The Gargoyle

I would return to Mainz and hide myself in a beguinage until you returned. You’d take Brandeis in the opposite direction; with the best trackers already dead, perhaps the two of you had a chance.

Brother Heinrich would go to Engelthal, for it was certain that the monastery would accept him if he came without me. I thanked him with all my heart, kissed him on the forehead, and said that I would pray the mercenaries did not destroy his home when they arrived.

“Do not waste your prayers on such a silly thing, Sister Marianne,” he said. “It’s only a building. I live in the House of the Lord.”

“Our child,” I said, “will owe its life to you. If it is a boy, we will name him Heinrich.”

“You would honor me more,” the old priest said, “if you named him Friedrich.”

I promised that I would. The weather was changing, so maybe luck was finally turning in our favor: ever since we’d left Mainz, we’d been praying for a storm to erase our tracks. Brother Heinrich pulled tight his winter coat and slipped Father Sunder’s pluviale over it, as an extra layer to protect against the storm. He sank into the snow as he walked away from us, his step unsteady, and in a few minutes he was gone. The last I saw of him was the image on the back of Father Sunder’s pluviale, of Michael and the angels fighting the dragon in Revelation, being swallowed up into the white.

Brandeis’ crossbow was useless to him, so you thrust it into my hands even though I protested that I didn’t want it. You told me that I didn’t have to fire it but I had to take it, just in case, and you wouldn’t allow me to leave without it. I agreed only because you were so adamant.

You gave me a quick lesson in loading the bolt and setting the catch. “You brace the instrument against your shoulder, like this, and here’s how you sight the target. You steady the weapon by slowing your breathing. In, out, in, out. Steady. Aim. Trust the arrow. Breathe. Release.”

You placed the crossbow into the holster across my horse’s flank and opened my winter coat to let one hand rest upon my bulging stomach. You used the other hand to slip your arrowhead necklace over my head. “It is for protection, and you need it more than I. You can return it when we meet again, because I promise that our love will not end like this.”

Then you slapped my horse into action. I looked over my shoulder once, at you watching me ride away, before addressing all my attention to the trail that would take me and our unborn child away from danger.

The snow swirled in front of me. I tried to imagine what would happen to you next. How many mercenaries would come? A dozen? Two dozen? I supposed it depended upon whether they were currently fighting on behalf of some lord, somewhere. Or would Kuonrat bring all his soldiers, so they would see what happened to deserters? I wondered what chance you really had of escaping with your life. I had seen your skill with the crossbow, but the sheer numbers…How could you escape a past that was so determined to make you pay? The wind picked up, and the whiteness of the storm was blinding. The cold cut through my clothing and into my bones.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go on without you. I’d been a fool to think that I could leave you, just when you needed me most. I’d been traveling for about half an hour when I turned the horse around and drove it back hard in the direction that I’d come. I only prayed that I was not too late.

It was already difficult to retrace my tracks, but I knew all the paths that led to Heinrich’s house. Still, even when I was less than a hundred feet away, I couldn’t see it in the swirl of snow. But then I heard the voices of many men, carried to me on the wind, and I knew that in the hour I had been away, the condotta had arrived. The only question was whether you and Brandeis had managed to get away first.

I drove my horse up onto the ridge that overlooked the house, into the brush that I’d hidden in when I was a child. I didn’t even consider that there might be soldiers up there; it was only by luck that I found myself alone. I maneuvered into a thicket where I could tether the horse to a low-hanging branch, and took a position where I could make out the action below. I knew that with the blizzard, there was no chance I’d be spotted.

Almost immediately I saw what I feared most: you had not managed to escape, and soldiers were pulling you from the house. A clear voice cut through the flurry. It was Kuonrat the Ambitious, laughing at his own good fortune. “Not one deserter, but two! Two!”

Soldiers held your arms behind your back and pushed you down onto your knees. Kuonrat took a step forward and placed his hand under your chin, twisting your head up so that your eyes met his. Still laughing, he looked as if he were trying to convince himself that his luck really was that good. A ghost delivered from the very recesses of his memory. A ghost that he could use to teach a lesson to the living.

What could I do? I considered that I might take out the crossbow and begin shooting. In the blizzard, the soldiers would never see the arrows coming until it was too late, and they might not even be able to tell where they came from. But what good would that do? There were at least two dozen of them, paid killers, and I’d never used a crossbow in my life. I’d be lucky to take down even one. But, I thought, if I could manage one good shot, what would happen if I hit Kuonrat? Would the troop scatter if they saw their leader fall?

Of course not. They were professionals and I knew that I didn’t have it in me to kill anyone, not even Kuonrat.

It took a number of soldiers to hold you down, but Brandeis was so weak it took two soldiers to hold him up. When they released him, he slumped onto his knees while Kuonrat demanded, “What do you have to say?”

The harsh storm winds blew directly towards me, past them, and carried their words to my vantage place. Whether it was good luck or ill fortune that I was able to hear every word, I am unsure, but in the moment I was thankful that I did not have to sneak closer.

Brandeis assumed the posture of a miserable sinner asking for forgiveness and the wind carried his words to me. “I deserve any death you choose. Make it as horrible as you desire, as horrible as you can. Use me as the example that I should be. I renounce my decision to run away from the condotta. I was like a frightened child. I request only that you punish me, and me alone.”

“It is always interesting to listen to the bargains of those who have nothing to offer,” Kuonrat said to many laughs.

Brandeis refused to let this laughter interfere with his final actions on this earth. His executioner was standing in front of him but never once did Brandeis beg for his own life. No, he used his final moments to plead, passionately, that the life of his best friend be spared.

Brandeis pointed out that when he left the condotta, it was entirely his own misguided decision-but when you left, it was not your decision at all. It was the Lord’s will that you were struck down in combat, but not killed. It was the Lord’s will that the battle had occurred so close to Engelthal and that you were delivered there. It was the Lord’s will that you were able to heal from injuries that should have taken your life. There could be no greater proof that God wanted you alive, Brandeis argued, than the fact that you still were.

Brandeis gestured in your direction. “This life is the Lord’s will, so forgo his punishment and double mine. I know that you are a wise and just leader, Kuonrat, and I know that you would not want to defy God.”

It was a smart tactic to keep repeating that your survival was the Lord’s will. If anything could stay your execution, it would be Kuonrat’s belief that killing you would violate God’s intentions. It was clear that he had no regard for man, but perhaps God was a different story.

The storm hurled a great burst of snow across the landscape. Brandeis instinctively turned his head to shield his eyes and I saw a swift bolt of silver, as if an extension of Kuonrat’s arm. A red surge sprayed across the ground and Brandeis’ head flew for a few feet before gravity brought it down.

Kuonrat wiped his sword clean, the steel still steaming with the heat of the blood. “The Lord’s will does not matter. Only mine does.”

He turned and said, with a laugh into your shocked face, that he had something much better for you. Something not nearly so painless or so mercifully quick. After all, your disappearance had continued for much longer than that of Brandeis.

Kuonrat gathered his mercenaries and gave out their tasks. One third of the men were to scour the woods for deadwood and twigs. Another third was sent into Heinrich’s house to secure any items of value-food, money, clothing-that the troop could use or barter. The remaining soldiers were ordered to prepare you.

The soldiers pulled you past Brandeis’ body. The blood leaked from his neck, still, adding to the large red blot in the snow. The mercenaries pushed you up against Heinrich’s cottage, your back to the wall. They kicked at your ankles until your legs were spread wide, and pulled out your arms until they were stretched across the face of the building. When you showed resistance, they beat you and spat in your face and laughed as if this were some great joke.

A soldier, bigger than the others, walked towards you carrying an ax. My heart caught in my throat, because