by Leo Perutz
The Desecrators had a secret lair, a hut in the wooded mountains of Bohemia known as the “Sieben Gründe,” and it was there that they assembled for the very last time.
It was early in the morning and still cold. The wind whistled through chinks and cracks, and a thin drizzle was falling outside. Four of the band lay wrapped in their coats on the straw, gazing with red-rimmed eyes at the glittering heaps of coin in the centre of the hut: the thalers and double-thalers, the Kremnitz and Danzig ducats which back-street receivers of stolen goods had paid them for the proceeds of their past year’s depredations in Bohemia and Poland.
The council of war had lasted all night. Reluctant to let their captain go, they had shouted and bickered for hours. Their store of gold was still insufficient, they argued, and there was plenty more to be had for the taking. All their arguments were in vain, however: the captain insisted that they must part.
“We ply a trade,” he told them, “a trade in which all must sooner or later pay the price with neck and crop. Have a care! Unless we keep a bridle on our tongues it won’t be long before we feel the touch of the hangman’s noose. Besides, the Bloody Baron has returned, and I’ve no wish to encounter him again. That’s why I say we must part or our luck will desert us. Each of us must go his own way without a backward glance at the others. Such is my command, and you swore to obey me in everything when I saved you from the gallows.”
That settled the matter. It only remained for them to divide the larger of the two heaps of coin among themselves and go their separate ways.
The captain was standing outside the hut in his worn and faded coat of purple velvet, intent on the days that lay ahead. He would use the wealth he had amassed to pay off the debts encumbering the Kleinroop estate, purchase farm implements and breeding stock, engage new workfolk, and stable good horses for the mail coaches that passed by. “A greyhound and a saddle-horse, too, for the young lady who is to be Herr von Tornefeld’s high-born bride!” he told himself with a smile. “After all, there’s no lack of money now.”
Inside the hut, meanwhile, Red Lisa was bending over the smaller heap of gold and silver coin–the captain’s share–and filling his valise with double-thalers and ducats. Feuerbaum had risen, unable to watch any longer. The sight of money destined for another hurt his eyes.
“What the devil!” he exclaimed. “Is everyone free to take as much as he pleases?”
“What’s it to you? That’s the captain’s share,” Wryneck told him sharply. “By rights you should thank him for leaving you as much as he has. When he joined us you had neither clothes nor shoes–a threadbare habit on your back was all you possessed, but he has brought us good times. Henceforward you’re a wealthy man.”
“Wealthy?” the renegade friar cried indignantly. “What are you saying? Who’s wealthy in these ruinous days, when a bushel of corn costs eleven groats and a. half? I shall leave my share untouched–I’ll save it against my old age, for no one will help me when I’m lame and palsied. Till then I shall have to depend on God’s mercy and beg dry crusts at farmers’ doors to keep from starving. That’s how low I’ve sunk–that’s my reward!”
And, with a bitter laugh, he took the share which Wryneck thrust at him: a hat brimming with thalers and a handful of gold.
“We risked life and limb to get that gold,” said the Brabanter. “Now I propose to enjoy a lengthy rest from my labours. I shall live in luxury. Elegant lodgings at some comfortable inn, a good table with fish and roast meat every day and the proper wine to go with them. Morning Mass, an afternoon drive in my carriage, and a game of cards in the evening. That’s how I propose to live, peacefully awaiting whatever the future brings, good or ill.”
“Ah,” Feuerbaum broke in shrilly, “but what if your luck runs out? What if you end by starving in the gutter? When that day dawns, don’t come to me. Not a copper will you get from me, friend, I tell you that now, so don’t come hobbling up to my door!”
“Never fear,” replied the Brabanter, quite unruffled. “You may plant lilies and mignonettes outside your door, I’ll not trample them.”
Wryneck had received two handfuls of minted gold because he was the captain’s second-in-command. Now it was his turn to speak.
“We’ve lived like night-owls, unable to show our faces by day,” he said, “but that’s all over now. I’ve a fancy to ride through all manner of countries–Venice, Spain, France, the Netherlands–and see the world in broad daylight. And if I spend only two thalers of my money in the week and a half on Sundays, it’ll last me till my life’s end.”
Veiland, a big, burly fellow with a pallid face, let the ducats trickle through his fingers and chuckled to himself.
“Here in Bohemia, where not a soul knows me, I’ll have a goldsmith make me a cup and a knife, a ladle and a snuff spoon of solid gold, likewise two little snuff boxes of gold, one for my right pocket and one for my left. The one in the right pocket will be for me, and the one in the left I’ll offer my friends, for thrift is a virtue.”
“And you?” Wryneck called to Red Lisa, who was squatting silently on the ground. “Why look so wretched when you can live in silk and velvet? Is your heart heavy? If a man’s feet itch, let him go. One sweetheart follows hard on the heels of another, you should know that by now. When you’ve gold buckles on your shoes and necklaces and combs and rings and bangles of gold as well, your admirers will be legion.”
Red Lisa made no reply. She rose and tried to pick up the captain’s valise, but it was too heavy, so Wryneck had to help her carry it outside. There she made a last attempt to shake her lover’s stubborn resolve.
“Take me with you,” she pleaded, resting her forehead on his shoulder. “Don’t tell me ‘No!’ a second time. I know that you’ve given your heart to another. She may be more beautiful than any woman under the sun, but no matter, take me with you notwithstanding. I’ll not get in your way–I’ll gladly sleep beside the stove in the servants’ quarters and do the worst of work provided I know where you are in God’s world and how you’re faring.”
“It cannot be,” the captain replied, cold and unbending. “Look for a dry pebble in the sea, but don’t come looking for me. You’ll never find me in a thousand years.”
Red Lisa wept awhile. Then she grew calm again and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Farewell for ever, then,” she said quietly. “I’ve loved you as dearly as my own heart. Leave me, and may God preserve you wherever you go.”
Meanwhile, Veiland and the Brabanter had emerged from the hut. They bade their captain a boisterous farewell, cheering and firing their pistols in the air until the forest rang. And when he spurred his horse and rode away with a final wave, Veiland tore off his neckerchief and burned it to the captain’s health and continuing good fortune.
*
One week later Feuerbaum was trudging along the Silesian highroad in his friar’s habit. He had buried his money at three places in the forest and marked the trees to help him find it again. Now he was roaming from village to village, farmstead to farmstead. His beggar’s satchel contained some bread and onions, three sour apples, a small piece of cheese, and, wrapped in a cloth, a tuft of hair which he passed off as a sacred relic.
While tramping the dusty road in this way he heard a horseman come trotting up behind him. He turned his head to see a Swedish courier in blue tunic and brass buttons, elk-leather breeches, a belt of buffalo hide, and a plumed hat. He promptly stepped aside and proffered his open hand as the horseman passed by, though with little hope of alms, for the Swedish king’s officers seldom dipped in their pockets when they saw a mendicant friar.
This time, however, the horseman reined in. A smile flitted across his face, and he tossed the friar a Pomeranian halfguilder.
Feuerbaum caught the little silver coin, but an instant later he straightened up with a jerk and stared.
He knew that mocking smile, and those eyes that blazed like a wolf’s, and the bushy eyebrows that met above the nose, and the furrow in the
brow. Surely it was his former captain who sat looking down at him from the saddle?
“Is that the most you can spare an old comrade?” he cried, seizing the rider’s arm. “I knew you at once despite that little beard you’ve grown. Come down from your horse, and if you’ve a drop to drink on you . . .”
He fell silent, for the smile had left the rider’s face. A wholly different person looked down at him–a complete stranger–and a voice he had never heard before addressed him in broken German.
“What amiss, friar? Half-guilder not enough? Out my way, or I beat you hard!”
Feuerbaum stared at the unfamiliar face for a moment longer. Then he threw up his hands in dismay and called God to witness that he had mistaken the high-born, worshipful gentleman for someone else, he couldn’t imagine why. The courier cut him short.
“Those are excuses misérables” he snarled. “I no wish to hear. Half-guilder not enough? Out of my way, damned cur!”
The renegade friar obediently leapt aside and the horseman rode on. All that could be heard was a mocking laugh which Feuerbaum again found familiar. Wide-eyed and open mouthed, he gazed after the Swedish cavalier until he disappeared from view, repeatedly crossing himself with a tremulous hand as if he had just encountered the Devil in person.
PART THREE
The Swedish Cavalier
IT WAS EARLY AFTERNOON when the Swedish cavalier reached the deserted mill.
The sun stood high in the cloudless sky and a summery hush enveloped the countryside. Not a breath of wind was stirring, not a bird chirping. All that broke the silence was the song of the crickets and the low, organlike hum of the bees. A gaudy butterfly disported itself amid speedwell, cardamine and dandelion. In the far distance, where the bishop’s forges and smelting furnaces lay, a pall of black smoke hung over the pine forests.
The Swedish cavalier saw it and was assailed by a faint sense of unease, as if it held some danger for him, but he dismissed the notion with a shake of the head before it had properly taken shape. Then he dismounted and tethered his horse to a willow tree so that it could graze in a circle.
The door of the miller’s house was locked. No smoke rose from the chimney, and the shutters were closed. The erstwhile miller, whom he had once, at an evil hour, mistaken for a ghost arisen from the grave, a poor soul from Purgatory, must be whipping his team along some highroad on the way to fetch merchandise from distant lands for his master the bishop. Even if his waggon came rattling up the hill at this moment, who would fear him now?
The Swedish cavalier sat down in the tall meadow grass and stretched his legs. Resting his back against the brickwork of the miller’s well, he daydreamed with half-closed eyes.
He recalled how, poor and wretched and numb with cold, he had made his way to the mill through waist-deep snow, and how he had there acquired the arcanum, the key to his good fortune. Well, now he was a grand gentleman with plumes in his hat and money and letters of credit in his pockets now he could proudly pass for one of the nobility. Let the miller come, him and his crooked mouth! Purgatory was a fiction, not a real place–it existed only in priests’ heads, so he had been assured by the Brabanter, who had travelled far and wide and been wherever folk broiled bacon over coals.
He gave a start. What was that sudden hubbub? To hear it, one might have fancied that Venice had fallen into the hands of the Grand Turk. What did the unseen people want, and what were they shouting? A multitude of voices both deep and shrill, they came from all sides, from far and near, and their cry was always the same: “Make haste! Make haste! Make haste!”
What manner of people were these, and what did they want? The Swedish cavalier looked about him, but there was no living soul to be seen except his horse, which was standing beside him munching heather, toothwort and tufts of grass, and nothing to be heard–no cries, no shouts–save the hum of the bees.
He leaned back against the brickwork and let his head loll forward on his chest. There it was again! Sometimes near, sometimes far, sometimes soft, sometimes swelling to a mighty roar, the multitude of voices cried “Make haste! Make haste! Make haste!”
He tried to rise, but he could no longer do so. Something took hold of him, lifted him, bore him higher and higher, and still the thunderous, tumultuous voices around him cried “Make haste! Make haste! Make haste!” Then silence fell.
He found himself high in the sky, surrounded by turrets and battlements of cloud so bright and dazzling that his eyes could scarcely endure it. Covering his face with his hands, he peered between his fingers and saw three men seated on thrones with steps leading up to them. They wore long, fur-trimmed robes and red shoes, and one of them, a stern-eyed youth, he recognised as St Michael, the heavenly chancellor, whom he had often seen in effigy. Before the three stood an angel of gigantic stature with a drawn sword in his hands, and surrounding them in serried ranks was the heavenly host whose earlier cries of “Make haste, make haste!” had, it seemed, been a summons to see justice done.
“Votre très humble serviteur,” murmured the Swedish cavalier, bowing and doffing his hat with a flourish, nobleman fashion, in a show of respect to St Michael, his scales, and his celestial associates, but none of the three judges so much as glanced at him. Now that silence had descended on the heavenly host, the angel with the sword raised his mighty voice.
“Michael and you fellow judges twain, I ask you now: is it the day and the time to sit in judgement?”
And the three men in the long robes answered as one:
“Since the Supreme Judge deems it time, it is time.”
The angel with the sword looked up at the dazzling vault of Heaven.
“Almighty Lord, he cried, “is the court duly met?”
From above, like a tempest lashing an oak forest, came the voice of the Supreme Judge.
“The court is duly met. If anyone has a charge to bring, let him bring it.”
From the heavenly host came a whispering and rustling of wings. Then silence returned. The Swedish cavalier experienced a sudden pang of fear. “What am I doing here?” he asked himself, plucking awkwardly at his blue tunic. He was looking around for some means of stealing away when he perceived that all eyes were upon him. The silence was broken by the angel with the sword.
“This man whom I have summoned before the court,” he declared, “stands accused of having been, for many years, a thief. He robbed peasants’ larders of bread and sausage and eggs and dripping and whatever else he could lay hands on. I charge him with that crime before God’s court, once, twice, and thrice.”
“Is that the extent of his wrongdoing?” said the long-robed man seated at St Michael’s right hand. “A morsel of bread, an egg, and a little lard are difficult to procure on earth by honest means.”
“He was so poor, he owned nothing but his shadow,” said the judge on St Michael’s left, and St Michael himself, Heaven’s chancellor, fixed the Swedish cavalier with a stern eye.
“Who,” he said, “would rebuke the pauper in his homespun smock for turning thief when the rich amass their wealth by unjust means?”
“He is innocent and may go his way in peace,” the Supreme Judge declared from on high, his voice as gentle as the strains of a harp.
“God be praised!” the Swedish cavalier whispered, wiping the sweat from his brow. “All honour and glory to His holy name.”
“God be praised!” the heavenly host chimed in on every hand. “All honour and glory to His holy name!”
But the angelic swordbearer remained where he was. Gazing at St Michael and his fellow judges with furrowed brow, he waited for silence to fall once more.
“There’s more,” he said. “I charge the same man with having, for the space of a twelvemonth, been a robber of churches. He stole their silver plate, their censers and patens, chalices and candlesticks, ornaments and reliquaries of gold, and now he means to use them for his own well-being and prosperity. I charge him with that crime, once, twice, and thrice.”
“Yes, I did that, God have
mercy,” groaned the Swedish cavalier, glancing fearfully at the archangel. “God have mercy!” intoned the heavenly host.
“Gold and silver,” said the first of St Michael’s fellow judges, “are the cruel weapons and devices of the Evil One on earth. We have naught to do with them. They are not ours.” “They are not ours,” the second judge repeated. “They are the objects of man’s vain folly. An Ave Maria said in all humility is worth more to Heaven than any gilded pomp.”
“They are not ours,” St Michael ordained, and directed his gaze heavenwards. “When He trod the earth, He possessed neither gold nor silver. What is to be done with this man?” “He is innocent,” the Supreme Judge proclaimed from the luminous heights above. “He is innocent and may go his way in peace.”
The Swedish cavalier breathed a sigh of relief. “I never knew,” he murmured to himself while a mighty “Benedicamus Domino” arose on all sides, “I never knew that poor sinners were so leniently treated here above. That angel there, the one with the sword, he always gets the worst of it–I’m glad I’m not in his shoes. The trial is over, so why does he linger? What more does he want?”
“The trial is far from over!” the angel with the sword proclaimed just then. “That man you see muttering to himself–that man, justices of the celestial court, is secretly of so wicked a disposition that he shamefully betrayed his comrade in adversity, a Swedish nobleman, and duped him by forswearing himself. Woe unto him and woe again, once, twice and thrice!” The angel’s loud accusation was succeeded by a lengthy silence. Then the first of St Michael’s fellow judges spoke.
“That,” he said in a voice fraught with sorrow and dismay, “is a grave and pernicious sin deserving of careful consideration.”
“How could he have betrayed a companion in misfortune?” the second judge complained. “Had the divine spark in his soul been extinguished?”
