Part I - The Long Prologue

III

Of what came after the fire

From The Deeds of Hans-Konrad Hund, transcribed by Franz Meier

I watched from my uncomfortable perch on the shoulder of my captor as the paradise of the Grünes Tal, that land of fertile soil and good fruit and decent men, that hidden Arcadian sanctuary, was raped, despoiled, and annihilated.

I will say one more thing about that place of warm memory, before my story moves along: it was a place of Godliness in a Godless time, that is to say, it was a refuge of love; the love of one’s neighbor, of one’s family, of simplicity, the love that burns in the sun and blooms in the flowers, and sings in the melodies of the birds, and in the laughter of children and the clucking of chickens and the braying of donkeys. The real living spirit of love, that crude and rough-hewn love of God that comes out of Man when he lives simply like our first parents did in the garden, when he is left to his own devices, unbothered by commerce and usury, remote from the misfortunes of war, and free from the oppressions of lords, and indeed, when he has the good fortune to remain ignorant of the unhappy catechisms preached by the presbyters in their stony halls, and unbenighted by the false and empty Godliness which lies in the dead word of their scriptures. When Man escapes those loathsome things, that is, war, money, lordship, and those conniving parsons who incarcerate Man with lies, he may find this God, and serve Him, and worship Him in the simple and happy way that men have always done, that is to say, through love.

That is how we lived in the valley.

Arching my neck awkwardly, for the trooper held both of my ankles in one hand, I took in the sight of my home, so that it might be printed in my memory like a woodblock. A great column of smoke billowed up from the village, from the burning chapel, at its base undulating with each new waft of flame and gout of dark, choking smoke emitted by it. That black column was the gravestone of everyone I had ever known, and I prayed for them, and though my childish mind was largely ignorant of God and Paradise and the words of psalms, I gave out a simple prayer, and spoke it aloud in my meek voice, though I was only echoing what I had heard before. When I craned my neck and followed the smoky column with my eyes, as I spoke my eulogy, I saw it ascending lazily, wafting up to Heaven, and at its highest reaches it met the white clouds and joined them. I imagined the souls of all the dead in the chapel transported up from that horrible pyre, within the dark column that connected them to the hereafter, erupting from the white sea of cloud, flying free and frolicking under the blue vault of Heaven and basking in the fatherly warmth of the golden disk, and uniting with the angels and the saints there, free from this unhappy place forever.

This thought succoured me, and I was able to let go, and focus on my own plight, for I felt in that moment, and forgive me for this selfish notion, that perhaps I was the one who God had chosen to suffer the greater torment.

Again, my captor bounced—he was practically skipping down the sloping road. The pain brought me back to earth, and each bound brought a fresh sharp pain back into my bruised ribs.

I don’t remember whither he took me. I’m sure I protested, then, and wailed as a child would do, and screamed and screeched and cried like an animal, and then slammed my hands against his back, wailing and screeching even more, but the man paid me no mind, only whistling a marching tune as he carried me down along the sloping road of the Grünes Tal, patting me on the ass in fatherly fashion, laughing at my helplessness, and greeting his comrades with hearty salutations along the way.

As we travelled, we passed other clusters of houses, and most had their own columns of smoke rising to the sky, their own black gravestones for people I would never know. Some houses were still aflame, though the further we progressed through the valley, the more complete was the destruction.

At other farmsteads, crews of men hauled out every last trunk and chest, all the chattels of these prosperous farmers carried rudely and dumped unceremoniously on the ground, their contents kicked around and pilfered by jackalish men. At one house, an iron-bound chest was smashed on the ground, kicked open, and the coins and trinkets spilled out on the ground, and grown men swarmed over them and snatched them up in their hands. A scuffle erupted over how to distribute these spoils, and swords were drawn, though I did not see the outcome, for they passed out of sight.

Animals were being slaughtered, their bodies heaped onto wagons. At one farmstead I saw a man made to kneel, and then a soldier behind him hacked his head off his body. At another, an infant, running frantically and crying, wearing only a shirt, ran down by a horseman who struck open the top of his head with his sword. The little one fell face first like a doll to the ground. I saw other things which I would rather not describe.

I had stopped my protest long ago, paralyzed by the sights. My wrist too was swollen and as the battery brought my bones even more pain, I took the painful journey thereafter in silence. I was too tired and numb and empty to do anything. It was easier to lie still as the trooper carried me, and watch the ground.

“Markus! How was it up there?”

“A good haul today! These peasants won’t think of rising again, that’s for sure.”

“Ha! Without doubt. T’was good haul for us too.” He waved his fingers and a ring glittered on each.

“What’s that there?” Another asked, gesturing with his chin to me.

“A young boy, Markus? I knew you were always one for queer tastes!” The other men erupted in laughter.

“This one’s not for me, dunce. Cap’n asked me to take him to the tross. He’s a lucky one.”

“A lucky one?”

“Fell down from the chapel and lived. Missed all our pikes.”

“Very lucky!” he said, impressed.

Another chimed in. “Aye, you know how the cap’n likes his good luck charms.”

After mumbling their assent, the banter spent itself out, and soon all the men’s voices joined in the chorus of the jolly marching tune hummed by my captor, gloating to one another about their rich booty, and their boisterous and celebratory voices filled my ears, as my eyes lingered on the sad images of destruction and slaughter bouncing behind me as I was carried unhappily along.

It was maybe an hour of travel until we reached the tross. The other men had filed away and departed to their quarters to enjoy their spoils or returned to their companies, so I was alone with Markus as we descended into the encampment. I arched my back and turned awkwardly to peer ahead, and there it was: the tross, a whole town surrounded by wagons, at the base of the valley just by the river. Women and children, sutlers, barbers, merchants, armorers, fletchers, prostitutes, orphans, dogs. There must have been a few thousand of them in that camp-city. Outside, a company of several hundred men sat in the open field, ready to be deployed in case the pillagers met armed resistance, but here in the Grünes Tal, among the free, simple, and naive people, they would find none of that today.

Other companies had been sent out in other directions to despoil the great valley’s other veins. Cavalry filed around the camp, and cantered hither and thither down the roads, conveying messages and so on. The whole affair was rather sloppy and disorganized, I say in retrospect, but I would later learn this was indeed how the Black Guard functioned.

We passed by all of this, and the strange new sight distracted me from my anguish, but soon my neck grew sore from craning and I fell back again, and for a while watched the ground pass me by, looking down the man’s back as he plodded forward over the dirt. But we were soon inside the camp, and Markus greeted the guards and went inside, through a gate formed by two large and reinforced wagons. Filtering through the labyrinth of tents, barrows, wheeled booths at which hawkers sat, we continued into the tent-city’s heart.

The trooper Markus deposited me in the midst of a little canvas courtyard, having filtered around a few corners, almost tripped over a tent peg, and arrived at this somewhat open space. There were some women and a couple of men in this little enclave. A gruff man greeted them, who I would learn later was the whore-sergeant¹.

“Who's this?” he asked.

“Lucky kid. Cap’n wanted to keep him,” Markus answered.

“Why?”

“I dunno. He likes to collect lucky charms, I guess. Ask him.”

“Alright.”

“Just make sure he has no hurts.”

The whore-sergeant nodded. “Put him there then.”

Markus the trooper dumped me rudely on the ground next to an open tent.

“Griselde!” the whore-sergeant called. “Look over this one for damages.”

A woman came in and found me. She was old, older than my mother, and she had deadened eyes. She had seen too much of the world, even then I knew. She picked me up under the arms and set me on my feet.

“And make sure he’s clean.”

“Aye, sir,” she replied. “Can ye walk?” she asked. The question was directed at me.

I just looked at her. I didn’t like her, nor the sergeant, so I didn’t answer.

“Well? Can ye walk, little one?” She grabbed my chin up in her hand, and examined my face, turning my head and looking at both sides of my face.

I nodded.

She let go. “This way, then.”

She ushered me out of the courtyard surrounded with tents toward another little clearing just beside it, and brought me to her tent. Other women were there, and some men, wounded, with bandages around their heads, some missing legs. Some were groaning, others silent. As we walked in, one of the men was being attended by two others. They were lifting him onto a litter to be taken away.

“Stand here.”

I did as instructed.

I could see other men around, and women, some injured. Most were tended by their wives, as that was the wife's duty in these places, but those who were not married came here, to Griselde. People in the tross have to be useful, especially women without husbands. If they aren't, they are quickly deposited. And Griselde had found a way to be useful.

The gentleness of the air here was strange to me. I could hear some noise, though most of the men were gone from the camp. It was calm here. I could still just see whisky columns of black smoke in the distance, up in the valley between the hills, as it continued drifting lazily up into the sky, but even then it was fading.

Griselde returned and examined me again. She felt my legs and arms for broken bones and things. She felt my wrist, turning it up and down, and I winced.

“Does it hurt?”

I nodded.

She made her assessment, and then took my clothes and washed me indelicately, dipping her rag in a bucket of dirty water, sloshing it around, and scrubbing the dirt and grime and blood from me with practiced efficiency and a general indifference. She didn't seem to care much about me, and I don't think she looked me once in the eyes during this whole process. Nonetheless she fulfilled her duty, and having finished washing, looked over my bruises and sprains a final time with the grime and dirt removed, to make sure I was not damaged. And I was not damaged, not enough to need to remain in this make-shift infirmary.

A shadow fell over me. I looked up at the tall and rough man blocking the white sky. “How is he?” the whore-sergeant asked.

“He is clean,” she said, as she put my clothes back on me.

“Anything broken?”

“He has a few bruises and sprains—deep bruises and bad sprains, I mean, but nothing is broken. Bruises on the ribs too.”

He nodded.

“He needs rest but he will be in good health soon enough.”

The man departed, and Griselde left me a little bed of straw to rest on and told me to rest there and to stay there. I sat sullenly on the mat, but did not lay down. How could I rest, how could I lay down at that time? After what I had gone through? What’s more, I didn’t know these strange and terse and unpersonable people, with their dour faces, and in fact I hated them and was afeared of them. I had just been acquainted with butchery and death and was now attended by dark shadows and grim faces who care little about me. When I closed my eyes and saw my father again, and I heard the screams from the church, I heard everything, over and over.

What was I to do then? Just sit and fall asleep? Not after everything I had seen. So I resolved quickly in my mind I would leave this place and find my own way. Surely somewhere else would be better than here. This is how children think.

So I sat and shivered and watched Griselde.

It wasn’t long before Griselde’s her was elsewhere. I seized the moment and acted.

I stole out the back of the tent, slipping under the canvas. I skirted through the twisting streets of the tent-city, where I saw men walking by, like giants, their shapes dark against the waning sun and their shadows long. I hid behind barrels or wagons as they passed, and continued when their voices faded away. I ran through tents and under wheeled wagons, startled some traders, but they paid me no mind, as many children lived in the tross. Soon I was at the perimeter of the camp and I rolled under one of the tall wagons that formed its wall, and crawled out from under it, and fled into the open country as fast as I could.

The camp had been erected on a river, and so I ran low along the bank of the river as far as I could, evading the sight of men returning from their day’s labor. I did not know where I wanted to go, but I could not remain there. I just wanted to be free, to be away, so I ran until the camp was out of sight, and spied a copse of trees, far away from the encampment, though still within sight of it. To my infantile judgment, this was adequately remote. So I camped myself there, and waited until night came.

I watched as the last columns of smoke faded away, the last traces of the gravestones wisped away by the wind. There it went, everything I had ever known, burned up in smoke, and now even the smoke was a memory. The memories of my father and mother flashed again in my mind and tormented me, and I fell into the ground, and felt the cold earth under me and surely wailed in agony, though I do not remember much of this.

After letting free what felt like every last tear in me, I sat up, spent and empty, and watched the blood red sun dip down below the mountains.

When night fell, fear began to take hold of me. I looked up at the dark shapes of the trees against the darkening sky. I felt the autumn breeze, and it was cold, and my little tunic was not enough, so I hunched into a ball to warm myself but it was still not enough. The dark, the trees, the forest began to terrify me. It was something primordial. If you have never lived in the country, and been in a forest at night, it is not a pleasant thing, even as an adult. At the same time, I looked down on the river valley, and saw the lights of campfires flicker up from the walled tent-city, glowing warmly, and I heard the distant echoes of laughter, and of song.

It struck me again how this warmth could accompany such horrible destruction. How could these people be happy? But they were.

Terrified, cold, and with a rumbling stomach, I looked on the warm glow of the tent-town with increasing desire, and envy, and yearning. The stars were bright against the dark indigo sky above.

Perhaps I could just get a little closer.

No! I wanted nothing to do with those people.

Just then, I heard, ever so slightly, a padding on the leafy earth behind me. I looked behind me and saw a pair of yellow eyes glinting like mirrors.

I saw the barest outline of a face, limned in the starlight, with black fur, like a dog, but bigger, much bigger, and I froze. Then a low, low growl, growing quietly at first, then louder, rumbling out of the blackness into a snarl. A primordial terror took hold of me.

I ran as fast as I could, throwing myself out of the dark forest, sparning not even a single look behind me. Never have I run so fast in my life.

Wolves were attracted by the slaughter, you see, and they often followed armies such as this, for it was an attractive prospect for them, having a welter of fresh meat to choose from with each stop, and having to perform little work to obtain it. They picked clean battlefields and the sites of slaughter and there were surely even gems among the refuse of the tross. Still though, I am surprised that this wolf did not follow me out of the copse, me being a small child who could be easily devoured, but I suspect it had already eaten, and wanted only the dominion of that little copse for itself. I was lucky though, living up to the expectations set for me by the captain, for whatever the reason it did not follow me.

I ran as fast as I could toward the tross, and saw it draw nearer to me, bouncing in my view with each frenzied rushing bound I made with my little infant legs.

“Hey, who goes there!” A voice shouted out. A man was pissing, and I had almost run right into the course of his stream.

I pivoted back round with speed and scrambled back to find a ridge by the shore of the river and crouched down behind it.

Looking back, safe now behind the ridge, I saw that the wolf had not followed, and the pace of my heart calmed a bit, and I felt my mind settle, and I felt safe for a moment there under the night sky.

By the time the man was finished he seemed no longer interested in me, some childish mischief he surely thought, and went quietly back into the camp. But I was still too scared to go back in among those people, and chose instead to watch the camp from the outside, arguing with myself about what I should do, being scared to remain in this insecure position, and more scared still to go in amongst the butchering devils, and indeed that idea was still inimical to me. So I contented myself to remain there, in that position by the river bank. At least I was close to the edge of the camp, and could steal inside if the wolf changed his mind. That was how I justified it to myself.

Just as I was settling in to slumber under the stars, a yelping caught my ears, from not far off. Growling and snapping barks followed, and I stirred from my repose. Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to see what had happened, so, carefully, I rose and wandered over to the source of the noise, which had only just quieted. There I found a colony of stray dogs, clustered outside the camp, seemingly in exile from the safety of the perimeter. Approaching quietly, there was the source of the commotion: two dogs who had just been fighting over a bone. The bigger one, some kind of shepherd mutt, had won the argument and taken the bone for himself, and took it in his mouth and was locking out the marrow. A scarred shepherd hound with a black face and black ears. The other, a brown and white collie of some kind, the one who had yelped, was bleeding from a puncture on her face and had been driven away, and was now slinking back, dejected and defeated and humiliated, into the gloom beyond the colony where even the feeble glow of firelight did not reach.

Looking over this colony, I began to think perhaps this could be my sanctuary for the night. I was desirous of softness and warmth, and remembering my family’s slain dog, I saw in them a reminder of my life as it was. So I approached, but as I did so the dogs were not as friendly as I had hoped. The shepherd mutt, perhaps thinking I intended to do mischief to his pack, or to steal his bone for which he had fought so hard, snarled at me, and I was daunted, as I was already afraid of everything and in a delicate state, and wanted no quarrel with a fearsome hound like him. So, rebuked, and feeling sad in my childish heart, I thought to follow the defeated hound, and went into the darkness whither I thought the collie had gone.

Slowly I approached the wounded hound, and it snarled at me, and stood defensively on all fours, and as it saw me creep closer, it even snapped its teeth in the air, lunging in a bluff to drive me away. But, seeing as it was only acting in wounded self-defense, I showed it I meant no harm and held out my hand in peace, and the patchy collie sniffed it, and decided I was no threat, and allowed me near. Sitting by it, though barely able to see in the absence of any firelight, and illuminated only by the stars, I daubed its face with the cuff of my tunic, clearing away the wet blood. The dog raised its lips in a snarl as I touched her wound, but soon she was pacified, seeing I meant it no harm, and appreciating a stranger’s care.

With little else to do, and both of us hungry, I simply lay down in the grass next to the hound, and tried to fall asleep. Under the oppressive chill of the autumn night, the warmth of my new companion was a cherished boon, and soon I drifted into sleep.