✦ 5 ✦

Annweiler, near Trifels Castle, 8 April, Anno Domini 1524

 

ONLY A FEW DAYS LATER, three men on tall horses reached Annweiler early in the morning.

The few tanners standing by the town’s millstream, washing animal skins still matted with blood and the remnants of flesh that clung to them, looked up for a moment, no more, as the trio rode by. Then they quickly ducked their heads. The strangers’ clothing was unusual. They wore the costume of landsknechts, but the fabric looked expensive and was of colors not generally seen in this part of the country. In the normal way, it boded no good for strange folk to visit a place. They were often messengers from the duke, coming to collect dues and taxes, or heralds announcing new electoral edicts—edicts that demanded yet more dues. Taxes had been raised five times in the last twelve years, and as many activities had been banned in the same time. Not just hunting, but fishing, and even chopping wood were now forbidden. The rulers were squeezing more and more out of the peasants and other ordinary folk; it was as if they were in a grape press, but no juice came out—only blood.

The tanners saw at first glance that the leader of the three men, riding a fine steed, was a great gentleman. He wore slashed blood-red hose, a doublet of black velvet, and a fur-trimmed coat over these garments that was also black as night. The cap pulled well down over his face was adorned, in the military fashion, with several colored feathers. A certain indefinable aura of menace surrounded the stranger, like a disturbance in the air suggesting a coming thunderstorm.

“Hey there!” he called in the tone of a man accustomed to giving orders, to one of the tanners by the millstream, an emaciated elderly man. His voice had a curious foreign accent. “Where will I find your mayor?”

“He’ll probably be over at the town hall, sir,” the old man muttered without looking up. “Just ride along the street here to the marketplace, and then you’re outside it.”

Without a word of thanks, the well-dressed stranger spurred on his horse, and the other two men, muscular fellows with shaggy beards and long hair, followed him. The hooves of the three horses clattered down the dirty street. Somewhere a rooster crowed, a few pigs squealed, and morning mists drifted slowly through the town.

The leader dismounted in the empty marketplace and tied up his horse to a trough. He gave his companions a curt order in a foreign language. They nodded and then let their eyes wander without interest over the square. A young maidservant had just been opening the shutters to hang out some washing, but at the sight of the horsemen she slammed the window shut in alarm.

“Boo!” said one of the two men. They laughed quietly as their horses, which were sweating heavily, drank water from the trough.

Meanwhile, the leader went into Annweiler Town Hall. It was a half-timbered house, painted red and white, and its size and grandeur recalled the heyday of this former imperial city. It looked curiously out of place amidst the other low-ceilinged, crooked buildings. The man’s boots echoed on the steps up to the town hall, which were stained oxblood red.

Up in his study, Bernwart Gessler was brooding over some files. The mayor of Annweiler was busy completing the lists of the dues and taxes that had already been collected. All the villages and hamlets had now paid up. There was to be a meeting of the newly elected council in an hour’s time to discuss measures that might be taken to counter the increasingly subversive activities of the so-called Lutherans. These days more and more monks and peripatetic priests were emerging and preaching against papal decrees. After what had happened at the Green Tree Inn recently, Gessler had insisted on a quick reelection of the council. Opponents were removed, supporters and the undecided left in office. The mayor was sure that he was now more or less back in control of the town.

When there was a knock on the door, the mayor didn’t even look up.

“Oh, for God’s sake, not now!” he snarled. But the door opened anyway.

The man who entered the study looked both dangerous and distinguished. As a result, Gessler bit back the curse already on the tip of his tongue and looked expectantly at his visitor.

“Yes?” he asked cautiously.

The stranger pulled up a stool, sat on it, and crossed his legs. His cap was still pulled well down over his face. “I am visiting this little town of yours in search of something,” he began in a curious, soft accent. “Maybe you can help me.”

The mayor gave a thin-lipped smile. “Maybe. You’d better come back tomorrow. Around noon. Then I can . . .”

“I do not have time for that,” the man interrupted him. “I come from far away.” He pushed his cap back, and now Gessler saw that the stranger’s face was as black as night. White eyes shone in it like cold, sparkling diamonds. “From very far away.”

Suddenly he reached into his full slashed upper hose and brought out a bag of clinking coins. With a quick movement, he pushed the purse over the table so that it stopped right in front of the mayor. “A payment for granting my modest wish. And there will be as much again if your help turns out useful.”

In surprise, Bernwart Gessler opened the bag, which contained golden coins in some foreign currency, so many that it had to be worth more than Gessler had made all last year. His heart was in his throat, but he kept his composure.

“And what is this wish?” he asked in as neutral a tone as possible, while the little bag disappeared into a drawer in his desk.

The stranger told him.

Bernwart Gessler listened with close attention. The request was rather strange, like the man himself. For such a large sum, he could have commanded Gessler to poison the millstream or have all the houses in Annweiler painted blue. Gessler thought for a moment before finally, and hesitantly, he answered.

“Yes, in a case like that the church registers would indeed help you. But, sad to say, they were all destroyed in a fire three years ago. What a pity . . .” He paused, and he smiled when he saw the other man frown. “But as this matter is obviously very important, I might know someone who can help you further. There could be papers, or at least something similar. Although I can’t promise anything.”

“And who would that someone be?” asked the stranger.

Gessler told him.

With a supple movement, the man rose and sketched a bow. Only now did Gessler notice the curved sword hanging from the man’s waist. Its sheath, hand guard, and hilt were scratched, with deep notches in them, and rusty red patches disfigured the otherwise excellent workmanship. The saber looked as if it had seen a great deal of use.

“It has been a pleasure to do business with you,” said the stranger. He spoke fluently, if with an accent that Gessler had never heard before. “If your suggestion leads to the desired result, I will be back. If not . . .” He paused for a moment. “Well, I will be back anyway. I am sure I need not emphasize the importance of keeping this conversation of ours confidential. A word to anyone else, and . . .” He let his unfinished sentence die away.

“Are you by any chance threatening me?” the mayor replied coldly.

“Think of the other bag. It could soon be yours.”

The stranger turned away, without a word of farewell, and disappeared through the open doorway. For a while Gessler could hear his boots going down the steps, and then there was silence. Shivering, the mayor drew his warm woolen coat around his shoulders. It was as if a cold wind had blown through the study.

Bernwart Gessler opened the drawer, and weighed the heavy bag of coins in his hand again.

Oddly enough, it gave him no real pleasure.

 

In the dungeon of Trifels Castle, Mathis had made five more marks on the stone wall since his mother’s visit. Every day he expected the castellan to hand him over to the mayor of Annweiler, or his mother to bring him news of his sick father’s death.

The endless hours passed monotonously, interrupted only when Ulrich Reichhart or one of the other guards brought him something to eat. Then the trapdoor would open, and light would fall on Mathis’s pale face. Now and then Ulrich said a cheering word, otherwise Mathis was alone with his thoughts.

To occupy his mind, he had begun recalling the forbidden writings that Shepherd Jockel had once given him to read. When he closed his eyes, he could see the letters clearly before his mind’s eye, and so in his thoughts he reread the peasants’ demands, repeating in a whisper the lines telling the tale of a better world—a world without princes, counts, and clerics. But another image kept coming in front of those lines, distracting his attention.

The face of Agnes.

For perhaps the thirtieth time that day he took out the piece of parchment on which Agnes had painted herself and him in the forest. By now it was stained, torn, and the bright colors were fading, but Mathis still thought he caught a faint perfume that reminded him of Agnes. She had not been near him for days. At first he had told himself that was for the best, but then he felt how much he missed her. Why did she have to be the daughter of that damn pig-headed castellan?

Mathis was on the point of crumpling up the picture in anger, but then he thought better of it, folded the parchment carefully, and put it under his doublet. He rose and began pacing from wall to wall of the dungeon. Fifteen feet one way, fifteen feet back, fifteen feet one way . . .

Several mice kept him company on his short walk. Mathis had fed them a few crumbs of bread, and in time they had become used to him. Now they would run up and down in front of his feet, squeaking, hoping for food. Mathis was particularly fond of one of them, a little larger and bolder than the others. It had a few black and white spots on its gray coat. As a joke, Mathis had called it Jockel, and he sometimes threw it a particularly large crumb. Jockel had just scurried over the laced leather shoe on Mathis’s right foot, disappearing into a corner of the dungeon where there was a heap of dirty straw. Mathis knelt down and made a few enticing sounds, but the mouse did not come out.

“Come on, Jockel, where are you? Out you come, stupid.”

Mathis cautiously approached the heap of straw and swept it aside with his foot.

“Got you!”

But Jockel wasn’t there.

How was that possible? He hadn’t trodden the mouse underfoot, had he? Baffled, Mathis leaned down, and that was when he saw the hole in the corner, just where the stone blocks of the wall met the floor. Curious, he put his finger into it . . . and froze.

The block was not very thick, and there was obviously a hollow space beyond it. Paying close attention, Mathis knocked at the area around the hole through which the mouse had slipped. Sure enough, the stone block, which came up to around his waist, was thinner than the others in the walls. He had not found that place before because of the straw and other debris in front of it.

Mathis frowned thoughtfully. What did it mean? He knew that when an enemy stormed a castle, the keep was often the last refuge. The walls there were usually many feet thick, and the entrance to the keep could be reached only by a ladder. But sometimes there were secret passages offering a way of escape. Where the keep of Trifels Castle had once been, there was now the dungeon, the cellar storerooms, and up above those the kitchen and the living quarters. But if the castle was really as old as Agnes always said, it was perfectly possible that there could still be hidden passages.

Passages leading to the outside world.

His heart beat frantically. He looked up the shaft in which the dungeon stood and tried to get his bearings. The block was on the side of his cell facing the castle courtyard. From there it would be only about twenty yards to the other side of the western wall of the castle. Could he really have found a way of escape?

He examined the block more closely. It was solid rock, and apart from the tiny hole in the corner it was just the same as the other massive stones beside it. There were remnants of gray mortar where their edges met. Mathis scratched it, but it was hard as rock too. A tiny, now almost illegible inscription was engraved in one corner.

ALBERTUS FACIEBAT LEONES EXPULSOS ESSE . . .

Mathis frowned. He had consulted some books in Latin in the library of Trifels Castle, and translated the passages that mattered to him, but he did not know much Latin vocabulary. Had a prisoner left his mark here in the past? But never mind what the inscription meant, time was short. He had to find out what was behind the block.

Mathis looked around, desperate to find something that would serve as a tool to scrape away the mortar. Finally he picked up a flat pebble and began working away at the edges of the stone block. It took him some time, but after an hour or more he had removed enough mortar to reveal a crack no wider than a finger. Experimentally, Mathis pushed the block, but nothing happened. He threw his full weight against it, cursing, but it was set in place as firmly as a tree trunk.

After working at it for several more minutes, Mathis had to accept that the block really was set in the ground. He had no idea how deep down it went, and he would have to dig to find out. But what with? He had no knife or spoon. And even if he did, how long would it take him to break the block out of position? Weeks? Months? By that time Philipp von Erfenstein would have handed him over to the mayor of Annweiler or thought of some other fate for him.

Bitterly disappointed, Mathis sat hunched in a corner and buried his dirty face in his hands. His original delight turned to despair. He wouldn’t last much longer down here. He had to get out before the darkness, the cramped space, and his isolation drove him crazy. He couldn’t wait another month, not even another week. Every single day here was too much.

Once again he tapped the stone block. It seemed to him much thicker and set more firmly in place than before. An insuperable obstacle weighing a ton. How was such a hunk of stone ever to be moved out of position? Unless . . .

Mathis suddenly stopped short in the middle of his train of thought. A slight smile spread over his face. Why, of course there was a way to do it. It was unusual and risky, in fact almost deranged. And it would mean burning all his bridges behind him. But wasn’t that what he wanted to do anyway?

Once again Mathis began pacing up and down, but this time driven not by despair. Instead, he was thinking hard.

A plan was forming in his mind.

 

Walking fast, Agnes climbed the steep path from the valley up to the Trifels. She had been down in Annweiler and had bought a little fresh salt for Hedwig and a small bale of fabric for herself, though not of the best quality. She had been meaning to make Father Tristan a new habit. His old one was so threadbare that he must be cold in it. He would never have thought of a new garment himself. Over the last few days, Agnes had not had much time to think of Mathis. Since she had gone to Hahnenbach with Father Tristan, the old monk had been to visit the sick near the castle four more times. Each time Agnes had gone with him, giving him what help she could. She had splinted the broken arm of an old man who had fallen at work in the fields; she had spooned blueberry juice, as a cure for diarrhea, into a hollow-cheeked girl suffering from hunger and a fever; she had boiled up honey and sage to help with a dry cough. And she had watched Father Tristan administer extreme unction to a wrinkled old woman. Later, Agnes discovered that the woman had been just forty years old and was the mother of eight children. She had been suckling the youngest at her breast only a few days before she died. In the last three days, Agnes had learned more than in the previous three years.

Above all, she had seen the suffering of the peasants. They lived on rotting turnips and hard bread made from acorn flour and beechnuts. They worked from sunrise to sunset to cultivate their poor fields and meager kitchen gardens. They bent their backs to dig, while their babies rocked in the wind, hanging wrapped in cloth from trees at the sides of the field, crying their lungs out with hunger.

This life had nothing in common with the stories and pictures that Agnes knew from the castle library. She felt like she had spent all her time until now in a small room full of books, and someone had suddenly opened the window to let real life in.

And real life stank. It was wretched, ugly, and its injustice cried out to heaven. Agnes often wondered how God could allow such things.

Breathing heavily from the steep climb, she looked up after a while and saw Margarethe coming from the opposite direction. The maid walked with a spring in her step, her hair was prettily combed, and she had a glittering ornament around her neck. As she came closer, it proved to be made of cheap polished copper with a few glass stones in it. All the same, Margarethe wore it as if she were a great lady. When they were level with each other, the maid bobbed a curtsy, but Agnes saw that the meeting made her feel uncomfortable.

“All in your Sunday best?” asked Agnes with a smile. “You don’t look like you’re on your way down to wash clothes in the river.”

“I’ve done all my work, my lady,” replied Margarethe uncertainly. “I’ve been on my feet since sunrise, helping Hedwig in the kitchen. Now she’s said I can have the rest of the day off until evening. Unless my lady needs me . . .” She paused, and looked pleadingly at Agnes. But Agnes only waved the idea away.

“You’ve earned a little free time.” Agnes’s eyes twinkled as she spoke to her lady’s maid. “That is, if you’ll tell me who gave you that pretty necklace.”

“Oh, that.” Margarethe pretended that she had only just noticed it. “It comes from Annweiler.” She put her hand to it, and a smile played around her roughened lips. “It’s lovely, isn’t it? A merchant’s journeyman from Speyer gave it to me. He comes to these parts quite often and I think he likes me.”

“I expect he’s in Annweiler again today?” suggested Agnes.

Margarethe nodded, and Agnes felt a small pang. If her lady’s maid had really found a prosperous suitor, she was to be congratulated. All the same, she felt something like jealousy. No doubt Margarethe would marry the man she wanted eventually, but what about Agnes herself? By now she could only hope that the next bridegroom her father presented to her would at least be better than Heidelsheim. She supposed that Mathis would never be more than the man of her dreams.

And after a while, dreams fade away, she thought sadly.

“I wish you well, Margarethe,” Agnes said. She pulled herself together. “Now, off you go before your friend from Speyer gives up and goes away.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

Relieved, Margarethe curtsyed again and hurried downhill. Soon she had disappeared around the next bend in the path.

Agnes turned and walked slowly on, passing the high wall of the castle and the well tower. She couldn’t keep her thoughts from dwelling on Mathis, and she felt another pang. Taking Father Tristan’s advice, she had not tried to visit him again. Unfortunately, however, the monk had not yet been able to soften her father’s heart. Since his first visit to the ducal steward in Neukastell, Philipp von Erfenstein had been there again twice, and each time had come home even more withdrawn and morose than usual. What could have happened? She often saw her father brooding as he paced up and down the Knights’ House, and several times he had asked Ulrich Reichhart to go to the armory with him. After that he had looked even gloomier.

What also weighed on Agnes’s mind was her latest dream of Trifels. It took clearer shape in her mind with every passing day. By now she could see every single scene vividly before her: the young man in his hauberk on the battlements, his soundless words, the ring on her finger. She had read the plea from his lips.

Take the ring off! Take the ring off!

Agnes took out the strange signet ring that was still hanging around her neck on its chain. Was it really a danger to her? Were those dreams warnings from the past? Shaking her head, she put the ring back under her bodice. Maybe they were simply the result of the strange few weeks that had just passed. For some reason, Father Tristan had warned her against the ring, and now his warnings tormented her like nightmares.

At the gateway, Agnes nodded to the man-at-arms on guard, Gunther. He muttered something incomprehensible into his beard, but she did not stop. Instead, she hurried up the ramp to the lower bailey, where the aviary, which was as tall as a man, stood in a corner. Parcival beat his wings happily at the sight of her. He was better now, and Agnes had been out into the woods with him again. He was molting too much to go hunting, but since that encounter with Hans von Wertingen and his companions, Agnes had felt less like hunting in any case. She kept thinking a figure might leap out from behind the nearest tree.

“I haven’t taken you out much recently, have I, little one?” she said consolingly to Parcival. “I promise we’ll soon go for a good long expedition together.”

Only now did she notice a strange horse standing at the back of the courtyard by the stables. He was a fiery mount with a freshly combed mane and a well-brushed coat, and at present he had his head in a bucket of oats. The other two men-at-arms, Eberhart and Sebastian, sat on the steps leading to the upper bailey, playing dice. They had an almost empty jug of wine in front of them. When they caught sight of Agnes, they rose to their feet, swaying slightly.

“God be with you, mistress,” Sebastian said, slurring his words. “I hope you had a pleasant day.”

“Not as pleasant as yours, I suspect.” Agnes pointed to the strange horse. “I see we have a visitor.”

“Very dis . . . distinguished visitor,” Eberhart babbled. “Brought a cask of French wine as a present to the castellan. Three cheers for the count!”

“The count?” Surprised, Agnes looked at the two guards. But as they said no more, she went on to the upper bailey. She quickly looked in at the kitchen with her bag of salt, and put the bale of cloth away before climbing the stairs to the Knights’ House, curious to meet the visitor.

When Agnes entered the great hall, she saw her father sitting on a stool in front of the cold hearth. Beside him sat a pale young man dressed in fine fabric. He wore a black cap, a black doublet, and close-fitting silken hose, with a gold chain hung around his neck. In the dim light of the hall, he looked like a messenger from another, richer world. The two men were obviously deep in serious conversation. Two chipped glass goblets, filled with wine, stood on a small table. Agnes knew that her father brought out his precious glasses only when an important guest visited. When Philipp von Erfenstein saw his daughter, he interrupted the conversation.

“I thought you were still down in Annweiler?” he muttered, perhaps displeased, and then pointed to the stranger. “Well, be that as it may, we have a guest. This is young Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck. I’ve told you about his family. Show the count the honor he deserves, please.”

Agnes bent her knee. Her father had in fact mentioned the Löwenstein-Scharfenecks now and then—or rather, he had abused them roundly. To the castellan of Trifels Castle, the Scharfenecks were one of those noble families who were more notable for their descent than their deeds. Their castle was only a few miles from Annweiler, and not far from the stronghold of the robber knight Hans von Wertingen. The links between the Scharfenecks and Frederick, the former elector of the Palatinate, had made the family rich and powerful. Their estate was the finest in all the countryside.

“You really are as pretty as I was told,” said Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck, smiling, as he sipped from his goblet. “Your mother must have been a great beauty.”

Agnes looked up and examined the count more closely. He leaned back in the wooden armchair in jovial mood, his legs crossed. His neatly trimmed black beard made him look older than he really was. He was a handsome, well-made man, even if Agnes suspected that he was very much aware of the fact. The young nobleman’s entire bearing was that of a man who always got whatever he wanted. A curious aura surrounded him, and at first Agnes didn’t know whether it repelled or attracted her.

“Thank you, my lord,” she replied. “I’m afraid my mother has been dead for many years, so I can’t remember what she looked like.”

Laughing, the castellan intervened. “Well, luckily she doesn’t take after me,” he said, reaching for his goblet. From his heavy voice, Agnes could tell that he had drunk several glasses of wine already.

“Maybe she does, if she likes to get her own way.” Scharfeneck winked at his host. “People say all kinds of things about your daughter, Erfenstein. A young woman who can read, likes the stories of the Round Table, and goes hunting with her falcon—in doublet and hose like a man, no less.” He laughed quietly and scrutinized Agnes with obvious approval. Today she was wearing a plain linen skirt and a close-fitting bodice. “I for one prefer you in skirts.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Excellency,” said Agnes coolly, casting a quizzical glance at the count’s own fashionable clothes. “But your hose would be too tight for me. I imagine they would be rather a hindrance in a fight between men.”

“Agnes!” said her father reprovingly. “Are you out of your mind, speaking to the count like—” But Scharfeneck raised a hand to silence him.

“Let her speak, castellan,” he ordered. “I like women with something to say for themselves.” His eyes twinkled as he looked at her. “They’re said to be particularly passionate in bed. What about you, Agnes? What lucky man will soon be able to slip between the sheets with you?”

Erfenstein cleared his throat. “I was going to betroth her to my steward, Martin von Heidelsheim,” he murmured. “But, unfortunately, he’s run off.”

“What, leaving such a beauty behind him?” Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck raised his eyebrows. “Then either he’s a fool, or your daughter is stranger than I thought. How old is she?”

“I am sixteen, Excellency,” Agnes said, speaking for herself. “I’ll be seventeen this summer.”

“Nearly left on the shelf already.” The count laughed softly, smiling with that twinkle in his eyes. “Well, for your father’s sake I hope he soon finds another husband for you. On the other hand, this means that I’ll have a chance to talk to you now and then in the future.” He raised his glass. “I hope we shall be good neighbors, dear lady.”

“Good . . . good neighbors?” Agnes looked in confusion from the count to her father. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Scharfenberg Castle has been transferred to the Löwenstein-Scharfenecks by the duke of Zweibrücken,” Erfenstein murmured into his beard. He stared into space. “The young count here plans to put that fine building in order again and move into it in the summer.”

“Move into Scharfenberg?” Agnes laughed out loud, a strange sound in these bleak surroundings. “Into that ruin? But why, Excellency? You already have a magnificent castle, one of the finest in the whole Wasgau district. So why would—”

“Agnes, how often do I have to tell you to keep your mouth shut unless someone asks you a question?” Erfenstein growled.

Count Scharfeneck gave a thin-lipped smile and looked Agnes up and down with curiosity. “It’s a justified question, and shows that your daughter has an astonishingly acute mind, for a woman. You ought to have her at your side more often, Sir Castellan.” The smile disappeared, and Agnes thought she saw an expression of cold hatred in Scharfeneck’s eyes. “As you very well know, Neuscharfeneck is my beloved father’s castle. And as the good man, God willing, has many more years to live, I need a property of my own. Old documents show that Scharfenberg Castle used to belong to us Scharfenecks in the old days. So I am going to restore it to the glory it deserves. I like this part of the country, too, full of history as it is. It conceals, let’s say . . .” he smiled mischievously at Agnes, “many interesting secrets. Don’t you agree, Agnes? I’m told you have a weakness for such things.”

“The duke has decreed that Trifels Castle and Scharfenberg Castle will raise the toll for the Bindersbach Pass together,” Philipp von Erfenstein said through narrowed lips. He had obviously reconciled himself to his daughter’s presence. “The count has just shown me the edict. His Grace wants us to be good neighbors.”

“The toll? Together?” Agnes felt her mouth drop open. “But I thought that the income from the toll . . .”

“Will be shared,” said Scharfeneck, getting his word in first. “But as we are raising the toll, your good father will not lose much by it. I have just been discussing the matter with him.” He leaned forward, smiling. “Furthermore, I am going halfway to meet the castellan of Trifels in another respect.”

“What is it?” asked Agnes, skeptically.

“I don’t think that is anything to do with my impertinent daughter,” Erfenstein said, staring into his glass.

The count dismissed this objection. “Ah, well, she’s going to hear about it sooner or later anyway.” He turned to Agnes. “I am making the services of my landsknechts available to your father in order to drive that bastard Wertingen out for good. If we storm his castle together, we’ll both gain by it. Wertingen still has several villages as his fief, and they will then come into our possession. Not to mention the loot we take. So it’s a fair bargain. We are waiting only for the duke’s permission, but that is a mere formality.”

Agnes looked in silence at the two dissimilar men—the well-dressed young count, and her wheezing old father with his eye patch. He poured himself another glass of wine. She guessed that the bargain would take her family closer to ruin.

“It has been a real pleasure to make the acquaintance of you both.” Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck rose, and made Agnes a slight bow. “I am sure we’ll have many more delightful meetings.” His eyes wandered over her tight bodice. “But you’d better leave the doublet and hose to us men. It would be a shame if no one could see your pretty ankles.”

The castellan rose as well, swaying slightly, but Scharfeneck waved away his offer to show him out. “I can find my way by myself, Erfenstein. These rooms are not so full of elegant furnishings as to confuse me.” He smiled again, then turned and disappeared toward the staircase. Soon shouting and finally the clatter of a horse’s hooves could be heard outside.

“That . . . that puffed-up popinjay!” Erfenstein roared when he could be sure that the young count was out of earshot. “Who does he think he is? Under Emperor Maximilian—”

“Yes, yes, I know, no such thing would have happened,” Agnes interrupted him, with a weary smile. “But, sad to say, your old friend Emperor Maximilian is dead. So like it or not, you’ll have to go along with that conceited fellow.”

Erfenstein sighed. “I know that.” He slapped his broad thigh. “Damn it, I knew at once that he had a plan of some kind at Neukastell, when he suggested letting me use his landsknechts. Now he’ll make double the money. From the pass and from storming Wertingen’s castle. And we still don’t know how to pay next year’s rents.”

Agnes nodded. Now she, too, realized why her father had been looking so grim these last few weeks.

“How can you be so sure that the two of you will defeat Hans von Wertingen?” she asked. “He’s a dangerous man. I know that from my own experience.”

“Damn it all, Agnes, I must defeat him. Don’t you understand?” Erfenstein jumped up, his hand sweeping one of the two glass goblets to the floor, where it broke with a crash. “And I know that it will hardly be possible even with Scharfeneck’s landsknechts, if the dog creeps into Ramburg Castle. It’s an impregnable stone fortress. But there’s no going back now. If I don’t defeat Wertingen, I can’t pay the duke, and he will take Trifels away from me.” His eyes were clouded, and he was shaking slightly. “Do you see? And then I myself would soon be a dishonored knight,” he murmured. “A murderous rogue, earning a crust of bread from highway robbery, or else going to the dogs.”

The castellan of Trifels dropped back onto his stool and reached for the other and still intact glass goblet.

“Leave me alone now,” he said quietly. “I want to be alone, for God’s sake.”

At first Agnes was going to say something, but she refrained. She looked at her father for a while longer as his glazed eyes stared at the cold ashes on the hearth. Finally she could bear it no longer.

“I love you, Father,” she whispered, “no matter what happens.”

With those words she turned and ran down the staircase to get away from that cold, dark place. In the upper bailey, she almost collided with Ulrich Reichhart.

“I was looking for you, Agnes,” said the master gunner. He leaned closer to her with a conspiratorial air, and she could smell the brandy on his breath. “Mathis wants to see you,” he whispered. “I’ll let you down to him. Only for God’s sake don’t let your father know.”

Agnes smiled despairingly. “Believe me, Ulrich, he has other things on his mind at this moment.”

Her mood swung between gloom and sudden joy. Mathis wanted to see her. Had he forgiven her? Or maybe he was sick? Quivering with anticipation, she went down to the keep with Ulrich.

 

They let Agnes down into the dungeon with the rope. Although it was midday, only a little light fell through the window slits, so it was some time before she could finally make out Mathis in a corner of his cell, wrapped in a blanket that the sympathetic Ulrich had probably thrown down to him. Agnes was shocked when she saw him. Imprisonment had changed the smith’s previously strong son. Lack of food, grief, and rage had made him visibly thinner. His dirty face was emaciated, his shoulder blades stood out, angular under his pale skin. Apart from his hose, encrusted with dirt, he wore only a ragged shirt. He looked small and bowed. But his eyes burned like fire.

“Agnes!” he cried, as she slowly hovered down to him on the rope. He sounded more surprised than pleased.

When her feet touched the dirty stone floor, Agnes stumbled slightly and then stood upright in front of him. The rope disappeared into the darkness above them again. Neither of them spoke for some time, but finally Agnes took his hands and held them firmly.

“Mathis,” she whispered. “I . . . I’m so sorry.”

Mathis let go of her hands. There was an angry glint in his eyes. “Your father obviously isn’t,” he replied icily. “He’s probably going to leave me here forever and a day—if I haven’t starved or frozen to death before then.”

“Mathis, I can’t help it if my father—”

“Mathis, I can’t help it . . .” he imitated her in a high-pitched voice. Angrily, he kicked a heap of straw aside, and several mice ran away, squeaking. “Damn it, why did I listen to you? Why didn’t I run straight into the forest? Why did I trust you?”

Agnes swallowed painfully. Mathis had never spoken to her like that before. “I asked Father Tristan to speak to my father,” she said quietly. “I’m sure he won’t leave you here forever. We’ll find a solution.”

Mathis turned away with a contemptuous snort. He went back to his corner and let himself slide down with his back to the rough stone wall. He stayed there, sitting cross-legged, with his arms folded.

For a while there was silence. Finally Agnes spoke. “Did you get my picture?” she asked in a faltering voice.

Mathis nodded. “It . . . it’s beautiful,” he murmured. Suddenly he grinned. “Even if you’ve made my ears rather large.”

“But you do have large ears.”

“So do you. Only you have longer hair to cover them up.”

Agnes couldn’t help smiling. At least Mathis hadn’t lost his quarrelsome nature or his sense of humor in the dungeon.

“We’ll find a solution,” she repeated it as if it were a mantra. “You wait and see—you’ll be out of here by Ascension Day at the latest.”

Mathis laughed dryly. “Do you really think I’ll let myself be cooped up as long as that? My father is mortally sick, the peasants are starving under Mayor Gessler’s tyranny, and I’m rotting away here. No, I must get out, and you’ll help me.”

“What are you planning to do?” Agnes didn’t like the look of Mathis at all; she would have taken him for a man possessed.

Suddenly he stood up and went over to her. “I’ve found a secret escape route,” he whispered almost inaudibly. “But I’ll need your help to get away.”

In an undertone, he told Agnes about the stone block that had been mortared into place, and his plan.

Agnes flinched as though a stone had hit her. “You’re going to blow up the wall?” she cried, louder than she had intended.

“Sh!” Mathis glanced up for a moment, but there was no one to be seen at the square opening.

“It’s not as violent as it may sound,” he went on quietly. “I only need a little gunpowder; a couple of ounces should be enough. I’ll build myself a small barrier from the rubble and stones down here so that I can take shelter behind it. By the time the guards up there have slept off their hangover, I’ll be over the hills and far away.”

“But Mathis.” Agnes shook her head, unable to grasp the plan. “That’s lunacy! Even if you manage to blow the block out of the wall, you have no idea where the passage leads. Perhaps there isn’t a passage there at all. It could have fallen in, or maybe there’s only a hollow space on the other side of the wall.” She seized his hands. “Think what my father will do to you if you try running away from here and he catches you. Can you imagine that?”

“Can you imagine what will happen if I have to spend even a few days longer here?” hissed Mathis. “Can you even begin to think what it’s like to have rats scurrying over your face at night, being eaten alive by fleas, stifled by your own stink? Can you think what it’s like to stare at nothing but a wall for weeks on end? No, you can’t—after all, you’re a castellan’s daughter.”

He tore himself away and began pacing, gesticulating wildly. “I’m already hearing voices at night. I have confused dreams about Richard the Lionheart, who may once have been locked up here. Don’t you understand, Agnes? If I don’t get out soon, your father will find only an idiot babbling to himself in this dungeon.”

“Maybe the king of England really did escape along a passage, and they walled it up later,” Agnes said distractedly. Suddenly a shadow seemed to fall on her mind, and she had to prop herself against the wall to keep on her feet.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mathis, taken aback.

“It’s nothing.” Agnes shook herself like a wet dog, and the feeling went away as quickly as it had come over her. All the same, she felt strangely faint, just like she had awoken from a feverish nightmare.

“I was wondering only now whether Richard the Lionheart really did escape from this dungeon,” she went on at last. “They say his faithful minstrel, Blondel, went from castle to castle, singing Richard’s favorite song, until at last Richard replied to him from his dungeon in Trifels Castle. Maybe Blondel and his companions really did dig a tunnel so that King Richard could escape through it.”

Mathis came over to her. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. There’s a way out. Agnes, please. You must help me.” begged Mathis. “Bring me the gunpowder. It’s under a slab in the pigpens beside our house. I knew I might yet need it.” He looked pleadingly at her. “If you really like me as much as you always say you do, then bring it to me.”

Agnes bit her lip. “There must be some other way,” she said. “If I bring you the gunpowder then that’s the end of it. One way or another.”

“Agnes, trust me. I know how to handle that stuff.” Mathis clenched his fists. “Damn it all!” he cried. “If only your father would have let me show what I can do, I wouldn’t have stolen the accursed arquebus, and none of this would have happened.”

Agnes suddenly froze. An idea came into her head, rooted itself there, and slowly took shape.

If only your father would have let me show what I can do . . .

She seized Mathis by his arms. “Give me until this evening to find another solution, Mathis,” she whispered. “If I haven’t succeeded by then, I’ll get you your gunpowder. I promise.”

Mathis looked at her suspiciously. “What are you planning?”

“Just leave it to me. You’ll get your damn gunpowder. But let me try it my way first. Please.”

For a while there was only the soft scurrying and squeaking of the mice. Mathis seemed to be wrestling with himself. “All right,” he said at last. “I don’t have a choice, anyway.” Suddenly he hugged her, holding her so close that she could feel his heartbeat. “I do trust you, Agnes,” he whispered. “I trust you because . . . because I . . .”

Agnes held her breath. “Because you what?”

He shook his head and pushed her away from him as suddenly as if he had been burned. “Forget it. Such things happen only in your stories, Agnes. Real life is different. Hey there, Ulrich!” Those last words were for the old master gunner up in the storeroom in the cellars. “We’ve finished. Take the lady back to her father.” He turned away and crouched in a corner, where the darkness swallowed up his figure.

Soon the rope was hauling Agnes back up into the daylight. Her heart pounded, and not only because of the last words Mathis had spoken. For the first time in a long while, she felt a little hope again.

But first she must have important conversations with a few people.

 

“You want me to do what?”

The axe fell from the castellan’s hand, and he stared at his daughter with his one eye open wide.

“Appoint Mathis assistant gunner,” Agnes calmly repeated. “If you want to get Wertingen out of his castle, you’ll need firearms. Otherwise it won’t work, you said so yourself. And Ulrich isn’t going to be very much use.”

Agnes had thought hard about the best time to take her father by surprise with her idea. Several hours had passed since the count’s visit, and she had used them to make preparations. Philipp von Erfenstein seemed reasonably sober again, having done some work up by the well tower. The castellan had carried several new lengths of wood over from the courtyard himself, and had sent the men-at-arms, Gunther, Sebastian, and Eberhart, into the forest for more timber. So Agnes could be sure of speaking to her father alone for a while. However, when she saw his angry face now, she feared that she hadn’t thought her idea over well enough.

“You want me to make a boy who’s only just getting a beard my gunner?” Philipp von Erfenstein asked, bending to pick the axe up again. “A sly fox who stole one of my arquebuses, and who’s wanted as an insurgent by the mayor of Annweiler? Are you out of your mind?”

“Father, Mathis has been in that dungeon long enough. Is he to rot away down there?”

“It’s all the same to me.” Stoically, Philipp von Erfenstein chopped a length of timber to size with his axe. Finger-length splinters of wood flew in all directions.

Angrily, Agnes watched her father at work for a while. She finally decided to stake everything on a single card. “You said you were going to think what to do with Mathis.” The words burst out of her. “But you haven’t done anything. Anything at all except to brood over your worries and get drunk. So do something now, Father. Hand Mathis over to Gessler, banish him, even chop his hand off—anything, just don’t leave him wasting away in the keep.” She took a deep breath before she went on. “But I’ll tell you one thing: you’re making a great mistake. Mathis is the only person here who really understands anything about firearms. He can cast the guns you need for a siege, and he knows how to fire them, too. If you want to lose Trifels Castle, hand Mathis over to the mayor of Annweiler. But if you want to defeat Wertingen, let Mathis do what he can do best, forging firearms.”

Agnes had never spoken to her father in such a tone before. The old knight stood motionless for some time, his mouth open like the mouth of a stranded fish, the axe in his limp hand. All at once he raised the heavy tool, and Agnes feared that he might strike her down. But he simply brought it down on the handrail of the bridge, where it stuck fast.

Suddenly Philipp von Erfenstein began laughing heartily. His powerful chest rose and fell, tears of laughter ran down his cheeks.

“Damn it all!” he finally gasped. “My own daughter reading me a lecture. Just as my Katharina used to, God rest her soul. You womenfolk use tongues the way we men use our swords.” He wiped the tears from his face. “Only a woman could suggest something like that.” All at once he was serious again. “Even if I set Mathis free and let him cast the guns, where will I get the bronze for them, eh?” Erfenstein pointed to the ramshackle well tower, where one of the merlons was missing. “Have you forgotten that we don’t even have the money to carry out emergency repairs on this castle? It’s falling apart under us.”

“Melt the old weapons down,” replied Agnes coolly.

“What?” Her father looked at her, taken aback.

“Melt down the weapons in the armory,” she repeated. “I was discussing it with Ulrich just now. They’re old and rusty, good for nothing anymore. Melt them down and let Mathis forge new firearms. They cast a new bell over in Eusserthal monastery only last year. They still have furnaces for both melting and casting metal there. Father Tristan will ask the abbot to let us use them.”

Agnes sounded as matter-of-fact as she could. She had worked it all out in advance, taking both Ulrich and Father Tristan into her confidence. But she knew that her father could be as stubborn as an ox, particularly when he thought he was being driven into a corner.

“Oho, so that’s it.” The castellan crossed his muscular arms over his chest. “So you’ve talked it over with everyone except your own father. Who else knows about your crazy plan? Come on, tell me. Who else?”

Agnes sighed. “No one else, Father. But Ulrich also thinks that Mathis—”

“I couldn’t care less what that drunken sot thinks,” Erfenstein snapped. “I hate those stinking guns, anyway. Shooting a brave man from a hundred paces away—what kind of a chivalrous fight is that? In the old days, these things were settled with swords, man to man.”

He fell silent for a moment, and then nodded his head thoughtfully. “But you’re right. Much as I abhor them—without something like that to breach the walls we’ll never take Wertingen’s castle. What can we summon up on the Trifels?” Sighing, Erfenstein counted on his fingers. “A few dozen hackbuts, maybe, three rusty falconets, and a handful of mortars dating from your great-grandfather’s time.” He laughed bitterly. “Most of them are good as pots and pans for Hedwig’s kitchen at the best, but they’re probably too full of holes even for that.”

Smiling, Agnes took a step toward her father; she felt that the ice was slowly breaking. “There, you see,” she said gently. “Let Mathis melt down the whole lot. I promise he’ll forge you something to breach castle walls instead, a gun such as we’ve never seen here. And we’ll break into Wertingen’s castle with it. Mathis has assured me that it’s possible.”

The old knight frowned. “How would he know? He’s never made one. Yes, maybe he can mix gunpowder. But casting cannon like that is another trade. Particularly if it’s to be a really good one. You need years of training for that.”

“He’s read all about it, Father.”

Philipp von Erfenstein looked at her suspiciously. “Read about it? The lad can read?”

“I taught him. There are several books about firearms in the library here. He knows them all. And he kept thinking of new techniques and drawing guns in secret.” Agnes reached for her father’s hand as he stood there on the bridge, still undecided. “At least let him try,” she begged. “If he fails, you can always send him back to the dungeon or hand him over to the mayor of Annweiler. What do you have to lose?”

Erfenstein’s mind was visibly working. His glance went out over the countryside, over to the hills beyond which Wertingen’s castle stood. He tugged thoughtfully at his eye patch.

“Very well,” he growled at last. “I’ll give the boy a chance. If he can make a gun big enough for Ulrich to use in the fight, he can go free as far as I’m concerned. But on one condition.” He looked sternly at his daughter.

“Anything, Father, anything,” Agnes sighed in relief.

“If I catch you just once in the hay or anywhere else with that lad, if my men tell me the least little thing about you two turtle doves, I’ll send Mathis back to his cell and let him rot there. Is that clear?”

“But Father—”

“Quiet!” he interrupted her brusquely. “Do you think I can’t see what’s going on? I can see the two of you flirting. There must be an end to that. Mathis isn’t fit for you. Even if that fool Heidelsheim has made off, God alone knows why, keep away from Mathis, understand?”

Agnes flinched as if at the touch of a whip.

“Very well,” she finally murmured. “I’d do anything to get him out of there.”

“Right.” Her father walked over the swaying bridge, smiling, and toward the upper bailey. “Then let’s get the little bird out of his cage before he breaks his wings.”

 

Down in the valley, the old midwife Elsbeth Rechsteiner lay behind a bramble bush in the Annweiler woods, trying as hard as she could not to breathe too loud.

Not ten yards away, a man dismounted from his horse in the light of the setting sun. Behind him, half hidden in the shadow cast by the midwife’s little house, two more men, wild-looking characters, sat waiting on their own mounts.

As the stranger slowly turned and looked in her direction, Elsbeth put her hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming. The man was clad in expensive black fabric and wore a black cap, but the skin of his face under the cap was almost as black, and so was his throat, as were his hands with their long, fine fingers. Elsbeth had never seen such a man before. There were tales of dark-skinned people who lived far in the south, where there were also cannibals and two-headed lions. So the black man must come from very far away. He and his companions had certainly not come to pay her a harmless visit, or to buy some kind of herbal remedy for a cough or cold. The midwife shivered. What she had feared for so many years, what the Brotherhood had warned her against only two weeks ago, had actually happened.

The enemies had come back.

Elsbeth had been in her little garden in front of the house when she heard the hoof-beats and whinnying of horses. Her hut might be in the middle of the forest, and it was protected by a dense thicket of hawthorn and bramble bushes, but the road to Waldrohrbach was not far away, and there was a trodden footpath from the road to her house. Her visitors were usually simple folk—tanners, linen weavers, or peasants who couldn’t afford the expensive medicines sold by the apothecary in Annweiler. Certainly none of her patients had such a magnificent horse, and so a healthy distrust had made Elsbeth duck down behind the bushes.

That and a certain presentiment.

From the ground, the midwife stared at the stranger in the black cap. The other two horsemen had dismounted now and were letting their horses graze on the tiny cabbage leaves in Elsbeth’s small kitchen garden. A curved sword dangled from the dark-skinned man’s saddle, and the fluid movements with which he approached her hut betrayed a military training. For the last time, his eyes passed over the garden, and then he knocked on the crooked door of the little house.

“Hello. Is anybody there?” His loud voice, accustomed to giving orders, had a curious accent.

When no one opened the door, the man finally kicked it, cursing. The two rotten halves of it swung open with a creak, and the stranger entered the low-ceilinged cottage. The other two men followed him. Elsbeth couldn’t see what was going on inside, but she heard them walking around. Dishes and plates clattered, then her bed and her chest were pushed aside. The men were looking for something, and Elsbeth could already guess what it was. Someone must have told them where the ring could be found. But who? Only the members of the Brotherhood knew that she was the guardian of the ring. So was there a traitor among them? Or had the men already tortured the others and made them tell the secret? Elsbeth Rechsteiner made the sign of the cross and said a silent prayer of thanks that the ring was no longer in her keeping.

Dear Lord in Heaven, you have assuredly led me all this long way. Do not leave me now.

After a while, the men came out of the little house again. Elsbeth hoped they would mount their horses and ride away, but then the dark-skinned leader suddenly turned his head and looked up at the roof of the cottage. The midwife groaned quietly.

White smoke was curling out of the small, brick-built chimney.

No sensible person left a fire unattended for long, as Elsbeth knew, and so did the stranger. It must have been clear to him, at that moment, that she couldn’t be far away. Once again his gaze wandered over her recently sown garden with its trellises and beds, and finally he walked right across the raked black soil. He carelessly trod down the little seedlings and plants, until he was right beside the thicket of thorns. The man was now so close that Elsbeth could hear him breathing.

“Onde está a velha bruxa?” he hissed quietly through his teeth.

The midwife pressed herself far down into the moss, as if to merge with the forest, which was now lying in darkness. Not far away, she heard a couple of branches crack, and then the footsteps went away. When she dared to look up at last, she saw the man going back toward the hut. With a broken branch, he carefully brushed away the marks of his footsteps on the garden beds, and then he quietly said something to his two companions. Finally they all three led their horses back into the woods.

For some time, there was no sound but the twittering of the birds.

Elsbeth was about to heave a sigh of relief when the dark-skinned stranger suddenly came back without his horse. Once again he entered the hut, but this time he carefully closed the door behind him. Elsbeth felt a cold shudder run down her back.

He’s waiting for me to come back. And the other two are lurking in the forest.

Elsbeth waited for what seemed a small eternity, and then slowly straightened up. Her joints ached from lying in the moss so long, her back throbbed, but she made no sound. Like a deer scenting the air, she stood perfectly still for a moment behind the bushes. Then she cautiously turned and went on into the forest, step by step, doing all she could not to tread on a dry branch or twig. After endless minutes, she had finally reached the almost invisible trodden footpath that led, by a long way around, to the road. Only now was she far enough from her hut to venture to run. Gasping for breath, she hurried along the narrow path. She must get away from the black man waiting in her hut for her return, waiting to kill her. She must get away from his companions lying in ambush in the forest. Bending low, with her heart beating wildly, the old woman hobbled past green ferns and birch trees putting out new leaves, until at last she reached the open road.

A cart belonging to a peasant from Annweiler, drawn by two oxen, was coming toward her. She hailed it, and the kindly driver took her up and drove her toward Waldrohrbach, where a niece of hers lived. She would have to go into hiding there for the next few weeks, maybe even months. And she must warn the circle of initiates as soon as possible! There were important decisions for them all to make. The midwife knew one thing for certain: the men who had traveled so far to come here to the Wasgau were not going to give up in a hurry.

Once again, Elsbeth’s eyes went back to the apparently tranquil part of the forest where death still lay in wait for her.

It felt like his breath had touched her already.