Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Read online

  He had his answer soon enough. He could hear someone kneeling on the other side of the screen, cough, and then begin the ritual dialogue.

  “I confess,” the voice began in Czech, “to blessed Mary ever-virgin, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, blessed Michael the archangel….” It was a man, fairly young, Matěj guessed from the sound of the voice. He pictured one of the fieldhands back home, and smiled.

  The young man confessed his sins, which seemed to involve having carnal knowledge of his master’s daughter and stealing small things from the workshop where he served as an apprentice. Matěj suggested the return of the stolen items and the necessity of sexual abstinence, especially during the pre-Christmas fast, before reciting the prayer of absolution. The young man seemed to heave a sigh of relief as he replied, “Amen” and rose from his kneeler.

  The next penitent was an older man, his voice seasoned with long years of drinking and singing in the taverns and common rooms of the inns of Prague. He seemed more educated, or perhaps it was simply the greater experience that came of having lived a longer life. He recited the confiteor in Latin, as Matěj did himself every morning at the beginning of the Mass. However, the sins he enumerated in Czech, not Latin, and Matěj was relieved. He would have recognized very few of the Latin names for the actions the old man described but the priest gave the brief penance expected and absolved the man.

  Matěj thought he heard the third penitent kneel but the long, silent pause made him wonder if he had simply heard wrong. Was there someone kneeling on the other side of the screen?

  A sniffle was followed by muffled deep breathing. Someone was there, and evidently either slightly ill or very upset. Matěj heard another muffled sob and then a woman’s voice began to stammer the confiteor prayer in Latin.

  “She’s upset,” he thought. It was rare to have a penitent so sorry for whatever she had done to weep at the recitation of her sins.

  The woman paused when she came to the point of telling the priest her sins.

  “Come, my child,” Matěj urged quietly. He thought of several women in his home parish who had come to confess over the years, weeping copiously, and for whom he always prayed fervently that they know the true joy that came with divine reconciliation. He was old enough to have experienced that once or twice in his life and yearned to comfort the woman kneeling on the other side of the screen.

  “Father, I am responsible for the deaths of at least two people,” the woman finally blurted out. “I have murdered them even though I did not strike the blow myself.”

  Matěj’s breath caught in his throat. Double murder was not a deed he had heard confessed often. “Go on,” he prodded her.

  “I have used the power of the Church and of God to revenge an insult to my mistress,” the voice continued, “and then gave my mistress the instructions she demanded to twist the power of God herself in revenge for another insult. Now that she knows the secret, I will be responsible for I know not how many future deaths. But I am guilty of two thus far.” The woman muffled another sob and then stammered, “What am I to do, Father?”

  Matěj imagined others in the church could hear the weeping on the other side of the screen. The length of time the woman was kneeling there would surely not go unnoticed. Knowing the allure of gossip, Matěj was sure that prolonging this confession would only make the poor woman’s lot even more difficult in the days to come.

  “How did you use the power of the Church to revenge an insult?” he asked. “How did you instruct your mistress to twist the power of God to accomplish her own purposes?”

  It took a moment for the woman to gain control of herself. “I… I gave alms to a priest to say a Mass, a Mass for someone still alive. Then I told my mistress.”

  “You gave alms to a priest to say a Mass for someone still alive?” What did the poor woman mean?

  “I… I told my mistress that if a priest says the Mass of the dead for one still alive, then the living will be struck dead. I know ’tis true, for I have seen it happen!” Another bout of wailing burst from the woman’s lips.

  “You gave alms to a priest to say the Requiem Mass, but for a man not yet dead?” Matěj repeated, wanting to be sure that he understood the woman correctly. He had heard that such a thing was possible but had never known it to happen.

  The woman buried a sniffle in what must have been a kerchief. “Yes, Reverend Father. I gave alms to a priest at St. Nicholas’ church to say the Requiem Mass for a man then living and he died a mors improvisa, a very bad death, three nights later.”

  Matěj collapsed against the wall behind him, the wind knocked out of his gullet. “A priest at St. Nicholas’ church?” Perhaps she meant the parish in the Little Town. “The one across the bridge?”

  “No, Reverend Father. Here in the Old Town, the church on the square.”

  Matěj’s head swam. He thought it one of the mysterious workings of the providence of God when there had been a funeral for a man named Jiři, the same name he had been asked to say the Requiem for a few days earlier. He was afraid that he recognized the woman’s voice now. “Was I the priest?” he worried silently. Aloud, he asked, “What was the name of the man you gave the alms for?”

  “Jiři.”

  Matěj felt sick to his stomach.

  “Who is it that your mistress now wishes to revenge herself on in the same way?” He gathered his wits to learn the rest of this lurid tale.

  “An old beggar-woman. Božena.” The woman, still sniffling, was more in control of herself now.

  But old Matěj cringed. “And… and the name of your mistress?” He dared to hope that his suspicion might yet be wrong.

  The woman paused, perhaps unsure if she ought to accuse another person of wrongdoing in her confession. But she answered, “Anežka.”

  Matěj felt the earth reel beneath him and imagined the mouth of Hell yawning to receive his soul. He clutched at the carving on the screen. How could he have been caught in all this wickedness?

  The two women had come to him the day after the great St. Nicholas holiday. Božena had been there first, the beggar who had asked him to say the Requiem for her dead grandfather Aleksandr. Had that been a lie as well, a trick to dupe him into causing the death of an innocent man? She had come to him the day after the St. Nicholas festival and asked him to offer the Requiem for her grandmother, Anežka, the wife of the Aleksandr he had offered Mass for previously. At least, that was what she claimed.

  “Tomorrow? Can you say the Mass for her tomorrow?” Božena had been quite insistent that the Requiem be offered as quickly as possible.

  “No, I cannot offer the Requiem tomorrow,” Matěj told her. “Tomorrow is the Conception of the Mother of God and only the Mass, Gaudens gaudebo, may be said. The following days are the Ember Days and then comes Sunday. I cannot say the Requiem until Monday at the soonest.”

  Božena thought a moment. Then she agreed and gave him a small coin, almost worthless really, as an alms for the Mass.

  He had been sitting on his stool, near the statue of St. Nicholas, the only priest in the church, when a well-dressed matron had approached him that afternoon. She asked for a Requiem on behalf of her departed cousin, Božena. She too had insisted that the Mass be offered immediately and Matěj protested that Monday—or now, really, Tuesday—would be the soonest he could offer the Mass on behalf of the departed cousin.

  “Then that will have to do,” the matron conceded. She reached into her fur muff and retrieved a small purse, so full of coins they could hardly jingle as she dropped the bag into his hands. He had opened the purse later, to discover it full of thaler coins. A small fortune.

  “Father?” The penitent asked.

  Matěj snapped his attention back to the woman kneeling on the other side of the screen. “What penance is fit for such deception and wickedness?” he fretted. The woman was right. Now that Anežka knew the secret of offering the Requiem Mass for the living, who could say how many would die and whose deaths the maid might be held accountab
le for by God?

  “Go, and sin no more.” The words of Christ to the woman caught in adultery fell unbidden from his lips. “Two have lost their lives and you must lose yours as well, my child. Embrace the monastic life, renounce your will, and take the veil of a nun. Live the rest of your days in solitude and penance and pray for those whose deaths you have caused.

  “And for the priest you have tangled up in your wickedness,” he added.

  Monday morning, Matěj still felt sick to his stomach. Did he dare to offer the Requiem Masses that he had accepted alms for now that he knew the consequences? On the other hand, the Holy Father in Rome had given explicit instructions that once a priest accepted alms to say a Mass, he was obligated to say it.

  He did not dare discuss the matter with any of the other clergy that he had come to know in Prague. He was unsure of the intricacies of canon law but he knew that the revelation of anything he had been told in confession could lead to his defrocking. But would that be any worse than saying a Mass he was sure would lead to the death of an innocent person?

  “But these two women are certainly not innocent!” he argued with himself. “It was Jiři—and Aleksandr, I’m sure of it now—who were the innocent victims. Dare I say the Masses now, and leave the rest to the mercy and judgment of God? Perhaps it is only fitting that these two women suffer at the hands of each other exactly what they have caused others to suffer. But how dare I take upon myself the task of God, to judge and mete out punishment to these women? Perhaps, if given enough time, they might repent—just as the maid has done. Do I place my own salvation in jeopardy by trying to save others?

  “Yet, if they know how to manipulate the power of the Mass, perhaps they also know a way to protect themselves against that same power. If I say the Mass for one on Monday and the Mass for the other on Tuesday, perhaps the later one will have time to protect herself,” he continued his internal debate. “The Holy Father has made it very clear that if a priest accepts alms from five people to say five Masses, he cannot combine the intentions and say only one Mass while keeping the alms for saying five.”

  Matěj continued this argument, unable to sleep, and kept coming to varying conclusions. Once, he decided he would go to the bishop and risk revealing what he had learned through confession. Another time, he decided to not say either Mass and give the alms away to some other beggar. But that put untold other people at risk—both those who might be killed in the years to come and other priests the women would trap in their wicked snares. A third repetition of the debate led him to conclude that perhaps he would say another sort of Mass, one that might lead to the repentance of the women, but he was unsure which Mass that would be and if it would be as effective as the power of the Requiem to cause the death of the living.

  He finally decided, in the predawn darkness, that he would say the Requiem Mass that he had accepted alms for, but that rather than saying the Mass twice, he would say it once and offer it for both Božena and Anežka. In that manner, neither would have the disadvantage of the earlier Mass and neither would have the advantage of the later Mass. They would each have an equal likelihood of escape.

  He mounted the step before the side altar at St. Nicholas’ parish for what he was sure would be the last time. He was no match for the duplicity and wickedness of the folk who lived in the growing imperial capital. “I will take the alms I have been given and leave for my home parish this afternoon, even though the roads are treacherous and thieves can hide in every shadow along the road during the short midwinter days,” he decided as he donned the black vestments. “I may be killed before I reach home, but it will only be what I deserve from the hands of God for having been a part of this foul plot.”

  His hands trembled as he extended them and his voice shook as he recited the texts from the missal:

  Quaesumus, Domine, pro tua pietate miserere animabus famularum tuarum Božena et Anežka: et a contigiis mortalitatis exutas, in aeternae salvationis partem restitue.

  We entreat thee, Lord, by thy loving kindness, to have mercy on the souls of thy handmaidens Božena and Anežka: and now that they are released from the dangerous contact of this mortal flesh, give them part in thine eternal salvation.

  He poured the red wine into the chalice and added the drops of water. He closed his eyes and forced himself to stop trembling lest he drop the cup or spill the contents. The Latin, which he had memorized but never fully understood, continued to roll off his tongue.

  … ut quos constristat certa moriendi conditio, eosdem consoletur futurae immortalitatis promissio… vita is mutatur, non tollitur, et dissoluta terristris hujus incolatus domo, aeterna in caelis habitatio comparatur.

  … so that those who are afflicted by the certainty of dying, may be consoled by the promise of future immortality… for life is changed, not ended, and when the abode of this earthly sojourn is destroyed, an eternal abode is prepared in heaven.

  Matěj hoped that this truly was the calicem salutis perpetuae, the chalice of eternal salvation (he understood that much of the text, at least), for all of them.

  Anežka burrowed into the mattress and pulled the warm quilt snugly about her. Half-awake, she smiled as her dream unfolded: she and her husband, young again and newlyweds, were laughing and running through the forests of his family’s country estate. She fell into his arms and relished his embrace. They tripped and fell into a hedge, lost in the madness of their kiss. A sharp prick near her heel distracted Anežka and she glanced towards her foot, looking for a holly branch or a rose thorn to kick away. She gasped and thrust her husband away from her, scrambling to push herself up from the earth and escape from the forest altogether.

  Božena bolted upright. She had been in a deep sleep, clutching the holly branch that she had taken to carrying with her for days now as protection against whatever revenge Anežka might be plotting. What had woken her? The incessant scratching of the holly? She had spent her last coin in exchange for a place in the stables; had one of the horses disturbed her? She peered into the dark. Nothing seemed unusual. She nervously eased herself back down into the straw.

  In Anežka’s dream, a large serpent lay curled in and around itself, its fangs buried in her heel. She tried to kick it away and escape from the shadows of the trees but could not dislodge the snake. A tendril of winter’s cold slowly crept up her leg. Panic swept through her and she was unsure if the scream she heard was in her dream or from her throat. Not sure if she still dreamt or was awake, she watched as the serpent languidly curled about her ankle, resting securely atop her foot, even more difficult to dislodge now, its fangs deeply embedded in her heel.

  The cold reached further into her body, spreading more rapidly. It paused at her hips and divided into two streams, one cascading into her other leg while the other entwined itself around her intestines and then burst into dozens of rivulets that coursed her lungs and breasts. Pooling under her collarbone a moment, the cold then raced down both arms and into each of her fingers, forcing them to extend stiffly and lock. She looked as if she were holding someone tightly by the throat.

  The fever swept over Božena and the sweat burst from her forehead, soaking the straw beneath her. She cried out, contorting and twisting, burrowing first into the straw and then throwing great armloads of it about her as she flailed against the fire within her. Even as the fever reached every joint and limb, Božena knew what had come to find her. The holly branch had been insufficient to stop the same power she had unleashed against both Aleksandr and Anežka. Božena had thought that perhaps the matron had been overtaken by Božena’s vengeance before she had been unable to set loose her own, which Božena had been expecting. But the old beggar had not thought Anežka would resort to old folk customs about the power of the Requiem Mass against the living. This was more than Božena had expected.

  Božena’s cries of agony woke both the horses and stable boys, who came running to see what afflicted her. None of them could understand her babbling in the madness of the fever. The horses reared and whi
nnied, seemingly terrified of the madwoman.

  Anežka’s husband was startled awake by the cries of his wife in her sleep. He hastily pulled the quilt away from both of them as he heard her struggle to breathe and felt her ice-cold forehead. He cried for the servants, who entered the room after what seemed like hours but had been only moments.

  In the light from the servants’ candles, he saw Anežka’s chest heave as she gasped in fits and starts. But something else about her seemed wrong. She was not quite the wife he had gone to bed with earlier that evening.

  At the same moment, he and the servants recoiled from the Anežka. He fell out of bed onto the floor in his haste and fear, huddling with the servants against the walls of the room. No one wanted to be anywhere near Anežka but none of them could extricate themselves from the horrible sight unfolding before them.

  Božena struggled to screamed Anežka’s name as she felt the invisible fingers close tight around her throat. The cries that erupted from her lips reminded the stable boys of the cries of the criminals condemned to death by hanging in the Old Town Square. Božena felt the color drain from her face even as her tongue was forced to protrude from her mouth as the constrction around her throat grew tighter and tighter. Even as she felt the color draining from her face, she knew that the darkness would be creeping up her throat and across her cheeks. She had seen men hanged in the Old Town Square as well and she knew what their faces looked like when the nooses had finished their horrible work. She thrashed about in the straw just as the bodies of the hanged thrashed and swung at the end of the gallows’ ropes.

  “Anežka will suffer no less than I do,” Božena told herself in those last few moments. “The priest will mention her name in the Requiem and she will suffer more horribly than this. She will! She will!” the beggar promised herself as her empty lungs struggled valiantly for some small gasp of air. Božena clutched and scrabbled at her throat, trying to pry away the fingers that she felt there but could not see. Her own sharp, dirty fingernails—unable to get hold of the fingers choking the life from her—tore long, bloody gashes in her own scrawny neck.