The Tower of Fools

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  “And even beyond,” interrupted the Wallcreeper scathingly. “For even in the New Jerusalem, in a city of gold behind walls of jasper, someone must still wield power, after all.”

  “Quite so,” snorted the bishop. “Our enemies will endure penance, shame, snow and frozen heels. But for us a warm chamber, mulled Tuscan wine and a willing margravine in a feather bed.”

  “At this very moment, in Bohemia,” said the Czech softly, “the Orphans and Taborites are sharpening their blades, readying their flails and greasing the axes of their battle wagons. They’ll soon be here, and they’ll take everything from you. You’ll lose your palaces, wine, margravines, power, and ultimately your reportedly competent heads. It will happen. I would say that God clearly wants it, but I won’t take His name in vain. Instead, I say: let’s do something about it. Let’s take countermeasures.”

  “I give my word that Holy Father Martin—”

  “Oh, forget the Holy Father, King Sigismund, all the dukes of the Reich and the rest of that European shambles!” the Czech burst out. “Another bevy of legates is already embezzling money collected for a crusade! For God’s sake! You order us to wait until we reach some agreement, while death stares us in the face every day!”

  “You cannot accuse us of idleness, m’lord,” said the Wallcreeper. “We are taking action—you admitted as much yourself. We are praying zealously, our prayers are being heard, sinners are being punished. But there are many sinners and their numbers are ever growing. We are asking for further help from you.”

  “You mean further names?”

  Neither the bishop nor the Wallcreeper offered an answer, and the Czech was clearly not expecting one.

  “We shall do everything in our power,” he said. “We’ll send lists of Hussite henchmen and merchants who trade with the Hussites. We’ll give you names so you’ll know who to pray for. Meanwhile, the demon is striking straight and true. An operation like that could serve us in Bohemia, too—”

  “That would be more difficult,” Konrad said firmly. “Who knows better than you that the Devil himself couldn’t keep up with all the factions in Bohemia? That there’s no way of guessing who is siding with and against whom, or if Monday’s ally is still loyal on Tuesday. Pope Martin and King Sigismund want to negotiate with Hussites. Sensible ones—like you, for example. Do you think there was a shortage of volunteers to assassinate Žižka? We didn’t agree to that course of action. The removal of certain individuals threatened chaos, complete anarchy. Neither the king nor the Pope wishes for that in Bohemia.”

  “Talk like that to Legate Orsini, but spare me such platitudes,” snorted the Czech disdainfully. “And apply your supposedly competent brain a little, Bishop. Think about common concerns.”

  “Somebody is meant to die: your foe, whether political or personal. What does that have to do with us?”

  “I told you,” the Czech ignored the mockery again, “that both the Taborites and the Orphans are looking at Silesia greedily. Some of them want to convert you, others simply to rob and pillage. They’ll set off any day now, they’ll soon be here with fire and sword. Pope Martin, who desires Christian reconciliation, will pray for you in the distant Vatican. Sigismund, who wants a settlement, will froth at the mouth in far-off Buda. Albrecht the Austrian and the Bishop of Olomouc will sigh with relief that they’re not being invaded. While here, the Taborites and the Orphans will be beheading you, burning you in barrels and impaling you—”

  “Yes, yes.” The bishop waved a hand dismissively. “Let it go, I can see it in paintings in every church in Wrocław. You want to convince me, if I understand right, that the sudden deaths of a few selected Taborites will save Silesia from invasion? From an apocalypse?”

  “Perhaps it won’t. But it’ll delay it, at least.”

  “Without obligations or pledges, who do you have in mind? Who ought to be removed? I meant—excuse the lapsus linguae—who are we to include in our prayers?”

  “Bohuslav of Švamberk. Jan Hvězda of Vicemilice, the Hetman of Hradec. Also Jan Čapek of Sány and Ambrož, the former priest of the church of the Holy Spirit. Prokop the Shaven—”

  “Not so fast,” the Wallcreeper instructed reproachfully. “I’m writing them down. Please, though, m’lord, confine yourself to the area around Hradec Králové. We’d like a list of the active and radical Hussites from the regions of Náchod, Trutnov and Vízmburk.”

  “Ha!” shouted the Czech. “Are you planning something after all?”

  “Quiet, m’lord.”

  “I want to take some good news back to Prague—”

  “And I’m telling you to be quiet.”

  The Czech fell silent at a bad moment for Reynevan. Wanting at any cost to see his face, Reynevan was standing on tiptoes and shifting around on the bench. A rotten leg broke with a crack and Reynevan fell, knocking over some tools resting against the wall of the cottage with a clatter that was probably audible in Wrocław.

  He sprang up immediately and bolted. He heard guards shouting not only behind him but also in front of him, exactly where he wanted to flee. He cut between two buildings, not noticing that the Wallcreeper had rushed out of the cottage.

  “Spy! Sppyyyy! Follow him! Take him alive! Aliiive!”

  A servant barred his way and Reynevan knocked him over. The next one seized him by the arm and he punched him in the face. With curses and shouts raining down on him, he cleared a fence, waded through sunflowers, nettles and burdock; the forest and safety were in his grasp, but his pursuers were close on his heels and more soldiers emerged from behind a hayrick. One was about to grab him when Scharley appeared out of nowhere and struck him in the side of the head with a large clay pot. Samson, armed with a plank torn from the fence, charged at the others. Holding the twelve-foot plank horizontally in front of him, the giant knocked three of them over with one blow, and gave the next two such a thwack they toppled over like logs and disappeared into the burdock. Samson shook the plank and roared like a lion, calling to mind his famous biblical namesake menacing the Philistines. The soldiers stopped for a moment, but only for a moment as reinforcements came running from the grange. Samson hurled the plank at the soldiers and beat a hasty retreat after Scharley and Reynevan.

  They jumped into the saddle, urging their horses to a gallop with kicks and yells. They hurtled through a beech wood in a cloud of leaves and thrashing branches, then splashed through a puddle on the track and into a forest of tall trees.

  “Don’t stop!” yelled Scharley, risking a glance over his shoulder. “Don’t stop! They’re after us!”

  Reynevan looked back and saw the shapes of horsemen. He pressed himself to his horse’s mane so as not to be swept from the saddle by the branches lashing him. Riding out of the thicket into thinner woodland, they urged their horses to a gallop. Scharley’s chestnut was racing like a hurricane, pulling ahead. Reynevan urged his mount to go faster. It was very risky on the uneven ground, but the thought of being left behind didn’t appeal to him.

  When he looked back again, his heart froze and sank to the bottom of his stomach when he saw his pursuers—the silhouettes of horsemen with cloaks flowing out behind them like phantoms’ wings. He heard a cry.

  “Adsumus! Adsumuuuus!”

  They rode as hard as they could. Heinrich Hackeborn’s horse gave a sudden snort and Reynevan’s heart dropped even lower. He pressed his face to the horse’s mane and felt the animal leaping, jumping a hollow or a ditch on its own initiative.

  “Adsumuus!” he heard behind him. “Adsuuumuuuus!”

  “Into the ravine!” yelled Samson. “Into the ravine, Scharley!”

  Scharley immediately steered his galloping horse into the gully and the chestnut neighed, slipping on the carpet of leaves covering the hillside. Samson and Reynevan hurtled after him, also at full gallop. They raced over moss that muffled the thudding of hooves. Heinrich Hackeborn’s horse snorted more loudly, several times in a row, as did Samson’s, its chest flecked with foam. Scharley’s chestnut
wasn’t betraying any signs of fatigue.

  The winding sunken lane led them out into a clearing beyond which stood a hazel grove as dense as a primeval forest. They forced their way through until they could urge their snorting horses to a gallop again.

  A short while later, Samson slowed and fell behind. As Reynevan did the same, Scharley looked back and reined his chestnut in.

  “We must have…” he panted when they caught up with him, “we must have lost them. What have you got us mixed up with this time, Reinmar?”

  “Me?”

  “Dammit! I saw those riders! I saw you cringe in fear at the sight of them! Who are they? Why were they shouting, ‘We are here!’?”

  “I don’t know, I swear—”

  “Your oaths are of no use to me. Touch wood, whoever they were, we managed to—”

  “Not yet,” said Samson, his voice sounding different. “The danger isn’t over yet. Look out. Look out!”

  “What?”

  “Something’s approaching.”

  “I can’t hear anything!”

  “But something comes. Something evil. Something very evil.”

  Scharley reined his horse around, standing up in the stirrups to look around and straining his ears for whatever Samson had heard. Reynevan, on the contrary, was cowering in the saddle, terrified by the change in Samson’s voice. Heinrich Hackeborn’s horse snorted and stamped its hooves. Samson shouted. Reynevan yelled.

  And then, from God knew where, a swarm of bats rained down on them from the murky sky.

  They weren’t ordinary bats. Twice as large as regular bats, they had unnaturally large heads, enormous ears, eyes like glowing coals and mouths full of sharp teeth. Their narrow wings whistled and cut like yataghans.

  Reynevan waved his arms around frantically, pushing away the furiously attacking creatures. Yelling in terror and disgust, he tore off the ones that were clinging to his nape and hair. Some he knocked off, beating them away like balls. Others he caught and crushed, but the rest scratched his face, bit his hands and nipped his ears. Beside him, Scharley was slashing blindly with a sabre, splashing black bats’ blood around. At least four were clinging to Scharley’s head and Reynevan saw trickles of blood running down the penitent’s forehead and cheeks. Samson fought in silence, crushing the creatures crawling all over him, grabbing several at a time. The horses were frantic, kicking and neighing in panic.

  Scharley’s sabre swished just above Reynevan’s head, the blade brushing against his hair as he swept from it a huge, plump and unusually vicious beast.

  “Flee!” roared the penitent. “We have to get away! We can’t stay here!”

  Reynevan spurred his horse, also suddenly understanding. They weren’t normal bats, but monsters conjured up by magic, which could only mean one thing—they had been sent by their pursuers, who would also soon appear. They set off at a gallop, not needing to spur their horses since the panicked steeds had shed their tiredness and were flying as though chased by wolves. They couldn’t lose the bats, however, which were attacking, diving and falling on them relentlessly. It was hard to defend themselves at full speed. Only Scharley was winning, wielding his sabre and cutting down the huge creatures as he galloped with such skill he might have been born and spent his entire youth in Tatary.

  But Reynevan, as usual, was more hapless than Jonah. The bats were biting all three of them, but it was Reynevan who was quite blinded when one of them clung to the hair on his forehead. The little monsters were attacking all three horses, but Reynevan’s was the only one into whose ear a bat crawled. The horse thrashed around, whinnying frantically. Shaking its lowered head, it kicked and jerked its rump up with such force that Reynevan, still blinded, shot from the saddle like a stone from a catapult. Now free of its burden, the horse broke into a headlong gallop and would have fled into the forest had Samson not managed to seize its harness and rein it in. Scharley, meanwhile, jumped from the saddle with sabre raised and rushed among the juniper bushes where Reynevan was rolling in the tall grass with bats swarming over him like Saracens over an unsaddled paladin. Yelling terrible curses and vile insults, the penitent slashed with his sabre, splashing gore around. Beside him, Samson was fighting in the saddle with one hand and holding two struggling horses with the other. Only someone as strong as him could have pulled off a trick like that.

  Reynevan, meanwhile, was the first to notice that fresh forces had entered the fray, perhaps because he was on his hands and knees when he observed the grass suddenly lie down flat on the ground, as though struck by a hurricane. He looked up to see, about twenty paces away, a man of gigantic stature. His hair was milk-white like an old man’s, but his eyes flashed with fire. The old man was holding a staff, strange, gnarled and crooked, like a snake frozen in paroxysms of agony.

  “Get down!” the old man thundered. “And stay down!”

  As Reynevan flattened himself on the ground, he felt a strange gale whistling over his head. He heard Scharley utter a stifled curse, followed by the sudden piercing squeal of the bats which had up until then been attacking in complete silence. The squeal was silenced as suddenly as it had begun. Reynevan heard and felt a hail of objects falling around him, thudding on the ground like ripe apples. He also felt a finer shower of tiny, dry things. He looked around. Dead bats were lying everywhere and an unceasing deluge of dead insects was falling from the branches of trees above.

  “Matavermis…” he gasped. “That was Matavermis…”

  “Well, well,” said the old man. “A scholar! Young, but knowledgeable. You can get up now.”

  At second glance, the old man wasn’t old at all. Although no youngster, either, Reynevan had no doubt that the white rime of his hair was less a sign of old age and more of the albinism that frequently occurred among mages. His great height also turned out to be a magically evoked effect, since the white-haired man resting on his staff was tall, but by no means unnaturally so.

  Scharley approached, wading indifferently through the lifeless bats lying in the grass. Samson led the horses over. The white-haired man observed them for a moment—Samson in particular.

  “Three men,” he said. “Interesting. We were looking for two.”

  Reynevan found out why he had used the plural before he could ask. Hooves thudded and the clearing was full of snorting horses.

  “Greetings,” called down Notker of Weyrach. “So, we meet. What a stroke of luck.”

  “A stroke of luck indeed,” repeated Buko of Krossig, pushing his horse slightly against the penitent, with similar scorn in his voice. “Especially since it’s quite a different place than we’d planned!”

  “You’re unreliable, Master Scharley,” added Tassilo of Tresckow, lifting his hounskull. “You don’t keep your word. Which is disgraceful.”

  “But he hasn’t escaped punishment, I see,” snorted Kuno of Wittram. “By the staff of Saint Gregory the Miracle-Worker! Just look how his ears have been nipped!”

  “We ought to get out of here.” The white-haired man interrupted the scene playing out in front of the astonished Reynevan. “The horsemen draw near. They are on our trail!”

  “Didn’t I say,” snorted Buko of Krossig, “that we’d be rescuing them and saving their arses? Very well, let’s ride. Master Huon? Those pursuers…”

  “They aren’t just anyone.” The mage held a bat up by a wingtip and observed it, then transferred his gaze to Scharley and Samson. “Yes, they aren’t just anyone… I knew by the pricking of my thumbs. Well, well… You’re fascinating, fascinating… One could say: show me your pursuers and I’ll tell you who you are.”

  “To hell with them,” called Paszko Rymbaba, reining his horse around. “I don’t give a fig! Let them come and we’ll give them what for!”

  “I don’t think it’ll be so easy,” replied the white-haired man.

  “Neither do I,” said Buko, who was also examining the bats. “Master Huon? Would you mind?”

  The man addressed as Huon didn’t reply. Instead, he raised his
crooked staff and a fog as dense and white as smoke began to rise from the grass and ferns. In no time, the forest was completely engulfed by it.

  “That old wizard,” muttered Notker of Weyrach. “He gives me the shivers…”

  “Huh!” Paszko snorted cheerfully. “Not me, he doesn’t.”

  “Fog might not stop whoever’s tracking us,” Reynevan found the courage to say. “Not even magical fog.”

  The mage turned around and looked Reynevan in the eyes.

  “I know,” he said. “I know, m’lord scholar. Which is why it’s for horses, not men. So get yours out of here as soon as you can. If they smell the vapour, they’ll go mad.”

  “Let us ride, comitiva!” shouted Buko of Krossig.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In which matters take such a criminal turn that had Canon Otto Beess predicted it, he would have shaved Reynevan’s head like a monk’s and locked him up in a Cistercian monastery without further ado. And Reynevan begins to wonder if that alternative might not have been safer for him.

  The charcoal burners and tar makers of the nearby village heading at dawn towards their place of work were alerted and alarmed by the noises coming from it. The more cowardly of them took to their heels at once. The more sensible hurried after them, realising correctly that there would be no work that day and they might get a beating to boot. Only a few of the more courageous men dared to steal close enough to the tar-burning pit to peep out cautiously from behind tree trunks and see in the clearing some fifteen horses and armed riders, six of whom were in full plate armour. The knights were gesticulating animatedly, shouting and cursing. Quarrelling knights were accustomed to taking out their anger and stress on peasants. While an angered nobleman might treat a peasant to a boot in the arse or a whip across the back, a furious knight might also reach for a sword, mace or battleaxe.