"The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bullington Jesse)

IX. Odd Men at Odds

Only snow and dilapidated houses greeted the Grossbarts and the wagon-men. Several roofs had caved in from the weight of the snowdrifts and the horses struggled to move the wagon at all. They plodded through the cavernous street until they came to a large building, dark and uninviting as the rest, and here they brought the wagon around the side to a barn. Mustache and the other guard wrestled the door open and the Grossbarts jumped off rather than ride into the black interior.

The two guards waited outside the barn rubbing their hands but the Grossbarts recognized an alehouse when they saw one, no matter how vacant it appeared. They found the door latched and suspected knocking would do little good, but Hegel’s dented sword fit through the gap and, putting their backs into it, they dislodged the plank holding the door shut. It swung open and they tumbled in with a mound of accumulated snow.

The grave-wise eyes of the Brothers Grossbart spotted several tables and benches in the darkness of the room, and as their eyes adjusted further they noticed a large fireplace against the back wall. They picked their way through the gloom and upon seeing a shelf of bottles against the back wall they set to business. Each seized a bottle and sampled, Hegel with favorable results, Manfried spitting out a mouthful of greasy oil. They each stowed a bottle of oil and as many bottles of apple schnapps as their bulging packs would allow before turning back to the empty tavern.

“Where’s everyone?” Manfried gave voice to his brother’s thoughts.

Hegel took another stiff pull of schnapps, trying to drown his paranoia. It only grew worse. They moved along the rear wall until they found an unlocked door and pushed it open. Finding what lay beyond too dark for immediate exploration Manfried went to start a fire and Hegel nosed around the rest of the room.

A ladder extended down beside the fireplace, and Hegel climbed it with his dagger in one hand. It led to a large loft whose ceiling bowed under the weight of snow, particularly under the tarp covering the smoke-hole. Slicing it open and watching the avalanche of snow vomit down, even the amusement of Manfried suddenly floundering under the deluge of frozen powder did not lessen his worry.

Hegel climbed down and rooted about for a rushlight, and once he got it sputtering on the fresh fire he slowly ascended again. Sadly, the loft yielded naught but moldy blankets, rotting straw, and a stinking pisspot. The stench hinted at something more than urine, sweat, and decay, but he could not place it.

Manfried kept busy, first making a snowball with a stone at its core to lob at his unsuspecting brother, and after he heard a most satisfying yelp as the missile reached its mark he scooped up snow with their cooking pot, dumped in the rest of their meat, and hung it from a rung over the fire. He dragged two benches over and got comfortable, scowling at the draft when the other three men entered. His brother definitely had put the shivers on him, but Manfried refused to give in to speculation. After all, free drink and shelter should never be examined too closely.

The driver and his assistants crowded around the hearth, lakes emerging from their boots on the worn floor. Hegel came down from the loft and sat beside his brother. None spoke, all staring into the fire while sensation returned to their extremities.

“Something is very wrong,” said the driver, standing and pulling a thin dagger from under his cloak.

“You think so, huh?” Manfried leaned back, his boots heating up nicely.

“You don’t?” The driver looked around, and retrieved an unlit rushlight from the shelf.

“He’s right,” Hegel said, although the warmth had chased off some of his jitteriness.

“So when yous was through a ways back there was people here, eh?” Manfried would not be unsettled. He had battled demons and witches, after all.

“Plenty of them,” the driver said, eyes flitting about. “Big town for so deep in the mountains. Many children playing in the snow.”

Mustache said something in the southern tongue, and both the driver and the other man nodded. The driver responded in the same language, and glanced back at the door. This skulduggery did not sit well with the Brothers, particularly the suspicious Hegel.

“Speak proper, now!” Hegel shouted, jumping from his stool. “None a that beast-speech, hear? We all speak the same, and if someone don’t catch it, well, that’s his business.”

“Seeing this,” Mustache replied, getting up from his bench, “the people may have go to the… the…”

“Monastery,” helped the driver. “To what purpose all would go, however, is unclear. The houses look several days vacant at least.”

“Yeah,” Manfried agreed. “Seen some all boarded up, same as this.”

“And there’s no one else here?” the driver asked. “Not in the back or front?”

“Well,” Hegel said. “If this is the front, no one’s here, but we didn’t check out the back. No light.”

Clicking his teeth, the driver lit his fat-coated reed. “Come along, then.”

“You wanna look, go ahead.” Manfried tested his stew. “If you catch any more meat or turnips, bring’em on back.”

“I’ll go.” Hegel withdrew his pick, eager to bury its point in the source of his anxiety.

The two other men made no move, finding the puddles at their feet most interesting. The driver spit a string of harsh words of the foreign variety, but this time Hegel smiled at their usage. Admonishments of cowardice he recognized regardless of the language.

“I am Ennio,” the driver told Hegel.

Manfried laughed. “He’s a what?”

“That a name where you come from?” asked Hegel.

“Yes,” Ennio said sharply.

“Well damn,” said Hegel.

“And by what do I address you?” Ennio asked.

“I’s Hegel, my brother there’s Manfried, and we’s both Grossbarts.”

“Seeing this truly.” Mustache smiled.

“What’s that supposed to mean, dirt-stache?” Manfried glared at the man, who stared back blankly.

“That is Alphonse,” Ennio said, “and his cousin is Giacomo.”

The cousins stared at the Brothers, the ice thicker than ever.

“Al Ponce?” Manfried grinned at Hegel. “He struck me as a ponce from the moment I laid eyes on him. Ask Hegel, told’em myself.”

“Honesty,” Hegel said, but his mind lay elsewhere.

The Grossbart and the driver advanced on the back door, Ennio pushing it open and thrusting the rushlight into the darkness. Hegel followed, sweating from more than the welcome heat. They went down a tight hallway and discovered several sacks of grain and barrels of turnips at the end. Another latched door opened into the snowy void, and they quickly closed it again. Along the hall three doorways draped with cloth revealed sparse chambers with straw mats and nothing else.

Alphonse and Giacomo noticed the shelf where only a few bottles remained, and each took one back to the fire. Manfried considered murder, then chided himself for not hiding whatever would not fit in his bag. Of the two, Manfried hated Alphonse slightly more, what with his bushy black hair and mustache and dimpled cheeks stupidly contrasting his large frame. Not that Giacomo’s chiseled face and arms and dark complexion failed to grate on him as well. Like most men who are ugly on both sides of their skin, Manfried detested handsome people on general principle.

“Found us a good place to bed down,” Hegel said, stepping back into the room.

“Out here, Grossbarts,” Ennio said firmly.

“What’s that?” Hegel stopped and turned on the man, pick still brandished.

“We five sleep out here, she will sleep in the other rooms,” said Ennio, turning back to the hallway. He added something in his native tongue for Alphonse and Giacomo, and disappeared with his crackling rushlight into the back.

“She?” the Grossbarts echoed.

Giacomo blanched and took a long swig and Alphonse muttered to himself.

“Talk, Ponce,” said Manfried.

“None of yours.” The guard scooted closer to the fire.

Manfried’s boot upended Alphonse’s stool, knocking him to the ground. The man scrambled up but Manfried had casually raised his loaded crossbow, its end pressing against Alphonse’s codpiece. The startled Giacomo’s hand fell to his sword but paused when he realized Hegel’s pick had found its way under his chin, the iron point chill against his Adam’s apple.

“Talk, Ponce.” Manfried smiled.

Alphonse looked at Giacomo, who began shouting at him to do whatever the crazy bandits said. The Grossbarts did not approve of their conversing in an unknown language, so Hegel pressed his tool enough to prick Giacomo’s throat. This quieted him instantly, his eyes burning into his cousin’s. There would be opportunities to dispose of these two foreign bastards later, Alphonse thought, and did as Manfried commanded.

“The woman is the, the woman of Alexius Barousse,” Alphonse said, hoping that would be sufficient. It was not.

“Who’s he?” Manfried prodded verbally and physically, the bolt’s point rising to jab at Alphonse’s doublet.

“A capo, er, sea captain.” Alphonse stammered. “In Venezia. She is his, we retrieve her for him, take her home.”

“What’s she doin up these parts, eh?” Manfried asked.

“She was in…” Alphonse bit his lip, then almost got it correct. “Abbess. She stay in abbess some years in your empire, now we fetch her. Anything happen to us or her, he will hunt you for rest of your lives, and punish-”

“Yeah, I got you.” Manfried lowered his weapon. “Now shut your hole. Both a you’d do to remember you owe us your lives.”

Hegel followed his brother’s lead, wiping the spot of blood off on Giacomo’s shoulder and relooping his pick onto his belt. Giacomo relaxed, touching his neck and launching a barrage at Alphonse, who in turn explained the Brothers were moon-touched and would be dealt with accordingly. If not now, later.

“Gotta nun?” Hegel asked his brother.

“More likely a sweet piece he wanted off-limits til his wife died or some such. Didn’t say daughter or sister or nuthin, but who knows. Poncey’s a little rough on the ears.” Manfried gingerly touched his cropped lobe.

Ennio returned from the rear hallway, pale and shivering. Alphonse and Giacomo both spoke at once, but Manfried cuffed Alphonse in the ear, encouraging him to talk right or not at all. Ennio narrowed his eyes at the Brothers but seemed distracted. He hurried to the door and ensured the slat locked it firmly, and dragged another bench to the fire. All eight eyes waited for his next move. Sighing, he relieved Alphonse of his bottle.

“Go fetch the grain bag and make some porridge,” Ennio said wearily.

Alphonse complained to himself but went into the back.

“Grossbarts,” Ennio said. “Any queries should be given to me instead of my associates, as they will provide you with nothing of substance.”

“Dunno if that’s all true,” Manfried said. “What’s the girl to this captain-kin or kinmaker?”

“None of your concern, be assured,” Ennio said with a frown at the returning Alphonse.

“Maybe yeah, maybe nah,” Manfried said, removing the stew from the fire and setting it on a bench. Hegel wasted no time in setting to, dipping his bowl whenever his brother was not slurping directly from the pot. The three foreigners cooked and ate their porridge in jealous silence.

With their stew gone, the Grossbarts gazed at the porridge. Permission was stated by Hegel rather than requested, and they ate the rest of that, too. Pleasantly bloated, the Brothers sipped their schnapps and reclined by the fire. Even Alphonse and Giacomo appeared to have forgotten the altercation, whispering to each other and smiling drunkenly. In view of the porridge, the Brothers let it slide. Ennio disappeared through the rear hall and soon returned with a fresh bit of frost on his hat. He resumed his seat with a sigh.

“The snow has stopped,” Ennio finally said, “and the moon is near full, you can actually see about.”

“Well, that’s somethin, I guess, or you would a stayed quiet,” Manfried said.

“No lights.” Ennio rolled a bottle from hand to hand. “Not so queer if everyone is here, but they are not.”

“What about that monastery?” Manfried said.

“Black. But it can be seen in the moonlight. Usually some lights at those, especially if they have a feast or festival or other reason why town has gone there.” Ennio sipped on his bottle, Alphonse’s pattern of listening and whispering implying he translated for Giacomo.

Alcohol had blunted Hegel’s anxiety about the town but it still twisted in his brain and heart and he brooded in silence. He knew what came next, and did not want to hear it. Something about the unseen woman in the rear also itched at his nerves. He wanted to lay eyes on her to see if that helped, although he suspected it would not.

“So we go out and look around, bang on some doors to ensure, and hike up to the monastery. Even in snow it is close.” Ennio set his bottle on the floor and stood, looking at the four doubtful men.

Hegel broke the silence with a laugh, surprised his brother did not join in. Regaining himself, he wiped his eyes. “Have fun! Me and Manfried’ll make sure nuthin goes amiss round here.”

“Grossbarts,” Ennio patiently explained. “We must discover where everyone has gone. Their absence is unnatural. Whole towns do not disappear without reason.”

“So? Ain’t gonna make no difference where they at. Can’t drive them ponies by moonlight on these roads, so we’s here til cockcrow at the soonest.” Hegel sipped his drink, unable to remember a time when he would less fancy a moonlit stroll.

“Hegel-” Ennio began, but Manfried cut him off.

“Any princes or lords round here?” Manfried said.

“No,” Ennio said, not seeing the relevance.

“How’d that monastery get built?” Manfried pressed.

“Looks more of a keep or fortress than a church, so mayhap a duke or count lived there. But that would be long ago, I suppose, or else the monks would not be there now. You think someone ordered the absence of the village?” Ennio perked up, unsure what Manfried implied.

“Nah,” Manfried said, “but seein’s how you’s been so kind’s to let us ride, the least me and my humble family can do is spot around the town with you.”

“The Devil, Manfried, we ain’t…” Seeing the gleam in his brother’s eye, Hegel trailed off. The familiar look on Manfried’s face clued Hegel in, drunken excitement besting his worry. Cursing his own obtuseness, Hegel said, “Yeah, you’s right. I was bein selfish. Right uncharitable a me.”

“That’s right, brother,” Manfried chided. “We’s here to do the work a Mary. And She clear as Hell wants us to lend a hand to our friends.” Then shifting to their brotherly cant, he added, “And sides, monks’ more liable to be decent folk than your average priest. Most a them’s shit, sure, but always err on the side a helpin’em out, case they’s in good with the Virgin.”

Ennio shrugged and made ready to leave, wise enough to recognize that while the Grossbarts were certainly working an angle, there was nothing he could do about it. Besides, if they had murder on their minds then Alphonse and Giacomo would have already been dead and they would have gone after him without pretext. The cousins were tickled to be left behind, wanting nothing to do with the Grossbarts in a desolate town under a fat moon.

No wind or snow disturbed their march but the chill worked into their beards. They brought rushlights but these stayed cold in their belts, the moon reflecting eerily off the snow. Every time Ennio called out into the stillness or rapped on a door the Grossbarts had to suppress the urge to club the idiot. The town consisted of less than a dozen buildings on each side of the road but the knee-deep drifts slowed their progress. The high stone wall circling the houses ended in another wooden gate, and rather than forcing it they climbed a convenient stile and hopped over the side.

Here the road switchbacked up the face of a stern mountain and they could see the silhouette of the monastery several bends away. They did not speak, slowly tramping through the snow until they rounded the final curve and broke off onto the path leading to the black structure. The road fell away on the side overlooking the town, the moon so bright they made out the alehouse, the town walls, and the mountains they had journeyed through.

To their left the monastery wall terminated in a cliff face that rose up into its own shadow, nullifying the need for additional fortifications on that end, and to their right the barrier skirted the drop-off on the other side of the natural shelf and blotted out the view of Rouseberg below. The keep abutted the sheer mountainside, and a wide gap between the edifice’s right flank and the encircling wall indicated the monastery grounds continued behind the looming central structure. Ignoring the small wooden buildings annexed along the wall, Ennio stepped forward and cupped his hands around his mouth to hail the monks when Hegel boxed his ear.

“Keep that hole shut,” shushed Hegel.

“Where’s the churchyard?” Manfried whispered.

“Eh?” Ennio glanced from one to the other.

“The cemetery,” said Hegel. “Boneyard? Graveyard? Burial ground? Like a potter’s field, only with markers.”

“A necropolis?” Ennio’s chestnut eyes narrowed to almonds. “What business have you there?”

“Our own,” Manfried shot back.

“But what could we find in such a place?” said Ennio with a shudder.

“All questions are answered in the grave,” Hegel sagely stated.

“I do not know where it is,” Ennio said. “If it was once a castle they might have a crypt in the cellar.”

“That’s a risk we gotta chance,” Manfried said, seeing the concern on Hegel’s face. The witch-chills had returned to Hegel, stronger than what he had felt in the town.

“Maybe we oughta just call it done,” Hegel said, peering around nervously.

“First we must check the door and try to gain the inside,” said Ennio, relieved Hegel had sided with him. Sane men do not poke around graves in the best of times, let alone under a full moon in a suspiciously vacated town deep in the winter-gripped mountains.

“Rot,” Manfried snarled. “We check the back, see if it’s there. If it ain’t, then we pry a window and find the cellar. Don’t forget yourself on me, Hegel Grossbart.”

Hegel’s resolve strengthened at hearing his full name. The spoils were waiting and he had suggested leaving them for the dirt. He shoved past Ennio, reckoning the man’s cowardice had rubbed off on him.

Ennio sullenly followed the Grossbarts, cutting between a wooden building and the side of the monastery proper. They were in shadow again, the outer wall and the side of the abbey conspiring to blot out the moon, the crunching snow the only sound. Emerging back into the moonlight, they were in another large courtyard with a single outbuilding set against the rear of the wall where the fortification curved back into the cliff. The trio made for a small doorway in the wall beside the building.

A warm breeze chilled their nerve at the door, a fetid wind blowing from behind. Turning as one, they saw nothing but the rear of the monastery and their own footprints trailing off into darkness. The pungent stench burned their eyes, and all three instantly knew it to be the odor of rotting meat. The draft faded but the stink remained. Ennio had taken a step toward the abbey when Manfried whistled softly.

Beyond the small wooden door a churchyard stretched along the stone shelf, cliffs rising up on one side and dropping from the other until the tapering plateau faded into the face of the mountain. Crosses and other markers jutted out of the snow like wreckage in a flood, and several pale hummocks towered beside the largest mound. To anyone else it would have appeared another vague lump in the powder but the Grossbarts instantly recognized it for a crypt. They hurried through the cemetery, banging their boots and knees on submerged tombstones, Ennio stumbling after.

The stone door had clearly stood undisturbed for ages, and Ennio leaned against it. He covetously watched Hegel withdraw a bottle from his bag and take a pull, then pass it to his brother. Manfried swigged it and planted it in the snow at his feet. While the Brothers inspected the door and counseled in their private dialect Ennio retrieved their schnapps in what he hoped appeared to be a casual manner and crouched in the snow rather than sit on a tomb.

Taking a long pull of the drink, Ennio thought of a certain lady in Venezia who would make him forget all about mysterious towns, strange passengers, and frigid necropoli. He thought of her olive skin and green eyes, of the sweet way she would tease him when he pretended to have left his purse at home. Then he saw Hegel remove a prybar from his bag and jam it into the door of the crypt, and Ennio choked on his drink.

“What you do this?” Ennio coughed.

“Pipe down,” said Manfried.

“Ain’t doin,” Hegel muttered, red-faced and white-knuckled.

“You mean to enter it?” Ennio gasped.

“Course we do,” Manfried said, digging the snow out from the bottom of the door.

“Got it?” Hegel asked, setting down the prybar.

“Yeah,” Manfried sighed, “but they got us good, too. What you make a this?”

Hegel hunkered beside his brother. Thick stones and masonry sealed the bottom of the door. The Grossbarts had encountered worse. They dug in their bags while Ennio paced, staring aghast at them.

“What could the inside tell us of the town? Or that stink by the gate?” Ennio demanded.

“Nuthin,” Hegel said, pulling out Manfried’s hammer and chisel.

“Less than,” said Manfried. “Inside a graves only tell the future, not the past.”

“Common misconception,” Hegel agreed, setting the chisel in place.

“What?” Ennio’s head swam. “What nonsense are you speaking?”

“Well,” Manfried said, raising his hammer. “The content a this here stone-house’ll tell us what’s to come. If it’s full a riches, then we’s rich, and if it ain’t, we ain’t.”

“Course there’s a deeper meanin,” Hegel said, pulling his own chisel out and using the flat end of his pick in lieu of a hammer. “And even if it’s empty we’s needin all the practice we can get fore hittin up them what the Infidel’s got. Heard they’s specially tricksome to get into.”

Both struck at the same time, the metal ringing out in the stillness. They shared a smile, the familiar sound a balm to ward off the chill of weather and witch alike. A faint echo returned, and at this they struck again, stone splintering off the crypt.

Ennio let fly a string of foreign curses, then remembered himself. “You intend theft from the dead? You’re defilers of graves!”

“Ennis-” Manfried began.

“Ennio,” Hegel corrected, smashing more masonry.

“Ennio,” Manfried continued, “even a half-wit knows it ain’t stealin if they’s dead.”

“Like rape won’t take away virginity,” Hegel said excitedly, sure his violation at the hands of Nicolette qualified.

“Exactly.” Manfried’s hammer fell again.

“You damn yourselves!” Ennio spluttered. “This sin cannot be undone!”

“We tithe,” Hegel explained.

“Doin Mary’s Will.” Manfried blasted off more stone.

Ennio turned. “We part paths here and now. Sleep in there, for we will not permit you to enter our shelter.”

“You’s drawin lines,” Manfried said, not looking away from his task.

“Never smart,” Hegel grunted, struggling with an obstinate piece of stone.

“Cause then we gotta cross’em,” Manfried finished. Many years had passed since the mortar was laid, evidenced by the ease with which it splintered. Further proof of Her Grace.

Ennio cursed them as he tramped toward the monastery gates. The tolling of their iron made him wince. Fifty paces from the door to the abbey grounds, Ennio saw the wooden gate swing inward. No wind followed yet the stink again permeated the calm air and he paused, peering into the black hole in the wall.

A man floated out of the doorway, his naked skin glowing in the moonlight. From the waist down a bestial form propelled him, snorting menacingly, and Ennio stumbled back through the graveyard, begging his unwilling voice to cry out for the Brothers Grossbart.