Let his heart be changed from man’s,
and let a beast’s heart be given unto him…
Daniel 4:16
“Good morning, Master,” Basti sang out as he stepped into the workroom and grabbed the broom from its corner. The sculptor jumped, turning a drawn face toward his apprentice. Shadows ringed his eyes and the lines in his face seemed deeper this morning.
“Is it morning already?” Danti pulled off his heavy gloves and rubbed his face with his hands. His short beard made a dry, scratching sound. “I never even noticed.”
“I can tell.” Basti looked around the room. The lamps were almost dry, flames guttering. An empty wine-jar lay on its side on one table. “Have you been working all night again?”
“So it seems.” The middle-aged sculptor sat on one edge of a table and dropped the gloves next to him. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I must have slept too late the day before.” He half-turned to stare at the statue. “The work’s going well, though.”
Basti’s eyes followed Danti’s gaze, taking in the statue that dominated the center of the room.
The figure was slightly more defined than it had been several days before. Its back was turned to the door, so that it faced the window. Danti had swathed the huntsman in a long cloak that wound its way around the figure in justdiscernible folds destined to be deepened and polished. Only another sculptor could appreciate how much he had done in just a few days, but, Basti thought critically, his master was paying the price in his health.
“You need to get more sleep,” he ventured, turning back to his instructor. “You don’t look very good.”
“I can’t sleep and work at the same time,” Danti said defensively. Then he took a deep breath and cricked his neck. In a more genial tone, he asked, “How much snow did we get last night?”
Winter had finally served up the first snowstorm last night, fulfilling Albrecht’s predictions at last. Araciel and Caterina had led Basti outside to stand in the snowfall, after he’d admitted that he’d never been out in the snow before.
The silence, the whiteness, had struck him as both spooky and serene at the same time. He’d stayed up later, after their card game had ended, looking out his open window and watching the snowflakes glow as they drifted past the candle on his windowsill.
“Albrecht said it snowed about a foot or so.” Basti smiled and looked down at the broom handle, rubbing its dents and scratches with his thumb. “And I went outside this morning to check.”
“Whew.” The sculptor scratched his beard and stood. “Sounds like we’re finally in for it, then. I guess I’d better go down and see if Albrecht has anything left to eat.” He squinted and looked at Basti. “How are you coming along? Is your arm any better?”
“Albrecht’s been keeping an eye on the bites, sir. It’s been almost a month now, and they’re nearly healed.”
“No problems moving your hand?”
“No, sir.” Basti flexed his fingers, a habit now. What he didn’t dare admit was that his arm still ached sometimes, around the bite marks, even though the flesh was closing. “I could start helping you sculpt, if you want.”
“Hmm.” Danti yawned and looked back at his sculpture. “I might have you filing and smoothing soon, but I’d also like to see some preliminary drawings for a work of your own.” He smiled as he passed his apprentice, clapping the boy on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. This is just a passing phase. I’ll become diurnal again, I promise.”
Basti smiled at his tutor’s back and began sweeping out the room. Danti wanted to see some of his sketches! He eagerly began turning ideas over in his head. Someday he wanted to work on an equestrian statue, but that was too hard for a beginner. It was something to aspire to. He needed to begin with something smaller and easier. Maybe a hound, he thought. Something small that had good musculature and very definable expressions.
Thinking about expressions, he glanced up at the statue’s face, turned toward the pale light from the window. Its roughed-out face seemed to be watching the courtyard with an arrogant sense of ownership. Basti’s fingers twitched, halfway between wanting to cross himself and wanting to make a set of the horns to ward off evil. If he’d ever had any doubts that Danti had seen the Erl King, they were gone now. That face was far too similar to the one he’d seen turned up toward him the day before.
“Basti?”
“Yikes!” He jumped around, heart pounding. Caterina stood in the doorway, staring at him with surprise. “Uh, sorry. I thought I was alone.”
“I guess so.” She laughed. “I came to see if you’d like to go riding down to Gestern before the snow closes off the paths. She twitched marble dust from the hem of her skirt as she stood in the doorway. “Will Danti need you this morning?”
“Well,” Basti hesitated. “No, I don’t think so. He worked late last night, so he’ll be sleeping this morning.” He looked around. “My only chore is to clean up.”
“Good. Why don’t you come with us, then? Albrecht’s assistants are leaving for the winter before the snow blocks the trails, and I want to ride down to Gestern to pick up some sewing supplies. Come with me, so you can keep me company on the way back. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not,” Basti said, flattered. “But — aren’t Araciel or Dietrich going to come?”
“They’re both working with Mother and Father today.” She shrugged, pulling back a strand of brown hair that was working loose from a chaplet of gold net. “But I don’t want to wait until tomorrow, not with the snow already starting to fall. I’m sure nobody can object to you escorting me.”
Basti straightened up, glad that she trusted him. “Do you want to leave immediately, Donna?”
“As soon as we can get ready. I’ll meet you in the stables!” She hurried off.
Basti quickly finished sweeping the floor and putting away Danti’s tools, then raced upstairs to his room to change out of his work clothes and dress for the cold.
By the time he reached the stables, shivering as his boots sank into the snow, Albrecht’s assistants had saddled two horses and were chattering amiably in German with Caterina. She was dressed in warm, fur-lined riding clothes, holding Tommaso for him and her own mare, Luce, for herself. Everybody’s breath curled around them like steam.
“What are your parents working on?” Basti asked as he courteously handed her up into the saddle. The boys walked alongside them, heavy leather boots crunching in the snow.
“A purification of reagents,” she said, letting him lead the way down the snow-covered trail. “They’ll be locked up in the lab from dawn to dusk. It’s very boring, painstaking work, and if they make a mistake they have to go back and start all over.”
“You know a lot about it.”
“Well, you can’t help picking up a few things when you grow up with alchemists,” she said, smiling ruefully. “I’m just glad Mother never insisted I join them. I enjoy languages and philosophy, but I don’t have any interest in their musty old experiments.”
The ride down the mountain was slow but pleasant. Basti enjoyed looking at the snow-covered vista that spread before him whenever the trail broke out of the trees. The mountains seemed to stretch on forever, their sharp peaks glowing white where they peered out from the grey clouds that surrounded them. He’d never seen anything so wild or so beautiful, and the sight tugged something deep inside of him, some instinct he’d never felt before.
But his attention was always drawn back to the conversation, because Caterina kept him talking about himself and all of the sights he’d seen on the road. The two Gestern lads listened with half an ear, their Italian almost as bad as Basti’s German.
Gestern was a small village supported primarily by goat-herding and wood-cutting. Its placement on the trail also made it a traveler’s stop on the trip through the mountains. Wooden houses with sharply slanted roofs and small windows were scattered back from the trail, half-hidden by the dark trees. Most of the village’s families had resided there for as many generations as anyone could remember.
As Caterina and Basti rode past, the villagers tersely nodded a greeting, then watched as they rode on. Basti fell silent, uncomfortable with the reserved attention they drew. In Napoli, people would have been friendlier … and more curious.
“We need to stop here,” Caterina said, reining in and sliding from her saddle. Basti looked at the house curiously; it didn’t look like a shop at all. Albrecht’s helpers cheerfully took their leave, trudging off through the snow back to their homes.
“Good day, Fraulein Caterina,” a man said in German as they entered, getting to his feet and setting aside a pair of shoes he was repairing. The front room had been turned into a workshop, of a sort, and was warmed by a large stove. Basti looked around at the bolts of fabric, the scraps of leather, the drawers of needles and pins, ribbons and thread. The stripped wooden floor squeaked under their snow-covered shoes.
“How are you, Franz?” she replied in the same language. “Have you met Sebastiano? He’s Danti’s new apprentice, and will be staying with us this winter.”
Basti shook hands with the shopkeeper and nodded to the shopkeeper’s family, who also sat near the tiled stove. While Caterina and Franz began to walk toward the bolts of fabric, he edged closer to the stove and pulled off his riding gloves. Two women, a boy and an infant huddled in its warmth.
“You’re the Italian who was attacked on the road here,” observed an old woman, who sat repairing a linen shirt.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, a little self-conscious about his heavily accented German. “I am Sebastiano da Napoli.”
“You’re better now?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He unconsciously rubbed his arm through heavy winter cloak and parsed out the sentence he needed next. “Did Jakob kill the wolf who attacked me?”
“Nobody’ll ever kill that one,” the old lady muttered ominously.
“Come, mother.” A younger woman looked up from a baby she cradled. “Don’t scare the boy.” She smiled at Basti, who immediately took a liking to her. “It probably ran off, frightened by all the hunters.”
“Wilhelm lost a dog two days ago,” the elder woman pointed out.
“If the wolf were still around, Jakob would have caught it.”
“You arm still hurts, doesn’t it?” the old woman asked abruptly. Basti nodded, struggling to keep up with the conversation. He found it easier to listen than to speak, but the villager’s accents were different from the accents in the Keep, and they spoke a lot faster. “It will ache until the wolf is dead, boy.”
He stared at her. Suddenly she seemed a lot like one of the stregas in his home country. “Why?”
“That’s just the way it is,” she shrugged, squinting a moment at her stitching. Her eyes flickered over the top of the shirt to meet his. “The wolf got his teeth in you, boy, and he’ll keep his teeth in you until he’s dead. He wanted you as his own, or he would have killed you right then.”
“Jakob and his son scared it off before it could kill me.” The word “kill” sounded strange to him, and he signed to ward off evil.
“Huh.” She pursed her lips. “You think wolves come out of the forest and bite anyone they see? Your arm will ache for a long time, my boy. A long time.”
Basti rubbed his arm again. It did ache, from the cold.
“What can I do to stop it?”
“Leave the keep,” she said immediately. “Get away from that place, go back south where it’s warm and the power of the Church is strong. If you go far enough south, perhaps you’ll leave the pain behind.”
“Oh, mother, you’re scaring the boy.” The young lady sighed and gave Basti a sympathetic look. “Don’t mind Grandma. She doesn’t like foreigners.”
“This has nothing to do with foreigners,” the old lady protested. “The boy needs to be careful up there. Winter’s the season of the Erlkönig, and a soft child from the south can’t possibly understand what that means.”
“The Erl King? Will you tell me more about him?” Basti asked, attention caught. “My master –- Danti, the sculptor –- is working on a sculpture of him.” He decided he’d better not tell them that they’d seen the Erl King at the keep. ”Who is he?”
“Who is he?” the old woman snorted. “That’s his house, the keep. It has been since my own grandmother’s time. Fixing the walls and roof doesn’t make it any less his. And a bunch of foreigners moving inside — no wonder he’s been restless.”
“Please, mother. The lord and lady are fine people, and they haven’t caused any trouble at all.” The young woman shot a nervous glance toward Caterina, as if afraid the girl had overheard.
“The keep belongs to the Erl King?” Basti leaned forward. This conversation was taxing his command of German, but he thought he was getting most of it.
“He’s the king of the mountains. He rides out during storms and hunts during the winter, surrounded by his pack. He likes to steal young children away. And especially bad boys, he turns into wolves,” the old woman said, fixing a stern eye on her grandson, who giggled and scuttled toward his mother. “When the wind gets loud you can hear his wolves baying, and when he’s ahunt, travelers on the road never return.”
Basti felt a chill. “Why is the keep his?”
“Because,” the grandmother leaned forward with an enthusiastic glint in her eye, “he was invited in by the last of the Gestern line. But,” she said, pursing her lips and shaking her head, “I shouldn’t say things that will frighten you.”
“Please, fraü, I want to hear the story very much,” Basti begged, knowing exactly what the old woman was after. He’d had a grandmother much like her, filled with spooky stories that had to be wheedled free.
The old woman paused a long moment, then began sewing again.
“Well,” she said as she stitched, “nobody knows exactly what happened. It happened during winter. The snow had—,” she said a word he didn’t understand, “—Gestern Keep away, as it does every year. But that winter was a particularly bad one,” she intoned, “much worse than ever before.
“As I heard it from my mother, and she heard it from her mother, who’d been a girl when it all happened, the master of the keep, the Lord Gestern himself, went mad. He hunted down everyone in the keep and killed them all, tearing them apart. Nobody knew what had happened until the roads were,” something he didn’t understand, “a month later. Then a few of our men went up to see if the keep needed any more firewood, and they saw blood on the snow in the —” she spoke another word he didn’t comprehend. “Lord Gestern said he was the Erlkönig’s —” something, “— that he’d been ordered to sacrifice his people to —” something “— the winter.” Her voice was dark.
Basti drew in a deep breath. It wasn’t too hard to guess the words he didn’t understand.
“He sold his soul to hell. The woodsmen who found him –- my own greatgrandfather was among them –- said he was walking on all fours and leaped for their throats when they found him. And the bodies….” Her voice hushed and she shook her head. “Well, they say he had to eat something that winter….”
Basti rubbed his shoulder. The old woman was taking a morbid enjoyment out of the tale, but he had a harder time appreciating it. After all, he had to live exactly where it had all happened.
“The men took Lord Gestern to Pacito for trial, but nobody ever returned. Much, much later we discovered that they’d never gotten to Pacito at all. They were lost in a spring floods while—” something “—a river, most people say. But others say they were attacked and killed by the young master of the keep once they let down their—” another word he didn’t understand. The old woman gave Basti a sharp glance. “And they say it’s Gestern in a wolf’s skin who attacks travelers now, still hungry for a taste of human blood.”
Basti realized he was clutching the spot where the wolf had bitten him. He dropped his hand. The old lady seemed gratified by his reaction, clucking to herself.
“It wasn’t long after that hunters started seeing lights up in the abandoned keep and hearing howling like a band of wolves living in the halls. They say the Erl King had taken up residence there, welcomed in by the blood Lord Gestern had spilled.
“So we left the place alone, let the Erl King have it. It’s no good—” something “—with those powers, the old powers. The Erl King ruled this land ever before any mortal soul lived here, and it isn’t our place to defy him.” She turned to eye Caterina, who was fingering a bolt of fabric and chatting with the shopkeeper. “I don’t carry any—” something “—against the new owners; the fraülein and her brothers are always polite when they visit, and the Boucher boys don’t have any bad words to raise against the lord and lady. But they’ll come to no good living up there, where the Erl King dwells.” She looked sternly at Basti. “And you, lad, you’re still young enough to capture the Erlkönig’s interest. Be careful up there, and keep an eye on the young lady. That keep is cursed, and nothing good will come to anybody who lives there.”
“I believe you,” Basti replied, thinking about what he’d already seen there and feeling a chill of trepidation at the thought of being trapped there all winter. He swallowed. “Do they say … how do you escape the Erl King, if he gets angry at you?”
“I’ve never heard of anyone escaping him,” she replied darkly. “He’s Der Tod himself – Death.” She pursed her lips. “But I’m sure that if you have a pure heart, God will protect you,” she added piously.
“Father Völker has already exorcised the keep for the lord and lady,” the young mother added, smiling at Basti. “I’m sure you have nothing to fear.”
Basti nodded, reluctant to tell her that it hadn’t worked. He didn’t have any particular affection toward priests, but Father Völker had helped tend him when he’d been wounded on the road, and he didn’t want to damage the man’s reputation.
He looked toward Caterina. She was finishing, the shopkeeper wrapping her purchases into bundles for her. “Thank you, ladies. I’ll remember what you said.” He hurried to carry Caterina’s packages outside.
“Uh oh,” Caterina said, looking up when they stepped out the door. Snowflakes lazily drifted against her face, melting quickly. Basti shivered and secured the bundles to the saddles with straps, chilled after standing by the stove. “We’d better hurry, in case this turns into a real storm.”
“Let’s go,” Basti agreed, closing up his heavy cloak again and pulling on his gloves. “I don’t want to get trapped halfway up the mountain.”
It wasn’t long after they entered the dark pine forest that they heard a wolf howl, long and low. Caterina lifted her head and looked around, stroking Luce’s mane with a doeskin-gloved hand.
“Are there lots of wolves in these mountains?” Basti asked nervously, remembering the frau’s tale and the pawprint he’d seen the day before. At least Tommaso seemed unworried. Basti had a feeling that the mild-tempered gelding wouldn’t even flinch if a wolf leaped into the saddle and devoured him right there. He wished he felt as calm.
“Yes,” Caterina admitted, watching the forest that edged the road. “But we should be safe. Dietrich says there’s been no sign of the creature that attacked you, and it’s too early in the winter for wolves to get hungry enough to attack humans. Usually they stay away from people unless they’re starving.”
Basti took a tighter grip on Tommaso’s reins and tried to relax. The snow began to fall harder, making it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead. Their pace slowed, Basti staying slightly in the lead, as was proper.
The snowfall silenced the forest, until even the smallest noise was audible. Snow crunched under their horses’ hooves as they climbed, and leather creaked as they shifted in their saddles, trying to stay warm. Sometimes a noise from the forest made Basti jump and peer nervously around, only to discover that it was only snow sliding from a pine bough or a rabbit hopping through dry weeds. He brushed flakes from his eyelashes and cheeks with the back of a gloved hand, the cold leather abrasive against his chilled skin.
“Wait,” Caterina said, stiffening. “Do you hear that?”
They reined in their horses, listening. In a moment Basti heard it, too: hooves drumming on the snow-covered ground. As they sat motionless, it was the only noise to break the winter silence.
“Someone’s coming this way, and fast,” he said. Caterina nudged Luce to the side of the road, and Basti followed suit.
In less than a minute the rider turned the trail’s hairpin curve, his horse’s tail and black fur-lined cloak swirling out over the steep mountain drop. Snow sprayed up in white plumes from beneath the steed’s thundering hooves. Basti tensed, expecting to see the beast lose its footing any moment and plunge off the trail’s edge to the rocky slopes below. Miraculously, neither the horse nor its somberly clad rider faltered as they pounded down the trail.
“What..?” Caterina began, lifting a hand. The rider glanced up but didn’t slow as he rushed past. Ice crawling in his veins, Basti recognized the dark huntsman’s sharp face and dangerous eyes; and then the rider vanished behind another turn in the trail.
Basti realized he’d bared his teeth, muscles tensed in anticipation of attack. He forced himself to relax, signing yet again to ward off evil.
It was the first time he’d seen the Erl King outside the gates of Gestern Keep.
“Araciel was right,” Caterina breathed. Basti turned. She was pale in her heavy velvet and furs, brown eyes large and frightened as she gazed at the snow on the trail. The new rider’s tracks weren’t there. “This winter’s going to be bad. The Erl King is going to hunt.”
Basti swallowed. “He looks just like the statue Danti is carving.”
“May God watch over us and keep us safe,” she murmured, crossing herself. “I need to tell Mother and Father about this.”
Basti shivered, numb fingers fumbling with Tommaso’s reins.
“Do you think we’re in danger?” he asked, leading them at a somewhat faster pace.
Caterina was silent for a long moment.
“Yes,” she admitted at last. “My parents don’t tell me everything, Basti, but I listen, and I can put two and two together. Araciel has been helping them cast horoscopes for the winter, and the stars bear messages of death. They think the Erl King will be the cause.”
Basti looked over his shoulder. “Why didn’t anybody tell me?” he asked, feeling his fear transforming into resentment. “Don’t I count? If there’s danger, if somebody’s going to die this winter, then maybe we shouldn’t stay in the keep!”
“First of all, I just told you everything I know,” Caterina snapped, looking up. “And second of all, you’re forgetting your place. You’re just an apprentice. It’s Danti’s decision whether you stay or go!”
Basti’s hot reply was cut short by the sound of iron clanking. He jerked his head around again and realized they were nearing the keep’s iron gates. Alrune stood with one gloved hand on the iron bars, holding them open. In a red cap and a fool’s parti-colored cloak, he cut a brilliant figure against the black-and-white landscape.
“The company of friends makes winter’s cold less chill,” he greeted them, his dark eyes glittering with mockery. Basti bit back his reply and nodded sharply, still angry with Caterina –- or her parents — or maybe just himself. She rode wordlessly past, and both attempted to ignore each other as they dismounted by the stable.
Alrune chuckled as he closed the gates and walked back to the keep, tossing the end of his overlong wool cloak over one shoulder to keep it from dragging in the snow.
Pulling his gloves off, Basti surreptitiously watched Caterina to figure out what he was supposed to do about the saddle and bridle. He’d never learned how to tend to a horse, but he was too proud to admit it to her. After a few minutes she turned on him and saw him fumbling with the buckles.
“Oh, let me do it,” she said irritably. “Tommaso will freeze before you figure it out.”
“Sorry!” Basti backed off, scowling. “I’m just an apprentice, remember?”
“Then watch and learn,” she said shortly. Despite his annoyance, Basti did, wishing he’d let Araciel teach him how to unsaddle a horse, back on their earlier rides.
“Here.” She slid the saddle from Tommaso’s back and handed it to him. “You know where it goes?”
He nodded and took it inside the stable, laying it over the rail next to the others. She followed with the rest of the tack, looking less like a nobleman’s daughter than a particularly pretty stablegirl. Basti knew what Araciel or Dietrich would say, if they could see them now — he’d get soundly berated for letting Caterin do any of the work.
If the keep had a decent household staff, she wouldn’t have to, he thought, still feeling resentful.
“Look,” she said, sounding less angry than before, “astrology isn’t always clear. Death can mean a lot of things other than mortality. And it could be that someone will die because he tries to avoid the prophecy and gets caught in a sudden storm, or something like that.”
Basti shrugged sullenly, walking outside to help her lead the horses inside and rub them down.
“Maybe,” he said, begrudgingly. “But there are too many secrets around here. Everybody seems to be hiding something.”
“Not me.”
He glanced at her, and was struck again by how pretty she was.
Araciel’s an idiot, he thought, pulling his attention back to his work.
“Me, either,” he said.
“Good.”
They worked in silence a few minutes before Basti spoke again.
“Are you going to tell the lord and lady that we saw him?”
“Of course. As soon as we’re done here,” she said, leaning against Luce’s flank a moment. Snow melted from her face and clothes, and her hair had slipped from underneath its headdress in flyaway strands. She brushed it back from her face. “It might be important.”
“You know, Donna, if you studied alchemy like your mother, you wouldn’t have to get married and leave. You could stay here, like you said you wanted to.”
She smiled a little.
“It’s not that easy,” she said. “And I don’t mind getting married, if it’s to somebody I love. I just don’t like being put on display, like I was this summer.” She turned away, combing Luce’s mane. “I don’t want to spend my whole life studying ancient languages and mixing chemicals and staring at the stars. Gestern Keep is home,” she said wistfully, “but I’d like a husband and children.”
Basti watched her from the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t read anything important in her expression. He wanted desperately to ask her about Araciel, until he physically bit down on his tongue to keep from saying anything.
She didn’t seem to notice his silence as they finished grooming the horses and led them back to their stalls, making sure they had fresh grain and water.
“What about your brothers?” he asked, at last. “Are they going to get married?”
“Oh, certainly, but not until they’re older. Alfons will probably marry once he’s out of the university. Dietrich will be headed there soon, and I’m sure it’ll be the same.”
“And Araciel?” Basti said at last. Well, it made sense to ask, he defended himself.
“My cousin Marie is infatuated with him,” Caterina said, cheeks coloring. “But he never seems to think about women.”
Only one, Basti thought to himself, watching her with a trace of sadness.