I had been brought up to the belief that a word given meant an appropriate action taken. I had swiftly lost my innocence, for I am not a stupid man at all.
By I626 I had learned to lie as fluently and as easily as any of the major participants of that War, who compounded deceit upon deceit in order to achieve ends which had begun to seem meaningless even to them; for those who compromise others also compromise themselves and are thus robbed of the capacity to place value on anything or anyone. For my own part I placed value upon my own life and trusted only myself to maintain it.
Magdeburg, if nothing else, would have proven those views of mine:
By the time we had left the city we had destroyed most of its thirty thousand inhabitants. The five thousand survivors had nearly all been women and their fate was the obvious one.
Tilly, indecisive, appalled by what he had in his desperation engineered, allowed Catholic priests to make some attempt to marry the women to the men who had taken them, but the priests were jeered at for their pains.
The food we had hoped to gain had been burned in the city. All that had been rescued had been wine, so our men poured the contents of the barrels into their empty bellies.
The work which they had begun sober, they completed drunk. Magdeburg became a tormented ghost to haunt those few, unlike myself, who still possessed a conscience.
A rumour amongst our troops was that the fanatical Protestant, Falkenburg, had deliberately fired the city rather than have it captured by Catholics, but it made no odds to those who died or suffered. In years to come Catholic troops who begged for quarter from Protestants would be offered "Magdeburg mercy" and would be killed on the spot. Those who believed Falkenburg the instigator of the fire often celebrated him, calling Magdeburg "the Protestant Lucretia," self-murdered to protect her honour. All this was madness to me and best forgotten.
Soon Magdeburg and my men were days behind me. The smell of smoke and the Plague remained in my nostrils, however, until well after I had turned out of the mountains and entered the oak groves of the northern fringes of the great Thuringian Forest.
Here, there was a certain peace. It was spring and the leaves were green and their scent gradually drove the stench of slaughter away.
The images of death and confusion remained in my mind, nonetheless. The tranquillity of the forest seemed to me artificial. I suspected traps.
I could not relax for thinking that the trees hid robbers or that the wet ground could disguise a secret pit. Few birds sang here; I saw no animals.
The atmosphere suggested that God's Doom had been visited on this place as freely as it had been visited elsewhere. Yet I was grateful for any kind of calm, and after two days without danger presenting itself I found that I could steep quite easily for several hours and could eat with a degree of leisure, drinking from sweet brook water made strange to me because it did not taste of the corpses which clogged, for instance, the Elbe from bank to bank.
It was remarkable to me that the deeper into the forest I moved, the less life I discovered.
The stillness began to oppress me; I became grateful for the sound of my own movements, the tread of the horse's hooves on the turf, the occasional breeze which swept the leaves of the trees, animating them and making them seem less like frozen giants observing my passage with a passionless sense of the danger lying ahead of me.
It was warm and I had an impulse more than once to remove my helmet and breastplate, but I kept them firmly on, sleeping in my armour as was my habit, a naked sword ready by my hand.
I came to believe that this was not, after all, a Paradise, but the borderland between Earth and Hell.
I was never a superstitious man, and shared the rational view of the universe with our modern alchemists, anatomists, physicians and astrologers; I did not explain my fears in terms of ghosts, demons, Jews or witches; but I could discover no explanation for this absence of life.
No army was nearby, to drive game before it. No large beasts stalked here. There were not even huntsmen. I had discovered not a single sign of human habitation.
The forest seemed unspoiled and untouched since the beginning of Time. Nothing was poisoned, I had eaten berries and drunk water. The undergrowth was lush and healthy, as were the trees and shrubs. I had eaten mushrooms and truffles; my horse nourished on the good grass.
Through the treetops I saw clear blue sky, and sunlight warmed the glades. But no insects danced in the beams; no bees crawled upon the leaves of the wild flowers; not even an earthworm twisted about the roots, though the soil was dark and smelted fertile.
It came to me that perhaps this was a part of the globe as yet unpopulated by God, some forgotten corner which had been overlooked during the latter days of the Creation. Was I a wandering Adam come to find his Eve and start the race again? Had God, feeling hopeless at humanity's incapacity to maintain even a clear idea of His Purpose, decided to expunge His first attempts? But I could only conclude that some natural catastrophe had driven the animal kingdom away, be it through famine or disease, and that it had not yet returned.
You can imagine that this state of reason became more difficult to maintain when, breaking out of the forest proper one afternoon, I saw before me a green, flowery hill which was crowned by the most beautiful castle I had ever beheld: a thing of delicate stonework, of spires and ornamental battlements, all soft, pale browns, whites and yellows, and this castle seemed to me to be at the centre of the silence, casting its influence for miles around, protecting itself as a nun might protect herself, with cold purity and insouciant confidence. Yet it was mad to think such a thing, I knew.
How could a building demand calm, to the degree that not even a mosquito would dare disturb it?
It was my first impulse to avoid the castle, but my pride overcame me.
I refused to believe that there was anything genuinely mysterious.
A broad, stony path wound up the hillside between banks of flowers and sweet-smelling bushes which gradually became shaped into terraced gardens with balustrades, statuary and formally arranged flower beds.
This was a peaceful place, built for civilised tastes and reflecting nothing of the War. From time to time as I rode slowly up the path I called out a greeting, asking for shelter and stating my name, according to accepted tradition; but there was no reply. Windows filled with stained glass glittered like the eyes of benign lizards, but I saw no human eye, heard no voice.
Eventually I reached the open gates of the castle's outer wall and rode beneath a portcullis into a pleasant courtyard full of old trees, climbing plants and, at the centre, a well. Around this courtyard were the apartments and appointments of those who would normally reside here, but it was plain to me that not a soul occupied them.
I dismounted from my horse, drew a bucket from the well so that he might drink, tethered him lightly and walked up the steps to the main doors which I opened by means of a large iron handle.
Within, it was cool and sweet.
There was nothing sinister about the shadows as I climbed more steps and entered a room furnished with old chests and tapestries. Beyond this were the usual living quarters of a wealthy nobleman of taste. I made a complete round of the rooms on all three stories.
There was nothing in disorder. The books and manuscripts in the library were in perfect condition. There were preserved meats, fruits and vegetables in the pantries, barrels of beer and jars of wine in the cellars.
It seemed that the castle had been left with a view to its inhabitants' early return. There was no decay at all. But what was remarkable to me was that there were, as in the forest, no signs of the small animals, such as rats and mice, which might normally be discovered.