Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [80]
“And will you ever return?” she said.
“Once and once only,” Max said. “To learn of Frost’s location from you. After that we need never see each other again.”
The witch could only hope that turned out to be true.
In which a humble
churchman’s home
is invaded,
Peter meets a dark
figure from out
of his past, and then
writes a letter.
A LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR LATER, THE good folks of Hamelin were still in a collective misery from the horror of their stolen children. The town’s military occupiers, some of whom had also lost sons and daughters that night, were also stricken and resolved to do something to insure future safety and security. Rules that had been relaxed were strict again, curfews were rigidly enforced, and punishments for even the most trifling of crimes were both draconian and severe.
The public outcry, once people had woken up on that fateful morning to find more than a hundred of their children missing, was directed at both the town’s puppet government and at the actual military rulers, who preferred to work behind the scenes, but whom everyone knew really pulled the strings. Riots were barely averted, but only through the dual practices of a rigid and brutal crackdown, accompanied by profuse promises of widespread government reform at every level.
Prior to the invasion ten years ago, Hugo the Charitable was the Bishop of Saint Nicolai’s Cathedral, and official shepherd over all of the souls of Hamelin, the Weser and of Lower Saxony. And like most high-ranking ecclesiastical fellows of his time, his interests weren’t limited to the spiritual realm. He was knee-deep into every aspect of secular politics, pulling the strings of the mayor and his cronies back then, much the way their occupiers did now.
Since the invasion, Bishop Hugo had been kept a prisoner in his own house, not allowed to set foot outside the doors of Saint Nicolai’s, against the promise of instant arrest. This was deemed necessary by the town’s new rulers, at least until such time as the Empire decided its official policy regarding the Hesse’s predominant religion. But when the tragedy of the Pied Piper occurred, and Hamelin’s beleaguered townsfolk turned away in disgust from the mayor and his foreign masters alike, it was only natural that they would turn once again to the repressed church with renewed vigor. And even though no final word had come back from the worlds-distant capital of the Empire, it was obvious to Baron Diederick and the other local military rulers that something had to be done quickly to avert a disaster.
Secret meetings were held. Negotiations were undertaken. Plans were hatched. Agreements were reached.
Two months after the night of the Pied Piper, all of the closed and abandoned churches throughout the town were approved to be reopened and rechristened, causing more than one set of illegal squatters to have to vacate those places in an awful hurry. Priests and churchmen who’d been imprisoned over the years of the occupation were released, free once again to take up their holy vestments. And then, miracle of miracles, Bishop Hugo was once again allowed to step outside of the cathedral and openly walk the streets of his city. He appeared in all his finery, and such a grand procession it was that formed behind him! The impromptu parade lasted all day, and noble Hugo looked like one of the mighty kings of ancient legend surveying his realm.
A month later town criers wandered through Hamelin, announcing the Occupational Government’s official apology for those church officials who never survived to reach their prison cells, due to the overly enthusiastic nature of some of the sword- and ax-wielding troops sent out to capture them.
In succeeding weeks other announcements were made. From now on, church attendance would not only be tolerated, it would be encouraged.