“Yeah? Needed to get a closer look?”
“Gotta make sure.” Manfried blinked. “Others done the same?”
“Yeah. That priest got stuck though.”
“Badly?”
“How should I know? I was fishin you out.”
“I’s fit, let’s see bout the priest.”
The arrow had embedded in Martyn’s forearm, blood pooling on the bench, and the priest moaned vengeance in his ill-gotten sleep. Hegel’s search of the two bodies not given to the river yielded nothing, but Manfried fared better down the road where four horses were tethered in a copse of trees. In a saddlebag he discovered a small wheel of cheese wrapped in the same yellow cloth as the wheel he had gotten from the inn that very morning. He led the horses back to the wagon to strategize with Hegel.
“Think we got ratted?” Hegel asked.
“Possible.”
“That dingy cricket under the bridge
“I say we hoof on back, sniff round and see if we been cowarded out,” said Manfried.
“Yeah, can’t suffer no traitorous churls to keep on bein traitorous. And sides that, priest needs that barber or he’ll bleed out by the look a his wound.”
“True words.”
They reached the town gate before shut-in and immediately went to the barber’s, the newly acquired horses tethered to the back of the wagon. The man’s son answered their knocking, and the scrawny teenager’s attempts to keep them at the door were thwarted. The Grossbarts carried the groaning priest inside and laid him on the table where the startled barber sat eating his dinner. The memory of their ring shone in his memory, though, so he went straight to work.
Hegel took the Road Popes’ horses to the farrier while Manfried went to the inn. The farmers turned and silenced at his arrival, Manfried striding in with a papal hat in one hand and his mace in the other. The innkeeper hurriedly offered him a tankard, which Manfried exchanged the hat for. Draining the ale and turning to the curious men, he slammed down the cup.
“There’s holy blood on your hands,” Manfried told them, but they did not respond until the innkeeper translated. This drew murmurs but no outright protests or admittances. After giving them another few moments to own up, “Priest might die cause a someone in this town. You give’em to us, we call it square. If not, the wrath a Mary’ll descend on all a yous.”
The innkeeper turned scarlet but shouted Manfried’s meaning in Italian. This got them going. Several men made for Manfried but were restrained by others. The innkeeper slunk off somewhere, and, unbeknownst to all, Vittorio, the farrier’s apprentice who had tipped off his cousins to the Grossbarts’ worth, waited far out of town for his share of the profit. The innkeeper reappeared with a snarling mastiff on a rope, and shouted at Manfried.
“Get to Hell, you crazy sonuvabitch!” The innkeeper advanced. “You’re not out quick, I put the dog on you!”
“That’s just fine,” said Manfried, backing out into the street. “I see how it is.”
“How it is, you stupid turnip-eater, is you crazy! No one here hurt no priest, now go back to screwing that ugly brother of yours!”
Slamming the door, Manfried heard the innkeeper say something to the assembled and then the inn exploded in laughter and cheers. Before returning to the barber he circled the perimeter of the town’s wall, his grimace gradually tilting upward. Satisfied, he made his way through the dusty street to the barber, and caught sight of his brother returning from his task.
“Farrier’s full a what his beasts leave,” Hegel announced. “Got some coinage out’em for them popes’ ponies. Still wouldn’t spill, though, actin like he didn’t understand me.”
“Surprised?”
“Course not. Anyone spend that much time around beasts’ bound to be shifty. Saw in his eye he recognized them horses.”
“That squint-faced lad round? We could beat somethin out a him.”
“Prentice? Nah, I didn’t see’em.”
“More’s the pity. No matter, cause I got all the answers we need from the inn.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
“They’s all culpable,” pronounced Manfried.
“Admitted?”
“Same as. Laughed at us, threatened us, and accused us a havin relations.”
“Well, we’s-”
“Sexual relations.”
“Oh. Oh! Come on then.” Hegel made for the inn.
“Hold your wrath a touch.” Manfried diverted him toward the barber. “Judgment implies forethought in order to judge, and they’s definitely gettin some judgment on’ em tonight. Startin with that mecky barber.”
“Reckon he’s in on it?”
“Can’t be sure. And when you can’t, errin on the side a caution ain’t errin at all.”
“Reckon them berries he sold us is deadly poison like he claimed?”
“He’s a liar he’ll burn in the kilns below, and if he ain’t his reward’ll come sooner than he’s expectin,” said Manfried.
Martyn slept on the floor beside the fire, his arms slung against his chest instilling him with a pious air his snoring might have otherwise deprived him of. Cipriano, the tall, dark-haired and doe-eyed barber, sat back to his cold meal, his equally gaunt boy Paolo wiping the blood from the floor. The priest would live, praise God, but Cipriano’s fingers were sore and shaky and Paolo was quite upset. The young man became infinitely more so when the door banged open and the Grossbarts advanced on the two of them.
“Good news for the father,” Cipriano said, setting down his knife. Manfried punched him in the chest, knocking him off his stool while Hegel snatched Paolo by the neck and hoisted the lad onto the table. Crouching over the terrified surgeon, Manfried held up his dagger so the firelight glanced off it into Cipriano’s eyes.
“You got more a them berries you sold us?” Manfried demanded.
“What this about?” Cipriano managed.
“You got’em or not?”
“Paolo,” the barber said, followed by a string of foreign-talk. Then in proper-speak, “Let him fetch them.”
Hegel released the frightened boy, who rooted about in a corner full of boxes and bags. From the bottom of a chest he withdrew a clay jar with a wooden stopper. Paolo brought it to his prone father but trembled so badly it slipped and shattered on the floor, dark purple berries rolling everywhere. Hegel cuffed him and gathered a handful, then guided Paolo back to a chair. He stood behind the boy, awaiting his brother’s word.
“You have them, now leave us be!” pleaded Cipriano.
“Thing is,” said Manfried, “this burg done sold us out. Set us up. Handed us over to bandits.”
“Ain’t Christian,” Hegel added.
“Wasn’t me!” Cipriano gasped.
“Neither here nor there,” said Manfried. “See, you also sold us this so-called poison, chance lookin for a little a your own profit fore them popes got the rest?”
“What? So-called? Popes? The belladonna didn’t work?”
“Dunno, ain’t tried it yet. Hegel!”
“Ready, brother.”
“What do you mean to do?” Cipriano almost sat up but remembered the blade hovering over his face.
“A little test,” said Manfried. “We feed your boy there some berries, and if he croaks we’s square, and if he don’t you’s munchin iron.”
“What?! Please, no, I beg, I beg!” Cipriano degenerated into his native tongue, forgetting the blade and clinging to Manfried’s knife arm. His confused son also began crying at whatever he said, prompting Hegel to cuff the boy again.
“Shit damn,” Hegel spit into Paolo’s hair. “I don’t think he’s bluffin.”
“Me neither,” Manfried sighed. “And neither him nor the kid come at us with a blade like old Heinrich’s murder-minded wifey all them days back, so mercy it is. Quit womanin and get up, barber.”
“Thank you,” the man blubbered. “My boy, my life, oh thank you.”
“Hell, we ain’t bad men,” Hegel said, dumping out a sack of the doctor’s herbs and filling it with the spilled berries.
“Now where’s that ring we exchanged you for them marks we spent?” Manfried asked, dagger still in hand.
The doctor stumbled over beside the fire, lifted a loose stone, and withdrew the jewelry. Meanwhile Manfried retrieved the barber’s small pouch of coins from a nearby shelf, from which Cipriano had paid them for the ring in the first place. Manfried tucked it into his own bag. Then the Grossbarts tied father and son together on the floor, the younger shuddering and gaping, the elder issuing gratitude on top of gratitude.
“Startin now,” Hegel announced, “you’s straight with the Grossbarts. How much we owe you for the priest?”
“Eh?” Cipriano blinked up at them and named a small figure.
“Done. And them berries?”
He named another, slightly higher, figure.
“Done twice. Pay’em, Manfried.”
Manfried withdrew the same purse he had pocketed, counted out the coins on the table, and held up one extra. “This is for bein honest with us. And this,” he jingled the pouch before dumping the rest of its contents on the table, “is for bein honest with those what come after lookin to run down the Grossbart name. We ain’t thieves and we ain’t killers, we’s just good men been done wrong.”
“You gave us a price yesterday for this.” Hegel held the ring up to the light. “Was it fair, or was it a little light?”
