The Ravens’ Banquet (33 page)

I picked up a stick and tore away at the soil. My efforts revealed a small metal casket, not much larger than a fist. Sinking to my knees, I opened its lid and took out the leather pouch that lay tucked inside. Into my palm tumbled the pearls of silver, the tears of the White Lady bought at the price of so many souls. I poured them back and tied the pouch to my belted jerkin. I was long past feeling shame and as I again stood, my heart was as empty as my belly.

The forest was still quiet, no neighing of horses or harsh cries of soldiers. But nor was there birdsong anymore. The wood pigeons and cuckoos had now stopped and a heavy muffled silence settled on the clearing. It was just twilight, the purple shadows now standing out as my eyes tried to adjust to the fading light. I watched as the horse suddenly raised its head, ears twitching. It then sidestepped a little, a worried rumbling noise in its throat, and slowly backed away from me, moving away from the clearing. I slowly followed him, soothing him with a few words, and drew the sword that was lashed to the saddle. And as I turned, sword in one hand and reins in the other, I saw a figure on a rocky outcrop on the far side of the witches’ circle.

My horse had seen him too. It stood as still as a statue but its flanks twitched like it was covered in a swarm of flies and its eyes were staring straight ahead at whoever or whatever was squatting on the rock. The light was dropping to darkness and I felt my heart thumping as the figure slowly rose up and began moving towards me. And then he spoke.

“Found what you were looking for, comrade?”

The voice was strangely disembodied sounding as if it were right next to me and not issuing from anyone of flesh and blood. I hefted the short sword and without thinking found myself taking a few steps backwards. The horse reared, snorting in terror. The reins tore through my hand and the beast bolted away, crashing through the underbrush.

“I saw… I saw you fall.”

Christoph came closer still. He was barely visible in the dying light but it was him. He was grey as stone.

“I did fall. You killed me, comrade. Close fight though.”

He was
all
grey, from head to toe as if every bit of colour had been sucked out of him. I raised the blade in front of me to a guard. Christoph halted a few paces away and I could see that his gaze looked not into my eyes but past me or through me.

“Fear not, Englishman. You can have the goddamn silver. I’d need far more than that to pay off what’s hunting me.”

“Then be gone and haunt me no more.”

Christoph laughed and the sound of it seemed to float around my head.

“So now you take the silver and make a run for it. You know what they’re going to do to her. They’re going to burn her. So much for love and loyalty, eh comrade?” He moved over to the witch’s oak but his feet made no sound at all as he walked over the ground.

He looked at the little statue of Holda and then turned to me again. And as it grew darker around me so did Christoph seem to grow whiter as the grey turned brighter.

“I see things differently now. But you’re still a coward.”

I took a step towards the ghost. “And you betrayed us both!”

Christoph nodded. “Aye, that I did. By greed and jealousy. What did you expect, Englishman? I was a soldier. But I see things differently now. I shall carry my burden of sin for eternity.”

A hideous howl rent the air, from higher up the mountain, close to the old encampment. It echoed all around us and was immediately joined by another and then another. Christoph’s head swiveled around, and he crouched, as if looking for a way to run. He leapt over to me and I felt a blast of chilled air, as cold as the worst winter night, emanate from his form.

“I won’t let them take me down! I’m not yet ready to pay the piper.”

Another howl sounded, this time closer and it was deep and base as if from some massive creature. Christoph stretched out his milk white arm and pointed a bony finger at me.

“
Your
betrayal can yet be made good. Whilst there is time.”

My mouth opened in silent awe and horror at what was loping down the hillside towards us. Christoph turned and faced his pursuers. Three great hounds from hell itself stood no more than a hundred feet away, glowing fiery blue. And they joined together in a howl that seemed to rend the forest, piercing my ears.

Christoph turned back to me. “Save your honour! Save your soul!” And he was off, running silently past me at unnatural speed into the forest. The dogs, as large as cattle, broke into a run, tearing towards me. I crumpled where I stood and rolled into a ball on the ground. But I was never the object of their chase. They flew past me leaving a stinking trail of sulphur that made me retch. More howls followed, now further away. And then silence. I remember crawling on my knees to the oak and the statue, tears burning my eyes. Reaching Holda’s outstretched arms, I sank again to the ground and pulled the cloak around me, sobbing. And as the night drew on, I drifted into a fitful sleep, exhausted.

I
AWOKE TO
birdsong and sunlight in the trees. I was stiff as if beaten up and hungry such that my stomach was a knot of pain. My mount had not returned and was probably halfway back to Goslar. I stood there in the clearing, my heart as empty as my belly and my head not knowing what next I should do. At length, for one last time, I looked about me, upon the trees, the red ribbons, the silver bells, and Holda, the White Goddess. And I began walking down the mountain.

I continued down the Kroeteberg, past the place where Hartmann and my other comrades lay yet unburied, past where the witches saved us from the bloody hands of the Croats, past where the great greenwood gave way to grassland and stream. By midday, I had come to some poor road. Where it lay I knew not. I did not see a single soldier. I stood for a moment and then started walking again along the road, due east.

And as the sun again began its descent into the western sky, I came to a rise where the green plains stretched out below me and as far as I could see. To my right, the foothills of the Harz erupted, step upon step, until the peaks of the Rammelsberg and the Brocken shot upwards. And at my feet sat Goslar, backing onto the darker green of tree-covered slopes. I had come full circle to the town again.

I reined in and looked down upon the jumble of red roofs and spires, the grey walls, and the tumbling white smoke of a hundred hearth fires. And, so too, could I see the squat tower at the far end of Goslar, the
Zwinger:
my former prison and still that of poor Rosemunde. The road before me would take me to the very gates if I walked on but a little further. But I was bereft of both courage and cunning. I sat down crosslegged at the roadside, still as Death.

What if the sergeant and the fat gaoler had already returned? Even if they remained in the forest, savouring their fortune, how could I even think to defeat the guards that remained at the tower? Goslar melted before me as tears filled my eyes. I was so tired. So broken. Once I was one of an army of thousands, now was I an army of one. And slowly I came to realise that along with my courage, something else too was lost. Pride and ambition were fled, that part of me stripped away from the man I had been before. And most strange still, it didn’t matter to me.

I heard the sound of creaking cart and looked up to see an old farmer hunched over at the reins, his barebones donkey nodding as it laboured with its burden. In the back jostled straw baskets overflowing with bread, cabbages and carrots. He was making for Goslar before the city gates closed on all outsiders for the night. I know not what came over me as I sat there, shoulders bowed, and my salt-crusted eyes following the farmer’s pitiful progress. I felt giddy, like I had a head stirred by too much mulled wine. For in that instant, I thought of a way to get to Rosemunde. No longer weighed down with worry about consequences anymore, I felt a pleasant madness settle on me.

“Hoy!” I cried as the old man rattled slowly past me.

He drew up and turned his head back.

“I would buy from you that basket of bread that you carry.”

His tanned face, hidden by a scraggly long wisp of grey beard and a limp-brimmed hat, gave little sign of interest as to my offer. But after a moment, he harrumphed and words followed from deep back in his throat.

“And what would the likes of you be offering?”

I reached down to my belt and tugged at the leather purse, breaking the thong that held it. Hefting it in my palm, I eased my mount closer to his cart and then tossed the bag of silver into his lap.

He opened it, and squinting, peered inside. I watched him as he poured the nuggets into his hand, the yellow nail of his forefinger picking at the shining metal that lay cupped in his palm. Then he looked up at me and grinned, his parted lips revealing the brown stumps of two lonely teeth.

“What say you, old man? I think it’s a fair price,” I said. “… If you give me your hat in the bargain.”

W
ALKING THROUGH THE
great archway of Goslar’s back gate, ten feet thick, its ancient bricks dripping with stinking rainwater from the night before, I discovered that my earlier bravado was but a passing boast. I was now more afraid than in a year’s campaigning on the field. I squeezed the shoulder straps of the basket on my back, my head and shoulders hunched, and the brim of the farmer’s noisome hat pulled down over my face. I whispered to myself as I moved ever so slowly forward, a sinner’s prayer to God. My limbs shook as I waited for the cry of a soldier or the grip of rough arms seizing me.

Yet the few folk that greeted me inside the town paid me no heed. Tilting my chin up, I looked ahead of me toward the hulking tower not far distant along the wall. Most of the burghers seemed to be heading into the city and to their homes. It was very late in the afternoon now, the sun low and casting faint beams between the rooftops. I walked on, drawing closer and closer to what had been my prison. Pounding feet came up fast behind me and I flinched, heart jumping in my chest. A gaggle of cursing youths ran past, and I recoiled, armpits tingling with a new outpouring of sweat. I was mad to come back, even the tiny speck of common sense that crouched in the back of my mind told me that. Yet, I cared not in spite of it. I was going to find Rosemunde. I was going to find her and set her free.

I reached the steps of the
Zwinger
. And slowly, ever so slowly I climbed, all the while thinking of what to say when I reached the top. I raised my head and looked at the iron grate of the nail-studded door. And as I did so, the dread passed away from me. It passed away as if I had sweated out the very fear from my skin. My fist pounded on the oak, a dull sound muffled by the stoutness of the door. I banged on the grate with my palm, jangling the iron shutter that lay behind. And it slid open to reveal the face of a man that, thank Jesus, had not seen me before.

He waited for me to speak.

“Bread,” I said, my voice hoarse and parched. “Bread... bread what was asked for.” And the huge bolt slid back with a jolt and the door opened inwards. Behind it stood a grandfather of the town guard, a head shorter than me, his bald pate glistening in the lantern light behind him. He said nothing but kicked away the stool he had been standing on in order to spy me through the grate.

As he squinted and cocked and jiggled his head at me like a curious chicken, I felt compelled to drop my chin on my chest to hide myself. I shuffled past through the portal, the dank smell of the stones filling my nostrils and reminding me that I knew this place. I felt the guard pull down roughly on the lip of the basket and pull out a loaf. I stopped, and waited.

“Don’t know nothing ’bout no provisions. Come on, don’t hang about, dolt! Get on inside!”

“Aye,” I mumbled, as he slammed the door and threw the bolt into place. Before I could say anything more, he had hobbled off back into the Keep, leaving me to follow him. To my right, great stone steps spiralled up to the next level, the level where I had been chained. But I had been the only prisoner there and my Rosemunde must lie elsewhere. To the left another set of stairs spiralled downwards, a faint light spilling from somewhere below.

I could hear the old man ranting about something off in the next chamber and in full expectation that I was close on his heels. I turned to the left and descended the stair, my cracked and split boots clacking and flapping in the gloom.

There was only silence below me. I followed the stairs where they led and reached the dungeon of the Keep. I plucked a tin lantern from off its hook at the bottom landing, and, holding it aloft, I stepped forward into the blackness.

“Rosemunde!” I whispered as loudly as I dared.

The cell doors were all ajar. Not a voice, not a whimper, only the scratch of my boots on the stone slabs of the floor.

I thrust the lantern into each chamber, illuminating only four walls, a floor of straw and rags of blankets in each. But the last I entered, the largest of the four, offered something more than this.

I gazed at the far wall and beheld a fresco in blood.

Others would enter and see the outline of the Blessed Virgin, daubed in desperation by the condemned with the life of their own veins, a last act of penitence. But I knew better. I was the only man who knew the truth of what was smeared in haste upon the wall. It was the goddess. It was Holda, arms spread wide, wide enough to gather her children to her.

And all I could do was whisper her name to the stones around me.

“Rosemunde.”

I lowered the lantern in my hand and backed out of the empty cell, my head filled with visions. Visions of the Sisters tied to stakes in the town square, visions of myself recaptured and lashed alongside them, the torches arcing through the air onto the faggots beneath us.

Another light appeared at the stairs. Then the sound of cursing and rapid footfalls followed. The old guard had found me.

The scabrous creature was at my side before I could move, yanking on the wing of my jerkin and tearing it. “How in the name of Christ did you end up here?” he rasped. “Bring that bread up top! There’s nothing down here no more that’ll be needing it save the rats.”