The Gargoyle (51 page)

He gulped down hot soup and explained how he’d been traveling for eight days, backtracking and circling, avoiding cities. Rather than buy food, he’d killed small animals so that there’d be no merchants to remember him. He was certain that he hadn’t been followed. Still, we didn’t send word to your worksite but let you come home at the regular time. It was important to make everything look as normal as possible.

The first few days would be the most dangerous. Kuonrat would have dispatched a group of his best trackers as soon as Brandeis was found to be missing. The two of you always kept an eye out the window, a crossbow never out of reach. Brandeis had brought two with him, his own and another that he’d stolen for you.

You took turns not sleeping, and Brandeis didn’t dare even to unpack his bag. You packed one for yourself and instructed me to do the same. All this was very upsetting, of course, more than I could have imagined. Should something go wrong—not that it would, of course—I was responsible not only for myself but for our unborn child. I said that I didn’t understand how it was possible that Brandeis might have been successfully tracked in so large a country. When I voiced this opinion, the two of you looked at each other and said nothing. Which said everything.

But nothing happened. Weeks passed, and no one came looking. You both started sleeping through the nights, though only after you strung a line of bells across the top of the door. Eventually you decided that it might be safe for Brandeis to venture outside the house. With his hood still pulled over his head, of course.

No lurking figures pounced out of the shadows, so after another week Brandeis began to accompany you to construction sites. Your recommendation was enough to find him some manual labor. He worked hard and took his lunches with you but otherwise kept to himself. Nobody asked too many questions; to your colleagues he was just another unskilled worker. Before long, we decided that he should get a room of his own because I was waking in the night with leg cramps. A little privacy would be good for everyone.

We had so many friends that finding lodgings was easy, just a few streets outside the Jewish area. I insisted on paying the deposit with money from my business and, this done, we finally decided to allow ourselves a proper celebration. Not that the two of you were fully convinced that his escape
was
a success, but you were willing to acknowledge that it
seemed
to be a success. It was a great feast, and you were so happy because you finally felt as though you’d repaid your debt to him.

I was healthy and beginning to outgrow my clothes, the pregnancy seemingly well on schedule. There was even a point during the meal that the baby kicked and you insisted that Brandeis place his hand on my belly. He was hesitant but when I assured him that it would please me if he did, he tentatively pressed his palm there. When he felt the movement, he jerked back his hand and looked at me in wide-eyed amazement.

“This is because of you,” you said to Brandeis. “This life is because you saved mine.”

With that, we lifted our cups to the fact that we had all escaped our previous lives into better ones.

But one should never divide the bear skin before the bear is killed. The very next day, while Brandeis was gathering the last of his possessions from our place, one of the Beguines came running to our door. I knew this couldn’t be a good sign, as I’d never seen one run before. She placed her hands on her knees and panted for a few moments before she was able to gasp out that a small group of men—“savages, by the looks of them”—had been asking around the marketplace for a man matching Brandeis’ description.

Apparently, Mainz was not as big as I’d thought. Despite all the care we’d put into keeping our visitor hidden, even the Beguines knew that he had been staying with us. To their credit, they recognized that giving out this information to strangers was inadvisable, but it was only a matter of time before someone spoke without considering the consequences. Brandeis asked a few questions about the “savages,” and the Beguine’s answers took away all doubt. These men were definitely trackers dispatched from the condotta. To this day, I have no idea how they managed to find him, but how doesn’t really matter. The only thing that mattered was that Mainz was no longer safe.

Brandeis offered to flee alone, leaving a trail so obvious the trackers couldn’t help but be drawn away from us. “They’re only looking for me. You have a good life here, so don’t—”

You wouldn’t even allow him to finish his sentence. Your honor wouldn’t have it. You said that the trackers would find our place no matter what we did, and that when—not if, but when—they did, there was a good chance one of them would recognize you. What a coup that would be for them, dispatched to find one deserter but able to bring back two. It would earn great favor with Kuonrat, and the message would be clear: even a soldier who’d managed to escape for years and was presumed dead would eventually be hunted down.

You and Brandeis both argued that I should not come—because I was too far along in my pregnancy, because I would slow you down, because travel would endanger the child. I countered that the greatest danger of all was for me to remain in Mainz, where the trackers would find me and do whatever was necessary to extract information. Ultimately, I said, it didn’t matter what arguments were made. I would not be left behind, and if you wouldn’t take me, I’d follow anyway. Yes, I was pregnant, but I was still able to travel and I owed as much of my good fortune to Brandeis as you did. Finally, if you and I lost each other, where could we meet again? Our life in Mainz had been found out and we could not return. I argued that it was in fact
because
I was pregnant that I had to stay with you, rather than chance a permanent separation.

I took away all your options and I had the advantage that there was no time for arguments. So we gathered a few things, only the most valuable, and prepared to leave as soon as possible.

I packed the
Inferno
and Paolo’s prayer book, and when you weren’t looking I slipped the
Morgengabe
angel into my bag. You wouldn’t have allowed such dead weight, but it was too dear to me to leave behind. I also packed my nun’s habit, as I’d already learned that it could make a useful disguise. We took all the money we’d put away for the house that we’d never actually bought, and you and Brandeis went to buy three horses. I sold off my spices and books to whoever would buy them, although on such short notice I got almost nothing. Within a few hours of the Beguine’s arrival, we were heading out of Mainz. I had my bag, while the two of you took only your crossbows and the clothing on your backs. The life we’d spent years building was gone, just like that.

I wasn’t a skilled rider at the best of times and my pregnancy didn’t help. Even as we rode out of town, you didn’t stop trying to persuade me to head in a different direction. Three sets of horse tracks going in the same direction were easier to follow than two sets going in opposite directions, you argued. I refused to hear it and countered that the best thing we could do was put as much distance behind us as possible.

We rode until the horses were too exhausted to continue. My back ached, pain coursed my spine with every clop of the hooves, and there was agony in my lower stomach. But I refused to complain, because I was with you.

We found a small inn and I was sent to deal with the innkeep, because the less the two of you were seen, the better. Before we went to sleep that first night, I asked where we were headed. Brandeis answered, “It’s better not to have a destination. If we know where we’re going, the trackers will know too.” I didn’t understand how this could be true, but I was too tired to argue.

Over the next days, we would ride for as long as I could manage and then take a room, none of us venturing out except when I went in search of food. It did not take long before the traveling started exacting a toll on me. My breasts were aching and my leg cramps were growing worse, and the muscles at my ribs felt stretched and torn. I knew I was slowing us down, it was apparent to all of us, and this gave fuel to our constant arguments. You pointed out that my frequent stops to urinate not only slowed us, but made the trail easier to follow. You even threatened to leave me behind but, of course, you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

In towns we cut through back alleys and in the wilderness we forced the horses through icy streams and over rocky outcrops. They hated it, but no more than I did. The horses could not keep up the pace we needed, too much running and not enough rest. When they wore out, we traded them for new ones. The trackers would be forced to do the same or be left behind.

Despite constantly looking over my shoulder, I never saw the trackers. I wanted to believe we’d lost them. Honestly, I couldn’t see how they could possibly remain on our trail, with all the tricks that we were employing while riding. But then again, they’d found Brandeis in Mainz. I had no real idea of their capabilities but the two of you had lived with these sorts of men, so I had to trust your fear. You kept pushing us forward at a relentless pace.

Each day increased my worry about what the riding might be doing to our child—could it cause an unnatural birth? I had to keep convincing myself, hour after hour, that escaping the trackers was worth any risk. In the rare moments when I was not worrying about the baby, I strengthened my resolve by remembering how, when we first left Engelthal, you bought us a spot on a pig wagon. I tried to convince myself that our current situation was just one more test in our lives to be overcome, and at least there wasn’t the smell of pigs.

But after about a week, I simply could not go farther. You and Brandeis were still holding up, but I pleaded for rest. We’d traveled so many miles that surely we would be safe for a day. You agreed. Not because it was safe, but because it was time to make a plan. I didn’t care why. I would take the break for whatever reason.

We’d been riding in circles to confuse our followers and, as an unintentional result, we had not traveled that far from where we’d started. We found ourselves close to Nürnberg, which was an advantage because even if the trackers had managed to stay behind us, the city itself was large enough to hide us for a few extra hours.

We found an inn and the two of you sat around a table discussing the next move. Maybe we’d go north, to Hamburg, or maybe it would be safer to go east, into Bohemia or Carinthia. There was even talk about heading to Italy. You knew a few rudimentary phrases from the Italian archers, and I could act as translator for the rest. After a year or two, we could return to Germany. It was unlikely that our pursuers would guess this destination and even if they did, Kuonrat would have to devote significant long-term resources to continue the hunt in another country.

Our stay in Nürnberg was supposed to last only a day, but my body didn’t cooperate. For three days, I was in too much pain to continue. My heart raced constantly and I was short of breath. I craved food, but could not keep it down. I longed for sleep, but my mind outraced the closing of my eyes. My pregnancy was rebelling and finally, grudgingly, I accepted that you were correct: I was too weak to continue. It was decided that I’d be placed in the care of the Church. You’d hand me over with a fistful of coins, enough to pay for my care through the pregnancy, and when you were confident that you’d escaped, you’d come back for me. The plan was set; you’d allow me only one more night of sleep before it was put into action. I asked where you would go after leaving me, but you would not tell me even this. “It’s better not to have a destination….” I cried myself to sleep that night, with you stroking my hair and assuring me that everything would be all right.

Fate, however, had a different view. In the middle of the night there came a series of heavy thuds against our door, shaking the pile of furniture that you’d pushed up against it, and it was instantly clear that we’d been discovered. The only way out was through the window, even though we were on the second story, some fifteen feet up.

I struggled to lift myself out of bed but was unable, and you had to pull me out by the arms. While I recovered my breath, Brandeis gathered the bags; you craned your neck around the window frame to check whether anyone was outside, and threw up your hand in warning to stay back. “Crossbow,” you commanded.

Brandeis grabbed a crossbow and inserted an arrow into the channel. As soon as the string was set, he put the weapon into your hands and you pushed the front end through the window. There was the whiz of the arrow through the air and a thud as it hit something solid. You gave another hand signal indicating the way was now clear and went out the window first. It wasn’t that you were lacking manners, but someone had to catch me on the way down. Behind us, I heard the door splintering under an ax.

Despite the immediate threat of the attack, I froze at the window. The drop was too much, too risky for the baby. Brandeis stood between me and the door, yelling at me to jump. But I remained immobilized, looking down at your open arms, until I heard Brandeis’ voice behind me—“Marianne, I’m sorry”—as he pushed me through the open window.

I went out with my arms wrapped around my belly and you took the full force of my fall by rolling backwards into the snow as you caught me. I heard shouting from above; a few moments later, Brandeis came tumbling out the window.

There was something strange about the way he fell, but most of my attention was focused on the dead tracker across the street. His face was pushed into a puddle of dirty snow, his neck twisted at an awkward angle because of the arrow sticking through it. Then I realized that the snow was not dirty, but red from the little geysers of blood still pulsing from his neck.

You jerked me in the direction of the horses and the next thing I knew, we were hurtling through the streets of Nürnberg. You and Brandeis were on either side of me, directing my horse and determining my path. Between my fatigue and the shock of the attack, I was pretty much useless.

I watched my horse snort out its steamy breath as it ran, all the while thinking about the man in the street who had no more breath. It was the way that he died that I found so unnerving, the way you’d killed him without a thought, without uncertainty. I’d watched your face as you sent that arrow flying, and it didn’t even cross my mind that the target might be a person. Your mouth had been clenched, your eyes had narrowed, and your finger did not hesitate. You took a quick breath before pulling the trigger but it was not to steady your soul, only your hands. It had all happened in—what? A second? Less? Could this really be all the time it took to kill a man?