Arcane II (16 page)

Hugging myself, I prayed to St. Jude to please look down and save my dog. He’s the saint who always protects us; I got his cult from my mother’s use. He’s the kind who doesn’t drop you when you let him down; and now I’d lost the work the bishop promised, and my best ratter too. Why did Fida run away? Had she fallen in with a pack of wolves? Feeling grieved, and cold to the bone, I stumbled back to the gardener’s hut.

Soon as I got the door open again I gagged at the slaughter-house reek. Plucking a splint from the basket of kindling, I lit it on the embers and held it up—and there lay poor Hans, sprawled on his bed-sack like a broken toy, his throat torn open, his face a dead howl, shirt torn to rags and one foot bare. Creeping closer I saw the marks in his flesh I know too well. What if I’d stayed inside with him? Would I have woken up quick and saved him?

In all my years of catching rats—with dogs and nets and traps and hands—never had I met up with a pack that mobbed a sleeping man. Rats like our food, and they love our garbage; they’ll gnaw on leather or carrion too; but for live prey they mostly pick on critters smaller than themselves. Wouldn’t you?

I pulled a patched blanket over the body. “Lord, have mercy on his soul,” I groaned. I felt sick to my stomach, but getting hot like a taunted bull. This old miner was kind; he didn’t deserve such a painful death. Oh, I’d find the burrow of these rats; I’d root them out and slaughter them. What man or beast in the German lands could do a better job?

First I had to tell the sisters how they lost their gardener.

***

I kept pulling on the gate’s chain, and the deep bell tolled like the end of the world. Wrapped in my cloak I stood shivering in the murky light before dawn. Yes, this winter would be cruel, even if the new sickness I’d heard of stayed in the south.

“Stop it.” Sieghilde glared through the gate. “Why are you alarming our community?”

“I need to speak to your abbess, sister. Rats ripped out your gardener’s throat.”

“And what have you been drinking, rat-catcher?”

“Sister, I know the bite marks in his flesh. I swear by the Holy Cross.”

She pursed her lips as if she’d swallowed vinegar. “Come along, man, and mind your manners.” The gate creaked open, and in the wan light Our Lady of Sorrow lay before me: a crescent of newish, half-timbered houses, most linked to a chapel of grey stone. Beyond the low chapel I saw neat gardens, and an orchard heavy with late apples.

“Follow me,” croaked the sister and strode towards the finest house, which stood higher than the chapel’s cross. Tagging along I heard women’s voices singing sweet and high, but I couldn’t understand one word; their tongue didn’t sound like Latin—or German.

Tramping ahead, my guide ignored me, and suddenly the strange singing ceased. Had I dreamed it, another nightmare? Only my belly’s grumbling proved I still walked in the land of the living.

“St. Jude, I beg you,” I mouthed, trotting after Sieghilde up a flight of stairs. “Please preserve me and my dog.” When the gaunt sister stopped at a pointed arch and knocked on a varnished, oaken door, a strong voice called out, “Enter.”

I stepped after the lean nun into a hall all hung with blooming garden tapestries. How had I landed back in July? Those fruits and berries looked good enough to eat, and I smelled a cloying sweetness. How could woven things smell sweet?

A shapely woman rose from behind a desk and nodded at me like a queen. Fleshy as a pampered house cat, she wore a black and white habit like Sieghilde’s but neat and clean. A silver crucifix hung on her breast, and her face and hands looked pale and smooth; oh, she must have servants to tend her. Abbess Meine was very beautiful, with eyes of jewel green and dark, full lips like overripe cherries.

“
Guten Morgen
,” she said, and I echoed her; and Sieghilde glared at my torn cap, so I plucked it off and stood twisting it in my hands. “So you’re the rat-catcher from Wernigerode?” From a gilded cage, a red-crested bird piped up, “Rat-catcher!” startling me—and before I could catch my breath, a golden monkey, little as a lapdog, flung itself into the abbess’s arms. Toying with her crucifix, it peered up at me with blood-red eyes until I shuddered like a frightened lad; I couldn’t help myself.

“You put him away.” The young abbess handed her pet to Sieghilde, who strode from the hall with a sour expression. Waving me to a wooden chair, she resumed her cushioned seat. Three tomes lay open on her trestle desk, with sheets of written vellum and a sharpened goose feather. Oh, she was a
scholar
too, and now she studied me like a two-headed calf.

“The bishop—” I began boldly.

“I’ve seen his letter, man.”

“Reverend Mother, you do have a plague of rats here. Last night they bit your gardener to death.”

“So I hear, rat-catcher.” Slowly she straightened her silver chain, while I tried not to stare at her generous breasts. I should just run for the woods tonight, run all the way back to Wernigerode. What about poor Fida, though? And what about the bishop’s silver?

“I’d like to do the work our bishop sent me for,” I said at last. “I need this work.”

She smiled like a freezing waterfall. “Then be my guest. When can you start your
useful
work?”

“Right away, if you like.”

“How long can you stay with us, rat-catcher?”

“Until the job’s done right and proper. I’ve never needed more than three or four days.”

“You’re quick as sin.” Her upper lip curled. Was this a jest?

“Please understand, I never guarantee to kill you every single rat. They’re cunning devils, and I’m no magician to make them follow me by piping them a tune.”

“What a pity. Rat-catcher, are you are worth your wages?”

“Sure. Your bishop’s paying me.”

“Then you may stay on at our gardener’s cottage. I’ll have it purified, and each day we’ll send you food and drink.”

“That’s good; that’s a decent bargain. Can you tell me anything to help me? Where could your rats be nesting? I’ve never known big packs to breed in the woods, and all of your buildings look so new.”

“These hills are riddled with old mining tunnels.”

“That’s where your rats must be hiding, then. They do love the warmth of the earth.”

Silently the abbess laughed at me, her nostrils flaring like a winded horse’s. Blushing, I wrung my cap and wished I’d stayed in Wernigerode, even if I had to beg my bread at the church door.

At last she said, as if prompting a child, “Why don’t you start by poking around in the gardener’s hut?”

***

Feeling downcast as I trudged back there, I kept wailing Fida’s name. Maybe hunger would drive her back to me? If she was still alive.

I cursed the bishop for his silver; if he hadn’t tempted me with his upfront payment I’d still have my dog. On the other hand, if I did this work I could add to my reputation: “Rat-catcher Durr clears forest convent of rats that murdered a sleeping man.” I’d pay a scribe to write me this handbill, as soon as I got back to Wernigerode. I’d nail it up across from the church, and people who could read would praise my exploit. Maybe a minstrel would write me a ballad? They’ll write you a song for a coin, I’ve heard.

Back at the hut, the sisters had lugged the corpse away and scoured the floorboards. I still could make out faint blood stains, though. Maybe the sisters burned incense; I sniffed something like honey gone bad.

Quickly I rummaged through the old man’s gear. A battered trunk holding miner’s tools stood against the back wall, covering most of a gaping hole I hadn’t seen. I crossed myself and called upon St. Jude, stuck my paw through the hole and groped at nothing. This must be an old tunnel then; where else could those rats have run in from?

I lit a candle, set it in a lantern and boldly crept into the hole. I found a man-sized tunnel of hard-packed earth, timbers supporting it every few paces. It ran downhill towards the convent, and I soon came upon the old man’s missing boot: the rats had carried it off and gnawed it to rags.

Faintly I heard women singing in their foreign tongue. The tunnel grew smaller, so I crept forward on my hard-callused hands and knees. After a while my candle sputtered out, but I’m used to working in the dark. Soon I felt a flicker of fresher air, and dead ahead the tunnel brightened.

Here I found an opening, big enough for a guard dog and masked with branches. Peeking out through the evergreen tangle I saw the gardens at the chapel’s back. I crawled out, and a woman standing close enough to catch cried, “Mercy!” Clothed in white from head to toe, her wimple in loose folds around her face, the novice looked pretty as a wildflower in December. What a surprise.

“Don’t be afraid, Sister.” I held up my empty hands. “I’m just the rat-catcher, Franz Durr. I’m searching for their burrows.”

“The abbess told us.” Her voice sweet and low, she looked pale as a sculpture of the Virgin in a nave. Couldn’t have been more than seventeen... I felt ashamed of my cracked leather breeches, my coarse and rat-bitten hands. To her I must look like a beast from the woods; what a wonder she didn’t flee. To my surprise, she took a shy step closer.

“Herr Durr, I am Sister Kunigunde. Please, won’t you help me to—
escape
?”

“What are you saying, Sister?”

“Hush.” She drew me behind a sprawling bush of thorns. “The sisters keep me here against my will. My father sold me to this convent.”

“But—”

“Forgive me, I must go; they are watching me. I’ll be here tomorrow when the sun’s as high.” She flitted towards the chapel like a fledgling fallen from the nest, not ready to fly. She glanced back once, and I waved at her, moonstruck.

Kunigunde: a pretty name. A little old-fashioned, maybe. I wouldn’t fall for this temptation; I had work to do.

***

That afternoon in the tunnels I caught a dozen common rats and stowed them in my knotted sack. Frankly it would grieve me to drown them; these couldn’t be the ones that killed old Hans.

Back at his hut I found a basket of moldy bread and greeny meat—and a flask of wine. This I sniffed, my parched mouth flooding. Red wine: in my life I’d tasted it twice. Our northern lands brew brandy, mead and beer, but no grapes flourish in the clammy soil. Where did these nuns buy such fine drink?

Knowing my weakness, I poured all that wine out under a tree. At my mother’s grave, with my hand on the wooden cross I’d made—and I
still
couldn’t pay for a stone for her—I’d made a vow to stay sober, and now I’d kept that vow for almost one month.

***

That night I pushed the chest against the hole and piled heavy stones on top. I pulled apart the bed-sack’s straw and added it, handful by handful, to the fire until I had myself a leaping blaze.

Missing Fida and old Hans, and too lazy to kill the rats in my bag, I curled up next to the fire. Oh, a man gets killed, and the very next night you burn up his bedding to warm your own bones. I felt a twitch of guilt at that, while savoring my fire.

Lulled by the chattering flames then, I drowsed off and dreamed of Kunigunde, peeping back at me over her shoulder, out of a meadow of nodding flowers. Slowly she lifted her white robe, and underneath—as bare as a baby. Laughing at me, she skipped away—daring me to catch her? I stood rooted as a tree.

Yearning to see her I squirmed on the floor. What was that rustling, behind me? The rats in my sack were squeaking, and then one bit me right in the cheek! I woke thrashing in a horde of rats: cat-sized, with hot-coal eyes. “Save me, St. Jude!” I shouted, clawing at the critters whose ropy tails cracked like whips. Grabbing two—they burned my hands—I hurled them away, and one landed in the fire. Whoosh—and he vanished in a curl of smoke.

Just as suddenly all were smoke, and I lay panting like a dog on the floor. Had I dreamed them too? No, when I stirred up the fire I found tracks of their feet on the boards, marked out in my blood. I was quicker than Hans though, being closer to a rat myself. His door stood fastened, his trunk in its place, the wall’s gap covered by the stones I’d piled.

My bitten cheek started to burn and pulse, warning of more pain. Quickly I boiled up a poultice, using dried herbs from my pack and the snow I gathered. Although these good herbs softened the pain, an evil black liquid oozed from my wound, so I lay on my back and tried not to move, tried not to breathe at all.

These were no ordinary rats. When the sun came up I should run for my life; I could always train another dog. As for Bishop Bonifatius, he needed an
exorcist
for this problem. I’m just a simple working man; I can’t even write my name... To hell with glory, to hell with silver, I’d be glad to leave this forest nest of rats with both boots on my feet.

When I heard a lone bird greet the dawn, I sat up, head almost bursting. Day’s clean light refreshed my courage. No, I wouldn’t shirk my work.

Or was it Kunigunde I still wanted? The old longings she stirred—that little white witch—wouldn’t die down, meek as an unfed fire; and on they smoldered, deep in the rotten stump of my loveless heart.

***

My rat bite felt hard and swollen, and swallowing water burned my throat. I’d be a pickled fool to waste more work on common rats... I needed to find the killers’ burrow, kill them, and take a few as trophies. Bishop Bonifatius should pay me double for all my trouble and pain.

This bad bite would leave me scarred on my cheek like a brand, if it didn’t kill me. People would fear me like the pox or a plague, and flee before they knew my trade, yelling that I bore the mark of Cain. Would all the world’s jingling silver ever make me a friend again? Pretty women fear men with scarred faces; they swear we bring them evil fortune.

These were my gloomy thoughts, while I made ready a kit of nets and knives. I lit myself a candle, stuck it in the lantern and ventured back into the tunnels’ night, wishing with all my gnarled heart that I still had my dog. Fida had the better nose for rats and could spare me hours of wandering.

As I hurried along, the tunnel looked shored up here and there with fresh-cut wood, as if miners still were digging out ore. How could this be? In the earthen walls I saw silver gleams, like seams not yet tapped out. A man might make his fortune here, scraping out this ore and hauling it away in a double-sewn sack like mine. I knew my duty, though, or thought I did, and passed these temptations by.