The Castle of Kings by Oliver Pötzsch
At first there was silence, a silence in which only the chirping of crickets and the nightingale’s song could be heard. Then, very slowly, trembling and pale-faced, the first of the members raised their hands. One after another, each of them said yes.
In the end, only Elsbeth Rechsteiner, Diethelm Seebach, and Martin Lebrecht had not yet raised their hands. Of those three, the midwife was the first to do so, if with some delay.
“I would have chosen another path,” she said. “I would have acted to get the thing out of circulation once and for all. But like this at least we can make sure that the deed does not fall into the wrong hands. The rest may yet happen later.” She shrugged her shoulders. “A few months more or less will not make much difference.”
“How about you two?” the leader asked the two still left to vote.
“Damn it, what else can we do?” Seebach spat noisily on the ground, and then he raised his hand as well.
“What do you say, Martin?” asked the head of the order.
The ropemaker hesitated. Only after what felt like an eternity did he too slowly raise his hand.
“It’s probably the best protection we can provide for the secret now to get the deed away from here,” he said quietly. “I just hope it’s really God and not cowardice guiding what we do.”
“Then it’s decided.” The head of the order nodded. He looked at Elsbeth Rechsteiner and thought that in the moonlight he saw a slight smile on her lips. Once again, for a brief moment, she was the young girl he had asked to dance long ago.
The pressure has simply been too great. This is best for us, and for our common cause. Let others decide when the time has come.
The old man took a deep breath and then asked them all to kneel. “Let us pray together now.”
“Sanctus Fridericus, libera me, libera me, libera me . . .”
While they all spoke the ancient words that had been handed down in Annweiler from generation to generation, every one of them was aware that this meeting would be their last.
The order had ceased to exist.
On the afternoon of the following day, Mathis finally summoned up the courage to speak to his father. Time was pressing, for Castellan Philipp von Erfenstein wanted his new gun maker to let him know what artillery they now had available and how Mathis proposed to use it. Meanwhile, the duke of Zweibrücken himself had sent a letter empowering Erfenstein to go into the field against the robber knight Hans von Wertingen. They were to set out in two days’ time.
If the situation had not been so serious, Mathis would have laughed out loud. A few weeks ago he had been a young journeyman smith imprisoned for theft, now the coming campaign had made him assistant gunner of legendary Trifels Castle. But Mathis had no illusions. If the campaign against Wertingen failed, that would be the end of his new career manufacturing artillery. And probably the end of his work at Trifels. Erfenstein would turn him out, if only to save face.
Over the last few days, Mathis had kept refining his recipe for gunpowder. In the end he had decided on five parts sulfur, seven parts saltpeter, and five parts charcoal. In his many experiments, the trunks of young hazel trees had made the best charcoal, although not many of them were available, as few hazels grew in the dry sandy soil of this part of the country. All the ingredients had to be ground fine and then mixed carefully in the powder mill in the shed. To get larger grains that would explode faster, Mathis had then mixed the powder with vinegar and urine and let the liquid evaporate from the mixture.
He had spent a good two hours turning the sharp-smelling mass again and again in a long, shallow trough. As he worked, he was aware that every spark or violent movement could set off an explosion, leaving nothing of himself and the shed but a large hole.
When Mathis had finally finished his work, he carefully laid the wooden scraper aside and set off on the path to Trifels. It was a good two hours’ walk. He had not been home for days. Little Marie was all the happier to see him, and she stood in the doorway rejoicing.
“Mathis, how lovely to see you back!” she cried excitedly. “Can I go to the forest with you again when you make a big bang? Please, please?”
Mathis smiled wearily. “Not today, Marie. Maybe some other time.” He glanced around the little room, where his mother sat on the bench beside the stove, looking careworn as she picked over an earthenware dish of berries gathered from the forest. He was struck, even more forcefully than usual, by the cramped conditions in which they lived.
Unrest in the German lands had been steadily increasing over the last few weeks. Mathis was suddenly reminded of his gunpowder. He wondered when some spark would make the empire itself explode.
“How is my father?” he asked his mother quietly, gesturing toward the bedroom, from which a metallic wheezing emanated.
Martha Wielenbach rubbed her tired eyes, leaving red juice from the berries on her forehead, where it looked like blood. “It . . . will soon be over for him. Father Tristan has been to see him twice and says that all he can do now is pray for him. At least he feels no pain when he is asleep.” She compressed her lips and went on picking over the berries in the dish. Marie sat down beside her mother on the bench and laid her little head in her lap. Mathis was shocked to see how thin his sister had grown.
At last he plucked up his courage. “Do you think I can speak to him?” he asked his mother.
Martha Wielenbach looked up from her work, smiling, and for a moment her face showed the laughter lines that Mathis had always loved so much. “Of course,” she replied. “He’s awake. I looked in on him just now.” Her eyes twinkled as she looked at Mathis. “And think nothing of it if he scolds you. It’s his way of showing that he loves you.”
“I know,” Mathis murmured. “It’s just hard to understand that sometimes.”
He cautiously went over to the bedroom door and opened it. Hans Wielenbach was lying on a bed with a straw mattress in the tiny, boxlike room. Mathis involuntarily flinched at the sight of the frail bundle of bones that had once been his strong father. Under the thin blanket, he looked like one of those shrunken figures made of dried plums that Mathis had seen at fairs. The face of the once vigorous smith was emaciated, his eyes and mouth much too large for it, his few remaining brownish teeth showing. Then he was shaken by a fit of coughing that seemed to go on forever. Hans Wielenbach spat out red mucus into a bowl beside his bed. Only then did he notice his visitor.
“What do you want?” he asked roughly. His voice was surprisingly firm and loud.
“I’m going up to see the castellan today,” said Mathis. “We’re to discuss the campaign against Wertingen. You must have heard about it.” He cleared his throat. “The firearms are cast and forged, and we’ll probably set out the day after tomorrow. We just have to tell Count Scharfeneck, so that he can send us his landsknechts as he promised.”
“And what’s that to do with me?”
“Can’t you think?” Mathis asked quietly.
For some time neither of them said anything; nothing was to be heard but Wielenbach’s rattling breath. At last he spoke. His voice sounded strangely dreamy.
“When I was a child, my parents took me out and about in the countryside,” he began, staring up at the low ceiling. “My father was a traveling smith, a poor tinker who mended pots and pans, straightened horseshoes, and sometimes pulled out teeth with his big pincers.” A smile spread over Wielenbach’s face. “One day we were in a little place on the other bank of the Rhine when we heard a noise like thunder. I looked up at the sky, but it wasn’t the sky—it was the earth thundering. Half a dozen knights on their horses were coming along the high road. They wore magnificent armor, shining swords hung at their sides, and their stallions had thin visors of the finest iron. The knights carried brightly colored standards showing their noble origin. They were announcing the emperor’s arrival in a nearby town. The old emperor . . .” Hans Wielenbach closed his eyes, conjuring up that image again.
“They were like a vision, Mathis, like archangels com
“And God knows he can be proud of you,” Mathis said quietly.
There was another moment of silence.
“Why has all that gone?” said Hans Wielenbach, more to himself than to Mathis. “Where are all the knights with their swords who protect the weak? Where is the wise emperor who can hold back all today’s wild unrest?”
“Times change, Father,” replied Mathis. “New times are coming, but they don’t have to be worse times. On the contrary: maybe we can make a better world.”
Hans Wielenbach laughed, but his laughter soon gave way to another coughing fit. “With those stinking guns, eh?” His voice was more of a croak now. “Once upon a time the strongest knight won, the knight who had learned how to fight longest and best. The fight was dirty and bloody, but not many lost their lives in it. And now? The powerful buy hundreds of landsknechts and set them firing guns at each other. And whoever spends more money will always win the war.” He shook his head. “The old castellan and I don’t belong in this time. We should leave it to younger men.” Groaning, he sat up in bed and took his son’s hand. Talking had become difficult for him. “Your . . . your mother says the castellan is very pleased with you. You’re a good craftsman and a born leader, she says. She is very proud of you. And I . . . damn it, so am I. Even if I can’t say I like what you’re doing.” He let himself fall back and closed his eyes. “Go now,” he said, so quietly that Mathis could hardly make it out. “I wish you well, my son. You and these new times. May God be with you. And make sure that your damn gunpowder at least hits the right targets.”
“I . . . I promise I will.”
Mathis waited a little longer, but his father seemed to have fallen asleep. The young man stood by the bed in silence, looking at the tiny, shrunken figure from whom a rattling breath escaped at regular intervals. A single tear ran down Mathis’s cheek.
He wiped it away and turned his back on the cramped room.
✦ 9 ✦
Trifels, 31 May, Anno Domini 1524, early morning
WHILE THIN WISPS OF MORNING mist drifted toward the valley, the men-at-arms of Trifels gathered on the castle acres before setting off to do battle with the robber knight Hans von Wertingen.
The feud letter, as such a challenge was called, had been taken to the enemy by a messenger the day before, and, as expected, Black Hans had not complied with its demand for him to submit himself and his men to the duke’s authority. On the contrary, the ducal messenger had been met with insults and crossbow bolts; he’d managed to save his own life only by headlong flight. That satisfied all the official specifications, and now, at last, the attack could begin.
But when Mathis surveyed the small troop of men who had gathered around him, he was suddenly no longer sure that their venture would really be crowned by success. Philipp von Erfenstein sat his nervously prancing chestnut horse Taramis in old-fashioned ceremonial armor, with his sword, mace, and dagger at his belt. A polished bascinet of the kind worn at tournaments in the old days hung beside him; it tapered to a pointed visor in front and was adorned with a plume of feathers. Surrounded by the castle guards, who carried only the necessary minimum of weapons, the castellan looked not like a radiant hero but a sad old man on his last journey. Ulrich, Gunther, and Eberhart wore rusty hauberks and dented helmets. The old head groom, Radolph, had buckled on a breastplate that had probably once belonged to his grandfather. In addition there were about a dozen young local peasants, recruited by Erfenstein with stirring words and the prospect of loot and adventure, although the actual wages he offered were low. They were armed mainly with scythes and threshing flails, though two of them had brought battered short swords. Mathis suspected that the peasants would run screaming at the first real clash with the enemy.
But really the peasants were there for only one purpose: to help in transporting the heavy guns from Eusserthal Monastery to the Ramburg, just under four miles away.
Mathis glanced over toward Trifels Castle and recognized Agnes and Father Tristan on Dancing Floor Rock, waving to him. The old monk would be meeting them in a few days’ time, when it was to be assumed that there would be wounded men in need of care—or the first dying men to be given their last rites. At first Agnes had wanted to come with him, but her father had strictly forbidden that idea.
When Mathis saw her looking so small up there, his heart sank. They had talked for a long time yesterday evening, and he had tried not to show any fear, although he knew that the campaign was extremely dangerous—for him as the new gunner, as well as others. He would not be the first practitioner of his craft to risk blowing himself up along with his gun. There was an added danger in the fact that lack of time had made it impossible to test most of the newly cast firearms or those that had been repaired. The thought had hardly allowed Mathis to sleep at all last night.
“Let’s just hope our fine Count Scharfeneck doesn’t back out now,” growled Philipp von Erfenstein from up on his horse. “It was agreed that he’d set off at dawn, and the sun is already high above the woods.”
“I wouldn’t put it past that dandy,” muttered Ulrich Reichhart, fidgeting nervously with the catch of his battered helmet. “Talking big and then making off. Well, too bad. We’ll just snuff the living daylights out of Black Hans on our own.”
Mathis didn’t like to think what would happen if Count Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck really did let them down. With their own tiny troop, they wouldn’t even be able to get the guns up to the Ramburg, let alone give battle. But at that very moment a horn signal sounded from the neighboring castle, and he heard the clatter of horses’ hooves. Soon a colorfully clad troop of landsknechts emerged from the woods on the mountain: three dozen men, about twelve of them mounted. They all carried light swords, halberds, and spears. A cart drawn by two donkeys had also been loaded up with winches, boards, and the tools for building barriers. The young count himself trotted at the head of his noisily bawling troop, on a horse with sparkling silver on its bridle and reins. Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck was the only one of his men to wear a light breastplate, greaves, and gauntlets. He looked much more mobile than the castellan in his heavy ceremonial armor.
“I thought you were never going to arrive,” Erfenstein called brusquely.
The count calmly smiled and let his eyes sweep over the tiny group of peasants and men-at-arms from Trifels. “You could have gone on ahead,” he replied. “I’m sure it wouldn’t have been long before we overtook you.” Then his glance fell on Mathis. “Ah, the young master gunner. Now we’ll find out what your big gun is good for in the heat of battle. If need be we can always use its metal to cast a bell, ring it, and pray for Wertingen’s soul.”
The mercenaries laughed, and Mathis felt the blood shoot into his face.
I’m more likely to cast a bell from it to ring your own death knell, you arrogant upstart, he thought.
Among Scharfeneck’s men, he now saw the slight figure of the minstrel whom Agnes had described to him. He was as colorfully clad as the landsknechts, with red feathers on his cap that fluttered in the wind, and he carried his lute buckled on over his shoulder. Mathis could not refrain from smiling. It was hard to imagine the little man overcoming one of the sturdy mercenaries in single combat.
The count shouted several orders, and the landsknechts got into position around the baggage train. Philipp von Erfenstein was just about to give the signal for them to set out when someone came hurrying toward them over the recently mown castle acres. From the figure’s flowing hair, Mathis soon realized that it was Agnes.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay up there?” the castellan snapped at her.
“Surely I can wish your men well for the battle,” she replied breathlessly when she had reached them. Going over to Mathis, she pressed his hand, and h
“It’s nothing much,” she said softly. “Only a medallion that I carved from walnut wood. It’s supposed to bring you good luck.”
He nodded, slipping the little thing into his pocket unseen.
“It’s always good to see a beautiful woman before fighting,” the count called, “but I agree with your father, lady. These men are not the kind of company you should keep.”
“Don’t worry, I am used to keeping exactly such company at home in our castle,” retorted Agnes, laughing. “And your own landsknechts already know that there’s someone in their ranks who will defend me if necessary.”
Baffled, Mathis frowned. Who did Agnes mean? Himself? But there was no time to think more about that. The castellan’s daughter gave him one last, grave glance, and then went over to her father and dropped a kiss on the old man’s hand. Finally she turned away in silence. Erfenstein bellowed an order, and at last the baggage train set off.
It was still quite early morning when they reached Eusserthal and began the tedious work of loading up. First they had to get the two larger of the light cannons known as falcons onto the gun carriages built for them. The men also packed half a dozen arquebuses into an ox cart, along with a handful of the artillery pieces called falconets: small cannons with muzzles the diameter of a finger’s length.
But the showpiece of the baggage train was the great cannon, six feet long, that only yesterday Ulrich Reichhart had affectionately christened Fat Hedwig, because its girth reminded him of the stout cook at Trifels Castle. Unlike the cook, however, this Hedwig weighed over two thousand pounds, and it had to be lifted cautiously by means of a pulley onto the two-wheeled gun carriage, laboriously built for it by Mathis, where it was fixed in place with iron clamps. By the time the men had finished the job, they were bathed in sweat, and it was nearly midday.
Now the most difficult part of their journey began. The four vehicles rolled along at walking pace, while the mounted men and foot soldiers went along leisurely beside them. The men had to keep stopping when the heavy bronze gun threatened to shift position on its carriage. The landsknechts and peasants sweated and swore, while more and more curious onlookers accompanied them on their way. Ragged, laughing children ran after them, and some of the older peasants and women wished them luck and handed them bread and water from the roadside.