Urquhart threw the cloak over his shoulders. Something was attached to the inside, like a crossbow, only smaller. Then it vanished as he drew the material over his chest.
“Perhaps. It depends what you have to tell me.”
“To tell you?”
“There’s a man. Called Jacob. You know him.”
Maria was bewildered by the sudden change of subject. What had Urquhart to do with Jacob?
“Yes, I know him.”
“He needs help.”
“What?”
“Our friend talks too much.” Urquhart went up to Maria and lifted up her chin. “He’s in danger of losing his head, if you understand me. He’s been saying strange things about something he claims he saw this evening.”
“Oh, God!” Maria exclaimed. “The architect.”
“What did he tell you?”
Why should you betray him, she thought, but already it was pouring out. “That Jacob’s always got some cock-and-bull story to tell. Huh! He claims he saw the Devil push Gerhard off the scaffolding. He even says he spoke to him.”
“To the Devil?”
“Don’t be silly.” Maria shook her head. She was giving vent to all her annoyance with Jacob. At the same time, surprisingly, she wished he were here with her.
“To Gerhard, then?”
“Yes. At least that’s what he claimed.”
“And what is Gerhard supposed to have said?”
Careful, a voice inside her whispered, but she ignored the warning. She was trapped, like an insect, in the amber of his eyes. Strange eyes. You looked into depths, terrifying, unfathomable depths.
“I don’t know.”
“The priests won’t like stories like that.”
“Where did you get to know Jacob?”
“Later, Maria. We don’t want him to do anything stupid, do we? So he saw the Devil? What did the Devil look like?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t interested.” She sighed. Poor stupid Jacob. “But I’ll ask him the next time he comes,” she said softly, more to herself.
The next time he comes…
Urquhart said nothing.
“I shouldn’t have treated him like that. Jacob was always good to me. He’s good to people all the time, without noticing what he’s doing, you know.” She shook her head, looked at Urquhart, and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “He’s crazy, he gives away everything he’s got. He brings this Tilman with him. I throw him out and Jacob can think of nothing better than to give him his hat and coat—and his place by the Wall as well.”
It struck Urquhart like a thunderbolt.
“What did you say?” he whispered. His features were like stone.
“You can imagine how it makes me sorry and livid at the same time. That I screamed at him, wounded his pride, humiliated him. But he has to understand, this isn’t an almshouse, I can’t just—” She bit her lip. “Sorry. I’m boring you. Sorry.”
“When did Jacob leave?” Urquhart asked in a toneless voice.
“Leave? Just before you came. You could almost have bumped into each other.”
“Where did he go?”
She lowered her eyes. “I don’t know. Perhaps to his shack by the Wall.”
“By the Wall?”
She nodded. “By the Eigelstein Gate. Have you never heard of the privilege of the Wall?”
Urquhart’s eyes glazed over. “I have to go,” he said.
Maria started. Go then, one part of her screamed, go as far away as possible. You’re not what I’m looking for; you frighten me. At the same time she felt her heartbeat quicken with the hope he would take her with him.
No, it’s better you go—
Instead, “Come back,” she blurted out. “Come, whenever you want. I’ll be here for you, here for you alone.”
Urquhart smiled. “Thank you,” he said gently. “That will not be necessary.”
JACOB
Jacob was fed up with staring at the church.
An hour must have passed since he left Maria. His anger had subsided and he was starting to find self-pity boring. The best thing to do would be to forget today, wipe it from his memory and try to make it up with Maria. At least they could stay friends.
The damp cold had chilled him to the bone. With a quick prayer to whatever gods were there in the darkness that Clemens would let him sit by the fire, he shook himself like a dog and set off slowly for Berlich. He avoided the shortest way, which would have meant going through Vilsgasse. The latest rumor said there was a butcher there who dragged people in off the street at night and made them into sausages. There was no butcher in Vilsgasse, nor any worse thieves than Jacob himself, but the power of rumor was such that he decided to take the route around by the city wall.
The clouds had gone. The moon dipped the pointed gables of the half-timbered houses on his right in silver. There was no one else out apart from a few drunks whose voices he heard coming from a side street. Somewhere in front two dogs started barking furiously. For a few steps a cat walked beside him along the top of a wall before silently slipping down into the darkness of the garden on the other side.
The hunters of the night were always on the prowl.
Then Berlich lay before him, hushed, silent. A refuge for shabby secrets. Dead souls sitting by cheerful, crackling fires. Hell in miniature. At the other end of the street the wind tugged at a slim tree.
Jacob peered into the darkness. The tree had gone. What he had seen was the silhouette of a man disappearing in the opposite direction. Of an unusually tall man, hair waving in the wind.
Jacob slowed to a halt.
How many tall men, black as night, were there in Cologne?
Annoyed with himself, he hurried on. Ridiculous! Like a timid girl, seeing danger everywhere. He was getting obsessed with this affair at the cathedral. He must put it out of his mind. What had he to do with Gerhard Morart? Or some phantom haunting the scaffolding? His time would be better spent thinking about ways to get something to eat—or drink! Jacob could hardly remember the last time wine had passed his lips. Anyway, he’d get his hands on something, as soon as it was light, so he could make things up with Maria, then go and see what was happening on the Brook with a clear conscience.
If he could make things up with Maria.
Again he stopped. His heart told him Maria wasn’t expecting him anymore.
It was one of those moments when Jacob recognized the truth without having looked for it. He had burned his bridges with her. Maybe she had already gone, maybe chance had brought her respectable bridegroom during this last hour. Or, more likely, she was asleep, with her face to the wall, the way she always slept. Had made it clear to Clemens he was to let no one up. Whatever, she wasn’t expecting him anymore.
It was a strange feeling. Jacob couldn’t say why he was so absolutely sure. They’d quarreled before, more than once, but the one thing you could say about Maria was that she bore a grudge.
Should he try anyway?
He looked at the corner house. Light could be seen in a tiny crack in the shutters. She was still awake.
And he was an idiot if he didn’t go straight to her.
He knocked several times and went in. Downstairs everything seemed the same as usual. Clemens was just taking the roast off the fire. On the table was a large bowl of gruel. Margarethe and Wilhilde were just bringing four mugs and a jug of wine.
“You again,” said Clemens.
“Me again.”
“You’ve only just gone.”
Jacob shrugged his shoulders. His glance rested longingly on the burned meat.
“A banquet?” he said morosely. “What are you celebrating?”
“Business is booming,” growled Clemens in a voice that had nothing of booming business in it. “And it’s no business of yours what we fill our bellies with here. Think you can get Maria’s portion? Huh! Forget it.”
“Where is she, anyway, miseryguts?”
Clemens nodded in the direction of the steps.
“Be down
soon, I should think. Her last client’s just gone. A real gentleman. Knew you too, though it’s a mystery to me why he should.”
“Who?” Jacob exclaimed in surprise.
“Who, who. I don’t ask no names.”
“And I don’t know no gentlemen,” said Jacob, his foot already on the bottom stair. “What did he look like?”
Clemens bared his teeth. It was meant to be a grin. “Better than you, anyway.”
“Obviously.”
“Twice as tall, I’d say.” He gave a hoarse laugh. “No, make that three times. And his hair—”
“Angel’s hair,” said Margarethe with a dreamy smile.
“Down to the ground,” groaned Wilhilde, still drooling over the memory.
Jacob stared at the hand grasping the banister. The knuckles were white. He felt his blood run cold. “Dark clothes?” he asked.
“Black as night.”
It can’t be, he thought. His mind was racing. It can’t be!
He was up the stairs faster than he had ever been before. He stopped at the door.
“Maria?”
No answer.
“Maria!” Louder.
It can’t be, it can’t be.
In a fever of apprehension, he pushed open the door.
Maria was by the window, her back against the wall, looking at him. She didn’t speak.
“Maria, I—” His voice trailed off. There was something wrong with her face. He took a step toward her, a closer look.
His jaw started to quiver.
Maria was looking at him.
But only with one eye.
A small crossbow bolt had gone through the other, shattering her skull and nailing her to the wooden wall.
RHEINGASSE
“I’ll slice him into little pieces!”
With a howl, Kuno stormed into the candlelit room, the tears pouring down his cheeks. With his fists he hammered on the massive oak table at which seven people were enjoying a sumptuous dinner. He was quivering all over with fury.
“You’ll pay for this,” he shouted at Johann, “you and that witch Blithildis.”
Matthias threw away the chicken bone he had been gnawing and jumped up. “And you will learn to knock before you enter,” he retorted icily.
“Watch what you say!” screamed Kuno. “You deceived me! You gave me your word, your sacred word, nothing would happen to Gerhard and now everyone’s saying he’s dead.”
“He is. But not because of anything we did, but through his own carelessness.”
“Falling off the scaffolding?” Kuno laughed hysterically, raising his hands in supplication. “Do you hear that, all ye saints? Do you hear the lies—”
“This is not the moment to call on all the saints!” Johann broke in sharply. “If you must pray, then pray for your own soul, for forgiveness for what we all decided on together. You’re no better than we are, and we’re no worse than you. D’you understand?”
“Let me throw him out of the window,” snarled Daniel, only controlling himself with difficulty.
“Why did you do it?” Kuno sobbed. He sagged and put his face in his hands. Then he stared at each of the others, one after the other. “And it’s all my fault,” he whispered. “All my fault. That’s the worst of all. My fault.”
Theoderich took a goblet, filled it with wine, and placed it on the table in front of Kuno. “Who would you be thinking of slicing up into little pieces?” he asked casually.
“Urquhart,” Kuno hissed.
Theoderich shook his head. “Have a drink, Kuno. What has Urquhart got to do with it? There are two witnesses who saw Gerhard slip and fall off the scaffolding. We’re just as devastated as you are, believe me.”
He placed a consoling hand on Kuno’s shoulder. Kuno shook it off, stared at the goblet, then took a deep pull at it. “Witnesses,” he said with a snort of contempt.
“Yes, witnesses.”
“It was Urquhart.”
“Urquhart only does what we tell him to and pay him for.”
“Then you paid him to kill Gerhard.”
“You watch what you say,” growled Daniel. “If you dare call my grandmother a witch just once more I won’t even give her time to turn you into a toad. I’ll split your empty head open, you little turd.”
“I’ll—”
“Pull yourselves together!” Johann commanded silence. “All of you.”
“Dung puncher,” Daniel added quietly.
“The time has come to talk openly,” Johann went on. “Since this unfortunate affair with Gerhard we’ve all been at loggerheads. That has got to stop. Yes, it’s true, we didn’t trust Gerhard. It is also true that it necessitated an unfortunate extension to Urquhart’s instructions. The witnesses were his idea. Paid, of course.”
“Father!” Daniel gave his father a disbelieving look. “Why are you telling him all this?”
“Because,” said Johann, his eyes boring into Kuno’s, “he is a man of honor who believes in our cause. Gerhard was like a father to him. I know how he must feel. But I also know that we still have a true friend in Kuno, a staunch friend, who”—his voice cut through the air—“is sufficiently aware of his own sins not to condemn us for something that was necessary.” He lowered his voice again. “There are nine of us. I don’t count Lorenzo, with him it’s the money alone, but the rest of us are in this together. Once we start distrusting and lying to each other we will not succeed. We will fail. So I must insist: no more arguments. Daniel?”
Daniel ground his teeth furiously. Then he nodded.
“Kuno?”
He lowered his eyes. “You can’t expect me to jump for joy,” he muttered.
“No one feels like jumping for joy,” said Matthias. “But think of the day when it’ll all be over. Think of that.”
“Then we’ll jump for joy,” said Heinrich. He leaned over toward Kuno, an unctuous smile on his face. “We understand how you feel. But just think what would have happened if Gerhard’s conscience had left him no choice but to betray us. Think how we would have felt, Kuno.”
“If only Hardefust hadn’t killed that butcher,” growled Daniel.
“But he did.” Matthias shrugged his shoulders as he dipped his fingers into a bowl of sweetmeats. “And even if he hadn’t, there would have been occasions enough for the wheel of fortune to turn in that direction. What we are doing is right.”
“What we are doing is right.” Johann added his voice to Matthias’s.
Kuno glowered, but said nothing.
“Tomorrow morning, before the stroke of seven, I’m meeting Lorenzo to go through the details,” said Matthias as the silence continued. “Afterward Urquhart will report to me. I’m confident. It looks as if the count of Jülich really has sent us the best.”
“He gives me the creeps,” said Heinrich in a flat tone.
Matthias had a thousand replies on the tip of his tongue, neat, sharp, biting insults, each more telling than the last. Then he sighed. Their secret alliance had at least three Achilles’ heels: Daniel’s lack of self-control, Kuno’s sentimentality, and Heinrich’s constant fear. There was nothing to be done about it. All he could do was hope none of the three would make a mistake.
He sighed resignedly, his hand hovering over the pieces of spicy roast hare.
FLIGHT
Jacob retched. He stumbled backward out of the low-ceilinged room where Maria’s dreams had come to such a violent end. He backed into the wall, and still that one eye was looking at him, with a strangely reproachful expression, as if she were asking him why he hadn’t been there.
He tried to cross himself, but his arm refused to move.
From the taproom below came the clatter of mugs and the sound of Clemens eating.
“Come on, Maria,” he called. “Hurry up, before we’ve finished the lot. You don’t get something like this every day.”
The tension slackened. Jacob staggered, stumbled, and fell down the stairs. The women screeched. Clemens turned around ponderously.
“Jacob,” Wilhilde gasped, “you’re as white as a sheet.”
For one terrible moment he didn’t know what to do. He glanced feverishly from one to the other. A deep furrow appeared on Clemens’s brow. “What’s up, Jacob?” His eyes were drawn to the stairs. “Maria?” he shouted.
Jacob’s mind went blank. Without thinking, he was out the door and in the street.
“Maria?” He heard Clemens roar a second time.
He started running through Berlich. His mind was in chaos. All he could think was, Get away, away from here, away from Maria, away from that beautiful face with the one eye, still staring at him as he hurried across the Duck Ponds, etched forever on his mind. He ran until the pain in his side was unbearable, and still he kept running, afraid the reality behind would catch up with him. His feet were splashing through a ditch.
Then he fell, facedown in a puddle. Instinctively he rolled over on his back before he swallowed the foul water.
Above, almost close enough to touch, was the moon looking down at him. The moon was Maria’s eye. She was following him.
He sat up, turned away from the remorseless gaze, and threw up. Leaning on his elbows, he waited till the retching stopped. Then he felt slightly better, staggered to his feet, and trotted slowly on his way.
Maria killed. Why?
He tried to work out what to do. It was hopeless. His thoughts were whirling around inside his head. At the same time his eyelids were heavy with fatigue. He had to lie down, curl up, go to sleep, and dream. Some beautiful dream, of paradise, God and the angels, Christ and the saints, of a world without misery and evil. He stopped and crossed himself. Again and again. He found his lips were murmuring the Lord’s Prayer. It was the only prayer he knew.
Sleep. The Wall.
Automatically his legs set off through the orchards and between the willow trees lining Plackgasse. With any luck Tilman would have left a little room for him under the arch. Assuming he had taken up his offer. Which Jacob doubted.
Sleep.
Maria.
After a while he saw a large lump blocking the track. He came along here almost every day and certainly couldn’t remember a boulder of that size. And at the moment he didn’t care.