The Castle of Kings by Oliver Pötzsch
For a split second it looked as though the peasants really would kneel down reverently. But then Jockel’s bleating laugh was heard.
“I piss on your ancestors, count’s whore,” the peasant leader said. “I piss on you and the airs you put on. We’re not your inferiors anymore; that time is over.” He kicked the pale bones, scattering them in all directions. “I don’t need a burial chamber, I need a passage to get me out of here.” He seized Agnes by the throat so violently that she began to retch, but her gaze was still as steady and fearless as before. “Tell me, does that passage exist?” Jockel screeched. “Tell me, before I hurt you more than anyone has ever hurt you before.”
“There’s no passage, but there is something else,” Mathis interjected. “A sacred object, and very valuable. We hoped to discover where to find it down here. Let us go free, and you can have it.”
“What?” Jockel let go of Agnes, who fell to the floor, gasping, and lay there dazed. The peasant leader stared suspiciously at Mathis. “What are you talking about?”
The three other peasants still had not moved from the side of the room. They didn’t seem to know what frightened them more: the roar of the guns above them, or the secret chamber and this woman talking to them like a spirit.
“It’s the Holy Lance,” said Mathis, turning to Jockel and raising his hands to placate him. “Give me a little time, and I’ll explain everything.”
“I’ll give you until the next cannonball strikes up there, so hurry. And by God, don’t you try to put one over on me.”
Mathis took a deep breath and then quickly told Shepherd Jockel the whole story. He left out how he and Agnes had come by this knowledge, as well as that Agnes was a direct descendant of the Staufers. The Holy Lance would mean more to Jockel than this ancient story. Meanwhile Agnes crouched by the wall of the chamber as if in a stupor.
“Is this lance really so powerful?” Jockel asked.
Mathis nodded. “It is the most powerful relic in Christendom, and said to make its bearer invincible. Many battles have been won with it in the past. And so, maybe, the peasants will win their own battles in the near future,” he added conspiratorially. “How does that sound, Jockel? You leading a peasant army, with the Holy Lance in your hand? You might be able to decide the outcome of the war for our side after all.”
He paused, watching Jockel, and seeing the greed in his eyes. Mathis did not know whether the hunchback really believed the lance would make him leader of all the peasants—but at least Jockel was thoughtfully biting his lip. He glanced at his three companions, who were staring at him as if he were the Messiah in person, and finally brought out an answer.
“Well, well, that does sound interesting,” Jockel hesitantly began. He jumped when another stone cannonball hit the staterooms of the castle above them. “But I don’t see any lance here. Only a few bones and faded old paintings. So where is this powerful weapon?”
“You fool, weren’t you listening? Constanza and Johann hid it.” Agnes said. She had risen and stood upright in the middle of the room, with the scattered bones of her ancestress around her. Mathis swallowed at the sight of her. It was as if the discovery of Constanza’s grave had turned her into someone else. Agnes suddenly seemed much older and more mature, and she looked like a queen personified. Even Jockel was so surprised that at first he did not answer.
“This is the secret chamber where the imperial insignia were hidden in times of trouble in the past,” Agnes went on, and her voice echoed from the walls. She spread out her arms, pointing to all the crowned and bearded men on the walls. “Charlemagne, Ludwig the German, Otto the Great, Barbarossa, the Carolingians, Ottonians, the Salians, the Guelphs, and the Staufers—all were crowned German kings and emperors with the imperial insignia. My mother told me about this room, and my memory of it has come back to me at last.” She gazed into a void as she went on in her dreamlike state. “When Johann of Brunswick and Constanza fled because of the supposed conspiracy against the German king, and it turned out that the Holy Lance had disappeared along with them, the imperial insignia were removed from Trifels Castle. This once magnificent hall stood empty, robbed of its treasures. Later, when the Habsburgs’ henchmen captured Constanza, they thought it particularly and horribly apt to wall up the last descendant of the Staufers here, surrounded by all the rulers whose successor she should really have been. But Constanza withstood them, and she took her secret to her grave.”
“Then there is no clue here to the whereabouts of the lance?” Mathis asked quietly.
Agnes smiled. “I said she took her secret to the grave. This is her grave, and here is the clue.” She pointed to a drawing below the painting of Barbarossa, a drawing that Mathis had not noticed at first. Unlike the other pictures, this one was very simple, more like a child’s drawing. Basically, it consisted of only a few lines, and the colors had long since faded. Long ago, the drawing might have been red, green, and black. All the same, you could still see what it showed. Mathis thought he recognized it as a building with towers and a dome. Scrawled under it were a few words that finally trailed away.
The place where enmity is no more . . .
At that moment several cannonballs crashed into the castle above them, and the ceiling rattled. Small stones and some larger chunks of rock fell to the floor, and in one corner a rent suddenly gaped in the wall. The peasants screamed and ran along the passage back to the dungeon.
“Damn you, wait!” Cursing, Jockel ran after them. As he left the chamber, he turned to his two prisoners. “If you want to see the sun again, come with me,” he said. “Devil take it, I want to know where this Holy Lance is. After that, you can go to hell for all I care.”
Only a little later they were together up in the Knights’ House, with the first light of dawn falling through its windows.
The storming of the castle had begun in earnest. The guns crashed and boomed at regular intervals, and the shouts of the besiegers could be heard as they went on the attack. Mathis ventured a glance through one of the window frames, and saw about two dozen landsknechts running toward the walls with ladders. They were supported by a troop of arquebusiers who kept the peasants on the battlements under fire. The insurgents fought off the landsknechts, but it seemed only a question of time before the castle was finally captured. The cannonballs from the huge nightingale and the almost equally powerful culverin punched holes in the already decrepit masonry like giant fists.
Shepherd Jockel stood motionless at one of the windows, staring at the chaos below him. He might have been turned to stone. He had said not a word since their flight from the dungeon. Some of his men, meanwhile, had tied up Agnes and Mathis and dragged them over to the willow throne. Now the peasants glanced uncertainly at their leader.
“Jockel, what are we to do with the hostages now?” asked Moonface. Naked fear—the fear of death—showed clearly on his face. “Hans says the lower castle gate will probably go down soon. And we can’t defend the wall on the eastern side much longer. Maybe you ought to go down yourself and—”
Another blow shook the hall. It was so violent that the peasants threw themselves on the floor, whimpering like little children. In one corner, part of the stone landing of the staircase gave way and fell, crashing down and burying two screaming men under it. A cloud of dust from the shattered stonework spread through the hall.
“You damn cowards!” Jockel bellowed over the noise. He was enveloped in clouds of dust and smoke. “Don’t you see that in our hour of need, God has given us a gift?” Jockel’s eyes flashed as he turned to his few remaining supporters, arms outspread. “I thought God had abandoned us. But no, it was only a trial sent to test us, and now he is sending us his most powerful relic. The Holy Lance.”
He uttered a shrill laugh, and in Jockel’s eyes Mathis saw the insanity that had probably always been in him breaking out at last. His laughter suddenly died away. Shepherd Jockel ran to Agnes, who was still bound, and hauled her up by her hair.
“The lance,” he sai
“I don’t know.” Struggling wildly, Agnes tried to break free of Jockel’s grasp. The confidence she had shown in the chamber had disappeared, the proud queen turned back into a frightened young woman. “All I know is that Constanza’s drawing will take us to it,” she added desperately. “The drawing and those words she wrote.”
“You lie, whore, the lance is hidden somewhere here. The drawing shows a castle, and what castle can it be but Trifels? So talk. I need the lance now. Now!” Jockel let go of Agnes and began knocking at the walls of the Knights’ House with his crippled hand. “Aha, there’ll be a secret door somewhere, a walled-up niche. Come on, you layabouts, help me search.”
Those last words were for the half a dozen peasants who were still in the Knights’ House. All the others had run. The last few gawped, open-mouthed, at the dancing dervish who had once been their leader. It was now clear, even to them, that Shepherd Jockel was no longer in his right mind.
“Jockel, stop it,” one of them said falteringly. “Whatever it is you’re looking for, we don’t need it. What we need are your orders. Do we withdraw from the upper bailey, or do we—”
“Aha, there’s a hollow space here,” Shepherd Jockel laughed, hitting the wall so hard that he left traces of blood on it. “I’ve found the Holy Lance. Now the battle can begin at last.” Over and over he struck the wall like a man possessed.
“Holy Virgin Mary, we’re done for,” Moonface muttered, making the sign of the cross. “This is the end.”
At that moment there was a whistling sound, followed by mighty explosion. The whole hall shook, and Mathis was lifted off his feet by the blast.
The nightingale, he thought. A thirty-pound ball has breached the east wall.
Stones, wooden joists, and dust rained down on him. He instinctively crouched down, holding his bound hands over his head to protect it.
“Agnes!” he called into the raging chaos. “Agnes!”
Another beam fell, but before it smashed Mathis to pieces, it suddenly dropped at an angle, catching a fall of stone coming away from the ceiling. Mathis heard a few faint cries, and then, suddenly, there was silence. Somewhere, debris trickled down, but otherwise there was not a sound in the hall.
“Agnes?” Mathis said quietly.
There was no answer. He cautiously sat up and looked at all that was left of what had once been the Knights’ House. Half of the ceiling had fallen in, and so had part of the east wall, letting the cool morning wind blow through. Stones and splintered wood lay all over the floor, with lifeless arms and legs showing from under the ruins. On the west wall, where Jockel had been standing, a huge hole gaped wide, with small remnants of bone and splashes of blood around the edge of it. Mathis flinched when he saw a mushy red substance oozing from under a square stone block.
Nothing else was left of Shepherd Jockel.
“Ma . . . Mathis . . . ?”
He spun around when he heard the faint voice of Agnes somewhere in the room. It took Mathis a little while to find her at last in the rubble. She was huddled on the open hearth, the only place in the Knights’ House that had been spared from the falling masonry.
“My God, you’re alive!”
Laughing and weeping at the same time, Mathis struggled through the wreckage until he finally reached the hearth. Using the sharp edge of a stone, he hastily sawed through the rope tying his wrists, and then, at last, took Agnes in his arms. They were both covered with dust and ashes, looking more like ghosts than human beings.
For a while neither of them said a word. At last Mathis stepped back from Agnes and cut her bonds as well.
“I truly thought—” he began, but Agnes silenced him with a gesture.
“Listen,” she whispered excitedly, clinging to him. “I think I know now where the Holy Lance can be found,” she went on quietly. “When Jockel was talking, it all came clear to me. It’s not here at Trifels, it’s somewhere else entirely.” A hoarse sound escaped her throat. Mathis could not have said whether it was laughter or tears.
“The drawing,” Agnes breathed. “Down in the chamber with the kings and emperors, it seemed so familiar. But it’s only now that I’m sure. The way I fainted in the dungeon, that feeling of being watched by my ancestors—I’d felt all that before in another place.”
Shaking his head, Mathis held her very close again. “Wake up, Agnes. I couldn’t care less where the lance is, understand? You are all I need. For far too long I’ve been—”
He stopped short, hearing the sound of footsteps behind him. Since he had his back to the flight of stairs, it was Agnes who saw the two newcomers first. She uttered a soft cry.
“Oh, my God, Mathis,” she whispered. “Tell me this isn’t true. Tell me I’m dreaming.”
Trembling, she turned to Mathis.
If this was a dream, it was something of a nightmare.
✦ 23 ✦
Trifels Castle, 24 June, Anno Domini 1525
AGNES, SEEING THE COUNT WITH Melchior von Tanningen at the foot of the stairs to the Knights’ House, felt for a moment like she was still in that trancelike state. The idea that at last she knew where the Holy Lance was hidden made her see everything else as if through a clouded lens. But then the daze wore off, and she began to recognize details.
Details that disturbed her more and more.
It was not so much the unpleasant grin on her husband’s face or the nervous twitch at the corners of his mouth that surprised her. Far more alarming were the changes she saw in Melchior. At first she thought that the minstrel must be bound. But then she saw his sword, still hanging from his belt, and she noticed the self-assured glance and the air of authority with which Melchior stepped forward, as though he, not the count, were the man of superior rank. She sensed the silent understanding that clearly existed between the two of them.
Melchior held his head slightly to one side, smiling as he scrutinized the lovers still standing in front of the hearth in the Knights’ House. Before them towered the ruins of the fallen ceiling, and a fine cloud of dust from the stonework hovered in the air. After a few moments of silence, the slightly built minstrel sketched a bow.
“Greetings, Lady Agnes,” he said in a calm and courteous tone. “Don’t let us disturb you. Do continue your conversation. What the two of you were saying just now was very informative.”
Mathis’s eyes went back and forth between Melchior and Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck. He, too, seemed to notice the familiarity of their relationship.
“Melchior, what . . . what’s going on?” he asked, still dazed by the violence of the explosion. “I suppose you fell into a trap set by the count’s men. You are his prisoner, aren’t you?”
The minstrel did not reply. Only a tiny movement of his lips showed that the question amused him. Agnes held her breath. In a fraction of a second, Melchior changed from a good friend to a sinister stranger. Was it possible? She cast her mind back to all the adventures they had had together, all the good moments and the bad ones. She had grown fond of Melchior, with his eccentric, entertaining manner; he had fought for her and had saved her life at St. Goar. And now?
A terrible understanding took possession of her.
This can’t be true. Can I really have been so mistaken?
She remembered tiny details that only now, in retrospect, made sense. Melchior’s interest in the ring and the old stories; his extensive knowledge of St. Goar and the Holy Lance; his wish to have her with him at a singers’ contest in the Wartburg; his skill as a swordsman, something unusual in a minstrel. Once again she looked at Melchior, who now lowered his eyes and shrugged regretfully. Her suspicion turned to certainty.
We’ve been so stupid. So shockingly stupid.
“It’s time I set a few things straight,” Melchior finally replied, clearing his throat awkwardly. “There may be a few misunderstandings so far as my connection with His Excellency your husband the count is concerned.” Friedr
“So we meet again, Agnes,” the count said cooly. “And my rival is here as well. It will give me particular pleasure to slit his belly open and pull out his guts while you watch.”
But noticing the horror with which Agnes was still scrutinizing the minstrel’s graceful form, he turned to Melchior, sighing.
“I’m afraid my dear wife has just suffered a bitter disappointment. Although I must say that you played your part very well, Tanningen. I myself had no idea why the emperor had sent you to me. Would you care to explain?”
“The emperor?” Only now did Mathis seem capable of speech again. His face was white as chalk. “I don’t understand.”
“I think I do,” Agnes said, standing rigid, trying to hide her fear and disillusionment, but all the same trembling slightly. Down in the dungeon another, stronger woman had spoken through her. But here and now, up in the wreck of the Knights’ House, she felt small and vulnerable. All the more so because she now knew how much she had been deceived.
“The emperor sent an agent to find me and kill me,” she went on. “And that agent’s name is Melchior von Tanningen. Isn’t that so? If that is indeed your real name.”
“Why do you think so poorly of me?” Melchior shook his head, and briefly Agnes had the impression that he meant it. But then she thought, once again, what a consummate actor the minstrel must be.
He played with us as if we were puppets.
“Of course Melchior von Tanningen is my real name,” he said, sighing. “And I do indeed come from a family of Franconian knights. The count can confirm it. I am a man of honor. This whole business is . . . extremely regrettable.”
The new lute of polished maple wood was still slung over his shoulders. Only now did he take it off, strike a sad chord, and then carefully put it down in a corner.
“Yes, indeed, extremely regrettable,” he repeated.