by Graham Brack
Anna was not the brightest intellect with whom I might have conversed, but she was amused by this purchase. ‘Forgive me, Master, but have you owned such a knife before?’
‘Never.’
‘But you know how to use one?’
‘It cannot be difficult, Anna. If I am attacked, I produce it from my pouch and stab my assailant. What is difficult about that? But I hope that the fact that I have a knife will deter any attack.’
‘But Master, if your big knife is going to stop people killing you, don’t you have to wear it where the bad men will see you have one?’
‘Ah — very good, Anna. I was wondering when you would notice that. But it is unthinkable for a clergyman to walk around carrying a weapon.’
‘Then why are you doing it, Master?’
‘To protect myself. And nobody will think ill of me, because nobody can see it.’
‘God can see it,’ she said.
‘Well, yes, I suppose He can.’
‘And aren’t all clergymen answerable to Him?’
‘Of course.’
‘So what will He think of you having a big pointy dagger?’
‘I am sure He will understand,’ I answered, all the while thinking that I ought not to take that for granted. ‘So long as I don’t have to use it.’
‘But if you’re not going to use it, Master, what’s the point of having one?’
‘Well, in case I have to use it, despite my good intentions.’
‘You mean, like, killing someone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Isn’t that a sin?’
‘Ordinarily, yes, technically… Look, aren’t those splendid carrots? Perhaps we should have some?’
Later that day, I had a stroke of luck. Anna was talking to some of the other maids in the market and happened to mention that I was looking for a lute-player. I had told her that much, though not exactly why I wanted to find him.
You may be pretty sure that the collected maids of any town will have good intelligence on the whereabouts of any lute players, for the reasons I alluded to earlier, and one of them volunteered that such a man was staying at the inn in which she worked. When Anna passed this information to me, I asked to be introduced to the girl.
Her name was Marieke, and she proved to be a sturdy young woman with beautiful golden hair that flooded out from beneath her cap. Unfortunately, the rest of her countenance did not match the quality of her hair, but you cannot have everything.
‘This lute-player,’ I asked her, ‘is he a man about my height, with brown eyes and a close-cropped beard?’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘Wearing a black jerkin?’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘And he came to you on Monday?’
‘Yes, Master. But he spends very little time in the inn.’
‘He does not play there for his supper?’
‘On Monday, he came back late in the evening but played only for his own amusement. He did not play at all on Tuesday. In fact, Master, I did not see him in the evening at all. On Wednesday, likewise, I did not see him.’
This was promising. On Monday, I stayed in the Professor’s house, so Beniamino could not attack me there. Obviously he gave up and went back to his inn. On Tuesday, I attended the banquet, where I was perfectly safe, but I had heard him following me as I left and, had it not been for that courting couple in the alleyway, who knows what might have happened? And on Wednesday, he lay in wait and thought to kill me, but actually killed Van Leusden, who was wearing my cloak. It was all falling into place.
It occurred to me that I had the element of surprise on my side. I could go with Marieke now, ascertain that Beniamino was in the inn, and no doubt Gijsbert Voet would instruct the city authorities to place some armed men at my disposal to arrest this desperate criminal before he did any more harm.
‘Anna,’ I said, ‘I will go with Marieke now. Thank you for walking with me. Please tell your master that I believe I have found the man we are seeking and that when I return, I will discuss what further steps we must take.’
Anna appeared to be reciting the message to herself to fix it in her mind, but finally nodded and set off. I turned to Marieke, who was looking confused. ‘Why are you looking for the lute-player, Master?’ she asked.
I did not dare to tell a young woman that she may have been harbouring a murderer, so I said the first thing that came into my head. ‘Oh, don’t worry. The Professor has been looking for a lutenist to play at a family birthday.’
Marieke ducked her head towards me and spoke in a low voice. ‘Maybe I ought not to say this, Master, but he isn’t very good.’
As we walked across the town towards the inn, I rehearsed various possibilities that might face me. My plan was to discover whether Beniamino was there without alerting him to my interest. If he turned violent, I was armed. If not, I would get help and come back for him with a body of armed men. I would see him locked away somewhere, write to the Stadhouder to tell him where the assassin was, and get myself back to Leiden fast enough to ensure that I would not be in Utrecht to receive any reply. I would then do my level best to live happily ever after, pursuing a quiet academic life and having nothing to do with politicians for the rest of my days.
That did not happen. Indeed, the whole notion came under attack at once.
It was not surprising that we had overlooked the inn, because it was sandwiched amongst the warehouses that lined the two sides of the large canal that ran past the town hall. I had assumed they were all commercial cellars, but the inn was a big cave-like room with a kitchen behind, and a large communal sleeping room to one side. The best that might be said for it was that it may have been cheap, but the guests there appeared to be sailors and other low types. In short, it was exactly the kind of place where a lute-player would feel at home, and had I known of its existence this is where we would have looked first.
The difficulty was that it was impossible to make any discrete enquiry because it was noisy, busy and crowded. After a while Marieke managed to persuade the owner to come out to the street, where I learned that Beniamino had been staying there but was not in the building at that moment. The owner did not know if he would be back, because men paid for their places as they took them in the evening. It was, incidentally, reserved for men, not that any respectable lady would have dared to set foot in the place; and any less than respectable lady would have been shooed away, if the owner’s account could be believed. I was surprised that Marieke’s family would allow her to work in such a place, but I suppose poverty causes people to lower their standards. Even the poor must eat.
I thanked her for her help, instructed her firmly not to tell Beniamino of my cunning stratagem, and gave her a couple of stijvers for her trouble. She seemed surprised and grateful, and shoved them so far down the front of her bodice that only a man on the most intimate terms with her could ever hope to retrieve them.
I considered carefully what I might do next, and the idea came to me that I might pay my respects to Janneke and her mother, thus meeting up again with Johannes, and during this encounter I would find the opportunity to brief him on my discovery. No doubt he would then accompany me to his grandfather’s house, carry whatever letter the old man wrote to the city fathers and march with me at the head of the armed band I hoped would effect the detention of the wicked Beniamino. Of course, if he chose not to return to the inn my plan would come to nothing; and I was not unmindful of the fact that he was probably at liberty in the city somewhere and was keen to see me dead. Somehow this intelligence weighed heavily on my mind, and I resolved to go to the Van Leusden house by the most public route.
Then I began to fret that I might easily be stabbed privily in a dense crowd, so I ought to walk by a less populated path; and, at length, I decided that my best course of action was to pay a strapping young sailor to walk with me, which he was very happy to do for a bigger fee than I had intended to pay him. Having read some works of political arithmetic in my time, I had expected
that an ample supply of large sailors would lead to competition for my business, thus lowering the price, but several of the villains feigned a lack of interest in my money and encouraged the only willing one to ask a higher price. I suspect that he would then share the surplus with the others later, having first converted it into ale. However, I had no choice. I am not so miserly that I was going to risk a knife in the ribs for the sake of a few stijvers.
My mother would occasionally chastise me for a lack of sensitivity, but as I entered the Van Leusden home I could feel a certain chilliness in the greeting. Johannes had unfortunately just left, so we sat and prayed together for a while, then mevrouw Van Leusden said she must make arrangements for dinner with the cook. This allowed me a few moments alone with Janneke, but before I had the chance to say anything she took the wind out of my sails.
‘Mijnheer Voet has told us that Father was murdered.’
‘I am afraid that seems to be so.’
‘Not an accident, then, as was thought?’
‘No.’
‘He also said that you were the intended victim.’
I hesitated to answer and decided to prevaricate a little. ‘It may be, but until we catch the killer we cannot be sure what his wicked intentions were.’
Janneke appeared to be suppressing some strong emotion. ‘But he was wearing your cloak?’
‘Yes, he borrowed it when the sudden rain started and he needed to go to the Dom.’
She opened her mouth to say something, but I quickly continued.
‘I offered to go, but he insisted.’
Her tears flowed as she shook her head at me. ‘What have you done that makes someone hate you enough to kill you? If you hadn’t come, my father would still be alive.’
‘I didn’t choose your father. Professor Voet suggested him and your lamented father agreed to help.’
‘But he cannot have known that you were ushering death into our house!’
In a less emotionally charged setting I might have pointed out that it was the murderer who did that, not me, but I did not think that would go down well just at the moment.
‘If you would prefer me to leave…’ I began.
‘Yes, I think I would,’ she answered at once.
So I did.
Thus ended my foray into love.
I will not attempt to deny that this turn of events had disconcerted me considerably, nor that I was distressed that all my hopes had been so cruelly dashed, so the reader may imagine that it was with a heavy step that I walked out into the street, so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I completely forgot any notion of a bodyguard. In fact, at that hour I did not care if I lived or died, and I decided to go for a long and solitary walk to collect my thoughts.
I walked out past the Janskerk with the idea of heading out into the surrounding countryside where I would not have to concern myself with homicidal lutenists, but I had not realised that there was no gate in that direction, so I turned and walked round the city perimeter for a while, and in no time I was completely and utterly lost.
I felt sure that somewhere I would catch a glimpse of the Dom’s tower and thus be able to navigate my way back to the centre, from which I knew my bearings, but the shock of finding that Janneke held me responsible for her father’s death, however unjust that might be, made me want to run away altogether. I had never had much appetite for this sort of intrigue, and it certainly was not increasing. There are people who are born plotters, who love the complexities of public life and who enjoy spurring others to do that which they would not otherwise have done. I have read a play by the English writer Shakespeare in which a Moorish military leader is pricked into a jealous rage by one of his captains who alleges that his stainless wife has been unfaithful. Well, there is nothing of that Iago fellow about me. In fact, I empathise rather more with Desdemona.
I found myself outside an inn and decided that I would welcome a drink. After that drink I decided I would welcome several more, and all that curtailed my enthusiasm for getting blind drunk was the knowledge that I would have to present myself at the Professor’s house in a state that would undoubtedly arouse his wrath and cause him to lower his opinion of me; though, truth to tell, the opinion that anyone who mattered in Utrecht had of me was already as low as it could get. Anyway, I had about three beakers of ale in all, and then a plate of herring to soak some of it up, and, thus refreshed, stumbled out into the evening air.
I must have been in there longer than I had thought, because it was actually growing dark when I emerged. Add to that the uncomfortable realisation that I was not yet quite as sober as I had imagined, and it is easy to see why I fell into what now happened.
As I had hoped, I spotted the Dom’s tower and began to walk towards it in as straight a line as geography and my wayward legs would permit. When I look at a map of Utrecht now, I am not clear how I came to be in the neighbourhood of the fish market, but I was walking along a lane there when someone hailed me from behind. I turned and saw a dark figure silhouetted against the moonlight at the entrance of the alley.
He stood for a moment, his arms outstretched and his legs slightly bent as if about to wrestle someone. There was a curious asymmetry about the figure that I remarked but could not explain, and then it came to me. His right arm was longer than his left; and the reason that it was longer was that he was holding a large steel blade in his right hand.
Gentle reader, if ever you have overindulged in hop or grape, permit me to recommend a murderous assault as a fine way to sober up quickly. I began to rummage in my pouch for my knife and finally succeeded in extricating it, only to find that it was still enclosed in its scabbard, which seemed curiously reluctant to yield up its contents. The figure was now running towards me, and the most prudent course seemed to be to run like a frightened rabbit towards the other end of the lane.
Clerical garb is not made for sprinting, even when hitched up, and the assassin was gaining on me. I could only hope that there were plenty of witnesses in the street that crossed the end of the lane and, ideally, a crowd sufficient to allow me to melt into it and remain undiscovered.
I gained the end and tried to decide whether to turn left or right. There was much to be said for either option. The least successful course of action was to do what I was doing, namely to stand still whilst debating the matter with myself, and I now compounded this inactivity by turning to face my assailant rather than doing something useful such as diving into the canal and swimming for dear life.
The menacing shape advanced upon me, and I could see no prospect of deliverance. If my wits had not been so addled I would have recited an act of contrition, because I was horribly unprepared to meet my Maker. The glinting steel rose in the air as the attacker drew his arm back, and then…
There was a loud thud, followed by another, and a ghastly twanging sound as he slumped, first to his knees, then to the ground. This was caused by someone in a doorway near the end of the alleyway who had lashed out very hard with a large, bulbous object.
It was a lute, now lying in pieces on the cobbles, as Beniamino quickly removed his belt and lashed the man’s arms together before repeating the action with a cord that he drew from a bag.
‘I don’t think you’ll be able to fix that,’ I heard myself say.
‘Probably not,’ agreed Beniamino. ‘Not to worry. It needed a good tuning anyway.’
‘I ought to thank you,’ I began, ‘for saving my life.’
‘Yes, but not now. Let’s get this man to a safe place.’
‘Good idea. I’ll see if I can find the city’s sergeant to lock him away.’
‘You’ll do no such thing. This is a private matter.’
‘He is a common murderer. Or attempted murderer, anyway. He tried to kill me. And I suspect he killed a man called Van Leusden.’
‘I suspect so too. But we won’t know unless we get a confession, will we?’
‘Do you think he’ll confess?’
‘Mercurius, he’ll confess. The only que
stion is how much pain I’ll have to subject him to before we arrive at that point. Now stop wittering and help me get him into the light where we can get a look at him.’
I took the man’s legs while Beniamino grabbed him by the arms, and together we carried him into the street where the moonlight could play upon him.
I found myself looking into the battered face of Molenaar.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Beniamino and I lifted Molenaar to his feet and looped his arms over our shoulders to give any observers the idea that we were escorting a drunk to his home. His unconscious state made this a difficult proposition, but fortunately Beniamino told me we had not far to go. He had the use of one of the riverside warehouses. I did not like to question how he had obtained this but was very glad when he propped Molenaar against the door while he unlocked it, then pushed it open so Molenaar fell inside.
‘Careful!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’ll hurt him.’
‘Indeed I will, once he wakes up. But let’s secure him to prevent any escape first.’ He had a small crate full of ropes, which he used to tie Molenaar by his wrists and ankles to pillars. ‘We need to prevent self-harm,’ he explained.
‘Self-harm?’ I asked. ‘Why would he harm himself?’
‘To put an end to his misery. I’ve known it happen before, though not to one of my prisoners, I’m glad to say.’
‘I may be going out on a limb here,’ I said, ‘but I suspect that you’re not actually a lute-player.’
‘I am,’ he protested, ‘but more of an enthusiastic amateur than a professional. Lute-players knock on many doors. Nobody is surprised to see them. And they’re very quickly forgotten. When men are asked who was present in a room, they often overlook the servants and musicians.’
