“Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Scharley brushed down his clothes. “To begin with. Secondly, kindly refrain from comments, at least for now. Thirdly, let’s hurry to town.”
“To town? What for? I thought—”
“Don’t think, either.”
Reynevan shrugged and spurred his steed down the highway. He pretended to turn his head away, but couldn’t refrain from directing a furtive look at the man striding beside his horse.
Scharley wasn’t particularly tall, even a little shorter than Reynevan, but that detail went unnoticed, since the erstwhile penitent was broad-shouldered, well built and no doubt strong, evidenced by the wiry, muscular forearms revealed by the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. Scharley refused to leave the Carmelite priory wearing a habit, and the costume he had been given was slightly outlandish.
The penitent had a rugged, lively face, endlessly changing, conveying a wide gamut of expressions. His aquiline nose bore the marks of an old fracture, and the dimple in his chin vanished into a faded but still visible scar. Scharley’s eyes, as green as bottle glass, were very strange. When you looked in them, your hand automatically checked to see if your purse was where it should be, and your ring still on your finger. Your thoughts anxiously ran to your wife and daughters back at home, and your faith in their feminine virtue was exposed in all its naivety. That’s how you felt when you looked into Scharley’s bottle-green eyes. His face definitely had more of Hermes than of Apollo about it.
They passed a large expanse of suburban gardens, then the Chapel and Hospice of Saint Nicholas. Reynevan knew that the hospice was run by the Knights Hospitaller and also that the order had its commandery in Strzegom. Recalling Duke Kantner’s instruction to head to Mała Oleśnica, he began to feel anxious. People might associate him with the Knights Hospitaller, so the road he had chosen wasn’t that of a hunted wolf; he doubted Canon Otto Beess would have applauded his choice, either. At that moment, Scharley proved his perspicacity for the first time. Or perhaps he really could read minds.
“No need to worry,” he said cheerfully. “Strzegom has a population of over two thousand, so we’ll vanish there like a fart in a snowstorm. Besides, you’re in my care, and I made a commitment.”
“I keep wondering,” replied Reynevan after the long pause he needed in order to cool down, “what a ‘commitment’ like this means to you.”
Scharley flashed his white teeth at a group of linen pickers marching in the opposite direction, buxom wenches in blouses open at the neck to reveal plenty of their sweaty and dust-covered charms. There were about a dozen of them and Scharley grinned at them all in turn, hence Reynevan gave up hope of ever hearing an answer.
“The question was philosophical,” answered the penitent, surprising him, and tearing his eyes away from the rounded behind of the last linen picker, jiggling beneath a shift wet with sweat. “I don’t usually answer those sober. But I promise I’ll give you an answer before sundown.”
“I don’t know if I can bear to wait, or if I’ll expire from curiosity before then.”
Scharley did not reply, but speeded up so that Reynevan had to urge his horse to a gentle trot. They soon arrived at the Świdnica Gate. On the other side of it, beyond a gaggle of grimy pilgrims and ulcerous beggars squatting in the shade, was Strzegom itself and its narrow, stinking, thronged, muddy streets.
Whatever the destination and purpose of their journey, Scharley strode confidently and decisively towards it. They headed down a lane filled with the noise of so many clattering looms it had to be called Weavers Street. They soon found themselves in a small square with a church spire towering over it. Their eyes and noses told them that cattle had recently been driven through it.
“Just look,” said Scharley, stopping. “A church, an inn and a brothel, and right in the middle of them a pile of shit. Here you have the parabola of human existence.”
“I thought,” Reynevan didn’t even smile, “you didn’t philosophise when sober.”
“After a long period of abstinence,” Scharley’s sure steps took them into a backstreet, towards a counter laden with casks and mugs, “just the very scent of good beer intoxicates me. Hey, good fellow! White Strzegom ale, please. Straight from the cellar. Be so kind as to pay, laddie, since as the Good Book says, argentum et aurum non est mihi.”
Reynevan snorted, but tossed a few halers down onto the counter.
“Will I ever find out what brought you here?”
“You shall. But only when I’ve downed at least three of these.”
“And then?” Reynevan frowned. “The aforementioned brothel?”
“It can’t be ruled out, laddie.” Scharley raised the mug. “It can’t be ruled out.”
“And then? A three-day bender on the occasion of your release?”
Scharley didn’t reply, since he was drinking. Before tilting the mug, however, he winked, and it could have meant anything.
“This was a mistake, then,” Reynevan said seriously, staring at the penitent’s Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Perhaps the canon’s. Or perhaps mine, for obeying him and agreeing to associate with you.”
Scharley drank, ignoring him.
“Fortunately,” Reynevan continued, “everything can easily be resolved.”
Scharley took the mug away from his mouth, breathed out and licked the froth from his upper lip.
“You want to tell me something,” he guessed. “So, speak.”
“The two of us,” said Reynevan coldly, “simply don’t suit each other.”
The penitent nodded a request for another beer, and for some time thereafter was only interested in his second mug.
“We do differ a little, it’s true,” he admitted after taking a gulp. “I, for example, don’t fuck other men’s wives. And were we to have a good look, we’d probably find a few other differences. That’s normal. While we may have been created in His likeness, the Creator made sure there are individual differences. And may He be praised for that.”
Reynevan brandished a hand, growing ever angrier.
“I’m wondering,” he blurted out, “whether to say farewell to you in the name of the Creator, right here, right now, so we can go our separate ways. For I truly don’t see how you can help me. I fear you cannot.”
Scharley looked at him over his mug.
“Help?” he repeated. “With what? We can easily find out. Just shout: ‘Scharley, help!’ and help will come.”
Reynevan shrugged and turned around, intending to leave. He bumped into somebody. And that somebody struck his horse so hard, the horse squealed and kicked, throwing him to the ground.
“Watch where you’re walking, dimwit. Where are you going with that nag? This is a city, not your shitty village!”
The person who had thumped him and dressed him down was one of three young men, sumptuously, fashionably and elegantly attired. They were almost identical—dressed in similar fanciful fezzes atop hair curled using irons, and padded jerkins with such thick quilting that their sleeves resembled huge caterpillars. They were also wearing fashionable tight Parisian hose called mi-parti, with legs in contrasting colours. They were all carrying turned canes with knobs.
“Jesus Christ and all the saints,” said the dandy, whirling his cane around. “What churlishness in this Silesia, what a vulgar wilderness! When will anyone teach them manners?”
“It will be necessary,” said a second, with an identical Gallic accent, “to undertake that task ourselves. And bring them into Europe.”
“Correct,” echoed the third fop, in red and blue mi-parti. “To begin with, we’ll tan the hide of that peasant in the European style. Come on, gentlemen, your canes! And may none of us shirk!”
“I say!” yelled the owner of the beer stall. “There’ll be no brawling here, sirs, or I’ll summon the guard!”
“Shut your trap, you Silesian oaf, or you’ll get a hiding, too.”
Reynevan tried to get to his feet, to no avail. A cane thudded on his shoulder, another fe
ll on his back with a dry thump and a third slapped him on the buttocks. He decided there was no point waiting for further punishment.
“Help!” he yelled. “Scharley! Help!”
Scharley, who had been observing the incident with moderate interest, put down his mug and ambled over.
“That’s enough merriment.”
The dandies looked around—and roared with laughter in unison. Indeed, Reynevan had to admit that in his scant, motley attire, the penitent didn’t look especially dignified.
“Christ the Lord,” snorted the first dandy, clearly devout. “What hilarious characters one can meet at the end of the world!”
“It’s a local jester,” concluded the second. “You can tell by his ridiculous costume.”
“Handsome is as handsome does,” replied Scharley coldly. “Get out of here, gentlemen. Double quick.”
“Whaat?”
“M’lords,” repeated Scharley, “if you’d kindly move away. I mean, move a long way from here. It doesn’t have to be Paris—the other end of the city will do.”
“Whaaaat?”
“M’lords,” repeated Scharley, slowly, patiently and emphatically as though speaking to a child. “If you wouldn’t mind taking your leave, m’lords, and engage in something you are familiar with. Like sodomy. Otherwise you’ll receive a damned good thrashing before any of you gentlemen have time to say credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem.”
The first fop swung his cane. Scharley nimbly dodged the blow, seized the stick and twisted. The fop turned a somersault and landed in the mud. The penitent used the cane to hit the second dandy over the head, sending him into the beer stall, and quick as lightning rapped the third one’s knuckles. Meanwhile, the first one had sprung up and lunged at Scharley, roaring like a wounded bison. Without visible effort, the penitent stopped the charge with a blow that folded the dandy in two. Then Scharley elbowed him powerfully in the kidney and kicked him nonchalantly in the ear as he fell. The man curled up like a worm and didn’t try to stand.
The other two looked at each other and drew daggers in unison. Scharley wagged a finger at them.
“I advise against that,” he said. “Knives can cut!”
The fops ignored the warning.
Reynevan thought he’d been watching the incident closely, but he must have missed something because he couldn’t comprehend what happened next. Juxtaposed against the dandies rushing at him and whirling their weapons like windmills, Scharley appeared almost motionless, and the movements he made when they fell on him were subtle, almost too quick to apprehend. One of the fops dropped to his knees, lowering his head almost to the ground, wheezed and spat teeth out into the mud one after another. His companion was sitting, screaming unremittingly in a thin, high ululation, mouth wide open like a very hungry infant. He was still holding his own dagger, but his comrade’s knife was plunged up to its gilded guard into his thigh.
Scharley looked up at the sky and spread his arms as if to say, What did I tell you? He took off his ridiculous, over-tight tunic and went over to the man spitting teeth. He nimbly caught him by the elbow, jerked it up, grabbed a sleeve and ejected the dandy from his quilted jerkin with several well-aimed kicks. Then donned it himself.
“Handsome is as handsome does,” he said, stretching luxuriously. “But only when a man is well attired does he feel true dignity.”
Then he leaned over and tore an embroidered pouch from the fop’s belt.
“Wealthy city, this Strzegom,” he said. “Wealthy indeed. Money’s lying around in the streets, just look.”
“In your shoes…” said the owner of the beer stall in a trembling voice. “In your shoes, I’d make myself scarce, sir. They’re wealthy merchants, guests of His Lordship Guncelin of Laasan. They had it coming to them, for the brawls they keep starting… But you ought to flee, for Lord Laasan—”
“Runs this town,” finished Scharley, removing the pouch from the third dandy. “Thanks for the beer, good fellow. We’ll be off, Reinmar.”
They went. The dandy with the knife in his thigh bade them farewell with his despairing, unremitting, infantile howling.
Chapter Ten
In which both Reynevan and the reader have the chance to get to know Scharley better, the opportunity afforded by a shared perambulation and various accompanying events. Finally, three classically iconic and absolutely anachronistic witches make an appearance.
Lounging comfortably on a moss-covered stump, Scharley observed the coins he had tipped from the pouches into his cap. He couldn’t conceal his disappointment.
“Judging by their dress and manner,” he grumbled, “you’d have said they were wealthy parvenus. But what penury in their pouches. See for yourself, laddie. What dross! Two ecu, a few clipped Parisian solds, fourteen groschen, some half-groschen, Magdeburg pfennigs, Prussian skojeces and szelągs, denarii and wafer-thin halers and some other shit I don’t even recognise—counterfeit, no doubt. The bloody pouches with their silver thread and pearls are worth more. But pouches aren’t cash. Where can I sell them now? And the coins won’t even suffice for an old nag, and I need a sodding horse. Dammit, the garb on those fops was also worth more than the contents of their purses. I should have stripped them naked.”
“Then,” Reynevan observed tartly, “Lord Laasan would surely have sent a hundred men after us and not a dozen. And not down one, but all the roads.”
“But he only sent twelve, so don’t harp on.”
Indeed, no more than a half-hour after they had left Strzegom via the Jawor Gate, a dozen horsemen in the livery of Guncelin of Laasan, magnate, Lord of Strzegom Castle and the city’s actual ruler, burst from the gate and thundered down the highway. But Scharley, soon after leaving the city, demonstrated his cunning by ordering Reynevan to turn into the forest and hide in the undergrowth. There they waited to make sure their pursuers didn’t double back.
Reynevan sighed and sat down next to Scharley.
“The result of our acquaintance so far is as follows,” Reynevan said. “If, this morning, I was only being hunted by the Stercza brothers and their hired thugs, come this afternoon, Lord Laasan and a squad of armed men from Strzegom are also hot on my heels. I dread to think what’ll be next.”
“You asked for help.” The penitent shrugged. “And I have pledged to protect you. I told you as much, but you refused to believe me, Doubting Thomas. Didn’t the first-hand evidence convince you, or do you have to touch the wounds?”
“If the guard had arrived sooner,” Reynevan pouted, “or the comrades of the men you beat up, then there’d be something to touch. I’d be dangling from a noose by now. And you, my guardian and defender, would be hanging right beside me.”
Scharley didn’t reply, just shrugged again and spread his hands. Reynevan smiled in spite of himself. He still didn’t trust the strange penitent or understand where Canon Otto Beess’s trust in him came from. He was no closer to Adèle, and only seemed to be getting further away. Strzegom had been added to the list of places where he couldn’t show himself. But Scharley, he admitted, had impressed him a little. Reynevan could already envision Wolfher Stercza kneeling and spitting his teeth out one after another. Morold—who had tugged Adèle by the hair in Oleśnica—sitting and howling like a baby.
“Where did you learn to fight like that? In the monastery?”
“Indeed,” Scharley calmly agreed. “Believe me, laddie, monasteries are full of teachers. Almost everybody there can teach you something. All you need is the desire to learn.”
“Was it the same in the penitent house at the Carmelite priory?”
“Even better regarding learning, of course, as we had a lot of time on our hands. Especially if Brother Barnabus wasn’t your cup of tea, for while he’s as plump and pretty as a girl, he’s not actually a girl, which bothered some of us a touch.”
“Spare me the details, please. What shall we do now?”
“Following the example of the Four Sons of Aymon,” Scharley stood up and stretched, “we will
both mount your Bayard and ride south, towards Świdnica. Avoiding main roads.”
“Why?”
“In spite of acquiring those three pouches, we still suffer from a lack of argentum et aurum. I’ll find a solution to that in Świdnica.”
“I meant why avoiding main roads?”
“You rode to Strzegom along the Świdnica road. There’s every chance we’ll come face-to-face with the men who are pursuing you.”
“I lost them. I’m certain—”
“They’re also counting on that certainty,” interrupted the penitent. “It appears from your account that you’re being tracked by professionals. It’s not easy to lose men like that. Let’s go, Reynevan. It would be wise to get as far away from Strzegom and Lord Laasan as possible before nightfall.”
“On that, we can agree.”
The evening found them in a forest near a settlement. Smoke crawled over the thatched roofs of the cottages, mingling with the mist rising from the meadows. At first, they planned to spend the night in a hay barrack, buried in warm straw, but some dogs sniffed them out and barked at them so fiercely they gave up the idea. Now, almost groping their way in the darkness, they stumbled on a derelict shepherd’s hut at the edge of the forest.
They heard rustling, scraping, squeaking and growling, and every few moments, the pale lights of animals’ eyes flashed in the gloom. They were most probably martens or badgers, but just to be sure, Reynevan tossed onto the campfire the remains of the monkshood picked in the Wąwolnica cemetery and some stonecrop he’d gathered before dusk, muttering a spell to himself as he did so. He wasn’t quite certain if they were the right spells or if he’d remembered them correctly.
Scharley looked on with interest.
“Go on,” he said. “Tell me more, Reinmar.”
Reynevan had already told Scharley about all his difficulties during the “confession” in the Carmelite priory, when he had also presented his plans and intentions in broad outline. The penitent hadn’t commented then, so his interest in discussing the details was even more unexpected now.
The Tower of Fools Page 16
