Sylvia (11 page)

The shatting of the crow was a happy coincidence but the crowd immediately took it to be two miracles of my making. The summoning of the birds the first miracle, and the crow sent by God to demonstrate that pride comes before a fall and that vanity and vaingloriousness is a sin to be punished with the shame of humiliation the second one. There is more that I shall tell of later, but the telling of the two miracles was to spread from one village to another over the ensuing months, although this time no priest or bishop was asked to verify the miracle. The village shared a church with two nearby villages and there was a great deal of jealousy between them. The folk had seen with their own eyes the birds called from the woods to clothe the naked winter oak with bright new feathered raiment and they cared not to argue the veracity of the miracle with priests and bishops when there was no other simple explanation some doubting cleric might conjure up to thwart their miracle.

But now let me tell of the moments following the crow landing on the ratcatcher's head. It had the immediate result of causing laughter and ridicule among the more callow folk in the crowd and so divided their attention. But the widow Johanna, who I now perceived carried some influence in the village, spoke out. ‘God has paid the piper for his male vanity! He wished to accept the credit for the miracle of the birds, when none was due to him! Let it be a lesson for all men to note that God rewards pious women with gifts of wonder just as he punishes the boastful and vainglorious man!' With this admonition to the men and lads present she looked sternly at Reinhardt the Ratcatcher, who had found a rag in his pocket and was attempting to wipe his face. To the delight of the crowd this served only to spread the bird droppings across his pale cheeks.

I approached her and said quietly, ‘Frau Johanna, he is sufficiently humbled. Can we get water and a rag?'

She pointed to a woman in the crowd. ‘Gilda, your house is nearest. Will you fetch a bowl of water and a rag for shitface?' With this the crowd roared with renewed laughter. The woman, grinning, nodded and left. Frau Johanna, enjoying the notoriety, held up her hand for silence. ‘We have laughed enough! God has sent us a virgin maid who can charm the birds from the trees. I know her to be chosen by Jesus Christ as his special messenger, for I have with my own eyes seen the sign.' She paused and looked around the crowd, now grown completely silent. ‘The holy sign of the early martyrs, the mark of Jesus, the fisher of men!' She drew breath and then shouting said, ‘The Virgin Maid has the mark of the fish upon her back!'

I gasped, for she had not previously spoken of seeing the birthmark. ‘Frau Johanna, it is only a birthmark – it means nothing!' I whispered urgently.

The widow ignored my plea. ‘Ah, the bowl of water and a rag for the piper,' she exclaimed, as Frau Gilda broke through the crowd.

I was angry. I felt myself being used, though I was too young to understand why. Last night Johanna had talked of different things and I had seen her as a sensible woman, but not a pious one. My heart filled with fear, now she was taking control. I trembled to think I might be with another Frau Anna. I hurriedly took the small bowl of water and the rag and started to clean the ratcatcher's face, my own averted for the shame and humiliation I felt. ‘We must away from here! We cannot tarry!' I whispered to him urgently, wiping the bird shit from his cheeks.

Now the crowd had started to chant, ‘The fish! The fish! The fish!' Then Red the Belly's voice cut through the chanting. ‘Strip her! Show us the fish!' The crowd took this up. ‘Strip her! Show us the fish! Strip her! Show us the fish!' they chanted. I turned to see that they had started to move closer, those from the back of the square pushing forward so that the crowd began to surge towards us.

Suddenly Reinhardt stepped forward. ‘Stand back!' he shouted, ‘or you may harm the Virgin Maid! She has brought the birds from yonder woods to charm you, but should you touch her she will summon a jackdaw or a raven as an ill omen or else call a curse upon your homes and cause a plague of rats to destroy your summer harvest!'

But he had long since destroyed his credulity. ‘Lies! Rapscallion! Whore's son! Devil! Let the Virgin Maid show us the fish! Fish! Fish! Fish!' they chanted, heedless of his warning.

Reinhardt the Ratcatcher drew the flute from his belt and blew a note so high and sharp that I dropped the bowl and brought my hands up to my ears to stop the pain. And then I saw that everyone in the crowd had done the same. He withdrew the flute and you could have heard a pin drop, so silent had the crowd become.

‘They be in an ugly mood and want to see the fish, what say you?' he muttered from the corner of his mouth.

‘Only if it will help us to be gone,' I replied, concerned for what might happen next.

He nodded his head and turned back to the silent crowd. ‘Now hear me, all!' He paused so all could tune their ears. ‘The Virgin Maid does not wish to show you the fish, we cannot tarry and must be away.'

‘Charlatan!' Red the Belly boomed out suddenly, then turning and jabbing a fat finger at the ratcatcher yelled out, ‘Turtles into turtle-doves! Cats into tigers! Flying puppy dogs! He would trick us once again!' He turned back to the crowd. ‘What think you of rats? Maybe the cats turned to tigers will with their fierce roaring chase away this promised plague of rats!' The crowd broke into laughter at his taunt and Red the Belly waited for calm before continuing. ‘Cup your ears against his flute, let not this boastful bounder gull us once again!' He looked directly at me, all wild, flamed hair, pink porcine eyes and great bulbous nose stuck luminous and veined within his brutal face. As he spoke, spittle bubbled at the corner of his mouth. ‘If the maid be a virgin and a special child of Christ Jesus, then let her bear witness!' He turned to face the crowd once more and with his arms raised, bellowed, ‘What say you? Let the maid show us the fish of Christ!' He placed both hands on his belt and made as if to take his trousers down. ‘Or we must perforce see if she a virgin be?'

The crowd brayed their approval. ‘Fish! Fish! Fish!' they called again and again, while some of the toothless youths unbuckled their belts, bottom lips dropped, leering.

Reinhardt turned to me, his eyebrows raised in alarm, as the widow Johanna cried out, ‘The men have turned into wild creatures! You must show them the fish or we cannot contain them any longer!' With this she urgently pulled at the lacing at the front of my dress, then grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me fiercely around so that I was pulled against her bosom with my back to the crowd. She grabbed the neck of my garment from both sides and jerked it down to expose my shoulder-blades and so also the birthmark of the fish.

A sigh, as if all were transformed to one, rose from the crowd. While I could not see with my back turned, the ratcatcher would later tell me that the women fell silently to their knees and then Red the Belly, his eyes grown fearful, lowered his great stomach and sank slowly to one knee to be closely followed by all the men. ‘Praise be to the Lord God! Blessed be His name! Hallelujah! There is a child of Jesus among us! Glory to the Highest and hosanna to the King of Heaven! Christ Saviour, forgive our doubting!' they called out, a more pious lot of ne'er-do-wells you never did see.

So concerned were they in this lamentation that none had their eyes raised to see that Reinhardt the Ratcatcher had brought his pipe to his lips. He blew a note so high that it turned his pale face scarlet and caused his eyes to bulge, the sound pitched beyond the human ear. Soon rats were seen to emerge from everywhere – from the eves of houses, under floorboards, from ditches, drains, corn bins, stables, cowsheds, sheep pens. Behind rocks set upon the hill, abandoned foxes' dens and disused wells, all ran towards the kneeling crowd answering the irresistible but silent call of the magic flute.

The women commenced to scream and all the people rose, alarmed, as rats stumbled into ankles and bumped into calves, some running up the hairy legs of the men and straight up the skirts of the kneeling women. Helter-skelter, squeaking, hell-bent, they clambered, struggled, ran towards the piper, heedless and unafraid of the human presence.

The village folk beat at the rodents with their bare hands, crying out and running for dear life, stepping on rats that squealed and bit them as they fought to flee the scourge. The errant youths, who had previously unbuckled, were the first to turn and run, and in so doing they forgot their undone belts and stumbled, then fell, as their trousers descended to their ankles. The rats jumped and skipped and ran over them, biting as they went, so that many clutched their cods with one hand and trousers with the other, wailing as they ran.

The widow Johanna was soon among the fleeing crowd and in great haste I pulled my dress back up across my shoulders and tied the front. Reinhardt stopped blowing scarce a moment to call out, ‘Come, stand by my side!' He turned and walked just as the rats arrived at his feet and still piping silent sound he moved among them towards the entrance to the square. The rats turned to follow us, remaining half a stave-length from our ankles, a wave of grey rodents ten wide and stretched along a line full eighty cubits long, obedient as pilgrims come to worship at a shrine.

And thus we did wend our way out of the square and past the cottages and up over the hill. When we reached the edge of the woods and were out of sight of the village folk, Reinhardt the Ratcatcher started to pipe a merry tune kindly to the human ear, whereupon the rats, as if of one mind, scattered and ran into the woods. Reinhardt ceased his piping and threw back his head and laughed. ‘Aye, we will make a pretty penny from all these rotten rambling rodents, little sister.'

‘How did you do this miracle?' I exclaimed. ‘You have saved us from the wicked mob.'

‘Ah! You did not tell me
your
miracle of the birds! Shall we each keep our own secret?'

I shrugged dismissively. ‘Nay, mine is no secret nor miracle. The cock of each bird kind has a mating call that the hen cannot ignore and she comes, ever broody, to his tune, while the other cocks come also to see how bold a cock it is who calls. If he is yet young and lacks experience in cuckolding, they will compete for her attention.'

‘And mine no less plain an explanation,' he assured me. ‘The ratcatcher's flute is passed on each generation by the Guild of Ancient Ratcatchers to an apprentice who shows a talent to become a piper.' He tapped his flute. ‘This ancient pipe is so contrived that there rests within it a certain pitch too high for human ears that nevertheless proves irresistible to rats. There is another for mice and yet another that will pacify the fiercest dog or cause a pack of dogs to whimper at my feet.'

‘What of humans – can the pipes call them against their wills?'

He gave me a strange look. ‘Why ask you me this, Sylvia?'

‘Well, when we came here, I saw your way with the children, how quick they were to obey the tune played by your flute.'

He looked relieved. ‘Ah, you well know how eager children are to join in any game.'

‘Aye, they witnessed what you did to the village dogs and became themselves compliant?' I suggested.

He shrugged. ‘They love to march, all children do, but the piping of children is not my calling. The containment of rats, mice and dogs within the municipality is my profession. Though I confess I have put much labour into new sounds for the ratcatcher's flute since I first obtained my commission from the Guild. I have worked arduously on the discovery of a pitch that will beckon cats and cause them to come running.' He sighed and gave me a wry grin. ‘Alas! Cats, like women, obey only at their own convenience. I have yet to be successful in this new endeavour.'

I laughed. ‘Cats in my village were for the most part strays, wild things, all skin and bone, who went about hunting mice within the eves. But there is a story told, where a call to summon cats such as you have tried to create would have been greatly cherished. It is of a nobleman, a great count who, returning from a crusade, brought for his fair lady a silver cat received as a gift from the Sultan of Babylon. She was well pleased and called the silver cat Princess Cardamom, being the name of the spice originally obtained from the East. The cat grew fat from eating tidbits all day long and did sleep a great deal on her lap but also, as cats do, sometimes in secret places. Often at nightfall Princess Cardamom couldn't be found and no amount of beckoning could rouse her to come to her mistress. Then all the servants in the castle would be summoned. They'd take lamps and led by stable boys and gardeners they'd scour the great estate, each bush or rock or nook or cranny, stable, oat house, rabbit hutch or folly, all examined to no avail. “I know it! She has been eaten by a fox!” her mistress wailed, wringing her hands and near tearing her pretty garments asunder in despair. But no amount of calling out the creature's name did in the least avail. Then, as if a miracle, a silver paw would reach out and touch the hem of her embroidered gown. All would be well in the castle again and the nobleman would sigh, but still happy he, for now he was assured of a sound night's sleep without his good lady wailing and bawling and striking her breast as she was overcome with woe. And in their rude beds the servants sighed and thought unkindly of the silver cat from Babylon.'

Reinhardt laughed. ‘You have a goodly way with a children's tale. We will make a worthy pair, Sylvia Honeyeater.'

‘What happens now?' I asked anxiously. ‘We must needs travel back through the village to be on our way.'