Eleven
It is 1362, and young Benedictus Waisel breaks with family tradition, refusing to follow in his father’s footsteps as a stone mason. However, his grandfather has taught him to read and write, and Ben wants to become a scrivener. Entrance into the guild is more challenging than he expected, and he has to make other choices. Ben joins the city Guard, is severely wounded in battle, only fit enough for guard duty. In this role, Ben is enlisted by a council member as a spy. Thanks to his ability to read, he uncovers a plot to violently overthrow the city, but before he can act on what he has learned, he is imprisoned for the murder of the very council member who had engaged him as a spy.
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Excerpt:
The guard patrol marched me right up to the forbidding double doors of the Tower Gate and the entrance to the dungeons. Peter stepped forward and pounded on the heavy wooden portal. After the span of several breaths, with a metallic screech of the hinges, the right-hand door opened and there stood the jailor, holding a lantern. It was Hans. Peter engage him in a lively dispute.
While Peter was busy with the Tower guard, I stepped back to the guard on my left. His name was Georg. I knew him as an older veteran and a straightforward soldier.
“Georg,” I said in an undertone.
He glanced at me. “Not supposed to talk, Ben,” he said.
I pressed on regardless. There was half a chance he’d answer me. “Georg, what’s going on? Why have you brought me here?”
He struggled with himself a moment, but when he saw that Peter was still talking, with a quick look at the others, he answered. “Just Guard gossip, you know. Something about murdering a council member, and passing notes in walnuts. Damn clever ruse, if you ask me.”
Walnuts? I puzzled. Then I flashed on the bag I had picked up for the Baron a fortnight before. “Wait,” I said. “I picked up a bag of walnuts. I picked them up from here.”
“Silent, there!” bellowed one of the guardsmen in front of me. He had heard me speak and turned around to put me back in line. “You will remain silent!” he ordered
“See, I told you,” Georg murmured behind me.
At this moment, Peter returned to us and, grabbing me roughly by the shoulder of my tunic, marched me to Hans.
“Prisoner delivered!” Peter announced loudly.
It was November 10th, my nineteenth birthday.