The Gargoyle

XXVII.

Dawn was breaking when Agletrudis appeared at Engelthal’s gate, wearing a smile so thick with Schadenfreude that it seemed impossible it could fit on a nun’s face. She nodded in your direction, where you were still propped up on the horse with Brandeis’ bloodied body, and said, “I see you’ve brought your lover.”

I couldn’t betray my anger if we were to have any chance of being taken in. I needed to appeal to her better instincts; she was, after all, dedicated to a life in God. “We require sanctuary. Without your help we will die.”

“Ah,” Agletrudis said, nodding and clasping her hands behind her back. “So your adventurous spirit has found what it was looking for. Perhaps even more.” Like Sister Constantia before her, Agletrudis surveyed the bulge of my stomach.

I steadied my voice. “You can imagine that it was not easy for us-for me-to come here.” My hands were also behind my back, but because I didn’t want Agletrudis to see that they were curled into fists. “There’s nowhere else for us to go.”

Agletrudis tried to produce a sympathetic look, but her smile only grew more ugly. “This puts us in a most interesting situation. Our mission is one of mercy, and we are taught to find forgiveness for every sinner. And yet, the difficulty lies in the fact that most of the sisters place you in a category beyond the merely sinful.”

This struck me as a vast overreaction to the fact that I’d left Engelthal. “When I left, it was never my intention to disrespect the monastery or the Lord.”

“Or Mother Christina, I’m certain.” Agletrudis had not lost her ability to strike in the tenderest spot. “Had you simply disappeared, it’s unlikely anyone would object to extending help now. But because of your actions on that night, poor Sister Gertrud died of a broken heart.”

Gertrud would not have cared one bit about my leaving, except for the fact that my absence would have slowed down work on her Bible. “What are you talking about?”

“There is no use denying it, Sis-Oh, excuse me. Marianne. Do you not remember that I saw you that night exiting the scriptorium? I remember it, and I also remember how the next morning, poor Sister Gertrud found her work all in ashes. Every chapter, every verse.” Agletrudis paused with a dramatic sigh. “How could you torch her Bible?”

It was the sigh that explained everything. She had burned Die Gertrud Bibel the night I left, and she had blamed it on me. And so, I’d become known as the sister who destroyed Gertrud’s life’s work, the nun who reduced the Word of God to dust and ran off to live as a killer’s mistress.

Agletrudis’ eyes positively glowed. “Mother Christina has ordered that your name be expunged from all the chronicles, and now that Father Sunder has passed-I trust you know that he, too, has died?-we are removing your name from his writings as well.”

I’d always considered Agletrudis to be little more than a lackey to Gertrud, an inferior in the ways of treachery. How quickly one’s perceptions can turn. It was a revelation to understand, in an instant, the wickedness of which Agletrudis was capable. With my disappearance, she would have reassumed her position as heir to the scriptorium. But this was not enough for her. She had to ruin my name forever, and to achieve this she was willing to sacrifice the life’s dream of her mentor.

I’m not proud that I couldn’t stop my fists. My right hand connected with Agletrudis’ shoulder, the first punch I’d ever thrown. I was aiming for her head but I guess my anger affected my aim. The second and third punches were better, despite my pregnant clumsiness, and landed on her jaw and her chest. She fell backwards, though I’m not sure how much from the force of the blows and how much from surprise. When she got up, she smiled a red mess of teeth ringed with blood.

“I will not lower myself to strike a pregnant whore,” Agletrudis said, “but I’ll be sure to pass your regards to Mother Christina.”

There was no point in staying, as we’d never be allowed in the monastery now, and there was still the matter of the trackers hot on our trail. I forced myself to remount and you let me gallop away some of my rage before asking where we were going. I said I didn’t know. You suggested Father Sunder’s cottage. I said he was dead. You asked whether Brother Heinrich were also dead. I didn’t know. You said that we were out of options, and their house was our new destination.

Brother Heinrich was shocked to find us at his entrance after so many years, but he didn’t even hesitate. He only threw the door open as wide as it would go, and I will always remember him for that. You carried Brandeis directly to the small bed that had been yours during your recovery.

Brother Heinrich looked as though life had sucked most of the wind out of his lungs. He was no longer steady on his feet, and he hobbled around to gather water and fresh bedding. He helped us to treat Brandeis, doing his best to hold him down as you rinsed out the wound. When Brandeis stopped struggling, worn through, it was Brother Heinrich-not you or me-who stroked his hair lovingly, though he had never met Brandeis before. When Brandeis finally slipped into uneasy sleep, Brother Heinrich said he would prepare some food. “I have so few visitors, let me invite you…”

I insisted on helping and it amused Brother Heinrich that I could now cook. When he complimented me on my new skill, I finally found the courage to express my condolences on Father Sunder’s death. Brother Heinrich nodded his head as he chopped the vegetables. “He lived a good life and died in his sleep, so there’s nothing to be sorry about. There was a lovely remembrance and all the nuns said that the Devil rejoiced at his death. Not because the Enemy had won a new soul, but because Friedrich would no longer be able to harm Him with his prayers.”

There was a telling quiver to his voice. Friedrich, he had said. Not Brother Sunder, as he had always called him in life. In front of me, at least. He tried to smile but could not quite manage it, and I understood why he looked so old. Brother Heinrich was waiting his turn.

“Did you know that Sister Gertrud also died? Her heart just seemed to give up after…” Heinrich’s voice trailed away. He meant, of course, the burning of her Bible. “Marianne, when the burnt remains were found, Sister Gertrud realized that her Bible would never be completed in her lifetime. It was no secret, the bad blood between you two, but you should know that I never believed you burned it. And neither did Friedrich. He died certain of your innocence.”

At that moment a cramp seized my stomach, and my hands instinctively went to the child. I could not look upon Brother Heinrich’s face, wondering whether he would blame my sin of leaving Engelthal for the situation in which I now found myself. But this is what he said: “Friedrich would have been so pleased that you are with child. He always knew that your love was true.”

Right there in the middle of the kitchen, all the previous weeks caught up with me. Losing the life that you and I had built together in Mainz, discovering that I’d been accused of a horrible crime, and learning of Father Sunder’s death. Agletrudis smiling at the gate, as acting prioress. My pregnancy, which I worried about every moment of every day. I had been running on willpower and nervous energy since we had left Nürnberg, but in that instant all my remaining strength drained out. I broke down completely into the tears that I’d not been allowing myself. I collapsed, my body folding into the old man’s arms.

It was so good to be held again, simply held, and spoken to with kindness. You’d been so busy fighting for our lives, driving the horses forward and planning our next move, that you had no time to spend on calming my emotions. I didn’t blame you, but I missed your kinder attentions. Brother Heinrich stroked my hair, just as he’d done with Brandeis, and he put me into his own bed. He covered me with blankets and told me exactly what I needed to hear: that everything was going to be all right.

A few days passed and we had no choice but to stay right where we were. I hoped that we might have somehow thrown the trackers off, but you assured me that we most definitely had not. You said with absolute certainty that, with one of the trackers now dead, the others were regrouping and trying to figure out what resources we had at our disposal.

We had been cleaning Brandeis’ wound diligently and hoping it would heal, but we were hoping for too much. It became infected and he fell into a terrible fever, becoming delirious. You had seen this before, on the battlefield, and you knew what you had to do. Brother Heinrich held Brandeis’ shoulders and I held his legs, while you used a hunting knife to carve away part of your friend’s thigh. When we finished, our clothes were covered in blood and there was a chunk of flesh in a bucket. When I looked at the damage to Brandeis’ thigh, I primarily felt two emotions: shame at my fear that the wound might somehow infect me and harm the baby, and guilt because the injury existed at all. If I had not hesitated at the inn’s window, Brandeis would have been able to escape ahead of the ax.

It was Brother Heinrich who first noticed the two men on horses. They remained a safe distance from the house, past the ridge that I used to play on as a child, but there was no doubt that they were watching us. They were trackers, of course. When I asked why they didn’t come for us, you said, “They know that we have crossbows and that we can use them, so they’ve sent for reinforcements.”

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.

Now the mercenaries who’d been sent for wood were returning and Kuonrat pointed to the space under your feet. They piled the wood halfway up your legs. And I knew what was coming next. The wind and the whipping of the snow made it difficult to light the fire, but the mercenaries were used to living in the wild, so they knew how to hunch their bodies into windbreaks. Soon enough, a spark caught and the twigs started to smolder and there was smoke and I could hear the popping sap as the fire caught, and it reminded me of your breaking hands and feet. Little flames were approaching your toes but you couldn’t lift them out of the way, and they were nailed to the wall anyway. And then Kuonrat instructed his archers to take up their bows and to light their arrows in the flames and the archers did it, and when the tips were on fire, they lined up in a semicircle and they angled in on you. Kuonrat told them they were not to kill you but they were to shoot the arrows as close to your body as possible, that was the game, the goal was to light the wall on fire and slowly burn you from all sides rather than just from the bottom up. But then Kuonrat had a better idea and changed his instructions and told the archers that they could hit your body, just not in any spot that would be fatal-piercing your arms and legs was fine, but piercing your head or chest was not-and he had such glee in his voice, such utter pride in his brilliance, and the archers lifted their bows and started calling out body parts-“Left hand!” “Right foot!” “Upper thigh!”-and they were good shots, they usually got the places they called. When an arrow hit its mark, everyone cheered, and if an arrow missed everyone jeered, like it was a carnival game, and the flames under you were growing larger, new flames were bursting out all around your body, igniting with every arrow.

Over the laughs and happy shouts of the mercenaries, Kuonrat called out his final goodbye to you, “Everything burns if the flame is hot enough. The world is nothing but a crucible.”

And then I knew what I had to do.

I reached into my coat and found my necklace. I clenched my hand around the arrowhead that Father Sunder had blessed, and I prayed for strength.

I lifted the crossbow. I tried to remember the lesson that you’d given. It’s all in the breathing, you had said, you steady the instrument by slowing your breathing. In, out, steady, in, out, aim. I checked once more that the arrow was properly loaded. I knew I would have only one shot, the first shot of my life and the last. It’s all about the breathing. Trust the arrow. Calm.

I asked the Lord to deliver the arrow straight and true, directly to your heart, through the snowstorm and the condotta.