“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.
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.
