It would be too painful to tell her how she tortures me
And also too painful to remain
Hence I will depart
Here is my song
I know not what it concerns
I send it off to someone
Who will send it with someone else to someone in Nuremburg
Perhaps this person can send me a key from my small chest with which I might solve this puzzle.’
Gerdrud passed Kilian as if the boy were not even there. Melchior, however, listened to the end with interest and then cantered off after the Magistrate.
9
TOOMPEA, SMALL CASTLE OF THE ORDER
16 MAY, MIDDAY
MELCHIOR WAITED NEAR the Town Hall briefly while Dorn tracked down the court servants, the assistant scribe and the town advocate, berated them all and then ordered them to head to Toompea. There were two roads that led from Lower Town up to Toompea. The larger, grander road, used by draft horses and livestock, was called Pikk Mägi or Long Hill. This started at the end of Rataskaevu Street close to the Town Hall and passed through a gate tower built during Melchior’s youth. The other, Väike Mägi, or Short Hill, had a wooden gate with a narrow entryway at the base of the hill. The town watchmen locked both gates every evening and took the keys to the Town Hall. There was little chance of getting up Short Hill in spring, as it was too steep and slippery with mud. Many men had broken bones attempting the climb, and recently one Order attendant had fallen and broken his neck.
Reaching Toompea by way of Long Hill was no easy task in the month of May either, as the road was muddy and covered in manure, pitted by large potholes and was so narrow in places so that carts could barely squeeze through. Rocks and rubble constantly tumbled down on to the road from the cliff above, on top of which meandered the Great Castle’s curtain wall.
One had to pass through two gates to reach Toompea. Melchior knew the way well because one winter he had attended school near the Dome Church. The road went straight as they passed through the stone tower at the base of Long Hill. The rocky base of the cliff loomed to their right, as if it were a protective barrier built by nature itself. To the left yawned a gorge – if anyone were to slip here they would reach the town with ease and very rapidly. Even Melchior’s house and rear courtyard were clearly visible from there. At one stage the Town Council had ordered the construction of a railing alongside the road, but it had been damaged a couple of winters ago and no longer provided any security for those scaling the hill. The small, rectangular Short Hill gate tower stood a couple hundred paces above and marked the town’s limits. Anyone ascending the hill was at that point forced to leave behind the free town air and Lübeck law because then they would cross into the dominion of Toompea where the Commander ruled and laws of the Teutonic Order held sway. In front of the timber tower was a heavy double gate constructed from oak, which the Council watchmen locked at sundown. No one could enter Order territory from the town at night-time or vice versa.
The group walked – rather stumbled – up the slope until the men finally reached the point at which the Short Hill Gate intersected with Long Hill. Melchior mused that it felt as if the stretch between the two gates had been put there for the sole purpose of allowing a citizen a chance to decide whether he really wished to pass beyond the castle walls and hand himself over to Order law; whether he really had the will to abandon his secure town rights and the protection of the Council and step into the stronghold of his country’s overlords.
They were now within the outer bailey of Toompea, which had a courtyard enclosed by a low wall ringed by a moat. By passing through the bailey one could either go north through Bell Tower Gate to the bishop’s residence or through the main gate leading to the Commander’s grand keep, which loomed a few hundred steps away. Either way the party of town citizens was now on Toompea in the domain of wind, rocks and power.
The first thing that struck anyone arriving from the town was the sheer might of the walls and towers. Although the Lower Town wall was continually being built higher and stronger and new towers were erected all the time, it did not appear that way when viewed from the heights of Toompea. Melchior walked this path quite frequently, as Toompea did not have its own pharmacy, but he always felt a twinge of isolation and dread when he saw those cold walls and towers rising in front of him. The Order was the Order, and the more time passed the more divergent were the lives in Order castles and the towns that surrounded them. Despite this, the present Commander of the Order in Tallinn, Ruprecht von Spanheim, was a simpler and more gracious man than many of his predecessors and had even called the town’s apothecary his friend a couple of times.
The streets of Toompea were not paved as they were in Lower Town, and there was a great deal of mud. The drab outer bailey was no exception. The men traipsed ahead through the muck towards the main gate of the keep. On their right was a moat in front of the wall that split Toompea in half, along with the Bell Tower, also known as Dome Gate. Were they to walk through that passageway and head straight along Piiskopi Street they would reach the Dome Church, the octagonal tower of which could be seen rising above the wall.
Toompea Small Castle – the Commander’s residence – was immediately in front of them, as was Pikk Hermann Tower, which stood as a symbol to the townsfolk of the Teutonic Order’s power and might. The stronghold had been built by soldiers of the Danish Crown, and the Order had further fortified it further, piling the castle walls higher and erecting four tall towers at each corner that were visible far out to sea along with the spire of St Olaf’s Church.
Although Toompea did not have its own pharmacy, the Commander had a personal physician who sometimes mixed remedies for his lord. Over recent years, however, the doctor’s vision had grown dim along with – Melchior suspected – his mind. It was for this reason that the town apothecary did not mix the Commander’s medicines according to the physician’s recipes but rather used his own intuition or followed instructions given by the town doctor. He had not, of course, gone before the Tallinn Council and mentioned anything about how the town’s apothecary would sometimes also mix remedies for their overlord on Toompea because one or other of the councilmen might well get a malicious idea when considering this fact. Melchior Wakenstede was an apothecary by permission of the town and practised on town land and was required to mix those medications passed down to him by the town doctor. Tallinn did not need to get involved in treating the lords of Toompea. But Ruprecht von Spanheim had a somewhat different disposition from previous commanders. He was rumoured to come from a very poor noble family in Germany, a family so low in fortune that it had long been unable to find the means to maintain its status. Ruprecht von Spanheim was the fourth son of a destitute knight who did not even have sufficient means to place his son in a monastery, and thus young Ruprecht was said to have entered the Teutonic Order as young boy to make ends meet on his own as penniless warrior-monk. By this time, however, the man had become commander of the most important town in Livonia, purely as a result of his valour in battle. Ruprecht von Spanheim had fought bravely against the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Russians, the bishops and the Swedes, and this had gained him many supporters within the Order. Yet Commander Spanheim remained a man of even temperament who regarded Tallinn’s town affairs with benevolence and understanding. Playing a large part in this was certainly the beer that Toompea received from Lower Town and towards which the Commander had never shown much restraint. Quite the opposite, in fact, Melchior had deduced, given the frequency with which the Commander dispatched his attendant to the pharmacy to fetch a certain elixir. Melchior mixed this potion from herbs, apple juice and mead topped off with a raw egg, and it was because of this drink that the Commander had labelled Melchior his friend on more than one occasion.
The townsmen now reached the main gate of the castrum minus, the Small Castle. They stepped meekly through the portal, where, naturally, no one stood guard at this time and entered the castle’s inner courtyard. They were now at the heart
of Order power, a heart that gave off the pungent stench of slurry because the Order’s barns, stables, sheds and coops were situated in the space. Hens strutted across the grounds, and a pair of swine wallowed in the shade.
Dorn looked around for an attendant who would inform the Commander of their arrival. This proved unnecessary, however, as the Commander himself stood near a well in a corner of the castle courtyard and …
Commander Ruprecht von Spanheim roared.
He roared in such a way that the court attendants ducked and the Magistrate jumped in surprise.
In truth, this roar had nothing to do at all with the appearance of the Council envoys. The esteemed Commander had just doused his body in a bucketful of cold water. When he spotted the townsmen Spanheim issued a guttural grunt, kicked over a second full pail of water and gestured towards the door to the castle hold. An attendant directed the Council entourage across the courtyard towards the southern wing of the castle where the Commander’s personal quarters were to be found. The group had to wait there for some time while Spanheim dried himself and dressed in fresh clothing. The court attendants were silent, the town advocate pursed his lips worriedly and Dorn inspected, with great interest, the view from an arrow-slit that looked down upon Toompea’s grazing lands and Tõnismägi Hill.
The Commander finally entered and ordered them into his reception hall. When he saw Melchior amongst the other faces he guffawed cheerily.
‘Melchior, you old wizard. Who allowed you up here?’
Melchior bowed cordially and handed a clay bottle to the Commander without a word.
‘By the Holy Virgin, your miracle remedy,’ Spanheim exclaimed and laughed. He snatched the bottle, guzzled it and then ordered the court attendants and Town Advocate to make themselves scarce because, as he said, ‘Toompea is no fairground.’ By the time, a little while later, he entered the starkly furnished reception hall mantled by a low-vaulted ceiling the Commander was glowing. He praised Melchior. ‘No, do not protest. I affirm it is a miracle remedy …’
‘I must hastily state that it is, nevertheless, a most ordinary pharmacy elixir, nothing more,’ Melchior replied modestly.
‘Oh, hell and demons, Melchior, do not argue with the Commander,’ Spanheim snapped. His surly mood seemed to have passed as it always did when he had sampled Melchior’s mellow beverage after several days of intense merrymaking. They stood in the Commander’s reception hall, where there was really nothing more than a coal brazier, a writing stand and a faded Order tapestry.
‘Do not argue,’ the Commander repeated. ‘On the battlefield, thank you for asking, I can hold my own – I sliced entire companies of Poles into tiny pieces in my younger days, that I did. At a feast I can drink Fellin’s entire joker-filled castle under the table, where they would remain if only the dogs did not come to lick the crumbs from their beards. Even Tallinn washerwomen can hold more beer than that Commander of Fellin, whose name causes kittens to laugh and to keep laughing until someone steps on their tails.’
Dorn forced out a hollow laugh, and Melchior confirmed that the honourable Town Council and pharmacy held the general belief that they were, without question, absolutely certain that not a soul in Fellin could match Tallinn’s Commander in matters of beer drinking.
‘That’s just how it is,’ the Commander barked. ‘I’ve drunk the lot of them under the table, and I’ll carry on drinking and go to bed with my head held high and my back straight, and then I’ll screw ten whores before daybreak if I choose to do so, and that happens to me quite often, I can tell you …’
‘And I, too, have always held the conviction that no one can compare with our Commander when it comes to laying whores and drinking beer. The whole of the honourable Town Council knows that …’ Dorn began to elaborate, but Melchior quickly stepped on the Magistrate’s foot and coughed. Dorn fell mute, startled.
Spanheim paid this no heed. ‘So it is,’ he said, sighed and approached his writing stand.
‘Come closer, Magistrate,’ he commanded. ‘I want to show you something.’
What the Commander had to show made both Dorn and Melchior reel. The Commander seized a human head from a chest on the stand and held it up before them.
‘Knight von Clingenstain’s head is here, but his body will rest in the chapel until it is entombed at Dome Church for his eternal rest,’ Spanheim declared.
‘Holy Mary and the heavenly host,’ Dorn mumbled in shock. The head had belonged to a man of about forty years of age, and it had been drained of blood. A head becomes much smaller when the blood has been drained from it, Melchior noted. The face shrivels and the skin takes on a light-yellowish tone …
‘Back to the matter in hand,’ the Commander said with greater seriousness. ‘Yesterday evening someone decapitated Knight von Clingenstain and escaped down to the town. Magistrate, before I sent an attendant to the Town Hall this morning I dispatched my page to the Grand Master of the Order with these sorrowful words. Such an outrageous crime is a stain on the entire town of Tallinn. It is unprecedented for a high-ranking Knight of the Order to be heinously murdered in the town.’
On Toompea, Melchior thought, murdered on Toompea.
‘And now it is Tallinn’s solemn duty to put the murderer in chains and bring him to Toompea so that a tribunal of knights may sentence him to death. He will be staked to Pikk Hermann and tortured, as is just and righteous,’ Spanheim continued. ‘A decree stating this will be sent to the town, but this command has been made known to you in advance, here and now in this very place.’ Dorn bowed and wished to say something, but the Commander continued, ‘And when I send the next page to visit the Grand Master of the Order I want to be able to inform him that the murderer has already been strung up on Pikk Hermann and that Tallinn’s Town Council has displayed the honour and respect to the Order that it is obliged to show. Magistrate, do you understand that I do not wish to send a message to the Grand Master to the effect that the murderer is still at large in Tallinn and that the Council has not yet apprehended the man? I do not want matters to take the same course as the last time that the Council and Toompea were at odds for more than two months over the surrender of a thief, who, during the course of that time, fled by ship. Your Lübeck law there in Lower Town is fair and just, by the Grand Master’s good grace, but it denies me the authority to put the murderer in chains and drag him up to Toompea myself.’
Dorn collected his wits and asked, ‘But could the esteemed Commander then state who this murderer is so that I may make his name known to the honourable Town Council and so that the Council might give permission to –’
‘Torture him and so forth, as is just and righteous. Of course, I would tell you, damn it, but I do not know who it is. I have already interrogated every attendant, artisan and servant on Toompea, yet they neither saw nor heard a thing. Even that Jochen, the servant of our departed brother, Henning, was lying with some washerwoman at the time and has nothing to tell me.’
‘But who, then, must I incarcerate?’ Dorn asked, bemused.
‘Holy thunder and Jacob’s bones,’ blasted the Commander. ‘You are the Magistrate. Does every killer there in Lower Town have a sign around his neck showing whom he has dispatched to the netherworld? Does every crook paint his name upon the church wall so that you might apprehend him accordingly?’
‘But according to law Toompea must demand the town produce a criminal by name and then, and then a Council trial … But who then must the Council trial find guilty, shackle and bring here?’
‘My dear Magistrate Dorn, you are the man who will establish the identity of Clingenstain’s murderer, and then you will pass this information along to me, and I will issue a demand for him from the Council. It is exceptionally simple.’
‘Esteemed Commander,’ Melchior intervened, ‘the Magistrate merely wishes to say that it would be of great assistance to him were Toompea able to provide him with advice and direction. For example, it would be very useful to know at what hour this dreadful murder became known
and who found the corpse, whether there may have been things at the scene that could disclose anything about the murderer and how we know for certain that the killer fled down to the town.’
Spanheim glared momentarily at the Apothecary. ‘Now, Melchior, what are you doing sticking your nose into this affair? There are afflicted and diseased folk in the town. Go and mix medicines for them, and the Magistrate will act on his own by the Council’s authority. If it is necessary, then take along an executioner to bend some bones, and certainly someone will ultimately confess,’ said the Commander. ‘I permitted you to enter here only because you brought me that miracle elixir.’
Dorn coughed and said, ‘An executioner would definitely be of use to the town, but Melchior is also of great assistance to the Council, for where other than the pharmacy do the townsfolk go to gossip? Every person – no matter merchant or councilman, mason or cobbler, beer peddler or minter – has affairs at the pharmacy at some time or another. And it is there, you see, that the honest Melchior fills up tankards for men to wet their whistles and speak of all they have seen and heard.’
‘And at greater length and with more pleasure than in the executioner’s chamber,’ Melchior added. ‘The executioner, I might add, is my good friend and sometimes visits the pharmacy himself to request medicine for his aching bones.’
‘And this is not the first time that Melchior has been of help to the Council Court,’ the Magistrate continued. ‘Last year, you recall –’
‘Fine. Very well,’ Spanheim interrupted. ‘In the end it is none of my business to say how the Council apprehends the murderer, and if you and your pharmacy are indeed of benefit, then …’ He took another swig of elixir and began to relate what had happened.
Henning von Clingenstain stayed on Toompea for five days at a house belonging to a Viru vassal who was away at his manor, as most vassals generally are in springtime. Commander Clingenstain was travelling from Gotland to Marienburg, but certain obligations required that he pass through Tallinn on his way. There were eight men of Gotland on Toompea altogether, the others all being lower-ranking brothers that the Commander had housed in the castle dormitory. Clingenstain had spent the majority of his time in Tallinn within the dining-hall located at the eastern edge of the castle, because, as Commander Spanheim had said, ‘something had to be done with those four casks of beer, that barrel of herring and heap of salted pork that the Council sent for the purpose of entertaining the esteemed guest’. In addition to Clingenstain, the Knight’s squire Jochen was also staying at the vassal’s house; he had now been shackled and beaten to a pulp. Clingenstain had only gone back the house to sleep. Last evening the Knight had set out for his lodgings at close to eight o’clock. He was alone – a couple of Order attendants had spotted him stumbling about near the stables, looking for the right path and shouting for his servant. Clingenstain reached his lodging through a side portal at the northern wing of the keep, via the gate where the road crossed the moat directly into the bishop’s residence, without having to make a wide arc through the outer bailey and Dome Gate. Jochen found Clingenstain’s decapitated corpse one hour later and ran into the castle shouting hysterically. Commander Spanheim had immediately ordered the alarm bell be sounded, yet for whom and for what was Toompea to be searched? The Commander personally interrogated every knight, attendant and squire for half the night, but no one had witnessed anything further.
Apothecary Melchior and the Mystery of St Olaf's Church Page 6
