But Jacob didn’t want fish. He hated the smell, the sight, in fact everything about it. The danger would have to be extreme before he would even cross the fishmarket.
He squeezed his way between groups of chattering maids and nuns haggling at the tops of their voices over the price of pumpkins, almost drowned out by the melodious cries of the vendors, bumped into a richly clad merchant, and stumbled, gabbling his excuses, against a stall with carrots and celery. The stratagem brought him three oaths, one of which, surprisingly enough, he had never heard before, and a couple of lovely, smooth carrots, bursting with juice. Not a bad haul.
He looked around and thought for a minute. He could go via the crates of apples the farmers sold in Old Market Square. That was the sensible route. Carrots and apples—hunger stilled and thirst quenched.
But it was one of those days. Jacob wanted more. And unfortunately that “more” was on the southern, less safe side of Haymarket, at the part indicated by a higher percentage of clerics among the jostling crowd. On the meat stalls.
The meat stalls…
Only last week a thief had been caught there. He had been caught before, and this time the angry butcher chopped one of his hands off, comforting him with the thought that now he had his piece of flesh. The authorities later expressed their disapproval of this act of retribution but that didn’t make his hand grow back. Anyway, it was his own fault. Meat was not for the poor.
And yet had not the dean of St. Cecilia’s recently explained that only those among the poor who combined their poverty with honesty enjoyed God’s favor? Did that mean Jacob belonged to the ungodly? And could the ungodly be condemned for not resisting the temptations of the flesh? The temptation of St. John was nothing compared to the way the flesh was tempting him at the moment.
But dangerous it certainly was.
There was no crush he could disappear into, as on the north side. Fewer alleyways. After the meat and smoked ham stalls there was nothing but the horse troughs and then that damned square where they’d caught the poor fellow last week.
Apples after all, then? Meat lay heavy on the stomach anyway. On the other hand, better on his stomach than on that of some fat priest, in Jacob’s humble opinion.
He cast a look of longing at the stalls where the red slabs with their collars of yellow fat were being sold. He just had to accept that Providence had decreed he would not be a rich patrician. On the other hand Providence had surely not decreed he should die of unsatisfied yearning!
With a heavy heart, if not a heavy stomach, he watched as the objects of his desire briskly changed hands. Among the crowd of burghers’ wives in their burgundy dresses with golden clasps and richly embroidered silk bonnets he could see Alexian Brothers, Franciscans and Conradines, Crutched Friars, and Augustinians in their black habits.
Since the archbishop had granted the city the right of staple the previous year, there was no more sumptuous market than that of Cologne. People of every degree met there, no one felt it was beneath them to display their wealth openly by buying up the contents of the stalls. To add to the confusion, the whole square was swarming with children fighting their own private battles or combining to chase pigs across the trampled clay. On the eastern side where the fleshmarket began, opposite the linen-weavers’ hall with its ring of beggars, hung sausages, and Jacob would have dearly loved to be able to hop in with the round dozen that were just disappearing into the basket of an expensively dressed old man with a pointed hat.
Or not quite completely disappearing. As the man shuffled on his way one was left dangling enticingly.
Jacob’s eyes popped.
It was looking back at him. It promised a foretaste of paradise, the New Jerusalem, heavenly bliss here on earth. Hundreds of tiny lumps of white fat were winking at him from the reddish brown of the smoked flesh under the bulging skin. It seemed to be calling on him to take his courage—and the sausage—in both hands and run for it. He could just picture himself sitting in his lean-to by the city wall gorging on it. The picture became more and more vivid, more and more real, until his legs began to move of their own accord. Danger and fear were forgotten. The world was reduced to one sausage.
Like an eel Jacob weaved his way between the people until he was behind the old man, who had stopped to examine a haunch of horseflesh. His eyesight must have been poor, he had to bend right over the counter.
Jacob came up close behind him, let him poke and sniff for a few seconds, then shouted at the top of his voice, “Thief! Look! Over there! Making off with a fillet of beef, the bastard!”
The people craned their necks. The butchers, naturally assuming the miscreant was behind them, turned around and, there being nothing to see, stood there looking baffled. It was the work of a second for Jacob’s fingers to transfer the sausage to his jerkin. Time for a quick exit.
The display on the counter caught his eye. Chops within easy reach. And the butchers still staring at nothing.
He stretched out a hand, hesitated. Enough, enough, whispered a voice, time you were gone.
The temptation was too strong.
He grasped the nearest chop at the same moment as one of the butchers turned around. His look was as sharp as the executioner’s axe and his face flushed with indignation. “Villain!” the butcher bellowed.
“Thief! Thief!” squawked the old man. He rolled his eyes, gave a strangled croak, and collapsed between the stalls.
Without a moment’s hesitation Jacob threw the chop into the butcher’s face. The people around started shrieking and hands grasped his old jerkin, pulling his hood off. His red mop shone forth in all its glory. He kicked out, but they refused to let go. The butcher jumped over the counter with a cry of rage.
Already Jacob could see himself minus one hand, and he didn’t like what he saw.
Pulling all his strength together, he threw his arms up and leaped into the crowd. To his astonishment it was easier than he imagined. Then he realized he had jumped out of his jerkin, which the people were tearing to pieces as if the poor garment were the malefactor himself. He hit out in all directions, found he was free, and scampered across the square, the butcher in hot pursuit. And not only the butcher. To judge by the pounding of feet and the angry voices, half the people in Haymarket were after him, all determined to give the executioner the opportunity to try out his sword on Jacob’s hand.
He slithered through muddy ruts and gravel, just avoiding the hooves of a startled horse. People turned to watch him, attracted by the spectacle.
“A thief!” roared the others.
“What? Who?”
“Carrot-top there! The fox!”
Reinforcements joined the pursuing throng. They appeared from every street and alleyway. Even the churchgoers seemed to be pouring out of St. Mary’s with the sole intent of tearing him limb from limb.
Fear was starting to take over. The only escape route, past the malt mill and through Corn Gate to the Brook, was blocked. Someone had parked a cart in such a stupid fashion across the street that no one could get past.
But perhaps underneath?
Still running, Jacob then dropped to the ground, rolled under the shaft, bounced back onto his feet, and hurried off to the right, along the Brook. The butcher tried to copy him but got stuck and had to be pulled out to a chorus of angry shouts and yells. The bloodhounds had lost valuable seconds.
Finally three of them clambered over the cart and set off after Jacob again.
ON THE BROOK
But Jacob had disappeared.
They ran up and down a few times, then abandoned the chase. Although traffic on the Brook was light and, it being lunchtime, only a few dyers were at work outside, they had lost him. They had a look at the feltmakers’ row of houses on the left, but couldn’t see anyone suspicious.
“Red hair,” muttered one.
“What?”
“Red hair, goddammit! He can’t have given us the slip, we’d have seen him.”
“That cart held us up,” said the
third. “Let’s go. He won’t escape on Judgment Day.”
“No!” The speaker had torn his sleeve climbing over the cart and there was an angry glint in his eyes. “Someone must have seen him.”
He strode up the Brook, a street that followed the course of the Duffes Brook along the old Roman wall, his reluctant companions in tow. They asked everyone they met until they came to the woad market, but none had seen the redhead.
“Let’s call it a day,” said one. “He didn’t steal anything from me.”
“No!” The man with the torn coat looked around desperately. His eye fell on a young woman kneeling down beside the stream rinsing out a large piece of cloth that had been dyed blue. She was pretty, in a rather singular way, with a slightly crooked nose and pouting lips. He planted himself in front of her, threw out his chest, and bellowed, “We’re looking for a thief. A serious felony’s just been committed.”
She glanced up at him, not particularly interested, then went back to her cloth.
“Are you going to help us?” he thundered. “Or do we have to assume good-for-nothings are welcome here?”
The woman glared at him, took a deep breath—which, given her ample chest measurement, made the self-appointed inquisitor forget all about thieves for a moment—put her hands on her hips, and bawled back at him, “What an insulting suggestion! If we’d seen a thief, he’d be in the stocks by now!”
“That’s where he belongs. He tore my doublet, stole half a horse—what, a whole one, and rode off on it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t murdered the odd person on the way.”
“Incredible!” The woman shook her head in indignation, sending a mass of dark-brown locks flying to and fro. Her interrogator was finding it more and more difficult to concentrate on the matter at hand.
“What does he look like?” she asked.
“Mop of bright red hair.” The man pursed his lips. “Forgive my asking, but doesn’t it get a bit lonely here by the Brook?”
A delicious smile spread across the woman’s face. “Oh, it does.”
“Well—” He tapped his fingertips against each other.
“D’you know,” she went on, “I sometimes think it would be nice to have someone who would just sit here and listen to me. When my husband—he’s a preacher with the Dominicans, very highly thought of—is giving a sermon, I’m left all by myself. I’ve got seven children, but they’re always out somewhere. Probably looking for the other five.”
“The other five?” the man stammered. “I thought you had seven?”
“Seven from my first marriage. With the other five I had with the canon that makes twelve hungry mouths to feed and nothing to eat. You wouldn’t believe how little the dyeing brings in.” The smile became even more radiant. “I’ve been wondering whether it might not be time to tell the old Antonite to pack his bags.”
“Er—wasn’t it a Dominican, you said?”
“It was, but it’s my Antonite I’m talking about now. Limp as a dishrag. Now when I look at you—”
“Just a minute!”
“A man of your size, built like one of the saints, a fount of wisdom, not like that wine merchant I—”
“Yes, I’m sure. Well, I wish you good day.” The man hurried after his companions, who were making their way back to Corn Gate, shaking their heads. “And if you should happen to see the thief,” he shouted over his shoulder, “then tell him—well—ask him—”
“Yes?”
“That’s right. Exactly.”
She watched the three disappear.
Then she burst into a fit of laughter.
Her laughter was louder than the bells of St. George’s. She laughed until her sides hurt and the tears were running down her cheeks so that she didn’t see the blue cloth rise up and slip to one side to reveal a soaking wet Jacob the Fox gasping for breath.
RICHMODIS VON WEIDEN
“So you’re a thief?”
He was lying on the ground beside her, still giddy and trying to get the last of the water out of his lungs. It had a somewhat caustic taste. Upstream from the blue-dyers were the red-dyers and some of the substances that got into the stream were better not swallowed.
“Yes,” he said, his chest heaving. “One that’s just committed a serious felony.”
She pursed her lips in a pout. “And you told me it was you who were running away from thieves and murderers.”
“I had to think of something. Sorry.”
“That’s all right.” She tried unsuccessfully to repress a giggle. “Pontius Pilate only washed his hands, so I imagine total immersion will do for you.”
“Hunger will do for me if I don’t get something to eat. My dinner was in that jerkin.”
“What jerkin?”
“The one—my jerkin. I had to leave it behind in the market. Force of circumstance.”
“Presumably in the form of people trying to recover property you had forgotten to pay for?”
“You could put it that way, yes.”
“What was in it?”
“In my jerkin? Oh, carrots, a sausage. Easy come, easy go.”
“More easy go in your case, there’s not much left at all. At least you’ve still got your breeches on”—she grinned—“even if it is a pair I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”
Jacob looked at himself. There was some truth in what his new friend had said. But breeches and jerkin were all the clothes he possessed. Had possessed. He rubbed his eyes and poked his finger around in his left ear, which was still ringing from the water. “Did you believe it?” he asked.
“What?”
“My story.”
As she slapped the cloth vigorously up and down, she looked at him from beneath her long lashes with a mocking grin. “Even if your thieving is only half as bad as your lying I’d still advise you to keep away from the market for the next few decades.”
Jacob sniffed noisily. “I’m not bad at that kind of thing.”
“You just happen to like going for a swim. It might be hot water next time.”
“What can I do?” He tried, with limited success, to give himself an air of wounded pride. “Every profession has its risks. Except dyeing perhaps. A very exciting activity: blue dye in the morning, blue dye in the evening, blue—”
Her index finger pinned him to the ground.
“Oh, just listen to Mr. Clever. Here I am, sitting quietly by the stream when like a bolt from the blue this carrot-top appears and begs me to hide him. Then I have to engage that puffed-up codpiece in conversation, just for your sake, only to discover that the real no-good is there in the stream in front of me. And you call that no risk?”
Jacob said nothing. His thoughts were back with his lost dinner.
“Well, then?” she snapped. “Lost your tongue? Grown gills instead after all that time in the water?”
“You’re quite right. What can I say?”
“How about thank you?”
In a flash Jacob was on his knees, gazing at her with his devoted-spaniel look. “You want me to show my thanks?”
“At the very least.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
To her astonishment he began to rummage around in the apparently unfathomable folds of his breeches, muttering and cursing as he turned everything inside out and outside in. Suddenly he beamed, “I’ve still got it!” and pulled out an object, which he stuck under her nose.
She inspected it with a frown. It appeared to be a thin stick the length of her finger with holes in it. “And what is that supposed to be?”
“Listen.”
He put the stick to his lips and blew. A strange, high-pitched tune was heard.
“A whistle!” she exclaimed in delight.
“Yes.” Quickly he swapped his devoted-spaniel look for the eyelid-flutter of the irresistible rogue. “I swear by Gabriel and all the archangels that I made up that tune just now for you and you alone. I’ve never played it to another woman, nor ever will, or may St. Peter send the spirits of th
e lions from the Circus Maximus to haunt me.”
“He knows Roman history, too! For the rest, I don’t believe a word of what you say.”
“Oh, dear. I’ll just have to go on to my next trick.” With that Jacob threw the whistle into the air and caught it in his right hand. When he opened his fingers it had disappeared.
Her eyes opened wider and wider until Jacob began to worry they might pop out of their sockets.
“How did you…?”
“Now watch.”
Quickly he put his hand to her ear, produced the whistle, took her left hand out of the water, and placed the tiny instrument in her palm.
“For you.” He beamed.
She blushed, shook her head, and laughed softly. A nice laugh, Jacob decided and beamed even more.
For a while she looked at her present, then fixed him with a thoughtful gaze, wrinkling her nose at the same time. “Are you really an arch criminal?”
“Of course. I’ve strangled dozens of men just with my little finger. They call me the Yoke.” As if to demonstrate his point he stretched out his little finger, then decided the spiel lacked the air of truth. More joke than yoke. He let his shoulders droop.
She shot him a disapproving look, but there was a twitch of merriment about her lips.
“All right, all right.” He threw some stones in the water. “I try to stay alive, that’s all. I like life, even if it’s not always easy, and I’m sure Him up there can understand that. It’s not as if I’m stealing the apples from the Garden of Eden.”