Iny Lorentz - The Marie Series 02 (9 page)

Noticing his disappointment, Marie assumed he would question her bookkeeping, so she sharply explained the previous years’ income and expenses, pointing out that their books had been just audited and approved that past spring by the learned Master Claudius Steinbrecher.

Matthias stared at the signature and the seal of the palatine auditor and felt like tearing out that page of the book. But he knew as well as did the
angry-looking
woman standing in front of him that a copy of the account book was kept in the count’s revenue office. Lord Ludwig knew right down to the last penny how much Rheinsobern was making and how much of that he could claim.

“Are you satisfied now?” Marie couldn’t quite conceal her glee.

Nodding with clenched teeth, he slammed the chest shut without placing the documents back inside. Politely but firmly, Marie pointed out his mistake, then left the room with a curt nod. Handing over the books and the chest had been a first but decisive step of her resignation as mistress of Rheinsobern castle.

3.

While Marie returned to her chambers to be alone with her grief and pain, Matthias hurried back to his family members, who had chosen the great hall as their temporary home and settled there with all their belongings. Sir Manfred, his wife, and their eldest son, Martin, were sitting at the table together with Cousin Götz enjoying a meal of bread, roast, and wine, while the children played at the opposite end of the room, supervised by their eldest daughter. When their
second-born
son entered, the new captain of the castle and his wife looked up expectantly. But their smiles froze on their lips when they saw Matthias’s disgruntled expression.

Sir Manfred pounded the table with irritation. “What’s the matter? Does Rheinsobern not make as much as we had hoped?”

“That’s impossible!” his wife shouted. “I heard that Sir Michel and his wife were enjoying a good life right from the start.”

“Definitely not from the money they kept from the duties.” Matthias didn’t try to hide his disappointment. “I checked the books twice for irregularities in their favor, but Lady Marie has been keeping the books correctly. I couldn’t find even the smallest mistake. Worse yet, the accounts of the last few years have been audited and approved by Master Claudius Steinbrecher. We can consider ourselves lucky if we get two hundred guilders a year.”

Lady Kunigunde snorted. “In that case, we’ll just increase the citizens’ taxes.”

Matthias raised his hands to object. “Knowing folk like that, they’ll go running to the count palatine to complain, and, next thing you know, there’ll be an audit.”

Contemptuously, his mother waved away his concerns. “I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

“Unfortunately it is, Mother. This Michel and his wife paid the count palatine every single penny he was due, so if we deliver less, he would ask why and we’d be in trouble. As it is, we’ll have to pinch pennies for many years to save enough money. If I’d known that, I would have stayed in the monastery with the pious brothers and tried to find a wealthy benefactor.”

He sat down with his parents, whose faces showed the sting they’d felt from their son’s last words, reached for one of the small boards stacked on the table, and helped himself to a large piece of roast. His disappointment clearly hadn’t spoiled his appetite, because he ate as if he had been starving for weeks.

Lady Kunigunde wasn’t about to accept her fate this easily. “It is said that Lady Marie is very wealthy, so we should make sure we benefit from her treasures. Luckily, Cousin Götz is single and can marry our golden goose. Then we’ll have enough money to live well, and our dear Matthias can buy any benefice he likes.”

As her husband and her son mulled over the idea, Sir Götz bared his rotting teeth in a broad grin. “I wouldn’t mind marrying the beautiful widow, even though her big belly makes her no good in bed right now. Indeed, the marriage would be worth her excellent wine alone, and I’ve rarely eaten a better roast.”

“You won’t have to wait long for your marital pleasures. Lady Marie will slip her pup next month, and you can prepare your lance for jousting only a fortnight after.” Lady Kunigunde winked at her cousin mischievously and kicked her husband under the table. “As the new captain and castellan of Rheinsobern, you’re basically her guardian, and therefore you will arrange this marriage before the count palatine gets the idea of marrying Marie to another one of his followers. As you know, a woman with money doesn’t stay lonely for long at his court.”

Her husband nodded reluctantly. “Shouldn’t we at least wait until she’s given birth?”

Shaking her head so vigorously that her bonnet slipped, Lady Kunigunde looked admonishingly at her husband. “Then we would waste precious time, and our golden goose might fly away. If you won’t do it, I’ll speak with Marie myself.”

“Yes, you take care of it!” Not up to the task of convincing a stubborn widow of the need to remarry, Sir Manfred was visibly relieved at handing over the chore to his wife. Plus, no one could easily resist his wife’s will, and Kunigunde wouldn’t rest until Lady Marie was in her cousin’s bed—pregnant or not.

4.

Michel stared in confusion at the rock ceiling arcing above him. Whenever he moved, he felt a dull pain in the back of his head, and the open wound in his left thigh felt as if it were on fire. His muscles appeared to be made of water and his tendons of old leather, because it was only with almost superhuman effort that he managed to sit up and look around. He was inside a long, low cave, where someone had made him a primitive bed from birch twigs and leaves, covering him with an old horse blanket. Apart from a small vent, the only entrance had been closed off with branches and thorns, and just in front of it, where the cave widened onto a round area, was a
two-wheeled
cart with a skinny mare tied to it, picking at the
half-dead
leaves of a few branches with her lips.

Along the wall between the cart and his bed were one small and one large bed of leaves covered with old, almost hairless sheepskins and rags. A few steps away on the other side of the cave, a small fire was burning underneath a kettle hanging on some green branches, and a skinny,
middle-aged
woman was putting another log on the fire. She was wearing a simple woolen dress that had seen better days, and a jacket that must have once belonged to a much larger person. Turning around, she smiled at him uncertainly.

“Praise God! You’re finally awake. We were afraid you were drifting into eternal sleep.” She was speaking German, but with a strange accent, as if she had learned the language later in life.

Uneasily, Michel shrugged his shoulders. “Have I been sleeping for that long? What happened to me?”

“You were seriously injured and almost drowned in the river before washing up on a sandbank. Reimo found you just in time. Initially, he wanted to leave you there because he thought you were a Hussite, but then you called out in German, so he dragged you here out of pity for a fellow countryman.”

“Where is ‘here’?”

“This is our hideout, where we’ve lived for the past three years. But we’ll soon have to leave, since the same day he found you, Reimo also found tracks of Hussite patrols.”

“Who is Reimo, and what are Hussites?” Michel couldn’t remember anything.

The woman shook her head in amazement. “You can’t know Reimo, because he saw you for the first time down by the river. But you should know who the Hussites are, because judging by your injuries, you were fighting them.”

“I was? But why can’t I remember it? I don’t know what I did . . . or who I am. Oh my God! I’m . . . no one!” The panic in his voice intensified his headache until it was unbearable.

“But you must have a name! My name is Zdenka, and I’m Reimo’s wife.”

“What sort of name is Zdenka?” Michel wondered why her name sounded strange to him, while her husband’s name sounded familiar.

“I’m Czech and my husband is German—and that’s our trouble,” Zdenka explained. “At the beginning of the uprising against King Sigismund, my people left Reimo in peace for my sake, but later on, when the struggle became about freeing the Czechs from the German yoke, we had to flee our village. Good friends secretly brought us our horse and cart, some seeds, and two goats, and they warned us against returning. We’ve been living in the forest ever since, constantly afraid of being discovered and killed by the terrible Taborites.”

“Who are they?”

“The worst among the Hussites. They slay anyone who isn’t Czech or doesn’t take up their cause. They’ve even killed noblemen who joined the uprising but didn’t agree with their leaders on other matters.”

“How can you know all this when you’ve been hiding in the forest?”

“Reimo occasionally meets with a cousin of mine to barter herbs, resin, and mushrooms I collect and to find out what is going on. But tell me your story. You must remember something about yourself!”

Michel spread his arms with a helpless smile. “My mind is completely empty. It’s terrible, but I don’t even know my social standing or where I’m from.”

“That’s awful!” Zdenka scratched her head and looked at him in disbelief. “But what about Marie?”

The name didn’t jog any memories for Michel. “Who is that supposed to be?”

“When you were hot with fever, you called out her name and swore never to forget her.”

“Marie . . . Marie . . . I like the name, but I can’t remember anyone called that.”

“Maybe you’ll recollect in time. For now, though, we need to address you somehow.” She bit her lip and looked at him thoughtfully. “I’ve been calling you Nemec, which is the word for a German in my mother tongue. But that’s not a proper name.”

“Honestly, the concept of Germans or Czechs means nothing to me. But as you say, since the Czechs aren’t exactly my friends, it would be better for you to give me a German name . . .”

Their conversation was interrupted by a noise at the entrance. Pushing aside some of the branches hiding the entrance to the cave, a boy slipped in, followed by a stocky man around forty years old with
ash-blond
hair and wearing a dirty brown shirt that had been patched up many times, and pants of the same color. The man, whom Michel assumed to be Reimo, must have been out hunting, because he was holding a partridge and two hares inside some snares. The boy, about ten years old, had his father’s pale hair and his mother’s dark eyes.

“Our Nemec has finally woken up!” Zdenka said to them excitedly. “But just imagine, he can’t remember anything, not even his Marie whom he called for so many times.”

Pulling the branches back over the entrance, Reimo slowly turned to Michel, while the boy ran to his mother, snuggling up to her shyly.

“This is our Karel,” said Zdenka, introducing the boy with obvious pride.

“A wonderful lad.” Michel smiled and nodded at the boy, then looked at Reimo, who was thoughtfully scrutinizing him.

The man shook his head in amazement. “I’ve heard of people losing their memory, but I always thought that was old wives’ tales.”

“Unfortunately, it’s true. I don’t know anything about my past—it’s as if I’ve never existed. But Reimo, I thank you! It was very noble of you to bring me to your hideout. And I thank you, too, Zdenka. You two saved my life and cared for me even though you couldn’t know whether I’d become a burden. Not everyone would have done the same.”

Reimo handed the hares and the partridge to his wife, who immediately started to skin and gut them. “Of course I asked myself whether I was doing the right thing. But I assumed you wouldn’t pose any danger to us with your injuries, and I hoped you could tell us what Sigismund is doing to win back his kingdom and protect loyal subjects like us from the Czech murderers.”

Zdenka flared up. “Not every Czech is bad, and there are plenty of murderers among the Germans as well. Remember the village near where you found Nemec.”

Reimo lowered his head. “I’ll never forget that. When I saw what Sigismund’s troops had done there, for the first time in my life I was ashamed to be German.”

“But why then did you save me? You must have assumed I was one of those murderers, too.”

“I had already found you and carried you some distance into the forest before I sneaked into the village, and at first I really did feel like leaving you there for the wolves. But I hoped you could tell us about the situation in the Reich and why the Germans were acting so badly, plus I didn’t want all that effort I’d taken to save you to be for naught. Now I can only hope you’ll find your memory again soon. In your delirium, you talked not only about your beautiful Marie, but you also threatened to break someone named Falko’s neck the next time you saw him.”

This name meant as little to Michel as the name Marie. While Michel examined his painful head, rubbing his temples as if to bring back his memory, Reimo helped his wife prepare the game. “Tonight we’ll have roast hare. We used to drink beer with it, as my Zdenka knows how to brew a beer that warms your heart, but unfortunately we only have water left.”

Reimo sighed and pointed at Michel’s left thigh. “That injury will probably bother you for a long time. The spike of a war hammer was lodged inside, and we struggled to pull it out. You’ve also got a wound on your head as large as my hand, and you can consider yourself lucky your skull seems intact. You must have been wearing a good helmet, because otherwise your head would have been shattered.”

Michel laughed discordantly. “I’d like to know who tried to part my hair in such a rough manner, since I could be sitting in a tavern having a drink with the fellow without knowing that he was after my blood.”

“That would be disastrous, because he might be tempted to stick a knife in your back to finish the job. Do you want to try to stand up? I’ve made you a crutch to get around.” Reimo lit a primitive torch from the fire and walked to another part of the cave, returning with a solid stick that ended in a fork padded with moss and bast fiber.

Trying to get to his feet, Michel sank back down with a cry of pain. Reimo ran to his side and gently helped him stand up and support himself on his crutch. Michel attempted to walk a few steps, but he kept weakly stumbling over his own feet, and Karel helped lead him back to his bed. Reimo took a simple stool, sat down by Michel, and went to work repairing a few household items while talking to him. When Michel mentioned his surprise at how much he and Zdenka knew about what was happening in Bohemia, a smile flashed across his face.

“It’s thanks to my wife’s cousin, who occasionally travels the country as a peddler and brings us things we urgently need. I was just coming back from a meeting with him when I found you, and, without his warning, I would have either fallen into the hands of the Hussites or been mistaken for a rebel and killed by the German soldiers.”

“I thank God that nothing happened to you,” Michel replied seriously. He liked the burly man with his trimmed beard and light blue eyes. He also liked Zdenka, who was around
thirty-five
years old and attractive despite traces of fear still showing on her face. When Michel looked at Karel, he felt a longing to hold a child of his own, and he couldn’t help but wonder whether there was a boy somewhere awaiting his return.

Reimo interrupted his thoughts. “What should we call you? I don’t want to say Nemec anymore, because that’s a swear word these days.”

“On what day did you find me?” Michel asked.

“On the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi.”

“Then call me Franz for now. It’s as good a name as any.” Taking a deep breath, Michel gazed down at his idle hands. “Reimo, even if I’m injured, I can do something to help. If you’ve got a job for me, I can do it sitting down . . .”

Zdenka looked up and gave him an admonishing glance. “You’re too ill for that, Nem . . . er, Franz.”

“Yes, we could use another pair of hands since we have to leave the cave and reach a safe place before snow makes the roads impassable. Even the wolves will soon freeze in the forest with the icy wind already blowing from the east.” Reimo rummaged around in the back of the cave and returned with a damaged basket. “I’ll show you how to fix it. Karel will bring you the withies you need.”

The boy eagerly jumped up and slipped out of the cave while Michel examined the wickerwork and listened to Reimo’s instructions. A short time later, he had to admit that he wasn’t a natural at basket weaving. Reimo helped him patiently, but when the basket was finished, it was misshapen and crooked.

Apologetically, Michel smiled. “That’s the best I could do. I’m afraid weaving baskets apparently wasn’t my trade—if I’ve ever learned one, that is.”

“No one is born a master,” Reimo consoled him with a laugh. “I couldn’t have done much better. The main thing is we can use this old basket again.”