Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart - By Jesse Bullington Page 0,143

the two. Pinned Lucy to the mast with it, clean through the brainpan. Even Rigo laughed at that one, bastard’s body flappin and danglin til the bolt snapped and he fell.”

“Anythin else?”

“The Arab wouldn’t come down so I was gonna fell his roost. Didn’t get round to it, apparently.”

“Got airs on, thinkin we’s gonna stand for him wearin the captain’s flag like a cassock.” Later things were coming to Hegel now, things involving the Arab. “Didn’t he make at you with a knife?”

“Don’t think so.” Manfried knit his brows. “If he did, must a put’em proper, as I got no such wound.”

“But after you kilt that Lucian?”

“Hazy at best. We’s sailin, and they’s fishin but ain’t catch a tadpole. Ended up cuttin the Judas knight off the mast cause his rot was workin on the sail. Then we pitched’em overboard, along with the rest a them dogwhores.”

“Captain Bar Goose included?” asked Hegel.

“You takin me for a heathen? Barousse we left below.”

“And the witch?”

“Someone put her over when we was asleep. Martyn won’t own up, but we’ll beat it out a him when you’s feelin revived.”

“So we in the sandlands yet?” Hegel asked after a period of silent reflection.

“Nah, but gettin closer.”

Hegel blinked and rubbed the down mattress with his surprisingly clean palm. Looking back to Manfried, he scowled and said, “So when was you thinkin bout stoppin with the tooth display and tellin me just what in Her Name is happinin? What it is, cause I know you didn’t stitch me this softness out a old turnip sacks.”

“Come and look, brother.” Manfried finished the wine and helped Hegel rise. “Come and take a gander at Her Benevolence.”

Arm in arm they went to the door and Manfried led him outside. Light blinded Hegel but his brother moved him forward, the sounds of the ocean nearly suffocated by the clamor of men and the nickering of horses. Even the presence of equines could not diminish Hegel’s awe when his eyes finally took in their surroundings.

They stood on the deck of a massive ship, fully three times as large as their original vessel. The dozens of men did not rob him of breath, nor did the cheer that went up from them at his appearance. What shocked even a living saint was the fleet of ships cutting the sea around them, a prodigious, floating forest of masts, many of them flying huge white sails emblazoned with blood-red crosses.

“We was delivered to an island.” Manfried’s swept his arm in front of them. “An island full a honest men just itchin to head south and get a piece a what the Infidel’s holdin.”

“Mary bless us!”

“Yes She has! Martyn!” Manfried shouted, and the cardinal appeared across the deck. “Come and hear it from his mouth, brother! That fool’s made amends in full to Her Eminence.”

“Brother Hegel!” Martyn panted, scurrying up the stairs to the raised deck. “The Virgin’s caress has balmed you once more from the grave, delivered into such hands as are scarce fit to stroke you!”

“You didn’t leave him alone with me whiles I was under, did you?” Hegel muttered to his brother.

The first thing that set Hegel on edge was Martyn’s reluctance to drink with them. Under threat of harm he relented and sipped at his wine, his thirsty eyes drinking more of it than his lips. As he talked he forgot himself and drank more of the wine, but before they could open a second bottle his story had concluded.

Martyn’s rendition shared a number of similarities with the actual event, but this could be attributed to coincidence. Their ship had indeed floated unmanned for several days while they all raved and weakened from dehydration, and they had floated into the current surrounding Rhodes. Here their ship was sighted and brought in, and within two days of arriving they had set out again, this time in the company of hundreds of men intent as they on reaching the domain of the Infidel. Martyn’s implication that they had left entirely under his command as Mary’s chosen representative on Earth is where the tale began to stray from the truth.

After years of unsuccessfully petitioning king and pope, duke and emperor, King Peter of Cyprus had completed by his own hand preparations for a crusade. Admittedly, the Hospitallers of Rhodes had not intended to invest themselves fully before the arrival of Cardinal Martyn and his followers. The news that Pope Urban V had died, and the subsequent mutilation of his corpse at the hands of heretics,