“You will get the clothes back.”
“No hurry. And they’ve just been washed, so you needn’t worry about touching them.”
“Once more, thank you.”
“God be with you in your difficult task.”
They said farewell and left the hospice through the orchard. There was a narrow gate there that was open all day. That was the way Jaspar had come in.
Jacob was relieved to be out of the leper colony, though at the same time he was ashamed of his fear and would gladly have stayed awhile. He somehow felt he had run away again instead of facing up to something important, bringing unhappy memories to the surface. He kept looking back as they made their way along the road to Cologne. He sensed he would not forget his involuntary visit that quickly. Then, suddenly, he felt strong and full of life again. The lepers had lost everything. He still had a chance of winning.
Jaspar seemed to have guessed his thoughts. “The disease bothers them less than it does healthy people,” he said. “If you’re incurably ill and dead for the world, what’s to stop you laughing at yourself? They have no hope or, to be more precise, one should say they are free from hope. A huge difference. Paradoxically, losing everything can mean you lose despondency and despair as well.”
“Have you been there before?” asked Jacob.
Jaspar nodded. “Several times.”
“Were you never afraid of becoming infected?”
“No. It’s all rather exaggerated. Although no one will admit it, in fact you have to have damn bad luck to catch it. You only saw the sick people, but there are two living in Melaten with their spouses, and they’re not infected.”
“I thought the lepers were forbidden to come into contact with healthy people.”
“They are, unless an uninfected person joins them of their own free will. Other people go to Melaten as well, the carter with the wine, for example, and the washerwomen. And you know the man with the bells who goes around begging for them, he’s dealing with them all the time. But you hardly ever hear of people like that catching the disease, and if they do, it’s only after many years. No, the lepers are not a real danger. They are a warning to the arrogant. Leprosy doesn’t distinguish between rich and poor; anyone can catch it. A just punishment God visited on those accursed crusaders, to bring back together with all the treasures they stole from the East.” He glanced at Jacob and grinned. “Good old Hannes gave you quite a fright, didn’t he?”
“Hannes is the one with no face?”
“The worst case in Melaten. It’s odd that he’s alive. Still alive, I mean.”
“Still laughing, too,” said Jacob. “But tell me, how did you find me? What happened to you after we split up?”
Jaspar made fluttering movements with his fingers. “I got away,” he laughed. “I think the men hadn’t actually been ordered to capture us, just to stick to us until our crazy crusader could dispatch us in some quiet corner. It’s probably a bit different with you, but they can’t just kidnap or even kill me in the middle of the street. What they hadn’t counted on was that we would smell a rat and run off. They were suddenly afraid they’d lose sight of us and be blamed for it later, so they dropped their pretense and took chase. They didn’t send the most intelligent specimens of humanity after us, thank God. Unseen by them, I went straight into St. Mary’s. It never occurred to the idiots I’d hide in the first church I came to. It was obvious they wouldn’t stop to think until they got to Highgate. Then they’d retrace their steps. So I went straight out by the side door and back to Haymarket, hoping I’d find you there. No problem! That clout on the head with the radish was quite spectacular. I couldn’t join up with you, but I saw everything from a distance. When I realized you were safe for the moment under the cart, I strolled along a good way behind. It wasn’t going that fast and I assumed it would have to stop somewhere. Then when I saw it turn into the gate at Melaten I had to get a move on, but I was too late, they’d already closed the door. Fortunately I know Melaten and I know the little gate at the back.” He nodded smugly. “So that’s how I saved you. You can write me a thank-you letter—oh, no, of course you can’t. And all the time I was trotting along behind, I kept wondering, why doesn’t the Fox jump off? To be honest, I still don’t understand.”
“Because the Fox was trapped,” said Jacob sourly. “He’d got his paws stuck in between the planks.”
“And couldn’t get them out?” Jaspar laughed out loud. “That story would get me a drink in any inn in Cologne.”
“I think I’d prefer it if you kept it to yourself.”
“If the men who were after you only knew! But they know nothing. I imagine they haven’t been told what it’s all about. They’ll have just been given some cock-and-bull story why we have to be caught.”
“They knew damn well why they were chasing me,” said Jacob.
“You? Oh, yes, you’ve stolen one guilder, you rascal. Who from, if I might inquire?”
“Matthias Overstolz.”
Jaspar stopped and stared. “From him? But why him, for God’s sake?”
“I didn’t steal it,” Jacob protested. “He gave it to me. Yesterday morning. And now I’m supposed to have stolen it.”
“One moment,” said Jaspar. He seemed confused. “Why would Matthias Overstolz give you a guilder?”
“I was standing outside their house in Rheingasse, trying to wrap my jerkin around my head. Haven’t I told you this?”
“No,” said Jaspar, frowning. “Who knows what else you’ve forgotten to tell me.”
They walked along in silence for a while. The sun was low in the sky, making the fields and meadows all around glow with an almost unnatural intensity.
“Fox-cub, are you telling me the truth?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Jacob,” he said, “we only met yesterday. I have great but not unbounded trust in you. So just reassure me. Is everything you have told me so far the truth?”
“Yes, dammit, it is.”
“Good.” Jaspar nodded. “Then presumably we know the name of at least one of those who ordered Gerhard’s death.”
“Matthias Overstolz?” asked Jacob, dumbfounded.
“And not only him,” Jaspar went on. “Suddenly everything’s clear. I’ve been racking my brains to think how our meeting with the witnesses could have got out. I’m afraid I let too much slip to Bodo, and of course he couldn’t wait to tell his fellow magistrates about it. And one of his fellow magistrates—”
“—is Theoderich Overstolz.” This is terrible, thought Jacob. One of the most powerful Cologne families wants me dead. “But what have the Overstolzes to do with all this?”
Jaspar shrugged his shoulders. “Didn’t you say yourself something big must be going on? Gerhard probably got wind of it. They won’t get their hands dirty themselves, even though Matthias Overstolz’s dislike of you may well be personal by now.”
“Why on earth should it be?”
“Isn’t it obvious? You’ve made him look a fool. How do you think he felt when he realized he’d given a guilder to you of all people, the man they’re desperately trying to find? Matthias has the reputation of relying on cold logic alone. Some people say he only goes to church because his calculations admit the possibility there might be a God after all. He could have thought up any crime he liked to tell his servants—I’m assuming they’re Overstolz servants—why they had to catch you. But no, he accuses you of having stolen one measly guilder. If there’s not a desire for vengeance behind that, I don’t know what vengeance is.”
Jacob took a deep breath. “In other words I’m dead.”
“You look alive and kicking to me,” replied Jaspar cheerfully.
“Yes. For the moment.”
Jaspar subjected the bridge of his nose to a good rubbing. “Let’s assume it’s all politics,” he said. “If a patrician family starts killing architects and liquidating everyone who happens to get a whisper of it, I hardly dare to think what they’re really up to. We should be p
roud, Fox-cub. We may all finish on the wrong end of a crossbow bolt, but at least we can’t complain we’ve fallen into the hands of some third-rate rogues. However, far be it from me to oppose the will of the Lord, but I prefer my body as it is, without an extra hole; yours, too, I might add. So let’s get down to some hard thinking about how to save our skins.”
“By putting pressure on the Overstolzes?” suggested Jacob.
“Good idea. Let’s play it through. You’ve got two names and a strong suspicion. Great. You yourself—forgive me for pointing this out—are a wily scoundrel and petty thief, but you present yourself, hand on heart, to the council of magistrates, to prove that the Overstolzes pushed Gerhard Morart off the scaffolding. Matthias Overstolz is a fiend, you say. He is guilty of the most heinous crimes, you say, though he didn’t actually commit one of them himself and you don’t actually know what the other one is. And then there’s this fellow with long hair. I don’t actually know who he is, but, all in all, I have this funny feeling in the pit of my stomach and I suggest that is reason enough for you, my noble lords, to pack Cologne’s leading merchant family off to prison.”
“Aren’t there a couple of them there already?”
“Yes, but it was the archbishop who put them in, not the dean of St. Mary Magdalene’s, not to mention some pilfering miscreant. And what if Matthias and Theoderich are only two of a much larger band, members of some powerful conspiracy? You might go and tell the burgomaster all you know and find he’s in on the plot!”
Jacob’s shoulders sagged. “What is there we can do, then?” he asked despondently.
“What I advised yesterday,” Jaspar replied. “Attack. We’ll never discover the truth if we limit ourselves to what we already know. Gilbert of Tournai said that before me, by the way. Our only chance is to find out what they plan to do so we can be one step ahead at the decisive moment. Yesterday that was my advice to you. Now we’re both involved.”
He looked up in the sky to watch a flight of geese on their way south for the winter. “If it’s not too late already,” he muttered.
RICHMODIS
It was the regular jolting and squeaking that brought her around. Her first feeling was that she was about to suffocate. She tried to move but couldn’t, even though she was painfully aware of some limbs while she couldn’t feel others at all. She tried to work out what was causing the pain and gradually realized someone had trussed her up from top to toe with straps that bit into her and forced her body into an unnatural position.
She tried to shout, but there was something large and soft stuck in her mouth. No wonder she was fighting for air. She could hear faint cries, horses whinnying, street noises. She was lying on something sloping in complete darkness. She felt the panic rising. Again she tried to move. Something was planted firmly on her shoulder.
“Keep still,” said a soft voice, “or I’ll have to kill you.”
She shuddered. She didn’t dare move again. The last thing she could remember was Rolof throwing himself at the tall stranger, a stranger she had recognized without ever having seen him before. Jacob had told them about him. He was the man who had murdered Gerhard. He had knocked her down.
Scarcely able to breathe, she lay there trying to conquer her fear. She was close to hysteria, but if she let herself go, he might carry out his threat.
At last the jolting stopped. She was pulled off the slope she was lying on and fell to the ground. She had a soft landing from the mass of blankets she was wrapped in, which were now unwound. She must have looked like a huge parcel, unrecognizable as a human being.
The man bent over her. His gleaming mane fell around her; she felt as if she were inside a weeping willow. Then he pulled her up and undid some of the straps. At last she could stretch, but it was agonizingly painful as the blood began to circulate through her numb limbs. The man pulled the gag from her mouth and she lay on her back panting, afraid and yet grateful for the fresh air. At least she wasn’t going to die of suffocation.
She lifted up her head and looked around, trying to work out where she was. Rough masonry walls, huge beams, and the ceiling black with soot. A little light came in through a narrow slit. She saw Jaspar’s handcart.
She’d been brought here in the handcart. Where on earth was Rolof, then?
Motionless, the stranger watched her. Cautiously she tried to stretch her arms, but she was still bound hand and foot, incapable of moving.
“Where am I?” she asked in a weak voice.
Without a word, he came over to her and lifted her up until she was standing on her feet, legs trembling. Then he picked her up effortlessly and carried her over to one of the massive pillars supporting the roof.
“Please tell me where you’ve brought me,” she begged.
He leaned her against the pillar and started to tie her up, so tight she was almost part of it.
She felt a glimmer of hope. If he was going to all this trouble, he couldn’t intend to kill her. At least not immediately. It looked as if he was going to leave her here and was making sure she couldn’t escape. He must have something else in mind for her. Whether it would be better or worse than being killed was another question entirely.
He pulled the straps tighter and Richmodis gave an involuntary groan. He calmly stood in front of her, scrutinizing his handiwork thoroughly. Again Richmodis was filled with nameless fear at the void behind his eyes. What she saw was an empty shell, a handsome mask. She wondered how God could have created such a being.
Jacob had not ruled out the possibility it was the Devil. Could he have been right?
That means you must be in hell, she thought. What nonsense. Whoever heard of someone being taken down to hell in a handcart?
She tried again to get him to speak. “Where is Rolof?” she asked. The stranger raised his eyebrows slightly, turned away with a shrug of the shoulders, and went to one of the heavy doors.
“Why have you brought me here?” she cried in desperation.
He stopped and turned to face her. “I’d given up hope of hearing an intelligent question from you,” he said, coming back to her. “It’s not a particularly intelligent age we live in, don’t you agree? With whom can an educated person discuss anything new nowadays? The scholars at the universities have let themselves be made into lackeys of the popes, who themselves just slavishly follow Saint Bernard’s decree that there can be nothing new and that life on earth is of no significance. Fine, if that’s what he thinks, we can always open up the way to a better world.”
His fingers stroked her cheek. With a shudder, she turned her head aside, the only movement she was capable of.
He smiled. “I am not going to tell you where you are, nor what I intend to do with you.”
“Who are you?”
“Now then.” He wagged his finger playfully at her. “You had promised to ask intelligent questions. That is not an intelligent question.”
“You killed Gerhard Morart.”
“I killed him?” The stranger raised his brows in mock amazement. “I can remember having given him a push. Is it my fault he had made the scaffolding so narrow?”
“And you killed that girl, the girl in Berlich,” she said. “Why do you do things like that?”
“She was in the way when I took aim.”
“Who will be the next one in your way?” she whispered.
“That’s enough questions, Richmodis.” He spread his hands wide. “I can’t know everything. Life’s little surprises come all unexpected. As far as I’m concerned, you can live to be a hundred.”
She couldn’t repress a cough. A stab of pain went through her lungs. “And what do I have to do to earn that?”
“Nothing.” He winked at her, as if they were old friends, and brought out the gag again. “You must excuse me if I can’t continue our little conversation. I have to go. I have important business to see to and need a little rest. A holy work”—he laughed—“as someone might put it who was foolish enough to believe in God.”
It was s
trange, but for all that she hated and loathed him, for all the fear she had of him, the idea that he might leave her alone in this cold, terrible place seemed even worse.
“Who says God does not exist?” she asked hastily.
He paused and gave her a thoughtful look. “An intelligent question. Prove He exists.”
“No. You prove He doesn’t exist.”
She had listened to enough of this kind of discussion between Goddert and Jaspar. Suddenly a disputation seemed the one possible bridge to the stranger.
He came closer. So close she could feel his breath on her face.
“Prove to me that God doesn’t exist,” Richmodis repeated, her voice quavering.
“I could do that,” he said quietly, “but you wouldn’t like it.”
“Just because I’m a woman?” she hissed. “Gerhard’s murderer is not usually so softhearted.”
A frown appeared on his forehead. “There’s nothing personal about this,” he said. Oddly enough, it sounded as if he meant it.
“There isn’t? That’s all right, then, I suppose.”
“What I am doing, I am doing for a purpose. I don’t take pleasure in killing people, but it doesn’t bother me either. I have accepted a commission in the course of which the deaths of several people became necessary, that’s all.”
“That’s not everything by a long shot, from what I hear.”
“Remember what killed the cat, Richmodis. I’m going now.”
“Why do you make people suffer so much?”
He shook his head. “It is not my fault if people suffer. I bear no responsibility for their deaths. How many people die in whatever manner doesn’t concern me. It doesn’t make any difference. The world is pointless and it will stay that way, with or without humans.”
Fury welled up inside her. “How can you be so cynical? Every human life is sacred; every human being was created by God for a purpose.”
“God does not exist.”
“Then prove it.”
“No.”
“Because you can’t.”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Prove it!”