“Easy on, you godless cunt, we gotta woman in here!” Hegel shot back.
“Blaspheme at your own peril, serpent!” The boulder shifted violently but settled instead of rolling.
“What sort a footpad accuses Christian soldiers a blasphemy?” Manfried shouted, sensing a common ground.
“Did not the Son warn of your ravening kind upon a similar location?” he called back.
“See now!” Hegel responded, “We ain’t met no sons but we slain a damn demon, so your thievin ass had best recognize the quality at hand!”
The man did not say anything but jumped out from behind the boulder, squinting down at the Grossbarts, which is when Hegel’s quarrel struck him. Hegel tore up the slope toward the downed ruffian, pick in hand. Manfried stood on the bench, scanning the snowy scree with his crossbow leveled.
The man had almost crawled back to the log he had jammed under the boulder as a lever when Hegel reached him. The pick rose as the man rolled onto his back, jabbering at Hegel, the bolt skewering his forearm. Hegel almost spiked the man’s face but stopped in time, and uttering an oath to Mary, threw down his weapon and knelt beside him.
Seeing his brother duck out of sight Manfried shouted, “Careful, brother! Slit his treacherous throat and get back here!”
“We fucked up!” Hegel responded, his voice cracking. “He’s a monk!”
“A what?!”
“A monk, damn you!”
“Oh Hell.” Manfried sat down heavily on the seat.
“You’s gonna be rightened soon,” Hegel told his victim. “Sorry bout that.”
The man groaned, allowing his would-be prey to cut off the arrowhead protruding from his arm. Blood splattered on them both when Hegel pulled the shaft out, and continued welling forth even when they bound the wounds in strips of the man’s tattered habit. Clapping him on the back, Hegel helped him up and together they slowly went down to the road.
Manfried greeted them with a bowl of beer. “Now then, Friar, have a sip a this and then see how heretical we strike you.”
The shaken man balked, but Hegel sealed the offer. “It’s made by your folk, so I reckon there’s no sin in it.”
Gulping the beer and making a face he swooned and fell. Confusion, exhaustion, pain, and exposure had sapped his energy, and he did not awake until the moon had risen and the Grossbarts had made camp down the road. After much haranguing Manfried had consented to the liberation of more blankets from the wagon’s occupant, and with fresh snow powdering them they sat bundled up, watching the man stir.
The stanched wound made him whimper even before coming to, and when he did open his eyes he started, unsure of where he lay and the company he kept. Then the man remembered, and he covered his baggy eyes with his hands. His tonsure had grown ragged, tufts of gray hair blooming on his pate above the lanky ring circling his head. His shaking hands eventually steadied, and then Manfried felt comfortable addressing him.
“Apologies to you,” Manfried said. “Had we known what you was we wouldn’t a shot.”
“Never,” Hegel agreed.
“But you put us in a spot where we had no reason to suspect, you understand,” Manfried continued.
“None at all,” Hegel seconded.
“So I hope you’s seein fit to grace us with your pardon,” Manfried finished.
“Please,” said Hegel. “Honest mistake from honest men.”
“Could I trouble you fellows for a taste of that stew?” the man asked.
“More than a taste, if you want. We’s et already.” Hegel offered the near-empty bowl and some bluish bread.
The starved man made quick work of the food and looked up eagerly. Monk or no, the extra loaf Hegel offered came from a heavy hand. The woman never ate the food they offered, though, so an extra mouth would not starve them. Yet.
“Bless you,” the man said through a mouthful of mold.
Joyful at this, Manfried quickly offered a bottle. This the man sipped, alternating with handfuls of nearby snow. Only when he finished the bread did he speak again, his bloodshot eyes darting between the Brothers and the wagon.
“Forgive my ruse, I meant no harm to such good men,” he said.
“No harm wrought, Friar,” said Manfried.
“Actually, I am a priest,” the priest corrected.
“Glad to hear you wasn’t really gonna smash us with that rock,” said Hegel.
“Oh, I would have smashed you, make no mistake.” The priest’s eyes glittered.
“Yeah?” Hegel leaned forward.
“Lord yes, if you were someone other than who you are. You are…” The priest leaned in as well.
“Oh. Grossbarts,” said Manfried, realizing it was a question. “Manfried.”
“And Hegel.”
“Bless you, Grossbarts. I am Father Martyn, and I must beg your forgiveness both for my first impression and for the new imposition I must put upon you.”
“Beggin your forgiveness,” Manfried interjected, “if you’s worried bout somethin you ain’t done yet, could circumvent the problem by not doin whatever it is.”
Hegel kicked his brother. “Never mind him. We’s servants a the Virgin, and intend to do what you beg.”
“Thank you kindly. Now please take off your shirts and cloaks,” Father Martyn said in a rush, eager to have it said and behind him.
“Now hold on a tic,” Manfried growled.
“Please,” the priest implored. “I must see. I must.”
The Brothers quickly stripped, Manfried more slowly since he had heard tell of certain priests who abused their position to do just this.
“Now raise your arms.” Seeing them balk, he added another
“And if you would be so generous-” Martyn began but Manfried cut him off.
“Checked down there ourselves just last night, and mean to check again come morrow to make sure, but no way I’s droppin trou for man or God this night.”
“Why’d you think to check for that?” Hegel asked suspiciously. “Ain’t been an outbreak in what, fifteen years?”
“Mayhap not where you come from,” the priest said. “Other regions have not been so blessed. Might I ask why, as you say, you checked yourselves last night if there has not been a pestilence in, as you say, fifteen years?”
“Not where we’re from,” Hegel said.
“And?” The priest leaned closer still.
“You seem wiser than you’s lettin on,” Manfried observed.
“You.” Martyn pointed a spindly finger at Hegel. “Before you assaulted me you claimed to have destroyed a demon.”
“It weren’t no assault, was a damn accident, as was made clear, and I didn’t
“Hold on that, brother,” Manfried said, “til we hear what our holy vested friend has to say on how he came to be waitin for us behind that boulder with murder on his mind.”
“What?” Hegel blinked.
“See, I never heard a no priest nor monk intendin a deed like that, and what with his nonchalance bout gettin quarreled by your bolt, accident or no, and the familiar way he’s sippin that rot, well, I figure twixt tyin up his wound, fillin his belly, and showin off our pits on the coldest cunt night yet, he owes us a tale fore he hears ours. That seem fair or foul?”
“Manfried.” Hegel blanched. “That’s no way a talkin to a priest we shot up.”
“No, no, your brother is correct,” Martyn sighed. “I do owe you gentlemen an explanation. I confess, as much as yours intrigues me, my own has burdened me greatly, and I would be indebted to share the load with such worthy fellows.”
“What?” Hegel squinted at him.
“He’ll tell us what he been doin led to him bein behind that rock,” Manfried explained.
And so the priest did.
XIII. The Start of a Tale Already Concluded
When I first read the chronicles of the Crusades that my order kept I finally appreciated the necessity of my learning Latin. Doctrine, even the writings of Saint Augustine, had failed to convince me the long years I spent were not in vain, for what boy wishes to spend his best youthful years squinting over a desk, memorizing a language a millennium fallen out of vernacularism? But those accounts of adventure and tragedy in the Holy Land left an indelible mark upon me, as my ability to flawlessly recite them all these years later demonstrates.
I realized my mundane existence held the potential, however scant, of becoming remarkably interesting, of being the stuff my brethren would study centuries after I went to my reward. I confess it was a vainglorious dream, to travel and adventure instead of showing my devotion in the traditional manner, but I was young and naive and did not yet appreciate that a lifetime of quiet contemplation is as close to physical peace and perfection as we may achieve here. I have made myself obedient, however, and no longer lament my lot, for I indeed achieved my proud ambitions, and I have suffered for them. Our prayers must always be pure, lest they be directly answered!
To understand my condition when I came to the abbey at… at, by Her Mercy, even now I cannot vocalize its name, so does it haunt me. You must understand that I am disposed to the appreciation of certain libations, but I was never discovered or even suspected, for rather than floundering in a drunken stupor drink gave me passion at that point in my life. Due to my, shall we say, exceedingly vocal qualities regarding the nature of man’s duty to his Father, I was sent out in the world to
