Chapter Ten

Inside the great hall, everyone—from the servers and scullions scuttling in and out of the kitchen to the chaplain seated at a table parallel to Beate’s—stared at the huffing knight, who realized all eyes were on him.

“Otto, please, sit down.” Karl walked Otto to an empty table to seat him and then waved a servant to bring food and drink. The young lord grabbed a cloth napkin and pressed it against Otto’s bloody cheek. Otto took the cloth and kept the pressure steady. By this time, Lord Wilhelm had arrived from his chamber to see what was delaying his fitting. Noticing the commotion around Otto, Wilhelm joined his brother. “What happened to you?”

Otto recounted everything. “I am not hallucinating. I have not partaken of too much drink. What the woman did to me was real and witnessed by guards in the barbican.”

“Did anyone else see the devil?” Wilhelm’s incredulousness drew looks from around the room. Mumfred reentered and joined the nobles.

“Perhaps guards on the wall walks,” Otto said. “My lords, both of you need bodyguards around you at all times.”

“Pish, Otto,” Wilhelm said. “The castle’s defenses held up just as designed. Post extra guards up top. Oh, and get one of the cottars to fish the woman out of the moat.”

“I would not do that, my lord, lest you wish the cottar dead.” The chaplain, a man named Theodore, stood. “And I would suggest you follow the knight’s suggestion about bodyguards.”

Wilhelm rolled his eyes and sighed. “Loosen your robe, priest. It’s on too tight.”

Theodore, a cherub of a man, flapped his long brown and white robes. “They are fine. What I am suggesting, my lord, is that the woman the knight described likely already is out of the moat—and angry to have been knocked in there in the first place by Krampus.”

“Excuse me?” It was Mumfred. Beate followed him to stand near the chaplain. Heinrich remained seated, surreptitiously poking duck in his mouth.

“The thing the knight described. That’s Krampus. The dark servant to Saint Nicholas. But what he’s doing out of his cave this time of year—”

“Too much red wine, Father,” Mumfred said. “Perhaps you need to skip evening Mass.”

“On the coming of the Epiphany?” Theodore walked to where Otto sat. “I think not, my lord. And that explains the woman who attacked the knight. It’s Frau Perchta. I’ve heard stories of her comings and goings in Bavaria, but never have I seen her, nor do I wish to.”

“I cannot blame you.” Otto grunted. “She was too strong to be—”

“What did her feet look like?” Theodore said.

Otto looked up, rolling his eyes back and forth, thinking. “One of them was odd, deformed, by the look of her boot.”

“Like a goose’s foot?”

“I didn’t think of it that way, Father, but it was flat.”

“My lords.” Theodore stood before the brothers and placed a hand on each man’s shoulder to huddle. “Every conceivable entrance of this castle must be fortified for the foreseeable future. At least until the Twelfth Night festivities have long passed. She won’t let up. Not until she guts and sews up whoever she’s after.”

“What?” Beate’s voice echoed around the hall.

“Wait a minute,” Wilhelm said, his irreverence slipped to concern.

“That woman we put on Hans’s horse.” Otto stood and pointed to Beate. “That girl’s friend.”

“She was murdered in such a manner, Father,” Beate said. “Her body was defiled and left on the roadside.” Beate recounted what she’d seen.

“The seamstress,” Theodore recalled. “I remember seeing her around here.” He shook his head to refocus. “Then, my dear, I regret to tell you that your friend must have done something the frau frowns upon. Perhaps she didn’t meet her quota of spun wool?”

Wilhelm arched an eyebrow. “This Frau Perchta worries about how much people sew?”

“Yes, according to the tales I’ve read. Her goose foot resembles a splayfoot that works a spinning-woman’s treadle. So perhaps she does. Or it marks that she’s some other type of being, a higher power, a spirit of nature and defender of the woodlands. And she also frowns upon people not eating fish during Twelfth Night in favor of something else. Perhaps it’s an old superstition of mine, but that’s why I requested the cooks prepare me some salmon. It was good too.”

Everyone else within earshot looked at their dinner plates holding an assortment of ravaged duck carcasses. Heinrich slowly gulped the last bit of poultry in his mouth and released the leg bone, which landed on a metal plate with a deadening thump.

“Again, just a superstition,” Theodore said.

“And this Krampus? The devil my father spoke of to us as children to scare us?” Wilhelm said. “Saint Nicholas’s brutish right hand that absconds with naughty children every December fifth to torture them? That’s the man who knocked Perchta in the moat?”

“My lord, it was no man,” Otto said. “It had hooves for feet, a tail, Horns that were part of no costume. Nothing in this world has ever scared me. Not until tonight. That thing did.”

“Then perhaps this Krampus fellow should invest in a calendar because he’s a month behind schedule,” Wilhelm said. “The Eve of Saint Nicholas has long since past. The people in the village—even a few in the castle—who dress as the beast on that night and partake in drink and merriment have put their costumes away for next year. Maybe one of them is a little overzealous or still eats off of lead plates.”

Nobody replied to the elder brother. “Now then, I’m tired of this nonsense and wish to be fitted—girl, Beate—accompany me please. Hopefully this won’t take too long.”

Wilhelm made a beeline for the exit. Beate kissed Heinrich on the cheek. “Stay in here, please. Don’t venture outside.”

“Watch out for yourself.” He looked to make sure Wilhelm had gone. “I don’t trust him.”

“Nor I.” Beate scampered to catch up to Wilhelm, but Karl waited by the exit to accompany her.

“It was real.” Otto straightened himself and walked to leave the hall. All eyes looked at him. “Whether you believe me or not.”