Sinner: A Prequel to the Mongoliad

GULA

It was hard to tell who thought they were more important: the horse or its rider. The horse, a black destrier with a swath of white down its throat, walked with such a precise and high-stepping gait that it was nearly prancing, though judging from the imperious lift of its head, it would never deign to do something as undignified as prancing. Its rider was a priest in a dun-colored robe beneath a dark blue cloak-which seemed to Andreas to be one layer too many. The man’s face was clean-shaven, and his tonsure was so white that he appeared to be crowned with a halo that slipped down across his skull. His eyes were blue, like the Northern seas, and they appeared to miss little. They locked onto Andreas as the not-quite prancing horse came abreast of the itinerant knight, and Andreas, always eager to practice his humility, dipped his head.

The horse snorted, shat (much to the dismay of the rider directly following), and continued on. Andreas stared at the steaming pile in the narrow lane and quietly counted the eight riders following the priest as they carefully avoided the freshly dropped equine offering. Andreas scratched his cheek absently after the party had passed, wishing once again that he hadn’t lost his own horse in a wager.

It had been a fine animal, though a bit temperamental when the weather turned. It had rained most of last week, and the beast had been feisty enough that he had, in a moment of weakness, offered it up in a wager with a pair of Frankish mercenaries. Andreas suspected the pair had cheated, but as the crowd had become overwhelmingly filled with friends of the Franks, he had thought it prudent to let the matter lie.

As luck would have it, the storm departed during the night and the last few days had been gloriously temperate. The walk along the Rhine had been pleasant and peaceful, unmarred by anything more strenuous than waving at the occasional boat that meandered past.

He had never been to Lorsch and had heard stories of its wondrous library; however, his visit had been unceremoniously cut short when he had been informed by the monks at the abbey that the library had been sealed.

And then there had been the matter with the Frankish mercenaries. All in all, a peaceful stroll along the river for a few days was probably the best recourse. It would give him time to fully expunge the annoyance still laboring in his breast. At least until he reached Mainz and sought an audience with the Archbishop there, specifically to inquire why His Excellency had ordered the closure of the library in Lorsch.

Andreas adjusted his pack on his shoulder, and whistling tunelessly through his teeth, he continued on his journey toward Mainz, following in the direction of the regal priest and his entourage. He gave little thought as to where the party was bound until he stumbled across them again not an hour later.

The village was not unlike many of the villages that were scattered along the Rhine between Worms and Mainz, little more than a tiny green surrounded by an inn or two, a trading house, and a few other houses belonging to the local farmers who preferred to be known as owners of land rather than workers of the same. The rest of the residents lived in huts scattered among the fields that surrounded the village. The inn, a more well-to-do building than the last few Andreas had seen, was on the north side of the green. Its broad porch was being used as a dais by the local magistrate and the regal priest to address the unruly crowd. On the western periphery of the crowd, eager participants were arguing over the distribution of freshly cut wood around a tall pole.

Andreas paused at the verge of the crowd as he realized what he was about to stumble into. He was taller than most of the villagers, and though he stood at the back, he was able to readily scan the crowd for the focus of the villagers’ ire. Near the front, not far from the magistrate, was a cluster of men, holding someone between them. A woman, he surmised, as the sound of her shrieking voice carried over the general hubbub.

It pained him to walk away, but he knew this was not his fight. He knew nothing of the charges being levied against the woman or the mood of the villagers. By inserting himself in this situation, by revealing who he was, he could cause more strife than the village was already suffering. He did not care for the way the priest carried himself, but his dislike of the recent abuses attributed to some Dominicans in their zealous pursuit of heretics was not a complete condemnation of all priests.

He might be a Knight Initiate of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, the Holy Knights of the Virgin Defender, but he was one man, far away from home. A company of Shield-Brethren, as they were more regularly known in the Holy Roman Empire and the lands north, were known to strike terror in an opposing army simply by virtue of their appearance on the battlefield, but one Shield-Brother was more a curiosity than a cause for alarm.

Andreas caught sight of a man seated on a horse to his left. He wore a plain surcoat over mail with a longsword on his person and a shield attached to his saddle. His skin was darker than the rest of the villagers-a consequence of his birth, not the sun-and his hair and beard were neat and short, cut close to the shape of his head and face. His shield bore a familiar rose emblem, not unlike the brooch pinned to Andreas’s cloak.

One Shield-Brother might be a curiosity, he thought, but two?

As the magistrate attempted to make himself heard over the crowd, Andreas worked his way around the crowd toward the man on the horse. The rider spotted him coming and regarded him coolly for a moment, assessing him, before returning his gaze to the spectacle unfolding on the green.

“That’s a nice horse,” Andreas opined as he reached the mounted knight. He was being polite. The animal was magnificent. Its withers were on equal height with his chest, and its coat was such a lustrous gray that it seemed more like Byzantine silk than hair. It wore very little tack, and Andreas assumed such a decision on the part of the rider was due to the animal’s responsiveness to knee and hand. It had white markings on its front legs and face, and when it turned its head to look at him, he was startled to see a rounded bump among the white hair on its forehead-a tiny nub not unlike the sort of protrusion male deer exhibit as they start growing their horns.

“It is,” the man said, and his accent reminded Andreas of the confusion of languages he had heard during his time in the Levant. “The Carthusian monks breed excellent stock.”

Further conversation was precluded by the magistrate finally making himself heard over the crowd. The villagers shushed one another-a susurration that ran from the front to the back of the mob-as the magistrate began to shout. “I know you are frightened, but we must not allow ourselves to be filled with fear. If the Devil walks among us, we must be strong in our faith so that we may cast him out. If we quarrel amongst ourselves, then we are divided. We have laws, given to us by God, that protect us, and as long as we uphold those laws, no harm will come to us.

“The widow”-and this word brought howls from the audience-“this…woman, Gerda, stands accused of witchcraft; of sacrificing her husband to the Devil in return-” The audience started shouting again, drowning out the magistrate’s voice. Andreas could see him waving his arms, trying to get their attention, but the villagers were too stirred up.

The woman had stopped fighting her captors as soon as the magistrate had started speaking, and the accusations had not stirred her. She hung loosely in the grip of the three men, her face unmoved by the turmoil around her. It was the men holding her who were showing signs of distress, clearly worried that the mob’s bloodthirst would extend to them.

The magistrate stepped back, raising his hands in frustration to the priest, who took his place at the edge of the platform. The priest raised his arms, palms out, and held still, waiting for the crowd to notice him. When he spoke, he spoke in a normal tone of voice, and such was his presence and his expectation of being listened to that the audience fell silent as wheat felled by the pass of a scythe.

“We are God’s children,” the priest said. “We are not animals. What has happened here in your village is a heinous crime against God, and I promise you that the malefactors will be found and punished. But the Church believes that each of us-no matter how far we have strayed-may confess our sins and receive absolution. We will hear this woman’s confession, and should it be satisfactory, we will grant her the salvation her poor soul craves. If she is unrepentant in her testimony, we will purge her-and the taint of her sins-from this village.

“This matter belongs to the Roman Catholic Church. It is my sworn duty as an inquisitor to cleanse this evil from your midst so that it may not infect others. I am the Righteous Hand of God, and the woman is my responsibility. I will hear her testimony as well as the testimony of the witnesses who accuse her. But not at this time.”

The crowd jerked as one body, and Andreas could feel them winding up to a storm of noise again.

But the priest spoke first. His voice was still calm, but there was an underlying anger in his words. “The rules of God and the Church are plain in the matter of the Ordeal. Do you think you know better than God how to discern heresy? Do you think you know better than I the signs of the Devil’s influence?”

The change in the audience was as dramatic as the sudden cessation of a summer storm. The tension in the crowd vanished in a heartbeat, draining away into a tiny stream of quiet muttering in the back of the crowd.

“It is your blessed fortune that I meant to take my midday meal at your inn, and I will still do so,” the priest said. “As is my duty as an inquisitor of the Church, I will hear this woman’s testimony and render a judgment, but I will do so in the morning, after a night of prayer for her soul. Until then, she is to be left in my care.”

He gestured to the trio holding the woman, and they dragged her up to the platform. The priest gazed at her slack face, an exaggerated air of fatherly concern in his features. He gestured again, and the magistrate hurried to open the door to the inn for the trio. The priest turned back to the crowd, raised his right hand, and rattled off a blessing in Latin, calling upon God to watch over the village and its residents until such time that he-God’s instrument-could vanquish the evil assaulting these poor innocents.

The crowd milled about for a few minutes, pacified by the priest’s benediction, before they slowly began to disperse.

“A bit dramatic, don’t you think?” Andreas offered.

“But effective,” the mounted knight replied.

“Do you know him?” Andreas asked.

“Konrad von Marburg,” the knight replied. “He is as he says: an inquisitor of the Roman Catholic Church.”

“I saw him earlier, on the road. I did not see you with him.”

“I am not traveling with him.”

“But you know of him.”

The knight looked down at Andreas, his gaze resting for a moment on Andreas’s cloak brooch. “You ask many questions for a man who has not bothered to introduce himself. Some would see that as impertinent and more befitting a man of low character than a knight of a holy order.”

“Many of the order who do know my name would still say the same,” Andreas replied. He pulled back the right sleeve of his robe and offered his hand to the knight. The knight glanced down and, seeing the scar on Andreas’s forearm, tugged the sleeve of his mail back. The two men clasped forearms, and Andreas felt the roughened edges of an old scar on the knight’s forearm. Similar to his, but slightly different. As they all were.

“I am Raphael, lately of…Cologne,” the knight said.

“Andreas,” Andreas replied. “Lately of Petraathen, but more recently-” He shrugged as if it wasn’t important. Ultimately they were all from the old citadel. That was where they took their vows and where they received their scars and their swords.

“Well met, Brother Andreas,” Raphael said, releasing Andreas’s arm. He nodded toward the closed door of the inn. “I had thought to ride farther today, but perhaps I will inquire as to suitable care for my horse. Do you think yonder establishment might be able to offer us sustenance and shelter, should we need to tarry overnight?”

“It might,” Andreas smiled. “We could even offer to share a room.”

“Spoken like a true penitent,” Raphael said. “But you get the floor.”

Andreas bowed. “As long as you are paying, Brother Raphael.”

Raphael laughed.

Gerda had woken that morning to the sound of her husband’s hound baying in fright. Her head fuzzy with sleep, she had dragged her recalcitrant body from beneath the woolen blankets and stumbled toward the door of the one-room hut she shared with Otto. The hound, an old herding dog that Otto had taken pity on several years ago when it had broken its leg chasing a frisky ewe across a gopher-hole-riddled field, lay crouched on the floor not far from the wooden door. Its paws between its snout and its body pointed toward the door, it growled and whimpered as if were both angered and frightened by something on the other side of the warped wooden panel.

Gerda had not yet noticed her husband was missing from the bed, and annoyed at the dog, she had pulled open the door to see what was causing the animal so much distress. As the door opened, the dog yipped in fear and leaped away, running toward the back corner of the room. She had turned toward it, meaning to curse it for its cowardice, and in doing so, caught her first glimpse of what lay directly outside the hut out of the corner of her eye. She froze as the smell struck her. She had hunted with her father as a girl, and he had taught her how to dress the rabbits and squirrels he caught in his snares. She knew the smell of fresh blood.

Trembling, she had turned her head and started screaming when she recognized her Otto’s face staring up at her from the ground. Just his head, canted on one ear, lying in the center of a large smear of dark blood.

The first person who had come in response to her terror fled as soon as he identified the round shape. Others came and went after that, and she had no memory of their faces other than their wild eyes and gaping mouths-not unlike her dead husband’s. All that she could recall of the next few hours after being dragged out of the house was the forlorn expression permanently fixed on Otto’s dead face.

Her neighbors and friends-people whom she had traded bread and vegetables with, whom she had laughed and danced with at the last village feast-looked at her with hate-filled eyes. Some spat on her; others made the sign of the warding eye, refusing to let the Devil leap from her sin-ridden body to their own. The magistrate, who had commented on the flowers in her hair only two days ago when he had encountered her near the communal bread oven, had very little control over the mob’s rising panic. If the priest on the black horse had not appeared when he had, she would have been torn apart by the villagers.

He was an inquisitor of the Roman Catholic Church, and he was not the compassionate savior she had first imagined. When he lifted her chin and looked upon her tear-streaked face, she saw no pity in his sky-colored eyes.

Her trial was to be held in private, immediately after the priest took his meal, and she was forced to kneel before his table while he sated his prodigious appetite. She had tried to catch his eye, but he was intent on his meal as it was laid out before him: a bowl of steaming stew, the scent of which made her already shriveled stomach cramp even further; a loaf of warm bread; tankards of the ale brewed by her sister’s husband’s cousins; a chicken slow-cooked in hot coals so that the meat slid effortlessly off the bone when the inquisitor tore into the leg and wing with his hands and teeth.

After a while she could not bear to look upon the inquisitor, his hands and face shiny with grease and ale, and she sank to the floor, clutching her shackles to her belly. She lay still, her mind slowly fading away from the welter of confusion and despair that filled her body.