XXVIII. The Rapturous Hunt
The winter ended as Heinrich’s new family journeyed, the heat increasing even in the dank belly of the southern forests of Wallachia. Over hills and rocky mounts, through sunny glens and shadowy gulches they crept, never doubting their purpose. Vittorio talked incessantly while Paolo had not spoken since he recognized the grotesque buboes bulging under Heinrich’s arms when the man removed his robes to pop blisters and peel skin, depositing them in a river upstream of a mill. Paolo had certainly become mad as a mooncalf but his education stayed with him. Only when Vittorio scratched at his groin and armpits did the barber’s son inspect his own, and at seeing the purple swellings he rejoiced to know he would soon die. He did not, nor did Vittorio, nor did Heinrich.
When they skirted the massive city of Al-Gassur ’s birth Heinrich danced lewdly by moonlight, reciting litanies inspired by the whispers he heard not in his ear but in his heart. Drawing symbols in the dirt with a woodsman’s severed finger, Heinrich repeated the words that freed similar beings from their torment, granting Paolo and Vittorio the same privilege he enjoyed.
Crossing the channel proved nigh impossible with the three demoniacs’ aversion to running water but they managed to steal a boat and float across without dampening themselves. They were almost apprehended by mounted Turks several times in the barren regions they crossed, but they hid in caves when the numbers were too great and descended on smaller groups, again devouring all but one or two, leaving those to stagger home, infecting their loved ones and ranting the cursed name Grossbart that all three of the possessed chanted hatefully.
Into the wastes, those born men now appeared barely more human than the twins, both of whom had grown to the height of horses from constant feeding. Their buboes big as the honey-melons so loved in those regions, their pace weakened but their intent did not, Vittorio and Paolo eagerly following their brothers into combat with men who shrieked and fled at their approach. Their guts sagged with black and yellow biles, the humours churning but refusing to burst from their copious sores and wounds so that they were able to drain them only into the pleading mouths of their victims. Any oases they traversed rotted to desert at their presence, and for months they ate only men; all other creatures smelled their evil from great distances and could not be caught even by the twins.
The things inside them communed while their hosts slept, delighting in the willingness of their servants and bartering with their still-imprisoned kin for information regarding the Grossbarts. Those without form could do naught but enviously watch, but the two released into the Italians had dutifully scoured with sight not constrained by space before being granted their salvation. They were very close indeed; fortunate, for the oppressive heat that cooked them even as the seasons changed threatened to slay their mounts before they captured their game, and in such desolate regions they might not find replacements before being thrust back into the place they had so vigorously fled.
XXIX. Like the End, the Beginning of Winter Is Difficult to Gauge in the South
Outnumbered five to one, and with Cardinal Martyn and Al-Gassur swooning from the soporific-laden wine, the Grossbarts may well have met their end there on the bank of the Nile had chance not favored them. The impressed men working the oars of that particular galley were prisoners and not birth-slaves, and just as their Mamluk masters had once spurned their bondage and usurped their keepers, so too did these slaves revolt upon witnessing the Grossbarts’ resistance. Chained in place though they were, these wretches thrust their oars and feet before the charging legs of their masters, slowing the Mamluks attempting to join the fight and winning the day-a boon that none of the victorious Europeans would ever acknowledge.
When the last Mamluk contributed his lifeblood to the ruddy fluids of the Nile, the Grossbarts took stock of how the battle had gone. They now had a boat and slaves, and despite the odds only Moritz-the last remaining Hospitaller-had expired from his wounds, a long handle jutting ominously out from between the felled man’s helm and breastplate. Raphael had seen enough carnage in his days with the White Company to know that he too would doubtless join the slain knight before the sun set, for in addition to the pommel that had smashed most of his teeth, his left wrist had caught a blade that nearly severed his hand. Spitting gore and tooth-gravel, he desperately attempted to stanch the wound even as his legs gave out.
While Martyn and Al-Gassur were rolling in the sand and vomiting from their poisoned beverage, the battle seemed to have restored the melancholic Rodrigo to a more chipper mood. He actually laughed periodically as he made the rounds, shoving his sword repeatedly into the prone figures of their attackers. Manfried noticed Raphael’s mortal condition at the same time the still-chained-in-place and now-screaming slaves drew Hegel’s attention to the fact that the last Mamluk had destroyed the rear of the rapidly filling galley. Knowing they could not possibly remove all of the boat’s supplies before it sank, Hegel begrudgingly used a key he had found on the body of the lead Mamluk to free the slaves and enlist their assistance. Not only were the supplies rescued but the slaves were able to haul the prow farther onto the bank, meaning the vessel could be repaired.
“Well, Saint?” said Manfried.
“Well shit,” said Hegel. “We’s in Gyptland proper, so let’s get this done and find grandad’s loot.”
Manfried took one look at the wrecked boat and began smashing wood free for a decent fire, and Hegel set to helping tie off Raphael’s filthy wound. To the horror of all but the Grossbarts, who laid out the first slave who moved to stop them, a bonfire soon raged where the boat had rested. At one point Raphael pitched forward unconscious and by the time the freed prisoners dragged him back the flaming Providence had taken his left hand but seared the wound shut. The result was that the loyal thug lived, although weeks would pass before any could distinguish individual words out of the one-handed man’s shatter-mouthed gabble.
The grandly inflated horde of Grossbarts and Grossbart followers progressed up the Nile with a simpleminded tenacity. The wound of the captain’s passing still festering in his heart, Rodrigo took masochistic succor from their situation, as did Al-Gassur, who despite it all maintained his ruse of being fluent in Arabic by babbling at the freed slaves-a rude assortment of betrayed generals and too-bold beggars who stayed with their liberators more for the food than for the company. Cardinal Martyn believed he had converted a few of the Moslems, and those he had not spared him a beating out of respect for the Grossbarts.
The grains and dried fruit went quickly with so many mouths but the Grossbarts paid no heed to Martyn’s entreaties to ration the remainder-each brother carried a full satchel reserved exclusively for himself and suggested the cardinal do the same. Had they stayed on the river they might have made progress toward reaching at least a small settlement but the Grossbarts insisted that with the swamp bordering the river given over to sandy wastes, forays in pursuit of the tomb-cities were now mandatory. Every few days the water ran low and back they trudged to the Nile to refill their skins, even Hegel and Manfried finally growing weary of the venture. Despair threatening to cripple the spirits of all, Martyn made another entreaty for the Grossbarts to confess their sins.
The party sat in yet another cemetery-free valley amidst the countless dunes, this one thick with enough dead trees to stoke two fires. The thirty-odd freed prisoners sat some distance off at their own blaze, debating amongst themselves the practicality of turning on the Grossbarts as opposed to simply quitting their company that very night. Had one among them understood the words spoken at the other fire-or the reverse-then blows would surely have been the result, but as it stood the majority of the Moslems had at the very least lost their curiosity as to what the bearded Christians intended by hiking into the desert and then back to the Nile several times a week as the food supplies dwindled.
“Told you twice now and I ain’t sayin again,” Manfried grumbled through his last mouthful of dates. “We’s got nuthin to own up.”
“Everyone must confess, Manfried.” Martyn bowed his head. “I will not judge, only He is allowed that.”
“
“So why don’t you do it then?” said Manfried.
“She’s already seen my sins and absolved me.” Hegel looked to the spectral ceiling of the heavens. “Every rotten trespass I committed washed clean.”
“But you admit you have sinned!” Martyn said, excited they were making progress. “So why not confess them to me, absolved though you may be, so your brother can understand that which he does not realize are sins still must be confessed!”
“Well shit.” Hegel rubbed his hands and bit his lip. “There was that witch.”
“Which?” asked Martyn.
“Witch?” asked Manfried.
“That one up in them hills. Alps.” Hegel looked his brother in the eyes. “Guess I oughta come clean with you seein as She knows it anyway. I done that witch.”
“The witch what lived in the valley with the mantiloup? What you did to’er?” Manfried asked.
“No, confess to me,” Martyn insisted.
“Shut it,” said Hegel. “Yeah, that’s the witch. I, uh, done her. Physically.”
“Kilt’er? When you did that?”
“No, meckbrain, carnal-like. She, uh, sexed me.”
“What!?” Manfried burst out laughing. “Ain’t proper to fool with me, Hegel.
“Some a us what possess a proper palate recognize mutton’s superior to lamb.” Hegel crossed his arms.
“Women ain’t the same as meat!” said Manfried.
“Tell that to the lady-fish we et on the boat. But the point with the witch is I should a known better but I didn’t, so I lost my purity. But She gave it back to me. Mary I mean, the Virgin, which is what the witch’s spell made her seem like.” Hegel spread his hands. “See? No shame for those in Her Graces. Confess to me and you’s absolved same as I.”
Martyn wanted to interrupt but could not retrieve his lower jaw from the sand. Manfried continued to laugh until Hegel punched him. Then he tried to talk several times but kept chortling every time he opened his mouth.
“That old thing?” Manfried repeated. “Christ, brother!”
“Why you think I done it, huh?” Hegel said, furious. “Think I was aimin to knock my Grossballs gainst some witch’s stink-hole? If I hadn’t you would a died from that sick wound a yours, you selfish cunt! That was the price.”
“Should a let me die!” snorted Manfried, but observing the pain in Hegel’s face he sobered. “Thanks, brother, that’s better than I deserve. Had no inklin you had to suffer like that on my account. Damned pious behavior.”
“I’d feel a sight better bout it if you came clean yourself so I wouldn’t have to worry bout you burnin in the pit.” Hegel gave his brother the eye. “Thought’s sinful as deed, Manfried.”
“Is it? Yeah, I reckon it is.” Manfried squinted into the shadows behind them, as if the secret lay hidden in the dark beyond the firelight. “Guess I done some things I shouldn’t, thought some things worse than what I did besides.”
