Bekker The Amber Merchant: Historical Novel

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-3-7452-3577-7
Verlag: Alfredbooks
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 500 Seiten

by Alfred Bekker & Silke Bekker The size of this book corresponds to 481 paperback pages. Lübeck 1450: The engagement between Barbara Heusenbrink, the daughter of Riga's amber king Heinrich Heusenbrink, and the rich patrician's son Matthias Isenbrandt is celebrated with a big party. Although Barbara does not love Matthias, she agrees to the marriage of convenience. Shortly afterwards, however, she meets the soldier of fortune Erich von Belden, to whom she feels magically attracted. But they both realize that their love has no chance. And then Barbara is kidnapped to Gdansk by amber smugglers who want to blackmail her father .. .

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bekker, Alfred

Bekker, Silke

Leseproben

First chapter: Raid on the Curonian Spit

She may still be very young and, moreover, it is unusual for a woman to be involved in such a business as the amber trade. But no one should underestimate Barbara Heusenbrink. Not for long and she will be in no way inferior to her father, who is not called the Amber King for nothing. Now that Heinrich Heusenbrink is weak and she still has no experience, perhaps the time has come for her to become both father and daughter. Whether with the help of nature or with the support of compliant and armed servants, I don't care.

From a letter attributed to Reichart Luiwinger, the elder of the Rigafahrer brotherhood of Lübeck; unsigned and undated; probably written in early to mid 1450.

The still young and inexperienced Barbara Heusenbrink unexpectedly represented the Heusenbrink trading house on behalf of her father, who was unavailable in Riga and of whom I know through informants that his health was not in the best of health. The Grand Master, however, issued a double warning. He said that it was not yet completely certain whether the previous privileges of the House of Heusenbrink in the amber trade could be guaranteed to the same extent as before, even if he himself was committed to this and confident. And secondly, he advised against taking the overland route to Riga. Although they were under the safe protection of the Order as far as Königsberg, they could only advise against taking the further and currently only overland route via the Curonian Spit to return to Riga by wagon, even if accompanied by horsemen. She should rather accept the waiting time for a ship, because the Spit was unsafe and full of riff-raff and there was no knight of the Order to protect her.

But she said: "As I also took this route on the way here and am now in a great hurry and business obligations do not allow me to wait for a ship, it is better that I take the route over the spit than that I travel over the land of the Lithuanians. I am also accompanied by a number of men-at-arms who are equally loyal to the House of Heusenbrink and extremely knowledgeable in their field. If you really care about me, let us finally come to a final agreement on the trade in the gold of the Baltic!" But she was referring to the amber.

From the minutes of Melarius von Cleiwen, head of the chancellery of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order at Marienburg Castle; 1450

The flame of a pitch-soaked torch flickered restlessly in the wind that swept across the spit from the sea. The sound of hooves mingled with the sound of the sea and the rustling of the bushes and treetops.

"Now!" a hoarse male voice commanded.

The fuses of the arquebuses were lit - five of them. Within moments, they could be smelled at least twenty paces away - but only downwind. The shooters had carefully positioned themselves so that those they were aiming at remained completely unsuspecting, as the wind carried the smell of the smoldering fuses away from them. Fifty or sixty heartbeats - within this time, the hook rifles had to be fired, otherwise the fuse would burn out and a new piece of rope would have to be attached to the front of the firing hook and made to glow.

The archers waited in the bushes while the team, accompanied by two additional riders, approached at full speed. The two mounted companions were armed. They were mercenaries, the kind you could hire anywhere these days. The man sitting next to the coachman held a crossbow in his hands and looked around restlessly.

The first two shots came thundering out of the pipes. One bullet passed close to the coachman and his guardian and tore a fist-sized hole in the coachman's seat. The second hit one of the two riders. Fatally hit, he fell to the ground and lay motionless while his horse whinnied away.

More shots were fired and just as the second rider had drawn his sword halfway, a bullet went through his leg and then into the body of the horse, which fell to the ground. The scream of the rider who had been hit mingled with the shrill neighing of the horse, which kicked wildly as streams of its blood seeped into the sandy ground, only sparsely covered by sunburnt grass.

A dozen men now rushed out of the bushes, shouting wildly. The injured man lying on the ground raised his sword defensively, while his trouser leg had already turned red. He was still able to parry the sword thrust of one of the attackers, but then an axe blow struck him on the head and ended his life.

The crossbowman on the coachman's seat raised his weapon and cut down one of the attackers before a dagger was thrown into his neck and he slumped to the side, gasping. The coachman sat frozen, pale as a shroud, while some of the attackers had already seized the reins of the team and calmed the horses. Then he jumped off the buckboard, but before he could get back on his feet and flee, he was shot and left whimpering on the ground. The blow with an axe ended his life. Another shot cracked and hit the front wheel, splintering the wood and causing the wagon to sink a little on that side.

Someone was already climbing up the back of the car and using a long knife to cut the cords securing the luggage on the roof.

A man in a stained leather jerkin approached the carriage from the side. He had a hole in his cheek, no doubt made at some point to brand him a criminal. The man so cruelly marked wet his thumb and forefinger with his tongue and extinguished the fuse of his arquebus, for it was no longer likely that he would have to fire the weapon and it was better to save powder and bullets.

He pulled open the carriage door.

"Get out of here! And immediately!"

There was only one person inside the carriage - a young woman who faced the branded man with surprising fearlessness. Sea-green, attentive eyes dominated her finely cut face, framed by dark blonde hair. Her determined look contrasted somewhat with her still very young-looking, soft facial features. She wore her hair up, but the stresses and strains of the journey had tousled it a little, leaving a few strands sticking out. She brushed one of these strands from her forehead with a casual gesture that was both elegant and sober.

The man with the hole in his cheek grabbed her wrist roughly and pulled her out of the car. He grabbed her chin and turned her head to the side.

"That must be her!" said one of the other men - a guy with a dark beard that grew almost to his eyes.

The branded man nodded. His gaze lingered on the amber amulet set in silver that the young woman wore around her neck. He grabbed it and tore it from her neck. Then he held it up to the sun and looked at the engraving on the back. He probably couldn't read it, but he had already seen the H, which had been artistically designed, almost like a miniature coat of arms. "No doubt, she's the woman we're looking for," he realized. "Barbara Heusenbrink - the daughter of the man they call the Amber King in Riga, because every piece of Baltic gold supposedly passes through his hands!"

Barbara Heusenbrink tried to suppress a tremor. She had been warned very strongly not to take the route across the spit, at the end of which a ferry could be used to cross the strait that connected the Curonian Lagoon with the Baltic Sea. But as the land south of the lagoon was ruled by the Lithuanians, the route across the spit was the only way to reach Courland by land without leaving the territory of the Order.

It was obvious that this invited robbers to wait here for prey.

But Barbara had by no means set out from Marienburg a week ago without considering these risks. The well-armed men who accompanied her, loyal to House Heusenbrink, were normally able to put the usual thieving rabble that could be encountered on the way across the spit to flight with ease. It was by no means the first time Barbara had taken this route. She had previously accompanied her father on business trips to the southern part of the Order's territory, to Hanseatic cities such as Danzig, Elbing and Thorn, which were striving for independence from the supremacy of the Crusaders. She had thought she could assess the risk, especially as the usual thieving rabble usually ran away as soon as they noticed that the wagon was accompanied by well-armed mercenaries. Those who lay in wait for easy prey on the spit were usually poorly armed poor dogs who were afraid to engage in a fight. If they had to reckon with resistance, they quickly retreated. Drawing a sword was often enough to drive them away. At the latest, the bang of an arquebus would scare them away and frighten them so badly that you need not expect to encounter the same scoundrels again elsewhere on the same journey.

But the men Barbara had fallen into the hands of on that unlucky day clearly did not belong in this category. Their good...