The cat objected to the insinuation. It mewled, turned its backside toward him, and released a substantial jet of urine. Jacob stretched, wondering how long he had slept. After Jaspar had driven him to despair with the story about the archangel, he had crawled up to the loft, collapsed onto a pile of kindling, and fallen asleep on the spot. He must have slept through the whole day.
But he was still alive, that was the important thing.
At the memory of what he had been through during the last twenty-four hours he felt a tremor of fear. But it was bearable, as was the pain in his shoulder. Jacob felt revitalized. He also felt a strong desire to do something. Jaspar would probably be downstairs. He found the trapdoor, ran his fingers through his hair to make himself reasonably presentable, and clambered down the ladder.
In the room a massive, good-natured-looking man was sitting by the fire chewing at a joint of fatty ham. For a moment Jacob felt like running away. But the man didn’t look as if he was in league with murderers and devils. Cautiously Jacob stepped a little closer and nodded.
“And a very good day to you, too,” said the man, his mouth full, so that the words were scarcely comprehensible.
Jacob sat down carefully on the bench and looked him up and down. “I’m called Jacob,” he said.
The man nodded, grunted, and continued to tear at the piece of ham.
“Jacob the Fox. That’s what they call me. Jaspar probably mentioned me?”
A further grunt was the response. Impossible to say whether it expressed agreement or appreciation of the food. Clearly not a great conversationalist.
“Right,” said Jacob, crossing his legs, “your turn.”
“Rolof.”
“What?”
“’m called Rolof. Servant.”
“Aha. Jaspar’s servant.”
“Mmm.” Rolof took a deep breath and let out a colossal burp.
“And? Where is he? Jaspar, I mean.”
Rolof seemed to have understood that a conversation was unavoidable, even if the idea of continuing to gnaw the ham joint was more attractive.
He licked the fat from his lips. “St. Mary Magdalene’s. Sermon. Epistle to the Hebrews, yes? At least that’s what he said.”
“St. Mary Magdalene’s? The little church opposite St. Severin’s?”
“Mmm. ’s dean there. Little church? Yes, but lovely. Not a great big lump like St. Severin’s.”
“Er, Rolof,” said Jacob, shifting along the bench toward him, “that joint of ham you’ve got there, er, could you imagine, I mean, assuming you don’t think you really need the whole of that huge piece, you know it could give you a horrible stomachache, my uncle, for example, he ate an enormous piece like that, all by himself, it wasn’t so long ago, and it killed him, his body stank of ham for days on end, it made even the grave-diggers throw up into his grave, and it probably meant he didn’t go to heaven, either, all because of the ham, now you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
Rolof froze. He sat there motionless for a long time. Then he looked at Jacob. “No,” he said slowly.
“I thought so.” Jacob gave a jovial laugh and put his arm around Rolof’s shoulder. “Now I would be willing to take some off you. Let’s say half.”
Rolof nodded, gave him a friendly grin, and continued to work at the smoked meat with his huge jaws. That was all.
Jacob started to grow uneasy. “Rolof?”
“Mmm.”
“You want to go to heaven, don’t you?”
“Mmm.”
“You understood what I said?”
“Yes. You said, when I die, I’ll stink of smoked ham. Great, yes? Everyone’ll know Rolof was rich man, lots of ham to eat, yes?”
“Unbelievable!” muttered Jacob and retreated into his corner.
After a while Rolof leaned toward him and bared his teeth. “You hungry?”
“What a question to ask! Of course I’m hungry.”
“There.” He was actually holding half the joint out to Jacob. His heart missed a beat, then he grabbed it and took such an enthusiastic bite the fat came spurting out. How long was it since he had eaten something like this? Not since Bram had died, if at all.
It tasted salty. Rancid. Delicious!
Rolof leaned back, a smug expression on his face, and began to lick his fingers. “Jaspar says Rolof has one big advantage,” he grunted. “Rolof looks thick as two short planks, yes?”
Jacob stopped chewing and gave him a cautious glance. He didn’t quite know what to say. Any comment could be the wrong thing.
“But,” Rolof went on with a sly look, “Rolof ’s not. You want ham, yes? Make up tall story. Not a fox, an ass, yes? In a fox’s skin. Could’ve asked.”
“I did ask,” Jacob protested.
Rolof laughed. “Did lie. Your story’s rubbish. Impossible.” He raised his index finger and beamed. “No uncle. Jaspar says you’ve not got anyone, never had. But no uncle, no ham story, yes?” He rubbed his belly, satisfied with his demonstration of intellectual superiority. Soon after, his snores were making the beams shake.
“I suspect you’re supposed to be keeping an eye on me.” Jacob giggled and returned to his piece of paradise.
At last Jaspar came, putting an end to the tranquility of the tiny, crooked room. He seemed irritated and gave the bench a sharp kick. Rolof awoke with a start. Then Jaspar’s eye fell on Jacob. He raised his brows, as if seeing him for the first time, scratched his bald head, and pulled at the end of his nose. “Oh, yes,” he said, cleared his throat, and disappeared.
“Oho,” said Rolof. “Better I go, yes? Every time Jaspar talks of Hebrews—oh! oh!”
“What’s all this about the Hebrews?” Jacob asked, getting up to see where Jaspar had gone. He heard the sound of the trapdoor in the backyard. Obviously Jaspar felt in need of a visit to his wine cellar.
Rolof looked all around, lumbered over to Jacob, and whispered confidentially, “Jaspar Rodenkirchen, people can’t understand him.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Too clever. Can talk till his teeth fall out, yes? Because—the Hebrews—I know nothing about it, only it says something about peace and brotherly love, entertaining strangers and good things like that. At least I think so, but he always gets furious, in a rage, like an animal, bleeeh, bleeeh.”
“Yes, because those are the only words you can understand,” growled Jaspar, coming in with a well-filled jug in his arm. “Bleeeh, bleeeh. For Rolof that’s a whole sentence with subject, object, and predicate. That’s why he can understand pigs. What do the pigs say, Rolof? What do they say? ‘Eat me, eat me,’ isn’t that what they say? Incredible the way he can understand pigs. Not even St. Francis could speak their language so perfectly.”
“Comes from all that ham,” Jacob whispered to Rolof.
The servant roared with laughter until he was left gasping for breath. Then he stood there, apparently unsure what to do next. He decided to try yawning. It worked. “Late,” he observed.
“Oh, excellent,” Jaspar mocked. “We’ve learned to distinguish between morning and evening! What an intellectual achievement. The world will tremble at the power of your mind.”
“Yes.” Rolof nodded, completely unabashed. “Going to bed.”
He yawned again, then climbed the stairs. They heard him singing, some unmelodious plaint that suddenly broke off, to be followed by the familiar snore, proving that for every unpleasant noise there is an even more unpleasant one.
Jaspar placed two mugs on the table, filled them, and invited Jacob to drink. They emptied them in one draught, Jacob greedily, Jaspar with the unhurried calm of the experienced drinker.
“So,” he said, and put his mug on the table, refilled it, drank, put it down again, refilled it, emptied it, put it down again, and looked at Jacob as if he saw things rather more clearly than a few minutes ago. “How did you sleep, my little fox-cub?”
Jacob felt odd. The stuff was going to his head. “Like a fox-cub,” he said.
“Marvelous. My house a fox’s ear
th. How’s the arm?”
“Better.”
“Better? That’s good.”
They were silent for a while. Jacob wondered whether he ought to bring up his problem, although he would have preferred to be able to forget everything.
The silence began to weigh on him. “You gave a sermon on the Hebrews?” he asked, more out of politeness than anything.
Jaspar gave him a surprised look. “How on earth—oh, of course, Rolof. Yes, I told him what I was going to preach on. Sometimes I really don’t know whether he has the brain of a piglet or the sly duplicity of my cat. But he’s a good servant—when he’s not sleeping or eating. Yes, I preached on Hebrews and some of my fine parishioners did not like it.”
He snapped his jaws shut. His fury was almost tangible. Jacob stared at his mug. They could go on like this, drinking and saying nothing, but the idea didn’t appeal to him much. He suddenly felt the need to know more about Jaspar.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Why not?” Jaspar grunted, pouring himself some more wine. “Because they’re unrepentant hypocrites through and through, our good Christian ladies and gentlemen, and because that unspeakable whoreson Alexander is preaching a crusade and they’re delighted, instead of being outraged. As if the so-called holy city of Cologne didn’t have good reason to mistrust the promptings of the Roman snake that calls himself pope. The people of Cologne of all places.”
“Why Cologne of all places?”
Jaspar rolled his eyes. “O Lord! See Thy son Jacob, he lives within the walls of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, but what does he know of it? Nothing. Or have you heard of the lost children? Anno Domini 1212?”
Jacob shook his head.
“Just as I thought. But you do know what a crusade is?”
“Yes. A just war to win back the Holy Land from the heathen.”
“Amazing! The words just roll off his tongue! Learned off by heart so he doesn’t need to think about it. Sancta simplicitas! Now, if you were to ask me, I would say a crusade is a mockery of the teaching of Augustine, put about by another blockhead known as Urban II. God, what am I doing talking to you about crusades and Augustine? I must be out of my mind.”
“Perhaps.” Jacob was starting to get angry. “No, definitely. You’re out of your mind and I’m an imbecile. How is it possible I’m talking to the venerable Jaspar Rodenkirchen, dean, physician, and goodness knows what else? To know nothing is unforgivable, of course.”
“What’s unforgivable is to have an empty head.”
“Oh, right. It’s all my fault. I’ve been surrounded by sages all my life. I only had to ask. Everyone was just waiting for the opportunity to fill my head with knowledge. Wasn’t I stupid? Unforgivable, as you say.”
Angrily he grabbed the jug, poured himself some wine, and gulped it down. Jaspar watched him in amazement.
“What’s all this? The poor don’t need to be ashamed of their ignorance, I know that. No one expects a philosophical treatise from you. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they—”
“I am not poor in spirit! And when I don’t know something, it doesn’t bother me until someone insists on rubbing my nose in it, at the same time spouting platitudes such as ‘use your head.’ How can I, reverend sir, when there’s obviously nothing in it? At the moment I don’t even know what to do to survive the next few days. I’m an ignorant fox, yes, or more likely a wretched little squirrel, but I will not accept insults. Not even from you, however many times you boast about wanting to help me.”
His mouthful of wine went down the wrong way; he coughed and gasped for breath. Jaspar looked on, then stretched over and gave him a thump on the back.
“So you really want to know about the Crusades?”
“Yes,” Jacob panted, “why not?”
“A history lesson. Might be a little dry.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Hm. Right then. I’ll have to go back a little. Pour yourself more wine. There’s still some in the jug?”
“Should be enough.”
“Good. You’ve heard of the Holy Roman Empire, I suppose?”
“Of course.”
Jaspar shook his head. “There’s no ‘of course’ about it. To be precise, it’s a divided empire; holy or not, it has disintegrated over the centuries. On the one hand there’s the East Roman empire with Byzantium as its center and the West Roman with Rome. If you think things are pretty turbulent now, let me tell you they were much worse when the old empire finally collapsed, about two hundred years ago. The pope inveighed against the supposed depravity of the kings and emperors. The old story. When the spiritual and secular powers are at each other’s throats they like to use our Lord Jesus Christ as a figurehead. The king got them to elect an antipope. Suddenly there were two popes. God had two representatives on earth who couldn’t stand each other and always proclaimed something different from their opposite number. One spoke of the dunghill of Rome, the other of the king’s whore. All very edifying. The Roman pope excommunicated the king. Unfortunately that was only valid for the West Roman empire. There was also the East Roman, with an emperor in Byzantium who didn’t give two hoots for Rome. He was a rather dubious character anyway, who had got to the throne by a bloody intrigue, which had really irritated the Vatican. So what did the pope do in his righteous anger? What do you think?”
Jacob shrugged his shoulders. “Difficult to say.”
“What would you have done as the pope of Rome?”
“I would have excommunicated the other one as well.”
“Very good, Fox. That was exactly what the pope did. Not that the Byzantine emperor cared. He didn’t care about much. Not even about the Seljuks who were at the gates—”
“Seljuks?”
“Sorry. Seljuks, Pechenegs, all Turkish tribes that Mohammed had united with the Arabs. So their empire stretched from Khorasan across Iran and the Caucasus, over Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine as far as the Hejaz. A huge area. And now the infidels wanted Byzantium as well. Given the conflict of interest within Christendom, the most they were likely to be faced with was a few toothless quotations from the Bible. The emperor of Byzantium was as false-hearted as he was weak, which was probably a good thing because it made him easier to depose. There was the usual palace revolution and a remarkable young man by the name of Alexios came to power. Once he was firmly established, he took stock and the result was not encouraging. Many parts of the empire had fallen into the hands of the Turks and the rest threatened to follow suit.”
Jaspar licked his lips and had a drink.
“In addition to which,” he went on, “Alexios had problems with Rome. The excommunication had been passed on to him like foot-and-mouth disease. No hope of help from the West. So Alexios tackled the Seljuks, Pechenegs, and what have you on his own, drove them back and managed to negotiate a peace, a pretty flimsy affair, but still. For the benefit of Christendom, he announced, though basically all he was interested in was regaining his territory. He couldn’t have cared less about the fact that the holy places—Palestine, the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem, Antioch, where St. Peter had lived—were under Seljuk rule, which was what the pope was so concerned about. All the horror stories about the ungodly Turks who slaughtered Christian pilgrims by the thousand, cooked and ate them, were products of the overheated imagination of deranged hermits. The Christians in the occupied territories had the advantage of Islamic law, the most tolerant there is, if you ask me. They were allowed to practice their religion and had very few complaints, certainly not enough to send a call for help to the West. Is this all beyond you, or would you like to hear the rest?”
“Of course. Go on.”
Jaspar smiled. “You’re not so muddleheaded as that mat of red hair would suggest. Right then. Back in Rome things were improving. Both the pope and the antipope died and a new one was elected. He called himself Urban II and if I said before he was a blockhead, that was only half the story. He certainly wasn’t stupid, but his indolence was nothing short
of blasphemous. He simply had no desire to quarrel with anyone at all. The first thing he did was to lift the excommunication from Alexios, fighting with his back to the wall in far-off Byzantium, and conclude a treaty of friendship with him. Two crooks who deserved each other, ha! Alexios immediately tried to think up ways of winkling a few pious warriors out of his new friend, to help him win back some of the occupied territory, Anatolia in particular. But there were limits to this friendship, since Urban just wasn’t interested in war. He ran his church and that was that. Alexios was unhappy with that. What was the point of an ally who did nothing? So he sent an embassy of twelve ambassadors to Piacenza, where Urban was holding a council, and they went on at great length about the sufferings of the Christians under the yoke of Islam, wailed and gnashed their teeth at the siege of the Holy City, and made a great to-do about pilgrims on their way to Palestine being hung by the feet and chopped into little pieces while still alive and God knows what other nonsense. All hugely exaggerated and full of oriental rhetoric, which they learned down there. But effective. Urban promised help. Promising was one thing Urban was good at.”
“And? Did he send help?”
“Urban? Not straightaway.” Jaspar giggled. “As I said, he was a cleric through and through, and preferred to spend his time in the usual ecclesiastical pursuits. Canonizations, witch trials, that kind of thing. But at least he’d promised. Alexios was rubbing his hands at the prospect of a hundred well-armed knights, and Urban would certainly have sent them, sooner or later—if he hadn’t had that blasted dream.”
Jacob, who was listening fascinated, went to fill his mug, but there was nothing to fill it with.
“Oh,” said Jaspar and teetered off toward the back of the room.
“I’m not bothered,” Jacob called out after him.
“But I am.”
“You can’t just stop like that.”
“Why not?” Jaspar’s voice was already coming from outside. “The story took hundreds of years to become history, but you can’t wait.”
“I want to know what happened next. And you still haven’t told me about the lost children.”
Death and the Devil: A Novel Page 17
