The Dorfbewohner—the merchants, servants, sluggards, and patrons alike—of the ancient and wealthy mountain village of Uberusel in the Swabian Alps tripped oohing and ahhing and twittering out into the village square next to the city fountain overseen by the benign stone-cold figure of Prince Gerhard of the Swabian Hollenusterans. The snow on the cobblestones of the town gossip center that divided the patrician old upper town from the plebian lower town was melting, and the temperature had risen some twenty degrees in no longer than it took them to hear the clatter of horses' hooves at the gate of the lower village, where the road from the capital at Augsburg ended at the walled edge of the new town—deemed "new" because it was less than three hundred years old.
Summer had come early and swiftly to the village, it seemed, even if only a temporary anomaly, having brushed spring aside in its rush to flood the village with smiles and laughter and coquettish looks between old and young villagers alike.
Such was the frivolity of the freakish change in the weather in the highest village of Swabia, set just below the rim of the bowl holding the gigantic shimmering Lake Nufenen, that they barely noticed the glossy black-painted carriage drawn by four massive black stallions that had drawn up beside the fountain. The ominously arresting steeds were clopping their hooves impatiently on the cobblestones and turning malevolent red-eyed glances to all sides, daring the cavorting Dorfbewohner to come near, and ready to fly off again up the steep and narrow passage to the gate of the count's castle, the Schloss perched oppressively near the highest ridge, hovering at a distance in much more than space above its heavily taxed citizenry, and then, seemingly on up into the heavens.
The horses calmed and turned to stony salute, as if on command, as the carriage door opened, and out stepped a large-framed but goodly proportioned man elegantly dressed in black silk that shimmered in the suddenly hot sunlight and stretched to the limit over bulging muscles. His billowy cape swept almost down to the tops of his gleaming black leather boots. His countenance, albeit handsome in a rugged way, was also a disturbing combination of danger and connivance. His goatee was pointed, as were his ears, and when he opened his mouth to smile—or, rather, to grimace—his teeth gave the impression of a gnashing carnivore. He wore a black beaver-skin top hat planted firmly on his head.
The horses quivered in unison and lowered their heads and looked away from the carriage as the heavy boots of the man hit the cobblestones with such force that the nearby villagers declared in years following that the earth shook—that they lost their mirth at the unexpected warm of the sun momentarily when struck with the sensation that an earthquake was beginning to build under their feet.
"I knew instantly that he was trouble," Dieter, the village barber, said to his customers in irritating repetition many season hence. "He had that look of an Aargauen about him. I told the sheriff as much at the time. But count's man that he was, the sheriff did nothing for us below the Schloss walls."
If Dieter had hinted as much either than or in the ensuing days—most certainly to the count's sheriff—none would have paid him heed, as Dieter was regarded then as now as more the village idiot than its barber. But if anyone reliable had made the suggestion then, what came about later might have been prevented. No, less than "might have," alas, as, truth be told, there was no one below the count's walls who could have stood in the path of what Damien Handlanger wanted to do.
The charge of being an Aargauen, however, would have at least placed many in the village, who later learned to regret those short number of days, in awareness of possible danger.
The Swabians of Germany and the Swiss canton of Aargau had been in a stalemate war for nearly a century over the waters of Lake Nufenen, which occupied a basin plateau high in the alps on the German-Swiss border and fed mighty rivers running both south into Switzerland and north into the rich agricultural basin of the German princedoms.
Many had been the schemes of both sides to master the waters of the lake and to deny them to their neighbor. And Uberusel—under the tutelage of one of the most reclusive and reputedly cruel counts of all princedom—was the Swabian bastion protecting the headwaters of the great river running down into Germany from the lake.
Having gained the ground, and while silent, grotesquely formed coachmen lowered two large trunks from atop the carriage down to the stones of the village center court, the black-clothed man turned and gave a languidly sweeping gaze around the Dorfbewohner who had poured out into the square to revel in the appearance of a summer sun in the last week of what had been an especially miserable winter. Those of the villagers who felt the power and piercing presence of his stare instinctively shrank from this obviously wealthy and powerful stranger and gave him a broad circle of space. Even the ground snow retreated from him, and the cobblestones hissed from the heat.
He turned and raised his hand to the open carriage door, and an angel appeared at the top step and stood there, smiling with apparent delight at the dancing and prancing of the invigorated villagers around the central fountain. He was a vision of beauty, dressed all in white vestments studded with transparent gemstones that sparkled in reflected light from the sun. Blond curls encircled his perfectly figured head like a halo, and he glowed in the morning sunlight. Although a young man, he had all of the innocent beauty of a boy. His body was perfectly formed, but willowy and small of stature.
And his smile lit up the square in heady competition with the unexpected summer sun in winter.
Now the villagers turned to him and danced and pranced around the carriage in preference to the fountain. All eyes were on him and they pressed closer, into the circle of steaming cobblestones, eyes only for him, no longer captured by the feeling of malevolence radiating from his older companion in black.
The young man turned his eyes from those he had captured just by being there, as he stood at the top of the carriage steps, and toward his traveling companion who was holding his hand up to the youth. The youth took the hand and descended the carriage steps. A sigh rolled through the convivial crowd in the square as his delicate, white-booted feet kissed the ground.
His eyes still riveted to the young man, a brave man separated from the encircling Dorfbewohner and stepped forward.
"Welcome to Uberusel, gracious travelers," he murmured, eyes only for the young man. "How may we be of service to you?"
"Who has the most presentable house in the village?" the black-suited man asked. His voice was unexpected. Yes, it had the air about it of "this is a command," but it was a rich, velvety baritone that was not only highly pleasant and soothing but also was arousing in ways men will know but not speak of and can hardly begin to define until it is too late for them to regain what they have lost.
