The Castle of Kings Read online

  Unless the owner of that ring knew whose falcon Parcival was . . .

  With her mind busily at work, Agnes sat up in bed. Was it possible that someone had sent her a message in the shape of the ring? But what message?

  The warm gold slipped through her hands like a small animal. The ring felt good. She put it on her finger and it fit perfectly, like it had been made for her.

  Sighing, Agnes lay back again, pulled the warm woolen blanket up to her chin, and closed her eyes. As her blood pulsed beneath the ring, she slowly calmed down. Her heart beat more slowly, and, after only a few minutes, she was asleep. She had a confused dream of falcons and crows, of an explosion that sounded like thunder and streams of blood pouring over her torn white dress. Yet all those impressions suddenly vanished. As Agnes, murmuring, felt for the ring on her finger in her sleep, images came into her mind like waves that carried her away and washed her up on the shores of a distant land. The dream visions that she saw were clearer and more powerful than any others she had ever known.

  That was the night when she saw them for the first time . . .

  ✦ ✦ ✦

  Soft music, swelling more and more until it echoes in her ears like a peal of bells. Chimes, hurdy-gurdies, and shawms, full of the laughter of many people and the rhythmical stamping of dozens of feet. A minstrel singing an old and familiar song.

  “Under the linden tree, on the moorland, there we made a bed for two . . .”

  Agnes looks up. She is in a great hall with tables on a dais and men and women in long, brightly colored robes sitting at them. They are robes such as are shown in her book on falconry—wide and easily slipped on, and the men wear multicolored close-fitting hose under them. The hair of the guests, both men and women, is worn long, and many have a circlet of silver or a wreath of flowers on their heads. They hold heavy goblets of chased metal in their hands, from which wine splashes onto tables stained with meat juices. Four servants carry in a roast swan to the sound of loud acclamation. In front, musicians stand by the open hearth playing a tune that goes around and around in circles, like a carousel.

  “Under the linden tree, on the moorland, there we made a bed for two . . .”

  When Agnes looks around, she is surprised to find that she recognizes the hearth, the pointed arches of the windows, the seats in niches along the walls, covered with valuable furs, the stone sculptures grinning down at her in mockery from the ceiling above.

  This is her father’s castle, Trifels.

  Furthermore, it is the real Trifels, the imperial castle. Not the gloomy ruin she knows, with the wind whistling through it and swallows and pigeons nesting in the holes in its walls. Emperors and kings meet here, the music plays constantly for dancing, knights ride out from this place to great battles. Agnes feels a great longing; how happily she would stay here, as if the other Agnes in the bleak pile of stones with its drafty holes and tumbledown walls were nothing but a dream.

  Maybe, she wonders, this is reality?

  Agnes is just about to test the idea by touching one of the women crowned with flowers, when a young man suddenly steps into the hall. The guests fall silent. Unlike the other men, the newcomer wears a shirt of chainmail reinforced at the elbows and shoulders with iron plates.

  A long sword hangs by his side; he seems a little unsure how to handle it and seems unused to its heavy weight. The guests drink to him, and he bows with an uncertain smile. As he does so, the point of his sword knocks over one of the goblets on the table, whereupon soft laughter breaks out.

  Then a broadly built gray-haired man steps up beside the younger one and raises his hand. He gently takes the young man by the arms and presses him down until he is kneeling on the floor. The old man takes the young man’s sword and touches him with it on the shoulders, as he speaks strange words, words that remind Agnes of a magic spell.

  “Better a knight be than a squire . . .”

  The youth has a thin, almost ascetic face, like the face of a young monk. His hair is pitch-black, his eyes shine like two green pools.

  Suddenly he looks at Agnes, smiling. It is the smile of a boy on the verge of manhood.

  “Under the linden tree, on the moorland, there we made a bed for two . . .”

  Agnes feels a shudder run over her scalp, and something stirs deep within her. She smiles back, awkwardly, and raises her hand in greeting.

  Then the vision blurs. The youth, the old man, and all the others disappear in a mist, until there is only the empty, cold Knights’ House before her. A sudden gust of wind extinguishes the fire on the hearth. Sparks swirl and whirl in a circle, faster and faster, until they form a blood-red circlet.

  A ring . . .

  ✦ ✦ ✦

  Agnes awoke with a scream, her forehead and her nightgown drenched with sweat. It was a moment before she knew where she was. This was her bedchamber, her bower in Trifels, her father’s castle. All was dark and still except for an owl hooting in the distance. It must be the middle of the night.

  Agnes shook herself, trying to return to reality. This was not the first dream of the castle that she had ever had. Especially as a child, she had often dreamed of it, and even then she had dreamed of knights and ladies. But this dream had been so real that she could almost smell the people she had seen in it. Their sweat, the fragrant resinous wood of the tables, even the logs burning on the hearth—it was as if she had only to go downstairs and find it all just as it was in her dream.

  Sighing, she lay back on her pillows. Why couldn’t she live in a time as colorful and rich in stories as that dream of hers? Why couldn’t castles be what they once were? Sometimes life seemed to her as gray as a faded picture in a tattered old book. Nothing happened now; everything seemed to be standing still.

  But then Agnes thought of everything that had happened to her on the day just passed. She thought of the ring again. Had that been merely a dream as well? She felt her finger until she touched the gold. Only then did she close her eyes again, falling into a deep and this time dreamless sleep.

  So she did not hear the chopping, hauling, and hammering sounds that came softly from the forest and through her open window.

  About thirty miles away, in Speyer, where the bishop had his residence, the secretary Johannes Meinhart was still poring over the records in the scriptorium of the chancellery late at night.

  There were a couple of legal cases, just concluded, to be filed away in the archives, and, as usual, the handwriting of the assistant city clerk was so poor that Meinhart had to write out half the minutes of the proceedings again himself. The secretary sighed softly as his pen scraped over the thin parchment. He was an ambitious young man on his way up in the world. It was rumored that the Imperial Supreme Court would soon be moved back to Speyer, and anyone who hoped to be recommended for higher employment there often had to do a few hours of overtime work. In addition, Meinhart confessed to himself that he liked these hours after darkness had fallen. He was all alone in the chancellery then, with no company but a heap of old parchments and the candle burning merrily away. At home there was no one but a shrewish wife and five whining children; he preferred the rustling of the files.

  Meinhart was just concentrating on a particularly complex case of the reallocation of a debt when a slight sound attracted his attention. He sat up straight and listened. There it was again: a squealing and rattling as though the wind had blown one of the windows in the room next door open. Meinhart frowned.

  But there’s no wind blowing, he thought.

  The secretary felt the hairs stand up on the nape of his neck. In the Retscher house nearby there had been another haunting only a few days ago; the maidservant of the patrician Landau had heard heavy furniture moving about in the room above her, but when she went to look, the room was empty. Had the ghosts moved here to the Speyer chancellery?

  “Is there anyone there?” croaked Meinhart, his voice as thin as a sheet of paper.

  He rose to his feet, and was just on his cautious way to make sure that all
was well, when the door of the scriptorium flew open so suddenly that the draft swept all the parchments off his desk. Meinhart’s scream was stifled when he saw who had just entered the room.

  It was the devil in person.

  The secretary shuddered. No human being’s face could be burned as black as that. In the light of the wildly flickering candle it gleamed like polished ebony, with white eyes rolling back and forth in it. Apart from that, however, the stranger looked very human. He wore doublet and hose, and an expensive fur-trimmed coat over them that had probably cost as much as Meinhart’s entire wardrobe. In addition the man didn’t limp. Nor did he smell of sulfur. Trembling, Meinhart took a step back. If the black-skinned stranger wasn’t the devil, he was still an odd fellow, and he probably had no business being in the Speyer chancellery at this time of night.

  “What do you want?” Meinhart managed to say with difficulty, but he kept his composure.

  The stranger sketched a slight bow. “Forgive me for disturbing you so late, Master Secretary,” he said with a foreign accent, yet with all the elegance of a fine gentleman. “I could not be here any sooner. It is a long ride from Zweibrücken. I bring a letter from the duke.”

  With a fluent movement he brought out a sealed document from under his coat and handed it to Meinhart. The secretary opened it and read the letter. Then he looked at the other man, startled.

  “You’re to have access to all the records?”

  “I am sure the council of Speyer will not turn down this little request from the duke of Zweibrücken. Especially as I really need only a few specific files.” The stranger adjusted his coat in such a way that Meinhart had a glimpse of a curved sword under it, a weapon more common among the heathen Mussulmen. Where in the world did this man come from?

  “I just need information about a particular place,” explained the stranger. “There should be an old castle called Trifels in the Wasgau area. What do you know of the country around there?”

  Johannes Meinhart frowned. It was a long time since anyone had asked about that old fief. They said the castle was nothing but a ruin now, and its castellan a drunken old sot. So why would the stranger take an interest in it?

  “Well, once Trifels was at the center of the empire,” the secretary began hesitantly. “A mighty imperial palace surrounded by a number of fortresses. Several German rulers had their residence there. Emperor Barbarossa lived at the castle from time to time, and his son Henry went out from Trifels to fight the Normans. But that’s all long ago.” Meinhart ventured a cautious smile. “Of course, there are some who say that old Barbarossa still sleeps under the castle mound, and will awaken again when danger threatens the German Empire.”

  “Indeed? How very interesting.” The stranger seemed to be thinking for a moment, and then he went on. “I need all the information you have about that castle. The building, its past, the surrounding countryside. Hamlets, villages, towns. Everything you can find. And now.”

  Incredulously, Meinhart shook his head. “But that’s impossible. The records are not in particularly good order. And it’s late, and my beloved wife—”

  “Have you forgotten the duke’s order?” The black-skinned man came so close to Meinhart that the latter caught a sweet, exotic fragrance, something like incense. “I am sure the city council would be most displeased to hear of a mere clerk refusing the request of an imperial prince. Speyer is powerful—but as powerful as that?”

  Meinhart nodded, perhaps dazed by the sweet fragrance. “I . . . I’ll see what can be done.”

  “Do that, and hurry up about it. Or must I tell the duke?” The stranger dropped into the chair behind the desk and waved Meinhart away with an impatient gesture.

  His heart thudding, the secretary disappeared into the room of archives next door, where he began feverishly searching among the countless shelves that covered the walls. At least that took him away from the strange, black-skinned man who must come, if not from hell, at least from a country very close to it.

  It took three whole hours for Meinhart to collect everything worth knowing about the Trifels and its surroundings. There was far more than he had expected. Satisfied with his work, and relieved, he finally returned to the study with a mountain of files under his arm. The stranger was still sitting in the chair at the desk like a dark monolith. He had closed his eyes, but as Meinhart approached him they suddenly opened.

  “Well? Did you find the records?”

  Meinhart nodded industriously. “That castle is far more interesting than I knew. A pity, really, that the present castellan lets it go to wrack and ruin. Even the seals show that the most influential ruling houses have been competing for that part of the country for long years. The Salian Franks, the Hohenstaufens, the Guelphs, the Habsburgs . . . I wonder why . . .”

  “I didn’t request you to put questions, only to find me information. Thank you for your efforts.” The stranger snatched the files from the hands of the surprised secretary and made for the door.

  “But those are valuable papers,” Meinhart called after him. “At least give me a note saying you received them.”

  The stranger turned once more. When he smiled, his teeth shone white as moonlight. “I do not think that will be necessary,” he replied. “Or have you forgotten the duke’s orders? I am only acting on his behalf.”

  And he was gone, like some uncanny creature, leaving Meinhart to wonder whether the man had not, after all, been one of those ghosts of which there was so much talk in Speyer these days. But then his glance fell on the ducal letter still lying on his desk. Well, if he had been a phantom, then he had been sent from very high places.

  Once again Meinhart studied the few hastily written lines, and then looked at the broken seal of the duke of Zweibrücken. In his fright he hadn’t really studied it earlier.

  It showed the head of a Moor with his tongue sticking out.

  What in the world . . . ?

  Cursing, Johannes Meinhart ran to the window and peered out into the night. Directly below him, a shadow scurried over the forecourt of the cathedral and disappeared among the houses. The secretary thought that he heard a faint, almost imperceptible laugh.

  With a slight shudder, Meinhart closed the window and decided that the last few hours had been only a dream.

  Which at least spared him a number of uncomfortable questions.

  ✦ 3 ✦

  Annweiler, 24 March, Anno Domini 1524, late morning

  MATHIS COULD SMELL THE TOWN long before he saw it. When the wind came from the west, the stench was particularly bad, and it always took him some time to get used to it. The sweetish smell of rotten meat mingled with dung, the smoke of wood fires, and the acrid vapors of the tanbark made by boiling the bark of oak trees. It was the smell of Annweiler, and Mathis liked it because, after the silence of existence up near the castle, it promised noisy, colorful life.

  His way had taken him over the castle acres, and then steeply downhill through the woods, along an old carters’ track that was hardly used these days. It met a broader road that was sometimes knee-deep in mud. At last, when Mathis had passed a bend in this road, which was still icy in many places, the little town of Annweiler appeared ahead. Smoke hung like a great gray cloud above the houses that were surrounded by a fortified wall, already falling into ruin here and there. A small stream drove a great many millwheels and sparkled like silver in the morning sunlight. The town church was just ringing its bells for the end of mass, and soft laughter and the sound of voices drifted over to Mathis. He took a deep breath and then threw the heavy bag of carpenters’ nails and axe blades over his shoulder and made haste toward the gate.

  Mathis was extremely glad that his father had given him permission to go to Annweiler. The old man had kept him toiling hard in the smithy for the last two days. There had been nails to make, as well as horseshoes, knives, and several tools. Mathis had done all he was told to do without complaining, so that his father would have no excuse to forbid him this little outing. After a few qui
ck spoonfuls of barley pottage to break his fast, he had finally set off this morning.

  Diethelm Seebach, landlord of the Green Tree Inn in Annweiler, had sent the Wielenbachs a large order. It was a good two weeks ago that Mathis had managed to persuade his father to let him deliver those valuable wares to the town himself. The fact that this was a Sunday did not seem to surprise Hans Wielenbach, but Mathis had taken good care that the order was ready the evening before—even if that meant the sacrifice of his day off. After all, he had been personally invited by Shepherd Jockel, an honor that still made his chest swell with pride when he thought of it. True, Jockel had already talked to him about the distress of the peasants’ lives before, but they had generally been on their own then, and out in the open fields. This was the first time that Mathis was to take part in one of the secret meetings in Annweiler.

  In spite of looking forward to it, he was also afraid of being found at the meeting and handed over to the town bailiffs. Mathis didn’t like to think what his father would say about that, not to mention what the castellan of Trifels Castle would say.

  After another quarter of an hour, he had finally reached the stone archway of the outer gate and saw a few carp swimming peacefully around in the cool water of the town moat. A bored watchman was sitting on a bench beside the gate, letting the spring sun shine on his face.

  “Hey there, Mathis,” the bailiff grunted, picking his nose without any inhibitions. “How’s your old man? I hear that cough is still troubling him.”

  Mathis nodded and tried to answer with composure. “Thanks, he’s not doing too badly. At least he’s well enough to unload work enough for three onto me.” Grinning, he held up the heavy bag, making its contents clink. “Nails and axe blades for mine host of the Green Tree. I’m to deliver them to him. Seebach is finally going to mend his roof.”