Wolfbreed

by S. A. Swann

  Erhard told the bishop of the young wolfbreed children trained by Brother Semyon in his half-ruined monastery. He told him of the first use of the trained beasts, to spread superstitious panic and confusion in the villages harboring bands of tribesmen that troubled the movements of Christian soldiers and tradesmen. He told them that, based on those successes in the first year, they were able to use one wolfbreed child to break a siege of a Prûsan fort that had been resisting for nearly a year.

  He told him of the greatest success, when they used the monsters' human appearance to slip them into villages before a siege began. One creature alone could decimate the leadership, shatter morale, and panic the population in the space of a night or two. Once the Order had adopted the tactic, it wasn't unusual to have the villagers open the city gates to the invaders. They believed that their old gods had come to punish them, and the Order was happy to bring the power of Christ to their rescue.

  “Because of these animals,” Erhard said, “we have grown the borders of Christendom farther into Prûsa than anyone before us, with fewer men lost and many more converts gained.” Erhard didn't mention the losses among the wolfbreed themselves. Most hadn't been as adept as Lilly at learning the basics of tactics, and had fallen to wounds too great to heal from.

  The bishop nodded, leaning back in his chair. “I see. Do you have any more to say?”

  “Only that it was the providence of our Lord God that brought us possession of these remarkable creatures, and it is His continued providence that allows for our continued successes in this heathen land.”

  The bishop nodded and brought his sausagelike fingers up to rub the bridge of his nose. Lamplight glistened off the skin of his face, which was oily with sweat. Erhard had thought it chilly in the stone halls here, but then he was not covered in heavy robes, or grotesquely obese.

  “This is obscene,” the bishop said finally.

  “Your Grace—” Erhard began.

  “No,” the bishop snapped, “your statement is complete. It is clear from your own testimony that you have engaged in offenses against God and

  Nature that are nearly beyond credibility. You walk into my presence and have the temerity to speak of the providence of our Lord.”

  Erhard stepped back and shook his head. He cast a pleading glance at Conrad. “But—”

  The bishop cast an accusing jeweled finger at Erhard. “Silence, or I will have you silenced.”

  When Conrad didn't intervene, Erhard stood mute.

  “I have had leave to investigate what has transpired under the auspices of the Order, and what has occurred at your hands, and at the hands of Brother Semyon von Kassel. I have heard testimony in regard to the monstrous wretches in your care, and of their fates. Three supposedly died at the hands of the pagan tribes they were set upon.” He cocked his head and his next words dripped with derision. “Surely a sign of our Lord's providence.”

  Erhard strained against the impulse to speak out, to explain, but to do so now would only worsen his case—a case he now feared had been lost long before he ever set foot in Marienwerder.

  The bishop slammed his hand on the table, his rings clattering against the wood. “You have given succor to agents of Satan. Worse, you have given these demons human flesh to feed on, and have used them to aggrandize yourself on the battlefield. You have been so deeply and vilely deceived by the Father of Lies that I almost doubt the possibility of your redemption. It is fortunate that there are men who speak highly of your righteousness, and you have not been given to deception in your own testimony. I leave it to your Order to decide by what means you will show proper repentance.”

  “As His Holiness would wish,” Conrad finally spoke. “If Brother Erhard has done evil, it was not from evil intent. He is a faithful servant of God and the Church. If he has gone astray, it is as much our Order's responsibility as it is his.”

  “Yes,” said Bishop Cecilio. “And His Holiness will expect proper repentance of the Order as well.”

  “You will return to Rome with tribute that His Holiness should find more than sufficient.”

  “That, of course, is not for me to decide.” The bishop turned to Erhard. “But I make one demand on behalf of the pontiff that comes before all else. Use of this abomination shall immediately cease, and the remaining creature shall be destroyed by fire.”

  He must have seen Erhard's disquiet on his face, because the bishop allowed himself a small smile. “Yes, you need not concern yourself with Brother Semyon, or the creature that remained in his care. They have both been dealt with, and the site of his abominations has been burned and purified by exorcism.”

  The bishop made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “You may go.”

  As Erhard left, he heard the bishop say, “I will pray for your soul.”

  His tone indicated he would do no such thing.

  ***

  Erhard left the disastrous meeting in stunned silence. He had never once considered the possibility ...

  He closed his fist and leaned heavily against the stone wall of the corridor. No, it wasn't because the pope didn't know of what Erhard was doing in the name of God and the Order. The pope himself had approved the reasoning that Brother Semyon had explained to him so long ago.

  For nearly eighteen years these creatures had been of earthly nature by papal decree.

  The situation has changed, Erhard thought.

  It was not pleasant to concede the fact that the Church made moral decisions based on politics, but the pope was as much a temporal leader as he was a spiritual one. And all worldly rulers soon enough erred between what was right and what was profitable.

  His Holiness Gregory IX had decided that it was no longer in the interest of his own power that a monastic order so close to his rival the emperor might have access to such a devastating weapon.

  Brother Semyon's wolfbreed children had been too successful.

  Landkomtur Erhard von Stendal knew this, but he also knew that the knowledge did not change his duty to God, the Order, or the Church. He had taken an oath of obedience. He would have to return to Johannisburg, take Lilly, and set her to fire.

  For some reason, he remembered a time shortly after he had taken charge of Semyon's wolfbreed children. He had been scourging Lilly for some infraction; what it had been, Erhard didn't remember. When he had finished, and her back was healing, she looked up at him and said, “Master?”

  His first impulse had been to whip her again, for speaking out of turn, but something—perhaps mercy—made him ask what she wanted.

  She asked, “Do you have a master?”

  “My master is my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

  She looked at him very strangely for a moment, and then she asked, “Does your Lord Jesus whip you when you disobey Him?”

  Erhard stared at her childlike visage, but he saw the beast within her. “My Lord does something far worse, should I disobey Him. He turns his back upon me and leaves my presence.”

  She had nodded, apparently understanding.

  “Please do not turn your back on me,” she had told him.

  The words echoed in his memory, as running steps echoed through the corridor, growing louder. Erhard turned to see one of his young knights in an unseemly scramble, running toward him. Erhard would have reprimanded him but for the distress evident in the young knight's face.

  “What is it?”

  “Johannisburg,” the knight gasped in a voice ragged and out of breath. “A messenger fresh from Johannisburg.”

  Erhard grabbed the knight's shoulder and asked, “What news?” As the knight told him, Erhard felt the road God had laid for him over the past ten years crumble completely, leaving only the Abyss under his feet.

  Chapter 7

  Gedim rode home from Johannisburg in a foul mood. It was bad enough to scrape an existence together for his family through a harsher than average winter. Now he had to deal with the arcane rules of trade established by the Order. He had gone to Johannisburg with a pathetic collec
tion of skins harvested from all the meat they'd had to trap to supplement their food supply. He had hoped, now that it was spring and people were coming north again, that he would be able to barter for some iron tools: a hoe or axe head, or—in his more grandiose dreams—a plow to replace the wooden blade he was constantly repairing.

  Of course, his skins were nowhere near enough for a new plow, especially when the guard at the city gate insisted on taking a quarter of his goods in tithe and taxes.

  He had almost spat in the guard's face and said, “I bow to your God. How many more indignities do you want to heap upon us?” He hadn't, because the man taking his skins was as Prûsan as he was. Gedim probably knew the man's father. Like Hilde, the guard had been baptized into a new world— though he had been Uldolf s age, so he probably remembered a time before the cross had laid its shadow on this town.

  So, instead of carrying a new plow, or new tools, the wagon rode empty except for a box of salted herring. The smell of fish on the bumpy ride home did little for Gedim's mood.

  I do what I can.

  He had also purchased a vial of medicine for Hilde, which was certain to cause his wife to scold him. What did he know about caring for the sick? Burthe would probably tell him that the mixture was useless for her fever, and that he had wasted his money. However, he was more comfortable with having that argument than he was with doing nothing at all.

  Besides, they now had herring.

  His cart rounded the last curve in the dirt track before his farm and he came in sight of his cottage. Home. Seeing the thatch roof and rough log walls raised his spirits.

  Uldolf was sitting on a bench in front of the cottage, working with a knife. Even at this distance, Gedim could see him scraping shreds of meat away from the skin of some small animal. Uldolf had one leg bent up on the bench to hold the skin flat, and Gedim could see a patch of gray-white fur curling up from the edge.

  Still poaching ...

  Gedim pulled the cart around to a barn formed by three timber walls surrounding a pair of currently empty stalls. As Gedim took his time

  unhitching the horse, he wondered if he should reprimand Uldolf or not. They both knew that the small area a free man was allowed to hunt had been scoured of game two months into winter. Just to get the hare whose skin he was cleaning, Uldolf would have had to go nearly to the walls of Johannisburg itself.

  Then again, Gedim had just returned from trading on his son's trapping ability.

  Gedim let the horse into their small excuse for a pasture and walked around to the cottage, carrying his box of fish. While he could never quite approve of what Uldolf was doing, he usually decided to pretend he didn't realize where the game came from.

  “Father,” Uldolf called to him.

  Gedim smiled and waved as he walked across the muddy field. No sense bringing his frustration into the house. “How is Hilde?”

  “Her fever broke in the night. She was bright-eyed and chattering away, last I looked.”

  It was hard not to stumble with relief. He would personally thank Christ himself if it turned out that the medicine in his pouch was a true waste of money. “That's good.”

  He walked past his son and toward the door. Hilde had been asleep when he had left for Johannisburg four days ago. It would be nice to see her awake.

  “Father.” Uldolf had set down his knife and grabbed Gedim's arm.

  Gedim stopped in his tracks and turned around. “What?”

  Uldolf looked downcast and slightly embarrassed as he muttered, “We have a guest.”

  ***

  Gedim managed to pull the entire story out of Uldolf, despite the boy's tendency to omit details.

  He wasn't quite sure if the boy was embarrassed, modest, or afraid Gedim might be angry at him. But Uldolf insisted on telling his tale in a circular pattern, going back and elaborating when Gedim prodded him.

  The day after you left for Johannisburg, I found her in the woods and brought her here. You see, she was hurt, I think by bandits. I was out trapping game and following the creek bed. She didn't understand me at first, I think because of the head wound. And she had a bad injury to her head and her shoulder ...

  It went back and forth like that, until Gedim had the whole story. At least, he hoped it was the whole story. It wasn't until the fourth time around that he got the details that the injured woman had been naked in the creek when Uldolf had found her, and that he had ended up carrying her nearly all the way home.

  During the story, Gedim caught himself hoping that no harm had come to Uldolf s cloak. They didn't have the resources to replace something like that right now.

  But the thought shamed him.

  There had been a time when that kind of thing didn't matter so much. Gedim had once been part of the warrior clan that ruled the village of Mejdân, the younger brother of Radwen Seigson, and heir to a wealth of

  land, slaves, and cattle. When Mejdân fell, he had been one of the few baptized that the Teutonic Order, in their strange Christian logic, had considered of “noble” blood. So, the Order had allowed him to retire with his farm, his cattle, and a few of his slaves.

  Over the past eight years, the Germans had ended up with the great part of the wealth he had been allowed to keep—if not through taxes and tithes, then simply in barter so he could keep his family fed through winter.

  His last ox had died during the past winter, and Gedim was loath to admit that it was the meat from its carcass, and the grain they would have fed it, that had helped keep his family fed through this winter.

  He didn't want to think about next winter.

  Just when Uldolf finished recounting the details about his difficulties with his cloak, Gedim's wife came out to call them in for dinner.

  They followed Burthe into the cottage, which was filled with the smell of barley stew. Gedim thought he could smell the remnants of the former occupant of the skin Uldolf had been cleaning.

  Hilde was up and smiling, the first time Gedim had seen her out of bed since a week before he'd left for Johannisburg. She sat on a stool by the hearth, where a stew pot hung over the coals on an iron hook. Hilde had a look of intense concentration as she stirred the pot with a long-handled wooden spoon.

  The newcomer sat at the table. Burthe had managed to clothe her in a threadbare surcoat and a ragged chemise that had been destined to be recut for Hilde to wear. Through the loose neck, Gedim could see the edge of the bandages on her shoulder. More bandages wrapped her head, so he couldn't see the damage Uldolf had told him about. Her hair was long and red. The way the girl smiled at Uldolf gave no sign how close she had been to death.

  Gedim shook his head at his new houseguest.

  “So, what's your name, child?”

  She looked at Gedim and frowned.

  “I don't think she can understand you,” Uldolf said.

  “No? You've been speaking Prûsan, I take it?”

  He looked at the girl and repeated in German, “What is your name?” She didn't respond any better.

  “That is inconvenient.” He eased himself into the chair at the table opposite the girl and studied her. “Where did you come from?” he asked. The girl might have been all of seventeen, but the frustrated expression on her face made her look younger. “How are we going to get you back home?”

  She opened her mouth as if to say something, but it only came out as a grunt. She shook her head, and looked down at the table. She seemed close to tears.

  “You see—” Uldolf started to say.

  Gedim held up his hand and said, “Shh, son.”

  When he had been a warrior, before this end of Prûsa had become a province of Christendom, he had seen men suffer from head wounds, and those who survived were never unchanged. The evil effects of such a blow could damage a man in ways more profound than simply losing an eye or a limb.

  “Child, you do understand me, don't you?”

  She looked at him with piercing green eyes. She tried to speak again, but her lip trembled and she appeared on
the verge of tears.

  “Don't try and talk,” he told her. “It's the blow, I think.”

  Uldolf sat down and looked at her. “She's mute, then?”

  “I've seen head blows on the battlefield steal more than speech from a man.” He turned to the girl. “I wonder if you know how lucky you actually are. Not just that you survived those wounds, but that my son found you.”

  She looked at him with her head cocked as if she might be trying to understand him.

  “What do we do with you?” Gedim said. “You cannot tell us who you are, or where you belong—”

  “She belongs here!” Hilde pronounced, walking around the table and proudly placing a steaming bowl of stew on the table. “She's our guest. Mama said so.”

  Burthe slid a spoon in front of him, and Gedim gave his wife a look that asked, rhetorically, Who exactly is the head of this household?

  She smiled back with an expression that said, We both know the answer to that question. Now eat your supper.

  Gedim pulled his spoon toward him and said, “Well, if that's what Mama said.”

  The girl sniffed the bowl, then looked at the four of them as Hilde set spoons down in front of her and Uldolf.

  “Go ahead,” Uldolf said. “The guest breaks bread first.”

  She licked her lips, looked at her spoon, then looked down into the large common bowl again.

  “It's all right,” Uldolf told her.

  After looking back and forth between Uldolf and the bowl, she finally reached down and shoved her hand into the stew.

  “Ew!” Hilde said.

  Even Burthe seemed taken aback as the otherwise attractive girl shoveled handfuls of the stew into her mouth.

  Uldolf looked mortified.

  For his own part, it took a supreme effort of self-control for Gedim to keep from erupting in laughter.

  “I guess she was hungry,” Uldolf finally said.

  She certainly was. When she looked up from the bowl it was with a quizzical expression, as if she was wondering why no one else was eating. Burthe took the opportunity to reach over with a rag and wipe off her face.