The Castle of Kings by Oliver Pötzsch
The hidden chamber was sealed forever, along with the mystery that it contained.
“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
Murmuring the valedictory prayer for Constanza, Agnes sprinkled a handful of earth on the chest. Beside her, Mathis picked up a shovel and slowly began filling in the grave. The young smith visibly bore the marks of the last hours: he limped, his face was badly bruised, and congealed blood still clung to the corners of his mouth. And yet there was an aura of peace and fearlessness about him that Agnes admired. He seemed to have resigned himself to his fate.
And so have I, she thought. We will go to Speyer and die there together. Like Johann and Constanza so long ago.
She knelt down, made the sign of the cross, and passed her hand one last time over the fresh grave mound.
Rest in peace, Constanza. I’ll be following you very soon.
“Right, there we are,” the count said abruptly. Clapping his hands, he signed to the landsknechts by the graveyard wall. “Tie these two to their saddles, and then let’s be off as fast as we can. The sooner we are back, the better.”
The men seized Agnes and Mathis and dragged them over to a group of horses standing in the lower bailey. In passing, Agnes looked up at the distorted bodies of the peasants still hanging from the battlements. Many of them had been wounded by the heavy gunfire first, or cut down by the landsknechts’ swords. Their shirts were torn and drenched with blood. They swung back and forth in the mild summer wind, while the first crows and ravens came down to settle on them.
“So perish all who rebel against authority,” Friedrich announced to his men. “May the peasants never again venture to raise their hands against their rightful lords and masters. Let them hang there until their bones fall to the earth.”
He swung himself up on his fine steed, while Agnes and Mathis were tied to a couple of decrepit nags. Three men were going to travel to Speyer with them, the three who had already reported to the Knights’ House, as well as Melchior von Tanningen and the count. The rest of the soldiers were staying at the castle until Friedrich returned. Clearly the count did not want too many of them knowing where the relic was hidden. But Agnes was under no illusions. Melchior von Tanningen on his own would probably have been enough to guard and eventually kill her and the injured Mathis.
The little group moved away and soon left the ruined walls of Trifels behind. Their path went over the trampled fields and into the forest until they met the river Queich below the Sonnenberg and followed its course eastward. The few other travelers whom they met during the next few hours looked aside in alarm. People knew that a company including three heavily armed landsknechts and two bound prisoners could bode no good.
At first they had ridden in silence most of the time, the count and Melchior von Tanningen at their head, the soldiers bringing up the rear. But now the minstrel fell back until he was level with Agnes and Mathis.
“Will you permit me to speak to you?” he asked, turning to the castellan’s daughter.
Agnes shrugged. By now her hatred for the deceiver had turned to cold contempt. “I am your prisoner, Tanningen,” she said coolly. “You can do as you like with me, so speak, but don’t expect me to listen.”
Melchior nodded and rode on in silence. He had left his lute behind at the castle, and instead of colorful clothing he now wore black hose and a black velvet doublet, his sword with its filigree basket hilt was in a leather sheath beside his saddle. Agnes noticed how sinewy and muscular Melchior really was; the loose clothing he often wore had concealed it well.
“Even if you don’t listen to me, I will speak, all the same,” Melchior began again. “Believe me, none of this has turned out as I intended. I didn’t want the commission. In the past, yes, such work was an adventure, and I had no scruples. But I have changed, truly.” He sighed. “I know it will not interest you, but my family really does have a small castle in Franconia. We are deep in debt, just as your father was. I was offered a choice: leave the castle or accept this last commission.”
Agnes smiled mockingly. “I can hardly hold back my tears of sympathy.”
“Spare me your sarcasm.” Melchior looked pleadingly at her. “Agnes, on my honor, I think highly of you. When I took on the task of tracking down a woman descended from the Staufers, I thought she would be some insipid, uneducated tradesman’s daughter, or a stupid peasant girl. It was most unfortunate that the peasant girl turned out to be a beautiful and intelligent lady of the nobility.”
“Never mind the excuses,” replied Agnes. “Whether she was a peasant girl or a lady, you were hired to murder an innocent human being.”
“I know this will be hard to understand, but sometimes the life of a single person stands in the way of the good of the whole empire. Which weighs more heavily in the balance.” Melchior looked into the distance, where two birds of prey circled in the sky above the fields. Finally he turned back to Agnes. “I told you that the young, inexperienced Charles V is not too steady in the saddle as emperor yet, and there are not a few German princes who would like to be rid of him. In that, at least, I told you no lies. Can you imagine what would have happened if King Francis had in fact laid hands on you, along with the ring and the deed?”
“I don’t want to imagine it.”
“There would have been a great war,” Melchior went on, undeterred. “As soon as he was released from captivity, King Francis would have made you his wife. With a queen of the house of Hohenstaufen at his side, he could probably have brought some of the German princes over to him, particularly if he had also been in possession of the Holy Lance. The Germans are avid for symbols, and they love their Staufers, who are considered the last great rulers of the empire.”
“Thank you, Tanningen, I’m sure I’ll die in a happier frame of mind now.”
Mathis, who up to this point had been riding beside them in silence, glanced disparagingly at the supposed minstrel. “I, too, have always been anxious to give my life for an emperor who lets his subjects live in want and famine,” he remarked. Then he spat scornfully in front of Melchior.
Melchior von Tanningen sighed again. Then he looked ahead to where Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck was riding.
“Master Wielenbach, believe me, if it were up to me, then you at least would go free,” he whispered, turning to Mathis. “I like you. Why do you think I helped you to escape from Geyer’s castle when it was under siege? Why did I tend you when you lay in bed so sick with fever?”
“Probably because you thought I might yet be useful to you,” Mathis replied bitterly.
The minstrel smiled. “Well, I’ll admit that my reasons were not entirely selfless. But I am not pretending when I say I like you.” He looked forward with a movement of his head. “Unfortunately, I must go along with that deranged murderer ahead of us.” He shook his head. “You have an extraordinarily unpleasant husband there, noble lady. And all those stories of treasure. He’s obsessed by the idea.”
“I think you two go very well together,” replied Agnes. “A lunatic and an assassin without a shred of conscience. When I’m gone, and that will be soon, the pair of you are welcome to marry. You have my blessing.”
She kicked her horse in the side to make it break into a faster trot. Mathis followed her, watched by the landsknechts, who stuck close to them.
“Why talk like that, Agnes?” he said quietly. “You must never give up, never.”
“Oh, and what else am I to do? Hope that my husband may forgive you and me and wish us well?”
Mathis lowered his voice to such a whisper that she could barely hear it. “Up in the Knights’ House this morning, I picked up a dagger that one of the dead peasants had with him. I have it in my boot. These idiotic landsknechts didn’t notice when they searched me. They think I’m limping.” He smiled surreptitiously. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the three soldiers. “Once we reach Speyer, I’ll find a moment when I can cut the ropes binding us, and we’ll try to get away together. They?
Agnes felt her heart thudding. A tiny glimmer of hope showed on the horizon, but it was too small to give her any real confidence. “And suppose they catch us all the same?” she faltered.
Mathis looked at her grimly. “Then I’ll cut the count’s throat with my dagger. I don’t intend to give your husband the pleasure of watching me die.”
He stared darkly at the trees and thickets that stood like green ramparts to the right and left of the path.
✦ 24 ✦
Speyer, 27 June, Anno Domini 1525
SPEYER CAME INTO SIGHT on the evening of the second day, after they had spent the previous night in a rundown village tavern, where Mathis heard that the peasants’ war in the Palatinate was over at last. Thousands of rebels had been cut down, stabbed, or burned by the elector’s troops in the distant city of Pfedderheim.
The struggle also seemed to be approaching its end for Mathis and Agnes. During the journey at least one of the landsknechts had been with them all the time, preventing any possibility of flight.
When they finally reached Speyer, just after darkness fell, the city gates were already closed. However, a brusque command from the count was enough to get them opened again. The watchmen eyed the strange group suspiciously but did not venture to ask questions.
Their way took them first to the bishop’s palace, on the left of the cathedral. While the count, his prisoners, and the landsknechts waited outside the magnificent building, Melchior von Tanningen went to the episcopal scriptorium. After a while he returned, whistling cheerfully.
“The emperor’s seal still means something in Speyer,” he said, showing a limp purse. “Well, the seal and a little hush money. I told the dean of the cathedral that we had come on behalf of Emperor Charles to check that the tomb of his forebear Rudolf von Habsburg was intact. He swallowed the story. However, we ought to complete our search by dawn, before the first of the faithful arrive for early mass, or there could be inconvenient questions.”
“If we haven’t found anything by then, it’s my wife who’ll be asked some inconvenient questions,” the count snarled. He turned his horse, and they trotted together to the empty square outside the cathedral, where they finally dismounted beside the well, the large stone bowl known as the cathedral font. They entrusted the horses to the care of an alarmed night watchman in return for a few coins.
Inwardly, Mathis cursed their luck. He had been hoping to spend another night at some inn in Speyer, where he and Agnes might have found a chance to escape. But now it looked as if they had only a few hours left.
The sun had long since set, and the broad market street was quiet and empty. Now and then he heard drunken tipplers singing in the distance. Light showed in only a few of the windows of the houses nearby. Melchior brought out the copper key that the dean had lent him, went over to the cathedral, and unlocked the porch of the great west door. Before he went in, Mathis looked up at the towers, now wreathed in mist. He wondered whether this would be the last time he ever saw the sky. Then the door slammed shut, and Melchior bolted it behind them.
“Trust me,” Mathis whispered to Agnes as he passed. He wanted to reassure her, but his voice shook. “If those bastards take their eyes off us for just a moment, I’ll stab the nearest one, and we’ll find somewhere in the cathedral to hide. There are so many niches and altars here, they’ll be looking for us until dawn.”
He looked cautiously around the nave, which smelled strongly of incense. With all its columns, it resembled a dark forest. Only a little moonlight fell through the tall windows. Both aisles contained altars with statues of martyrs, contorted in agony, standing on them, looking almost alive in the murky atmosphere. Mathis shivered. In spite of the warm summer night it felt as cold as a grave here.
And it is a grave, he thought gloomily. It will soon be my grave, and the grave of Agnes too. But by God, we’ll not be the only ones who fail to leave the building alive.
“Mathis, it’s madness,” replied Agnes quietly. “There are five of them, have you forgotten?”
“Never mind that. I’d sooner—”
“Hey, no whispering,” one of the landsknechts growled, pushing Mathis so that he stumbled forward. It was the mercenary with the scar on his face. Mathis knew now that his name was Roland, and he was the count’s right-hand man. He was broadly built and wore shabby leather armor. His small eyes, sunk deep into their sockets, wandered over Agnes as if he were caressing her. The two other landsknechts, Hans and Marten by name, were sinewy young men, and they, too, stared at her. Mathis felt sick to his stomach.
Several candles flickered on one of the side altars, casting long shadows that twitched over the walls like gigantic hands. Melchior lit a torch at one of them, and then they went forward together to the apse, where a cube-shaped monument as tall as a man stood in front of the choir screen.
Mathis blinked as he tried to see in the darkness. The monument was covered by a purple canopy and seemed to be made entirely of marble. When Melchior strode forward, gilded inscriptions on the front of it shone in the light of the torch.
“The imperial vault!” the minstrel whispered in awe. “Do you feel the breath of history? Many Christians think this place is the spiritual center of Europe, there are so many great men and women buried here.” He leaned forward and began reading aloud in a quiet voice. “King Konrad II and his wife, Gisela, of Swabia; Henry III; Henry IV; Philipp of Swabia, of the house of Hohenstaufen; Rudolf von Habsburg . . .” He stopped suddenly. “Oh, and there’s a bishop here, too, called Konrad of Scharfenberg. Any relation of yours?”
“A cousin three times removed,” Friedrich replied. “He actually lived in Scharfenberg Castle. I hope I can avoid desecrating the grave of one of my ancestors. Especially as I hardly think the Holy Lance would be in his sarcophagus. Old Konrad wasn’t important enough for that.” He turned to Agnes. “So where is the lance now, then?”
“I don’t know exactly,” she replied. Her hands were still bound, and she wearily sat down beside a column. “This is the place where enmity is no more. But precisely where Johann hid the lance I can’t say.”
“Then I’m afraid we’ll just have to search for it.” The count snapped his fingers, and tall Marten let a sack full of digging tools slide to the floor. “We’ll start with the tombs at the top and slowly work our way down to the lower levels. Try to do it so that we can cover up the mess later. I don’t want to have the whole of the Christian Occident cursing me for defiling the vault.”
The landsknechts climbed to the top of the tall monument. Then they took some of the picks and shovels that they had brought with them and began cautiously levering out the tombs. Melchior von Tanningen undid Mathis’s bonds and put a spade into his hand.
“If I may make so bold, Master Wielenbach?” The minstrel pointed to one of the tombstones. “How would you like to open the tomb of Empress Beatrix of Burgundy? It must surely be an edifying moment to set eyes on the bones of Barbarossa’s wife, the mother of Henry VI.”
“If it’s so edifying, get your own hands dirty, Tanningen,” snapped Mathis. “You could always lie down in her tomb yourself.”
“Interesting that you say that. Friedrich was suggesting something along those lines for you yesterday.” Melchior’s face was impassive. “I think there must be worse places to find one’s eternal rest.” He made an encouraging gesture, and Mathis climbed the monument and silently set to work.
Opening the tomb was not as difficult as he had expected. Mathis worked the spade into the narrow crack at the top, broke away the mortar, and levered the stone sarcophagus out. The heavy stone slab slipped off and fell to the plinth, crashing as it hit the floor. A fine crack appeared on its surface.
“For heaven’s sake, be careful,” Melchior warned him. “We don’t want to destroy the tombs. What will the Bishop of Speyer say if he hears that we’ve been desecrating the bodies of the noblest figures in the empire?”
“Eve
Melchior nodded, troubled. “You are right. We can only hope that salvaging the holiest of all relics means more to Him than a few brittle bones and one or two lives.”
“Curse it, Melchior, I hate you,” Mathis burst out, throwing the spade down on the floor of the church. “I never ought to have trusted you. I—”
Roland, beside him, struck him such a violent blow on the back that he fell forward, gasping. “Do your work and hold your tongue,” the mercenary said. “Or we’ll bury you here alive. You’ve heard what they’re planning to do with you.”
Mathis scrambled up, casting Melchior a black look. The minstrel looked back at him penetratingly.
“By all the saints, Mathis, I didn’t want it to turn out this way,” he whispered, looking cautiously at the other men. “Believe me, if there was any other way out, I’d take it. But the fate of the empire . . .”
“Being doomed to die is bad enough,” Mathis said. “At least spare me your pitiful excuses.”
He turned away and looked into the sarcophagus that he had just opened. A musty odor rose from it. Before him lay a skeleton in the rags of once magnificent clothing. Dark, dried scraps of flesh clung to the skull, which was adorned with a plain copper circlet for burial.
“Beatrix must have been a great beauty once,” sighed Melchior, who had now climbed up on top of the monument with the count and was looking pensively at the remains. His scruples seemed to have died down. “A shame that we are only able to see her in such a condition.”
Mathis indicated the empress’s bony arms. “She’s holding something.”
“Yes, indeed, there’s something there,” Friedrich von Löwenstein-Scharfeneck excitedly leaned forward and snatched a moldering wooden casket from the desiccated figure’s hands. “The Holy Lance. We’ve really found it. It—”