VII. The Monster of Spitzenberg (8)
VII. The Monster of Spitzenberg (8)
The church stood in a relatively quiet part of the city.
That did not mean the area was deserted. A church always had at least a few people coming and going.
"In the church’s rear courtyard?"
"That's right."
Keldric nodded with irritation on his face. Father Garibaldo, the priest of Spitzenberg, visibly shrank before him.
The chain mail at the forge was still being repaired, so Keldric had hastily borrowed a spare suit from Baron Spitzenberg.
It could not possibly fit properly. The tightness was not merely uncomfortable but stifling.
He had endured the discomfort in the hope of finding something useful, but the church where the blood trail ended appeared to know nothing about the monster.
"That can't be... The rear courtyard contains the graves of former heads of House Spitzenberg. A monster would have no reason to hide there."
"One of the soldiers says he saw the trail lead there."
"Couldn't he have been mistaken?"
Father Garibaldo looked deeply uncomfortable as he answered.
Understandably so. A monster living in the rear courtyard of the church he administered was no small matter.
It meant a servant of the devil had hidden in the place closest to God’s word.
"Radomar!"
"Yes, Sir Keldric. Did you call?"
"Bring up any one of the soldiers from earlier."
Keldric summoned one of the soldiers who had tracked the blood to the church.
Radomar bowed and left. A moment later, a nervous soldier entered the room.
"I heard you followed the monster’s blood trail here."
"Yes, Sir Keldric."
"Explain everything."
The soldier, who had feared a severe scolding, began to speak.
Baron Spitzenberg had given Keldric full authority over the hunt, and Keldric had ordered the men to track the blood in groups of five.
The soldiers hoped that any achievement might earn them a reward from the baron, so they had reached the end of the trail faster than expected.
"And it ended in the church’s rear courtyard?"
"Y-yes. It did."
"There you have it."
"Hrrm..."
Father Garibaldo’s face darkened. He lived in the small rectory attached to the church.
The knowledge that a monster had hidden directly behind his home while he slept and ate within a stone’s throw was understandably disturbing.
"What should we do?"
Alisa had been standing silently. Father Garibaldo gripped the small crucifix around his neck.
"Hmm..."
Keldric didn't particularly trust Father Garibaldo.
'He didn’t know about this?'
It was strange that the priest had never noticed the monster in the rear courtyard—or nearby, if its bleeding had stopped there.
A black-furred creature that appeared only at night could escape notice, but never even suspecting its presence seemed dubious.
Common sense made that difficult to believe.
"For now, why don’t we inspect the courtyard ourselves?"
"You're right."
The former heads of House Spitzenberg and family members who had died young were buried in the church’s rear courtyard.
There seemed to be nowhere for a monster to hide, but personally inspecting the site was still necessary.
"Ah, now that I think of it..."
Keldric had begun turning away when he looked back at Father Garibaldo. The priest blinked his wrinkled eyes.
This was a Church matter.
Since Keldric could not fully trust Father Garibaldo, involving another clergyman would be prudent.
He needed someone with little connection to the local church but sufficient reason to involve himself in the affair.
"Where is Brother Marcus?"
"Brother Marcus, you mean?"
Brother Marcus would be suitable.
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The church’s rear courtyard stood close to the rectory.
An open area lay between the church and rectory. Beyond a gate in the low fence, graves lined both sides.
A wall closed off the far end. Noble burial grounds within church property were often arranged this way.
A large church or cathedral might devote more spacious grounds to a cemetery, but land was scarce in Spitzenberg. Giving that much of it to the dead would have been excessive.
"I don’t see anything unusual."
As Alisa said, nothing in the courtyard stood out.
Keldric knelt and examined the soil. The soldier who had accompanied them pointed to the ground.
"Over there. Do you see that red stain?"
"Hm..."
A faint dark-red mark remained where he pointed.
It was pale for blood, but mixing with the soil could explain that.
Keldric pinched up some dirt and placed it on the leather palm of his gauntlet. Against the dark soil, the blood’s color became clearer.
It was not water or mud, and it did not look like paint made from pigment.
Pigment production required a nearby quarry or mine. Spitzenberg had both, and therefore dyers as well.
But a dyer randomly spilling paint in the burial ground of House Spitzenberg made no sense.
"This is blood."
"Surely not..."
Father Garibaldo clutched his crucifix in shock.
His reaction suggested that he truly had not known a monster was hiding so close.
Keldric surveyed the courtyard.
Except for the fenced entrance behind them, it was a dead end enclosed by walls on three sides.
The courtyard itself deserved suspicion. Keldric turned to the soldiers.
"Tell the men searching outside to form teams of three and scour the area around the church."
"Yes, sir."
The blood could have stopped through some mysterious power, allowing the monster to leave the courtyard.
Even trolls possessed regeneration that stopped bleeding quickly. Keldric could not assume this werewolf-like creature lacked something similar.
"Four of you remain. We’ll search this place together."
One soldier left while four remained beside Keldric.
Keldric divided those four again, ordering two to guard the courtyard entrance with Arno and Helga.
The other two would search the courtyard with Keldric.
"Search carefully. We can't very well disturb the graves."
"Yes, Sir Keldric."
The courtyard was lined with graves belonging to House Spitzenberg. Accidentally damaging even one would be disastrous.
Keldric could easily imagine the baron’s fury. Such a thing could not be allowed to happen, and no sane person would cause it deliberately.
Keldric searched the courtyard with two soldiers, Alisa, and Father Garibaldo, who had been drawn into the party almost by accident.
They carefully examined anything suspicious between the graves and felt through the dark gaps among the vine-covered church wall and tombs. After several dozen minutes—
"Hm?"
Keldric stopped and narrowed his eyes.
Something was hidden on the low edge of a drainage channel passing beneath the building at the very back of the courtyard.
It was too dark to see clearly. Little sunlight reached the courtyard, so at any hour other than noon a torch would almost have been necessary.
'Wood?'
When Keldric carefully felt it, the material did indeed resemble wood.
"Father Garibaldo!"
"Yes, Sir Keldric."
Keldric immediately called Father Garibaldo over. The priest hurried to his side with the oil candle he had been carrying.
"Did you find something?"
"Shine the light here."
The candle flame was small, but the surrounding darkness made it seem much brighter.
The first thing it revealed was a short staircase of only three or four steps.
Those steps led down to a drainage channel roughly level with Keldric’s shins.
The channel carried away occasional rainwater and was currently dry.
A small dark wooden door stood before the channel, set into the church wall.
Judging by its direction, it led into the church or down to a basement.
Keldric looked at Father Garibaldo, demanding an explanation.
"What in the world...?"
Father Garibaldo looked utterly bewildered.
He frowned and examined the door, then found a faint inscription above it and traced the letters with his fingers.
"...God triumphs. Deus vincit."
The words were in Latium, a language used in the southern lands around the Papacy and the republics.
Latium served as a common language when speaking with foreign nobles who did not know the Imperial tongue, so Father Martin had taught Keldric a little in Carlton Village.
"What is this? Why is it carved above the door?"
"I-I don't know. I've never seen this door."
Father Garibaldo genuinely seemed ignorant.
A hidden door in the churchyard was strange enough. How could even the priest responsible for the church have known nothing about it?
"Because the Church forgot about it as the years passed."
Keldric had already sensed someone approaching and turned with a displeased expression.
Brother Marcus, whom Father Garibaldo had summoned before they entered the courtyard, now stood behind the party.
"We meet again sooner than expected, Sir Keldric of honorable House Bellaf—and Brother Garibaldo. Have you both been well?"
"I can’t say we have. A troublesome matter has just appeared."
"Haha. I can see that."
Brother Marcus clearly knew something.
Keldric silently stepped aside so the monk could inspect the door.
"This is..."
"Do you know this door?"
"..."
Brother Marcus felt along the door with a grave expression. He pressed an ear against it, then gripped his crucifix and recited a prayer in Latium.
When he finished, Brother Marcus straightened with a troubled expression.
Keldric and Father Garibaldo, who had bent down to inspect the door, straightened and waited for him to speak.
"First, let us return to the castle."
"Shouldn’t we open it and look inside?"
"Baron Spitzenberg must hear this as well."
For the moment, Keldric followed Brother Marcus’s advice.
He left four men to guard the mysterious door—the two at the entrance and two from the search—and ordered the remaining soldiers to patrol around the church regularly.
This was not because he trusted Brother Marcus completely.
He simply agreed that Baron Spitzenberg should be informed first.
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Five people gathered in the inner castle.
Brother Marcus, Father Garibaldo, Alisa, and Keldric had all been at the scene.
"You are telling me that thing lies beneath the place where my ancestors sleep?"
The fifth was Baron Spitzenberg, dragged away from his work.
"Yes. We found a door whose purpose we could not determine."
"Unbelievable. You didn’t open it?"
"We did not act rashly. Brother Marcus seemed to know something..."
Father Garibaldo indicated the monk sitting quietly nearby.
Brother Marcus made the sign of the cross under Baron Spitzenberg’s gaze.
"I am Marcus, a humble monk from Lichten Monastery."
"Ah, yes. I remember. Didn’t you arrive about a month ago?"
"That is correct."
"Lichten Monastery..."
Keldric glanced at Alisa and silently asked whether the monastery’s name held some special significance.
Alisa’s answering look said, “I don’t know.”
Knowing nothing about it only made Keldric more uneasy.
"Do you know the old history of Spitzenberg?"
Brother Marcus asked without warning.
He addressed no one in particular. The question was for everyone present.
Keldric looked blank. He had only recently left a remote village; naturally, he had no answer.
"I know nothing about it."
"Old history? What are you trying to say?"
Baron Spitzenberg could not see the point either. Brother Marcus continued.
"It concerns the age when Spitzenberg served only as a fortress and held back the northern barbarians..."