The Wiidgrave spread a mailed hand. “Who knows? He has no loyalty to our Master and refuses to have any truck with me. I can only say that I have heard he might be curious to talk to you.”
“He knows of me?”
“The news of your Quest is rumoured, as I said.”
“But how could such news spread so quickly?”
“My friend”—the Wildgrave became almost avuncular as he put a hand upon my arm—”can you not understand that you have enemies in Hell as well as in Heaven? It is those you should fear worse than any earthly foe.”
“Can you give me no further clue,” I asked, “as to the identity of these enemies?”
“Naturally I cannot. As it is I have been kinder to you than is sensible for a creature in my position. I am feared in the region of Ammendorf, of course. But as with all our Master’s servants, I have no real power. Your enemies could one day, therefore, be my friends.”
I became distressed at this. “Have you no courage to take your own decisions?”
The Wildgrave’s great face became sad for a moment. “Once I had courage of that sort,” he said. “But had I had the courage to be self-determining in my own mortal life I would not now be a servant of Lucifer.” He paused, looking out from eyes which, moment by moment, had begun to glow again. “And the same must be true of you, too, eh, von Bek?”
“I suppose so.”
“At least you have a chance, however small, of reclaiming yourself, captain. And oh”—his voice became at once bleak and heartfelt—”how I envy you that.”
“Yet if I am successful and God grants Lucifer His wish, we shall all be given the chance again,” I said, innocently enough.
“And that is what so many of us fear,” said the Wildgrave.
Chapter VII
SEDENKO, HE SAID, had slept well all night. When I returned at dawn he had been snoring, certainly, as if he was still a little boy in his mother’s tent.
As he breakfasted he asked eagerly of my encounter with “the Devil.”
“That was not the Devil, Sedenko. Merely a creature serving Him.”
“So you did not sell your soul to him.”
“No. He is helping me, that’s all. I now know the next stage of my journey.”
Sedenko was awed. “What great power must you possess to order such as the Wildgrave!”
I shrugged. “I have no power, save what you see. It is the same as yours - good wits and a quick sword.”
“Then why should he help you?”
“We have certain interests in common.”
Sedenko looked at me with some trepidation.
“And you must go back to Nürnberg,” I said, “or wherever you think. You cannot go where I go tonight.”
“Where is that?”
“A land unknown.”
He became interested. “You travel by sea? To the New World? To Africa?”
“No.”
“I would serve you well if you would permit me to go with you …”
“I know you would. But you are not permitted to follow where I travel now.”
He continued to argue with me, but I rejected all his proposals until I was weary and begged him to leave, for I wished to sleep.
He refused. “I will guard you,” he said.
I accepted his offer and eventually was able to sleep, waking in the later afternoon to smell Sedenko’s cooking. He had found a pot, suspended it over the fire and was boiling some sort of stew.
“Rabbit,” he told me.
“Sedenko,” I said, “you must go. You cannot follow me. It is not physically possible.”
He frowned. “I have a good horse, as you know. I am not prone to the seasickness, as far as I have been able to tell. I am healthy.”
I again fell into silence. Only the damned could travel to Mittelmarch. Follow me as he would, he could not enter that Realm. I determined to waste no energy on the matter, contenting myself with advice to the young Kazak to go back to Nürnberg and find himself a good captain or, if he thought it a better idea, to leave the conflict altogether and begin to travel homeward, where he could direct his energies, if he wished, against his Polish overlords.
He became obstinate, almost surly. I shrugged. “The Wildgrave comes for me tonight,” I said, “and I must ready myself for that journey. The stew is good. Thank you.” I got up and began to see to my horse.
Sedenko sat cross-legged beside the fire, watching me. He hardly moved as I donned my battle-dress, strapping my steel breastplate tightly about my body, adjusting the set of my greaves. I thought it wise to enter the Realm of Mittelmarch with as much of the odds in my favour as possible.
Night fell. Sedenko continued to watch me, saying nothing. I refused even to look at him. I fed my horse. I oiled my leather. I polished my pistols and checked their locks. I cleaned my sword and my poignard. Then I gave close attention to my helmet. I whistled. Sedenko watched on.
By midnight I was beginning to grow a little nervous, but refused to show my state of mind to my silent companion. I looked through the windows at Ammendorf which, tonight, was lit faintly by the moon.
Even as I began to turn back I heard the echoing yell of a great horn. It sounded like the Last Judgment. It was a cold, desolate noise—a single, prolonged note. Then there came quiet again.
The building shook to hoofbeats. The green-blue glow nickered through the buildings outside. I heard the baying of the hounds.
I took my horse by his reins and led him through the hall and out down the steps into the square. I longed to say farewell to Sedenko but I knew I must discourage him at all costs from following me.
The Hunt came sweeping in. Red mouths gaped and tongues lolled. The Wildgrave’s eyes seemed the single source of the hideous light. His men howled in unison with the dogs until all at once they were still as statues on frozen horses. Only the Wildgrave moved, his winged head turning towards me.
“You are ready, I see, mortal.”
“I am ready, my lord.”
“Then come. To the Mittelmarch.”
I mounted my horse. The Wildgrave made a sign and the Hunt began to move again, with me riding beside him, my horse snorting and complaining in fear of the dogs. We did not ride back towards the castle, but out of Ammendorf and through a wood. The chill of the Wildgrave’s monstrous body seemed to draw my own heat and I was shivering within half an hour. We rode beside a lake and I imagined that the lake shone with ice, an impossibility at that time of year. We rode until we saw the lights of a town ahead of us, and here the Wildgrave drew rein on the hill some miles above the town and wished me well in my Quest.
“But how shall I find Mittelmarch?” I was baffled.
“I have brought you to Mittelmarch,” said the Wild-grave.
I noted that snow was falling on my sleeve.
“There was no transition,” I said. “Or no sense of one, at any rate.”
“Why should there be, for our sort? You merely follow certain trails.”
“You could not have shown me the trail?”
“There is a way of looking,” said the Wildgrave. “Do not fear. You are not trapped here.”
“It snows late, in Mittelmarch,” I said. I saw that the snow had settled. It was quite deep in some places. It weighted the trees. My breath was white.
The Wildgrave shook his head. “No later than in your own Realm, captain.”
“Then I do not understand this,” I told him.
“The seasons are reversed here, that is all. You will know when you have left Mittelmarch only by that sign.”
His men glared anxiously at him. They wished to continue with their Hunt. For all the terror they must inspire, they were themselves more terrified than their victims—for they knew for certain what their fate must be should they fail Lucifer.
That cold, strangely friendly hand was placed again upon my arm. “Seek out Philander Groot. That is my best thought for you. And go wisely in this Realm as in your own, captain. I hope you find the Cure for
the World’s Pain.”
He lifted his horn to his lips and blew that long, single note. Trees shook their snow from their branches. The dogs lifted their heads and bayed. In the forest behind me I thought that I heard beasts in flight.
The Wildgrave laughed: a sound even more hideous than his horn’s cry.
“Farewell, von Bek. Discover for all of us, if you can, if there is such a thing as Freedom.”
The ground trembled as the Hunt retreated, and then it was still, of a sudden, and I was alone. I drew my cloak about me and pushed my horse on towards the town below, guiding him carefully through the snow.
Overhead the sky fluttered and light appeared, first from a large yellow moon, then from the stars. There seemed something odd about the constellations, but I was no astrologer so could not tell what, if anything, was different. In the far distance were towering, jagged peaks. This land seemed somehow larger, more monumental, than the land I had left. It seemed wilder and was mysterious, yet it also contained in it an atmosphere if not of peace then at least of familiarity, and this sense in itself was comforting to me. It was almost as if I were back in Bek. As if I had gone into the past.
I knew that I must go warily in Mittelmarch and that I could be in even greater danger here than in my own land. Nonetheless it was with lifting spirits that I continued on my way, and when I heard the sound of a rider behind me I became cautious, but was not unduly perturbed.
I turned my head, crying out a “halloo” to warn the rider that there was someone ahead of him.
No reply came back, so I drew my sword slowly and halted my horse before coming about to face whoever it might be.
The rider himself had slowed and now stopped. I could only dimly see him in the moonlight, stopped on the trail beside a great, snow-covered rock.
“Who are you, sir?” said I.
No reply again.
“I must warn you that I am armed,” I said.
A movement of the figure, a slight stirring of the horse’s feet, but no more. I began to approach at a walk. It was then that the rider decided to reveal himself.
He came out into the moonlight. He looked apologetic and defiant at the same time. He gestured with one gloved hand and he shrugged. “I am used to snow, master. Is that what you feared would distress me?”
“Oh, Sedenko,” I said, without anything but sadness filling me.
“Master?”
“Oh, Sedenko, my friend.” I rode forward and embraced him.
He had not expected anything but my anger and was surprised. But he returned the embrace with some vigour.
He did not know what I knew: that if he had been permitted to follow us into Mittelmarch it could mean only one thing. Poor Sedenko was already damned.
At that moment I railed against a God who could condemn such an innocent soul to Purgatory. What had Sedenko done that was not the result of his upbringing or his religion, which encouraged him to kill in the name of Christ? It came to me that perhaps God had become senile, that He had lost His memory and no longer remembered the purpose of placing Man on Earth. He had become petulant, He had become whimsical. He retained His power over us, but could no longer be appealed to. And where was His Son, who had been sent to redeem us? Was God’s Plan not so much mysterious as impossible for us to accept: because it was a malevolent one? Were we all, no matter what we were or how we lived, automatically damned? Was Life without point? Did my Quest have any meaning? All these things were questions in ray mind as I looked upon the Kazak youth and wondered what crime he could have committed that was evil enough to send him so young to Hell. Surely, I thought to myself, Lucifer is a more consistent and intelligent Master than the Lord Himself.
“Well, captain,” said Sedenko with a grin. “Have I proved myself to you? Can I come another step of your journey with you?”
“Oh, by all means, Sedenko. You can, if it is only my decision, travel with me all the way to my ultimate destination.”
Here was another soul whom I hoped Lucifer might spare in his gratitude were I successful.
Sedenko began to whistle some wild and rousing tune of his own people. He slipped sideways in his saddle and scooped up the fresh snow with his free hand, throwing it into the air and cheering. “This is more the kind of place for me, captain. I was born in the open snow, you know. I am a child of the winter!” His whistling turned into a song in his own language. He was like a happy boy. I did my best to smile at his antics, but my heart was heavy.
By morning we were in sight of a village which somewhat resembled the one we had left. A castle stood upon a crag, but this castle was in excellent repair. And the village was far from deserted. We saw smoke lifting and heard voices, sharp in the cold air. We rode down, through white trees, and plodded on our horses through the street until we came to the square where a market had already been set up.
I dismounted beside a stall which was selling slices of cooked meat and pickled fish and asked the red-faced woman in charge of it what the name of the town might be.
Her answer was one I had half-expected.
“Why, master,” said she, “this is Ammendorf.”
Sedenko had overheard me. “Ammendorf? Are there two, so close together?”
“There is only one Ammendorf,” said the woman proudly. “There is nowhere else like it.”
I looked beyond the town and the forest to the huge spikes of the mountains. I had not seen those mountains before. They seemed taller than the Alps. They might have stretched all the way to Heaven.
“Do you have a priest?” I asked her.
“Father Christoffel? You will find him at the church.” She pointed to the other side of the village. “Up the little lane beyond the well.”
Leading my horse, with a mystified Sedenko muttering behind us, I made for the lane. If anyone knew of the hermit Philander Groot it would surely be the priest. I found the lane. There were cart tracks in the snow, between tall hedges.
Sedenko continued to sing behind me. I think he was pleased with himself for being able to track me. I could hardly bear the sound of his voice, it was so sweet, so happy.
I turned a corner in the lane and there was the stone church with its spire and its graveyard. I tethered my horse to the fence which surrounded the graveyard and opened the wicket gate, bidding Sedenko to stay where he was and watch our mounts.
The doors of the church opened easily and I found myself in an unpretentious building, evidently Catholic but by no means reeking of incense and Mary-worship. The priest was at his altar, arranging the furniture there.
“Father Christoffel?”
He was fat and bore the scars of some earlier disease. His mouth was self-indulgent, like the mouth of a lazy, expensive whore, but his eyes were steady. Here was a man likely to commit sins of the flesh in abundance, but sins of the intellect would be few.
“I am Captain Ulrich von Bek,” I said, doffing my helmet and pulling off my gloves. “I am upon a mission which is secret, but there are religious aspects to it.”
He looked hard at me, cocking his little fat head to one side. “Yes?”
“I am looking for a man whom I heard to be dwelling in these parts.”
“Hm?”
“A certain hermit. Perhaps you know him?”
“His name, captain?”
“Philander Groot.”
“Groot? Yes?”
“I wish to speak to him. I hoped you would know of his whereabouts.”
“Groot hides from himself and from God,” said the priest. “And so he also hides from us.”
“But you know his whereabouts?”
The priest lifted heavy brows. “You could say so. Why is a soldier looking for him?”
“I seek something.”
“Something he possesses?”
“Probably not.”
“Of military importance?”
“No, Father.”
“You are interested in his philosophy?”
“I am not familiar with it. I have
little curiosity where philosophy is concerned.”
“Then what do you want from Groot?”
“I have a story for him, I think. I’ve been led to understand that he would wish to listen to me.”
“Who told you of Groot?”
This was not a man to whom I wished to lie,
“The Wildgrave.”
“Our Wildgrave,” said the priest in some surprise. Then his face began to frown. “Oh, no. Of course. The other one.”
“I suspect so,” I replied.
“Do you serve Lucifer, too? Groot, for all his failings, is adamant. He will speak to none who do.”
“I could be said to serve the world,” I told the priest. “My Quest, some have suggested, is for the Grail.”
The priest showed some surprise. His lips silently repeated my last two words. He peered into my face with those bright, intelligent eyes.
“You are sinless, then?”
I shook my head. “There are few sins unknown to me. I am a murderer, a thief, a despoiler of women.”
“An ordinary soldier.”
“Just so.”
“So you have no hope of ever finding the Grail?”
“I have every hope.”
The priest rubbed at the stubble on his jowls. He became thoughtful, glancing at me from time to time as he considered what had passed between us. Then he shook his head and turned his back on me, attending to the altar-furniture again.
I heard him murmur: “An ordinary soldier.” He even seemed amused, though there was no mockery in him. Eventually he looked back at me.
“If you possessed the Grail, what would you hope from it?”
“A Cure,” said I, “for the World’s Pain.”
“You care so much for the World?”
“I care for myself, Father.”
He smiled at this. “Fear is a disease few of us know how to fight.”
“It is also a drug,” I said, “to which many are addicted.”
“The World is in a sorry state, Sir Warrior.”
“Aye.”
“And any man who continues to hope that it can still be helped has my goodwill, my blessing even. Yet Philander Groot…”
“You think him evil?”