“Yeah,” Hegel allowed, “that’s us.”
“Tough, ain’t you?” Manfried was impressed.
“Bass,” the man wheezed. “Bass. Bass.”
“What’s that?” Hegel scowled, smelling a slander on the wind.
“Turds,” came out as a gurgle, Manfried experimentally pressing on Bertram’s chest with his heel. “Bastards.”
“Now, that’s hardly fair.” Hegel squatted in the dust. “We both recollect our father’s face, even if our mother didn’t.”
“He’s past pain, brother,” said Manfried, sliding off Bertram’s boot and poking his toes with a knife. “Look, he ain’t even flinchin.”
“Kill,” Bertram gasped. “Kill. Ill!”
“Who, you or us?” Hegel grinned and turned to his brother. “Tore up to death and still talkin vengeance! Not a bad sort, not at all.”
“Mercy, then?” Manfried asked. “I was dealin with old Cunter, so’s I didn’t see. Say his horse took’em over?”
“Yeah, the one we seen on the slope above, all busted up.” Hegel looked Bertram in his unswollen eye. “That’s you served proper for puttin faith in a beast. Should a dismounted, might a stood a chance.”
Bertram tried to spit but only drooled blood.
“Seen’em before?” Manfried asked, still absently cutting into Bertram’s foot.
“Can’t say that I recall’em from our small times.” Hegel scratched his beard. “On account a his cowardice in bringin a horse to a man-fight, I’s a mind to leave’em for the birds.”
“He didn’t run, though,” Manfried countered, having taken a shine to the man’s perseverance. “Didn’t cut out on his fellows like that other fuckscum. Didn’t try to get all dishonest with a bow, neither, and lived all night in the cold.”
“Still, brother, a horse? He meant to ride me down. Just think, Manfried, me, kilt by a goddamn horse!”
“A test, then,” said Manfried. He set down his knife and joined his brother in squatting by Bertram’s head. “You want mercy, coward?”
“Hell,” Bertram belched. “Die. Gross.”
“See?” Manfried smiled triumphantly at his brother. “Only a coward asks for mercy, even if it’s offered.”
“Pigshit,” said Hegel. “Only a mecky coward would lie on his ass while someone tickled his toes with a blade.”
“Assholes,” Bertram managed.
“Clear as day, he’s too broke to move anythin else. Watch.” Manfried prodded Bertram’s lips with his finger, and despite his agony the man snapped his teeth, desperate for even a drop of Grossbart blood.
“Well, alright,” Hegel relented, and smashed in Bertram’s skull with a rock.
They had little to show for their toil except for boots to replace their worn, pointed turnshoes, and actual weapons. Hegel claimed Gunter’s sword and Hans’s pick, while Hegel took Bertram’s mace and Helmut’s ax, leaving the one used on Heinrich’s wife in the road as a warning to any who came after. The few salvageable bolts they shoved into makeshift quivers; cudgels, dull knives, and several choice round stones were tossed in with the rest of their gear.
The clothing had suffered worse than the men who wore it, and not a corpse present had either coinage or jewelry. Bertram they covered in scree but the rest were unanimously judged to be cowards and thus crowfeed. Daylight showed the impracticality of attempting to maneuver the cart down the opposite slope, the trail diminishing to the point that even getting the horse down would prove daunting. The Grossbarts had faith, though, and loaded up the animal Manfried named “Horse” and Hegel dubbed “Stupid.”
Hegel applied ax to cart, further burdening the workhorse-turned-pack mule with all the firewood he could cram into the folds of blanket lashed onto its back. Then they started off, Manfried leading Horse down the mountainside. Although the path showed no signs of usage, they remained convinced it would soon join a wider road leading all the way through the mountains. They were wrong, of course, but did not learn this for some time. By noon they reached a wooded valley, and after plodding though the shade they climbed another rise and came to an even steeper pass late in the afternoon.
In the failing light they decided to camp at the bottom of the slope. Providence offered them a clearing split by a small stream, and they gathered wood to conserve the cart pieces for leaner times. Hegel unwrapped the horse head he had severed that morning and set to carving and stewing it for headcheese. Manfried caught frogs in the brook, but mid-autumn in the low-lands was early winter in the mountains, and the few specimens he found were sluggish and small. The chill brought on by night forced them close to the fire, but the Grossbarts’ morale rose with the stars as they discussed the days and weeks to come. One of the dead horses had yielded a cask full of rank beer and they shared it happily, laughing and swearing late into the dark. The cold ensured that one always stood watch to stoke the fire, and shortly before dawn they loaded up Horse, came out of the trees, and went up the next incline.
This pass came even higher, and after struggling upward for the better part of the morning they were afforded an unbroken view of pristine peaks before them and the foothills behind. Their exuberance dampened several hours later when they came down into an alpine meadow where the trail faded into the grass and could not be found again. The mount they had descended met another across the field, jabbing skyward high as the sun. After much cursing and accusations, they decided to continue on a roughly southern course, for somewhere beyond lay a wide and worn road leading all the way to the sea-lands. Another argument ended with the conclusion that a slower road with the option of horse meat down the path was superior to the instant gratification a quicker, more direct approach might yield.
Hegel laughed triumphantly each time Stupid slid on the rocks, but Manfried cooed to Horse and encouraged him to double his efforts. Eventually they crested the obstacle and were rewarded with an even more precarious descent to the next meadow. Here they dropped down exhausted, and did not rise until shadows coated the vale. Hegel assaulted the only tree to be found with an ax while Manfried kindled a fire and wiped down Horse.
The headcheese had grown ripe in Hegel’s pack, and they feasted on horsesteaks and brains as they debated theology. The stars shone and the wind blew, the Brothers enrapt in their discussion of Mary and Her ponce of a son. Hegel could not fathom how such a wonderful maiden had borne such a pusillanimous boy.
“Seems simple,” Manfried theorized. “After all, Ma was shit as shit can be, yet we’s immaculate.”
“True words.” Hegel nodded. “But it’s natural for fine crops to spring from mecky earth, so we’s not so much a anomaly as a rare, decent woman birthin heel stead a hero.”
“He took his lumps, though. Didn’t squeal none.”
“So what? Not puttin up a fuss when you’s gettin stuck up on a cross don’t seem honest to me. He could a kicked one a them, at the very goddamn least.”
“I’s not quarrelin that point.”
“Only cause you can’t, you contrary cunt. Suppose you could go on about it bein braver to let’em torture you to death but we both know that don’t wash.”
“Is damn strange, though. Seems someone must a closed their ears at some point in the tale and got it all crooked when it came out again. She’s the bride a the Lord, yet She’s a virgin. A virgin what gets with foal. Then She gives birth to Her husband.”
Hegel chortled. “Guess he got in there after all!”
“Watch your blasphemous tongue,” snapped Manfried, tugging his beard. “Had you the sense to listen you’d hear how I got it all figured.”
“Oh you do, huh?”
“Damn right. See, one thinks She can’t be a virgin, cause virgins can’t have babes or they ain’t virgin. The Lord’s pole is pole nonetheless, Hell, if anythin, it’s the biggest pole to ever poke fold.”
Hegel unbunged the cask, reckoning they needed some sacramental beverage if they were to truly unravel the mystery.
“But She’s definitely a virgin, I mean, just look at Her.” Manfried held up the Virgin he had recently carved. All day he had waited for an excuse to show up his brother’s necklace.
“No question,” Hegel agreed, trading the beer for a better look at his brother’s handiwork.
“So here’s what I think. The Lord comes pokin his thing round Mary, bein all sweet and tryin to get him some a Her sweetness. And She straight denies him the privilege.”
“Why’d She do that?”
“To stay pure. Lord or man, She knew to stay holier than the rest She’d have to be virgin for all time, else She’d be just another mecky sinner.”
Hegel stared at the statue, contemplating this.
“So the Lord’s mad, real mad, as the Lord’s wont to do. So he sticks it to Her anyway.” Manfried belched.
“No!”
“Yes!”
“But couldn’t he, I dunno, make Her want to?”
“He tried! Everythin’s got limits, brother, and even the Lord can’t make a girl
“Poor Mary.”
“Don’t pity Her, cause She got Her revenge. Made sure the Lord’s son was the snivelingist, cuntiest, most craven coward in a thousand years.”
Enlightenment misted Hegel’s eyes. “She done that for
“Worst fate imaginable, havin a son like that. And that’s why She’s holy, brother. Out a all the folk the Lord tested and punished, She’s the only one who got him back, and worse than he got Her. That’s why She intercedes on our behalf, cause She loves thems what stand up to the Lord more than those kneelin to’em.”
“I understand
“Well Hell, everyone knows rape ain’t the same.”
“It ain’t?”
“Nah, you gotta want it. It’s fuckin spiritual.”
Hegel ruminated only a moment before his mind convinced his mouth that his brother was indeed in the wrong: “Nah.”
“Nah?”
“Nah.”
“Explain your fuckin
“Rape,” Hegel cleared his throat, “is the forcible takin a one’s purity through brute effort. Or in simpler speak for simpler ears,
“Seein’s how I happen to be dealin with a hollowhead, I’s prepared to overlook your disparagin view a my ears. As for rape bein constrained to those what still got their chaste goin on, let lone possible only on such, may I ask by whose oafish, misshapen mouth you gained this wisdom?”
