Cathedral

by Ben Hopkins

  “And they all have knives and they take all our bundles. A few of us fight and they get knocked down with knives and axes, and there’s all this blood and screaming. And my Mamma takes hold of me and says Einolf run, but I can’t run nowhere, my legs won’t go and my Mamma how can I leave my Mamma. Two horrid men are dragging her and our women away and she puts something in my hand and says run Einolf run, she screams run boy run and so I run. I run into the dark wood!”

  He can’t continue, his face is one mess of snot and tears, buried into Metta’s smoke-reeking shoulder. She cradles him.

  “Poor boy, poor boy!” the Countess cries. “Sebald, we must do something for this poor boy, Sebald, we must do something.”

  The Count of Schwanenstein stands to the side of the fire, the huge hearth of the Great Hall of Castle Schwanenstein. Below him, around him, his two score hunting dogs, one score servants, a dozen liegemen. “Boy. Is there anyone waiting for you back home in Breisgau?”

  “No, Sire.”

  “Then I will pledge a covenant for you. An annual sum that will keep you at the Hagenburg Cathedral Orphanage until you come of age. Or, until your Mother is found. In a satisfactory state.”

  The Boy snivels and whines. He doesn’t understand. Metta takes his wet cheeks in her withered hands. “It means the Count will look after you, Boy! Say thank you! On your knee, Boy! On bended Knee!”

  The boy of eleven summers, a marionette, flops to his knee and raises his palms in thanks. Sobs break from his chest in shuddering waves. The Countess glides from the dais towards him, eyes shining amber and gold.

  “Don’t come too close to him, my Lady,” says Metta, “he’s stinking filthy, poor lad. Been in the woods three days.”

  The Countess stoops to him, keeping one pace distant, and smiles until his sobs subside. “What’s that in your hand, Boy?” she asks.

  “What my Mamma gave me.”

  “Show me.”

  The Boy opens his palm. A pine-cone-shaped Heart, fashioned in red candlewax.

  “What is it, Boy?”

  “A heart for the Holy Virgin in Cologne. That’s why we were travelling there.”

  “A heart? What for, Boy?”

  “Our Dadda died last year of the Ague. My Mamma wanted the Virgin to cure her broken heart.”

  INNOCENCE

  (ANNO 1241. RETTICH SCHÄFFER VI)

  Master Stone-Cutter Rettich sits alone in the Lodge as dusk gathers in the Cathedral square. He sits in silence, waiting. A click of the latch and the Lodge’s apprentice boy arrives, bringing water from the Cathedral Well to clean the floor. He bows and smiles at Rettich, almost a girlish curtsey, starts to work on soaking the washing rags.

  Rettich watches him a long while, his fresh, youthful, open face. As he himself must once have looked, twelve summers ago. The boy, Friedl, feels the Master’s gaze upon him, glances up from the floor. Rettich clears his throat. “You may finish early tonight, boy. I have work here and will lock the door when I leave.”

  Friedl pauses a while, kneeling. Looks up at Rettich, bright-eyed in lantern light. “Is there anything else my Master needs?”

  Rettich looks down at the drawing table, hiding his eyes. “No, my boy. That will be all. Until tomorrow.”

  Friedl nods, a bit sadly. Hangs the rags in the corner to dry. Heads to the door and steps outside where swallows shimmer against the sky. The door closes behind him.

  Silence. Outside, curfew’s quiet hours stretch through the streets. Rettich should go home, but he has no wish to be there. He lights the lamps and swears to himself that this is the last time.

  Spread out on the draughting table, Rettich’s copies of Achim’s drawings, those that were burned.

  Master, forgive me.

  The day of his friend’s death, he had been working on them, drawing out the last copies from memory; the Western Façade, the Virgin and the Prophets, the Vices and the Virtues, the statuary, tier after tier.

  Rettich had wanted it to be a surprise.

  Master, forgive me, that I did not come to you.

  Instead, two days later, he had made his solemn way to Avenheim and an open grave outside the cemetery walls in the space reserved for sinners and suicides. The Abbot, hurrying his muttered valediction under the drizzle, throws a perfunctory sprinkling of Holy Water, a half-hearted petition that the young Lord might escape Hell. The monks rush back inside to warmth and prayer. The lay brothers scoop up the purplish earth.

  Thud.

  Thud. Clods fall on the faceless coffin until Master Achim is cut off forever from the light of the world.

  Rettich stands in twilight in Achim’s empty Avenheim cell. By the bed, a prayer book, opened at the first chapter of John, Achim’s russet cap of Anglian wool, and the hunting knife he had used to stab his own heart.

  Rettich takes them as tokens. He searches everywhere; on the shelf, in the cracks in the walls, in the straw of the mattress. He asks the passing brother monks if they know where it can be. Shaken heads, nervous eyes, hurried steps.

  Achim’s drawing of the Cathedral’s Western Window.

  The Rose.

  † † †

  Before him on the Lodge’s draughting table, all that remains: his inexpert copies. The Virtues, holding lanterns aloft, one at hip height, one at waist, one at breast, one at shoulder, one on high, representing the rise of the Sun, the growth of Light. The Vices, with their snakes, basilisks and devils, sinking from crown to waist to feet, the temporary, nocturnal victory of Darkness. The triumphant Virgin, flanked by two massive portals, beckoning the pilgrim to enter the temple.

  And now his poor copy, newly drawn from fading memory, of Achim’s glorious Rose.

  Rettich stacks the drawings away. He rolls them tightly, binds them in ribbon, and places them at the bottom of Achim’s old escritoire with all the other discarded parchments.

  What is in the Past must stay in the Past.

  † † †

  The next day at dawn, Friedl awakes him. His fresh face hovers above his, peering at him, wondering what brought the Master to sleep on the apprentices’ bench.

  Rettich takes the boy’s hand. “Friedl, would you do something for me?”

  “Anything, Master.”

  “Then come with me.”

  Together, they scale the scaffold above the Southern Portal. To the plinth where Rettich’s sundial statue stands. Below in the square, the City is yawning awake. Rettich holds out his hand, pulls Friedl to the working platform.

  “Is he ready, do you think, boy?”

  Friedl, surprised by the question, catches his breath and stares. His eyes sweep gently over the youth’s carven form, his graceful body, his outstretched hand, his upturned face, his expression of enduring hope, the proffered sundial, held towards the light.

  In the statue’s upraised eyes, salvation and love. In the posture of his body, yearning, and at the same time, melancholy. He holds out the sundial like a gift, but who will receive it?

  At this height above the southern portal, there is nothing but the Void. And so, Master Achim bequeaths his gift of illumination to Emptiness.

  “He is beautiful, Master.”

  “I know. But he is only a copy.” Rettich turns away, looks out over the rooves of the town. “Tell the boys to take down the scaffold. We are finished here. From now on, only the pigeons will see him properly.”

  † † †

  Dombaumeister Durand raises his eyebrows in surprise. “I accept your apology, Master Rettich, though I am not sure it was necessary.”

  Rettich still looks at his calloused hands. “No. I have been difficult for you. I have obstinately stuck to my own projects. I was very attached to the old master, and was slow to accept change. But now I accept it. The sundial is completed, and now I am at your disposal.”

  The Speaker of the site translat
es Rettich’s Alsatian into Latin for Durand’s benefit. The new Dombaumeister, like Alenard, has come from France, bringing with him a small team of cutters and masons from Troyes. Durand speaks. “I am glad to hear it. The world has changed. And we must change with it.”

  Rettich nods. His Latin is sufficient to understand this.

  Durand continues. “You will join the Nave work detail, as we discussed. When there is no work, you will teach the apprentices.”

  The Speaker translates. Rettich stands. It is as he expected. Statues will be carved by Giselbert and the other foreigners. “So I am a Master, but only in name.”

  Durand’s German is sufficient. He nods at the Speaker to indicate he has understood. “If you wish, you are welcome to seek employment elsewhere. Your skills will find you work if you should seek it.”

  Outside, Rettich sits in pale sunlight and smiles a pale smile. The fight is over, and even if it brings little satisfaction, it does bring some peace. These last years of struggle have wearied him, chiselled lines into his forehead. It was a struggle born out of remorse. But now he has laid down his arms.

  † † †

  Six summers ago, after Achim’s death, everything fell apart.

  Treasurer von Zabern cut the expenditure until a new Dombaumeister could be found. A small, bitter-faced workforce arrived each morning and struggled to find the energy to carry on. Poor funds meant constant delays: masons idle because no stone had been sent from the quarries, roofers waiting on the masons, glaziers waiting on the blacksmiths for their frames, the blacksmiths refusing to take on more work until they were paid.

  In the Lodge, tension and uncertainty reigned. Werkmeister Alenard continued for some months, trying to stay true to the dreams which had brought him there from France. He had come because of the grandeur of Achim’s designs and the promise of a regular flow of gold from a wealthy diocese. But now all had turned sour.

  One Saturday, Master Alenard collected his pay and packed his things. After hurried kissing of his colleagues and their reluctant blessings, he set his horse’s hooves on the long road to Bohemia. He had received an offer to build a convent in the distant city of Prague.

  When asked on Monday, the Lodge knew nothing. They protected their own in silence. We came to work today and he was gone. We know not where. The Bishop sent out armed bailiffs on the four land roads to bring him back, to punish him for his breach of contract. But Alenard was never found.

  They had no leader, no plans. They agreed between them to complete the walls and arcades they had started, to finish the windows and statuary already commissioned. And then wait. Wait for His Grace to appoint new masters.

  And then, one year later, Durand came. A practical man, an appeaser, a manufacturer of compromise. By agreement of the assembled Masters, Rettich was asked to show Alenard and Achim’s technical drawings, those he had saved from the Treasury’s purge. Then, one by one, Achim’s goals were scaled down and moderated. Expenses were cut, trouble-makers were dismissed. Landolt and Rettich argued for Achim’s vision as long as they could. But their battle was a losing one, and they knew it.

  And now they have lost.

  Rettich sighs, closes his eyes and thanks God for his blessings. He has work, a fine living wage, property in the Steinmetzgasse, a family.

  A family. That is his next task. Peace must be made at home, with his neglected wife, with his sisters and brother. And once he has peace all around him, maybe he will find his inner peace too.

  † † †

  “Get up off your knees, you’re worrying me.”

  Grete, his little sister, ordering him about. From the back of a mule, no less. Not only has she learned how to wear silks and silver girdles, how to boss servants and shout at tradesmen, she has also learned how to ride.

  Rettich gets up from where he has been kneeling, in front of his own shrine. The Virgin, one hand on her breast, one opened out before her in a gesture of beckoning welcome, carved from oak by his own young hands.

  “What’ve you got to pray about, anyway?” gabbles Grete. “You’re virtue itself. If all the stories about you are true. Are they?”

  Rettich doesn’t reply.

  “Stop pulling that miserable face. This is a happy day. Be happy.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should put you over my knee and give you a spanking. Like I used to when you were a cheeky little mouse.”

  “That’s more like it. Let’s get going.”

  Rettich looks over to his young family, who are spread out on the grass: his wife Ällin, his daughters Mechthildlein and Lysa. The girls’ uncle Manfred, feeding them raisins. A happy day, by order.

  Rettich gets up from the ground before the shrine. “Come on, girls, hoopla!” He lifts Mechthildlein onto the donkey, helps little Lysa into the linen sling around Ällin’s shoulders. “Not long to go now.”

  Mechthildlein: “Is it far?”

  “What did I just say, monkey? I said ‘not long now.’”

  Mechthild’s face scrunches. She scratches her ear. “Is it faaaaar?”

  Ällin laughs, Rettich shrugs. What can you say? “No, it’s not far.”

  “Is it faaaaaaar?”

  † † †

  Triumphant return to Lenzenbach, a story the children will remember in rheumy old age, the story of how Father and Auntie Grete paid for the new church roof. All the village turning out to greet them, the Priest kissing their hands and blessing their munificence, a gift to Mother Church that will be remembered by the Angels at the gates of Purgatory, flicking their abacus beads to total up sins and remissions. Aunties Mechthild and Amaline, Uncle Hannes, the four cousins dancing with them on the village threshing ground.

  Only Uncle Emmle is missing. “Whhhhhyyyyyyy?”

  “He cannot come, his business keeps him in the City.”

  A little lie for the little ones. To Grete’s proposal that he should contribute to the village church roof, Emmle had laughed and replied: “Let it fall down.”

  Rettich talks with the villagers who will do the building work, gives instructions, takes measurements to reckon how much timber, how much lead guttering, how many roof tiles, gives warnings about what will happen if the work is not completed by the autumn. They grumble and smile at him. And nod, bowing, as if he were the local Bailiff.

  The midday Feast is laid out on planks before the church. The whole village has gathered, contributed; loaves of bread from the village oven, stacks of cheeses, honey, sauerkraut, slices of sausage. Grete takes pride of place at the Priest’s right hand.

  Manfred turns to peer at his brother-in-law. He chuckles. “What’s your secret, Radish?” Rettich doesn’t follow, rubs his eyes, blinking in sudden brightness as sunlight bursts out from behind a cloud.

  “I mean, once you could never stop talking. And now you hardly say a word. Tell me why, so I can use the same medicine on my wife.”

  Despite himself, Rettich’s face breaks into a faint smile.

  “Just a little clue. It could be worth a lot of money, Master Schäffer. I’d pay a whole shillingsworth for every hour of silence. Just look at her.”

  They look over to the “high table” where Grete is chattering loudly to Father Konrad and the Lenzenbach Bailiff. Seeing them watching her, she gestures that they should come to her at once, as if summoning dogs or errant children.

  Rettich obeys, yielding to his little Sister just as he yielded to Durand, for the sake of Peace. As he takes his seat, he looks over at Ällin, laughing in sunlight, chasing their daughter around the threshing ground. She stops to catch her breath, sees him watching her. Smiles.

  Harmony.

  † † †

  Outside the church, the second wine barrel has been breached and the dancing has begun. Rettich whispers in Ällin’s ear that he will go for a walk “to the old pastu
res,” and slips away.

  The wind has softened and now makes only gentle spirals and somersaults as Rettich stands above the village, looking down. A scattering of thatched rooves, dusty threshing floors and dungheaps, surrounded by gently swaying beech and fir. A tiny place, but once, for him, it had been the whole world.

  He walks further uphill, pausing to catch his breath on the paths he had once tirelessly cantered up as a child. It is years since he has held an innocent Lamb in his hands, felt its gentle trembling, the almost frighteningly racing tempo of its tiny heart. Years since he slept under the stars or wrapped in wool blankets in a shepherd’s tent.

  They call his old pasture Hasenlenz after the hares that dance there in spring; it was allocated to the Straw-Schäffer flock for generations, but now that the Straw-Schäffers are Free Men, the Jackdaw-Schäffers’ herd grazes there; sheep and goats, two cows.

  Evening sunlight gilds the meadow flowers, sends the vast Rhine valley into yawning shadow. Up here, at the top of the world, there is air and brightness, a capricious wind. Rettich breathes in deep, sits down to rest on the grass and clover.

  A shape racing towards him . . . black and white, a dog. It starts barking. Rettich stands, puts his hands round his mouth, makes the Lenzenbach cry. The dog falters at the familiar sound, falls silent as the call is echoed back from across the pasture.

  Rettich can see, faint in the dusk, a shepherd boy waving at him from further uphill. A tent of sheepskin and wooden struts. A fire, a skinned rabbit waiting to be cooked. His flock, dotted around him in the upper meadows.

  The boy is sixteen summers, called Ludo, not a Jackdaw-Schäffer, but an orphan from another village, taken into the Jackdaw clan as part of a marriage deal. “I’ve heard of you,” he says, shyly, to Rettich, as he turns the spitted rabbit above the hot embers, “everyone talks about you here. All the boys want to be like you.”

  A warm feeling suffuses Rettich’s heart: an ambush of unexpected pride. “Like me? Old and worn out?”