Of the sixteen buildings, including houses, granaries, barns, the church, and the inn, not one had remained intact. The parish priest, Father Frank, was lying on the altar with his face buried in his own blood. Mose and his wife Linda, at the small bakery, had been quartered. Forty-seven inhabitants, forty bodies, or pieces of the same body, were found. The remaining seven were trembling with fear, divided between the streets and the inn.
"No one can have appeared out of nowhere, have made such a massacre and gone!" Hildemar had been the last to return to the survivors' shelter. The door slammed. He was frustrated, disappointed, furious, a whirlwind of emotions that had made him aggressive.
"I can't understand" Alan Kaiser muttered. He set the rifle down on the counter and sank into the nearest chair.
"We are almost a day's journey from the center of Heisenhof, on the back of a mule. On foot it is an unlikely journey, on horseback perhaps it takes something less."
"But who the fuck would ever do such a thing, even if they wanted to steal the little we have?"
"This is not a thief, here" Johan remarked. Smoothing his mustache, he looked down thoughtfully. He wasn't sure of anything, but he thought that certainly a poor mountain town like theirs hadn't been slaughtered for a piece of cheese.
They fell silent for a few minutes. Karia and Isik had moved away from the fire to settle by the window. Outside, given the color of the sky, a downpour seemed to be approaching. Gobel, still holding his hands over the flames, was staring at Rolf. The blond stood with his back to him, wrapped in a brown cape. He was looking among the bottles of the inn for something to swallow.
Hildemar noticed the grim look of her little brother. Was the boy's perplexity mixed with anger? He tried to understand what was bothering him.
Then he saw a shoulder bag of Rolf, half covered. It was swollen and heavy. The young man's boots looked strangely new.
Hildemar approached him.
"What do you have in your bag?"
Rolf almost dropped the beer bottle he was handling. "My things."
"Empty it on the counter" said the pastor peremptorily. A veil of hatred and suspicion had appeared in his voice.
"What do you care? It's my stuff, I don't have to answer you."
"Rolf," said Johan, at the top of the room, "empty it."
Alan had turned red, everyone had noticed, and avoided looking at his brother who, not without an annoyed expression, opened the bag. Carelessly he emptied the contents onto the wooden counter: clinking bags of money, used jewelry, a dagger with a carved deer horn handle, and a few cups perhaps in silver.
Hildemar flared up. "This isn't your stuff, Rolf! Did you steal it? "
The boy said nothing. It was so obvious that unnecessary words were not needed.
"Damn bastard, they kill your family and the first thing you do is go and rob houses?"
"Rolf." Johan's voice showed profound disappointment, and even something more. What kind of man had a similar reaction to a tragedy?
"None of them would have done anymore. What do you want me to care about? " Rolf was on the defensive and it was clear that his brother Alan also knew something.
"What kind of people are you, you lousy ones?" Hildemar was beside herself. "Bastard thieves! But don't you have a minimum of decency?" His eyes bulging and his face now purple, Hildemar stiffened as he made his guess. "Maybe it was you. Yes, you bastards went out of your mind to think about stealing everything we had. "
"Hildemar," interrupted Johan, "now don't overdo it."
"Shit! It was them! They haven't batted an eyelid since we got back: they already knew everything!"
"Hey, we didn't do anything wrong" was Alan's bad choice of words.
"How can you think of such a thing?" Rolf continued.
"Johan, did you lose sight of these two fools while you were at work?"
The big man was stunned. He was pondering. "We weren't always together, I'm not a nurse."
"And you went back to do this slaughter. And what did you think you were going to do, kill us too during the night?"
"You're crazy!" Rolf shouted in his face. He was seriously worried, as defensive as a trapped animal.
From the side of the hall came a voice soft but sharp as a blade. "Your pants were stained with blood." Katia had all the innocence and fear of a little girl on her face.
"I just killed a hare! Tell him, Alan. "
"It's true, we took a hare from a trap, that's the blood!"
"And who tells us that? You had plenty of time to do what you did!"
"We are only two, how could we? There were strong men in the village, many too. He must have been an older man, stronger, and with a weapon." Rolf looked towards the door. He realized he was describing who was in front of him. "Johan could have been. He has a hatchet the size of my head and he can handle it. And then he said himself that we weren't together very much."
"Ugly cowards" the woodcutter addressed them, shortly before seeing the fears of those present focused on him. The Kaiser brothers vanished, leaving Hildemar, still hot in spirit, to bathe in doubt.
"When did you go back to the woods, Johan?" The question was more accusatory than ever.
"Try saying another nonsense like that and I swear I'll shut your mouth."
"Like you did with the others? Because they isolate you? Because you are a detestable son of a bitch that nobody wants close to you?"
Johan stood up threateningly. He was a foot taller than Hildemar and his arms as tough as pine logs.
"If you enjoy accusing people, you should look in the mirror. You and that foolish brother of yours, that you let him spin around on his own like a wild beast. God only knows what he could do. And I saw how he looks at women."
"Don't try to point the finger at Gobel."
"Stop it!" Katia's cry was the explosion of unbearable boredom. Beside her even Gobel had narrowed his eyes: even if he did not speak, he felt saner than all the others. He wasn't going to let anyone hurt him.
That night, no one slept for more than a few hours. Together they decided to take turns on guard, agreeing on who should stay awake and with whom, so as not to raise strange suspicions. They slept in separate corners, the girls even in a separate room. If a killer was among them, they would inevitably find out very soon.