“No. It’s all rather exaggerated. Although no one will admit it, in fact you have to have damn bad luck to catch it. You only saw the sick people, but there are two living in Melaten with their spouses, and they’re not infected.”
“I thought the lepers were forbidden to come into contact with healthy people.”
“They are, unless an uninfected person joins them of their own free will. Other people go to Melaten as well, the carter with the wine, for example, and the washerwomen. And you know the man with the bells who goes around begging for them, he’s dealing with them all the time. But you hardly ever hear of people like that catching the disease, and if they do, it’s only after many years. No, the lepers are not a real danger. They are a warning to the arrogant. Leprosy doesn’t distinguish between rich and poor; anyone can catch it. A just punishment God visited on those accursed crusaders, to bring back together with all the treasures they stole from the East.” He glanced at Jacob and grinned. “Good old Hannes gave you quite a fright, didn’t he?”
“Hannes is the one with no face?”
“The worst case in Melaten. It’s odd that he’s alive. Still alive, I mean.”
“Still laughing, too,” said Jacob. “But tell me, how did you find me? What happened to you after we split up?”
Jaspar made fluttering movements with his fingers. “I got away,” he laughed. “I think the men hadn’t actually been ordered to capture us, just to stick to us until our crazy crusader could dispatch us in some quiet corner. It’s probably a bit different with you, but they can’t just kidnap or even kill me in the middle of the street. What they hadn’t counted on was that we would smell a rat and run off. They were suddenly afraid they’d lose sight of us and be blamed for it later, so they dropped their pretense and took chase. They didn’t send the most intelligent specimens of humanity after us, thank God. Unseen by them, I went straight into St. Mary’s. It never occurred to the idiots I’d hide in the first church I came to. It was obvious they wouldn’t stop to think until they got to Highgate. Then they’d retrace their steps. So I went straight out by the side door and back to Haymarket, hoping I’d find you there. No problem! That clout on the head with the radish was quite spectacular. I couldn’t join up with you, but I saw everything from a distance. When I realized you were safe for the moment under the cart, I strolled along a good way behind. It wasn’t going that fast and I assumed it would have to stop somewhere. Then when I saw it turn into the gate at Melaten I had to get a move on, but I was too late, they’d already closed the door. Fortunately I know Melaten and I know the little gate at the back.” He nodded smugly. “So that’s how I saved you. You can write me a thank-you letter—oh, no, of course you can’t. And all the time I was trotting along behind, I kept wondering, why doesn’t the Fox jump off? To be honest, I still don’t understand.”
“Because the Fox was trapped,” said Jacob sourly. “He’d got his paws stuck in between the planks.”
“And couldn’t get them out?” Jaspar laughed out loud. “That story would get me a drink in any inn in Cologne.”
“I think I’d prefer it if you kept it to yourself.”
“If the men who were after you only knew! But they know nothing. I imagine they haven’t been told what it’s all about. They’ll have just been given some cock-and-bull story why we have to be caught.”
“They knew damn well why they were chasing me,” said Jacob.
“You? Oh, yes, you’ve stolen one guilder, you rascal. Who from, if I might inquire?”
“Matthias Overstolz.”
Jaspar stopped and stared. “From him? But why him, for God’s sake?”
“I didn’t steal it,” Jacob protested. “He gave it to me. Yesterday morning. And now I’m supposed to have stolen it.”
“One moment,” said Jaspar. He seemed confused. “Why would Matthias Overstolz give you a guilder?”
“I was standing outside their house in Rheingasse, trying to wrap my jerkin around my head. Haven’t I told you this?”
“No,” said Jaspar, frowning. “Who knows what else you’ve forgotten to tell me.”
They walked along in silence for a while. The sun was low in the sky, making the fields and meadows all around glow with an almost unnatural intensity.
“Fox-cub, are you telling me the truth?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Jacob,” he said, “we only met yesterday. I have great but not unbounded trust in you. So just reassure me. Is everything you have told me so far the truth?”
“Yes, dammit, it is.”
“Good.” Jaspar nodded. “Then presumably we know the name of at least one of those who ordered Gerhard’s death.”
“Matthias Overstolz?” asked Jacob, dumbfounded.
“And not only him,” Jaspar went on. “Suddenly everything’s clear. I’ve been racking my brains to think how our meeting with the witnesses could have got out. I’m afraid I let too much slip to Bodo, and of course he couldn’t wait to tell his fellow magistrates about it. And one of his fellow magistrates—”
“—is Theoderich Overstolz.” This is terrible, thought Jacob. One of the most powerful Cologne families wants me dead. “But what have the Overstolzes to do with all this?”
Jaspar shrugged his shoulders. “Didn’t you say yourself something big must be going on? Gerhard probably got wind of it. They won’t get their hands dirty themselves, even though Matthias Overstolz’s dislike of you may well be personal by now.”
“Why on earth should it be?”
“Isn’t it obvious? You’ve made him look a fool. How do you think he felt when he realized he’d given a guilder to you of all people, the man they’re desperately trying to find? Matthias has the reputation of relying on cold logic alone. Some people say he only goes to church because his calculations admit the possibility there might be a God after all. He could have thought up any crime he liked to tell his servants—I’m assuming they’re Overstolz servants—why they had to catch you. But no, he accuses you of having stolen one measly guilder. If there’s not a desire for vengeance behind that, I don’t know what vengeance is.”
Jacob took a deep breath. “In other words I’m dead.”
“You look alive and kicking to me,” replied Jaspar cheerfully.
“Yes. For the moment.”
Jaspar subjected the bridge of his nose to a good rubbing. “Let’s assume it’s all politics,” he said. “If a patrician family starts killing architects and liquidating everyone who happens to get a whisper of it, I hardly dare to think what they’re really up to. We should be proud, Fox-cub. We may all finish on the wrong end of a crossbow bolt, but at least we can’t complain we’ve fallen into the hands of some third-rate rogues. However, far be it from me to oppose the will of the Lord, but I prefer my body as it is, without an extra hole; yours, too, I might add. So let’s get down to some hard thinking about how to save our skins.”
“By putting pressure on the Overstolzes?” suggested Jacob.
“Good idea. Let’s play it through. You’ve got two names and a strong suspicion. Great. You yourself—forgive me for pointing this out—are a wily scoundrel and petty thief, but you present yourself, hand on heart, to the council of magistrates, to prove that the Overstolzes pushed Gerhard Morart off the scaffolding. Matthias Overstolz is a fiend, you say. He is guilty of the most heinous crimes, you say, though he didn’t actually commit one of them himself and you don’t actually know what the other one is. And then there’s this fellow with long hair. I don’t actually know who he is, but, all in all, I have this funny feeling in the pit of my stomach and I suggest that is reason enough for you, my noble lords, to pack Cologne’s leading merchant family off to prison.”
“Aren’t there a couple of them there already?”
“Yes, but it was the archbishop who put them in, not the dean of St. Mary Magdalene’s, not to mention some pilfering miscreant. And what if Matthias and Theoderich are only two of a much larger band, members of some powerful conspiracy? You might go and tell the burgomaster all you know and find he’s in on the plot!”
Jacob’s shoulders sagged. “What is there we can do, then?” he asked despondently.
“What I advised yesterday,” Jaspar replied. “Attack. We’ll never discover the truth if we limit ourselves to what we already know. Gilbert of Tournai said that before me, by the way. Our only chance is to find out what they plan to do so we can be one step ahead at the decisive moment. Yesterday that was my advice to you. Now we’re both involved.”
He looked up in the sky to watch a flight of geese on their way south for the winter. “If it’s not too late already,” he muttered.
