A Royal Affair Read online

  The barbarism and ferocity increased as the terrain became more inhospitable. Villages cut off from one another by mountains and barely passable tracks followed their own insular customs. Guidance from higher authority was neither sought nor accepted when it was offered. I could have done much for the sickness I encountered, but my help was not wanted. The farther I traveled, the more my language skills became inadequate. I did not speak the local dialect, and they could not understand either my broken French or German.

  Dominating everything was the church, the Great Oppressor. My parents had left England to escape from religious persecution. I had taken their beliefs one step further. I had abandoned any pretense of religion at all during my time with the Powponi, unless worship of sunlight, trees, good earth, and love can be considered a religion. My return to England had been made relatively easy by the way most Englishmen practice their religion: privately and quietly. I was left alone to not practice, and that suited everyone.

  Here in these vast mountains, life was ruled by fear and superstition stirred in a cauldron of mysticism parading itself as devotion. Each tiny village had a church. Shrines pockmarked the pathways. Indeed, I was grateful for them, for if I saw a well-tended shrine, I knew I was close to my night’s lodgings. The influence of priests was evident everywhere, their black robes flitting like shadows between peasant rags. Occasionally I was reduced to seeking one out. With Latin in common, I was able to seek direction and ask other important questions about my journey. Armed as I was with my letters of introduction, I was always treated courteously when I encountered priests who could read. That some could not boded ill; ignorance and power are bad bedfellows in my opinion.

  I was proved right in the worst possible way some days later. I followed, as was my custom, the evidence of a shrine and took the left-hand track when I came to an unexpected divide in my route. If I was wrong, then I could correct myself at the village and return after a night’s rest to take the right track. I was not unduly worried. I was surprised at the sense of dread, therefore, that came over me as I approached the huddle of huts in the valley. Truly, it was not an auspicious sight. It was the most miserable place I had yet visited. In low ground, it was fetid and damp, with a central street almost impassable for mud. The houses were nothing more than hovels, and the mountains towered so high over the valley that sun did not penetrate for more than a few hours a day. I shivered and tried to shake off this uncharacteristic sense of foreboding. I was glad to see that there was some kind of fair in the village. I could hear music and see some dancing toward the muddy patch that served as a village square. I rode toward the festivities. I was hungry and tired, and more importantly, my horse was hungry and tired. Xavier came first. He always did.

  I dismounted and led him into a stable alongside the inn. No stableboy was in sight, so I placed him in a stall myself and fed him some treats whilst removing his saddle and checking him over. Assured he was in good health, I made my way out into the squalid yard and back to the muddy street. Everyone appeared to be at the celebration, so I followed the sound of laughter to find a small crowd milling around. Most of the men were drinking, and when I came to look closer, most of the women too. They were standing around what appeared to be some kind of ornament or statue. It was mounted on a small plinth and looked rather like a miniature version of an obelisk I had once seen drawn on a manuscript by a man who had returned from Egypt. This one was not hundreds of feet tall and guarding a temple, however. It was about three feet high and six inches or so at its base, tapering to a couple of inches at the sharpened pinnacle. I wondered if it was a harvest offering of some sort. I could not speak with anyone, for no one understood my accent or words, but I was offered a mug of beer and accepted, soon becoming quite friendly with everyone.

  Eventually a commotion at the end of the street near the church drew my attention. The revelers around me cheered and peered excitedly toward a new group who were approaching with some pomp and ceremony. They were possibly the village elders, for they were better dressed and seemed to have a sense of authority. I took another long swallow of the remarkably strong beer and watched with interest. I felt the first stirring of disquiet when I saw what was in the middle of the group: a naked man. He was bound at the wrists and was being dragged along by a very large man dressed in black walking beside a priest. This last figure was similarly dressed in black, of course, but he was much smaller, and sickly looking to my experienced eye. The crowd around me parted as the group escorting the poor unfortunate arrived. They were now oddly silent. All revelry had ceased, another thing that made the hair on the back of my neck rise and prick. The cheerful celebration had given way to an unpleasant stillness of expectation. When the new group arrived in the square, the young man fell to the ground, clearly in a very poor state: beaten severely, naked, and very cold. There was blood trickling out of one ear, which was not good at all and indicated he’d been hit hard on the head at some time.

  The priest began to speak, but as he spoke in the local language with only the occasional word of pure German, I understood little. I did get, however, that it was a punishment—the beaten state of the man already made this rather evident. I reasoned now that the obelisk was a stake and that it was going to act like the village stocks; he was going to be tied to it and humiliated for his crime. Quite what his crime was I could not make out.

  I determined to ask and made my way across the back of the crowd to the group of men who had accompanied him on his punishment walk. I introduced myself to a man who I thought by his superior dress might be the most likely to speak German. He replied in very understandable words, and I proceeded to ask him about the poor prisoner. Before he could reply, the huge man in black lifted the criminal to his feet and dragged him over to the plinth. I heard a collective intake of breath, ominous in the still night air. For one moment it felt as if the earth itself were taking a breath of expectation. Before I could protest the man’s rough treatment, he was placed standing over the obelisk. I was intrigued.

  To my shame, my curiosity as a man of science overcame my natural instinct, which had been screaming alarm at me since that fateful decision left or right at the crossroads. Before I could process what was happening, before my drink-addled body could react, the big man withdrew a cudgel from his clothing and brought it down viciously upon the kneecap of the injured man balanced precariously over the obelisk.

  My choked cry was not heard over the sigh of pleasure from the crowd. Or perhaps it was drowned out by his scream as his leg gave way and he jerked down, falling upon the point of the obelisk. It pierced his body. He was still able to keep himself up on his one good leg, but the unnatural penetration was enough to make any man scream. He began to cry and hop slightly on his strong leg, trying to lever himself up and off the painful spike. This engendered laughter and much ribald comment from the watching crowd.

  I pushed my way forward and reached him, the alcohol previously slowing my brain now completely gone with the shock and a desperate desire to intervene. I began to remonstrate with the large man whilst at the same time offering my arm to the frantic prisoner. The next thing I knew, I felt a shattering blow to my knuckles and hands on my body, dragging me away. The pain was immense. The cudgel had hit me across the back of my hand; it was swelling as I looked. I struggled to get free, but many hands were holding me. Up close, the smell of these peasants was horrific, but any protest I made at my treatment was swallowed up by another scream. I felt vomit rise in my throat, tried to warn the men holding me, but doubled over and vomited on some shoes.

  The young man’s second leg had been broken just as mercilessly as his first. He had no way to keep himself from the stake then. His choices were limited: stand on broken legs or be slowly and agonizingly impaled. He tried. He tried to keep himself from sliding farther down onto the increasingly widening stone pillar, and perhaps he would have managed. Perhaps he would have survived long enough to be lifted off alive. I would have reached him and done so, despite my injur
y. But as I was pushing toward him, determined to put up a better fight, the first of the missiles flew from the crowd.

  A stone hit his nose. He jerked back, lost his balance on his poor legs, and slipped a little farther, his own body weight his enemy now, inexorably impaling him further at each movement. Another missile flew from the delighted, energized crowd. This was clearly a much awaited, relished sport, and they were not to be denied their fun. The rock caught him on the shoulder, and he slumped, his weight wholly supported now on the obscene object in his body. It was over four inches wide, maybe more at the last place I could see. I could not comprehend how he could endure it. I made a second attempt to intervene. I could not use my hand, which was now black and badly swollen, so I approached the priest and began to reason with him in Latin. He looked at me blankly and crossed himself. Rummaging in his filthy robes, he produced a withered apple, which he then threw at the agonized man. The hit barely registered, but even a slight wince jolted him farther down. I heard him groan and whimper. Making those pitiful noises only moved his body more.

  I resolved to do something, anything. I looked around wildly to see if I could gain any support. I will never forget the look upon the faces of the men and women who watched this slow torture. They appeared greedy for the man’s pain, as if his agony would relieve theirs, as if his death staved off theirs. I knew I would receive no support. I approached the obscene spectacle again, wary of the big man in black. He was now eating a pie, watching the entertainment like everyone else. He had dropped his cudgel and had a large pint pot in his other hand, his arm slung around the neck of a filthy-looking woman. He did not look at all bothered by my approach. I went behind the young man and felt his neck. He was still alive, and his eyes fluttered open as I touched him. I began to lift him off. There were some murmurings in the crowd, but the man in black mumbled something around a mouthful of pie, and they went quiet with a horrid air of expectation. The young man was stuck. I felt vomit rise in my throat again when I thought too much about what this meant but took a firmer grasp under his arms and eased him as gently as I could up toward release.

  I did not allow for the presence of genuine evil in the village that day. I thought that once their thirst for pain and punishment was slaked they would relent. I was wrong. This young man’s crime had apparently been so horrific that he was to be given no mercy, and I, ironically, came to be the instrument of his death. As I was about to free him, I saw the big man nod to someone—someone behind me. I felt a blow to the side of my knee. It buckled. My grip on the man’s slick skin faltered, and I let him drop.

  He revived, therefore, to a last unbearable agony and screamed as the full weight of his body impaled him completely upon the instrument of his torture. Totally weakened, he could do nothing to save himself, and it went high, too high for his frail body to survive. As I fell to the ground, believing my knee to be shattered, I saw him die. I was glad. They had taken their fun with him, but now he was released. Sometimes my lack of faith in God disturbed me. Sometimes it did not. This was one of the latter times.

  I do not remember much about being carried back to the inn. Sometimes I wonder why I did not end up on that stake. I was a foreigner, someone who had tried to intervene and save a condemned prisoner. I was fortunate. The man I had addressed was the de facto mayor of the village, and knowing of my destination, he had insisted that I be dispatched on my way with no further hindrance. My knee was not broken, only badly bruised and swollen, as was my hand. As I mounted Xavier—I could not stay in that accursed place a single night—I repeated my inquiry as to the man’s crime. The mayor said something I did not understand at first: the punishment fit the crime. When he saw my baffled expression, he added that the man had been the author of his own fate, that by his actions in life he had forged his own path to a spike. I frowned again, still not understanding. He then shrugged and said, “He liked it well enough fornicating upon another man’s cock.”

  My foot slipped from Xavier’s stirrup, blood thumping in my ears. I clung to the saddle, legs wobbly, sick. He nodded amiably, misinterpreting my reaction. “He was caught in the act. He allowed the devil into his arse. Well, he’s down there with him now. May he burn in hell.”

  “Dear God.”

  He misinterpreted that as piety and crossed himself, nodding sagely.

  “The other man?” I could hardly bear to ask, fearing another man suffering that dreadful fate. Could I intervene and do for him what I had been unable to do this time?

  The mayor was silent, toeing the ground, kicking at the filthy straw. He shrugged. “He is outside my jurisdiction. God alone will judge him.”

  I did not bother to point out that if there was a God, he was supposed to be merciful and loving. His judgments would flow from those two great ideals, not from hatred and fear, as this man’s had. I managed to swing myself into the saddle and clicked my heels to Xavier’s sides. He was as keen to leave as I, although it was dark and I took him from a warm stable.

  The night was very cold, and bright stars illuminated the track. I did not intend to go far. It was too dangerous to travel alone at night in these regions, if not for bandits and night terrors, then for the very real danger of rough terrain that would injure or kill my horse. I made it back to the crossroads, took the alternate route, and went on for another hour or so. If it was the witching hour by then, I did not care. I had seen horror enough for one night and feared nothing except my own thoughts. Those were with me whether I rode or not.

  Eventually, I found a little hollow off the track, tied Xavier securely, and lit a small fire. I tried to keep the light low, but regardless, I needed the warmth and feeling of safety the flames gave out. I had no intention of sleeping. I felt as if I would never sleep again. I was wrong. Physical and mental exhaustion soon overtook me. I even remember thinking I would not be too unhappy if I never woke again.

  I DID wake, and suddenly, with a sense of extreme danger pricking the base of my skull. I lay very still, not moving, assessing. I thought perhaps I’d awakened myself by screaming. I’d had a nightmare, of that I was certain. Its sense of tenuous reality still hung around me, clouding my mind.

  Very cautiously I opened my eyes. Dawn had come, bringing a wispy half-light to the hollow, trees obscured by low-hanging mist. Even in this light, I could see the man squatting alongside my dying fire, regarding me. I shot to my feet as best I could, given I was stiff and cold and could put no weight on my injured leg. He did not move, only watched me with a cautious gaze.

  For the first few moments that I regarded him, backing toward Xavier before freeing my knife, I thought he was the devil. I had heard the devil came in favorable form, and even as a nonbeliever in God, I believed in temptation. And this man was in extremely favorable form and was decidedly tempting.

  Even in this light, I could see he was not a peasant ground down by poverty. His eyes were startlingly green and wide set in an exceptionally attractive face. He was watching me with catlike interest, and it was his look rather than his being there that alarmed me. I felt an instant awareness of danger, as if his beauty were the menace and not his otherworldly presence in the eerie half-light. As I reached my horse, he stood. He was tall, as tall as I. I had become used to the short and stunted, the runts and castoffs of this harsh country. Inexplicably this man reminded me of the Powponi. Perhaps it was his unnatural calmness and beauty, both traits of that distant people, which took me back to a forest many thousands of miles away from this cold, menacing one.

  The man had not reached for a weapon. I let my hands hang empty at my side. “What do you want?” I was not, understandably, in the mood to be sociable.

  The man’s eyes narrowed fractionally, and he replied in slightly accented English, “You are English?”

  I was not, exactly, but I nodded and repeated, “What do you want?”

  “Me?” He looked around for a moment, confused, then added, “I was going to ask what you want, as this is my land and you are trespassing.”

>   “Do you always creep up on visitors when they are sleeping to question them?”

  He smiled suddenly, his teeth a flash of perfect white in the low light. “I might, if they were screaming as if in torment, as you were. You make a lot of noise for one man on his own in the dark in a forest.”

  I felt color rise to my cheeks but knew he could not see it. I was angry with myself for the weakness I had betrayed in sleep—and at him for pointing it out. “Perhaps you could help me then and point me in the correct direction for Hesse-Davia. I have a legitimate reason for traveling in these forests, and I apologize if I trespassed upon your land. I did not see a marker that proved possession.”

  “You have been in Hesse-Davia for some days. Did you not know? And not all things that are owned are marked.” He came closer. I stepped back warily, but he held his hands out in a gesture of reassurance. “If I wanted to harm you, you would be dead already.”

  I narrowed my eyes. Despite my recent injuries, I could take him easily. I had a few years on him, but I was stronger, faster, and I had no doubt that I knew many more ways to kill a man. His bravado angered me. He must have seen this, for suddenly he made a small gesture, and three more men emerged like wraiths from the trees. They’d been there all the time, but camouflaged in forest shades as they were, I’d not even been aware of them. Again I was reminded of the Powponi. I had once walked past half a dozen of their warriors in broad daylight and not seen them at all. I silently blamed my emotional and physical state for my being so off guard, but vowed not to be so careless again.