Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (22 page)

‘Perhaps you know, Brother Lodevic, when young Lay Brother Eric is to be buried?' asked Melchior as the monk was departing.

‘Tomorrow. The ceremony should take place right after the chapter meeting,' replied the monk. ‘The grave is being dug today, as there's hope that the rain will wet the soil.'

‘If you'll wait a moment longer, Brother, I'll send a little message with you to your
cellarius.'
And without waiting for an answer Melchior grabbed a quill.

When Keterlyn appeared in the shop, the twins running behind her, she found the street door still shut and Melchior at his desk, deep in thought.

‘Are you fasting from work today, Mr Apothecary?' asked his wife. ‘How many times a day do I have to open up, or are these ancient monks buying so many medicines that there's no need to serve anyone else? Oh, look, you've sold out of biscuits.'

Melchior was jolted out of his meditations. ‘The biscuit dough can be made to rise again, so it can. But instead of serving customers we're the poorer by a few artig. You see, that monk remembered the prior who once buried Brother Adelbert, the very man responsible for the haunting of the Unterrainer house today.'

‘Then I'll pray to St Catherine that those old horror stories will help us get a few pennies back. Perhaps you don't remember, but you have two children to raise.'

‘Don't scold me, woman,' responded Melchior. ‘If nothing else, then at least now I know who is haunting the Unterrainer house. Only …'

Agatha and young Melchior came screaming to their father, demanding to be taken on to his lap, one on each arm, and then rocked.

‘Only what?' asked Keterlyn, her hands on her hips, watching as her husband picked the children up.

‘Only things still don't fit together,' said Melchior. ‘There are too many gaps in the story. I think Prior Helmich didn't tell the young Lodevic the whole truth, not by any stretch. That house is full of secrets, and I think we might be helped in solving them by Lay Brother Eric who died at the monastery the day before yesterday.'

Keterlyn shook her head and went to the kitchen to mix up some more biscuit dough. Sometimes her husband's thoughts followed strange paths, and it was best not to ask anything more because when asked he got even more peculiar. To earn a few pennies from the biscuits and buy bread for the children, right now that was much more important to Keterlyn.

H
EAVY
RAIN
HAD
visited the town during the day, and the cobbled streets were trickling with rivulets of water, in which floated faeces and mud, despite which the streets still smelled fresher than earlier. The townsfolk were pleased that there would be no need to fear drought as they had last year; there was more rainfall now, and the turnips would be growing nicely and would make a welcome supplement to the winter diet. The summer had been hot, and the crops had been abundant; the mills were working hard, and there would be no shortage of bread or any of the other staples this winter.

And the ground was wet. This was the best time for digging, thought Melchior – for grave-digging, indeed. May the Almighty give Hinric the goodness to listen to my request. The request that he had sent Hinric was certainly unusual, but surely he would understand that everything Melchior did was not for himself and his own peculiar whim but for the good of the town?

Towards evening, after the rains, Melchior set off for the stables to examine the dapple-grey mare, but in the street he met Annlin, Master Goswin's housekeeper, and couldn't help but ask how the Merchant was feeling, whether he was still ailing and eating little or whether the ointment of salvia and marjoram was helping with his pains.

‘May the Master's angels thank you that you know my poor Master's failing health so well,' replied Annlin. ‘But I suppose he'll
always be infirm, for he has many years on his head. Today he hasn't complained of any pains but he's had no appetite. For the second day on the trot he sat in his room all day. He didn't even go to the weighing-house to trade. He just sat and didn't say a word or eat a mouthful. And I'm afraid he probably didn't sleep a wink last night, because this morning he looked terribly troubled.'

‘Deep sleep is very important at his age,' said Melchior with concern. ‘A person must sleep because that's when the marrow grows. But if a person doesn't sleep properly the marrow does not increase, and the body cannot rest because the marrow is lacking. I'm sure the murder a few nights ago will also be keeping Master Goswin up at night – when a person is suddenly woken up it is very damaging to the marrow. Do you know what, neighbour? Since I don't have anything very pressing at the moment I'd like to come and prescribe a remedy for your Master, one that is sure to help against sleeplessness.'

‘Oh Lord, that's so kind of you, Mr Apothecary,' said Annlin, clapping her hands together.

‘Just one thing, though, it's best not to mention this to the Council's doctor, because I'm not supposed to treat patients without his permission. But I know how much money he would charge to recommend what I already know anyway. So would you ask your Master whether I could call on him in a little while and bring him a brew that will definitely help him to sleep better?'

Annlin promised to do that, and an hour later, while Melchior was waiting impatiently by the boiled herbs and the dill pot, Annlin came to say that Master Goswin would be very grateful if the Apothecary would be able to treat his sleeplessness. On the contrary, it's I who am grateful, thought Melchior. He was only on nodding terms with Arend Goswin, and now he had skilfully managed to engineer an opportunity to talk to him. He was terribly interested in what the old man thought of the story of the Rataskaevu Street Ghost, and even more interested in why Master Goswin had shed tears as he had at the funeral of his once-sworn enemy. He and Annlin hurried along past a couple of houses, past Mertin Tweffell's house
and the garden, rejoicing in the rain and the freshness it brought to the ground, and then they were at the notorious Unterrainer house and the place where the town guards had found the corpse that night. Annlin stumbled up the steps to her house, opened the parlour door, and immediately the grey-haired head of Hainz appeared before them, his eyes bulging and his mouth drooling.

‘To the Master?' enquired the servant.

‘To the Master, of course, you booby. Do you think that Mr Apothecary has come to doctor a blockhead like you?' Annlin lashed out, pushing her husband out of the way.

‘To me?' asked Hainz stupidly. ‘Nothing wrong with me.'

‘No, there's never anything wrong with you,' scolded Annlin, ‘only that your head is warm like a boiled cabbage.' And then, by way of apology to Melchior, ‘Take no notice, Mr Apothecary. I'm saddled with a dolt, but he's got a good heart.'

‘Good evening, Hainz,' said Melchior, intending to follow the woman's wishes and pay no attention to the half-witted servant. ‘I have business with your Master, but if your health is in any trouble then please call into my pharmacy.'

‘Ah, to the Master? I'll lead the way,' grunted Hainz. ‘That's what I thought … to the Master.'

‘Out of the way, and don't dawdle,' Annlin cut in. ‘Go and chop wood or something, and mind your own business. He's come to apply some salve to the Master. Useless, you are.'

Hainz was a big-boned man with long arms and legs, a good two heads taller than his wife and evidently stronger and hardier than Goswin. Reasoning power had not been given to him, and the whole town knew that. From between the two tousled tufts of his grey hair his watery, empty eyes stared out, and whenever Melchior had met him the man was smacking his lips with dribble. He had once been a salt-carrier, evidently, and he had taken the citizen's oath because all carriers were required to do that.

‘Chop wood, chop wood …' repeated Hainz to himself now, as if trying to keep in mind a complex order, and he pushed past Melchior and Annlin as he went into the yard.

‘In his younger days that one was a bit more alert,' noted Annlin regretfully. ‘But what's the point of talking about it? Not everybody's faults are obvious when they're young. As a girl I was looking at his strength and how tall he was and his beautiful wavy hair. And he loved children – he was always dandling our Hanns on his knee and teaching him things. In his old age, though, he's got a bit dense.'

‘Hanns,' enquired Melchior, without interest. ‘That was your son, yes, the one who's now a stablehand in Tartu?'

‘Oh, stablehand, yes,' chirped Annlin. ‘He'll be forty-one this year, and he's in charge of the Bishop of Tartu's very own stable of horses.'

‘Good man,' said Melchior absently.

‘But what are we chattering on about? The Master is waiting for the Apothecary in the
dörnse.
I'll show you the way.'

They walked through a large vestibule, at the back of which was a kitchen where Annlin evidently had soup cooking on the fire, since Melchior could smell parsley, onion and lamb shanks. There were large boxes lying around, and there was a writing-desk, too, with papers scattered over it; maybe this was where Goswin sealed his trade deals. From visits to the homes of other important merchants Melchior had noted that they tended to be decorated with large carved ashlars; the richer ones had had a few holy icons placed in the entrance hall, the
diele,
and an altar, and now the latest fashion was to order grand paintings of biblical figures. Melchior looked around inquisitively, but no painting caught his eye. Interesting if this old fogy got de Zwarte to paint his portrait, he thought. The vestibule of Master Goswin's house was bleak. He had not had it beautified or ordered paintings or decorative stonework to make it less austere.

Annlin opened the door of the
dörnse.
It was dim at this time of day because its wide windows opened on to a side courtyard of the Unterrainer house, and in the late afternoon the sun shone on the south-east corner. However, it was warm in the room – Melchior thought it might even be heated by an oven in the cellar below.
Since no one else lived there Master Goswin's broad curtained bed was also in this room. On a chair in front of the bed sat the old merchant himself. It was not easy to see his face.

‘And that's how he's been since this morning,' whispered Annlin in Melchior's ear. ‘He just mopes around and doesn't eat anything.'

Melchior screwed up his eyes to get used to the crepuscular light. He noticed that the
dörnse
was somewhat more luxuriously decorated than the vestibule – there was a stone carving between the windows, on the soffit of which were coloured clay plates; the red curtains were drawn on to the walls. At the back of the room there seemed to be an entrance to a cellar, and there was something painted on the stone lintel. But Melchior's eye was not caught by any portrait.

‘Mr Goswin, my respects to you. I am Melchior Wakenstede, the apothecary from your street,' said Melchior, bowing.

‘I know who you are,' said Master Goswin quietly. ‘Woman, bring Mr Apothecary a chair and something to drink.'

‘As you wish, sir,' replied the woman meekly, shifting a chair from near the wall to Melchior and disappearing towards the
diele.

‘I don't need anything to drink,' said Melchior quickly. ‘I've just brought the gentleman some medicine that will help him to sleep better. Looking at you, sir, I can see that you haven't slept well.'

Arend Goswin was sitting in an armchair into which he was sunk deeply. He seemed never to have been a strong-boned man, but old age had shrivelled him further. He was gaunt, with great sunken blue eyes, and his great greyish sideburns emphasized how thin he was. Stepping closer, Melchior saw that the man had been weeping. His beard and his big sad eyes reminded him of a dog. That's it. He has the face of a faithful old dog.

‘So what medicine do you recommend, Apothecary?' asked Goswin in a hoarse voice.

‘It's an old and tested remedy, which will certainly help,' replied Melchior enthusiastically. ‘It contains fresh dill, a little salvia and twice that amount of yarrow, which I boiled and squeezed out, and now the mixture should be put on your forehead and bound and
kept there. Look, sir, you see, the dill has the property of helping a person sleep, the yarrow and the salvia give warmth to the heart and slow it down so that a person can sleep peacefully.'

‘Thank you, Apothecary,' said Goswin. ‘Annlin will put it on my forehead then and bind it up. How much does the medicine cost?'

‘It doesn't cost anything,' replied Melchior boldly. ‘I thought that I took too high a price last autumn for that salve of salvia, marjoram, dill and peppermint, and my mind's been troubled by this. By the way, did it help?'

‘Yes, I suppose it did. What was it actually for?'

‘Pains, and it helps against injuries, too, by the grace of St Cosmas.'

‘Yes, it helped,' admitted Goswin laconically.

‘That's good then. Well now, I also thought that we are neighbours, and shouldn't an apothecary always take care that no one in his street is complaining of pains? So I'm not asking a penny for this infusion.'

Arend Goswin raised his head and even managed a slight smile.

‘May the saints bless you, Wakenstede, but a businessman will run a pretty poor business if he gives his services away for nothing.'

‘That's why I'm not really a businessman,' shrugged Melchior.

‘Or you're wanting something in return then,' noted Goswin, blinking quickly. ‘Some other motive?'

Melchior licked his lips a little, breathed in, gestured with his hand and said, ‘Yes, actually you're right, sir. Why deny it? I do have one little motive in getting to see you, and if you don't throw me out straight away I'll tell you what it is.'