The Serpent's Curse
“It is Schloss Königsberg, crowning fortress of the Teutonic Knights.
The year is 1517, the month February, the day the eighteenth.
A figure wrapped in long robes stalks the snowy walls silently. It is he, the Grand Master, Albrecht von Hohenzollern. His face is a mask of sorrow, wet with tears he futilely attempts to wipe away. Bitter howling coils up from the rooms below, a tender voice in agony. Albrecht slaps his hands over his frozen ears, yet louder, louder come the shrieks. Then—clack-clack!
It is the clatter of hobnail boots.
“What is it?” Albrecht growls.
Two knights appear: his nephews, sons of his sister. “Grand Master, we have returned from the wastes of Muscovy with words from Duke Vasily—”
“Words? Only words? What of the astronomer? His machine? I sent thirty knights after one man! Where are the others?”
“Dead,” says one nephew. “We two alone have returned.”
“The others were slain by the astronomer’s sword,” says the other. “Their bodies prayed over by a monk.
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