Dead on the way to church

 "Henry Schomus de Geuzaine allant a la messe 26 mei 1733" - cross seen semi-hidden in a hedge along the road between Geuzaine and Champagne. 

The sun of May 27 burned with a viciousness uncharacteristic of early morning. Henry's heavy linen tunic chafed rawly against his neck, drenched in sweat even before he had left the first milestone of Gueuzaine behind him. In the hedge flanking the road to Champagne and Faymonville, it buzzed with May beetles; their monotonous humming vibrated in his temples like an approaching fever.  He had left this morning before the matins at the Abbey of Stavelot. He had already climbed the long ascent along the Warchenne with a hunk of bread hidden in his tunic. It was not the only thing he carried.

Under his waistcoat, close to his chest, he felt the abbot’s parchment tucked out, sealed with his Bordeaux seal. It was the paper wall that protected their village against the Austrian tax collectors, proof that they would not contribute a penny to the war against the distant sultan. But the road was steep and the air thick with the scent of blossoming hawthorn and swirling dust.

Every step felt like an assault on his chest. The church bell in the distance called, a compelling metal that reminded him that the priest did not wait for a man's sluggishness. Henry clutched his fingers around his rosary, the wooden beads slippery in his palm, and pressed his lips together. He had to reach mass; his fellow villagers of Faymonville were counting on him. The lords of Metternich had arrived back at the castle of Reinhardstein a little further away a week ago and that did not bode well.
"Johann Hugo Franz von Metternich-Winneburg"... Henry spat out the name. The sycophant, the snail, the slimeball who, with a smile on his face, would sell out their territory to those Austrian lords. Phew. Fortunately, Prince-Abbot Nicolas kept his cool and ensured stability for his subjects. And they needed that stability in Faymonville. They could not and would not pay that damned Austrian war tax for fighting those distant Turks.

Henry slowed his pace and sought out the shade. Faymonville lay barely a half-hour walk away.  The mass would last long enough to reach the priest. His stomach protested loudly against the pious haste. He lowered himself into the depths of the hedge, brushed a few rustling cockchafers from his collar and dug the hunk of bread out of his tunic. While he cautiously touched the abbot's seal once more with his fingertips, he took a bite. The sound of the bells from Champagne carried far across the fields, a rhythmic metal that completely drowned out the rustling of the leaves behind him. He would only be able to consume a cup of beer later, but with food in his stomach, the final stretch would go all the better. Over the sound of the bells from the church further away in Champagne, he did not hear the rustling of the hedge a little further on.

************

Mathias held his breath. The climb from Malmedy had been an ordeal, but his hunting instinct had kept him going. Fortunately, the valley slopes and the woods offered him the necessary shade there and Henry  seemed so lost in thought that he did not appear truly aware of his surroundings. He was even clearly startled when a fox leaped across the path fearlessly. As stablemaster at the Abbey of Stavelot, he had learned to be invisible among the great men of the earth, but today he was the shadow of a stupid peasant. He knew what that parchment meant. The lords of Metternich at Reinhardstein paid handsomely for any proof of the abbot's "stubbornness."

Since Baugnez, camouflage had been scarce and he had had to keep a greater distance from his prey. But now the dense hedge of Gueuzaine offered him the perfect ambush. He saw Henry sitting there: a man who thought he was saving his village with a piece of parchment and a hunk of bread. As the last bronze blow from Champagne rolled over the hills, Mathias gripped the heavy chunk of slate he had picked up at the Warchenne with his fingers. No witnesses. No mass. With explosive force, he hurled himself forward from the undergrowth. The parchment for the "Turks" would never reach the pulpit. The stone descended with the inexorable weight of a political verdict, precisely at the moment when the quiet of the Sunday morning was at its deepest.



"All characters and entities appearing in this work are fictitious although the names of historical rulers should be correct. More resemblance to real persons or other real-life entities is purely coincidental and fictional for the purpose of the story"