[Master Mercurius 02] - Untrue Till Death

by Graham Brack

  Mijnheer Brough inspected the paper and, with our leave, showed it to his daughter. We had overheard them speaking English to each other. He seemed to be a respectable man, a cloth merchant as he told us, and his daughter, while quite plain, was obviously intelligent.

  ‘I cannot make much sense of it, gentlemen, but it appears to say “You do not have to grind the nest” or “You are not obliged”, and so forth.’

  The daughter concurred. ‘Was the author in his right mind?’ she asked.

  ‘Indeed he was, juffrouw,’ the Rector replied. ‘Sadly it seems that he was done to death so that this paper could be destroyed, and he went to some trouble to conceal it.’

  ‘Then, mijnheers, let us suppose it has a meaning, but not a plain one. If it were a code, it would require the recipient to have a code-book to uncover the message.’

  ‘That would be very cumbersome, juffrouw. And the gentleman’s chamber did not have any obvious code-book.’

  ‘Surely he did not need one?’

  ‘How so?’ the Rector asked. His eyes were bright. Something was stirring behind them which I was not feeling. I was as much in the dark as ever I was.

  ‘Well, if he intended to send this as a message, why had he not sent it? But perhaps it is a note to himself, and all that matters is that it means something to him.’

  We thanked the Broughs politely and walked away.

  ‘You know, Mercurius,’ said the Rector, ‘I think that young woman would be an adornment to our university. There is intelligence there, don’t you think?’

  ‘I do, Rector,’ I agreed. ‘But really — women students? Whatever next?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Speak nothing but good of the dead, or something like that.

  I was beginning to feel that I had misjudged Van Looy. He was engaged on work of national importance, and he had adopted a persona that kept people at arm’s length so that they were unlikely to stumble across anything incriminating. I could see now that he spoke to as few people as possible, so I should have felt honoured that he deigned to abuse me. Perhaps, I thought, if we had been given time, it was possible that we might have become friends.

  No, that was pushing it a bit. But we might have grown to detest each other a little less.

  I was sitting in De Vrede, Steen’s inn on the Langebrug, with a tankard of ale in front of me. It was not my first, which might account for my maudlin disposition. Then, just to make my happiness complete, some idiot began to play the lute.

  His name, I discovered, was Beniamino. Beniamino was a scheming, unprincipled scoundrel, with loose morals, unhealthy appetites and an utter indifference to the truth; but then I could simply have told you that he was a lute-player and saved myself a lot of words.

  I don’t know what it is about lute-players. I might, perhaps, exempt those who are the personal musicians of our great men, but the itinerant lutenists wander from inn to inn, frequently offering to play in exchange for food, drink and shelter for the night. As a result, they eat and drink lustily, to put it mildly, and that’s not the only thing they do lustily. If I were the father of daughters, I should counsel them strictly to have nothing to do with anyone with a lute.

  The problem is that they see themselves as figures of some celebrity. What in other men would look like a lack of deportment and questionable hygiene is viewed by young women as evidence of a louche and carefree lifestyle. There is undoubtedly some strange species of attraction between young girls and lute players that is like to bring about their ruin — the young women, not the lute-players — and there is many a maid in this land who has danced a horizontal galliard and has a little lutenist to show for it.

  In Beniamino’s case, this general shiftiness was enhanced by the fact that he was lately arrived from Italy, a fact that he casually threw into the conversation at least four times in the first ten minutes after he invited himself to sit at my table. Everybody else at the table left me in peace. He did not.

  ‘Ah, a religious gent!’ he announced, not much of a deduction given my clothing. ‘I’m surprised to see a man of God in a low tavern like this.’

  ‘There are much lower ones,’ I replied.

  ‘Don’t I know it! I must have played in many of them. Still, a man must earn his living where he can. Is there a song you would especially like to hear, Master?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Your last.’

  He laughed heartily. ‘Oh, there is wit in Leiden after all. I’ll tell you what,’ he continued, ‘I’ll sing a song for you anyway, no charge, just for keeping me company.’

  He took up his lute once more and sang a song which, so far as I could gather, concerned a sailor who went away for many years and returned to discover that his sweetheart had married someone else. Broken-hearted, he returned to his ship and sailed away again, at which point I thought the story would end. But no, there were several more verses describing how, when his ship next docked, she was waiting on the quay for him with the happy news that she was now a widow, and they could marry. I expected to hear that they all lived happily ever after, but the story continued to describe how he went one day into the cellar of the house to investigate a foul smell and found the murdered body of the former husband with a handful of the torn dress he had seen in the closet in his wife’s bedroom. Should he tell the authorities and see her burned at the stake? He decides he cannot, but never has a moment’s peace in his life as he realises that a woman who has killed once may well do so again.

  I cannot bring myself to describe his next song, except to say that it was filthy in the extreme and painted, if my brother’s stories were in any way accurate, an overly romantic view of a sailor’s life, given that it omitted any mention of flogging, sodomy or a watery death in favour of the attractions of a travelling lifestyle and a girl in every port.

  There was a welcome pause in the music making at this point, but only because Beniamino reappeared at the table.

  ‘Thirsty work, singing is,’ he said.

  One of the other customers poured a beaker of ale from his pitcher.

  ‘Thank you, friend,’ cried Beniamino. ‘I think I may be here a few days.’

  ‘That’s unfortunate,’ I said. ‘Sadly, I must go to Utrecht the day after tomorrow.’ I had only been thinking about when I should go, but the news that Beniamino was staying in Leiden had helped me to make up my mind.

  ‘Ah, Utrecht! Nice city. Plenty of music lovers. Did you know that the city pays a man to make music for the citizens there?’

  It was true. The city had employed a man called Van Eyck who was blind but could play beautiful music. He played on the square outside the Janskerk. Of course, this was about twenty years before, and he had passed away, but maybe it was still done. I decided I would find out while I was there.

  The discovery that Van der Horst had been hanging around near the funeral had been preying on my mind, so I decided to see if I could find him. It was late July, so I would have expected the students to have gone home, in his case to Haarlem, but he was still in Leiden somewhere.

  Students who intend to return are able to keep their rooms on, and Van der Horst was in his when I knocked.

  ‘Master Mercurius! What a pleasant surprise. Please, come in.’

  I thanked him and came straight to the point. ‘I have been asked to investigate the circumstances in which mijnheer Van Looy died, and I noticed that you were in Leiden when others have gone home. I wondered if there was a particular reason for this.’

  Van der Horst shrugged. ‘I doubt that it bears upon your enquiry, Master, but the reason is simple. I have nowhere else to go. My father and I do not see eye to eye. I will, of course, pay him a short visit during the vacation, but when we are together for any length of time it usually results in high voices and strain.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that. We are instructed to honour our fathers and mothers in the Ten Commandments, of course.’

  ‘Indeed. But we are also told to do no murder, and the
temptation would be very great on occasion. I would rather break one commandment than two.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Do I shock you, Master?’

  ‘Sadden, rather than shock. But I thank you for your honesty.’

  ‘I hope all men will be honest, Master. The world will be better for it.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I agreed, though doubting whether I would ever see it come to pass. ‘Are your friends still here?’ I added, largely to make some kind of polite conversation.

  ‘Molenaar is,’ Van der Horst replied. ‘He is an orphan, and relations with his guardian are strictly formal. As for Terhoeven, he has taken himself off home.’

  ‘And where is home?’

  ‘Do you know, I’ve never heard him say. But it must be quite a distance because he set off very early in the morning, I understand.’

  Much of our country can be reached in a day if you can find a barge heading that way, but it may mean starting out before dawn.

  ‘You were at the funeral?’ I enquired.

  ‘At the back. I thought it improper to insinuate myself into any part of the formal events. I would not have come to the dining hall except that I did not realise it would be used for a private function.’

  That explained his presence. It did not explain the smile.

  I had persuaded the Rector that it was important to examine the contents of Van Looy’s rooms thoroughly, for which purpose he had given me the necessary keys. We had found nothing more in his office, but I had not yet found either the time or the appetite to search his bedchamber.

  That room might yet have remained unchecked were it not for the sudden appearance of a messenger boy from the Rector, bearing a note to tell me that Van Kamerik had arrived with the intention of searching Van Looy’s rooms.

  I fished in my pouch for a coin. ‘What is your name, boy?’ I asked.

  ‘Cees, Master.’

  ‘Well, Cees, I have a little extra task for you. Have you eaten?’

  ‘No, Master.’

  ‘Good. Well, not good that you haven’t eaten, but good from the point of view of my plan.’

  The boy removed his cap and scratched his head. It all seemed very straightforward to me, but perhaps he was a little backward.

  ‘Go and have something to eat with this. Take at least an hour. Then return to the Rector with this note I’m writing. If he asks, tell him I wasn’t in my room but you found me at the bookseller’s.’

  ‘But you are in your room, Master.’

  ‘Yes, but I want you to tell him I wasn’t.’

  The boy looked shocked. ‘You want me to lie, Master?’

  ‘Yes. No! Not lie, exactly. Just … confuse the truth a little.’

  ‘But I’ll go to Hell for all eternity.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’

  ‘Yes, Master, the minister told us all that Hell is full of liars and hippos.’

  ‘Hypocrites?’

  ‘That’s the word. And if we tell a lie, the Devil will come and stretch our tongues with red-hot tongs and rub them with a burning coal forever and ever.’

  Of all the children in Leiden, I had found one who had scruples about telling fibs. ‘In some very special circumstances, God permits us to tell lies when there is a greater good. For example, if a burglar asks where your gold is kept, you can tell him you have none even when you do, because it’s all right to tell a lie to a bad man.’

  ‘Is the Rector a bad man, then?’

  ‘By no means. But this message tells me that the man with him may be a bad man.’

  This seemed to satisfy the lad’s sense of honour. ‘I thought he might be, Master. He looked angry.’

  ‘So, take your time, and remember what I said. I wasn’t here, but you found me at the bookseller.’

  ‘But you won’t be at the bookseller.’

  ‘No,’ I said as patiently as I could manage. ‘How about this, then? After you’ve eaten you go to the bookseller, then, when you find I’m not there, you come back here?’

  There was a short interval while he contemplated the implications of this deception, but at length he was satisfied and ran off, allowing me to slip along to Van Looy’s room so that I could search it before Van Kamerik had his turn.

  I did not expect to find anything of import, so I was not disappointed when nothing turned up. The only surprising thing was that there was absolutely nothing to hint at Dekkers’ life before he became Van Looy. I had expected a miniature of his mother, or his first prayer book, but there was absolutely nothing. In fact, his room was commendably orderly, a task made easier by its spartan furnishings. All I saw were a few books, neatly stacked, including a couple in English, a bible, well-thumbed, a chest full of clothing and some blank paper but nothing else, a table with some more paper on it and a selection of quill pens.

  I was just locking the room when it occurred to me that I had not seen something I would have expected.

  There were pens, but no ink.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  One of the advantages of working at a university is that there are experts around on everything. There are many things that we do not know, but all that is known is known by the staff of the University of Leiden, more or less. With this in mind, I went looking for someone who was well versed in natural philosophy, and the best person to start was with Theodorus Craanen.

  You may have heard me mention Franciscus Sylvius, possibly the greatest doctor in Leiden’s history, and certainly the best paid as a result of the very special arrangement that he made with a previous Rector, under which he pocketed double the usual salary of a professor. This Sylvius had studied under Craanen, but went on to eclipse him. Craanen was a professor of philosophy and mathematics but also a fervent follower of the French philosopher René Descartes. This set him at odds with some of the other professors, particularly Friedrich Spanheim, who would not normally rank mention here except that he was a close friend of the Rector and had a few years as Rector himself.

  The issue was that Descartes held that the body and the soul were entirely disconnected and that any sensory information that the body provided could not be trusted. We know this is possible because we have experienced optical illusions, where our eyes tell us something that cannot be true. However, there is truth in the world, and the soul, being made by God, can identify truth provided the senses do not get in the way. Cartesians, as Descartes’ followers style themselves, believe that scientific knowledge can be acquired a priori by deductive reasoning and that scientific experiments, which must involve observation (which, being dependent upon the senses, may be misleading), are unnecessary. Descartes said that God gives us our power of reason and that we can trust our reason even if observation suggests otherwise because God would not deceive us.

  Even if the reader is not of a philosophical bent of mind, I hope it will be obvious that a scientist who believes that experiments are not necessary is out of line with the expectations of the world, and in 1673 Craanen was removed from his chairs, but managed to obtain a professorship in the school of medicine, because, as is well known, surgeons are dull beasts who do not need to think. I have heard it said that Craanen was such a fast operator that he could have amputated his own leg before he passed out with the pain, though, so far as I know, he never made that particular experiment either. At any event, Craanen would either know the answer to my question, or would know someone else who did. Whether he would tell me was another matter.

  We Dutch have a completely undeserved reputation for being stubborn, but in the case of Theodorus Craanen it was, if anything, understated. He could be prickly, to put it at its lowest, and his temper was not likely to be improved by the knowledge that I was a member of the philosophy school staff and not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Cartesian. I had, however, overlooked one of the Christian virtues — pity.

  Craanen pitied me as a person of inadequate philosophical training, and when I said I wanted to improve my knowledge of chemistry he at once volunteered the information that his species of natural philosophy wa
s largely mechanical. To make his point, he led me to a tray upon which he had several metal spheres and a piece of fur. He rubbed the balls vigorously with the fur and demonstrated that they could then be used to pick up small pieces of paper. This power he attributed to something he called the “electric fluid”. I have to say that I can think of much easier ways to pick up pieces of paper and that if this is all the electric fluid is good for I cannot see it amounting to much, but I said nothing at the time except to express myself impressed by the demonstration. This seemed to please Craanen immoderately, and he suggested that I might take up my enquiries with Carolus de Maets, the professor of chemistry.

  You might wonder why I had forgotten that we had a professor of chemistry. To be perfectly honest, as I try to be, once I found de Maets I had to confess that I realised that I had seen him at staff meetings, but I had no idea what he did. For perfectly good reasons the experimental chemistry theatre was not housed in the main Academy building, but at a considerable distance, so we rarely saw the scientists. At intervals we heard small explosions, but the chemistry theatre was normally out of bounds to other staff — and, indeed, to students. The logic behind this was simple and has to do with the Cartesian theory I described earlier. The laboratory existed only for the use of staff, who were supposed to use it to verify the conclusions they had already reached by the exercise of pure reason. In this way Burchard de Volder, who taught physics, de Maets and their scientific colleagues were able to justify experimentation without infringing on their Cartesian beliefs. They did not experiment to gain knowledge, but to confirm knowledge that they had already gained. In fact, de Volder went as far as to deny that experimentation was science at all.

  Although it was Saturday, I tracked de Maets to his sulphurous pit, where he was taking advantage of the lack of classes to do some work of his own. He was a young man and I confess to a fleeting sense of jealousy that one younger than me had been appointed to a university chair. I had been overlooked for the last vacancy in the faculty and was beginning to feel that maybe my future did not lie at Leiden. Perhaps I should quietly raise the question of a vacancy at Utrecht when I next saw Gijsbert Voet? But the old man was frail and not long for this world, so perhaps it would look like digging his grave for him; better to ask his grandson.