It still seems like a dream to her. That this village is not her village, that people live here whose faces she doesn’t know, and there are houses in which she has never been. Who could have foreseen that she would ever leave her home? It was not in store for her, and she half expects that in a moment she will wake up at home, next to the large oven, from which the bread’s warmth wafts. Girls don’t go to other places. They stay where they were born. So it has always been: you’re little, you help in the house; you get bigger, you help the female hands; you grow up and marry a Steger son, if you’re pretty, or else a relative of the smith or, if things go badly, a Heinerling. Then you have a child and another child and more children, most of whom die, and you continue to help the hands and in church sit somewhat farther toward the front, next to your husband and behind your mother-in-law, and then, when you’re forty and your bones ache and your teeth are gone, you sit in your mother-in-law’s old seat.
Because she didn’t want that, she went with Tyll.
How many days ago was it now? She couldn’t say; in the forest time is muddled. But she remembers well how Tyll stood before her, the evening after the trial, thin and somewhat lopsided, in the billowing grain of the Steger meadow.
“What’s going to happen to you now?” she asked.
“My mother says I have to become a day laborer. She says it will be hard because I’m too small and weak to be a good worker.”
“And that’s what you’ll do?”
“No, I’m going.”
“Where?”
“Far away.”
“When?”
“Now. One of the Jesuits, the younger one, was staring at me so.”
“But you can’t just go away!”
“Yes, I can.”
“And if they catch you? You’re alone, and they are many.”
“But I have two feet, and a judge with a robe or a guard with halberds, they also have only two. Each of them has the same number of feet as I do. No one has more. They can’t run faster together than we can.”
Suddenly she felt a wondrous excitement, and her throat seemed constricted, and her heart pounded. “Why do you say we?”
“Because you’re coming with me.”
“With you?”
“That’s why I was waiting.”
She knew that she must not think, or else she would lose her courage, or else she would stay here, as was in store for her; but he was right, you really could leave. The place where everyone thought you had to stay—in actuality nothing was keeping you there.
“Now go home,” he said, “and fetch as much bread as you can carry.”
“No!”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“Yes, I am coming with you, but I’m not going home first.”
“But the bread!”
“If I see my father and Mama and the oven and my sister, then I won’t leave anymore, then I’ll stay!”
“We need bread.”
She shook her head. And it’s true, she thinks now, while she collects coins on the market square of a strange village—if she had gone to the bakery again, she would have stayed and soon would have married the Steger son, the middle one, whose two front teeth are missing. There are only a few moments when two things are possible, one path as much as another. Only a few moments when you can decide.
“Without bread we can’t go,” he said. “We should also wait until morning. The forest at night, you don’t know what it’s like. You’ve never experienced it.”
“Are you afraid of the Cold Woman?”
Now she knew that she had won.
“I’m not afraid,” he said.
“Well, then let’s go!”
She will never forget that night for the rest of her life, never forget the giggling will-o’-the-wisps, the voices out of the blackness, never forget the animal noises or the sparkling face that appeared in front of her for a moment, only to vanish again before she was even certain that she had seen it at all. For the rest of her life she will think of the fear, her heart in her mouth, the blood pounding in her ears, and the whimpering murmur of the boy in front of her, who was talking either to himself or to the beings of the forest. When morning came, they found themselves trembling with cold at the edge of a loamy clearing. The dew was dripping from the trees. They were hungry.
“You really should have fetched bread.”
“I could bash you in the face.”
As they walked onward, in the clammy morning air, Tyll wept a little, and Nele felt like sobbing too. Her legs were heavy, the hunger was hardly bearable, and Tyll was right, without bread they would surely die. Yes, there were berries and roots, and even the grass should be edible, but that was not enough, it didn’t fill your stomach. In the summer it might do, but not in this cold.
And now they heard behind them the rumble and squeal of a carriage. They hid in the bushes until they saw that it was only the balladeer’s wagon. Tyll jumped out and stood in the middle of the road.
“Oh,” said the singer. “The miller’s son!”
“Take us with you?”
“Why?”
“Because we’ll die if you don’t, for one thing. But also because we’ll help you. Don’t you want company?”
“They’re probably already searching for you,” said the singer.
“Yet another reason. Or do you maybe want me to get caught?”
“Climb on.”
Gottfried explained the essentials to them: If you ride with a balladeer, you belong to the traveling people. No guild protects you, no authorities. If you’re in a city and there’s a fire, you have to slip away, for people will think you started it. If you’re in a village and something is stolen, slip away then too. If you’re ambushed by robbers, give them everything. Most of the time, however, they don’t take anything but demand a song—then sing for them, as well as you can, for robbers often dance better than the dullards in the villages. Always keep your ears open, so that you know where it’s market day, for when it’s not market day they won’t let you into the villages. At a market people come together, they want to dance, they want to hear songs, they part with their money easily.
“Is my father dead?”
“Yes, he is dead.”
“Did you see?”
“Of course I saw it, that’s why I was there. First he forgave the judges, as is proper, then the hangman, then he climbed onto the ladder, then the noose was put around his neck, and then he began to murmur, but I was standing too far back, I couldn’t understand him.”
“And then?”
“It went the way it goes.”
“So he is dead?”
“My boy, when someone is hanging from the gallows, what else is supposed to happen? Of course he’s dead! What do you think?”
“Did it go quickly?”
Gottfried was silent for a while before he answered: “Yes, very quickly.”
For some time they rode without speaking. The trees were no longer so dense; rays of light fell through the canopy of leaves. A fine haze rose from the grass of the clearings. The air was filled with insects and birds.
“How do you become a singer?” Nele finally asked.
“You train. I had a master. He taught me everything. You’ve heard of him, it’s Gerhard Vogtland.”
“No.”
“The one from Trier!”
The boy shrugged.
“The Great Litany of the Campaign of Duke Ernest Against the Treacherous Sultan.”
“What?”
“That’s his most famous song: The Great Litany of the Campaign of Duke Ernest Against the Treacherous Sultan. You really don’t know it? Shall I sing it?”
Nele nodded, and so they became acquainted for the first time with Gottfried’s paltry talent. “The Great Litany of the Campaign of Duke Ernest Against the Treacherous Sultan” had thirty-three verses, and although Gottfried could do little else, he did have an outstanding memory and had forgotten not a single one.