Iny Lorentz - The Marie Series 02 (7 page)

8.

The kaiser and the burgrave of Nuremberg described their skirmish as a great victory, but Michel considered it a catastrophe averted with a lot of luck. As it was, a large number of knights were either dead or would be unable to fight for a long time, and he himself had lost a third of his palatine foot soldiers. Timo’s fate, however, saddened him more than anything. An arrow had struck his sergeant in the leg, and as it had only been a slight injury, Timo hadn’t properly cared for it. After a few days, the wound had begun to fester and eventually became infected, so the army surgeon had to amputate his leg. Now the good old fellow sat in Nuremberg, drowning his sorrows in wine and mead. Meanwhile, the foot soldiers still fit for action were under the command of Sprüngli from Appenzell, while the kaiser had assigned Michel to join a group of knights who, under the command of Heribald von Seibelstorff, were meant to take action against the Hussites on their own.

All summer and well into fall, the knights carried out raids deep into Bohemia, but instead of driving away plunderers, the men ravaged Hussite villages in the same way their enemies did. Seibelstorff and the other knights showed no mercy toward anyone getting in the way of their swords, slaughtering men and old women on the spot, and violating girls and young women before cutting their throats. In particular, Falko von Hettenheim and Gunter von Losen excelled at these cruelties, but Michel refused to touch a woman or kill anyone defenseless, even though his comrades mocked him for it.

Their last expedition led them into a remote area where many border refugees had sought safe shelter, and the village they raided seemed much too large for a wooded mountainous area. Michel stood at the edge of the hamlet like a dark shadow while, not far from him, a girl about fifteen years old squirmed underneath Sir Falko, wishing him to hell with a face contorted with pain. Michel was itching to draw his sword and fulfill her wish. His companions’ conduct was bound to sow hatred in the hearts of the Bohemians and drive them right into the rebels’ arms. There were still towns and castles in this country that had resisted the Hussites so far, and Michel thought it would have made more sense to support these places rather than to burn down villages, slaughtering their inhabitants and sending children to the knights’ castles as serfs or selling them as slaves for pieces of gold to the Lombards recently arrived in Nuremberg.

When Michel could no longer bear the girl’s screams, he rode his horse on a path up a wooded hill, her cries following him like a nightmare he couldn’t shake off. Ludwig, his new servant, or, as he was now allowed to say since becoming a knight, his squire, followed him, looking despondent. The bastard son of a minor knight and a bonded maid, the
seventeen-year
-old
was overjoyed to serve Michel. In his dreams, Ludwig, whom everyone called Wiggo, already saw himself riding across a battlefield in gleaming armor, fighting noble knights on horseback. At the same time, he was annoyed at his master, who scorned the behavior of the other noble lords and wouldn’t let him take part in the pleasures the war was offering in such abundance.

Wiggo was on the cusp of manhood and would have liked to feel a woman’s soft body beneath him, but his master had strictly forbidden him to take part in the assaults, otherwise threatening to dismiss him from his service. So far Wiggo had obeyed, but the yearning in his loins grew by the day, and he wracked his brain trying to figure out how to find satisfaction without losing Michel’s favor. As he followed his master up the hill, he hoped to lag behind so he could secretly look for a maid the others had spurned and finally prove his manhood. But Michel waved him over and pointed straight ahead. “There’s someone there.”

About a hundred paces ahead, a man was crouching behind a tree, his shadow on the path’s pale gravel suggesting he was an armed scout. Michel spurred his horse on as if to ride past, so the man would assume he hadn’t been spotted. At the last moment, Michel wheeled his horse around and galloped toward the scout, reaching him just before he could disappear into a thicket impenetrable to horse and rider. Leaning out of the saddle, Michel grabbed the Bohemian and pulled him onto his horse. The man lost his mace in the process, but immediately reached for the knife on his belt. Michel noticed just in time and knocked him unconscious with his fist.

Wiggo caught up with Michel and helped him tie up the prisoner. “If this isn’t a scout, I’ll never drink a drop of wine again,” he shouted eagerly.

“At your age, you should be avoiding wine anyway.” Michel remembered his own youth, when he would get a sip of wine only on important feast days though the hills around Lake Constance were covered in vines. Even now he hardly ever drank too much, though the men he was riding with cared little for this kind of
self-control
, preferring to down any alcohol they could lay their hands on. In that village, the troops hadn’t found any wine, only a sour beer with a strange aftertaste. Michel had spat it out in disgust after his first sip, but his comrades hadn’t been as fussy, and when he returned to the village with his prisoner, not many of them could still be called sober.

Heribald von Seibelstorff stared at the fettered Bohemian in confusion. “Where on earth did you get this fellow, Adler?”

“Caught him in the forest. I suspect he’s a Hussite scout.”

Heribald nodded grimly, then ordered a squire to pour a bucket of water over the Bohemian. When the man began to stir, he kicked him in the ribs.

“Talk, lad, if you value your life. Where are you from and where is the rest of your heretic pack?”

Though his hands were tied behind his back, the Hussite struggled to his feet and in answer spat into the knight’s face.

Heribald staggered backward, wiping the spittle from his cheek and nose with his sleeve. “Kill him! But slowly!”

Four horsemen grabbed the prisoner, tore off his clothes, and dragged him kicking and screaming to the tree in the village center. There, they hung him by his arms and started their bloody work. The Hussite gritted his teeth, but his will broke under the torture and soon his screams filled the village.

Turning away, Michel was angry at himself for having handed the man over to Seibelstorff. It would have been more merciful to kill him on the spot. At the same time, he realized the Bohemian soldier most likely wasn’t the only one in the area.

“We should send out some scouts,” he advised Seibelstorff. “It’s possible there’s a whole army waiting for us over the next hill.”

Glancing at his men, who were watching the torturing of the Hussite with mixed feelings of anger and excitement, Seibelstorff shrugged uneasily. With thirty knights and fifty mounted squires and servants, they weren’t equipped for a major battle. He grimaced at Michel. “We should indeed look around. Adler, Hettenheim, Losen, take five horsemen with you and see where this road over there leads.”

Falko von Hettenheim and Gunter von Losen weren’t exactly the men Michel had wished to accompany him. He looked around for Wiggo, but his squire was nowhere to be seen and he didn’t come when his name was called. Pinching his lips together to stop himself from uttering a very
un-Christian
curse, Michel mounted his bay and followed Falko von Hettenheim.

9.

The Czechs had been following the German knights for three days, but there hadn’t been enough of them to stop the raid on the village. While the Germans carried out their bloody rampage, the Czechs cowered in the forest, listening to the screams of their tortured compatriots and biting on sticks to stop themselves from shouting out with anger and hatred. One Czech had gotten closer to the village than the others, because his sister and her husband lived there and he hoped to somehow save them. But the Germans had captured him, too, and were now torturing him to death. Vyszo, the leader of the group, waved over one of his companions. “The Germans will pay for this. Run to our people, Przybislav, and bring them here. The rest of us will follow these pigs and leave signs indicating where they have gone.”

Przybislav nodded. “I’ll be as fast as a falcon, Vyszo. In two days’ time at the latest, I’ll be back with enough brave men to send these mongrels to hell.”

After giving the man an encouraging pat on the shoulder, Vyszo watched him disappear among the trees. Just then, one of the other men suddenly looked up. “I hear horsemen! They’re headed straight for us.”

“Hide in the forest!” Vyszo shooed his men off the road, stopping in some high bushes to watch the imperial horsemen casually trotting along the path.

If we don’t stop them, they’ll catch up with Przybislav and kill him, too
, Vyszo thought, counting the horsemen. They were equally matched at eight men apiece, but the Germans were on horseback and better armed.

“They’ll have to pass through a narrow gorge a little farther on. That’s our chance to surprise them.” Vyszo turned to his men. “Let’s set a trap and kill as many of them as we can. Przybislav has to get through and warn our people.” As the hoofbeats of the German horsemen echoed through the forest, the Hussites soundlessly moved among the ancient,
moss-covered
trunks. They reached the gorge first and with eager anticipation watched the Germans approach. There were two knights in full armor, another with somewhat lighter armor, and five servants wearing leather surcoats with metal plate reinforcements and simple helmets. Vyszo knew they were in for a deadly fight, but if Przybislav didn’t make it through, the Germans would raid more villages and massacre their inhabitants.

The two armored knights and the servants entered the gorge without hesitation, while the more lightly armored man held back his horse, carefully eyeing his surroundings. Vyszo quickly signed to his men to crouch down lower, but the horseman saw the movement and let out a sharp warning cry.

Vyszo raced down into the gorge, raising his war hammer and attacking the first knight, who fell to the ground and stayed there lifelessly. Leaving him, the Czech rushed to the aid of his men. One of his comrades was already lying on the ground, and a second one was sinking to his knees, covered in blood, struck by a ferocious German who was now forcing another Hussite against the wall of the gorge with his horse, his back turned on Vyszo. The Czech leader saw his chance, shot forward, and raised his mace.

At the same time, he noticed one of the other knights watching his attack and prepared to fend off this opponent. The man turned around, however, and, with a perverse grin, ran his sword through the back of one of Vyszo’s friends. The Hussite gritted his teeth, jumped up, and struck at his first opponent with all his might. He only hit the man’s thigh, however, causing him to double up in the saddle. As Vyszo pulled his weapon free from the German’s leg guard, blood seeping through the metal plates, the pointed head of the weapon broke off. Vyszo snarled angrily and brought his weapon down hard on the horseman’s helmet. The man soundlessly fell out of the saddle and was dragged away by his bolting horse. Looking around, Vyszo saw that only two of his comrades were still standing, and he shouted at them to follow him into the forest, noting with relief that the Germans stayed behind, probably because their own losses were too high.

Falko von Hettenheim had been the first thrown off his horse, but he had sustained only a few scratches, whereas Gunter von Losen and two servants were more seriously injured. While the servants examined their comrades for signs of life and Losen angrily decapitated the injured and dead Bohemians, Falko walked over to Michel, who was tangled up in a bush. The wound on Michel’s thigh was bleeding, and a steady stream of red ran out from under his helmet. But to Falko’s surprise, he moved his fingers and gave a long, low moan.

Falko clenched his fists. “The fellow is tougher than I thought. More’s the pity.”

Turning away, his mouth twisted into a sneer, he addressed Losen. “We’d better get out of here right away. Where there’s one Hussite, more are bound to turn up soon.”

“Shall we just leave our dead lying here like this?” one of the servants asked indignantly.

“Do you want to stay here and wait for a Bohemian heretic to bash in your head? Come on, catch any horse and hop in the saddle. We have to return to camp as fast as we can!”

Falko von Hettenheim waited for the servants to go before mounting his horse. Riding past Michel, he looked down and spat. “Enjoy your knighthood, innkeeper’s brat! Soon the wolves and bears will be fighting over your dead body.” Suddenly, Michel opened his eyes and stared distantly at Falko. The knight raised his sword to finish him off, but then lowered it again with an evil laugh.

Gunter von Losen turned and rode to Falko’s side. “What’s with the innkeeper’s bastard?”

“He’s still alive! We’ll leave him here for the Bohemians. I’m sure they’ll come back and send him to hell.” Falko made no effort to hide his satisfaction, and Losen laughed maliciously.

“That’s what he gets for refusing me the cup of wine. If he’d acted differently, I’d take him back to camp.”

“I wouldn’t let you.” Falko wheeled his horse around and waved for Losen to follow. An hour later, he was reporting to Heribald von Seibelstorff that they had been attacked by a large group of Bohemians, only managing to escape at the last moment. “An army of heretics is right behind us. We have to withdraw immediately before their horsemen catch up with us.”

The blood on Falko’s armor seemed to support his statement, and Heribald von Seibelstorff nodded grimly, giving the order to prepare for departure. Those who couldn’t sit up in a saddle were laid on their horses’ backs, and the men beat a hasty retreat.

10.

When the three Czechs realized they weren’t being followed, they paused and leaned against the trees, breathing heavily. Vyszo looked back at the spot where five of his comrades had died, and he clenched his teeth to stop himself from screaming with rage.

“What should we do now?” one of his men asked.

“We’ll continue as planned. We’ll follow the Germans and leave signs for our people so they know where to go, and then . . .” He made a gesture as if cutting his throat and ordered one of his men to keep an eye on the enemy’s camp. To his surprise, the man returned only a short while later. “The Germans have already left the village and are retreating as if pursued by the devil.”

Raising his hands heavenward, Vyszo accepted this unexpected gift without question. “Come on men. Let’s follow them. But first we’ll check if any of our fallen comrades are still alive.”

When the Czechs reached the place of the attack, they furiously stared at their friends’ headless bodies and noticed that the Germans had left their own dead lying there, too, as if fleeing in a panic. While his companions were plundering the servants’ bodies, Vyszo walked over to the armored man who had noticed their trap, noticing with satisfaction the blood pooling under his body. The man’s mail shirt was undamaged. With his friends’ help, he removed it, wiped it clean with some grass, put it on, and walked back and forth a few paces, rolling his shoulders and nodding in approval.

One of his comrades pointed to the motionless figures scattered across the road. “What should we do with the dead? If we bury them, the Germans will get away.”

“Our people will take care of them when they come past. Throw the Germans into the river over there.” Vyszo pointed to the other side of the gorge, where rushing water followed the path for a while before disappearing into the dark depths of the forest. Thinking that Michel’s clothes also looked useful, he undressed the knight completely, dragged him to the riverbank, and threw him into the water. Briefly watching as the current took hold of the man and carried him away, Vyszo then turned and ordered the other two to hurry. The war wasn’t over yet, and each battle they won brought them a little closer to their liberation from the German yoke.