Frank Schätzing - Death and the Devil

“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 proud, 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.

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.