Death and the Devil

“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.