burned as they jostled me, handling me roughly as if I was a bag of meat.
My captors were Peter the false priest and Christman the giant who had crushed my body. I wondered if one of them was the Ancient One I was searching for.
Or if they taking me to him.
Either way, I felt a deep horror of how I had been bested and overpowered by those men. I was at their mercy.
There was no question of overpowering them. And yet I would not allow them to do whatever they were intending to do to me. I imagined that they were going to slaughter me. It seemed as though they were bringing me into some foul pagan grotto where I would be sacrificed.
It was the only explanation. The oppressive chill of the place seeped into my bones and the mass of the hard stone above bore down on me from all around. My bare feet dragged on the cold, damp gravel floor. Close echoes of their footsteps sounded in my ears.
I resolved to break free the moment they reached whatever destination they had in mind.
Perhaps they intended to chant their way through some depraved pagan ritual before slitting my throat but in case they proceeded without ceremony I would have to take the first hint of an opportunity.
Even if fighting were hopeless, even if it ultimately led to my death, I would not allow myself to die on my knees.
Light.
Up ahead, the walls reflected the yellow of candlelight and the hurried steps of my captors slowed. The smell of woodsmoke filled the cave and I imagined that they had some pagan fire up ahead that they would use to burn me alive.
I forced myself to relax, lest they sense I was about to break free and tear their heathen hearts from their chests.
We rounded a final corner whereupon they halted, threw me forward with considerable force so that I landed on my front with my bound arms outstretched before me. The impact jarred me to the bone.
Before I could even catch my breath, I heard Peter and Christman retreating rapidly back the way we had come. None had spoken a word.
When I rolled over, I was struck by an image of domesticity.
