Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Read online

  “The filth of MY twisted darkness?” Lucrezia shouted back at the clergyman. “You are the one who fills this place with the twisted darkness of your lies against old Fen’ka and against me! How dare you claim that I bring darkness into this place when you do nothing but preach filth and hatred here? You can preach your venom and convince the town to kill your victims for you until there is no one left in the valley, but that will not root out evil from the earth, Father. You lie, priest! You lied about Fen’ka and you lie about me.”

  Before the last of her words had left her lips, Conrad struck her across the face before he had even realized that he had lifted his hand. The echo of the slap hung in the air.

  Conrad struck the girl’s face with such force that her neck snapped backwards and the back of her head slammed into the stone pillar beside her with a loud crack. She stared at the priest uncomprehendingly and then slid down the pillar to the floor as her knees gave way. A streak of blood marked the trail down the stone and more could be seen as it ran down her back and seeped into the fabric of her clothing.

  The congregation stood in shock, as uncomprehending of the scene they were witnessing as Lucrezia. A girl screamed. It was Katrina. She pushed her way through the congregation to reach her friend, shoving aside the priest hard enough that he fell. She knelt down and cradled Lucrezia’s torso in her arms, hugging her friend as she had never hugged anyone before. She brushed the ringlets away from Lucrezia’s face and searched her friend’s eyes for some sign of recognition.

  A slight breath parted Lucrezia’s lips. Her eyes attempted to focus. “Katrina…” the Italian girl whispered. Then her head fell to one side. She was dead.

  “Lucrezia, Lucrezia,” murmured Katrina, rocking on her knees as she held her friend. “Lucrezia…”

  Inarticulate shouts and cries filled the church. Some ran through the doors into the square and the dying light of the setting sun. Others ran to the German girl holding the body of her friend, unsure of what to do but wanting to offer their comfort and assistance. None ran to the priest; they skirted his fallen form as they had avoided Lucrezia moments before.

  Father Conrad supported himself with one hand behind his back as he sat in his cassock and vestments on the stone floor, attempting to understand what he had just done. He held the other hand before his face, staring at the palm that had touched the cheek of the prostitute. It was the first woman’s cheek he had ever felt except for his mother and sisters back home. The skin had felt cool, and smooth. His palm had been the perfect size to hold the girl’s face, if he had wanted to cup it tenderly, as many before him had. But it was his palm, not theirs, which had sent the girl to face her judgment.

  He scurried backward a few feet, like a spider, and then stood. He was invisible to the congregation as they surged around the two young women at the base of the pillar. They helped Katrina to her feet and together, they—Katrina and the crowd—carried Lucrezia’s body out into the square, which the townsfolk were already filling as news of the events in the church flew up and down the streets more quickly than the wind. Women screamed. Men shouted. Everyone cried in shock and disbelief.

  Conrad remained in the church. The blood on the stone was bright red, though it was quickly becoming too dark inside to make out the color. It was becoming a simple dark, ragged streak down the pillar with a large, blotchy smudge near the bottom where Lucrezia’s head had rested before Katrina had snatched up her body.

  The priest finally turned and walked through the empty church to the sacristy. He removed the few vestments he had worn for the Vespers and stood there in his cassock. He looked at the crucifix on the wall and rubbed his hands together as if washing them, but they were perfectly clean, as he had struck the Italian’s face and not touched her again. The blood was on the stone, matted in her hair, and staining her clothes as well as those of Katrina and everyone else who had helped carry the body from the church. His hands were clean but he stood there rubbing them, again and again, staring up at the crucifix. Finally, he crossed himself and exited the building through the small door on the north side of the nave and, across the alley, entered the stone house provided to the clergy of the parish. He sat at the table in the dining room.

  The cook, who normally had his dinner waiting for him after Vespers, seemed nowhere to be found. The house was quiet and sunk quickly into the gathering gloom, with only one or two candles burning in the room to keep the priest company. He sat so still it would have been easy for someone coming into the room to miss him in the shadows.

  He did not have to wait long. Less than an hour later, a half-dozen men arrived with lanterns and torches, staves and swords. Some wore the livery of the emperor and some that of the archbishop. They led him through the mob of the square, across the bridge, and into the bishop’s house where he had stood less than a month before to be reprimanded for Fen’ka’s burning in that same square.

  The archbishop was waiting in the front reception room, not in his office as before. His purple cassock swirled about his legs as he paced up and down the short length of the room waiting for Conrad to arrive. As the parish priest entered and bent to kiss the prelate’s ring, he jerked his hand away from the priest’s lips.

  “Father Conrad!” the prelate demanded. “What were you thinking? You have gone much too far this time!” He glowered at the priest before him.

  “I… I was preaching,” Conrad stammered. “She… she came into the church, m’lord, and—“

  “And did nothing to deserve what happened. She was a daughter of the Church, one of your flock, and you—a priest!—murdered her as she stood in the church.”

  The priest interrupted the archbishop. “No, I did not murder her,” he insisted. “I admit that she died as a result of my slapping her. But it was no murder. I might have killed her, but that is not the same as murder, your eminence, as you well know.” The priest was, at least momentarily, his usual self. “Murder is a deliberate act of will. Of intention. But I had no such intention. My aim was to correct the girl, not kill her. With no intention of killing her, I cannot be called her murderer.” He glared back at the archbishop.

  “You have murdered the girl in the church,” the archbishop went on, ignoring the priest’s outburst. “You have rendered the church of Our Lady of Tyn useless. It is stained with the blood of a young woman that YOU killed. The church will have to be pulled down, demolished, and a new one built. Does that make you happy? Will your friend Georg and the other German businessmen of the Ungelt appreciate what you have done for them, causing them to build a whole church after this one is destroyed and the site purified with salt?

  “Not only must the church be pulled down, but you will be pulled down as well, Father,” the archbishop charged on. “You will be defrocked. After the proper investigation and trial that protocol demands, of course. You will have a trial, unlike these two victims of yours that you sent to their graves. I will not hand you over to the emperor’s courts for the emperor’s justice, however.” The hint of a smile played around the archbishop’s lips, which even Conrad couldn’t miss. What was the archbishop planning?

  “No, I will try you in the Church court, Father. You will be tried and defrocked. Then exiled. I will send you home, Conrad. A defrocked priest. A nobody. Less than a nobody. Will your family be so happy to see you then?” The archbishop paused and then continued.

  “I know the kind of man who stands before me, Father. To try you in the emperor’s courts of secular justice will lead to your imprisonment or execution. Perhaps not unwarranted, but you—and your German supporters—would construe that as persecution, a martyrdom, a noble suffering for the cause of truth. Much more painful will be the humiliation of a trial in the Church courts ending with your defrocking and exile, being sent back to your hometown in disgrace and shame. You will not be able to bear it,” Arnošt explained. “It will be the most painful and degrading punishment any archbishop could devise for a priest such as you.”

  Conrad caught his breath. “It
was an accident, Archbishop Arnošt,” the priest insisted. “I know the canons. The church in which blood is spilled must be torn down and rebuilt. I understand that. The German merchants of the Ungelt will understand the need for that. They may resent the expense, but they will want their parish church restored. But I had no intention of harming the girl. Defrocking, exile… even a trial is more than such a thing deserves.”

  “I think not,” the archbishop replied slowly, twisting the ring on his finger as Conrad’s heart twisted within him. “You had no intention of harming the girl? You had every intention of harming that girl! I know what your sermon last week was about. I know that your sermon at Vespers today was laying more groundwork, preparing the people to do the horrible deed on your behalf. But this time it didn’t work, Father. This time you did your own filthy murder with your own hand, not the hands of others in the Old Town Square. You will be defrocked and exiled. Do you understand?”

  The priest’s heart sank. Panic hovered at the edges of his consciousness. “I will defend myself in the court, before the tribunal,” he retorted. “I will be vindicated of this scurrilous charge.” Even as he said the words, he knew that was not likely. If the archbishop had already made up his mind, it was almost unheard of that the Church court would come to any other verdict. Even though Church courts were known to be more lenient than the secular courts, Conrad saw the devilry in Archbishop Arnošt’s plan. “Maybe I can even use that in my defense,” he thought in a flash. “By associating Arnošt with both laxity and vindictiveness because I showed up his laxity in dealing with evil, I still might win.”

  “You will be vindicated? Perhaps.” Another smile played about Arnošt’s jaw. “I will also grant you a favor you have not asked for,” the archbishop formed his words carefully. “You will not be kept in the church prison as you await the trial. I will send you back to the Ungelt and to your friends who brought you here. You can stay in the house of the Tyn parish, but the church will be locked and the doors nailed shut tomorrow morning. You are suspended from celebrating the Mass or any of the sacraments and services of the Church but you will be free to come and go between the Ungelt and the Old Town. Do not think to try and escape from the valley. The emperor’s arm is long and will find you, no matter where in his realm you try to hide. I wonder, though,” the prelate paused. “I wonder if you will find any of your so-called friends so eager to see you now. To dine with you and visit with you as you wait for the trial. These things sometimes take weeks to organize, as I’m sure someone of your erudition and experience realizes.”

  The archbishop’s triumph, at least for now, was complete. He turned his back on Conrad.

  “You may go.” He dismissed the priest. “I give you a guard to take you back to the Old Town. You will have to walk from here back across the river and through the Old Town and, even with a small guard, I cannot promise you that such a walk will be to your liking. But you have brought it upon yourself.” He stood there seeming to think a moment before he turned and left.

  Conrad stood there a moment, staring at the door the archbishop had gone through. He hadn’t thought of the walk back through the Old Town to the Ungelt. At least a small guard was better than the alternative: unescorted. The crowd would be furious. He would be mocked, he was sure. Pelted with vegetables. Attacked with stones, maybe. Or worse. His knees felt weak. Would the small guard granted him, or rather, assigned to watch him, by the archbishop even try to defend him against the crowd?

  He crossed himself and turned. The men who had brought him here parted and let him walk through their midst, then half of them turned and followed him. No one said a word. Conrad walked out the front door. The three men gathered round him, one in front and one on each side. At least no one was in the courtyard here, the cul de sac where the archbishop’s house stood. He might at least make it to the bridge unscathed.

  Conrad, with his escort of three guards in the livery of the archbishop, made it safely back to the parish house on the Old Town Square, but not without incident. The crowds on the bridge and in the streets parted to let him by. He saw their suspicious glares and worried looks. More than one made the cornu, a slight gesture with their right hand in which their thumb and fingers, save for their index and little fingers, were folded into the palm. The two extended fingers, the “horns” of the gesture’s title, were considered talismans against the evil eye (in particular) and malicious magic (in general). He heard the conversations as people skirted out of his entourage’s path and even occasionally called after him, “Zabiják kněz! Killer priest!” More than one vegetable came hurtling out of the air, some striking Conrad while some missed their target and glanced off the guards on either side of him.

  Once safely ensconced back in the parish house, he heard the crowd milling around in the square. He had seen two of the guards take up positions on either side of the door as he passed into the house but was unsure how long they had stayed or if they were still on duty. As the night wore on and the square became quieter, he was sure the men must have returned to the archbishop’s house on the other side of the bridge. He kept the house dark, lighting only a few lamps and keeping away from the, albeit small, windows. During the night, he slept fitfully and was wakened once by a crash followed by the splintering of wood; in the morning he found a brick in the middle of the dining table with shards of wood from the broken shutters that had been closed across the small high window scattered along the floor.

  The parish cook appeared in the morning and set a bowl of porridge on the table for him. He asked if the guards were still outside and the woman replied with little more than a growl; she was clearly not happy at having to feed and care for the “killer priest” as her now prescribed duty. After eating, he went to the door and opened it just enough to look outside. He was able to glance about enough to see that no guards were present; as he was about to step through the door, a rock smashed against the wood, leaving a large, rough gash in the timber as it ricocheted down the alley. He slammed the door shut and locked it before another missile could follow.

  There were no further incidents at the door or windows that day, though he found it unnatural to lurk in the house. He could see the sunlight streaming in from outdoors but dared not set foot outside without a guard or some form of protection. The housekeeper was no company and avoided being in the same room with him.

  By midafternoon, Conrad realized that he had been sentenced by the archbishop to a very effective form of house arrest. He was alone in the house, which was now his prison, with the housekeeper and townsfolk serving as his jailors. He thought to write to his friends in the Ungelt behind the church to apprise them of the situation. He sat down in his study and set quill and ink to parchment:

  “Georg,” he wrote, “I have been found guilty and sentenced by the archbishop before any trial can be held or any investigation completed. He has allowed me to stay in the Tyn parish house but I cannot leave here without a guard, as thus far, the unruly Czechs have every intention of venting their rustic anger on me. The archbishop insists that I am guilty of murder and that I can longer say Mass. It was, as I am sure you realize, all the fault of that wicked girl Lucrezia, who dared to bring her pollution into the house of God. It was my zeal for the Lord’s house, which has consumed my soul, that caused me to lash out before I even realized what I had done. So intense is my love for Our Lord and His Holy Temple that I could not abide to see the whore stand there so brazen in her effrontery. You must speak to the archbishop and help him see the truth of the matter: the whore’s death was a regrettable accident, however much she may have deserved an end to her career of sin and perdition. But, nevertheless, it was—and remains—an accident, not murder, as my intention was not to kill but to chastise. Surely you can help the archbishop to see reason in this matter. Come to see me in my confinement here, and relieve the tedium I endure. My only companion is the drab Bohemian cow who cooks my meals and cleans the house and she has never done more than grunt in my direction. You can only ima
gine how her surliness has increased in these last hours.”

  He fold and sealed the note. The only chance he had to have it delivered depended on the surly “cow,” as he described her, and he pressed the parchment—with a coin—into her hand as she set the bowl of stew on the table before him near dusk.

  “Take this to Georg von Passau, in the Ungelt. Prosím. Please.” She looked at him sternly and then, wordlessly, nodded and pocketed both the note and the coin in the folds of her apron. As he slowly ate from the steaming bowl, he heard the door close and knew that he was now alone. He could only hope that she would deliver his note to his friend Georg.

  He knew that it was important to maintain a strong, confident stance in dealing with the archbishop as well as the townsfolk in public. But even as he was sure that Lucrezia’s death had been an accident and that he was blameless, he was riven by doubt and worry. If the archbishop kept his promise of defrocking and exile for Conrad, he would never be able to bear the shame and disgrace. How would he live? How would he support himself? He would never be allowed to teach in any of the centers of theological study and research, the one other avenue he might have been qualified to pursue. His mood alternated between anger—anger at the archbishop, anger at Lucrezia—and despair. At this moment, his future seemed bleak indeed.

  That night, he was unable to sleep. He lay in bed, listening to the quiet. There was the occasional creak of the house, a gentle sigh of the breeze outdoors. A dog barked briefly in the distance. The moonlight shone and a bright but narrow slice illumined a corner of his bed. He tossed and turned, unable to find any solace in the forgetfulness of sleep. He finally rose and dressed himself. The sense that he was trapped in the house, as well as in his life, was overpowering.