The Castle of Kings

  All this time Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck’s eyes had been resting on Agnes. He did not seem to have heard the minstrel at all.

  “I’ve waited so long for this moment,” said the count quietly, as if to himself. “I saw you in my dreams, Agnes. Beautiful as a blood-red sunrise, screaming and writhing in pain. And now I finally have you here before me.” He grinned. “We will spend some wonderful last hours together.”

  Agnes felt the fear of death seize upon her. Friedrich had always been odd, but obviously the experiences of the last few months had brought out his true nature. All the same, she did not move a muscle. She was the mistress of Trifels, and although her husband might be out of his mind with hatred, he was not going to see her weep.

  However difficult that might be for her.

  “The last thing I do in my life will be to curse your name, Friedrich,” she finally replied. “You murdered my father. You’ll roast in hell for all eternity for that.”

  “I think we ought to shelve both your interests at the moment,” said Melchior, frowning, as he turned to the count. “Apart from which, it was always my opinion that the lady was not a suitable wife for you, Scharfeneck. A genuine member of the house of Hohenstaufen. You could hardly expect to aim so high.”

  For a moment Friedrich seemed about to answer back, but then he merely sighed deeply. “I’m not going to quarrel with you, Tanningen. We’ll stick to our agreement. You get the lance, I get my wife. What I do with her then is entirely my own business.”

  Melchior smiled, although a certain sadness played around his lips. “You are right, count, it’s your own business. That’s what we agreed.”

  “I might have guessed that you weren’t a real minstrel,” Mathis said. His first confusion had been followed by deep embitterment. He glared at Melchior. “You were always far better with the sword than the lute.”

  Melchior pouted. “You wound me, Master Wielenbach. I may not be a genuine minstrel, but my playing wasn’t as bad as all that. Very well, it wouldn’t be up to the standards of the Wartburg, but I invented the contest myself.”

  “You did what?” asked Mathis, startled.

  “Do you still not understand?” Agnes asked him. “Everything that Melchior ever told us was a lie. The Wartburg contest, his love of old ballads, our friendship.” Gathering her torn skirts around her, she clambered over several of the fallen beams until she was finally close to Melchior. Her fear and desperation were turning to deep hatred. Hatred for Melchior, and for herself for being taken in for so long.

  “It wasn’t that black-skinned devil in St. Goar who was sent by the Habsburgs to find and kill the last Staufer descendant,” she said. “It was our pleasant and amusing friend Melchior.” She pointed to the minstrel with derision, and then spat full in his face. “He made his way into Scharfenberg Castle as long ago as last year to spy out the land. Presumably my husband knew all about it from the first. It was always Trifels that Friedrich wanted, anyway, not me.”

  “I must defend your husband. He knew that I had been sent by the emperor, and he was instructed to employ me as a minstrel, that’s true. But he had no idea of my real task.” With an expression of regret, Melchior wiped the saliva from his cheek. “In fact, at first I didn’t know what it was myself. There was a rumor that a young woman descended from the Staufers was living in these parts. I was to investigate the story, and if that young woman really existed, track her down and eliminate her before the French could get their hands on her. I admit, I was close to giving up. I spent so many months searching the archives, gleaning what information I could, and yet I found nothing.” He sighed and looked sadly at Agnes. “But in the end, you yourself gave me the vital clue. When you told me, just before your flight from here, about the secret that you hoped to find out at St. Goar, I knew that I was on the right track at last. And it really could not have been foreseen that the true Holy Lance would be another reward.” There was a weary smile on Melchior’s lips. “I wonder whether the emperor has any idea that the lance kept in Nuremberg is only a forgery. One way and another, I have certainly earned my own weight in gold.”

  “But . . . but then what about that black devil at St. Goar?” Mathis asked, still bewildered. “I thought that he had been sent to kill Agnes by the Habsburgs.”

  “I assume that he was an agent of the French,” Agnes said. “He’d have handed me over to the royal house of France. Alive. Isn’t that so, Melchior?”

  Melchior waved that away. “The fact is that no one had taken any interest in the last members of the Staufer line for a long time. Over ten years ago, there was another attempt to investigate those concerned and dispose of them. As you know, it failed. But then, last year, the French got wind of the rumors.” His eyes were bright as he looked at Agnes. “You would have been a good match for the King of France, noble Countess von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck, especially now, when his wife has recently died. Even though he was captured after the battle of Pavia, Francis will still have his eye on the imperial throne once the Habsburgs set him free, as they presumably soon will. A wife descended from the Staufers at his side would indeed have lent him a certain credibility.” He sighed sadly. “And once the French had sent their man here, naturally the emperor could not sit idle. After all, his throne was in danger.”

  Melchior’s sword hand played with the hilt of his valuable weapon. “He was a good fighter, that French agent. We knew one another from several previous . . . well, let’s say . . . encounters. Although I still don’t think much of those newfangled handguns. We’ve seen where that can lead.” Again, the supposed minstrel bowed slightly to Agnes, as if preparing to dance. “At this point, may I ask you for the signet ring, my lady? After all, you will soon have no more use for it.”

  Agnes flinched away, instinctively reaching for the ring on her finger. The journey had begun with it and was obviously to end with it as well. But must she really part from it now? She tried to take it off, but it fit so tightly, like it had grown into her flesh.

  “I would be very sorry if you were to lose your finger as well as the ring,” Melchior said. “I am inconsolable, but I fear I must insist on your handing that ring over. Along with the imperial deed, it is proof that I have carried out my mission to the satisfaction of all concerned.”

  Agnes tugged at the ring again, but it refused to leave her. It had become a part of her, although it had brought her nothing but misfortune. Ever since it had come into her possession, she had been tormented by nightmares and had gone through abysmal experiences. Her life had changed so much that she sometimes thought she was not the same person she had been only a year ago—and yet she valued the ring. It was like a curse.

  Go away, she thought. Go away and leave me in peace.

  The ring suddenly came loose, with a slight sucking sound, and dropped to the floor, clinking. Melchior picked it up and put it in a pocket of his doublet.

  “Thank you,” he said, smiling. “I think we’ll all feel a bit better now.”

  Once again there were footsteps on the stairs. This time they belonged to three of Scharfeneck’s landsknechts. Their garments were smeared with soot and blood, and they were sweating heavily under their uniform coats, but the light of satisfaction showed in their eyes. Only now did Agnes notice that no more sounds could be heard in the castle courtyard.

  Outside, all was silent as the grave.

  “We’ve routed the peasants out of hiding and made short work of them,” reported a broad-shouldered man with a prominent scar on his face. “They’re hanging from the battlements as a deterrent, every last man. Just as you ordered, Your Excellency.” He looked down, uneasily. “Except for their leader, that Shepherd Jockel. We’re still searching for him. I suppose the cowardly dog has made off.”

  “You can stop searching,” Agnes said, pointing to the large slab of stone around which a pool of blood had formed. “Another power is sitting in judgment on Shepherd Jockel now. Your work is finished.”

  “A pity,” said the co
unt quietly. “A real pity. I’d have liked to watch the dog die, after he so shamefully turned me out of my castle.” He scrutinized Mathis and Agnes, taking stock of the situation. “But at least I have substitutes for him.”

  “Remember the emperor’s orders, Scharfeneck,” Melchior von Tanningen warned him. “We agreed that you would not take the lady until we had found the Holy Lance. If I understood the conversation just now correctly, my lady the countess has found Constanza’s grave here at Trifels, and is now the only one to know where the relic is.” He looked encouragingly at Agnes. “Well? You were just about to tell your friend something. Wouldn’t you like to go on?”

  Agnes bit her lip. To her, although not to the count and Melchior, the lance was of no importance. Yet she was aware that her knowledge of its hiding place was the one thing that now kept her alive. It was for that alone that Melchior had not killed her already. If she told what she knew at this point, presumably she and Mathis would die at once. But if she kept her mouth shut, there were means of inflicting great pain on her to make her talk.

  Constanza kept silent, she thought. Will I be as strong as she was?

  After a moment of silence, Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck snapped his fingers and pointed to Mathis. “Roland, Hans, Marten, take this fellow and hang him from the top of the staterooms, head down,” he ordered. “Then we’ll see if my dear wife has anything to say.”

  The three men moved toward Mathis, who stood there like he’d turned to stone, seized him, and dragged him over to the wall that had fallen in.

  “No!” Agnes cried. “I’ll tell you. But in return you must let Mathis go.”

  “Are you out of your mind? The man with whom you’ve been unfaithful to me all this time?” Friedrich laughed. “The devil I will! But I tell you what I’ll do: talk now, and he can stay alive until we have the Holy Lance in our hands. My word of honor as a nobleman. After all, I don’t want you collapsing in tears before we find the lance.”

  “Never fear, I’m not going to collapse,” Agnes replied, straightening her back again. “I will be strong. I’ll direct you to the place, but only if—”

  “What, another condition?” the count snarled.

  “I want Constanza’s bones buried in the graveyard of Trifels Castle. She’s the one who has given us the information. We . . . we owe it to her.”

  Melchior nodded. “A reasonable suggestion, I think. After all, we don’t want an avenging ghost after us. Not that I really believe in such things, but you never know. Besides, Constanza was a true descendant of the house of Hohenstaufen. What do you say, Scharfeneck?”

  “Very well.” Friedrich cast his eyes up. “We’ll bury her bones. But she’ll have to do without a sermon. We’re certainly not letting any priest in on the secret.” He grabbed Agnes by her dress and pulled her close to him. “Now, talk. Where is that damned lance?”

  Agnes did not speak for a while; her eyes fixed on the distance. Not until Friedrich had let go of her again did she slowly nod.

  “So be it,” she said at last. “I will tell you the place. So that there will be peace at last. Peace for Constanza, and peace for me.”

  As Melchior, Friedrich, and Mathis sat on some of the ruinous rocks, and the three landsknechts guarded the entrance, Agnes described the walled-up chamber and the secret it contained. She spoke softly of the Latin inscription in the dungeon, the faded paintings of the kings and emperors—and the ancient story that the pictures told.

  “At the time, presumably the Habsburgs erased the knowledge of that underground chamber from all written records,” she said thoughtfully. “No one was ever to know about Constanza’s grave. It was common knowledge that the imperial insignia were kept here at Trifels for almost two hundred years, but until today no one was aware of the existence of that room. No one apart from Constanza’s descendants, who passed on the knowledge from generation to generation of their family.” She hesitated. “I suppose my mother told me about it all those years ago, but I was too young to remember. The story didn’t come back to me until I was down there in the dungeon.”

  “That accounts for your fainting fits,” Mathis said. “Do you remember, you were already suffering from them when you visited me in the dungeon a year ago?”

  Agnes nodded. “And that was probably where the voice came from—the voice that I thought I heard as a child. I believed the castle was speaking to me, but it could have been a memory of my mother’s stories. Although the strange thing is that—”

  “Never mind all that nonsense,” Friedrich interrupted. “We want to know where the lance is. That’s all that interests us.”

  For a moment, Agnes closed her eyes. She was so tired, so inexpressibly tired. But it would not be much longer until this nightmare would come to an end.

  And I will go home to my mother. Home to my foster father. Home to Constanza.

  “Shepherd Jockel put me on the right track,” she finally said. “He was convinced that the Holy Lance was hidden somewhere here at Trifels. He saw the drawing of the towers down in the chamber with the kings and emperors, and he immediately thought of a castle. I expect he was thinking that Trifels had two towers at some time in the past, but it never had more than one. And in addition, Johann and Constanza must have hidden the lance somewhere when they were escaping, so it can’t have been in this castle.”

  “I can follow you so far,” said Melchior, who had been listening all this time with interest. “But what does the drawing show, then?”

  Agnes smiled faintly, then knelt down and drew, in the dust, the exact outline of the drawing that she had seen down in the crypt.

  “It’s not a castle,” she explained. “Do you see the cupola with the pointed roof in the middle of it? It’s a large church, or rather a cathedral. Even down there I had an idea of what cathedral it was. But the building that I immediately thought of has four towers and two cupolas. Like Jockel, however, I made the mistake of forgetting that Constanza drew that sketch when she was at the end of her strength, and in almost absolute darkness. The cathedral is shown from directly in front. That’s why there is not more of it to be seen.” Agnes looked expectantly at the others. “I for one know of only a single cathedral which looks like that from the front. I visited it with my father only last year.”

  “Speyer Cathedral.” Mathis said softly, and stared in astonishment at the drawing on the floor. “Of course. We passed it only a few days ago. It really does look exactly like that from the front. And also, the knight Johann was caught by his pursuers in Speyer. It’s perfectly possible for him to have hidden the lance in the cathedral first. But that saying—”

  “The place where enmity is no more,” Agnes said. “At first I thought it simply meant the cathedral, as a place of peace. But then I remembered all the kings and emperors depicted in the walled-up chamber here below Trifels. The Salians, the Guelphs, the Staufers, and the Habsburgs. Many were sworn enemies, each wanting the crown for his own family, his dynasty. But there’s only one place where all that enmity is no more.” She paused before going on. “And that place is in the middle of Speyer Cathedral.”

  For a moment there was profound silence, while what Agnes had just said echoed through the ruined Knights’ House. It was Melchior von Tanningen who finally turned to the others, laughing.

  “The imperial vault.” The minstrel enthusiastically clapped his hands, a strange gesture here among all the ruins and the dead men. “Magnificent! There really couldn’t have been a better hiding place. The place where enmity is no more. Why didn’t I think of that myself?”

  Agnes nodded. “When Johann and Constanza separated during their flight, the Guelph must have told his wife what he meant to do with the lance. At that time, the imperial vault in Speyer Cathedral was already famous far beyond the borders of the Palatinate.”

  “The imperial vault?” The count looked at Melchior and Agnes, irritated. “I don’t understand . . .”

  “Well, the tombs of eight German kings and emperors stand in
Speyer Cathedral,” Agnes explained. “There are Salians among them, as well as Staufers and Habsburgs. For instance, Philipp, Barbarossa’s son, and Emperor Rudolf von Habsburg.”

  “As well as their wives, and several bishops,” Melchior added. “Once they were enemies, now they lie peacefully side by side. I think there are about twenty tombs in all. This means a great deal of dirty work.” He glanced at the three landsknechts, and signed to them to come closer.

  “Young Master Wielenbach will accompany us on our journey,” Melchior said amiably. “Make sure he doesn’t get any stupid ideas.” Smiling, he turned to Mathis. “We have traveled a long way together, but everything comes to an end. I’m glad that you are still willing to help us, all the same. As I see it, there’ll be some digging to be done at Speyer.”

  “Of his own grave, for instance,” retorted the count, turning and marching down the steps to the castle courtyard.

  It was a strange company of mourners that stood in the graveyard of Trifels Castle about three hours later, to see Constanza’s bones consigned to the earth.

  Agnes stood with Mathis, the count, and Melchior von Tanningen by a hollow that had been hastily dug, with a small, iron-bound chest lying in it. Philipp von Erfenstein’s grave, with a plain little tombstone, lay right beside. A few landsknechts, ordered to guard the two prisoners, lounged about by the wall of the graveyard. The soot-blackened walls of the castle rose in the background, breached in many places. The staterooms looked like a giant’s broken tooth. Agnes could hardly picture this ruin as her old home anymore.

  As if in a trance, she stared at the chest that had once held her books. She had had it brought from her former bedchamber. The famous book on falconry, like most of the library, had been destroyed when the peasants attacked. Now the chest served as a coffin for the bleached bones of her ancestress. Two landsknechts had brought up Constanza’s remains from the underground chamber. Soon after they had left the hall, with its pictures of the emperors, there had been rumbling and shaking, and the passage had finally filled up with rubble. Agnes smiled sadly. Now Barbarossa and the rest of the German kings and emperors could at least sleep in peace under Trifels Castle.