The wind whistled through the crenelations on the castle wall. To Carl, it was a commonplace sound and he was not consciously aware of it. Regardless, it made a fitting backdrop for his boyish imagination as he planned a strategic mission against the wily enemy encamped in a copse of trees roughly half a mile from the castle. A grim, determined half-smile crinkled the lower portion of his face while his sharp, squinting blue eyes completed the look.
Suddenly, bells rang. Carl jumped, startled out of his plan of battle against those invisible enemies. The look of concentration eased out of his face and was replaced by one of dutiful obedience, tinged with regret and boredom. Casting one last longing look at the trees, Carl sighed. Straightening his tunic, he began the journey down to the chapel.
The priest was reading, in Latin, for that was the language of the church, as Carl slipped in, late as usual. Father Hans was a kindly soul, quite fond of his Lordship’s children, but he still did not appreciate the interruption. Without a hesitation in his reading, he gave Carl a look which caused the boy to squirm inwardly. Carl tried to seat himself without attracting his father’s attention, but did not succeed. Lord Gregor leaned back slightly to look past one of his three daughters at his only son, a reproving scowl sending its rays into the depths of the boy's soul.
Carl sighed inwardly, this time because he had yet again disappointed the two men he wished the most to please--his father and Father Hans. Soon, however, he ceased to dwell on the fact. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, chin tucked into his hands, his mouth hanging slightly open and his eyes sparkling.
Father Hans was reading.
“Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook,
Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower?
Can you put a reed through his nose,
Or pierce his jaw with a hook?
Will he make many supplications with you?
Will he speak softly to you?
Will he make a covenant with you?
Will you take him as a servant forever?
Will you play with him as with a bird,
Or will you leash him for you maidens?”
After chapel, Carl wandered through the gardens, his plans against the copse of trees forgotten, his mind filled instead with the wonder and ferociousness of the Scriptural beast. He mused aloud, “His rows of scales are his pride, Shut up tightly as with a seal; One is so near another, They stick together and cannot be parted.”
Suddenly he laughed and taking a leap forward he cried, “Oh, you shall play the part!”
The slow moving turtle blinked once, blandly returning the excited boy’s tumble of words.
“Though you don’t sneeze fire, (or do you?), and you don’t have pointy scales as your underside, you are the closet thing I have ever met to a real-live Leviathan! There! I shall put you down someplace around my sisters and come rescue them! Surely, someone had to have killed one at some point…”
He paused, tucking the turtle under his arm, and scratched his head with a perplexed look. Then he grinned.
“I’ll go ask Father and Father Hans…surely they will know!”
He put the turtle down with a pat and rushed off. The turtle moved off gently, not at all disturbed by the child’s fancy. In his own turtle way, he was used to Lord Gregor’s children; they fed him and petted him and never hurt him…so why should he be disturbed by the pounce and chatter?
**************************************************************
Father Hans looked amused as his pupil’s pen scratched diligently over the parchment. Every other word, Carl craned over to look at the book he was copying from. The end of his tongue peeked out of the right side of his mouth in deep, inky concentration. He tapped the end of the quill against the tip of his nose and read off the wobbly script: “Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail; Nor does spear, dart, or javelin. He regards iron as straw, And bronze as rotten wood.”
He looked up, “So no one could kill Leviathan?”
Father Hans shrugged slightly, “So Scripture seems to indicate. Still, I will not say absolutely that man never killed Leviathan; I simply do not know.”
Carl frowned thoughtfully, then went back to his painstaking copying.
Later that day, as Carl sparred with an irritated turtle, his sisters obligingly screaming (and giggling), his mind kept turning over the words of Job, “The arrow cannot make him flee; Sling stones become like stubble to him. Darts are regarded as straw; He laughs at the threat of javelins.”
The wonder of the beast occupied his young mind as nothing had ever done before.
Days, weeks, months, and years passed after Carl’s first conscious introduction to Leviathan. His childish desires to make-believe a fight with the beast waned after a week or so, but the creature itself continued to hold a fascination for him. Father Hans had unexpectedly found a subject which opened up a new avenue for discussions with the growing boy; as Carl grew, his thrill over Leviathan expanded to other areas of the Scripture. Lord Gregor was pleased to see his son taking an interest in the Word of God and encouraged him in it by purposely including his son into the long, deep, theological conversations he often had with Father Hans.
Thus Carl matured in mind and body…his father training him in swordsmanship and assisting in the training of his mind. Not being capable of reading or writing himself, Gregor fully encouraged him in it, often asking the lad to translate what he had read that day so that he could understand it better, his own grasp of Latin being somewhat poor.
Though he would not admit it, every now and again, Carl slipped off to the copse of trees with a broadsword and relived his childhood dreams of battling Leviathan. He often laughed at himself, as he relaxed under the trees, for his ‘daftness’; pushing himself to his utmost limit against an imaginary foe. Still, tucked away in a chest in his room, he kept the copy of the passage detailing Leviathan he had slaved over as a boy.
Then the day came when Carl, not yet having reached knighthood, faced the worst event in his short life. Lord Gregor was slain most foully; an arrow through his back, as he rode out hunting.
Carl stood stunned, the sword with which he had been sparring with another squire, hanging limply in his hand, as he watched the men-at-arms carry his father’s lifeless body into the great hall.
A wail revived him. Slamming his sword home into its sheath, he gathered his feet under him and ran swiftly into the hall where his three sisters, one elder and two younger, stood huddled together in shocked grief. He slowed his step into something more dignified and strode over to the stunned girls. As Carl reached them, they turned to him and clung to him. Standing there with his arms protectively wrapped around his sisters, he looked to where his father lay, white with death. Slowly, his back straightened with resolve; his jaw hardened and his often twinkling blue eyes turned to cold determination. He squeezed his sisters' shoulders comfortingly.
“I will find who did this…”
****************************************************************
Those were bold words and Carl knew it. How he was going to keep that promise, he did not know, but already there lurked in the back of his mind a strong suspicion as to the perpetrator of this foul deed.
He had yet to meet the man he suspected, but from the things he had heard of him, Sir Wilham was a hard, ambitious, greedy man. He had been given the neighboring fief for some deed done in service to the king, though what exactly that service was, no one in the neighboring area seemed to know. He could see how such a man might contrive to rid himself of a just, upright man with a stripling for a son and weasel his way into extended holdings.
Carl mused on these things as he rode out over his lands, passed to him from his father. There had been several difficult months since his father’s murder, but they had survived thus far without any molestation from Sir Wilham, somewhat to Carl’s surprise. For a moment, the young man let his mind drift into happier times, relaxing against the crupper of his saddle as he did so.
Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, staring in astonishment at the sight he saw before him. Cresting the hill was a black banner…and on that snapping banner was, of all things, a blood-red rampart Leviathan.
“He beholds every high thing; He is king over all the children of pride.”
Startled that he had quoted the verse aloud, Carl wheeled his horse and raced madly back to the castle; he had heard the sound of many horses tramping up the hill.
Reaching the castle, Carl ordered the men-at-arms to ready themselves, “But do not draw the drawbridge up just yet. Be on guard, but do not appear to be.”
Puzzled, yet obedient, the men armed themselves and took their stations in such a fashion that would not have attracted any suspicion or notice to themselves. By the time the column of men under the black banner of the Leviathan reached the gates, each and every one of them was armed and ready, waiting for their young lordship’s next order. As for Carl himself, he straightened himself and grinned at his older sister in a moment of levity.
“Do I look like I have been fleeing for my life, Clotilde?”
She smiled back, “You look like you have been doing nothing but lazily staring into the fire all day long. Particularly with that leg hooked over the edge of the chair--you look positively…”
“Indolent”, Grettel ended for her sister. Grettel was the youngest of the four children and quite known for speaking her mind.
The siblings laughed together; that laughter was interrupted by the announcement of Sir Wilham. The laughter ceased, but Carl remained as he was--sprawled indolently in the great chair that had once been his father’s. Only when a large man entered the room did he stir and at that lazily. He swung his feet to the floor and stood slowly.
“Sir Wilham,” he inclined his head slightly.
Inwardly, his voice was screaming, “I will not conceal his limbs, His mighty power, or his graceful proportions.”
The man who stood before him towered over him. Even through his loose surcoat, one could see that the man was well proportioned and muscular. He gait was graceful indeed and his visage strikingly handsome; except for the hardness of his brown eyes.
Carl quailed inwardly, but met those hard eyes with a languid stupor. His sisters looked at each other and Grettal whispered to Marian, “What is wrong with our brother?”
Marian shushed her with a wave of her hand.
“Greetings!” boomed Sir Wilham, his keen eyes taking in a soft looking lad and three comely lasses. His eyes strayed over Clotilde longer than she would have liked before transferring their gaze back toward her brother. Carl stood lazily by the seat he had just risen from, letting his eyelids droop over his eyes to hide the fire in them. He wanted to know more about this man than Sir Wilham knew about him.
Father Hans entered the room at this point, in a hurry; he was keenly aware of Carl’s suspicions and wished to advise the young man against any rash behavior. Therefore, he was somewhat surprised to find an apparently dull young man facing a fully mature, hawk-eyed scoundrel without the least appearance of hostility.
Carl’s voice, pitched a little higher than was his wont, asked pleasantly, “What might I do for you, my lord?”
Then, as if recalling his manners, he indicated a seat, “Will you sit, my lord?”
Something like amusement crossed the older man’s face as he strode up and sat--in Lord Gregor’s chair.
Father Hans started forward, ready to seize Carl and haul him bodily off Sir Wilham while the girls gasped at the brazen affront. Carl’s back stiffened perceptibly for a moment, than he relaxed and sat himself down on the table, facing Sir Wilham, still with hooded eyes.
Sir Wilham crossed his legs, lacing his fingers. As he tapped his nose with the tips of his index fingers, he observed Carl in an easy fashion. He smiled in what was supposed to be a friendly fashion, but appeared more condescending than amiable.
“You seem like a smart lad,” he began.
Carl almost laughed; he knew he looked anything but smart at the moment.
Sir Wilham continued, apparently oblivious to the derisive amusement of the young man sitting opposite him, a leg swinging carelessly.
“You are young and this place is a large responsibility for any man, but particularly a young one like yourself.”
Carl nodded dumbly, his insides revolting against him as he did so.
Encouraged by Carl’s passivity, Wilham pressed further, “I have come to offer you whatever small assistance I can…I am most grieved at your noble father’s death…I was gone at the time and have just now heard of it--that is why I am so tardy in my condolences.”
“Liar!” thought Carl.
Unaware of the accusation, Sir Wilham continued to prate on: “I think it would be most pitiable if his son were to be taken advantage of by scheming men who would do anything to further their own estates--men such as Baron Hilbrand, for instance.”
Carl’s eyes opened wide in surprise and he stuttered, “B-b-but…but Baron Hilbrand was my father’s friend!”
Sir Wilham smiled easily, “I suggest, my friend, that he but pretended to be your father’s friend.”
Carl slid from the table and paced like a distraught man, pulling at his hair as though for the first time in his life ever suspecting a man of being the opposite of what he portrayed himself to be. Father Hans nearly choked, he could not but help finding Carl’s behavior amusing. Grettel went over and pounded the aging priest on the back affectionately. By now, her quick mind had figured out what her brother was up to and she herself was trying heartily not to scream with laughter. Clotilde was not amused by the situation…not only did she feel her brother to be acting somewhat foolishly, but Wilham’s eyes kept sweeping back over her most uncomfortably. Marian was silently taking in the scene, her wily mind following her brother's movements with interest.
The conversation continued for but a short time afterwards, for Carl was not listening in a most abominably rude fashion.
He stammered to Sir Wilham after a moment, “You must excuse me, my lord…but my brain is quite addled…might we continue this conversation at a later date?”
Sir Wilham appeared to be quite pleased with himself and readily granted the “fool boy” his wish.
Carl turned to the priest, “Father, would you be so kind as to escort my guest out? I am fearfully confused…”
Father Hans nodded sedately, “Of course, my son. My lord, if you please…”
He gestured towards the door in a most affable manner, then followed right on Sir Wilham’s heels as the man strode out of the hall after casting one more appraising glance at Clotilde.
As soon as he stepped out the door, Carl became a transformed man. His head came up, his back straightened, and his eyes flashed. Grabbing a dusty cloak from beside the fire, he bolted out another door and out onto the walls. Even if Sir Wilham had seen him, he would not have recognized him, so changed in appearance Carl was.
Carl skidded to an undignified stop next to the head of his men-at-arms.
“Georg, have your most covert man trail that scoundrel! Quick! To it, as they leave!”
Georg called his man and sent him off before the last of Sir Wilham’s men had leisurely left the castle walls.
Carl leaned on the wall, gazing with thoughtful eyes at the familiar copse of trees. He frowned. Slapping his open palm onto the battlements, he turned and bounded down the steps off the wall with youthful vigor. His voice rang out commandingly and within minutes, he had his men-at-arms around him.
“The game is afoot. Sir Wilham has cast his longing eyes at my estate. Do not let the man’s suave manner fool you. Remember, we do not trust Sir Wilham, nor any man under the Leviathan banner at all. Perhaps it was foolishness to let the men inside the castle. I trust you kept his men-at-arms confined to the servants' halls with plenty of cheering drink?”
A hearty chuckled passed amongst the ranks…they had indeed carried out their young lord’s instructions to the letter. The Leviathan men-at-arms had been properly blinded to the defenses of the castle immediately upon arrival. They had been disarmingly met with apparent trust and friendship and therefore in being ushered to the servant’s hall for a pot of beer or a mug of wine, had failed to take overly strong looks at the state of the late Lord Gregor’s defenses.
Carl continued, a grim smile of approval stamping his young face, “Good. From here on out, we are on guard at all time against Sir Wilham. We pretend to be friendly, but are ready to strike at any given time. I have no evidence to send to the king as to his dastardly murder of my father and attempt to steal my estate; so we are all alone in this. Stand fast for right and justice!”
The men-at-arms cheered Carl’s words enthusiastically. They would cheer again later that day when Carl received official notice from the king that he was confirmed as the inheritor of his father’s estate and thereby Lord of the Manor. Some of the men had dandled their young lord on their knees when he was yet a toddler getting into every kind of scrape imaginable and were devoted to him as the beloved son of their rightful master, the noble Lord Gregor.
The serfs too were pleased with the confirmation. Lord Gregor had been a wise and just master, kind and well loved. Carl was much like him--besides which, he had at times played with the serfs sons and even when beaten by them in wrestling, foot races, and other boyish games, he was honest and fair in his dealings with them. As he had grown older, of necessity, his friendships with the serf children had grown more distant, but he was still on friendly terms with the lads he had played with as a boy.
Thus confirmed, Carl was at once both pleased and highly distraught as he headed up to his bed-chamber that evening. Clotilde had accosted him shortly after their evening meal and told him of her distress.
“Sir Wilham,” she said, “would not cease to look at me with a greedy eye. There was nothing clean in that look! Carl, he frightens me. Not just for you, but more for me personally. I do not like him!! I do not like him at all!!”
Her distress was clearly evident and Carl had much ado to calm her. When he had finally left her in her room, she was much easier in mind with her brother’s promise that should Sir Wilham come around again that she should be absent from his presence and that, if she went out anywhere she should have an armed escort of six men-at-arms.
*******************************************************************
Sir Wilham did come again, a week later. As promised, Clotilde remained closeted in her room. In fact, the only one of Carl’s sisters party to that second interview was Marian. She sat quietly by the fire, practically unnoticed, her fingers busily stitching the Gregor crest onto a surcoat for her brother.
Carl lay sprawled face first onto a bench as Sir Wilham entered, having been announced by Georg. Sleepily, Carl lifted clouded blue eyes to the tall knight. In getting up, an inane smile on his lips, he tripped himself on the bench and sprawled on the floor, a gangly mass of arms and legs. He started to giggle sheepishly as he pulled himself off the floor and Father Hans allowed himself a merry laugh at his poor young lord’s expense. Carl noted with a flash of triumph that Sir Wilham regarded him with contempt and disdain, though reacting as if concerned about the lad’s ungraceful fall.
Regaining his feet, Carl held out a hand to the other man, who, by force of proper courtesy, was constrained to take it. He gripped hard and the young man’s whole arm went limp in the man’s grasp. Carl gave a bug-eyed gasp and then giggled again.
“A mighty man with a mighty grip! ’On earth there is nothing like him, Which is made without fear.’”
The quotation from Job slipped through his lips, surprising even himself…but it was the right thing to say. Sir Wilham straightened himself proudly and smiled almost amiably.
Carl rambled in a hair-brained fashion, “Almost makes me change my mind on my decision…”
“Your decision?‘ Sir Wilham asked sharply, then looked slightly annoyed with himself for his tone.
Carl pretended he had not heard the tone and burbled on, smiling at various intervals, “I have decided that if my father could hold this castle against all comers…he did, did he not, Father Hans?”
Getting an affirmative nod from the priest, he smiled sweetly, “I have decided that if my father could hold this castle against all comers, that so can I. I am sure, my good friend, you quite understand. I thank you most profoundly for you most gracious offer of assistance against Baron Hilbrand (you were right about him, you know. I saw the greed in his eyes when last I met him), but I assure you that at present Gregor castle is in no need of outside help.”
Marian’s fingers slipped to the dagger in her lap as Sir Wilham seemed to grow another few inches and his face grew red with anger. Carl felt fear clutch at him and it took all his effort to keep his hands hanging limply by his sides and his face the foolish mask he had made it. Not, he thought, that his little eight-inch dagger, which was all he was armed with, would be much match for a giant like Wilham.
After a tense moment, Sir Wilham let out a laugh, or what was supposed to be a laugh, “Well, have it your own way, my young friend! Just remember, if you ever need assistance, the Leviathan banner is at your service!”
Carl made a respectful bob with his head and started to sing-song, “His breath kindles coals, And a flame goes out of his mouth. Strength dwells in his neck, and sorrow dances before him.”
Wilham interrupted the recitation, “I shall be going now, my friend.”
Carl started, as though woken from a reverie, “God-speed!”
Then he slipped down onto the bench he had recently vacated and hummed listlessly a rather altered version of the tune, “Greensleeves”.
Marian relaxed visibly, “You act the fool very well, Carl.”
He grinned, “Are you implying that I am a fool, Marian?”
She pricked her finger and stuck it in her mouth, looking at him out of the top of her eyes. Removing her finger, she responded, “What were you going to do if he attacked you?”
Carl shook his head vaguely, “I do not know, really. But I figured he wouldn’t be foolish enough to do that in my own castle…it would not be good for his future conquest. At present, I am content that he will not be visiting again until he is ready to attack. The easy way in has been denied him.”
Three days later, Carl remembered that almost flippant statement ruefully.
Grettel came flying into the room, her mantle torn and her yellow hair resembling the remnants of a hay stack.
“Carl!! Carl!!!”
He leaped out of his chair where he was sharpening his sword. Grettel landed in his arms and started pummeling his chest with her clenched fists.
“They took her! They took her and killed the men!! I barely escaped…They took her!!!”
“They took who?” he demanded, but with a sinking assurance in his heart.
Grettel stared up at him, her eyes wide with disbelief, “Clotilde, of course!! They were made up like robbers, but I’d know that back anywhere!! It was that evil Sir Wilham, Carl!”
Carl pushed her aside, snatched up his sword and ran from the room shouting for Georg to ready the men.
Father Hans caught him as he was mounting, fifteen minutes later.
“Carl! Carl, my son! Do not be rash!”
The man’s voice cut through the black fury in the young man’s head. Carl wheeled his horse toward the priest, his eyes blue steel and his voice fire.
“He has taken my sister, Father Hans! I must away and save her from his foul grasp.”
Father Hans placed a hand on the bridle, “But rashly, in the heat of the moment, with no forethought, no plan? Child! Do not throw your life away in this anger. Think calmly before you strike! What happens to your other sisters…to your men…to your serfs, if you are slain in a moment of blinding anger? Do not be rash!”
Georg eased his own steed next to Carl’s.
“He is right, my lord. We have no plan. Men need solid orders to obey or they do not fight well.”
Carl breathed deeply and shook his head violently, a habit he had had since childhood to clear his muddled mind, and allowed himself to look at the situation as dispassionately as possible.
He muttered, glaring in the direction of Leviathan castle, “His heart is as hard as stone, Even as hard as the lower millstone.”
Suddenly, Father Hans grasped at something he had failed to realize before. He reached up and placed a hand on Carl’s knee.
“That is right, my lord Carl. This man is your Leviathan. You asked me once as a small child if any man had ever killed Leviathan. I told you I did not know…but this Leviathan is a man and men are not armored beasts. He has a weakness, but you must not rush headlong and foolishly on him like the men of old contending with the real Leviathan. You must use cunning as you have been doing with him. You throw yourself on him and…”
“And ‘Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is false; Shall one not be overcome at the sight of him?’”
Carl dismounted at his own words and ordered his men to dismount while he considered the best way to confront the man who had kidnapped his sister.
***********************************************************************
A man-at-arms entered the great hall of Leviathan castle. He saluted the big man seated in front of the fire, the scowl on his features making him ugly.
“My lord! That young whelp of Lord Gregor’s is here and craves an audience with you.”
Sir Wilham growled.
“Send him in.”
While the man-at-arms stepped out, Sir Wilham readjusted himself and his face in an attempt to look pleasant. He failed, but Carl was so upset, he doubted that the boy would have noticed anyway.
While Carl had waited to be admitted to the hall, his stupid looking eyes had been memorizing the set up of the castle. As he was ushered in, he immediately started blathering.
“Sir Wilham! Sir Wilham!”
He threw himself to his knees.
“Sir Wilham! I have come to beseech your help!”
Sir Wilham looked down at the groveling young man and tried to sound sympathetic.
“My dear friend, in what way can I assist you?”
Carl’s crazed eyes rolled up, “My lord! My sister! My sister Clotilde! She has been stolen away!”
He shrewdly observed Wilham’s reaction, noting that he tried to look shocked and surprised, but thoroughly failing. That was one thing you could say for this Leviathan, Carl thought bitterly, he was an awful liar!
Sir Wilham eased the young man to his feet, wishing he could strangle him and be done with it, but knowing that would, in the end, defeat his purpose.
“There! There, my young friend…we will do everything in our power to locate you fair sister and return her to you unscathed. You should not have left your castle…the kidnappers are sure to send you a note of ransom and you are not there to receive it.”
Carl gasped as if this had not occurred to him and immediately began to beg to be excused and allowed to return home, along with profuse thanks for Sir Wilham’s “most kind help”.
Carl was escorted out and rather roughly seated back in his saddle, then driven out the gate. He, in his fool's guise, pretended not to notice.
On his ride back to Gregor castle, he took the time to notice that Wilham’s serfs were exceptionally thin and unhappy looking, unlike his own well-fed and cheerful serfs. He also noted a rider leave the castle and cut across the fields.
“Ah-ha! So he thinks to be rid of me by the hand of an assassin!”
He began to pray, as he knew Father Hans was at that moment, for his own wisdom and courage in this matter.
As long as he was in sight of the castle, Carl rode in a clumsy fashion. As soon as he entered the woods that stretched along the border of the two fiefdoms, he sat up straight, and pulled his sword from beneath his saddle blanket where he had it carefully concealed. He readied himself for what was sure to come, every nerve tense for the sound of another horse's footfall.
Carl had crossed from Leviathan land to Gregor land when a masked man drew out in front of him. Carl immediately went slack in the saddle at the sight of him and rode onward as though he did not see the man, sighing as he went, “Oh, Clotilde…Clotilde…”
“Halt!”
The man’s voice rang loud and clear.
Carl’s head came up, as if in surprise. He shrank away from him and backed his horse a few steps. The horse laid his ears back and expressed his confusion over this odd behavior by snorting loudly. Carl smiled inwardly as he prepared his own trap.
The man rode forward, his sword at the ready. It was to be straight up murder, Carl could see that clearly. Suddenly, he drew himself up in his saddle, brought his sword up, and with a yowl of fury, dug his heels into his steed. Happier now, the horse plunged forward and the two men joined battle. The Leviathan man-at-arms was completely taken aback by the fool’s advance and was soon laid across the road--dead from a well-struck blow over the crown.
Carl was glad he was not dead himself, but he did not relish the death of his foe. Still, for all that, he took the time to pull out his ever present scrap of parchment and quill and write a note, which he pinned on the dead man’s shirt with a thorn.
“Lay your hand on him;
Remember the battle--
Never do it again!”
He fought the dead man onto the back of his shying horse and tied him on with strips cut from the man’s doublet. Pointing the horse’s head back toward Leviathan castle, he slapped its rump soundly with his own reins and watched momentarily as the animal made off towards its stables.
Around the same time that Carl was dismounting wearily at Gregor castle, Sir Wilham was staring at a note written in fine hand. He could not read, so he took it up to the room where he had imprisoned the Lady Clotilde.
Clotilde shrank away from the big man as he entered the room, fear and hate clearly written across her face.
He scowled at her.
“You need not fear me lady, for I shall not harm you.”
He held out the paper to her, “Read this.”
Clotilde reached out, keeping as far away from Sir Wilham as possible and took the paper from between his fingers. She glanced down at it and nearly betrayed her joy. However, she managed to control her reaction and hand it back to Sir Wilham saying rather coldly, “It is an odd message, sir. ‘Lay your hand on him; Remember the battle--never do it again!’ Is this some kind of joke, my lord?”
Sir Wilham glared at her, “It means nothing to you?”
Clotilde looked back at him levelly, “No. Should it?”
Carl was impatient. On the counsel of Father Hans, he had sent to the king regarding the situation, detailing his suspicions and impressions. As of yet, he had heard nothing in return.
The arrival of a courtly guest at Sir Wilham’s one find day, put cold fingers down Carl’s back.
“I cannot wait any longer,” Carl told Father Hans. “The king has sent an emissary to visit Sir Wilham and two things will happen. First, they will believe his story over mine, and secondly, Sir Wilham will know that as he has seen me I am a farce. No. I cannot wait any longer. Now is the time to act.”
This time Georg agreed with Carl. Thus it was, that the same day the king’s agent arrived at Leviathan castle, that the men of Gregor castle also arrived. Though it seemed just to be a foolish lad and two men-at-arms; Carl had carefully ordered Georg and his men to stay out of sight, but brought one of his old serf friends to be a runner between the castle and the men.
“Harold, this is most important. You must be ears and eyes near the castle gate, ready to run, at the risk of your life, to Georg. I will not order you to take this risk, but I beg it of you.”
Harold grinned, a large gap showing in his teeth from where once his young lordship had punched him a little harder than he had intended during a playful sparring match.
“I am ready to do anything for ye, me lord,” he replied, giving his thatch a little pull in salute.
Inside Leviathan castle, where the black banner was snapping smartly in the breeze over the keep, Sir Wilham looked up with annoyance when his man-at-arms once again announced “that young fool from Gregor manor”.
He frowned, “Send him in!”
He did not get up, nor greet Carl with affected affability this time. It was clear from the look on his face that he had heard from the emissary that Carl had written to the king, expounding his suspicions of him.
The emissary looked with surprise at the young man who almost tripped on his own sword as he entered the room, a dull, foolish looking lad.
“This is Lord Carl of Gregor manor?” he demanded with incredulity.
One of Sir Wilham’s men snorted derisively, but was immediately silenced by a glaring look by the Leviathan himself.
Carl’s own inane smile added to the tension of the moment as he looked in apparent confusion from one man to another. He began to sway on his feet and his eyes dropped half-closed and he began to shrilly sing-song, “Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you leash him for your maidens? Will your companions make a banquet of him? Will they apportion him among the merchants? Can you fill his skin with harpoons, Or his head with fishing spears?”
He paused to take a breath and a woman’s voice was heard raised high: “Lay your hand on him; Remember the battle--Never do it again!”
Sir Wilham sprang out of his chair, rage turning his eyes almost black as he looked to the high ceiling of the hall.
Carl laughed; the fool falling away as he did so. He was then sane as any man, his sword was in his hand and he was ready…but he had one last thing to do.
He shouted: “‘No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up. Who then is able to stand against Me? Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is Mine.’ Thus saith the Lord, you wily devil! Will you stand in opposition to your Creator by committing foul deeds? Release my sister and I shall not ask for recompense!”
Sir Wilham’s sword leapt out of its sheath and the taller, stronger man sprang upon the waiting lad. It whistled close by Carl’s head, but was met with the fury of a wronged man’s strength. The combat raged back and forth in the hall. Outside, the Leviathan men eagerly awaited the call to fall upon the two men of Gregor manor.
Suddenly, the whole of Carl’s force swept through the open gate and held the garrison at sword point, de-arming them methodically.
Carl tripped over a stool and fell with a clatter that knocked the air out of him. To make matters worse, he bashed the back of his hand on the edge of the dais, sending his sword flying.
Triumphantly, Sir Wilham struck out at the defenseless lad, only to have the point of his sword snap against the stone floor.
Carl had thrown himself to one side with all the power he had in him and just barely avoided the thrust. Enraged, Sir Wilham threw the broken sword from him and reached down and started throttling his opponent. Carl found himself spitting these words through his clenched teeth while his fingers ground into the older man’s wrists:
“Who can remove his outer coat?
Who can approach him with a double bridle?
Who can open the doors of his face,
With his terrible teeth all around?”
Suddenly, with one last choking effort, his eyes glazing over, he screamed, “Not I!! But you, O Father!!”
This sudden onslaught of words was accompanied by a convulsive squeezing of the hands that loosened Wilham’s grip on Carl’s throat. In that one moment, Carl’s mind cleared enough for him to swing a desperate blow at his antagonist's face. He hit Sir Wilham squarely in the eye. He followed it up by jamming his thumb into the man’s eye and as Sir Wilham heaved his bulk up in an attempt to remove the pressure from his eyeball, Carl ripped himself from his grasp.
At this point, as Carl dove for his sword, the king’s emissary stepped in, sword in hand.
"Enough, gentlemen!! Enough!”
He sounded absurdly like a hen squawking at a cock-fight, but Carl stood down, panting and shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, yet never taking his eyes from the furious form across from him.
The emissary, all dignity, stated, “I wish to speak to the woman I heard shouting earlier.”
Sir Wilham roared, “You heard no woman!”
Carl retorted, “That, Sirrah, was my sister Clotilde!”
He gasped and choked after that declaration, but still kept both eyes locked on Sir Wilham.
It took a few minutes, but Clotilde was soon down in the great hall. She tossed one scornful look at Sir Wilham before running straight to her brother.
“Carl!”
The emissary could very well see the truth of the matter before his eyes. He called his retainers and they took a fuming Sir Wilham away. He turned back to Carl after watching Wilham’s back disappear.
“Now, my lord,” he began, but stopped abruptly.
As soon as Sir Wilham was officially out of the room, Carl had collapsed into his sister’s arms. She smiled down at him as he blinked up at her. She leaned down and said softly, “Lay your hand on him; Remember the battle--never do it again!”
Carl gave a strangled laugh.
*************************************************************
Carl of Gregor Manor never lost his fascination with Leviathan. But he never again wished to engage him in battle. Once was enough…
Suddenly, bells rang. Carl jumped, startled out of his plan of battle against those invisible enemies. The look of concentration eased out of his face and was replaced by one of dutiful obedience, tinged with regret and boredom. Casting one last longing look at the trees, Carl sighed. Straightening his tunic, he began the journey down to the chapel.
The priest was reading, in Latin, for that was the language of the church, as Carl slipped in, late as usual. Father Hans was a kindly soul, quite fond of his Lordship’s children, but he still did not appreciate the interruption. Without a hesitation in his reading, he gave Carl a look which caused the boy to squirm inwardly. Carl tried to seat himself without attracting his father’s attention, but did not succeed. Lord Gregor leaned back slightly to look past one of his three daughters at his only son, a reproving scowl sending its rays into the depths of the boy's soul.
Carl sighed inwardly, this time because he had yet again disappointed the two men he wished the most to please--his father and Father Hans. Soon, however, he ceased to dwell on the fact. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, chin tucked into his hands, his mouth hanging slightly open and his eyes sparkling.
Father Hans was reading.
“Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook,
Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower?
Can you put a reed through his nose,
Or pierce his jaw with a hook?
Will he make many supplications with you?
Will he speak softly to you?
Will he make a covenant with you?
Will you take him as a servant forever?
Will you play with him as with a bird,
Or will you leash him for you maidens?”
After chapel, Carl wandered through the gardens, his plans against the copse of trees forgotten, his mind filled instead with the wonder and ferociousness of the Scriptural beast. He mused aloud, “His rows of scales are his pride, Shut up tightly as with a seal; One is so near another, They stick together and cannot be parted.”
Suddenly he laughed and taking a leap forward he cried, “Oh, you shall play the part!”
The slow moving turtle blinked once, blandly returning the excited boy’s tumble of words.
“Though you don’t sneeze fire, (or do you?), and you don’t have pointy scales as your underside, you are the closet thing I have ever met to a real-live Leviathan! There! I shall put you down someplace around my sisters and come rescue them! Surely, someone had to have killed one at some point…”
He paused, tucking the turtle under his arm, and scratched his head with a perplexed look. Then he grinned.
“I’ll go ask Father and Father Hans…surely they will know!”
He put the turtle down with a pat and rushed off. The turtle moved off gently, not at all disturbed by the child’s fancy. In his own turtle way, he was used to Lord Gregor’s children; they fed him and petted him and never hurt him…so why should he be disturbed by the pounce and chatter?
**************************************************************
Father Hans looked amused as his pupil’s pen scratched diligently over the parchment. Every other word, Carl craned over to look at the book he was copying from. The end of his tongue peeked out of the right side of his mouth in deep, inky concentration. He tapped the end of the quill against the tip of his nose and read off the wobbly script: “Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail; Nor does spear, dart, or javelin. He regards iron as straw, And bronze as rotten wood.”
He looked up, “So no one could kill Leviathan?”
Father Hans shrugged slightly, “So Scripture seems to indicate. Still, I will not say absolutely that man never killed Leviathan; I simply do not know.”
Carl frowned thoughtfully, then went back to his painstaking copying.
Later that day, as Carl sparred with an irritated turtle, his sisters obligingly screaming (and giggling), his mind kept turning over the words of Job, “The arrow cannot make him flee; Sling stones become like stubble to him. Darts are regarded as straw; He laughs at the threat of javelins.”
The wonder of the beast occupied his young mind as nothing had ever done before.
Days, weeks, months, and years passed after Carl’s first conscious introduction to Leviathan. His childish desires to make-believe a fight with the beast waned after a week or so, but the creature itself continued to hold a fascination for him. Father Hans had unexpectedly found a subject which opened up a new avenue for discussions with the growing boy; as Carl grew, his thrill over Leviathan expanded to other areas of the Scripture. Lord Gregor was pleased to see his son taking an interest in the Word of God and encouraged him in it by purposely including his son into the long, deep, theological conversations he often had with Father Hans.
Thus Carl matured in mind and body…his father training him in swordsmanship and assisting in the training of his mind. Not being capable of reading or writing himself, Gregor fully encouraged him in it, often asking the lad to translate what he had read that day so that he could understand it better, his own grasp of Latin being somewhat poor.
Though he would not admit it, every now and again, Carl slipped off to the copse of trees with a broadsword and relived his childhood dreams of battling Leviathan. He often laughed at himself, as he relaxed under the trees, for his ‘daftness’; pushing himself to his utmost limit against an imaginary foe. Still, tucked away in a chest in his room, he kept the copy of the passage detailing Leviathan he had slaved over as a boy.
Then the day came when Carl, not yet having reached knighthood, faced the worst event in his short life. Lord Gregor was slain most foully; an arrow through his back, as he rode out hunting.
Carl stood stunned, the sword with which he had been sparring with another squire, hanging limply in his hand, as he watched the men-at-arms carry his father’s lifeless body into the great hall.
A wail revived him. Slamming his sword home into its sheath, he gathered his feet under him and ran swiftly into the hall where his three sisters, one elder and two younger, stood huddled together in shocked grief. He slowed his step into something more dignified and strode over to the stunned girls. As Carl reached them, they turned to him and clung to him. Standing there with his arms protectively wrapped around his sisters, he looked to where his father lay, white with death. Slowly, his back straightened with resolve; his jaw hardened and his often twinkling blue eyes turned to cold determination. He squeezed his sisters' shoulders comfortingly.
“I will find who did this…”
****************************************************************
Those were bold words and Carl knew it. How he was going to keep that promise, he did not know, but already there lurked in the back of his mind a strong suspicion as to the perpetrator of this foul deed.
He had yet to meet the man he suspected, but from the things he had heard of him, Sir Wilham was a hard, ambitious, greedy man. He had been given the neighboring fief for some deed done in service to the king, though what exactly that service was, no one in the neighboring area seemed to know. He could see how such a man might contrive to rid himself of a just, upright man with a stripling for a son and weasel his way into extended holdings.
Carl mused on these things as he rode out over his lands, passed to him from his father. There had been several difficult months since his father’s murder, but they had survived thus far without any molestation from Sir Wilham, somewhat to Carl’s surprise. For a moment, the young man let his mind drift into happier times, relaxing against the crupper of his saddle as he did so.
Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, staring in astonishment at the sight he saw before him. Cresting the hill was a black banner…and on that snapping banner was, of all things, a blood-red rampart Leviathan.
“He beholds every high thing; He is king over all the children of pride.”
Startled that he had quoted the verse aloud, Carl wheeled his horse and raced madly back to the castle; he had heard the sound of many horses tramping up the hill.
Reaching the castle, Carl ordered the men-at-arms to ready themselves, “But do not draw the drawbridge up just yet. Be on guard, but do not appear to be.”
Puzzled, yet obedient, the men armed themselves and took their stations in such a fashion that would not have attracted any suspicion or notice to themselves. By the time the column of men under the black banner of the Leviathan reached the gates, each and every one of them was armed and ready, waiting for their young lordship’s next order. As for Carl himself, he straightened himself and grinned at his older sister in a moment of levity.
“Do I look like I have been fleeing for my life, Clotilde?”
She smiled back, “You look like you have been doing nothing but lazily staring into the fire all day long. Particularly with that leg hooked over the edge of the chair--you look positively…”
“Indolent”, Grettel ended for her sister. Grettel was the youngest of the four children and quite known for speaking her mind.
The siblings laughed together; that laughter was interrupted by the announcement of Sir Wilham. The laughter ceased, but Carl remained as he was--sprawled indolently in the great chair that had once been his father’s. Only when a large man entered the room did he stir and at that lazily. He swung his feet to the floor and stood slowly.
“Sir Wilham,” he inclined his head slightly.
Inwardly, his voice was screaming, “I will not conceal his limbs, His mighty power, or his graceful proportions.”
The man who stood before him towered over him. Even through his loose surcoat, one could see that the man was well proportioned and muscular. He gait was graceful indeed and his visage strikingly handsome; except for the hardness of his brown eyes.
Carl quailed inwardly, but met those hard eyes with a languid stupor. His sisters looked at each other and Grettal whispered to Marian, “What is wrong with our brother?”
Marian shushed her with a wave of her hand.
“Greetings!” boomed Sir Wilham, his keen eyes taking in a soft looking lad and three comely lasses. His eyes strayed over Clotilde longer than she would have liked before transferring their gaze back toward her brother. Carl stood lazily by the seat he had just risen from, letting his eyelids droop over his eyes to hide the fire in them. He wanted to know more about this man than Sir Wilham knew about him.
Father Hans entered the room at this point, in a hurry; he was keenly aware of Carl’s suspicions and wished to advise the young man against any rash behavior. Therefore, he was somewhat surprised to find an apparently dull young man facing a fully mature, hawk-eyed scoundrel without the least appearance of hostility.
Carl’s voice, pitched a little higher than was his wont, asked pleasantly, “What might I do for you, my lord?”
Then, as if recalling his manners, he indicated a seat, “Will you sit, my lord?”
Something like amusement crossed the older man’s face as he strode up and sat--in Lord Gregor’s chair.
Father Hans started forward, ready to seize Carl and haul him bodily off Sir Wilham while the girls gasped at the brazen affront. Carl’s back stiffened perceptibly for a moment, than he relaxed and sat himself down on the table, facing Sir Wilham, still with hooded eyes.
Sir Wilham crossed his legs, lacing his fingers. As he tapped his nose with the tips of his index fingers, he observed Carl in an easy fashion. He smiled in what was supposed to be a friendly fashion, but appeared more condescending than amiable.
“You seem like a smart lad,” he began.
Carl almost laughed; he knew he looked anything but smart at the moment.
Sir Wilham continued, apparently oblivious to the derisive amusement of the young man sitting opposite him, a leg swinging carelessly.
“You are young and this place is a large responsibility for any man, but particularly a young one like yourself.”
Carl nodded dumbly, his insides revolting against him as he did so.
Encouraged by Carl’s passivity, Wilham pressed further, “I have come to offer you whatever small assistance I can…I am most grieved at your noble father’s death…I was gone at the time and have just now heard of it--that is why I am so tardy in my condolences.”
“Liar!” thought Carl.
Unaware of the accusation, Sir Wilham continued to prate on: “I think it would be most pitiable if his son were to be taken advantage of by scheming men who would do anything to further their own estates--men such as Baron Hilbrand, for instance.”
Carl’s eyes opened wide in surprise and he stuttered, “B-b-but…but Baron Hilbrand was my father’s friend!”
Sir Wilham smiled easily, “I suggest, my friend, that he but pretended to be your father’s friend.”
Carl slid from the table and paced like a distraught man, pulling at his hair as though for the first time in his life ever suspecting a man of being the opposite of what he portrayed himself to be. Father Hans nearly choked, he could not but help finding Carl’s behavior amusing. Grettel went over and pounded the aging priest on the back affectionately. By now, her quick mind had figured out what her brother was up to and she herself was trying heartily not to scream with laughter. Clotilde was not amused by the situation…not only did she feel her brother to be acting somewhat foolishly, but Wilham’s eyes kept sweeping back over her most uncomfortably. Marian was silently taking in the scene, her wily mind following her brother's movements with interest.
The conversation continued for but a short time afterwards, for Carl was not listening in a most abominably rude fashion.
He stammered to Sir Wilham after a moment, “You must excuse me, my lord…but my brain is quite addled…might we continue this conversation at a later date?”
Sir Wilham appeared to be quite pleased with himself and readily granted the “fool boy” his wish.
Carl turned to the priest, “Father, would you be so kind as to escort my guest out? I am fearfully confused…”
Father Hans nodded sedately, “Of course, my son. My lord, if you please…”
He gestured towards the door in a most affable manner, then followed right on Sir Wilham’s heels as the man strode out of the hall after casting one more appraising glance at Clotilde.
As soon as he stepped out the door, Carl became a transformed man. His head came up, his back straightened, and his eyes flashed. Grabbing a dusty cloak from beside the fire, he bolted out another door and out onto the walls. Even if Sir Wilham had seen him, he would not have recognized him, so changed in appearance Carl was.
Carl skidded to an undignified stop next to the head of his men-at-arms.
“Georg, have your most covert man trail that scoundrel! Quick! To it, as they leave!”
Georg called his man and sent him off before the last of Sir Wilham’s men had leisurely left the castle walls.
Carl leaned on the wall, gazing with thoughtful eyes at the familiar copse of trees. He frowned. Slapping his open palm onto the battlements, he turned and bounded down the steps off the wall with youthful vigor. His voice rang out commandingly and within minutes, he had his men-at-arms around him.
“The game is afoot. Sir Wilham has cast his longing eyes at my estate. Do not let the man’s suave manner fool you. Remember, we do not trust Sir Wilham, nor any man under the Leviathan banner at all. Perhaps it was foolishness to let the men inside the castle. I trust you kept his men-at-arms confined to the servants' halls with plenty of cheering drink?”
A hearty chuckled passed amongst the ranks…they had indeed carried out their young lord’s instructions to the letter. The Leviathan men-at-arms had been properly blinded to the defenses of the castle immediately upon arrival. They had been disarmingly met with apparent trust and friendship and therefore in being ushered to the servant’s hall for a pot of beer or a mug of wine, had failed to take overly strong looks at the state of the late Lord Gregor’s defenses.
Carl continued, a grim smile of approval stamping his young face, “Good. From here on out, we are on guard at all time against Sir Wilham. We pretend to be friendly, but are ready to strike at any given time. I have no evidence to send to the king as to his dastardly murder of my father and attempt to steal my estate; so we are all alone in this. Stand fast for right and justice!”
The men-at-arms cheered Carl’s words enthusiastically. They would cheer again later that day when Carl received official notice from the king that he was confirmed as the inheritor of his father’s estate and thereby Lord of the Manor. Some of the men had dandled their young lord on their knees when he was yet a toddler getting into every kind of scrape imaginable and were devoted to him as the beloved son of their rightful master, the noble Lord Gregor.
The serfs too were pleased with the confirmation. Lord Gregor had been a wise and just master, kind and well loved. Carl was much like him--besides which, he had at times played with the serfs sons and even when beaten by them in wrestling, foot races, and other boyish games, he was honest and fair in his dealings with them. As he had grown older, of necessity, his friendships with the serf children had grown more distant, but he was still on friendly terms with the lads he had played with as a boy.
Thus confirmed, Carl was at once both pleased and highly distraught as he headed up to his bed-chamber that evening. Clotilde had accosted him shortly after their evening meal and told him of her distress.
“Sir Wilham,” she said, “would not cease to look at me with a greedy eye. There was nothing clean in that look! Carl, he frightens me. Not just for you, but more for me personally. I do not like him!! I do not like him at all!!”
Her distress was clearly evident and Carl had much ado to calm her. When he had finally left her in her room, she was much easier in mind with her brother’s promise that should Sir Wilham come around again that she should be absent from his presence and that, if she went out anywhere she should have an armed escort of six men-at-arms.
*******************************************************************
Sir Wilham did come again, a week later. As promised, Clotilde remained closeted in her room. In fact, the only one of Carl’s sisters party to that second interview was Marian. She sat quietly by the fire, practically unnoticed, her fingers busily stitching the Gregor crest onto a surcoat for her brother.
Carl lay sprawled face first onto a bench as Sir Wilham entered, having been announced by Georg. Sleepily, Carl lifted clouded blue eyes to the tall knight. In getting up, an inane smile on his lips, he tripped himself on the bench and sprawled on the floor, a gangly mass of arms and legs. He started to giggle sheepishly as he pulled himself off the floor and Father Hans allowed himself a merry laugh at his poor young lord’s expense. Carl noted with a flash of triumph that Sir Wilham regarded him with contempt and disdain, though reacting as if concerned about the lad’s ungraceful fall.
Regaining his feet, Carl held out a hand to the other man, who, by force of proper courtesy, was constrained to take it. He gripped hard and the young man’s whole arm went limp in the man’s grasp. Carl gave a bug-eyed gasp and then giggled again.
“A mighty man with a mighty grip! ’On earth there is nothing like him, Which is made without fear.’”
The quotation from Job slipped through his lips, surprising even himself…but it was the right thing to say. Sir Wilham straightened himself proudly and smiled almost amiably.
Carl rambled in a hair-brained fashion, “Almost makes me change my mind on my decision…”
“Your decision?‘ Sir Wilham asked sharply, then looked slightly annoyed with himself for his tone.
Carl pretended he had not heard the tone and burbled on, smiling at various intervals, “I have decided that if my father could hold this castle against all comers…he did, did he not, Father Hans?”
Getting an affirmative nod from the priest, he smiled sweetly, “I have decided that if my father could hold this castle against all comers, that so can I. I am sure, my good friend, you quite understand. I thank you most profoundly for you most gracious offer of assistance against Baron Hilbrand (you were right about him, you know. I saw the greed in his eyes when last I met him), but I assure you that at present Gregor castle is in no need of outside help.”
Marian’s fingers slipped to the dagger in her lap as Sir Wilham seemed to grow another few inches and his face grew red with anger. Carl felt fear clutch at him and it took all his effort to keep his hands hanging limply by his sides and his face the foolish mask he had made it. Not, he thought, that his little eight-inch dagger, which was all he was armed with, would be much match for a giant like Wilham.
After a tense moment, Sir Wilham let out a laugh, or what was supposed to be a laugh, “Well, have it your own way, my young friend! Just remember, if you ever need assistance, the Leviathan banner is at your service!”
Carl made a respectful bob with his head and started to sing-song, “His breath kindles coals, And a flame goes out of his mouth. Strength dwells in his neck, and sorrow dances before him.”
Wilham interrupted the recitation, “I shall be going now, my friend.”
Carl started, as though woken from a reverie, “God-speed!”
Then he slipped down onto the bench he had recently vacated and hummed listlessly a rather altered version of the tune, “Greensleeves”.
Marian relaxed visibly, “You act the fool very well, Carl.”
He grinned, “Are you implying that I am a fool, Marian?”
She pricked her finger and stuck it in her mouth, looking at him out of the top of her eyes. Removing her finger, she responded, “What were you going to do if he attacked you?”
Carl shook his head vaguely, “I do not know, really. But I figured he wouldn’t be foolish enough to do that in my own castle…it would not be good for his future conquest. At present, I am content that he will not be visiting again until he is ready to attack. The easy way in has been denied him.”
Three days later, Carl remembered that almost flippant statement ruefully.
Grettel came flying into the room, her mantle torn and her yellow hair resembling the remnants of a hay stack.
“Carl!! Carl!!!”
He leaped out of his chair where he was sharpening his sword. Grettel landed in his arms and started pummeling his chest with her clenched fists.
“They took her! They took her and killed the men!! I barely escaped…They took her!!!”
“They took who?” he demanded, but with a sinking assurance in his heart.
Grettel stared up at him, her eyes wide with disbelief, “Clotilde, of course!! They were made up like robbers, but I’d know that back anywhere!! It was that evil Sir Wilham, Carl!”
Carl pushed her aside, snatched up his sword and ran from the room shouting for Georg to ready the men.
Father Hans caught him as he was mounting, fifteen minutes later.
“Carl! Carl, my son! Do not be rash!”
The man’s voice cut through the black fury in the young man’s head. Carl wheeled his horse toward the priest, his eyes blue steel and his voice fire.
“He has taken my sister, Father Hans! I must away and save her from his foul grasp.”
Father Hans placed a hand on the bridle, “But rashly, in the heat of the moment, with no forethought, no plan? Child! Do not throw your life away in this anger. Think calmly before you strike! What happens to your other sisters…to your men…to your serfs, if you are slain in a moment of blinding anger? Do not be rash!”
Georg eased his own steed next to Carl’s.
“He is right, my lord. We have no plan. Men need solid orders to obey or they do not fight well.”
Carl breathed deeply and shook his head violently, a habit he had had since childhood to clear his muddled mind, and allowed himself to look at the situation as dispassionately as possible.
He muttered, glaring in the direction of Leviathan castle, “His heart is as hard as stone, Even as hard as the lower millstone.”
Suddenly, Father Hans grasped at something he had failed to realize before. He reached up and placed a hand on Carl’s knee.
“That is right, my lord Carl. This man is your Leviathan. You asked me once as a small child if any man had ever killed Leviathan. I told you I did not know…but this Leviathan is a man and men are not armored beasts. He has a weakness, but you must not rush headlong and foolishly on him like the men of old contending with the real Leviathan. You must use cunning as you have been doing with him. You throw yourself on him and…”
“And ‘Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is false; Shall one not be overcome at the sight of him?’”
Carl dismounted at his own words and ordered his men to dismount while he considered the best way to confront the man who had kidnapped his sister.
***********************************************************************
A man-at-arms entered the great hall of Leviathan castle. He saluted the big man seated in front of the fire, the scowl on his features making him ugly.
“My lord! That young whelp of Lord Gregor’s is here and craves an audience with you.”
Sir Wilham growled.
“Send him in.”
While the man-at-arms stepped out, Sir Wilham readjusted himself and his face in an attempt to look pleasant. He failed, but Carl was so upset, he doubted that the boy would have noticed anyway.
While Carl had waited to be admitted to the hall, his stupid looking eyes had been memorizing the set up of the castle. As he was ushered in, he immediately started blathering.
“Sir Wilham! Sir Wilham!”
He threw himself to his knees.
“Sir Wilham! I have come to beseech your help!”
Sir Wilham looked down at the groveling young man and tried to sound sympathetic.
“My dear friend, in what way can I assist you?”
Carl’s crazed eyes rolled up, “My lord! My sister! My sister Clotilde! She has been stolen away!”
He shrewdly observed Wilham’s reaction, noting that he tried to look shocked and surprised, but thoroughly failing. That was one thing you could say for this Leviathan, Carl thought bitterly, he was an awful liar!
Sir Wilham eased the young man to his feet, wishing he could strangle him and be done with it, but knowing that would, in the end, defeat his purpose.
“There! There, my young friend…we will do everything in our power to locate you fair sister and return her to you unscathed. You should not have left your castle…the kidnappers are sure to send you a note of ransom and you are not there to receive it.”
Carl gasped as if this had not occurred to him and immediately began to beg to be excused and allowed to return home, along with profuse thanks for Sir Wilham’s “most kind help”.
Carl was escorted out and rather roughly seated back in his saddle, then driven out the gate. He, in his fool's guise, pretended not to notice.
On his ride back to Gregor castle, he took the time to notice that Wilham’s serfs were exceptionally thin and unhappy looking, unlike his own well-fed and cheerful serfs. He also noted a rider leave the castle and cut across the fields.
“Ah-ha! So he thinks to be rid of me by the hand of an assassin!”
He began to pray, as he knew Father Hans was at that moment, for his own wisdom and courage in this matter.
As long as he was in sight of the castle, Carl rode in a clumsy fashion. As soon as he entered the woods that stretched along the border of the two fiefdoms, he sat up straight, and pulled his sword from beneath his saddle blanket where he had it carefully concealed. He readied himself for what was sure to come, every nerve tense for the sound of another horse's footfall.
Carl had crossed from Leviathan land to Gregor land when a masked man drew out in front of him. Carl immediately went slack in the saddle at the sight of him and rode onward as though he did not see the man, sighing as he went, “Oh, Clotilde…Clotilde…”
“Halt!”
The man’s voice rang loud and clear.
Carl’s head came up, as if in surprise. He shrank away from him and backed his horse a few steps. The horse laid his ears back and expressed his confusion over this odd behavior by snorting loudly. Carl smiled inwardly as he prepared his own trap.
The man rode forward, his sword at the ready. It was to be straight up murder, Carl could see that clearly. Suddenly, he drew himself up in his saddle, brought his sword up, and with a yowl of fury, dug his heels into his steed. Happier now, the horse plunged forward and the two men joined battle. The Leviathan man-at-arms was completely taken aback by the fool’s advance and was soon laid across the road--dead from a well-struck blow over the crown.
Carl was glad he was not dead himself, but he did not relish the death of his foe. Still, for all that, he took the time to pull out his ever present scrap of parchment and quill and write a note, which he pinned on the dead man’s shirt with a thorn.
“Lay your hand on him;
Remember the battle--
Never do it again!”
He fought the dead man onto the back of his shying horse and tied him on with strips cut from the man’s doublet. Pointing the horse’s head back toward Leviathan castle, he slapped its rump soundly with his own reins and watched momentarily as the animal made off towards its stables.
Around the same time that Carl was dismounting wearily at Gregor castle, Sir Wilham was staring at a note written in fine hand. He could not read, so he took it up to the room where he had imprisoned the Lady Clotilde.
Clotilde shrank away from the big man as he entered the room, fear and hate clearly written across her face.
He scowled at her.
“You need not fear me lady, for I shall not harm you.”
He held out the paper to her, “Read this.”
Clotilde reached out, keeping as far away from Sir Wilham as possible and took the paper from between his fingers. She glanced down at it and nearly betrayed her joy. However, she managed to control her reaction and hand it back to Sir Wilham saying rather coldly, “It is an odd message, sir. ‘Lay your hand on him; Remember the battle--never do it again!’ Is this some kind of joke, my lord?”
Sir Wilham glared at her, “It means nothing to you?”
Clotilde looked back at him levelly, “No. Should it?”
Carl was impatient. On the counsel of Father Hans, he had sent to the king regarding the situation, detailing his suspicions and impressions. As of yet, he had heard nothing in return.
The arrival of a courtly guest at Sir Wilham’s one find day, put cold fingers down Carl’s back.
“I cannot wait any longer,” Carl told Father Hans. “The king has sent an emissary to visit Sir Wilham and two things will happen. First, they will believe his story over mine, and secondly, Sir Wilham will know that as he has seen me I am a farce. No. I cannot wait any longer. Now is the time to act.”
This time Georg agreed with Carl. Thus it was, that the same day the king’s agent arrived at Leviathan castle, that the men of Gregor castle also arrived. Though it seemed just to be a foolish lad and two men-at-arms; Carl had carefully ordered Georg and his men to stay out of sight, but brought one of his old serf friends to be a runner between the castle and the men.
“Harold, this is most important. You must be ears and eyes near the castle gate, ready to run, at the risk of your life, to Georg. I will not order you to take this risk, but I beg it of you.”
Harold grinned, a large gap showing in his teeth from where once his young lordship had punched him a little harder than he had intended during a playful sparring match.
“I am ready to do anything for ye, me lord,” he replied, giving his thatch a little pull in salute.
Inside Leviathan castle, where the black banner was snapping smartly in the breeze over the keep, Sir Wilham looked up with annoyance when his man-at-arms once again announced “that young fool from Gregor manor”.
He frowned, “Send him in!”
He did not get up, nor greet Carl with affected affability this time. It was clear from the look on his face that he had heard from the emissary that Carl had written to the king, expounding his suspicions of him.
The emissary looked with surprise at the young man who almost tripped on his own sword as he entered the room, a dull, foolish looking lad.
“This is Lord Carl of Gregor manor?” he demanded with incredulity.
One of Sir Wilham’s men snorted derisively, but was immediately silenced by a glaring look by the Leviathan himself.
Carl’s own inane smile added to the tension of the moment as he looked in apparent confusion from one man to another. He began to sway on his feet and his eyes dropped half-closed and he began to shrilly sing-song, “Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you leash him for your maidens? Will your companions make a banquet of him? Will they apportion him among the merchants? Can you fill his skin with harpoons, Or his head with fishing spears?”
He paused to take a breath and a woman’s voice was heard raised high: “Lay your hand on him; Remember the battle--Never do it again!”
Sir Wilham sprang out of his chair, rage turning his eyes almost black as he looked to the high ceiling of the hall.
Carl laughed; the fool falling away as he did so. He was then sane as any man, his sword was in his hand and he was ready…but he had one last thing to do.
He shouted: “‘No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up. Who then is able to stand against Me? Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is Mine.’ Thus saith the Lord, you wily devil! Will you stand in opposition to your Creator by committing foul deeds? Release my sister and I shall not ask for recompense!”
Sir Wilham’s sword leapt out of its sheath and the taller, stronger man sprang upon the waiting lad. It whistled close by Carl’s head, but was met with the fury of a wronged man’s strength. The combat raged back and forth in the hall. Outside, the Leviathan men eagerly awaited the call to fall upon the two men of Gregor manor.
Suddenly, the whole of Carl’s force swept through the open gate and held the garrison at sword point, de-arming them methodically.
Carl tripped over a stool and fell with a clatter that knocked the air out of him. To make matters worse, he bashed the back of his hand on the edge of the dais, sending his sword flying.
Triumphantly, Sir Wilham struck out at the defenseless lad, only to have the point of his sword snap against the stone floor.
Carl had thrown himself to one side with all the power he had in him and just barely avoided the thrust. Enraged, Sir Wilham threw the broken sword from him and reached down and started throttling his opponent. Carl found himself spitting these words through his clenched teeth while his fingers ground into the older man’s wrists:
“Who can remove his outer coat?
Who can approach him with a double bridle?
Who can open the doors of his face,
With his terrible teeth all around?”
Suddenly, with one last choking effort, his eyes glazing over, he screamed, “Not I!! But you, O Father!!”
This sudden onslaught of words was accompanied by a convulsive squeezing of the hands that loosened Wilham’s grip on Carl’s throat. In that one moment, Carl’s mind cleared enough for him to swing a desperate blow at his antagonist's face. He hit Sir Wilham squarely in the eye. He followed it up by jamming his thumb into the man’s eye and as Sir Wilham heaved his bulk up in an attempt to remove the pressure from his eyeball, Carl ripped himself from his grasp.
At this point, as Carl dove for his sword, the king’s emissary stepped in, sword in hand.
"Enough, gentlemen!! Enough!”
He sounded absurdly like a hen squawking at a cock-fight, but Carl stood down, panting and shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, yet never taking his eyes from the furious form across from him.
The emissary, all dignity, stated, “I wish to speak to the woman I heard shouting earlier.”
Sir Wilham roared, “You heard no woman!”
Carl retorted, “That, Sirrah, was my sister Clotilde!”
He gasped and choked after that declaration, but still kept both eyes locked on Sir Wilham.
It took a few minutes, but Clotilde was soon down in the great hall. She tossed one scornful look at Sir Wilham before running straight to her brother.
“Carl!”
The emissary could very well see the truth of the matter before his eyes. He called his retainers and they took a fuming Sir Wilham away. He turned back to Carl after watching Wilham’s back disappear.
“Now, my lord,” he began, but stopped abruptly.
As soon as Sir Wilham was officially out of the room, Carl had collapsed into his sister’s arms. She smiled down at him as he blinked up at her. She leaned down and said softly, “Lay your hand on him; Remember the battle--never do it again!”
Carl gave a strangled laugh.
*************************************************************
Carl of Gregor Manor never lost his fascination with Leviathan. But he never again wished to engage him in battle. Once was enough…