Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (27 page)

‘That is a proper master, one who looks after his servants even after death,' cried Melchior.

‘Yes, he left something to everyone who served him faithfully and took care that they would be provided for.'

‘Did he also bequeath something to an old woman who was at his funeral, someone I'd never seen before? Do you remember, good man, that there was a woman in a grey dress who kept apart from the other mourners?'

Mathyes did remember the woman, but he didn't know who she was. ‘Quietly and timidly she came among the mourners,' he said, ‘and no one drove her away, but I don't know who she could have been.'

‘And who is selling Master Bruys's house?' enquired Melchior.

‘He entrusted it to Brassenke, the President of the Great Guild. He has distant relatives in Germany, but he didn't know them, and he feared that they might not be God-fearing people, so he didn't dare bequeath his house to them. So the President has to sell it off to the highest bidder and divide the sum into five parts, of which one goes to St Bridget's, one to St Nicholas's, one to be divided equally between several dozen churches in the Tallinn area, one to St John's Almshouse and one to the most direct descendant of the male line in Germany, although the Master didn't know precisely who that might be.'

‘And that's why he didn't want to bequeath a bigger share of it,' muttered Melchior.

‘Yes, and the Master thought that the Bruys clan had only met with disaster and misery in Tallinn, and he didn't want any more
of them to come here to live. If we are destined to die out in Livonia then that is the will of the Almighty, he always said.'

They were drinking the bottle down to the dregs and remembering that holy man who would be talked of in Tallinn for a long time to come. Yes, thought Melchior, the Bruys clan was doomed to die out in Tallinn, but maybe that was as it should be. When the bloodline doesn't last words and deeds will last longer because if one cannot bequeath one's assets to one's kin then one bequeaths them to the town and its people, each and every one. The Convent of St Bridget was rising and transforming the town, and it would be there for centuries while Laurentz Bruys rested for ever in the soil of St Nicholas's.

On arriving home, a little past the time when the preaching brethren would have finished divine service, Melchior found Dorn in the pharmacy doing three jobs at once – dandling Agatha on his knee, duelling with young Melchior with bits of wood instead of swords and gossiping about Council matters with Keterlyn. Dorn had, of course, been expecting Melchior, and when the Apothecary asked him why he replied that the Blackheads' Guildhall would be open for ‘penny drinks' tomorrow, that there would be plenty of people there and that he had heard that the Flemish merchant Cornelis de Wrede should be one of them. Dorn asked where Melchior had been, and Melchior told him what he had heard at the new convent.

Before falling asleep in Keterlyn's arms the Apothecary was thinking again about Master Bruys. He thought about the fleeting time God gives to people to live and of the little that anyone can achieve in their lifetime. He thought that even when Master Bruys's bones had long since decayed the magnificent Bridgettine Convent would still be standing, proclaiming far and wide that in Tallinn there had once lived a man who thought more about others and about the deprived than of himself. If a man's bloodline is not destined to continue then his works must.

M
ELCHIOR AND THE
Magistrate had arranged to go to the Blackheads to taste some beer after the Sunday service, but, as it turned out, they didn't get to the guildhall rooms. As they turned the corner on to the long street that ran to the Coast Gate Melchior grabbed unexpectedly at Dorn's sleeve and pulled him back into the shade of a house. Dorn asked what the devil was going on, and Melchior indicated with his head across the street where, in front of the Blackheads' Guildhall, a couple of people stood engaged in a lively discussion. One of them was de Wrede and the other a young man in a plain cloak. They seemed to be bargaining or arguing over something but soon reached agreement and started walking together towards the marketplace.

‘Who is that boy?' asked Dorn. ‘I think I've have seen him before.'

‘I think I know who he is. He's the gravedigger's son from St Barbara's, Jacop. Estonian, I think. Let's follow them and see what they're up to.'

‘Wouldn't it be simpler to grab them by the scruff of their necks and ask straight out?'

‘They're not being accused of anything, and we might not find out what they're doing if they don't want to tell the truth,' replied the Apothecary.

‘Mm, yes,' muttered Dorn. ‘And it wouldn't be hard to guess that they're heading for St Barbara's Cemetery.'

His prediction turned out to be correct. From Town Hall Square de Wrede and Jacop proceeded to the Seppade Gate, went through it and straight on to the graveyard, while Dorn and Melchior followed. On arrival Jacop led the Fleming along the narrow tracks among the graves until finally they arrived at the newer plots at the southern edge, which was more open with younger trees, so their followers had to keep a distance and lurk in the shade of the older oaks.

Jacop led de Wrede to three newly dug graves. He called out, and thereupon the head of his father, the gravedigger Tonnis, appeared from out of one of them. Young Jacop ran off, and de Wrede and the gravedigger stayed to chat. It wasn't hard to see that the bargaining was continuing; de Wrede – merchant and ‘crafty miser' as Dorn called all Flemings – laughed out loud and shook his head, Tonnis climbed out of the grave, waved his hands and settled it. They seemed finally to be reaching an agreement. The Fleming rummaged in his purse and handed the gravedigger some coins. Tonnis went away for a moment, brought back some tool and handed it to de Wrede.

‘Good God, Melchior, I'd swear that's a small axe,' exclaimed Dorn.

‘Yes, and I swear that de Wrede will now climb into the grave with that axe,' replied the Apothecary.

Melchior was not wrong. Tonnis remained sitting at the edge of the grave as de Wrede worked in the pit. Soon the merchant climbed out of it and jumped into the next one as Tonnis tore at the end of a loaf and started munching on it.

‘It seems to me that grave desecration is taking place,' said Dorn sullenly. ‘It would be good to know what Lübeck law has to say about this.'

‘Interesting,' noted Melchior, ‘I wanted to ask you about that.'

Finally de Wrede seemed to have completed his work. He climbed out of the grave with a sack over his shoulder that looked like it must have weighed at least twenty pounds. He said goodbye to Tonnis and started walking towards the edge of the cemetery.

‘I'm going after him,' said Melchior. ‘I want to see where he's taking that sack.'

‘They say', muttered Dorn, ‘that in one English monastery they go through the graveyard cutting bodies up, and that the monks sell the parts as holy relics. I heard it with my own ears. It came up in the Council once.'

‘This stinks of something else,' said Melchior gloomily. ‘But now I'm going.'

‘You're not going anywhere without me. Would I leave you on your own?'

So once more they followed de Wrede who, on reaching the southern gate of the cemetery, turned on to the broad highway. This was the main road, paved with gravel and limestone rubble, that led south from the town and which could take you to a number of different places. Where, with his load of body parts cut from corpses, would the Flemish merchant go from here? Melchior had not the faintest idea.

It was afternoon, and there were plenty of people about. Dorn and Melchior remained several hundred paces behind the man and didn't have to make too much effort to keep themselves hidden. Along the highway there were plenty of taverns and guesthouses; there was a small market, too. People were leading cattle and pigs, and it was bustling with farmers, artisans from the town, servants, professional people from the outskirts, farmhands from the Order's lands, horsemen, carousers and all manner of other folk, with carriages and carts rolling along.

‘Interesting. Which way will he turn at the crossroads?' wondered Dorn.

‘Where are his quarters in Tallinn?'

‘I hear they're behind the Lysingnicke residence, President of the Blackheads, in a small house somewhere between St Olaf's Church and the Louenschede Tower.'

From here the highway went on to the Order's lands and up St Anthony's Hill, named after the Chapel of St Anthony situated upon it. Down to the west of the hillock lay the great wide pastures
of the Toompea Knights. Beyond the rise three roads merged: the great highway that started at the Seppade Gate; the road over the sand dunes that led from St John's Almshouse and along which travellers coming from Marienthal could head south; and the road leading down from the south gate of the Small Castle of Toompea, which, running along the edge of the paddocks and behind St Barbara's Cemetery, led to the main highway near St Anthony's Chapel.

From St Anthony's Hill the highway continued over the sand dunes. To the east stood the gallows of Jerusalem Hill, where Dorn sometimes presided – it was clearly visible from the highway between the trees – and beyond that, past the dunes and the pines, was a swampy lake where the corpses of the executed were thrown. The grove by the roadside was called the Hangman's Garden, and, in times past, the executioner had also lived there. Now there was only a shack where the current incumbent made his preparations for executions and kept his tools. The very worst criminals were, as a very visible warning to travellers, killed by being dragged among the dunes on a wheel.

A little further on from the Hangman's Garden stood a large stone cross by the roadside, indicating where the town's and the Order's domains met. Magistrate Dorn's power did not extend beyond this point, and his word counted for nothing.

De Wrede, however, had gone past St Anthony's Chapel and kept walking, self-assuredly and boldly like a man who knows where he is going and why. He passed the Hangman's Garden and kept on marching. He kept pace with the market traders and farmers who had finished their business in town for the day and were going back home. He walked with a quick and determined step and did not seem to intend to rest his feet or drink a tankard of ale at a roadside tavern – of which there were fewer and fewer in number from here on.

A few market traders turned to the south-east at the next crossroads, but de Wrede kept on marching south. Melchior and Dorn had by now given up trying to guess his destination. The only
thing they know for sure was that he had been this way before and knew exactly where he was going. They had been walking for a good hour by this time, and other wayfarers had become fewer and further between, most of them having turned off into narrow lanes and dispersed into farms; generally those who had further to travel set off earlier in the day so as not to be overtaken by darkness.

After the crossing the road carried on through the pastures. Melchior's memory told him that this land belonged to the Bishop of Tallinn and was called Reppen's Pastures after his estate manager. They had to go at quite a pace to keep up with de Wrede. Beyond the pastures the land became hilly again; the road went over a sandy, mossy wilderness on which a few sturdy pine trees grew. Ahead of them loomed a thick pine forest. Coming towards them were a few late-riding farmhands from the Order's estates. Between Melchior and Dorn and de Wrede there now walked only the odd ragged tramp, and they had hang back even further so as not to be too obvious. The weather was cloudy and muggy, and rain seemed imminent, which worried them even more.

Dorn grumbled constantly about what nonsense was driving them on and on and that maybe de Wrede had decided to walk all the way to Antwerp, but without a juicy steak he wouldn't be trudging back to Tallinn, and where could a poor soul get a juicy steak at this hour, because it was still quite a way to the inn on the Weylandt Estate.

But then the forest began, and – for better or worse for them – the Fleming soon turned on to a path heading eastward and disappeared into the trees.

‘Where does this road lead?' asked Dorn. ‘I suppose to some liegeman's estate?'

Melchior didn't know exactly. Those few occasions when he had wandered this road he hadn't taken the least bit of interest in where all the countless tracks off it led. De Wrede, however, who had been just a short time in Tallinn, seemed to know it well. As far as Melchior knew there were a couple of farms belonging to an estate here by the forest, for every path leads somewhere. They stopped
at the edge of the woods and consulted quickly about what to do next.

‘I have no power in these lands,' Dorn stated, ‘so I am a simple townsman like you. In fact, you are now the leader of our enterprise, so you have to say.'

‘One possibility is that we turn right around and eat at the first tavern we come across – eat the juiciest steak they've got on their spit,' said Melchior, ‘and never mind the fasting day.'

‘That suits me very well,' agreed Dorn, ‘exactly so – whatever else Mrs Dorn might think about it.'

‘But
another
possibility is that we sneak quietly along behind the Fleming, because otherwise my mind will be distressed that we've been wasting precious time and still won't have found anything out. I'd rather you told me. Have you ever heard anything about the witch Kibutze?'

‘Nothing,' replied Dorn.

‘Well, I have. Keterlyn told me. Somewhere in the woods to the south live the Kibutze family, Estonians, who belong to some vassal but who are powerful witches and understand black magic. The peasant folk visit them to buy charms and things like that.'

‘Holy Virgin, I've never heard of such a thing – and may the saints be praised for that.'