by Leo Perutz
“That’s where I mean to go and earn my bread.”
The miller chuckled softly and rubbed his bony hands.
“If that’s where you mean to go,” he said, “your wish can be speedily granted. His Grace the bishop is a good master. You’ll get half a pound of bread in your hand and another half in your soup every day, plus two kreuzers’ worth of dripping, gruel for supper, and on Sundays groat sausage and stewed mutton.”
The thief shut his eyes. Times were hard. Hot food had crossed his lips only once in the last ten days, and that was when he’d killed and roasted a jackdaw. He drew in his breath as if the meat platter were already on the table before him.
“Stewed mutton,” he murmured, “with carraway seeds—”
“With carraway and nutmeg,” the miller assured him. “You’ll be royally regaled, believe me.”
He turned to Tornefeld.
“And you, why do you stand there like a painted saint? Have you lost the use of your tongue? Are you also after an easy life? Is my lord bishop to feed every idler and glutton that comes this way?”
Tornefeld shook his head.
“I shall not be remaining hereabouts,” he said. “I intend to cross the frontier.”
“The frontier, eh? Have you a mind to sample pepper cakes and Polish brandy at Kielce?”
Tornefeld stood as erect and motionless as if he were already drawn up on parade.
“I mean to serve my liege lord, the King of Sweden.” “The King of Sweden?” exclaimed the miller, and his voice became suddenly shrill. “Oh yes, he’s awaiting your advice on how to defeat the Great Cham and the Emperor of China—he’s afraid his legs will swell up unless he covers himself in glory. So you mean to seek your fortune in the Swedish army? You’ll be given four kreuzers a day to spend on chalk and talcum, boot polish and emery. A soldier’s luck is like corn on a poor man’s barren plot: it never thrives.”
“My mind’s made up for all that,” said Tornefeld. “I’m off to the Swedish war.”
The miller advanced on him as if eager to see the whites of his eyes. The wind continued to howl and the roof beams groaned under their burden of snow, but inside all was still. Nothing could be heard but the three men’s breathing.
“You fool!” the miller said at length. “You’ll be Death’s meat soon unless someone talks some sense into you. One pound of lead makes sixteen bullets, and one of them has already been cast for you. Nowadays, every fool yearns to join the Swedish army, and once he does so he rues it. What have you run away from—the plough, the tailor’s yardstick, the cobbler’s stool, the quill and inkpot?”
“None of them,” Tornefeld replied. “I’m a nobleman. My father and my grandfather spent their lives in the field, and I mean to do likewise.”
“Well, well, so you’re a nobleman,” sneered the miller. “You look more like a scabby cuckoo, you’re so tattered and tousled. Do you have a passport and papers?”
“I possess neither passport nor papers,” said Tornefeld. “I have nothing but my courage and the will to fight, and I’ll stake my soul.”
The miller raised a deprecating hand and lowered it again.
“Keep your soul,” he growled, “no one else has need of it. You may, however, be aware that every road is teeming with soldiers tonight—dragoons and musketeers in search of Polish brigands and out to make an end of them. You’ll find it hard to cross the frontier without a passport and papers.”
“Hard or not,” said Tornefeld, “my mind’s made up. I’m off to the Swedish war.”
“Then go to the Swedish war!” the miller cried in a voice that sounded as strident as an ungreased waggon wheel. “I’ll not assist you to an easy life after all. Just pay for your meal and begone!”
Tornefeld was overcome with fear to see him standing there with clawlike hands and bared teeth and eyes that flashed like will-o’-the-wisps. He longed to toss a half-guilder on the table and take to his heels, but his pockets, even if turned inside out, would not have yielded one miserable kreuzer.
He took two paces to the rear and sidled up to the thief.
“Friend,” he whispered, “look in your pockets to see if you can find a guilder or a half-guilder. This skinflint expects me to pay him, and I have no money left.”
“Where would I find a guilder?” the thief protested. “It’s such an age since I saw one, I can’t remember if it’s round or square. Didn’t I hear you say you’d pay for whatever we ate and drank?”
Tornefeld cast an apprehensive glance at the miller, who had bent over the stove and was poking the fire.
“In that case,” he told the thief, “it all depends on you. You must go at once to my cousin at Kleinroop Manor, near the village of Lancken. Inform him that I’m here and ask him to send me money and clothes and a horse.”
“I wish you a long and happy life, my friend,” said the thief, “but my skin is as precious to me as yours. I’ve no wish to run into the dragoons, and anyway, what concern of mine is your cousin?”
Tornefeld gazed through the window at the snowstorm, which was growing worse by the minute. The windmill’s sails were no longer visible.
“You must go in my place,” he insisted. “You’ll earn my eternal gratitude. I’m ill, as you can see—I couldn’t be more so. It would be the death of me if I had to venture out into the cold.”
“You’re afraid it might freeze your nose off,” jeered the thief. “How often have you boasted of your courage and your eagerness to serve in the Swedish war? You ply me with kind words now—yes, but a minute ago you threatened me with that pitcher. You’d gladly have seen me hanged and broken on the wheel. Whoever goes, it won’t be your humble servant.”
“Forgive me, friend,” Tornefeld pleaded. “I’m sorry—I was only jesting, as God is my witness. I won’t disguise the truth from you: I dread neither the dragoons nor the cold, but I don’t wish my noble cousin and the demoiselle his daughter to set eyes on me in my present rags and tatters. Go in my place—do so for the sake of brotherly love. Tell him that I shall be honoured to call on him as soon as I look like a gallant soldier once more. You’ll be well entertained and generously rewarded for your services.”
The thief deliberated. To reach the village of Lancken, which was three miles away, he would have to go back the way they had come. It might be that the ill-tended fields flanking the road belonged to his fellow sufferer’s high-born cousin, and he was curious to see the man who allowed himself to be so woefully robbed and cheated by his bailiff, clerks, shepherds, and farmhands.
It would be dangerous, he knew. If he fell into the hands of the dragoons he would be hanged for a surety on one of the gibbets that stood at every crossroads, but he was used to danger. Fate had often presented him with a choice between starvation and the noose. Now that he had resolved to end his vagabondage and surrender his freedom in exchange for a daily dole of bread and a roof above his head, he felt a perverse desire to go out where the keen wind blew and dance one last courante with Death.
“Stay, then, and I’ll go,” he told Tornefeld. “But will his excellency your cousin deign even to be seen by a person of my humble rank?”
“Any man is worthy of another’s consideration,” Tornefeld said quickly, fearful lest the thief should change his mind. “Show him this signet ring—then he’ll know that I sent you. Be brief and to the point. First, he’s to give you some money for me, for I shall have to replenish my purse if I’m to get across the frontier. Secondly, he’s to send me a carriage, a warm coat, some shirts, neckerchiefs, red silk stockings—”
“He’ll say I stole this,” the thief interjected with a dubious glance at the silver signet ring which Tornefeld had just removed from his finger.
“He won’t,” Tornefeld said firmly. “But if he does, you must prove your bona fides by reminding him of how, in my boyhood, I and the demoiselle his daughter rode downhill in a sleigh and were overturned when the horses bolted. When he hears that, he’ll know you come from me. And he’s also to se
nd me one coat of flowered brocade and one of satin adorned with ribbons and lace. A braided hat, two black wigs, a silken dressing-gown.
“What is your cousin’s name?” the thief broke in again.
“Christian Heinrich Erasmus von Krechwitz auf Kleinroop,” said Tornefeld. “He stood sponsor for me at my christening. And don’t forget the two black wigs, one large and one small, and the braided hat, and the alamode coat of satin . . .”
But the thief was already on his way. An icy blast filled the room. The miller straightened up and warmed his hands at the glowing stove.
“Herr Christian von Krechwitz,” he murmured. “I knew him well. A stern and masterful man. God rest his soul.”
Darkness was falling when the thief reached the village. Although the snow had ceased, the cold was becoming ever more intense and the wind that whistled about his ears was as keen as a knife. The village street was deserted save for a big brown dog roaming among the wretched houses and shacks. A dim glow and the muffled strains of a bagpipe issued from the tavern. Visible at the far end of an avenue of maple trees was the slate roof of Kleinroop Manor, glistening wet where the snow had been melted by the warmth of its chimneys.
While making his way toward the house across the frozen fish pond, the thief could not but think again of the noble lord who employed the worst of all farmhands and suffered them to ruin his land. “Why does this Herr von Krechwitz never leave his house?” he wondered. “He need walk only once across his fields to see the state they’re in. He must be blind not to see it, blind or lying ill abed. Perhaps he has the dropsy or spits blood—perhaps he spends the whole day swallowing olive oil, wormwood juice and electuaries. Why does he never visit his fields? Perhaps he’s a dreamer and visionary who closets himself in his room, summer and winter, pondering on the appearance of the moon’s interior, or on whether more men than women go to heaven. Or isn’t he on his estate at all? I’d make a wager with myself, right pocket against left, that he doesn’t live here. He lives in the city and devotes his time to fencing, dancing, sitting at the gaming table and serenading the ladies. He lets his workers do as they please and visits his estate only to get money—that’s Herr von Krechwitz for you. And when he has collected a hundred thalers he returns to the city and remains there until he has spent the hundred and increased his debts by a few hundred more—yes, that’s Herr von Krechwitz for you. Being in debt, he sits there planning how to become rich overnight. I could advise him on that score. The land itself is good: only one hide of wasteland to every three of tilth. If he had it better dressed and sown as it deserves—stubble grain on some fields, early white oats on others, and wheat on the richest soil only—yes, if he had it properly sown and better harrowed and weeded, he’d soon see how standing grain ought to look, stalk after stalk of it. Mark you, he’d also have to discipline his farmhands, keep a sharp eye on his clerk, send his bailiff packing and take matters into his own hands—yes, he’d have to do that instead of living in the city with liveried servants and paying musicians to play below ladies’ windows . . .”
The thief’s roaming thoughts were abruptly dispelled by a tinkling of bells and the crack of a whip. He leapt aside and crouched down behind a snowdrift.
A sleigh was gliding slowly and ponderously across the fish pond’s frozen surface—a creaking, rumbling old sleigh drawn by one emaciated horse, but the torn and faded leather of the door bore vestiges of a nobleman’s coat of arms. A lantern on the driver’s box lit the face of the man seated in the back, who was wearing an old sheepskin coat. The thief caught a fleeting glimpse of a bulbous nose blue with cold, a sour mouth, and a beard parted in the middle.
He got up from behind the snowdrift and stared after the sleigh, shaking his head.
“So that’s Herr von Krechwitz,” he muttered to himself. “He’s no dreamer or visionary, nor does he look like a man who chases women and gives them presents, far less loses his money at the gaming table. His is the face of someone who’s never satisfied and wouldn’t lend a three-pfennig piece. Miserly and ill-natured, that’s what he looks, but why doesn’t such a stem master contrive to gain his servants’ respect?”
The thief pondered this as he walked on, and it was not long before he found a solution to the mystery.
“I have it,” he said to himself. “Herr von Krechwitz must have done some evil deed and concealed it from the outside world. No one knows of it save his servants, but they keep mum—that’s why he’s now in the palm of their hands. Perhaps he murdered his brother for the sake of his inheritance, or poisoned his wife for her money. His servants know this, and he fears they may give him away and bear witness against him. That’s why he dares not rid his estate of a single one.”
The sleigh drew up outside the manor house gates, which were opened from within. A groom appeared with a lantern. He gave a low, respectful bow, but the man in the sleigh jumped up, snatched the whip from the driver’s hand, and began to lay about the groom in a fury.
“You rogue, you polecat’s hide!” he bellowed at the top of the voice. “You oaf of a peasant, you unmitigated fool! Why did you send me the worst sleigh and the lamest nag? May the Devil reward you for your pains! No, hold your tongue! I shall have to dose you with an iron spoon to teach you who I am.”
The groom simply stood there in an attitude of submission. At length, growing weary, the man in the sleigh dropped the whip. The groom stooped to pick it up, the sleigh disappeared into the courtyard, the gates closed behind it, and darkness and silence returned.
“That’s the way, that’s the way,” the thief muttered, rubbing his hands. “He knows how to treat those scoundrels, and it serves them right. They all merit a thrashing, but if he flogs them like dancing bears for so little reason, why the devil doesn’t he take better care of his estate? Why does he let his fields go to ruin and his seed-corn rot in the ground? That I don’t understand. No, by God, I don’t understand it at all.”
He walked on, shaking his head. Although the gates were shut and bolted, his practised eye quickly discerned a spot where he could scale the wall without difficulty. And then, while he was cautiously hauling himself over it, he had another idea which seemed to provide the simplest explanation for Herr von Krechwitz’s strange behaviour.
“There are landowners hereabouts who set greater store by their stables and cowsheds than their fields, and wise they are to do so. A cow won’t fetch less than nine thalers–indeed, I’d undertake to sell one for ten provided she’s a good milker. Counting just the calf, butter and dung, a cow will bring in four reichsthalers a year. Then there are sheep. The sheep has a sharp set of teeth. It needs only a shepherd and some coarse grass on sandy soil, but it will yield a pound-and-a-half of wool per shearing. There’s many a man who wishes himself in Herr von Krechwitz’s shoes, I’ll be bound. He doesn’t give a fig for hailstorms or blight or pests such as mice and beetles: he has rented out his ploughland and devoted himself to breeding livestock. Foals, lambs and calves are his source of revenue. Silesian wool is exported to Poland and the Muscovites–even to Persia. Fine wool always fetches a fair price. He knows what he’s doing, this Herr von Krechwitz . . .”
While all this was passing through his mind, the thief slid down the wall, landed in the snow, and got to his feet again. The yard was completely deserted. An overturned harrow lay near the entrance, and a pitchfork jutted from the snow. The sleigh was already in the coach house, the horse in its stable. The farmhands had doubtless stopped work for the day and retired to their quarters.
The thief made his way slowly and irresolutely toward the house, only to pause after a few steps. He was in no hurry. Tornefeld could wait another hour for the alamode coat and braided hat and red silk stockings without which he declined to go to war. Yes, Tornefeld could wait–the thief didn’t care. Before delivering his message to the lord of the manor he wanted to see the sheep that must surely be celebrated far and wide, even across the frontier in Poland. He wanted to inspect the Spanish breeding rams and see how the
ewes were quartered and how their lambs were withstanding the hard winter.
The door of the sheep-shed was locked, but locked doors presented no obstacle to the thief. Nimble and noiseless as a lynx, he scaled the wall and squeezed through a narrow aperture into the loft. From there he climbed down a ladder into the sheep-shed itself.
So these were Herr von Krechwitz’s famous sheep! They looked wretched enough in all conscience: less than three dozen animals housed in a building that could have held a hundred or more–three dozen neglected sheep of which all bore the coarsest wool and many were bloated with poor fodder. As for Spanish breeding rams, there was none to be seen.
The thief took the sheep-shed lantern and went from beast to beast, counting the wethers and rams, yearlings and two-year-olds and ewes.
“No,” he said to himself, as indignant as if the sheep had been his own, “his lordship gets no revenues from his flock–he’s clearly being robbed. It isn’t easy to find an honest shepherd, mark you. All shepherds are rogues–even the best of them get their own lambs suckled by the master’s ewes–but this one is the worst of all. Two loads of hay, just as it comes from the meadow, that’s all that’s needed to get thirty sheep through the winter, yet all I saw in the loft was straw, not a single bale of hay. The shepherd must have sold the fresh grass from the meadows for ready money, and now he’s feeding the sheep on coarse-chopped straw. Fodder of that kind is poison to sheep. He’s letting the flock go to rack and ruin.”
He paused beside one of the beasts and examined it closely.
“This sheep is sick,” he said. “It isn’t the mange. Perhaps it has lung-worm or wool-rot. That comes of not keeping it dry enough. The shepherd doesn’t know that sheep cannot stand the damp. If I were Herr von Krechwitz . . .”
He put the lantern down and opened the animal’s mouth.
“Dear God!” he exclaimed in horror. “No, that’s not lungworm. This sheep has an inflammation of the spleen, and the shepherd either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. He should slaughter it at once, in such a way as to spill no blood, and bury the carcass deep, but he leaves the sick beast with the rest of the flock. And his lordship? His lordship must be far too fond of his creature comforts to visit the sheep-shed, perhaps because he finds the smell distasteful. He shall learn what manner of shepherd he has, though. He shall learn that his sheep-shed harbours splenic fever!”
