Frank Schätzing - Death and the Devil

Perhaps that was why he had insisted on dragging Tilman along with him. If he and Maria were going to argue anyway, it might as well be for a good cause. The way Tilman looked, and with the blood he was coughing up, it would take a miracle to cure him, but at least Jacob didn’t want to find him dead at the Duck Ponds one morning, surrounded by crows tearing at his cold, emaciated body.

It was murky in the taproom. Clemens was warming his hands by the fire, over which something indefinable was sizzling. There was a bitter draft coming in through the cracks in the shutters. The brothel keeper was getting more hunched by the day, Jacob thought. Soon he would be a perfect circle and you’d be able to roll him down the street. Margarethe was sitting on the bench by the door and gave them her cross-eyed look. She was always on the lookout for two clients at once, they said, and never saw any at all. Otherwise the room was empty.

“Hi, Jacob,” growled Clemens.

Jacob gave Margarethe a quick smile and flopped down on one of the crudely made stools. The bruises from his fall had just started to ache, and they seemed to cover the whole of his body. “Maria in?”

Clemens gave a grim nod. “Can you afford her?”

“There.” Jacob took out three apples and put them on the table. Clemens stared, got up from his seat by the fire, and shuffled over. He stroked the smooth skin almost tenderly with his clumsy fingers.

“Where did you get them? You don’t get apples like this at the market.”

“The Lord has provided, you might say. Can we go up now, Clemens?”

“Well—”

Jacob sighed and took out another apple.

“Of course you can, Jacob.” The apples disappeared into a basket. “The client’s just gone. You must have seen him.”

“Rich?”

“Not poor. But mean. Pays the lowest tariff, so I give him the Ludwig to drink. And he seems to like it, goddammit!”

“And Wilhilde?”

“Customer.”

“Good. That smells tasty, too.”

“Wouldn’t you just like a bit?” snapped Clemens. “It’s not for you. Just be glad I don’t stuff your lousy apples up your arse.”

Jacob was already halfway up the stairs, Tilman in tow.

“I wouldn’t say that again,” he said, “the archbishop might not like it.”

Clemens raised his eyebrows and looked at the contents of the basket.

“Don’t you put her in the family way!” he shouted at the retreating Jacob.

Tilman shook his head and followed Jacob. His whole body was quivering with suppressed coughs.

“Could you try not to cough for a while?” Jacob asked.

“Very funny!”

“All right.” He opened the door to Maria’s room.

She was standing by the window with a grubby sheet around her shoulders, lighting a new candle. Clemens was quite generous with candles. As Jacob and Tilman entered she put the candlestick by her bed, then slammed the shutter.

There was hardly any furniture. A low table, two stools, a crudely made bed full of straw with a matted blanket over it in which, as Jacob well knew, there were at least as many lice as people in Cologne. Under the window was a chest where she kept her belongings. There was a dress in it that a man she liked very much had given her a few months ago. When he came to see her, he mostly just talked. One day he brought the dress, then left and never came back. Maria did not even know his name. But when she wore the dress to church she seemed to Jacob to be just like a respectable woman, and he didn’t dare be seen with her. At times like that he felt she would manage to cheat destiny and find a devout and respected husband.

Now the dress was in the chest and the chest was locked. If the great preacher, Berthold of Regensburg, had his way, she would never have worn it again. In a tub-thumping sermon against the evil of fornication, he had demanded that whores should be compelled to wear yellow and ostracized by all good Christians.

There was an empty jug on the table, one beaker on its side. The drunken client had not invited her to share his wine.

“What have you brought?” was her greeting.

Jacob nodded and placed the apples he had left beside the jug.

She smiled and put her arms around him, without drawing him close. Tilman she ignored. The sick man shuddered, sidled over to one of the stools, and sat down as quietly as he could.

“Something odd happened,” said Jacob, collapsing onto the bed, which creaked alarmingly.

“And?”

He stared at the ceiling. “The architect who’s building the cathedral’s dead.”

She sat down beside him on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers through his hair, her eyes fixed on the door. Then she looked at him. The rings under her eyes were darker than usual, or perhaps it was just the flickering light from the dim candle that deepened the hollows in her face. She was beautiful, despite it all. Too beautiful for this world.

“Yes,” she said softly, “he threw himself to his death.”

Jacob levered himself up on his elbows and regarded her thoughtfully. “How do you know?”

She jerked her thumb at the wall. Beyond it was Wilhilde’s room.

“The man in her room told her?”

“He arrived just before you, a linen weaver who often goes to Wilhilde. It was the first thing he said. He’d heard it from others who’d seen Gerhard slip and fall. Perhaps the only time in his life”—she shook her head—“and God called him to appear before him for it. How often do we slip and fall? Sometimes I wonder why we’re here.”

“Just a minute.” Jacob sat up. “Which others?”

“What?” said Maria, bewildered.

“You said some others saw Gerhard slip.”

“Yes.”

“Which others?”

She looked at him as if he were crazy. “Well, the others. People.”

“What people?”

“For God’s sake, Jacob, what makes it so important?”

Jacob rubbed his eyes. The people…

“Maria,” he said calmly, “there are people who saw how Gerhard fell to his death through his own carelessness? Is that right?”

“I’ve already told you.”

“No!” Jacob shook his head and jumped up. “That is not right.”

“What are you suggesting?” asked Tilman. It made him cough, which produced highly unsavory noises from his insides when he tried to suppress it.

Jacob put his hands to his temples and closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye he saw everything again, the shadow, Gerhard’s scream, his fall, and his last words, which had burned themselves into his mind.

“That is not right,” he repeated. “Gerhard Morart, the cathedral architect, assuming we’re talking about the same man, did not die as a result of his own carelessness, he was murdered. And no one saw it but me. There was no one there.” He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

Tilman and Maria were both staring at him.

“I thought I was the one who was drunk, not you,” said Tilman.

“Gerhard was killed”—Jacob was getting worked up—“and I was there. I was sitting in that bloody apple tree when the black thing appeared on the scaffolding and pushed him over.”

There was a breathless silence in the room.

“That’s what happened, damn it!”

Maria started giggling. “You’re crazy.”

“Of course,” coughed Tilman. “And then the Devil came for him.”

“You shut your gob!” Maria snapped at him. “You’ve no business here anyway, hacking and spewing all the time.”

“I—”

“Not here!”

Jacob could hear them, but it was as if he had wadding over his ears. He had expected all sorts of things, but not that they wouldn’t believe him.

“I didn’t ask to sit around in this den of fornication.” Tilman was shouting now. “It was Jacob’s idea. Before I accept any favors from you I’d—”