strength of madness, he held him in a grip of steel, all the time bellowing Gerhard’s name until his voice cracked.
It all happened very quickly.
Jacob saw something large and black emerge from the opening and heard a snapping noise. An expression of immense astonishment appeared on Kuno’s face and it was a moment before Jacob realized where the arrowhead came from that suddenly stuck out of Kuno’s wide-open mouth. Then Kuno sagged, slumped into him, and pulled him to the floor.
The blazing brand slipped out of his grip and rolled away over the floorboards.
“Jaspar!” he shouted.
Urquhart appeared in his field of vision. He had a brief view of the murderer’s face.
It was completely expressionless.
With a whoop, Jaspar swung the jug. The oil poured over Urquhart, who spun around and hit Jaspar with a blow that sent him flying across the room like a doll, crashing into Richmodis. Jacob had to use all his strength to push Kuno’s body to one side and saw Goddert, in what must have been the bravest moment of his life, hurl himself at Urquhart, brandishing the sword in his right hand. His arthritic fingers were clenching the hilt as if no power on earth could loosen them.
Urquhart grabbed his wrist.
Goddert was panting. They stood, face-to-face, motionless as statues, while Richmodis tried in vain to push Jaspar’s body off her and Jacob feverishly looked for the brand.
Goddert’s eyes had a strange expression, a mixture of fury, determination, and pain. His panting turned into a groan.
“Father,” Richmodis shouted. “Let go of the sword.”
Urquhart’s features did not register the slightest emotion. Goddert gradually slumped.
Where was that blasted brand?
There! Under the bench. In a trice Jacob was there, pulled it out, and rolled over on his back.
“Father!” Richmodis screamed again.
She had struggled free of Jaspar and now threw herself at Urquhart. Jacob saw the crossbow raised and felt his heart freeze to ice.
“No,” he gasped.
Then he remembered there couldn’t be a bolt in it. The next moment the bow hit Richmodis on the forehead and flung her back. Urquhart was standing like a tree trunk in the middle of the room, his fingers still locked around Goddert’s wrist.
“Jaspar,” Goddert whimpered. The sword slowly fell from his grip.
Jacob heard the crack of Goddert’s bone at the same moment as he flung the burning brand. As it flew through the air, it hit the falling sword, which sent it spinning against Urquhart’s cloak.
The oil blazed up straightaway.
Stunned, Urquhart stared at Jacob, as the flames began to envelop him. Not a sound came from his lips. The next moment he was a pillar of fire.
A pillar of fire that was rushing toward him.
Jacob’s heart missed a beat. Two burning arms were stretched out. He felt them grasp him and lift him up. His own clothes started to burn. Jacob screamed, then his back was smashed against the closed window, again and again and again. He felt as if everything inside him were shattering into tiny pieces, but it was just the shutters he could hear bursting as the wood gave way under the violence of the onslaught. He shot through in a cloud of sparks and splinters, plummeting into the mud of the street.
The rain lashed at his face. He gasped for breath and looked up into a sky shot with lightning as Urquhart jumped over him.
Laboriously he rolled over onto his stomach. The blazing figure was hurtling straight toward the stream in the middle of the street. There was a splash and it disappeared.
Jacob crawled on all fours through the mud, got to his feet, and stumbled on. He’d drown him. Hold him underwater until he was dead. If it was possible to kill the monster, he would.
He knelt down where the human torch had been extinguished by the water. Dipping his hands into the dirty brown current, he felt everywhere.
“Where are you?” he panted. “Where are you?”
Nothing.
He searched like a man possessed, pulling himself this way and that on his elbows. He didn’t see the doors open, a crowd appear, shouting curious questions, waving candles. He didn’t see Jaspar come out, unsteady on his feet and with a bloody nose, to reassure them. He didn’t see Richmodis, her arm around the trembling Goddert. All he saw was the water.
Even when it had become clear Urquhart had escaped, he kept blundering angrily on until exhaustion brought him to a halt.
Breathing heavily, he raised his hands and howled up at the heavens.
His cry was lost in the raging storm.
14 September
AFTER MIDNIGHT
Jacob, dripping wet, was sitting on the fireside bench watching as Goddert’s arm was put in a makeshift splint. He felt wretched, tired, and useless.
Goddert moaned softly, but he bore his injury bravely, almost with a hint of pride. The neighbors had gotten the nearest surgeon out of bed. He was more familiar with bone setting than Jaspar and was examining Goddert with a professional air, while Jaspar dealt with the large cut on Richmodis’s forehead. It looked worse than it was. Apart from his bloody nose and an impressive bump, Jaspar was uninjured.
It was Jacob who was a minor miracle. He ought to have been dead, or at least had most of the bones in his body broken. He certainly felt half dead, and the fact that he had escaped with numerous bruises, grazes, and slight burns he owed solely to the state of Goddert’s shutters, which were more rotten than the bones of the Three Kings.
He put his head to one side and looked around. Where the window had been a gap yawned, through which the wind whistled. Even before the neighbors had appeared, Richmodis had managed to get water from the well in the backyard to put out the fires that were flaring up. The room looked like the aftermath of a Tartar attack, overturned furniture and scorch marks everywhere.
Kuno’s body was stretched out across the floor. Jacob tried to feel sorry for him but couldn’t. Everything had been too much. Only his immense relief that Richmodis was safe and sound told him that he was not completely burned out inside.
There was a throng gathered outside and inside the house. They all wanted to know what had happened and Jaspar never tired of repeating his story of the mysterious crossbow murderer who, as everyone knew, had been at large in the town during the last few days. And that Kuno, a friend, well, more of an acquaintance really, should have sought refuge from the storm on this night of all nights—no, he had no idea where Kuno had been before, hadn’t asked, and now it was too late, God have mercy on his soul.
Jacob didn’t understand why Jaspar didn’t tell the whole story, but for the moment he couldn’t really care. A bowl of hot soup appeared under his nose. Bewildered, he looked up. A middle-aged woman was regarding him with sympathetic concern. “You must be frozen stiff,” she said.
Jacob stared at her, uncomprehending. How long had he been sitting here? How long since—
“Are you all right?”
“What?”
“There’s some soup.”
