Cathedral

by Ben Hopkins

  I do my best to curtsey and put my wimple to rights, but the Great Nobilities sail past me as if I were a pins-and-buttons lady. I wonder what business the likes of them have in a law office, but I suppose everyone needs to waste their money on lawyers these days.

  “So, Mistress Gerber, you’ve decided to go through with it?” asks Vergersheim, from his doorway.

  “Your assistants should have warned me you had Nobility in there. I would have powdered my face.”

  He laughs, ushers me in and waves his hand over a roll of parchment lying on his desk. “It’s all ready, madam. It just needs your signature, and then the seal of the Judge, a formality.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “The Law is clear, madam. Seven years is all that’s needed, seven years. And no word has been heard, no sight seen, of your brother Emmerich since the Year of Our Lord twelve hundred and forty-eight. A good, round Devil’s Dozen of years. So, Mistress Gerber, if you will excuse the expression, your brother Emmerich is legally dead. His estate falls to his next male kin, which is Rettich. And Rettich, upon leaving on his pilgrimage, signed control of his estate to You.” And here he holds up the yellowed pergament that I, in the spirit of sisterly care, had, all those years ago, persuaded Rettich to sign.

  The Magistrate looks at me. Probably he sees what a state I am in, and smiles kindly. “Sign, madam. And tomorrow the City Bailiffs will distrain those goods and chattels that belong, legally, to you.”

  “Can you . . . arrange to . . . distrain them. On Monday?”

  Vergersheim looks at me, awaiting an explanation.

  I can feel a large pearl of sweat gathering on my eyebrow. I wipe it away, brusquely, waving away evil thoughts. “Just to let him . . . have one more quiet . . . happy, what do they call it, Sabbath? With his family? Before . . . ”

  Vergersheim laughs. “You have become quite sentimental.”

  “I do this with a heavy heart.”

  “Then go and repent. Go and visit the Scourgers outside the gates. It’s all the fashion.”

  He laughs again, and unrolls the parchment, facing towards me, for me to sign.

  “Quill and ink are here on the table, madam.”

  I rise, slowly. But even so, my head is dizzy. To steady myself as I reach for the quill, I turn to practicalities. “How much will I owe you, Magistrate?”

  I dip the quill in the rich, black ink.

  Magistrate Vergersheim’s long-nailed finger taps on the parchment, where a Cross marks the place I am meant to sign. “Oh, nothing, madam. In this case, the commission we take from the estate will be quite sufficient.”

  NINEVEH

  (ANNO 5021. YUDL BEN YITZHAK ROSHEIMER VII)

  All the clerics are leaving the City.”—“What? All of them?”

  Yudl stands, his face frozen in an expression of surprise, before the locked door of Schäffer and Associates. Elbertus, his young and hefty assistant, ruefully shakes his head at the state of the world. “All of them. I’ve just come down from the city walls. Go and look if you like, Herr Rosheimer. They’re all leaving; priests, monks, nuns. They’re locking the churches and monastery gates and leaving. At the Bishop’s orders.”

  Yudl takes the heavy key from its chain around his neck. Unlocks the door. “Tell me what this means, Elbertus.”

  They walk up the stairs together to Yudl’s bureau on the upper floor. Elbertus opens the shutters, letting the light in through the windows of fine glass. “The excommunication of the city was no idle threat. Now there will be no one to take confession of the dying, no one to bless a marriage, no one to baptise a child. Pardon the expression, but he’s sending the whole city to Hell.”

  Yudl sits in his chair, leans back. “Elbertus, between them all, the clerics and their institutions spend a lot of money here. If they’re really all leaving, and leaving for a long time, then that’s half of Hagenburg’s daily trade just . . . pff!” and with his fingers he mimes the snuffing out of a candle.

  Yudl looks at Elbertus and sees that the young man’s eyes are now closed in reflection. “Herr Rosheimer, it seems you were wise to sell most of your assets and buy up in Florentine gold.”

  

  The more Pious, like his Father of blessed memory, called such things “Goyyim matters” and showed disinterest, turned away, retreated behind the closed door of the beth midrash. But Yudl can’t resist. It’s not every day you can see all the clerics leaving the city.

  On the Vogesengass, he is one of hundreds who have come to see the strange procession. They pass in silence, a covey of Franciscan monks, their belongings piled on handcarts pushed by lay brethren, their stern faces shadowed in their hanging hoods.

  A few wags shout out catcalls; “Good Riddance!”, “And don’t come back!” “Who needs you anyway?”, but most watch in tight-lipped unease as the guardians of their salvation proceed out of the city gates, heading for monasteries and abbeys in the Rhine Plain and the Vogesen Hills.

  Yudl leaves the mournful parade and retreats to the shade of the linden tree by the Sankt Petrus well. He takes from his purse the letter from Kalisz, a letter that always brings a smile to his face.

  Judah Rosheimer, onorabl kuzzin, jenerus patron in this our voyage.

  We got lost.

  We kuddent find Prag like you told us, kuzzin. Evil tungs gave us fals cownsil and we got lost. Forgiv us it is so long before we wrote but we was in Saxony. A green land of many trees and fat cowz and abundans. A misterius mountain roze from the plen, and we followed that and then cross the Saxon plen a city of Brezlow and then on after that we agen found the way. As other Jews were kommin on the way.

  But we are now here in a villij of Kalisz and all is well. Here we are now two hundred Jews and mor are kommin every day. The eart is rich the river is full of fisch like the man he said and the Duke is jenerus. We havent seen him yet.

  The pezants are fat eat sossij and have pigs and cows. We buy the old cows and make our leather. Trade is good. We are building a beth midrash to the glorie of G-d. The other Jews speak funny German and eat strange foods. The pezants speak Slavnik. We need a proppa Rabbi becus this one he is not good.

  Komm Yudl and all will be well and we will be yoonited in G-d. It is not the land of milk and hunny but it is good. Better than Rosheim we rekkun.

  In memry of our frends and famly, may the Lord bless this epissl and its voyage to your hands, onarabl kuzzin Judah,

  Danl, your kuzzin, now in Kalisz

  A small crowd has gathered outside the locked gates of the Franciscan Friary. The Scourgers, that group of penitents who flagellate themselves into ecstasy in the fields beyond the Basel Gate, walk in circles in the shade of the two plane trees that shadow the monastery walls.

  “Hagenburg, woe upon thee!” shouts their leader, with froth-flecked lips. “Be like unto Nineveh! Clothe yourselves in sackcloth and ashes, kneel in penitence, and escape the Wrath of the Lord!”

  

  Yudl walks across the Pfennigplatz, stumbling. Even here, in the centre of Hagenburg’s mercantile wealth, the lopsided cobbles and broken flagstones need urgent repair. Looking down on him, the fine Town House of the Müllenheims, with its three storeys of purplish Kronthal stone. The Zur Münze Inn, marked with a sign depicting three golden coins, where the patricians of the City Mint drink and conspire.

  The Guards at the Counting House doorway hold up their halberds, blocking Yudl’s way. One of them opens the door and calls inside, “Rosheimer’s here!”

  Yudl frowns, squints in the sun. What’s this?

  Münzmeister Müllenheim appears in the shadow of the doorway. He won’t look Yudl in the eye.

  Something’s wrong.

  “What do you want, Herr Rosheimer?”—“I want to my strongbox. I need some coin.”

  Müllenheim winces. “Then you’ve not heard.”

  “Heard
what? Let me inside!”

  Müllenheim shrugs, and nods to the halberdsmen, who withdraw their weapons.

  Inside, the lamp hangs low above the Counting Table, and upon the table lies Yudl’s strongbox, lacquered, brass-buckled, and painted with the arms of Rosheim and the words of Proverbs. Surrounding the strongbox, leaning over the table, the two other Mint Masters; Wikerus the Younger and Johann Zorn. And two armed men. Bailiffs.

  The men are all poring over a long vellum scroll. Their eyes glint in the lamplight, like demons examining a freshly-damned soul.

  A lump rises in Yudl’s throat.

  “My strongbox? What is this?”

  Müllenheim sighs. “Herr Rosheimer. It is being distrained.”

  “Distrained?”

  “Here, look.” And he reaches out to hand Yudl the scroll.

  By the Power vested in me by His Grace the Bishop of Hagenburg, I, Judge Arnim Doroltzheimer, do declare:

  † The citizen of Hagenburg, Emmerich Schäffer, born Year of Our Lord 1215 in Lenzenbach, last known residence Haus Zum Schwarzen Stein, Langer Weg, last seen in Hagenburg in the Year of Our Lord 1248, is, for reason of his prolonged absence from the city and in the want of any Signs of Life, herewith declared, for the purposes of his estate, legally deceased.

  † According to the documents duly received, registered and below listed, the inheritor of his estate is recognised as his sister, Grete Gerber née Schäffer, born Year of Our Lord 1216 in Lenzenbach, resident in Hagenburg, Haus Gerber, Müllergass.

  † Therefore the assets, property, chattels and coin of the concern “Schäffer and Associates,” owned and directed by the abovementioned late Emmerich Schäffer, hereby and forthwith are transferred to the ownership of his inheritor, Grete Gerber.

  † In accordance with the wishes of the inheritor, Grete Gerber, the concern “Schäffer and Associates” is to be liquidated forthwith and all assets both within the office premises and stored within the Counting House rendered to her with immediate effect.

  The document continues, but Yudl can read no more. The armed men are standing, walking towards him with measured step.

  “He keeps his keys around his neck, on a chain,” says Müllenheimer, softly.

  Yudl cannot move, he is paralysed, as the Bailiffs of the Court of Hagenburg pull his keys over his head.

  He looks, stammering, at Müllenheim, at Wikerus, at Zorn. “You must stop this! Aren’t you my friends? My colleagues? My brothers in trade?”

  The Masters of the Mint cannot meet his eye. They look down at the table, at their folded hands.

  “But what can we do, Herr Rosheimer?” says Müllenheim. “It is the Law.”

  QUILL, INK AND PARCHMENT

  (ANNO 1261. BARON VOLMAR VON KRONTHAL VI)

  This is too easy. Von Kolzeck hasn’t even left a proper standing garrison, just some cooks and servants, ostlers and valets, half a dozen men at arms. When they see we have a battering ram and mean to use it, they open up the castle gates.

  We give them a short time to pack their belongings together. Soon they scuttle out under the raised portcullis, sacks stuffed with poultry and game plundered from the kitchen larder.

  They scurry down the hill towards the distant city walls. It’s late afternoon; they’ll be in Hagenburg by sundown.

  But Haldenheim Castle is now ours.

  We ride in and loot what’s left; plenty of episcopal silver, fine wine, spices, a good pound of black pepper, a jewel-studded Bible worth some hundred marks. I take the Bible. My men call to me to open it at random and see what my Fate will be. The thing weighs some twenty pounds so I wrestle it down onto the cobbles, strike it open and point my finger.

  Nunc igitur, ego Nabuchodonosor laudo, et magnifico, et glorifico regem cæli, quia omnia opera ejus vera, et viæ ejus judicia, et gradientes in superbia potest humiliare.

  Something about What’s-His-Name praising the King of Heaven, God humbling the proud. Well, make of that what you will. It doesn’t mean much to me. “Who was Nabbuchod­donozza?” I ask.

  “King of Babylon!” says Reichard von Zabern. He had a proper education.

  “What did he do?”

  “He lived a thousand years.”

  “Well, that’s promising. What else?”

  “I’ll ask Great Uncle Eugenius.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  Finished with looting and fortune-telling, we drag the battering ram through the gates and use it to knock some big holes in the crenellations and stone defences. And then our carts of firewood trundle up to the gate.

  It’s dark by the time we’ve finished unloading the wood and stacking it around the inner buildings. It’s a shame, really. Quite a pretty castle, and the country stronghold of the Bishops of Hagenburg for generations. But it stands above the winding waters of the Ehle, the Mayenz-Hagenburg pilgrims’ road and the Hagenburg plain. It guards the City and the surrounding fields and vineyards. And so it has to burn.

  We gather at a vineyard farmstead below the castle knoll as my men set the fires. The nervous owner brings us stoups of his last-year’s wine. He’s worried that his vines will catch fire, can’t stop hiccupping, making “aaiiii” noises and pleading, “Please be careful, My Lord, please be careful!”

  As the castle goes up in flames, I can’t blame him. It’s a terrifying sight; a fire that reaches high into the sky, lighting the vineyards around us a flickering, infernal orange.

  It’s a bloody fine spectacle.

  † † †

  Since that draper woman Grete Gerber got her hands on the Jews’ fortune, the game has changed. We packed her fine new hefty strongbox covered with Jewish writing onto the back of a mule and marched it under heavy guard over to the Albrechtstal where Rudolf von Habsburg was holed up.

  We settled on five hundred marks to bring Habsburg over to our side. Not that I was involved in the negotiations; we left it to Mistress Gerber, Councillor Zorn and von Habsburg’s clerk to strike out the deal. Count Rudolf and I spent the time riding round the Albrechtstal, hunting and frightening the local milkmaids.

  The Gerber woman struck a hard deal for her hard coin; a fair share of the spoils if the war ends in our favour. That’s the new Way of the World. We’ll do all the fighting, and she with her Jewish gold will make off with a friar’s slice of the takings.

  Signing up with von Habsburg was a wise move, but it didn’t have the desired effect, at least not to begin with. Bishop von Kolzeck panicked when he heard the news, disbanded his men home to their estates, and went himself into hiding, presumably to look for new allies.

  We considered forming an army and riding after some of his closest supporters, such as the von Lichtenbergs and the von Tecks, and engaging with them one by one . . . but this would only wear us down and leave us open to surprise attack as we roved up and down the roads of Alsace and the Aargau. The truth is, until both sides have a proper army in the field and in the same part of the country, this war is not going to start, let alone come to an end. And when’s that going to happen?

  When you read the poems and the books of Chivalry, it’s as if we Knights all meet in the field of honour by some kind of gentlemanly prearrangement, and the most virtuous and handsome side wins. But the reality is all just Politics. Meetings, sworn vows and deals, buying alliances, forging partnerships, pledging spoils and advancement. And both sides are doing it, and both sides are hedging and hawing, tinkering with the details of their coalition, dragging it out, postponing that time when, and come it must, we all face each other in the Field and hack at each other with sword and spear.

  Look at von Habsburg, the sly fox. As soon as he changed sides he started going round the towns, meeting local dignitaries, striking deals, looking to expand his territories and make out of our victory a spur for the fortunes of the House of Habsburg. Anyone who stands in his way, like the town of Müllhausen, whose
Mayor called him a “traitor,” he goes and beats them until they change their mind. He’s besieging Müllhausen now, whilst I’m stuck here, doing the donkey work, chasing the Bishop’s liegemen out of their properties near Hagenburg and burning down the Bishop’s castle. Making a safe area around the City where we can engage the Enemy when the time is right.

  Von Habsburg has a bevy of clerks in his entourage: advisers, counsellors, scribblers. Not me. Since that snake Emmerich Schäffer tricked and robbed me, I’ve been doing my own dirty work. But in these modern times, if you want to do anything, you need quill, ink and parchment. That much I learned from that bastard Schäffer.

  I have to do it. There’s a lot at stake in this coming war. When I defeated von Schwanenstein I ended up with most of the plain of Illingen as victor’s spoils. And if I defeat von Kolzeck, even greater booty is in my sights. The Prinzbach silver mines.

  And so the next day, after inspecting the charred ruins of Haldenheim, I ride into town for a consultation in the Court Offices with the pen-pusher Magistrate Vergersheim. They say he’s the best lawyer in Hagenburg.

  Since the Excommunication, the City is tense and fractious like a drunken dockside tavern just before a fight breaks out. As I ride my way to the Schriwerstublgass a crowd gathers behind my Ashkelon’s haunches, cheering me on my way. “Go and beat that Bishop of ours and drag him back here in chains, My Lord!” “Beat that bastard Bishop like a dog and bring him to heel!” And one bitter man calls out from a tavern doorway; “You Noble Lords! Go and fight it out now before we all die of hunger!”