Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 06 - Evil Legacy

After that exchange, she refused to speak to him for several weeks, deliberately keeping herself out of his sight whenever he visited. She did, however, spend a lot of time up in the gallery, watching him from behind a drape, whenever he came to visit. So a stalemate developed between them that for a time seemed unbridgeable. Then, quite unexpectedly, misfortune came to her rescue.

Tarjei had never quite understood what it was that made his time at Löwenstein so enjoyable. But during his last few visits he’d felt ill at ease because something was clearly missing – though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was. It only became clear to him when disaster struck.

Mercenaries, who had served under Wallenstein, were heading for Erfurt – a large marauding band of them. News of their approach went ahead of them, saying that they were completely undisciplined and spurred on solely by a desire to plunder and pillage. On hearing this, the Count, as Commander of the Erfurt garrison, set off to prepare the town’s defences and hastened to meet the rampaging throngs – but by doing so, he inadvertently left Löwenstein vulnerable to an assault.

The Count anticipated that they would make directly for Erfurt, which offered richer spoils, so he believed that the castle would be of no interest to them because it was situated a long way outside the town. So he’d not expected them to strike from that direction.

With only a handful of servants and the Count’s own family left behind, Löwenstein was, to all intents and purposes, undefended.

When it came, the attack was as unexpected as it was brutal. Countess Juliana took the women and children with her to hide in one of the towers, but she hadn’t been able to find Cornelia. She’d sent one of the servant girls off on a search, only to hear the poor girl’s anguished cries from below the tower as she was raped by the soldiers. Unable to leave Marca Christiana, the Countess had been powerless to save her servant.

Tarjei was on his way to the castle when he discovered he had company. He spotted a large group of mercenaries on the road ahead of him and reined in his horse. As he came to a halt, he saw a frightened young boy of about fifteen lying half hidden in the ditch where he’d managed to escape being seen by the men on foot.

“Here, quickly!” Tarjei ordered him. “Take my horse and ride straight to the Garrison Commander – he’ll most certainly be in town by now. Tell him that soldiers are on their way to Löwenstein and that I’ll do what I can. My name’s Tarjei.”

The boy was in the saddle and galloping away almost before Tarjei had finished speaking. When he and the horse were out of sight, Tarjei remained standing in the road, his heart pounding. He’d never had any burning desire to play the hero – intellectual challenges appealed much more to him. He could see that there were a great many soldiers and they’d already broken through the castle gate, but what could he do? He was on his own, with no experience or training for such a situation.

Then his thoughts turned to those unfortunate souls left in the castle. Even though he could do very little, it was still his duty to try and help them. He shuddered and took a deep breath.

“Don’t lose heart!” he muttered to himself.

It was not difficult to enter the castle unseen and he could hear the men yelling and shouting while he was still some way off. It sounded to him as if they were ransacking the banqueting hall and, keeping an eye out for anyone he knew, Tarjei tiptoed warily around the inside walls. Had he not been feeling so worried and frightened, he would have thought his antics quite ridiculous. Then all of a sudden, he heard a young girl’s terrified screams.

“Oh, dear God, it’s Cornelia!” he whispered to himself in horror – and it was at that very moment that he realised the reason for his low spirits in recent weeks. The reason was indeed Cornelia and her absence during his visits! Now she was helpless in the brutal hands of the marauding troops.‘Cornelia, my dearest! My dearest!’ he repeated in his mind over and over again as he raced towards the sound, his thoughts in turmoil. If he’d taken the time to listen more attentively, he would have realised that those whining, pathetic screams would never have come from Cornelia, but in his anxiety, Tarjei was no longer thinking clearly.

Running down a long wooden-floored passageway, he could tell he wasn’t far from where the girl was screaming. It had occurred to him that no matter how courageous he might be where Cornelia’s life and virtue was concerned, alone against an armed bunch of mercenaries he could do very little.

He saw a bardiche – an ancient long-poled axe – standing against a wall, part of a decorative display, and he grabbed its handle and started banging it violently on the floor. At the same time, he stamped his feet as hard and as fast as he could, to make it sound as if he wasn’t alone. In no time at all, the passageway was echoing with what sounded like dozens of running feet.

“This way, Commander!” yelled Tarjei at the top of his voice, addressing imaginary castle defenders. “Here they are, the mercenary blackguards! Shoot them down! Show them no mercy!”

The sound of Tarjei’s voice, apparently giving orders, took the invading soldiers in the banqueting hall by surprise and they began bumping into each other as they ran helter-skelter to leave by the far door. They shouted raucously to each other: “The garrison troops are here! Flee!”

Tarjei continued banging and stamping his feet for a few more minutes until he considered it was safe to stop.

Then he went quickly to the distressed girl where she lay sobbing in a heap. He saw at once that it wasn’t his Cornelia, but any relief he may have felt was swept aside by his concern and pity for the disheveled and trembling young girl huddled on the flagstones in front of him.

“Aah, my dear child,” he said softly, “let me help you up. Here, hold my arm. Where’s your mistress?”

“In the tower,” she said, holding back her tears.

“Is everyone there?”

“No, not Miss Cornelia. I was sent to see if I could find her – and then without any warning they broke in!”

“Well, you hurry straight back to the tower now,” he told the girl. “And leave it to me to try and find Cornelia.”

Tarjei’s heart quickly filled with dread as he contemplated what he might do next. He was quite sure that he knew where Cornelia would be hiding. She’d once shown him her secret little hiding place on the second floor, close to the large spiral stairway that led to the battlements.On remembering this, he raced through the castle like a madman, taking no notice of what was happening outside. If he’d done so, he would have noticed that the panic and uncertainty he’d started was spreading through the mercenaries’ ranks and they’d already begun to flee the castle. Unfortunately for them, they met the Count’s troops as they crossed the drawbridge over the moat.

The town garrison had already been told of the irregulars near Löwenstein and they’d begun marching towards the castle when they met the young rider Tarjei had sent back. On hearing the boy’s news, the Count had pressed his men onward at an even faster pace.

Now the mercenaries tried to turn back into the castle courtyard but this time one of the servants had been very quick on the uptake and dropped the portcullis, trapping a confused bunch of troops on the bridge. Many chose to jump into the moat, and few were left alive after the encounter. There were still a small number of stragglers inside the castle – men who’d been too far away to hear the warning shouts of their comrades.

Tarjei had almost reached Cornelia’s hiding place when he heard a bad tempered woman’s voice and this time there was no mistake. This was Cornelia at her best – or maybe her worst.