Albrecht von Wallenstein’s Cat

The following is not entirely apocrypha.

It was April of 1626 and the tide had turned for the Bohemians in the German city of Dessau. It had been the longest and most arduous campaign of the Wars of Religion so far, but finally the Protestants had been driven back to Silesia. In remote corners of the city, triumphant soldiers rummaged through mountains of rubble.

“Should we keep looking?” asked a soldier, scouring along the bricks of crumbled houses.

“You know how he gets when he hears them.” said the rifleman. “Not a single one should remain.”

The two soldiers moved on to join the larger group at the town square, just as an inconspicuous Persian cat emerged from behind the debris, just out of their line of sight. Distant cannons and assorted artillery fired away in the distance.

As his army laid siege to the last bastions of the city, a man in a spotless Bohemian uniform walked on a nearby stone bridge, savoring his victory. Albrecht von Wallenstein, supreme commander of the Hapsburg armies and sworn defender of Catholicism sported a rudimentary pair of wax earplugs as he strutted over piles of dead Protestant soldiers, passing larger and larger stacks as he approached the town square.

Death was of no great disturbance to him by now. To him, it was simply a manifestation of the Lord’s will, however puzzling. The first to leave him was his mother, though the rest of them would soon follow. In her last days, she had insisted this was not a process to be feared. He could picture her now, many years later, in that tiny, suffocatingly hot room, her soft voice comforting her young son.

“It is only as the Lord wills it, Albrecht,” she spoke between coughs. “And your father and you will carry on. I have no doubt.” Upon seeing her child’s expressionless face, she put down her tray with great care and caressed his long blond hair. “But I have good news, Albrecht,” she added, “it was to be a surprise, but your father’s bringing home a cat. It’ll keep you company when I’m gone.”

Cannonballs cascaded upon slanted rooftops and rustic streets. In the square, soldiers carried carcasses of cats and dogs. They threw them into a central mound on the direct orders of their commander, who patiently waited until all was quiet to remove the wax on his ears. He stood in front of the mound, displaying not remorse but only a detached, cold disgust.

“Why do you keep that damned thing around,” young Albretch said in a low tone to his bedridden mother. “It brings me comfort,” his mother replied, petting the purring housecat.

“And its name is Liebe.”

“It’s noisy, and I dislike it,” said Albrecht. “All it does is lick itself and make awful, awful sounds. Why keep it around?”

“You cannot stand noise, but you dream of becoming a soldier,” she said. “We are all quite irrational beings.” At that moment, the cat freed itself from her weak hold and gracefully dropped on the floor only to curl itself between Albrecht’s legs. He resisted the urge to kick it.

A German peasant child who lay witness to von Wallenstein’s silent contemplation held his pet dog in his hands, covering its eyes to save it the vision of the mass murder of its brethren. Startled, the dog barked uncontrollably. Hearing this, a nearby soldier rushed to the door as the child shut it. The soldier retrieved his blade from its holster and shouted for him to hand it over. Soon he pried the dog from the hands of the crying child.

It was the spring of 1595, a mere two years after they buried her, when his father passed.

He went to live with his uncle, who promptly sent him to a Jesuit school. It was only then he saw the light his parents never did. They had followed Martin Luther and Jan Hus to a fault, doomed to wander endlessly in purgatory for their belief in false dogma. He cleaned out his home and took what he could carry: a change of clothes, his father’s hat, and his mother’s Bible. There he left Liebe the cat, a mournful reminder of the cruel twist of fate that haunted his youth, awaiting on the doorstep a master who wouldn’t return.

“You may all stand down,” Albrecht ordered. “We have won this battle.”

He heard cheers from the crowd of soldiers. “At daybreak, we resume our campaign. God bless the Holy Roman Empire and his grace Ferdinand II.”

With this message, the soldiers scattered, eager to rest after a well-earned conquest as the sun set. This lapse in guard allowed for a certain Persian cat to proceed unnoticed, unaware of any potential danger it faced. Using debris as cover, it approached the imposing figure of the commander.

Albrecht felt a strange presence at his feet. He gasped as he looked down. “Liebe?”

The feline curled up against his armor and lightly meowed as it clawed away at his ankles. He cringed at the sound of the animal’s detestable cry but made no sudden moves. It could not be Liebe, for that was so long ago, yet…

Albrecht leaned down to examine the curious creature. He did not erupt in fury; he did not cover his ears or call for its immediate execution. The Persian cat looked puzzled, even playful… its heterochromatic eyes full of wonder, even warmth? This could not be, Albrecht thought. He had made it his life’s mission to eradicate the detestable beasts, to eliminate any trace of his former Protestant life… He leaned over and removed his gloves, ready to touch the dreadful animal, to perhaps return Liebe’s embrace twenty years after the fact. For the first time in his existence he smiled in the presence of its species. And then the damned thing meowed again.

Caught off-guard by the nastiness of its cry, Albrecht fell back. His blind hatred rose from within; he retrieved his sword. The creature had embarrassed him; brought him to his knees when an entire army could not. The cat stood no more than a meter away. Albrecht fixated on its eyes, a pair of narrow slits that widened as he pointed the long blade of his sword in its face. He pressed his fingers on the hilt, trying to steady his grip. Not since his first battle had he hesitated.

Albrecht got up. He could not bring himself to do it.

“Run off, foul beast, and never return,” he said, pulling his weapon back. The cat did not heed or even understand his ultimatum. “I said run off.”

He tried with no luck for the cat to listen to him. He raised his voice, and gestured at the pile of dead pets, but its face only showed a mild indifference. He tried kicking the cat, but it evaded his boot and the message alike. Infuriated by its insolence, Albrecht slashed at the cat, grazing its tail with the tip of the blade. The cat emitted an awful shriek and finally ran away in the direction of the bridge. Albrecht covered his ears, having withstood the disabling sound of a domesticated animal.

He spotted the fiend, hopping over bodies with tremendous agility. It was halfway across the bridge when Albrecht heard a gunshot from a distance. The cat instantly dropped to the ground, immobile.

A soldier rushed to the commander from the other side of the bridge, picking up his prize.

“Did you see that? I finally shot one, sir!” It was one of the rubble-rummaging numbskulls wielding a musket, entirely unaware of the lengthy exchange Albrecht had had with the cat.

“Why did you do that, soldier?” Albrecht snapped. “I dismissed you all already!”

“I was looking for that cat, sir,” the confused soldier replied. “I was following orders.”

“You wasted valuable ammunition on an animal,” Albrecht muttered. “That’s the extent of what you’ve accomplished today.”

“I’m very sorry, sir. Should I put it on the pile?”

“Just leave, soldier. Get some rest.”

The musketman did not protest and dropped the cat where he stood.

Albrecht stared at the inanimate animal as night dawned upon the rummaged town. He knelt before its little body. He never said goodbye to Liebe, never even cared for its species, and yet now… Was this, too, the Lord’s will? Was it not senseless cruelty he had perpetuated? Was it not senseless loss he had experienced? He looked up at the starlit sky, at the Kingdom of Heaven above him, where his family awaited. He wondered if, perhaps, pets had a heaven of their own, if they too passed on, if they had souls at all… But, then, he had a military campaign to see through. To stop and ask existential questions was an idle man’s luxury.

He waited until the late hours of the night to fetch a small box and a shovel. He passed peasants as they took to the streets to retrieve their dead, until he found the cat again.

Albrecht placed it in the box and buried it near the riverbed. Yes, this was the natural order of things, he assured himself. It was no use to fear death, no use to mourn; their bodies would return to dust, but their souls would go on.

The next day, his soldiers were dumbfounded when Albrecht ordered a moratorium on the execution of pets for the rest of the campaign. Some found the order senseless, some found it just. Nevertheless, they carried on, for it was only as the Commander willed it.

FIN.

Albrecht von Wallenstein was a Bohemian military leader who fought for the Catholic Holy Roman Empire in the first three phases of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). In 1634, he was assassinated with the emperor’s approval on charges of high treason.