There were evidently no farms, no mills, no villages nearby; therefore no rents, no supplies. The age of the castle was difficult to judge, and I saw no clear roads leading to it.
Perhaps its owner had first discovered the tranquil wood and had had the castle built secretly. A very rich aristocrat who required considerable privacy might find it possible to achieve. I could imagine that I might myself consider such a plan. But I was not rich. The castle was therefore an excellent base from which to make raids. It could be defended, even if it were discovered.
It seemed to me that it could also have been built by some ancient brigandly baron in the days when almost all the German provinces were maintained by petty warlords preying upon one another and upon the surrounding populace.
That evening I lit many candles and sat in the library wearing fresh linen and drinking good wine while I read a treatise on astronomy by a student of Kepler’s and reflected on my increasing disagreement with Luther, who had judged reason to be the chief enemy of Faith, of the purity of his beliefs. He had considered reason a harlot, willing to turn to anyone’s needs, but this merely displayed his own suspicion of logic. I have come to believe him the madman Catholics described him as. Most mad people see logic as a threat to the dream in which they would rather live, a threat to their attempts to make the dream reality (usually through force, through threat, through manipulation and through bloodshed). It is why men of reason are so often the first to be killed or exiled by tyrants.
He who would analyze the world, rather than impose upon it a set of attributes, is always most in danger from his fellows, though he prove the most passive and tolerant of men. It has often seemed to me that if one wishes to find consolation in this world one must also be prepared to accept at least one or two large lies. A confessor requires considerable Faith before he will help you.
I went early to bed, having fed my horse with oats from the granary, and slept peacefully, for I had taken the precaution of lowering the portcullis, knowing that I should wake if anyone should try to enter the castle in the night.
My steep was dreamless, and yet when I awoke in the morning I had an impression of gold and white, of lands without horizon, without sun or moon. It was another warm, clear day. All I wished for to complete my peace of mind was a little birdsong, but I whistled to myself as I descended to the kitchens to breakfast on preserved herring and cheese, washing this down with some watered beer.
I had decided to spend as much time as I could in the castle, to recollect myself, to rest and then continue my journey until I found some likely master who would employ me in the trade I had made my own. I had long since learned to be content with my own company and so did not feel the loneliness which others might experience.
It was in the evening, as I exercised upon the battlements, that I detected the signs of conflict some miles distant, close to the horizon. There, the forest was burning; or perhaps it was a settlement which burned. The fire spread even as I watched, but no wind carried the smoke towards me.
As the sun set I saw a faint red glow, but was able to go to bed and sleep soundly again, for no rider could have reached the castle by the morning.
I rose shortly after sunrise and went immediately to the battlements.
The fire was dying, it seemed. I ate and read until noon.
Another visit to the battlements showed me that the fire had grown again, indicating that a good-sized army was on the move towards me. It would take me less than an hour to be ready to leave, and I had learned the trick of responding to nothing but actual and immediate danger. There was always the chance that the army would turn away well before it sighted the castle.
For three days I watched as the army came nearer and nearer until it was possible to see it through a break in the trees created by a wide river.
It had settled on both banks, and I knew enough of such armies to note that it was constituted of the usual proportions: at least five camp-followers to every soldier.
Women and children and male servants of various sorts went about the business of administering to the warriors. These were people who, for one reason or another, had lost their own homes and found greater security with the army than they would find elsewhere, preferring to identify with the aggressor rather than be his victims.
There were about a hundred horses, but the majority of the men were infantry, clad in the costumes and uniforms of a score of countries and princes. It was impossible to say which cause, if any, it served, and would therefore be best avoided, particularly since it had an air of recent defeat about it.
The next day I saw outriders approach the castle and then almost immediately turn their horses back, without debate. Judging by their costume and their weapons, the riders were native Germans, and I formed the impression that they knew of the castle and were anxious to avoid it.
If some local superstition kept them away and thus preserved my peace, I would be more than content to let them indulge their fears. I planned to watch carefully, however, until I became certain that I would not be disturbed.
In the meanwhile I continued my explorations of the castle.
I had been made even more curious by the fearful response of those riders. Nonetheless, no effort of mine could reveal the castle’s owner, nor even the name of the family which had built it. That they were wealthy was evident from the quantity of rich silk and woolen hangings everywhere, the pictures and the tapestries, the gold and the silver, the illuminated windows.
I sought out vaults where ancestors might be buried and discovered none.
I concluded that my original opinion was the most likely to be true: this was a rich prince’s retreat. Possibly a private retreat, where he did not wish to be known by his given name. If the owner kept mysteries about him as to his identity, then it was also possible that his power was held to be great and possibly supernatural in these parts and that that was why the castle went untouched. I thought of the legend of Johannes Faust and other mythical maguses of the previous, uncertain, century.
In two days the army had gone on its slow way and I was alone again.
I was quickly growing bored, having read most of what interested me in the library and beginning to long for fresh meat and bread, as well as the company of some jolly peasant woman, such as those I had seen with the army. But I stayed there for the best part of another week, sleeping a good deal and restoring my strength of body, as well as my strength of judgment.
All I had to look forward to was a long journey, the business of recruiting another company and then seeking a fresh master for my services.
I considered the idea of returning to Bek, but I knew that I was no longer suited for the kind of life still lived there. I would be a disappointment to my father. I had sworn to myself long since that I should only return to Bek if I heard that he was dying or dead. I wished him to think of me as a noble Christian soldier serving the cause of the religion he loved.
On the night before I planned to leave I began to get some sense of a stirring in the castle, as if the place itself were coming to life.
To quell my own slight terrors I took a lamp and explored the castle once more, from end to end, from top to bottom, and found nothing strange. However, I became even more determined to leave on the following morning.
As usual, I rose at sunrise and took my horse from the stable. He was in considerably better condition than when we had arrived. I had raised the portcullis and was packing food into my saddlebags when I heard a sound from outside, a kind of creaking and shuffling.
Going to the gates, I was astonished by the sight below. A procession was advancing up the hill towards me. At first I thought this was the castle’s owner returning. It had not struck me before that he might not be a temporal prince at all, but a high-ranking churchman.
The procession had something of the nature of a monastery on the move.
First came six well-armed horsemen, with pikes at the slope in stirrup holsters, their faces hidden in helmets of black ir
on; then behind them were some twoscore monks in dark habits and cowls, hauling upon ropes attached to the kind of carriage which would normally be drawn by horses. About another dozen monks walked at the back of the coach, and these were followed by six more horsemen, identical in appearance to those at the front.
The coach was of cloudy, unpainted wood which glittered a little in the light. It had curtained windows, but bore no crest, not even a cross.
The regalia of the riders looked popish to me, so I knew I would have to be wary in my responses, if I were to avoid conflict.
I wasted no time. I mounted and rode down the hill towards them. I wished that the sides of the hill were not so steep here, or I should not have had to take the road at all. I could not, as it happened, make my departure without passing them, but I felt happier being free of the castle, with a chance at least of escape should these warriors and monks prove belligerent.
As I came closer I began to smell them. They stank of corruption. They carried the odour of rotting flesh with them. I thought that the coach contained perhaps some dead cardinal.
Then I realized that all these creatures were the same. The flesh appeared to be falling from their faces and limbs. Their eyes were the eyes of corpses. When they saw me they came to a sudden stop.
The horsemen prepared their pikes.
I made no movement towards my own weapons, for fear of exciting them. Nonetheless, I readied myself to charge through them if it should prove necessary.
One of the riders spoke sluggishly and yet with horrifying authority, as if he were Death Himself and that pike in his hand the Reaper’s scythe:
“You trespass, fellow.
“You trespass.
“Understand you not that this land is forbidden to you?”
The words came as a series of clipped phrases, with a long pause between each, as if the speaker had to recall the notion of language.
“I saw no signs,” said I. “I heard no word. How could I when your land is absolutely free of population?”
In all my experience of horror I had witnessed nothing to compare with this talking corpse. I felt unnerving fear and was hard put to control it.
He spoke again:
“It is understood -
“By all. It seems.
“Save you.”
“I am a stranger,” I declared, “and sought the hospitality of this castle’s lord. I did not expect the place to be empty. I apologize for my ignorance. I have done no damage.”
I made ready to spur my horse.
Another of the riders turned his iron head on me.
Cold eyes, full of old blood, stared into mine.
My stomach regretted that I had broken its fast so recently.
He said:
“How were you able to come and go?
“Have you made the bargain?”
I attempted to reply in a reasonable tone. “I came and went as you see, upon my horse. I have no bond, if that is what you mean, with the master of this castle.”
I addressed the coach, believing that the castle’s owner must sit within:
“But again I say that I apologize for my unwitting trespass. I have done no harm, save eat a little food, water my horse and read a book or two.”
“No bargain,” muttered one of the monks, as if puzzled.
“No bargain he is aware of,” said a third horseman.
And they laughed amongst themselves. The sound was a disgusting one.
“I have never met your lord,” said I. “It is unlikely that I know him.”
“Doubtless he knows you.”
Their mockery, their malicious enjoyment of some secret they believed they shared, was disturbing my composure and making me impatient.
I said:
“If I may be allowed to approach and present myself, you will discover that I am of noble birth …”
I had no real intention of talking with the occupant of the coach, but should I be able to advance a little farther I would gain time and distance and with some luck I might break free of them without need of my sword.
“You may not approach,” said the first rider.
“You must return with us.”
I spoke with mock good manners:
“I have already sampled your hospitality too long. I’ll impose upon it no further.”
I smiled to myself. My spirits began to lift, as they always do when action is required of me. I began to experience that cool good humour common to many professional soldiers when killing becomes necessary.
“You have no choice,” said the rider.
He lowered his pike: a threat.
I relaxed in my saddle, ensuring that my seat was firm.
“I make my own choices, sir,” I said.
My spurs touched my horse and he began to trot rapidly towards them.
They had not expected this.
They were used to inducing terror. They were not, I suspected, used to fighting.
I had broken through them in a matter of seconds. Barely grazed by a pike, I now attempted to ride the monks down.
I hacked at the cowled men. They did not threaten me but were so anxious not to release their grasp on the carriage’s ropes that they could not move from my path. They seemed perfectly willing to die under my sword rather than give up their charge.
I was forced to turn and face the riders once more.
They had no battle skill, these people, and were uncertain in their movements, for all their arrogance. Again I received an impression of hesitation, as if each individual action had to be momentarily remembered. So clumsy were they that their pikes were tangled by a few passages of my sword.
I used the bulk of my horse to back farther into the press of monks. They offered the heavy resistance of corpses.
I turned the steed again.
I let him rear and strike down two monks with his hooves.
I jumped first one taut rope and then the other and was aiming for the grassy flanks of the steep hillside when the riders from the rear came galloping forward to cut me off.
I had a balustrade before me, some statues to my left, an almost sheer drop beyond these.
Again I was forced to pause. I tried to pull a pistol loose and fire in the hope it would startle their horses. I did not think I could delay their charge by wounding one.
My horse was moving too much beneath me, ready to gallop, yet not knowing where to go. I reined him tight, standing firm against that rocking nest of pikes which was now almost upon me.
A glance this way and that told me that my chances had improved. There was every possibility of escape. I no longer felt in terror of my attackers. At worst I could calculate on a few flesh wounds for myself and a sprained tendon or two for my horse.
The pikes drew closer as I reached for my pistols. Then a clear, humorous voice sounded from the interior of the coach:
“There is no need for this. It wasn’t planned. Stop at once, all of you. I demand that you stop!”
The riders drew in their own reins and began to raise their pikes to the slope.
I put my sword between my teeth, drew both pistols from the saddle-holsters, cocked the flints and fired.
One of the pistols discharged and flung a rider straight out of his seat. The other needed recocking, having failed to spark, but before I could see to it, I heard the voice again.
It was a woman. “Stop!”
I would let them debate her orders. In the meantime I had a little time in which to begin my descent. I sheathed my sword and looked down the hillside. I had planned to skirt this party and continue down the road if possible. It would mean driving directly through the pikes, but I believed I could do it fairly easily.
I prepared myself, while giving the impression that I was relaxing my guard.
The door of the coach opened.
A handsome woman of about thirty, with jet-black hair and wearing scarlet velvet, clambered swiftly onto the coachman’s seat and raised her arms. She seemed distracted. I was impresse
d by her bearing and her beauty.
“Stop!” she cried to me. “We meant no harm to you.”
I grinned at this. But since I now had something of an advantage and did not wish to risk either my life or my horse more than necessary, I paused. My loaded pistol was still in my gloved hand.
“Your men attacked me, madam.”
“Not upon my orders.” Her lips matched her costume. Her skin was as delicate and pale as the lace which trimmed her garments. She wore a matching broad-brimmed hat with a white ostrich feather trailing from it.
“You are welcome,” she said. “I swear to you that it is so, sir. You came forward before I could present myself.”
I was certain that all she was doing now was to change tactics. But I preferred these tactics. They were familiar enough.
I grinned at her. “You mean you had hoped that your servants would frighten me, eh, madam?”
She feigned puzzlement. She spoke with apparent sincerity, even urgency: “You must not think so. These creatures are not subtle. They are the only servants provided me.” Her eyes were wonderful. I was astonished by them. She said: “I apologize to you, sir.”
She lowered her arms, almost as if she appealed to me. She struck me as a woman of substance, yet there was an engaging touch of despair about her. Was she perhaps a prisoner of those men?
I was almost amused: a lady in distress, and myself a knight-errant to whom the notion of chivalry was anathema. Yet I hesitated.
“Madam, your servants disturb me by their very appearance.”
“They were not chosen by me.”
“Indeed, I should hope that’s so.” I retained my pistol at the cock. “They were chosen by Death long since, by the look of ‘em.”
She sighed and made a small gesture with her right hand.
“Sir, I would be much obliged if you would consent to be my guest.”
“Your men have already invited me. You’ll recall that I refused.”
“Will you refuse me? I ask,” she said, “in all humility.”
She was a clever woman and it had been some years since I had enjoyed such company. It was her eyes, however, which continued to draw me. They were wise, they were knowing, they contained in them a hint of deep terror and they were sympathetic, I thought, to me in particular.