The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart (48 page)

Now when they passed villages one of the novices would be forced to attempt a clandestine entry to deposit hunks of Heinrich’s
rotting flesh in the wells. Where this proved impossible Heinrich would grow irrational, and order his boys to kidnap individuals
from outlying farms so he could embrace and kiss them wantonly until they retched. Then they would be released, under a warning
that if they spoke of what they had witnessed the demons would appear before them but to remember all was the fault of the
Grossbarts. Few ever spoke again, the plague taking their lives before they sufficiently recovered from their horrors to think
properly, let alone communicate beyond moans. In this fashion the Great Mortality enjoyed a brief renaissance in those regions,
Heinrich’s retinue leaving plague and ruin in their footsteps as they marched to war against the Grossbarts.

Hegel awoke with a start, the fever finally broken upon his fire-bald pate. Looking around the dark room, he felt for his
pick on the bed beside him and grew anxious at its absence. His armor lay draped over a nearby chair but when he attempted
to stand his legs shuddered and he fell to the floor. Lying still for several moments, he listened to the drone of voices
outside the door. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember what had happened before his illness but all he remembered was the
vicious drubbing they had administered to the Arab at finding Barousse dead under his watch.

The door flew open and Hegel’s eyes glazed at the brightness flowing in, the unmistakable silhouette of Manfried framed in
sunlight. Then the door closed and Manfried helped him onto the bed, placing a bottle in his hands. Hegel drank and coughed,
his brother grinning at him until he returned the wine.

“What happened?” asked Hegel.

“Her Will fuckin served.” Manfried had a sip. “Not up on the specifics, as I’s just risen myself. Seems maybe we shouldn’t
a et that witch after all, tried to poison us even in death.”

“Told you’s much. Probably why my recollections ain’t comin.”

“Told me’s much? You certainly
ain’t
recollectin proper.”

“What you got? I got that Arab beggin when we put Her Will into him and little more.”

“A day or two after that him and that mutinous Lucian was on the beams and I fired a bolt at’em.”

“Sport or necessity?”

“Suppose it must a been one a the two. Pinned Lucy to the mast with it, clean through the brainpan. Even Rigo laughed at that
one, bastard’s body flappin and danglin til the bolt snapped and he fell.”

“Anythin else?”

“The Arab wouldn’t come down so I was gonna fell his roost. Didn’t get round to it, apparently.”

“Got airs on, thinkin we’s gonna stand for him wearin the captain’s flag like a cassock.” Later things were coming to Hegel
now, things involving the Arab. “Didn’t he make at you with a knife?”

“Don’t think so.” Manfried knit his brows. “If he did, must a put’em proper, as I got no such wound.”

“But after you kilt that Lucian?”

“Hazy at best. We’s sailin, and they’s fishin but ain’t catch a tadpole. Ended up cuttin the Judas knight off the mast cause
his rot was workin on the sail. Then we pitched’em overboard, along with the rest a them dogwhores.”

“Captain Bar Goose included?” asked Hegel.

“You takin me for a heathen? Barousse we left below.”

“And the witch?”

“Someone put her over when we was asleep. Martyn won’t own up, but we’ll beat it out a him when you’s feelin revived.”

“So we in the sandlands yet?” Hegel asked after a period of silent reflection.

“Nah, but gettin closer.”

Hegel blinked and rubbed the down mattress with his surprisingly clean palm. Looking back to Manfried, he scowled and said,
“So when was you thinkin bout stoppin with the tooth display and tellin me just what in Her Name is happinin? What it is,
cause I know you didn’t stitch me this softness out a old turnip sacks.”

“Come and look, brother.” Manfried finished the wine and helped Hegel rise. “Come and take a gander at Her Benevolence.”

Arm in arm they went to the door and Manfried led him outside. Light blinded Hegel but his brother moved him forward, the
sounds of the ocean nearly suffocated by the clamor of men and the nickering of horses. Even the presence of equines could
not diminish Hegel’s awe when his eyes finally took in their surroundings.

They stood on the deck of a massive ship, fully three times as large as their original vessel. The dozens of men did not rob
him of breath, nor did the cheer that went up from them at his appearance. What shocked even a living saint was the fleet
of ships cutting the sea around them, a prodigious, floating forest of masts, many of them flying huge white sails emblazoned
with blood-red crosses.

“We was delivered to an island.” Manfried’s swept his arm in front of them. “An island full a honest men just itchin to head
south and get a piece a what the Infidel’s holdin.”

“Mary bless us!”

“Yes She has! Martyn!” Manfried shouted, and the cardinal appeared across the deck. “Come and hear it from his mouth, brother!
That fool’s made amends in full to Her Eminence.”

“Brother Hegel!” Martyn panted, scurrying up the stairs to the raised deck. “The Virgin’s caress has balmed you once more
from the grave, delivered into such hands as are scarce fit to stroke you!”

“You didn’t leave him alone with me whiles I was under, did you?” Hegel muttered to his brother.

The first thing that set Hegel on edge was Martyn’s reluctance to drink with them. Under threat of harm he relented and sipped
at his wine, his thirsty eyes drinking more of it than his lips. As he talked he forgot himself and drank more of the wine,
but before they could open a second bottle his story had concluded.

Martyn’s rendition shared a number of similarities with the actual event, but this could be attributed to coincidence. Their
ship had indeed floated unmanned for several days while they all raved and weakened from dehydration, and they had floated
into the current surrounding Rhodes. Here their ship was sighted and brought in, and within two days of arriving they had
set out again, this time in the company of hundreds of men intent as they on reaching the domain of the Infidel. Martyn’s
implication that they had left entirely under his command as Mary’s chosen representative on Earth is where the tale began
to stray from the truth.

After years of unsuccessfully petitioning king and pope, duke and emperor, King Peter of Cyprus had completed by his own hand
preparations for a crusade. Admittedly, the Hospitallers of Rhodes had not intended to invest themselves fully before the
arrival of Cardinal Martyn and his followers. The news that Pope Urban V had died, and the subsequent mutilation of his corpse
at the hands of heretics, caused more distress among the holy men than can be adequately conveyed in simple words. The similarity
between this atrocity and that which had befallen Formosus so long past did not escape their notice.

That Cardinal Martyn seemed out of sorts was to be expected, they reasoned, and his overindulgence in beer was attributed
to the lack of any other drink upon their wrecked vessel. Ten of the Hospitallers’ most zealous Imperial brothers were granted
permission to serve as Cardinal Martyn’s guard despite the balking of the grand bailiff. The earnest knights persuaded the
grand master that because the cardinal was of the rare number from their homeland they had as large an obligation to his safety
as to Rhodes’ defense. All assumed bed rest and water would restore the cardinal to a more reserved demeanor.

The shifting of targets from Palestine to Alexandria actually had been influenced by the Grossbarts. Among the proposed plans
drawn up on Rhodes, landing in Egypt to take the Infidel unawares Peter had previously thought to be the most foolish of all,
despite the economic advantages that the destruction of Cyprus’s chief competitor would yield. After hearing Cardinal Martyn’s
tales of the Brothers’ near-saintly closeness to the Virgin, the confused heir to the throne of Jerusalem went to the hospital
beds of the Grossbarts. The grand marshal of the Hospitallers could not speak German either but as he hefted the military
weight of the order he accompanied Peter, praying the Cypriot ruler would defer to the wisdom of a direct assault on his rightful
kingdom.

Bidding his host to wait outside the arched door, King Peter entered the private room intended to quarantine those damned
with the pest. The sight of those pilgrims basted with fever, rolling on their cots and groaning Her Name, broke his proud
heart. Shame scalded the righteous king’s cheeks, the misery of these two men moving him in ways unfamiliar. Even when demons
rose to thwart them they had persevered, and now the cost of their devotion was made physical upon their flesh. Kneeling between
their beds, he closed his eyes and prayed.

“If only you would give me a sign as sure as that which moved these Imperials to find me,” Peter whispered.

“Gyptland!” the silver-bearded man moaned.

“Gyptland!” the copper-bearded man repeated.

Leaping up, Peter stared intently at the men, the word precise despite the language. When he later discovered they only spoke
German his belief in a higher answer seemed affirmed. If Venezia and other papal kingdoms had come around and were sending
men as Martyn implied, the force leaving Rhodes could secure the port city on the bank of the Nile, assuring a safe landing
for the others before pressing inward. The murder of the Pope might bespeak an infiltration of the Arab subtler than that
of the Turk, and an army could be lurking in ambush for them at Palestine. A man rarely has his prayer answered so quickly
and assuredly, even a king. Alexandria, then.

“And you talked’em into sailin right away?” Hegel asked the cardinal.

“We arrived on the very day they were to leave harbor, but they delayed long enough to hear and heed my council.” Martyn smiled
and reached for his glass.

“
Our
council through
your
lips,” Manfried corrected. “Credit yourself by creditin us.”

“Ah.” Martyn nodded. “My tongue tripped over my pride.”

“And the Arab?” Hegel asked.

“No doubt dozing in the desert.” Martyn smirked. “Unsuspecting their days of idolatrous sloth are waning.”

“No, you twit, the Arab what was on our boat. The mecky little cunt with the mustache,” Hegel clarified.

“With the horses.” Martyn tapped his foot. “Below, where he belongs.”

“Keep him outta trouble.” Manfried nodded. “And the captain?”

“Who?” Martyn blinked. “Barousse?”

“Who else?” Hegel opened the other bottle of wine.

“He’s, well, he’s dead.” Martyn glanced nervously from brother to brother.

“We know that,” said Manfried. “What they did with his flesh and bones?”

“Buried him in the churchyard of the Knights of the Hospital of Saint John,” Martyn answered. “He received final absolution
and reward for his devotion to the cause.”

“Knights a what?” Hegel asked, remembering Sir Jean’s treachery.

“The Hospitallers.” Martyn’s pupils crested the tops of his eyes. “They who saved us, and now journey with us on their ships?”

Manfried scowled at this but Hegel seemed satisfied. “If they’s takin us to Gyptland I reckon they’s likely not heretics,
brother.”

Martyn spluttered on his second glass of wine and set it on the table. “I would not talk so of these men, Grossbarts. The
wild hair of youth must be tamed, and you must master that tongue of yours, especially in the company of cardinals and monastic
knights, to say naught of the king.”

Manfried hooked his foot under Martyn’s chair and pulled, sending the man toppling to the floor. “I’d mind that tongue a yours,
lest it get slit like a serpent’s!”

“See now.” Hegel leaned in. “You sayin there’s a king round here? He a relation to old Charles back home?”

Martyn picked himself up from the floor, eyes narrowed at Manfried. “You bed in the cabin reserved for he, who, in his benevolence,
granted it for your convalescence. As you both seem recovered, I’ll send for him, as he has anxiously awaited your council.”

“Send up Rigo and that other, we got words for them, too.” Hegel reclined in his chair, enjoying his drink.

Rodrigo had been taken onto the ship by force after insisting they not inter his beloved captain in the Hospitallers’ cemetery
and that he instead travel with them. Only Martyn’s insistence on the young Italian’s faith spared him the noose when he kicked
and fought rather than leave the side of the festering remains.

Despite his wish to put his brigand days behind him Raphael had little choice but to follow after hearing every last gold
bar on board their boat had gone with the cardinal. Being better sorted after a day’s rest and drink than any other save Martyn,
the mercenary conned his way into a suit of armor and new weaponry before joining the grief-addled Rodrigo in the new ship’s
berth.

Raphael and Rodrigo dutifully came to the cabin and drank with the Grossbarts. Raphael had also noticed a distinct shift in
Martyn’s character, suspiciously observing the man rarely drank more than a sip or two of wine, and never stonger stuff. Any
hopes the mercenary held of thanks from Grossbart lips now that they were in good health dwindled as they badgered the two
about slacking at the sails and letting Martyn call the shots. Furthermore, there was the question of where exactly all their
gold had gotten to.