Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (19 page)

The Magistrate silently assented to the Apothecary and smacked his lips. ‘Ah, so you went to St Barbara's Chapel to examine him?' he asked at length.

Melchior nodded. ‘And what's strangest of all, someone had cut his left foot off. That was done when the poor man was lying in the mortuary. In the name of St Nicholas, can you imagine someone coming to him, to him of all people, although there were other corpses there waiting for burial, and sawing off his left foot? As if he hadn't been tortured enough by having his organs ripped off while he was alive. But
someone,
Magistrate, sought out that corpse and cut off his left foot.'

‘Someone tampered with him even after death,' muttered Dorn. ‘That someone must have known who he was.'

‘That is possible, and I think, yes, that someone did know. But what if it was just some heretic who just wanted to perform a blasphemous act of witchcraft and was looking for an unknown corpse who wouldn't be buried by his kinfolk?'

‘There are no witches in Tallinn,' exclaimed Dorn.

‘And may all the saints preserve us from them ever coming,' declared Melchior. ‘And yet someone had a use for his foot, and I can't think why.'

They fell silent. In the town of Tallinn there was a murderer who knifed poor cripples and a madman who sawed their feet off.

‘I asked you who he was,' said Melchior at length. ‘I still can't answer that question, but, as St Nicholas is my witness, I will find out. I've been wondering whether it was some peasant who had been
punished for some terrible crime by his overlord who had finally managed to escape to the town to take advantage of the Lübeck law that states that the air of the town sets a man free. If that were the case then mightn't his master's servants pursue him and kill him in revenge? And then I thought about it again, how he was killed right opposite the Knight Greyssenhagen's house, but I don't want to think about that any more now, because sixty shillings is still sixty shillings, and I don't have that kind of money to spare.' He smiled bitterly.

‘I suppose so,' murmured Dorn, ‘and I would be duty bound to charge you that sum under the law.' And then keep one-third for the court hearing, one-third for the Council and one-third to the Knight Greyssenhagen. For Lübeck law requires that if someone accuses someone else of robbery, murder or a crime and cannot prove it he has to pay sixty shillings in silver as a fine. Melchior would never in his life name someone as a criminal if he couldn't prove it.

‘What is more, Greyssenhagen is in every way a God-fearing and pious man and, furthermore, a patron of the new Convent of St Bridget at Marienthal, and it would never occur to me to think of anything criminal of him,' continued Melchior. ‘So what if there's the odd rumour about him and that he isn't from a very old lineage? I have heard that landlords do punish their peasants by torturing them and keeping them in chains. If someone commits a crime they go to court according to the law of the land; they are hanged from the gallows or have their hands chopped off or have to pay a fine in grain, but before that they can be kept in chains, can't they? But what I don't understand is how someone like that could come to Tallinn by foot from somewhere far away.'

‘Maybe he was brought,' surmised Dorn. ‘But why would a landlord saw the foot off a dead man?'

Melchior nodded. ‘And another odd thing, Magistrate. The poor man was wearing a hessian cape. I cut a piece of it off and compared it with the sacks from the Tallinn weavers I have at home. It's the same weave, the same fine cloth. So this chap can't have come from any great distance.'

‘That's quite true,' agreed Dorn, coughing. ‘But the truth must
be somewhere. I was wondering who goes around in hessian capes and looks pretty feeble and miserable, and I thought maybe he was a pilgrim …'

At this Melchior's eyes lit up with excitement, and he nodded approvingly at Dorn's words. ‘By St Catherine, that's quite an interesting idea.'

‘Isn't it,' enthused Dorn, basking in the glow of Melchior's obvious encouragement. ‘Could it have been someone who was punished for some sins and sentenced to go on a pilgrimage, or was he punishing himself and so came to Tallinn? They're always coming to the Dominican Monastery. And now pilgrims from the Order's lands have already started going to Marienthal, because news of the new convent has spread right across Livonia, and, although there are no hospitals and poorhouses there yet, they still keep coming, especially Swedes from the coast.'

Melchior became animated. ‘That really is good thinking. I've also heard that pilgrims have been going to Marienthal and then sometimes carrying on to the Dominicans, and although they'd usually have a haversack on their shoulders and a cross, a testimonial or be carrying some other sign of their pilgrim status … Didn't the Magistrates' Court sentence some wrongdoers to go on pilgrimages to atone for their sins? Which means that somebody had to feed this poor man on his way. He must have found shelter somewhere, so some innkeeper around Tallinn ought to remember him.'

‘And even Master Bruys died on a pilgrimage,' Dorn pointed out.

‘On a pilgrimage to the convent that was so dear to his heart,' said Melchior, snapping his fingers. ‘Damn it, Dorn, there has to be some link between these things, but just now I can't quite see it. If he had been a pilgrim then couldn't he have come from Marienthal? Maybe he knew something about Bruys's death and was hurrying into town. He was followed and …' Melchior fell silent and looked intensely at Dorn. The latter merely shrugged. ‘Something's afoot. Something evil has got out. I can feel in the air that things are not right.'

Dorn shook his head doubtfully. For him a crime was something that had been done, as when someone cheated in the market, wounded or strangled someone. Then the Council authorities had to impose a punishment.

‘Don't just keep shaking your head, friend,' the Apothecary admonished him. ‘This murderer, who knifes poor cripples to death, has to be caught, and if no one demands justice then I'll do it myself because, as the old saying goes, “If there's no accuser, there's no judge either.” But I'd recommend you to think a little about Master Grote's death. I went to visit the spot at the holy sisterhood, and I also went on the walkway. It's not at all easy to fall from there because the railing is pretty high. You said his forehead was bloody, but, tell me, how does a man strike his forehead if he lands on his back? I found only one rock there on which he could have struck his head – and it was a little bloody, too – but that rock was several steps away from him. So did the nuns or the town guards move the rock or … ?'

‘Or what?' asked Dorn.

‘Or Grote fell down, groped around, found the rock, bashed himself in the forehead with it, threw the rock away and fell down dead. Of course, it's not impossible that someone else did all that.'

‘They would have had to find themselves in the right place at the right time of night, just when he was there, just when he fell.'

‘Which would be very unlikely,' said Melchior. ‘By the way, was there a torch near Grote's corpse?'

‘I didn't see one.'

‘So why would he go out on to the town wall at night without a torch and fall off? I think that's strange.'

‘Sometimes I think you simply want things to appear strange.'

‘Not at all, dear friend, not at all,' Melchior assured him. ‘But now, may I ask you two favours? I've got a strong urge to head off to Marienthal soon. At the manor house there's a farmer who collects plants and from whom I get my wormwood, thistle, pepper, yarrow and other plants when I'm short of –'

‘You want to go to check out where Bruys died,' Dorn interrupted. ‘By the dear Virgin, Melchior, he just died of old age.'

Melchior shrugged innocently. ‘I thought it would do no harm to take a look. It's no secret that he had many enemies. By the day after tomorrow my head will have healed, so it will be able to stand a little excursion.'

‘It's on the Order's lands. I have no authority there.'

‘I know that. But I still wanted to ask you if you had a horse you could lend me.'

Dorn grumbled, but he promised that if Melchior went to the stables and found Hartmann the stablehand and told him that the Magistrate ordered him to hand over one of the Council's horses Melchior would get one, and if Hartmann queried this the Magistrate would put him in irons in the marketplace for two days.

‘A thousand thanks,' replied Melchior. ‘My second request concerns an old story about which I've only heard hints because it happened when I was still a boy and an apprentice in Riga, but about which I'd very much like to find out more.'

‘So what sort of story would that be?' asked Dorn with a sigh.

‘What the feud was between those two respectable merchants Bruys and Goswin.'

Dorn sighed deeply. ‘It's an old, sad and painful story.'

‘Which means that you'll be needing a sweet strong dram to wet your tongue and tell it,' decided Melchior, pouring out the drink.

Dorn downed it, bit into the accompanying biscuit and made a calculation on his fingers. ‘It would be twenty-five years ago now,' he said at length. ‘I was a junior partner then in the merchant Dyneaur's company, but our business was starting to go downhill, probably because the Victual Brothers were gathering around Abfors and harassing all the ships, making havens for themselves on the Finnish coast and lying in wait there like spiders in a web. But enough about that. The story was that Laurentz Bruys had a son whose name was Thyl, and he was his only heir because his daughter had died in Riga, another son had fallen prey to the
Victual Brothers and three children had died in infancy. Thyl was a wayward lad, full of pride, getting into fights with the sons of others in the Great Guild and scaring the older merchants away. He had an impatient nature, and he was a bit of a thug, full of himself, relying on his father's wealth, thinking he was entitled to what others weren't.'

‘That would have been the year of Our Lord 1394,' ventured Melchior.

‘Must have been,' agreed Dorn. ‘Dear Jesus, how quickly time flies, eh? But, in a nutshell, it so happened that Thyl's eye was caught by the prettiest girl in town, none other than Dorothea, daughter of the merchant Arend Goswin.'

‘Oh, God bless us,' whispered Melchior.

And Dorn told the story, one he knew very well because Dyneaur had a joint company with Arend Goswin, and at that time Dorn's uncle was Harbourmaster of the Council. Arend Goswin had four children, three sons and one daughter, but all his sons died in infancy and his wife Elsebet died in an unfortunate way, giving birth to their fourth child, the daughter, who was given the name Dorothea. Arend Goswin was destroyed by his wife's death, and his disturbance of mind was very great, so great that he couldn't find it in himself to look for a new spouse and produce more heirs. Melchior nodded at this tale; the same thing had happened with his own father. So Master Goswin remained a widower and lived by himself with his housekeeper Annlin and his servant Hainz, raising his daughter, who grew into an inexpressibly beautiful girl.

‘Half the boys in Tallinn must have been out of their minds about her because a girl as beautiful as that isn't God's blessing to every town,' Dorn went on. ‘But she was a very pious and virtuous maiden. She was under her father's control, and she received a good education and upbringing under the holy sisterhood. She went to church diligently. All this should have been very good for Master Goswin because for such a pretty and virtuous maiden he would have found a very rich and noble bridegroom, and his
household and assets would have gone into the right hands – except that the lovely Dorothea had one fault.'

‘Was she crippled?' asked Melchior in surprise.

No, said Dorn, physically Dorothea was not a cripple. She had ebony-coloured fluffy, curly hair and cherry-red juicy lips, and her graceful rounded body would make a man's heart fairly melt to look at her. She had sky-blue eyes and delicate white skin. She was as beautiful as St Ursula and as virtuous as St Bridget. She was modest and submissive and more of a dream or an angel than a girl of flesh and blood. But she did have one flaw, and the more she grew in years the more evident it became. For in a young child it isn't usually understood; children can often be wilful and stubborn, behave strangely or ridiculously. But Dorothea was insane. So much beauty God had given her, but the Creator had not given her the mind of an adult, and this became clearer with every year. Dorothea appeared to be very pious because she attended church frequently and prayed with the holy sisters, but she was silent, she hardly said a word, and as the years passed the more silent she became. In the middle of the day she would go out of the house and wander alone in town, and if she was asked where she was going or what she was doing she wouldn't utter a word. She would fall down in the mud and start praying, but not a syllable, not a word, would come from her mouth. Her eyes were beautiful and deep, but anyone who looked into them saw no understanding of the world's affairs or even Heaven's, for in there reigned emptiness and madness, indifference and incomprehension. Even the sisters of St Michael's said that Dorothea did indeed pray but in silence, and she was doing it because others did, but to whom she was praying and why she did not understand.

‘I think I know that sort of insanity,' said Melchior. ‘In the human body there are four humours, and they have to be in balance. But if phlegm gets the ascendancy – in a person's head, for example – then that person becomes pale, very peaceful, inward-looking, restrained and inert. But if the phlegm repels the other humours from a person's head he remains shut in himself; the
whole world is just in his head, and no one else knows what goes on there.'

‘That might well be,' agreed Dorn. ‘You're a learned man and you know these things. But with Dorothea, since she was believed to be insane, Master Goswin had no hope of marrying her off. The holy sacrament of marriage would have been meaningless to her, and although she was told about it she showed no sign of understanding it. And if she didn't understand it, there was no assurance that she agreed, and no one should be paired off by force. And, well, no one wants a madwoman in the marriage bed or as the mother of his children.'