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

V. The Other Cheek

“Death,” said the priest, “is not the end, Heinrich. You know this.”

“Do I?” Heinrich flexed his toes in the too-tight turnshoes Egon had given him. The dry clothes were of course appreciated after a night in the wet mud choking on a turnip, but the carpenter had obviously failed to deliver the two things Heinrich truly wanted. That the rest of the jury had not returned hardly surprised the yeoman, having experienced firsthand what the Grossbarts were capable of.

“Outliving one’s family is the greatest test of our faith. While this is your supreme loss, it is hardly your first,” the priest said gently. “The stillborn child and the other-”

“Two were stillborn, Father.” Heinrich glowered at the man. “And what of Gertie and Brennen and my three girls? Been too long since we all seen you. What if-” Heinrich choked on the words and the thought of damnation.

“Heinrich,” said the priest. “We’ve been through this. It’s not as if your wife or children committed the sort of sins that would require my intercession!”

“What did you say?” Heinrich felt chills spiraling up his legs into his bowels. “Sins requiring intercession?”

“I said, it’s not as if they committed the sort of wickedness that might damn a soul were it not absolved by a priest. We all have our little foibles but the good Lord has-What are you doing?” The priest blinked at Heinrich, who had jumped to his feet. The grieving turnip farmer went straight to Egon’s table and snatched up a knife. The priest would have called Egon and his wife back inside the carpenter’s hovel but Heinrich had turned back around.

“Absolution. Penance. Forgiveness.” Heinrich shook the knife at the priest, his voice cracking. “You saying there’s a way?”

“A way? Heinrich, the knife-”

“Oh.” Heinrich crouched and cut into his soiled leather hose heaped near the door, gritting his teeth at the exertion but watching the priest intently. “If they get to one of yours and confess and do the work, they’ll be forgiven. Is that what you’re saying to me?”

“Ah,” said the priest. “Well…”

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Heinrich stood, wrapping the blade in a strip of leather cut from his hose and dropping the knife into the single pocket of his tunic. “I’m off then, Father.”

“What?” the priest nervously backed toward the door as Heinrich advanced. “Where are you-”

“Think I’ll forget? Think I’ll forgive?” Heinrich glared at the priest, whose back now met the wooden door. “Excuse me, there’s work to be done.”

Sliding out of the way, the priest waited a beat until Heinrich had flung open the door and stepped out into the daylight before following. The priest knew something had changed inside the farmer and suspected that unless he acted quickly sin might well beget sin. Egon’s eldest son bumped into the priest as he went outside and he saw Egon arguing with Heinrich in the yard, several other villagers approaching from their respective homes near the manor house.

“What’s he on about?” the lad asked. “He looks worse than he did the day after they-”

“Hush, boy,” said the priest, emboldened by the sun and the witnesses. “Ho, Heinrich, be still!”

Heinrich and Egon both turned to the priest, a small crowd quickly forming. Among them were the kin of those jury members the Grossbarts had murdered on the mountainside. The priest and the farmer squared off on either side of the group, and the priest sensed his chance to shame the man into obedience.

“I know what you are plotting.” The priest addressed the village as much as he did Heinrich. “You wish justice! Don’t we all? But you risk your soul by attempting to do the Lord’s work for Him!”

“And you don’t try and do the Lord’s work every day?” said Heinrich, earning gasps from more than one neighbor. “I aim to do one thing, and that’s catch the Grossbarts before they can get to a priest and wash themselves clean. There’s no place in Heaven for such as them, and I’m but an instrument of God.”

“You?! Heinrich, you are incensed with grief and rage and pride, and it is a terrible sin to call yourself such! Let the Lord work His own justice and risk not your soul!”

“I’ll need your help.” Heinrich turned from the priest to the blanched faces surrounding him. “I’ve no horse nor blankets nor food nor weapons-they took everything. But I swear I won’t rest until I’ve sent them to their master. Hannah, your Gunter-”

“My Gunter,” spit the snotty-faced widow, “died because of you!”

“Me?” Heinrich felt as though the woman had punched him in the stomach. “No, I-”

“Cried and begged and wailed, wanting your wrongs righted! You’d trusted to the Lord he’d not have gone off with the rest and been murdered by those devils!”

“Hannah,” Heinrich pleaded. “I wanted to go with them! I know their ways more than any here and I could have…” He trailed off seeing the cold eyes of his neighbors, faces set, cheeks puffy. Lowering his head farther, Heinrich nearly choked on the “Please.”

None spoke, several turning back to their homes.

“Better go,” Egon hissed, and Heinrich blinked away the tears, trying to fathom how they were blaming him instead of the wicked Grossbarts. “I understand even if they don’t. I’ll ride you out as far as I can, aye?”

“I’ll buy her,” Heinrich said as they turned away from the silent condemnation of the town. “My whole field’s yours. You know it’s more than fair.”

“I’m sorry, Heinrich.” Egon stopped and stared at the dirt after they rounded his hut to where the nag stood tethered. “You know’s well as any that we’ve got a sight fewer horses than we did a few days ago, so I won’t be the only one needin this girl. But while they was…” Egon paused, cleared his throat, and wiped his eyes at the horrid memory before he was able to finish. “While those Brothers was doing their work I cut Hans and Helmut’s horses loose, so perchance we’ll come across’em on the road.”

Heinrich nodded, understanding too well the man’s reluctance to sell the animal with planting just a winter away.

“And if we don’t come across them horses,” Egon continued, “well, I’ll take you clear down to the highway they’re probably makin for. Gain some ground, as they cut into the mountains on the old hunting trail, try and shortcut it. But I know that little path don’t go nowhere so it’ll add days if not weeks fore they get over to the real road. Assuming they’re going south, of course.”

Neither had anything more to say on the matter, Heinrich still trying to understand how any could fault him for everything that had transpired over the past several days. Heinrich climbed onto the horse behind his last friend and they rode back around the house toward the southern road. Egon’s son intercepted them with a sack of turnips and then they were off, but Heinrich failed to thank him properly. All the man could think of was the impossibility of catching the damned Brothers without a steed of his own.