‘That may be the case for you because you are an important man of the Church. But as for me . . . it does not apply to me.’
At these words Gero rose to a stooped posture for it was impossible to stand straight in the episcopal car. He opened the back door and impatiently beckoned to the bodyguard who was leading his horse. With a daring jump Gero leaped into the saddle, and before anybody had a chance to react, he turned the horse and galloped back towards Oppenheim in the lashing downpour.
His nephew had not yet disappeared into the grey wall of rain when the archbishop stuck his head out the back door, losing his zucchetto. He shouted after him with all his might: ‘Don’t be a fool! Come back, Gero, do you hear me? Come back now, I say!’
But Gero could not hear him any longer. The water running down Konrad von Hochstaden’s face looked deceptively like tears.
Through the pouring rain and the rattling of the car, the bodyguard shouted: ‘Shall I ride after him, your grace?’
The archbishop, with a wave of his hand, replied, ‘No, leave him. He must know himself what he is doing.’
Then he closed the door and the car continued its journey until he and his mounted body guards faded into the rain like ghosts vanishing after a haunting.
‘I told you it is too dangerous in this weather, your reverence.’
The driver sitting next to the castle chaplain on the coach box of the wagon transporting the coffin with the relics of Saint Catherine refused to go any further. The wagon was stuck in the mire and didn’t move despite the two draught horses straining in their harness under the lashes of his whip. The two men were on their way down the steep winding road from Landskron Castle to the city with their precious cargo and the rain was pouring down.
‘What do you suggest we do? Turn around, perhaps?’ the castle chaplain raged indignantly.
Despite the adverse autumn weather bringing an end to the hot summer this morning, the archbishop had totally unexpectedly departed with his entourage in great haste – without a word or even a gesture of regret to his supporters at Landskron Castle. Neither did the solemn Mass take place at which Konrad von Hochstaden had promised to install both the relics of Saint Catherine and the chaplain in recognition of his faithful services and denunciations of heresy. The chaplain had noted this with the same bewilderment as the unexplained acquittal of the medica. What had happened?
The castle chaplain had a dark suspicion, but he was careful not to mention it: the witch must have turned the archbishop’s head. The Devil surely had to be part of it all. There was no other way that the chaplain could explain the inquisitor’s totally unexpected about-turn.
But from what he had heard, Oppenheim had got rid of the witch and all the riffraff belonging to her. She would leave with Sir Chassim, turning her back on the city for ever. It was not what the chaplain had envisaged when he initiated the proceedings, but still it was better than nothing.
The count, however, had demanded that the castle chaplain leave the castle immediately and never set foot in it again. The chaplain obeyed without hesitation; he would not have wanted to stay with such a sovereign anyway. After all, the archbishop had promised him the living of St Catherine’s whose new church was still under construction. That’s why he had loaded his few possessions onto the cart along with the precious relic-, in which the archbishop suddenly showed no interest, and decided to take it along to his new abode in the city. Under no circumstances would he leave the relics of Saint Catherine for another day in that devil’s castle. The chaplain had to pay the driver more than three times the usual fee for the transport, but he thought it was worth it. No one could have predicted the storm that had developed by the time they were ready to go.
Now they were stuck somewhere between the city and the castle with no help available. But the chaplain did not want to give up, and he climbed down from the coach box to push the back wheel with all his might. Then he noticed that the driver was unhitching the horses and turning around. The chaplain wanted to stop him but the man just shook his head and threw the money at his feet before leading his two draught horses through the rain back up to the castle.
The chaplain stood there all alone, feeling that this day the whole world had conspired against him. Through the masses of water pouring down from the low-lying black clouds, a veritable stream was cascading down the winding road from the castle. The surface had become severely eroded and the ground under the front wheels of the cart was half washed away, when without warning the vehicle suddenly lurched forward.
‘No!’ shouted the castle chaplain sensing disaster. ‘No!’
In desperation he ran around to the front of the cart, pushing against it with all his might. But it was too late. With a jolt, the cart began to move down the slope gaining an unstoppable momentum. It slid sideways off the road bouncing down the steep slope pulling with it the chaplain, who had become entangled by the cincture of his soutane. In free fall now, the cart overturned several times before tumbling over a thirty-foot cliff and smashing into a rock. Its cargo, the precious coffin with glass panes, broke into a thousand pieces, scattering the remains of Saint Catherine over half the mountain side. Lying in the mud amidst holy bones and coffin splinters, the chaplain had been lucky enough to escape with a few harmless bruises. Slowly he turned around, perplexed that the potency of the witch’s curse was more powerful than that of the relic. With great difficulty he got to his knees, and in the teeming rain began like a man possessed the hopeless task of picking the bones of the skeleton from the mud on the hillside. At last he found the skull of Saint Catherine. Holding it in his lap he began to clean it feverishly with the sleeve of his soutane as he blinked uncomprehendingly into the rain.
Chapter XII
Anna had turned back again. She remembered that she had forgotten something that she couldn’t do without, namely her book of prescriptions, which contained the correct mixing information for her medicines and remedies. If she was lucky it would still be at home, hidden in the bath house where she had placed it before her incarceration in Landskron Castle. Indispensable, it contained the measurements and calculations of all her mixtures and preparations, the fruits of so much work and energy and so many experiments.
In the meantime the last clouds had drifted away, but the sun was already very low when Anna rode into the yard of her house by the Oppenheim city wall. She was hurrying, as she did not want to have to look for her book in the dark or, worse still, ride back in the night to where her companions were encamped. She tied her horse in front of the barn and entered her house for the last time.
The group was unanimous in wanting to turn their backs on Oppenheim. The trial had poisoned any memory of the good times, and neither Brother Thomas nor Berbelin nor Anna herself wanted to stay a single day longer. Anna and Chassim wanted to move to his father’s estate to get married there. Her foster father Caspar, Brother Thomas and Berbelin had accepted Chassim’s invitation to join them. Anna wanted nothing more than to start a new life with Chassim at Greifenklau Castle. What a liberation it was not to have to pretend any longer, to be able to show her love publicly and never again be exposed to persecution and defamation!
Anna was greatly dismayed when she saw what the archbishop’s soldiery had done to her house during her imprisonment. The men had searched every corner and turned the place upside down. That they had even discovered the chest with the books buried in the garden was a clear indication to Anna that her house must have been under observation for a long time. All the furnishings were vandalised, the laboratory was a heap of shards and fragments of equipment and books lay shredded on the ground or half burnt in the hearth.
Anna and her companions loaded onto the wagon whatever few possessions remained intact and were worth taking, and they drove off as soon as the rain had eased.
As they left Oppenheim and Landskron Castle behind, Anna had felt immensely relieved. They planned to travel along the eastern bank of the Rhine and so moved on towards the river in search of a
ferry to take them across.
Just as the mighty river appeared in the distance and Chassim suggested they set up camp for the night, Anna had remembered the notebook that she absolutely needed and which she had forgotten in the hustle and bustle of their departure. She was convinced that the archbishop’s soldiers had not found it as she had carefully hidden it behind a loose brick in the bathhouse. Brother Thomas did not want her to ride back alone but Anna would not hear it and rode off straightaway, expecting to be back with her companions by sundown.
And now Anna was standing in the bathhouse of her house. Here, too, the soldiers had rampaged and destroyed as much as they could. But Anna saw immediately that the back wall of bricks was intact except for a few stains where containers from her laboratory had been smashed. She located the right brick, pulled it out and found her precious notebook behind it. She took it and blew off the dust – it was undamaged. Happily she pressed her find to her breast, turned around and then her heart nearly stopped with the fright.
Entirely unexpectedly she found herself standing opposite her own flesh and blood, eye to eye with her violent enemy and cousin Gero von Hochstaden. Dumbfounded, he gaped at her in disbelief. Then his mouth began to twitch into his usual malicious grin. Now Anna saw that in one hand he held his sword and in the other a burning torch.
Thoughts flashed through her mind: she had not seen a horse in front, so he must have hidden his behind the house; had he arrived after her she would have heard him ride up. The torch was likely in his hand so that he could set fire to the house. He must have heard something and hid when she entered. Now he was standing in front of her and she could see in his eyes the naked lust to kill.
‘Well then, Cousin, where are your friends?’ he finally managed to say.
‘They will be here any moment now,’ she said as convincingly as possible and thought frantically how she could stop him. In physical terms she was no match for him, not to mention the sword in his hand.
‘By which time I will long have settled my score with you,’ he said with a sneer and took a step towards her.
Suddenly she had an idea. Was her cousin not afraid of her evil eye? She held out her notebook in a desperate gesture as if it were a book of magic spells and acted threateningly the way she imagined a real witch would: ‘Do you wish to see into the future, Gero von Hochstaden? I can foretell it for you!’ Mustering all her courage she moved slowly towards him, holding the book in front of her like a monstrance.
Miraculously he actually backed away from her distrustfully. Resolutely she continued: ‘Did nobody ever tell you that a witch with one brown and one green eye would be your downfall, Cousin? That she would put a curse on you and wish all the sicknesses of the world on you? Did nobody ever tell you that? Well now the time has come. Prepare yourself!’
Now she nearly had him where she wanted him, but as he backed off he brushed against the wall and that seemed to break the spell of fear that Anna’s sorcery had cast over him.
But Anna didn’t care whether or not his fear persisted. She quickly stepped into the hall and closed the bathhouse door behind her. She couldn’t find the key for it, and Gero was already banging on the door from inside as Anna pulled the handle towards her with all her might. She knew she wouldn’t be able to resist for long, and finally decided to run to the laboratory which she knew had a lockable door. Luckily she found the key still in place, rammed the door shut and locked it.
Feverishly she looked around, trying to remember which drawer had the black powder Medicus Aaron had once warned her about. She would never find what she was looking for in the heap of shards, herbs, powders, boards and tattered books. Especially now that Gero was wild with rage, hammering on the door and roaring, ‘Open, you witch, or I will kick it in!’
The whole door shook as Gero’s shoulder crashed against the wood.
Frantically Anna continued to search through the drawers which were lying scattered throughout the room but she could not find the black powder. As another heavy blow hit the door it began to splinter. At that moment Anna’s eyes fell on the demolished distillation apparatus. It was no longer usable, of course, but Anna hoped that enough distillate had settled in the battered metal sphere to use.
In great haste she looked for a container that had remained intact, and found an old leather bucket into which she tapped the sharp-smelling distillate. Pure, undiluted aqua vitae. If only it would flow more quickly, especially since she could hear loud noises and voices out in the hall.
‘Anna – are you in there?’
It was Chassim, and just then she heard Brother Thomas, and Gero followed by the noise of a fight.
So Chassim did come after her because he was worried about her! Though how could he defend himself against someone like Gero with his leg in a plaster cast, Anna wondered. What’s more, he and Brother Thomas would surely be unarmed.
She had to act before it was too late. Anna took the bucket, by now half-full of distillate, and unlocked the door. She saw Brother Thomas lying on the floor in a pool of blood, moaning. Chassim, squatting against the wall, was desperately trying to parry with his crutch the laughing Gero’s light and playful sword thrusts as he led up to the final blow. Gero was still holding the burning torch in his right hand, and now used it to push Chassim into a corner like a wild animal.
‘Hey, Cousin Gero!’ Anna shouted as loudly as she could and took a few steps towards him with her bucket.
Gero turned to her. ‘Now I will dispatch you from whence you came. To hell, you witch!’ he said and came at her with his sword and torch.
‘I’ll happily see you go first, Cousin!’ Anna replied and threw the contents of the bucket, pure aqua vitae, directly into his face and over his chest.
The aqua vitae immediately caught fire and the same moment a clear bluish-yellow aureole of flames covered Gero’s face and torso. He stopped abruptly when he realised what was happening and saw that he was already ablaze. Gasping for air, he sucked in the burning aqua vitae. Wheezing and gurgling, he dropped his sword and torch and roared like a fatally wounded bull. He staggered towards Anna, hands outstretched as if he wanted to strangle her in his final moments. With flames now licking his head, beard and clothing and the skin on his face blistering, he looked like a demon out of hell. Still he stumbled on, flames swirling around him. Anna dodged him as the burning Gero lurched blindly into the laboratory where he fell headlong into the knee-deep pile of parchment, wood, herbs and powders on the floor. The bone-dry pile caught fire immediately.
‘Out!’ Anna screamed, ‘we must get out of here!’
She helped Chassim up and together they pulled at the moaning Brother Thomas. All three managed to drag each other outside. First they heard a muffled bang, followed by a violent explosion of such intensity that half the house blew into the air in a ball of flame.
The detonation was so powerful that Anna, Chassim and Brother Thomas were thrown to the ground. Splinters of glass, wood and masonry rained down on them, and when at last they looked up, dazed and numbed, flames were licking the last sad bits of wall and a pitch-black smoke column billowed towards the sky. Then it started to rain.
‘It must have been the black powder about which the medicus had warned me,’ Anna said.
Dawn had broken, and the red glow in the east was banishing the shades of night. The air was cool and fresh and smelled of water as the ferry glided calmly and leisurely across the Rhine towards the far shore. Anna, Chassim, Brother Thomas, Berbelin, Caspar and the two grooms were the only passengers.
Arms around each other, Anna and Chassim watched the sunrise as a light breeze ruffled their hair.
Brother Thomas was sitting on the wagon which had been roped to the ferry for the passage, his head resting on Berbelin’s lap. He had suffered a deep cut in his shoulder from Gero’s sword, but luckily it was only a flesh wound which Anna had expertly dressed. All were silently marvelling at the glory of the Lord’s creation as it was revealed by the rising sun. Only Caspar look
ed back thoughtfully to the other shore disappearing in the mist.
Anna was tired and completely exhausted. This year God had tested her making her grow up and learn what her vocation was and what she was capable of. Had she really been born to be a medica? Yes, it had to be so. At last she knew with absolute certainty who she was and what she wanted.
Secretly she stole a glance at Chassim. Then she pulled him into a kiss to reassure herself that he really was with her and not just dreaming.
It would have been a beautiful dream.
But now, in truth, reality was even more beautiful.
THE END
Glossary
Apse
(Greek: vault, arch) In the layout of Christian churches, a semi-circular projection which adjoins the choir, usually covered by a semi-dome
Armarium
Cabinet-like niche in a monastery where books were kept (precursor of the library)
Army surgeon
A military medical official who attended to soldiers, extracted teeth and specialised in battle wounds and amputations
Aureole
Halo around a figure, especially in images of Christ
Bloodletting
A cure used since antiquity in which a significant amount of blood is taken from the patient
Buhurt
A mock fight between teams of armed mounted knights during a tournament
Bull (Papal)
Document from the Pope to which is affixed a lead seal (bulla); a papal decree
Capitulare de Villis
A series of rules and regulations for managing estates
Conclave
A private meeting of the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church to elect a pope upon the death of his predecessor
Contemplation
Deep meditation on Creation and the word of God
Choir screen
A screen of stone or wood separating the choir or space for the priests and monks from the nave or body of the church where the lay people gathered
The Apothecary's Secret Page 38