by Ben Hopkins
On her bedside chair, a wig of flaxen hair, a box of rouge and kohl. On her writing table, a pouch of silver coin.
Manfred and Bertle share a look.
† † †
In trade, everything connects. This is the lesson he has learned. Nothing is worth nothing. There is no moment that is not an opportunity. In the Counting House at Hagenburg there are Gulden, Sols Tournois, Deniers Parisis, Rappen, Batzen, Bezants, Büssel and Heller, gathered there from the homes of the four winds, carried by foot, boat and horse to their exchange into good, hard Hagenburg coin.
As a child, he used to stare at these coins over the counter. When trade was quiet, his uncle, the Counting House factotum, would hand him a coin to look at, weigh in his hand, bite against his teeth, to dream. From Bohemia, from Visby, from England, from Paris, Basel, Florence, Antwerp, Palermo, Cologne, Constantinople, Alexandria. A web of deals, a network of barterings, promises, investments, gambles and transactions covering our world in threads of living silver and gold.
The night before, at the Inn in Wasselheim, Treasurer-Bastard gave them all a speech: no looting, no thieving; the Abbey and everything in it is the property of the Church. Now Manfred understands; this isn’t just a round-up of heretics and sinners, this is a raid.
And that’s why the Treasurer is running things. It’s to do with money. Everything always is. At least that’s what Manfred’s been led to believe.
Money.
Far be it from Manfred and Bertle to disobey the orders of the Holy Mother Church, but somehow the coins find their way into Bertle’s underwear, a golden ring into the lining of Manfred’s cap, and the wig, God Knows Why, stuffed behind his breastplate.
† † †
“In the name of Jesus Christ, I was chosen. Like the patriarchs of old, it was given me to have many wives. We were wed in the centre of the sun . . . ”
Manfred’s Latin is not so good, but this is what he thinks the Abbot is shouting as he and Bertle trot back into the Abbey’s main square. Screams, wails, weeping. The nuns are being shackled together by the other Hagenburg raiders. The monks are already in chains.
Luckhard the Blacksmith leans against his cart, eating some bread and sausage, in bad humour. He’s come all the way from Hagenburg, following behind the raiding party with his cart loaded with chain and shackles. The statutes rule that he owes seven days unpaid work to the Bishop every year, and Treasure-Fucker hit him with this commission: make fifty shackles and lengths of chain and bring them to Mohrmünster. Luckhard hasn’t slept in three days, looks ready to beat the Treasurer into sheet metal, cut him into coins.
The morning mists have lifted, a pale sun angles over the Abbey chapel. A servant throws a bucket of water over the mercenary’s spilled blood, starts to scrub at it. The corpse has been dragged away somewhere. “The Bishop of Hagenburg is a heretic, not I! What gives him the right to invade my sovereign territory?” shouts the Abbot. No-one pays him much attention.
Friedrich orders the two merchant boys to dismount and join in the shackling. Manfred can think of worse things to do than manhandle nuns, jumps down keenly. Grabs a pretty novice, she struggles, he pulls her close to him, kisses her. She flinches away from his kiss, but weakens. Iron closes around her wrist. Tears fall from her eyes.
Riding into the Abbey now, the Treasurer’s Clerks, with rolls of parchment tied to their saddlebags. “Start the inventory of personal goods immediately,” says the Treasurer, “begin your work in the Abbot’s quarters.” The pale, angular young Clerks nod, obedient, dismount. Treasure-Fucker doesn’t even want a rusty penny to slip from his fingers; he wants the whole lot inventoried, down on paper, so he can salivate over the lists of goods and chattels.
This place will be worth a fortune.
One of the monks starts shouting in the Treasurer’s direction, a mix of Latin and Lothringen dialect. The gist of what he’s saying: yes I always knew the Abbot was a heretic and I always stood against him and I wrote letters to the Bishop and to the Pope and it wasn’t my fault if they were intercepted by the Abbots’ spies and please don’t burn me.
The Treasurer sighs, speaks quietly; “His Grace has appointed some Dominican Brothers to hear your cases. You will be taken to the castle at Rosenweiler to be tried. Now please shut up.”
The mercenary’s blood has thickened, blackened. The servant is scrubbing as hard as he can. Pinkish foam gathers round the cobbles’ stain. Remembering the sickening moment of the beheading, Manfred’s innards turn. He takes the arm of the next nun, an older lady, shaking all over. Her eyes are vacant, demented. She has no idea what’s happening. Manfred shackles her wrist.
Von Fegersheim has gone green. He kneels at the Treasurer’s feet, begs something quietly, so that the others can’t hear. Von Zabern nods wearily, lays his hands on Von Fegersheim’s brow—an absolution. So, the young noble has fears for his immortal soul! He’s just killed a man, pretty much in cold blood, and it’s hit him hard. One of his noble friends says something, Von Fegersheim laughs, overloud. Trying to shrug off the nausea, the shame.
“He’ll be alright,” nods Bertle, from behind his nun, the last in the line. “He just needs a drink.”
“You two!” says Arsehole, imperiously, pointing at Manfred and Bertle. “You’ll escort the mercenaries on their way, as far as Pfalzburg. Set them on the Nanzig road. After that you can go home. Collect your pay at the Treasury after Sunday.”
Manfred looks at Bertle and shrugs; a nice ride through the snowbound forest with the Hayseeds. If their horses aren’t too tired, they can be back to Hagenburg that night. Gibbous moon; last night’s was full; they can find their way. And if the Vogesentor is locked, their friends on the Town Guard will let them in if they shout loudly enough.
“Come here first,” says the Treasurer ominously.
Manfred and Bertle approach His Lordship, finding expressions of appropriate innocence.
“Empty your pockets, pouches.”
Manfred and Bertle exchange a glance, then, like schoolchildren, they obey. Von Zabern arches an eyebrow over their stuff; a couple of keys, some pennies, a small knife, a pair of bone dice.
“Jump up and down.”
Incomprehension.
“Do as I say.”
Manfred and Bertle jump up and down unenthusiastically. A jingle of coin comes from Bertle’s bollocks.
Treasure-Fucker holds out his hand. “Give it to me.”
Bertle tries to pull an incredulous face. It doesn’t work.
“And anything else you’ve stolen. Hupprecht!”
The Treasurer summons over one of the young knights to pat the merchant boys down. Before too long, von Zabern is weighing the pouch of silver and the ring in his supple-fingered hands. “What is it about merchants that makes them incapable of honesty?” he asks.
Manfred strokes his pointed, ginger beard, searches for a bright, sharp reply. Can’t find one.
“Get going,” says von Zabern, turns away.
Manfred and Bertle share a look, then head to their horses. The mercenaries are waiting by the gate, disarmed, ready to try their luck over the border in Burgundy.
“Fucking bastard,” mutters Bertle, meaning the Treasurer. Manfred nods. There were a good fifty pennies in that pouch. But he’s still got the flaxen wig in his breastplate. And, strangely, it’s the wig that’s going to make his Fortune.
In trade, everything connects.
SUNLIGHT
(ANNO 1231. RETTICH SCHÄFFER III)
Lie beneath the tree’s outspreading arms. Close your eyes. There’s a wind, coming from the sun’s bedchamber.
The “sun’s bedchamber”?
Rettich laughs. Where the sun goes to bed, my Lord.
Ah, from the West.
If you say so, Master. Close your eyes. The wind moves the new young leaves. The sunlight dances.
A dance of
shadows, yes.
The wind whispers in your ear. What’s it saying?
It’s saying that maybe the sun goes to bed over there, but when he gets up in the morning, he rises over there. So what happens with his bedchamber during the night?
Ah, don’t you know? Beneath our world there is an ocean.
There is?
And the sun, sleeping, drifts on that ocean, on a boat made of light. His bed is laid on the prow of the boat, and he drifts all night on the seas, and then, when he wakes, he has come to the Other Side of the World. And he rises from there.
I didn’t know this, Rettich.
No?
And then what happens to his boat during the day?
It drifts back to where it started. And the whole thing begins again.
There is no-one guiding this boat? It moves of its own accord?
God guides that boat, Master Achim.
Of course.
Quiet a time, if you will, Master. Listen to the wind, watch the dance.
† † †
For the first year Rettich concentrates on simple stone dressing, on measurements and figures, on cutting building blocks to the perfect size, on the making of mortar, on recognising the subtle shades of colour in the hewn stone. Most of his days are therefore spent with the Companions on the site, where they are raising the soaring walls of the new nave along the line of the old.
Rettich has no fear of heights and so he is often sent scrambling like a squirrel up the scaffolds to help with the pulleys and treadwheels. Here, close to Heaven, his companions are the ropers and carpenters in charge of the lifting contraptions, the thick ropes, hooks and weights.
When a heavy block is being lifted, then concentration is deep. Silence is called for in the square below, so that all can hear each other’s instructions. The hawkers move elsewhere, the stall-keepers are silent or move into the Apse and Crossing of the Cathedral to advertise their wares to the folk inside. A calm settles on the area, a small hushed crowd gathers to watch.
High up on the top of the wall, the men in the treadwheel start their walk. The ropes tighten, the claws of the lewisson clutch at the stone. The ropemakers watch like falcons for frays, poised with jugs of water to douse chafing cords. Carpenters watch rivets and joins for fractures, watch the wood for any unbearable strain.
Tighter and tighter. Rettich can hardly look.
Then a lurch and the stone is lifted from the cart. The watching crowd gasps. The oxen, sensing the burden’s lifting, impatiently paw the ground. The carter keeps them in place, feeds them mangelbeet, calms them down. Masons gather round the block, now at a man’s height above the cart, steady its rocking, settle its sway.
Free of the masons’ upstretched fingers, the stone now inches its way up the towering wall. In the treadwheel they walk, keeping rhythm, step step step step. If they should stumble, then the block will plummet, the wheel will spin and dash them without mercy. Men have died in this way, too many times.
Rising, a span at a time. The ropes fray and twist. Timbers creak, whimper almost silently like beaten dogs. In Rettich’s ears, the whisper of air, here up high, where at dusk the swallows wheel. He listens out for wind, watches the linen rag that hangs from a pole. Should it move, it’s his call to cry out “wind!”
The rag hangs limp. Thanks be to God. All is in precarious balance, and any sudden strong gust can break the tensing timbers.
“Wait!” The Carpenter Companion’s voice rings out, a marshal command. The load is swaying too much from side to side, and must be steadied.
The treadmill men count together, slowing down in unison, and then . . . stand still. Their weight holds the block in the dizzy void.
All is suspended. In mid-air, the sandstone block sways . . .
“And go!” The Wheelmaster is satisfied. With a forked pole he leans out and steadies the hanging rope as the block inches higher. His apprentice holds him by the belt, his other hand grasped to the scaffold, so that his leaning Master cannot fall.
Higher. Higher.
In the crowd, folk turn away. Look through the gaps in their fingers.
Rettich looks down. His feet touch the edge of the wall. Far below, on one side, the unfinished aisle and the mud and cobbles of the square, on the other side, the unfinished flagstones of the Cathedral floor.
“Mortar Boys!” It’s Landolt giving orders. The mortar is stirred again and trowelled onto its place, not too thick, not too thin, even as possible.
“Ten more spans! Easy! Easy . . . ”
The block hovers above the height of the wall. The treadwheel boys slow to a halt. The stone sways ever so slightly. And then is still.
Weight is balanced, in weightless air.
Now is the most dangerous time. A mistake and all can tumble to the dust below.
“All hands!” Reaching out, vertiginously, pulling the ropes and securing the block to sit exactly over the wall. Judgement of eyes, hands. Rettich offers a prayer, crosses his heart.
“And easy . . . down!”
With a groan of ropes, the block is placed. Final adjustments, and then its Weight is given back to it once more. Rock transforms from weightless air to heavy stone. The mortar seeps, the lewisson eases. Pressure sighs its release. Weight runs down the wall, forcing downwards, to the Square, to the Graves, to the Crypts and Foundations, and back into the Earth whence it came.
And then it is gone. There is a new equilibrium. And the stones of the Nave Wall have a new companion.
The builders take a moment, look at each other, pat shoulders, wipe brows.
The crowd applauds, disperses.
The hawkers return, call out their wares.
His heart trembling, Rettich scuttles down the scaffolding tower.
The oxen are taken away to be watered. The stall-keepers return.
† † †
Did you use to spend a lot of your time doing this, Rettich?
Watching the leaves and shadows? For hours at a time. Did you never?
No.
Didn’t you watch the clouds?
No.
What did you do when you were a boy, Master Achim?
I read books, sat in lessons, stared at the tonsure of the monk in front of me.
You never played outside?
Hardly ever, Rettich.
But, Master, forgive me, once I . . .
What?
I did something I shouldn’t.
Tell me. Or a Priest. Whoever is in greater need of knowing.
Once, in the Lodge, alone, I opened the . . . box thing.
I don’t understand your German.
Nor do I! The box thing where the parchments are kept.
The escritoire! There is no German word I know for it. Just like there is no Latin we know for “adze.”
And I saw your drawings.
This is a sin I will forgive. I am vain.
And on those drawings, Master, there are flowers, leaves . . .
There are indeed.
At the top of your columns. In the windows, surrounding the figures, the people, the saints, the prophets.
Yes.
How can you draw those so well? If you never . . . I mean . . . spent time in the forests, fields.
Those are not real leaves, Rettich, nor real flowers. They are Ideal Flowers, Ideal Leaves. They are from my mind, and from the leaves and flowers of earlier Masters. They are leaves and flowers I have seen in the other churches and monasteries. Transformed.
God has given us real leaves and flowers. Why should we make new ones?
Should we be mere copyists?
Master?
Rettich, have you ever seen a copy that is as good as the original?
No.
So, in praising God and his Greatness, should we merely copy what he has
given us, should we hold up a mirror to His World and call it Art? Re-make badly what he has already, perfectly made?
No, Master.
The Cathedral, our Cathedral. It should be a sign. It will be made of mud, lime, rock, earth, sand, wood, it will be made of the mortal Stuff of this World. It will be imperfect. But it will point, in all its stones and mortar, to He who laid the cornerstone, the foundations of the Universe, to He who lives beyond the mud and mess of this world, in Perfection.
So, close your flawed, dimmed, corrupt eyes, Rettich, and see a leaf.
I see it.
But do not see an Oak leaf, do not see a Beech leaf, do not see an Ash leaf. We are not copyists of God’s works. We are artists.
See a Leaf. See The Leaf. The first Leaf that was in God’s mind, before it was copied into this world of forms. Can you see it?
Can you see it?
That is the difference between you and me, Master. I cannot see it.
† † †
Rettich, this is wonderful.
Pride fills his already-swollen heart. Ridiculous to feel proud, when seated upon a mangy donkey, but so be it. Master Achim has dismounted from his sable mare, and is standing beneath the chestnut tree. He is looking at Rettich’s carving of the Virgin, carved from an old trunk, standing by the village spring. Around the Virgin statue, the villagers have left offerings; dried meadow flowers, painted eggs, pinecones tied in ribbon—a bouquet of colour around the Holy Mother.
Achim’s fingers gently trace her upraised hands. Are there little tears in the Master’s eyes?
“The Priest had her brought here. The villagers always left tokens here anyway because of the spring.” Rettich points to the nearby well and trough where the rising water has been captured in stone and mortar. “Now they leave them for the Virgin.”