The Castle of Kings

  “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 Scharfen
eck’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.” Ma
this 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.