Tales Between the Lines

III.1 The Bailiff and the Hamster

III.1
Young Walter's eyes followed his father's action with the confidence of a child still believing in the infallibility of his parent.* The hamster, on the other hand, didn't trust these humans one bit. While Willhelm raised his dangerous looking crossbow and aimed right for the rodent's growling tummy, the animal frantically checked his surroundings for an escape route. The click of the crossbow's safety catch told the hamster that he was running out of options quickly, so he shrugged off his stupor and jumped from the startled boy's head in one gigantic arc.

But with the cunning of a true master of his trade, Willy followed the unfortunate rodent's trajectory, and the sharp crossbow bolt picked the hamster out of the air and continued on its way to penetrate the bailiff's chest with a satisfying thunk.

Gessler' death shriek mingled with an almost unbearable screech from the hamster. Wilhelm shook his head, unable to believe in his own luck, while he was arrested by the bailiff's troupes.**

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* Yes, Walti wasn't a teenager yet

** Later, when congratulated for his masterful shot by his fellow rebels, he just shrugged. What use would it be to admit this was entirely the unpopular official's own fault? Why did he have to stand so close?

~~~~~

Centuries later, a mixed gang of excited archeologists and historians rummaged and pilfered their way through some medieval tombs. They found a man's skeleton, clad in rich garments, with a crossbow bolt piercing his sternum. A tiny rodent's ribcage was wrapped around the projectile. Further investigation revealed the ribcage to be a hamster's, an animal that was, in their opinion, by no way a native of Alpine Europe at the time of the man's unfortunate and violent demise.

The scientists debated at length, with academic fire and fervour, as it was the custom of their trade, but to no avail. The strange gravesite would not reveal its mysteries to them.
Not exactly adequate for a burial site, the increasingly heated debate awoke the ghost of the imperial bailiff. He stretched and yawned (as far as ghosts are able to stretch and yawn at the same time) and listened in on the ongoing argument.

Only then did he realise that a) he was dead and b) looking at his own skeleton, lying on the ground with the smaller skeleton of his wife's pet hamster pinned to his sternum.
He'd hated the rodent with gusto and remembered looking forward to the opportunity to get rid of the beast. According to his plan, he would claim the native thug called Willhelm killed it as a symbol of his fight against imperialism. This master stroke would have delivered all the necessary arguments to wipe out the whole race of rebels in these resistance-ridden mountains.

If only the hamster would have kept still instead of jumping in his direction, of all possible trains of action. He should have had the beast cuffed to the boy's head, just in case.

The bailiff's ghost slumped down beside his mortal remains, only half aware of the debate going on above his head.

One of the funnily clad men insisted hamsters weren't indigenous in medieval Europe. The bailiff shook his head. Didn't these morons know the first thing about trade routes? If he'd dared to tell his wife her favourite pet wasn't supposed to exist in her time and place, he'd never heard the end of it.*

Besides, who were these strange people to desecrate the grave of an official of the Holy Emperor himself?

In a sudden rage, he stood up. Now was the time to take his destiny into his own immaterial hands...

Rage—and this is known to only few—has the power to make a ghost materialize. And that's what the bailiff did. Strangely, though, it was not a pair of fiery eyes that appeared first, nor the rictus of an angry grin. Rather, and in a fairly unspectacular and somewhat confusing manner, it was the man's left elbow.

One of the archeologists saw the strange object hovering in midair and nudged his bickering colleagues. They fell silent.

His partial and awkward appearance riled the ghost even more, fuelling his anger sufficiently to let him appear in full splendor.

The clearly medieval figure standing in their midst triggered the head historian's professional curiosity. "Who are you?"

"You don't know me, scum?" The bailiff was fuming over the lack of proper etiquette. "I'm Hermann Gessler, the Emperor's bailiff in Altdorf."

The historian crossed his arms and sneered. "That can't be. There was never a bailiff named Gessler in Altdorf, nor in any other part of central Switzerland. The only confirmed Gesslers lived near Zürich, mistreating their subjects in that corner of the country. Next thing you'll tell us is that you were killed by Wilhelm Tell."

"Er..." That wasn't what the bailiff had intended to do, but it was the undeniable truth.
"In fact, I was." He rubbed his breastbone.

"Ha, you're nothing but a legend!" The head historian laughed, and his colleagues joined him.

——
* The oldest hamster skeletons (cricetus cricetus, European hamster) found in Central Europe are believed to be of Roman age. This proves our group of archaeologists and historians lacked either trust in Wikipedia or a formal biological education.**

** The above footnote, on the other hand, proves Jinn's inability to overlook facts of a certain historical incorrectness.