The knight’s eyes never left hers, and he walked after her until Pieter called after him. “Sir, the prisoner?”
Annoyed, the man answered over his shoulder, “He’s to be hanged at compline on the Galgenberg.”
Heinrich took a deep breath and turned to the smith. “So, for the penny you can now tell me where the Galgenberg is.”
“Aye,” the man snatched the silver coin. “Tis about a furlong west of town. You’ll see a widespread chestnut on a valley knoll. A good place for hangings!”
Soon Wil, Pieter, and Heinrich were hurrying away from Burgdorf and to their camp beyond the walls. It was approaching vespers when they arrived, and that left them only three hours to both calculate and execute a plan of rescue. “Look about us,” whined Benedetto. “We’ve naught but smooth-faced lads, girls, a cripple, an old man, and a minstrel. We’ve a stubborn mule, no warhorse, and but one playful hound.”
An army like this
We ought not to resist.
That army of knaves
Will put us in graves.
Pieter dragged his forefinger aimlessly in the dust and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Indeed. Sounds like the makings of a good ballad.” He sighed and looked about the circle of blank faces staring back. Humph. This pathetic fellowship of castoffs and misfits against the Knights Templar? We must be mad!
Perspiring in the summer heat, Heinrich offered two poor ideas. Wil blurted some harebrained scheme, and Pieter struggled to find any solution. It was Tomas who stepped from the margins of the camp and offered a plan. The lad had been dark and brooding over the past weeks. He had taken what simple pleasure he could by sniping at the others from time to time, but his disappointment with the Dark Lord and his brief stay in Dragonara had plied his heart enough to let the occasional kindness of others bring a little light to him. “Blasius was kind to me,” he muttered. “He was an oblate like me. Some say he was my cousin. Brother Lukas swore it, but I was never sure.”
Heinrich leaned forward. “How a cousin, lad?”
“Seems we’re both of Gunnar stock, shepherds by Arfurt. They had a feud with your family for generations. And I’m told you had some hand in the murder of some.” The lad’s expression suddenly darkened.
Heinrich felt sick. “I… I murdered no one, boy.”
“Killed, then?” Tomas sneered.
Surprised, Heinrich looked at Wil and struggled for words. “Well, we’d a fight on the Villmar road when I was young, a little younger than Wil.”
Tomas cursed.
“It was long before you were born, lad. I had no hand in your father’s death, and I know nothing of it.”
“Ja? Well, perhaps you killed Blasius’s father instead.”
Heinrich’s face hardened. “‘Twas a Gunnar who killed my own father.”
“Enough!” cried Pieter. “We’ve business to tend to.”
Within the hour, Tomas’s plan was begun. The black-haired youth led Wil, a trembling Benedetto, Helmut, Otto, Rudolf, and Heinz quietly through the alleyways of Burgdorf to the large corrals kept safe within the city walls.
Meanwhile, Heinrich and Pieter crept to their assigned hiding places in the brush rimming the Galgenberg—the hanging hill. The hill sprouted from the valley like a wart on a witch’s face, and atop it stood a wide-limbed leafy chestnut tree dotted with green nuts. Here the pair waited breathlessly, hoping Frieda was obediently keeping herself and Maria out of view with Paulus and Solomon.
In Burgdorf, Tomas gave orders from behind a hay barn. “Heinz, go now.”
The elfish scamp scurried away and sneaked past the marshal’s guards to let his nimble fingers release the ropes that held the gates of the corral. Benedetto was then ordered to his duties. The little minstrel had determined to redeem his cowardice in Domodossola and now strutted bravely toward the doorway of a nearby hall where some soldiers were enjoying their supper. With a deep breath, he began singing loudly and playing his lute with all the bravado his timid spirit could muster.
Distracted, groups of drunken men-at-arms wandered into the street and stared at the tiny man. Laughing, they began to leap about the street like so many mad fools. The men drew others, and soon the pilgrims’ troubadour was crooning over the din of an entire barracks.
With the corral unlocked and most of the soldiers distracted, Tomas and the others flew to their tasks. Wil and Otto ran into a nearby barn and set it on fire with torches taken from a vacant shop. At the first sign of smoke, the stable master’s guards predictably ran from their posts, and the moment they were gone, Heinz, Helmut, and Rudolf dashed from their cover to chase the wide-eyed herd toward the far end of a street where the city gate was still open. The three lads heaved stones and sticks, shouted, and flailed their arms as the horses thundered past the grasping hands of surprised sentries.