Sinner: A Prequel to the Mongoliad

AVARITIA

After parting with a few coins and ensuring that his horse would be well cared for, Raphael made his way back to the inn. The green was deserted but for a few malingerers loitering around the pyre, and they glared at Raphael as if daring him to accuse them of being eager to see the judgment of God meted out. Raphael ignored them; he had seen far worse behavior in men during the Fifth Crusade, and while he did not like to dwell on his lack of moral outrage at such fiendishness, he had come to terms with a certain amount of pragmatism in the years since his first blooding as an exuberant initiate of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae. Righteousness dwelt within the heart of a man, not within his hand or his sword.

As he entered the inn, he was assaulted by the noise and the smell of many people clustered within the low-ceilinged room. A sullen fire crouched in a hearth on the opposite wall, and not all of the smoke from the wet wood was going up the chimney. A gray pall clung to the wooden beams of the ceiling. A large cauldron hung on an iron rod, and whatever stew bubbled within smelled delicious enough that Raphael’s stomach did not care how long it had been boiling in that pot. Men shouted back and forth to one another, a minstrel struggled to make himself heard, and the beleaguered tavern staff were constantly summoned to every corner of the room by whistles and wordless grunts and shouts. Raphael surmised that the stairs at the back of the common room led to private chambers on the upper floor. Likewise, one if not both of the other doors out of the common room would lead to a more private dining area.

Andreas, the young Shield-Brother he had met earlier, was sitting on his right, embroiled in an elaborate tale that involved an earnest amount of arm waving and making faces. The young man caught sight of Raphael and his broad face lit up. He waved Raphael over, elbowing the man seated next to him to make room.

Raphael began to apologize to the man who had been so unceremoniously moved, but the lean villager, catching sight of the sword on Raphael’s hip, shook his head and scooted ever farther away on the bench.

Andreas shoved a half-empty tankard in front of Raphael. “It is not a bad brew, my brother,” he said. “And the stew is as hearty as it is bland to the tongue.” He whistled shrilly, catching the attention of the nearest tavern maid. He pointed at himself and Raphael, and the young woman nodded before she vanished into the crowd.

Raphael sat and inspected the contents of the tankard. “You were telling a story before I arrived,” he said. “Pray continue.”

“I was just telling these attentive listeners tales of the Crusades,” Andreas said.

Raphael glanced shrewdly at him, assessing his age. His face was still youthful beneath his blond beard, though he was beginning to collect lines beyond those engraved in his face by years of raucous laughter. Which Crusade? he wondered. Surely he was not at Damietta?

As Andreas continued his story, Raphael opted to not ask such an indelicate question. He raised the tankard of ale and drank. His eyes strayed to the far side of the room, and as he watched, one of the two doors opened and a bevy of servants filed out, their hands filled with empty serving trays. In the room beyond, he caught a glimpse of two men, seated at a table. The magistrate and the inquisitor, who was eating vigorously.

Raphael wondered if the inquisitor would remember him.

Gerda was stirred from her reverie by a loud belch from the inquisitor. His chair scraped on the floor as he pushed himself back from the table, and when she turned her head slightly, she saw his leather boots. A thin metal band wrapped around the heel of each, bound across the instep and sole of the boot with leather ties. As the inquisitor shifted in the chair, she spied a short spike jutting from the back of one of the bands.

“Tell me about this woman,” the inquisitor said, and Gerda flinched, curling more tightly about her bound hands.

From behind her, she heard the thin, raspy voice of the town magistrate reply. “I thought you wanted to wait until tomorrow before…”

The inquisitor waved the magistrate silent. “My inquiries are not a mummer’s play for the rabble. She will be judged by me and God. We do not require an audience for our work. Nor do I require anything more of you than to simply speak when I tell you to and to answer the questions I ask.” The inquisitor tapped his fingers on the table. “Or is there someone more capable in this bewitched town to whom I should be addressing my questions?”

“She is Gerda. Her husband is-was-” The magistrate cleared his throat nervously. “He was a woodsman named Otto, as was his father before him.”

“Otto? Am I to understand that his head was found on her doorstep?”

“Yes, Father, Your-Your Grace.”

“And the body?”

Gerda heard the magistrate gulp noisily. Her hands tightened into fists, her ragged nails digging into her palms. She had somehow convinced herself that Otto might still be alive, even though she could not imagine how his body might have survived being separated from its head.

“The body has not…we do not know where it is. Though we did find-” The magistrate sighed, gathering his courage.

“We found blood and…”

Unwanted, an image surfaced in Gerda’s mind-the vision of Otto’s headless body lying in the woods, ravaged by wild animals-and she whimpered as she banged her head against the floor in a vain effort to drive the image from her being.

“And?” the inquisitor prompted. “Come now. Is there more to tell, or do I need to drag you and the woman out to this spot in the woods? Was there more than blood?”

“No, Fa-Your Grace. I mean, yes, Your Grace.”

“Which is it?”

Gerda started when the inquisitor slapped his palm against the table, rattling the numerous dishes set before him.

“The Devil walks among your citizens, Magistrate. It is my duty to flush the insidious serpent out, to drive evil from the hearts of all good Christians. He wants you to be fearful of him and the actions of his agents because, when you are, you are more liable to forget your Christian duty to fear God.” The inquisitor slapped the table again.

“Fear me, for it is my judgment, my duty, to destroy this blight upon your community. Wherever it may dwell.”

The magistrate gulped again. When he spoke, his voice was breathless and he stuttered. “There were signs that he had been…cleaned.”

“Cleaned?”

“Like a rabbit.”

Gerda tried to hold back the terror that had been building inside her, but at the magistrate’s words, she lost control. Her back arched and her mouth opened wide as her grief and fright tore out of her in a great wail. As her lungs emptied, her body began to shake uncontrollably.

“God help me,” the magistrate cried. “She is possessed.”

“Possessed by despair,” the inquisitor snapped. “Hold her still, you fools.”

As Gerda felt hands take hold of her legs and shoulders, she lashed out. She felt the wooden cuffs of her shackles connect with someone’s head, and the impact emboldened her even more. She sat up, eyes wide open and staring, filled with a sudden, desperate resolve. There were four men standing over her, men she did not know and whom she knew to be in the service of the inquisitor. As they tried to restrain her, she fought back savagely.

The woman’s scream brought an immediate reaction to the men in the common room. The babble died in an instant, leaving the weak voice of the minstrel as he fumbled to the end of his verse. Both Raphael and Andreas were already on their feet, shoving their way through the crowd toward the door that led to the private room. Andreas reached the door first, yanking it open; Raphael crowded right behind him.

Inside, they found several of the inquisitor’s men wrestling with a frenzied woman on the floor while the inquisitor and the magistrate looked on from behind a long table. The magistrate was leaning back, almost out of his chair, and as the Shield-Brethren entered the room, the inquisitor leaped to his feet.

“How dare you!” the inquisitor thundered, and because he had not clarified to whom he was speaking, everyone froze, thinking he was referring to them. Except for the woman, who continued to struggle. One of the inquisitor’s men sat across her body, his broad hands pinning her manacled hands to her stomach.

“Pardon us, Father,” Andreas said, bowing slightly to the inquisitor. His hand fell, not altogether accidentally, on the hilt of his sword. “We heard a scream and thought you might be in distress.”

The inquisitor’s face darkened at the suggestion in Andreas’s words, but he managed to choke back his initial response. “This is a private tribunal of the Holy Roman Catholic Church in matters of heresy and witchcraft,” he sputtered. “It does not concern men such as you.”

“No?” Andreas countered. “My companion and I are members of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, a holy order that has been officially recognized by the Church in matters martial and judicial. Are you certain the sanctity of these proceedings would not benefit from the eyewitness accounts of two Knight Initiates?”

The inquisitor stared over Andreas’s shoulder, his blue eyes blazing. “I know of your order,” he said icily, regaining his composure, “and it has no authority over matters pertaining to the Inquisition.”

Raphael’s hand touched Andreas’s elbow-a light grip, but firm nonetheless. “Our apologies, Father,” Raphael said, his voice flat and emotionless. “It was not our intention to intrude upon your holy duties. We simply wished to offer our assistance.”

“Which I do not require.”

Andreas, still feeling Raphael’s hand on his elbow, bowed again. “Very well, Father,” he said, preparing to allow himself to be led from the room. “Anyone else?” he tried, unwilling to simply walk away. “Does anyone wish to call for our aid?”

The inquisitor’s man sitting on the woman shifted his grip, putting his hand over her mouth and pressing her head against the floor. Andreas stared at the man’s back for a moment, his jaw working, and then he turned his gaze toward the magistrate. “No?” Andreas asked, and the magistrate would not meet his gaze as he shook his head.

The woman’s eyes bulged in her head as she tried to get Andreas’s attention by sheer force of will, and he met her gaze as Raphael opened the door behind them and gently pulled him away.

As soon as the door closed behind them and they were back in the common room, Andreas whirled on the older knight. “Explain yourself, Brother,” he snapped, standing too close.

“He’s right,” Raphael said quietly, not stepping back.

“He is an inquisitor of the Church. His power is absolute, should he desire it to be so. We cannot interfere.”

“I don’t-”

The door bumped into him as it opened, and Andreas turned to stare at a pair of the inquisitor’s men. His words turned into a snarl and he took a step toward the two men. They closed the door and one stayed, putting his back against the panel, and the other-offering a hostile glare at Andreas and Raphael-called for the innkeeper’s attention as he strode off.

The remaining guard cleared his throat and rested his hands on the short hilt of the knife shoved into his belt.

Behind the Shield-Brethren, the innkeeper shouted to the room at large, “Drink up and go home. We’re closed.”

As the villagers took the hint and started a mass exodus toward the door of the inn, Andreas stalked past Raphael and sat down heavily at a table near the center of the room. He pulled his sword from its scabbard, causing a few of the nearby villagers to shove their way more quickly toward the door, and set it on the table.

“I’m staying,” Andreas announced loudly. “I am holding a vigil for that poor woman’s soul.”

The guard at the door chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment and then shrugged as if it made no difference to him what Andreas did as long as he kept his distance.

“There is time, Brother,” Andreas said, indicating the bench opposite him. “I would hear the explanation you were about to give.”

Raphael sighed and signaled to the innkeeper that the two Shield-Brethren would appreciate being served, regardless of the man’s insistence of the inn’s closure.

Gerda had tried so valiantly to get their attention, but the heavy brute sitting on her had covered her mouth. All she could do was try to communicate her desperate fear with her eyes, and when the blond-haired one with the shaggy beard had asked if anyone needed aid, she had tried to bite the hand over her mouth-gnawing her way out of the man’s grip if need be. But before she could get any purchase on his flesh, the two men had left. As the door latched behind them, she slumped to the floor. When the man removed his hand, all that came out of her mouth was a stream of weak sobs.

The inquisitor came around from behind the table and stood over Gerda. “There will be no more interruptions,” he said sternly. He turned his attention to the cringing magistrate. “I will gain a confession from this woman or I will judge her an unrepentant heretic. One of the questions I will ask her is for her to name her companions, her coconspirators who also seek the Devil’s favor. I will bring the full weight of my office and my holy duty upon those individuals as well.”

“Yes, yes, Your Grace.”

“Give me your belt.”

“Your Grace?”

“Your ignorance tires me,” the inquisitor snapped. “I am not a bishop, nor a man so easily flattered by such honorifics.” He held out his hand. “Your belt.”

Gerda heard the magistrate fumble with his belt, the rattle of his sword as it bumped against the table and chair, and she twisted her head so as to better see. The magistrate pulled his sword from its hanger, laying it on the table, and handed over the long leather belt. The inquisitor folded the belt over itself until he had a strap as thick as his wrist and as long as his forearm. “Put your hand on the table,” the inquisitor said.

The magistrate acquiesced, and the inquisitor slapped the length of leather against the magistrate’s extended hand. He yelped in pain, and his voice hummed in his throat thereafter, but he made no other sound. The inquisitor looked down at Gerda. “My questions will be answered directly,” he said, “or there will be punishment.”

He knelt and forced his hand under her chin. “You may pray to God during your ordeal, but remember that he hears your thoughts as readily as your words. If you cry out again, I will take that as a sign that you are attempting to summon demonic aid. I take no pleasure in condemning heretics to death, but I will not suffer the Devil to walk amongst good Christians.” He stood again, his knees popping, and thrashed the magistrate’s hand one more time with his lash. “Do we understand each other?” His gaze roved from Gerda to the magistrate and back again.

She offered him the tiniest of nods.

“Good,” he said. “Turn her over,” he commanded his man. “Uncover her back so that my displeasure may be felt more readily by her unrepentant flesh.”

Gerda bit her tongue so hard blood flowed in her mouth as the inquisitor’s men roughly turned her over. Her hands were pulled over her head and her shift was yanked upward, bunching the material at the top of her shoulder blades. She struggled for a moment, until she felt the inquisitor’s booted foot press down on the small of her back. “Lie still,” he said, rocking his foot back until the sharp point of his spur pierced her flesh.

“Now,” he said when she stopped moving, “let us start again. This woman, Gerda, you say that she is known for leading men astray, yes?”

She kept her eyes closed, listening to the magistrate answer the inquisitor’s questions. The inquisitor was ignoring the death of her husband-it was as if he had never existed-and he was asking questions about her now. She did not understand why, and the magistrate’s answers were equally as unreal. None of his responses were true, but the presence of the inquisitor’s foot on her back was a constant reminder of what would happen if she dared to open her mouth and speak. She could not contradict what the magistrate was saying, but that did not lessen the gravity of his lies.

The inquisitor was correct in his assessment that the Devil lived in her village, but it was not her house in which the fallen angel had taken residence. It was not her ear in which the serpent had whispered.