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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 50: Cooper 16
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 299
Suddenly in the middle of the night, Wilhelm joined Cooper in singing in very poor but loud English. Cooper wondered at it, until he heard Wilhelm’s even more mangled line of ‘stay back, boy, stay back, or I call the guards’ inserted into the line about praising God. So with sympathy he sang on through the night.
Dawn broke, and there was no breakfast. The guards did give them water. Brian really hoped he was not about to get Beethoven’s Revenge as he drank the unboiled water. One hour later the guards came back, three guards holding clubs and one opening the door to Wilhelm’s cell. He exited with four loops of a rope a coffee-mug thick wrapped around him, and a loose knot going down to his legs. Despite this, the guards were wary, and Wilhelm grinned at them, aware of their fear. Come to think of it, Cooper could see bruises and cuts on the faces of the guards. They had captured Wilhelm, but he had not gone down easy. Once he was braced by two guards, another two guards came over to Cooper’s cage. They opened it, and with clubs threatened Cooper who readily stood back. They looped his chest and arms twice with cords the thickness of a thumb before drawing him out.
The guards took them out to the main square which was filled with a large crowd. Cooper, taller than any man there, could see guards at the exits to the square. Geisler had ordered attendance of one and all. The guards brought them to the center, where Geisler stood in the back of a wagon with two guards as well. Other guards stood nearby, and the square became even more filled.
Geisler began with an oily tone, calling them My beloved people in German. The response was folded arms, and momentary glares from the crowd. He continued, saying All right, you ungrateful lot. I work hard for you. Today, I present to you two criminals. The notorious tax evader, smuggler--
Lies, Wilhelm bellowed. In response to that, one of the guards cuffed him in the mouth with a mail covered hand.
My sainted grandmother could hit harder than that, Wilhelm yelled back even as blood dripped from his lip and nose. Dismayed and yet delighted, Cooper resolved to bear his troubles with at least as much courage as Wilhelm. The guard raised his hand back for a mighty punch, but a rustling among the crowd, a muttering, made the guard pause. He turned about to see dozens of pairs of cold eyes directed at him. Reconsidering, he put his hand down.
We will add lying to the court to his charges. But most of all, he is guilty of treason! Geisler said this last as if the awfulness of the charge would convince people this whole farce had some reality. Instead, the crowd just looked unconvinced and skeptical in the extreme.
Geisler glared at them, and they just sullenly stood there, and did not change their attitude, or show respect, or move. Huffing, he turned to Professor Brian Edwin Cooper, and said of him that Wilhelm Tell will be taken down the river to the governor, and when found guilty will be broken on the wheel, but he, whom he identified as the Moor Tutor, has another judge. The Bishop in the Cathedral will judge him, for he is to be turned over to the Holy Inquisition, accused of heresy and of witchcraft. He called him a sorcerer, and a practitioner of arts darker than his skin. Geisler sounded triumphant, and looking into his eyes, Cooper could see them shine, and his lips had been licked. He studied him more, dispassionately, and remembered signs mentioned by a psychology professor friend of his at Grey Hills College. Geisler fit many of the markers for an extreme sadist.
“May Jesus the God of All Mercies forgive you for your many sins against good men, and against this town and district.”
Turning white-faced with fury, Geisler began screaming to send them to the raft. His eyes bulging in his head, he kept screaming, and although Cooper was almost certain that Geisler was not demon possessed, he thought the man fit popular descriptions of such much more than he himself, the supposed sorcerer, did. The people around him cried out in protest, but the waving of clubs and polearms convinced them to stay back as Wilhelm and Cooper were shoved through the crowd to the dock on the river where a raft with a rudder and oars awaited.
As he was shoved on, one guard spoke a single word in English to him. Perhaps it was all the English he had. He pointed directly at Cooper. “Burn. Burn.” He smiled, his teeth looking recently broken. Then the raft, with the other guards and Wilhelm, was shoved off into the river. Behind them, he and Wilhelm saw the shouting and disorderly crowd.
They might add ‘causing a riot’ to our charges by the time we get down the river, he said to Wilhelm.
Yes, sing us a song, Brian. My heart misgives me. Brian turned and looked at Wilhelm, who had always been a tower of strength, and for once saw the man’s fears and doubts. So he began to sing A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, trying to translate the English back to German as he went, and the guards did not seem to mind, either.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #505: Versers Advance. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
