The Gargoyle (55 page)

It was unlikely that they’d figured out your identity yet, as they hadn’t caught a good look at you. Even if they had, they might not have recognized you—not only had you been burned, but also they might not have joined the condotta until after you left it. They couldn’t have known who I was, no matter how long they had been in the troop, but they must have guessed there was a reason we’d stopped running. Did they know about Brandeis’ wounds? Most likely, as they would have seen the bloody snow at the side of the Nürnberg road. Had they guessed at the pregnancy under my winter cloak? Probably not. But for all the questions they must have had about us, I had a bigger question about them: what would happen when the other mercenaries arrived?

We had huge arguments. Brother Heinrich thought he should go out as a man of God in an effort to reason with them. You laughed at this suggestion. Brandeis, in a moment of lucidity, argued that he should face his fate like a man, as this was the only chance they might spare the rest of us. We should flee to reclaim our lives, he argued, while he distracted them by riding in the opposite direction. But of course we couldn’t allow him to commit suicide like that. You wanted to stand and fight, right then and there, but who could fight beside you? Not the pregnant ex-nun. Not Brandeis, in his delirium. Not Heinrich, an old man. So what you really meant was that
you
should take them on alone. Your reasoning was that if you were able to slay these two soldiers, at least Heinrich and I could escape before the rest arrived. You’d take Brandeis in the opposite direction, whether he was ready or not. This, you stated, was by far the best option. We couldn’t stay and wait for certain death to come to us.

In the end, none of the arguments mattered. When the rest of us were asleep and you were supposed to be keeping watch, you took your crossbow and crept out into the night. We didn’t even know that you had gone until you returned and awoke us.

“They’re dead,” you said. “Dawn is coming and others will arrive soon, so we must be quick.”

I could not contain my shock that you’d killed, any more than I’d been able to when we were fleeing Nürnberg. This time, however, my naivety angered you. “Don’t you understand what will happen if they catch us? They’ll kill Brandeis and me, but they’ll use you as a plaything until you wish that you were dead. Your pregnancy won’t make any difference. They’ll rape you, and if you’re lucky, your life will bleed out before your spirit does. So don’t stand there judging me, thinking I have no regard for life. I’m doing everything I can to preserve ours.”

Finally I accepted that I could no longer both stay with you and protect our child. Our parting was inevitable. I would return to Mainz and hide myself in a beguinage until you returned. You’d take Brandeis in the opposite direction; with the best trackers already dead, perhaps the two of you had a chance.

Brother Heinrich would go to Engelthal, for it was certain that the monastery would accept him if he came without me. I thanked him with all my heart, kissed him on the forehead, and said that I would pray the mercenaries did not destroy his home when they arrived.

“Do not waste your prayers on such a silly thing, Sister Marianne,” he said. “It’s only a building. I live in the House of the Lord.”

“Our child,” I said, “will owe its life to you. If it is a boy, we will name him Heinrich.”

“You would honor me more,” the old priest said, “if you named him Friedrich.”

I promised that I would. The weather was changing, so maybe luck was finally turning in our favor: ever since we’d left Mainz, we’d been praying for a storm to erase our tracks. Brother Heinrich pulled tight his winter coat and slipped Father Sunder’s pluviale over it, as an extra layer to protect against the storm. He sank into the snow as he walked away from us, his step unsteady, and in a few minutes he was gone. The last I saw of him was the image on the back of Father Sunder’s pluviale, of Michael and the angels fighting the dragon in Revelation, being swallowed up into the white.

Brandeis’ crossbow was useless to him, so you thrust it into my hands even though I protested that I didn’t want it. You told me that I didn’t have to fire it but I
had
to take it, just in case, and you wouldn’t allow me to leave without it. I agreed only because you were so adamant.

You gave me a quick lesson in loading the bolt and setting the catch. “You brace the instrument against your shoulder, like this, and here’s how you sight the target. You steady the weapon by slowing your breathing. In, out, in, out. Steady. Aim. Trust the arrow. Breathe. Release.”

You placed the crossbow into the holster across my horse’s flank and opened my winter coat to let one hand rest upon my bulging stomach. You used the other hand to slip your arrowhead necklace over my head. “It is for protection, and you need it more than I. You can return it when we meet again, because I promise that our love will not end like this.”

Then you slapped my horse into action. I looked over my shoulder once, at you watching me ride away, before addressing all my attention to the trail that would take me and our unborn child away from danger.

The snow swirled in front of me. I tried to imagine what would happen to you next. How many mercenaries would come? A dozen? Two dozen? I supposed it depended upon whether they were currently fighting on behalf of some lord, somewhere. Or would Kuonrat bring all his soldiers, so they would see what happened to deserters? I wondered what chance you really had of escaping with your life. I had seen your skill with the crossbow, but the sheer numbers…How could you escape a past that was so determined to make you pay? The wind picked up, and the whiteness of the storm was blinding. The cold cut through my clothing and into my bones.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go on without you. I’d been a fool to think that I could leave you, just when you needed me most. I’d been traveling for about half an hour when I turned the horse around and drove it back hard in the direction that I’d come. I only prayed that I was not too late.

It was already difficult to retrace my tracks, but I knew all the paths that led to Heinrich’s house. Still, even when I was less than a hundred feet away, I couldn’t see it in the swirl of snow. But then I heard the voices of many men, carried to me on the wind, and I knew that in the hour I had been away, the condotta had arrived. The only question was whether you and Brandeis had managed to get away first.

I drove my horse up onto the ridge that overlooked the house, into the brush that I’d hidden in when I was a child. I didn’t even consider that there might be soldiers up there; it was only by luck that I found myself alone. I maneuvered into a thicket where I could tether the horse to a low-hanging branch, and took a position where I could make out the action below. I knew that with the blizzard, there was no chance I’d be spotted.

Almost immediately I saw what I feared most: you had not managed to escape, and soldiers were pulling you from the house. A clear voice cut through the flurry. It was Kuonrat the Ambitious, laughing at his own good fortune. “Not one deserter, but two! Two!”

Soldiers held your arms behind your back and pushed you down onto your knees. Kuonrat took a step forward and placed his hand under your chin, twisting your head up so that your eyes met his. Still laughing, he looked as if he were trying to convince himself that his luck really
was
that good. A ghost delivered from the very recesses of his memory. A ghost that he could use to teach a lesson to the living.

What could I do? I considered that I might take out the crossbow and begin shooting. In the blizzard, the soldiers would never see the arrows coming until it was too late, and they might not even be able to tell where they came from. But what good would that do? There were at least two dozen of them, paid killers, and I’d never used a crossbow in my life. I’d be lucky to take down even one. But, I thought, if I could manage one good shot, what would happen if I hit Kuonrat? Would the troop scatter if they saw their leader fall?

Of course not. They were professionals and I knew that I didn’t have it in me to kill anyone, not even Kuonrat.

It took a number of soldiers to hold you down, but Brandeis was so weak it took two soldiers to hold him up. When they released him, he slumped onto his knees while Kuonrat demanded, “What do you have to say?”

The harsh storm winds blew directly towards me, past them, and carried their words to my vantage place. Whether it was good luck or ill fortune that I was able to hear every word, I am unsure, but in the moment I was thankful that I did not have to sneak closer.

Brandeis assumed the posture of a miserable sinner asking for forgiveness and the wind carried his words to me. “I deserve any death you choose. Make it as horrible as you desire, as horrible as you can. Use me as the example that I should be. I renounce my decision to run away from the condotta. I was like a frightened child. I request only that you punish me, and me alone.”

“It is always interesting to listen to the bargains of those who have nothing to offer,” Kuonrat said to many laughs.

Brandeis refused to let this laughter interfere with his final actions on this earth. His executioner was standing in front of him but never once did Brandeis beg for his own life. No, he used his final moments to plead, passionately, that the life of his best friend be spared.

Brandeis pointed out that when he left the condotta, it was entirely his own misguided decision—but when
you
left, it was not your decision at all. It was the Lord’s will that you were struck down in combat, but not killed. It was the Lord’s will that the battle had occurred so close to Engelthal and that you were delivered there. It was the Lord’s will that you were able to heal from injuries that should have taken your life. There could be no greater proof that God wanted you alive, Brandeis argued, than the fact that you still were.

Brandeis gestured in your direction. “This life is the Lord’s will, so forgo his punishment and double mine. I know that you are a wise and just leader, Kuonrat, and I know that you would not want to defy God.”

It was a smart tactic to keep repeating that your survival was the Lord’s will. If anything could stay your execution, it would be Kuonrat’s belief that killing you would violate God’s intentions. It was clear that he had no regard for man, but perhaps God was a different story.

The storm hurled a great burst of snow across the landscape. Brandeis instinctively turned his head to shield his eyes and I saw a swift bolt of silver, as if an extension of Kuonrat’s arm. A red surge sprayed across the ground and Brandeis’ head flew for a few feet before gravity brought it down.

Kuonrat wiped his sword clean, the steel still steaming with the heat of the blood. “The Lord’s will does not matter. Only mine does.”

He turned and said, with a laugh into your shocked face, that he had something much better for you. Something not nearly so painless or so mercifully quick. After all, your disappearance had continued for much longer than that of Brandeis.

Kuonrat gathered his mercenaries and gave out their tasks. One third of the men were to scour the woods for deadwood and twigs. Another third was sent into Heinrich’s house to secure any items of value—food, money, clothing—that the troop could use or barter. The remaining soldiers were ordered to prepare you.

The soldiers pulled you past Brandeis’ body. The blood leaked from his neck, still, adding to the large red blot in the snow. The mercenaries pushed you up against Heinrich’s cottage, your back to the wall. They kicked at your ankles until your legs were spread wide, and pulled out your arms until they were stretched across the face of the building. When you showed resistance, they beat you and spat in your face and laughed as if this were some great joke.

A soldier, bigger than the others, walked towards you carrying an ax. My heart caught in my throat, because I was certain that he was coming to dismember you. But this was not the case. The other soldiers, the ones holding out your arms, unpeeled your fingers from your clenched fists until your palms were open and exposed. One of the soldiers held something against your right hand. The larger soldier turned the ax backwards, and I realized that the object was a nail. He used the blunt side of the ax like a hammer to drive the nail through the flesh of your palm. Even as far away as I was, I could hear the bones in your hand cracking like the neck of a chicken being broken. You howled and you jerked at your hand, trying to pry it away from the wall, but it was held fast. They did your left hand next, another nail through the open palm, another splatter of blood across the wall. Your shoulders wrenched futilely and all the veins in your neck looked as though they were about to explode.

Next the soldiers tried taking hold of your legs, but you were kicking wildly because you were in such pain. So the axman brought the sharp side of the ax head forward and swung it hard right above your knee where the ligaments meet the bone. Your thigh contracted but your shin hung useless, dangling as if connected to your body by half-cut twine. The soldiers laughed more at this, another great joke, and your hands continued to leak blood down the wall.

They grabbed you by the ankles, and it was ridiculously easy now, driving nails through your feet so that you were skewered to the wall about ten inches above the snow line. The sound of the bones breaking in your feet, so thin those bones, was so awful and the blood, there was so much blood everywhere. You looked like you were levitating, hanging from your hands; you looked like a ghost already, floating against the backdrop of the house. They wanted your weight to hang, because that would be all the more painful. They loved the way that the nails in your hands couldn’t really support you, and they loved driving new nails into your forearms so you wouldn’t fall right off the wall. The blood was draining out of your body and Brandeis lay headless on red snow, the stain now larger, now redder, and steam, steam rising. I got the crossbow from my horse, and I took a step towards the horror, wanting to run down the hill to you, and then pulled back by the umbilical cord of our unborn child, I realized there was nothing I could do. The crossbow hung in my hand, so useless at my side, my heart beating so loudly that I was certain the mercenaries would be able to hear it above the storm. There were also cries coming from me that I couldn’t control but a part of me didn’t care and a part of me even wanted to be caught, to die, because what good was my life now? But they didn’t hear me, the wind still carrying my sounds away, and they were too busy laughing, laughing in time with the dripping of your blood, and I couldn’t do anything about it without ending the life of our child.