The Year Of Wonders
1
Annus mirabilis
THE YEAR OF WONDERS
The year is 1666, a significant year that will be remembered among other things for Newton’s discoveries. A miraculous year, year of wonders, but not for everybody. A Japanese superstition described that particular year as “Fire Horse”, the 43th combination of the sexagenarian cycle. Girls born on such a year are believed that will kill their husbands and based on unconfirmed statistics the birthrate in Japan on such Fire Horse years is decreased.
Over in Europe it was a time of war, with the Ottomans still trying to reach northern territories and constantly failing. Royal Hungary together with the Transylvanian Saxons were the last frontiers that withstood the pressure. At a place called Satu Mare Szatmár under the belly of the Hungarian Kingdom, the day this story begins was a day of celebration that was destined to be accompanied by deep sorrow. At the house of Metzengerstein, a 4-century-old majestic castle built by a family originally called Metzgerstein (=Butcher’s Stone), that the locals said they were German/Jewish gypsies possessing a lot of gold, Baroness Mary was giving birth to what she hoped to be her son and future Baron of the entire region.
The labor pains started in the middle of the night, her screams could be heard over at the house of Berlifitzing, which had been ruling this lower almost forgotten part of the kingdom for an entire century since the Battle of Mohács in 1526 and the subsequent partition of the country, with the blessings of the House of Habsburg. The Berlifitzings were no longer their favorites for the past forty years after 1626 and the political games led to a great feud with the Metzgersteins. Baron Wilhelm Von Berlifitzing gained great pleasure early in the morning, when he was informed about a certain impending death among the family he hated the most.
The sun was desperately trying to sneak in the dark chambers, where the bromhidrosis- the foul-smelling body odor- from the sweaty Baroness was making the two maids and the loyal servant Bela uncomfortable, almost wanting to vomit. She was notorious for her poor hygiene and only Bela has learned to mask the awful scent with a concoction of imported spices that always carried around in his pockets. That man had traveled a long way after the Tokugawa Shogunate banned Christianity in 1620 in Japan, still a two-year-old baby. He lost his parents somewhere in the Middle East when he was five, with no recollection of how it happened or why. He was brought up by an unfortunate Ottoman couple with no children as a devout Muslim without anyone ever doubting his appearance. His original name was Arata and that is the only thing he remembers his mother calling him. His Ottoman name was Hanza bin Evhad and he fought as a soldier against the Hungarian armies under that name. Wounded and on the verge of death he has managed to escape a great battle they lost, stole clothes from locals and posed as the bastard child of a Saxon father and a Greek mother, when he was found near Chateau Metzengerstein by the castle’s guards. His familiarity with the German language enabled him to adopt a new identity as Bela Meinbert, both first and last names randomly chosen from stories he had read while studying the language, with no particular meaning behind them.
Bela had a very important task that day in 1666, an assignment that the Baroness had explicitly requested of him to fulfil at all cost, repaying her that way for all the years she was protecting and nourishing him. He was concealing the item he needed for the job in his other pocket and was mentally preparing himself to act if needed.
Blood appeared on the sheets and the Baroness dipped her claws into the hands of her maid who was holding her tight. “Get it out of me” she shouted, as if the fetus in her guts were the devil himself. Bela was hydrating and cleaning her forehead every other minute with a moist cloth. The Baroness had trouble breathing. The veins in her eye sockets were bursting from the tremendous pressure making her look like a monster.
The stink emanating from whatever was coming out of all orifices from the suffering Baroness was inhaled by the younger maid Sylva and was a truly intolerable nightmare with no end. The older, more seasoned maid Romina, who was in her early 40s, knew not to touch the small slimy head that appeared right above the lake of blood and fecal matter and instead waited for the shoulders to appear. The lady of the House was exerting her final effort to push it out, and every attempt felt like shoving a sword in her belly, ache she had never felt her entire “nobble” life.
The screaming stopped, moments of silence. The infant finally slipped out of the dead body of its mother. For what seemed like an eternity, everyone inside the room feared it was soulless and ready for the grave. Then it opened its little mouth and made a cute evil sound that barely qualified as a cry. It was alive!
Romina took it away, cut the umbilical cord and placed it inside a large bowl filled with water. As she washed it her heart skipped a beat. She took two steps back. She knew right away that what she just saw would have consequences.
Bela shuttered the eyelids of his mistress and right away observed Romina’s expression of fear. Without any sudden movement he approached her, took a look at the baby and like a magician he cracked a nip made of glass in Romina’s open mouth. She had zero time to react, he covered both her mouth and nose with one hand and punched her right between her eyes with his dominant fist.
Sylva was slow, she realized what was going on only when Bela stood in front of her face. Although not a big man, he was unquestionably ten times stronger than the frail young woman. He pushed her with both hands, causing her to fall backwards and to meet the edge of the bed with the back of her head. She was still alive down on the wooden floor, when Bela’s right foot crushed her skull sideways.
Bela positioned both ladies on either side of the bed next to the open legs of the Baroness and immediately smeared some of her blood on her own naked soles and on the faces of the two maids. He weighted and evaluated the scene from all angles and determined that it looked convincing enough for all the idiots of the House to think that it was just a terrible accident caused by the Baroness while she was struggling to stay alive.
There was one more thing to take care of, before presenting the newborn to his father, the owner of the House of Metzengerstein. He used flour and water and one more special ingredient to create a very convincing transformation that would alter the future of this family, postponing their inevitable demise.
Shorty after he exited the chambers while cautiously holding the baby from beneath its armpits, with its back partially covered with a small blanket. At the other end of the hallway, the Baron was waiting.
“Congratulations my Lord, you have a son! I’m sorry to say, your wife passed away.”
