Tyll Read online

  The boy tries to make the three of them laugh. He learned that from Pirmin, who is lying an hour from here and is perhaps still alive and would have guided them better, for with him they never encountered wolves or evil people, not once in all this time. So he tries to make them laugh, but it doesn’t work, they won’t laugh, they are too angry, they’re in pain, one of them is injured, he asks: Do you have any money? And he actually does have a little bit of money and gives it to him. He tells them that he could dance for them or walk on his hands or juggle, and they almost become curious, yet then they realize that they would have to let go of him, and the one who is holding him says, We’re not that stupid.

  And now the boy grasps that there’s nothing he can do, except to forget what happens, forget it even before it has finished happening: forget their hands, their faces, everything. Not be here where he is now but rather next to Nele as she runs and finally stops and leans against a tree and catches her breath. Then she creeps back, holding her breath and taking care that no branch cracks under her feet, and she ducks into the bushes, for the three are coming. They stagger past her and don’t notice her and soon they’re gone. But still she waits awhile before she ventures out and walks along the path that she was just taking with the boy. And she finds him and kneels beside him, and both of them grasp that they must forget it and that the bleeding will stop, for someone like him does not die. I’m made of air, he says. Nothing will happen to me. There’s no reason to moan. All this is still fortunate. It could have been worse.

  To be stuck here in the shaft, for example, this is probably worse, for here not even forgetting helps. If you forget the shaft in which you’re stuck, you’re still in the shaft.

  “I’m going into the monastery,” says Tyll. “If I get out of here. I mean it.”

  “Melk?” asks Matthias. “I was there once. It’s grand.”

  “Andechs. They have strong walls. If it’s safe anywhere, then in Andechs.”

  “Will you take me with you?”

  Gladly, is what Tyll thinks, if you get us out of here, we’ll go together. But what he says is: “No way they’ll let you in, you gallows bird.”

  He realizes it’s come out the wrong way around, because of the darkness. I was only joking, he thinks, of course they’ll let you in, but says: “I’m a good liar!”

  Tyll stands up. It’s probably better if he shuts his mouth. His back hurts, he can’t stand on his left leg. You have to protect your feet, you only have two of them, after all, and if you injure one, you can’t get back up on the rope.

  “We kept two cows,” says Korff. “The older one had good milk.” He must have been caught up in a memory too. Tyll can see it before his eyes: the house, the meadow, smoke over the chimney, a father and a mother, everything poor and dirty, but Korff didn’t have any other childhood.

  Tyll feels his way along the wall. Here is the wooden frame that they mounted earlier. A piece has broken off on top, or is that the bottom? He hears Korff weeping softly.

  “It’s gone,” Korff moans. “Gone, gone! All the good milk!”

  Tyll jiggles a piece of rock on the ceiling. It’s loose and comes off. Stones trickle.

  “Stop,” cries Matthias.

  “It wasn’t me,” says Tyll. “I swear it.”

  “Outside Magdeburg I lost my brother,” says Korff. “A shot in the head.”

  “I lost my wife,” says Matthias. “At Braunschweig, she was with the supply train, the plague took her, our two children too.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Johanna,” says Matthias. “My wife. I can’t remember the names of the children.”

  “I lost my sister,” says Tyll.

  Korff stumbles around. Tyll hears him next to him and draws back. Better not to bump into him. Someone like Korff won’t put up with that, he won’t hesitate to attack. Another explosion. Again stones trickle. The ceiling won’t hold much longer.

  You’ll see, says Pirmin, being dead isn’t so bad. You get used to it.

  “But I’m not dying,” says Tyll.

  “That’s the spirit,” says Korff, “that’s right, bag of bones!”

  Tyll steps on something soft, it must be Kurt, then he bumps into a wall of coarse debris, this is where the shaft caved in. He wants to dig with his hands, for now it doesn’t matter, now there’s no need to conserve air, but immediately he has to cough, and the rock won’t move, Korff was right, it’s impossible without a pickax.

  Don’t worry, you will hardly notice it, says Pirmin. You’ve already lost half your mind, soon the rest will abandon you too. Then you will pass out, and when you wake up, you’ll be dead.

  I will think of you, says Origenes. I will make something of myself, I’ll learn to write next, and if you like, I’ll write a book about you, for children and old people. What do you think of that?

  And don’t you even want to know how I’ve fared? asks Agneta. You and me and me and you—how long has it been? You don’t even know whether I’m still alive, little son.

  “I don’t even want to know,” says Tyll.

  You betrayed him as I did. You don’t need to be angry with me. You called him a servant of the devil as I did. A warlock as I did. What I said, you said too.

  She’s right again, says Claus.

  “Maybe if we find the pickax after all,” Matthias says with a groan. “Maybe we can loosen it with the pickax.”

  Alive or dead, you attach too much weight to the difference, says Claus. There are so many chambers in between. So many dusty corners in which you are no longer the one and not yet the other. So many dreams from which you can no longer awake. I’ve seen a cauldron of blood, boiling over hot flames, and the shadows dance around it, and when the Great Black One points to one of them, but he does so only every thousand years, then there’s no end to the shrieking, then he dips his head into the blood and drinks, and you know, that was still far from hell, it was not even the entrance to it yet. I’ve seen places where the souls burn like torches, only hotter and brighter and for eternity, and they never stop screaming, because their pain never stops, and still this is not it. You think that you have an inkling, my son, but you don’t have the slightest inkling. To be confined in a shaft is almost like death, you think, war is almost hell, but the truth is that anything, anything is better, it’s better down here, it’s better out there in a bloody ditch, it’s better in the torture chair. So don’t let go, stay alive.

  Tyll can’t help laughing.

  “Why are you laughing?” asks Korff.

  “Well, then divulge a spell to me,” says Tyll. “You were not a good sorcerer, but perhaps you’ve learned more.”

  Who are you talking to? asks Pirmin. There’s no ghost here except me.

  Another explosion. Then there’s a crack and a boom. Matthias lets out a howl. Part of the ceiling must have collapsed.

  Pray, says Iron Kurt. I was the first to go, now it’s Matthias’s turn.

  Tyll squats down. He hears Korff shouting, but Matthias no longer responds. Something tickles his cheek, his neck, his shoulder, it feels like a spider, but there are no insects here, so it must be blood. He feels around and finds a wound on his forehead, beginning up by his hair and going down to the root of his nose. It is very soft to the touch, and the trickle of blood keeps growing. But he feels nothing.

  “God have mercy on me,” says Korff. “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy. Holy Ghost. I killed a comrade for his boots. Mine had holes in them, he was fast asleep, it was in the camp at Munich, what should I have done, I do need boots! So I struck. I strangled him, he opened his eyes, but he couldn’t scream. I just needed some boots. And he had a medallion that wards off bullets, I needed that too, thanks to the medallion I have never been hit. It didn’t help him against strangling.”

  “Do I look like a priest?” asks Tyll. “You can confess to your grand
mother, leave me alone.”

  “Dear Lord Jesus,” says Korff. “In Braunschweig I freed a woman from the stake, a witch. It was early in the morning, she was supposed to burn at noon. She was very young. I was passing. No one saw it, because it was still dark. I cut through the fetters, said: Quickly, run with me! She did it, she was so grateful, and then I took her as often as I wanted to, and I wanted to often, and then I slit her throat and buried her.”

  “I forgive you. This very day you will be with me in paradise.”

  Another explosion.

  “Why are you laughing?” asks Korff.

  “Because you will not get into paradise, not today and not later either. Not even Satan will touch a gallows bird like you. And I’m also laughing because I’m not going to die.”

  “Yes, you are,” says Korff. “I didn’t want to believe it, but we’re never getting out. It’s all over for Korff.”

  Another bang. Again everything shakes. Tyll holds his hands over his head as if that could do any good.

  “Perhaps it’s all over for Korff. But not for me. I’m not going to die today.”

  He takes a leap as if he were standing on the rope. His leg hurts, but he stands firmly on his feet. A stone falls on his shoulder. More blood runs down his cheek. Again there is a crash, again stones fall. “And I’m not going to die tomorrow or any other day. I don’t want to! I’m not doing it, do you hear?”

  Korff doesn’t respond, but perhaps he can still hear.

  So Tyll shouts: “I’m not doing it, I’m leaving now, I don’t like it here anymore.”

  A bang, a trembling. Another stone falls and grazes his shoulder.

  “I’m leaving now. This is what I’ve always done. When things get tight, I leave. I’m not going to die here. I’m not going to die today. I’m not going to die!”

  Westphalia

  I

  She still walked erect as in the past. Her back almost always hurt, but she didn’t let it show and held the cane on which she had to prop herself up as if it were a fashionable accessory. She still resembled the paintings from long ago; indeed, enough of her beauty remained to fluster people who unexpectedly found themselves in her presence—as now, when she threw back her fur hood and looked around the anteroom with a firm gaze. At the arranged signal her lady’s maid behind her announced that Her Majesty the Queen of Bohemia wished to speak with the imperial ambassador.

  She saw the lackeys casting glances at each other. Apparently the spies had failed this time, no one was prepared for her arrival. She had left her house at The Hague under a false name; her pass, issued by the States General of the United Dutch Provinces, identified her as Madame de Cournouailles. In the company of only the coachman and her lady’s maid she had traveled east through Bentheim, Oldenzaal, and Ibbenbüren, over fallow fields and through villages destroyed by fire, cleared forests, the never-changing landscapes of the war. There were no inns, so they had spent the nights in the coach, stretched out on the bench, which was dangerous, yet neither wolves nor marauders had taken an interest in the small coach of an old queen. And so they had reached the road from Münster to Osnabrück unmolested.

  Immediately everything had been different. The meadows grew high. The houses had intact roofs. A stream turned the wheel of a mill. There were guard huts on the roadside, well-fed men with halberds standing outside them. The neutral zone. Here there was no war.

  Outside the walls of Osnabrück a guard had come up to the coach window and had asked what their desire was. Wordlessly, Fräulein von Quadt, her lady’s maid, had handed him the pass, and without great interest he had looked at it and waved them on. The very first citizen on the roadside, a tidily dressed man with a well-trimmed beard, had shown them the way to the quarters of the imperial ambassador. There the coachman had lifted her and her lady’s maid out of the coach, carried them over the mucky ground, and put them down in front of the portal, their clothing unscathed. Two halberdiers had opened the doors for them. With an assurance as if she had rights over this household—according to ceremony established throughout Europe, even a visiting monarch was the master of the household everywhere—she had entered the antechamber, and her lady’s maid had demanded the ambassador.

  The lackeys whispered and gave each other signs. Liz knew that she had to take advantage of the surprise. The thought must not form in any of these heads that it would be possible to turn her away.

  She had not made a royal appearance in a long time. When you lived in a small house and were visited by no one but merchants trying to settle their bills, you didn’t often have the opportunity. But she was the grandniece of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth, the granddaughter of Mary, Queen of Scots, the daughter of James, the ruler of both kingdoms, and she had been trained since childhood in how a queen was to stand, to walk, and to look. This too was a craft, and once you’d learned it, you never forgot it.

  The most important thing: don’t ask questions and don’t hesitate. No gesture of impatience, no movement that looked like doubt. Her parents and her poor Friedrich, who had now been dead so long that she had to look at portraits to remember his face, had stood so straight that it seemed as if no rheumatism, no weakness, and no worry could ever touch them.

  After she had stood straight for a little while, surrounded by whispering and astonishment, she took one step and then another toward the gilded double doors. There were no other doors like this in the Westphalian provinces, someone must have brought them here from far away, just like the paintings on the walls and the carpets on the floor and the curtains of damask and the silk wallpaper and the many-armed candelabra and the two chandeliers, heavy with crystals, in which, even though it was broad daylight, every single candle burned. No duke and no prince, indeed not even Papa, would have transformed a residence in a small city into such a palace. It was the sort of thing only the King of France or the Kaiser did.

  Without pausing, she walked toward the doors. Now she could not afford to hesitate. The briefest hint of uncertainty would be enough to remind the two lackeys standing to the right and the left of the doors that it was also entirely conceivable not to open them for her. If that should happen, her advance would be staved off. Then she would have to sit down on one of the plush chairs and someone would appear and tell her that the ambassador unfortunately had no time, but that his secretary would be able to see her in two hours, and she would protest, and the lackey would say coolly that he was sorry, and she would raise her voice, and the lackey would repeat it unimpressed, and she would raise her voice further, and more lackeys would gather, and thus she would all at once no longer be a queen but a complaining old woman in the anteroom.

  That was why it had to work. There would be no second attempt. One had to move as if the door weren’t there, not be slowed down by it; one had to walk in such a way that if no one opened the doors, one would crash into them at full force, and since Quadt was following her at two paces’ distance, her lady’s maid would then crash into her back, and the humiliation would be unbearable—for that very reason, they would open them; that was the whole trick.

  It worked. With confused expressions the lackeys reached for the handles and heaved open the doors. Liz stepped into the reception room. She turned around and gestured to Quadt with her hand not to follow any farther. That was unusual. A queen did not make visits unaccompanied. But this was not a normal situation. Taken aback, her lady’s maid stopped, and the lackeys closed the doors in front of her.

  The room seemed huge. Perhaps it was due to the skillfully arranged mirrors, perhaps it was a trick of the Viennese court magicians. The room seemed so large that one couldn’t quite comprehend how the house could contain it. It stretched like a hall in a palace, and a sea of carpets separated Liz from a distant desk. Far beyond, open damask curtains revealed a suite of rooms, even more carpets, even more golden candleholders, even more chandeliers and paintings.

 
Behind the desk rose a gentleman of small stature with a gray beard, who looked so inconspicuous that it took Liz a moment to notice him. He took off his hat and gave a courtly bow.

  “Welcome,” he said. “May I hope, madame, the journey was not arduous?”

  “I am Elizabeth, Queen—”

  “Forgive the interruption, it is only to spare Your Highness the trouble. Explanations not necessary; I am informed.”

  It took her a while to understand what he had said. She drew a breath to ask him how he knew who she was, but again he was quicker.

  “Because it is my profession, madame. To know things. And my duty to understand them.”

  She furrowed her brow. She felt hot, which was partly due to the thick fur coat and partly due to the fact that she was not used to being interrupted. He now stood bent forward, one hand on the desk, the other on his back, as if afflicted by a sudden pain there. Quickly she walked toward one of the chairs in front of the desk. But as in a dream the room was so large and the desk so far away that it would take a long time before she reached it.

  His addressing her as Your Highness meant that he did acknowledge her status as a member of the English royal family, but did not recognize her as Queen of Bohemia, for otherwise he would have had to address her as Your Majesty; indeed, he did not even recognize her as an electress, for then he would have called her Your Serene Highness, which might not be worth much at home in England but here in the Empire was worth more than even the royalty of a king’s child. And precisely because this man knew his trade, it was essential that she sit down before he invited her to, for whereas he naturally had to offer a princess a chair, in the case of a queen it was not his place to do so. Monarchs sat down uninvited, and everyone else stood until the monarch permitted them to sit.