“Stay in my chambers until you are summoned.” She softened the command with a small smile and then drifted out of the room.
A barrel of a man stood in front of the hearth in the great hall, his royal blue cape falling to mid-calf. A hat rested in his hand, plumes of colorful feathers dancing about with the small movements of his twitching fingers.
A throat cleared, and Christyne whipped her head around toward the sound along the far wall. A landsknecht stood in the shadows. Even in the dim light his brightly colored hosen and lederwam illuminated the dark space. Blue and white vertical stripes across his left leg, red and blue horizontal lines across his right. One sleeve yellow. One green. And a codpiece that caused her to flush from embarrassment. If not for the slash of a sneer across his grizzled face, he would remind her of a strutting peacock. But nay. If hewerea bird, it would be a vicious raptor to which he should be compared. One willing to rip out its prey’s heart with its hooked beak and razor-sharp talons.
The man from the hearth had also turned, but his scrutiny landed on her and not the soldier in the shadow. “Ah. The famed Princess of Heidelbraum at last.” He bowed slightly at the waist, but the movement was steeped in sarcasm and insincerity.
Christyne let her gaze fall on the man. She had never met him and had refused his offer of marriage based on reputation alone. She cared not that an alliance between their houses would strengthen their hold on the land betwixt them. She did care, however, that the whispered stories she had heard at court told of his acute cruelty toward his people. To such a man she would not bind herself.
Now that she gazed upon him, however, she saw not the hardness of a man who could squeeze his serfs with unmeetable taxes and then watch them starve a slow death or sell their children as slaves to quench the debts owed him. Nor did he seem capable of supporting the holy war on either side—fighting for freedom of conscience on the one hand or enforcing death by burning on the other.
Nay. Though his lip curled in a sneer, she perceived it stemmed more from a wound to his pride, inflicted by her rejection, than the temperature of his heart.
She returned his gesture of courtesy and offered her own dip of the head. “Your presence honors the house of Heidelbraum,HerzogKampff.” She rose and met his steady gaze. “My Father is away collecting his new bride at the present. Perchance you would do well to rest yourself and your men for the night and make plans to return when the prince is again in attendance.”
His eyes sparkled, and she had the impression he was amused by her attempt to be rid of him.He pointed to the soldier in the corner, and the man stepped forward as if beckoned. “Your hospitality is most gracious, but I fear our mission is of utmost import and cannot be delayed even one night.”
Her shoulders wanted to sag in relief, but she pinned them back in place. “Oh? And what mission is that, pray tell?”
Both men stepped forward, and she unconsciously took a step back in retreat. The smell of strong perfume lingering about their persons did not mask the stench of sweating horseflesh and trail dust.
“I have received a letter from a dear friend in Zurich. He is an official there and greatly distressed. You see, they have recently had a concerning outbreak of radical thought in that city that, left rooted, will spread like a noxious weed, choking the inhabitants.”
The duke’s brow creased as if this news were especially upsetting.
Christyne could make no sense of it. When real evil roamed the earth—pillaging highwaymen, raping marauders, thieves clothed in both priestly and royal robes, their own people naked and starving for want of food—how could so many set fire to their tempers and allow their innards to boil until they scourged those who did no real harm? Those who merely followed their consciences to a place where their thoughts and beliefs aligned not with the masses?
Therulingmasses.
And there was the burn. Though cloaked with a righteous indignation, many in power sought to eradicate these so-called weeds because they dared raise their voices to be heard over the deafening roar of a howling beast that had been wounded by Martin Luther’s famed ninety-five theses.
She had read the list of proclamations that had been nailed to the church’s doors in Wittenberg on All Saints’ Day, but she did not understand all the scholar had written. Before then, she had accepted Bishop Wilmer’s teaching, though his descriptions of purgatory and Hades frightened her. Now her ideas on Christ were muddled at best. A pool of water in the dirt, created by a heavy rain, brown and impossible to see through.
But one thing was clear. One thing had rung true from the pamphlets she had read of Luther’s writing:“To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.”Whoever demanded spiritual adherence on pain of torture and death—be they a reformer or the pope himself—in their religion she could take no part. A person’s spiritual beliefs should be between them and God alone.
She pressed her lips together, afraid her radical thoughts would find a voice that would cause herself to be named a heretic.
“You do not seem horrified by the knowledge of such rebellion, princess.” Kampff studied her.
She returned his regard with an air of indifference, although the scales were now falling from her eyes. Though the Duke of Schlestein had presented himself a lamb, cultured and poised, he was but a wolf cloaked in the sheep’s fleece. Even now his nose twitched, seeking the scent of desertion.
“I am but a lowly female, HerzogKampff. It is beyond my mental faculties to understand the matters of men.” Bile rose in her throat.
A low growl seemed to emanate from the region of the landsknecht’s throat. Christyne’s eyes widened at the sound.
“Excuse the captain, if you please.” Kampff apologized with the sincerity of a frog. “He does not take lightly the breaking of the law.”
She clutched at the amethyst stone resting in the hollow of her throat, forcing mock outrage to show on her face. “Of course not. I applaud your…enthusiasm for your task, Captain.”
The duke ran his fingers over the colored feathers sprouting from his hat. “You see, in this specific band of renegades, even the women have allowed their minds to be tainted by the twisted falsehoods of the Anabaptists.”
Christyne’s brows reached for her hairline. “Anabaptists? They are against baptism then?”
Kampff’s lips curled. “The devils wish to condemn an infant’s sinful soul to Hades by not allowing them to receive the sacrament of baptism in their cradles.” He scoffed. “They go so far as torebaptize each other in adulthood, claiming their baptism as infants was not scriptural and they must declare and confess their faith by true baptism as a grown man.”
“And for this they must burn?” She prayed he heard not the alarm in her voice.
“For this they must drown. Is it not fitting, since these devils wish to sin in such a deplorable manner? King Ferdinand of Aragon calls the drownings the best antidote to Anabaptism—their third and final baptism.”
