Apothecary Melchior and the Mystery of St Olaf's Church (2 page)

‘What do you want?' Clingenstain finally managed to say.

‘Justice,' came the reply. The unknown man forced him against the table with one hand and clenched his sword more steadily with the other. ‘This is precisely how it must unfold – with you writhing on the ground, terrified and crying for help. You will die without making peace with the Lord, and all your sins will go with you to the grave. It is the road straight to hell, Clingenstain.'

Death? Is this really my death? The thought flashed through the Commander's mind. Such a death, and in Tallinn not on the battlefield;
not holding a sword in his hand but here in some burgher's house in Tallinn, drunk, and by the blade of a thief. Virgin Mary, it was not supposed to happen this way. Not here and not now. I do not deserve this. His thoughts were sober but his body unresponsive.

‘Who are you?' he enquired again.

Instead of replying the stranger raised something up before Clingenstain's eyes. He could not make out what it was at first, but his eyes finally focused. He also saw the stranger push the hood back from his face. That face … that face … and that object in his hand, that was … It was impossible. He recognized that face. Yes, now he recognized it.

Yet Clingenstain's time was up. He understood this unequivocally. He perceived it clearly through his weakness and his helplessness. For an instant he even saw in his mind's eye the saints looking down at him from the heavens with pity and indifference. Yes, said the saints' gaze, here and now, Henning von Clingenstain, right here and right now your end has come, and we cannot prevent it.

A strong hand seized Clingenstain by the jaw and forced his mouth open. One more powerful burst of pain shot through the Commander's body as the stranger stuffed the item that had been held before his eyes into his mouth.

‘This is exactly how it will unfold,' said the man. ‘Even begging for mercy will not do you any good. Until we meet in hell.'

He rammed the Knight's head against the table, raised his sword with both hands and slashed downwards.

Henning von Clingenstain felt how the sword ground against his neck. He even felt how the strong blow sliced through his spine. It was painful, unbearably painful, but that pain was nothing compared with what awaited him.

M
ELCHIOR
W
AKENSTEDE,
A
POTHECARY
of the town of Tallinn, had just risen from the breakfast table where his dear Keterlyn had stuffed him full of freshly baked bread and a generous slice of rich lard and entered the front room of his living quarters – Tallinn's pharmacy – where the most ordinary of workdays should await him. He would hear about the townspeople's recent illnesses and old pains; he would hear dozens of rumours; and he would sell some medicinal treatments and sweets and a few flagons of his own fine pharmaceutical elixir. He would see ailments and diseases; he would also see the healthy and the strong, who would step into the pharmacy simply to gossip and swap news, purchase strong elixirs and chew on sweet cakes or aniseed sweets. He would fulfil his duties and be satisfied and happy in doing so, just as he probably still should be, on the threshold of his thirty-first year of life, by the blessing of his patron saint and to the joy of his noble father – may he rest in peace at the right hand of the Virgin Mary.

Melchior Wakenstede was born in the city of Lübeck, whence his father had relocated to Tallinn more than twenty years ago. Melchior the Elder came to this new land where everything was being built, to a land that had not long ago been won from the grip of pagans and which had been dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Melchior even remembered from his boyhood the stories of those old warriors who had entered his father's pharmacy from time to time to buy ointments for their aching joints. They spoke of how they had battled against the local pagans when their forces surrounded Tallinn. This all seemed hard to believe now, because the grandchildren of many of these so-called pagans visited his pharmacy each and every day. Even his beloved wife Keterlyn was of the same
lineage, descended from the tribes that had lived here since ancient times, and, no matter that they did not bake bread or brew beer as it was done in Thuringia or Westphalia, these people now went to church every Sunday, as did all proper Christians.

Melchior Wakenstede considered Tallinn to be his home, as he could barely remember Lübeck. He was the town's sole apothecary, just as his father had been. Melchior loved Tallinn. He had grown up here and vowed to treat the populace with his medications, to help those who suffered and to ease their afflictions. People referred to his profession as being simply that of a doctor's cook, but it was actually much more than that. Melchior was equal to merchants in status, on a par with clergy or city officials in education, was a respected man in the town and was regarded highly by town councilmen, nobles and knights alike.

Now, on this fine spring morning, he passed from the kitchen into the pharmacy, thrust the front door open wide and let in the fresh sea air. His house was small, but it was the only one his father had had the means to purchase. In the entryway on the ground floor in the entry hall of the building was the pharmacy, comparable to a merchant's shop, and to the rear of this were his living quarters. A small passageway led from there to the kitchen, which his father had rebuilt into a pharmacist's ‘witch's kitchen', as people called it. Around the fireplace stood levered presses and burners: this was where Melchior boiled and brewed his potions. On the upper floor were storage rooms filled with wooden crates in which he stored dried medicinal herbs. In the pharmacy were a large table and shelves along the walls bearing extracts, oils and mixtures in glass vessels as well as mortars and pestles. Since every apothecary needed to appear slightly mysterious and display his countenance to the townspeople, Melchior had hung a small stuffed crocodile from the ceiling above his table. It had cost ten marks and, as the sly merchant assured him, was supposed to be a genuine Egyptian crocodile. Whether true or not the townspeople seemed to believe it was.

Melchior was a fair-skinned man of shorter stature, was rather thin and had an angular build and a slight stagger to his step. His sparse, pale hair held close to his head, even when he grew his locks out below his ears. His grey eyes always had a twinkle and appeared full of mirth. Melchior loved to laugh loudly at others' jokes, and his laugh was childlike and trusting. To many it seemed that he was always cheerful and in good spirits – an apothecary cannot be dour and off-hand – yet some had
also caught those moments when it seemed that a grim shadow flashed across his shy face. Those were the moments when Melchior believed that no one was watching him, and a profound agony could then show in his eyes, an almost insane depth, a difficult and painful terror. Nevertheless, Melchior would then drive these feelings away and once again be the cheery Tallinn apothecary, a friend to all and a trustworthy aide.

It was still early, and the town was just beginning to stir. Melchior sat down and reviewed the notes of those who were due to come for their medications that day. Here were his bottles and mortars, his mixtures and dried remedies; here was his world from which he could never escape – should he ever have wanted to. Melchior opened a small pouch of dried-garlic chips and took down a vessel of hard spirits from a shelf, setting both before him. Today this would become throat medicine for the baker's wife, although he could make a much greater profit from other remedies, one example being charred wheat mixed with herbs and poured into a flagon to counter a stomach ache suffered by his good friend the Magistrate, Court Vogt Wentzel Dorn.

Yet, just as Melchior sprinkled the garlic chips into the mortar, the sound of bright music reached his ears. He peered out from the open door on to the street and saw that Kilian Rechpergerin – a boarder at the house across the road owned by Mertin Tweffell – was outside, sitting on the edge of the well and playing his lute.

The young man was barely seventeen, but Melchior understood that he had studied the choral arts in several foreign cities and arrived in Tallinn at the behest of his father, since the old merchant Tweffell happened to be a relative of the Nuremberg Rechpergerin family. Kilian had been boarding in the Great Guild Alderman's house since the previous summer. He would sing at various festivities in the town and could often be seen near the Guild of the Brotherhood of Blackheads, where of late not a single meal went by without Kilian being present to sing his playful verses. He tended to introduce himself as a
Schulfreund
, as this was how journeyman musicians who roamed to far-off lands to study the art of music were titled at the Nuremburg Guild of Meistersingers. Melchior had to admit he did indeed enjoy Kilian's music – it carried a sense of the spirit of warm southern lands, a melodic lilt and techniques unfamiliar to Tallinn musicians. The young man's voice was clear and pure, warm and resounding. Which, of course, has not gone unnoticed by many a young Tallinn damsel, Melchior mused.

While continuing to concoct the cough remedy Melchior saw the door of the house opposite open and Gerdrud, the young wife of the Master Merchant Tweffell, step out into the street. It appeared to the Apothecary that the young singer had been waiting for this very moment. Melchior grasped his mortar and positioned himself slightly closer to the open door. Curiosity is the vice of all apothecaries.

The young Mistress Gerdrud – who may well have been only a year or two older than Kilian yet was younger than her husband by forty years or more – carried a basket under her arm and nodded pleasantly in greeting to the musician. The young man, in response, jumped from the rim of the well and bowed to her.

‘Good morning, Mistress Merchant,' he exclaimed cheerfully. ‘A fine spring morning to you. Can you see what a beautiful, blessed day has been given to us? It would be nothing short of a sin if it were not greeted with a splendid melody.'

Gerdrud stopped and replied brusquely, ‘Good morning, Kilian Rechpergerin. Alas, this day is beautiful only to those who are able to pass it by with song and music. It is exactly the same as all other days for honest townsfolk, full of work and many chores to do.'

Kilian picked a swift, incredibly complex melody and called in reply, ‘Ah, Mistress Gerdrud, do you think then that the arts of song and of music are gifts of the Lord and that one does not have to work hard to do them well?'

‘All is born of the Lord's grace,' the young woman replied. ‘I can sing also, but no one will complete my work and my tasks. The day is given to some for playing tunes and to others it is for earning their daily bread.'

‘Old Uncle Mertin is wealthy enough by now that his young bride should not have to busy herself every day in the manner of a washerwoman. You have Ludke and the old maid in your household …' Kilian said pointedly, but Gerdrud cut him off in a somewhat irritated manner.

‘Stop your prattling, Kilian Rechpergerin. It is not for you to say how the master should arrange his household affairs. You are merely our boarder.'

‘A boarder has eyes as well. I certainly see how things are in Tallinn compared with how they are in Nuremberg; how my great-uncle's nephew burdens his fine young bride and demands of her work and chores for which three servant girls would be necessary and for the employment of which the old churl should have sufficient funds indeed.'

What an insolent boy, thought Melchior, eavesdropping on the exchange below the window. Insolent, but he does dare to speak the truth. No one would have accused Great Guild Alderman Tweffell of excessive spending or revelry. His young wife – in addition to the fact that she was a joy to the old man's eye in his twilight years – unquestionably did more housekeeping work than the mistress of any other wealthy merchant in this town. The servant Ludke and the old maid were the only servants employed in his household.

Gerdrud exclaimed, now even more heatedly, ‘Silence yourself, Kilian. Cease your mindless nonsense at once. If Ludke could hear you he would tell Sire Mertin straight away.'

Kilian stepped closer towards the young woman, cocked his head and asked slyly, ‘But you will not say anything, Mistress Gerdrud?'

Gerdrud faltered. ‘I … I must go. I am in a hurry,' she said.

Kilian paid this no heed. ‘But maybe you will listen to just one tune?' he asked. ‘Or, even better, if, as you just told me, you are able to sing as well … Surely a spring morning like this brings a melody to your tongue? So, I will play the lute, and you will sing.'

The girl shook her head. ‘As if I would sing right here in the middle of town. That isn't going to happen. I really must go.'

Kilian insisted. ‘Just one song. Allow me to sing to you.'

‘No, Kilian. No. Not one song.'

‘Do you really not want to hear one of the Nuremberg Meistersingers' best melodies? I know several of them. Just now I remembered one about an old tanner who wed a woman fifty years younger than he and became the laughing stock of the entire town, and then …'

Gerdrud emitted a muffled cry and said quickly, ‘Silence, Kilian, and please do not shame me in public. I am leaving this minute.'

‘But wait. Maybe some other song? How about an old song of the Minnesingers? All of our Meistersingers study old Minnesingers' songs. Should I sing to you of how Tannhäuser or Konrad von Würzburg yearned for their darling lovers? Do you wish me to?'

‘No, Kilian. No. Goodbye. I have things to do in the town, and I do not wish to stand and talk to you any longer.' Gerdrud determinately wedged the basket under her arm and made to leave.

But Kilian would not give up. He flicked his fingers across the strings of his lute and said in a low voice, ‘Or maybe some song of Tallinn instead, Mistress Gerdrud? Yet these are so doleful that they do not suit
a fine spring morning. Oh, but I can still recall one happier song. Maybe you would like this ditty about jolly sailors?' And without waiting for a reply, Kilian began to sing: