Morbus Dei: The Sign of Aries. Matthias Bauer
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had happened, to her and to all of them.
Johann …
The soldiers shoved aside the tarpaulin, opened the heavy door with its iron bars and waited for Elisabeth to climb into the cage.
There were dozens of people huddled together inside, all shielding their eyes from the glare of the daylight. A moment later the door was bolted shut and the tarpaulin pulled firmly across.
It took a while for Elisabeth’s eyes to get used to the darkness. Gradually she was able to make out the human spectres that were crowded into the cage.
With a sudden jerk the convoy set off again and the pale bodies with their patchwork of black veins were thrown against each other.
Help me, Johann!
The Danube was calm and smooth and glinting gold in the midday sun. There no ships to be seen, only one single barge, heavily laden, making its way towards the east.
Its owner, Count von Binden, looked anxiously at the man lying unconscious amidships in the makeshift cabin. Heinz Wilhelm Kramer, the ‘Prussian’, as his friends liked to call him, had been seriously injured a few hours previously by a musket bullet.
The thick bandage round his thigh was saturated with blood but no one dared change it for fear of releasing the pressure on the wound.
Passing his hand over his face, Johann looked at his injured comrade and tried to organise his thoughts.
‘We’ll be in Preßburg in a few hours,’ said von Binden.
‘That might be too late, he’s losing too much blood. We’ve got to get him to a barber surgeon as quickly as possible,’ said Johann.
Von Binden sighed. ‘Alright, let’s risk it then. Deutsch-Altenburg isn’t far away. I would be happier if Vienna were further behind us but you’re probably right. And I know someone there who could help us,’ said the Count. He left the cabin and went up to his helmsman on the stern.
Johann took a deep breath and gazed about him. Markus Fischart, a bear of a man with the ingenuous expression of a child, was squatting opposite him quietly chewing a piece of bacon rind, something he’d been doing ever since they’d come on board.
Hans and Karl were sitting a little to one side, staring mutely at the river. They had scarcely said a word since they had rescued the Prussian and themselves, leaving everything behind them, including their jobs as Central Patrol guards.
Victoria Annabelle, the Count’s young daughter, was huddled asleep between two crates, in blissful ignorance, thought Johann, of the significance of what had happened. He looked away from the slumbering child towards the river and the sunshine cascading onto the water. He blinked and closed his eyes.
Elisabeth …
He thought of her angelic face and the way she had looked the first time he had seen her, when he had been in bed with a fever and she had nursed him back to health again. He thought of her laughter in their brief moments of happiness, the way she had made love to him with such abandon, and her determination, after he and the Prussian had long since given up.
Then he saw her in front of him again, being dragged away by soldiers on the shore a few moments ago, or was it already hours? He felt again the same feeling of powerlessness he had felt then, and blind rage–if he could, he would jump off the barge right now, swim back through the Danube and take on the whole of Vienna single-handedly just to hold her in his arms again.
Johann took a deep breath and sat down beside the Prussian. He took hold of his friend’s arm and closed his eyes.
How had they got to this sorry state of affairs? How had it all begun? Perhaps their conspiracy against the officers on the front had started it all. But they had had no choice, the officers had planned to destroy an entire region and wipe out its population and they couldn’t just sit back and let that happen. Everything would have turned out well enough, had not one of the officers escaped.
Von Pranckh …
Then came the hunt for the mutineers, his separation from his comrades, his escape and capture by the French, followed by weeks of torture at the hands of Lieutenant General François Antoine Gamelin.
Then he had escaped again and had finally found his way to a lonely valley in the Tyrolean mountains, where, wounded and weakened to the extreme, he had been closer to death than ever before. He could remember the lights in the snow storm, the village, and how he’d struggled to reach it, his strength nearly gone, until he collapsed at last on the doorstep of a farmhouse. As the snow had slowly covered him over, death had seemed to him a saviour, a helmsman bringing him to safe harbour.
But then Elisabeth had appeared. And she had nursed him back to health and given his life meaning again.
Elisabeth …
Pictures flashed through his mind.
The tyranny of Elisabeth’s father.
His own burgeoning love for her …
Pentagrams painted on the houses–as protection against the dark forests and its inhabitants.
The abbey ruins in the light of the moon.
Figures in cassocks, deathly pale faces with black, throbbing veins and jagged teeth.
Elisabeth’s grandfather, who had revealed to them the terrible secret of the village.
The invasion of the village by Bavarian soldiers and the insane penal expedition against the outcasts.
Albin’s dead body hanging frozen between the trees in the overgrown forest.
The images came faster now like the pages of a book being flipped over by a gathering wind.
The village in flames–Grandfather’s death–Leoben where they’d got their forged papers–Vienna and his reunion with the Prussian.
And then the darkness.
The disease of the outcasts spreading through Vienna–the horrors of the quarantine district–their desperate escape, von Pranckh’s death and–
In the past few days they had risked everything and almost lost it all.
Had it been worth all of that?
He thought of Josefa, the Prussian’s wife, who had died in her husband’s arms. He would never forget the expression in his friend’s eyes as Josefa’s body lay suddenly lifeless on the bench beside him.
Had it been worth all of that?
Elisabeth had been captured and, according to Karl, had been dragged towards a black carriage. All at once Johann felt an indescribable emptiness, as though the ground had been pulled out from under his feet and he were about to plummet into nothingness.
Had it been worth all of that?
No.
And at the same time, yes!
II
The windows and doors of the magnificent salon of the town hall were all tightly shut in spite of the warm, early summer weather. Jakob Daniel Tepser, Mayor of Vienna, ran his hand through his dishevelled hair. The representatives of the city council and high clergy, who were sitting with him round the oak table, looked away in silence. It was a black day for all.
The mayor took a deep breath. ‘Have I understood you correctly, Lieutenant Kampmann? Not only was the wanted deserter, Johann List, responsible for the slaughter of Pater Bernardus Wehrden of the Dominicans and his nuncio and our esteemed Jesuit Superior, Pater Albert Virgil, but he also set fire to the quarantine district while it was being evacuated, is that correct? And now I hear he has the blood of Special Envoy Ferdinand Philipp von Pranckh on his hands too?!’
Kampmann nodded sheepishly. He had taken over command of the City Guard following the mysterious death of Lieutenant Schickardt, who was found shot dead in a little graveyard outside the gates of Vienna.
‘And to cap it all, he seems to have