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Trifels Castle, 3 April, Anno Domini 1524

 

MORE THAN A WEEK PASSED, and Agnes was not allowed to see Mathis. Her father had had the young journeyman smith locked up in the dungeon in the former keep and forbade her from communicating with him in any way. Philipp von Erfenstein did not say what he was going to do with Mathis, and Agnes suspected that he didn’t know himself. His anxiety about the rents and the new demands that the duke’s steward kept making occupied his mind entirely, and, as usual, Philipp von Erfenstein drowned his troubles in brandy. Whenever Agnes mentioned Mathis to him, he either replied evasively or growled at her to put the young man out of her head.

“As I guessed,” was all he would mutter, “you’ve fallen in love with him. I can’t let him out until you’re cured of that, anyway.”

Agnes protested vociferously, but later, in her bedchamber, she threw herself on her bed in tears. She felt her inevitable fate approaching, and it was like a rock slowly pressing the life out of her. There was no doubt of it: she must bury all hope of Mathis forever. Sometimes, when she thought angrily that he had only himself to blame for his predicament, she didn’t understand what she really saw in him. He could be wild and headstrong—but he had brains in his head, and she loved the way he was equally passionate in his enthusiasm for better methods of harvesting, the rights of poor peasants, and new developments in firearms. And it broke her heart to know he was still down there in the dungeon.

From time to time, Agnes had tried talking to Mathis through a narrow crack in the masonry going down from the castle courtyard to the dungeon, but after only a few words she had always been discovered by the guards, who had her father’s orders to send her away.

Now she stood at the top of the Trifels rock formation and looked out over the countryside. Although it had been a long winter, the cold weather was slowly but steadily coming to an end. There were still persistent patches of snow in a few deep, shadowy valleys, but otherwise the warm sun shone over the vineyards of the Wasgau, and the fresh green buds of oak and beech leaves swayed in the wind. Agnes breathed deeply. Then her thoughts returned to Mathis, and her face darkened.

It’s still dark and cold for Mathis down there.

The mayor of Annweiler had arrived the very day after Mathis’s spectacular flight to Trifels Castle to take the journeyman smith away. But Philipp von Erfenstein had made it very clear to the mayor that he had no intention of handing Mathis over. Nonetheless, Agnes had a sinking feeling that they had not by any means heard the last of that business.

Another of her anxieties, however, had unexpectedly disappeared, dissolving into thin air. Martin von Heidelsheim, the steward, had apparently turned his back on the castle. At least, there had been no sign of him since his angry outburst in the stables, and Agnes suspected that he had accepted a position somewhere else out of a sense of injured pride—something that had Philipp von Erfenstein drinking more heavily than ever. After all, he now had to deal with all the tiresome paperwork on his own.

“I suppose I could understand that you didn’t want to marry Heidelsheim,” he complained to Agnes now and then, in his cups, “but damned if I can forgive you for scaring my chamberlain away. As if I didn’t have enough on my mind as it is. But don’t entertain any false hopes—I’ll see you married this year yet. Even if I have to marry you off to that mayor of Annweiler. Curse it all, I need the money.”

A sudden gust of wind tugged at the dress Agnes was wearing, and she stepped back from the edge of the cliff for fear of stumbling and falling into the depths below. She was about to go back to the outbuildings of the castle when she noticed a small black dot down there on the castle acres. Agnes peered at it. Her heart leapt up as the dot came closer and turned out to be a stooped figure in a monastic habit. She had been expecting him all morning, and now here he came. Her tutor, the castle chaplain, Father Tristan, was on his way back to Trifels after almost five months.

Soon Agnes could see his frail figure clearly as he came over the fields. Like all Cistercian monks, Father Tristan wore a black robe, the scapular, over his white tunic, which was now stained and splashed with mud after his long walk. But when he saw Agnes up on the rocks he gave her a friendly wave.

“Father Tristan! Father Tristan!” she called, although she knew that he couldn’t hear her down there.

With her heart racing, Agnes ran across the castle courtyard, through the gate, and out into the narrow road until she met her tutor on the other side of the well tower. She embraced him tightly. Besides her father, the frail old man was the only person who sometimes made her feel like a little girl again. After a while Father Tristan, laughing, pushed her away and struggled for breath.

“My word, Agnes, you’ll smother me. I’ve been on pilgrimage to Eusserthal, not Rome!”

But when he saw her sad face, his own expression grew darker. “Child, what’s happened?” he asked anxiously. “You look so pale, like you’ve been in mourning and haven’t eaten for days.”

Father Tristan was nearly eighty years old, and his face was covered with lines and wrinkles. Yet his clever, friendly, watchful eyes shone. For as long as Agnes could remember, the monk had been her teacher and spiritual guide. When he went to Eusserthal monastery for several months every year, she always longed for the day of his return. And now she needed his help more than ever before.

“Some bad things have happened while you were away, Father,” said Agnes gloomily. “I’ve been waiting for you so long.”

Father Tristan smiled mildly. “You know the cold, damp winters up in this castle don’t agree with me. The heating is better in the monastery, and Abbot Weigand needs me to check our accounts. The new bell may sound beautiful, but it was far from cheap. However, here I am now.” He put his pilgrim’s staff aside and took Agnes by the shoulders. Then he looked at her gravely. “So, tell me what has happened.”

Agnes fought back her tears. “My . . . my father has thrown Mathis into the dungeon for stealing an arquebus,” she began quietly. “And he’s wanted by the mayor of Annweiler as a rabble-rouser too. And I’m supposed to marry Heidelsheim, but he isn’t here anymore . . .” Her voice faltered.

“I can see that your story will take some time.” Father Tristan picked up his pilgrim’s staff and led her across the courtyard. “Why don’t we go up to the library and talk about it there at our leisure?” he suggested. “I could drink a glass of hot spiced wine there, too—now that I’m an old man, the cold lingers in my bones, even though winter is behind us.” He shook his head in annoyance. “This windy weather has played the devil with me.”

Relieved, Agnes nodded, and together they climbed the steps to the living quarters in the tower.

 

The library was on the fourth floor of Trifels Castle, just above the chapel. A grate the size of a cart wheel gave a view of the chapel below. Once, persons of high rank could attend mass from this exalted viewpoint and did not have to mix with commoners. It was said that kings and emperors had been among them. But these days the grate covered only a drafty shaft. Agnes knew that her father had been talking of walling it up for some time, but so far he had not put the plan into practice.

Rapt in thought, Agnes looked around the large square room with a tiled stove rumbling away in the left-hand corner. The walls were lined with shelves of all kinds on which a number of parchment scrolls, dusty books, and leather-bound tomes lay. The main archive of the dukes of Zweibrücken was still kept here at the Trifels, and Father Tristan was its official curator. His was a task as interesting as it was unrewarding, for many of the volumes were nothing but old inventories and balance sheets that had to be numbered properly. Other documents were stored in moldering chests down in the castle cellars, where they were slowly falling to pieces. But from time to time, as he sorted through the records and lists, Father Tristan came upon genuine treasures: magnificently illuminated volumes, old collections of ballads, and treatises by ancient Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Plato. Agnes had spent half her childhood up here among the books.

“Ah, I see that good Hedwig has already been kind enough to light a fire for us,” said Father Tristan, approaching the tiled stove with his hands outstretched. “This accursed gout, dear child! Be glad you’re still young.” With his teeth chattering, he picked up a jug standing in a niche beside the stove and poured himself a goblet of steaming spiced wine. Agnes herself felt cold. Particularly in spring, the castle was like a cave in the ice. The mild sunbeams were not enough to bring any real warmth to its ancient walls.

“Now, tell me all about it,” Father Tristan told her, sipping the hot drink. He settled comfortably on the warm bench beside the stove, and Agnes sat down on a stool in front of him. “And don’t leave anything out,” the old monk added, raising a finger in playful warning. “After all, I am still your confessor.”

Agnes took a deep breath and then told Father Tristan about all the recent events at Trifels, including her father’s marriage plans for her, and the strange ring tied to Parcival’s leg. Father Tristan listened in silence, only drinking a little spiced wine from time to time.

“And Heidelsheim has simply disappeared, leaving no trace at all?” he finally asked. “He took nothing with him and left no farewell message?”

When Agnes assented, the monk shook his head skeptically. “I can’t believe that. You know that I never thought very much of the man, Agnes, but all the same, he was a clever and reliable steward. That just isn’t like him. He’s not one to walk out in a temper, leaving all his worldly goods behind. I begin to fear that some accident may have happened to him.”

Agnes sighed. “I suppose we’ll never know. At least, my father hasn’t had a search mounted for him. He just sits brooding to himself. Now that he can’t count the rents anymore he is drinking harder than ever. It was only when he was showing the mayor of Annweiler the door that he was his old self again.” She smiled, but she was serious again the next moment. “Father still hasn’t said what he is going to do with Mathis. And I’m not allowed to visit him either.”

Father Tristan nodded his head thoughtfully. “The mayor won’t have liked being dismissed so unceremoniously by Erfenstein,” he murmured. “Gessler has right on his side. If I know him, he’ll have sent a messenger straight to the electoral court in Heidelberg. This may not turn out well for your father.”

“And it may not turn out well for Mathis, either,” Agnes added gloomily.

Father Tristan nodded, and then looked hard at Agnes. “That ring you mentioned. May I see it?”

“Of course.” Agnes took the ring, which until now she had worn only at night or when she was unobserved, off her finger and, with some hesitation, offered it to the monk.

Father Tristan rubbed the gem in his gnarled fingers, held it up to his eyes, and looked at the engraving. Then Agnes heard his sharp intake of breath.

“Do you know the ring?” she asked hopefully.

The old monk hesitated. He seemed to be about to say something, but then he only shook his head. “No,” he said briefly. “But I know the seal. To say any more would be mere supposition.”

“So? What kind of seal is it?”

“Well, as I’m sure you have noticed, it shows the head of a bearded man,” began Father Tristan quietly, giving the ring back to Agnes. “There are many men who wear beards, but only one was ever so powerful that the beard became, so to speak, a symbol of the man himself and served him as a seal.”

Agnes felt her heart beat faster. “And who was that?”

“Barbarossa.”

The name seemed to hang in the air while Agnes leaned back thoughtfully. Emperor Barbarossa featured in many of the stories she had devoured up here in the library of Trifels Castle. He had been the first of the famous emperors from the Hohenstaufen family who had ruled the German Empire for several generations about four hundred years ago. Barbarossa had been tall and strong, and his red beard was legendary. At a great old age he was drowned in the Saleph River while on Crusade, but there was a story that he was still sleeping under the Trifels. It was a legend that had probably arisen because, after the Hohenstaufens, there had been a time without an emperor when lawlessness prevailed.

“Does that mean this ring belonged to Emperor Barbarossa himself?” Agnes asked at last, amazed.

“No, certainly not!” Father Tristan laughed and leaned comfortably back against the warm side of the stove. “There were many such rings at the time, you see. Each of the ministerial officials of the empire, the authorized representatives of the emperor, had one so that he could seal important documents in His Imperial Majesty’s name. But I have no idea how that ring came to be on your falcon’s leg. Perhaps . . .” He hesitated, and Agnes looked at him expectantly.

“Perhaps what?”

Father Tristan shook his head. “No, nonsense. I must be getting old and strange.” He smiled. “Well, at least that links the two of us. You were always, well, an odd child. Too many dreams can turn one’s head.”

“I did have another dream recently, Father,” Agnes said softly. “Like my old dreams, only this time it was more vivid than ever before. And I had it for the first time on the night when I found the ring. I’ve had it half a dozen times since.”

“Tell me about it.”

So Agnes told him about the dream that had made as strong an impression on her as if it were reality. It had been even more graphic the last few times, and it had always ended with the young man in the hauberk looking at her like he wanted to tell her something.

“It was the Knights’ House here at Trifels Castle, looking as it once did in the past,” she said. “I’m sure it was. I could recognize it all. The niches with people sitting in them, the great hearth, even the paneling on the ceiling was the same.”

The monk said nothing for a moment, then, laboriously, he got to his feet and turned to the shelves. “Wait a moment, my child,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

Murmuring quietly to himself, he searched among the bound volumes for a little while, and then pulled out a thick book with irregularly cut parchment pages, some of them charred here and there. Lettering in gold leaf stood out on them. Father Tristan carefully laid the book on the table in the middle of the room and began looking through it.

“Here,” he said at last. “Is that the hall that you saw in your dream?”

Agnes bent over the open book and froze. She was looking at a magnificently illustrated page, already yellowing, with intertwining letters at the top. The picture showed a high-ceilinged hall in which a banquet was being held. Men and women in flowing, colorful robes sat at long tables, servants were carrying in delicious-looking dishes, a juggler was throwing balls in the air. It was the very same hall that she had seen in her dream.

“My God!” she breathed.

“It is indeed the Knights’ House here at Trifels Castle,” the monk replied quietly. “This picture is many hundreds of years old. It dates from the time when the Trifels was still an imperial castle.”

“It’s all just as it was in my dream,” whispered Agnes. “The guests, the musicians . . .” Her voice faltered. With a trembling finger, she pointed to a figure at the side of the hall that she had only just seen. It was a young man in a hauberk, with his head bent, kneeling before an older man, a knight. Her breathing sped up.

“That . . . that young man,” she asked. “Who is he?”

Father Tristan bent over the book and looked more closely at the picture. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be,” he complained, “but unless I’m much mistaken, it shows the scene of an accolade. A young man is being dubbed a knight.” He hesitated, and then shook his head vigorously, as if to dispel dark thoughts. “But for the life of me I can’t tell you who he is. It was far too long ago. The young man will have fallen to dust and ashes by now.”

“Not in my dream,” Agnes murmured.

Father Tristan slammed the book shut. “One shouldn’t look too far back in the past,” he said rather too quickly. “That leads to no good.” He looked at her sternly. “And as for this ring, Agnes, let me implore you. Don’t wear it on your finger, and don’t show it to any stranger. Will you promise me that?”

“But why?” asked Agnes, taken aback. “Is it so valuable that someone would want to steal it from me?”

“Its value is of a different kind. Just promise me. Maybe I can tell you more about it another time. All right?”

In silence, Agnes nodded, and the monk smiled and stood up. He slowly made his way to the door of the library, and then turned around to Agnes, a twinkle in his eyes. “Come along, we both ought to eat something. And after that maybe I’ll think of a way to help your friend Mathis out of his fix. The living should always be closer to us than the dead, especially when the dead died so long ago. Come with me, then.” He reached for his pilgrim’s staff and climbed downstairs to the kitchen. “You know stout Hedwig doesn’t like her food to get cold.”

With some hesitation, Agnes followed him. She cast one last glance at the book, now lying closed on the table, before she left the library. What other secrets might be concealed within?

 

Mathis’s stomach grumbled, as if the guards had locked a bear in the dungeon with him. Although it was already afternoon, he had had nothing today but some thin soup and a crust of moldy bread. He stared at the dirty wall as though his eyes could burn a hole in it. He had made a mark on the stone with a piece of charred wood for every day that he spent down here. There were ten marks now, ten days and nights in almost complete darkness. Today he would be adding an eleventh.

The castle dungeon was directly under the Trifels storeroom in the cellars. His prison was a shaft cut deeper into the rock, and the bottom of it could be reached only by means of a rope. Stinking straw covered the floor, with stones, rotten planks, and pieces of wood that someone or other had thrown in at some time. By night rats squealed and scurried from one hole in the walls to another. There were two slits at a height of a good twelve feet up the walls, allowing a little daylight in, but otherwise darkness reigned. The men-at-arms let water, soup, and bread down to Mathis twice a day, and took away the bucket in which he had relieved himself. Ulrich, Gunther, and the other guards obviously did not like to think of the young man they had known since his childhood being shut up down there. But the castellan was not to be moved. They were not even allowed to talk to the prisoner. So Mathis stared gloomily at nothing, day in, day out. Now and then, to keep himself reasonably fit, he paced up and down the dungeon, which was just fifteen feet square, or lifted weights in the form of several chunks of stone that had fallen out of the wall.

Agnes had once told him that great noblemen and bishops used to be imprisoned in the imperial fortress of Trifels. Even Richard the Lionheart, the famous king of England, had languished here at one time. With the ransom money that Barbarossa’s son Henry VI got for the Lionheart, the German emperor later conquered Sicily and came back with a great treasure. Not that Mathis could imagine King Richard having to fight rats for his food down here. Presumably the ruler of England had been accommodated in one of the upper rooms, as befitted his rank, until the ransom finally arrived. Apparently His Majesty had even written several poems when he was in captivity at Trifels.

Mathis laughed bitterly at the idea of writing love poetry with quill and parchment here among the rats. Who would he write them to? Agnes? His feelings for her had cooled off a good deal these last few days. Why had he listened to her instead of running away into the forest as he had planned? People said that more and more malcontents were gathering in the deep, green valleys of the Wasgau, indeed of the whole Upper Rhine area, to organize uprisings against the injustice of the princes, counts, and dukes. Very likely Shepherd Jockel had joined them after fleeing from Annweiler. Mathis cursed quietly. The whole empire was seething in ferment—and here he lay, rotting in the dungeon of Trifels Castle.

Agnes had kept trying to talk to him through the slit in the wall that admitted light, but only until the guards sent her away. To tell the truth, however, Mathis didn’t want to talk to her. She was the daughter of the castellan who was responsible for this situation in the first place—a nobleman’s daughter. And what had Philipp von Erfenstein ever done to improve life for his peasants? Nothing. Agnes would say that her father hadn’t made the laws, as if laws couldn’t be changed. Maybe Jockel was right when he lumped all the powerful men together. Mathis thought of what his father had said. Since he had been locked up here, he couldn’t get it out of his head.

Agnes is the daughter of the lord of Trifels Castle, and Mathis is only a journeyman smith. Where is that going to lead?

A scraping sound roused Mathis from his thoughts. When he looked up, he saw that the stone slab in the roof above was being pushed aside. The face of Ulrich Reichhart, the master gunner, appeared in the opening. Mathis’s heart began to beat wildly. Was the mayor of Annweiler here to take him away to stand trial? Or had Philipp von Erfenstein relented and was setting him free?

“Got a visitor for you,” old Ulrich growled. “The castellan said your mother could see you.”

Next moment, the face of Martha Wielenbach appeared above him. Although it was a good fifteen feet up to the ceiling, and there was hardly any light, Mathis could see at first glance how sad his mother looked. Her once black hair had much more gray in it than when he’d last seen her.

“Mathis!” she called down, “Mathis! My God, how are you?”

“As anyone might expect, after spending so long in this hole,” replied Mathis, trying to sound as calm as possible. “Fighting the rats for every bit of bread.” He felt how rough and dry his throat was, and a bitter fluid rose in it. In spite of the grief that suddenly overcame him, he was determined that his mother wouldn’t see him in tears.

“I brought you something to eat,” said Martha Wielenbach, her voice faltering. “Ulrich is going to be kind enough to let me down to you.”

“Believe me, Mathis,” the old master gunner assured him, “if it was up to me you’d have been free long ago. But the castellan can be as stubborn as a donkey. At least he isn’t handing you over to Gessler. That’s something.”

The men-at-arms Gunther and Sebastian lent Ulrich a hand, and between them they let Martha Wielenbach down in a loop of rope. With her free hand, the smith’s wife clutched a basket in which Mathis could see new bread, still steaming from the oven, and cheese as yellow as honey. His stomach rumbled again.

Down in the cell, Martha Wielenbach quickly climbed out of the loop and hugged her son. “Mathis, dear Mathis!” she whispered. “At least you seem to be in good health.” She shed a few tears. “Oh, why did it have to come to this?”

Mathis gently pushed her away. “It’s all right, Mother,” he said. “I don’t mind atoning for the theft. But I’m not sorry for the rest of it.”

His mother wiped away her tears, and looked at him questioningly. “You mean helping Shepherd Jockel to get away?”

Mathis nodded. “It had to be done. If the citizens of Annweiler are going to knuckle under, then it’s for us ordinary folk to show the powerful that things can’t go on like this. We’re not criminals and cutthroats, we only want justice. God made all men equal.”

His mother shook her head sadly. “Oh, Mathis, what kind of talk is that?” she said. “Who gave you these notions? Shepherd Jockel? Don’t let your father hear them—he’s in a bad enough way as it is.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

She sighed. “When he heard about you, he didn’t speak to anyone for three days, not even me. Since then his cough has been worse and worse, and at the end of last week he had to take to his bed. He won’t let me mention you—he’s beside himself if I do.”

Mathis felt all the anger suddenly go out of him. As a child, he had almost taken his father for God. Hans Wielenbach had been a tall, strong, traveling craftsman when the castellan took him into his service ten years ago, along with his family. There had been five of them then, but little Peter had soon died while still at his mother’s breast, and their big sister had been carried off by severe whooping cough five years ago. Mathis, the middle child, had always had ideas of his own, and over time he had quarreled more and more often with his father. Suddenly Mathis felt dreadfully afraid that Hans Wielenbach might die before he could ask his forgiveness.

“Give Father my love,” he murmured in a faltering voice. “Tell him I’m . . . I’m very sorry I’ve dragged you both into this situation.”

Martha Wielenbach stroked her son’s dirty cheek. “I’ll tell him. You’re a good boy after all. It will be all right again, you wait and see. Now, have something to eat.”

She gave him bread and cheese from her basket, and Mathis began to eat greedily. Over the last few minutes he had quite forgotten how hungry he was.

“And your little sister sends you love,” said Martha Wielenbach, smiling, as she watched her son eat. “You’re a hero to her. At least, the children of the peasants down on the castle acres told her you were, and of course she believes it. Oh, and I’m to give you this from Agnes.” She handed him a folded piece of parchment.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked, more roughly than he had intended.

“She’ll have written you a few lines, I expect. I was always so proud that Agnes taught you to read.” Martha Wielenbach took her son by the shoulders. “Mathis, you shouldn’t be so hard on her. How can she help it that her father has locked you up here? I know very well that she keeps pleading with him for you.”

“Ha! She’s already shown how much influence she has on her father. None at all.”

But in spite of his annoyance, Mathis took the parchment. Surreptitiously, he stroked the carefully folded note. Up above, the scraping sound of the stone slab came again. Martha Wielenbach looked at the ceiling, sighing.

“I must go,” she said. She hugged her son one last time, so hard that it almost hurt him. “If you want to soften the castellan’s heart, then stop all your seditious talk,” she warned. “Be penitent, and it will all turn out well yet.”

“I’ll think about it, Mother,” Mathis replied.

Martha Wielenbach planted a kiss on his forehead and then took hold of the rope loop that the men-at-arms had let back down.

“Don’t forget, you will always be my boy, whatever happens,” she said as tears ran down her face. Then her swaying figure was drawn up through the twilight in the shaft. Next moment the stone slab slid back into place, and Mathis was left alone with his thoughts.

He held the folded note up to his face and smelled it. It carried the odor of spring and sunlight.

And Agnes.

Slowly, Mathis unfolded the parchment and stared at it. Agnes had not written a letter; she had painted him a picture. A picture in shining colors, showing the two of them in a forest clearing. It was bright in the darkness of the dungeon, like someone had suddenly lit a torch.

Mathis stroked the note once more and then sat down in a corner with it and looked at the picture again and again.

And once again that bitter flavor rose in his throat.

 

Early next morning, Agnes found another opportunity to speak to Father Tristan. She met the monk in the kitchen, where he was pounding some dried herbs in a mortar. The smoke of the fire on the hearth drifted through the room, and so it took the old man a little while to see her.

“Ah, Agnes,” he said, pleased, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes. “Well, did you dream of Trifels Castle again last night?”

Agnes shook her head. “Not this time. At least, I don’t remember doing so.” She took a piece of bread and dipped it in a beaker of goat’s milk that Hedwig had left ready for her. “Were you able to speak to my father about Mathis?” she hesitantly asked. “His mother came to see him yesterday and brought him greetings from me. She says he’s not in a good frame of mind.”

“No, I fear I haven’t spoken to your father. He was out hunting all day yesterday, and early this morning he was . . . let’s say, not very well.” Father Tristan shrugged his shoulders, smiling. “I’ve already given him a decoction of herbs for his headache, and I expect I’ll be able to talk to him sometime soon. Until then, maybe it would be better for you not to go anywhere near Mathis. Or your father will simply lose his temper again and be as stubborn as ever. Will you take my advice?”

Agnes hesitantly nodded. “All right. If it’s any help to Mathis.”

She munched the hard slice of bread without much of an appetite and finally put it down, pointing with interest to the mortar. “What exactly are you doing there?”

“Pounding arnica, comfrey, and angelica together. Mixed with bear’s fat they make an excellent ointment.” Father Tristan stopped using the pestle and looked at Agnes with a grave expression. “Down in Hahnenbach yesterday I examined a little boy whose leg had been run over by a cart. I told his parents I’d see what I could do.” He tipped the herbal mixture into a pan and stirred it into the softened fat. “I wonder, would you perhaps come with me?”

Agnes was happy to agree. She had often visited the sick with Father Tristan in the past and had picked up a few of the principles of medicine. However, that was some time ago, and so she was particularly glad of his invitation now. Anything to take her mind off Mathis and his unfortunate situation was welcome to her.

When Father Tristan had strapped up his satchel, they went down over the castle acres together to Hahnenbach, a hamlet not far from Annweiler. The old man strode ahead at a good pace. In spite of his great age, he could walk well enough with the help of his staff. It was a warm day, the birds were twittering, and the willows by the roadside were already bearing their soft, fluffy catkins. Not far away the river Queich flowed by, and there was a slight smell of rotting in the air from all the garbage left by the tanners for the river to carry down into the Rhine valley.

Taking the monk’s advice to heart, Agnes had taken the ring off her finger the previous evening. She was wearing it on a thin chain over her heart now, concealed from view. She said nothing for some time that morning, but then she couldn’t restrain herself. She had been brooding all night over what Father Tristan had said about Emperor Barbarossa and her dream.

“Tell me, Father—that young man in the picture,” she tentatively began. “Why did you—” But Father Tristan testily waved her question away.

“I told you I don’t want to talk about it. You think about the past far too much anyway.”

Agnes sighed. “Very well. Then at least take my mind off it by telling me something about the Norman treasure. I was reading about it again in the library only the other day. But I have only fragments of its history. And I love those old tales so much.”

“And I told you about it a dozen times when you were a child,” grumbled Father Tristan, but with a smile playing around his lips. “Oh, very well.” He stopped for a moment to get his breath back, and then he pointed up to the Sonnenberg with the Trifels crowning it. “Up there, on the site of the castle acres of today, there used to be a great tournament ground. The jousts held there were famous throughout the whole country. And it was the place where Emperor Henry VI, Barbarossa’s son, assembled a mighty army over three hundred years ago, to go to fight the Normans in Sicily. His wife was a Sicilian princess, so Henry thought he could seize the throne there for himself. At the time, warriors from the entire empire came to the Trifels—there must have been thousands of them. Knights on horseback, men-at-arms, foot soldiers with bows and spears . . .” Father Tristan spread his arms wide, and Agnes recognized him as the old storyteller she had loved so much as a child.

“Henry rode out, won the victory, and took a terrible revenge on his enemies,” the monk went on. “He had a red-hot crown nailed to the head of the leader of a conspiracy while the man was still alive. When the emperor returned, he possessed the greatest treasure ever seen in Christendom. It’s said the Norman treasure was so enormous that a hundred and fifty donkeys were needed to carry it up to Trifels Castle. There was a magnificent coronation robe in it, but above all there were huge amounts of gold, silver, and jewels.”

“And where’s the treasure today?” asked Agnes, curious to know. “Obviously not at Trifels, or my father would have nothing to worry about.”

Father Tristan laughed. “You’re right there. No, it’s said that Henry’s son Frederick II, known to this day as Stupor Mundi, the Wonder of the World, had it taken later to Apulia, where his faithful Saracens guarded it. And the imperial jewels are no longer here either.”

“Imperial jewels?” Agnes frowned. “You mean the insignia used in the coronation of the German king?” She knew that, as far back as anyone could remember, the king was crowned in an established ceremony, usually held in the imperial city of Aachen. The insignia played an important part in the coronation, but it was news to her that those sacred objects had once been kept at Trifels Castle. “I thought the imperial insignia had been kept in a church in Nuremberg.” she said.

Father Tristan shook his head. “Once, at the time of the Hohenstaufens, the imperial jewels were here in Trifels Castle. The Cistercians of Eusserthal took care of them. They are the holiest objects in the empire. The sword of Charlemagne, the imperial orb, and the scepter, crown, and coronation robe. And of course the Holy Lance that once pierced the side of Our Lord at Golgotha . . .” The old monk stopped to draw breath again. Groaning, he stretched his back. “Whenever a new king is crowned, they are part of the ceremony. They give the ruler his power. Without the insignia, there can be no coronation to this day.” He sighed. “But the jewels are no longer here. No one cares about Trifels these days, reluctant as your father may be to admit it.”

“But in my dream—” Agnes began. However, the monk interrupted her.

“Forget your dreams, Agnes,” he said brusquely. “You’re living here and now. And look, we’ve nearly arrived.”

Soon they had reached the village. Mud-stained children were playing with pebbles in the only road, where slurry stood in puddles. The children were barefoot and wore only rags tacked together; they were all shockingly thin, their bellies swollen with hunger. They looked at the new arrivals out of eyes sunk deep in their faces, and only when they recognized the monk did they break into muted rejoicings.

“Father Tristan, Father Tristan!” they shouted as they danced around the old man. “Have you brought us a treat?”

“Maybe,” said Father Tristan, smiling. “But please make sure that everyone gets a fair share, you scamps.”

He took a few wrinkled dried plums from last fall’s harvest out of his satchel and divided them among the shouting children, who greedily stuffed the sweet fruits into their mouths at once. When there was nothing left, Father Tristan turned left, with Agnes, to where a small, crooked cottage stood a little way back from the road.

“Here we are,” he said, knocking softly on the door. “Let’s hope the child is no worse.”

A careworn old woman let them in. She smiled wearily on seeing Father Tristan, and Agnes was shocked to see that she had lost nearly all her teeth. Her hair was gray, her skin lined.

“Where’s your son, goodwife?” asked Father Tristan. Only his words told Agnes that the woman was not the child’s grandmother but his mother.

“God bless you, Father,” replied the woman in relief, beckoning him in. “The boy’s lying on the floor back there. He has a high fever.” She glanced suspiciously at Agnes. “But that is . . .”

“The castellan’s daughter,” said Father Tristan. “I know. She wants to make herself useful.”

“Make herself useful?” The woman laughed. There was contempt in her voice as she said, “How can a girl like that be any use?”

Agnes suddenly suspected, uneasily, that Father Tristan had not brought her with him just to tell her more about Trifels Castle. She stared at the dark interior of the cottage, which was built of willow branches daubed with dried mud. A fire burned in the middle of the room, its smoke escaping in thick clouds through a hole in the roof. In a corner at the back lay a boy of about six on a bed of leaves and twigs. His right leg was wrapped in blood-stained rags, and the foot seemed to have swollen to twice its proper size.

Father Tristan knelt down and put his hand on the boy’s forehead, which was wet with sweat. “Yes, the fever is very high,” he murmured. “We must try to lower it a little.” Putting his hand in his satchel, he took out a little leather bag and gave it to Agnes. “Here, make us a decoction of these dried linden flowers.”

Soon Father Tristan had cleaned the dirt and dried blood from the boy’s swollen foot. “Is that decoction ready?” he asked Agnes.

She nodded and handed him the pan.

“I am going to clean the wound with the decoction now,” said Father Tristan. “It must be boiled first, that’s important, remember.”

He bent over the boy, washed the injury with a clean rag, and rubbed some of the ointment he had brought into the injured leg. Meanwhile, Agnes poured what was left of the hot liquid into an earthenware beaker and got the boy to drink a little of it. He moaned, but he did as she wanted.

Father Tristan’s small eyes, surrounded with little lines, twinkled at her. “You’re doing well, Agnes.”

“Maybe I should do such things more often,” replied Agnes quietly, but with a grin. “If you will let me, even though I’m a fine gentleman’s daughter.”

 

✦ ✦ ✦

A mild wind caresses her face. Agnes opens her eyes and sees that she is on the battlements of Trifels Castle, at the very top, above the staterooms and living quarters. It is a warm afternoon in fall, with the leaves of the trees around the castle changing color, their branches swaying slightly in the breeze. Agnes turns her head and sees Scharfenberg Castle on the neighboring hill, distempered red and white, a fortress rising proudly above the woods. Halfway between Trifels and Scharfenberg stands Anebos Castle, not quite as large as its sister, but equally stately. Not a ruin as Agnes knows it in her waking life, but a sturdy tower built on sandstone rock and surrounded by houses, cottages, and walls. She can see men on horseback holding brightly colored banners and standards. Farther away, other sandstone rocks with platforms and watchtowers on them rise like spikes on a dragon’s back. The whole Sonnenberg is a single huge fortress, from Trifels to Scharfenberg Castle.

Agnes looks down at the courtyard. Where she sees only piles of rubble and empty spaces when she is awake, there are stables, sheds, whole buildings. The Knights’ House, in her own day so dilapidated, is attractively covered with red tiles, and black smoke curls up from its chimney. There is busy coming and going everywhere. Huntsmen clad in green hold back a pack of yapping hounds; washerwomen with buckets hurry down to the cisterns in the outer bailey, laughing. A group of mounted men gallops through the open gateway, with pheasants and partridges hanging from their saddles. Grooms, chattering noisily, carry a dead bear slung over a tree trunk into the courtyard. A horn blows somewhere, to be answered by another, and then a third horn calls.

Suddenly Agnes senses a slight draft on the back of her neck. When she turns around, she sees the young man from her first dream. He looks more mature this time. His hair is as thick and black as before, but his features are more marked and less soft. The stubble of a beard makes him look older, more virile. Once again he is wearing his shining hauberk, but she sees the shape of broad shoulders under it. Pine needles cling to his muddy cloak, and his right hand wears a leather glove on which a gray-blue sparrowhawk perches. Now the young man hands the falcon over to a groom and approaches Agnes smiling, with his arms spread wide.

Her heart leaps. She loves this man as she has never loved anyone before. And she knows that her love is returned. She was never happier than at this moment. When he embraces her, she smells his sharp sweat mingling with the resinous aroma of the pine needles. She wishes he would never let her go. She thinks of the song she heard when she last saw him.

Under the linden tree, on the moorland, there we made a bed for two . . .

When he moves back from her, he suddenly takes her hand and speaks to her imploringly. The expression in his eyes is very serious now, and his lips move, but Agnes cannot hear what he is saying. All that comes to her ears is the sound of the wind. Yet she knows that he is saying something of great importance, a matter of life and death.

The young man takes her hand and holds it even more tightly. It hurts. Something is cutting into her finger. When she looks down she sees that it is a ring causing the pain, a ring like an iron band getting tighter all the time.

It is the ring with the seal showing a bearded man.

Barbarossa’s ring.

She looks into the young man’s face again. His lips are forming sounds that she can’t hear. “Take the ring off! Take the ring off!” he seems to be calling to her.

Agnes cries out soundlessly herself. She tries to remove the ring, but it digs its way deeper and deeper into her flesh. She feels it slowly come to rest around her finger bone. Like a necklace cutting off air from her throat.

The ring becomes one with her.

When she looks up again, the young man has disappeared. The castle courtyard is empty, and she is all alone.

✦ ✦ ✦

 

Gasping, trembling all over, Agnes awoke with the moon shining brightly into her room. She jumped out of bed, panic-stricken, and ran to the open window.

Where am I?

But she saw only the courtyard of Trifels below, just as she had known it since her childhood. From up here, she could see the outlines of the kennels and the aviary, the tumbledown walls and the Knights’ House leaning to one side, not as she had just seen it in her dream, a fine sight with its red tiles. Her hand went to her throat, and she pulled out the chain with the ring on it from under her nightgown. White moonlight lay on the engraving. The ring looked just the same as in her dream, and although it had been next to her heart all night, it felt cold as ice.

What on earth does it mean? What is this ring doing to me?

Agnes took a few deep breaths and finally managed to put her thoughts in order. Things from real life kept slipping into her dreams. That was nothing unusual; the same happened to other people. The only unusual part of it was the way her dream, and so the ring too, had seemed so real. As before, she had felt and heard everything—the mild wind on her skin, the resinous aroma of the pine needles, the sharp sweat of the man she loved . . . What was it about that young man whom she obviously desired so much? Who was he? Now that she was awake, she felt nothing for him, almost as if she had been someone entirely different in her dream. Agnes frowned. The young man had warned her against the ring. Did it represent a danger for her? Father Tristan had suggested as much.

She instinctively put her hand to the cool metal and shook her head. Very likely Father Tristan’s warning had simply influenced her dream. That was all. She was beginning to see ghosts.

You should work in the garden more often, then you wouldn’t have time for such fancies.

Only now did Agnes notice how cold she felt in her thin nightgown. She went back to bed, shivering, and slipped under the covers. She thought of taking off the ring but decided to go on wearing it over her heart. Without it, she felt strangely naked.

Not until the first rays of the sun fell on her face and a rooster crowed in the distance did she fall into a brief, feverish sleep.