The trumpeter of Krakow

by Eric P. Kelly

Then, true to his name, he wriggled beneath a dozen carts and past the flank of an outhouse near the church to take refuge behind a tree that grew at this corner of the Rynek. Doubled up here he waited until the watchman should pass in front of the church. He had not long to wait.

Out from the shadows at the base of the church emerged suddenly a man carrying a lantern that threw a star-shaped light about it. This man tested the door to the stairs leading to the trumpeter’s tower, found it securely locked, yawned, and struck the paving stones several times in front of the door with his long halberd as if he were weary of doing nothing. The Snake’s eyes sized up this man as his opponent. He was a man perhaps past middle age, clad in a garment of leather over which was a very light chain armor, poorly woven; this fell like a skirt with pointed edges just below the knees. Above the waist the links of armor were a bit heavier extending over the shoulders and back into long sleeves clear to the wrist, and up past the neck to a kind of head covering like a cowl, over which he wore a pointed helmet of rough metal. Outside the armor he wore a very short leather vest caught with a belt from which hung a short sword, and across the shoulders just below the neck another belt with a buckle at the left where the halberd could be secured and balanced.

He passed from the front of the church to the south side, looked about carefully to see if there were any signs of life in the street or square, and, finding none, turned away from the church and entered the churchyard at the south where the moonlight fell brightly upon the old gravestones. Squatting down behind one of these, and crossing himself as if in excuse to the people buried there for disturbing their slumbers, he laid his halberd on the ground at his right side and the lantern at the left. Then reaching into a wallet which he wore at his girdle, he took out a crust of bread and a huge portion of meat. These he began to eat with no suspicion of any interruption.

In this conduct he was justified, for he had been doing this same thing over and over again for many years; there had been no serious duties about the church save perhaps on a holy day when youth on mischief bound would play some trick upon the watchman, and them he could easily dispatch about their business. Thieves seldom troubled churches in this period and the cemetery itself was guard enough against marauders in a period full of superstition. Up above him the trumpeter kept a much stricter vigil, and all about the town, the watch tried house doors and questioned late passers-by.

“Oh-ho-hum!” he yawned. Such a quiet thing was life!

But—flattened against the church wall behind him was one whose intention might have disturbed those weary thoughts had the watchman been able to discern it. The Snake had sized up this situation with rapidity and had taken advantage of the moment that the watchman turned his back upon the square to dart into the projecting shadow of a buttress. Edging along the wall, he moved cautiously until he was but a few yards from the tombstone by which the watchman sat.

Plof! The Snake had pounced like a hawk on a mouse.

There was not even a scuffle, so prepared was the intruder and so taken by surprise was the victim. Down went the watchman on his back by the side of the grave and in a second the deft Michael had bound his scarf tightly about the man’s mouth, so that he could not utter a sound. It was the work of a moment as well, to secure the hands and feet with short bits of rope that he carried in his jacket—he was at first minded to cut the man’s throat with his own sword, but he feared lest he might make one last dying cry and upset all their plans.

Inside the victim’s leather vest he found a huge brass key. This he cut loose from the short chain which held it and thrust it into his own belt.

Then making sure that the bonds were secure, he leaped back into the shadow of the church and stole back to the wagon of his chief as deftly as he had come.