‘Gallenreutter … Gallenreutter has been killed?’ the monk shouted in a tremulous voice as he approached. ‘Is it true?’
‘Yes, Father. The Toompea Murderer has made the Master Mason of St Olaf’s shorter by the length of a head,’ Dorn replied and bowed.
The Prior came closer, drew back in shock upon seeing the headless body and crossed himself. Hinricus stood behind him, deathly white, mumbling a prayer.
‘By the Lord’s will, this was not the only death in Tallinn last night,’ Eckell spoke gravely, ashen-faced. His left eye twitched nervously as he looked up from the corpse. ‘Magistrate, you have no power within our walls according to canon law, but I request that you accompany us to the monastery. Melchior, you, too, please.’
‘Father, is there also … in the monastery … ?’ Melchior asked, horrified.
‘Brother Wunbaldus,’ Eckell replied. ‘The Almighty has called him unto his own. I would like you to see him.’
‘Brother Wunbaldus? Dead?’ Dorn cried. ‘Him, too?’
The Prior lowered his eyes and swayed.
Hinricus buttressed him and said, ‘He did not come to morning prayers today, nor did he attend to his duties at the brewery. The esteemed Prior held morning mass for the Blackheads, and then we went to search for him. He died wracked by dreadful torments.’
20
THE DOMINICAN MONASTERY
18 MAY, EARLY MORNING
THE DOMINICANS’ BLACK robe serves to remind us that we are all mortal and that everyone is equal in death, Melchior pondered as he stepped once more through the doorway to the monastery. Today it seemed quieter in the courtyard – death had breathed here, and death’s breath brings silence and an icy chill. We avoid speaking loudly in the presence of death, as if the Grim Reaper has not yet departed, as if he is searching for his next victim and we might draw attention to ourselves. Perhaps death was lurking right here in the garden of the monastery, in the damp soil beneath the fruit trees, where Brother Wunbaldus used to busy himself; where medicinal herbs and vegetables grew in rows planted straight as rope; where the monk came to pick peppermint and cress to flavour the Dominicans’ beer. Death’s cloak was shrouding the monastery. One of their own had departed that day, but it had not been a natural departure, this Melchior sensed immediately, although the Prior and Hinricus had been quiet on the subject. There was mourning here but also anxiety blacker than the Dominican cloak, deeper than the knowledge that death will some day come for every one of us. There was something wrong about this passing, otherwise the Prior would not have requested the Magistrate’s presence.
They moved in silence. Hinricus opened the creaking door to Wunbaldus’s chamber. The Prior crossed himself, and Hinricus lowered his eyes. Dorn looked towards Melchior questioningly then ducked to pass through the low doorway and disappeared into the room. Melchior followed.
Everything in the room was almost as it had been the previous time – relics on the shelf, the half-built wall of the passageway through which a dull light seeped into the chamber, a chair and work desk, a pitcher of water, two beer tankards, a box of chess pieces and a mattress – but today Wunbaldus was lying on the latter. His soul had departed, and this must have happened in the throes of dreadful torments indeed. A stench hung in the room. The Dominicans had not yet washed and cleansed their departed brother.
Wunbaldus’s stiffened body was curled up, his rigid fingers clasping at his chest as if he had tried to tear the source of his pain from his body. He lay with his head arched back, pain disfiguring his face, his chest covered in foul matter. Wunbaldus’s white tunic … yes, it was blood, stained with brown spots both around his torso and on his sleeves.
Dorn had frozen in front of the corpse in shock.
‘He … he’s … ?’ he stammered, unable to finish his sentence.
‘From as much as I know about the art of healing,’ the Prior spoke in a cracked voice, ‘and all Dominicans know a thing or two about that, he died last night not long after evening prayers. I did not see Wunbaldus there, but he had many jobs to do, so we did not search for him yesterday evening. I thought that he would be in his chamber.’
‘And here he was, it seems,’ Melchior said quietly. ‘You realize, of course, that death arrived in a manner that points to some ghastly sickness.’
‘As far as I know he was in good health. I am the one here whose soul teeters on the brink.’ The Prior nodded to Melchior. He approached the body, squeezed Wunbaldus’s joints lightly, forced open his eyelids, opened his mouth, sniffed, unfastened his tunic and inspected his body.
‘Heavenly grace, Melchior,’ Dorn mumbled.
‘Did Wunbaldus complain about dizziness at all yesterday? Did he have any aches and pains?’ Melchior enquired.
‘No,’ the Prior and Hinricus replied in unison. The cellarius then bowed and took a small step backwards.
‘He did not complain of anything. No one heard him complain,’ Eckell continued.
Melchior thought for a moment then said, ‘Father, please tell us what he had been doing yesterday.’
‘Wunbaldus? Everything that he always did. He was at the brewery in the morning, and I later saw him here in his chamber cleaning the relics while the brothers were reading from the Scriptures. He went to collect alms in the afternoon.’
‘Do lay brothers not visit the scriptorium? I understood that Wunbaldus was well acquainted with the Scriptures.’
‘Oh yes, he was able to read and write – Tallinn was not his first monastery – but he was merely a lay brother, and according to our rules they perform tasks separate from those of the brothers.’
‘Although he knew the holy Scriptures well?’
Eckell did not respond immediately. His tone was hesitant. Melchior waited and attempted to bend the cadaver’s stiffened fingers.
‘He had a soul that was more attentive than that of many a brother,’ the Prior finally replied.
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Yesterday evening following vespers. He came from the garden and walked towards the lay brothers’ dormitory together with Sire Freisinger.’
‘And he seemed in good health?’
‘He seemed as healthy as ever. He did not look as if he was about to die in great pain. Believe me, I have spent a great deal of time in the company of the sick.’
‘And our Sire Blackhead was here with him?’
‘Wunbaldus likely assisted him with arranging something at their altar.’
Melchior nodded. Freisinger was a frequent visitor to the monastery. He then touched the Magistrate’s wrist, as if to indicate that he now wished to say something of significance.
‘Father,’ he began, ‘did you invite us here because you are unsure whether or not you may bury Wunbaldus in the Dominicans’ cemetery … in sacred soil?’
The chamber went very quiet. Eckell breathed with difficulty while Hinricus stared at the floor.
‘I believe that he might have eaten something … rotten,’ the Prior said at last, his voice uncertain. ‘However, he ate the very same food as the other lay brothers, and they are all fine.’
‘The Almighty’s ways are unforeseeable,’ Hinricus whispered.
‘They certainly are,’ Melchior reasoned. ‘Father and Magistrate, please come closer. I wish to show you something.’
When the pair stepped forward Melchior lifted up Wunbaldus’s bloody habit and said, ‘This man died in terrible pain, and that pain churned up his bowels. He vomited and released from his body everything that had collected within him over the course of the day. He died in convulsions, and as he died he was no longer able to swallow the vomit back down. His muscles no longer did his bidding. Yes, a man dies in this way when he has eaten something bad, something that already holds poison within. A man also dies in this way when he has consumed poison.’
Eckell crossed himself, and Hinricus turned away from the corpse.
‘Holy indulgence,’ Dorn grunted.
‘Tell us, please, did none of the
lay brothers hear anything?’ the Apothecary questioned. ‘When a person develops such dreadful pains he usually calls for help.’
Eckell remained silent, and Hinricus slowly shook his head.
Melchior continued, ‘Yes, he would call for help – unless he did not want it, if he had brought this bane upon himself. This man did not call for help. He suffered alone in this very chamber until he died. The poison in his body had to be very strong, because death arrived with haste – in about half an hour, I believe. Most likely during compline. A poison as strong as this cannot be ingested from spoiled fish, for example, and if any such food should indeed reach a man’s plate then he would have sense enough not to eat it. This man evidently swallowed the poison deliberately.’
The Dominicans already knew this, of course – or at least that is what they believed. No matter how old and frail their infirmarer was even he could recognize the effects of poison. All Dominicans are familiar with a few remedies – they have cared for the sick, have visited almshouses and administered confessions to the dying.
‘Poison? Melchior, do you wish to say that Brother Wunbaldus consumed poison?’ Dorn asked.
‘Something very poisonous,’ Melchior replied, nodding. ‘Which poison is impossible for me to say with absolute certainty, but I have at home The Book of Poisons, written by the greatly esteemed Magister de Ardoyn, and in that book it is written that a person who has ingested a very large dose of white arsenic has an appearance quite similar to this. That same poison, which …’
The Prior sighed loudly, as if his heart was about to erupt from his breast. His voice trembled, and Melchior noticed that the Prior clasped his own chest while speaking, no doubt instinctively. ‘The same poison which was discovered by Albertus Magnus one hundred and fifty years ago,’ Eckell finished, his voice cracking.
‘And who was, if my memory does not fail me, a Dominican. By the way, Dorn, it is said that arsenic is the poison of choice of high lords in the Papal States and Milan. It is impossible to detect in the human body, as it has no colour, no smell, no taste. It is simply a white powder, similar to flour. And it is deadly.’
‘But we don’t have that poison here in the monastery,’ Hinricus exclaimed, horrified. ‘We have no need for it.’
Melchior shrugged and pulled the tunic even further up Wunbaldus’s body, revealing his entire chest.
‘Look. Wunbaldus’s tunic is indeed bloodied, yet there is not one fresh wound on his chest.’
‘Unholy demons,’ Dorn mumbled, drawing closer towards the corpse, ‘that man had been pierced by swords from top to toe.’
‘Yes. Whenever a person cannot speak for himself his body might offer many more clues,’ Melchior replied. He inspected the body. Hinricus also came closer, but Prior Eckell turned and slumped into a chair and stared into the distance. Melchior turned poor Wunbaldus over on to his stomach with Hinricus’s aid. The men saw the ugly, humped mass at the top of his back, looking almost as if some disfigured gnome was waiting to climb out from the man’s body. Yet the scars … there were so many scars on the dead monk’s body.
‘Curses,’ Dorn murmured softly. ‘It appears that Brother Wunbaldus had been in more than ten battles.’
‘If you look closely,’ Melchior said, ‘then there is an old scar on his back – here on his hump. I would venture to say that a blow from a battle axe injured him so badly that the hump grew as a result.’
‘It is a wonder that he was still in one piece.’
‘A wonder, true, but it is not the only wonder with this man. He is completely covered in scars, and his body was once healthy and strong, although he grew much thinner in recent years at the monastery. You are looking at the corpse of a soldier, Magistrate, a soldier who died horribly from poisoning.’
‘And that wound on his shoulder, it must have been deep,’ Dorn affirmed. He looked questioningly towards Hinricus, but the cellarius was distracted by voices in the passageway. He shook his head and left the chamber.
Melchior turned his attention back towards the body and traced his finger along the scar on Wunbaldus’s hump. ‘Deep indeed, so deep that the bones never again grew together properly.’ His attention was then caught by something else, and he leaned in to look closer.
‘Wait, Magistrate … It is dark in this room, but if I had a fine pair of glasses on my person as does our Master Goldsmith Casendorpe, then … But as far as I can make out it looks as if he has some sort of a mark here at the base of his neck.’
Dorn also looked closer. ‘It is on the scar, as if some mark has been branded there – as they do with cattle. One letter looks like an E, and a K …’
Wunbaldus’s skin was covered in scars, but it did appear that a mark of some kind had been branded on to his body. Across the letter E ran a deep scar. Melchior shivered. The mark looked almost like an apparition. And then there was what the Magistrate had just said.
‘Cattle … of course,’ Melchior murmured. ‘See here. It’s as if the scar cuts straight through the mark, here across the E.’
‘It does, but what does it mean? I had no idea that monks were branded. And that’s quite a blow he took there. It’s a miracle that his soul remained within him.’
‘It must have been a miraculous escape indeed – exceptionally miraculous. The poor man lied when he said he had been a hunchback since birth. No doubt he lied of this to you as well, Father?’
Eckell did not at first realize that he was being spoken to. He appeared as if roused suddenly from a dream, staring at Melchior with a faraway look.
‘Yes, yes,’ he then mumbled quickly. ‘No doubt he misled us also … Poison, you said, Melchior? Arsenic? White arsenic?’
‘I cannot swear to that, nor could any doctor, but that would be my surmise. Every apothecary recognizes poisons and their effects.’
Hinricus appeared one more at the door, and, much to Melchior’s surprise, he was accompanied by Pastor Rode of the Church of the Holy Ghost, who seemed alarmed and stuttered as he spoke. Hinricus immediately approached the Prior, whispered something into his ear and departed. Rode cast a distraught glance towards the Apothecary and the Magistrate and then noticed Wunbaldus’s corpse lying face down behind them.
‘Honourable Prior, Magistrate …’ Rode’s words stuck in his mouth. Melchior could not remember ever having seen the man so agitated. The man could certainly spit fire and brimstone while preaching, and he could come out with profanities when proclaiming the Lord’s mercy on a stomach full of beer, but Rode – barely forty years of age and, although underweight, a strong-willed and loyal servant to the Almighty – was terrified. Prior Eckell raised his eyes, but he remained somewhere distant, away with his thoughts. It seemed he even failed to notice that someone else had entered the room. Rode bowed awkwardly to the Prior and turned back to the corpse. His hands shook.
‘I heard that Brother Wunbaldus is …’ he stuttered, searching for words. ‘Is this … is this Wunbaldus? Is he dead?’
Melchior grasped the cadaver by the arm, and with Dorn’s help turned the lifeless body back over so that the man’s face – frozen in rigor mortis – was towards Rode. The Pastor jumped.
‘He is Wunbaldus? And that Master Mason of Westphalia as well? They say that the Toompea Murderer …’
Eckell now appeared to be coming out of his dream. He shook himself and stood up. ‘What brings you here to our monastery, Pastor?’ he asked.
‘I came to … I heard that the Lay Brother Wunbaldus had … at night …’ Rode was confused. He looked at the corpse and then again at the Prior. It seemed as if he had turned up at the monastery without really knowing precisely why or how.
‘Yes, God has called his soul unto himself. We will pray for his salvation.’
‘Is there blood?’ Rode questioned.
‘His cloak is bloody, although, as the Apothecary will confirm, he did not die of wounds –’
Melchior interrupted, ‘He certainly did not die of wounds or loss of blood. More scars are found on his bod
y than on that of many a knight’s squire, yet these healed years ago. He died from poison.’
‘Poison? Did he drink poison? He drank it himself?’ Rode let loose a barrage of questions but could not bring himself to step closer to the body. Melchior eyed him attentively. This man was genuinely afraid something.
‘We cannot yet claim this for certain. We do not know any reason why he should have committed such an act,’ said the Prior.
‘And there is no poison kept here either,’ Melchior noted softly.
‘May the Lord Christ have mercy on his soul if it occurred in such a way. Father, you must have this wretch dragged by horses across the town to the gallows and hanged,’ Rode said.
‘Pastor, we do not yet know whether he took the poison himself,’ Eckell replied sternly.
‘Why should this unfortunate man have deliberately poisoned himself?’ Dorn snapped. ‘And, Melchior, why is there so much blood on his habit?’
‘Magistrate, I do not know why – at least, not just now. The only thing I am certain of is that it cannot be his own blood.’
‘It cannot be his blood …’ Eckell echoed and froze again.
It was an odd scene, Rode staring in terror at the corpse from a distance and the Prior slipping back into his world of heavenly thoughts.
Both of these men know something that I do not, Melchior suddenly realized. Dorn cast him a look. It seemed it was time for them to leave. Melchior nodded to him but first covered the body with a blanket. The living Wunbaldus – known as a brewer of distinction and an devout Dominican – who had he been? In death he presented puzzles and secrets that no one could have guessed at while he was alive.
‘Who was Brother Wunbaldus, Father?’
Melchior asked gently. ‘Judging by his scars he must have been a warrior once.’
‘Who was he?’ Eckell repeated in a weak voice. ‘A penitent. A lost soul.’
Melchior nodded. ‘No doubt we all are.’
Apothecary Melchior and the Mystery of St Olaf's Church Page 20
