The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

by Jesse Bullington

Genres: Science Fiction

Synopsis

The year is 1364. Hungry creatures stalk the dark woods of medieval Europe, and both sea and sky teem with unspeakable horrors. There is no foulness, however, no witch nor demon, to rival the grave-robbing twins Hegel and Manfried Grossbart. This is their tale, sad but true.

"Darkly funny, profane, erudite, bawdy, and wickedly original... the debut of an amazing new talent." - Jeff VanderMeer

Release date: October 27, 2009

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 464

Sample

The story of the Brothers Grossbart does not begin with the discovery of the illuminated pages comprising Die Tragödie der Brüder Große Bärte tucked inside a half-copied Bible in a German monastery five hundred years ago, nor does it end with the incineration of
those irreplaceable artifacts during the firebombing of Dresden last century. Even the myriad oral accounts that were eventually
transcribed into the aforementioned codex by an unremembered monk hardly constitute a true starting point, and, as the recent
resurgence in scholarship testifies, the chronicle of the Grossbarts has not yet concluded. The pan-cultural perseverance
of these medieval tales makes the lack of a definitive modern translation even more puzzling, with the only texts available
to the contemporary reader being the handful of remaining nineteenth-century reprints of the original documents and the mercifully
out-of-print verse translations of Trevor Caleb Walker. That Walker was a better scholar than a poet is nowhere more evident
than in that vanity edition, and thus came the impetus to retell Die Tragödie in a manner that would transmit the story as it would have been appreciated by its original audience.


The distinction here between stories and story represents what is, presumably, a first in the field—rather than treating Die Tragödie as a collection of independent fragments, comparable to the contemporaneous Romance of Reynard, I have focused on the quest continuously reiterated by the Grossbarts themselves in order to cobble together a cohesive
and linear narrative. A benefit of transforming the work into a single account is the inclusion of previously unlinked stories,
divergences that illuminate aspects of the greater narrative even if they at first seem quite disparate save for their era
and locale. Another consequence of this approach is that small leaps occasionally occur in the journey as overly repetitious
adventures are elided.


Scholars curious as to whether this humble author sides with the apologists Dunn and Ardanuy or the revisionists Rahimi and
Tanzer will be disappointed—this tale is intended for those members of the public having no previous acquaintance with the
Grossbarts, and is thus unadorned with academic grandstanding. For this reason, and to avoid unduly distracting the average
reader, the following pages lack annotation, with the most popular interpretation of any given incident defaulted to when
variations arise. As has already been stated, the adventures of the Grossbarts are often remarkably similar save for locale—reflecting
regional differences on the part of the original storytellers—and so marking up these deviations would defeat the entire purpose
of the project, which is to convey the tale as it would have come across in its original form. After all, the average German
serf would be no more aware that his Dutch neighbors blamed his region for spawning the Grossbarts than the merchant of Dordrecht
would be that down in Bad Endorf the Germans insisted his town was where the twins were born.


This is indicative of the gulf separating contemporary readers from the original audience, an audience alien almost to the
point of incomprehensibility. Those first storytellers and listeners might, for example, have taken the fantastic and violent
elements much more seriously with only hearth or campfire to stave off the perilous night. The fourteenth century, wherein
the tales were both told and set, was, as Barbara Tuchman opens her history of that era, a “violent, tormented, bewildered,
suffering and disintegrating age, a time, as many thought, of Satan triumphant.”


Yet it was no arbitrary decision that led Tuchman to title that work A Distant Mirror. Tragedies and atrocities may seem inherently worse when appraised from long after they occurred, but despite all we have
accomplished wars rage, righteous uprisings are viciously suppressed, religious persecution thrives, famine and plague decimate
the innocent. This is not to excuse or apologize for any cruelties peppering the following pages, but simply to provide a
lens, should the reader require one, through which to view them.


We will never know if the Grossbarts were heroes or villains, for as Margaret Atwood observes in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, “We may call Eurydice forth from the world of the dead, but we cannot make her answer; and when we turn to look at her we
glimpse her only for a moment, before she slips from our grasp and flees.” That the Grossbarts themselves would take umbrage
at both being associated with the witchery of Orpheus’ quest to the underworld and this particular account of their deeds
seems probable, but whether their medieval audience would approve remains forever unknowable. This tale is exhumed for our
enlightenment, and while I have done some tailoring for our modern sensibilities their spirit remains just that, and as such,
unquenchable. “As all historians know,” Atwood concludes that selfsame quote, “the past is a great darkness, and filled with
echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they
come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day.” With that wisdom
in mind, let us cock our ears and squint our eyes toward the Brothers Grossbart and a beginning in Bad Endorf.


 





To claim that the Brothers Grossbart were cruel and selfish brigands is to slander even the nastiest highwayman, and to say
they were murderous swine is an insult to even the filthiest boar. They were Grossbarts through and true, and in many lands
such a title still carries serious weight. While not as repugnant as their father nor as cunning as his, horrible though both
men were, the Brothers proved worse. Blood can go bad in a single generation or it can be distilled down through the ages
into something truly wicked, which was the case with those abominable twins, Hegel and Manfried.


Both were average of height but scrawny of trunk. Manfried possessed disproportionately large ears, while Hegel’s nose dwarfed
many a turnip in size and knobbiness. Hegel’s copper hair and bushy eyebrows contrasted the matted silver of his brother’s
crown, and both were pockmarked and gaunt of cheek. They had each seen only twenty-five years but possessed beards of such
noteworthy length that from even a short distance they were often mistaken for old men. Whose was longest proved a constant
bone of contention between the two.


Before being caught and hanged in some dismal village far to the north, their father passed on the family trade; assuming
the burglarizing of graveyards can be considered a gainful occupation. Long before their granddad’s time the name Grossbart
was synonymous with skulduggery of the shadiest sort, but only as cemeteries grew into something more than potter’s fields
did the family truly find its calling. Their father abandoned them to their mother when they were barely old enough to raise
a prybar and went in search of his fortune, just as his father had disappeared when he was but a fledgling sneak-thief.


The elder Grossbart is rumored to have died wealthier than a king in the desert country to the south, where the tombs surpass
the grandest castle of the Holy Roman Empire in both size and affluence. That is what the younger told his sons, but it is
doubtful there was even the most shriveled kernel of truth in his ramblings. The Brothers firmly believed their dad had joined
their grandfather in Gyptland, leaving them to rot with their alcoholic and abusive mother. Had they known he actually wound
up as crow-bait without a coin in his coffer it is doubtful they would have altered the track of their lives, although they
may have cursed his name less—or more, it is difficult to say.


An uncle of dubious legitimacy and motivation rescued them from their demented mother and took them under his wing during
their formative man-boy years. Whatever his relation to the lads, his beard was undeniably long, and he was as fervent as
any Grossbart before him to crack open crypts and pilfer what sullen rewards they offered. After a number of too-close shaves
with local authorities he absconded in the night with all their possessions, leaving the destitute Brothers to wander back
to their mother, intent on stealing whatever the wizened old drunk had not lost or spent over the intervening years.


The shack where they were born had aged worse than they, the mossy roof having joined the floor while they were ransacking
churchyards along the Danube with their uncle. The moldy structure housed only a badger, which the Grossbarts dined on after
suffering only mild injures from the sleepy beast’s claws. Inquiring at the manor house’s stable, they learned their mother
had expired over the winter and lay with all the rest in the barrow at the end of town. Spitting on the mound in the torrential
rain, the Brothers Grossbart vowed they would rest in the grand tombs of the Infidel or not at all.


Possessing only their wide-brimmed hats, rank clothes, and tools, but cheered by the pauper’s grave in which their miserable
matriarch rotted, they made ready to journey south. Such an expedition required more supplies than a pair of prybars and a
small piece of metal that might have once been a coin, so they set off to settle an old score. The mud pulled at their shoes
in a vain attempt to slow their malicious course.


The yeoman Heinrich had grown turnips a short distance outside the town’s wall his entire life, the hard lot of his station
compounded by the difficult crop and the substandard hedge around his field. When they were boys the Brothers often purloined
the unripe vegetation until the night Heinrich lay in wait for them. Not content to use a switch or his hands, the rightly
furious farmer thrashed them both with his shovel. Manfried’s smashed-in nose never returned to its normal shape and Hegel’s
indented left buttock forever bore the shame of the spade.


Ever since the boys had disappeared Heinrich had enjoyed fertility both in his soil and the bed he shared with his wife and
children. Two young daughters joined their elder sister and brother, the aging farmer looking forward to having more hands
to put to use. Heinrich even saved enough to purchase a healthy horse to replace their nag, and had almost reimbursed his
friend Egon for the cart he had built them.


The Brothers Grossbart tramped across the field toward the dark house, the rain blotting out whatever moonlight hid above
the clouds. Their eyes had long grown accustomed to the night, however, and they could see that the farmer now had a small
barn beside his home. They spit simultaneously on his door, and exchanging grins, set to beating the wood.


“Fire!” yelled Manfried.

“Fire!” repeated Hegel.

“Town’s aflame, Heinrich!”

“Heinrich, bring able hands!”

In his haste to lend aid to his neighbors Heinrich stumbled out of bed without appreciating the drumming of rain upon his
roof and flung open the door. The sputtering rushlight in his hand illuminated not concerned citizens but the scar-cratered
visages of the Brothers Grossbart. Heinrich recognized them at once, and with a yelp dropped his light and made to slam the
door.


The Grossbarts were too quick and dragged him into the rain. The farmer struck at Hegel but Manfried kicked the back of Heinrich’s
knee before Heinrich landed a blow. Heinrich twisted as he fell and attempted to snatch Manfried when Hegel delivered a sound
punch to the yeoman’s neck. Heinrich thrashed in the mud while the two worked him over, but just as he despaired, bleeding
from mouth and nose, his wife Gertie emerged from the house with their woodax.


If Manfried’s nose had not been so flat the blade would have cleaved it open as she slipped in the mire. Hegel tackled her,
the two rolling in the mud while her husband groaned and Manfried retrieved the ax. Gertie bit Hegel’s face and clawed his
ear but then Hegel saw his brother raise the ax and he rolled free as the blade plummeted into her back. Through the muddy
film coating his face Heinrich watched his wife kick and piss herself, the rain slowing to a drizzle as she bled out in the
muck.


Neither brother had ever killed a person before, but neither felt the slightest remorse for the heinous crime. Heinrich crawled
to Gertie, Hegel went to the barn, and Manfried entered the house of children’s tears. Hegel latched up the horse, threw Heinrich’s
shovel and a convenient sack of turnips into the bed of the cart, and led it around front.


Inside the darkened house Heinrich’s eldest daughter lunged at Manfried with a knife but he intercepted her charge with the
ax. Despite his charitable decision to knock her with the blunt end of the ax head, the metal crumpled in her skull and she
collapsed. The two babes cried in the bed, the only son cowering by his fallen sister. Spying a hog-fat tallow beside the
small stack of rushlights, Manfried tucked the rare candle into his pocket and lit one of the lard-coated reeds on the hearth
coals, inspecting the interior.


Stripping the blankets off the bed and babes, he tossed the rushlights, the few knives he found, and the tubers roasting on
the hearth into the pilfered cloth and tied the bundle with cord. He blew out the rushlight, pocketed it, and stepped over
the weeping lad. The horse and cart waited, but his brother and Heinrich were nowhere to be seen.


Manfried tossed the blankets into the cart and peered about, his eyes rapidly readjusting to the drizzly night. He saw Heinrich
fifty paces off, slipping as he ran from the silently pursuing Hegel. Hegel dived at his quarry’s legs and missed, falling
on his face in the mud as Heinrich broke away toward town.


Cupping his hands, Manfried bellowed, “Got the young ones here, Heinrich! Come on back! You run and they’s dead!”

Heinrich continued a few paces before slowing to a walk on the periphery of Manfried’s vision. Hegel righted himself and scowled
at the farmer but knew better than to risk spooking him with further pursuit. Hurrying back to his brother, Hegel muttered
in Manfried’s cavernous ear as Heinrich trudged back toward the farm.


“Gotta be consequences,” Hegel murmured. “Gotta be.”

“He’d have the whole town on us,” his brother agreed. “Just not right, after his wife tried to murder us.” Manfried touched
his long-healed nose.


“We was just settlin accounts, no call for her bringin axes into it.” Hegel rubbed his scarred posterior.

Heinrich approached the Brothers, only registering their words on an instinctual level. Every good farmer loves his son even
more than his wife, and he knew the Grossbarts would slaughter young Brennen without hesitation. Heinrich broke into a maniacal
grin, thinking of how on the morrow the town would rally around his loss, track these dogs down, and hang them from the gibbet.


The yeoman gave Hegel the hard-eye but Hegel gave it right back, then the Grossbart punched Heinrich in the nose. The farmer’s
head swam as he felt himself trussed up like a rebellious sow, the rope biting his ankles and wrists. Heinrich dimly saw Manfried
go back into the house, then snapped fully awake when the doorway lit up. Manfried had shifted some of the coals onto the
straw bed, the cries of the little girls amplifying as the whole cot ignited. Manfried reappeared with the near-catatonic
Brennen in one hand and a turnip in the other.


“Didn’t have to be this way,” said Manfried. “You’s forced our hands.”

“Did us wrong twice over,” Hegel concurred.

“Please.” Heinrich’s bloodshot eyes shifted wildly between the doorway and his son. “I’m sorry, lads, honest. Let him free,
and spare the little ones.” The babes screeched all the louder. “In God’s name, have mercy!”


“Mercy’s a proper virtue,” said Hegel, rubbing the wooden image of the Virgin he had retrieved from a cord around Gertie’s
neck. “Show’em mercy, brother.”


“Sound words indeed,” Manfried conceded, setting the boy gently on his heels facing his father.

“Yes,” Heinrich gasped, tears eroding the mud on the proud farmer’s cheeks, “the girls, please, let them go!”

“They’s already on their way,” said Manfried, watching smoke curl out of the roof as he slit the boy’s throat. If Hegel found
this judgment harsh he did not say. Night robbed the blood of its sacramental coloring, black liquid spurting onto Heinrich’s
face. Brennen pitched forward, confused eyes breaking his father’s heart, lips moving soundlessly in the mud.


“Bless Mary,” Hegel intoned, kissing the pinched necklace.

“And bless us, too,” Manfried finished, taking a bite from the warm tuber.

The babes in the burning house had gone silent when the Grossbarts pulled out of the yard, Hegel atop the horse and Manfried
settling into the cart. They had shoved a turnip into Heinrich’s mouth, depriving him of even his prayers. Turning onto the
path leading south into the mountains, the rain had stopped as the Brothers casually made their escape.




Dawn found the smoldering carcass of Heinrich’s house sending plumes of smoke heavenward, summoning the village’s able-bodied
men. An hour later most had regained the nerve they had lost at seeing the carnage. Despite his protests Heinrich went into
the village to warm his bones and belly if not his soul while the half dozen men who comprised the local jury rode south.
They had borrowed horses of varying worth and food to last two days, and the manor lord’s assistant Gunter fetched his three
best hounds. Gunter also convinced his lord of the necessity of borrowing several crossbows and a sword, and the others gathered
any weapons they could lay their hands on, though all agreed the fugitives should be brought back alive so Heinrich could
watch them hang.


Gunter knew well the Grossbart name, and cursed himself for not suspecting trouble when they had arrived at the manor house
the night before. He comforted himself with the knowledge that no good man could predict such evil. Still, he had a wife and
three sons of his own, and although he did not count Heinrich amongst his closest friends no man deserved such a loss. He
would send his boys to help Heinrich next planting but knew it was a piss-poor substitute for one’s own kin.


They rode as fast as the nags allowed, making good time over field and foothill. The wind chilled the jury but the sun burned
off the dismal clouds and dried the mud, where the cart tracks collaborated with the dogs to assure them of their course.
Even if the killers fled without resting Gunter knew they could still be overtaken by sundown. He prayed they would surrender
at seeing the superior force but he doubted it. These were Grossbarts, after all.


Being Grossbarts, Hegel and Manfried knew better than to stop, instead driving the horse close to breaking before stopping
near dawn. Even had they wanted to continue the trail disappeared among the dark trees and remained invisible until cockcrow.
They had reached the thick forest that separated the mountains proper from the rolling hills of their childhood home, and
Manfried found a stream to water the frothy horse. He wiped it down while his brother slept and generously offered it a turnip.
Turning its long nose up, it instead munched what grass grew on the edge of the wood before also closing its eyes.


Manfried roused them both after the sun appeared, and his brother hitched the horse while he whittled a beard comb from an
alder branch. Soon they were winding up a rocky path ill-suited for a farmer’s cart. Each tugged and scratched his beard as
they slowly proceeded, both minds occupied on a single matter.


“Chance they went east,” Hegel said after a few hours.

“Nah,” Manfried said, stopping the cart to remove a fallen branch from the trail. “They’ll figure us to cut south, what with
the scarcity a other towns round here.”


“So they must be comin on now,” grunted Hegel.

“If that bastard didn’t get freed earlier, suppose someone must a found’em by now. Probably hollered all night. Had I cut
his throat, too, he couldn’t a yelled for help.”


“Yeah, but then there’d be no one left to learn the lesson, and he had a fat turnip to chew through.”

“True enough,” Manfried conceded.

“So they’s definitely on to us.”

“Yeah,” said Manfried, “and with just horses, they’ll catch us by shut-in.”

“If not fore that.” Hegel spit on their panting horse.

“Shouldn’t a bothered with the cart,” said Manfried.

“You wanna carry them extra blankets? All a them turnips? No thank you. Cart’s only thing good bout a horse. Can pull a cart.”
Hegel could never articulate exactly why, but he had always distrusted quadrupeds. Too many legs, he figured.


“Yeah, and what do you think we’s gonna be eatin when we run out a turnips?”

“True words, true words.”

The Brothers shared a laugh, then Manfried turned serious again. “So we got the vantage if we use it, cause we’s ahead and
they’s behind. What say we run this cart a bit ahead, lash the horse to a tree and cut back through the wood? Get the pounce
on’em.”


“Nah, not sharp enough. Up through them trees I spied where the trail starts switchin up the face. We wait up there. High
ground, brother, only boon we’s gonna get.”


“Catch as catch can, I suppose. Think I’ll carve us some spears.” Manfried hopped from the cart and walked beside them, peering
through the thickets for suitable boughs. The treacherous path advised against speed, allowing Manfried to easily keep pace.
After heaping several long branches in the cart, he resumed his seat and set to task.


Gunter stopped the jury where the path began arcing back and forth up the mountainside, only transient hunters and their more
sensible game preventing the trail from being swallowed entirely by the wilds. Even with the prodigious trees to shield them
from an avalanche the reduced visibility allowed their quarry any number of ambush spots. The dogs sat as far from the horses as their tethers allowed, and he dismounted to water them.


The dusk hour would give the jury just enough time and light to reach the pass. With a heavy sigh Gunter freed the hounds
from their leashes and watched them dash excitedly up the trail. He had hoped to overtake the murderers before they reached
the switchbacks, but the jury had ridden slowly through the forest lest the Grossbarts had broken from the trail. While they
might have plunged down the opposite slope rather than lying in wait along the way, Gunter doubted it. They were ruthless,
and the only advantage save numbers the townsfolk possessed was a few more hours of sleep the night before.


“Quick as you can,” Gunter called, “but leave a few horse-lengths twixt you and the man ahead.”

The thick forest had yielded to scree and hardy pines that seemingly grew directly from the rock. The setting sun shone on
the trail that within the week would be salted with snow, and each man carried a heavy fear along with his weapon. Gunter
led, his nephew Kurt close behind, then Egon the carpenter, with the farmers Bertram, Hans, and Helmut following after. The
dogs bayed as they charged ahead, Gunter following them with his eyes for three bends in the road before they ascended out
of view.


The steepest point of the trail lay near the top, before the incline evened out at the pass. At the last switchback Manfried
waited with a large pile of rocks and his spears, a wizened tree and a small boulder providing cover. Brown grass coated the
mountainside wherever the scree and rock shelves did not, and on the path halfway down to the next bend Hegel finished his
work with the shovel and prybar. He had forced up rocks and dug the hard dirt beneath to provide as many horse-breaking holes
as time afforded, and now scurried to conceal them with the dead grass. The hounds rushing up the trail below him were too
winded to bark but Hegel sensed their presence all the same.


Hegel despised dogs more than all other four-legged beasts combined and hefted his shovel. Seeing their prey, the hounds fell
upon him. The shovel caught the lead animal in the brow and sent it rolling to the side but before he could swing again the
other two leaped. One snapped past his flailing arms and landed behind him, the last latching on to his ankle. Unbalanced,
he drove the shovelhead into the neck of the dog on his leg, cracking its spine. The mortal blow did not detach the cur, however,
its teeth embedded in his flesh.


Manfried chewed his lip, eyes darting between his brother and the horsemen he saw riding up the switchbacks below. Hegel spun
as the dog behind him jumped, parrying it with the haft of his tool but losing his balance; he fell. At seeing Hegel stumble
on the dead dog fastened to his leg Manfried slid down the side of the slope. The beast Hegel had first laid out regained
its feet as Manfried jumped down to the trail, prybar in hand.


Manfried heard the riders but the horizontal Hegel heard only the growling of the dog attacking his face. Hegel jerked back
so it merely tore at his ear and scalp, and as a testament to his utter hatred of the creature, he clamped both arms around
its torso and bit into the mangy fur of its throat. The confused hound yelped and struggled to get away but he pulled it closer,
chewing through its coat and into the meat. Gagging on muddy, stinking dog, he opened his mouth wider and got his teeth around
the veins.


In his descent Manfried had wrapped a swath of blanket around his lower left arm, and easily coaxed his wounded foe into biting.
He cooed to the beast until it lunged at his waving appendage, and no sooner did it bite than he brained it with his prybar.
Tucking the weapon into his belt, he hefted the hound’s shuddering corpse and rushed to the edge of the trail. Recognizing
Gunter on the trail below, he hurled the dead dog at him and dashed back up the trail to his roost.


“Move your legs, brother!” Manfried wheezed.

Hegel had broken the jaw of the murdered cur on his ankle, and the throat-bitten hound rapidly bled out on the ground beside
it. Hearing hooves, he limped as quickly as he could after his brother. Having chosen their ambush location for its sheer
walls and steep ascent, Hegel had no hope of reaching the switchback Manfried rounded before the horsemen caught him. He threw
himself behind a boulder just as Gunter appeared around the bend below.


Gunter’s favorite bitch had nearly knocked him from his horse, and had his steed been fresh it surely would have bolted in
fear. His tunic slick with dog blood and his shoulder bruising, he kicked the horse and called to his men, “We’re on them,
lads!”


Seeing the next piece of trail empty save for another of his fallen hounds and several boulders, Gunter pushed his mount harder
up the incline. The sure footed stallion avoided the holes Hegel had excavated and clipped past the crouched Grossbart, reaching
the next bend. From the edge of his eye Gunter caught sight of Hegel but before he could double back the murderers made their
move.


Following his uncle, Kurt noticed Hegel just as the shovel dug into his hip bone and sent him toppling. The startled horse
reared back, stepped into a hole and, snapping its fetlock, fell onto Kurt before he could blink. The horse pinned him, crushing
his legs as it frantically rolled and kicked. Hegel saw another rider rounding the bend below and scampered around the fallen,
crazed horse to relieve the trapped rider of his crossbow, which had skittered o