The Castle of Kings

  “I swear I don’t know! But that’s not important now.” Gessler tried to smile. The stranger’s hesitation told him that he was back in the game again. “What matters is that I have the very information you asked me to find. So put that devilish device of yours down, give me my money, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Grimly, Caspar shook his head. “I’m afraid the nature of your reward has just changed. Spit out the name, and I’ll let you have your life.” He paused. “Maybe.”

  Gessler bit his lip. It really did look like he must divulge his valuable knowledge for nothing. Well, there was still the other man, and that knowledge was worth gold to him. Now, however, the first thing was to save his own life.

  “Very well,” he hesitantly began. “The person you are looking for is . . .”

  At that moment, singing and laughter arose from the other side of the bridge. A group of drunken landsknechts approached from the guardhouse. A spark of hope came into Gessler’s eyes. Maybe he might yet win the game. He turned, supple as a cat, and slipped through the leather skins toward the safety of the bridge. Moldering leather touched his face like the fingers of a corpse, but he hardly noticed.

  “Help!” he called. “An attack! I’m—”

  The sound of the shot drowned out his screams. The leaden bullet penetrated the skins and smashed the back of Gessler’s head like a mealy apple. Blood and brain matter spurted out on the tanned leather, and the mayor fell forward, bringing one of the frames down with him. He ended up buried under a mountain of calfskins streaked with green mold.

  A last twitch ran through his body, and then Bernwart Gessler really had made his last move.

  ✦ 13 ✦

  Trifels Castle, 5 June, Anno Domini 1524, at night

  AGNES HOVERED OUTSIDE HER WOUNDED father’s room, not daring to go in. She trembled slightly when she thought of what Father Tristan had told her about Erfenstein’s sickness.

  Could Count Scharfeneck really have poisoned her father? But why?

  She had already been in the castellan’s room twice since early evening. But he had been fast asleep, his face waxen and wet with sweat, his breathing hoarse and irregular. It was late at night now.

  Feeling a terrible presentiment, Agnes listened at the heavy oak door and was relieved to hear a stertorous, gasping sound; it meant that her father was still alive. She knocked, and without waiting for an answer, she entered the room.

  The once proud castellan, Philipp von Erfenstein, lay shivering under a heap of blankets and bearskins that almost concealed his massive body. Only his bearded face was showing, and it looked positively tiny. His hair stuck to his forehead, his eyes wandered like those of a cornered animal. Only when he saw Agnes did Erfenstein become a little calmer.

  “Ah, daughter,” he said in a failing voice, turning his head to her with a groan. He obviously found talking difficult; he kept having to swallow, as if something were stuck in his throat. “I . . . I’ve been waiting for you. Come . . . closer, before it is too late.”

  “Father, what are you talking about?” Agnes began, going over to him with a wan smile. Out of the corner of her eye she saw, on a table beside him, a bowl of water and an untouched pitcher of spiced wine mixed with St. John’s wort and extract of willow bark, prepared for him by Father Tristan only a few hours ago. “You must rest for a while now.”

  Philipp von Erfenstein seized her hand and drew her so close to him that Agnes could smell his sick breath. Her father gave off a musty, bitter odor of old sweat, pus, and dried blood.

  The breath of death, thought Agnes.

  “I didn’t ask to see you to hear sweet nothings, child,” he growled. For a moment he had his old voice back. “I know the state I’m in. This gangrene is consuming me from the inside. I wouldn’t have thought it would be so quick.”

  In silence, Agnes nodded, as tears rolled down her cheeks and fell on her father’s pale face. Obviously Father Tristan had not told the castellan of Trifels what he suspected. No doubt he did not want to distress Erfenstein farther, and in any case it would have made no difference to his condition.

  The old knight closed his eyes, summoning up new strength. Only then did he go on, wearily. “Damn Wertingen! Not such a poor fighter as I thought. Well, I have lived like a warrior, and now I will die like a warrior. That’s no cause for grief.”

  “Father, you’re not going to—”

  “Be quiet and listen to me, you impertinent girl,” he interrupted her harshly. “There’s something I have to discuss with you. I really wanted to tell you the news down in the Knights’ House, over a goblet of good wine, with music and candlelight, but now it must be like this.” He paused for a moment. “The . . . the count and you are going to be married.”

  For a moment Agnes thought she must have misheard. Or maybe her father was raving in delirium? She let go of his shaking hand and stared at him.

  “What did you just say?”

  “The two of you are going to marry. Is that so hard to understand?” Erfenstein stretched, forcing his heavy body up among the blankets and furs, and looked straight at her for the first time. “I’ve been looking for a suitable husband for you for a long time. It’s God’s providence that the count has asked for your hand. The Löwenstein-Scharfeneck family is one of the most powerful in the Palatinate, related to the elector himself. The house of Erfenstein will not die out, it will merge with a flourishing dynasty, it will—”

  “Father, I can’t marry the count!” cried Agnes. “The count has . . . has . . .”

  “You’ll do as I say,” Erfenstein snorted, his face now dark red. “Are you going to deny your father his last wish? Is that what you want? Believe me, you’ll understand my decision later. A castellan’s daughter rising to become a countess. You’ll dress in silk and velvet, all those accursed stewards, mayors, and clerks will have to bow to you. Our family will finally take the place that it deserves in the history books.”

  Agnes decided not to further agitate her father. His arms were already cold as ice. For a while she said nothing, and the only sound in the room was Erfenstein’s hoarse breathing. The world seemed to stand still.

  “Why would Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck want to marry me?” she asked at last, breaking the silence. “He is vain, ambitious, and he doesn’t love me. None of this makes any sense.”

  Her father had calmed down a bit. A thin-lipped smile spread over his face. “Do you think that didn’t occur to me? I know he’s a vain popinjay. It’s not you that the count wants, it’s Trifels. He’s besotted with this castle. I think that is why he moved into Scharfenberg. He wants to find out all about the secrets of this part of the country, and if he marries you, then all doors here will be open to him.”

  “What secrets?” asked Agnes, surprised. She felt a slight shudder run down her spine. Suddenly she thought of her last conversation with Melchior von Tanningen. He, too, had said that the count was crazy about Trifels Castle. Trifels Castle and, above all, its past.

  “As you know, the Emperor Maximilian gave me Trifels as my fief, for my services to him in war,” Erfenstein began, hesitantly this time. “A good piece of land. But your mother and I were never much interested in the old stories that haunt this castle like ghosts. In contrast to you.” He laughed a little. “You . . . you were always different from us. All that reading, your thirst for the stories and legends of the old days . . . I’m sure you yourself know what secrets the castle holds by now. Secrets with their origins back in the distant past.”

  Agnes felt her heart beat faster. Did her father know more about the subject of her strange dreams? Did he know about Johann of Brunswick’s alleged conspiracy, and his flight from Trifels?

  “Do these secrets by any chance have something to do with a certain Guelph called Johann and a woman?” she asked in a faltering voice.

  The old castellan looked at her in surprise. “Guelph? A woman?” He shook his head, exhausted. “I know nothing about that. You disappoint me, Agnes. I thought al
l that reading would at least mean you could help the count in his search. No, as always it’s about gold. A great deal of gold.”

  “Gold? Here? But . . .”

  Agnes stopped short in surprise, and then, suddenly, a vague idea came to her. She thought of the men in the forest when she had found the ring, the lights at night, the legend of Emperor Barbarossa sleeping somewhere in Trifels Castle. She remembered all the old tales that Father Tristan had told her in the past.

  “It’s about gold and the power that it gives,” Erfenstein went on, gasping for breath. “Young Scharfeneck has only dropped hints so far, but I’m no fool. I know what the count has in mind. It’s a case of . . .” Suddenly he reared up, his whole body shaking, before collapsing like an empty sack. For a moment Agnes thought that her father had died before her eyes, but then she realized that he was still breathing faintly.

  “You needn’t say any more,” she whispered quietly and pressed his hand. “I think that now I, too, know what the count has in mind.”

  And why he wants you out of the way, she thought, as an invisible hand seemed to close around her heart.

  She stayed at her father’s bedside for what seemed an eternity. He breathed more weakly every second. Thoughts raced through her head.

  I can’t marry him. He murdered my father!

  But could she really be sure it was the count who had poisoned him? Couldn’t she comply with her father’s last wish? And what would happen if she refused? Agnes had never really considered the situation if her father died and left her behind in the castle, a woman still unmarried. Trifels would pass into the hands of another family, one entirely loyal to the duke. And she herself? She had no family, not a single relation to whom she could go. Her mother had died long ago, her father had never mentioned any other members of his family. Would she be turned out of the castle like a mangy dog, the fate that her maid Margarethe had always feared for herself?

  Suddenly Agnes felt that she could never give up this castle. An unexpected sense of strength rose in her. Trifels was her family, her all, the center of her world. She was, and would remain, mistress of Trifels.

  Mistress of Trifels . . .

  She had called herself that once already, when the steward Martin von Heidelsheim was about to molest her in the stables. That was only a few months ago, but to Agnes it felt like years. She had grown older now, older and more mature—and she would not let herself be driven away from this castle.

  My castle.

  Distractedly, she dipped a strip of fabric into the bowl of water beside the bed and wiped the sweat from her father’s pale brow. Philipp von Erfenstein shuddered all over, and his heart raced. His mind seemed to be caught up in confused dreams now.

  “Guinegate,” he whispered again and again. “Guinegate . . .”

  Suddenly the castellan sat up again. His numb lips tried to form words. “Agnes . . .” he managed to say, gasping. “Something else you ought to know. I . . . I’ve always loved you, even . . .” He fell back, and his words turned into a gurgling sound that soon ebbed away to silence.

  Sadly, but with her head held high, Agnes sat at her dying father’s bedside, singing him an old Occitanian lullaby as his body slowly stiffened.

  The first thing Mathis felt the next morning was a stabbing pain that filled his whole head. He briefly opened his eyes, and bright rays of light dug holes in his brain. Next time he blinked more carefully, and the pain was not quite as bad. He also heard voices. Peering through the eyes he had opened just a slit, he saw branches covered with green leaves above him. It took him a moment to realize that he was looking at the old linden tree around which people danced outside the Green Tree Inn. Curious faces appeared in his field of vision, forming a circle around him. Someone nudged him with a foot.

  “I think he’s coming back to his senses,” said a deep voice.

  “Go carefully, for heaven’s sake. Who knows what he may be capable of yet.” replied a second voice, obviously that of an anxious woman.

  Mathis groaned, and then gradually worked himself up against the trunk of the tree until he was sitting upright. He felt queasy, like he might vomit. With one hand he shielded his face from the bright sunlight, and then, frowning, he looked around. He was surrounded by about two dozen of the citizens of Annweiler, most of them gawping at him with a mixture of curiosity, fear, and revulsion. Mathis also saw several of the town guards. It seemed to be early morning.

  What in God’s name happened? he wondered. His head was still ringing like the bell in a church tower.

  Then he remembered the spirits he had drunk yesterday evening, the wine, the beer . . . he had danced with a great many girls, particularly that redhead who had kept reaching between his legs. He remembered standing on the table and singing at the top of his voice, while people slapped him on the back and drank to him. At some point he felt unwell, and he couldn’t remember what happened next.

  “Hey!” One of the town guards was shaking him violently, and Mathis felt queasy again. “Wake up, young fellow. We want a word with you.”

  He swallowed down his urge to retch, and wiped his mouth. “What about?” he asked faintly.

  The guard laughed unpleasantly. “What about? Well, about what you did to the mayor, you cowardly murderer.”

  “Murderer . . . ?”

  At once Mathis was wide awake. He pulled himself together and, still leaning against the linden tree, stared at the crowd standing around and gawping at him. Now he recognized some of the Annweiler town councilors. The woolens weaver Peter Markschild was among them, the ropemaker Martin Lebrecht, and also the apothecary Konrad Sperlin, who seemed to be bending a particularly hostile gaze on him. Finally, the parish priest of Annweiler, Father Johannes, stepped forward and spoke to him.

  “Mathis Wielenbach,” he said firmly while his small, fat fingers fidgeted with a wooden crucifix, “you are accused of the cowardly murder last night of the town mayor, Bernwart Gessler, by means of your ungodly firearms. Do you confess your guilt?”

  “But . . . but that’s nonsense,” Mathis replied, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. “Why on earth would I have done a thing like that?” In spite of his splitting headache, he tried to think as clearly as possible.

  “Why?” Sperlin snapped. “You know why only too well. Because Gessler wanted to see you in prison for insurgency.” He looked around a little uncertainly before going on. “I . . . er, I myself saw the mayor yesterday evening setting off for the Green Tree to call you to account. And this morning we find his body bestially disfigured. The connection is obvious.”

  “Bestially disfigured?” Mathis looked around, at a loss.

  “We’d better take him to where we found the mayor,” suggested Markschild the weaver, looking at the other members of the town council. “Maybe the terrible sight will bring him to confess his crime.”

  Father Johannes nodded, and two of the guards immediately took Mathis by the shoulders and pushed him ahead of them along the narrow alleys. The crowd followed like a large, hissing animal, with shouting children and yapping dogs running on ahead. Mathis desperately looked for his friends, but he could see them nowhere amidst the turmoil.

  At last they reached the bridge near the town mill, where two more guards stood grimly outside a closed shed. Father Johannes gave them a sign, whereupon the guards pushed open the wide door of the shed and stepped aside. At once the caustic smell of the corrosive tanning fluid met Mathis’s nostrils, although another strong smell almost overwhelmed it.

  It was the smell of blood, a great deal of blood. The shed stank like a slaughterhouse.

  On the ground near the entrance lay the corpse of the mayor—or rather, what was left of it. Bernwart Gessler could be recognized only by his clothing, for half his face and the back of his head had been ripped away, as if by a demon’s claw. His costly woolen coat, his doublet, and also his bare arms, throat, and legs were dyed dark brown like a gnarled root. Cracks and fissures reminiscent of the weathered bark of a tree show
ed on his hands. Mathis had to swallow to keep himself from vomiting.

  Bernwart Gessler, mayor of Annweiler, had been tanned overnight in corrosive lye, like a piece of leather.

  Nepomuk Kistler stepped out of the crowd. His face was ashen, and the old tanner could barely keep his voice steady.

  “When I came home yesterday from a journey of some length to see my sick sister, I checked the shed, and then I must have left the door open,” he said quietly. “I went back this morning to close it, and I saw the mayor in one of the tanning pits, with his head down and only his feet sticking out.” He suddenly looked sharply at Mathis. “Tell me, young man, was it you? Are you capable of such a deed?”

  Mathis, horrified, said nothing. He gaped at the tanned body of Gessler, with corrosive acid dripping from his garments. White brain matter shone through the splintered bone of his skull.

  “When we took him out and saw his wounds, we thought of a wild beast at first,” the parish priest said. “But then our apothecary here found certain proof that our mayor was killed by one of those newfangled firearms.”

  Sperlin nodded eagerly and brought out a leaden bullet. “Here’s the corpus delicti,” he said triumphantly. “The diabolical thing was still in his head. Well, Mathis, does this ball look familiar to you?”

  “It . . . it’s a bullet for an arquebus, but a very small one,” replied Mathis hesitantly. “However, that doesn’t mean I fired it. Any of the other landsknechts—”

  “The landsknechts left the town two hours ago. None of them had arquebuses with them inside the town walls,” Father Johannes put in. “All weapons were locked in the guardhouse yesterday. Swords, spears, those new firearms, and, above all, gunpowder. It was strictly forbidden to bring that devilish stuff into the town.” With relish, the priest crossed his arms over his greasy cassock and looked challengingly at Mathis. “I searched your pack while you were sleeping off your hangover just now. And what do you think I found?” Reaching under the cassock, he brought out a little bag, presenting it with a smile. He cautiously sprinkled some of its contents on the palm of his hand, and wrinkled his nose with distaste.