The Beggar King

sign depicting a whale and a man leaping from its mouth.

“Jonah and the whale,” Simon said, nodding. “This must be it.”

Magdalena tried to get a look inside, through a sooty bull’s-eye windowpane, but even though it was the middle of the day, it was as dark as the grave inside. “It doesn’t exactly look inviting,” she ventured.

“It doesn’t matter,” replied Simon, reaching for a small bronze fish that served as a door knocker. “The raftmaster seems to know his way about town, and his word clearly carries some weight. I think we ought to try it. We do need a cheap place to stay, since my savings can’t last us much longer than a few more days.” He pounded vigorously on the door.

For a long time they heard nothing. Just as Simon was about to suggest they look for somewhere else to stay, the door opened a crack and a long pointed nose appeared, attached to a haggard old woman with stringy hair and remarkably bad breath.

“What? What do you want?”

“We’re… looking for lodging for the next few weeks,” Simon replied hesitantly. “Karl Gessner sent us, the Regensburg raftmaster.”

“If Gessner sent you, you must be all right,” the old woman mumbled as she shuffled back inside, leaving the door wide open behind her.

Simon cast a cautious glance inside the taproom. Hanging from the wood-paneled ceiling was a giant stuffed catfish that stared back at him with mean eyes. Despite the summer heat, a tile stove with a bench built around it rumbled away in a far corner. The chairs and tables in the room were old and scuffed, and except for Simon and Magdalena, not another living soul seemed to be staying there. What fascinated Simon most, however, was the shelf that lined the opposite wall, holding objects he never would have expected to find in such a place: books.

Not two, or three, but dozens of them, all bound in leather and apparently in mint condition.

He entered the tavern alongside Magdalena and walked directly to the books. He knew at once he’d feel at home here.

“Where-where did you get all these?” he asked the old woman, who had disappeared behind the bar again and was polishing glasses with a dirty rag.

“My dead husband. Before he married into my family, dear old Jonas worked as a scribe down at the ferry landing, drafting documents for the rivermen. He could never get enough books.” She looked at Simon suspiciously. “I’ll bet you’re a bookworm, too. I could use someone like you at the present.”

“I-don’t understand,” Simon stuttered.

The tavern keeper’s widow gave a condescending nod toward the bench by the stove. Only now did Simon and Magdalena notice someone lying there, snoring loudly. The stranger wore wide baggy trousers, a frilled white shirt whose lace collar was spattered with red wine, and a tightly fitted purple jacket whose silver buttons gleamed brightly in the dark room. The man’s legs, stretched out on the table, were shod in freshly polished leather boots whose bucket tops reached almost down to the sole.

Damn! That outfit must have cost a fortune, Simon thought. I always wanted boots like that!

“Ask the Venetian,” the landlady replied. “He comes here for the books-and for the wine and women, of course.”

Simon took a closer look at the man passed out on the bench. He didn’t look like a penniless drunk. On the contrary, the unconscious man looked well-to-do, right down to his cleanly clipped goatee. His black hair fell in curls across his shoulders, his fingernails were manicured, and his cheeks had a soft pink hue. Just as Simon was about to turn away, the Venetian opened his eyes. They were dark, almost sad, as if they’d read more than their fair share of tragedies.

“Ah, ma che bella signorina! Sono lietissimo! Che piacere!” he said, still a bit woozy, then sat up, smoothing the wrinkles out of his jacket. Simon was just about to bow when he realized that the man was addressing not him but Magdalena. He stood up from his seat by the stove, took Magdalena’s hand, and brushed it with his lips. Magdalena couldn’t suppress a giggle. She never would have thought it possible, but the Venetian man was even shorter than Simon. Just the same, all of the Venetian’s nearly five feet positively pulsed with pride and nobility.

“May I introduce myself?” he asked in almost perfect, unaccented German. “Silvio Contarini from the beautiful city of Venice. I must have dozed off.” He bowed slightly, and Magdalena noticed with astonishment that his hair slipped forward as he did so. Evidently he was wearing a wig.

“Gambling and whoring till the wee hours of the morning,” the tavern keeper complained from behind the bar. “You and your cronies guzzled two gallons of my best muscatel last night.”

“Perdonate. Is this enough?” The Venetian slid a few shiny coins across the bar, which the old woman quickly pocketed. Magdalena was aghast. The man had just paid as much for wine as her family spent in a whole week.

“Do you like books?” he asked Magdalena, pointing at the shelves behind him. “Do you perhaps know Shakespeare?”

“Actually,” Simon now chimed in, “we’re more interested in medical texts.”

Silvio turned around in surprise, only just now noticing there was another person in the room. “I beg your pardon?”

“You know, Scultetus, Pare, Paracelsus, and so forth. You’ve probably never heard of them.” Simon reached for his bag and turned to the innkeeper. “May we see the room now?”

Without waiting for Magdalena, he stomped up the narrow stairway. Silvio looked at the hangman’s daughter in astonishment. “Is your friend always so… surly? These bruises all over his face! He must get into a lot of scrapes, yes?”

The hangman’s daughter laughed. “Actually no. He loves books, just as you do. He’s had a bit of a rough day is all. We’ve had a long journey, you should know.”

The Venetian smiled. “Yet not so long as mine! Ma che ci vuoi fare! What brings you to Regensburg?”

“My… father.” Magdalena hesitated. “We come from Schongau. My aunt lives here, or rather, she lived here… and we wanted to pay her a visit, but…” She waved her hand. “It’s too complicated to explain in a few words.”

Silvio nodded. “Then perhaps another time, over a glass of wine.” Reaching abruptly into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a little book, which he handed to Magdalena.

“If you like, read this, poems by a certain William Shakespeare. I translated them into German myself. Tell me frankly what you think of them.”

Magdalena graciously accepted the little leather-bound book. “But how can you be so sure we’ll meet again?”

Silvio smiled. “I’m sure we shall. I come here often. Arrivederci.” He bowed politely and pranced out of the room.

Puzzled, Magdalena gazed after him for a while before climbing the narrow stairway up to the room where Simon was already lying on one of the flea-infested beds, staring up at the ceiling.

The hangman’s daughter grinned. “Is it possible you’re the tiniest bit jealous?”

Simon snorted. “Jealous? Of the dwarf?”

“Right. He’s the same height as you, you know.”

“Very funny,” Simon snapped. “In case you didn’t notice, the man was made-up like a woman. And he was wearing a wig.”

Magdalena shrugged. “Perhaps. I’ve heard that in France, at court, all the men wear wigs now. Doesn’t look half bad.”

Sitting up, the medicus looked at Magdalena as if she were a naughty child. “Magdalena, believe me, I know people like him. It’s all a facade-fine clothes, witty repartee, but nothing at all behind it!”

With a sigh, she lay down next to Simon and pulled him to her with both arms.

“Strange. That sounds somehow rather familiar.”

Late in the evening the gatekeeper Johannes Buchner strolled through the narrow city streets enjoying the mild summer air. Periodically he tossed a leather purse full of guilders in the air so the coins jingled like castanets. The lieutenant had been saving up for the coming Sunday, when he and a few friends had a game of dice planned for the back room of the Black Elephant. High stakes, big payoff-that was the way Buchner liked it.