Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart - By Jesse Bullington Page 0,155

bind his leg. In the dark between the fires he stealthily extracted his hidden treasure from his smaller bag, as well as the spool of thin, flexible cable he had found in Alexandria. He noosed one end of the line around the swaddled bottle and the other around his thigh, then stuffed the bottle back into his satchel and shoved the bag up the front of his short tunic to serve as a false potbelly. Only a searching eye would notice the cable leading from the top of his breeches to the bottom of his shirt; having robbed him of even the satisfaction of his deception, Al-Gassur had little doubt the Grossbarts would soon turn to his physical possessions, but if they wanted his brother’s heart they would have to cut it out of him.

“I have a confession as well,” Rodrigo said after the cackling at Al-Gassur had calmed. “When I came above deck on the ship it wasn’t to save your lives, it was to watch you hang. I wanted to witness your suffering, for I blamed you then as I do now for Ennio’s death.”

“What brought illumination to your ignorant fuckin ass?” Manfried said.

“One fool shot a bow at me and then the other tried to stab me. Has a way of making a man come round.” Rodrigo, like Al-Gassur, waited for a kick that never came.

“Killin them bitchswine only penance you needed, boy, so I pronounce you clean,” judged Hegel.

“Heretics!” Martyn pointed at them. “By Mary’s Virginal Belly, you are heretics!”

“Stow that noise,” Hegel said, “or I’ll demote you to bishop.”

“Blasphemer!” Martyn snapped. “Only the Lord may judge me!”

“Heth a thaint!” Raphael wagged his stump from Hegel to Martyn. “Know your own pwace, Pwiest!”

“Just cause you ride with us don’t mean we won’t execute your ass,” Hegel reminded Martyn. “You been slippin of late, but despite all a your recent blasphemin I got faith you hates demons and witches and such, so you’s probably goin upways if I put you down like a blood-simple hound. If not that’s your own mecky fault. What was it you said bout us bein tools and Her Will bein done?”

All eyes were on Cardinal Martyn, who stood on shaky legs surveying the four men he had shared so many days with. Everything seemed so utterly wrong that he turned away without a word and stalked off, the jeers of the Grossbarts following him into the night. Instead of making for the other fire he wandered out into the open desert, a cool wind rinsing his mind free of the Grossbartian dust that had coated it for so long even as his good hand stripped him of the murder-bought cardinal’s vestments. Scaling a dune he followed the ridge until the rosy full moon again slid under the clouds. Completely naked, drunk, and crazed through the clarity of just what he had been up to over the last year of his life, Martyn looked back at the twin campfires and wept.

Closing his eyes, Martyn remembered the past for what it was and not what he had made it. His thoughts turned away from the lies he had almost believed, all the way back to Elise bidding him farewell before entering the convent where she would live out her days without him. The Bird Doctor had come for them in the garden but while Martyn fell to his knees in terror she had seized up his staff and beaten the avian-masked demoniac into the fire. When the unclean spirit abandoned its vessel and came for them she stood strong, her fiery staff between them and possession. Then it had entered the unfortunate rider and fled, and the two of them had wandered south. Even after Elise had disappeared behind the nunnery’s gate Martyn could not believe her decision, and a year passed before he picked up his cowl and staff and went in search of vengeance.

The broken man did not hear the sand shifting as the behemoth rushed up the dune behind him, instead the soft, warm cadence of Elise’s voice bringing tears to his cracked cheeks. Martyn did not feel the warm breath emanating from Magnus’s dozens of mouths behind him, tightening his hand on her shoulder as she told him they must part and seek solace in God instead of each other. The massive rat’s head Magnus had in place of a left hand accommodated all of Martyn’s lame arm and part of his chest into its mouth before snapping shut. His