When in the evening somebody knocked at the door – gently, cautiously! – Dietrich von Maintz seized his grandfather’s flambard from the wall. Pressed himself into the corner, his back to the wall. The back should be secure. The sword is a bit too heavy, this two-handed one has always been too massive for the undersized margrave, but with a blade of such length it’s easier to keep conspirators at bay. Till help comes.

Help – for me? For them?!

Hold on, old man! I won’t be murdered...

An arbalest bolt struck the window. Thrust under the shoulder blade, penetrating the heart with red-hot iron. There, where the secret guest was tossing, bewildered – why? how is that? – crying out persistently: “Hold on, old man! Hold on!”

I hold on, Dietrich von Maintz wanted to answer.

I hold at the hilt... at the curtain... at the wall...

It’s over. I don’t hold on any more.

...Young Siegfried, in the nearest future – the new lord of the Maintz Mark, – was looking at his father’s body. What a pity. He had wanted so much to boast of his hunting trophies, in spite of the late hour. After death his father became as he used to be: imperious and confident. Quite not the man he had been today: cowardly, frightened, jerking little man.

Outside the window a pigeon was cleaning its feathers – the one that a minute ago had struck its breast at the glass.

“...A-a!.. a..”

Giacomo Seingalt was gulping air convulsively with his mouth. The old man’s face became crimson and seemed black.

“Good Lord! Giacomo, I beg you! Martzin, save him! Save him!”

“Hush! For all the saints’ sake, hush!”

“Calm down, Lukerda. Look, he’s already better...”

“W-water...”

“Sorry, there’s no water. But here’s the wine...”

Giacomo was drinking straight from the mouth of a braided bottle, swallowing convulsively, jerking the gristly Adam’s apple, spilling the wine on his clothes. Finally he breathed out heavily, wheezing: “F-fuh! It eased off...”

“You have tried!” Lukerda was nearly crying. “You’ve tried so hard, poor man!..”

“And for all that you didn’t sign an abdication, old man! Damn it, this was a real hell! I would have kicked the bucket at midday, probably...”

“It’s pity your attempt has failed, mister Seingalt. But not everything is lost yet. I think I’ll take the risk...”

“No! Now it’s my turn!” The girl’s face was glowing with resoluteness and righteous indignation. “You men are never able to bring anything to a close! You should just assassinate the margrave Siegfried – and there’ll be no war! Start it, Martzin. I know what to do!”

On the board a carved queen moved, as if in response.

From the draught, apparently.

“Today I’ll perform a feat”, vowed Belinda van Dayk.

The daughter of the burgomaster of the free city of Holne, doomed to vegetate miserably with the tambour and the gossips of other girls, she was secretly always certain: the time for a feat would come. A day would come, majestic and bright, which would allow her to step up, to stand abreast the heroines of old, leaving her trail on the steps of existence. So sang troubadours whom Belinda was ready to listen to day and night. So wrote poets whom she received affably and fed, in spite of her niggard father’s grumbling. Oh, father! This worthless, mean man, this pile of lard, this mount of fat, caring more for his bulging purse than for a decent place in the descendants’ memory – he refused to defend Holne! He threw into prison a small group of true patriots who were ready to die on the native walls! Together with others similar to him he opened the gates to Siegfried von Maintz and yielded to the enslaver, holding the keys of the gates on the pillow!

Interesting, how such a daughter was born of such father?!

What a pity that the mother died without confiding this secret to her daughter...

Belinda looked around stealthily. In the large city hall a feast was held. At the tables, mixed up with the Maintz usurpers, there were sitting scared members of the city council, syndics of guilds, judges and other respectable citizens. Many of them were choking on their food, terrified by the phantom of possible slaughter. At the head of the central table, in an armchair with a high back decorated with the coat of arms of Holne, there was sitting none other than the margrave Siegfried, surveying the hall with a bored glance. Having remained in light armour, the margrave was a personification of the valour and belligerence of his ancestors –only his peevishly protruding lip gave his young face a touch of vulgarity. Cold, still – snake-like! – Siegfried’s eyes became warmer only in one case: when they would rest on herself, Belinda van Dayk, purposely dressed today in her lowest-cut dress.

Yes, they became warmer.

Belinda felt it with her skin.

Hot. The guffaw of drunken men is confusing. The feat had been imagined differently: more beautiful, perhaps? However, true heroines don’t choose but act. Today at dawn Belinda had understood it once and for all. A secret guest that had settled in her soul whispered to her what should be done.

Yes, just so.

“Then Judith said to them with a loud voice, Praise, praise God, praise God, I say, for he hath not taken away his mercy from the house of Israel, but hath destroyed our enemies by mine hands this night. So she took the head out of the bag, and shewed it, and said unto them, behold the head of Holofernes, the chief captain of the army of Assur, and behold the canopy, wherein he did lie in his drunkenness; and the Lord hath smitten him by the hand of a woman. As the Lord liveth, who hath kept me in my way that I went, my countenance hath deceived him to his destruction, and yet hath he not committed sin with me, to defile and shame me!”

“Feast on, gentlemen!” The margrave Siegfried stood up. For a moment the hall became silent, though the margrave hadn’t raised his voice at all. Just that some cold flew between the tables. “Feast on, feel at ease! Excuse me for leaving you in such early a time...”

The hour has come, Belinda understood.

Here and now.

She raised her eyes at the margrave. Smiled – experiencedly and alluringly. Now to sip out of the tin goblet. To lick the lips with the tongue. Slower. Still slower. These cowards have hidden their wives and daughters. The cowards are afraid for their cowardly women. I’m alone here. Still better. Still easier.

“You are leaving us, my knight? What a pity...”

A pause.

A carefully calculated one, mellow as old sherry.

“And I’ve supposed I won’t spend this night alone...”

In his bedroom there surely can be found a sword. Or a dagger. Blood will not spatter – it would be ridiculous to perform a feat in a dress soiled in red. And in the morning Belinda will go out to the entire city holding a bag with the enslaver’s head. At the picture “Judith and Holofernes” by the crazy painter Fontanalli everything is real: beautiful and exalted. Without any stains of blood and a cyanotic face colour of the deceased. And there shall peal the bells of the Saint Johann’s cathedral, and troubadours shall praise the feat of the proud maiden, and the Lord shall not permit sin to defile and shame me, for the Lord is always on the side of virtue!

“I won’t disappoint you, my darling,” Siegfried von Maintz was looking at the burgomaster’s daughter affably. The stupid chubby girl had dressed up in the most stupid dress he’d ever seen. “Gunter, the charming fräulein doesn’t want to sleep alone. She’s cold and lonely. Have you understood me, Gunter? And tell your lads I’ll order to hang all your hundred, one by one, if the charming fräulein is left dissatisfied. Have you understood me correctly, my loyal, my clever Gunter?”

Gunter von Dragmain, the captain of guard of the young margrave, always understood his lord immediately.