Death and the Devil

by Frank Schätzing

  Jacob turned his head away.

  A voice rang out. “Urquhart of Monadhliath!”

  The effect was startling. A look of pure horror appeared on Urquhart’s face. He swung around, pointing his bow with outstretched arm in the direction the voice had come from.

  Jaspar’s voice!

  Breathing heavily, Jacob rolled onto his side and crawled on all fours to the wheel. Away from Urquhart was the only thought in his head.

  But the murderer seemed to have forgotten him. He was looking around wildly for Jaspar, who was nowhere to be seen, though his voice was still to be heard.

  “Do you remember the children, Urquhart? What they did to the children? You wanted to stop them. Remember?”

  It came from below. Jaspar must be somewhere on the scaffolding. Gasping with pain, Jacob pulled himself up and stood there, swaying. Urquhart leaped across to the side of the scaffolding and looked down into Dranckgasse. At the same time Jaspar’s head appeared farther away.

  “But you couldn’t stop them,” he cried.

  With a scream of fury, Urquhart whirled around toward him. But Jaspar had disappeared again.

  “Lies!” he shouted. “Lies! I wasn’t there when it happened.”

  From below came a clattering, like footsteps running, then it faded. Urquhart took a step forward, but there was nothing there. No boards, no struts, no rails. Urquhart drew back.

  Then he turned to face Jacob again. His eyes had lost their icy coldness. All they registered was pure horror. The bolt was aimed at Jacob’s forehead.

  “Do you sometimes dream of the children?” came Jaspar’s voice, echoing across the roof.

  Urquhart’s hand started to tremble. The next moment he was running along the planks away from Jacob. He leaped the gap to the next platform, ran to the edge and—staggered. He doubled up. The arm with the crossbow sank, his free hand went to his head.

  Jacob held his breath.

  Jaspar appeared on the rungs, directly in front of Urquhart. He looked tense. After a quick glance at Jacob, he clambered onto the platform. His eyes were flickering with fear, but his voice was steady, each word cutting like a sword.

  “You are Urquhart, duke of Monadhliath,” he said.

  Urquhart drew back a step.

  “You came down from the Scottish Highlands to join Louis of France in the sixth Crusade. You wanted to serve the Lord your God and win back the Holy Land, but what you saw after you took Damietta was the face of Satan.”

  Urquhart did not move.

  “Remember Damietta.”

  Jacob watched in disbelief as Jaspar went up to the huge figure and slowly stretched out his hand. He must be out of his mind!

  “You butchered the Egyptians. First the men. Then Louis’s soldiers fell on the women. I know you were against it, Urquhart. You did not want God’s name dishonored, you used all your influence, but in vain. You arrived too late.” Jaspar paused. “And then Louis’s bully-boys herded the children together. You remember?”

  “No,” Urquhart mumbled.

  Now Jaspar’s hand was trembling. He tried to take the crossbow. Urquhart gave a groan and jumped back. They made a grotesque picture, as if the two disparate figures were performing some mysterious heathen dance on the edge of an abyss.

  “Think of the children,” Jaspar insisted. “The soldiers—”

  “No. No!”

  “Listen to me. You’re going to listen to me.” Jaspar clenched his fist and came closer. “Just as you were forced to listen when the French king joked about their whimpering, when he said it reminded him of the mewing of seagulls, just as you were forced to look on as the swords descended, chopping them into pieces, just as you were forced to watch as their bellies were slit open while they were still alive, Urquhart, they were still alive, and it drove you mad, and—”

  A scream came from Urquhart such as Jacob had never heard from a human throat before.

  Jaspar tried to grab the crossbow.

  And failed.

  Jacob saw Urquhart straighten up. Everything seemed to happen excruciatingly slowly. His arm started to rise, the tip of the bolt came up, and the realization that he had lost showed in Jaspar’s eyes. The muscles of his face relaxed. With a smile he looked up to heaven.

  Jaspar had given up. He was accepting his fate.

  It was absurd.

  Not a sound passed Jacob’s lips as he launched himself. He forgot his pain. He forgot his fear. He forgot Goddert and Richmodis, Maria, Tilman, Rolof, and Kuno. He forgot everything that had happened in the last few days.

  Then he forgot the smoking ruins of the shack, forgot his father and his brother.

  All he saw was Urquhart and Jaspar.

  Long strides took him toward them. There seemed an eternity between each heartbeat. Centuries rolled past. As if in a dream, Jacob floated over the scaffolding while the crossbow still rose, higher and higher, until it came to a halt, pointing at Jaspar’s breast.

  Somehow he managed to cross the gap to the next platform. He kept going.

  Urquhart’s index finger tightened.

  Time stood still.

  Jacob stretched out his arms and put all the strength left in his body into one last leap. He felt a wonderful lightness. The impact, when he hit Urquhart, was almost soft. He grasped the arm of the duke of Monadhliath as if he were taking him home, pushed him over the edge of the scaffolding, and followed him readily.

  Urquhart had been right. They had become one.

  Perhaps they could rise up together. Without the hatred and the fear and the terrible memories.

  Joy welled up inside him and he closed his eyes.

  “It’s simply beyond belief,” said Jaspar.

  Jacob blinked.

  He was hanging over Dranckgasse. Far below a dog was sniffing at Urquhart’s corpse.

  Nonplussed, he turned his head and found himself looking into Jaspar’s haggard face. The dean was grasping him firmly with both hands, his brow gleaming with sweat.

  “This really is the most stupid fox I’ve ever caught.” He sniffed. “Genuinely thinks he can fly.”

  THE CITY WALL

  No one ever heard what was agreed between Jaspar Rodenkirchen and Johann Overstolz on that morning of 14 September in the year of our Lord 1260. At the end of the discussion, however, the threat had disappeared and, in return, there had never been an alliance. Gerhard’s death was an accident and poor Rolof had been attacked by thieves. Once they’d agreed to each other’s lies, everything was right with the world again.

  Conrad said mass at prime and preached another holy Crusade, without ever learning what a close escape he had had. The body of an unknown man, with burns to the face and chest, was found in Dranckgasse. The weapon beside him left no doubt that he was the crossbow murderer who had killed at least three people in the city. No one knew his name, where he came from, or what his motives for the killings were, so the knacker took him away on his cart and buried him in a common grave, where he was soon forgotten.

  Goddert was bursting with pride. He displayed his splint as if it were a piece of knightly armor. Soon the whole district knew that he had crossed swords with a mighty opponent and, well, if not exactly driven the intruder out, still, he had given him something to think about.

  Richmodis smiled and said not a word.

  And Jacob disappeared.

  It was early evening when Jaspar finally found him. He was up on the city wall, not far from his tumbledown shack under the arch, leaning on the parapet, gazing out over the fields. He looked as if a herd of cows had trampled over him, but his expression was one of almost serene calm.

  Without a word, Jaspar stood beside him. Together they watched the sunset. After a while Jacob turned to face him. “Is Richmodis all right?”

  Jaspar smiled. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

  Jacob was silent.

  “Are you thinking of running away again?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve nothing to fear, Fox-cub.
Johann rattled his saber, and so did I. We each promised the other we’d make his life hell on earth if there wasn’t peace immediately.” Jaspar smiled smugly. “I had to cheat a bit. But only a bit.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That’s water under the bridge. Better nobody knows. I believe in knowledge, but too much can sometimes cause trouble.”

  “What you found out about Urquhart didn’t. Quite the opposite.”

  “It was your story, Fox-cub,” Jaspar explained. “I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I kept asking myself what could have made such an intelligent and cultured man as Urquhart into what he was. Suddenly I had the idea he must be like you, with a curse on him that lay somewhere in his past. I went back to St. Pantaleon to talk to Hieronymus again. Now I knew the murderer’s name. It was only a vague hope and not without its tragic aspect, forcing a dying man to rack his brains for me.”

  “That’s why you were late?”

  “Hieronymus couldn’t remember a man with long blond hair because at that time Urquhart didn’t have long blond hair. But the name rang a bell. At the end I knew what Urquhart really was.”

  “And what was he?”

  Jaspar gazed reflectively over the fields gilded by the setting sun. “He was a victim,” he said after a while.

  “A victim?” Jacob mused. “And did you find the culprit?”

  “War, Fox-cub. The thing that kills us at the moment when we kill. Urquhart was duke of Monadhliath in Scotland. His castle rises above Loch Ness. But he was not one of those clan chiefs who was a crude butcher. He had been to Paris and well taught there. Hieronymus described him as a man both noble and bold. Quick to take up his sword, but just as quick with words. A man who loved duels, but not slaughter. Among the nobles who led the Crusade, he was counted as one of the most honorable, although like so many he had succumbed to the mistaken belief that God’s seed can flourish in blood-soaked soil. Then Louis’s troops captured Damietta. And something happened he could not understand. Slaughter. Louis had hundreds of children herded together to demonstrate once and for all what he thought of the infidel. They were tortured and butchered, so that many of the men, even the toughest and cruelest among them, turned away in horror.”

  Jaspar sighed.

  “The mighty ignore condemnations of war with contempt, intellectuals with a shrug of the shoulders, because they say nothing new or original. But they will remain true as long as we continue to wage war. We will have dominion over the whole of creation in a way God never dreamed of. We will not be dwarves on the shoulders of giants, but a race of giants, each outgrowing the other much too quickly—but when it comes to the crunch, we’ll still smash one another’s skulls in as in the darkest of dark ages. When they slaughtered the children in Damietta, something changed inside Urquhart. War has more subtle methods of destroying people than just killing them. He fell into a fit of demented rage. And his heart began to freeze to ice. Eventually they were all afraid of him, even Louis. He sent a dozen of his best men to Urquhart’s tent. They crept in at night to kill him while he slept.”

  “What happened?”

  “Only one came out. Crawled out on his belly. His last words were that it wasn’t a man they’d found in the tent, but a beast, and that beast had been the Devil. The next morning Urquhart was gone. He had run away, just like you. From himself, from what could not be altered. And unlike you, who eventually managed to come to terms with it, Urquhart gave himself up to the dark side. The evil, that he believed he was fighting against, became his nature. Urquhart no longer recognized himself, otherwise he would have realized that one can always turn back.”

  For a while Jacob said nothing. Then, “No,” he said, “I don’t think he could turn back.”

  “But you did.”

  “I had help.”

  “Hmm.” Jaspar massaged the bridge of his nose. For a long time there was silence.

  “What are you going to do now?” he eventually asked.

  “Don’t know. Think. Play my whistle. Not run away, that’s for sure.”

  “Very worthy. Now I’m not trying to talk you into anything you don’t want, but—well, as far as dyeing’s concerned, Goddert will have to call it a day, and Richmodis—well, I think I can say she quite likes you…”

  “I more than quite like Richmodis.”

  “Well, there you are!” Jaspar slapped the stone parapet. “What are we waiting for?”

  “Jaspar.” Jacob shook his head and smiled for the first time. “You can run away by staying where you are. I need to be alone with myself for a while. It isn’t all over for me yet. What I mean is, saying Urquhart’s dead and the alliance dissolved is not the end of the story. I’m still the man who looked away too quickly. Once. Give me time.”

  Jaspar looked at him for a long time. “Will you go away?”

  Jacob shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps. In a way we were similar. Urquhart no longer knew who he was, and I’ve been running away for so long that over the years I’ve lost myself. Do you think Richmodis could be happy with a man who doesn’t know who he is?”

  Jaspar thought about it. “No,” he admitted quietly. Suddenly he felt sad. And at the same time a little proud of his Fox.

  The sky was turning pink. A flight of swallows skimmed over their heads. Soon they would be gone, too.

  “But if you go searching—”

  Jacob looked at him.

  “—and find what you’re looking for—” Jaspar spread his arms wide. “I mean, you have a choice.”

  Jacob nodded. “Abelard,” he said, smiling.

  Jaspar’s grin was broad. Dammit, another reason to be proud.

  “Yes,” he said. “Abelard.”

  Author’s Note

  Conrad von Hochstaden died on 28 September 1261, without having pardoned the imprisoned patricians. All pleas were in vain. Whether there were further plans to assassinate him is not known. What is known is that he reestablished—for one last time—the power of the archbishops of Cologne. He was buried first of all in the old cathedral, then in the axial chapel of the new cathedral. Today his tomb is in the chapel of St. John, while the axial chapel is devoted to the memory of the Three Kings—and, in a way, to Gerhard, the cathedral’s first architect. If you look up along the arch to the point of the center window, you will see a carved head with long, curly hair and an open mouth, as if he were still calling out his instructions to the stonemasons. Whether it is the place where Gerhard fell to his death and whether it is actually a portrait of him has never been established for certain.

  Conrad’s successor, Engelbert von Falkenburg, dashed the patricians’ hopes of release so that they took the matter into their own hands and escaped. Following some large-scale horse-trading, the patricians were supposed to be allowed to return, for which Engelbert was to receive 1,500 marks. At the same time the number of complaints of corruption and excess against the new council of magistrates increased. Engelbert, however, did not keep his promise to reinstate the patricians in the city administration; instead he ruled as a tyrant and had Bayen Tower and Kunibert Tower converted into real fortresses. As a consequence, the patricians, guilds, and citizens banded together again and war broke out. Engelbert besieged the city, but without success. The bishop of Liège and the count of Geldern came to resolve the conflict, at the end of which Engelbert was compelled to recognize, as had Conrad before him, the Great Adjudication of 1258, and the patricians and former magistrates finally returned.

  Engelbert’s power had gone. He could not even stop himself from being imprisoned for twenty days by the citizens for supposedly hatching an armed plot against the patricians. The pope, Urban IV, more and more concerned by the city’s efforts to achieve independence, attempted to intervene several times, despite his low opinion of Engelbert. The latter tried everything, including stirring up the guilds, who were defeated by the patricians in a bloody conflict. At last the ensuing arbitration made the patricians go barefoot to beg the archbishop’s forgiveness once again. U
nder Conrad that had been the beginning of a nightmare for them; under Engelbert it led to farce. The archbishop again tried to subdue Cologne by force of arms and instigated an intrigue that was a complete failure, compelling him to flee to Bonn. There was the usual reconciliation, but while outwardly Engelbert was all sweetness and light, in secret he was stirring up the old antipathies between the noble families, inciting the Weises against the Overstolzes. At the last moment open conflict was avoided through the mediation of Count William of Jülich, the old enemy of Conrad and of the archbishops in general. Engelbert then took up arms against William, devastated his territory, and spent the next three and a half years imprisoned in Jülich.

  In the meantime William’s efforts were proving vain—the Weises and the Overstolzes were at each other’s throats. Ludwig Weise, the burgomaster, and Matthias Overstolz came to blows. Weise was killed and the rest of the family sought asylum with the Church. Only the hasty arrival of William of Jülich stopped the Overstolzes from wiping out the Weises. The latter were expelled from the city and the Overstolzes took over.

  Time for a new intrigue. Engelbert, lord of the city on paper alone, formed an alliance with the Weises and the tradesmen. Money was spent and a tunnel was dug under the city walls through which the Weises intended to return. This plan also came to naught. Although the Weises entered the town, they were driven out again in a bloody battle. Among the dead was Matthias Overstolz.

  In 1271 Engelbert returned from imprisonment. A changed man, he made peace with the city. Three years later he died.

  His successor, Siegfried von Westerburg, once more tried to reestablish the power Conrad had achieved. He saw himself as a warlord and remained on reasonably good terms with the citizens until they tired of financing his constant feuds. But Siegfried was cleverer than Engelbert. Having made himself the strongest force on the lower Rhine, he managed for a long time to walk the tightrope between tyranny and tolerance, until his plans came into terminal conflict with the city’s desire for independence. In the famous battle of Worringen he was defeated by the citizens and their allies. He made one more attempt to assert himself, which led to his conclusive defeat. Cologne became a free imperial city. The power of the archbishops was broken for good.