Jesse Bullington - The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

Al-Gassur began translating, at which point Sir Jean went paler still and his diatribe dried up. Manfried nodded appreciatively and stood. Sir Jean did not shrink away but leaned forward to accept the blow that never fell.

“Tell’em to take off that armor,” Manfried ordered Al-Gassur, who went to task.

“Tell him I will do nothing he commands, but will wait for the captain to return,” Sir Jean interrupted.

“Begging your apologies, dear Frenchman,” Al-Gassur said, taking liberty with his duty, “but I believe Master Grossbart is seeking a provocation to murder you. I would do what he says, unless you are ready to end as the cardinal did.”

“Cardinal Buñuel’s been killed?” Sir Jean swallowed. “Are they mad?”

“Quite. Now haste might be a better ally than even myself…”

Manfried checked his urge to strike the Arab, Buñuel being recognizable in the stream of nonsense. Sir Jean stood and reluctantly removed his armor, which took quite a while without his squire. Manfried circled him, paying close attention to how the iron carapace fit together.

Hegel scowled at the sun, at the guards curiously watching them, at Buñuel’s twisted rictus, and at Martyn. Dropping the real cardinal in the hay, Hegel seized the bottle the new cardinal had stowed in his armpit and set to prowling around the stable. Martyn wiped his excrement-covered hands on the side of a horse, which Hegel glared at, daring the animal to make the first move. It blinked and he resisted the impulse to slay it.

“What is that?” Martyn motioned out the door.

“Eh?” Hegel looked at the apparatus constructed in the back garden. The main supports rose nearly as high as the house, a huge beam balanced between them with one end tethered to something behind the shrubbery. Utterly baffled as to the purpose of such a device, he lied to Martyn.

“That’s the instrument a our victory,” said Hegel.

“You know of its purpose? Wonderful!” Barousse came from the house.

“Er.” Hegel scratched his beard.

“Grab hold of the body and bring it with us, and you shall help me ready our final blow.” Barousse veered off toward the contraption, and with much cursing Hegel and Martyn followed, towing Buñuel’s corpse.

Closer inspection only perplexed the two more, but Barousse took hold of a wheel and with Hegel’s assistance winched down one side of the teetering shaft. Attached to the end sat a spacious wooden basket, which they unceremoniously dumped Buñuel’s corpse into. Several guards watched from the terrace, in theory minding the rear wall lest the doge’s men storm it.

“I told the builders it was to be filled with an anchor’s weight worth of flowers to honor Strafalaria,” Barousse grunted, leading Martyn and Hegel onto the terrace and through the back door, “so it should be calibrated proper. I’ve got an actual anchor to drag out, lest a boulder undo the counterweight and foil the accuracy. That, along with the cardinal and a few hundred ducats ought to ensure the streets are thronged and our flight unnoticed.”

“A sound scheme,” Hegel acknowledged, possessing all the mechanical intuition of a mule.

“What is its purpose?” Martyn asked, earning him Hegel’s silent thanks.

“You’ll learn soon enough.” Barousse rubbed his palms together. Entering the rear door behind the central staircase, he motioned toward the dining room. “See that your brother hasn’t murdered our other hostage, and make sure the twit doesn’t learn of our scheme. I’ll be back as soon as I attend to my business.”

Barousse’s face darkened as he hurried toward the kitchen, while Hegel and Martyn went to see what Manfried was about. Retrieving the bucket of live sardines from beside the kitchen table, Barousse saw Rodrigo coming up from another wine-run to the cellar. Sloshing back across the kitchen, Barousse turned to the flushed young man.

“I know I’ve been difficult, at times. Hell, most of the time.” Barousse stared into the bucket. “I’d have lost myself years ago without you and Ennio, and I’m sorry about how it’s all played out up until here. I’m sorry about your brother, son. And your father.”

“I, uh, thank you, thank you so very-” Rodrigo did not know quite how to respond to the words he had always longed to hear.

“Now get on with it, and focus sharp or I’ll put you off the boat.” Barousse winked, momentarily forgetting his purpose. A fish splashed his boots, and the calm passed. “Don’t stand there gawking, leave the blasted bottles! Get to the Grossbarts and send them to me. Kill the snob if he gets crafty.”

Barousse ran back to the foyer and up the stairs, unsure why his vision had gone misty in the kitchen. Unable to dispel his grin, Rodrigo raced across the house, seeing the captain disappear on the second story. The guards almost shot Rodrigo when he burst into the room, and all his pent-up happiness burst forth in hysterical laughter at what he saw.

Sir Jean sat stripped of all but a loincloth and the Grossbarts stood on either side of him, Manfried wearing the upper half of the knight’s plate armor and Hegel awkwardly attaching the greaves to his own knobby legs. The inebriated Al-Gassur wore the helm and sat in the captain’s chair, clumsily fitting the neck of a bottle under the jutting visor. Martyn sprawled in another chair, his ripe Cardinal’s robes hanging off his spindly arms like blood-trimmed bat wings. Fixing the codpiece into place, Hegel rapped it with his knuckle and smiled knowingly at the stewing chevalier.

“The captain requests you in his quarters.” Rodrigo giggled. “I’m to watch the Frenchman.”

“Watch his mouth most close a all his bits,” Manfried advised.

“He don’t seem to say much without his iron, though,” noted Hegel, and the two departed.

They clanked up the stairs, each thinking his brother had received the better half of the unwieldy armor that barely stayed on their bodies in its fractured state. The captain admitted them, taking notice of the Arab for the first time. Ushering them in but leaving both door and cage ajar, he motioned to several open chests. These were full of coins, with many more scattered all over the rug. The Grossbarts hid their greed and amazement far better than Al-Gassur, who licked his lips and positioned his crutch so it might catch on the floor and send him sprawling. Before he could act Barousse addressed them, bringing a thankful lump to the Arab’s throat.

“Carry these outside to the garden,” the captain ordered them, “and quickly, for if I know Strafalaria we will be blessed indeed if we have until dusk to prepare.”

“Might I fill a sack, as my deformity prevents me from carrying an entire chest?” Al-Gassur asked.

“There’s a bucket there.” Barousse nodded toward the tub, which Manfried immediately hastened to before the Arab could move.

“Why we takin’em out back stead a through the you-know?” asked Hegel, keeping an eye on his brother.

“A ruse, dear Hegel,” Barousse explained, hoisting a chest, “a ploy to distract the populace. In Angelino’s tub we’ll not leave the harbor without being nabbed if any see us board. No, we must keep eyes elsewhere, upon the ruins of the doge’s manse, the fire of my own, the miracle of a golden rain upon the streets! Hurry, you hounds, hurry!”

“Don’t be callin me no beast,” Hegel grumbled, lifting a chest.

Al-Gassur pretended to tie up the hem of his gown-length tunic when the bucket crashed into it, bashing his fingers. Manfried laughed while the Arab flung himself to the ground, secretly tickled the mangy bastard had eased his deception. He groaned and rolled on the floor and before he had recovered sufficiently to stand his pointed turnshoes and hidden pockets had eaten a dozen loose ducats.