Wolfbreed (12 page)

The bishop slammed his hand on the table, his rings clattering against the wood. “You have given succor to agents of Satan. Worse, you have given these demons human flesh to feed on, and have used them to aggrandize yourself on the battlefield. You have been so deeply and vilely deceived by the Father of Lies that I almost doubt the possibility of your redemption. It is fortunate that there are men who speak highly of your righteousness, and you have not been given to deception in your own testimony. I leave it to your Order to decide by what means you will show proper repentance.”

“As His Holiness would wish,” Conrad finally spoke. “If Brother Erhard has done evil, it was not from evil intent. He is a faithful servant of God and the Church. If he has gone astray, it is as much our Order’s responsibility as it is his.”

“Yes,” said Bishop Cecilio. “And His Holiness will expect proper repentance of the Order as well.”

“You will return to Rome with tribute that His Holiness should find more than sufficient.”

“That, of course, is not for me to decide.” The bishop turned to Erhard. “But I make one demand on behalf of the pontiff that comes before all else. Use of this abomination shall immediately cease, and the remaining creature shall be destroyed by fire.”

He must have seen Erhard’s disquiet on his face, because the bishop allowed himself a small smile. “Yes, you need not concern yourself with Brother Semyon, or the creature that remained in his care. They have both been dealt with, and the site of his abominations has been burned and purified by exorcism.”

The bishop made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “You may go.”

As Erhard left, he heard the bishop say, “I will pray for your soul.”

His tone indicated he would do no such thing.

rhard left the disastrous meeting in stunned silence. He had never once considered the possibility …

He closed his fist and leaned heavily against the stone wall of the corridor. No, it wasn’t because the pope didn’t know of what Erhard was doing in the name of God and the Order. The pope himself had approved the reasoning that Brother Semyon had explained to him so long ago.

For nearly eighteen years these creatures had been of earthly nature by papal decree.

The situation has changed
, Erhard thought.

It was not pleasant to concede the fact that the Church made moral decisions based on politics, but the pope was as much a temporal leader as he was a spiritual one. And all worldly rulers soon enough erred between what was right and what was profitable.

His Holiness Gregory IX had decided that it was no longer in the interest of his own power that a monastic order so close to his rival the emperor might have access to such a devastating weapon.

Brother Semyon’s wolfbreed children had been too successful.

Landkomtur Erhard von Stendal knew this, but he also knew that the knowledge did not change his duty to God, the Order, or the Church. He had taken an oath of obedience. He would have to return to Johannisburg, take Lilly, and set her to fire.

For some reason, he remembered a time shortly after he had taken charge of Semyon’s wolfbreed children. He had been scourging Lilly for some infraction; what it had been, Erhard didn’t remember. When he had finished, and her back was healing, she looked up at him and said, “Master?”

His first impulse had been to whip her again, for speaking out of turn, but something—perhaps mercy—made him ask what she wanted.

She asked, “Do you have a master?”

“My master is my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

She looked at him very strangely for a moment, and then she asked, “Does your Lord Jesus whip you when you disobey Him?”

Erhard stared at her childlike visage, but he saw the beast within her. “My Lord does something far worse, should I disobey Him. He turns his back upon me and leaves my presence.”

She had nodded, apparently understanding.

“Please do not turn your back on me,” she had told him.

The words echoed in his memory, as running steps echoed through the corridor, growing louder. Erhard turned to see one of his young knights in an unseemly scramble, running toward him. Erhard would have reprimanded him but for the distress evident in the young knight’s face.

“What is it?”

“Johannisburg,” the knight gasped in a voice ragged and out of breath. “A messenger fresh from Johannisburg.”

Erhard grabbed the knight’s shoulder and asked, “What news?”

As the knight told him, Erhard felt the road God had laid for him over the past ten years crumble completely, leaving only the Abyss under his feet.

edim rode home from Johannisburg in a foul mood. It was bad enough to scrape an existence together for his family through a harsher than average winter. Now he had to deal with the arcane rules of trade established by the Order. He had gone to Johannisburg with a pathetic collection of skins harvested from all the meat they’d had to trap to supplement their food supply. He had hoped, now that it was spring and people were coming north again, that he would be able to barter for some iron tools: a hoe or axe head, or—in his more grandiose dreams—a plow to replace the wooden blade he was constantly repairing.

Of course, his skins were nowhere near enough for a new plow, especially when the guard at the city gate insisted on taking a quarter of his goods in tithe and taxes.

He had almost spat in the guard’s face and said, “I bow to your God. How many more indignities do you want to heap upon us?” He hadn’t, because the man taking his skins was as Prûsan as he was. Gedim probably knew the man’s father. Like Hilde, the guard had been baptized into a new world—though he had been Uldolf’s age, so he probably remembered a time before the cross had laid its shadow on this town.

So, instead of carrying a new plow, or new tools, the wagon rode empty except for a box of salted herring. The smell of fish on the bumpy ride home did little for Gedim’s mood.

I do what I can
.

He had also purchased a vial of medicine for Hilde, which was certain to cause his wife to scold him. What did he know about caring for the sick? Burthe would probably tell him that the mixture was useless for her fever, and that he had wasted his money. However, he was more comfortable with having that argument than he was with doing nothing at all.

Besides, they now had herring.

His cart rounded the last curve in the dirt track before his farm and he came in sight of his cottage.
Home
. Seeing the thatch roof and rough log walls raised his spirits.

Uldolf was sitting on a bench in front of the cottage, working with a knife. Even at this distance, Gedim could see him scraping shreds of meat away from the skin of some small animal. Uldolf had one leg bent up on the bench to hold the skin flat, and Gedim could see a patch of gray-white fur curling up from the edge.

Still poaching …

Gedim pulled the cart around to a barn formed by three timber walls surrounding a pair of currently empty stalls. As Gedim took his time unhitching the horse, he wondered if he should reprimand Uldolf or not. They both knew that the small area a free man was allowed to hunt had been scoured of game two months into winter. Just to get the hare whose skin he was cleaning, Uldolf would have had to go nearly to the walls of Johannisburg itself.

Then again, Gedim had just returned from trading on his son’s trapping ability.

Gedim let the horse into their small excuse for a pasture and walked around to the cottage, carrying his box of fish. While he could never quite approve of what Uldolf was doing, he usually decided to pretend he didn’t realize where the game came from.

“Father,” Uldolf called to him.

Gedim smiled and waved as he walked across the muddy field. No sense bringing his frustration into the house. “How is Hilde?”

“Her fever broke in the night. She was bright-eyed and chattering away, last I looked.”

It was hard not to stumble with relief. He would personally thank Christ himself if it turned out that the medicine in his pouch was a true waste of money. “That’s good.”

He walked past his son and toward the door. Hilde had been asleep when he had left for Johannisburg four days ago. It would be nice to see her awake.

“Father.” Uldolf had set down his knife and grabbed Gedim’s arm.

Gedim stopped in his tracks and turned around. “What?”

Uldolf looked downcast and slightly embarrassed as he muttered, “We have a guest.”

edim managed to pull the entire story out of Uldolf, despite the boy’s tendency to omit details.

He wasn’t quite sure if the boy was embarrassed, modest, or afraid Gedim might be angry at him. But Uldolf insisted on telling his tale in a circular pattern, going back and elaborating when Gedim prodded him.

The day after you left for Johannisburg, I found her in the woods and brought her here. You see, she was hurt, I think by bandits. I was out trapping game and following the creek bed. She didn’t understand me at first, I think because of the head wound. And she had a bad injury to her head and her shoulder …

It went back and forth like that, until Gedim had the whole story. At least, he hoped it was the whole story. It wasn’t until the fourth time around that he got the details that the injured woman
had been naked in the creek when Uldolf had found her, and that he had ended up carrying her nearly all the way home.