Frank Schätzing - Death and the Devil

“I always say those mountebanks don’t do too badly,” Goddert declared.

“Bram took me in when I finally reached Cologne after several days wandering around. I can’t have been particularly pleasing to the eye. A scrawny, red-haired thing with big eyes and an even bigger appetite.”

“A little fox-cub.” Jaspar grinned.

“It was Bram who called me Fox. Strangely enough, not because of my hair. He thought there was something of the sly fox in the way I kept on at him until he decided I could be of use to him.”

“And were you?”

Jacob shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Where is he now?” asked Richmodis. “I can’t remember ever having heard of this Bram.”

“He’s dead. Died years ago. Toward the end he was so ill I went out and played the whistle by myself. Bram taught me everything he knew. He even had a few clever conjuring tricks.”

“That’s right!” exclaimed Richmodis eagerly, giving her father’s beard a tug. “Jacob will pull a whistle out of your ear.”

“Ouch. Stop that. You wouldn’t get a whistle in a respectable person’s ear.”

“Oh, yes, you would,” Jaspar broke in, “if there’s no brain behind it. I’d say you could pull enough whistles out of your ears to supply Mainz and Aachen as well as Cologne.”

“It didn’t bring much in.” Jacob hurried on with his story before the two of them could start another of their disputations. “I played my whistle and tried to tell Bram’s stories, but people didn’t stop and gather around.”

“Even though you play so well,” said Richmodis with a look of outraged astonishment.

“Half the people in Cologne can play the whistle.”

“But you play better,” she insisted.

Jacob gave her a grateful smile. “I’ll teach you. I promised and I’ll keep my promise.”

“And now?” Goddert demanded. “Do you still live in the house in Spielmannsgasse?”

Jacob, somewhat embarrassed, stared at his piece of yeast cake. “No. After Bram died I didn’t have enough money. And I had problems with a gang of beggars. So I left Cologne and tried Aachen. But I had trouble there, too. The last few years I’ve just been traveling around. I find it difficult to stay in one place for any length of time.”

“So what brought you back to Cologne?”

“I don’t know. The past? I had a piece of luck when I inherited the lean-to by the Wall. Soon after that I met Maria. She had a real roof over her head, and at first we got on so well I promised Tilman to let him have the shack, because I thought I’d soon be moving in with Maria and her brothel keeper. Well, I was wrong.”

“So now?”

“So now I play my whistle. Not very often, though I do make new ones to sell. Occasionally I find work down at the harbor. And then sometimes—”

“And then sometimes you steal what you need,” Jaspar said. He gave Jacob a long look. “But that’s not the story you were going to tell us. Or, if my instinct does not deceive me, will have to tell us if you’re to get out of the mess you’ve obviously got yourself into. With God’s help, of course. Right. You’ve kept us entertained, Jacob, I’m not ungrateful, and even in Goddert’s tub of a body there beats a true Christian heart. How can we help you—provided, that is, that you haven’t killed someone?”

Jacob felt their eyes on him. He thought about leaving. The image of Maria had come into his mind, Tilman’s grotesquely contorted body. As if he only had to tell what he had seen to condemn his audience to death. All of them sitting there, Richmodis, Jaspar, Goddert. As if nothing could protect them from the short, swift bolts from the miniature crossbow once they had heard his secret. He could not sacrifice more people for the truth.

Run away, then. Once again.

Richmodis seemed to guess his thoughts. “Don’t you trust us?” she asked.

It was a trick. Richmodis knew it and Jacob knew it. The decision was no longer his alone. It would reflect on the trustworthiness of these who had looked after him. She had him trapped.

Jaspar gave Richmodis a quick glance. “Half a story is no story,” he said slowly. Then he raised his eyebrows, as if expecting the worst. “But, of course, if you don’t trust us…”

“Yes,” growled Goddert, “if there’s a lack of trust, you can’t do anything about it.”

Jacob took a deep breath and looked at them, one after the other. “Oh, I do,” he said through clenched teeth, “I do trust you.”

Richmodis gave a little smile of victory. Jaspar and Goddert grinned at each other.

“More than you’re going to like,” Jacob whispered.

There were a dozen men gathered around the table, burly men with horny hands and weather-beaten faces. They stared at the tall figure of Urquhart with a mixture of fear, uncertainty, and respect. Matthias leaned against the door, arms crossed, as Urquhart gave the servants his instructions. After a while he went out, reassured to a certain extent. The horses for him and Johann were ready.

“I don’t think that was a particularly good idea,” said Johann as a groom helped him into the saddle. Like Matthias, he was wearing a long black cloak as a sign of mourning.

“It’s the only idea that makes sense,” replied Matthias.

Johann dismissed the groom with a wave of the hand and waited until he was out of earshot. “Urquhart is an ungodly murderer,” he said irritably. “That we use him is no reason to bring him into the house. Apart from that, I consider it highly dangerous.”

“I know.” Matthias leaped into the saddle and patted his mount’s muscular neck. The horse whinnied. “So what could we have done, in your considered opinion? Arrange a meeting outside the town? Find some quiet spot in the country and recruit twelve volunteers from the surrounding farms? We’d have wasted a whole day. Or do nothing and hope the redheaded bastard will keep his filthy trap shut?”

“That would be risky,” Johann reluctantly agreed.

“Precisely. After Gerhard’s funeral I’ll have a word with Lorenzo and ask him to let us have a few soldiers.”

“Urquhart mustn’t speak—”

“Don’t worry, he won’t. Lorenzo will tell his men the same story that Urquhart’s telling the servants—some rascally redhead relieved the Overstolzes of a gold guilder—and place them at the main gates. Our fox might just have the idea of leaving town.”

“Does Lorenzo have the authority?”

“I selected him because of that, Johann. Anyway, he’ll try. After all, he has to earn all the money we pay him.”

“Hm, well, all right,” growled Johann. “We must tell the others.”

They set their horses going at a slow walk and rode out through the great gate into Rheingasse. The street was crowded, but the people immediately made way when they saw the two patricians in their dark clothes. Many mumbled a quick prayer. The news of Gerhard’s death had reached the farthest corners of the city and everyone knew where the two horsemen were headed.

“Theoderich will call a meeting,” said Matthias, guiding his horse between two apathetic beggars, “but I suspect there will be a full turnout at the funeral.”

“You never know,” muttered Johann.

“You’re right. For example, I saw Daniel this morning behind the stables. Do you think he slept there?”

“I have no idea what Daniel was up to behind the stables,” said Johann testily. He obviously regretted having brought up the subject with his remark.

Matthias frowned. “You ought to keep an eye on him,” he said, the reproach all too evident in his voice.

“Ought I?” Johann’s lips turned down in a mocking grin. “And who keeps an eye on your children? I’ve heard Gertrude say she might just as well have married an ice floe on the Rhine, for all the difference it would have made. Do you show the same warmth toward your children?”