Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [157]
“I had marked my man: an ill-looking buggerer, more scar than skin. I could see he was no stranger to dagger-work, for he came at me with his weapon in the under-fist position, so I fell into the stance called ‘the unbalanced scales’.” He waved his arms, trying to demonstrate from a seated position, much inconveniencing Theresia. “But, damn me, if he didn’t overfist his dagger and reverse his stroke. A clever ruse.
“Now a dagger is well and good to force a point between the links in a coat of mail, but it’s no good at all for slashing. My quillon took him off his guard, and instead of the forearm block he expected, I gave him a stroke across the belly. He had fast hands, though. I give him that. A daggerman wants quickness more so than strength.”
Theresia clucked while she bandaged his arm. “Ach, the poor man.”
Max scowled. “That ‘poor man’ and his fellows murdered twelve people since they fled Falcon Rock, including Altenbach and his entire family.”
“He was a wicked man, I am sure,” she answered, “but he has now no chance of repentance.”
“He has now no chance of another murder. You are too tender, woman.”
Too tender, Dietrich thought, yet in some ways no more tender than flint; and in other ways less like flint than glass.
DIETRICH STAYED with Max after Theresia had left. “Manfred said that you took none captive, save Oliver.”
Max was silent for a space, then he said, “It is a bad gambit to block a man’s dagger with your shoulder. I must remember that the next time.” He flexed his shoulder and winced. “I pray it does not stiffen on me. Would you tell God that at Mass? I will pay seven pence. Pastor …” He sighed. “Pastor, Oliver was ours to deal with. The others were carrion, but Oliver was one of us, and we must hang him with our own hands.”
And so it was.
Manfred summoned the jurors to the courtyard, where Nymandus the gärtner swore to Oliver’s presence among the outlaws and to his murder of the Altenbach boy. The young man made no response, but whispered, “I rode a horse and carried a sword. I struck blows for the poor and in honor of the queen of love and beauty.”
No, Dietrich thought, you struck blows upon the poor—because your queen of love and beauty chose another. He wondered what the other outlaws had made of him. Had they, too, imagined themselves free men defying oppressive lords?
None spoke in Oliver’s behalf, not even his father, who loudly disowned his son and cried that this was the fate of all those who aspired above themselves. But afterward, he returned to his bakery and sat for hours staring at the cold, cold oven.
Only Anna Kohlmann wept for him. “It is all for cause of me,” she said. “He would only win my heart with daring feats.”
And instead of winning a heart, he had lost a neck. “Mine Herr,” Dietrich said when Manfred had asked for any to speak, “if you hang him, he will have no chance for repentance.”
“You see to the next life,” the Herr answered. “I must see to this one.”
The Krenken who had crowded into the court clattered their agreement along with the other Hochwalders when the jurors returned their verdict and Manfred pronounced sentence of death. Gschert von Grosswald and Thierry von Hinterwaldkopf, who flanked Manfred on the bench, concurred in the judgment, Gschert with a simple scissoring of his horny lips.
So the next morning at dawn, they led the prisoner forth, bound and gagged, bleeding from a dozen wounds, face blackened by countless blows. His eyes darted like two mice above the rag jammed into his mouth, seeking escape, seeking succor, finding nothing but dull contempt from those around him. His own father spat