The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
With that, he stood up, told me to eat the meal he had ordered, a chocolate pudding with jams, and then to go to sleep. I saw him slowly leave the room, with a friendly face, holding a stick with a golden pomegranate daintily pressed to his chin. After a few days I got up, and this all the more gladly, as in the last days various noises, coming from the outside, such as shouts, whistles and voices, had disturbed the silence of my room. With the help of the servant of the inn, I dressed and had my hair done, during which I perceived that the silver hoop of old age had fully descended on my head during my illness. The good-natured servant told me many horror stories from France, where blood flowed in streams and a human life was not worth three pennies. The plague of the frenzy for freedom was already spreading, and even in this otherwise calm and quiet old-fashioned little town, all kinds of disgusting and unpleasant things had happened in the last few days, which had been of the journeymen and the erection of a liberty tree. However, the city council had wisely submitted a petition to the highest authority for cavalry and a battalion of infantry, which, as the princely book keeper Gailer had informed him confidentially, should be complied with as soon as possible. When I had finished, I slowly descended to the dining room and found there at the common table, to my great delight, Doctor Schlurich, who immediately left his place and sat down next to me. We naturally got into a conversation about the exciting events in the city, which had become like a faint flame to the immense blaze of purple in France, but still seemed worthy of attention. I said that I felt a great desire to go to the city of Paris, to study the immense changes there at close quarters and observe them. I could not conceal from him that the movement that had begun there was of great interest to me, was meaningful for the whole of mankind and downright promising. Doctor Schlurich looked at me with a very thoughtful look and said that he was somewhat surprised to see a nobleman from an old and famous lineage see anything but cheap disgust in these events. The profound upheaval which was only in its infancy could not possibly be welcomed by a caste whose privileged existence rests on an artificial nimbus and a carefully sanctified tradition. He asked me, however, not to misunderstand him. Because his initial astonishment about my behavior was a thoroughly joyful one. I replied that I had suffered a self-inflicted humiliation in my youth that had given me the opportunity to go to school among people of the lowest classes, which, whether it was good or bad, had given me the opportunity as a student of freeing myself from all arrogance and conceit of status. In addition, I had gained the valuable awareness that the so-called differences in standing were created by artificially erected and easily removable barriers, which had arisen and were maintained, to deprive the children of the poor from any better education and the cultivation of their noble feelings, which later on resulted in their crudeness and ignorance. The undeniable merits of the society to which the nobility and the refined bourgeoisie enjoyed, were only the result of a carefully conducted education. If this could only once be shared not just with the privileged classes, but with all members of the human race, humanity would not only protect itself with the noblest weapon, but it would also bring an immeasurable abundance of talents and abilities into a new light that has never existed before. Indeed those places, where they shyly blossom in spite of all the pressure, and are suppressed as dangerous to the state without any knowledge. “You are a nobleman in the inner sense of the word,” said the doctor and bowed. I felt the blush of shame rise to my face, and silently I thought of many things in my life, which were of an ugly nature and would always remain as stains on me. “However, cher haran,” the doctor continued, “I don’t know whether, if you were to ask for my advice, I would advise you, to witness the great upheaval in the immediate vicinity, that is to say, in Paris. Consider: If one cleans a neglected place in his garden, in order to grow useful and lovely plants, and removes the old stones and debris, ugly worms, woodlice, centipedes and all kinds of nasty creatures, which now crawl from their dark places, run around and fall on each other in sudden greed. So it is also with those social changes that are called revolutions. Until the noble core, the light of freedom, shows itself, there is abominable work to be done, which perhaps people can only see who look back after many years, but to those who experience it, their souls are filled with such horror that they no longer recognize anything else, and even lose hope. Revolutions are filled with filth, blood, shouting, evil deeds, wild development of the animal instincts and base greed, and it takes a long time for the jet of fire that shoots up to become pure and free of filthy cinders, and the dominion of the senseless to move into the hands of sensible men.” A wild yelling and screaming outside the windows interrupted him. In the dining room there was a hurried pushing back of the chairs and jumping up. One saw people outside walk by on the street, first individually, then dense masses, and behind them came a closed united front of dragoons, which struck with the flat of their swords and thus cleared the street. All this passed quickly, the shouting and the clattering hoof beats on the cobblestones disappeared, and in a few minutes the street was quiet again, covered with lost hats, sticks and other things. “Our good Germans are slowly maturing,” Doctor Schlurich returned back to the table. “And many a thing will still pass over our people, until they are able to assert inner and outer freedom, from which, by the way, even the French will still be without. The merit, however, of having made a start could be left to them, if one did not have to concede it from the standpoint of higher justice from the English viewpoint. Nevertheless, Herr Baron: The Germans will, after much suffering and hardship be the chosen ones, from whom the salvation of the world emanates. This is my belief.” We were silent for a long time, and our conversation turned to other things. I learned that Doctor Schlurich, born in Köllen, had settled here, not so much to earn money, which in his circumstances was not necessary, but in order to calmly work on unknown phenomena of a psychical nature, with whose research he was mainly concerned. Here he had made a very special find. Namely, in a house of the city lived a Demoiselle Köckering, who, in the company of various doctors was often put into a magnetic sleep and in this state was asked questions about the past and the future, as well as the most diverse things to which she answered completely and correctly. If I happened to be interested in such secrets of nature, which only the unintelligent can connect with ghosts and devils, it would be easy for him to introduce me there. Since the person must be kept secret and lives from her art, it is, however, customary to give a douceur in gold at the first entrance. I was immediately ready to be led by him into the house, and thanked him for his trust. When it began to dawn, we went on our way. A cool, damp wind was blowing from the Rhine. The wet air penetrated chillingly through our coats. In several streets we were stopped by patrols on horseback with loaded carbines, but were allowed to pass as persons of distinction. After some wandering we found the house “Zum silbernen Schneck”, in which the demoiselle lived. Only after knocking several times was the door opened to us by a man, who was finally able to hide his hesitation for fear of the craftsmen and ship’s servants, who, together with the evil folk from the taverns, hooting “Ca ira” and hammering on the gates, had raged in the alley a short while ago to get the prostitutes living in the house next door and take them with them. Soldiers would have quickly driven the screamers away and then would themselves have gone through the door with the red lantern. We climbed the narrow staircase by the light of the tallow candle that dripped between his fingers, and after a special kind of knock, were led into a bright, octagonal chamber, whose windows were tightly curtained. There was nothing to be seen in it but an armchair upholstered in worn brocade, next to which, on two small tables, burned many- armed candlesticks, and in front of it a row of ordinary wooden armchairs, on which some men sat waiting. They turned their heads toward us. Both could be easily classed among the scholars by their dress and the expression of their faces. Doctor Schlurich and I approached the waiting people and gave our names, which was answered in the same way. “-especially the prophecies of the demoiselle should be strictly examined,” one of the gentlemen, who was addressed as “Spectability” continued his speech, which was interrupted by our entrance. “All the more so, as the man who pretends to put her into a magnetic sleep collects one louisdor per person. My esteemed colleague Professor Fulvius, who watched the demonstration was not satisfied in all respects. Those bluish efflorescence’s which you could observe perfectly, on the hands of Emmerentia Gock in Ebersweiler, who is said to be possessed by the devil, are completely absent, and everything that is going on is just limited to some at times certainly astonishing messages about the lives and fates of the people present.” “Whereby it is respectfully to be noted,” said a small, skinny man with a reddish wig in the highest falsetto “that the prophesies of the woman, in so far as they refer to the future, are completely worthless scientifically, because at present they are unverifiable.”
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
With paralyzing horror I looked myself in the face, saw how greedily and flickeringly my eyes burned, how my mouth was narrow and angry and spoke with cruel calm: “Weinschrötter, you come before the Inquisition in the second degree, I ask for the second time:” “Will you confess or not?” A cry of pain came from her mouth, but she shook her head in denial, so that a red flag waved around her. The one with the cowl scraped in a basin of glowing embers, and pulled a white-hot iron from the coals. Then smashing and crashing the terrible image collapsed. The mirror had slipped from my hand. Splinters and shards lay scattered on the floor. The magister entered and said: “Baron, I’m afraid this means seven years of bad luck!” “I want to get up and leave,” I ordered. “Get me a carriage. I don’t want to spend another night in this room.” “You are too weak, Baron,” he said and then added. “I know a carriage. The driver Peter will be happy to hitch up if I send him mail. But it’s a long way to the next town.” “Get me a carriage,” I urged him. “I’m not staying here.” He walked out shaking his head. I was afraid in that room. The man from the Orient had appeared to me here with a comfort that outweighed all the sufferings and wanderings of my life, yet demons dwelled in these dilapidated walls, which were hostile to all living things. The screams of pain, the curses and lamentations, which still haunted the tattered leather wallpaper, were hiding in the cracks of the wall and in the twilight they were like the buzzing of mosquitoes, yet they had still not succeeded in deluding me into believing that I had attended a coven, that I was among larvae. I listened up and let the magister tell me the miraculous things that the people, tired of the zealousness and the artificially created crisis, had already accomplished in this country, and when he, with fiery eyes and a face that I did not recognize, swore high and dear, that the bright dawn of freedom would rise from the smoking and stinking debris of the shattered fortresses, this description moved me so much that I felt a desire to see the events in Paris with my own eyes. Supported by the Magister, I climbed down the crumbling staircase of Krottenriede for the last time and knocked on the door of the master of the hound. He was sitting at a table, whistling to himself and looking at the components of a gold-inlaid rifle lock, which he had taken apart and anointed it with a feather from a small bottle of clear bone oil. When he heard of my intention, he did not want to know anything about it, and said that now the fun days of stalking the red buck would begin and that he wouldn’t like it if the son of his old crony Dronte left without a successful hunt and with such an abrupt departure. And as for taking that maleficent fellow, the windy magister along with, it was completely out of the question, since he will be taking the next few days, to write various sharp manifests to the farmers all around, whose dogs would again begin to prowl and roam around and this must be stopped immediately and punished with severe punishments. I replied to him very politely that I could hardly be restrained from staying on Krottenriede, especially since I had important and urgent business. Otherwise it would hardly occur to me to travel for miles on a farm wagon in a state of half recovery. If he were to take it upon himself to leave me in my infirmity without any other companion than the waggoner, then this was a matter that he would have to decide with his conscience. These words struck him to some extent, but nevertheless he swayed his head back and forth and said that he did not like to let the magister out of his hand. I, as a nobleman, must understand that such good-for-nothings, when they get the chance would make an attempt to escape. He had confronted the journeyman with the fact that a couple of times the wood invoices had not been correct, for which he, the master of the hound, was himself to blame, nevertheless, it occurred to him that he could threaten the windbag, on the basis of this fact, pay him less and let him walk into the hole until he would willingly return to food and whip. Because, added the old swindler with a wink, he would never get such a cheap and good scribe in his life, and for that very reason, he could not let the man out of his sight. I stopped and asked him once again to allow the man as my escort, he finally gave in after some cunning consideration and said that he already wanted to authorize the windbag and give him papers so that the rascal with his severed ears would have to return immediately after he had brought me to my destination. But he wanted to advise me one thing: to treat the imaginary one, the scholarly monkey no differently than a pot de chambre, porter and lackey, and on occasion not to spare a few kicks or face slaps. For this is the best medicine for such birds, who secretly think they are better than a nobleman or a good soldier. I shook his hand and asked for a temporary leave; so that he could think that there was still time and that I would start packing. Instead of partaking in the upcoming lunch, I waved to Hemmetschnur, who was anxiously waiting in the antechamber, since he had always been forbidden to enter the manorial chambers with the exception of the dining room, and quickly climbed with him onto the waiting carriage, which the young farmer on the driver’s seat at my command immediately set into motion. We rattled down the steep road and were only a few thousand paces from Krottenriede when a loud bugle sounded from the heights. The farmer made an effort to stop the horses, and said: “The merciful lord is calling us back!” “You fool!” said the magister. “It’s only the hunter Räub, who gives a farewell to the high-born gentleman next to me. Therefore, be quiet!” So we drove on, and soon the blowing died away, in which I well recognized the call “Rallie”, in the fresh wind. In the afternoon, we stopped in a little village. My weakness increased considerably. Half asleep I listened to Hemmetschnur, who, after he had gained so much confidence, told me the story of his cut off ears and how this had been a severe punishment for a stupid prank he had committed in Stambul, when he had responded to the waving and nodding of a Turkish, veiled lady, by climbing over a wall, and was immediately seized for the cuttings and, at the command of a man in rich clothes, was wounded by two burning cuts with a hand-held scimitar, which one of them pulled out of his belt, and was deprived of his ears. When he collapsed from pain, weakness and loss of blood, the cruel man’s servants dragged him out into the deserted street, in the sweltering heat of the noon, and threw him on a heap of dung and rubbish, where he remained. Towards evening he awoke and felt how the fierce wild dogs that they have there in all the alleys licked his wounds for the sake of blood, and this was the reason that no inflammation appeared. A compassionate Muslim picked him up and took him to a Franciscan monastery, where he was cared for. And the most distressing thing of all was that he learned later that the veiled lady had been a nasty old hag who had wanted to have some fun, which was made worse by the arrival of her son-in-law, a Pascha as powerful as he was violent, who had brought it to such a miserable end. I was not able to take food and I kept seeing the cut off, shell-shaped ears of the magister in front of me, and how shaggy dogs fought over the bloody pieces in the yellow dust of the street. When we arrived in the Rhenish city toward evening and the carriage was parked in front of the door of the inn “Zum Reichsapfel”, I gave Hemmetschnur leave, although he was very concerned about me and wanted to stay with me. But I reminded him to cross the river before the city gates closed or before a messenger on horseback from the master of the hound came behind them. Then he was so frightened that his teeth snapped open struck one against the other. Once again he kissed my hand, bowed many times and then pointing to the wide, calm stream, said: “I go to freedom, my patron! Wherever I see you again, my Herr Baron, I will serve you faithfully and be yours with blood and life!” After I had amply rewarded Peter, the driver, who had observed the departure of the magister with much head scratching and frowning, I entered the inn. “The gentleman is burning red in the face,” said the waiter, who directed me to my room. “The gentleman should go to bed; I will immediately call Doctor Schlurich.” He helped me to undress, and immediately after that I felt the hot waves and the shivering chill of the fever that was setting in again. And then there was darkness around me, out of which an endless procession of sights passed by me, even more morose and sullen than the face of the magister on the day when I had first seen him at Krottenriede Castle. After long weeks of a bedridden life in which I barely stirred, after countless days in which my inner gaze firmly and unwaveringly held the image of Isa Bektschi, the hour came when I, as if awakening from a deep sleep, saw doctor Schlurich sitting at my bedside. He was a slim man of about forty years, very distinguished and intelligent-looking, with a high, clean forehead and beautiful eyes. His black suit was made of the finest fabric, and in his tie was a bright green emerald of great value, and his hands were delicate, white and well-groomed. “My lord baron,” he said in a pleasant and subdued voice. “I am glad that your vigorous nature and will to live have won the not easy victory over a severe nervous fever.” “And your art,” I added politely. “My skill can, at the best of times, support the secretive forces with which the body can defend itself against the impending decay, can even summon it, can alleviate pain and restlessness, but must – with the exception of a few cases – as it were, watch, how the quarrel surges to and fro. The friendly fighters against death here and there with this and that means to bring support (and it may be that this is sometimes decisive), but on the whole the sick person must find the remedy in himself or bring it forth. This time you, distinguished Herr, were on the way into the shadow realm, and you have rightly returned!”
Llana looked at everyone in the firelight. “Are there any more questions?”
“So I meet you here next month at the same time?” Tobal asked.
“Right,” she said. “And I will give you the training you need to train Becca and Fiona.”
That was the end of the meeting, and they chatted the rest of the evening, sharing what had been going on in each other’s lives. Llana was very concerned about the medics being kicked off the mountain and the decision to build a permanent base at the old original gathering spot. She urged everyone to be careful.
The lake was beautiful, and they spent a lot of time skinny-dipping in the cold waters and lying on the beach in the sun, watching air transports bring workers and supplies to the gathering spot. With so much activity, it seemed hard to believe there was any danger in the area. Fiona seemed like a sister to him, and he was deeply in love with Becca. Their love was passionate. The days passed, and before he knew it, he had to head back to the cavern for the new moon tournaments. He urged the girls to leave the lake and warned them not to get too close to the waterfall—two were more vulnerable than three, and it might not be safe to stay.
The girls didn’t seem to take his concerns too seriously but suggested they might look up Nikki and see how she was doing with her last newbie. As Tobal left, they told him they were planning to leave the next day.
He was looking forward to his first regular meeting as a Journeyman. He found himself in the area a day early and thought he would check the camp out a little more. He was surprised to find several Journeymen already there. They welcomed him warmly.
Unlike circle, which was abandoned each month, there was always someone at this camp guarding it, hanging around in the caverns, socializing, sparring, or doing some type of assigned duty. They had a lot of time on their hands.
Staying in the camp was a way to socialize, work out, and practice. There was also a hot spring to soak in, and that was a luxury for sore and aching muscles. The tournaments were always scheduled early in the day and the initiations were scheduled closer to midnight. That was why Tobal had seen no tournaments on the day of his initiation. One of the caverns had been set aside as a fighting arena. It had soft powdered sand on the floor like beach sand.
There were a few medics wearing red tunics acting as judges or referees as well as emergency medics in case something went wrong. They took care of the many minor injuries that were common during these fights.
As the newbie of the group it didn’t take long for Tobal to realize how it worked. The referee laid out the ground rules, of which there were basically none. Anyone could challenge anyone to a fight. A person could not be challenged any more than one time in a day. However, a person could challenge as many people as they wanted to. It was set up in this way so if a person got beaten badly they would not have to fight again that night. But if they won and felt like it they could challenge someone else.
The oldest members by seniority got the first challenge and the youngest ones got the last challenges if they hadn’t already been challenged. Generally the older members took advantage of the inexperienced members by challenging them.
The first challenge was an old veteran that was burly and bearded. He was not well liked it seemed. He challenged Joy. It was easy to see why the grizzly had chosen Joy. He was almost twice Joy’s size. He clearly expected the match to be over quickly. Joy surprised him by being a lot faster, more elusive and more aggressive than Tobal had realized.
The brute simply couldn’t make contact with Joy and three times went sprawling as Joy tripped him during a rush but he always managed to fall within the rope circle and got back to his feet quickly. Every now and then a wild swing would connect and Joy would stagger. She simply was too light to do much damage to him. Tobal could see she was tiring and wasn’t surprised when a wild arm knocked her to the floor. The brute then sat on her and held her motionless until the referee called time and declared the brute to be the winner.
Joy really had trouble with this degree because of her small size and young age. So far she had only won three fights. The good news was that she was getting much better at fighting and she was also getting larger and stronger as she grew older. She was learning about fighting the hard way, by losing. Most of the older Journeymen had already challenged Joy and won. They couldn’t challenge her again. That meant gradually Joy was being more evenly matched as she grew in skill. The burly veteran she had just fought was undoubtedly one of the few older ones that hadn’t yet been able to challenge her. The entire thing made Tobal feel slightly sick.
Next up was Ox. Ox smiled maliciously as he challenged Tobal.
“You don’t have a knife to save you this time,” he sneered.
Tobal felt a weak sick feeling in his stomach and realized he was probably in for quite a beating. Ox still held a grudge against Tobal from that time in sanctuary when they had argued over Fiona. Tobal had only saved himself from a beating by instinctively pulling a knife and threatening Ox with it. This time though no weapons were allowed. It was simply hand to hand warfare with no rules.
Tobal assumed a boxer’s stance and tried a few jabs to no effect. Cautiously they circled the ring looking for an opening. Then Ox put down his head and charged straight at Tobal. He tried moving out of the way but was caught by a huge hairy arm that turned him around. Next a hammer exploded in the pit of his stomach and solar plexus doubling him up. He felt the bile rise in his throat as all the fight ran out of him. He lay in agony on the cave floor gasping for breath curled up in the fetal position trying to protect his stomach from further damage. Dimly he heard the referee call out time. Tobal had just lost his first match in less than two minutes. His eyes were stinging with tears.
Tobal was surprised when Joy re-challenged the brute from the first fight. It was easy to see there was no such thing as fairness in these matches. Anybody was fair game and the smaller and weaker got picked on more often than the bigger and stronger ones. If you were big and powerful things generally went your way. It didn’t seem right but life was unfair at times and the strong often did win. It was brutal survival of the fittest in it’s most primitive form and wasn’t very pretty.
Tobal tasted blood in his mouth as he sat watching Joy. She handled herself remarkably well this time and it was easy to see she had more stamina than the brute. She found an opening and finished the match by landing a kick solidly in the groin of the brute to the applause of the watching crowd. It was then that Tobal realized he had to be really careful. He had to learn a heck of a lot more about fighting than he knew right now. He also realized Joy was right in fighting after her first defeat. It was the only chance she really had to move ahead and it didn’t cost her anything.
He looked over the unchallenged members of the group carefully. Being a loser he had the opportunity to challenge and in a spark of anger challenged one of the remaining members that hadn’t fought yet. In a burst of fury and lightning movements he had tripped and thrown the person out of the ring over the rope. The referee called the match and Tobal was the winner. In a flash of sportsmanship he went over and helped the other person back to his feet and they started talking together.
“Man, what got into you?” The other person said. “You were like a demon or something. I never even had a chance. It was all over before I knew what was happening.”
“That’s how my fight with Ox went,” He laughed. “I never saw it coming either.”
His name was Jake and soon he and Tobal were hanging out together sparring and learning everything they could from any of the others that were willing to spend time training with them. Tobal really sucked at fighting and it was good to team up with someone willing to work hard with him. They spent most of the next two weeks sparring every day for hours. They mercilessly drove themselves to the point of exhaustion. It seemed to Tobal that he was always stiff and bruised but when circle finally came he was ready for it and felt that he needed a little break.
While the tournaments were brutal, the initiations were beautiful in their own way. Tobal watched in fascination as the circle was cast widdershins and the pentagram was drawn upside down. The power was raised, but it felt different and had a harder edge to it.
The primal earth energy of the Journeyman degree was much different than the spiritual light energy of the Apprentice degree. It was more visceral and seemed more magickal. The images of the Lord and Lady seemed more real and it was as if they were really there in the circle. He heard their voices urging him to get up and fight after Ox had slammed him to the ground but had not been able to get back up.
Watching the initiations he saw them beside the candidates after they had given up fighting the six dark hooded figures. His parents kneeled beside the candidate as the circle began to move widdershins and the High Priest and High Priestess bestowed their blessings upon the initiate. Then it seemed as if they merged and flowed into the candidate and disappeared.
Later he asked Ellen about these things and she was interested in what he saw. Apparently he was able to see things even the High Priest and High Priestess had trouble seeing or feeling. More correctly he was seeing and hearing what a High Priest or High Priestess was supposed to be able to see and hear. She was excited about his natural talent and he spoke about some of the exercises and meditations that Crow and Llana had taught him. He didn’t mention his belief that the Lord and Lady were his parents.
There was no requirement for him to go to circle except during guard duty, but he always felt it was very important to show up and see how his Apprentice friends were doing and celebrate with them as they trained and soloed their own trainees. Fiona and Becca would be getting their sixth chevrons and he wouldn’t miss that. He was also looking forward to some quiet time with Becca.
He arrived just in time to change into his black robe and take part in the initiation ceremony as a guard. He didn’t have time to look for Becca or talk with any of his friends and none of them showed up during the day to chat. It was mid July and hot.
Becca and Fiona usually looked him up at least once during the day and he had a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that something was wrong.
He tried not to worry as he and Joy made sure the candidates were properly welcomed into the clan and later prepared for their initiation. This time he was the one that cut the gray robe and shortened it to become a tunic. He remembered his own Clansman initiation and felt satisfaction as he cut away the fabric of the tunic. It was the first time he had cut a tunic and it was kind of ragged in spots and high. He might have cut the tunic a little short but she was good looking and had nice legs. The shortened tunic looked good on her.
There were eight candidates and later the new clansmen were taken to the sweat lodge for purification and left to meditate. It was a long day and the eight initiations seemed to drag on forever.
After the last initiate was gone he headed toward the circle and noticed that both Fiona’s and Becca’s students had returned from their solos. They were hanging out by the beer barrel but he still didn’t see Fiona or Becca. He walked over to congratulate both of them on their solos and asked where the girls were. The look on both of their faces told him immediately that something was wrong. They were surprised he hadn’t heard. Yesterday rogues had attacked both Fiona and Becca. Becca had been raped and badly beaten. Medics had taken her to sanctuary. Fiona had gone with her to make sure she was all right. The kids had stayed behind.
There was a hollow sick feeling in his stomach and he felt like he was going to throw up. He was shaken to his very core by the news and his face turned a pasty gray. He looked for one of the medics to ask for more information and made a beeline in the dark to the nearest red cloaked figure he saw. The medic was busy putting some things in his pack. His back was to Tobal as he walked up.
“Excuse me,” He began. “I need some information.”
“ Rafe!” He shouted.
“Rafe, what about Becca?” He asked urgently. “Is she all right?”
Rafe turned a troubled gaze on him.
“Becca’s pretty bad. Near as we can figure four rogues jumped the two of them with clubs while they were climbing half way up the cliff on a ledge by the waterfall. Becca got taken by surprise at the top. They grabbed her and were holding her down and tearing her clothes off. She was fighting back when she was knocked unconscious. Fiona managed to slice one of them pretty bad with a blade before being pushed over the ledge. Becca was already unconscious when Fiona fell over the ledge. She wasn’t able to help Becca and prevent the beating. She’s lucky she wasn’t hurt in the fall.”
“Alarms went off on our air sleds and we responded immediately. The rogues left Becca with a couple cracked ribs and took off running when three medics came flying in on air sleds. Tobal, she was raped. ” He looked at Tobal before continuing.
“We felt she might have internal injuries and took her to the city for specialized medical attention. Fiona went along as a witness and to fill out the reports.”
That was all Rafe knew except they were both at sanctuary now and Becca was in stable condition.
“I don’t know who the rogues were. They don’t seem to be anyone that is a part of our camp. But they know about us, that’s for sure. They didn’t wear med-bracelets, so they didn’t show up on our screens.”
“They don’t wear med-bracelets?” Tobal said grimly. “That means they are General Grant’s men.”
“The air sleds showed up suddenly?” Tobal asked violently. “How did the rogues get away?”
“We don’t know yet. That’s our new camp remember.” Rafe continued. “As soon as Becca was knocked unconscious alarms went off on our air sleds. What I can’t believe is that rogues would be so close to our camp.”
“I know where they were climbing,” Tobal said suddenly. “If they were on the ledge they would have been trapped. The only way down was hand and foot holes and the only way up was through a rock chimney. They didn’t run away. The medics let them get away!”
Rafe turned white as understanding dawned. “It wasn’t our Medics. The rogues were teleported there and out again. They must have a teleporting station set up right there on that ledge. We’ve got to find it and destroy it.”
“What did these rogues look like? What kind of tunics did they wear?” Tobal asked savagely already knowing the answer. “They knew the girls were going to climb the cliff and waited for them on the ledge. The girls were deliberately ambushed!”
“’They were dressed as Journeymen in black tunics.” Rafe told him. “That’s all we know at this time. Ellen’s looking into it further and making a complaint to the City Council.”
There was a lump in his throat and a heavy feeling in his heart. He had left the girls at the lake alone and unprotected. Part of what happened to them was his fault. He had even suggested they go there in the first place. Tobal took up his pack and asked Rafe to give him a ride to sanctuary. The trip was a little over an hour with the air sled. The full moon made night travel fairly easy anyway. It was his first air sled ride but he was too emotional to enjoy it.
As they traveled he wondered about the rogues. Were they really acting under orders from General Grant or his Uncle Harry and did they have the ability to teleport in and out at will?
What was so important about the cave under the waterfall? They needed to really check it out before the enemy broke through the shield and took everything. He told Rafe that they needed to check the cave out thoroughly and see what they could find. Rafe agreed and said he and Ellen would look into it immediately on his return. He dropped Tobal off at sanctuary and sped back toward the lake.
Tobal went inside and stopped at the door to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. Fiona saw him and came running with a glad cry.
“Tobal!” She threw her arms around him in a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
She led him over to the cot where Becca lay and he sank down on his knees by her bed. He reached out for her hands. She smiled weakly at him. Her face was horribly bruised and there was a look in her eyes he didn’t recognize. He didn’t know for sure if she really knew who he was. It was like she was looking through him. As he reached to move a strand of hair away from her eyes she flinched away from him.
“Becca, it’s me Tobal!” He implored but her uncomprehending eyes remained the same. She was in shock. Part of her soul was gone somewhere else and he didn’t know how to get it back. He stayed with her and Fiona stayed with her but she remained unreachable. In anguish he grabbed her hand and placed it over the scars on his face.
“Becca, it’s me, remember me! My face. Feel the scars, it’s me, remember!”
She slowly looked at him and tears began to form in her eyes.
“Tobal.”
She softly traced the scars with her fingers. “I’m sorry.” She whispered and her arm dropped back on the cot.
He pulled her hand toward him gripping it hard and trying to bring her nearer. Something broke inside his heart and he cried, violent spasms shaking his body.
“Becca, I love you, I love you. Come back to me.”
Her fingers tightened in his. “I love you too,” she whispered.
Two days passed and Becca seemed to improve but something was still wrong. The rape and beating was still fresh and her experience made her both fearful and angry. She wanted to withdraw at times into her own space and be alone and at times she pushed both Fiona and Tobal away. Other times she needed them close to her.
It was the afternoon on the third day that Llana showed up at sanctuary concerned about what had happened. When Tobal hadn’t showed up for their meeting she had gotten worried and gone looking for him. She checked at the new medic’s base and was told that he was here.
“You’ve got to get Crow,” Tobal told her. “Crow told me that he would be needing to do another soul retrieval. He is the one that is meant to help her.”
“Both Crow and I will help her together,” She told him softly.
A few hours later both Crow and Llana had finished the soul retrieval and done spiritual healing work on Becca. She was sleeping peacefully. Crow, Llana, Fiona and he could not talk openly about things at sanctuary because newbies were there and clansmen were also showing up to get the newbies. Crow and Llana left and said they would talk with him later. Before they left Tobal warned them that the General’s men were teleporting into areas without warning and attacking clansmen.
They stayed at Sanctuary as Becca gradually improved. Both Becca and Fiona were looking forward to their Journeyman initiation and joked about it. The bad food at sanctuary was finally too much and they decided to make a leisurely journey to the caverns.
It had been two weeks and was just before the new moon. Physically Becca was pretty much healed but there were still deep emotional scars that were raw. He could feel the scars keeping them apart. Becca and Fiona were to be initiated into the Journeyman degree. They both felt it would help them to turn their minds away from what had happened. They traveled together and reached the caverns late in the afternoon. As the girls were being prepared for the initiations he joined the tail end of the tournaments.
Since he was late he hadn’t been challenged and was given the opportunity to challenge someone. He didn’t care whether he won or lost, he just needed an outlet for the rage and energy that had been trapped inside him since Becca’s accident. It was making him crazy and he knew he had to get rid of it.
In a burst of anger he challenged Ox. Ox had been having it entirely too easy because of his natural strength and size. Nobody ever challenged him and he only challenged weaker and easier victims. He never really had to fight. Tobal needed to fight.
Ox was surprised and incredulous but also had a wide grin on his face as he contemplated the beating he was going to give Tobal. Lumbering to his feet he swaggered into the circle and nodded at the referee. Tobal was on fire and there was no strategy. He was just going to pound Ox until the fight was over. It was going to be brutal but he was in much better shape and had learned a few tricks the past months. He had also been practicing daily. He had never seen Ox bother with any type of training or exercise. The brute seemed to rely exclusively on his own natural ability and strength.
Ox lunged and Tobal narrowly missed getting caught by those massive arms. As Ox passed Tobal swung a viscous blow with an elbow that caught Ox on the side of the head and dazed him. Tobal was not quick enough to take advantage and Ox turned with a bellow of anger. It turned into a slug fest in which neither one tried to get away but simply stood braced and pounded on each other, trading blows without regard for the punishment they were taking.
Tobal had learned how to brace himself for blows and took several blows to the midsection without buckling. Llana’s training had given him vast endurance and it was Ox who began to weaken under sustained blows to the head and midsection. He was used to fights that ended quickly and was getting tired. A wicked knee to the groin finally dropped Ox to his knees and the fight was over. Tobal was battered and bloody but victorious and happy. He had won his second fight.
There was something especially sweet about this fight he thought as he limped out of the circle. He watched as Jake fought his match. There was no doubt about Jake getting better too. But it was not enough for him to win.
As he left the ring and sat down at the edge of the circle his mind again returned to the conversation with Becca that had left his head spinning. He had asked Becca for a better description of her attackers. They had been bearded and hard to describe but she had torn the leader’s tunic off in the struggle. She had seen clearly a tattoo on his chest above his heart. It was a round circle with a male and female holding hands inside the circle. It was the same tattoo he had seen on his uncle as a child.
After the tournaments he washed up and got prepared for Becca’s and Fiona’s initiations. Having two initiations made things go much longer since they each had to be done separately. Becca’s initiation was first and it was almost the last. Tobal was Becca’s guide. He had requested to be her guide and Ellen had approved. He wanted to be close by in case something happened.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
I remained mute with amazement. It seemed to me as if I were standing in front of an open gate, which I had carelessly passed, without knowing that behind it was hidden the solution to all questions. “Understand me, brother. I’ll show you the way.” “The wish at the moment of death –“, I said to myself. “To take the consciousness beyond death — to save the memory –“ “You have understood. Farewell!” Slowly glittering in the twilight, his figure became indistinct, only his face still shone. “Stay, stay with me -” I wanted to call, but no sound came out of my mouth. Then he said slowly and clearly words, whose meaning I no longer understood: “Hamd olsun -tekrar görüschdüjümüze!” I was awake, didn’t see him anymore. “Isa bektschi!” I shouted. “Stay with me!” But only my own hoarse voice echoed in the wide space. Why had I understood him before and now I didn’t? And it had been the same language – I remembered it as one remembers a blown note whose tone, the sequence of which is fading more and more from memory. Hastily I spoke the unknown words to myself twice, three times, until they were indelibly burned into my memory like the words of a prayer recited a thousand times. Why did my heart ache so much? How many questions I still had to ask! How I would have liked to ask him about Aglaja, about Zephyrine, about the haunting of the night of hell. Didn’t he say we were one? “I am you?” He was in me, and only from me could the answer come. From the depths of consciousness, when the hidden would awake. When the state occurred, in which all riddles spread out legibly, like clear writing. So calmly my heart beat, free from all fear, free from expectation, and so safe and happy was I as a child in a mother’s arms. “Death, where is thy sting?” Like distant, comforting ringing these words from the holy book came to me. There was no death for the one who wanted to live. Life for all eternity, life until complete purification, until the purification, until the glorious emergence, until the conscious being in God. Tears of joy ran down my cheeks. Everything was only a wandering in the darkness, and to me shone a faint glimmer of the inextinguishable light that shines at the end of the path through the eternities. As far as it might be, as much fear and hardship still lurked at the sides of the path – which led to the goal. Isa, the guardian, had shown it to me. What could happen to me, and who could harm the immortal part of me? The door opened. The Magister Hemmetschnur came to my bed, holding in his hand a silver cup with a cool potion of mint and sugar water. “You must have met a strange monk on the stairs,” I said quickly. “A man in a brown robe with a black turban, and yellow beads around his neck.” “The fever is rising -” he grumbled peevishly to himself. “No, no,” I implored him. “The stranger was with me just now, standing there before my bed. He could not have gone unnoticed.” And I described Ewli to him once again and urged him to call him back in a hurry. “Baron,” said the magister. “You have had a dream. For half an hour I’ve been sitting on a chair by the corridor window reading in front of your door. No one has entered your room, so no one could have come out of your room. That’s what common logic says.” Exhausted, I sank back into my pillows. “Dreamed -?” Like a bitter taste it came to my tongue. But then I started up again up. “Hemmetschnur, you have been in Stambul for a long time, and many languages are known to you. What does the sentence I am about to recite to you mean?” And slowly, emphasizing word by word exactly, I recited to him the last sentence which had reached me: “Hamd olsun tekrar görüschdüjümüzel”. The magister’s eyes snapped open. His mouth remained open. Then he wiped his face with his hand, looked at me again and shook his head: “By the diamond of the Great Mogul! Baron -it is the purest Turkish!” “What does it mean? I want to know what it means!” I demanded in my impatience. He drew a deep breath, looked at me with a shy look and spoke: “It means, thank God, we will meet again!” “Thank God!” I repeated with a sigh. I laughed with joy and patted his haggard hand that held the cup. “Strange things are happening in this witch’s room this day,” he nodded at me. “The man, that you have seen, Baron Dronte–that’s what the Islamic dervishes look like and no others. This is stranger than strange!” “I also want to give you the means so that you can escape from this house, Herr Magister”, I said quickly. “You have had to stay until now, I can see that. But since it is for my sake that you martyred yourself here, it is also my duty to help you!” Then he fell to his knees before my bed, so that the cup fell to the ground and spilled its contents. “God bless you deeply, you great and kind man!” he sobbed and kissed my hand. “A little longer and I would have escaped in another way, hanging from the window cross, and rather in the deepest underworld than in the mill of the miserable days here.” He picked up the cup. “I hasten to bring another drink, gracious lord!” he cried, laughing and crying and ran out. My eyes fell closed. Delicious languor held me embraced. “Thank God – we shall meet again!” Thank God! Thank God! Now, whatever would come, would come. And nothing of what had been in my life, neither good nor bad, had happened without a reason. Thank God! It was mostly quiet around me, and only the thanks came and went. I preferred that to when the old man stomped in, sat down on my bed, sprinkled everything with snorting tobacco and started to tell dirty stories, or told adventures from his and my father’s old days. The one I got along best with was the magister, who was busy and ready to serve me. I felt his grateful look. Most of all I was pleased that he did not want to leave, although he had been given good travel money, but thought to wait until I was undoubtedly well and in good health. He provided me with all the necessities, and when it became too bad with the beard, he barbered me with great skill. When I was alone again, I took the hand mirror that he had left on the bedside and looked into it. Yellow and haggard my face looked out of it and silver frost lay on my hair. Yes, I had grown old, old and tired. With melancholy I looked at the leafless crowns of the poplars in front of my windows, which, like me, seemed doomed to die soon, but this melancholy was mixed with a joyful confidence. With strong hope I thought of the stone that I had seen in the graveyard of my homeland, the stone that bore the saying of Herr Thomas More: Non omnis moriar, I will not die completely. Again I held with an uncertain hand the round mirror in front of my face, and as I held the glass a little obliquely, a sweet woman’s face with red hair appeared, which was only a little darker than the gold hood that adorned it. It was the portrait hanging on the wall of Lady Heva Weinschrötter, which had been reflected back. The gray eyes looked at me half questioningly, half knowingly, around the mouth seemed to play a secret smile but it changed under my gaze into a heart- broken expression. I could no longer turn my eyes away from her; I could not resist the compulsion that was pressing in on me. The roundness of the mirror widened, shrouded everything like a fine moon mist, and drew me under its spell. Gradually, I felt as if I were among people of another time and was one of them. Wasn’t it this room-? A table stretched out on the wall, and I was sitting there myself in a black coat trimmed with narrow strips of fur. Two equally dressed people were to my right and left, and at the narrow end of the table the deeply stooped and blinking Magister Hemmetschnur wrote. It was him, even though he was wearing a white monastic habit and over it a black throw-over. And in front of the table, with loosened, copper-gold hair, stood Lady Heva Weinschrötter – no, for God’s sake, it was Zephyrine in the dark gray, blood- encrusted torture shirt, from which her snow-white skin shone. She looked at me with crazy eyes; her ankles were blue, her hands were tied to a black leather rope, which ran through the top of the bare iron ring in the vaulted ceiling, and its other end was held by a human being in his coarse hand, who gazed with small, treacherously puffy eyes out from the holes of a dull red girdle that covered his face and broad shoulders.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
Somebody came, put me in a cradle and sang to me, so that I could fall asleep. But I was awake again in a moment. Lying in the bed with the angel heads, I saw in the first morning light the candles, the light rectangles of the windows, I wanted to move, but my limbs were too heavy. “You have a fever!” said a dull voice. Next to me, in a patched robe, sat the magister stirring something in a glass. “I happened to see you in the meadow outside doing strange leaps, Baron,” said Hemmetschnur. “Johann and I ran out there and with great difficulty put you to bed. That is all I know. If I had not still been up the entire night over the cursed wood bills who knows whether we would not have picked you up frozen to death in the cold dew.” He held the glass to my lips, and I drank. “Am I sick then?” I asked. A great weakness was in me. “It seems so,” he returned. “I knew how it would turn out if one had to lie in this room at night, and especially on the last of April, at Walpurgis. The master of the hound is already up and asks vehemently what the noise in the break of day was all about. I must tell him; otherwise all hell will break loose. Get some sleep and next time keep your hands off things that are not fun to play with!” And he pointed with his finger at the blue pot that lay shattered on the floor. His face seemed to me to be as morose and off color as the nasty day that was slowly creeping up. I closed my eyes and called inside with all my might for the Ewli, who did not want to appear to me. I had indeed become seriously ill and lay weak and faint in the four-poster bed, whose bruised angel heads made faces at me when the fever heat rose. The magister took good care of me, and the master of the hound appeared once, with his foot still wrapped, sat next to me for a while and again told me a stunt that he and my father had performed at the duke’s court, by putting a large water frog into the night gown of a distinguished lady. In the evening between eleven and half past eleven I heard his loud singing. I distinguished the manner of a hunter’s song: “A little fox I want to catch, Red as my beloved’s hair.” This song made me weep in my weakness, and I thought with new, hot tears of my Zephyrine in the rose bushes, as she had said, “I carry under my heart a little vixen of the female sex,” and how horribly it had turned out. And yet it had been so long ago that I was allowed to believe that the pain in my chest had cried itself to death. My eyes became wet around Aglaja, too, and I saw her again with the glittering crown of the dead in the flickering of the candles. What purpose had my unhappy, miserable life served? To whom had it been of any use? Passions, all the garbage of sins, and wicked ghosts were its contents, and now the path descended gently toward the end. Oh, how I resented myself so deeply when I looked back at the lost years! Hardworking farmers plowed their meager field in trickling sweat, craftsmen worked their hands without rest for the sake of their daily bread, doctors sat at the beds of the sick, full of care and heavy with knowledge, scholars researched and pondered with extinguished lamps, musicians delighted with the sweet playing of the human heart. And me? Here I lay, a diseased trunk that bore neither leaves nor blossoms and was devoid of any fruit of life. Hans Dampf himself had not staggered more uselessly through existence than I had. But suffering, suffering had been heaped upon me to the fullest extent, and now I felt more than pain. For within me was the terrible feeling of purposelessness and the ripeness of decay. “Everything served your purification,” said a soft and mild voice in a language that was completely foreign to me. Yet I understood it, as if it were my own. Beside my bed, in the twilight, stood, enclosed in a very fine, clear bluish light of its own, Ewli. It was him. Under the black turban between the arches of the brows was the red horizontal mark; the eyes shone like black fires, in which the noble, brownish face was without wrinkles. Around the neck and on the chest were yellow amber beads on the reddish-brown cloth of the robe. “Who are you -?” I asked. My voice was toneless, like the voices one hears in a dream. “I am here,” it wafted toward me. Around the red lips, which crowned a small black beard, went a mild, understanding smile, which was like a soft caress for me. “At last you have come -” I whispered. “I have come.” “Is this your true form?” I asked. “It is the shape you gave me.” “I gave you?” “You chose this shape.” I suddenly saw myself as a child, immersed in adoring in front of the glass lintel, under which stood the small image of the one who now appeared to me, as he had so often before. I feared very much that he would slip away this time too, but Ewli, as if he had guessed my fear, smiled softly and said, “You are close to me.” Then it was as if I saw, over his shoulder, a distorted, mischievous face with yellow, piercing eyes, and I cried out, “Another is also close to me!” “He is everywhere,” answered Ewli. “He always walked beside you and beside me.” “Fangerle -” I groaned. “To name is to call,” the voice continued. “Give him no name, and he is no more.” The sickeningly grinning face behind him disappeared into the half-light, and was no more. A golden gleam entered the eyes which looked at me benignly, like a reflection of immeasurable glory. “You have walked so deeply through hardship and torment, that he has no more power over you. You are near the goal, brother.” “Help me!” I moaned. “I am so weak -.” “You are tired from the long way and still have more to walk. Only you alone can help you, for I am you,” he said. “I don’t understand you -“ I lifted my aching head. “What then is the goal?” “Eternal life,” he said, and in that moment, the gloomy chamber became so dazzlingly bright, that I closed my eyes. When I opened them again and feared to look into the void, I saw, to my indescribable consolation, that Ewli was still with me. “I am Isa Bektschi, Isa the guardian,” I heard him say. “So you watch over me?” “Always over you.” “And where is my path going, Isa Bektschi?” With a trembling heart, I looked at him. “To the rebirth,” he replied, and over his unspeakably beautiful face, once more shone a bright radiance. “But death-“ “The immortal returns to God,” It sounded solemnly. “Every man’s immortal?” I asked, reaching out to him. “Every human being.” “So everyone is reborn, Ewli?” Sweet hope descended upon me. “Twofold is the way of rebirth according to the law,” he spoke, and his voice was deep like the sound of bells. “Unconscious and conscious.” Fear seized me at this word. “And I -?” I groaned out. “Help me, Brother!” “Only you can.” Agonizing effort was in me, the ardent desire to understand. I wanted to stand up, to ask, to plead – but I could not. I looked at him imploringly, praying in mute fear that he would stay. But he spoke quietly and insistently, and from his gaze poured a bright glow into my soul. “Take note! A powerful ruler and wise man once had a villain put to death, and there was a voice in him that no human being should end another man’s life prematurely. When now the condemned knelt on the blood leather to receive the fatal stroke he looked at the ruler with a look in which there was so much fervent hatred that the wise ruler was frightened. Then the ruler said: “If you desist from evil, I will give you life.” Then the evildoer laughed and cried out, “You only dare not let me be killed, for you fear the revenge that my departed spirit will take on you.” The ruler looked at him and said: “As little as your head, separated from your body can move towards me and pronounce the word revenge, that is how little I fear revenge from you!” The condemned man laughed and shouted. “Executioner, do your duty!” The sword fell down, and to the horror of those present, the head of the slain man rolled towards the ruler, stood in front of him on the cut neck and formed with the lips, clearly recognizable, the word “Revenge!”, while the gaze took on a horrible rigidity due to the extreme effort and willpower. The faithful saw it in great fear. Then the wise man spoke: “Fear nothing! I may have done wrong in having this man killed, yet I have protected myself from his anger. For, see, he had to use all his willpower at the moment of death in order to carry out what I had told him. And thereby no power has remained for his later evil intentions. His will has been consumed in a useless effort, and when he returns, he will be without consciousness of what has happened to him. If only he had thought of how to retain consciousness beyond death, he would have become an Ewli, one who returns. But no evil one can become an Ewli!”
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
“Hell! Hell!” groaned Hmmetschnur and ran his hands through his wild hair. “If only I could get away from here!” I said good night to him and went to my room. By the light of the burning candle, I searched for the lady of hell’s little pot and cut with the knife around the rock-hard, dried-up bladder. Inside was a crisscrossed, cracked greenish- brown substance. This may have been an ointment, but the excessively long time had made it firm and brittle. I thought that perhaps the candle flames might warm it up enough for it to take on more or less its old consistency, and so I held the blue jar over my candlestick. The melting stuff stank disgustingly of old fat and pungent herbs, but I gradually managed to soften the sediment, so that I could investigate the ointment and test its magical nature. In the glow of my five wax candles I saw again the gray eyes of the Lady of Weinschrötter, who appeared to smile in amusement at my cheeky beginning. “Shall I not?” I addressed the painting. But neither an answer nor a sign came from the now lifeless painting, which yesterday had greeted me with a now vanished resemblance that had frightened me to my very soul. Was it the heat of the candles or the vaporous fat and poisonous herbs that made me behave in this way: a flying heat, which I had already felt in the afternoon during the walk, came over me, and when I undressed, I felt how leaden my limbs were. My blood pulsed in rapid throbbing as if a fever were near. Nevertheless, I remained stubbornly determined or forced by something to stick to my plan to try the ointment. I took off my shirt, spread the stuff on my chest, belly, hands, feet and forehead, as I had learned from the horror stories, that old Margaret had told me in childhood, and still remembered the witch’s spell: “Out the top and nowhere on!” laughed at myself for my silliness, blew out the candles, and lay down in the creaking four-poster bed. The blood rang in my ears, a tingling sensation ran through my limbs. I saw the half moon in the window, which I had forgotten to close. And then I slowly sat up in bed, slipped out from under the low canopy and floated between the ceiling and the floor, without me finding this strange. I had often flown like this in my dreams, with casual movements of the arms or some footsteps to steer the flight. But I now saw myself lying in bed, illuminated by the blue moonlight. Open-mouthed with two sharp wrinkles in my face, that went from my nostrils to my chin as the result of some evil experience. I saw the extinguished candles with the long scrolls, the bare cleaning scissors, and my robe on an upholstered chair, the open hair bag. I was amazed at nothing, nor was I startled when Lady Heva Weinschrötte- cautiously climbed out of the picture frame and floated out through the open window. I kicked the air with a feeling of well-being, like a swimmer treads the water that carries him. All of them followed after Heva. An old Jew with a caftan, another one, whose white, scabby skull peered out of the raised trapdoor, a hunchbacked woman with a snuffy nose and eternally smacking mouth, and with a black tomcat that sat on the hump and a white, lame little dog that was running after her, another ugly, goggle-eyed woman, who sneaked to my bed, hissed at the resting body and with crooked fingers reached for the little pot to quickly lubricate her yellow, wrinkled skin. And then in infinite well-being I turned to the open window and flew in an instant over the bent and wind-shredded poplars, full of joy at the regained skill of flying. At will, I ascended with a very light hand and foot stirring up and down, shooting light as a feather upwards or slowly downwards, turned immediately, let the air carry me horizontally or sank like a rock, just as I liked. Nevertheless, it continued like that without me being frightened, and I drifted like a flying feather before the wind. Even if I remained motionless, I saw beneath me tree tops, reflecting water, meadow surfaces and lonely little houses gliding past. But this did not worry me at all; rather I surrendered with full pleasure to the bliss, liberated from the weight of the body and floated through the silvery moon light like a cloud. Also I made no steering movements any more, but gave myself completely to such bliss of an earth-liberated state. Then, however, I saw closer and more distant figures in the milky air, on the same path as me, gently drifting and hovering like old wives’ summer. Young women with white and golden brown limbs, with loose hair and willingly naked, their eyes closed as if in sleep, their arms spread out; but in between also bony and shapeless hags, then again fat ones with sagging and flabby fullness, scrawny old women, disgustingly hairy and coarse male figures, slim-limbed girls with weakly curved breasts, beautiful boys and skinny, miserable bodies of gaunt old men. However, as soon as I made an effort to focus more sharply on a face, it became a vague round egg of whirling mist and dissolved. But even that did not put me in fear or astonishment. Rather, everything had long been familiar and quite right, as if I had experienced and seen this many times. And effortlessly, I was blown, through the will-less, delicious detachment of my own limbs and the lightness of my body, by the air between clouds, moon, stars which drew me toward the friendly tugging of the earth deep below. I sank. The figures gathered more densely around me. I went down into the depths, gently sinking. A pale glow dazzled. Lights bounced beneath me, bluish and yellow lights. Faces with slanting eyes and flaring scoops of fire. And there was fire everywhere. Between bushes and grass there was a swarming and jumping, a twisting and turning of innumerable figures that surrounded me. Some squatted in rigid clusters around red- yellow brushwood flames, murmuring in swelling, nasal song from books, keeping the beat with their hands. A brown boy with pointed ears, handsome and cheeky, round-hipped like a woman, was chasing a black, bearded shaggy goat with wild heel kicks through the midst of couples, who were twisting in spasmodic entwinement as they rolled in the leaves. Gray wolves whose dark sweat dripped from their muzzles crept with glowing red eyes between beautiful, naked women. A crippled man without legs pushed with agile monkey arms the rest of his body through the tumult in a wheelchair and looked out of long distended eyes like those of a crab. One, whose skin stretched like parchment over the fleshless bones, blew squawking on a hollow leg bone, while glow worms crawled around in his eye sockets. A dwarf’s body consisted of a bagpipe, and the purring and humming pipes protruded from the back of his trousers, while the trunk-mouth blew into the air tube and the twisted fingers of his hands wandered over the indecent flutes. A row of gray-toothed women with dangling tits danced hand in hand in circles around these musicians. “Are you here too? Hussah!” There was a bellow next to me, and when I looked, Montanus had just passed by, and his belly was hanging red like glowing iron from the inflated trousers. More and more new dance groups formed. I saw legs from which the skin was hanging in shreds and laughing mouths, out of which white and yellow worms crawled. Dissolute children with disgustingly twisted eyes were writhing in the arms of hermaphrodite creatures, women cried out ruthlessly and dragged giggling, skinny boys to their steaming wombs, from goat udders fat milk ran into the toothless mouths of old men. One with broken, buckling limbs led another, who, leaden-grey faced, had a rope around his neck and displaying a monstrous manhood stumbled forward to a black-haired woman who was shrieking and twitching and rolling. Flames danced and shot pointedly out of the earth, and from out of a bush in front of me rose the deathly sad, pale face of the Bavarian Haymon with the crushed red nose, and his mouth whispered: “Take some advice and see that you will come again, Mahomet!” There arose a tremendous shouting, whooping and wild singing. They waved with their hands, their legs flailing and jerking against a high black stone block, on which, in the wavering, uncertain light, a figure was crouched, his knees drawn up to his chin, angular and silent. I stared at it and recognized with raging horror Fangerle. As if fused to the rock, he squatted there, his evil, pinched face under the big peasant hat glowed like rotting wood, and his long-hunters coat glowed in all its buttonholes, as if blue fire was hidden under them. The piercing goat eyes were directed straight at me, full of indescribable malice. And then he uttered the horrible scream that Heiner had in front of the wheel. “I-i-i-ilih!” A thousand arms, fingers, claws and nails stretched out towards me. I wanted to rise quickly into the free kingdom of the air, but they hung on to my feet, pulled me down. “Catch him! Stop him!” shrieked Satan on the block. Desperately, I kicked my feet and flailed around. But new ones came, arms of women wrapped heavy and soft around my neck, hot lips pressed sucking against my face, claws tore at my hair; heavy masses clung to me, squeezing out my breath. I could no longer get up, saw in deathly fear the yellow goat eyes stare, the saw teeth bared, paralysis was like tough dough around my limbs, my heart was hammering, close to bursting, my breath caught, choking my throat. “Lord, my God!” I cried out in deathly peril. Then the hand of Fangerle grabbed me and flung me high into the air. Scornful laughter rang out behind me, neighing. The fires went out in the deep night, shadows flitted. Whirled, it whistled in the air, cried, screamed, howled —. I lay in my shirt in the middle of a wet meadow.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
“I will venture on it,” I said. “You, a person of noble heart, will not be harmed by the room, although –” he faltered and bit his lips. “Although?” I pressed him. “I, Baron, would not like to sleep here, and if there were only one other place in the house, where it does not trickle in by the ceiling or blow through empty window holes, I would have chosen it for you rather than this damned courtroom! But now I wish you a restful night!” He bowed low and left. I was alone, and took the candlestick to look around. The wide chamber had been decorated with precious leather wallpaper, which was now, of course, everywhere damaged and tattered on the wall. It showed in hundredfold the Treffenheid coat of arms with the Moor’s head, which had an arrow shaft sticking out from the eye. Under it on a ribbon was to be read the heraldic motto: “One dies – another lives.” In the corner next to the door stood a two-sleeper four- poster bed with twisted columns and angels’ heads, the gilding of which was worn away. At the lead-framed windows, which had small gaps, the pale moon wandered behind wisps of clouds, and a withered, broom-like poplar treetop sometimes poked at the rickety panes. A table and a few chairs had just been put there for me, as could be seen from the dust on the floor. More remarkable than all this, however, were two large paintings, which were next to each other on the wall, separated by a horizontally stretched out naked human arm, extending from a red sleeve which, was holding a simple executioner’s sword. I approached the paintings with the light. The first one was rich in small figures, and I had to look for a long time in the restless candlelight until I recognized a procession on the dark canvas, which was leading the sinner in a cart with solemn seriousness to the place of execution. Under the picture, on a white background, it read: “If you have patience in pain, It will be very useful to you, Therefore give yourself willingly to it.” The unknown painter had understood it, and painted into the faces of the accompanying persons, secretly and immediately recognizable to everyone, stupidly proud dignity, thoughtlessness, malice, cruelty, indifference, and cowardly contentment; but from the face of the man on the execution cart cried out fear, and the staring look was almost a longing for the final redemption by the redcoat, who stood tiny and distant on the scaffolding. This image made me fall into a depth of consciousness or foreboding, which filled me with fearful darkness for several minutes. It told me that something had happened or was about to happen, and from my soul a voice spoke barely audibly: “I know —.” The roots of my hair were on fire, drops of sweat covered the inside surface of my hands. But what it was, I could no longer grasp with my mind, for as quickly as it came, it sank again into a dark abyss. I turned my gaze from the terrible image, ducked under the threatening sword arm, so as not to touch it, and lifted the light towards the other painting. A fine and cutting stab went through my heart. This face, blissful and childlike, with reddish shimmering braids under a small hood, with the delicate nose and the small mouth, with the curved eyebrows, it was… “Aglaja,” I whispered softly, and the heavy candlestick almost fell from my hand. But then it seemed to me as if a sad, dark glow went over the lovely face. No, not Aglaja! It was Zephyrine who was looking at me, as if she were breathing. The slender hand, coming from a lace ruff, wore a silver ring of woven serpentine bodies with a fire opal and held daintily between pointer finger and thumb were three crimson roses and a snowy lily. But what was written underneath, confused me in the face, which always showed a beloved face. I ran my hand over my eyes and read the characters under the painting: Likeness of Lady Heva Weinschrötter, Canoness to St. Leodegar, accused of sorcery and sentenced to the sword In the year anno 1649. And then I stood for a long time, until the candles began to crackle and the wax dripped. – What was appearance and what was truth? The night had passed quietly except for some creaking and cracking in the room and in the floor as is natural in such old buildings. The new day was of dull light and unfriendly, full of wind and falling drops. There was a rustling in the walls, as of rats. The servant, who brought my breakfast, informed me that the master of the hound was suffering from gout and would not be visible before the evening. I should not enter uninvited into his room, because he had a saddle pistol next to him loaded with rock salt and pig bristles, and in his piercing pain he was well able to burn one on me and everyone, as he had already done to magister Hemmetschnur once before. So I looked once more in the gloomy light of the room, at the ruined face which was now even more clearly visible than in the candlelight. I also discovered the trapdoor in the floor, through which one could enter the dungeons and chambers under the earth. And whatever I did, the gray eyes of the painting of Lady Heva Weinschrötter followed me. But as I, mindful of the evening’s feelings, looked firmly and attentively at the rosy face under the gold hood, it seemed to me strange and distant to me. The resemblance to Aglaja-Zephyrine faded into the distance and finally disappeared completely. While wandering around in the spacious chamber I discovered opposite my bed a door so carefully fitted into the wallpaper that it was easy to miss. When I pushed its creaking hinges, I came into a narrow chamber with racks, in front of which were rotten curtains of shot green damask, all covered with dust. When I pushed them aside, I found in the compartments whole bundles and piles of old files, and all sorts of formerly confiscated corpora delicti, such as knives, hatchets, bludgeons, rotten wheel locks, thieves’ hooks, gypsy casting rods and the like, and attached to each item was a carefully written note. Some I read: “The knife, with which Matz from the Schellenlehen stabbed Schieljörg,” and “Explosive and grenade called, Reb Moische, the Hendl from Poland”. Finally I came to an earthen, smoky pot, blue-glassed, which was tightly tied with a pig’s bladder and on the square parchment on the handle, was written in brownish faded ink: “Numerus 16. Flying or witch ointment, found under the bed of the lady of hell, and dug out of the earth.” This relic of one of the women who had stood here during the inquisition, aroused my curiosity very much, and I hid it near my bed, in order to visit it later. At the midday meal, only the magister appeared, who asked me politely about the night spent and then said that I was the first to have been granted a quiet sleep in this room. After the meal I went for a walk with him despite the rain showers and gusts of wind, and talked to him. The knowledge of this man was astonishing, his exact knowledge of languages, and I could not help but ask him, how he, with his erudition, could not have found anything better than that of his unworthy clerical services for the old master of the hound, who seemed to take special pleasure to humiliate and make fun of his education in front of others. He heaved a deep sigh and said that if he only had enough money so that he could reach the city of Paris, or only to Strasbourg in the former German land, which the French had stolen, it would be better for him in an instant. There he would have friends who would gladly continue to take care of him. But even if he had as much as he needed for the journey, he would still have to be on his guard. For the master of the hound, as he said, had already impudently threatened him, the magister, and would not refrain from accusing him of embezzlement and to have him punished, which he, as a poor and helpless man, was unknown and without any ability to defend himself. I said nothing, but made up my mind, to help this unjustly tormented person, if I could. For dinner, the gentleman from Trolle and Heist was brought to the table in a carrying chair, his right foot bound thickly and sweating with pain. It was hardly possible to hold a conversation with him, and only in view of the fact that I had to stay here at all costs, I allowed myself to be subjected to various of his quarrelsome and irritable moods. It was worse with the magister than with me, he threw a pig’s bone at his head for no reason and as for the hunters who were waiting for him, he would spit wine at them or hit them with a stick. At ten o’clock he began to drink murderously again, and at about eleven he started his howling anguished chant. But the intoxication did not work this time, and I saw how he looked in fear with puffy eyes into the corner of the chamber devastated by the fall of the wall. Finally- he hurled a heavy mug in the direction of the apparition visible to him, laughed, and then sank down, muttering to himself several times something about a useless rhyme smith and court poet, and then sank into a frenzied sleep, whereupon they lifted him up in the carrying chair and carried him away.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
We walked up and down the cool arcade of the manor courtyard, and I saw, with a tormenting restlessness in my heart, and indifferently looked at the hundreds of wooden carved deer heads, boar’s tusks and deer antlers on the walls, from which long spider threads hung and swallow’s nests stuck. On the floor lay almost hairless wolf-pelts and worn deer blankets, which gave the impression of decay and abandonment even more. And the old man next to me was Heist, of whom my father had told me that he had killed the duke’s court poet in a duel, and of whom Gudel had spoken of with disgust. “Well, well!” said the Master of the Hound, standing still and stuffed a pinch into his fiery nose. “Mort de ma vie, you are not a child, after all, Dronte, and it will not offend you when I tell you that your father and I were the best sire stallions at court. Isn’t it still told today the fun of how we stood one of the chambermaids of the duchess on her head and filled the woman with champagne so that Serenissimus almost suffered a stroke from laughing? Or how we pinched the hopeful Annemarie Sassen in the dark on her firm arse, so that she cried for help and the duchess swore to have the culprits publicly flogged, even if they were of standing? Oh, those were good times, wild days! What do you youngsters know of them?!” To distract him from those wild memories, which reminded me in a terrible way of all the suffering that had come to me from my father, I asked him about the man with the missing ears who had been sent to find a shelter for my person. “Him?” laughed the old man. “That’s a former magister, who went about all over the place and also came to the court of the grand lord. And there it seems to have gone wrong for him, for they cut off his ears at the bridge of Stambul. He has lived here for several years and provides me with board, lodging and a few pennies, but he is kept quite short.” Just at that moment the man had silently appeared behind us; a sour smile on his disgruntled face told me that he had heard the words of the hound master. But then he said, dryly and without any raising and lowering of his voice, to his master: “Accommodation is found, my lord, Master of the Hound. In the hall of the former patrimonial court, the ceiling is tolerable and impermeable, in case of new rain. The bedding is with sufficient linen, the windows are washed and quite clean. The foreign master can dwell there, if — if namely–“ “Don’t be so long in talking about “if” and “when, but tell him what the catch is!” the octogenarian snapped at him.”You educated ass!” The grumpy one didn’t make a face at this. “Provided the gentleman is not afraid of ghosts that sometimes haunt such old chambers.” “Triple-horned dromedary!” rumbled the hound master. “Just so it stays in the courtroom! What’s for dinner?” “Venison with four kinds of brawn, boiled blue tench with millet porridge and a nutmeg tart,” said the magister. “Good. Now get back to your writing!” The gray man walked away with his back bent. “You don’t treat the poor man very well,” I couldn’t help from saying. “That’s how you must deal with such learned dicks or else they’ll be ridden by conceit and arrogance,” laughed Troll. “Believe me, Dronte, no one needs to be put down more and castigated than the learned rabble who stir up the common folk and make them dissatisfied with us. But now I will show you your chamber – a rascal who gives more than he has!” As we ascended the stairs, he asked me, as it were, if I had any business in the area, and when I said that I hoped to meet someone here whom I had not been able to identify, he was satisfied and said that I could remain as a guest as long as I wished, for he had plenty of food and wine. Then he showed me the door of my room and reminded me to be on time for the meal. With a disconsolate heart I entered the wide room, in which I now had to stay in uncertainty and wait for Ewli. The manner of the old man was extremely repugnant to me, and the form in which he finally offered his hospitality with reference to the abundance of the food, seemed to me so hurtful that I would have preferred not to unpack my coat bag at all. Also I was dreading the constant togetherness with the hearty, by his age by no means internalized man, and it was completely incomprehensible to me that Ewli should have chosen this very place to come close to me. Tormenting doubts came over me and aroused in me the thought that I had turned in the wrong direction and could have missed the actual place. But now I had to good or bad, be satisfied and hope that the man from the Orient would also know how to find me here, if this would be in his mind. Since I would be in the spacious room later I hardly took any time to look around the barely illuminated and gloomy chamber. I also found no light, so I hurried with makeshift cleaning in a metal basin, into which I let water bubble from a hanging dolphin by means of a faucet, and then went down to the dining room. The hall was a reflection of all the misery in the old stone box. In one corner a part of the wall covering had fallen down and formed a pile of rubble that no one seemed to have been obliged to clear away. The darkened ancestral portraits of the counts of Treffenheid, to whom the coat of arms of the arrow- headed Moor belonged, looked with white, staring eyes from the wall, and in a once beautiful, but badly damaged dragon fireplace blazed, despite the warm day, a huge fire made of beech logs. At the large, heavy table I sat next to the hound master in the midst of all the dogs, who were eating chunks of meat and pieces of cake and biting each other, and at the very end of the table like a gray shadow squatted the unfortunate Magister Hemmetschnur. Such was his name, the peculiarity of which still elicited a guffaw from old Heist, when he pronounced it, twisted and misshapen in all ways. But the food was good, and even if the wine in the pewter cups was a bit tart, it nevertheless pricked pleasantly on the tongue and palate. After the meal, which proceeded rapidly, the dogs were driven out, and the old man lit one of the many lime pipes, which were placed in front of him, stuffed in a cup. When he had smoked one out, he threw it, breaking it in shards, and grabbed the next one, so that we were soon sitting in a thick blue fog, watching the ever coughing figure of the gray clerk almost disappear in the haze. I was tired and sad, and also exhausted from the terrible adventure in the Ball Mill and yet out of courtesy had to stay and listen to the coarse jokes and jests of the master of the hound, which were never ending and to show me a picture of my father, with whom he had committed a large part of his deeds, that was even more ugly and unpleasant than it already was in my memory. But since the old man drank intemperately, his tongue soon became heavy. When the eleventh hour struck, he opened his mouth wide and began to shout out songs with a false and booming voice: “A little rabbit would creep” and “It runs to the wood unharmed, fellow,” and so on, without pausing, until at last his bald head sank with a jerk on his chest and out of his open mouth came a sawing snore and a rattle. As if this had been awaited, immediately two powerful hunters and a hunter boy entered, grabbed the hound master by the head, shoulders and feet and carried him out without bothering about me or the mute magister. Although curiosity was far from me, I did nevertheless address a few questions to the man who had been treated so disdainfully, and who seemed to me to be worthy of some attention, and I learned that every day at the same time the intoxication and singing began. And this had its origins in the fact that years ago, between eleven and half past midnight, the wife of the master of the hound had found her husband in the arms of a maid and became so transformed that she was killed on the spot by a stroke. Sometimes, however, the ghost of the Duke of Wessenburg’s court poet, who had been killed by his hand, would appear. This was the reason why the old man tried to drown out this period of time. If no one is present, the old man sings alone, but then, before eleven o’clock, the head hunter Räub must appear with his hunting horn and stay until the moment he falls asleep, and then blow the horn as loud as he can. After this explanation, Hemmetschnur seized one of the candlesticks with five candles and asked for the honor of escorting me to my bedchamber. We climbed through the dead quiet house, around which the wind whined and the poplars rustled, onto the upper floor, and in front of my door the magister gave me the light, humbly bowed and wished me a good night. “Tell me still, Herr Magister, what you meant when you spoke of a haunting in this room?” I stopped him. At the same time I opened the door and invited him to enter the room with me. He bowed and closed the door behind us, a smile sliding across his grizzled gray face. “Certain things I cannot say,” he said, looking around. “But consider what may have gone on in this chamber for all the uncounted years, since the jus gladii and the jurisdiction of it all rested on Krottenriede. People say many things. Like for example, that old Krippenveit, whom they torqued to death here, sometimes lifts the trap door in the floor and looks around horribly. Or that the horse Jew Aaron, whom they wanted to tickle for his money, suddenly stood in a dark corner screaming for mercy. They tortured him here, too, and because he was over seventy years old, when they raised him, he fell into the fainting sleep of the tortured, they put boiling hot eggs into his armpits and pressed them with their arms to get the gold hiding place from him. But he would rather have died than have given it away, Emmes gedabert, as they call it in their language, truth-talking. Up there is still the iron ring on the ceiling, through which the rope ran. Here they also had the Bee’s Agnes, also called the honey lick, brought to a confession and then handed her over to the redcoat, who burned and roasted her and then buried her at the cemetery of Saint Leodegar with a black cat and an old hen that would not leave her. The Frau of Weinschrotter however, a woman of nobility, who grew roses and lilies from her pots in the bitter winter, was sentenced to the sword. Her portrait hangs here in the room. You Baron, can see the crudeness and stupidity of the people that has been celebrated in this room. From the futile sighs and tears of the poor, who fell into the hands of these animals and of the abominable events that have taken place here, a shadow or image may still adhere to the cursed walls, and for those predisposed or through special arts those events may appear as alive once again to suitable persons. That is what I meant.”
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
Tiredly I groped behind the others, who had the bunch of keys from the innkeeper’s belt and now climbed into the cellar. In the hallway lay, big as a calf, the dog shot by Garnitter. Behind empty wine barrels and other junk we found an iron door, discovered the key on the key ring and opened it – rusty dust flew into our eyes – but, good heavens! What was this? All four of us jumped back in horror. There were probably twenty corpses, brown, dried up, withered, eaten by rats, stripped of all their clothes. And on their shoulders they carried wide-squeezed disks with mouth gaps, hair tangles, jumbled white teeth. One could see an ear, a lower jaw, which was pressed up to the empty eye sockets, a worm-like black tongue that stretched sideways, clenched hands, blood crusts, splintered bones — We rumbled up the stairs, ran out of the house and sat down on the mossy stone balls, breathing deeply, and the rain trickled down on us. In the east it shone drearily. When it became quite light, we fed the fat horse of the innkeeper with oats and hay, and then harnessed him. Before that, Hoibusch had looked in on the girl. She hung with twisted eyes as if fainted in the ropes. – Then they climbed up into the innkeepers’ bedroom, rummaged in cupboards and chests and found a whole hoard of gold and silver coins, jewelry, precious garments, fine linen and weapons of all kinds. In the meantime, I crept into the chamber of horror. The girl was awake, and her face was shining with tears. Silently I went there and cut the ropes with the landlady’s knife, which I had picked up, cut the ropes in such a way that she herself could untie herself. “Wait until you hear us leave,” I said, “and then see to it that you save yourself -.”A glow of hope passed over her decayed face, in which, despite all the depravity, showed the harmless child of old. “Gracious Herr-” she stammered. “Be silent and do not stir until we are gone. Perhaps that you may become honest again, girl. I dare on it!” “Every day I will pray to God for thee, Lord,” she whispered, “that he may have mercy on you as you have had on Bärbel -“. Quickly I went out. I asked the three boys, as they came out of the house to leave me out of the game, since I had important things to do at Krottenrieder castle and the court could ruin all my plans. It was all right with them, and since the way to the town would certainly pass by the castle, we traveled with each other through the dull morning toward the army road, the shivers of the night in all our limbs. “With all my heart I pity the young blood on the column,” said Garnitter after a while. “She is not at all guilty of any serious crime, and even if she came to listen, because she had to, and one or the other prey fell into her lap. “What are you babbling about?” Hoibusch said and he struck at the lame gray horse. “One can see that you are a windy philosopher and know nothing of legal matters. I know the Roman law as well as the famous Carpzov enough to already know today the judgment that she will and must be given. And besides, I know myself to be of one mind with Baron Dronte and the Sollengau -“. “There is also a jus divinum, and of that you are obviously ignorant. Of course, it has nothing to do with scholarship, and has no paragraphs and subtleties and is better to be found in simple-minded people than in those who, like peacocks, have a green-gold wheel to beat, but have a nasty, inhuman voice,” Garnitter replied. “Are you trying to cheat me?” asked Hoibusch and pulled back on the reins. “No fighting, gentlemen,” I admonished. “Let us rather be grateful to Providence, which has saved us from death.” “This is also my opinion!” agreed the squire. Thus peace was restored, and the Philosopher shook hands with the jurist. But no matter how often we tried to turn the conversation to more pleasant things, again and again the terrible night came to our minds and the danger from which we had escaped, but from which the unfortunates in the cellar and our companion, Haymon, the last Baron of Treidlsperg, had fallen victim to. Around noon we met on a heath, which lost itself into the forest, an old shepherd with his herd and asked for the way that led to Krottenriede castle. “The gentlemen have to drive far around there,” said the old man and stroked his wolfhound. “Or else get down from the wagon and take the narrow forest path on the right hand. It goes straight to the castle, whose sheep I herd.” Then I quickly climbed down from the wagon, took my coat bag and shook hands with the good fellows who had brought me this far, wishing them all the best in their lives. Garnitter, however, I looked especially into the eyes; at first I liked Hoibusch the best when I entered the Ball Mill, but now because of the kindness of his heart, I was sorry that I had not talked to him a few more times. Once again, I asked them to let me, who had neither had to make use of a gun nor had I been harmed, keep silent to the courts, that I was involved in other matters that were extremely important to me. They promised me cordially and then drove on and went to fetch the courtiers, to clean out the robber’s nest and to arrange for Christian burials for the lamentable corpses in the cellar, and also to redeem Haymon from the death stone and bury him as well. As I turned to go, Hoibusch stood up in the carriage and shouted: “Baron Dronte, I have sensed that you are on the side of the philosopher, and that out of love for you, I want to turn it so that Bärbel gets away from the tower and keeps her life!” I waved back at him and slowly went my way. But then I had to sit down under the trees and cry. I cried for the Bavarian Haymon and about our young years–. The path I had taken on the advice of the shepherd was an old, dilapidated horse path, which led quite steeply uphill. In places, falling water and landslides had torn away many meters, and I had to, badly hindered by the coat bag, climb over the steep clay slopes. But the higher I got, the better the climb became, because all kinds of bushes and alluvial forest strengthened and thus protected the path from destruction. The hike lasted long enough, and it was getting late when I reached the uppermost part of the moderately high castle. After a bend in the path I stood unexpectedly before castle Krottenriede, where I longingly hoped, I would finally be granted an audience with Ewli. But if there was something even sadder, neglected and gloomier than the Ball Mill, it was this castle. A monstrous, gray stone box with formerly red-white-red shutters, now faded, peeled off and crooked on their hinges, it stood between disheveled, thorny, mighty poplars and two ponds with brown, putrid water, which was overgrown by poison-green lentils. On the steep, damaged roof was a weather vane bent by the storms and eaten by verdigris- representing an upright lion. Part of the window panes were gray with dust, other parts had only jagged shards in the rotten frames. A large pile of garbage, in which broken bottles, scraps of clothing, rags, bones and ashes were mixed together, piled up not far from the main entrance, a pointed arched gate, over which a Moor’s head was carved as a coat of arms, in one eye of which was an arrow. Since no one was to be seen, I entered the castle courtyard and was immediately attacked by a pack of spotted hounds. But before the wild males could quite snap at me a silent young man with a sullen wrinkled face appeared and whipped them into their stone kennel, whose torn down iron grille had been replaced and strengthened with a couple of heavy stones leaning against it. I saw that both of his ears had been smoothly cut from his head. I was about to turn to him, but out of a gate a huge, fat, white-haired man with a red face and a glowing nose approached me and gruffly asked for my name and desire. I named myself, and his face became immediately cheerful. He held out his hand to me and shouted loudly while he shook my right hand: “What?”How? A Dronte? Melchior Dronte, perhaps even the son of my old crony and Willow comrade?” When he then learned the name and last place of residence of my dead father, he embraced me, blew his warm, wine-scented breath into my face and shook me by the shoulders. “My lord Baron, I rejoice to the depths of my eighty- year-old hunter’s soul to get to know you. Your godly father was a hunter comme il faut, and there will not be many more like him in these shitty times. Ei, how the time goes by, and now I get to know Melchior, whose birth we celebrated with champagne from the big ducal silver cup, called the “Sauglocke”, and look, this child, whom I saw with wet panties already has gray hair at the temples. But what is the reason? Has the skinny hunter already put the bullet in the barrel, in order to lay an old deer on my blanket? So let’s be happy my Lord Baron, and commemorate the knightly days of which your name reminds me so fiercely.” I thanked him, strangely and not pleasantly moved by the fact that he had been my father’s friend. Even the morose man who was missing his ears and who was now ordered to find a place for me to stay somewhere in the castle, did not make me feel very cheerful. “But now I want to introduce myself formally,” said the old gentleman and stood up straight in his green coat. “I am the Master of the Hound of the erstwhile Duke of Stoll- Wessenburg, Eustach von Trolle und Heist, and I have been sitting here for twenty years among crows and owls, with a small salary on Krottenriede. We hadn’t a thought at the time squire, not a single thought, your Herr Father and I, as we held Serenissimo’s head when the wine was about to run out for those at the top.”
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