Tyll Read online

They sat on two stools in an empty hall. The furniture had been looted, destroyed, or burned. There had been tapestries too, said the abbot, silver candleholders and a large cross made of gold above the door arch over there. Now the light came from a single pitchwood torch. Father Friesenegger spoke matter-of-factly and tersely; nonetheless, the fat count’s eyes fell shut several times. Again and again he started, only to notice that the gaunt man had meanwhile gone on talking. The fat count would have liked to take a rest, but the abbot wanted to tell him about the past years, he wanted the Kaiser’s envoy to know exactly what the abbey had undergone. When the fat count would write his life’s chronicle in the days of Leopold I, by which time he was constantly mixing up things, people, and years, he would recall with envy Father Friesenegger’s flawless memory.

  The hard years had failed to harm the abbot’s mind, he wrote. His eyes had been sharp and attentive, his words well chosen, his sentences long and well formed, yet veracity was not everything: he had been unable to shape the welter of events into stories, and so it had been difficult to follow him. Over the years soldiers had overrun the abbey time and time again: the imperial troops had taken what they needed, then the Protestant troops had come and had taken what they needed. Then the Protestants had withdrawn, and the imperial troops had come back and had taken what they needed: animals and wood and boots. Then the imperial troops had withdrawn, but they had left a contingent of guards there, and then marauding soldiers who belonged to no army had come, and the guards had driven them away, or they had driven the guards away, either one or the other or perhaps one first and the other later, the fat count wasn’t certain, nor did it matter, for the guards had withdrawn again, and either the imperial troops or the Swedes had come to take what they needed: animals and wood and clothes and above all, naturally, boots, if there had been any boots left. The wood too was already gone. The next winter the peasants of the surrounding villages had taken refuge in the abbey. People had lain in all the halls, in all the closets, in even the smallest corridor. The hunger, the contaminated wells, the cold, the wolves!

  “Wolves?”

  They had penetrated the houses, the abbot said, at first only at night, but soon during the day too. The people had fled into the woods and there had killed and eaten the smaller animals and then cut down the trees to keep from freezing to death—this had made the wolves so hungry that they lost all fear and timidity. Like nightmares come to life they descended on the villages, like monsters out of old fairy tales. With hungry eyes they appeared in rooms and stables, without the slightest fear of knives or pitchforks. On the worst winter days they had even found their way into the abbey. One of the animals had attacked a woman with an infant and torn the child from her hands.

  No, this was not exactly what had happened; the abbot had spoken only of the fear for the small children. But for some reason the idea that an infant could be devoured by a wolf before its mother’s eyes had so captivated the fat count, who at this time already had five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, that he believed the abbot might well have told him this too, which was why, amid eloquent apologies for the fact that he did not have the right to spare the reader what followed, he inserted a profoundly gruesome description including cries of pain, horror, the growling of the wolf, sharp teeth, and blood.

  And so, the abbot said in his calm voice, it had gone on and on, day after day, year after year. So much hunger. So much disease. The alternation of the armies and marauders. The land had been depopulated. The forests had disappeared, the villages had burned down, the people had fled, God knows where. The past year even the wolves had made off. He leaned forward, put a hand on the fat count’s shoulder, and asked whether he could memorize all that.

  “All of it,” said the fat count.

  It was important that the court learn of this, said the abbot. The Bavarian Elector as the supreme commander of the imperial troops was, in his wisdom, interested only in the big picture, not in the details. Often they had appealed to him for help, but the truth was that his own troops had wreaked worse havoc than the Swedes. Only if this was remembered had all the suffering had meaning.

  The fat count nodded.

  The abbot looked him intently in the face.

  Composure, he said, as if he had read the mind of the man opposite him. Discipline and inner will. The welfare of the abbey rested on his shoulders, the survival of the brothers.

  He crossed himself. The fat count did the same.

  This helped a great deal, the abbot said, reaching into the collar of his cowl. And with a horror such as he knew only from fever visions the fat count saw a jute fabric, into which had been woven metal spikes and shards of glass with dried blood.

  You got used to it, said the abbot. The first years had been the worst; at that time, he had sometimes taken off the sackcloth and cooled his suppurating upper body with water. But then he had felt ashamed of his weakness, and time after time God had given him the strength to put it back on. There had been moments when the pain had been so intense, had pierced and seared him with such diabolical power, that he had thought he was losing his mind. But prayer had helped. Habit had helped. And his skin had grown thicker. From the fourth year on the constant pain had transformed itself into a friend.

  At that moment, the fat count later wrote, sleep must have overpowered him, for when he yawned and rubbed his eyes and took a few moments to remember where he was, someone else was sitting opposite him.

  It was a scrawny man with hollow cheeks and a scar that ran from his hairline down to the root of his nose. He was wearing a cowl, and yet it was clearly discernible—even if it couldn’t be said how—that he was not a monk. Never before had the fat count seen such eyes. When he described this conversation, he could not quite remember whether it had really taken place as he had recounted it over the years to friends, acquaintances, and strangers. But he decided to stick with the version that by now too many had heard for him to revise it.

  “Here you are at last,” the man had said. “I’ve been waiting for a long time.”

  “Are you Tyll Ulenspiegel?”

  “One of us is. You’re here to fetch me?”

  “On behalf of the Kaiser.”

  “Which one? There are many.”

  “No, there aren’t! What are you laughing at?”

  “I’m not laughing at the Kaiser, I’m laughing at you. Why are you so fat? After all, there’s nothing to eat, how do you do it?”

  “Hold your tongue,” said the fat count, immediately annoyed that nothing wittier had occurred to him. And even though for the rest of his days he thought about a better response and even found a whole string of them, he deviated in not a single account from this embarrassing phrase. For these very words seemed to seal the truth of his memory. Would anyone invent something that made him look so bad?

  “Or else you’ll hit me? But you won’t do that. You’re soft. Gentle and soft and kindhearted. All this is not for you.”

  “War is not for me?”

  “It certainly is not.”

  “But it is for you?”

  “It certainly is.”

  “Will you come of your own free will, or do we have to force you?”

  “Of course I’ll come. There’s nothing left to eat here, everything is falling apart, the abbot won’t last much longer—that’s why I sent for you.”

  “You didn’t send for me.”

  “I sent for you, you big dumpling.”

  “His Majesty heard—”

  “Well, why did His Majesty hear that, then, you giant ball of flesh? His Majesty, His Idiotic Majesty with his golden crown on his golden throne, heard about me because I sent for you. And don’t smack me, I’m allowed to say that, you have heard of fool’s license, haven’t you? If I don’t call His Majesty an idiot, who will? Somebody has to. And you’re not allowed.”

  Ulenspiegel grinned. I
t was a terrible grin, wicked and mocking, and since the fat count couldn’t remember how their conversation had gone on, he used half a dozen sentences to describe this grin, then rhapsodized for a page about the deep, sound, and refreshing sleep he had enjoyed on the floor of an abbey cell until noon the following day: O Morpheus, merciful god of slumbers, bringer of peace, holy guardian of sweet oblivion, in this the night of my most dire need thou didst not fail thy servant but broughtest rest to mine eyelids, and I awoke renewed in flesh and spirit, rejoicing in thy blessings.

  This last phrase reflects less the feelings of the young man than the religious doubts of the old, on which he expatiated in moving words in another passage. Out of shame, however, he withheld a detail that even at a distance of fifty years made him blush. For when they met toward noon in the courtyard to take leave of the abbot and three emaciated monks who looked more like ghosts than like real people, they realized that they had forgotten to bring a horse for Ulenspiegel.

  Indeed, none of them had thought about what the man they were to bring to Vienna would actually ride on. For of course there were no horses here to buy or borrow, there weren’t even donkeys. All the animals had been eaten or run away.

  “Well, then he’ll just mount behind me,” said Franz Kärrnbauer.

  “That doesn’t suit me,” said Ulenspiegel. In the light of day he looked even thinner in his monk’s cowl. He stood bent forward, his cheeks were hollow, his eyes were set deep in their sockets. “The Kaiser is my friend. I want a horse of my own.”

  “I’ll knock your teeth out,” Franz Kärrnbauer said calmly, “and I’ll break your nose. I’ll do it. Look at me. You know I’ll do it.”

  Ulenspiegel looked up at him reflectively for a moment. Then he climbed into the saddle behind Franz Kärrnbauer.

  Karl von Doder put a hand on the fat count’s shoulder and whispered: “That’s not him.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “That’s not him!”

  “What’s not whom?”

  “I don’t think that’s the man I have seen.”

  “What?”

  “That time at the fair. I can’t help it. I don’t think it’s him.”

  The fat count looked at the secretary for a long moment. “Are you certain?”

  “Not completely certain. It was years ago, and he was above me on a rope. Under such circumstances, how can one be certain?”

  “Let’s not speak of it again,” said the fat count.

  With trembling hands the abbot blessed them and advised them to avoid the cities. The royal seat of Munich had closed its gates against the onslaught of people seeking help, no one else was allowed in, the streets were overflowing with the hungry, the wells were filthy. Things were similar around Nuremberg, where the Protestants were encamped. It was claimed that Wrangel and Turenne were coming with detachments from the northwest; therefore it would be best to steer clear of them by heading northeast in a wide loop, between Augsburg and Ingolstadt. At Rottenburg they could head straight east; from there the way to Lower Austria was clear. The abbot fell silent and scratched his chest—a seemingly ordinary movement, but now that the fat count knew about the sackcloth, he could hardly watch. Rumor had it that both sides were bent on battle before the armistice could be proclaimed in Westphalia. Each side wanted to improve its position first.

  “Many thanks,” said the fat count, having hardly absorbed anything. Geography had never been his forte. In his father’s library there were several volumes of Matthäus Merian’s Topographia Germaniae; a few times he had leafed through them with a shudder. What was the point of memorizing all this? What was the point of visiting all these places when you could also just stay in the middle, in the center of the world, in Vienna?

  “Go with God,” the abbot said to Ulenspiegel.

  “Stay with God,” the fool replied from the horse. He had put his arms around Franz Kärrnbauer and looked so thin and weak that it was hard to imagine how he would keep himself on the horse.

  “One day you stood outside our gates,” said the abbot. “We took you in, we didn’t ask your denomination. For more than a year you were here, now you’re leaving again.”

  “Nice speech,” said Ulenspiegel.

  The abbot made the sign of the cross. The entertainer moved to do the same, but apparently got muddled—his arms got tangled, his hands didn’t end up where they were supposed to go. The abbot turned away. The fat count had to suppress his laughter. Two monks opened the gate.

  They didn’t get far. After a mere few hours they found themselves in a downpour such as the fat count had never before experienced. Hurriedly they dismounted and crouched under the horses. The rain poured, pelted, roared around them as if the sky were dissolving.

  “But if it’s not Ulenspiegel?” whispered Karl von Doder.

  Two things that could not be distinguished were the same thing, said the fat count. Either this man was Ulenspiegel, who had sought refuge in the Abbey of Andechs, or this was a man who had sought refuge in the abbey and called himself Ulenspiegel. God knew, but as long as he didn’t intervene, what was the difference?

  At that moment they heard shots nearby. Hastily they mounted their horses, spurred them, and thundered across the open field. The fat count wheezed, his back ached. Raindrops struck his face. It seemed to him an eternity before the dragoons reined their horses.

  With unsteady legs he dismounted and patted his horse’s neck. The animal pursed its lips and snorted. To their left was a small river; on the other side the slope rose toward a forest such as the fat count hadn’t seen since Melk.

  “That must be Streitheim Forest,” said Karl von Doder.

  “Then we’re too far north,” said Franz Kärrnbauer.

  “There’s no way that’s Streitheim Forest,” said Stefan Purner.

  “It most certainly is,” said Karl von Doder.

  “Absolutely not,” said Stefan Purner.

  Then they heard music. They held their breath and listened: trumpets and drums, a cheerful march that made you want to dance. The fat count noticed that his shoulders were moving up and down to the beat.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Konrad Purner.

  “Not on the horses,” hissed Karl von Doder. “Into the forest!”

  “Careful,” said the fat count, trying to at least keep up the pretense that he was the one giving orders here. “Ulenspiegel must be protected.”

  “You poor idiots,” the scrawny man said softly. “You cattle. It is I who must protect you.”

  The treetops soon closed over them. The fat count could see his horse’s reluctance, but he held the reins tight and patted its damp nostrils, and the animal complied. Before long the underbrush was so dense that the dragoons drew their sabers to clear a path.

  They listened again. An indistinct murmur could be heard. Where was it coming from, what was it? Gradually the fat count realized that it was countless voices, an intermingling of singing and shouting and talking from many throats. He sensed his horse’s fear. He stroked its mane. The animal snorted.

  Later he could no longer say how long they had walked like this, and so he claimed that it had been two hours. The voices behind us died away, he wrote, the loud silence of the forest enveloped us, birds shrieked, branches broke, and the wind whispered to us from the treetops.

  “We have to head east,” said Karl von Doder, “toward Augsburg.”

  “The abbot said the cities aren’t letting anyone in,” said the fat count.

  “But we are envoys of the Kaiser,” said Karl von Doder.

  It occurred to the fat count that he was carrying no paper that proved it: no identification, no charter, no document of any sort. He hadn’t requested papers, and apparently no one in the administration of the imperial palace had felt responsible for issuing such a thing.

  “Where’s east?” asked Franz
Kärrnbauer.

  Stefan Purner pointed somewhere.

  “That’s south,” said his brother.

  “You really are half-wits,” Ulenspiegel said cheerfully. “You’re utterly incompetent nobodies! West is where we are, thus east is everywhere.”

  Franz Kärrnbauer drew back his arm, but Ulenspiegel ducked with a speed of which no one would have thought him capable, and leaped behind a tree trunk. The dragoons followed him, yet Ulenspiegel glided like a shadow around the trunk and disappeared behind another and was no longer to be seen.

  “You won’t get me,” they heard him say with a giggle, “I know the forest. I became a forest spirit when I was a small boy.”

  “A forest spirit?” the fat count asked uneasily.

  “A white forest spirit.” Ulenspiegel stepped out of the bushes with a laugh. “For the great devil.”

  They took a rest. Their provisions were almost used up. The horses were nibbling on tree bark. They passed around the bottle of small beer, each of them taking a sip. When it arrived at the fat count, nothing was left.

  Wearily they went on. The forest thinned. The trees stood at wider intervals. The underbrush was no longer impassable; the horses could walk without the path having to be cleared. It struck the fat count that no more birds could be heard: not a sparrow, not a blackbird, not a crow. They mounted and rode out of the forest.

  “My God,” said Karl von Doder.

  “Merciful Lord,” said Stefan Purner.

  “Blessed Virgin,” said Franz Kärrnbauer.

  When he later tried to depict what they had seen, the fat count discovered that he could not do it. It was beyond his abilities as a rational person: Even at a distance of half a century he found himself incapable of putting it into sentences that had any actual meaning. Naturally, he described the sight nonetheless. It was one of the most important moments of his life, and the fact that he had witnessed the final battle of the Thirty Years’ War defined from then on who he was and what people thought of him—the Lord Steward of the Household experienced firsthand the Battle of Zusmarshausen, it had been said ever since when he was introduced to someone. He fended this off with practiced modesty: “Let’s drop it, it’s not an easy story to tell.”