Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (4 page)

That she, Ursula, was very important to him.

In what way important was only now starting to become clear, after it emerged that her father had received a letter from his trading partner in Lübeck, and in it was a marriage proposal for Ursula. It came as no surprise to Ursula that the time for marriage was approaching. Her mother had started talking about it a year ago, at first obliquely but then more directly. Just as noble lords, all sorts of kings and dukes arrange marriages for their sons and daughters, so important merchants do it, too – all in order to secure good relations through the sacrament of holy matrimony, form new alliances and promote mutual family bonds, because nobody wants bad fortune for their own relative, especially one to whom one has betrothed one's own daughter in the flesh. So Ursula awaited the same fate as had befallen her elder sisters – one of them lived in Danzig and the other in Rostock, and in this way her father had built up support for his business. And so, gradually, her mother had started talking to Ursula about matrimonial matters – how a good woman must always be virtuous and bear her husband children, and if she does this diligently she will be highly respected and honoured and have good care taken of her even when she starts to turn feeble and ill.

Simon was an apprentice at the house of the Tallinn goldsmith named Casendorpe, but now his apprenticeship was nearly over and he had to become a journeyman, as agreed, in faraway Münster with an old friend of his father's. There he would learn to make high-quality gold and silver, as they do in Lübeck, and when he was experienced enough he could choose a town where he would work as a master, join the craft guild and become a citizen of that town. There he would also take a wife and remain in the town as its
goldsmith, because that was the fate prescribed for Simon. Of course, he
could
come back to Tallinn, but there were already enough goldsmiths here, and he had an elder brother who would soon be coming back from Riga after his journeyman years, and his father wanted to leave the business to him.

So this was Ursula's and Simon's last summer together in Tallinn – such seemed to be the will of Heaven.

They had become friends in childhood, grown up and played together, run together along the moat behind the town wall and gone to the pond to fish. Together they made merry in Town Hall Square among the townspeople, when tournaments or fairs were held there and jesters and musicians and jugglers and wise men from the East came, wearing colourful clothes and exhibiting the black arts of Egypt, blowing fire from their mouths or making bears dance. They were in among the people when the Brotherhood of Blackheads put on their suits of armour and jousted on horseback; they would debate who was the strongest knight and who would stay in the saddle, and when Ursula squealed with excitement at every skirmish, Simon would only grunt something in acknowledgement. On those occasions Ursula always felt somehow very secure,
protected,
because Simon had also been taught to fight with a spear and shield. Every citizen of the town was supposed to be able to defend their own town, defend the people, defend the womenfolk and the weak. Together they had run beyond the Seaward Gate to the parrot competition and put bets on their own favourite birds; together they had hopped up and down among the people when the newly chosen May King rode through the town with his sweetheart, and that spring Ursula had again asked Simon if, when
he
got to be May King, he would choose her as his maiden.

Ursula had asked that every spring for a number of years now, and Simon had always said that, yes, he would choose Ursula and he wouldn't choose anyone else, because Ursula had the reddest hair in all Tallinn.

But this year – Ursula remembered it well – Simon had delayed
with his answer; maybe because Ursula had asked in a slightly different tone, but she only understood that later. And Simon, too, had answered differently, had looked at Ursula differently and answered hesitantly – not that he was not certain of it, but it was harder for him to express it, as if he wanted to say more than usual but didn't actually dare. And he probably did say more than Ursula had asked.

They were no longer children. So they were told, and they believed it and knew, although they didn't say it, that it was no longer appropriate for them to appear in front of the townspeople together
so much.
Now they had to behave in a more decent and restrained fashion, and they started to seek out places to be together where they were less in the public eye – behind the town wall along the edge of the field, in the town's gardens or behind the churches. Nothing else needed to change – they were still friends, talking, chatting, playing – yet they were less inclined to play together now. They didn't make games up any more. They talked about adult things, they talked – in so far as Simon talked at all – about
themselves.

Ursula had noticed this change only a couple of months ago. Much to her surprise she had realized that now they spoke more about themselves, their ideas, their wishes, the future; and perhaps about feelings, too, but in a somehow concealed way. They no longer confessed secrets to one another, and they kept things back.

And when they played, they played a different game to the ones a year earlier. Ursula didn't know what the game was called.

Ursula had found a hidden corner in the courtyard of the so-called Unterrainer house. One could climb into it along the wall of the old stables from the garden that lay between the houses of the merchants Goswin and Wolze. It was the sort of place that didn't seem to belong to anyone, not to Master Goswin nor to Pastor Gottschalk Witte, who lived in the Unterrainer house. A large bush grew there, and the corner was overshadowed by the wooden shed of the Unterrainer house. There, between the houses on a narrow path leading from the shed, where the ventilating windows of the salt-cellars
opened, was the courtyard of the Unterrainer house and the exit to Rataskaevu Street. At some point there must have been a gate there, but by this time it had rotted away, and one could quickly get to the street. If either of them needed to avoid detection, one could escape along the wall of the old stables and over a patch of garden and turn up all innocent by the well before heading off towards St Nicholas's. Meanwhile the other could, looking equally innocent, go through the Unterrainer yard to Rataskaevu Street and out through the gate on Pikk Hill.

This was a safe place, somewhere they could talk undisturbed and play the game they now seemed to be playing. Today Ursula believed that it was possible to win this game and that the winner would get a reward.

They were sitting close together on a block of wood, and Simon said that Münster is a beautiful big town, there are many fine castles and fortresses and kings around there, and everyone wants splendid gold jewellery, and there would be no lack of work for a good goldsmith.

‘If it's a big town, there should be plenty of red-headed girls, shouldn't there?' asked Ursula, and Simon replied that, yes, there probably would be.

‘Interesting. So when you choose a wife for yourself, you'll choose a red-headed girl?' Ursula suggested casually, loading her voice with indifference.

Some time passed before the boy replied. His voice, too, attempted to show indifference. ‘But I don't want to be with you just because of your red hair,' he said finally, ‘and I'm not thinking about getting married at all just yet.'

‘Oh, you must be,' laughed Ursula. ‘All boys think about what it will be like to be married to a woman, sleeping in the same bed with her and having children with her.'

Simon stayed awkwardly silent. Ursula's shoulders shivered, and she shifted a little closer to him. The dimmer the light became, the sadder the Unterrainer house seemed. People said the house was haunted – not that Ursula knew anyone who had seen the ghost.

‘I don't think about any of those things at all,' ventured the boy.

‘Do you know what they say about this house?' the girl asked suddenly. ‘About the merchant, Unterrainer, who brought his young wife here?'

‘Ah, those are just empty and ungodly tales.'

‘I was listening in once when people were talking about this house. They thought I couldn't hear, you see. You know, they said that Unterrainer didn't want to sleep with his wife in the same bed, and he tortured that woman terribly, and she became very unhappy because her heart was yearning for some man to love her. She was a very unhappy woman. And then a monk came to comfort her. But the husband caught his wife with the monk … kissing.'

That was not exactly what Ursula had heard, but she didn't dare repeat the actual word. When it came to it, she was a decent young lady. The boy mumbled something unclear.

‘Exactly,' Ursula continued. ‘They were kissing, and not like relatives or good friends but like husband and wife, like that, long and …'

He remained silent because he didn't really know how they might have been kissing.

‘How then?' the boy asked quietly.

‘Well, not the way
we
would ever kiss,' said Ursula. ‘Anyway, the husband caught them at it and chopped them dead with a sword and buried them, and ever since then they've been haunting the house here.'

‘Merchants don't carry swords,' said the boy dully, and Ursula sighed and thought how she couldn't tell him any more clearly what she meant. But just as she was thinking this she suddenly felt the boy's arms around her, and a wet kiss was pressed on her cheek. She felt his teeth and his soft downy hair and … and nothing more. The arms were pulled away suddenly, as the boy shifted away from her.

‘Simon,' whispered Ursula, and in that whisper there was a note of real reproach.

‘I'm sorry,' said Simon quickly.

‘Simon, oh, Simon,' whispered the girl again. She didn't know exactly either how the kissing should be done but certainly in a different way from that.

At that moment they heard a screech. It might have been an old door, or some chain, or something, but in any case it came from close by, and it sounded somehow ominous. Ursula was startled, but before she could say anything she felt a light gust of wind, which brought a stale musty stench to them.

And then they saw a movement in front of them. Something white flashed for a moment through the dusk, something strange, odd and ghostly, some pale form that departed in a trice.

And suddenly they heard a voice. It was a voice from beyond the grave, a low drone, a long howl of lament, echoing off the wall of the Unterrainer house and moving terrifyingly through the soft summer evening. It was not the voice of a living person; it was ghastly and full of hatred, enmity and complaint.

They took to their heels, together, as they had always done as children when something frightened them. They ran, climbed, rushed, stumbled into each other, and the boy's strong hands grasped the girl's waist and helped her as they fled through the narrow passage from the edge of the wall of the old stables on to the patch of garden, on past the well, stopping only when they had reached the shade of the big linden tree in St Nicholas's Churchyard. Here, on sanctified ground, the ghost would not be allowed to touch them.

They were panting, their bodies pressed together. Simon's tough body and long arms now offered Ursula protection, of a kind she had never felt in her life before. The girl didn't have to say anything. The boy's lips found hers. Now they kissed.

Properly, like a man and a woman.

M
ELCHIOR
HAD
HAD
so much to do that day in the pharmacy that he didn't make it to the evening sermon at the Dominican church. Plenty of people came to the shop, which was good for business, but his thoughts kept returning to the death of Master Bruys. Not that he saw anything especially odd in it, no. Master Bruys's time had come, and no one would know that better than him, since he had had the book
Ars Moriendi
copied by the Dominicans. This was the book on the art of dying, which had just recently been approved by the Council of Constance; those who followed the teachings in the book were growing in number all the time. It spoke of the virtues of a Godfearing life and how a Christian should prepare himself for death. Everyone must be ready for death, must accept it with joy and enthusiasm, for the best preparation for a good death is a righteous and God-fearing life. Melchior had once talked about this with the Dominican Brother Hinric, and Hinric had greatly praised Master Bruys's piety and how that merchant had followed the letter and spirit of it and was getting ready for death. And, coming from Hinric, these words meant a lot, because he – unlike Melchior – did not approve of the building of a new convent in Tallinn. But at this point Melchior's thoughts went back to the unfortunate Tower-Master, who had also met his end in the night, but it was Hinric he had wanted to talk to. This seemed a little strange to Melchior, because he knew Hinric well and regarded the Dominican as his
friend. And he did not recall Hinric ever mentioning Master Grote.

Evening had come, and Melchior was sitting at his accounts book, making calculations, and was just coming to the numbers that would show whether he could write down a profit on the medicines ordered by the merchants in the spring. Business had gone well this year.

Later his wife Keterlyn came into the shop with the twins – Melchior, the son of Apothecary Melchior Wakenstede, his heir, a five-year-old lad, and Agatha, the lass who was born with him. Melchior kissed his wife on the lips and placed the children on his lap. It was important that they didn't start playing with his apothecary's apparatus and that they treat their father's work with respect from an early age. An apothecary's pharmacy was no place for play, but, when the time came, his son would learn the trade alongside his father.

Just as Melchior had learned from his father.