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Noch Weiter! 
All who knew her called her Rose, although in truth, it could be said that the only one who really knew her was Otto, and he called her Blut-Rose.
Over the years, the villages began to swell and strain against the forests, and having emerged from the hunt on the edge of such a town one full moon's eve, she stayed, and was eventually swallowed up in its thrumming life, even finding her way to a husband. But Otto was a soldier, merely biding his time in the keeping of his father's shop until the next call to fields of blood. And so, when Maximilian I offered Lansknechts to the French, to defeat the Spanish-Italian armies of papal Rome, Fahndrich von Tot went, and his wife joined him, falling in line with the baggage train of other wives and children trailing the Fahnlein into battle. Ravenna, Italy - 1512 The French and German regiments, by order of Gaston de Foix, ravaged the town of Ravenna for two days, bombarding its walls and storming its gates like a firestorm. But the real rape of the town began when the doors had been swung wide, and the women were unleashed… they scavenged like vermin, wresting pouches of coin from the hands of children, and running their daggers through the delicate breasts of the town ladies as they were ripping all those glittering links from their refined necks. Rose herself came away with several chains of gold, and a number of pewter plates, which she carried tucked behind the placket of her bodice, and hidden in the thick folds of her skirts. As the sun set on the pillage, the air was thick with the screams of the town's daughters, the sweet smell of burning thatch, and the coppery taste of the blood of the dead as bodies piled in corners along the cobbled streets. And when the carcass of Ravenna had been picked clean, de Foix commanded his regiments to the edge of town, to prepare for Cordona, the leader of the Pope's armies. Had one been a bird, winging its way westward that evening, one might have dipped out of the night sky and seen an ocean of canvas triangles stretching across the landscape, the starry heavens reflected in the winking of campfires on the ground. Down in the camp, only the sound of crickets, and the occasional gruff murmur, mayhaps the clinking of cup against cup as the men wished each other well. An undercurrent of disquiet was looping its way through the camp in the wake of that day's intoxicating blood revelry… Cordona and his leagues were approaching from the south, and each soldier glanced uneasily to the face of his brother, knowing that he may not have it to look upon after the morrow. Behind the gently waving flap of one of the canvas triangles, Rose sat upright on a pallet of straw covered with a sheepskin, loosening the gauzy wrap that bundled her fiery tresses. The night breeze, rustling through the tent, caught at the edges of her simple linen partlet, smoothing the fabric against the swell of her breasts… no doubt, it was that picture that drew Otto's attention away from the filling of his pipe as he reclined on a pallet beside her. Peering up past the apex at the tent's door, Rose's wary eyes searched the sky, worry creasing her brow. "Was ist der tag, Otto? What is the day? How soon?…" Shrugging as though the matter were not of such great import, the burly ensign stretched across to a wooden chest at his side and lifted the lid, withdrawing a large pewter dial on the end of a chain and examining it, and then the sky. "Es ist nahe ~ it is near… ubermorgen vielleicht ~ perhaps the day after tomorrow." He turned to her, a clay pipe hanging from one corner of his mouth, and simply extended his hand, palm open. With a pout of regret, she hesitated just a moment, then draped the cloth from her hair over the outstretched arm. A moment later, she held her own arms up for him, wrists together, hands clasped tight. Wincing, she watched as her husband deftly looped the fabric restraints around her forearms, up and over, and back through, then tightening them with a snap that elicited a rather unladylike grunt from her, and knotting the ends firmly, so that there would be no chance of escape. With a resigned but somber smile, she nodded her thanks, and then, as was her habit, curled into the sanctuary of her husband's lap, to rest her sleeping head on his thigh as he finished an evening pipe. Otto raked his thick fingers through her locks, taking fistfuls and tugging gently, then releasing, as though he were fighting back the urge simply to rip the hair from her scalp… but his dark eyes were expressionless, blinking only occasionally as the thick tabac smoke curled up around his head. On the following day, the camp was astir with only the merest indications of life, the necessaries - meats roasting on a spit, droplets of fat sizzling down into the flame below; the murmur of prayer from Father Anders, the Lutheran priest's somber Latin cascading over the grim faces of colorfully-clad soldiers in blessing; the clank of pewter on porcelain as the men ravaged their midday meal of sausages and beef, stuffing great handfuls of bread and cheese down their gullets, washing them down with gulps of ale. Rose bypassed the noon-time feeding in favor of a few moments' rest, spent drawing a needle and black silk thread in a thorned pattern, through a swatch of linen destined to become Otto's new collar. Somewhere not too distant, the clash of practicing steel cut through the thick air of anticipation. Towards evening, a current of excitement gasped through the tented village. Rose, once again curled atop her pallet, hands hard at work, caught just a glimpse of mustard, as the thick woolen skirts of Otto's waffenrach swished by. Her interest tugged by his hurry, she rolled the linen into a tiny scroll and tucked it inside a wooden chest, then peeked her head out in time to see a blur of mustard turn the corner, toward the Hauptmann's marquis tent. Grabbing thick handfuls of wool from around her knees, she lifted herself out of the tent and padded over to the circle of women gathered near the smoldering fire. ~ Ich frage mich, ob das wahr ist ~ I wonder if it's true… ~ am Morgen, am Morgen ~ in the morning… ~ Was halten Sie davon? ~ What do you think about it?… Their hens' tongues clucking, they passed speculations amongst themselves for a solid hour, as the sun went down over the canvas peaks. No one thought to stoke the fire until the last rays of light were trickling down into the horizon. Rose tossed in an occasional benign comment, but her fearful gaze drifted continually from the flickering light of the command tent.. to the rapidly darkening sky.. wondering if there would be time to tie her down for the night, before her hunger arose… She woke the following morning to a rapid hammering inside her skull. As her waking consciousness expanded outward, she opened her eyes, and realized that the pounding was coming from the muster drums, calling the men to arms. Loud cries of "Raus! Raus!" accompanied the helter-skelter falls of leather soles on earth as the Lansknechts rushed to form up. With a groan of protest from aching muscles, Rose pulled herself upright. The first thing she noted was that Otto was not in the tent with her... he was, no doubt, already out before the men, unfurling the bright yellow banner with the double-headed phoenix that would inspire them onto the fields of blood. But as her morning haze cleared, other realizations began to fall into place... she was still clothed, still wrapped in the heavy blanket of her wool skirts, her placketed bodice still laced firmly over her aching chest... one of her partlet sleeves was ripped straight up the forearm... and as her shoes peeked out from beneath the woolen hem, she noticed a curious crust of dried mud over the toes of the kuhmaules. Swallowing hard, she licked her lips, her tongue coming away thick with the flavor of dust, and a faint coppery taste... her eyes flickered wide, and with a stricken look, she clasped a hand to her chin, pawing at the skin there and drawing her hand back to look at it. Her slender fingertips were blotched with traces of crimson, remnants of the congealed mess around her mouth. With a horrified shudder, she began to search frantically through her memories of the night before... Concentration was a futile effort as the din of impending battle surrounded her, the bloodthirsty energy surging through the camp and causing her pulse to pound in her ears in spite of herself. Her memory was spotty, at best, but she recalled the moments just after Otto had emerged from the command tent. He had been in an ill humor - papist forces had reached a spot just a few miles away during that evening, and scouts reported that they were hard at work, digging trenches and forming embankments around the perimeter of their camp. Sifting through the shadows of her memory, she recalled, also, that she and Otto had taken a long walk... she had been worried, the moon was rising quickly... but he had hushed her, and she did not question him... and when she realized just where their hike was taking them, she did struggle... but there was only blackness after that... A hand lifted to the back of her head, the goose egg rising above the nape of her neck, completed the rest of the story... A sudden tremor of rage rocked through her... Otto had struck her, and left her at the edge of the enemy camp, of that much she was certain... she couldn't say what had happened after that, but her mind screamed with images... her own agonized cries, as her body was twisted and contorted into that of a beast... gnawing hunger, the racing of blood in her ears, and the pulsing of her heart that accompanied a disregard for anything other than satisfying that predatorial need... the curdling wails of men struck down in a feeding fury... the sickening, moist sounds of limbs being wrung from bodies... the sharp, gamey flavor of human flesh... and the satisfying splash of blood over her face, the crimson liqueur rolling down her throat, mingling with the drool and dripping from her gnarled teeth... As she sat, catatonic, in the tent, now ignorant of the frantic activity all around her, hot, angry tears coursed down her cheeks. They were tears of frustration, at the betrayal, at being used in so viscious a manner... they were tears of futility, a silent fist raised against the curse of so long ago that had turned her into a bloodthirsty hunter by night... and they were tears of helplessness, because somewhere, deep down, the agony of her curse mingled with the satisfaction of having sated herself on human blood. Over ten thousand bodies lay strewn on the battlefield after that day. More than two-thirds of them were the remnants of Cardona's Papal-Spanish league. As part of the ritual following any battle, the women were given the grim task of picking over the bodies, following behind the barber-surgeon and his men, the scouts, the other scavengers, collecting whatever useful bits of leftover metal, clothing, and weapons they could, with the cold disregard of carrion feeders.  When Otto's body was discovered, his limbs hacked to bits, the standard clenched in his teeth, Rose took the news with passive satisfaction. Not one iota of grief nudged at her heart, merely an odd sense of malicious calm.
Several days after Ravenna, Maximilian ordered all the German Lansknechts in the pay of the French to return home. All but 800 obeyed their Emperor, and these 800 were to form the core of the infamous Black Legion, one of the most fierce and bloodthirsty mercenary armies of that century. And instead of returning to her native mountain home, Rose remained with the army. Blutrose had discovered a taste for human blood... and where better to satisfy that new hunger than on the fields of blood traversed by the Fahnlein... |