Cathedral

by Ben Hopkins

  His Inquisitors are called Konrad Dorso and Johannes Jahn, lay brothers of the Dominican order. They are sitting at a high table, breakfasting on ale, porridge and cheese, and looking down on Manfred as he walks in. Both of them are ugly as pigs. A young clerk sits beside them on a stool, scribbling notes.

  Manfred just wants to get out of that damned place as quick as he can. He tells them dirty tales about barns and sheds and black cats and candles and everyone fucking everyone in every which way. The Brothers love it, and ask salacious questions like and did the toad kiss you full upon the lips? and was there incest there, between brother and sister? and Manfred always says, “Yes, yes, Brother, yes,” with a mournful and penitent look on his face. At one point, Dorso, a half-blind cripple, limps up close to him, sniffs his face, waves his hands over his head, and says, “Yes, truly I smell heresy in his soul.” This is how he finds heretics: by smell, by second sight. Manfred resists the desire to spit in his face. Who are these grotesque dwarves, lording it over the fates of men? They’re like jesters, jongleurs, acting a play. And yet, with their Dominican scapulars, they have the power of life and death.

  Dorso limps back to his perch and they then start to ask him who had been with him in the barn when the Black Cat had come. And he says that the barn had been dark, and many of the initiates’ faces were painted. They repeat the question and say And your Father was with you, we know and Manfred swears he never saw his father there. Your Father was with you! “He was not!” He took you there with him! “He did not! I never saw him there!” Liar! “I am not lying, I swear!” He was there! “He was not!”

  This goes on endlessly, but Manfred doesn’t relent—his father was never there, never there, never there. They press him again and again and again, becoming more and more frustrated, more angry. He was there with you, he took you there. “No!” Where was your father? “I don’t know! At home! Not there!”

  Jahn bangs his hand down on the desk and shouts: Who else was there with you?

  “It was dark.”

  WHO WAS THERE WITH YOU?

  “I saw some of the weavers of Honau,” murmurs Manfred.

  “How did you recognise them,” sneers Dorso, “in the darkness?”

  “Some of their girls are beautiful,” says Manfred, “I would recognise them anywhere.”

  “Did you fornicate with the girls?”

  “I don’t know, it was dark.”

  Jahn cackles, “You fornicated with something, but you know not what?”

  Manfred thinks; yes, with you, you bastard, but says instead; “I was forced to, Brother. I am truly sorry.”

  “What else did you see? Whom else did you see?”

  Manfred wants to say he saw His Grace the Bishop riding on a Satanic crab that rose from the Rhine, that he saw the Canons of the Cathedral bent over a bench, being fucked up the arse by a bunch of Jews, that he saw the Pope sucking Lucifer’s huge horny cock. He wants to shout and scream, he wants to name all his merchant competitors; Wolfram of Basel, Michael of Müllhausen. He wants to say he saw Dorso and Jahn there with their fingers up each other’s bumholes.

  Instead he says, “It was dark.”

  You saw your father there.

  “I did not. Who is supplying you with your yellow cloth?”

  This question takes them by surprise.

  “For the penitential crosses sewn on people’s backs? Who is supplying it? I can do you a better deal.”

  Silence in the chamber, for the first time. The clerk’s quill hovers in mid-air. This part of the conversation will not be a matter of record.

  Dorso clears his phlegm-blocked throat, a disgusting sound. He speaks with quiet threat. “We hold your immortal soul in our hands, and you want to haggle with us?”

  But Jahn is interested. “It’s true,” he says, getting up from his chair and approaching, “we have the ear of the Bishop’s Treasurer. Maybe we can make you the supplier. We’ll take a commission, of course.”

  Manfred shrugs, “Of course.”

  “And we want something in return.”

  “Yes?”

  Silence. A teardrop of ink falls from the clerk’s poised quill . . . .

  “Tell us you saw your father at the barn.”

  Manfred sighs. “No.”

  “Other people saw him there. Admit it. He was there. If he admits too, and repents, he will be saved.”

  “He was not there.”

  Jahn’s voice rises. “Your father refuses to repent. He will be burned. You can save him. Confess that he was a heretic like you.”

  Dorso has also approached. “The Church is generous to the penitent.”

  Manfred stares at the ground between his feet.

  “He was not there.”

  † † †

  Outside, hours later, people look away from him, they won’t meet his eye. He rushes to where his Father had been sitting, but now there are two old women there, their heads shaven, weeping.

  A voice whispers in Manfred’s ear, the voice of Hildebrand, a miller’s boy. “They took him to the Burning Ground. Whilst you were inside.”

  Manfred wheels round. “It’s too early!”

  Hildebrand hisses. “He was making trouble. Telling us to rise up, to attack the guards, to escape.”

  Manfred cannot bear it. A howl builds up in his throat and then releases itself. He falls to the ground, screaming. One of the old women clasps him, and he collapses into her ageing, wrinkled bosom, abandoning all shame and honour.

  † † †

  Evening. Rumours come back to Kronenweiler of his father’s end.

  They say he paid sixpence to the executioner, and was rewarded with a moment to speak. It was a Sunday, and the crowd gathered there had come from Mass. From the Cathedral Mass, the Bishop himself had come, the Dean, the Treasurer, some others of the Chapter. They were gathered there at the Burning Ground.

  They said he began to shout that that the City belonged to its people, not to the nobles or the church. That the people deserve justice, and to have a role in writing the laws of the land. They say he had only just started speaking, when, at a sign from the Bishop, he was pushed into the pit and spoke no more.

  † † †

  Five days later, they shaved Manfred’s head and set him free.

  Grete is waiting for him on the Hagenburg road. She gives thanks to God and wipes the cross off his forehead with ditchwater.

  A storm is coming. They hurry home, not talking. After the town gate, they take the back streets, looking at no-one.

  At home, she cooks him meat and pearl barley stew, pours him wine. She heats a bath and washes him and then, in bed, holding each other, they cry like children.

  In his young wife’s arms, Manfred finally can sleep. He feels an emptiness around him, filled with silent rest and peace. He wants to sink into that darkness and forget everything, start again from blackness, from nothing.

  But his Father’s words keep on coming back to him, as if out of a huge, empty grave.

  We are at War.

  ANNO

  1233

  THE MORNING ALTAR

  (ANNO 1233. RETTICH SCHÄFFER IV)

  In the forests, after the birds’ bright aubade, silence drifts through the leaves and needles. Slowly, a humming rises from the fertile ground; the buzz of insects, the cicada, the thrum of life. And the Cathedral is like a forest, sounds flooding and ebbing through its stones, the rising columns are like trunks reaching up towards the forest canopy, the light that angles through the stained windows is filtered into patterns just like the sunlight that falls through shifting leaves. And like the forest, just before dawn, the Cathedral resounds with song.

  Rettich has been here all night. He has sat alone in the darkness, watching the uncertain light of the votive candle until the Choir starts to fill for Lauds. The flagstones now resound w
ith footsteps; quiet, reverent ones heading for worship. The clatter of the portal’s chains echoes through the Crossing, coughs and throat-clearings rise and fall from the domed ceiling, and then the Precentor’s first, sung te deum laudamus reverberates, calling all to the music of prayer. The sounds filter themselves, concentrate, and unite in chant, into one voice, praising the Lord of the Universe.

  Rettich listens and looks to the East window, where grey Day will soon be dawning. He has been sent here by his Masters for one week of meditation and prayer before he begins the fifth and last year of his Apprenticeship. It is his fourth day and already he feels he is sinking into the stones, becoming part of the building, one with its rhythms and rituals. His back aches from fitful sleep on flagstones and benches, he half-wakes, half-sleeps through the five psalms and antiphons, he drifts in and out of the words, half-learned, half-forgotten . . .

  Pleni sunt caeli et terra maiestatis gloriae tuae . . .

  Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of Thy glory . . .

  Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum . . .

  Let all who have breath praise the Lord . . .

  Then a clattering of feet, the Precentor files out, followed by the Canons who have attended, by the residentiaries and chaplains, the Cathedral Schoolboys heading for lessons. Sandalled and hooded, the Warden snuffs the candles of the Choir; the wicks spit and exhale their final smoke, spiralling upwards, joining with the traces of incense. The last words of prayer seem to diffuse gently into the silence, falling slowly to the Cathedral floor. There they eddy, drift and subside, lying amongst the dust.

  And all is still.

  † † †

  Boom . . . the South Portal door is pushed wide open . . . and the Cathedral is ready for business. Now, one by one, the weekday regulars file in and take their positions. Three beggars, a seller of embroidered prayers, hawkers with almonds, dried currants and fresh bread rolls . . . and the apprentice boy bringing Rettich some bread and a slice of Lenzenbach sheepcheese.

  Rettich sits in a corner and devours the breakfast. This week he is on a fasting diet of a bowl of soup, a hunk of bread and a slice of cheese a day. Already his dreams are being invaded by visions of roasted meats, a stew of beans and pork belly, a thick slice of bread smeared with cream and mountain honey.

  The first tradespeople are arriving, stamping the mud and dust from their shoes at the doorway, and then slipping inside. They genuflect, cross themselves, make for their favourite chapel to offer a prayer to their chosen saint, and then sit on the benches that run along the South Transept wall, waiting for their colleagues, customers, waiting for their meetings.

  Passing the St. Martin chapel, through the spider-work of holes in the carved wooden screen, Rettich can see the criminals stirring from their sleep, gathering up their straw bedding to store beside the altar. The hilt of a dagger glints in the candlelight as the Murderer stoops to snuff the wick. The guttering flame hisses in his spittle-licked fingers.

  There are three men sleeping in the chapel this week, seeking sanctuary. It is more than usual, but since the fires of the Burning of Heretics, disorder has convulsed the land. When the prisons were emptied and the repentant returned to their homes and villages, many were the acts of revenge on the Namers of Names. Farms were burned, fields razed, priests hanged by their parishioners, men and women slain in their beds by vengeful hands.

  The murderer in the St. Martin chapel has been here for one week. They say he is from Saxony, a mercenary and a hired assassin. He murdered Konrad Dorso the Inquisitor in a tavern as the Dominican ate his supper.

  They say he cut open Dorso’s stomach and pulled his guts out onto the table so that the last thing that he would see in this world would be his own liver.

  They say that many in the tavern, eating and drinking near Dorso, were the murderer’s paymasters, who had paid a Mark each so that they could watch the public spectacle of the Inquisitor’s death.

  They say that the murderer then raced through the streets to safety in the Cathedral, and no militia tried to stop him, as they too were in the pay of those who arranged Dorso’s murder.

  They say that the assassin’s paymasters are many merchants and tradesmen of the city. And they say that Dorso’s murderer is waiting for safe passage out of the Cathedral to be arranged by those who hired him.

  “Boy, here!” calls out the assassin. A freckle-faced lad jumps up from the bench where he was sleeping and rushes to the murderer’s side. “Take this chamberpot to the pits. Bring me some sausage and poppyseed bread.”

  The glint of coins as money exchanges hands. The boy slips out of the chapel, tenderly holding the chamberpot at arm’s length, heading for the northern portal and the public latrines.

  “Attention!”

  Now is the time for morning masses. The chaplains of the apsidal chapels and their helpers are sweeping the floors, lighting the candles and preparing for work. “I will now say mass for the immortal soul of the Knight Rudolf of Kalben!” calls out Chaplain Malo from the St. John Chapel doorway.

  The Chaplain retreats into his chapel, followed by three older women from the merchant quarter, wrapped in the black shawls marking a recent bereavement. Following them, a feverish-looking young man seemingly in need of religious consolation.

  The chaplain’s soft chanting begins, absorbed into the rustles of morning movement, into the sudden beating of a pigeon’s wings as, disturbed from its rest, it flutters upwards towards the light of the Eastern window.

  Gathering by the Morning Altar now, the daily meeting of a group of City Merchants. They come here to share news, make deals, discuss issues. The Dean has requested that they meet elsewhere, in a tavern, in a shop, in the tollhouse, but they defiantly demand their right to congregate here, in the City’s church that is theirs as much as anyone else’s.

  Rettich has seen how they talk and laugh loudly, purposively disrupting the prayer and quietude around them. At other times, they huddle together like a herd of cows under the rain and whisper conspiratorially, making all who watch them wonder what secrets they can be so fervently discussing.

  Amongst them, always, is Rettich’s brother-in-law, Manfred Gerber.

  Rettich slinks into the shadows of the half-built northern Aisle. Like anyone else, he has heard the rumours. Last Christmas, most of the City’s merchants and traders left no money on the Cathedral altar. When old man Gerber died, the five marks he bequeathed to the fabric were not given, but sent instead to the monastery of St. Odile. Other bequests from townsfolk have not materialised, wills have been altered in favour of other institutions. The Cathedral is losing money.

  And the Merchants’ Guilds have bought a plot of land near the former Burning Ground, near the Rhine Gate. The shape of the plot of land is large, and cruciform. They want to build a church.

  The foundations have already started to be dug.

  From the shadows, Rettich watches as Manfred leaves the group of whispering merchants, and wanders towards the North Transept. On the way, he genuflects and crosses himself beneath the painted wooden statue of Our Lady.

  And then he enters the St. Martin chapel.

  Rettich knows that, at this hour, the chapel is empty. The only person there is the Saxon assassin, eating his bread and sausage.

  From the altar steps, a loud voice calls out. “Dietzheimer wine! A special offer for all our citizens and pilgrims!”

  Rettich sighs. The last three days, this wine has been cried to the eaves of the Cathedral between every Holy Service. He knows every word by heart. “The new wine now broached and tasted, and found to be of the sweetness of honey, with the scent of lilacs and diverse flowers! Only one penny ha’penny a measure! Or a shilling a cask!”

  “And the Bishop personally pissed in each one!” calls out one of the merchants at the Morning Altar.

  “The harvest of the Dietzeheimer vines is personally blessed by His
Grace the Bishop!” continues the crier, raising his voice. “It is a wine that enlivens the tongue and thickens the blood. It is a wine that takes away sorrow and care! Available in the Cathedral arcade. Please come, taste and buy!”

  Rettich has tasted the wine. He and his Apprentice colleagues pooled their ha’pennies and bought two pitchers for the Johannisfest bonfire. It was fine indeed, golden and half-sweet, half-lemony, gentle and cheerful.

  “Sell it in a wineshop like anyone else, you lackey!” shouts out another merchant to the crier’s retreating back.

  Applause from the other merchants. “Silence!” calls the Chaplain of St. John’s chapel. “Shame on you!” cries one of the widow women, emerging from mass, shaking her head. The merchants shrug, and turn back to their gossip and conspiracy.

  Emmle has explained it all to Rettich. The Dietzheimer vineyards belong to the Bishop. And, by selling the wines in the Cathedral arcade, they are exempt from the taxes that all the other merchants of the city must pay. All the stalls in the arcade by the Cathedral’s western walls are exempt from taxes, can charge a lower price, and turn a pretty profit. This is the way of trade in Hagenburg; as in all things, the Bishop is Lord.

  Manfred crosses back towards his colleagues from the St. Martin chapel, a slight smile on his face, hand running through his reddish hair. There are nods, words exchanged, hands shaken, and then the merchant dozen begin to disperse, heading for the southern portal and their businesses in the harbour and the market quarter.

  Near-silence returns. Rettich counts the people moving through the building, as he once used to count his flock. One two three four five six seven . . .

  A round sixty. Rettich’s eyelids droop.

  Velvety silence. And now the soft sound of mass being chanted in the side chapel. The sibilance of shuffled footsteps, the mutter of private prayer. The distant crepitation of a cart passing in the square. The metallic song of chisel on stone behind the temporary nave wall of mud and straw. The rustle of the pigeon’s wings. The Chaplain’s voice.