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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 65: Cooper 21
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 304
Everyone froze in position. Wilhelm Tell held a heavy crossbow he had used hundreds, maybe thousands, of times before, and his enemy Geisler was but fifteen feet away. A very talented marksman missing a heartshot at this range would have been proof of magic, of dark sorcery engaged in by Geisler.
Cooper was tied to the stake in preparation for his burning. Hans was held by Wilhelm’s left arm. The thousands in the square held their breath. All of Geisler’s guards held their breath, because if this turned into a full on riot, they were unlikely to get out of this square alive, despite their chainmail, polearms, and clubs. Geisler held a torch. The Inquisitor made the first move, by beginning to pray the Rosary, bead by bead.
Let my son, Cooper, and me go, or I will kill you Geisler, you foul recreant.
You can’t, heretic! the Inquisitor screamed, charging Wilhelm. He snapped out his right arm, and clocked the priest in the face with his crossbow, knocking him down and leaving him dazed and bloody-faced on the square cobblestones. Yet in the instant that Wilhelm yanked the crossbow off Geisler, the taxman leapt the other way, coming up behind a rotund burgeress on the edge of the crowd.
She gasped, and they all heard Geisler whisper something. The burgeresses’ face got red dots on it, and she gasped in indignation.
No, I will not!
She grunted, and reluctantly began walking toward Wilhelm stiff-legged. Geisler hid behind her ample mass.
Geisler, do not be an idiot. I can move about you, and take the shot.
Before my man stabs your boy through?
Wilhelm wheeled desperately about, and bashed his crossbow into the face of the broken toothed guard who had said Cooper was going to burn. Teeth flew, and so did the man. The bolt fell off the crossbow, and Wilhelm spun back to aim at Geisler who stood out from behind the burgeress who fled weeping back to her enraged looking husband. The taxman had a thin stiletto in his left hand, tipped with blood. He grinned viciously as Wilhelm put the crossbow on him.
Your quarrel is on the ground, he said. Wilhelm glanced, and reached for the next bolt, even as Geisler screamed. Beat him! Clubs descended, and pole arm hafts bashed, and Wilhelm smacked one and another, but he saw a club coming down for Hans, and he bent over and took it. He fought on, but that was the beginning of the end. The guards drove him onto the ground with clubs, and the beating continued until Geisler ordered with a loud laugh, Stop, stop. We are not barbarians–but his delighted look told the guards he was not unhappy with them. The guards moved back, and Wilhelm lay near dead on the cobblestones. Almost prancing, he was so happy, Geisler walked over to the Inquisitor and helped the still woozy priest back to his feet. Hans was held by a single guard, the youngest one, and the boy was looking at his father, stone faced.
Cooper had prayed several times in all this mayhem, but no answer, no miracle had come. Looking at Wilhelm bleeding on the ground, probably with a concussion and perhaps internal injuries, he found himself wanting to rave at God.
“We are in Sovereign Hands,” he said quietly, even as his heart roared in fury and disquiet and disbelief. Forced to speak, he prayed. “If you’re going to do something, we’re really running short on time here.”
Just like I like it.
Guards dragged Wilhelm to his feet. One eye was swollen closed.
I’m going to kill you, and your boy.
Indignant shouts came from the crowd, and Geisler, surrounded by his guards who dropped their polearms threateningly into place, spoke loudly, smugly, to the crowd of over two thousand townsmen and women.
The boy is an accomplice, he told them, but I will give him and even his father a chance. This pacified the crowd. Wilhelm Tell is said to be a great crossbowman. All I will ask him to do is shoot an apple off his son’s head.
This brought some confusion, as not everyone understood what he said, and by the time they did the moment for action, that instant unity of thought and deed that can grip a crowd, was gone. Wilhelm staggered, and the guards walked behind him and put the edged points of their polearms to his back. Smirking, Geisler pressed the crossbow into Wilhelm’s hand. He then dragged Hans over, out of the arms of the protesting young guard, and lined him up near Cooper.
He turned to one of his guards and spoke again, demanding that he give him the apple he always carried. Thus provisioned he put the apple on the boy’s head. The guards dragged the staggering Wilhelm back forty feet so that he was now fifty feet from Hans, sixty feet from Cooper. Geisler stood beside him, and said loudly.
If you can make the shot, then you and your boy can go free.
The crowd murmured, and Cooper could see it was disapproving, but not enough to do anything. Neither did he want them to, really. Even if they rescued him, and Hans and Wilhelm, some of them would die. Many of the guards would die, and although he thought many of them wicked, or cruel, he knew some were decent men. Further, Wilhelm and Hans would be fugitives, unable to continue their lives here or perhaps anywhere in Switzerland. He did not know the details, but something in the back of his mind told him that the Tells mattered to the future history of his world.
It looked like an impossible shot to Cooper. Not only was Wilhelm swaying on his feet, but he had polearms jabbing his back. Worse, he had only one working eye, and Cooper knew that messed badly with depth perception. He did not even count the problem that if Wilhelm fired the bolt fast enough to hit the apple, then it would pass through, and punch through Cooper’s stomach. That would be extremely painful, but perhaps not as bad as being burned to death.
“Don’t worry, sorcerer. After he shoots you, then you will burn,” Geisler called out in poor English, waving the lit torch he had retrieved from another guard in his right hand. Cooper’s stomach turned.
“Fear not,” he quoted, but he felt chills and bumps going up and down his spine and arms. Gutshot and burnt, this was going to be horrible. He saw Wilhelm look at him, and it was clear the man was sorry, but he would put his son above Cooper’s life, which was forfeit anyway. Cooper nodded, trying to let the man know it was okay, that he understood.
Wilhelm took the line once, drew two bolts from his quiver and tucked one into his sash where it would be easily grabbed. Then setting the crossbow down he loaded it. He pulled back the string, and his great skill came to the fore, for he did it smoothly. As he brought the crossbow back up suddenly Geisler shouted in his ear, causing Wilhelm to jump. The cruel court officer was cackling, even as Wilhelm forced his focus back on the target. Cooper had no idea how the man was going to make the shot with only one eye. Then Wilhelm reached over and pried open the eyelid of the swollen eye with his free hand. His face took a set, and he pulled—but Geisler slapped the bottom of the crossbow hard, and it pointed nearly straight up, seventy degrees into the sky, and the bolt flew.
Too bad, you missed, he said in German. The crowd roared, but Geisler’s voice screeched above theirs, telling them to be silent, declaring himself to be in charge, and announcing that they would both die.
The crowd rustled, and the guards looked even more nervous, and where it might have gone from there no one knew, but then there was a whistling sound. The arrow plunged down out of the sky at seventy degrees, and pierced the apple, ripping it off the boy’s head. Hans jumped involuntarily. This allowed all to see, even as he turned around to see the apple held to the ground, quarrel point between some cobblestones, and he uninjured.
Cries of It’s a miracle, an angel shot the arrow, and Glory to God rose from the crowd, and Geisler shrieked even louder. No, it is black sorcery. Wilhelm and Hans will both die in the fire.
The sheer horror of what he proposed shocked the crowd to silence. This was filled by the Inquisitor. He said no, that he had just seen a miracle. Anyone who touched the man or the boy would have to answer to the Holy Inquisition, and to the Angels in Heaven. The guards holding Wilhelm jumped back, as if he were a hot stove. No one wanted to get on the bad side of the Inquisition. Wilhelm slumped to the ground, and Hans turned to smile at Cooper, radiantly. Geisler, with his torch, made a move toward Wilhelm, but a guard stepped in front, and so Geisler turned and ran.
As he ran down the cleared shooting path, others thought he was fleeing. He was not. Only Hans saw the murderous intent in his face, for he was running straight at Hans–but he was not looking at Hans. He was looking at Cooper. Hans leapt forward, and crashed into Geisler’s legs, and as Geisler went down, he flung the lit torch the last fourteen feet. It landed in the ring of kindling, and the whole ring went up. Unbeknownst to Geisler, the ring had been soaked with extra oil to burn very fast, so even though green wood was used to make the fire slow and tormentous, the oil would kill quickly, so was the good guards’ plan.
As the fire roared up around him, Cooper threw back his head and sang as loudly as he could with Fill My Cup, Lord, but when he paused to take a deep breath he felt dizzy, as smoke came in, and he slumped. Five seconds later, before the flame could reach him, he was gone, and the people, and the guards, and the Inquisitor, and Geisler all saw him vanish.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
