The Ravens’ Banquet (22 page)

Rosemunde placed her hand on my back, a strangely gentle touch.

“I know that you do. For Oma told me that the very day that you and your soldiers came upon us.”

And it was then that Purpose was made apparent. Christoph and I were to be the means to an end.

“F
OOL
!”
CRIED
C
HRISTOPH
, as he snatched back the cartridge belt from my hand, the jumble of wooden powder flasks clacking in complaint. “We have but one firing piece left to us and these are the last of the charges. Would you leave us at their mercy?”

“And what good is it!” I shot back at him, “They could have killed us days ago. If we but use the powder we may yet open the mine again. Have you a better plan?”

Christoph looked at me and swore mightily. His hand gripped the leather belt fast, and as he cursed it clattered like a skeleton in his grasp.

I made no effort to seize it back from him.

I knew his greed led him by the nose. “This is a dangerous gamble,” he growled after the dark workings of his mind finally settled. “But… I shall see it your way… this time. Let it all be on your head and not mine.”

I did not doubt that my scheme was harebrained. But even so, there was a chance that it would work. I tried not to think about what Christoph would do if it failed. We two were in uneasy alliance, each gauging how useful the one would be to the other. Neither of us knew enough of our situation to take the risk of going it alone. We may have held an understanding but we did not share trust. That was a commodity always in short supply and at no time more so than in the war.

I gathered up what more I needed from the encampment and with Rosemunde and the others set out once again for the old oak. The sun was sitting low as we returned and I hurriedly began my work.

First, Christoph and I wormed our way into the crevice, our legs protruding from out the surface. The taper that I held sputtered and singed my hair, so close was it to my face.

“Shit!” cursed Christoph, “it’s all wedged fast. Nothing will free it.”

I spied a space between two large stones that looked just large enough for the barrel of the carbine to fit into. “Here!” I cried. “This is where we shall set our little
grenado
.”

Christoph grunted. “You’ve barely enough powder to make a fart, but we have come this far I guess. Let’s hazard it.”

We pulled ourselves out and I retrieved the carbine from where I had leaned it against a tree. The sisters remained silent and apprehensive as I emptied each of the charges down the muzzle of the carbine. I could see them backing away down the hillock as I tapped each flask empty before setting to the next. Only Rosemunde stood close by, watching me, her face betraying nothing.

I rammed a bit of wadding and two balls down the barrel and tamped the lot in. I could tell that a third of the piece was stuffed tightly with powder and Christoph looked at me shaking his head with disbelief. I tied one end of a long length of yarn about the trigger, picked up the carbine again and then carefully wriggled back into the hole.

“Christoph! I need you to hold the taper for me to see.”

He swore again and crawled in next to me. “You’ll blow us both to pieces with your cleverness,” he muttered as he struggled to hold the taper out before us. With all my might, I strove to push the carbine deep into the crack, even resorting to hammering the stock with a rock to drive it further down. Christoph winced with each blow.

“Sweet Jesus! Must you whack it so? You might set if off!”

I was shaking now, both with apprehension and excitement. “If I do not drive it deep it may not work at all.”

At last, I could move it no more. “Now I must wind the lock and set the hammer.”

“Then that you must do alone,” said Christoph quietly. And he stuck the taper into a crack and backed out of the hole.

I fumbled to set the spanner into the lock, my fingers already cut and bleeding. The lock began to click tighter as I wound and wound. I could feel the sweat dripping down my sides as I grunted, arms stretched out in front of me. I exhaled and breathed in again, the smell strong in my nostrils of both damp earth and welling blood from my rock-ripped hands. Slowly, I pulled back the hammer, listened for it to click into place, and then, trying not to tremble, lifted my hand from the weapon. I prayed that it would hold until my head was out of the hole.

I scrambled out feet first, careful not to tug upon the string. Crouching a few feet from the opening, I wiped my brow with my arm and looked at the others. They stood close by one another, silent and grim-faced. Rosemunde gave me a look and a nod. Christoph had settled on his haunches, back against a tree.

“What are you waiting for?” he called up to me, grinning.

I lay on my side, my arm propping me up, wrapped the string about both hands, and gave it a mighty pull.

I was rewarded with a muffled thump and then the sound of earth and stone tearing through the canopy of leaves above. Shards rained down on us and the women cried out in alarm. Before the last piece fell to earth, Christoph and I ran back up the hillock to the crevice. It belched forth a pall of dust and acrid smoke and neither of us could see a thing. At length, it cleared and Rosemunde brought forth a torch to let us peer inside.

The greatest of the stones lay cracked and broken clear through. With our hands and a bough from the old oak, we managed to lever the pieces out one by one. After a time, we had fashioned a hole big enough for a man to crawl down. Cool moist air rose up to me, stinking of mould.

I told Rosemunde that we could pass through.

“Then you may see what your work has opened anew,” she replied, smiling at me in a curious way and for a moment I fancied she was luring me into a tomb from which I would not leave.

“And I have to see this fabled mine for myself,” declared Christoph. “Here, give me that torch.”

This time, feet first, we descended into the Earth’s wound, the light of day disappearing above us as we crawled down. Once through the crevice the cave opened wider, and I ended up slipping down vertically to the floor below, bits of shale and soil tinkling onto my breeches and boots. Christoph followed quickly behind and soon the two of us stood side by side in the narrow cave, our torch held aloft and illuminating a scene difficult to describe but not possible to forget.

A long, grey, shimmering tendril snaked its way along the wall of the gallery of stone, thicker than a tree trunk and spawning smaller tendrils as it went. The silver in this mighty vein twinkled at us; it danced upon the wall, first up then down and up again, till it disappeared at the far end of the cave descending into the bowels of the Earth.

Christoph’s hand reached out and caressed the stone, his fingertips as light as one would stroke a lover. And he laughed, free and merry as I had never seen him before. The hardness in his heart gave way to the drunken joy of greed and newfound wealth. As for me, I looked upon the Fortune with amazement, my ears ringing with the words of Anya's foretelling. My lips moved to speak them again.

... something that does glimmer... that which is not yet treasure... a waterfall of silver...

“We are as rich as lords, Englishman!” said Christoph, turning to me and grasping my shoulder. “And the Devil take Tilly and the Emperor!”

“And the sisters?” said I. “What of them? This is their treasure, not ours.”

“More than enough for all,” replied Christoph, smiling still. “Have we not earned our share of the spoils by our very work this day?”

“Aye, perhaps. But there’ll be much more work before this is coin in hand. What do you know about being a miner?
”

“Yesterday a soldier, comrade. Today a miner. And tomorrow a gentleman shall I be.”

We emerged into the dying light and the cool air of the forest. Rosemunde received me and it was fair strange to see this hard, bony woman take up my hands in hers and give her thanks with a smile upon her lips.

And still she held my hand as we journeyed back to camp, so happy was she that the treasure was found again.

“Stay and be one with our company,” she said to me as we walked down the sloping floor of the forest. “You and your comrade may share what we hold and share what Our Lady has given to us.”

To say that this invitation was not tempting would be too bold a lie. Any man who had seen with my eyes would not have thought twice at the offer before accepting. Fortuna had taken me on a merry dance during the last seasons gone by; leaving me with nothing but the clothes on my back and a sole comrade that I could no more trust than a Croat. Here, in this wood, I was offered the chance to make good the pain of the war and the disillusionment of my great Cause. For like the Turk who takes the veil from his bride's unseen face, I too had suffered surprise in full at the ugliness of the choice I had made.

I thought about Balthazar, Andreas, Jacob, and all the others. What had they gained for the life of a soldier? Death or ruin, it seemed. The Devil’s work that I had witnessed had been played out by all: Imperial and Dane, Roman and Protestant, German upon German. Death himself was the only gainer from our labours and I had grown weary of his company. So too did Samuel’s shade now haunt me. Whether he offered salvation or treachery, I knew not. Yet he had bidden me to stay with these women, to discover Fortuna who dwelt among them. And I had done just that. I looked into Rosemunde’s weathered face.

“For a share of the silver I will stay with you,” I told her. And even as I spoke the words, something nagged away at me, whispering a warning. Maybe it was Anya’s words of Telling, or else the keen sense of distrust that every soldier nurtures, but I knew there was yet a secret not revealed. Even so, like Christoph, my love of treasure spoke the louder and it was this that I followed.

“Then we shall share with you what we possess,” replied Rosemunde, smiling as she regarded me. “And share all our fortune, come what may.”

“Come what may, goodwife,” I repeated, nodding and grasping her hand.

An old woman tended the fire as we walked into the camp, and I was taken aback to see that it was the Oma. She rose up at our approach, leaning upon her crutch.

“Ah, well, all of my children back, safe and sound!” she croaked.

I beheld the crone’s face in the fading light, though still brighter than the previous night in her hovel. She looked not half as menacing as yesterday eve, head like a dried old apple, cheeks ruddy and brown. Indeed, she was just an old woman now, bent with the infirmity of many hard years.

The sisters gathered around her as she cooed at them, and Rosemunde, Christoph, and I stepped towards her, Rosemunde taking us on each arm.

“We have done as you said, Oma,” she said, “and the soldiers have opened Our Lady's bounty to us once again. All shall be well as it was before.”

Oma nodded. “I told you that these men would be of service, did I not?”

She shuffled forward, craning her neck upwards to look at me and then to Christoph.

“Ah,” she said, “It is
these
two
Kerls
that have stayed behind. One in Light and the other in Darkness. Brothers in arms but not in heart. Well, that is the way of things, is it not? Good often walks with Bad.”

Rosemunde kept smiling. “In truth, Oma, they have both dug out the mine and will stay to work with us. We shall rebuild the furnace. They will help us in that too.”

“Aye, that they will,” replied the old woman, turning and making for the fire again, her rags dragging behind her along the forest floor. “Make thy meal, for it fast grows dark. There will be plenty of time later for spinning plans.”

Rosemunde looked into my eyes again, her face full of hope. “All will be well,” she repeated.

Out the corner of mine eye I spied Christoph, smiling like the dog that in a moment turns and bites the hand.

A
ND WE WORKED
hard. Digging and cursing, our faces besmirched with earth and dust, we scratched out the magic ore. For three days we hammered until our fingers bled, filling the baskets the sisters lowered down to us on ropes. Yet our hearts remained stout, the winking and twinkling of the silver urging us on to free it from its dark prison.

Though he cursed all in Creation to Heaven above, never had I seen Christoph work so in earnest. Even as I would take pause to wipe my brow, he would laugh and berate me, calling me a lazy clown.

And the sisters would smile and laugh to see us emerge from the ground, looking like two Blackamoors, coughing up grey spittle. We did not care, happy in our bounty. While we burrowed like moles beneath the great oak, the sisters had been busy too. Not far from where they burned their wood for charcoal lay their smelting furnace. It was a crude machine but one that Rosemunde assured me worked well enough for them.

She said that the Oma had given them the knowing to build it, telling them how to lay the large flat stones in a hole that yawned as wide as a millstone and as deep as a cauldron. She had warned that they should use only the hard white stones that could withstand the blast of flame and heat. The sisters followed her words in full, carefully setting each stone in place with their slender hands now well-chafed and gnarled.