Cathedral

by Ben Hopkins

“Try and forget her, my Lord.”

  “Why, Schäffer?”

  Schäffer says nothing.

  “WHY?”

  After a long silence Schäffer speaks like a child who must confess a sin. Coyly looking up at me, fearing a blow. “Sir, she is shared around all the men of the castle. As a Whore.”

  My hand balls, twitches, lashes from side to side, searching for something to strike. Schäffer flinches. “He says if you want her, you must buy her back from him. Trade her with a replacement Whore.”

  A blanched, bitter silence. Schäffer clears his throat. “I know some girls from the Harbour Brothel, my Lord, shall I do the deal?”

  He can hardly finish the sentence. I am already striking him with the back of my hand. Blood gushes from his nose. He grabs his face, squealing like a sow.

  “Get OUT OF HERE, you bastard!” He runs from the Tollhouse. I shout after him. “NO TREATY! WE TEAR THIS BLOODY PLACE DOWN STONE BY STONE!”

  Grete Gerber

  The War Chest in the Counting House gapes open, its store of coin exhausted. The Merchants of the Rhine, grateful for safe passage between Hagenburg and Speyer, throw in their pennies and sous, the Jews, seeing the Campaign as vengeance on the Jewish dead, send what they can, and the Baron von Kronthal and his Sternkammer knights throw in their noble Gold. But it is never enough.

  My girls are working tirelessly. The looms clatter, the shuttles weave, the pennies tinkle into my money chest. My little Manfredle is back from Cologne, and wants to fight at Schwanenstein to avenge his father’s name. But what fighting? The soldiers lie in hammocks, sharpen their swords, and wait. When there are stones to throw, the trebuchets winch, pitch and hurl . . . and one more piece of wall comes down . . . to cheers that have grown fainter as the siege wears on.

  And then the soldiers return to their hammocks. And wait for the coins to gather in the chest . . . one by one . . . penny by penny . . . until we can pay for the next barge of stone.

  † † †

  There’s a knock at the door, and I’m not expecting anyone. The servants are out at market, so I open, and there’s a woman standing there. Wrinkled and over-ripe like an October apple. And beside her, a boy. “Mistress Gerber?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Rosamunda Bartsch.”

  I know the name. It’s the widow Manfred threw over for me way back when. And then I look at the boy and nearly die of fright right there in my doorway.

  It’s Manfred. As when I first met him, seventeen summers ago.

  Well, it’s not too hard to imagine that I tipped my barrel. Started screaming right there and then, who the devil do you think you are and come here with your bastard one more time and I’ll have your tits ripped out and other such niceties, and started shooing her back into the road as if she were a wasp.

  I couldn’t help noticing that the boy was laughing, giggling away like a monkey. Like father, like son.

  Anyway, I chase her out into the road just as the latrine man is pushing past with his handcart, and God forbid but doesn’t she just careen and knock right into it. And, floosh!, down comes his vat full of shit and the lid breaks off and there’s liquid sewage pouring over the road.

  Oh Lord! The stench of it! It shuts me right up as I cover my mouth and nose with my hands, and try not to retch. And she too and the Boy, the three of us stumbling around like drunken donkeys, trying to flee the stench. And the latrine man righting the vat, sealing back the lid and shouting if you’ve water, madam, bring it me and I’ll have this cleaned up for tuppence.

  God damn me if I don’t now catch Rosamunda’s eyes and we both start laughing. I’ve never seen a jackal but I laughed like one, tears coming from my eyes. We must have looked like loons, the three of us laughing there and the latrine man staring at us all perplexed. And then the wind changed and the smell came back at me.

  The Stench.

  Countess Adelheid von Schwanenstein

  One by one, it’s all being taken away from me. My jewels, my silver, my raiments. Sold like tarnished candlesticks over the castle wall in exchange for hunks of meat and tuns of wine. To keep the men happy, he says. I’m afraid of him now. He has that flaw in his eye, like a crack in a mirror, fracturing everything it sees.

  Even respect and deference have been taken from me. My handmaidens and I were reading the poems composed in my honour, and when we came to Wenzel’s lines about this castle and about me; many men have scaled her proud stone, only to retreat in sickness and dismay, they began to titter and giggle. At my insistence that they should explain, they said something unspeakable. It means that all who fuck you get the clap. I had them dismissed and sent to the kitchens.

  I hardly leave my chambers any more. The castle yard is full of prowling hounds; they haven’t run the fields in nine long months. They screech and howl, tear at each other, and no one corrects them any more. The Men are just as bad, gambling, fighting, drinking, sleeping on the stairs below my chamber. Belching in my presence.

  From my window I can see them urinating in the corners of the yard.

  And I can see the besieging army, cowering in their cowardly tents beyond the reach of our bowmen. Riding up and down on their prancers. Charging their infernal machines with stones.

  I can’t bear to look when the catapults let fly. Once I stood at an embrasure and watched as the black mass lifted from the field like a crow and then raced through the shrinking air. As it swooped nearer I flinched and fell shrieking to the floor as the impact shuddered in the stones below.

  And it has been going on for weeks. This thud thud thud thud thud . . . The North wall soon will fall. Surely, it must soon fall?

  † † †

  I could hardly raise myself today. One day has become like the other. The castle used to ring with Joy, and now it is an earthly prison.

  From my shutters I can see the Enemy. They are racing around in the field below. They have gathered what seem to be barrels and kegs around the trebuchets. There is activity, excitement; a crowd of ordinary people has gathered, as if to watch a Mystery Play. Cornets and trumpets blow as if in Victory.

  They charge the catapults. I cannot look, I hide myself in my blankets and stoles.

  But the thud doesn’t come. Not a thud. Just a clatter. A breaking of wood.

  I lift my face from the bed.

  And then comes the stench.

  Grete Gerber

  Stools from night buckets, from hostel latrines. Urine rotting for weeks in tavern piss-barrels, shit scooped in piles from Kronenburg cesspits. Gongfermors’ poo and fullers’ pee, knackers’ guts and butchers’ offal, tanners’ dogshit, swineherds’ slurry, meat left to rot until the maggots breed. That was all My Great Idea.

  And it didn’t take long once those trebuchets started firing barrels of that at them. They say two rotting sheep’s heads and a barrel of shit went straight down the castle well, and then there was nothing for them to drink or cook with anymore. And the stink. The stink was unbearable.

  So the white flag starts flying, and then there’s the Baron and Emmerich going to the walls and shouting up at the Count’s castellan to agree the terms of the surrender. And we give no quarter now, none at all. Death for all the men inside. Women and children go free with anything they can carry.

  At midday, the crowds start to gather. The drum starts to beat. A shawm starts to blow.

  And the castle gate opens.

  The drawbridge comes down.

  Baron Volmar von Kronthal

  I stand at the bottom of the Castle Ramp. My sword is planted on the ground, six archers kneel at my side, their bowstrings taut, waiting for Treachery. I, the Victor, stand and wait. I can see the crowd behind the castle gate; kitchenmaids, cooks, washerwomen, castle boys and girls.

  Silence falls. The drum beats. Boom. Boom.

  Boom.

  And the c
ortege starts to move out of the gate; the women and children first, as arranged. But the first four women are carrying a coffin, a small one made from barrel slats and patchwork wood. And I already know what’s inside. Before they kneel in front of me, I know it.

  Elise. And Ysolt. My two little girls.

  Grete Gerber

  And then after the coffin come the rest of the women and children: stable boys, serving girls, handmaidens, kitchen drudges, all wide-eyed and starving, carrying their little bundles of possessions, wrapped in rags. And the drum beats and the pipes blow.

  All the women and the children . . . except the Countess herself. The crowd of onlookers churns, curdles. Cries rise up. “Where’s that bitch? Where’s that whore?” We wanted to see her scuttling out of the stinking gate with her maids and kitchen scrubbers.

  But she doesn’t come.

  Instead, it’s the men, gathering under the gateway. They come out one by one.

  The first men have no weapons, they’re just servants, stablemen. They walk out onto the steep road, take the first corner, and only then can they see what’s waiting for them: the Executioner and his Boys with scarlet hoods over their heads.

  The men run. Our soldiers stand on either side of the castle road, prodding them with their spear shafts, kicking their behinds, screaming, laughing, jeering.

  A copse of trees lines the banks of the Rhine. And hanging from the branches, a forest of nooses.

  Baron Volmar von Kronthal

  Her lips are dragged back over her jutting teeth. Her staring pupils fill the whole of her eyes. I hear nearby voices. She hanged the child. Then herself. God rest their souls.

  I hold little Ysolt in my arms, sink down beside the coffin and fumble with my fingers to close Elise’s staring eyes.

  Blackness rises from Schwanenstein’s conquered stones. The procession continues, the walk of the condemned. I see nothing, I am empty. I am a Victor of shadows.

  Yudl Rosheimer

  Yudl turns away, he has seen enough, he has seen his fill of blood red vengeance. The forest of nooses sways, a ripe orchard of carrion fruit, full to bursting on every branch.

  They are using the trebuchets now, charging the catapults with living bodies. And dashing them against the castle walls.

  And then a cry goes up and Yudl must look again. They’re coming! They’re coming! Who is coming? He peers, short-sighted, through the tumultuous crowd.

  Baron Volmar von Kronthal

  My hands twitch, reach for my sword.

  And then they come. The Countess, ragged-haired and bruised-faced, bent double, carrying the Count von Schwanenstein on her back like a mule. She stumbles over the Castle threshold, panting.

  “Carry me to the Rhine you useless nag!” shouts Count Sebald, whips her side with the flat of his sword.

  Around me, my Men scream with hatred, cheated of their Prize. The women may go free, with all they can carry. The terms of the Treaty. I look around for Emmerich, my Clerk, for confirmation. But he has gone.

  The Countess struggles down the hill, near-crushed by her burden. I run alongside, and bark at them over the chorus of jeers. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY ELISE YOU ANIMAL?”

  “Nothing. Why didn’t you take her when you wanted?”

  “WHAT?”

  “I told your lackey Schäffer he could take her, but he didn’t want to.” He bites the Countess’ neck. “Don’t drop me you bitch! DON’T DROP ME! Take me to the Rhine!”

  I told your lackey Schäffer he could take her. But he didn’t want to.

  “Where is Schäffer?” I turn around, reeling. A parade of leering, screaming faces, twisted in hatred. “WHERE IS SCHÄFFER?”

  Einolf

  “DO YOU REMEMBER ME, MY LORD?”

  “Get out my way!”

  “NO.”

  She stops, the Countess, on staggering feet. The boy of eighteen summers stands before her, an Apprentice, all dressed in green. His feet are planted wide, his left hand held out, showing his flattened palm. None shall pass.

  He points to his neck where a pendant hangs. A waxen heart.

  “Do you remember, My Lady?”

  “Boy, out of our way.”

  “NO!” The boy’s hand suddenly whips out and grabs her throat. In an instant, the baying crowd is still.

  The Count and Countess flail, wide-eyed, but the crowd is a hushed, closing circle, tightening, blocking all escape. The boy’s hand slackens, loosens, retreats.

  The Count, mounted on his tottering steed, holds out his sword. “Who are you, Boy?”

  “My name is Einolf, My Lord.”

  “Einolf?”

  “It is to you I owe my Cathedral Orphan life.”

  The crowd pushes closer. Schwanenstein spits. “I don’t remember.”

  “My Lord. First you made me an Orphan. And then paid Blood Money on my life.”

  “I made you a . . . ?”

  “You raped my mother. You killed my mother. And then bought for me a New Life.”

  The Countess’ knees buckle, break. The Count falls with her, rolls in the dust at the Apprentice’s feet.

  “Your covenant taught me a trade, My Lord. Do you know what it is?”

  The Count of Schwanenstein kneels, scowls, spits. “You think I care?”

  Now Einolf raises his arms. In his hands, cheesecutter’s wire. “Well, can you guess, My Lord?”

  The crowd roars. “A cheesemaker! A cheesemaker!”

  And Einolf lunges. The wire circles, sings. The sharp wire cuts at the Count’s white outstretched neck.

  And he pulls, the boy. Pulls so that his veins strain, and his face squeezes red. His eyes bulge. And the cheesewire wrenches. Left. Right. Left. Right. Deeper. Deeper. And the Countess screams. And the Count’s sap spurts red.

  And still he cuts, the Cheesemaker’s Apprentice. Through vein and muscle, through grizzle and cord. And then with his stamping foot he snaps the spine.

  And holds up the head of Schwanenstein.

  Yudl Rosheimer

  He can see his Bride’s legs trembling beneath her clothes, her hands clutch at each other, twitch. Her face is veiled, her body concealed by a long, fur cloak. It won’t be long now until he can see her, behold the face of his Wife.

  A prayer shawl is cast over the heads of Bride and Groom as Rabbi Menahem holds aloft the wine and recites the Seven Blessings. Without thinking, Yudl’s lips mutter the familiar words, he looks around the dozens of guests; Jews, Gentiles, rich, poor, a motley collage of colour, of smiling faces. His Mother’s eyes, shining with tears. He has found her a husband in the Kingdom of Bohemia, far from here. “You just cast me away, Yudl? Now that I have brought you to adulthood, you have finished with me?”—“God forbid, Mother, how can you say such a thing?”—“I just did say such a thing.”—“I thought you would be happy!”—“Happy to be separated from my Son?”—“Happy to be reunited with your family in Prague!”—“I should be happy?”—“You always wept and prayed you would see them again! Well now you will, so be happy!”—“Be happy? I want to die.”

  But now, as the Rabbi gives the Bride the wine, his Mother’s eyes shine.

  Yudl searches the guests for the Strawhead Goy. Rumours of a feud with the Baron, a misunderstanding, a sourness spoiling the sweet victory of Schwanenstein. Why has he not come?

  Aberle is at Yudl’s side, with a goblet wrapped in a cloth. He places it beneath his feet. Yudl sings. His voice is fine, like crystal. Like his Father’s.

  If I forget thee Jerusalem

  may my right hand forget her cunning

  If I do not remember thee,

  let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

  if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy

  Yudl raises his foot, smashes it down onto the glass. The bride removes her veil; a girl of thirteen
summers, a trembling, beautiful child.

  

  Yudl is drunk. The bonfire’s flames leap high, fountains of sparks reach to the darkening sky. The guests are dancing. Spinning. All Hagenburg is celebrating the Conquering of Schwanenstein, the freedom of the Rhine.

  Through the mêlée and roundelay, a Boy coming towards him, holding something in his little hands.

  A letter, addressed to him, in Emmerich’s handwriting. “He said not to read it today, sir. Tomorrow he said would be better. He sends greetings to you, sir, and love, he said. To you on your day of Joy.”

  Emmerich Schäffer

  . . . Yudl, as you will soon surely hear, Baron von Kronthal has sworn to kill me. For lying to him. For not saving Elise and Ysolt Gottlieb when I was able.

  And so I am gone. Do not try and find me, for I will leave the Empire altogether. I do not know yet where I will go.

  Yudl, your mother and I were together one time in the year of our Lord 1231. Our Love was forbidden, and I was sent away—a separation that near destroyed my Heart.

  It can benefit no one for this to become known beyond the three of us, it can only lead to difficulties for your mother. This is why it has been kept silent so long, and why it is only now, when I am leaving, that I say this, that I may be your father.

  Do not think harshly on us, Yudl, we were young, younger than you are now, and drawn to each other by Love, which knows no laws or boundaries.

  I am leaving as soon as I complete this letter. I will need funds for my journey and to start my new business, wherever that will be. From the Baron’s coffers I have taken 200 marks. This is theft, pure and simple, from the man who has threatened to kill me. It is wrong, and a sin, but so be it.

  From the coffers of our enterprise, I have also taken 100 marks. I am aware that this is a great sum, but I pray that you will not begrudge me this capital, which I believe I have earned. My “theft” will leave you with little coin, I know, but you will know how to realise some assets to continue trading. You have learned well.