by S. A. Swann
The horses took up the entire road, and showed no sign of slowing down. Uldolf had to dive into the woods to avoid being trampled. Even so, a brown rain splattered him as a series of cantering hooves kicked up the soup of mud and horse shit that was the main road into Johannisburg.
Main road?
Uldolf rubbed his head and walked out after the horsemen had passed. He was on the main road, and he didn't remember how he had gotten here. He looked up at the sky, and by the position of the sun it was close to midday— which made sense, since the road from his family farm only fed into the main road, about a quarter mile from the gate to Johannisburg. He'd been walking for three or four hours.
Lilly's words echoed in his head: “It's bad to remember.”
“I don't remember!” Uldolf shouted at the receding horsemen. “I don't remember, and I don't want to!”
He rubbed his right shoulder, vainly trying to make the ache in his missing arm go away. Why now?
Why would it be troubling him now? He was no longer a child suffering feverish dreams. All of this was eight years gone. He had thought he had been safely through all this years ago. Now, suddenly, it was getting worse. It was no longer the occasional nightmare, it was happening nightly. The moments when he had to stop and catch his breath were almost a daily occurrence now.
Now he had lost part of a day. Nothing like that had happened since ...
“Please,” he pleaded with whatever demon guarded the gate to his past, “I don't want to remember.” It took an effort of will to push it away, as what had happened to him felt as close upon him now as it had eight years ago.
Think of something else, anything else.
And he thought of Lilly.
He thought of holding her, kissing her. The good memory helped push out the bad. He allowed himself the daydream, that she would heal completely, and that he would take her away somewhere. Somewhere safe from both their pasts.
He shouldered his bag, wiped the shit off his face, and started walking to Johannisburg.
***
Uldolf walked up to the gates of the village. Beyond the walls, Johannisburg was a crowded hive of activity, timber houses crowding each other over the narrow muddy streets. Above it all was the mound on which Johannisburg Keep squatted like a lumpy gray toad. The air was thick with the smell of too many people and animals in too cramped a space.
A bored guardsman walked up to him from his station by the edge of the gate. “Greetings, good man. You approach the Christian city of Johannisburg. In the name of the Hospital of St. Mary of the Germans in Jerusalem I must ask your name, where from you hail, and your purpose in coming here.”
Uldolf recognized him. “Lankut?”
The man blinked a moment, looked Uldolf up and down, and laughed. “Apologies, I didn't recognize you with all the shit on your clothes.”
“You can thank the 'personal representative of His Holiness' who just galloped through here.”
Lankut snorted. “The bishop? Lord forgive me, but I thought the knights of the Order were arrogant pricks—then I met him. I think he's convinced that Prûsans all secretly worship Satan, or rape the livestock, or piss in his beer...”
“I wonder what he's doing here.”
“While you do that, you can wonder about the hundred or so soldiers and knights they have up at the castle. So how's your family?”
Uldolf spent a few moments catching up with his friend. He told Lankut about things at the farm—leaving out the parts involving Lilly—and Lankut let him know about the wave of armed Germans who had invaded Johannisburg. Germans to which were just added one Italian bishop and his attendants.
Lankut repeated the story that the knight who'd come to the farm had told him. They were looking for a redhead with green eyes, seventeen years old, a witch and a murderess. He knew that fourteen men had died up at the castle about three weeks ago, a week before all the Germans came.
Fourteen men?
As to how the men died, rumors abounded. Demons, wild beasts, and an invading war party were all possibilities. While the Order itself said that the witch they hunted had conjured a monster, Lankut was enough of a Prûsan to be skeptical whenever they brought up the term witch. The priests and priestesses of the old religions here were not in the habit of summoning murderous hellspawn. If they had been, this town would probably still be named Mejdân.
“So, what theory do you subscribe to?” Uldolf hoped it would be a little less disturbing than the one Lankut voiced about witches and monsters. It was a vain hope.
“The only one that makes sense is they are worried about a revolt,” Lankut said. “Half of Prûsa, east of Balga, is still ruled by tribes that would love nothing more than to push the Christians back into Kulmerland. After eight years, a counterattack is inevitable.”
Uldolf lowered his voice. “Lankut, you almost sound cheerful at the prospect. Aren't you a Christian?”
“I serve my Lord Jesus Christ, not the Germans. I don't share the opinion that a Christian Prûsa needs rule by a foreign sect of armed monks.”
Uldolf shook his head. “What about the woman?”
“Isn't it obvious? What's the most fearful thing the Order faces? That the tribes of Prûsa stop fighting among themselves and unite against them. How would you do that?”
“I don't—”
Lankut slapped Uldolf s shoulder. “Marriage, you fool. You put the right families together, and instead of facing a dozen clans, the Germans face four, or three, or two ...”
“You think she's betrothed to someone?”
“Why else would they hunt so hard for her, unless she represented that kind of political threat?”
Uldolf nodded. Lankut's argument had some merit, especially in light of how many soldiers had descended on Johannisburg. It made more sense if the Germans were expecting some sort of rebellion. “That makes sense, though I haven't heard about anything like that here before.”
“No.” Lankut smiled at him. “I am sure you haven't.”
Uldolfs brow furrowed as he looked at Lankut. “What exactly are you saying?”
“Nothing of import. You still haven't stated your business in Johannisburg.”
“I came to trade some skins, maybe stay a night or two.”
“I am sure.” Lankut hadn't stopped smiling.
They stood there looking at each other for a while. Uldolf finally asked, “Aren't you going to claim the Order's share?”
“Between us,” Lankut lowered his voice, “the Order is in no need of your taxes or tithe right now.”
“Pardon me?”
“Enter freely, son of Radwen.” Lankut gestured into the village. Uldolf frowned. “What are you trying to say?”
“As I said, nothing of import.”
“You can't be thinking ... Do you have any idea how wrong you are?”
“Of course, Uldolf. Everything I've told you is mere speculation. The Order doesn't deign to tell us poor heathen Prûsans what is going on.” Lankut leaned forward. “But at the end of the third path to the right is an inn run by an old man with no reason to love the Germans.”
“Thank you.”
“All I ask is that, should you have the opportunity, please remember those who treated you fairly.”
Uldolf walked into Johannisburg, pulling his mud-splattered cloak about himself to better conceal his missing arm. He prayed that no one else was under Lankut's misapprehension that being the crippled son of the last chief of Mejdân somehow placed him in the leadership of a Prûsan revolt.
Chapter 18
Erhard was discussing the ongoing search with his fellow knights when the great hall suddenly echoed with heavy footfalls and butchered German.
“Brother Erhard!”
Even had Erhard not been uncomfortably familiar with the voice, he would have known who it was. None of the brethren had the arrogance to raise their voices in such an unseemly manner. Bishops, on the other hand …
“Brother Erhard!”
He quietly di
smissed his fellows and turned to face the invader, who stomped down the center of the hall toward him. A petty impulse, and one that Erhard was almost ashamed of, made him stand and wait for the corpulent bishop to walk all the way to him.
When Bishop Cecilio reached him, Erhard made a token obeisance and said, “Welcome to Johannisburg, Your Grace.”
“What work of Satan has been happening here?”
“Lilly escaped.”
The bishop's mouth opened, then closed, briefly making him resemble a fresh-caught herring gasping in the air. “Lilly?” he sputtered.
“That's her name.”
“You named it?” The bishop shook his head. “A Christian name?”
Erhard had not named her, but it seemed pointless to explain Brother Semyon's penchant for floral appellations.
The bishop continued. “I am unsure if you are deliberately flouting God's will in this matter, are willfully ignorant, or simply incompetent.”
“Your Grace, might I remind you that this is the Order's house, and not your bishopric?”
The bishop pulled a folded piece of parchment out of his voluminous robes and slapped it against Erhard's chest. “Consider your words, Brother Erhard. I was not the only one appalled at the situation here.”
Erhard took the parchment and saw that it was closed with the seal of the Hochmeister.
He shook his head, knowing what he was about to read, but not wanting to believe it. He broke the seal and read the short note.
Johannisburg, for the moment at least, was now part of the bishopric of Bishop Cecilio.
The man doesn't even speak Prûsan. He can barely speak acceptable German
Erhard knew the forces Hochmeister Conrad must be facing. With the twin patrons of the Teutonic Order, pope and emperor, again at each other's throats, could he do anything but accommodate the pope—especially in something that could be so damaging to the Order?
“Do we have an understanding?” the bishop asked him.
But does the pope's man have to be so distasteful? “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Good. Then you shall enlighten me now on the evils I have inherited in your wake.”
***
Bishop Cecilio paced while Erhard talked. He pursed his lips and fidgeted, running stubby bejeweled fingers over the fur trim on his robes. It was as if the concepts of discretion and frugality were so alien to the man that even economy of movement was beyond him.
When Erhard finally ended the history of events in Johannisburg, the bishop nodded. He wiped his sweaty palms on his robe and examined Erhard carefully.
“Brother Erhard, I see you ask the right questions. However, I believe you are still too close to these events to reason clearly. You are puzzled because you see this thing as a trained beast.”
“Where do you fault my reasoning?”
“You continue to question why she would choose to escape here in Johannisburg. Then you question why she would stay here in Johannisburg. It seems probable that those two reasons are related, if not the same.”
“And you have discovered the answer?”
“No, Brother Erhard, you have. You just haven't seen it. The death of that knight, what was his name again?”
“Karl Lindberg.”
“Yes. What strikes you about that attack?”
“Aside from the vile way he was mutilated—”
“I see that Satan has done well distracting you. What about your beast? With that attack she told you all you need to know about her reasons.”
After a moment, Erhard said, “Perhaps you should explain them to me.”
“Your beast left here a naked animal. However, in the aftermath of Sir Lindberg's ill-fated rape, you find a set of clothing. When you combine that with the fact that you have heard no news of mutilated men or beasts, no wolf-creature terrorizing the countryside, or so much as a rumor of naked women prowling the woods here, you are left with a single conclusion.”
“And what is that?”
“The creature has a protector here. Perhaps a whole coven.”
“This is a Christian town.”
“And who has clothed her? Fed her? You took this place eight years ago. Is that so long that you think there is no memory of when that thing was an embodiment of their own rough gods? You think none of these Prûsans have gone straight from baptism back to their wooded groves and idols and tried to scrub God off of their skins?” The bishop shook his head. “Even aside from this beast, there have been questions raised in Rome about how easily the Order here accepts professions of faith.”
“There is no truth to—”
“In the few hours I have been here, I have seen a distressingly lax attitude toward these Prûsan converts. Pagan names still abound. I greatly fear what I might hear if I questioned your priest about who has received the sacrament, or has confessed their sins and who has not.”
“These people have accepted Christ, Your Grace.”
“Brother Erhard, the facts remain to be seen. However, it is clear to me, as it should be to you, that within this demesne, those who honor the false gods of Prûsa have given succor to your monstrosity, and their presence here led to its escape.”
Erhard did not want to believe that, but the bishop's logic had a fatal inevitability to it. After all, how could it be otherwise? Someone indeed had to be sheltering her, and how could any sane household do that unless it was in service to their gods?
“I will talk to those who witnessed the escape,” Bishop Cecilio told him, “and I will question the men individually. One may have set these events in motion.”
“You think there may be a traitor here?”
“And, Brother Erhard, I need to question the people. I mean to discover who has housed this creature.”
“I will send my knights out to question—”
“You did not listen,” the bishop interrupted. “I said that I must question the people. We will start by bringing every Prûsan who was present for the fall of the Mejdân stronghold here.”
“Your Grace, the farms are in the midst of sowing—”
“Brother, need I remind you of your vows?”
“No, Your Grace.”
“The sooner these Prûsans face my inquisitor, the sooner they can get back to their labors.”
***
Sergeant Günter met Erhard in the great hall. The Landkomtur was alone, leaning against one of the rough wooden tables where the brothers prayed and took their silent meals. Erhard stared into the wood, not turning his head, and for several long moments, Günter was unsure if he knew that he had entered the hall.
Finally, Günter cleared his throat. “You wanted me, sir?”
Landkomtur Erhard nodded to the table. “How long have you been here?”
“I've been assigned—”
“I mean living here. You come from this village, don't you?”
Günter nodded. “That's why I was sent back here, I believe. Better for the people to see one of their own running things.”
“You were living here when Mejdân was sacked?”
“I was twelve years old ...”
“But you were here.”
Günter frowned, wondering where this conversation was going. Was Erhard beginning to question his loyalty? “Sir, what are you asking me?”
“It's a simple enough question. You were present when the Order breached the walls and took Mejdân. Am I correct?”
Günter closed his eyes. He had a brief memory, smoke and shouting, the sound of timbers breaking ...
“Yes, sir, I was here.”
“You know then, what other Prûsans were present?”
“Do you know how few survived that bloodbath?” Günter whispered, questions about his own loyalty forgotten. Some things transcended allegiance.
“Then,” Erhard spoke quietly, to the table, “it should be a small matter to assemble those few for some questioning.”
“What?”
Erhard straightened up and turned to face Günter. His expression w
as cold, hard, and bloodless, his words slow and measured. “You and your men are going to bring me every man, woman, and child who survived.”
“Sir, the spring planting has just started. Many of the farms around here need—”
“Do not question this, Sergeant!”
The look in Erhard's eyes made Günter take a step back. “Yes, sir.”
Erhard turned away. “Get moving. You have three days.”
Chapter 19
During the two days after Uldolf departed, Gedim's mood oscillated between amusement and concern. Lilly came with him to finish the planting, and every time he looked at her, especially at the melancholy expression she wore, he couldn't help but think of the way she had embraced his son when he had left.
Uldolf had always been an unusual child, always finding the capabilities to do something even when fate put massive obstacles in his path. Never quite satisfied with how he was doing, he was always striving to do better.
Burthe might have despaired sometimes at her son's marriage prospects, but Gedim never did. He always knew that, somehow, Uldolf would persevere. Somehow, even though it was nothing that Gedim would have ever predicted, finding a maiden in the woods and having her fall in love with him, in retrospect, seemed very much like his son.
It was also obvious that Lilly's affection was not flowing in only one direction.
He stopped the horse at the end of another furrow and turned to lead it around to follow where Lilly was casting the seed.
Should have been casting the seed. Instead, she stared off in the direction of the road. At first, he thought she was looking for some sign of Uldolf. But something about the way her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared made him turn to look himself. He saw a glint of sunlight through the trees—a helmet, or shield. Now that he listened, he could hear hoofbeats. They stood on the far end field, and they weren't in direct sight of the soldiers yet, but they would be in a few seconds.
He ran up to her and grabbed her basket of barley. “Hide!”
She looked up at him, eyes wide. “B-but—”
