Jesse Bullington - The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

To think the Grossbarts were happy now that their lifetime goal was fulfilled is to misjudge them completely. They found no wonder in a river flowing north and were intensely put out to have ten heavily armored men crowding their vessel who answered to Martyn instead of them, even if the crusaders were the ones doing the rowing. Only with kicks and punches were they able to convince Rodrigo of the necessity of his helping pilot the boat, fiddle with the oarlocks, and do everything else required to keep them moving. From their vantage they made out only sandy banks and silt-muddied water, small and dank islands rearing up where tributaries joined and broke from their liquid road.

After they had dropped anchor the first night in the boat, the Brothers stared upriver long past moonrise. Raphael, Rodrigo, and Al-Gassur joined them, and for the first time since meeting all five shared a drink in silence, putting aside the crisscrossing paths of mutual aversion to stare at the moon-glowing river and listen to the bizarre conglomeration of sounds. The quiet of the scorching day had worried the seasoned Grossbarts, who knew full well silent places in nature often bespeak demons, but the cacophony of nearby splashes, chirps, and whistles could hardly be viewed as preferable.

They started again when light crept over the bank, and at a fork Rodrigo directed them up the left channel. The Grossbarts grew increasingly frustrated as the day waned and no steepled churches emerged to herald plunderable cemeteries. Only the sun shone gold, turning the river all manner of strange colors that evening, the bank to their left replaced by an endless bog.

No sooner had they dropped anchor than the darkness fully settled. Then they all saw the lights ahead, as if a small city slowly drifted toward them on the current. The Grossbarts hissed orders and gathered their arms, but when the lights grew closer and larger they realized flight could be their only salvation as the massive ships approached.

Raising anchor they awkwardly maneuvered about and rowed downstream, picking up the current and flying over the black water. The ships disappeared around the curve and the nose of their boat slammed into something. The sound of splintering wood is not something to take lightly on a river, and water had flooded the galley up to their ankles by the time they had freed themselves from the submerged log. They managed to reach the nearby bank but the hole punched in the side made further use of the boat impossible until they could fix it-assuming, of course, that they could.

The ships reappeared around the bend and the Grossbarts hopped overboard, Rodrigo and Martyn joining the Brothers on the swampy shore. As they unloaded the boat, Martyn struck the cackling Arab in the mouth, sending Al-Gassur tumbling into the mire. The Hospitallers trudged dutifully after as the group splashed through sludge and waded through pools, collectively collapsing behind a mucky island no bigger than a half-sunk wagon when the ships came within earshot, men rushing about on deck and yelling to the vessels behind them.

A collective groan washed over the party as lights fell on their nearby boat, everyone digging further into the filth. Rather than stopping, however, the first ship glided past and the men began to hope. Two more ships, and then the last, a great whale of a galley, rows of oars raised as the current swept them along. From this final boat several smoldering bundles fell into the Grossbarts’ beached ship and the waterlogged vessel unexpectedly exploded in flames. Then the ships were gone around another bend, leaving only the moon to display the smoke rising from where their boat had sat.

While neither would admit it, that night, soaked to the bone and coated in mud, was the most miserable the Grossbarts had yet experienced. The twitterings and slurpings rose to a raucous cheer, mocking their dejection. Not one voice broke the silence to lament their lot, the slime around Al-Gassur vibrating from his repressed laughter. The summit of the gelatinous island proved no more dry or pleasant than its base, and before the sun even rose they tramped back to the ruins of their boat.

Rodrigo and Al-Gassur walked downstream a bit to laugh without fear of reprisal until they both collapsed. Their shared mirth quickly degenerated into a fight when Al-Gassur again imitated the deceased Ennio, lying in the mud and whispering to the livid Rodrigo how the Grossbarts had murdered his brother. The incensed man reopened his punctured palm during the fracas, the sight of which cheered the gloomy Grossbarts.

“Back to Alexandria, then?” Martyn said hopefully, nudging the burnt out shell of their galley. “We’ve only gone a few days upriver, so surely-”

“Surely that city’s thick with Arabs by now,” Manfried said.

“Them boats wasn’t carryin pilgrims such’s us, mark me,” Hegel agreed.

“But without a boat, how will we travel?” Martyn asked what he thought to be a rhetorical question, being as they were surrounded by swampland.

“Unlike yourself, we didn’t sail out the womb with boats stead a feet.” Manfried shouldered his pack. “Given as I am to thinkin fordin yon river might prove a task what with our armor and such, I move we hike upstream as we’s been.”

“Damietta is east of Alexandria.” One of the Hospitallers broke with the clump of men and motioned away from the river, over the bog. “That is the closest other city.”

“Seein as you’s speakin proper, I find it disconcertin you think so simple,” Manfried replied. “If we’s trekkin through marsh, might’s well do it next to clean water stead a that meck.”

“Farewell, then,” the man said, filling a waterskin from the river. “Cardinal, I assume you will travel with us?”

Martyn looked to the Grossbarts, who were both smiling at him and shaking their heads, hands on pick and mace. “No,” he sighed, “I have faith Mary will guide us.”

“Fine.” The warrior-monk stood, the previous days in close company with both cardinal and Grossbarts having convinced him of their madness. “When we reach Rhodes I’ll inform the king and the new Pope of your decision.”

“New Pope?” Martyn had nearly forgotten his own previous delusions that these men had based all of their decisions upon. The Hospitallers convened, and several of them exchanged soft words before three split from the pack and marched to Martyn. These men knelt in the muck and pledged their continued dedication to his safety while their brothers turned their backs on the Grossbarts. Of the three Moritz spoke both Italian and German while Bruno and Werner knew only German, their voices unwavering as they dirtied their lips on the silt of the Nile.

The other seven Hospitallers marched toward the rising sun. Just out of sight of their former company, they were cheered to discover the bog yielded to lush farmland and bountiful orchards. They rested in the shade of an enormous tree and gorged themselves on dates, unaware that a salamander had nested in the roots and infected every fruit with its dread toxins. They all began convulsing and sweating blood, and only after their organs burst from the heat did their suffering end.

“Settled then.” Hegel nodded south up the river. “Get Rigo off our Arab and we can move on.”

The bloodied Al-Gassur assured the Grossbarts they had made the correct choice, for just up the river lay churchyards grander than Alexandria and Venezia combined. A week passed and no cemeteries appeared, only the swamp they plodded through and the river bordering it. A viper bit Werner in the hand when he filled his waterskin and within an hour the knight expired, bloated and rotting as if he had spent weeks submerged in the Nile.

Even the mighty rations of the Grossbarts dwindled, and one evening when they scrambled up a rare dry prominence a crocodile attacked Bruno. The beast exploded out of the muck bordering the rise, its huge jaws latching onto his leg. The knight, confronted with the ancestral nemesis of his kind, let out a scream as the dragon yanked him into the water. The Brothers Grossbart came to his rescue, but while Hegel’s pick skewered its brain, in the chaos Manfried snapped Bruno’s neck with his mace. Only after did Hegel realize the rolling monster had slashed open his boot and shin with its claws. They smoked the salty, wet crocodile meat with the dead shrubbery shrouding the top of the mound, even the wounded Hegel happier for the encounter. Moritz and Martyn interred Bruno in the mud, and the Hospitaller cross they marked his grave with found its way into Al-Gassur’s bag.