Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (26 page)

At Hirwenoye Bridge Melchior crossed the border of the town's
lands, rode through the little grove and then stopped. It had been over a year since he had last passed this way, and in that time the work had progressed far. Between the sea and the road was a thin line of trees, but to the south-east, on the plateau, bounded to the south and east by the river, lay the land for the new complex. It already had a garden enclosure around it, and within he saw a couple of stone houses and a little chapel and another hexagonal chapel by the gate along with a few smaller wooden structures. But, as he rode closer, he was shocked, for he saw countless poles and stones that marked the foundations. They were already digging and laying the foundation walls. The convent was obviously going to be extravagantly large – and when you thought how the Dominican Monastery was constricted by the town walls …

There wasn't much going on at the site just now, as the larger jobs had been by and large completed for the season. Melchior looked for something like a hitching-rail, until a farmhand ran over to him and led the horse to a shady area from where it could be taken to the river to drink. And then he had only to mention Laurentz Bruys's name and some apprentice bricklayer explained to him straight away that Master Bruys's prayer house was there beyond the bend in the river where a path over a ford led into the forest. And that Bruys's servant Mathyes was there at the moment. Melchior walked over the ground where the church would rise but where St Bridget's Chapel now stood. This road led from the building site on towards the river bend where he could see some log houses. As he had heard it, some of the project's supporters had constructed temporary dwellings for themselves until the permanent building had been completed, while Master Bruys and a few others had had their own private houses of prayer built.

It was a simple square building at the very edge of the convent's land, in a shady spot, one side of it facing the bushes. Melchior knocked softly, and the old grey-haired Mathyes opened the door.

M
ELCHIOR
HAD
NO
definite plan – and he didn't know what exactly he was seeking here – he simply wanted to see where Master Bruys had died and find out who had been at his side in his final moments. Mathyes greeted him with surprise, and Melchior told him that he happened to be in these parts looking for medicinal plants and to settle an old debt, and then he had wondered if this was the place where Master Bruys had died – that benefactor of the town of Tallinn and a man whom Melchior had always admired and for whom he had prayed for blessings from his guardian angels.

The prayer house was sparsely furnished, but one could spend the night there. On the back wall of the room was a wooden crucifix, and in front of it a very simple altar with candles, a clay image of St Bridget and a Bible. A rosary and a large seashell were also placed in front of the altar. At the other end were a place to sleep and a little table for eating breakfast. On the walls were a couple of shelves for everyday items – evidently Mathyes had been tidying and cleaning these.

‘This is the very place where he died,' affirmed Master Bruys's servant. ‘I was at his side, and I saw how his eyes would close no more, and he continued to stare at me, and at that moment I knew that all my sins were redeemed.'

Mathyes was an old man, perhaps around the same age as Bruys himself, and, as far as Melchior recalled, he had been a part of his
Master's household for a very long time. Melchior had been selling him medicines for at least ten years, and more and more as time passed and as Master Bruys's health had grown feebler. Melchior prised from his bag the bottle of his sweet dram and asked if he could rest his feet a while and offer old Mathyes some kind of comfort. He could indeed, as it happened, because the servant was not offered such an exquisite drink every day.

Twenty-two years, Mathyes told him, for twenty-two years of his life he had stood beside his Master, helping him and faithfully serving him, until six days ago, in this very building, as a terrible torrent of rain poured down, his Master had breathed his last.

‘And it was just the two of you here?' enquired Melchior.

‘Oh, a priest came here, but the Master could no longer confess, as he'd lost the power of speech, but the Bridgettine priest gave him communion and anointed him, commending his soul into God's care. And the priest forgave his sins without confession, because when the Master could still speak he had gone to confession very regularly, so the priest let him kiss the cross anyway, and then there was the Abbess here, from the nuns, and a few other masters.'

As time passed, and he sipped from the bottle, Mathyes opened up somewhat. Bruys had ordered him – communicating with his servant by signs, and if you have served someone that long you understand even without words – to take him to Marienthal on 1 August because he felt death approaching. The Master had hoped that he would be granted time to make his last pilgrimage and then die in his own home. He had wanted to live until St Lawrence's Day at least and took with him only a nurse from the Sisters of St Michael and his servant Mathyes, and he had come here in his own cart on his last pilgrimage. The nurse and Mathyes usually spent the night some distance away with other servants in simpler houses designed for pilgrims, and the Master prayed alone here and fasted and several times had himself carried into St Bridget's Chapel where there was a reliquary. He often prayed there together with other supporters of the convent – Mr Schwalberg, Mr Huxer and
the Knight Greyssenhagen, and even on the day that the Master died Greyssenhagen had come to the prayer house in the morning and asked Mathyes about his Master's health. His Master's health had not been good because the previous day's travel had worn him out, but by evening his health had got even worse. He could no longer breathe properly, he hadn't the strength to pray, he fainted away, and when the nurse said that his soul was being called Mathyes ran to the Abbess.

‘It wasn't granted to him to live to see his own saint's day,' complained Mathyes, his eyes brimming with tears. ‘He couldn't even hold the candle the priest gave him. When the priest washed him and anointed him with oil, he looked at the Abbess and me, but his gaze was already on the Kingdom of God, and he must already have been hearing the angels' bells ringing.'

Melchior understood that Bruys had suffered a stroke before his death, and he knew of no cure for it. Mathyes spoke, the Apothecary listened, and nothing in this tale seemed suspicious to him. The old man had died, perhaps a little sooner than he had hoped, but he died among friends and well-wishers; he died after he had received the sacrament, and his soul was ready to meet God. He had quietly expired, dying as old people do die.

‘At what time of day did his soul depart to God?' asked Melchior.

‘In the afternoon, when it was still raining fearfully. We couldn't even set off for town before dawn. Everything was flooded.'

‘It was a powerful rainstorm,' Melchior confirmed. ‘It came bucketing down.'

‘His death was a blessing from God,' Mathyes affirmed. ‘I take it as a holy sign that the Master, who had donated and prayed so much and kept his mind on holy things, was allowed by the Lord to die without pain in front of an altar to St Bridget.'

‘Before he died did he, by any chance, mention Tobias Grote, the Tower-Master, his old friend?' Melchior asked suddenly. ‘I ask because Master Grote died the very next day, and, from what I've heard, just before he died he had been wanting to tell Master Bruys something.'

‘The Master couldn't speak,' Mathyes reminded him, ‘oh, and he couldn't walk well either, could he? He left the Tower-Master gentleman twenty marks in his will. I haven't seen the Tower-Master at our house for quite a while, but they were good friends because Grote once saved the lives of Mistress Bruys and Johan, may the Lord bless them both.'

‘It's an old, unfortunate story,' said Melchior sadly. ‘So you were in your Master's house?'

‘As I had been for ten years,' Mathyes reminded him, sipping from the bottle. ‘I was previously a sailor on one of the Master's ships, but the Master noticed that I was clever, obedient and skilful and invited me ashore to his house. That was a few years before Johan was born, and I recall that it was a blessing from Heaven, for the Master had no heir …'

Yes, that was how it was. His wife Gertrud had wanted to bear one more child, and masses were said for this purpose, and churches received donations, and, when the miracle happened, there had been no limit to Master Bruys's joy. But young Johan lived only twelve years, for a terrible and evil fire at the storehouses took his life.

‘I remember that fire,' said Melchior. ‘It started in the grain stores and –'

‘The Master's store burned to the ground, and Johan had just gone down to the granary and must have been trapped among the burning beams. After it had been put out he was found under the rafters, mostly charred, but the Master recognized him – who wouldn't recognize their own son? – but his corpse lay there straight and peaceful as if he were accepting his fate without resisting …'

‘And Mistress Gertrud was called by God soon afterwards,' Melchior recalled.

‘The Mistress didn't come out of her chamber at all for several days after Johan's death, and when she did emerge she went only to St Nicholas's Church and wouldn't eat a single mouthful. She died of grief. She must have foreseen her end, as she asked the Pastor of
St Nicholas's to take her confession, and she sent letters to her relations, and the next morning she didn't rise from her bed.'

These were the events that had led Master Bruys to his path of piety. He sought consolation in monasteries and churches, he visited the Dominicans and the Cistercian abbey at Padise, he wrote to the Church fathers in Lund and Rostock, he sought ways of repenting his sins that were most appealing to God – he even started flagellating himself. But just at that time the Order's vassals and the coastal people were starting to move more insistently for the foundation of a new community. The Toompea merchant Schwalberg was seeking allies and sympathizers, and Master Bruys had decided that his sufferings were the results of too little penitence. He was seized by the idea that by his money and his acts a new convent could be founded in Tallinn. He was in a long correspondence with the Rector of the University of Cologne, who recommended that he make a pilgrimage to Rome. The Master had entrusted his entire business to his associates, said Mathyes, and invited Mathyes along, and they had set off for Rome to pray at the church festivities at the tombs of St Peter and St Paul. They had with them a certificate from the Tallinn Chapter. They dressed in penitents' garb and travelled by ship to Lübeck to set off overland from there.

It had been a long and dreadful journey. They had encountered wars, perils and enemies, seen much suffering and had themselves suffered cold, hunger and every sort of vicissitude, but all this had only made Master Bruys even more determined in his penitence, and they journeyed south with even greater resolve. And when they were in the Habsburg lands, that was when the Master's health started seriously to give way. He had begun coughing terribly, his bodily strength was beginning to desert him and his legs gave him pain. Good people had helped them and led the way to the shrine at Mariazell. They had joined other pilgrims who were on their way there, and they had sung together and told each other their woeful tales. At Mariazell the monks had taken the Master to the infirmary and said that if he carried on with his journey he would die on the
way. So Bruys had promised to send the monastery a hundred marks in silver and stayed there for a long time. The infirmary doctor knew that Bruys's feet were aching because of a congenital defect. This was a hereditary disease whereby men grow six toes on their feet, and some even said that it was the mark of Satan, who despoils people in this way, so that after death even the most pious can be spotted. The doctor said that these were all silly rumours. But the sixth toe does not want to remain on the body, as God has not ordained it, and it had started to rot. The doctor cut it off and treated the wound until Master Bruys could get back on his feet. They had diligently prayed before the Mariazell altar, and the Prior gave them both a certificate to show that their sins had been redeemed. By this time they had been too long on their journey, however, and Bruys decided to head for home. He was afraid that he might die on the way to Rome and would no longer be able to assist in the building of St Bridget's Convent or pay his debt to Mariazell. So they travelled back to Tallinn, and since that time there had been no holier man in the town. Without heirs and alone in the world before the face of God Bruys gave most of his assets to St Bridget's and decided to support the convent in word and deed and in every way.

‘Without heirs …' repeated Melchior. ‘It is a terrible thing when a man is left in the world without children. But his oldest son, Thyl, whom he drove out, did your Master know whether he was still alive?'

‘I never saw Thyl myself,' declared Mathyes. ‘He was driven away before I came to serve the Master, but I remember that one day, about four years ago, a foreign merchant visited, bringing the Master messages and a letter. After that the Master told me that even the Lord God cannot give refuge to those who do not want to find refuge, and then he said something about the gallows in Magdeburg.'

‘Ah,' noted Melchior, ‘I have also heard that Thyl was hanged in Magdeburg.'

‘Yes, that may be so. The Master never talked to me about Thyl,
but I heard things from people in town – not that I would have gone gossiping about my Master's life and affairs. He strictly forbade that.'

And now Mathyes told Melchior what a faithful servant he had been and that the Master had kept him in mind in his will, allowing him to visit the prayer house to pray for him, and he was to stay for life at the townhouse where he now lived, even after the house was sold.