The Fugger’s eyes gleamed. ‘Unreasonable? The city reforms according to the word of Luther and the law of God, and you call it unreasonable?’
‘Luther?’ Johannes laughed, then began to cough, clutching his side in pain. When he had recovered, he continued. ‘Most men who attack the city fight under the Protestant banner.’
‘But I have seen the flag of the Papist Bishop of Munster!’
‘And flying right next to it is the Eagle banner of Philip of Hesse.’
The Fugger stuttered in shock. ‘The … the Landgrave of Hesse? But he is the temporal leader of the Protestant cause. Luther’s protector!’
‘Aye, queer bedfellows, you might say. Catholics and Lutherans combined. But the madmen in the city threaten both orders. So they ally to cut out the disease before the contagion spreads. Speaking of which, what did you stitch me with, you butcher, cat gut? It feels like a dozen of them are scratching down there.’
Jean poured the old man some more of the beer and said, ‘Explain it to us, Johannes. We need to know what goes on in there. What disease do you speak of?’
‘They call themselves “Anabaptists”. Say that only adults who know the word of God can receive the blessing of the water. Then they are baptised again.’
The Fugger said, ‘It’s an extreme position but a debatable one. Why would they be so persecuted for holding it?’
‘Because of what goes with it. They believe they alone are God’s Chosen. So they have set up his Holy Kingdom, the New Jerusalem, to await the final reckoning. All will be destroyed and only they, the true believers, will survive. Lunatics from all over Germany, from Holland, France, even England, have flocked here to the call.’
‘And this second baptism is so bad that Lutherans will ally with Catholics to crush it?’ The Fugger was hopping about the room now in agitation.
Johannes laughed. ‘I don’t think most men would give a whore’s cuss for their bathing habits. It’s what goes with it.’ He leant in. ‘They have done away with money, I told you. But marriage too. A man can have as many wives as he likes. It’s because there are so many unfrocked nuns. Raving with lust, they are – cast off their habits and, uh, picked up new, nasty ones. The women are the most vicious fighters. They eat any prisoner taken. Having first ravished him!’ The one eye gleamed. ‘The Black Widow’s death, they are calling it.’
‘But—’
Jean silenced the Fugger’s next outburst, pulling him down.
‘I’ll tell you this,’ Johannes continued, ‘whatever they believe gives them the power of fanatics. They don’t fight reasonably at all! They don’t seem to care if they die. How can you take a city like that? You kill five lunatics, another five take their place, just as happy to die! Sixteen lousy months we have been here. Sixteen! But the pay’s almost regular and there are no more civilised wars to go to, more’s the pity.’
‘So Jean,’ Januc said. ‘You still want to enter this place of djinns? Beck’s tough. He can fend for himself.’
Jean stood up and walked to the hut’s entrance. It was starting to get dark, and a gibbous moon was rising above the trees, a moon equal in his memory to the one in whose beams he had lain with Beck at the Comet.
‘The Fugger and I will go in. I made the boy a promise. Besides, we need some help now and the Fugger can get us some gold, can you not?’
‘Of course. My family will do anything to help my friends.’
But the Fugger didn’t know how he felt about the decision. There was his mother, his sister. There was also his father, and a city he loved in the grip of some madness. Different from the madness he had seen at Marsheim. Maybe as bad.
Jean continued, ‘We will say we are mercenaries, come to offer our services.’
Johannes guffawed. ‘They will hang you in an instant. No soldiers of fortune fight for them. Only soldiers of Christ.’
‘Then we will have to say we are some of those. I’ll let the Fugger do the talking.’
It was swiftly arranged. Johannes headed a company whose task for the next three nights was to probe the defences for weaknesses under cover of darkness. They had spotted a broken area of wall where the Bishop’s ineffective artillery had actually scored a success. The Switzer sent for his second in command, a runt-faced Hessian called Franck. Franck agreed to take the wall section and hold it for the time necessary to slip the men inside.
The assault was set for midnight. They ate and drank and talked little. The Fugger’s agitation had changed to a strange stillness, only his eyes alive and darting. Haakon and Januc were silent too, still disapproving.
When it was close to his time, Jean spoke. ‘Watch the tower, to the left of where we go in, every midnight. We will signal from there any time from the third night on. If you see a white cloth waved, we will be coming out and we will be coming out fast. Be ready.’
‘We will,’ Haakon grumbled. ‘I still think this is madness, Frenchman.’
‘And you are right to think so. But I have no choice.’
‘I don’t see why I can’t come too.’ Haakon’s voice was surly.
Jean smiled. ‘Because, from the sound of it, the people in this town have been slowly starving for ten months. We might be able to mix unnoticed. You …’
‘Are you saying I’m fat?’ Haakon stood and glowered down at Jean.
‘Not at all. You are a warrior in his prime. People cannot help but notice your magnificence. They would flock to you as to a god. And it sounds as though there are enough of them in there already.’
Even the Fugger turned away to hide a smile.
‘Besides,’ Jean continued, ‘wherever you go your monstrous wolf will follow you. And this is a city under siege. Do you want to be dining on Fenrir stew tonight?’
As the dog growled at the mention of his name, Franck stuck his head inside the hut doorway. ‘It’s time,’ he said shortly, then ducked out again.
‘Very well,’ the Norseman growled, ‘but you will leave the hand?’
Jean strapped on his sword, picked up a saddle bag of provisions, and finally the velvet bag. He looked at it for a long moment, then began to wind it within a bandage he had cut and wrapped the bandage around his stomach, until the hand rested snug against the small of his back.
‘I will not. Only I can fulfil my vow. No, Haakon, no arguments. I will return, in three nights, with the hand, and Beck, and Fugger gold to see us on our way to France and the Loire to finish what we started. In a month we can be back in Montepulciano, if we choose. There we can all grow fat.’
They went to the emplacement from where the assault would be launched. Fifty men stood in the pale moonlight, checking weapons and harness. Franck moved up and down, speaking in a low voice to the company leaders. After a moment he signalled to Jean that he was ready.
‘I’ll see you in three nights.’ Haakon nodded, then he and Januc went to stand on an earthwork step where they would have a better view.
‘Allah guard and protect you both,’ said Januc as he went, then added with a wink, ‘and watch out for black widows!’
The word was whispered down the line and the company stood to, Jean and the Fugger taking up their positions in the rear of them. The German spent his last minutes talking incessantly to Daemon, whom he then released. The bird flew up to perch on the edge of a gabion. A superstitious soldier threw a stone at him so the bird flew up and away with a disdainful caw.
‘Now,’ called Franck softly, then led the way over the barricades.
They were twenty paces away from the wall when a cry broke the stillness of the night.
‘To arms, to arms! The enemy is upon us!’
Three arquebusiers fired before the assailants reached the ditch. Wooden ladders were swiftly thrown up against the wall, and though newly awakened men were pouring onto the ramparts, they were a scattering compared to the concentrated thrust of the mercenaries. Armed with short pikes, double-handed swords and entrenching tools, the Swiss and German warriors swiftly cleared all resistance fro
m the crest of the weakened wall. Franck had run down the rubble the other side and, with a strength that belied his stature, was laying about him strongly with his huge double-handed sword. In a moment the company had poured through the gap and their arquebusiers had set up a firing position. A ragged volley swept aside the first who rushed at them, and for a moment the only guns firing were their own.
‘Now is the time!’ Franck was at the top of the wall again, calling down to its base where Jean and the Fugger crouched. They scrambled over the rocks and debris and knelt beside him. ‘I have seen all I need. Your best chance is over there. Good luck!’
The mercenary captain had pointed along the wall, where a fall of masonry led down to street level. Houses lay half-gutted there, most of the roofs torn down to prevent the structures within the walls catching fire in an assault, a fire which might spread to the town. They looked unoccupied, and Jean immediately led the way down the shifting rubble, under cover of another volley.
They ran, dodging from shadow to darker shadow, until they made the nearest house. Its walls were so battered that anyone peering in from outside would see any movement within. So, when the distraction of Franck’s withdrawal was at its noisiest, they ran to the next house. Here, a ruin of furniture greeted them, and they swiftly made a nest out of the items to conceal themselves from within. Jean peered carefully over the top of a table to observe the final retreat, and the reinforced defenders’ re-taking of the wall. When the last crackle of gunpowder had faded into the night, and the moment of silence that followed had been broken by the jeering of the Munsterites, Jean flopped down, put his back to the table and chewed upon a piece of dried meat.
‘We’ll move at daybreak. When there are some people about,’ he said.
The Fugger did not act as if he had heard. He lay with his head buried in his arms, eyes closed, tortured by images as bad as any conjured in his midden. This was his city, yet what had his city become in the seven years of his absence? He couldn’t believe the stories! A realm of fanatics and flesh eaters? Could his family have become like that? His gentle mother, his giggling sister? Even his unbending, morally upright father? Only tomorrow will tell, he told himself.
He was wrong. He didn’t have to wait nearly so long.
The voice came from above them, from among the rafters of the long-destroyed second floor. It was a hymn, to an old familiar tune, though more of a croak than a clear utterance; yet the words, if slurred, were instantly understandable.
Some in heavy chains have lain
And rotting there have stayed,
Some upon the trees were slain,
Choked and hacked and flayed,
Drownings by stealth and drownings plain
For matron and for maid.
Fearlessly the truth they spoke
And they were not ashamed:
Christ is the way and Christ the life
Was the word proclaimed.
From the darkness above them, there was a snickering laugh. A score of rat-like eyes glittered in the moonlight.
‘Welcome, Brothers. Welcome to the New Jerusalem.’
THREE
MUNSTER
The sound of the blow caused the two other women in the house to pause, breath held, hands suspended from activity, waiting for the silence of the inhalation to end and the wailing to begin. Each hoped the sound of the crying would put an end to it. The master of the house didn’t have as much strength these days, after all.
It came, Alice’s high-pitched, juddery squeal. Since she had always been the favourite, Alice normally received the least of the beatings. Not this morning, though. Her mother, and Marlena, the old nurse, winced at each of the three blows and again at the roaring that followed.
‘Get out! Get out! You slut! Would you drive me mad?’
The door of the master’s room flew open and a squealing Alice was pitched out. She fell, all sharp bones and shuddering breaths, at the feet of her mother, who stooped to comfort and enfold her, to bend her own frail body over this, her youngest, her only remaining child.
Glancing up, avoiding his eyes, Gerta pleaded. ‘Cornelius, dearest, what stupidity has Alice committed now? Oh, you bad, bad girl!’ The voice chastised, but the way she rocked her child comforted. Her husband was terribly short-sighted, after all.
He stood in the doorframe that once he would have filled. He may have lost a third of his bodyweight during the privations of the siege but he had lost none of his swift anger. Rather the reverse.
‘That slut we have raised,’ he shouted, ‘speaks to me again about marriage. About becoming the third strumpet to be kept by that buffoon, Thaddeus. A Fugger marrying a tanner is ridiculous enough. Becoming nothing better than a whore is another thing altogether.’
Alice, the indulged child in whom Cornelius’s temper most often manifested itself, spoke angrily through her tears. ‘But he is one of the Twelve! He has the King’s ear! If he does not protect me, the King may marry me off to any old butcher!’
Her mother’s arms were inadequate protection from Cornelius’s blows.
‘Jezebel! How dare you speak to me of a king? That … tailor! I will keep you safe, I, Cornelius Albrecht Fugger. You are mine to dispose of. Mine, do you hear? And when this madness is over, and order restored, I will marry you to the ugliest, oldest butcher I please! As long as he has some gold left to pay for you!’
The effort had exhausted him, and he stepped back, bent down to rest his hands on his knees.
‘Now, get her out of my sight. Get her out!’
Mother and daughter scurried off to the safety of the kitchen, where Marlena applied damp cloths and soothing words. It failed to stem the weeping for quite a while.
‘Why can’t he see?’ Alice sobbed. ‘Look at me! I am becoming ugly, old. My teeth are rotting, my hair falling out. No one will want me. I don’t care if I am Thaddeus’s third wife, or his fifth, at least I will have a husband. Before it’s too late. Ohhhh!’
Cornelius had slammed the door to his room, but because so much of the interior wood had been stripped out for fires and fortifications he could still hear the sobbing. His hands itched to reach up to the beam, get down the hazel switch he kept there and beat and beat until there were no sounds but the beating. But he knew he didn’t have the strength for it. He was getting old, and the disasters of recent years had made him age quickly, what with the starvation and his turn on the battlements. They actually expected him to fight! He, Cornelius Fugger, the man most lacking in violence in the whole city!
His family, that was all he cared about, and they treated him in this manner? First his son running off with two years’ worth of profit, now his daughter wanting to marry … a tanner? Well, he had taken better care of them than they had of him; it would all be proved eventually, when the lunatics were overthrown and order was restored. Oh, he had taken great care.
He went to the fireplace, with its long-dead ashes, and carefully shifted a stone from the wall, placing it on the ground beside him. Raising a candle, even his poor eyes could see the glimmer of the gold coins piled up in the niche. Three years’ worth of trading before the madness began. Ready for the restoration of the illustrious name of Fugger to its rightful place in Munster.
A scratching at the door had him hastily replacing the stone. He turned and barked, ‘Go away!’
His wife’s voice came timidly. ‘But Cornelius, dear husband, the meeting.’
He had forgotten. Another cursed gathering of the Elect, the so-called ‘Tribes of Israel’, in the square. More apocalyptic lunacy! His contempt for it knew no bounds. But no one could stay away. No one who wanted to live.
‘All right, I am coming,’ he said. ‘And tell that slattern daughter of mine to wear her oldest dress. She will not flirt with the whoremasters who run our city!’
There was only one good thing about the meetings – the punishments. Everything seemed to be a crime these days, punishable by death or maiming at the least: lewd conduct, blasphemy, hoarding. Ev
en scolding one’s parents.
Cornelius chuckled. Maybe that’s what I should do. Testify to Alice’s shameful behaviour this morning, her disrespect. See how much Thaddeus the tanner will want her when they’ve chopped off her nose!
There was another benefit to these meetings in the square. If the punishments continued at the present rate there would be no one left able-bodied enough to man the walls, and deliverance, by the Bishop and the Prince, would be assured.
In the great square of Munster, beneath the eaves of St Lambert’s, under the sightless gaze of the dozen latest traitors to the Word whose heads adorned its crenellations, the twelve tribes of Israel Reborn had gathered to greet their king.
Jean and the Fugger waited with the rest, surrounded by their captors, two dozen beggars who lived in the rafters of ruins no one else would consider. They had seized the two men and bound them swiftly. They had taken their weapons and searched their bags. Yet they had not touched one mouthful of their food.
‘All belongs to everyone, and everyone shall partake of all,’ the scab-faced leader had told him when the Fugger tried to bribe him to let them go with a promise of more food. ‘We will bring it to the meeting.’
And as they waited, their captors paraded them with pride, explaining to the curious how they, beggars though they were, had played such a part in the defence of the city.
‘Snuck over in the attack last night, Brother,’ one explained to an onlooker. ‘Spies come to bring us to ruin. But the Lord set us to watch in that place and he has delivered our enemies into our hands!’
‘I keep trying to tell you, er, Brother.’ The Fugger attempted again to speak. ‘We come to offer our help. This man is a great warrior … ach!’
The leader pulled back his hand to strike again. ‘I told you to keep quiet! Our King will decide. He has a powerful way of sorting the lies from the truth.’
Before the Fugger could risk another blow, trumpets blasted from the entrance of the church and the crowd swept forward to the raised platform, bearing the two prisoners in their midst. As the first trumpet blasts faded, twelve figures emerged from the church to the slow beat of a solitary drum. Each wore the robes that all had seen in frescoes on the walls of churches and cathedrals of the land, the robes of the elders of Israel: long, of glorious hues, purple and gold, sweeping to the ground. Each one’s head was covered in a shroud of pure white linen, each clutched a shepherd’s stave in one hand and a corn flail in the other. They fanned out, six to each side, and stood at the front of the platform.