Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (24 page)

‘I said that it seemed that way to me, that it was strange.'

‘You're labouring under a misconception, Apothecary. Hundreds of people in this town are connected with Bruys in some way, and dozens of people fall to their deaths or drown. You see connections where there is none. Forget it, and don't attach any ghost to that man's soul any longer.'

‘You might be right,' mumbled Melchior. ‘But, one more question, if I may. Don't you recall de Zwarte talking about a ghost? He did paint your portrait …'

Goswin shook his head. ‘He could only see a ghost in his own drunken head. That man didn't know how to curb his ale-drinking. He didn't say anything to me about a ghost.'

‘But that portrait,' ventured Melchior cautiously. ‘He must have come to your house quite often … Portrait-painting takes a long time and …'

‘No, Apothecary,' said Goswin firmly. ‘That portrait was a silly idea anyway. I should have listened to those who said that de
Zwarte couldn't paint. I sent him packing halfway through and put him on a ship. And we never talked much. The portrait wasn't finished.'

As Melchior left the room with a bow – while Master Goswin carried on sitting motionless in his chair, staring vacantly out of the window – he bumped into Annlin at the entrance to the
dörnse.
The old woman was a couple of steps away from the door, but Melchior realized that she had been eavesdropping, her ear to the door. And a burning smell seemed to be coming from the kitchen.

T
HE
AREA
BOUNDED
by the wall of the Dominican cemetery, at the western edge of the monastery's land, was by no means large, for the monastery itself had never been that large. It was located between the main gate and the church. Ordinary monks and lay brothers were buried there, the more recent nearer the wall and very tightly packed. The priors and deputy priors, the bishops as well as noblemen from among the vassals and other high-ranking gentlemen, got themselves – if they were rich enough – the best resting places under portentous carved ashlars either in the monastery or within the church itself.

Lay Brother Eric's body was to be buried almost up against the wall of the enclosure, in a narrow little spot between a bush and a thick yew tree.

Apothecary Melchior's message to Hinric yesterday had changed things. Hinric had received it when Brother Lodevic returned to the monastery for horary prayers in a more cheerful mood than the decrepit old man usually was and smelling strongly of spirits and ginger. Melchior has done him in with his magical remedies, Hinric thought crossly. Melchior is otherwise a fine man, God-fearing and diligent, with more knowledge of the saints than some bishops have, but when some idea, some sniff of a crime, takes hold of him it throws him. His eyes start to blaze, and he rushes around until he has found his murderer. Yes, he does good for the town, but sometimes his methods …

And now he had made a brother drunk.

‘How much did you squeeze out of him?' Hinric enquired of Lodevic, who at that moment was trying to whistle along with a song thrush, which sounded like a wheezing demon stuck on a pole.

‘One and a half artig in silver,' stated Brother Lodevic proudly, and Hinric softened somewhat. If he was prepared to donate that generously Melchior really must be serious about this ghost business.

‘Rest until vespers,' he had recommended to Lodevic, but then the old man had passed him Melchior's message. Hinric read it through and questioned Brother Lodevic at length. He had not understood matters any more clearly, apart from the fact that Melchior had got a good deal for his silver. Hinric thought the matter over for some time, and only just before evening prayers did he go to Prior Moninger and tell him he had received an unusual request from Apothecary Melchior.

Reinhart Moninger had been Prior for about eight years. He had been sent to Tallinn from Lund following the poisoning of Prior Baltazar Eckell ten years earlier, a crime that Melchior had helped to solve, and Reinhart and Melchior had met several times over the years. Reinhart was about fifty, a good-natured and soft person. In the worldly contests of strength that went on between the Council, the Order and the bishops he preferred to remain silent, for he didn't want to understand worldly politics. He was an expert on the Scriptures, and he preferred, instead of managing the monastery's economic affairs, to stand in the scriptorium and read, for which purpose he wore costly reading-glasses. He even loved to copy out books. He was a devout man – maybe
too
devout for a town such as Tallinn in Hinric's opinion. Instead of making sure that the brothers had enough salt herring to last the winter or that the Blackheads weren't being too thrifty in maintaining their altar or disputing with the Council over the ground rent of the monastery Prior Moninger was much more interested in the interpretation of Gratian's decrees in the light of Pope Gregory IX's
decretals or the dogmatics of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

But he was Prior, and it was to him that Hinric went with Melchior's message.

The Prior was – naturally – in the scriptorium with his spectacles on, and reading, to Hinric's surprise,
Der Edelstein,
moral tales by Ulrich Boner of the Berne Dominicans, translated from the Latin.

‘This is that same Melchior, eh?' asked the Prior when he had read the letter.

‘Yes,
that same
Melchior,' Hinric assured him, mentally adding a curse.

‘And this is quite a peculiar request that he asks of the monastery,' said the Prior. ‘Why is he doing it?'

Hinric told him. He told him about the corpse in front of the Unterrainer house and Melchior's interest in the deaths, the stories about the ghost.

‘So this man is looking for the truth?' The Prior's question cut into Hinric's narrative.

‘The truth about the shadows of the past, yes,' agreed Hinric.

‘Aren't we all looking for that?' muttered the Prior meditatively.

‘If you put it that way, holy Father.'

‘Then he must find it. May I refuse him on the day of St Dominic?' Those were the Prior's last words on the subject of Melchior's request, and then he turned back to his manuscript and placed his glasses on to his nose.

And Hinric gave an order that the old grave of Brother Adelbert be dug up for the interment of Lay Brother Eric.

Melchior was at the monastery straight after the chapterhouse meeting, and he arrived on horseback. He arrived, a dapple-grey mare on the end of a halter, tethered it to the monastery's hitching-post – Hinric noticed that the Apothecary wore a proud expression in doing so – and then rushed up to Hinric, who was standing near the main portal.

‘Good morrow, holy Brother,' he said. ‘What reply did the Prior give to my request?'

Instead of answering Hinric motioned with his head in the
direction of the graveyard, towards which the lay brothers were bearing the corpse of Eric, resting on a frame and wrapped in a winding-sheet.

‘And the grave,' asked Melchior, agitated. ‘Was it dug yesterday?'

‘Until they got to Adelbert's corpse,' replied Hinric peevishly. ‘Listen, tell me the truth, in the name of St Nicholas. What
are
you up to?'

‘And you haven't opened the coffin yet?' Melchior enquired further. ‘And it was a coffin, as I thought?'

‘Yes, it was a coffin,' replied Hinric laconically.

‘Isn't that strange? As far as I was aware, in those days the lesser brothers were simply buried on planks wrapped in a shroud.'

Yes, it was passing strange, Hinric had to admit to himself. A coffin was expensive, and it was far from usual for brothers to be buried in coffins – especially not sinners like Brother Adelbert. Yet this poor wretch had been buried in a casket, even at a time when the monastery's finances were scant.

‘No, we didn't open it, but it has been dug out now,' Hinric said.

‘So it could be opened now?'

‘I won't allow it until the Prior gives his blessing.'

‘Well, here he comes,' said Melchior. Hinric turned his head and saw that the Prior was indeed coming from the dormitory and walking towards the freshly dug grave. Hinric and Melchior went after him.

The service at the graveside was brief. Eric had not, after all, taken his vows, and the monastery had many other activities to attend to since they were marking St Dominic's feast day. The brothers had already prayed for the soul of Lay Brother Eric at the vigil and the first mass, so after the precentor had said the words that he was obliged to say everyone remained standing, perplexed and silent. The precentor had a book in one hand and a coal-pan in the other, but he didn't know what to do – whether to have Eric's body placed in the grave on top of the old coffin or do something else. He didn't even know why the grave had been exhumed because there was still space in the graveyard.

Melchior and Hinric stood side by side, both fixing their gaze on the decayed coffin that had been revealed. Without turning his head or changing his expression Melchior asked Hinric very softly, ‘The brothers ate my biscuits last night, did they?'

‘We didn't have any biscuits,' whispered Hinric in reply, staring straight ahead. ‘You know what the times are like – no sweet things.'

At this Melchior hissed something so softly that Hinric didn't hear it, but it was probably a curse.

The precentor, meanwhile, was looking questioningly at the Prior; the Prior's mild eyes bored into Melchior, and he finally nodded to Hinric. The
cellarius
sighed deeply and ordered the lay brothers to jump into the grave and prise open the lid of the old coffin.

A moment later they all leaned over to look.

And then they raised their eyes in astonishment. Only the Prior closed his eyes and nodded to himself. He turned to go.

The casket was half full of sand; there was not a single bone.

‘Father,' whispered Hinric, shocked. ‘Did you know about this?'

‘There is a scroll, the first lines of which were written by Prior Maurice about two hundred years ago,' replied Reinhart Moninger. ‘It is passed down from prior to prior, and it contains things that may not be said in the daybook or the account book, but they are things the priors have to know about the monastery. I think this is the time when an old lie is turned into a truth.'

And then, with slow steps, he trudged back to the scriptorium.

‘What does this all mean, Melchior?' Hinric now asked him. ‘You must have known this.'

‘I didn't,' he replied quietly, ‘but I guessed that it might be so.'

‘So where is Adelbert's corpse?'

Melchior didn't answer, but the shocking realization came quickly. The
cellarius
was breathing very softly and rapidly. Then he closed his eyes and whispered, ‘Holy Virgin. Adelbert is still there … in the Unterrainer house.'

E
ARLY
THAT
MORNING
Melchior had done exactly as Dorn had instructed. He had gone to the stables, asked for Hartmann the stablehand and told him that the Magistrate had ordered him to give him a horse to ride to Marienthal, and if Hartmann raised any objection he would be put in irons in the marketplace.

The stablehand did grumble that the Magistrate could go hang himself in the Town Hall tower and then the townsfolk could have a bit of fun, but he brought Melchior a dapple-grey mare saying she was a good, peaceful animal who knew the way to Bridget's well, since she often visited the Varsaallik Estate.

‘Bridget's?' asked Melchior. He had not heard of such a place before.

‘Isn't that what they call it?' responded Hartmann. ‘The new convent? They Swedes used to call it Mariendal, but now people tend to call it Bridget's. On the way you come to Martin's Brook, don't you, and there's a good place to drink that this animal knows, so if she starts pulling that way you'd better let her go there because she drinks her fill and goes straight back on to the right road. You won't need to use your spurs much with her.'

Melchior assured him that he wasn't in any hurry – which was not entirely true – left him two pennies and a sweet confection as a tip and promised to be back by sunset. He had put a bottle of his spirits into his travel pouch as well as a double handful of sweets wrapped in a cloth – after Brother Lodevic's ravaging this was a
great sacrifice, but perhaps on this pilgrimage of his he might need to sweeten some mouths into talking.

With Eric's funeral at the monastery now behind him he led the mare through the bustling town with a thoughtful mien and out through the Clay Gate, nodded gratefully to the image of St Victor – which stood at the side of the foregate as a sign to strangers that this town was under the protection of heavenly powers – swung into the saddle and headed westward. The miller at the Clay Gate mill looked on curiously at the passing apothecary, and Melchior waved in greeting to his old friend. Straight after the embankment and the mill the road divided into three. One fork carried on west along the edge of the town wall and the embankment; another turned south-east, past the clay-ponds to St John's Hospital, where the lepers were kept, then through the outskirts and over the sandy hummocks up the hill to the shale quarry and on towards Viru and Tartu. But Melchior had to choose the narrower and rougher fork, leading along the seashore towards Marienthal and the Apenes Peninsula. This was a quieter road, for ahead of it, on the peninsula, lay only the Order's meadows, coastal villages and marshy forests. But this road could become important in the future, once the large and splendid convent had been finished, thought Melchior. Inns and guesthouses were already being built alongside the road and large crosses were being erected for the pilgrims. At present only the old town gallows stood by the Seppade Gate, and they were hardly ever used now, but they served as a sign that Tallinn had the right to exact a price in blood in this land where the town had the right to strike with the sword. Anyone coming to town by this road would get the message that St Victor protected the town and all evildoers would be dealt with.