Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (30 page)

Right beside the Unterrainer house was Master Goswin's property, and there had never been a wall between them. Someone must once have built an enclosure out of slats, but that had long ago decayed and been buried under weeds. In the backyard of Witte's house was a washroom, a little wooden shack and, beside it, a woodshed, behind which, against the wall of the stables, grew a large bush. Similar structures belonging to Goswin's house were at the southern edge of the land so that between the two houses were just this garden and a narrow passage. From here the narrow ventilation windows of the salt-cellars opened out on to both houses. Seen from Goswin's house there was just the unused edge of the land; seen from Witte's, on the other hand, there was the principal area for visits and activities. Melchior looked around for a while and found that from behind the bush one passed along a cluttered path to St Nicholas's Church, exactly as it had been during in his childhood. From there one could walk along the back edge of Goswin's land to an orchard, located between Goswin's and Tweffell's houses, and onwards to Rataskaevu Street. This could be an ideal escape route for anyone needing, say, to escape from the Unterrainer house on Rataskaevu Street and then creep behind the houses straight to the well and then hotfoot it to St Nicholas's.

Say, for example, if you have dealt somebody three deep wounds, and the town guards have heard it and are now running towards the Unterrainer house.

A
COURT
ATTENDANT
stepped into the pharmacy just at the point that Melchior noticed the delicious smell of pea-and-ham-hock soup wafting from the kitchen. There was a queue of people in need snaking into the pharmacy, and they wanted their cures before the lunch-hour.

The attendant, however, marched straight in and up to Melchior, and after he'd whispered his message into the Apothecary's ear Melchior decided immediately that pea soup tasted better when it had been standing for a while, and, right now, it was more important to go to the Council than care for the sick.

Dorn's message had been brief and clear. ‘Cornelis de Wrede has been summoned to the Council's prison, and it would be worth while for Melchior to appear there also, in the name of St Victor.'

Melchior shut the pharmacy and ran down the street towards the Town Hall, turned the corner and stood panting in front of the door of the low stone building into which no townsman would ever go of his own free will. This was the Council's prison, where they kept those whose guilt was still under investigation or whose punishment was restricted to one night spent in the cells. The more vicious criminals were taken from here to the prison in the Bremen Tower – mostly after they had been tortured, according to procedure. Drunks and brandishers of knives, who were not guilty of anything more serious, spent one night in the cell and were then taken to the Magistrate's office. From there their path might lead
to the pillory. In the back room of the prison was a torture chamber where, according to Lübeck law, they questioned those who would not confess voluntarily. It was a grim place, but often it was the only place where the truth might rise above lies and silence, and it was under the Magistrate's jurisdiction.

Melchior entered the chilly stonewalled chamber, which had shackles on the wall and one plain chair fixed to the floor. This was the antechamber of the torture room where the prisoner was interrogated – sometimes there was no need to torture them. The air and the walls of the prison, the words and expressions of the officers working here, and sometimes just the sight of the implements of torture, would open quite a few mouths.

When Melchior stepped inside he saw the Flemish merchant de Wrede sitting on the chair with Dorn standing in front of him. He was sitting freely; he was not shackled, and he had not been tortured. Dorn grasped Melchior by the arm and led him over to the narrow window.

‘I had this chap brought in here,' he said to Melchior in a low voice.

‘So I see. And what does he say?'

‘So far nothing much. I ordered him to confess everything, but he says he has nothing to confess except that he is running his business honestly in Tallinn and that all the Blackheads can vouch for him.'

‘I don't doubt it,' murmured Melchior.

The Brotherhood of Blackheads was large and powerful. They were rich and getting steadily richer. The Blackheads were loved, and they did everything to be loved even more – they arranged splendid tournaments and other entertainments for the townsfolk.

‘Listen,' shouted de Wrede, ‘how long are you going to keep me here? And I don't need an apothecary. There's nothing wrong with me.'

‘Oh, there isn't
now,'
remarked the Magistrate darkly, ‘but let's see how things are when you've sat in that chair for a little while.'
And Dorn's gaze fell on the straps that would shackle the prisoner to the chair.

‘Are you threatening me?' whined de Wrede in response. ‘But you can't threaten me. If I'm not accused of anything you can't keep me here. And no one has accused me of anything. I know the law.'

‘But what if I charge you myself?' said the Magistrate suddenly, his lips twitching. Melchior knew this sign. Dorn was getting angry. Dorn had not forgiven de Wrede for the long hike into the forest beyond Reppen's Pastures, and he was not likely to do so in a hurry.

‘Interesting. What are you going to charge me with? Have I overcharged someone in some deal? Then they were fools themselves. And I haven't gone against any Council ordinance, since I don't weave cloth myself and don't sell herring in the marketplace –'

Dorn cut him off. ‘What if I charge you with witchcraft and tell the Bishop and the Dominicans? Then there will be a heavy court procedure and a big pyre built on the gallows hill.'

This hit home. De Wrede was so alarmed that he hit his head against the back of the chair and bit his lips.

‘Have you swallowed your tongue now?' asked Dorn maliciously.

‘I haven't taken part in any witchcraft in Tallinn,' murmured de Wrede anxiously. ‘I don't understand what you're talking about.'

‘Ah, you don't
understand …'
jeered Dorn. ‘You were asking earlier why I had you brought here. I'll tell you. I invited you here to show you a couple of interesting things.'

Dorn banged on the door of the torture chamber, and from it emerged a man who could be recognized from his red uniform as Wulf Bose, the town executioner. The man had in his hand a few spiked rings, skewers, hooks and a very terrifying-looking contraption with screws, shaped like a wood plane. He put them on the table in front of Dorn, bowed and went to the corner of the room.

‘Oh, what a lovely device,' warbled Dorn with satisfaction. ‘I would ask you to stand up and take a look over by the door to the back room there. There's an interesting wheel-shaped thing, and
I can tell by the smell that the hot coals in the brazier are just about ready.'

‘Quite ready, sir,' said Executioner Bose. ‘Red hot and scorching more painfully than hell.'

‘Go, go and have a look over by the door,' urged Dorn. And as de Wrede stepped towards the door, looked over the threshold and then again at the Magistrate, even in the dim room it was clear to see that he had turned pale and gone weak in the knees. He was gasping for air as he spoke.

‘Wh-what do you w-want from me?' whispered de Wrede. ‘I don't practise witchcraft.'

‘You see, he's still denying it,' Dorn observed to Melchior. ‘Mr Bose, do you have a couple of hours free, or do you have to be somewhere?'

‘I'm completely at your disposal, sire,' said Bose obligingly. ‘I don't have any tasks anywhere. Besides, this wheel of ours wasn't working so well last time it was used, so we fixed it, but we haven't had a chance to try it out since with the full weight of a man.'

‘I haven't practised any witchcraft,' cried de Wrede in terror. ‘I'm a merchant. I run my own business. I have certificates to prove it.'

‘Have you been running your business in the woods beyond Reppen's Pastures?' asked Melchior suddenly and quietly.

De Wrede was petrified. His eyes bulged as if he had been hit hard in the stomach. He fumbled for the back of the chair, found it and collapsed into it. But he was a quick thinker and had a robust spirit, for the very next moment he declared, ‘Reppen's Pastures are not on the town's lands. Whatever I did or didn't do there the town cannot charge me. Your authority doesn't reach there.'

‘But my eyes do,' countered Dorn forcefully. ‘And do you think that if I write to the Order and the Bishop that you've been going there for sorcery that they'll leave it at that?'

‘Go ahead and write then,' replied de Wrede pluckily, ‘if you have witnesses. I have witnesses.'

‘What sort of witnesses?' demanded Melchior rapidly.

‘Ones who will testify that on Sunday I spent the whole evening in the Blackheads' Guildhall.'

‘Oh, but I didn't say I was thinking of Sunday evening,' declared Melchior with a quick wink.

‘Now you've landed yourself in it,' shouted Dorn.

‘I haven't done anything of the sort. I was
supposing
that you were talking about Sunday, and whatever happened outside of the town you can't charge me with.'

‘I am charging you with desecrating consecrated graves in St Barbara's Churchyard,' said Melchior abruptly, ‘and St Barbara's is on the town's lands. You have been cutting up corpses of the souls entrusted to God's care so that they may not appear before the face of Jesus as when they died, and you have thereby committed a heinous crime against the ordinances of the Bishop of Tallinn and the Council.'

‘Exactly,' affirmed Dorn.

‘I saw with my own eyes how you paid Tonnis and dismembered corpses for the purpose of sorcery on ground consecrated by the Bishop. The Magistrate can testify to this, as he saw it, too, and the Magistrate's word counts here in town. You won't find witnesses against his word; not a single Blackhead would dare to swear a lie against the Magistrate's testimony. Don't be a fool, de Wrede. Tonnis wouldn't last a minute in this torture chamber – not even the time it would take me to say the Lord's Prayer.'

Melchior said this clearly and surely, his gaze fixed on the Fleming's eyes, and he saw that de Wrede was broken. His head hung down, and his hands trembled.

‘What do you want from me?' he asked in a cracked voice.

‘The truth,' replied Melchior. ‘No more and no less.'

‘This damned town …' whispered the Fleming. ‘I knew it, I knew –'

‘Don't mumble,' barked Dorn. ‘Speak clearly so I can hear. You see these contraptions on the floor, don't you?'

‘And it will only be possible for the Magistrate to be merciful and Master Bose to test out the wheel on someone else if you tell
the truth and you swear that it is the only truth. You will also tell us everything you wanted to know from Rinus Götzer in the tavern by the harbour, what you were doing at St Michael's Convent, why you rob graves in the town of Tallinn and what you want from that sorcerer Kibutze,' demanded Melchior.

De Wrede had to steady himself. He asked for something to drink, and Dorn had some small beer brought to him. He drank greedily, and the beer spilled on to his jacket as he drank from the tankard with shaking hands.

Then he looked straight ahead with a sad expression, shook his head and finally said in a broken voice, ‘My father and uncles have a business in Antwerp that trades with Tallinn and Riga. We buy grain, wax and bearskins from here because we're not allowed to trade directly with Russia, and we sell cloth, salt, spices, paper and wine. We have friends and connections in this region, especially in Riga. My brother wasn't a merchant. He didn't go in for that sort of thing, and in Antwerp he joined the Guild of St Luke to become a painter.'

‘Your brother's name was Gillis de Zwarte?' asked Melchior, and the Fleming raised his head in surprise.

‘So you know then?'

‘Answer,' thundered Dorn.

‘Yes, that was my brother's name. In our family we use both de Zwarte and de Wrede, but I have reason to be afraid, so I haven't told anyone that Gillis was my brother.'

Gillis de Zwarte had been an apprentice painter at the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp, but he wasn't talented enough to become a master there and start painting for churches, so there would not have been enough work. Since his family had good connections in Riga, they managed to get him commissions from churches there. Once in Riga he wrote home that the earnings were miserable, and Livonia was far poorer than Burgundy, but he had made a name for himself. He spent two years in Riga, and when the work there was starting to dry up he was invited to Tallinn to paint frescoes on the walls of St Nicholas's and the Church of the Holy Ghost. Gillis would have preferred to paint saints' life stories on the walls and
nothing else. His few letters from Tallinn were sad; he was troubled by homesickness, and he complained that people in this country didn't understand art.

‘We have our own painters,' interjected Dorn sternly. ‘We don't need any Flemish flapdoodlers here.'

‘That's just what I said,' said de Wrede, taking a sip of beer and continuing. ‘Gillis wrote two letters from Tallinn. In the first he cursed the churches for how stingy and deceptive everyone involved was. They strike a contract for a humiliatingly low fee and then they start chiselling away at it some more, so you have to go to the Council to get justice. But he said he'd got commissions from a couple of aldermen and from a wealthy citizen who also wanted paintings for his houses. He was hoping to be finished by autumn and then come home, show off his certificates and thus perhaps get himself recognized as a master before the Guild of St Luke. He was an enterprising and enthusiastic boy, and he loved painting. Father didn't force him to be a merchant and let him do as his heart desired …' De Wrede fell silent and took another sip of beer.