The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart (34 page)

“Right,” said Manfried. “We’s finally fuckin gettin somewhere. You been consortin with shit-takers, which is fittin in light
a your shitty nature. Could a said that in one word.”

“Now brother,” said Hegel, “no call in runnin down nightsoilmen, we wouldn’t a gotten out a Bucharest without that sound fellow
lettin us hide in his cart.”

“Thanks for remindin me bout another one a your blessed schemes,” said Manfried. “Buried alive in devil-dirt ain’t exactly
the fondest memory I got, and might not a been the only way out that situation. Now stow the reminiscences long enough to
see if we got to kill us an Arab.”

As the Brothers had not switched to their private dialect, Al-Gassur wasted no time in relaying the rest of his information.
“According to my friend, the most immediate defamation goes like this: a certain merchant of certain repute harbors certain
wanted brigands who reputedly sacked a certain village to the north, the same village a certain mistress of a certain prominent
official hails from. That both her parents burned to death in the ensuing fire is no less certain. Worse still, her only brother
and several of his friends were found murdered in the river shortly after.”

This tale the nightsoilman had told gelled with the doge’s emissary paying a visit to Barousse several days before, only to
leave red-faced and cursing a short time later. Further confirmation came at once from the Grossbarts, who grinned at each
other.

“Called us
certain
brigands, did he?” said Manfried. “Tomorrow you’s puttin a stone out for your friend, then me and my brother can endeavor
to impress on his
certain
ass the utility a usin proper language stead a slanderous terminology.”

“Not his words, I assure you, but the words of the rumor!” said Al-Gassur. “He also says a new wrinkle has been revealed,
namely that the, ah,
accused
brigands are in fact the leaders of a certain heretical sect calling themselves the Road Popes, and these blasphemous bandits
have stolen much coin and spilled much blood which might have otherwise gone to Venezia, prior to this most recent and heinous
and by no means proven crime of arson and murder.”

The refutation of this rumor came to Al-Gassur in the form of a sound beating from the Brothers, who were more than happy
to blame the messenger.

“Your life’s spared for bein honest,” said Manfried as he boxed the wailing Arab’s ear. “That skin a yours’ a different matter,
phrasin them lies like we’s them fuckin popes!”

“Easy on,” said Hegel, jumping back rather than delivering the intended kick to the prostrate servant. “I just got me a touch
a the chill.”

“Someone’s raisin a ruckus out front,” said Manfried, his uncropped ear cocked to the side. “You’s square enough for masonry
now, Arab, make sure you keep yourself that way.”

A breathless Father Martyn argued through the gate with the guards until Rodrigo and the Grossbarts arrived simultaneously,
admitting him and leading the nervous fellow inside moments before several of the doge’s guardsmen arrived. Barousse’s guards
were equally surly to the pikemen, who left after issuing several oaths and proclamations for the neighbors’ benefit. To the
observant Al-Gassur—who had slunk back to the barn to watch—trouble hovered over the Barousse household like the nightsoilman’s
swarm of flies.

“Heretics,” Martyn panted as he sat down at Barousse’s table.

The captain, perpetually distracted of late, picked idly at a fish bone, but the Grossbarts took interest in Martyn’s return,
his bruised face, and his vague proclamations regarding blasphemers of a yet-unnamed stripe.

“You ain’t talkin bout us again,” Manfried informed him.

“Or is you?” demanded Hegel.

“What?” Martyn rubbed his swollen cheeks. “No, no, no. Lord no. I mean the Church.”

“That’s better.” Hegel reclined in his chair.

“Which church?” Only Rodrigo appeared dismayed by this.

“
The
Church.” Martyn sipped more wine. “The only Church. The worm of corruption has been unearthed but I cannot exorcise it alone.
How long? How long! Back to Formosus, certainly, but farther still I fear. Longer than my order has professed to battle heresy,
certainly, certainly. Who remains untouched? Aquinas? Augustine?”

“Those weren’t priests chasing you, they were guardsmen. Why?” Rodrigo pumped Martyn with all the subtlety of a burly child
priming a spigot.

“Hounds, nothing more!” The priest swigged at their mention. “I bore their scorn before, for the name of God and man, but
no more! Roquetaillade was right, rotting in prison for speaking the truth! End Times are upon us!”

“Calm yourself,” said Rodrigo.

“Cease thy blathering!” said Martyn. “Nothing can be done for it! The Antichrist strides among us, gentlemen, he breathes
and stalks and spreads ruin! Prophecy which they called heresy! They must have known, but feared martyring him lest he too
rise. Saint Roquetaillade!”

Seeing his brother’s confusion, Manfried clarified. “To get sainted you gotta die someways awful. Catch the wisdom?”

“Evil clever.” Hegel nodded. “Didn’t reckon the clergy might be so underhanded-like.”

“That’s just it,” said Martyn, unswallowed wine spilling from his mouth. “Always, always! I offered to bring you before them
to validate my tale but they would have none of it! Accused
me
of harboring a demon, me! Meanwhile the Great Mortality has not returned over spring nor summer in any part of the continent!
Any! We smote it from the Earth, and yet
we
are deemed wicked,
we
are deemed guilty of blasphemy! We who put our lot with the lowly and craven, we who suffer alongside serf and cow, through
winters without turnips and summers without wheat!”

Manfried scowled. “Seein how we’s not yet royalty, I’s a touch curious as to your choice a phrasin it
we we we
.”

“They would not let me see him! I thought this Gomorrah’s ill relations with our Mother Church would facilitate my immediate
departure but alas, they are again close as brothers! I meant to stay only a night before journeying weeks, all to sit patiently
for months seeking an audience in Avignon while hordes rally at our gates, that old Serpent never absent, our second fall!”
Martyn babbled, then calmed, a rain-drunk creek of words. “I have not left the city since I left you, Grossbarts, seasons
have passed and I have abided, imprisoned and tortured like the last Cathar to wither and die! That’s what they did to the
surviving Albigensians, you know, not a quick death for them! They sent for an inquisitor to bring me to the Holy Office,
I heard them! Escaped in time, through His Will! Delivered back to you despite pursuit! His Will!”

“What’s he on bout?” Hegel asked his brother.

“Parrently implicatin our good name in some fresh shit.” Manfried was on his feet. “What in Hell’s wrong with you?!”

“Demonslayers, are you not? What worthier devil than the Archfiend, our nemesis! Of course I brought the title Grossbart into
the field! Humble though you now seem, I know of your greatness, and would be remiss not to draw you into my company, lying
as you do somewhere between laity and clergy. Even Saint Roquetaillade and Saint Roch quail before your sanctity! I have dreams,
Grossbarts, and in them He has commanded me to do what is just! I thought that meant informing his so-called Holiness of the
situation we endured, only to be undone! Not even exiled but imprisoned under his orders; his orders that the inquisitor pry
the truth from my lips like some recalcitrant Judas!”

“You’s mixin up tales, you drunken sod.” Manfried shook his head, abandoning his efforts to decipher the ravings.

“Nah, keep talkin like that,” Hegel insisted. “Whatever he’s sayin sounds good to me. You’s always speakin on how corrupt
them priests and abbots and all is, and here’s your proof!”

“He was proof enough fore he went incomprehensible.” Manfried lowered his voice. “Seen how he looked at her.”

“How he looked at
who
?” the captain unexpectedly joined the discourse.

“I have weaknesses!” Martyn shouted, the indignity of being talked about as though he were absent intolerable after months
of such treatment. “I have passed every test, though, every one! Oh Elise, poor poor Elise, I tried, I tried so hard but I
was weak! But not a woman have I touched sinfully since I accepted my mantle so long ago! In this forgotten time it matters
not, for all that should go have gone and all that remain until the End are those now twice-damned and twice-fallen! And still
I abstain from temptation, still and forever!” He gulped a final gulp and pitched forward, moaning on the table.

“Shit,” Rodrigo said after a brief silence.

“Nuthin so sweet,” said Manfried.

“So what’d he say?” asked Hegel.

“You heard, same as us.” Manfried poured more wine.

“Yeah, but what’s he mean?” Hegel pressed.

“He means we’re in more trouble than just harboring the both of you,” Rodrigo sighed, “unless we turn him over.”

“To who?” asked Hegel.

“The Church, the doge’s guard, whoever. He’s wanted, same as the two of you.”

“What’s this bout us beein wanted?” Manfried’s interest renewed at the prospect of an honest Arab.

“Murder, arson, and some other crimes less polite. Don’t think we’ve asked you to stay within the grounds this past month
for the pleasure of your company.” Rodrigo kept glancing at Barousse for support but the captain stared at the wall, his face
vacant.

“Wondered bout that.” Hegel took the bottle his brother offered. “But no mistake, had we more shoppin or carousin to do we
would a been gone like a goose in winter and come back if and when we wanted. But the end’s what? We ain’t turnin’em over
to them heretics.”

“So that I’m not misunderstanding, by
heretics
you mean the Church?” Rodrigo spoke slowly.

“Yeah, thems what think wearin fineries and havin precious baubles is intrinsic to their devotion. You know, heretics,” said
Hegel.

“We would all be burned if your feelings were known,” Rodrigo hissed.

“Mind the lip, lad,” Manfried belched. “That priest is the best we’s seen in our time, and less he proves otherwise anyone
callin him out on heresy is workin for Old Scratch themself.”

“We’re dead!” Rodrigo jumped up, knocking Hegel’s feet off the table and spilling wine on the dozing Martyn. “Denying them
you is difficult, but his presence will make it impossible! Even now they will be preparing an assault, and if not that, a
siege! An inquisitor has been sent, and we hold the object of his summons! Dead and damned!”

“Sit down,” Barousse said wearily. “Shouting like that soused church mouse’ll do nothing for any of us. You want to cut your
ties and float on your own, I won’t stop you.”

The quivering Rodrigo did not sit, but nor did he leave or interrupt.

“Grossbarts vouch for him, good enough for us,” Barousse continued. “Besides, the Church is nothing to fear. True Venetians
will never cower before a pope. They threatened excommunication when your dad and I were trading with the Saracens all those
years back. Never stopped him cold, nor me neither.”

“But you were never caught.” Rodrigo crumbled.

“Who’s saying we’re caught now?” Barousse demanded. “They can suspect all they want, but won’t heave that one on us until
they’re sure. And they won’t be sure until they break in the gate. It’s late now, so the soonest they’ll come for us is tomorrow
morn.”

“Exactly!” Rodrigo began shaking again. “We can’t fight them all, and the ship isn’t nearly ready!”

“Your dad should of named you Tommaso!” Barousse stood, shaking even more fiercely than Rodrigo. “Don’t trust your captain
no more? Doubting me always? Think I’ve gotten so chair-softened I’d let some pikeman or prelate slit my throat? Think I’d
turn over my loyal men rather than fight it out?”

“Captain, I—” Rodrigo stared at the floor.

“Out, Grossbarts, and take the priest!” Barousse shouted, but when they reached the door he added, “Come armed to my room
around Vespers, we’ll work on our stratagem then. For now, I have a mutiny to quell.” He turned back to Rodrigo but to the
young man’s relief the captain’s fury had dissipated, leaving a mischievous grin in its wake.

The Grossbarts could easily have carried Martyn but instead each held an arm and let his legs drag—all the better to upend
several small tables. He frothed and groaned the entire way up the stairs and, lacking a third unlocked room to dump him in,
they slung him onto Hegel’s floor. Shouting until the servant girl Marguerite arrived, they enlisted her help in the transfer
of Hegel’s bed into Manfried’s room rather than share the room with Martyn. Only by mutilating the frame, tearing the mat,
and impressing four of Barousse’s hired muscle were they able to perform the task.

Tramping through the dark tunnel beneath the house to carry out the captain’s orders, Rodrigo again turned his thoughts to
his deceased brother Ennio. With all the madness the Grossbarts had added to his life he had been left little time to reflect
on his own affairs instead of Barousse’s, but with this newest catastrophic twist he again reflected on what impact the Brothers
Grossbart might have had on the passing of his last living kin, and how he might have averted it had he accompanied Ennio
instead of remaining behind. He resolved to visit a chapel as soon as this business was past, a single tear escaping his eye.
Had he known what chaos approached he would have wept more.

Directly above Rodrigo, Al-Gassur spied on the artisans laboring in the garden. For several weeks the men had arrived at dawn
and left at dusk, felling fruit trees, shaving them down, and lashing them together. Gauging by the massive boulder delivered
and harnessed to one end of the contraption it neared completion, and now the men patted each other’s backs after a successful
trial of winching up the stone and letting it drop again. Stranger still, the captain himself made an appearance, the cook
brought out food and drink, and her husband Nestore brought oil lamps, with the clear purpose of persuading the men to work
through the night. Had Al-Gassur actually seen the combat in which he claimed to have lost his leg he might have recognized
the device.