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The smoke was thick, cloaking Reinmar von Kaltenberg as he sat in the shadows beneath the minstrel’s gallery. His lute was balanced across his thighs, grey eyes watching the chaos of the feast hall. Taking account of everything. But then, that was why he was here. Not to play songs for the rich in their cups. But to learn all he could for his paymaster.
Torches guttered in their sconces, painting the walls in flickering yellows. Three dozen retainers crowded the long tables, most of them drunk past wisdom. A mastiff fought a spaniel for a bone beneath the high table while servants stepped around them. Someone had vomited in the rushes near the hearth, and no one had bothered to cover it with fresh straw.
Lord Gerhard von Eberbach presided over the turmoil from his carved chair, a fat man in a wine-stained tunic, face flushed with the red glow of someone who would not see sixty. His wife had been dead three years. His eldest sons were with Ludwig’s army, or Frederick’s. Reinmar had heard they had thrown their lot in with both and neither, over the past two days. Not that Gerhard von Eberbach seemed to give a damn about war, as he laughed at something one of his knights had said, spraying flecks of meat across the table.
This was the Rhineland in the year of our Lord thirteen hundred and thirteen. An empire without an emperor, a realm bleeding from a thousand cuts while two men fought over the corpse. And here were its great and good. Feasting.
Reinmar ran his thumb across the lute strings, checking the tuning. The wood was warm from his body heat, familiar as an old scar. He had carried this instrument across half of Christendom, through mud and blood and worse, and it had never failed him. Neither had his sword, which rested against the wall behind, wrapped in oiled cloth to keep the blade from rusting in this damp country.
A servant appeared at his elbow, a thin girl with a bruise on her cheek and fear in her eyes. ‘My lord says you should play now, if it please you.’
‘It pleases me,’ Reinmar said with a smile he hoped would put her at ease, and rose.
The hall fell quiet as he stepped into the torchlight. Not silent, that would come, but hushed, as men who had heard the name quieted to see if the legend matched the man. Reinmar let them look. Let them see every one of his forty-six years. His dark hair shot through with grey, his face weathered by decades on the road.
He took his place before the high table, where Lord Gerhard could see him properly, and struck the first chord. He chose an old ballad, composed in the manner of the masters, Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach. Minnesingers whose names had become legend while their art slowly died. The form was falling out of fashion. The merchant cities wanted lighter fare now, songs of wit and commerce in the Meistersinger tradition, rather than the honour and sacrifice of the Minnesang. But in these halls, among men who still bore swords, the old songs had power. This one told of doomed knights riding through autumn forests toward a battle they could not win, their banners bright against the stormy sky, their hearts full of glory they would never live to see. Reinmar had learned it from a blind singer in Worms when he was young enough to believe that such men still existed.
He no longer believed.
But he could make others believe, and that was worth more than truth.
His voice filled the hall, a deep baritone that seemed to rise from somewhere beneath the flagstones. The words were simple, they always were, but his tone found the grief that language could only gesture toward. He sang of men who knew they were riding to their deaths and rode anyway, not because they thought they would win, but because honour demanded it. Because some things mattered more than life.
The room was silent now. Truly silent. Reinmar did not look at his audience, a performer’s trick, making each man feel that the song was meant for him alone, but he was aware of them nonetheless. The grizzled sergeant at the far table, tears cutting channels through the grime on his cheeks. The young squire near the door, his cup forgotten in his hand, his eyes wide as a child’s. Lord Gerhard himself, leaning forward in his chair, his piggish face transformed into something almost noble by the music’s spell.
Reinmar’s fingers moved across the strings, bringing his instrument to life. The lute and the longsword required the same discipline, the same hours of repetition, until thought was unnecessary to make them sing. He had killed his first man at sixteen, written his first song at seventeen, and he was no longer certain which had taken more of his soul.
The ballad reached its end: the last knight falling, his blood darkening the autumn leaves, his soul ascending toward a heaven he had earned through sacrifice. Reinmar held the final note, let it fade into the smoke-thick air, then lowered his head.
The silence held for three heartbeats.
Then the hall erupted.
Men stamped their feet against the flagstones, pounded their fists on the tables, roared their approval until the dogs cowered and the serving girls fled. Someone threw a heller that clattered at Reinmar’s feet; others followed, a silver rain. He gathered none of it. A minstrel of his repute did not scramble for coins like a common jongleur.
Instead Reinmar smiled. One he had practised in mirrors until he could no longer tell if it was real or artifice. He bowed, low and courtly.
‘You honour me, friend,’ he said to a knight who pressed a cup of wine into his hands. ‘You honour me,’ he said to the squire who stammered praise. ‘You honour me,’ to the sergeant, to the steward, to every man who approached with shining eyes and wine-loosened tongue. He called them all ‘friend,’ that word that meant nothing and everything, his shield against genuine connection.
Lord Gerhard hauled himself from his chair and descended the dais gingerly, knees clearly giving him trouble. The hall hushed again, awaiting the lord’s judgement.
‘When the Iron Lark speaks,’ Gerhard intoned, the well-known phrase rolling off his tongue with obvious pleasure, ‘every man listens. But when he sings…’ He paused for effect, his small eyes gleaming. ‘Even God lends an ear.’
Reinmar inclined his head. ‘My lord flatters me beyond my deserving.’
‘Flattery implies falsehood,’ Gerhard said, clapping a heavy hand on Reinmar’s shoulder. ‘And every word I speak is true. Stay another night, minstrel. My hall is poorer without your voice in it.’
‘Alas, the road calls me. The wanderer’s curse. We cannot rest too long in any one place, lest we put down roots.’
Gerhard sighed, the romantic notion clearly appealing to him. ‘Then go with God, Iron Lark. And return to us when your wandering brings you back to the Rhine.’
Reinmar moved through the hall, slowed by the press of bodies, the grasping hands, the wine cups thrust toward him. He accepted each offering with the same warm smile, the same murmured thanks, the same deflection of questions he had no intention of answering honestly.
‘Where will you go next, minstrel?’
‘Wherever the wind takes me, friend.’
‘Have you truly performed for Ludwig himself?’
‘I have had that honour, though I confess his taste runs more to hunting songs than ballads of old.’
‘And Frederick? They say you sang at his coronation in Bonn.’
‘A minstrel goes where he is welcome, friend. Politics is for lords, not poor singers.’
He was nearly at the door when the boy intercepted him.
Wilhelm was seventeen or eighteen. Lord Gerhard’s youngest, with his father’s small eyes but none of his corpulence. The boy’s face was flushed with wine and hero-worship, his words tumbling over each other in his eagerness.
‘Herr Reinmar… I mean, master minstrel… I wanted to say… that it has been a pleasure, nay, an honour to host you at my father’s court.’
‘The honour has been mine, friend.’ Reinmar clasped the boy’s shoulder, feeling the thin bones beneath the velvet. ‘You have the makings of a fine knight. I can see it in you. Serve your father well, and when the time comes, serve your emperor. Whichever emperor the realm finally chooses. That is where honour lies.’
The boy would remember this moment for years. Reinmar knew that with certainty, because he remembered similar moments from his own youth, when men of renown had spoken to him with kindness. Men whose words he had treasured like relics.
‘I will do that, Herr Reinmar.’
One last smile before Reinmar clapped the boy on his shoulder and turned to leave. He felt guilt burning in his chest at his deceit but buried it with the ease of long practice.
Over the past two days, Wilhelm had told him a great deal he should not have. Troop movements. Political alignments. The name of a Habsburg cousin who had visited, the direction he had ridden, the size of his escort. The boy trusted him because he was the Iron Lark, because legends were trustworthy and minstrels were harmless.
Neither thing was true.
The night air hit him like cold water, washing away the smoke and sweat and wine-stink of the hall. Reinmar stood in the courtyard for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, then he crossed to the stables, where his rouncy waited. A good animal, unremarkable in colour and marking, chosen specifically because no one would remember it an hour after he had passed. The same philosophy governed his clothing, his manner, everything about him except his voice. That he could not disguise, and so he used it as a weapon instead of hiding it.
The stable boy was asleep in the hay. Reinmar saddled his horse in silence, secured his lute in its oiled leather case, and led the animal out through the postern gate. The guards waved him through without interest as he nodded at each, his smile still fixed. He was, after all, just a minstrel, leaving as minstrels always did, restless souls who could not bear to stay in one place for long.
The mask fell away as he rode across the drawbridge. Behind him, the castle was a dark mass against the darker sky, torchlight flickering in a few windows, the sounds of the feast still audible. Ahead, the road wound into the forest, pale in the starlight, leading toward the mountains.
He saw the shadow before it moved.
A figure detached itself from the darkness near a standing oak, fifty yards from the castle walls. Cloaked and hooded, slight of build. Reinmar guided his horse toward her and reined in.
‘You took your time.’ The woman’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried clearly in the night air.
‘The lord was generous with his wine. It would have been suspicious to leave too early.’
‘And?’
Reinmar dismounted, keeping the horse between himself and the road. From the walls, if anyone was watching, it would look like a traveller stopping to adjust his saddle, perhaps speaking to a servant about directions.
‘The Habsburg cousin came through fourteen days ago. Rode south with an escort of twelve men-at-arms, bound for Vienna according to the lord’s youngest. He carried letters. The boy didn’t know what was in them, but he saw the seals. Archbishop Heinrich of Cologne. Duke Leopold of Austria. Duke Rudolph of Saxe-Wittenberg.’
The woman absorbed this without comment. Her face was invisible beneath the hood, but Reinmar could feel her attention like the point of a blade.
‘Anything else?’
‘Rumours of a Free Company gathering in the eastern valleys. No names, no numbers.’
The woman reached into her cloak and produced a folded paper, sealed with unmarked wax. Reinmar took it without opening it.
‘New orders,’ she said. ‘Sternberg Pass. Ludwig wants it secured before the winter snows close it. The burgrave is Mechthild von Sternberg. Habsburg-aligned, but isolated. Her garrison is small, her supplies limited. She has no relief coming. But the position is critical. You know the election draws near?’
‘Of course,’ Reinmar replied.
The whole realm knew. With Henry of Luxembourg dead of malaria, or poison, no one could seem to decide which, they needed to elect a new Holy Roman Emperor. Ludwig von Wittelsbach and Frederick von Habsburg now circled each other like dogs over a bone, each claiming the throne, each waiting for the electors to make it official.
‘Archbishop Baldwin of Trier supports the Wittelsbach claim. When the time comes, he must travel to Frankfurt to cast his vote. The road runs through Sternberg Pass. Right now, that road is closed to him. Mechthild holds it for the Habsburgs, and she has no intention of letting Ludwig’s supporters pass.’
‘And if Baldwin cannot reach Frankfurt then Ludwig loses an elector’s voice.’
‘He does. And there’s more. Count Palatine Rudolf controls the territory downriver from Sternberg. He is Ludwig’s own brother, but he despises him. Thinks he’s the one who has the right to wear the crown, but his claim has been… overlooked. Rudolf supports the Habsburgs out of spite, and Mechthild’s alliance with him keeps the whole Nahe valley locked against Ludwig’s faction. Ludwig cannot prosecute his claim with the Nahe closed to him. Sternberg must be opened.’
‘And Ludwig’s terms?’
‘Open the pass. Diplomacy or force, he doesn’t care which, so long as it’s done before the first heavy snow. There’s the usual handgeld when it’s finished, and land if you want it. As you know, Ludwig rewards those who serve him well.’
‘Ludwig rewards those who succeed,’ Reinmar corrected. ‘Those who fail tend to find themselves forgotten.’
‘Then don’t fail.’
‘What if the lady refuses to treat?’
‘Then you do what you do, Iron Lark. You compose her a song she cannot help but listen to. And may God give you luck… friend.’
Then she was gone, melted into the night as though she had never been there at all. Reinmar tucked his orders away, mounted his horse and turned its head toward the east, toward the old mill where fifty swords waited for him to give them purpose.
And purpose he would give.
There was work to be done.
