Cathedral

by Ben Hopkins

  It’s clear: he’s not going to break his Sworn Promise. The newly enthroned Bishop is not going to perjure himself before God and have me, Reichard, Lanzelin and the other Sternkammer Knights massacred here in the Cathedral. His Dogs are well leashed, well prepared. No one will raise their hands against me and mine.

  But we’re the day’s prize buffoons. And revenge must be sweet for Walther. This is honeyed recompense for his Humiliation at my hands before the city gates last summer.

  The choir sings a laudamus. It means von Fucksack must have been consecrated on the Bishop’s Throne. And now he comes, the young mitred fool, ascending the stairs of the Rood Screen, carrying his crozier as if it were a sword. And the assembled clanking saucepot knights rise to their feet and cheer.

  Walther drinks in the adulation as if it were the new year’s wine and then calls for silence. His speech is short and clear enough. There is an imbalance in Hagenburg, a sinful Disorder. There is not enough Respect for the power of the Church. The ministerial officials appointed by Bishop Berthold and his predecessor some forty, fifty years ago have turned their Offices into their own Fiefdoms, appoint their own successors from their own clans, pass their own laws, raise their own taxes, live from the tithes, sweat and labour of the Poor. Et cetera.

  But from now on the Bishop will be Lord once more. And his name is Walther von Kolzeck, arrogant fool of twenty-four summers.

  Sacristans arrive, wreathed in white and purple robes, bearing wooden crosses and the Cathedral’s silver crucifix. Banks of candles are lit by the sexton and his boys. The Choir chants a lugubrious Psalm. Kolzeck lifts his arms aloft. “Those who will not obey the will of the One True Church cannot benefit from her Mercy. Sinners, dissenters, return to the Church and you will find her merciful. In opposing her you risk your Eternal Soul. Return, repent and be forgiven. Or be obstinate in your defiance and face the torments of Hell alone.”

  “Today is the Feast Day of the Purification of the Virgin. Let it be heard and recorded that I give you, the City Council and City Officials, until Pentecost to come to me in the spirit of peace to negotiate, in good faith, a new book of statutes for the City of Hagenburg. A new book of statutes that will restore to the Bishop the powers that you have expropriated for yourselves. A new book of statutes that will repeal the Flour Tax that weighs so heavily on the poor, a new book of statutes that will enforce the powers of the Episcopal Court, whose judgements you now disdain to obey. Until Pentecost I give you, Officials of this great city.”

  “But. You who have, in your pride and arrogance, actively defied Hagenburg and fomented unrest against the holy sovereignty of the Bishop, you have been seen. You who have conspired with Metz, who have raised arms against the Bishop’s seat to force concessions, who have locked the City Gates against the Bishop’s soldiers, your names have been noted down in the holy ledgers. Come forth, kneel and show your fealty to your Bishop, or face the ban of the church and be cut off from Salvation.

  “Baron Volmar von Kronthal, Knight Reichard von Zabern, Baron Lanzelin von Rappoltstein, Councillor Niklaus Zorn, Councillor Michael Müllenheim, unless you now come forward and pledge your loyalty, I place you henceforth under the ban of the Church!”

  We look at each other like schoolboys, smirking like fools. Can this be true? Can this be true?

  Above us, the funeral bell begins to knell, heralding the death of our eternal souls. Oh Jesus and Mary, can this be true?

  At the pulpit, at the High Lectern, the Bishop intones again, “I place you under the ban of the Church,” and his hands reach for the heavy, gem-encrusted Holy Bible, and close it firmly shut, as a drummer begins to drum. Boom boom boom, echoing throughout the stones. The Book of Life is closed to us. Oh Jesus and Mary, can this be true?

  The chaplains wave their long white sleeves above the banks of candles, and, as if in one breath, they all go out. The Rood Screen hulks in the darkness and we are cut off from the Light of the World. Oh Lord in Heaven, can this be true?

  The Bishop descends the stairs, carrying the Crucifix. The bell knells long and slow, the drum beats its funereal boom . . . Bishop Kolzeck chants once again, “Baron Volmar von Kronthal, Knight Reichard von Zabern, Baron Lanzelin von Rappoltstein, Councillor Niklaus Zorn, Councillor Michael Müllenheim, I place you under the ban of the Church!” And the crucifix plunges onto the cold stone floor, clanging like the mighty strike of a blacksmith’s hammer.

  PENTECOST

  (ANNO 1261. GRETE GERBER IV)

  I’ve been told they came up here from Italy. It’s like a chain: every new place they come to they find new members, and some old members drop off and go back home, their penance done. But every one of them must at least stay thirty-three and a half days: one day for every year of Christ’s short life.

  For nearly two weeks now they’ve been camped outside the Basel Gate, about a hundred of them, and twice a day, at Terce and None, they scourge themselves. It’s quite a sight, and I should think everyone in Hagenburg and the surrounding villages has come to see them, at least once. They strip to the waist, and then with knotted ropes and hooked chains, flay their own backs and shoulders bloody. And they cry, like a murder of crows, Repent ye, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!

  Every second day they leave their camp and process through the Hagenburg streets, scourging themselves as they go, singing their dirge-like songs, screaming, weeping real tears and shedding real blood, and, gathered in the Cathedral Square, they perform strange spectacles of sin and repentance. A man and a woman act out the adulterous Lust that brought them into Sin, an old man mimes how he murdered his neighbour so as to steal his land, a boy of fifteen, shoulders flayed to shreds, flits through the crowd, showing how he cut purses and picked pockets before he embraced the Cross.

  And then, throwing themselves into the dust, covering themselves in dirt, they chant and scream: Do not fight, brothers and sisters! Love each other! Do not divide! Unite! Repent! The last days are coming! Let there be Peace!

  Even though their Show makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, their call for Peace hasn’t worked here. Not at all. Pentecost has just come and gone, and the Bishop’s threats have worked for nothing. No reconciliation, no processions of humble, repentant City Councillors crawling on their knees to the Bishop’s Palace to renegotiate a new Book of Statutes. Oh no.

  On Pentecost the Bishop took to the pulpit and, quaking with anger, cried that no less a personage than the late Emperor Friedrich himself had confirmed the right of the Bishop to choose his own City Council; a right long since forgotten in the greed of the times, where everyone in office merely takes what he can and enriches himself. The City of Hagenburg, he cried, was now a trough of silver where fat swine come to swill, and the farrow of the poor feed on scraps and starve.

  I was there myself, with the other Guild Masters. What is there to say? It’s not that he’s wrong: the Ministerial Families have stuffed their fat behinds into the seats of office, them and their clan crowding the council and all public positions where a shilling is to be skimmed, it’s true.

  But what of the Canons and the Noble Families who own the land and whose sons fill the Cathedral Chapter, squatting over their tithes and benefices, over their golden prebends, their rents and tolls, sucking up all the fat of the land?

  The Bishop forgets to mention them, doesn’t he?

  The only difference is . . . the City Families, the Mint Master and the Tollmaster and the Tax Collector and the Burgrave, all the City Councillors and Officials, they actually talk with the likes of us, Guild Masters and Artisans, Merchants and Factors.

  But the Bishop and the Canons and the Nobles? They treat us like dirt.

  So we Guild Masters know whose Side we’re on. And it’s not the Bishop’s. And for all his talk of the little farrow, the starving piglets of the City’s Poor, and for all his talk of cutting taxes to suckle them up to his big fat udders, the Poor know this too
:

  Better a City Family Pig than a Noble Snake.

  And in the Cathedral, at his pulpit, despite the Canons who crowd the choir applauding at his back, he can feel it, the Bishop. He can feel his shouted words falling into a big, black well, falling and falling . . . into cold silence.

  And so, screeching with pique like a spurned little girl, he—can one believe it?—excommunicated the entire City. With some chanted Latin, with the Bible, the bell and the candle, with a pergament he waved at us, bearing the Seal of the Pope Himself, he cut us all off from Salvation . . . and condemned all of our souls, all thirty, forty thousand of us, to unshriven Hell.

  And then he turned on his heel, marched out of the door, mounted his horse from the southern steps, and galloped off with his liegemen through the Vogesen Gate.

  Well, that got rid of him for a while, I suppose.

  † † †

  But what this means, whatever those Scourgers may plead for, rolling in the dust and begging for Reconciliation . . . is War. We all know it. Both sides are sharpening their swords, polishing their armour, and signing up men, swearing allegiances, buying allies, hiring mercenaries. Getting ready for the fight to come.

  I’ll play my part, I’ll do what I can. I’ll do everything in my power to force this bastard Bishop to his knees.

  † † †

  But it’s like trying to turn Lead into Gold. He’s not giving way. “Yudl! Remember Schwanenstein! That was a big risk too. Baron Volmar is ready again. His allies and friends are ready. An army of more than a thousand men. They’re taken care of. They’ll pay their own way. And the arms we needed have been bought; I’ve seen to that. Just we need more coin, a lot of it, NOW. To turn Rudolf von Habsburg over to our side.”

  “And why’s he worth so much?”

  “He’s a great military leader, ambitious, strong. He’s fought and married his way into a lot of land, haven’t you heard?”

  “I’ve heard.”

  “He has several hundred experienced fighting men. And he’s argued with the Bishop and he’s ripe for turning over to our side. With him, victory is assured.”

  “Victory is never assured, Mistress Grete. And the Baron von Kronthal? Why can’t the Baron lay down his own coin?”

  My hand thumps the table top. “He hasn’t any left.”

  “He’s worth thousands.”

  “You’re right, but it’s all in land. Owned in common with his wife. They’re not speaking.”

  “How sad.”

  “And he can’t sell now, the price would be low and it would take too much time, and—”

  “Where’s Emmerich when the Baron needs him? I remember him advising the Baron to have plenty of coin in times of war.”

  “Yes, where is Emmerich Schäffer, the Director of your Company, Yudl?”

  Yudl sits there at his huge desk where Emmle used to sit. His eyes squint, his body twitches, uncomfortable with the pressure I’m bringing to bear. He must be but twenty-nine summers, just a bit older than my Manfredle, and the richest Commoner in Hagenburg, the owner of the “Rosheimer Fortune.” He slides his black cap over his tousled fair hair, smiles a thin smile. “He prefers to be a silent partner of late.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  Yudl doesn’t answer, his face unmoving, blank, revealing nothing.

  I fix his grey, black-ringed, cat-like eyes. “And if we heard he was dead?”

  He looks pale, unsettled. “Have you?”

  “No. But what if?”

  Yudl tries to hide his nervousness, smiles and shrugs. Then he starts laughing, and gets up to pour us some water.

  The name on all his company’s legal records, on his Books of Account, is “Emmerich Schäffer,” the Christian face of the enterprise, now a half-forgotten ghost.

  Yudl hands me a cup of water. I sniff at it. “Which well is this from?”

  “From the Judengasse. I had it drawn this morning.”

  “Is the Judengasse well clean?”

  “It is the only one we Jews haven’t poisoned.”

  “Ha ha.” I drink. It seems sweet enough.

  Yudl sits down again, touches the tips of his fingers together like Emmerich used to do: these annoying gestures transmit themselves from person to person like a pestilence. “Mistress Gerber,” he says. “Gladly would I invest, once more, in a military campaign against a bandit or pirate . . . ”

  “The Bishop IS a Pirate!”

  He looks at me steadily, calmly. “But not against a Bishop, Grete. If the word comes out that the Jews are funding a war against a Bishop, then, I swear to you, my People are finished. From the Alps to the Baltic you will be throwing us in the rivers to ‘baptise’ us, and burning and hanging us. Don’t ask me again. I will never fund your campaign.”

  † † †

  One day, four years ago now, I was in the shop front of our house in the Müllergass, arguing with a Draper from Cologne who claimed we had copied and stolen his patterns on our last range of fabrics (I would say we were “inspired by” his work, but that’s beside the point) when a sunburned man in a broadbrimmed hat called through the open shutters, “Is this the residence of Mistress Grete Gerber?”

  “It is,” I said, grateful for the interruption.

  The tall, mysterious man stepped in from the street and looked at me with a grave, pious expression, and said, “Forgive me, madam, I am the bearer of bad news. Your brother passed away last year. In Constantinople.”

  In shock, I am unable to ask the question, “Which brother?” The man, seeing my consternation, nodded gently and said, “I am told his suffering was short. He wanted you to have these, which I have from the hands of a Greek trader in Venice. I have brought them with me on my travels.”

  A bundle, loosely tied in string. He unravels it to reveal . . . a stonemason’s chisel, a wedding ring, a small carving in oak of an angel, holding a heart . . .

  Tears crowd my eyes. Suddenly I am keening, sobbing, gasping for air as I sink to the stool beside me. At first my grief is all too real, but then, sensing the discomfort of the Draper of Cologne standing beside me, I play it for all it’s worth.

  It has the desired effect: the Draper of Cologne, realising his moment for complaint and compensation has passed, dons his hat, bows, and retreats into the street.

  † † †

  I slam the door of Schäffer and Associates. Outside, Rosamunda and Mayenz Manfred are waiting. They can see from my face that it didn’t go well. But my mind is made up. It is time now for Emmerich to join his better brother. It is time for Emmerich to die.

  “Let’s go and see the Lawyer. Right away.”

  We set off towards the Cathedral Square and the Schriwerstublgass. Rosamunda and Mayenz Manfred look at me. “You’ve gone pale, Gretele,” says Rosamunda. “Have you seen a ghost?”

  Lord knows I have done bad things in my Life. I have lied, I have cheated. And the Pavilion? That was theft. And throwing Elise out to the meagre mercy of the Streets? That was cruel.

  But this? What I am now considering? If it has the stamp of Statute upon it, does that take away its Evil? Does the Judge’s Seal deflect the damnation of my Eternal Soul? When I stand before God, can I invoke the Hagenburg Book of Law?

  It’s as if Rosamunda knows what I’m thinking; her hand reaches out and holds my shoulder. Trying to give me courage.

  Thank the Lord for these two companions. Rosamunda’s bastard Manfred, the rascal, has more of his Father in him than my boy. And old Rosamunda turned out to be good company, once I got to know her. She told me everything, how my Manfred paid her to move to Mayenz once she got pregnant, how he organised her a paper marriage to keep the Church off her back and sent her eight shillings monthly to keep her quiet.

  It was she who gave Manfred’s name to the Inquisitors, back in Year of Our Lord 1232. I was shocked when s
he confessed it, but then it’s true that Manfred had just knocked her up and thrown her over for a little country maid called Grete. I understand: I would be ready to commit a sin if he’d done the same to me.

  But then she tells me, Manfred, one of the times he was staying with her in Mayenz, on one of his “business journeys” down the Rhine, got drunk and told her that he himself had given Names. When they were pushing him hard, threatening to burn him and his father, he’d given up the names of all his rivals in the boat trade. Wolfram, Michael of Müllhausen, Kärten, even old Günther.

  Günther confessed and was humiliated and shaved. Peters and Kärten were burned. Wolfram fled Hagenburg for two years. And Manfred, God preserve his black soul, doubled the size of his business.

  Is a Sin a Sin when it leads to Good? That’s what I’m asking myself, as the three of us walk together to the Lawyer’s office. What Manfred did, that was just for his profit, and that’s a Sin, pure and simple, what he did. A Sin.

  But what if a Sin leads to the Good of Everyone?

  To do Good, don’t you sometimes have to do Evil first?

  † † †

  It’s the Thursday after Pentecost and since the Bishop stormed out of the town gates four days ago, there hasn’t been a cloud in sight. The Lawyers’ bureaux are hot as ovens, and as I sit down on the clients’ bench, a flush comes over me like I’ve never had before. Sweat drenches me, my eyes flutter, it’s all I can do not to keel over and drop to the floor like a drunken carter.

  “Grete, you’re red as a peony!” screeches Rosamunda, and calls out for a cup of beer. Mayenz Manfred pulls open the shutters. A draught of hot foul air sucks inwards, slamming the doors of the building shut like prison gates.

  When the door to Magistrate Vergersheim’s office is opened, I am leaning out of the window, Rosamunda is fanning me with a flat wooden dustpan like a madwoman, my undershirt and petticoat are drenched through and I’m still pink as pickled beetroot. And who should be walking out of the Magistrate’s office, but Count Rutger von Moder and his sister the Baroness von Kronthal! And me with my face looking like shredded red cabbage! For shame.