Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (20 page)

‘Maybe not the marriage bed, but when the girl's body is so pretty …' murmured Melchior pensively.

‘Exactly,' sighed Dorn. ‘As they say, that kind of thing has happened in the world before and will happen again, and there's nothing new under the sun. Laurentz Bruys's son Thyl wanted to have the beautiful Dorothea, to quench his strong desire, which wasn't put off at all by the girl's madness. Melchior, no one knows when or how it happened, but one day Thyl tricked Dorothea. Whether he lured her into the meadow beyond the town wall or into the bushes behind the stables none can say. A person's head may indeed be mentally insane, but their passions think in their own way, and desire got the upper hand. Thyl led that blissful girl into temptation and violated her honour. He often talked to other people about Dorothea at the storehouses, praising her beauty and saying that the girl was so mad in the head that she didn't understand a thing, and one day, his eyes full of guile, he boasted that he had made the most beautiful girl in Tallinn his own.'

‘Did it happen by force?' Melchior wanted to know.

Dorn shrugged. ‘They say that Goswin asked the holy sisters to look her over, because the girl had become even odder, and the rumours going around the town reached the father's ears, too. But the sisters at the convent didn't find signs of violence, although they did say that the girl was no longer a virgin.'

‘Good heavens,' whispered Melchior. ‘Surely she didn't …'

‘No, probably not
that,
but the stories spread, wicked and spiteful stories, but Master Goswin did not – maybe he couldn't – go before the Council and accuse Thyl of taking his daughter by force, because who would want such shame and misery ever to fall on their own head? Besides, there was no way he could prove it, because Dorothea wouldn't speak and there wasn't a single honest citizen present as a witness. It would have been his word against Thyl's, or he would have had to demand from the Council that Thyl must stand before the Judgement of God, but not a single swordsman could have been found to champion Dorothea's honour. To say nothing of the fact that permission for such a duel would have had to have been given by the Commander or even the Bishop, and, again, who would want to appear before the people with such shame and dishonour?'

‘So there was no court case?'

‘None, and nor could there have been, because Dorothea was seen one day arriving at the mill at the Cattle Gate, and they say she said some words to the miller's wife – but what those words were no one knows – then she took her dress off right there and then, and, before anyone had time to stop her, she stepped slowly into the pond and drowned herself.'

‘Merciful heavens,' cried Melchior.

‘She was only seventeen years old. Again, what exactly went on between Goswin and Bruys no one knows, but from that time onwards they were no longer friends. Much to Master Bruys's credit, I must say, he drove Thyl, his only heir, out of his house, sent him to Germany and disowned him.'

‘The rest I know,' said Melchior. ‘God blessed Master Bruys, and the next year his wife bore him one more son, Johan, when she and her husband were both over forty. But this blessing was fickle, for Johan died and the wife died of sorrow. Master Bruys became an extremely pious man.'

‘Well, haven't some people said that Goswin also went off his head after that fire?' remarked Dorn. ‘He became increasingly peculiar, started going to the Guildhall rather less often – he wasn't
even always seen there at Christmas festivities. Then he stopped trading in salt, which some thought quite foolish, because salt turns a good profit, but …'

Yes, salt was what some merchants called white gold, Melchior knew. It was cheap to buy from Holland, France and Lüneburg because there was plenty of it there, a surplus indeed. Merchants would buy it by the pound on the last ships of the autumn, keep it over the autumn and winter in their salt-cellars and then sell it on to Russia as the price rose. Salt kept food fresh, and without salt it was hard to survive the winter.

‘Does anyone know what happened to Thyl?' asked Melchior.

‘Some say he become a mercenary and died in battle, others that he was hanged for robbery in Magdeburg. Who knows? Bruys didn't mention him in his will.'

‘It must be a painful decision for any father to disown his son and leave him without an inheritance,' said Melchior thoughtfully. ‘And Master Bruys was rich, very rich.'

‘Now the Convent of St Bridget – and the town, too – are that much richer for having inherited his wealth. According to Lübeck law Thyl would not be able to inherit anything, even if he were alive, because he is no longer his father's lawful child – although in court you can try to twist the law any which way, so, if he had a good lawyer, who knows what might come out of such a case? But now, Melchior, it's time for me to go. And you'd better recuperate in peace, too.'

‘A little nap wouldn't do any harm. But, before you go, what can you tell me about a certain Flemish merchant, Cornelis de Wrede?'

Dorn raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Nothing much. One of the Blackheads, isn't he? Said to hang around the Red Convent a lot.'

‘Around the Red Convent? Very interesting.'

‘Why do you ask?'

‘I'm not the only person in Tallinn who's very interested in the Rataskaevu Street Ghost and about those who spoke about it and died. De Wrede was snooping around after the deaths of both
Master Grote and the other Fleming, de Zwarte. I think you and I should go along to the Blackheads one evening and have a chat with that man over a tankard.'

‘Those Flemings are all misers, cheats and cheeseparers,' grunted Dorn, getting up. ‘I'd keep away from them. But, if you want to, then all right, one evening we'll go along to the Blackheads.'

W
HEN
K
ETERLYN
OPENED
the pharmacy door in the morning, to her surprise and evident astonishment she found a very old Dominican waiting for her, a mendicant's basket in his hand, who asked whether the Apothecary was up.

‘He is indeed,' replied Keterlyn. ‘Heavens, it's already broad daylight outside. He's working in the loft on his medicinal plants. But what's happened? Do they need some remedy at the monastery?'

Instead of a reply the monk pointed to his basket and asked whether he could step inside for a moment to rest his feet.

Keterlyn headed upstairs to tell her husband that an odd visitor had arrived, some monk who looked so ancient that he might have dragged himself out of the mortuary. When Melchior came down he found the monk by the counter sitting on a chair and sniffing a plate of biscuits with evident interest. He reckoned that he might have met the man a couple of times at the monastery, but he was so old that he probably didn't work any longer and presumably spent his time going between the infirmary and the dormitory. And he was certainly not the brother who usually went through town with a mendicant's basket.

‘What brings you to my pharmacy, Brother?' asked Melchior kindly. ‘And what would be your esteemed name?'

‘They call me Brother Lodevic,' replied the old man. ‘And what brings me to your pharmacy is simply that, as our
cellarius
was
saying after morning prayers, a certain apothecary bitterly regrets that he has not been donating recently to St Catherine's Church as diligently as a Christian should.'

That isn't quite true, thought Melchior, but he got the point. It was characteristic of Brother Hinric to stand first and foremost for the interests of the monastery, even when a friend had asked him for help. He nodded and went to close the shop door. Service would have to wait a little while today.

‘Ah, so Brother Hinric sent you,' said Melchior. ‘May St Catherine be thanked in that case, because yesterday evening it occurred to me to go to the monastery to put a little silver coin in the donation box. But now, since the monks' donation basket has arrived here …'

‘A little silver artig for St Catherine,' cried the old monk in a high voice. ‘May all the saints bless you for such generosity. That more than makes up for the pain in my feet.'

‘Maybe you'd like a sweet biscuit, Brother?' asked Melchior. ‘And, of course, you can stay and sit and chat, for where would a holy brother be going in a hurry in the morning?'

‘A biscuit, gladly,' chuckled the old man. ‘But I don't have time to stay much longer because times are hard now, and all the brothers at the monastery, whether they're old and feeble or young and weak, have to toil through the day by the sweat of their brows to please the Lord God and praise St Catherine.'

Melchior sighed and cursed Brother Hinric under his breath. A sly holy brother was that old fox, his friend the
cellarius.

‘Brother Lodevic, perhaps you will still do an apothecary the favour, if another six pennies are put in the basket as well as an artig, of staying a little longer to rest your feet?' asked Melchior. ‘At the moment I don't have too much to do, so if you, Brother, would like to tell me a few old stories I'd be interested to hear them.'

‘An artig and a half?' hummed the old man thoughtfully, glancing at the basket of biscuits and licking his lips. ‘An artig and a half will be a very great help to our monastery, it surely will. And a biscuit would be permitted, too?'

‘Baked with the blessing of St Nicholas himself and the consent of the Council,' said Melchior. ‘These are very good biscuits, and they have spices in them, notably ginger and cardamom, which are good for the health.' He took the basket of biscuits and held it in front of the old monk. ‘Please, take one, Brother.'

‘The rules of our monastery do not approve of eating sweet things,' responded the decrepit monk, extending his sere and bony arm towards the basket. ‘And I fear that a biscuit like that might leave too many crumbs in the throat and make one's voice hoarse, which wouldn't be good for telling tales. Apothecary, do you happen to have anything that might make the vocal cords smooth again?'

‘Hmm, and what might that be?' wondered Melchior. ‘Maybe a little stoup of my sweet elixir? It's freshly made, so it's strong, warms up your insides and helps you breathe.'

‘I could certainly try that. Lately we've had a great fast, and apart from thin beer, black bread and salt herring they don't give us anything to eat because we live in the proper Dominican way in piety and austerity.'

‘And praising the Lord,' remarked Melchior. He knew well that the Dominicans do not live austerely, and their fasting period had been quite some time ago. Under Hinric's practical arrangements the Dominicans ran a good business, and it was rare for them to eat only black bread and salt herring. And their bread was the best in town, sweet and chewy, full of rye flour with no chaff at all.

‘I suppose we're a storytelling brotherhood,' stated old Lodevic after he had turned a couple of biscuits to mush in the drink and knocked it back. ‘And it is our custom that if we're fed well somewhere we tell a pious tale by way of thanks. The thing is, we are now on Rataskaevu Street, aren't we, and so it occurs to me that I once heard a very instructive tale connected with this street … Now, how did it go … ?'

Melchior would have guessed Lodevic to be about ninety years old. The monastic air was clear, and the men in the monastery generally lived to quite a good age if they weren't broken by some
nasty ailment like young Lay Brother Eric. There were many wise practices in a monastery that allow the brothers to live to a great age – they kept clean and ate fresh ingredients, they drank diluted drinks and they had infirmaries to care for the sick. A religious community is able to keep epidemics at bay. Brother Lodevic no longer had any teeth, his face was dry and wrinkled, but there was considerable intelligence and cunning written on it. From his manner of talking and his oblong head and brown eyes Melchior surmised that maybe he wasn't German but from one of the lands of the empire further south. Men of many breeds had lived among the Dominicans of Tallinn, he knew – brothers from Burgundy, Castile, Portugal, Lombardy … The Dominicans were a peripatetic order. They came from one monastery and went to another, they begged and preached, spread the Word of God and stood firm against heresy, which was once more spreading through Christian lands. But when they got too old they stopped moving and remained in one place. Brother Hinric had said that he would have plenty of time to move on and go to live somewhere else – in the Rhineland, perhaps – and spread the Word there, but his heart kept him in Livonia where his own people lived, who were still far from versed in the meaning of the gospel and often went to church just for a change of scene and without understanding that Christ the Lord was true joy and peace.

‘If I now poured for you, Brother, another sweet dram, maybe you'll recall what the story was that you wanted to tell me concerning Rataskaevu Street,' Melchior said.

‘If this drink is also brewed with the blessing of St Nicholas then my heart may not refuse it,' replied the monk joyfully. ‘So let's have another stoup.'

Some time passed before Brother Lodevic got around to telling his tale after the biscuit and the drink, but he eventually embarked on his narrative.

‘In the cemetery of our monastery there rests a brother whose name was Adelbert and who came to Tallinn from the town of Nordhausen. It is written in the daybook that he died when he was
just twenty-five years old. Perhaps you don't know, Apothecary, that this is my second time in Tallinn, and the first time I was here was only a couple of months after Adelbert's funeral, and he was still the subject of much conversation among the monks – although the Prior didn't approve because Adelbert was not the sort of brother to set an example to the others. He was something of a reluctant Dominican, and his behaviour had instigated a lot of gossip about the preaching brothers. The year was reckoned to be one thousand three hundred and forty-nine years since the death and resurrection of Our Saviour, and Tallinn had just passed back from the Danish King to the power of the Order, may the Lord be praised for it.'