The Abandoned Castle

The first bolt struck the young Landsknecht full in the carotid and a hot stream of blood burst across my face and blinded me.

Before I could even gasp, two more shots cracked through the night and the hands that held me went slack immediately.

Then came a fourth.

Louder. Deeper.

A pistol.

The scream that followed was short and dreadful.

Only when I wiped the blood from my eyes and saw my assailants sprawled dead around me did I understand that someone had saved my life.

But who?

I blinked through the darkness as a slight figure approached.

“You’re an hour early,” the figure said. “Next time, heed more carefully when I tell you time and place.”

The tavern girl.

For a heartbeat I truly doubted my senses, yet there she stood, the same sharp-tongued creature with wide blue eyes and a dusting of freckles I had so unconvincingly pretended to forget.

In one hand she held a pistol, while the crossbow she used was already slung back over her shoulder.

I could do nothing but stare and by then she was likely accustomed to that expression on my face.

Slowly I realized that we were at the very place she had bid me meet her, at the foot of the old, unused castle.

Somehow my would-be killers had dragged me to the same spot.

“It’s all right,” she said lightly. “No need for thanks. I’m sure, with your marksmanship, as you called it earlier, you’d have managed admirably on your own.”

She winked as I staggered to my feet.

“By God... Y-You handle those weapons remarkably well for…”

“A woman?” she cut in.

“…a tavern girl,” I finished.

“You do not always choose what the world makes of you,” she said, lifting her chin.

I nodded, very aware of that notion.

“I owe you my life,” I said finally. “That much is plain. Tell me then, what do you want of me?”

“You boasted enough today,” she replied. “About your aim. I meant merely to give you a chance to prove it.”

My ribs still throbbed from the zealots’ boots, the blood of three dead men clung to my clothes, and every sense urged me to run to the Hauptmann and report all I had heard.

Yet something in me, foolishness perhaps, or the strange pull this girl held, made me remain.

“What did you intend?”

She grinned and pointed up toward the keep.

“You wish to go in there?” I asked.

“It stands empty,” she said. “And we shan’t be disturbed, shall we?”

Another wink.

Threat or flirtation, I could not tell.

In any case, she clearly meant to lead and I to follow.

We climbed toward the castle gate.

The ascent wearied me far more than it ought; my stomach still burned from the Landsknechts’ kicks.

She, meanwhile, moved with infuriating ease, stopping every few moments, arms folded, tapping her foot as she waited.

“Are you always this slow?” she called. “We’ve not all night!”

At the great gate the portcullis hung low.

“I might have told you this,” I muttered. “Why should it stand open?”

She ignored me and walked along the wall, eyes searching the stone until she found what she sought.

“Here. We can climb from this point.”

She pointed to a narrow ledge some four meters above.

“Kneel. Back to the wall,” she ordered.

I barely braced myself before she was already clambering over my hands and shoulders, quick and light as a cat, nearly toppling me in her haste.

Because of her height the ledge rose nearly level with her face; with a small pull she was atop it, then climbed higher until she vanished over the gate arch.

Her movements were not graceful, but the way the bodice clung to her as she climbed made it difficult to look away.

A moment later I heard chains rasping, and with jerks and groans the portcullis began to rise.

She strained often, and despite all her bravado she was still only one girl hauling ancient iron, I thought.

At length the gate lifted enough for her to unbar the smaller door beside it.

She appeared once more, breathing hard though trying not to show it.

“Miss me?” she asked, winded and cheeky.

Loose strands of hair clung to her face.

I could not help but smile, but then straightened my face again, for I did not wish her to notice.

Inside the courtyard the moonlight showed only weeds, ruin, and long neglect, as she led me through a side door into the keep.

She walked those corridors with such certainty that she must have prowled them many times before, I concluded.

We finally entered a great hall lit by several torches already set in sconces.

Dust lay thick on everything, but something else drew the eye.

Furniture stood everywhere: chairs, tables, busts, crockery, portraits, all dragged in from other rooms.

Every object bore holes or broken bolts.

She had turned the hall into a shooting range.

Rows of plates stood on shelves; old ancestors hung riddled on the walls, their painted faces torn apart.

So this was where she practiced, I thought.

While I stared, she was already loading her crossbow.

A heartbeat later a bolt struck the back of a chair with a thud.

She caught my expression at once.

“I hid up here from the dead until the east was safe,” she said. “Since then I come to practise. My father taught me long ago, crossbow and pistol.”

She paused. “Before you ask, no, he isn’t in the city. And no, he isn’t alive.”

“And the woman with you in the tent?” I asked. “Your mother?”

“My...? Oh, you mean Magdalena.” She snorted. “No. Not my mother. We paired up only while we’re trapped here.”

“You do not mean to stay?”

“Stay?” She shook her head sharply. “Not I. This city’s a death-trap. One day soon it’ll fall apart. By then I plan to be far from here.”

“And where will you run?” I asked. “You think the world kinder elsewhere?”

“Originally,” she said, “I hoped the dovecote might tell me something.”

I stared.

“How know you of the dovecote?” I asked.

“You’re not the only one with ears,” she said. “And I know why they tried to silence you.”

So she had been watching the entire time, I realized.

“Then you know,” I said, “that the Fähnlein entrusted with that task, has no thought of going near the dovecote.”

“I gathered that much,” she said and shrugged. “But don't worry, I’ll find my answers soon enough.”

Her tone unsettled me.

I really ought to return to the Hauptmann and report the planned betrayal.

“I should go now, they need to know about this” I said. “And… thank you again for...”

“Excuse me?” she cut in sharply. “Have you forgotten why we’re here?”

She cocked her crossbow and fired another bolt into a painted ancestor’s skull.

“Well?” she said. “You boasted your aim was better than mine. Prove it.”

Oh. That.

Nervous, I took up the contraption I received from the bowyer, feeling its strange weight.

Let her have her little contest, I thought.

Then I will leave as soon as I can.

“What’s wrong?” she taunted. “Forgotten how to shoot?”

I glowered at her and set to drawing the weapon with its lever.

The strain was tremendous; the whole contraption felt on the brink of tearing itself apart.

With the bolt seated, the drawn strings thrummed with dangerous tension.

I chose a portrait still mostly intact: a prince standing in his finery, hand on his sword.

His painted gaze reproached me.

I held my breath and fired.

The bolt vanished.

Only a neat hole through the nobleman’s elbow showed its path.

Not perfect, but respectable.

“Where did it land?” I murmured.

But she had already torn the portrait from the wall.

Her breath caught.

The bolt had punched clean through the canvas and buried itself deep in the wooden panelling.

Only a sliver of shaft remained visible as the stone wall behind had stopped it, barely.

The force was astonishing.

Even a musket wouldn't have pierced much deeper.

She snatched the crossbow from me.

“Where did you get this?” she demanded. “Come on, where?”

Her sharp intensity almost amused me.

“You’d dearly like to know, wouldn’t you?” I said.

She glared. “I knew you stole it. From whom?”

“I stole nothing,” I said coldly.

“So now you lie as well. You do not even know how to handle it.”

“That’s enough,” I snapped. “Give it back. You’ve had your little game. I must go.”

She studied me for a heartbeat, then without warning slung the strap over her shoulder and bolted for the doorway.

“It’s far better off with me!” she cried.

"Oh no, you don’t."

I lunged after her, but the floor vanished beneath my boots as she had yanked the end of the heavy carpet I was standing on and sent me sprawling backwards.

I crashed hard on my spine.

“You wretched...!” I growled and leapt up, sprinting after her through the twisting halls.

I burst into the courtyard just in time to see a pale flicker vanish into a narrow side passage.

I chased it, but the light was gone.

“Damnation,” I muttered. “I should never have followed that little pest up here.”

But there was no turning back.

The passage was narrow and climbed steadily.

Only one way remained: she had trapped herself in the keep’s tower.

At the top floor I found a single heavy door.

I eased the latch and slipped in.

A torch stub burned behind a large bed, casting the chamber in dim red light.

The room had once held noble prisoners; now someone had attempted to make it comfortable again.

But the placement of the torch was suspicious.

A lure, no doubt.

I walked toward it slowly, keeping one eye on a wardrobe standing half ajar.

My fist tensed, ready to...

Suddenly a hand shot from beneath the bed and seized my ankle.

“Damn it!”

I hit the floor but recovered quicker than before.

As she wriggled out, I caught her leg and dragged her toward me.

She kicked wildly, seized a wooden mug from the floor, and smashed it into my fingers until agony forced me to release her.

She was back on her feet again, now unreachable for me, and soon vanished by chance.

Gone, I thought.

And with her, my crossbow.

But to my surprise, instead of fleeing, she turned sharply toward me, drawing a knife from her boot.

I froze.

“Hold!“

She leaned over me and grinned.

“Just so we’re clear,” she murmured, “I won.”

Then she drove the knife into the floor beside my head, grabbed my collar, and pulled me up into a kiss.

A thousand thoughts stormed my mind.

None prevailed.

I kissed her back, and soon we stumbled onto the great bed, our struggle turning swiftly into something else entirely.

But before we went further, she pressed her lips to my ear.

“By the way,” she whispered, “my name is Ida. In case you feel inclined to scream it.”