FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Dürnstein

by Altivo Overo (copyright 2020)

It was the early spring of 1193 when the fox Blondel discovered the place where his friend and master Richard was being held as a prisoner. The minstrel fox liked to tell the story in later years, and it ran something like this.

I had been wandering about in that patchwork of petty kingdoms and dukedoms that surround the Danube. We knew that Ricky had been detained there before he disappeared from sight. Duke Leo was no help, of course, though I tried to get him to tell me what he knew. His affront at Ricky's act of childish pique back at Acre simply wouldn't let him forgive the English, or, for that matter, the French speaking faction as a whole.

Emperor Henry, of course, signed the ransom note. That wolf knew where the King was hidden, but there was no hope in approaching him for information.

So it was that I wandered from castle to castle, trading songs for food and drink, always with one ear to the ground and the other listening to background conversation. I figured that the common folk knew more than anyone expected, and would let the truth slip out eventually.

As it turned out, I was wrong to assume that. Ricky was well-hidden, in a thick-walled dungeon under a château and on the edge of one of those festering swamps of humanity they call villages over there. I only found him by sheer luck.

Music is my life, of course. I was walking down a shadowy street singing to myself. I'm not sure why I had chosen that particular song, but it was one of Ricky's favorites so that may have been my subconscious thought. As luck would have it, I stepped into something slimy and malodorous, probably the contents of a pisspot that had been dumped out an upper story window. Smell wasn't much good for warning in those places, as everything stank of urine and slops.

As I cast about for a suitable spot in which to wipe my footpads, I heard it. The voice was distant and faint, but someone was singing the next verse of the same song I'd been amusing myself with. He picked up right where I left off. The French words were enough to tell me this could be no ordinary resident of the place. For days I'd been hearing nothing but the barbarous accents of Germanic speech, and often not the best quality even of that.

The unknown singer paused, and I picked up with the next line or two, stopping again to try to find his direction. Sure enough, he continued but amid all the stone walls and cobbles, I couldn't fix his location.

I tried again, but no response followed. Even when I borrowed the tune but sang out "Ou es tu, mon frère?" in place of the proper line, I heard nothing more. The street, if you could call it that, seemed as empty as an ale flagon at the end of a long evening, so I hurried up and down, trying to peer into the doors and windows where I could. Some fifty paces along the way, a series of narrow slits in the base of a stone footing caught my eye. No light issued from them, and I might have taken them for drains except that they lacked the powerful odors one would expect from those.

As I paced back and forth trying to see into the dark recesses, my bare nails clicking softly on the worn down cobbles, I heard the voice again. Distant it seemed, but clearly it came from those very openings.

"Qui est là?" it asked.

"Un trouvère seulement," I called softly, hoping my voice would carry far enough. "Je m'appele Blondel, de Nesle."

"Dieu merci!" he cried out, and this time loudly enough that I recognized his voice.

Switching to vulgar English, which I thought even less likely to be understood should we have an eavesdropper, I crouched down and spoke directly into the opening. "My liege lord, is it really you?"

There came a chuckle that I could not mistake. "Who else would they have hidden so deeply under this pile of stone, Blondie? I was sure it was doomed to become my silent funeral cairn. But perhaps I have yet hope. What news from England?"

"The barons resist sending the ransom Henry has demanded," I told him. "But now that I have found you, I can bring help. Bear up patiently, my lord."

"Do not lord me, my little brother," he said with a sigh. "You are more to me than that as you well know. Find help then. I go nowhere."

"Alors, adieu. Je retournerai," I promised, and walked on down the way, humming innocently.

The place was called Dürnstein, which is to say "Hardstone" in the local speech. I examined it more carefully from a distance to see whether it might yield to a sudden attack. I saw no guards, but there were battlements and slits enough that I could never be sure how many were hidden from me.

Concluding that the best way in would be by subterfuge, I made myself as presentable as possible, and slinging my small harp over my shoulder presented myself at the gate as a wandering minstrel. I can speak the German patois well enough but I took care to broaden my French accent so that it would seem that I was too naif to be a genuine spy.

They admitted me, and promised a meal and a pallet for the night if I would sing. This was an easy bargain, and only then did I ask the name of the place and who might be its lord. None other than Duke Leopold himself, it appeared, was the rightful lord of the manor. You may well imagine my concern at this, since Leo would surely recognize me, but the gatekeepers went on to say that his grace was traveling and would not be present for some days.

I suspect now that the travel upon which Leo was engaged was the mission to the emperor in which he agreed to transfer my lord king to the latter's keeping. I merely assumed that he was holding audiences for his people in various parts of the country, as would be natural at that time of year.

Once inside, I was shown to the kitchens where they gave me bread and meat. I busied myself with the food, listening the while to the kitchen folk for it is always so that the servants know more of what is happening than do the greatest of lords.

The cook was a fat old badger who spoke pityingly of "the unfortunate guest below" as he sent one of the scullery rats down there with a closed vessel that I assumed must be food for my master Ricky. I noted the door he took and which way he turned as he left, but could not try to follow him of course.

When the resident and visiting nobility were seated in the hall and the first course had been laid on, the hall steward came to fetch me. He had droopy ears and solemn eyes, being of hound descent or so I imagined. Beckoning me to bring my harp, he led me quickly to the lower end of the hall, where a well-lighted dais stood. In a whisper, he asked my name and homeland, then rapped twice with his staff upon the stone floor.

The dinner conversation was reduced in volume enough that he could call out the false name I had supplied. "Piers the Harper, from Gascony."

I was rather surprised when the hall grew almost quiet. We minstrels are accustomed to being largely ignored by an audience like that, but I took advantage of their attentiveness to provide adequate cover for myself. I sang a ballad from the Pyrenees, and another of Gascon origin. When asked for something in German I obliged them with a simple children's tale, fitting to my claimed origins and limited knowledge of their language. When at last the hall steward gave me his nod and gestured toward the kitchen, I was glad to bid them all good night and retire to the pallet set for me in the chimney corner. The rats and cooks, most of the latter being rabbits and squirrels, were busy cleaning up and setting the bread for the morrow, but eventually they too retired to their alcoves and the greater part of the lights were extinguished.

I waited until there was a dead silence before I arose barefoot and crept on paws as silent as I could make them to the door I thought would bring me to my lord's prison. The corridors were empty but for the fitful guttering of the occasional night lamp, but I managed to find a stair leading downward. Following it with care, I peered around a corner to spy two yawning guards, leaning upon their pikes at each side of a barred door. Surely this must be where Ricky was concealed.

Armed with that knowledge, I returned to my bed and filled such dreams as I then had with plots for my lord's rescue and release.

Taking my leave the next morning, I hurried back to Aquitaine with my news, and presented it less than a fortnight later to Queen Ellie. She seemed to have grown more weary and careworn since her son had gone missing, and of course she welcomed the news I brought.

A rescue was mounted as quickly as possible, and I guided five clever knights back to Dürnstein, but to no avail. We did manage to penetrate the fortress by deception, only to find that my liege lord was no longer there. He had been moved, as you no doubt know, to Germany and was in the hands of the Emperor Henry himself. That sly and wily wolf moved Ricky from place to place so frequently that we never managed to locate him again until finally his ransom was paid and he went freely back to England in 1194. The rest, as you say here in England, is history. Or at least, it will be some day.

That was the way Blondel would tell his story, brush tail alternately perking and drooping and his ears rising at the most exciting bits. How Ricky came to his plight, and why Blondie made it his personal concern to rescue the king, is the subject of a longer tale to follow.