1632 (17 page)

 
“Friend, lead me through the vineyards, give me wine
And to the very brim shall joy be mine . . . 
And should I pre-decease you, friend, select
Some spot where vineyards twist, my grave to sink.“
 

    Morris nodded. The nod turned sideways, pointing. “My father is buried in the town’s cemetery. Not far from Tom Stearns, and not far from Michael’s father, Jack.” His eyes came back. “And that’s all I’ve got to say, Dr. Abrabanel.”
    Balthazar’s shrewd eyes turned to Melissa. “And you?”
    Melissa chuckled. “I’d
hardly
call Michael Stearns a ’prince’!” Then, cocking her head sideways, she pursed her lips. “Well . . . maybe. As long as we’re talking about Prince Hal, the rapscallion.”
    Balthazar was startled. “The prince from
Henry IV
?” he asked. “You’re familiar with the play?”
    It was Melissa’s turn to be startled. “Of course! But how did you—” Her jaw dropped.
    “I saw it, how else?” replied Balthazar. “At the Globe theater in London. I never missed any of the man’s plays. Always attended the first performance.”
    He rose and began pacing about slowly. “I was just thinking of it, in fact. Not
Henry IV
, but
The Merchant of Venice.
”
    He stopped, smiling down at his audience. The expression on the faces of Morris and Judith Roth now mirrored Melissa’s. Mouths agape, eyes bulging.
    “The most wonderful playwright in the world, in my opinion.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid you all seem to be misconstruing my question about Michael. I was not concerned over the matter of his faith.”
    Balthazar snorted, with half-amused exasperation. “Bah! I’m a philosopher and a physician, not a moneylender. What did you think? Did you really expect me to start wringing my hands over the prospect that my daughter might be smitten by a gentile?”
    Suddenly, he clasped his hands and began wringing them, in histrionic despair. With the same theatrical flair, he twisted his head back and forth.
“O my daughter! O my ducats!
”
    Melissa burst into laughter. Balthazar grinned at her. Morris and Judith just stared.
    Balthazar dropped his hands and resumed his seat. “No, no, my friends. I assure you that my concern was quite mundane.” For a moment, his kindly face grew stern, almost bitter. “I have no love for orthodox Jewry, nor they for me. I was cast out because I argued there was as much to be learned from Averroes the Moslem as from Maimonides the Hebrew.”
    He sighed and lowered his head. “So be it. I have found a home here, it seems. My daughter also. I only wish for her happiness. That was the sole purpose of my question.”
    “He’s a prince,” said Melissa softly. “In all that matters, Balthazar. In the way that such men truly come, in this true world.”
    “Such was my hope,” murmured Dr. Abrabanel. He chuckled again. “It will be difficult for Rebecca, of course. I fear I may have sheltered her too much. Her head is full of poetry.”
    “We’ll fix that,” growled Melissa. “First thing.”
    Judith Roth finally managed to speak. “I can’t believe it. You actually—” She almost gasped the next words. “You actually saw
Shakespeare
?
In
person
?”
    Balthazar raised his head, frowning. “Shakespeare? Will Shakespeare? Well, of course. Can’t miss the man, at the Globe. He’s all over the place. Never misses a chance to count the gate. Twice, usually.”
    Half-stunned, Morris walked over to a bookcase against the wall. He pulled down a thick tome and brought it over to Balthazar.
    “We
are
talking about the same Shakespeare, aren’t we? The greatest figure in English literature?”
    Still frowning, Balthazar took the book and opened its cover. When he saw the frontispiece, and then the table of contents, he almost choked.
    “Shakespeare didn’t write these plays!” he exclaimed. Shaking his head: “Well, some of them, I suppose. In some small part. The ones that read as if written by committee. The little farces like
Love’s Labour’s Lost
. But the great plays?
Hamlet
?
Othello
?
King Lear
?”
    Seeing the look on his companions’ faces, he burst into laughter. “My good people!
Everyone
knows that the plays were really written by—” He took a deep breath, preparing for recitation: “My Lord Edward, Earl of Oxford, Seventh of that Name, and Seventh in degree from the English Crown.”
    Balthazar snorted. “Some people, mind you, will insist that Sir Francis Bacon is the real author, but that was a mere ruse to throw off the hounds. The theater is much too disreputable for the earl of Oxford to be associated with it. Hence the use of Shakespeare’s name.”
    He looked down at the book. “Apparently, the fiction has become historical fact. So much for vanity and worldly fame!”
    There was now a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. “But perhaps it’s simply justice. Edward was in some ways not the best of men. I know—I was his physician.”
    The stares were back. “Justice, I say. The earl owed me money, and refused to pay his bill.”
    Dr. Abrabanel stroked
The Collected Works of William Shakespeare
, like a man might fondle treasure. “This is so much more satisfying a revenge, don’t you think, than a paltry pound of flesh?”

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
 

    Hans Richter was awakened by a boot planted on his rump. The boot was abrupt, curt, and just barely short of brutal.
    “Get up, boy,” he heard Ludwig commanding. “
Now
. There’s work to be done.” The laugh that followed was more in the nature of a jeer. “You’ll get your first taste of real fighting today, chicklet.”
    Dimly, Hans heard Ludwig clumping away. As always, the big man’s footsteps were heavy and leaden. He sounded like a troll, moving about a cave.
    Groaning, Hans rolled over on the dirt floor. His head was splitting with pain. For a minute or so, his eyes tightly closed, he fought down the urge to vomit. The struggle was fierce, not because he cared about the contents in his stomach, but simply because he didn’t want to endure Ludwig’s ridicule. Had Hans been alone, he would have gladly heaved up the remnants of his meal, even though it had been the first food he’d eaten in two days.
    Most of that meal had been wine, in any event. Cheap, bad wine—the kind to be found in a peasant’s farmhouse. The other mercenaries, led by Ludwig, had insisted that he drink his share.
    
More than my share
, came the thought.
I drank more than my share, on purpose. It made them laugh, how quickly I got drunk. But that’s what I wanted. It gave me an excuse.
    Memory of the night before came crashing in. Hans opened his eyes. He found himself staring at a corpse, not three feet away. The farmer, that was. The man was staring up at the ceiling of the farmhouse with sightless eyes. The rough clothing was caked with blood all through his midsection. Flies swarmed on the corpse.
    Again, Hans felt the urge to vomit. And, again, fought it down desperately. His enrollment in the mercenary company was still very recent, and hung by a thread. If the soldiers decided he was unfit for their trade, they would cast him back into the pool of camp followers. Unarmed. Again.
    Better anything than
that
. He still had what was left of his family to shelter. Ludwig protected his older sister Gretchen from the other soldiers, since he had taken her as his concubine. But Annalise, just turned fourteen, was already drawing their eyes. As a mercenary’s sister, she would have some status. So would his grandmother. If Hans lost his place in the company, Annalise would be a tent whore before she saw another birthday. His grandmother would die in a field somewhere, abandoned and alone.
    Hans decided he had mastered his stomach. He rose, and staggered toward the doorway. His eyes avoided the two corpses piled in a corner of the house. Those had been the old folk. The farmer’s mother and his aunt, probably. Crones, of no interest to the soldiers. Hans remembered how casually Ludwig and another mercenary had murdered them, as if they were a pair of chickens.
    He also kept his eyes away from the only bed in the house. That bed had been put to use by his companions, the night before. Hans had guzzled the wine as fast as he could force it down his stomach, in order to avoid the activity taking place there. Ludwig and his cohorts would have insisted that he participate. Drunkenness was the only acceptable excuse.
    The bed was empty, now. The farmer’s daughter had probably been dragged out this morning to join the camp followers, along with the boy. Her lot would be hard, and her brother’s worse. Unlike Hans’ sister Gretchen, the girl was not attractive enough to become a soldier’s concubine. She would be a laundress and a prostitute. Her brother would be one of many camp urchins, available to run errands and do chores for the soldiers. Beaten for any reason, or, often enough, simply on a drunken whim. If he survived, the boy might eventually become a mercenary himself.
    That was unlikely, however. Hans estimated the farm boy’s age at ten years, no more. He would get less food than anyone, which was little enough. Hunger and disease would probably carry him off, long before he could reach the relatively secure status of being a soldier.
    Hans stumbled out of the doorway into the farmyard. The bright sunlight, for all the pain it brought to his head, was a blessed relief. He could handle pain of the body. He had been a printer’s son himself, once, not so far removed from the peasantry. Pain and hunger and hard work were no strangers. But he wondered, sometimes, how long his soul could endure this new world. The sunshine seemed to lighten that burden, a bit.
    Ludwig and his men were gathering the camp followers, driving them into a semblance of marching order with shouts and blows. There were about fifty of them, mostly women and children, to service Ludwig’s twenty mercenaries. Ludwig held no official rank in that band of soldiers. With his size and domineering personality, the point was moot. The informal arrangement was typical of Tilly’s army. The officers didn’t care, as long as the soldiers did their duty on the rare occasions when an actual battle had to be fought or a siege undertaken.
    The camp followers were heavily laden with the mercenaries’ gear and plunder. The “plunder” was pathetic, in truth. There was no gold or silver or jewelry to be found in peasant homes, and precious little in the houses of small German towns. Some of the “loot” would have caused Hans to laugh, if he didn’t know of the carnage which had obtained it. One of the women—Diego the Spaniard’s “wife”—was staggering under a wrought-iron bedframe. Diego had forced the poor creature to carry that thing for seven weeks now, even though he had no possible use for it. The Spaniard had been furious that the house had held nothing else of any value. He had spent two hours torturing the owner in an attempt to find hidden treasure. But there had been none. There almost never was. Only a bed. After Diego was finished, the pallet had been too badly soaked with blood to be salvageable. But he had insisted on taking the frame.
    The small woman staggering under the bedframe stumbled and fell to one knee. Diego, seeing her mishap, snarled with anger. He strode up and delivered a vicious kick to her backside, sprawling her flat on the ground. She did not make a sound. Her face held no expression. She simply drew her legs under her and lurched back onto her feet.
    Wincing, Hans looked away. In seconds, he spotted his own family. Gretchen, as always, was at the center of the crowd of camp followers, with his sister and grandmother nearby. His grandmother and Annalise were carrying bundles, but Gretchen always carried the largest, even though she was burdened with her baby. She was a big woman, and young, and strong, and had never allowed her good looks to go to her head.
    Hans was not surprised to see the newest camp followers sheltered under Gretchen’s care. The farmer’s daughter seemed in a total daze. Her little brother was sobbing. There were no tears, however. The tear ducts would have been emptied hours earlier.
    Hans took a breath and marched over. Ludwig would be demanding his presence within seconds. But he wanted to speak to Gretchen first.
    As he drew near, threading through the little mob, Gretchen turned her head toward him. She was saying something to Annalise, but as soon as she caught sight of Hans her mouth closed. Her face, in an instant, stiffened like a statue. Her eyes, for all the natural warmth of their light brown color, seemed as cold as winter.
    When Hans came up to Gretchen, he glanced at the farmer’s children. Orphans, now. His words came in a rush.
    “I didn’t— I
swear
, Gretchen. I got drunk right away.” Almost desperately, he nodded to the daughter. “Ask her. She’ll tell you.”
    Gretchen’s stiff face softened into quiet anger. “You think the poor girl remembers
faces
?” she demanded. Her eyes moved to the band of soldiers now forming into a loose column. The gaze was pure bitterness. “I didn’t. Thank God.”
    The child nestled in Gretchen’s left arm turned his head and stared up at Hans, with the unfocused eyes of babies. His mouth curved into a smile, seeing Hans’ familiar face. The baby gurgled happily.
    The sight, and the sound, melted away Gretchen’s anger. Hans felt a surge of warmth toward the child, for bringing that break in the tension.
    As he had often before, Hans wondered at that warmth. He had grown very fond of Wilhelm, in the months since his birth. Gretchen positively doted on him.
    Odd, really. Wilhelm was Ludwig’s son. Probably. After the first day, when their town was sacked by Tilly’s army and Ludwig led his men into their father’s print shop, Gretchen had been reserved for Ludwig’s exclusive use. The baby certainly resembled his presumed father. Like Ludwig, his hair was very blond, his eyes blue. And already he was giving evidence that he might grow to Ludwig’s size.
    Gretchen’s eyes came back to Hans. He was relieved to see that his sister’s hostility was completely gone.
    “It’s all right, Hans. We do as best we can.” A shout came. Ludwig’s bellow, summoning him. “Now go,” she said. “I will see to the family.”
    Hearing that word, the sobbing ten-year-old boy at her side was suddenly clutching Gretchen’s hip. A moment later, his sister joined him, clutching Gretchen’s arm. The dazed look in her eyes seemed to lift, a bit.
    Hans’ “family,” plain enough, had just grown. He was not surprised. A third of the camp followers belonged to Gretchen. Adopted, as it were.
    Ludwig’s bellow came again. Angry, now. There would be a cuffing, sure enough.
    
“Go,”
hissed Gretchen.