“I wasn’t talking about you.”
“It sounded very much like it.”
“You could have asked who I was talking about. Anyway, what do I do? Lie on my back for God knows who. And why do I do it? So I don’t have to sleep in some stinking ditch. You’ve got to look after yourself. Still I let you come here whenever I’m free. But you don’t know when you’re onto a good thing. As soon as someone gives you something, you can’t wait to give it away. Someone gives you shelter and you drag that riffraff along.”
“I’m part of that riffraff, too.”
“But it’s my room! And it’s my business who I let in and who not!”
Jacob said nothing. She was right, really. If he tried to look after everyone he felt sorry for there wouldn’t have been enough room in the whole of Berlich.
“Have an apple,” he said, somewhat helplessly.
Her hand didn’t move, but it was pure pride. Her eyes were fixed on the fruits. “They look good,” she admitted.
“Of course. They belong to the archbishop. Belonged.”
“I wish you hadn’t gone to get them.”
“Why?”
“Now you’ve got it into your head you’ve seen the Devil. It sends shivers down my spine.”
“I don’t know if it was the Devil.”
“It wasn’t anyone. Wilhilde’s client said two men were standing opposite the back of the chancel and saw Gerhard slip.”
“They’re lying.”
“Why should they do that? You fell out of the tree and people came and the black shadow chased you. So why didn’t all the people see the black shadow, tell me that, then?”
“Maria.”
“Because there wasn’t one!” she concluded triumphantly.
“So why am I telling you all this? Do you take me for a liar?”
She gave a sly smile. “No. But you might want to attract attention to yourself with your fairy story, so that all sorts of people will want to hear it. And fill your glass to get you to tell it. The next thing, there’ll be an investigation and you’ll be summoned before the Holy Inquisition.” At this she quickly crossed herself. “They’ll want to hear what you have to say, and in no time at all the insignificant fox will have turned into a great big bear.”
“You’re crazy. We don’t have the Inquisition in Cologne. Anyway, do you think anyone would listen to me if even you don’t believe me?”
She gave him a thoughtful look. “Yes, I do. There are plenty of fools in the world. They’ll believe anything as long as the story’s spine-chilling enough.”
“But it’s true!”
“Jacob!” There was a threatening undertone in her voice. “Do you want to make me angry?”
“Christ Almighty!” He was getting angry, too. “Gerhard spoke to me!”
“It gets better all the time.”
“He said—”
“I can’t wait to hear.”
The mocking tone was just too sharp. Jacob had had enough. He stood up and went to the door without a glance at Maria. There he stopped, his eye tracing the grain of the wood in the floorboards.
He was so furious he was trembling all over. “Perhaps you will find your nobleman to take you away from here,” he spat out. “Though I can’t imagine anyone would stoop so low.”
Her speechlessness was tangible.
Jacob didn’t wait for a reply. He strode out and down the stairs, swearing he would never set foot in this house again.
Never again.
He was almost at the bottom when he heard her howl of fury. Something flew out of the open door and hit the wall with a crash. She’d probably thrown the candlestick at him. Clenching his teeth, he went out into the rain, while Clemens and Margarethe exchanged bewildered stares before returning to their business with a shrug of the shoulders.
He did not see the shadow that appeared at the far end of the street, and the shadow did not see him.
They missed each other by a heartbeat. to bend down. He drew back his black hood.
Urquhart went to the whorehouse, thumped on the door with his fist, and entered without waiting. The doorway was so low he had
A hunched, greasy fellow roasting something over the fire stared up at him with wrinkled brow. Two women were sitting dozing on a bench. One was quite pretty, the other probably cheap. There was a smell of cabbage, burned meat, and something indefinable it was better not to inquire too closely about.
“Good evening,” he said softly.
The old man by the fire started to say something, then stopped. He subjected Urquhart to a thorough scrutiny. A servile smile appeared on his face. He jumped up, as far as his bent back allowed, and shuffled across the room toward him. He had clearly decided that Urquhart might be good business. The prettier of the two women gaped at the blond giant and hastily nudged the other, who started and opened her eyes, revealing a severe squint.
Urquhart slowly moved to the middle of the room and looked round. The landlord regarded him expectantly. “A girl?” he asked tentatively.
Urquhart gave the old man a speculative look. Putting one arm round his crooked shoulders, he took him to one side and whispered, “Later. Perhaps you can help me.”
“Perhaps.” The landlord drew out the word, grinning up at Urquhart. “And perhaps you will take pity on poor people like us. Otherwise—I mean, you get more forgetful as you get older—”
Urquhart smiled. “Oh, you won’t forget my visit, I can promise you that.”
“That’s different.” The hunchbacked landlord put on his most eager-to-please expression. “What can I do for you?”
“Someone, whose name I’ve forgotten, was here tonight. His hair”—he gave the landlord a confidential wink—“is at least as striking as mine. Though probably less well acquainted with a comb.”
A light appeared in the landlord’s eyes. “Red? Bright red?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s Jacob, that is.”
“Jacob?”
“Jacob the Fox. That’s what they call him.” The landlord twirled a finger around his head. “You know.” He gave a laugh, as if Urquhart and he were friends.
“Of course.” So it was a Jacob he had killed. Why not? One Jacob fewer.
The two women were agog. “See to the food,” the old man barked at them. “And you can put those ears down. Do you want the gentleman to think he’s in a rabbit hutch?”
“So he was here?” Urquhart asked.
“You can say that again!”
“And what did he say?”
The landlord gave him a bewildered look. “What did he say?”
“That’s what I’m asking.” Urquhart felt inside his cloak, brought out a coin, and slipped it into the old man’s hand. It seemed a physiognomical impossibility, but an even broader grin appeared on his face.
“Well, he dropped hints about the roast,” he muttered, with a glance at the lump over that fire that was now identified as a roast. “Thought I might give him a slice. Huh!”
“That was all?”
“He was pretty brusque to me, the swine. Had some poor beggar in tow. No, he didn’t say anything. He went straight up to Maria.”
“Ah, Maria—” Urquhart pretended to be thinking. “I think he must have mentioned her once or twice.”
“Ah, my pride and joy!” The landlord tried to throw out his chest, resulting in a grotesque contortion. Then he plucked at Urquhart’s sleeve and whispered, with a conspiratorial grimace, “I could arrange for her to be available.” He jerked a contemptuous thumb over his shoulder. “She’s much better looking than those two.”
“Later. He didn’t speak to anyone else?”
Now it was the landlord’s turn to put on a show of rummaging around in the depths of his memory, where it appeared to be pitch black. Urquhart let him see the glint of another coin, but closed his hand before he could grasp it.
“No, no, definitely not. He didn’t say anything,” the old man quickly assured him. “I was down here all
the time, Margarethe too, and Wilhilde here—Wilhilde had, er, a visitor.”
“What about the other man you mentioned, is he still here?”
“Tilman? No.”
“Hmm.” Urquhart stared into space for a moment. Tilman? He’d see to him later. He had to sort things out here first.
“Have you heard about Gerhard Morart?” he asked.
Immediately the brothelkeeper’s expression changed to one of profound sadness. “Oh, yes, poor Master Gerhard.” His sudden grief was supported by a double cry of lamentation from the bench. “What a dreadful accident. Wilhilde’s, er, visitor brought the news. Dazzled by his vision of the Kingdom of Heaven, he stepped straight out into the air.”
“God rest his soul,” said Urquhart solemnly. The old man made a halfhearted attempt to cross himself.
So they knew nothing.
“At such times the love of a beautiful woman is a comfort.” The landlord sighed. “Don’t you think?”
“Yes,” said Urquhart softly, “why not?”
JACOB
The rain had eased off. The moon even appeared now and then.
Without really knowing why, Jacob had kept running until he reached New Market Square. He just felt the need to go somewhere and think things over. Where didn’t matter. Best of all would have been a nice tavern, but what would he do in a tavern without any money? So he had just set off at random and eventually found himself in the large meadow between the nunnery of St. Cecilia and the Church of the Apostles. It was where the cattle market was held and during the day it was full of horses and cattle, the cracking of whips, and the haggling of the dealers and customers, everything overlaid with the pungent smell of dung and urine.
Now it was dark and deserted. The only light was the torch at the entrance to the Malt Shovel. Jacob would have loved to be able afford to go in and crawl out on all fours. All the other houses around had an uninhabited air. At this time of night respectable people were in their beds, behind closed shutters.
That night more than ever, Jacob wished he was respectable.
Morosely he trudged across the marshy field to the drinking troughs and sat down by the pump. He tried to feel upset at Maria’s anger, but all he could feel was his own hurt pride. She was a whore. So what? At least she was something. Her beauty would find a home with some honest tradesman who didn’t feel it was beneath him to take her out of Clemens’s rat hole. All Jacob had to offer was what he could steal from others, and then only when he wasn’t caught, like this morning, or fell out of the archbishop’s tree.
For a moment his thoughts rested on the dyer’s daughter.
He and Maria had nothing more to say to each other, so much was clear. Poverty had held them together for a few weeks, but her pride had broken that tie. The worst thing about it was, he could understand her. All she was doing was cutting her coat according to her dreams in the hope of being able to grasp a hand from the world of respectability, from which a number of her clients came. For that she was prepared to forfeit the friendship of all those who had been her companions until now, the sick and downtrodden, beggars and thieves, the doomed and dishonored. Losers. Her friends.
The last will be first, thought Jacob. Why isn’t she content with what God has ordained? The poor are poor. The rich are there to give to the poor, and the poor to pray for the salvation of the rich, which in general was very necessary. That was the way of the world. What was wrong with it?
Nothing was wrong.
But, he followed his line of thought, if nothing is wrong, then nothing is right, either. Amazed at the logic of his conclusion, he jumped up. That explained the queasy feeling he got when the clergy started talking about each of us keeping to our proper stations. Keeping to them. Why should God object if a poor man tried to rise in the world? Were there not rich people who became poor, like that merchant, Berengar from Salzgasse? His business had gone from bad to worse, and now he went around with a begging bowl.
Perhaps Maria would get nowhere. Perhaps she was being naive with her dreams. But her pride would still be there.
And what about his pride?
He sat down by the pump again, at odds with himself now. Was it Maria’s fault if his ambition ran no higher than eating as much as he could stuff into his slim frame, stealing whenever he had the opportunity, and deflowering the virgins of Cologne?
Was it her fault that he ran away when anything got serious or demanded commitment? What could someone like him offer her that she didn’t have more than enough of already? What could he do?
What had he ever tried to do?
He felt in the baggy hose the dyer girl had given him. There was something in the pocket, the only thing he had a surplus of because he kept making new ones to give away.
He pulled out one of his curved whistles.
His tongue snaked over his lips. The next moment the notes of a fast, cheerful tune were buzzing over New Market Square like a swarm of bees. He suddenly felt as if the trees had stopped their rustling just to listen to him, the moon was peeping through the clouds to watch him, and the tall grass was swaying in time to his music. There was one thing he could do! And he made his whistle trill like a skylark, cascades of joy tumbling down—
All at once he stopped.
In his mind’s eye he saw the scaffolding and the shadow. The night-dark creature with long, flowing hair. With the figure of a man and the agility and savagery of a beast.
It had murdered Gerhard Morart.
And then it had stared at him.
The Devil!
Jacob shook his head. No, it was a man. A particularly tall and swift man, but a man, for all that. And a murderer.
But why should someone kill Gerhard Morart?
He remembered the supposed witnesses. There were no witnesses. No one had been there apart from him to see Gerhard fall. Whoever said differently was lying. Only he, Jacob, knew the truth. He was the only one who had seen Gerhard’s murderer.
And the murderer had seen him.
He suddenly felt cold all over. He drew his knees up to his chest and stared across at the massive facade of the Church of the Apostles.
MARIA
Propped up on her elbows, she explored the furry landscape of Urquhart’s chest. Her fingers roamed through the hair, twisting it into little ringlets.
Maria giggled.
“Happy?” asked Urquhart.
“I was wondering how long it would take to deck you out all over like this.”
Urquhart grinned. “Your whole life wouldn’t be long enough.”
“I suppose not.” Maria raised her brows. Then she laughed, threw herself on him, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Well, anyway, I’ve never come across a man with so much hair on his body before. You almost look like a”—she looked for a suitable comparison—“like a wolf.”
Her drew her head down and kissed her. “Wolves are loving,” he whispered.
Maria freed herself and jumped up off the bed. She could still feel his weight, his hot breath, could feel him on her and inside her. He had made love to her with a fierce savagery she had found exciting and strangely disturbing.
“Wolves are cruel,” she retorted.
She stroked the soft material of his cloak, which was draped over her table.
Urquhart baffled her. She had had lots of men, good lovers and poor lovers, some impatient, some unhurried, some brutal, and some that were like children. Some were kind to her, gave her more money than agreed, which she had to keep from Clemens, and invited her to share their wine, even their food. Others treated her like a thing, an inanimate object. Then there were the lonely ones, who often only wanted to talk, others who were insatiable, worried, exuberant, unscrupulous—or conscience-stricken, tormented by guilt, so that she couldn’t tell whether their groans were groans of pleasure or disgust at themselves. And there were others with strange needs, God-forsaken creatures. But even those she took, as long as they paid. Each one she could identify, categorize like an herb or a speci
es of animal. Setting herself above them, studying them from a distance, was her way of dealing with the fact that men came and took her body. Each one left something of himself with her, left a tiny piece of his pride behind in her room, and she gathered these pieces like trophies and locked them away in the dark chamber at the bottom of her heart.
Only Jacob, when he came to Cologne three months ago, had found the key to her heart and had kept his pride.
Now Jacob was past history. She had made up her mind to escape from poverty. Impossible, perhaps, but it meant sacrificing Jacob for the vague chance a decent man might one day come and offer her a better life than staying stuck here in Clemens’s stinking hole.
But with each man who came and went, her hope shriveled a little more to a foolish dream, and it became more and more difficult to believe the Blessed Virgin would raise a whore to a respectable burgher’s wife. When she was alone, Maria would pray to the Virgin Mary, but then Clemens would bring the men she knew so well. They were like fruit on a market stall—here apples, red or green, ripe or rotten, there quinces, peaches, cherries—each typical of his own kind, each always the same, each cowardly, each a disappointment.
Urquhart was like none of them.
There was something inside him that made her shudder. And yet she wished she could be his forever, follow him everywhere, whether to riches or damnation.
For a moment she felt an urge simply to run away. But what if he was the one she was waiting for?
Wolves are loving. Wolves are cruel.
She turned back to him with a shy smile. Urquhart watched her. “Are you going out?” he asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Where would I go?”
Urquhart nodded. His long hair flowed around him like a cloak. “Yes,” he said, almost inaudibly, “where would you go?”
He stretched and stood up.
“And you? Are you going?” Maria didn’t know whether to feel sorry or relieved.
“Yes.” He started to get dressed.
“And will you come again?” she asked hesitantly.