Apothecary Melchior and the Mystery of St Olaf's Church (38 page)

‘Precisely so, Sire Tweffell, precisely so,' Melchior spoke. ‘Ludke is capable of holding a sword, and Ludke does not tolerate those who have wronged his master. Ludke was also in your company on Toompea.'

‘Hold on now, Melchior. You aren't really saying that …'

‘I speak to explain my train of thought. But I always came back to the gold collar and the coin. Could stealing the collar have been the reason for the murder? Possibly, although one does not have to chop off some- one's head and stuff a coin into his mouth, as if in compensation, to do that. But then I remembered something that the esteemed Commander Spanheim said.'

‘Me? What did I say?' the Commander demanded curiously.

‘When the Magistrate and I visited the castle the honourable Com- mander informed us who else had been on Toompea the previous day. He also recalled Brother Wunbaldus, who just as usual – I repeat,
just as usual
– made his rounds on Toompea with the alms basket and had come into contact with Clingenstain.'

‘So he had,' the Commander grunted.

‘Brother Wunbaldus had collected alms on Toompea,' Melchior con- tinued, ‘and, according to Master Casendorpe, we know that Clingenstain only had ten marks in ørtugs in his chest at the time he paid for the collar. How else could this rare old coin have ended up on Toompea in the first place if not from Clingenstain's own coffers?' Melchior's voice had now risen to a fevered pitch. ‘Only Brother Wunbaldus could definitely have possessed an old Gotland ørtug.
And this had been given to him by Clingenstain himself.
Is it not reasonable to believe that stuffing the coin into the mouth of Clingenstain's decapitated head was like throwing it back at its benefactor out of contempt and hatred and old enmity? Who regularly spent time on Toompea? Who knew all its hidden courtyards and shadowy corners? Whose presence on Toompea did not raise anyone's curiosity? Wunbaldus was as regular a figure on Toompea as any Knight of the Order. He would not have been noticed at all.'

Councilman Bockhorst now piped up again to ask, shaking his head, ‘Melchior, you said just a moment ago that Wunbaldus was not the man who admitted to the murder at confession, so how now again … ?'

‘I didn't say that the
confessor
might have lied,' Melchior spoke on with passion. ‘No, he told the truth about Clingenstain's murder. What do we actually know about Wunbaldus? Who was he? When I discussed this with Brother Hinricus he admitted that no one else in the monastery knew anything about him other than Prior Eckell – only the man who had received him as a lay brother and served as his overseer. No one knew where he had been born or in what other monasteries he had previously spent time, with the exception of Oxford in England. However, he was a
strong man and had arrived at the monastery about five years ago. Prior Eckell had known him already, though. But from where? Where might they have met? Who was Brother Wunbaldus really, aside from the fact that he was a master of seven arts?'

No one had an answer to that, but then the former captain Rinus Götzer stood up and dared to open his mouth before the high lords without having asked permission.

‘A master of seven arts?' he asked, and all turned towards the almsman.

‘That he was. Sires, Prior Eckell had previously been at the Dominican Monastery in Visby, at the time that the Victual Brothers governed the island of Gotland. Eckell was there when the Teutonic Order ruthlessly expelled the Brothers and massacred them on the island's shores. And so I began to ask myself – just who was Wunbaldus? Is it possible that …' He shook his head, and then gestured towards Götzer. ‘But, Skipper Götzer, maybe you can tell us what you know about Magister Wigbold?'

Magister Wigbold
. Gasps could be heard across the room. Everyone knew the name, and invoking it was as if someone had invoked Lucifer himself.

‘Oh, no one knows much about him, no one knows much at all,' the old captain spoke gruffly. ‘He was said to be the wiliest and cleverest of the Victual Brothers' chiefs, just like an old fox, he was, and no one knew what he looked like – he didn't show his face it to strangers – and if anyone
did
see it, well, they didn't last long. And he could avoid every trap –'

‘But his head was chopped off near Hamburg, wasn't it?' Freisinger called out.

Götzer continued his tale, awkwardly at first because he was not used to speaking in front of people of such high status, but, as he spoke, he became increasingly confident as he gained courage. There are those who believe that he wasn't beheaded at all, since four separate men claimed to have been Magister Wigbold – all of whom laughed before their executions. Others believe Wigbold escaped, because he was so clever. He was evil to boot, although he as known to listen to pleas for clemency and to persuade others into sparing the lives of prisoners. The Victual Brother called Magister Wigbold was wiser than all the rest and was known as the Master of Seven Arts. All the most notable and cunning acts of piracy were said to have been planned by him. They also say that
he had once lived as a monk at an English monastery and university, which was where he had acquired those arts. Others again say that he would knock some sense into the other pirates from time to time but that at other times he could be like Satan himself and would brandish his sword with such fury that heads would fly when he fell into a fit of rage.

When the old man fell quiet and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, Melchior spoke again. ‘Wunbaldus arrived at Tallinn's monastery five years ago, three years after Wigbold's reported beheading. Brother Hinricus once heard Prior Eckell saying that on one occasion Wunbaldus had saved the lives of three Dominican Brothers from the pirates. Wigbold had lived at a monastery in England; Wunbaldus had been a brother in Oxford. Eckell and Wunbaldus had met before. Prior Eckell treated Wunbaldus with special attention, as if he were his own son. Yes, I believe that the man whom we all knew as the Lay Brother Wunbaldus was actually none other than the Victual Brother, Magister Wigbold.'

M
ELCHIOR'S WORDS HAD
the effect of a cannonball crashing into the Magistrate's chambers, as every man in the room suddenly jumped to his feet, shaking his fist and shouting. It was unheard of. It was absolutely impossible that the town of Tallinn might have provided refuge to such a man, that the Dominicans might have taken this manifestation of Satan into their fold. Councilman Bockhorst, himself just as stunned as the others, waved his arms and cried for all to remain quiet, but the Commander's voice overpowered the Councilman's own as he roared, ‘That murderer. That scoundrel. How could the monastery have allowed him to live amongst them?'

Brother Hinricus responded, shouting back at the Commander with passion, ‘The monastery is a sanctuary. The monastery offers asylum to all sinners who request it. But I swear to you, not one of us had ever heard that Wunbaldus might have been a Victual Brother.'

When the Councilman and the Magistrate, who were equally shocked by Melchior's revelation, finally managed to restore order, Melchior was again given the podium.

‘When I viewed Wunbaldus's corpse,' he said, ‘and the Magistrate is my witness here, we saw that Wunbaldus had evidently been a warrior. His body was covered in scars. He must have fought in numerous battles, and the last and most painful wound was inflicted by an executioner's axe. This blow should have sliced his head clean from his neck, and only the Lord God knows how he managed to escape that fate. In any case, an axe blow was what turned him into a hunchback. It had been a miraculous escape, and I believe that a man rescued from death in such a way must thank the Almighty and start considering his life, must start
to wonder whether avoiding death this way might have been a heavenly sign. Wigbold, or Wunbaldus, had earlier been a Dominican and lived in a monastery. Prior Eckell said Wunbaldus came to the monastery to repent his sins, and I believe that this is true.'

‘Repent his sins, ha!' the Commander spat. ‘A maggot. A murderer.' ‘Murderers can also repent,' Melchior countered. ‘Wigbold searched for a sanctuary after his incredible escape. This man, the smartest of the Victual Brothers who on more than one occasion talked sense into his comrades, this man searched for sanctuary. I believe that Wigbold saved the lives of three Dominicans from the Victual Brothers' fury on the island of Gotland, and that this was the reason why he – as a fugitive and a penitent – appeared before Prior Eckell five years ago and the Prior granted him sanctuary in the monastery. Yes, I believe that Wigbold repented.'

‘Melchior, are you certain of this?' asked the Councilman. ‘It would be a dreadful shame upon the town if we had granted refuge in our own monastery to a murderer and a thief wanted throughout the Hanseatic League.'

‘Granting sanctuary does not shame a town,' Hinricus retorted. ‘The monastery provides sanctuary on the basis of divine justice. A monastery does not judge, nor does it cut off heads.'

‘That monastery is in the town of Tallinn,' Tweffell berated. ‘And if other Hanseatic towns find out that a murderer who was hunted by all was in hiding here in Tallinn, then …'

‘If Wunbaldus
was
indeed Wigbold,' Hinricus remarked.

‘All signs point to it,' Melchior said, ‘as does the brand that we found at the base of his skull. There was a mark burned into his flesh, two letters that looked to be an E and a K.'

‘That's true,' the Magistrate confirmed. ‘He had been branded like a criminal.'

‘Although those letters were actually not E and K, but rather B and K. A scar cut through the B so that it looked like an E. B and K –'

Rinus Götzer's hoarse shout cut off Melchior's words. ‘
Bunte Kuh
, the
Brindled Cow
. That was the name of Simon von Utrecht's ship.'

‘You are correct.' Melchior nodded.

‘When Victual Brothers were caught it was customary to brand them with the initials of the warship that captured them,' Götzer explained spiritedly, ‘and whichever had the most prisoners with their ship's branding received a bounty per head.'

‘And the mark of Simon von Utrecht's ship was branded on to the back of Wunbaldus's neck,' Melchior spoke slowly. ‘He had been a prisoner on the
Bunte Kuh
. Magister Wigbold, the Master of Seven Arts, who had pirated ships on the Baltic Sea for ten years and always evaded every trap, had even escaped from Simon von Utrecht's ship and the axe of the executioner on the island of Grasbrook, this most clever and cunning of all Victual Brothers met his end in the town of Tallinn.'

‘What were those seven arts?' Freisinger demanded. ‘You don't mean the seven free arts taught in a monastery?'

‘I do not believe', Melchior responded, ‘that Wigbold was titled the Master of Seven Arts through becoming skilled at those seven free arts, which are … Brother Hinricus, what are they exactly?'

‘Rhetoric, Latin grammar, dialect, music, astronomy, arithmetic and geometry,' replied the monk. ‘However, I can assure you that Brother Wunbaldus was not skilled at music or at dialect.'

‘He was skilled in seven other arts, however,' continued Melchior, ‘and every one of us should be quite familiar the most important of these – Wunbaldus was a fantastic brewer, having studied the art in England. He was also trained as a goldsmith, because upkeep of the reliquaries was under his care at the monastery. He was familiar with justice and canon law, which altogether makes three arts. He had great knowledge of the Scriptures, as Brother Hinricus will tell you. That is four. Wunbaldus was known in the monastery to be an accomplished healer who knew how to prepare salves and medicines. He was well versed in medicine.'

‘You have now listed five. Yet what were the sixth and the seventh?' asked the Councilman.

‘The sixth was chess. As some of you know, Wunbaldus played chess at a level of mastery. Chess was also what helped provide me with a clue to how the first crime was committed. Perhaps Sire Freisinger recalls the match that was in play on my board when he dropped into the pharmacy?'

Freisinger rose in surprise. ‘Yes, I do. It was a strange state of play on the board – but, in the name of God, how could that have given you a clue?'

‘Chess is sometimes called a mirror of life. Each piece holds a particular significance, and we know that the Prior and Wunbaldus played regularly. The chess-pieces can be arranged in a way that
resembles some kind of life situation. When the Magistrate and I visited the monastery, Wunbaldus – or should we call him Wigbold? – appeared to be involved in an unfinished game with the Prior. I later recreated the positions on a board, and Sire Freisinger happened to see it. He said that –'

‘I said that such a situation rarely unfolds in a game,' Freisinger interrupted. ‘But I fail to grasp how chess could tell you anything about the killing.'

‘It did so because it was not a half-finished match but, in fact, Prior Eckell was communicating with Wunbaldus through the chess pieces. The Prior had a heavy load bearing down upon his soul, and he arranged the pieces on the board in the way he viewed the situation in earthly life. He depicted Clingenstain's killing and his own dilemma. Prior Eckell envisioned himself as the white king, Clingenstain was a white knight and two white rooks signified the monastery as a sheltering house of the Lord. Do you remember, Sire Freisinger?'

‘Yes, I remember,' Freisinger murmured in astonishment. ‘Although I did not read the arrangement that way at all.'

‘Nevertheless, Clingenstain's killing was laid out pictorially. The black pawn would take the white knight on the next move, meaning Clingenstain would be killed. Eckell is threatened with his downfall after a couple more moves because the white queen would not come to his aid in time – the queen being the Virgin Mary or heavenly grace. The only escape route for Eckell's soul would have been to bring the two rooks into play – meaning he would shield himself behind the monastery walls and do nothing, yet, in doing so, abandoning his queen, that is betraying his belief. Eckell, playing with white, was losing the game. This position on the board depicted Eckell's thoughts. If the pawn were to kill Clingenstain then Eckell would be deprived of the Lord's sacred grace; he would have to betray all that he held true and conceal himself within the monastery. If he did not do this – if he wished to preserve his queen – then he himself would have to fall, to admit his defeat. Sires, this arrangement showed that white could only be victorious if the black pawn were to abandon his plans to take the white knight. If, however, Clingenstain were killed then Eckell would have to surrender in order to save his own soul.'