The Castle of Kings by Oliver Pötzsch

Author:Oliver Pötzsch [Pötzsch, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical, Adult
ISBN: 9780544317888
Google: qd8MBgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00QPHKQZQ
Goodreads: 23719471
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2013-09-27T05:00:00+00:00

With weary eyes, Mathis watched the fat bluebottle flying in wide circles around the cell. The heat of the summer day seemed to have made the insect as dizzy as he felt himself. Buzzing angrily, the fly collided with the wall several times before finally coming to rest on the floor, which was covered with dirty straw. A large spider shot out of a crack in the woodwork and disappeared into a dark corner with its prey.

Leaning against the wall of his cell, Mathis closed his eyes, but it was impossible to sleep. He had been crouching here all day, in the heavy heat of the top floor of the guardhouse. Much of the time he had been able to see the glaring sun through a barred window, but it had now disappeared behind the town walls. Evening was approaching, and Mathis thought how, only a few months ago, he had been locked up in the keep of Trifels Castle. He had spent many days and nights there, yet he hadn’t felt as lonely as he did now, in Annweiler.

They had put him in the notorious “drying-out cell,” a room reinforced with iron that sat above the guardhouse, by the lower gate. In winter, a prisoner’s saliva froze to lumps of ice in his mouth here; in summer it was as hot as hell under the metal ceiling. The cell could bring any troublemaker, however rowdy, to see reason.

In spite of the heat in the stuffy room, Mathis was shivering—from fear. This time there really did not seem to be any way out. His sentence had been as good as passed already: he had allegedly murdered the mayor of Annweiler, and if he didn’t confess, the executioner in nearby Queichhambach would presumably leave him dangling from the ceiling of the torture chamber, with stones hanging from his feet, until his bones were dislocated from their joints. Mathis had once seen Master Jakob dragging a stubborn thief, convicted of stealing from the offertory box, to the gallows. The man could no longer walk by himself, his limbs as slack as those of a puppet with its strings cut. How long would Mathis be able to endure torture? Or was it better to confess at once in order to buy a quick, clean death?

Mathis groaned and licked his cracked lips. He was thirstier than he had ever been in his life. Last night’s hangover had not entirely worn off yet, and the heat left him feeling like a dried apple. Presumably the town councilors of Annweiler were hoping to get a faster confession by these means.

They need me, thought Mathis. Only if I confess will no suspicion fall on the municipal dignitaries, and the duke will be placated.

For the hundredth time, Mathis went over to the barred window on the eastern side of his cell and looked out over the rooftops of the town to the Sonnenberg, on which Trifels Castle stood enthroned. Inaccessibly far away. Why had he let himself be

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