The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart (46 page)

Late in the day the Grossbarts insisted Rodrigo and Lucian ensure their course remained true. Even if either had known much
about navigation any maps stowed in the storeroom had gone with their food into the brine. With everyone except Al-Gassur
and Barousse working at the sails the two sailors could not be sure they were directed anywhere save generally southeast.
Both had insisted they should cut north in search of land where food and a new crew could be taken on, but the Grossbarts
would hear none of it, insisting faith would suffice.

That night Rodrigo, doubting he would live long enough to find a more acceptable man of the cloth, attempted to unburden himself
by speaking with Martyn. Concerned for the souls of his captain and his brother even more than for his own, the injured fellow
was disappointed when the cardinal insisted on confessing to him instead, raving of demons and the death of his lover Elise.
Raphael stayed awake even after Lucian, Martyn, and Rodrigo drifted off, trying futilely to pick out comprehensible words
from the Grossbarts drinking above deck and the voices from the storeroom.

After much debate, Manfried’s logic regarding the purifying nature of flame won out and the Brothers set to building a fire
on Sir Jean’s shield. By its light they saw his silhouette flat against the sail, a wide stain running down beneath him. Hegel
suggested they test it on the Arab in the morning, a wise course by Manfried’s estimation. As a final precaution Hegel only
cut from the twin tails farthest from where they joined her human skin.

They stayed up most of the night smoking the meat, hoping the delicious aroma did not mask poison or curse. After the lid
to the hold and the chairs from the forecastle were ash they agreed they had enough to last until Gyptland, provided they
ate sparingly. So they hacked off part of the railing and smoked another pile, now getting dangerously close to where questionable
meat became cannibalism. This they hid in their sacks and pitched the coals into the ocean, disappointed that the waves gobbled
up the pleasant hissing they longed for.

They slept in shifts while the stars twisted and the ship rocked, both grown accustomed enough to the motion that they no
longer became sick. Manfried spent his watch patrolling the deck and squinting at the impenetrable depths. Hegel spent his
at the top of the mast, whispering to Sir Jean the theories he feared to tell his brother. He felt safe in doing so for the
knight had finally died in the long interval between his crucifixion and Hegel’s taking him into his confidence. Neither brother
touched the sails or rudder, imagining that such actions might indicate their lack of reliance on the Will of Mary.

Raphael led the exodus from below shortly after dawn, Rodrigo glumly accompanying Lucian and Martyn. The Grossbarts greeted
them in their customary fashion, which is to say they ignored them. Raphael cleared his throat, and when the Brothers did
not respond, he turned to the other three.

“We’ve got fish to catch,” Raphael said in Italian.

“What I say bout talkin that code?” Manfried demanded, now paying attention.

“The sailor doesn’t speak any other way,” Rodrigo sighed, motioning to Lucian. “All he said was we should try for some fish,
but I don’t know how he means to do that with the net’s moorings ripped off along with the winch.”

“Drink ale,” said Hegel, “and pray.”

“Yes!” Martyn agreed, “it’s the only means!”

“What are they saying?” Lucian whispered to Raphael in Italian.

“That we’ll eat you if you keep talking,” was the mercenary’s response, and that quieted him.

“Fish’s been caught,” Manfried announced, “but fore anyone eats we feed it to the Arab. Check it ain’t rotten or poisonous.”

The incredulous group all spoke at once, but Manfried dismissed them with a wave of his loaded crossbow. They noticed the
flanks of smoked meat laid out on the deck and their mouths watered, more than one moving to snatch a piece. The crossbow
brought them short, and now Hegel stood on the edge of the hold and addressed them.

“We’ll eat if the Arab’s alive by sundown,” Hegel rasped, “and neither me nor my brother nor any a yous’ll have a taste til
then. Now mind Rigo, as he instructs you on how to steer this raft to Gyptland.”

Manfried took a large hunk below, leaving the men to untangle the rigging and fiddle with the sails. They had shoved the beer
barrel in front of the door, Rodrigo having smashed the latch the day before. With a few groans Manfried slid it back enough
for him to push through. Al-Gassur apparently valued his life enough to have not untied Barousse but the two lay side by side
in the center of the room, four eyes shining at Manfried.

“Got somethin for you to eat, Arab,” said Manfried.

Al-Gassur had not grown lax as the Grossbarts nor as unfortunate as they, his satchel still bulging with fruit, cheese, sausage,
and bread he had nicked prior to Sir Jean’s ejection of the provisions. This, compounded with the mutual distrust he shared
with the Grossbarts, dissuaded him from accepting any such gifts. The brief period he had spent in their company cautioned
against outright refusal, however.

“Many blessings to you, dearest Manfried,” Al-Gassur cooed. “Perhaps you’ve also deigned to feed our captain, and also brought
something to wet our tongues?”

“All a them empty bottles beside yous implies drinks been provided from that crate,” Manfried observed. “And for the captain,
everyone knows fish ain’t proper for those ill a mind, which is why I brung’em cheese.”

“Fish, for me?” Al-Gassur suspicions increased along with his supplications. “Please, honest Manfried, deliver me this too-worthy
feast!”

Manfried tossed him the fish, waiting until the Arab had bitten off several pieces and swallowed before turning away. The
sight of Barousse eyeing them like a simple beast annoyed him to no end, and he wished the captain would either perish or
recover. Still, Mary’s Will would be served, inscrutable though it may have been to Grossbarts and lesser men alike. Shoving
the barrel back into place, he did not see Al-Gassur spit out the meat he had concealed in his cheek.

“They’re eating her?” Barousse laughed and cried.

“Our wife,” Al-Gassur moaned, pressing the fishy pulp against his cheek.

“My bride.”

“How shall we avenge her?”

“With their blood,” Barousse wept, “with their bones and souls.”

“She is gone,” Al-Gassur lamented, “gone, gone, gone.”

“But you shall have another.” Barousse’s sob melted into a cackle. “You’ll bring another up, and she’ll be yours, while I
swim with mine through what estates the kelp grants us. More than their Mary, more than my Mathilde.”

“What do you mean?”

“Release me, brother.” Barousse became perfectly calm. “Cut my bonds, and I’ll show you.”

Deranged as he had become, Al-Gassur still balked at the request. Stalling, he said, “The Grossbarts will return, I am sure
of it. Better we wait until the sun is gone and they shun this room.”

“Avenge us when I go, brother, and you’ll be rewarded.” Barousse closed his eyes and hummed a tune they both knew well, though
his simple human instrument failed to capture its essence.

Above, the men had discovered where the meat had come from when Lucian peered into the hold. After he recovered from fainting
he crawled away from Hegel, gibbering every prayer he knew. Raphael was likewise disgusted and swore he would die before putting
such vileness in his mouth, Martyn encouraging his denial of witch flesh as a source of sustenance. Rodrigo smiled at their
indignation, not at all surprised by this newest sin but unwilling to partake. He climbed a mast while they murmured their
disapproval out of range of Grossbart ears.

Of all the men, excluding the risen Hegel, Rodrigo had suffered the worst injuries the day before. The patch of exposed skull
on his scalp, his punctured hand, and his masticated ear still bothered him less than the decline of his captain, the only
family he had left. Sitting on the crossbeam beside Sir Jean’s wilting head he looked to the sea, wondering how he could go
on if Barousse died.

The day meandered by, the men’s despair countered by the Grossbarts’ optimism. Surely the sandy lands of gold lay behind the
next cloudbank, and even late into the afternoon they watched the horizon expectantly, positive that any moment a shore would
appear. It did not, and while the winds were stronger at night the men were exhausted and again went to bed hungry in their
bunks. That Al-Gassur seemed fit as ever did not sway any but the Grossbarts to sample her flesh.

The Grossbarts ate copiously, arguing whether their meal tasted good or not. Manfried found it gamier than most aquatic meat,
while Hegel thought it especially fishy. His dislike of four-legged beasts in no way impinged on his enjoyment of their seared
flesh and organs.

“Odd,” Hegel said after they had eaten, “we’s seen us what now, three witches and three monsters?”

“You’s calculatin improper,” Manfried belched.

“How’s that?”

“One monster, that mantiloup or what have you, the witch what served’em—”

“He served her,” Hegel interjected.

“Moot. Then we got that witch come with the pig. And he got a demon in’em, so that’s one more a each.”

“That’s where you’s off, cause the man’s a witch, the demon in’em’s a demon, and that pig makes three.”

“Three what? No, shut it. That pig was a pig was a pig. A pig what got a demon in it after we kilt the witch.” Manfried shook
his head at his brother’s obtuseness.

“How you know it weren’t his servant, or the Devil?”

“I don’t, same as you, so in the absence a evidence we’s gonna assume it was simple swine got possessed by a demon.”

“If it was Old Scratch he wouldn’t well let some mecky demon in’em.” Hegel reasoned. “Would a come at us himself.”

“See, that’s bein sensible.” Manfried was impressed. “So that’s two witches and two monsters, and she what we just et makes
three.”

“Three what?”

“Hmmm,” grumbled Manfried. “Witches? Witches.”

“Witches, in my voluminous experience as a tutor in Praha, do not have goddamn fish parts stead a legs.” Hegel made a big
to-do of straightening his beard and sniffing his knobby nose.

“Hmm.”

“Monsters, on the other hand, have all kinds a weird animal parts. What makes’em monsters, after all.”

“Witches might have tails,” Manfried said after another bite. “Just not ones that big.”

“Granted, maybe a little cow tail or cat thing or what, might even have seven tits like a bitch, but this mess—” Hegel squeezed
the greasy meat between his fingers. “No sir. But then a monster don’t cast charms and such in my knowledge, so I figure she
counts for both.”

“Eatin a monster’s no sin,” Manfried philosophized, “but eatin a witch is, cause they’s more or less mannish, so long’s we
stay south a the navel we’s safe.”

“The truth, unadulterated by rhetoric. Don’t taste too bad, neither, if I’s to be honest.”

“But that broaches another curiosity,” said Manfried. “We can agree a demon’s different from other monsters, requirin, as
the cardinal told us on the mountains, a body, preferably a witch, to ride round in like we’s on this boat.”

“Cause like us, it might float for a little while fore sinkin below without somethin solid to rest on,” Hegel agreed.

“The good Virgin must a given you some extra brains while you was dead. Any rate, demons different from monsters. Look nuthin
like anythin I ever seen.”

“Yeah?”

“Whereas the monsters we seen, namely our dinner and that mantiloup, they look like people what got beast parts,” said Manfried.

“Fish ain’t a beast, we’s been over that,” Hegel pointed out.

“By my fuckin faith, Hegel, you know what I mean! Part eel or snake or fish and part woman and part beast and part man is
still closer to the same thing then that demon was to anythin, man or beast. Or fish.”

“Yeah?”

“So why’s monsters always a mix a man and critter?”

“In our experience, that’s indeed been the case,” Hegel mused. “Operatin, as we now do, on the assumption that what we’s et
is monster stead a witch.”

“Right enough! I ain’t et no damn witch! Only the top part is witch, what we’s munchin is pure monster.”

“Suppose so. But I harbor doubts as to whether that thing in the mountains had a witch’s head and a monster-cat’s body. Seemed
what might a been a man become a monster.”

“So it’s possible monsters is just men, be they heretics or witches, get turned into somethin.” Manfried bit his lip, staring
at the pile of uneaten meat.

“Or monsters might be beasts that change partly into men. Or women.”

“That’s pushin reason a little hard,” Manfried argued. “I don’t believe it’s possible she was a fish what turned into a woman.”

“But she didn’t speak. Fish don’t speak.”

“And they don’t sing, neither. Sides, plenty a monsters I heard bout ain’t nuthin like men or women, just pure monster.”

“Like what?” Hegel demanded.

“Like dragons and unicorns and such.”

“But we ain’t never seen’em, so they might be nuthin more than tales.”

“Not necessarily,” said Manfried.

“No, but hearin bout somethin don’t make it real. I know Mary’s real cause I seen Her, and I know demons’ real cause I seen
one a them, and I know weird fuckin fish witches is—”

“I follow, I follow,” Manfried groused. “But we knew witches was real fore we ever saw one, and sure enough, we was right
on their account.”

“Yeah,” Hegel allowed.

“So monsters, in our experience, is part man and part beast, although the possibility exists they might be parts a other things
all mixed together, like a basilisk. Part chicken and part dragon.”

“That ain’t no basalisk, that’s a damn cockatrice.”

“A what?!” Manfried laughed at his brother’s ignorance.

“A cockatrice. Basilisk’s just a lizard, cept it poisons wells and such,” said Hegel.

“That’s a scorpion! Although you’s half right—basilisk’ll kill you quick, but by turnin its eyes on you.”