The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart (21 page)

They set off at daybreak. Accusations went back and forth at the wisdom in setting fire to the corpses before thoroughly checking
all the rooms for hidden treasure. Monks might not have much in the way of coin, but surely a substantial amount might be
found in the abbot’s quarters. The initial hope that the stone building would keep everything but the chapel safe had proved
false, for the blaze had gutted all the interior rooms save the monks’ cells and the kitchen.

They did not trust the meat but besides grain they brought a bushel of turnips and a sack of mildly moldering rye bread. Hegel
sniffed out three wheels of cheese, so the breakfast they ate on the bench surpassed any in memory. The road proved treacherous,
the previous day’s heat combined with a windy night having resulted in more ice than snow. They wound up the mountain-side
all morning, and when they reached the pass they both spit back the way they had come. Manfried refused to discuss his dream,
instead turning the talk to their good fortune. Hegel had to agree, things could not be better and they would doubtless find
themselves lords of Gyptland in the very near future.

The sky went gray in the afternoon and snow fell, summoning more curses and a slower road. Despite the deepening twilight
Manfried insisted on continuing rather than stopping on the narrow track. When they almost went over the edge of a cliff bordering
the road Hegel snatched the reins and they agreed breaking for the night would be a sharp plan. From Hegel’s perspective,
the only thing dumber than a horse was four horses.

Several miserable days and worse nights later, they plodded along an identically icy stretch of thin road when, shortly before
dusk, Hegel began feeling his preternatural worry building up inside like a bad case of gas. He grew increasingly anxious,
finally stringing his crossbow and insisting he walk ahead of the wagon to guarantee their safety. Rounding a wide bend with
a sheer drop-off on the right and a steep rise pimpled with snowy boulders on the left, Hegel noticed a sharp bump in the
road. Pushing ahead, he found it to be loose rocks piled across the trail, lightly dusted with snow. It would take only a
few minutes to scatter them enough for the wagon to pass but their presence bothered him immensely. Manfried had brought the
vehicle up behind him when Hegel jumped and yelled to his brother.

“Stay clear!”

“Eh?”

“Don’t move!” But instead of Hegel, a massive boulder fifty paces up the slope shouted this. Squinting, they made out a dark
shape behind it.

“Wasn’t plannin on it!” Hegel responded, slowly pulling his crossbow off his back.

“What if we do?!” Manfried shouted angrily at the unseen man, urging the horses on another few steps.

The boulder rocked violently, snow dropping from its summit. “Hell to pay, rest assured! I just want to speak for a moment!”

“Then come down here, so we can do that stead a yellin!” Hegel called. In a lower voice, and in Grossbartese to boot, he addressed
his brother. “No highwayman’s pinchin our loot.”

“Yeah, but if they was thick in numbers they wouldn’t risk smashin the wagon,” Manfried replied, his own crossbow loaded on
the bench.

The man yelled something in yet another language they did not understand.

“Speak proper, you sneak-thievin fucker!” Manfried barked.

“You don’t recognize your name?” the man shouted, and the boulder rocked again.

“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
please
. The wind chilled their armpits, but the Grossbarts realized his aim when he peered close, almost singeing his stained habit
in the process. Satisfied, he took another pull from the bottle and settled back while they quickly put their shirts back
on.

“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
claim
nuthin. I’s honest, so’s I don’t claim, I speak the truth a Mary, simple, unadulterated,” Hegel huffed. “I’ll tell the tale
and praise Her Name, and you’d best listen.”

“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.

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 naïve 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 proselytize
my way into the Holy Roman Empire and to establish myself at a certain abbey.