Apothecary Melchior and the Mystery of St Olaf's Church (17 page)

‘Yes,' the Apothecary continued, ‘and would I be mistaken if I also postulated that the household had a major-domo? The murderer did not enter from outside; he came from within the house.'

Gallenreutter seemed somewhat disappointed but acknowledged that Melchior was correct in his guesses. ‘No, Melchior, you err not. That very same major-domo had recently purchased an identical hemp rope
and, after he had been tortured for a short time, confessed that he and the councilman's wife had been staining the master's sheets probably since the very day the councilman brought the young man into his house.'

‘Have some clemency, Master Gallenreutter,' the listeners shouted upon hearing this. ‘What a dreadful tale.'

Even Pastor Rode stood up angrily and proclaimed, ‘Womenfolk! Temptresses! Serpents! Even St Augustine said they must be kept away from holy men.'

‘I hope that whore was stoned to death,' the Commander grunted.

‘Oh no. She was buried alive,' Gallenreutter replied. ‘The major-domo was hanged, although he had admitted on the rack that the woman had bewitched him and seduced him into murdering her husband. They had planned to sell off the councilman's assets after his death and continue to live their life of sin in some other town. However, what I wanted to say through this story was that even when there are no witnesses to a murder, some clever man can always be found.'

‘As can such a magistrate …' Melchior quipped.

‘Yes, and our magistrate is – as we know now– a sharp and clever chap. But some astute man able to read the signs a criminal leaves behind must always be found; a man who can track down witnesses even when it seems at first as if there is none. Even the most impossible of crimes can be deciphered and the guilty parties served their just punishment.'

Then the festivities continued, as no one wished to hear any more such horrifying tales. Melchior visited the rear courtyard to relieve himself and afterwards moved around the room from one conversation to another. Prior Eckell and Master Goldsmith Casendorpe had begun to talk business. The Prior may have been gravely ill, but the management of monastery affairs did not seem too far from his mind even at the beersampling table. He assured the artisan that no one paid as good a price for the craftsman's gold as the Dominicans.

‘Our brothers sold so much good oily herring to the vassals over the last fasting that our money will rust if we do not get rid of it quickly. We can also count the free masses and prayers said for all of your deceased family members as payments in kind,' Eckell assured the Goldsmith, who still seemed doubtful.

‘Gold is in short supply, Father,' Casendorpe reasoned. ‘Gold is expensive, as you well know, and it is rising in price. The last ship that was
supposed to bring me gold from Bruges either sank or was ransacked by that Vogt of Turku …'

Melchior could tell the Goldsmith had already made his final decision and was simply pushing the price up. He will, without question, make that precious golden chalice for the Dominicans' altar – of that Melchior was certain.

Sire Tweffell was positioned near Kilian at the beer table and instructing the minstrel in the principles of shrewd business. Kilian sat listening attentively, seeming to pay not the slightest heed to Freisinger's repeated demands for him to play his lute. He was much more interested in what he was being told about wax trading.

The evening's fine beer had unbound Tweffell's tongue. ‘Buy wax from the Russians in winter,' he tutored, ‘and drive the price down so far that they start to shout with rage – and don't even think of speaking about this to anyone before St George's Day either. Don't bother selling it in Livonia; everyone here is poor. Sell it instead to Bruges where there are moneyed monasteries – and a large number of them at that. When they start dipping candles they do it till their fingers bleed – and they do not sleep for weeks on end; all they do is make candles.'

‘I will remember that, dear uncle,' Kilian promised obediently. ‘Of course you'll remember it. When I am under the ground who else will instruct you? No man has ever become rich by playing tunes either. Now, where was I? Ah, so, if you want to buy felt and fabric from Bruges, then, you know, I've heard that those damned Victual Brothers, of whom our sea is now much clearer, have – at least as many of the demons there are left since their chief's head was chopped off – now based themselves near Zeeland and continue to pirate merchant ships from there. And I'll say, too, that the Teutonic Order may have trounced them on Gotland, yet who pays for all of those war-going galleys that purify the sea of this scourge?
Hanseatic merchants
pay for them. It is the merchants not the Order or any other overlord.
We
pay. We pay for our own laws and rights and all else. Tell me, boy, what good would these barons and
Fürsten
be without merchants? Where would they obtain their fine clothing and silver plates? My eyes will not see such a time, but yours might look out on a world when barons bow before traders.'

To his surprise Melchior noticed that Spanheim had left his table of honour in order to hear the Master Mason of Westphalia spin his tales. The Apothecary slipped in amongst the men while Gallenreutter rambled
on about how constructing a castle, a church and a house are completely different art forms. The most difficult of these was, of course, a church.

‘A church does not merely have to be pleasing to the eye,' he continued, ‘it must be visible from afar. A church is not built by one single master, because a man needs to know so much and has to consult others who also possess great knowledge – and not just about sacred matters. A master must have knowledge of the town, of its people and its history. Just as in the construction of any building, a church begins first and foremost with digging. You dig at the site of the future church in order to build strong foundations. You root and sift through the layers of mixed earth; you dig deeper and you see what stood on that place before and all that there is within the folds of the earth. Alas, time has no other path – the old must always make way for the new.'

Several others were listening to Gallenreutter, Pastor Rode and even Kilian amongst them – since Sire Tweffell had pulled some councilmen aside in the meantime to complain about the shoddy work done by the Tallinn Mint. Gallenreutter's narrative rippled smoothly from church construction to the Guild of Stonemasons, the membership of which included many Estonians that spoke German oh-so poorly and who occasionally even conducted affairs in some strange tongue amongst themselves as if they were not baptized Christians at all.

‘Estonians? Yes, they are good stonecutters,' the Commander grunted, elbowing his way into the conversation. ‘Brutish, burly men. Fine warriors. None can contend with them when it comes to swinging a battleaxe. Devil's dawn – they've the brawn of many men put together.'

‘One evening,' Gallenreutter continued, ‘I made merry with them beyond the town walls, although they did not understand my manner of speaking very well nor I theirs …'

‘That language of theirs is devilish, yes, such that the God of Christians certainly did not come up with it,' the Commander affirmed. ‘Although you hand them a battleaxe, send them against the Russians and they will chop and chop and chop.'

‘But their songs,' continued the Master Mason, ‘I didn't understand their songs nor they mine.'

Kilian and a couple of Blackheads immediately began pressing Gallenreutter to state whether he was a singing man. The Westphalian Master maintained that his mouth worked better with food and beer than it did singing and that he certainly was not blessed with the gift of music.

‘A mason's trowel, that is my instrument. With a trowel I can truly conjure incredible and godly tunes. However, if a whistle happens into my hands then even stray dogs try to flee my presence,' Gallenreutter exclaimed raucously. Still, Melchior noted again that the Westphalian Master was in no way as drunk as he seemed to want to pretend.

‘So what you are saying is that you still
occasionally
sing, Sire Gallenreutter,' Kilian persisted.

‘Ah, what singing, really? I stirred up a racket there in the tavern, singing a song I thought that the masters of Tallinn's guilds should know, but, alas, they had never heard of it,' Gallenreutter hollered in return.

‘No matter. You sing,' Kilian exclaimed and positioned his lute. ‘Sing for us, Master Mason, sing, and I will play. So, how goes that song? Worry not, sire. I've travelled across half the world and know more tunes than I would be able to perform over the entire forty days of Lent.'

An even larger crowd had now collected around Gallenreutter, amongst them Sire Casendorpe, who asked what song it was which all Tallinn guildsmen should supposedly know. He himself was unaware of any such thing.

‘Ah, it is an old song said to have originated in Tallinn itself, composed by the very first guild to make its way to these parts,' Gallenreutter declared.

Casendorpe erupted into laughter. ‘Well then, ask the Master Blackhead, as they believe themselves to be the very oldest here in Tallinn. Ha! The oldest … what rubbish. Our Guild of St Canute was already famed across the entire Hanseatic League
and
the Holy Roman Empire before anyone had even
heard
of the Blackheads.'

Freisinger immediately bustled over to the group of men upon overhearing Casendorpe's boast. ‘What is this I hear? Is someone casting aspersions on the age of our guild?' he enquired good-naturedly.

‘I cast nothing. I simply stated that you are not nearly as old as Jesus Christ or the city of Rome,' the Goldsmith declared loudly.

‘I remember now how that old song went,' Gallenreutter exclaimed. ‘I cannot sing well, but I can recall a few verses. I think it is in a very old dialect. Kilian, play.'

The Master Mason truly lacked skills in the art of singing. None the less, his voice rang clear and strong as he followed Kilian's melody, reciting loudly and articulately:

Come, for daybreak is nigh and light gleams from the east

oh, my friend, our seven brothers await thee at the crossroads

nonpareil the Lord's temple, to which they'll show ye the way

radial compass and trowels, they hold

aid them to drink the light that glimmers at the grave

their oaths as ancient as Solomon's wisdom

unto the seven masters, their shields extended

solemn Death drapes in his cloak he who is afore all

Favete linguis et memento mori

relic calls afar for its blood

elegiac yesterday is closer to Christ's blood which floweth down the walls.

Gallenreutter gave a powerful performance, and all the men seated at the table fell silent and listened. When Gallenreutter had finished Kilian put down his lute and sighed heavily. The song had not been all that special after all.

‘Master Gallenreutter, I certainly have no knowledge of such a song. It isn't even much like a song but rather some kind of riddle,' Kilian said glumly.

‘Truly, Gallenreutter, that may be some kind of ditty or riddle of the masons, but never in my lifetime have I heard that in our Guild of St Canute,' said Casendorpe. ‘And if the guildsmen of St Olaf's are unaware of it, then …' He turned to address members of the other guilds. ‘Hey, Sire Tweffell and you others. Listen, do you know any song about seven brothers, Solomon, a trowel and walls and death that covers something with its cloak … or how did that go again?'

‘What in the name of St Victor are you asking now, Master Goldsmith?' Tweffell barked hoarsely, pulling himself away from a conversation with the councilmen. ‘My old ears did not hear.'

‘Our guest from the town of Warendorf wishes to know whether men of the Great Guild know a song about seven brothers who, at dawn, show someone the way somewhere, and there's the temple of the Lord and some sort of trowel?'

‘Holy Christ, you've had far too much beer, Master Goldsmith, and I cannot understand a word you're saying,' Tweffell huffed in irritation. ‘What seven brothers? What trowel?'

Casendorpe shrugged and turned back towards Gallenreutter. ‘You
see, no one knows a thing about such a song. No doubt you recall it incorrectly.'

‘It is not really a song but rather a riddle,' Kilian repeated. ‘I have never heard it before.'

‘If it is a riddle then it must also have an answer, but I have no idea what it is meant to mean,' said the Goldsmith. ‘Ask our pastors; maybe they know. If they do not, then they do not, and the mystery of your riddle will remain a mystery to us.'

‘No doubt every town has its secrets,' Gallenreutter replied – but just at that moment, some men on the other side of the table were demanding that more beer be poured, as Ulm the merchant had knocked his tankard over. Freisinger rushed over to see whether the man could mop up the spill with his sleeve or whether a fine was to be paid. The latter instance would not, of course, mean that he would not receive a new stein of beer, but the Dominicans' bock was already starting to run out, to the great disappointment of all. Freisinger proclaimed that this was of no consequence, as the Blackheads' own five-veering beer could now be tapped. The Master Blackhead had purchased several casks of the brew today and now commanded the servants to roll them into the hall. Hearing this the Pastor of the Church of the Holy Ghost remarked that the Blackheads appeared to have a treasury comparable with that of the King of England.

‘Don't you worry, Pastor,' Freisinger laughed. ‘The Blackheads have enough wealth to maintain an altar at the Dominican Monastery, and if they so wished could also have one at your church, were it deemed necessary.'

‘What I have heard,' Gallenreutter exclaimed, sitting next to Melchior, ‘what I heard when I began my journey to Tallinn … what is said everywhere is that this is a poor town and there are no great coffers or piles of wealth to be found.'