When in the evening somebody knocked at the door – gently, cautiously! – Dietrich von Maintz seized his grandfather’s flambard from the wall. Pressed himself into the corner, his back to the wall. The back should be secure. The sword is a bit too heavy, this two-handed one has always been too massive for the undersized margrave, but with a blade of such length it’s easier to keep conspirators at bay. Till help comes.
Help – for me? For them?!
Hold on, old man! I won’t be murdered...
An arbalest bolt struck the window. Thrust under the shoulder blade, penetrating the heart with red-hot iron. There, where the secret guest was tossing, bewildered – why? how is that? – crying out persistently: “Hold on, old man! Hold on!”
I hold on, Dietrich von Maintz wanted to answer.
I hold at the hilt... at the curtain... at the wall...
It’s over. I don’t hold on any more.
...Young Siegfried, in the nearest future – the new lord of the Maintz Mark, – was looking at his father’s body. What a pity. He had wanted so much to boast of his hunting trophies, in spite of the late hour. After death his father became as he used to be: imperious and confident. Quite not the man he had been today: cowardly, frightened, jerking little man.
Outside the window a pigeon was cleaning its feathers – the one that a minute ago had struck its breast at the glass.
“...A-a!.. a..”
Giacomo Seingalt was gulping air convulsively with his mouth. The old man’s face became crimson and seemed black.
“Good Lord! Giacomo, I beg you! Martzin, save him! Save him!”
“Hush! For all the saints’ sake, hush!”
“Calm down, Lukerda. Look, he’s already better...”
“W-water...”
“Sorry, there’s no water. But here’s the wine...”
Giacomo was drinking straight from the mouth of a braided bottle, swallowing convulsively, jerking the gristly Adam’s apple, spilling the wine on his clothes. Finally he breathed out heavily, wheezing: “F-fuh! It eased off...”
“You have tried!” Lukerda was nearly crying. “You’ve tried so hard, poor man!..”
“And for all that you didn’t sign an abdication, old man! Damn it, this was a real hell! I would have kicked the bucket at midday, probably...”
“It’s pity your attempt has failed, mister Seingalt. But not everything is lost yet. I think I’ll take the risk...”
“No! Now it’s my turn!” The girl’s face was glowing with resoluteness and righteous indignation. “You men are never able to bring anything to a close! You should just assassinate the margrave Siegfried – and there’ll be no war! Start it, Martzin. I know what to do!”
On the board a carved queen moved, as if in response.
From the draught, apparently.
“Today I’ll perform a feat”, vowed Belinda van Dayk.
The daughter of the burgomaster of the free city of Holne, doomed to vegetate miserably with the tambour and the gossips of other girls, she was secretly always certain: the time for a feat would come. A day would come, majestic and bright, which would allow her to step up, to stand abreast the heroines of old, leaving her trail on the steps of existence. So sang troubadours whom Belinda was ready to listen to day and night. So wrote poets whom she received affably and fed, in spite of her niggard father’s grumbling. Oh, father! This worthless, mean man, this pile of lard, this mount of fat, caring more for his bulging purse than for a decent place in the descendants’ memory – he refused to defend Holne! He threw into prison a small group of true patriots who were ready to die on the native walls! Together with others similar to him he opened the gates to Siegfried von Maintz and yielded to the enslaver, holding the keys of the gates on the pillow!
Interesting, how such a daughter was born of such father?!
What a pity that the mother died without confiding this secret to her daughter...
Belinda looked around stealthily. In the large city hall a feast was held. At the tables, mixed up with the Maintz usurpers, there were sitting scared members of the city council, syndics of guilds, judges and other respectable citizens. Many of them were choking on their food, terrified by the phantom of possible slaughter. At the head of the central table, in an armchair with a high back decorated with the coat of arms of Holne, there was sitting none other than the margrave Siegfried, surveying the hall with a bored glance. Having remained in light armour, the margrave was a personification of the valour and belligerence of his ancestors –only his peevishly protruding lip gave his young face a touch of vulgarity. Cold, still – snake-like! – Siegfried’s eyes became warmer only in one case: when they would rest on herself, Belinda van Dayk, purposely dressed today in her lowest-cut dress.
Yes, they became warmer.
Belinda felt it with her skin.
Hot. The guffaw of drunken men is confusing. The feat had been imagined differently: more beautiful, perhaps? However, true heroines don’t choose but act. Today at dawn Belinda had understood it once and for all. A secret guest that had settled in her soul whispered to her what should be done.
Yes, just so.
“Then Judith said to them with a loud voice, Praise, praise God, praise God, I say, for he hath not taken away his mercy from the house of Israel, but hath destroyed our enemies by mine hands this night. So she took the head out of the bag, and shewed it, and said unto them, behold the head of Holofernes, the chief captain of the army of Assur, and behold the canopy, wherein he did lie in his drunkenness; and the Lord hath smitten him by the hand of a woman. As the Lord liveth, who hath kept me in my way that I went, my countenance hath deceived him to his destruction, and yet hath he not committed sin with me, to defile and shame me!”
“Feast on, gentlemen!” The margrave Siegfried stood up. For a moment the hall became silent, though the margrave hadn’t raised his voice at all. Just that some cold flew between the tables. “Feast on, feel at ease! Excuse me for leaving you in such early a time...”
The hour has come, Belinda understood.
Here and now.
She raised her eyes at the margrave. Smiled – experiencedly and alluringly. Now to sip out of the tin goblet. To lick the lips with the tongue. Slower. Still slower. These cowards have hidden their wives and daughters. The cowards are afraid for their cowardly women. I’m alone here. Still better. Still easier.
“You are leaving us, my knight? What a pity...”
A pause.
A carefully calculated one, mellow as old sherry.
“And I’ve supposed I won’t spend this night alone...”
In his bedroom there surely can be found a sword. Or a dagger. Blood will not spatter – it would be ridiculous to perform a feat in a dress soiled in red. And in the morning Belinda will go out to the entire city holding a bag with the enslaver’s head. At the picture “Judith and Holofernes” by the crazy painter Fontanalli everything is real: beautiful and exalted. Without any stains of blood and a cyanotic face colour of the deceased. And there shall peal the bells of the Saint Johann’s cathedral, and troubadours shall praise the feat of the proud maiden, and the Lord shall not permit sin to defile and shame me, for the Lord is always on the side of virtue!
“I won’t disappoint you, my darling,” Siegfried von Maintz was looking at the burgomaster’s daughter affably. The stupid chubby girl had dressed up in the most stupid dress he’d ever seen. “Gunter, the charming fräulein doesn’t want to sleep alone. She’s cold and lonely. Have you understood me, Gunter? And tell your lads I’ll order to hang all your hundred, one by one, if the charming fräulein is left dissatisfied. Have you understood me correctly, my loyal, my clever Gunter?”
Gunter von Dragmain, the captain of guard of the young margrave, always understood his lord immediately.
“...No! Don’t you touch me! A-a-a!...”
“Calm down, my dear. It’s all right. You’re here, with us! It’s not real. Everything’s all right...”
“Oh yes, all right to the last degree...”
“Dirty, sweaty... Beasts!”
“Hush...”
“How dared he! Scoundrel!”
“Hush! They’ll hear...”
Lukerda shrivelled by the chest, shuddering with soundless sobbing. Giacomo, sitting near her, was gently stroking the maiden’s dishevelled hair, trying to soothe her.
“Martzin, was it you that stopped the game? This time everything ended much faster...”
“Yes, it was me.”
“Thank you, young man. Lukerda wouldn’t have survived this.”
“I’ve guessed,” the youth’s cheeks were ashen-grey, and the vein in the corner of his eye was throbbing as a fish thrown at the shore. It was seen he was hardly standing on his feet, but a strange force, astonishing even Martzin Oblaz himself, was emerging from the depths of his soul, preventing him from falling into a swoon. “Well, it’s my turn. My teacher has hesitated too long. Excuse me, meister Byarn, for disturbing your ashes...”
The sand flew up faster than usual.
The disciple, in trepidation, reached for the massive rook.
...Byarn the Pensive put aside the pen and sanded what he had written. The ink is quite fresh. Let it dry out. The choice is always left behind us. Always... The old mage was wondering at himself. Having known an hour ago that any direct intervention would only complicate the situation – Byarn even knew why, – he changed his mind in a sudden. Decisively and irrevocably. There’s need to act. Tomorrow Holne will fall. Most likely, there’ll be no siege. The burgomaster Claas van Dayk, a prudent man, will bring to the margrave the keys of the free city – dooming the citizens to economical ruin, but saving them from slaughter. Last evening the burgomaster had visited the mage. He asked: if the stubborn home guard lead by Richard Broose, the syndic of the butcher guild, takes the risk of defending the walls, could the most honourable meister Byarn help with defense. Eem... rain of fire, for instance. Or, that is, lightnings with five jags each. Exclusively on the enemies’ heads.
Then, eem, the burgomaster would be ready to support the idea of defense.
You are a clever man, herre Claas, said Byarn the Pensive. You will understand. Yes, I think I would be able to render assistance. But let me explain why I will not do so. Tell me, if you take a loan from some almost unlawful resources, in addition doubting your future paying capabilities – you do understand that you still have to return it nevertheless, don’t you? Only not the way you’ve intended to.
Eem, I do, nodded the burgomaster. He was quite not so timid and stupid as he wanted to seem.
Herre Claas, said the mage. Even if an aged man like me has enough power for the five-jagged lightnings – you would agree I’ll have to kill. While every member of the Aaltricht lodge knows: a true mage refrains from killing. Because he strikes a deal with fate: to aspire for knowledge while not aspiring for life. Everyone delineates the borders of the allotted territories himself. But you can kill, asked the burgomaster. Yes, herre Claas, answered the old man. I can. Only that then I take a loan from fate, giving it the right for the next move. It has the right to kill as many as I do. The choice is its. It may do this or not, today or tomorrow, hitting or missing, good or bad, laughing or crying... But it will be its move.
Do you want to play with fate for a thousand lives, herre Claas?
For two, three thousands?
I’ll surrender the city, said the burgomaster, taking his hat from a clothes-peg. I won’t force you to take a loan from fate. Not even because you’re my friend, meister Byarn.
He knew how to make decisions, Claas van Dayk.
Tomorrow Holne will fall. Within five days Siegfried von Maintz will move to Opolie. Most likely Opolie will also fall soon: under the existing circumstances the prince Razimir won’t be able to stop the Maintz army. After that there’ll be the turn of Moravian principalities. Mercenaries will pour into the army of the lucky commander. A bloody deluge will begin. And one day powerful Henning will find itself facing destruction, when it stops containing the constant challenge of the Maintz Mark.
Maybe fate is making its move stealthily?
Reshaping and sewing together anew?!
The craving for action, not characteristic for Byarn before, overwhelmed his soul suddenly. As if a secret guest had settled there, moving furniture and sweeping dust out of the corners. The mage felt himself young. Naïve – naïvety is strong, it allows not pondering of the consequences. After it’s all over he should write “The Praise for Naïvety.”
But this is afterwards.
Byarn went out into the night. The moon was chewing on the edges of dark clouds, spitting from time to time yellow saliva on the cobbles of a pavement. The mage stood into the lunar spittle; looked at the shadow prostrate at his feet.
“Get up!” ordered he, feeling how the power was filling him entirely.
The shadow fidgeted, trying not to get hurt over the cobble edges. Darted to the wall of a house, gathered into a tight lump.
Hissed angrily.
“Haven’t I told you?” asked Byarn quietly, without any threat.
The shadow got down on all fours. The hump on its back split with a crackle, showing coriaceous wings. An Ulvvind, the long distance messenger that only the few were permitted to summon.
“Fly to Wrozlav. Carry this,” the mage lifted the chest with the “Triple Nornscoll”, the fruit of long years’ labour. “Give it to the prince Razimir...”
The old man stopped. The secret guest had settled down in his soul wholly, feeling himself at home.
I’m young. I’m resolute.
I know what to do. Here and now.
“No,” said Byarn the Pensive. “You’ll carry me to Opolie. I’ll tell everything to the prince myself.”
At the dawn of the next day Razimir of Opolie learned the secret of the “Triple Nornscoll”. Eight men, eight empowered men, eight courtiers, commanders and politicians gathered at the board. Eight pieces were moving, weaving invisible web, ordering the past to change for the better.
A week later, when the troops of the margrave Siegfried put to rout the Opolie frontier guard, moving relentlessly to the capital, the prince Razimir ordered to execute all the eight of them. Because one had his incurably ill grandson recovered, the other suddenly received inheritance, the third gained the love of a proud beauty...
But the first who was executed at Wrozlav square was Byarn the Pensive, the old mage from Holne.
He didn’t resist.
“Your teacher, Martzin, was a wise man. He foresaw the failure beforehand.”
“I understand now...”
It was pitiful to look at Martzin. He was shrivelled all over, looked haggard, more than ever resembling a hopeless sparrow.
“Hell! Is there no way?!” Jendrich stroke his fist on the floor in a fit of temper. “Damn it, I would sell my soul...”
“We should seek a turning point. A point of influence, as my teacher would say. Nothing is impossible. Everything is liable to changes, but we... We either find the wrong points or make mistakes. Were there more of us, we could try a lot of variants, and eventually... For the game works! You’ve seen it yourselves!”
Martzin wasn’t noticing he was kneeling, looking in everyone’s eyes hopefully.
“Mommy, I want play! In the winda is evil fella. I want to bump on his head!”
“What, are you satisfied? Give the little one to play.”
“Well, why not, as a matter of fact?”
“I know, I know how playing! Must clap hands! Mommy, I want!”
“We aren’t losing anything. Even if she doesn’t manage...”
“All right. Come here, little girl. Stand here, near the board. Do you know how to... eem... bump an evil fellow on his head?”