“I’m glad to hear it.” Agnes took Taramis by his reins and led him to the stable door, which was standing just ajar. “I won’t be saying yes to you, Heidelsheim, even if you’ve wrapped my father around your little finger. I’d rather escape into the forest. Now, please excuse me.”
She was about to mount the horse when she felt Heidelsheim’s hand on her shoulder. His thin fingers dug into her skin and forced her to the floor.
“Not so arrogant, contessa!” he hissed. “You’ve no right to put on such airs, spoiled brat that you are—and a brat without a dowry at that. And if you think you can go on flirting with that . . . that grubby journeyman smith, then let me tell you that he won’t be working at this castle much longer.”
Agnes froze. Then she slowly turned to Heidelsheim. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” Heidelsheim smiled slyly when he saw the anxiety in her eyes. “Well, the master gunner and I inspected the armory before mass today. And what do you think we found? One of our arquebuses is missing. Maybe your young friend the smith knows where it is? After all, he’s known to take an interest in such things.”
Agnes narrowed her eyes to slits, but she answered with great composure, “Mathis has nothing to do with it.”
“Oh, and what was that mighty noise in the forest a few days ago? By the way, Sebastian, the man-at-arms, swears blind he saw Mathis disappearing with a large piece of cloth over his shoulder that very day. A very large piece of cloth that was obviously wrapped around something large.” Heidelsheim’s pale face was so close to hers now that yet again Agnes could smell the unpleasant mixture of onions and schnapps on his breath. “What do you think your father will say to all this?” he asked softly, stroking her cheek with his cold hand.
Suddenly there was an ingratiating, flattering note in his voice again. “I’ll make you a suggestion, Agnes. I’ll keep my mouth shut, so that young Mathis can go on forging nails and horseshoes here, and you will agree to marry me. Believe me, that will be best for all of us.” Heidelsheim gave a twisted smile, at the same time running one finger from her chin down to the neckline of her doublet. “For you, for me, and for Mathis. Well, what do you say?”
Suddenly he opened his mouth and groaned softly. Agnes had rammed her knee right between his legs.
“You . . . you’ll pay for that, you whore,” Heidelsheim moaned as he bent double with pain. “You and your precious Mathis.”
“Be quiet! You’re pitiful, Heidelsheim. The mere sight of you makes me sick to my stomach.” Agnes had straightened up to her full height and looked down at the writhing steward like a queen. “How dare you threaten me? Me, the mistress of Trifels Castle.”
“Mistress of Trifels Castle, ha!” Martin von Heidelsheim pressed his hands to his crotch, his face distorted with pain. “The cheap, stuck-up daughter of a castellan, that’s all you are. And once your father is dead you won’t even be that. You’ll be only a nobody without land or possessions.”
“And you’re nothing but a pompous clerk stinking of onions.”
Without deigning to look at Heidelsheim again, Agnes swung herself up on the horse and spurred Taramis on. His face filled with hatred, Martin von Heidelsheim reached for the reins, but the chestnut reared up, whinnying, as he did so.
Only at the last moment did Heidelsheim throw himself aside. Taramis raced forward, sweeping out of the unlocked doorway. Agnes galloped out into the castle courtyard, bending low over the horse’s neck.
“A nobody!” she heard Martin von Heidelsheim shout after her, beside himself. “Mark that, a nobody!”
But Agnes had already reached the ramp down to the outer bailey. The horse’s hooves hammered on the cobblestones, and she raced through the open castle gateway, making for the forest.
For some minutes, Agnes was unable to form a single sensible thought. The world around her was a tunnel of green and brown as Taramis galloped down the slope and along the castle acres as if the devil were after him. Martin von Heidelsheim’s voice still rang in her ears.
Branches and twigs reached for her like greedy fingers as the horse plunged into the forest. Agnes, bending low over Taramis, breathed in the sharp sweat of his coat. It was the smell that gradually calmed her down. She went along with the horse’s regular movements, letting him carry her on. They rode along the narrow crest of the hills with Trifels Castle standing at their northernmost point, past the ancient ruins of Anebos Castle—only a few remnants of the walls still stood—along towering sandstone cliffs, and finally over to Scharfenberg Castle, another abandoned fortress no more than a few bowshots away from Trifels. Only here did Agnes slow her pace, for the path was steep and slippery, and she did not want to endanger Taramis unnecessarily.
She looked up at Scharfenberg Castle, which was even more dilapidated than Trifels. Like many other fortresses in the area, it had once been built to protect Trifels, but its last castellan had died several years ago and the duke had not appointed a successor. Since then the castle had been steadily deteriorating, peasants had already begun using parts of the outer walls as a stone quarry, and the empty windows stared, black and hollow, down on the valley. Did Trifels Castle face the same fate? Suddenly her own proud boast of being mistress of Trifels struck Agnes as ridiculous. If anything, she was mistress of a domain that had long since ceased to exist.
Mistress of Trifels . . . mistress of a few starvelings and a ruin, no more.
Agnes abruptly pulled on her horse’s reins and rode back again until she reached the fork in the path leading down to the valley. When she had finally reached the marshy meadows on the other side of the Sonnenberg, she was breathing fairly steadily again. On the muddy road that led over several cleared hills down to Rinnthal, she let Taramis fall into a leisurely trot. Now and then carts or other riders came to meet them, but she hardly noticed them. Lips firmly compressed, she was trying to assess her present situation. Heidelsheim had threatened to give Mathis’s theft away to her father, and after all that had passed between her and the steward, Agnes felt sure that he would put his threat into practice. Was she to come to terms with Heidelsheim, apologize to him, just to postpone the inevitable for a little longer? Few things were certain in her life, but this was: she would never marry him. She would rather go away with Mathis and live with the vagabonds in the forest.
Agnes took a deep breath and let Taramis trot slowly along as the first peasants’ houses outside the town appeared behind a rise. At such moments she wished with all her heart that she still had a mother. Katharina von Erfenstein had died of a severe fever when Agnes was only six years old. Her memories of her mother were so blurred that, in her dreams, she often saw only a bright face without any detail, bending over her and talking in a quiet, soothing voice. It was only melodies and certain aromas that still linked Katharina to her. The sweet flavor of milk with honey in it, a delicate violet perfume, an old Occitanian lullaby . . .
Coindeta su, si cum n’ai greu cossire, quar pauca son, iuvenete e tosa . . .
Agnes couldn’t explain to herself why her mother had sung her a song in the Occitanian language. Although she had asked her father several times, he couldn’t provide an explanation either. Later, Agnes had found the song again among several old ballads in the castle library. It was both beautiful and sad, and her father said that was just the way her mother had been, too, in the past, sad and beautiful. As she turned off down a narrow path over the fields with Taramis, Agnes was humming its antiquated tune.
I am pretty yet in great grief, because I am small, a young thing and a girl . . .
By now Agnes was in the forest again and on her way back to the castle. She was perspiring, her breath came fast, and her limbs ached from riding, but at least she felt a little better. The low branches stroked her hair gently, as if to comfort her. She was about to spur Taramis on to a last gallop when a quiet, barely audible sound suddenly made her stop.
It came again, this time distinctly, from the treetops directly overhead.
“Ps
sst!”
Agnes looked up and saw someone on one of the lower branches waving to her furtively. It was Mathis.
Pleased, she was about to call his name when she noticed how exhausted and worn out he looked. The sleeves of his shirt were torn, his hose stained with dirt. Even his hair was stiff with mud, and there was a large scratch across his forehead.
“My God, Mathis! What happened to you?” Agnes cried, swiftly dismounting. “Do you need help?”
Instead of answering, Mathis put a finger to his lips.
“Are you alone?” he whispered. When she hesitantly nodded, he let himself slide off the branch. With Agnes leading the horse by his reins, they walked a little way off the path and into the forest together.
Mathis sank onto a fallen tree trunk and ran his hands through his sandy hair. “I’m in serious trouble,” he said, still keeping his voice low. “The mayor of Annweiler is looking for me.”
Agnes smiled soothingly. “What for? Were you trying to get back through the town gate under cover of darkness?”
“If only that was all. It’s much worse, Agnes. I helped Shepherd Jockel to get away, and now I’m wanted as a rabble-rouser myself.”
Hesitantly, Mathis told her about the secret meeting at the Green Tree, the appearance of the mayor, his own flight and Jockel’s. When he had finished he looked despairingly at Agnes. “I’ve been wandering in the forest for hours,” he said. “Agnes, I really don’t know what to do. One thing’s certain: I can’t go back to my parents. If the bailiffs find me they’ll hang me from the tallest tree around. And if the mayor is having a bad day, my whole family will be strung up beside me.”
“Aren’t you exaggerating a bit?” asked Agnes, stroking his shoulder. Doing so sent a slight, pleasant thrill through her.
“It was just a silly prank,” she went on. “At the worst you may have to spend a day standing in the pillory in the marketplace. You’ll survive that.”
“Agnes, you didn’t see the look in the mayor’s eyes. I made him look foolish in front of half the Annweiler town council. He’ll never forgive me for that.” Mathis hunched his shoulders and hid his face in his strong hands. “Think of the boy they hanged a few days ago in Queichhambach. He did nothing worse than stalking deer in the woods with bow and arrows.” He uttered a hollow laugh. “And you think the mayor would let me off with a day in the pillory? This world is all askew. The great ones feast and celebrate, small folk go hungry and get hanged. How can God allow such things? I just wish I knew what bastard gave our meeting away to Gessler. Then, then . . .” He pressed his lips together, but all the same he couldn’t keep the tears from running down his cheeks. Agnes didn’t know if they were tears of fury or fear.
For a while there was no sound but the occasional snorting of the horse. At last Agnes plucked up her courage.
“We must go and see my father,” she said briefly.
“Your father?” Mathis wiped his tears away and looked at her in horror. “He’ll hand me over to the mayor, if he doesn’t string me up himself.”
“That’s nonsense, Mathis. That conceited mayor of Annweiler has been a thorn in his flesh for a long time. And I can’t imagine that Gessler is going to start a feud over a journeyman.” She stopped for a moment. “But there’s one thing we must do first.”
“And what’s that?”
“We must tell my father about the stolen arquebus. If we don’t, someone else will.”
Wearily, Agnes sat down on the tree trunk beside Mathis and told him about Heidelsheim and his plans. Mathis listened in silence, stoically, merely cracking his knuckles now and then. Finally he jumped up and kicked a rotting birch so hard that it keeled over to one side with a creaking sound.
“That lecherous bastard,” he said furiously. “I’ll murder him. I always knew Heidelsheim had his eye on you. Even when you were little, he looked at you with a greedy expression. I’ll tan his hide if he ever crosses my path again. I’ll—”
“Mathis! Mathis, stop it!” Agnes tried to get her angry friend to listen to her, first pleading gently, then speaking louder and louder. She burst into tears. “Don’t you understand? Heidelsheim is going to marry me. He and my father have agreed on it. Even if you save your neck from the noose, and my father doesn’t hand you over to the mayor of Annweiler, nothing will be the same. Heidelsheim will make me his wife. And then take me off to Worms, where I’ll spend my time in some little house doing embroidery and scrubbing floors and crying my eyes out. You’ll never see me again. That’s the way of the world, and even God can’t change it.”
Her voice echoed through the forest so loudly that they both fell silent for a moment in alarm. Had anyone heard her? Maybe the mayor’s bailiffs? But nothing happened.
“Let’s go,” Mathis said at last.
Agnes dried her tears and looked at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Go where?”
“Where do you think, silly? To see your father, of course. It looks like there’s something we have to discuss with him.”
“But . . .”
With a fluid movement, Mathis mounted Taramis, got into the saddle, and reached his hand down to Agnes. “Come on. Tears won’t get us anywhere now. If your father is going to explode, we’d better get it over and done with. And who knows, when his anger has blown over, it may be possible to talk to him about Heidelsheim. He can’t want his daughter to marry a brute like that.”
Agnes got up on the horse behind him, and together they rode Taramis through the forest. Heart beating fast, she held on to Mathis as he made for the castle, his face pale and grim.
Eyes full of hatred glared at them from behind a thicket not far away. Only when the sound of galloping hooves had died away did Martin von Heidelsheim come out, spitting contemptuously. Then he marched up the muddy path toward the castle, with the blood still surging wildly in his head.
That whore. That damned little whore.
When Agnes had ridden out of the stable earlier, Heidelsheim had felt so angry that he thought he would explode. How could he ever have fallen in love with that spoiled brat? Let her molder away behind the walls of Trifels; he would surely find someone better. A faithful wife who didn’t put on such airs, someone young and willing who opened her mouth only when he wanted, and who knew how to value marriage to a prosperous steward from a good family.
In his blind fury, Martin von Heidelsheim had followed the tracks of the horse’s hooves over the fields. And if he had caught up with Agnes, he couldn’t have said for sure what he would have done. But he soon lost the trail, and his anger cooled as he walked through the forest.
Finally, chance had come to his aid. He had heard voices and crept closer to the couple.
As he eavesdropped on Agnes and Mathis from his hiding place, his anger returned. Cold anger, corroding him inside. He had always disliked young Mathis. The fellow was all defiance and wild talk. No wonder the mayor of Annweiler wanted to hang him. And hang he would. Those two turtle doves were going to tell Philipp von Erfenstein the truth? Very well, then he would also tell the truth. The whole truth. Everything he knew.
Heidelsheim smiled unpleasantly, and then he made a plan.
With a soundless tune on his lips, he went on through the forest, which was now bathed by the afternoon sun in a dim, unreal light. Yes, he would put his plan into action tomorrow. Everyone would know. It didn’t matter to Heidelsheim that he would risk his position at the castle. Clever, skillful stewards like him could always find employment. And weren’t the Scharfenecks looking for a new steward as administrator of their castle at this moment?
Heidelsheim had taken a shortcut known only to him, one that would lead him along the narrow, barely visible tracks used by game animals to the eastern flank of the Trifels. He had spent far too long at that tumbledown place anyway; it was high time he looked for something else.
When he had gone about half the way, Heidelsheim made a curious discovery. Taken aback, he stopped and examined the place more closely. The tracks were fresh, and in additi
on he was sure that he had never seen anything of the kind here before.
“What the devil . . .” he murmured, bending down. He felt the soft earth with his fingers.
At that moment he heard rustling footsteps on the forest floor, which was covered with a thick layer of dry beech leaves. Heidelsheim looked up, and his face twisted into a mask of boundless astonishment.
“You? Here?” he stammered. “But why . . . ?”
There was a click, followed by a piercing pain that spread from Heidelsheim’s belly through his whole body. When the steward, open-mouthed, looked down at himself, he saw a feathered crossbow bolt sticking in his doublet.
“But . . . but . . .” he croaked. A second bolt plunged into his throat. Heidelsheim fell to the ground and saw his blood spurting over the beech leaves and trickling away into the forest floor where the frost had dried it out.
The last thing that his failing eyes saw was a pair of leather boots, polished to a high shine, standing directly in front of him.
The boots moved away, and soon there was nothing to be heard but the peaceful call of a cuckoo.
That afternoon, Philipp von Erfenstein, castellan of Trifels Castle, was approaching Neukastell Castle after an hour’s ride on his decrepit old nag. The ducal seat of administration was a massive fortress, towering above the little town of Leinsweiler, and in part hewn straight out of the rock. Beyond it, the land fell steeply away, giving a view of the plain of the Rhine reaching all the way to the milky horizon.
Exhausted by the stress of the ride, the castellan looked up at the ducal fortress. A broad paved ramp led up to its main gateway. Neukastell itself had seen better times, but the castle still had a formidable look. It had once served Trifels Castle as a defensive fort, but now it was the seat of administration, enabling the duke of Zweibrücken to collect his outstanding taxes.
Taxes that Erfenstein could no longer afford to pay.