Act Four: Under the Mask (Part 4)
Four
The fog grew thicker, coalescing into low, dark clouds that pressed down on the mountaintop. The snow, like a capricious child, came without warning.
Christmas was still a week away. The monastery was always busy during this time. The short, stout nuns led them and their horses and donkeys, pointing out the purpose of each room in the monastery—it wasn't a large monastery, housing only a dozen or so nuns. There were fields, a chapel, classrooms, and a kitchen, everything was there. Yubi caught a glimpse of several girls about his age peeking at them from behind a door, chatting amongst themselves.
"Girls, where is your sense of shame and manners?" the short, stout old woman scolded loudly, her voice booming. "Have you all forgotten God's teachings?"
The girls scattered like a flock of startled birds.
“This place is like a land of women; you can’t see a single man,” Yubi asked softly. “Why don’t we see so many women outside?”
“This is a monastery after all,” Schumeer replied. “Women who enter here never leave; they pray fervently. Men are not allowed in normally either.”
“How pitiful,” Yubi murmured, head bowed. “They’re so young, and they’ll never be able to leave again, just like I was before.”
“What’s so pitiful about it?” Yakov said curtly. “Only daughters of noble families can come to places like this. They have work to do, food to eat, and books to read. They won’t starve to death on the roadside.”
Unexpectedly, the old woman walking in front of them had a pair of keen ears. "The noble daughters have long been taken away to a safer place." She turned around, smiling kindly, seemingly not at all dissatisfied with Yakov's resentful attitude. "The sisters who stayed here have all been tested and are now the most devout and loyal servants of the Lord."
Yakov said nothing more, just kept walking, his belt and sword clanging. They crossed the monastery's fields and came across the sheepfold. Several nuns were working with their sleeves rolled up—they were adding vinegar to milk to make it coagulate, then wrapping it in gauze and squeezing out the whey to make a dense yogurt cheese—"This monastery is sustained by sheep's milk cheese," the nun told Yubi, noticing him staring at it intently. "Our cheese is of better quality than that of the artisans in the surrounding towns."
"Then why don't the Tatars want cheese and insist on sheep?" Yubi asked. "They certainly can't make better cheese than you."
“Because milk comes from sheep. With sheep, you can have as much milk and cheese as you want,” Yakov interrupted. For some reason, his voice sounded faintly angry. “You’re so old, you shouldn’t still not understand such a simple question.”
“But no one taught me these things!” Yubi stubbornly raised his face. This action made his nose stuffy again, and he had to wipe it with a handkerchief. “How can I know if I don’t ask?”
“You are a kind adult, that’s why you don’t understand these things.” The nun looked at them kindly. “Where do you come from, and where are you going?”
Yakov remained silent, sullen and unresponsive. "We're from Brasov, on our way to Constantinople," Schumeer interjected, leaning forward eagerly to inquire, "Is the journey safe? Are there many Tatars nearby?"
"As you can see, their camp is set up at the mountain pass, blocking the valley road, and no one is allowed to pass." The nun sighed calmly, "I think the whole valley will not be at peace this winter."
The three men exchanged glances. Yakov keenly sensed the hidden meaning in their words. "Just this winter?"
“There have been some rumors circulating lately,” the old woman said slowly. “One of our sisters just went to the market in Brasov. When she came back, she said that the lord of the city is recruiting soldiers. After Christmas Mass, he will send troops from the newly built cathedral to the south to attack the Tatar army.”
Upon hearing this, Yakov, Yubi, and Schumer all frowned and fell silent. Yakov felt Yubi grab his cloak.
"The Tatars have also heard of this," the nun continued, her words sending chills down the spines of the three. "The lord spread the word that the Tatars kidnapped his youngest son, demanded a ransom, and then killed the child. But nobody knows if it's true or not. The Khan may have heard about it from the horse merchants. In the last couple of days, they've gathered a large cavalry force and are stationed at the mountain pass..."
"How could this happen?" Yubi's voice was filled with anxiety and regret, but she dared not say any more.
“Fortunately, we have this gentleman who speaks Turkic,” Sister Gianda said with a smile. “The monastery is a place for practicing poverty and spiritual discipline. I think the Tatars probably won’t bother coming to the mountains to cause us trouble. We can only pray that God will bless us and prevent war from ravaging His garden…”
"Do you know their Khan?" Yakov interrupted her. "What's the name of this tribe?"
“…My Lord, I don’t understand the barbarian language, I don’t recognize it. Why do you ask this?” The old woman looked at her strangely. “But the Khan I made an appointment with is a fierce woman.”
“A woman?” Schumer opened his mouth in surprise. “Would the Tatars appoint a woman as their leader?”
Yakov sighed silently. As they spoke, they walked to a low wooden hut. The hut was separated from the other houses by a fence, not bordering the nuns' living quarters. "Our rooms are simple, we hope you won't mind. The stables are right next door," the nun said, opening the door and introducing the simple, clean furnishings. "You can call me Gianda. I'm the superintendent here; just look for me if you need anything."
“Thank you, Mother Gianda.” It was Schumeer who said the thanks, raising his hand to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead. “Weren’t the Knights Hospitallers staying in the guest rooms?”
“Many of them are lepers, and we have cleared out the church to house them.” Sister Gianda made the sign of the cross. “May Jesus appear to us as He healed Lazarus. If you have time, you can come and help after you have prayed.”
“We will definitely remember this.” Schumer also reluctantly made the sign of the cross—it looked really weird, Yakov thought. But he and Yubi also had to raise their hands and put on a pious expression.
However, Sister Gianda remained standing there, refusing to leave. The short, plump woman stood before the gate, head bowed in thought, hesitantly raising her face. Her eyes, bright and resolute on her simple, round face, shone with a gaze fixed on the cross on Yakov's helmet. "My lord," she said softly, her voice clear, "I have a request, one that you've probably already guessed." "The Tatars have been harassing this monastery for years. We can manage to feed the livestock on ordinary days. But if war breaks out, if they were to storm the monastery..." Her voice choked slightly, "I hope you and your companions can stay here, at least until the end of Christmas Mass, please? Consider it an act of protecting God's wrath..."
Three pairs of eyes stared at Yakov's iron mask, making him feel a surge of unease. "Stay here, Yakov," Yubi muttered, head bowed, as if a terrible guilt already weighed on him. "Even if we leave, we have nowhere to go..."
“We’ll consider it,” Yakov interrupted him, throwing out the words bluntly, “but we’ll talk about the rest later.”
Before nightfall, they drew water from the well and gathered firewood to warm the cold guest room so they could do some washing. Yakov closed the door and covered the windows before stripping off his blood-stained robe and chainmail, soaking them in a borrowed wooden basin with hot water and soap. The bloodstains and dust mixed together, giving the water a foul odor—but Yubi couldn't smell it at all. His nose was terribly stuffed, so he could only continue to warm himself by the fire, a cloth-wrapped hot stone tucked into his arms by Yakov.
"Is this our fault?" Yubi's fingers fidgeted nervously on the warm stone. "If only we hadn't told everyone about Lord von Brunel's affair in order to get out of the city..."
“He brought this on himself!” Schumeer leaned against the wall by the bed, mending a hole in his clothes with a needle. He held the needle up as if it were a sharp sword. “Anyone could tell that the kidnapping and ransom were pure lies. Now it seems that it was just a pretext for war, something to be done as it came.”
“But he really is going to send troops, and he’s not lying to us all the time…” Yubi muttered to himself, “This has implicated innocent people.”
“The Saxons and Tatars aren’t fighting because of us.” Yakov rubbed his linen robe until it creaked. “Even if we had never come, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Don’t expect to change anything on your own.”
Yubi lowered his head, finding the words irrefutable, and let out a sigh that seemed out of place for his age. He stared blankly at the basin where Yakov was washing clothes. The water cooled too quickly, and as those large hands scrubbed, the knuckles soon turned bright red. Yakov's arms were covered in hair, which clung to his skin when wet. Soon, he simply took off his sweaty undershirt and threw it into the basin, leaving his upper body naked. Yubi gasped in surprise.
"Your back!...So many wounds!" The vampire put down the warm stone, stood up, and leaned close behind him. "How did this happen?"
"It's none of your business." Yakov just kept washing his clothes, splashing water everywhere.
Schumeer frowned, glanced up, then looked down again. "How can this not be our business?" he said, threading a needle in the dim light. "...These must be injuries you sustained when you were a slave?"
The Slavs remained silent, tacitly accepting the guess. "...How much pain must it have caused," Yubi whispered with heartache. "Was your former master unkind to you?"
Yakov remained silent. In the firelight, the old scars resembled pale-colored centipedes crawling across his back, crisscrossing and shocking to the eye. Yubi cautiously reached out, wanting to touch the edges of the scars. Yakov, however, recoiled as if pricked by a needle. The slightest movement of the muscle and skin seemed to bring the centipedes on his back to life, crawling densely and sending chills down one's spine.
"Find something to do." His body was warm, but his words were icy. "Don't touch me."
"Why?" Yubi leaned over to look at his face. "Do they still hurt now?"
Yakov closed his eyes in annoyance, too lazy to deal with the persistent vampire any longer. "If you're so bored, go shovel some horse manure in the stables." He repeatedly dipped his clothes into the basin of water. "Stop rambling on here."
"But it's snowing outside!" Yubi said angrily. "And I'm sick!"
Schumer listened to their back-and-forth arguing, wanting to speak several times but swallowing his words. Only after he slowly finished sewing the patches, biting off the knot in the thread, and putting down the needle did he raise his head. “I know why you don’t want to talk about these things, Yakov.” He tidied his small bundle, putting the needle and thread back in their proper compartments. “You see, you chose the eastern route, you speak Turkic. You’re skilled on horseback, and you wield the sword like that, with a style unlike any knight I’ve ever seen… Now, I see the scars on your back, whip marks. I rarely see anyone use a whip on a slave.”
"You used to be a slave of the Tatars, didn't you?"
"What's it to you?" Yakov threw his soaking wet clothes into the water. "Your overflowing sympathy has nowhere to go?"
"This is none of our business!" Shumel was unusually angry. He stood up, walked around to face Yakov, and confronted the burly warrior with his slender frame. "I'm not saying we're companions, fellow travelers, or friends or anything like that. I don't care about those things, and you certainly don't like hearing such hypocritical talk. But if you have some special connection with the Tatars that makes you irritable and unpredictable, we will also bear the consequences of your actions!"
“And we really care about you!” Yubi frowned as she looked at Schumacher, then added.
“Fine, if you insist on using that word,” Schumacher sighed. “Honestly, I’m not very interested in those painful memories. But you know, when you’re doing business, you always need to know your business partners. Aren’t you going to explain how you can speak Turkic and Latin? If you really were a Tatar slave, how did you learn their tricks and martial arts and escape?”
Some dim yet vivid memories flickered before Yakov's eyes. He lowered his head, his icy gray-blue eyes fixed on the ripples in the basin, where the reflection of the fire swayed and danced with the patterns.
"Don't ask any more questions." He stared intently at the blood and filth floating and spreading in the water. "Don't utter another word."
The monastery bells rang. The sun set, and silence returned.
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