“You’re sick,” says Großmutter. “We’re all sick. All the farmers. All of them. Just like us. They rave at night. They throw things. They see images.”
I remember the night the lady came to us for help. She said her husband saw images. I didn’t know my family saw images too. But of course they do. It’s images that Father talks to every night—that he shouts at when he beats the wall.
No ghost. This is no ghost to be banished with the right kind of talk or with straw pentagrams over the door. This is something else, something more awful. If I had the power, I’d call all the rats out of hiding and I’d kill them, each and every one.
“Two infants died in town last night: a three-month-old, and a two-year-old.”
Bertram sits up at attention with a jerk. He leans forward over the table toward Großmutter.
She doesn’t seem to notice him. “A servant died—a man. And his lord died too. His leg fell off—completely off—and he died. Four people in one night. A crier came by Judith’s at dawn. When he heard about how things were going, he stayed till the baby came out stillborn. Then he went off crying, ‘Five.’”
“Not everyone’s sick,” says Bertram.
I hoist Ava into my arms and step behind Großmutter.
Großmutter sighs. “Not everyone, but almost everyone. The children on the farms seem healthy. At least the little ones. The four-year-olds. The five- and six-year-olds. They were running around Judith’s house like normal this morning.”
The ones who don’t drink the beer, I’m thinking. They aren’t sick. But then, the townsfolk children are sick, and they don’t drink the beer, either.
It can’t be the beer.
No matter how I fight the conclusion, there it is: The rat disease has come to us finally.
“And Salz,” says Bertram. “Salz isn’t sick. Isn’t that funny? He’s strong. As strong as Ava.”
I knew this was coming. I’m ready to race for the door.
But Bertram gets up and runs out the door first. Where’s he going?
We have to hide.
Sweat breaks out all over me and the coughs come. This is the worst time for the coughs to come, the worst time ever. And they come in the worst way ever. I’m on the floor, my knees to my chest, coughing violently. And my gut hurts too. My body has turned against me.
Ava, where has Ava gone? I can’t see her. I’m coughing. Where is she?
“Stand on your hands.”
I can’t do anything but curl around my pain.
Großmutter leans over me. Her cloak covers me like wings. “Think of something, Salz. Get your mind on something so you can move past the pain.”
“Ava,” I try to say.
“No, not Ava, don’t think of Ava,” says Großmutter. “Think of Kuh. Think of how he takes care of himself now. How he loves you. Calm yourself.”
I hear the door swing open and slam against something. I hear Bertram clumping across the floor. He has something in his hands. The scythe. He holds it ready.
“No, Bertram!” shouts Großmutter. “Salz is sick just like us. Hear him? Hear him cough?”
“We’re not coughing,” says Bertram. He shakes his head slowly, then faster and wildly. His face lights up and his eyes widen. “Coughing. That’s what I heard the rat disease brings next. Coughing. That’s what that priest said, the one who Pater Michael made come from Höxter. Once there’s coughing, everybody gets the disease. Salz is coughing. He’ll kill us all.”
“He’s coughed all his life,” says Großmutter. “You know that.”
“Then, he doesn’t have what we have.” Bertram laughs madly. “You can’t have it both ways, old woman. And look at him. Look. He’s sick. Sick! I know what I’m supposed to do. Get away.” He pushes her with one arm and swings with the other.
Großmutter screams. The scythe slices through her, cutting one hand off above the wrist, going cleanly through her cloak, lodging in her side. I can’t see through the fountain of blood.
Truth
I haven’t slept for two days. I’ll never sleep again. I can’t afford to risk dreaming. Two dreams have come true, even without my speaking them aloud.
We’re in the churchyard. To one side of me stands Pater Michael. To the other stands Ava, both arms clasped around my hips. The others are walking away, but the three of us still stand here. The smell of the fresh dirt is so rich I think I can taste it.
Kuh digs into my shoulder. He’s almost too big to ride there now, but I brought him along for Ava’s sake.
Pater Michael holds my arm. “You’re swaying, Salz.”
I didn’t know that. Lack of sleep makes me not notice lots of things. But I can train myself not to need sleep. I have to.
Großmutter is buried. I’m crying again. She’s gone. My grandmother is dead and gone. And I’m the one who dreamed the death dream.
“It’s time,” says Pater Michael.
The words have meaning, though it feels like they shouldn’t. It feels like nothing should have meaning now that Großmutter is dead. It feels like everything should stop.
“Come along,” says Pater Michael. “We have to go.”
He means to the Rathaus.
Bertram is in the Hundeloch—the dungeon under the Rathaus. He wouldn’t be there if he had kept his mouth shut like Father told him to do.
Father had the whole thing planned. He was going to say that all of us were out and we came home to find Großmutter slain on the floor. We didn’t know who did it. Some demented criminal.
But when we brought her body to the church in town, Bertram said he’d killed her. He just said it, before anyone else could talk.
Father said Bertram wasn’t in his right mind, so the confession wasn’t real. He protested so much that there’s going to be a criminal tribunal. Now. That’s where we’re supposed to be going. Right now.
“Come along,” says Pater Michael.
I don’t want to leave. My eyes ache from crying. Snot runs to my lip and dangles all the way to my smock. And this is a new smock—or new to me. I don’t want to dirty it. But I can’t help crying and snotting like a baby.
Judith’s oldest daughter, Agatha, gave me this smock. She made all the people in her own family wash themselves for the burial of their unnamed baby. Then she came to our farmstead and made all of us wash for Großmutter’s burial. Wash away the blood.
I try to suck back in the snot. Then I give up and wipe my eyes and nose on the smock sleeve. But there’s no point to it; I’m still crying.
A cold drizzle starts. It makes my hair stick to my forehead. Kuh mews and presses into the base of my neck. Ava shivers against my thigh.
Pater Michael holds out his trembling hand. It’s puffed up and the skin shines. He’s been rubbing oil on the swelling so the skin won’t split. I know that method—Großmutter used that on feverish people. “We have to go,” he says. “We’ll be late to the inquest.”
“Go without me,” I say.
“Be sensible, Salz.”
I am sensible. “Father told me the judge will ask who has something to say. If he asks that, I will tell the truth.” I don’t even know if what I’m saying is the truth. I say it more to hear the words—to see how I feel about them, to see how Pater Michael reacts. Could I really speak against my own brother? “Then Father will throw me out, and who will look after Ava?”
The raindrops come fat now. They chill to the bone.
If I don’t tell the truth, how will Großmutter’s spirit ever rest?
I pull Kuh off my shoulder with difficulty and tuck him inside my smock. He squirms, but I press on him till he yields. Then I peel Ava’s arms from my middle and hold her by the hand. I stand there, ready, but unable to make my feet move.
Pater Michael takes my free hand and pulls us along, though using his own sick hand like that makes him wince. “Is it impossible for you to hold silent? Even thinking of Ava?”
Melis and Ludolf have asked me the same question, though not in so many words. But it
surprises me that Pater Michael asks it. I don’t answer. He should know the answer. He should be concerned for Großmutter’s spirit. And isn’t he concerned for Bertram? Doesn’t Bertram need to do penance?
“If you must speak up,” says Pater Michael at last, “you can take refuge with me. Both you and Ava. You don’t have to go back home.”
“Father would be furious with you.”
“It’s my right and duty to save souls. I can’t be part of lying before God.”
He seems to have forgotten that just a moment ago he was ready to let the lies go if I was ready to. But if I were to confront him now about this, he’d only turn it around on me, leaving me confused, like he did after the live burial of the cow.
Corruption confuses.
Or maybe it’s just life that confuses.
We go to the market square, to the Rathaus. We climb the stairs to the municipal courtroom on the second floor. It’s a big room. Even still, it’s full. I’m startled; we don’t know half these people, but Pater Michael whispers to me that everyone loves a murder tribunal. The interrogation has already begun.
We stand in the rear, unable to see past the crowd. Someone steps back and squashes me against the wall. I manage to keep my feet forward, though, so that my legs make an angled roof that Ava can crouch under safely. Kuh bursts free from my shirt with a little yowl and disappears into the sea of legs. I’ll fetch him later, when this is over.
I can hear Father talking. He’s saying that Bertram was going after rats.
A murmur of understanding runs through the hall. Everyone’s been going after the rats, the damnable rats.
The rain has stepped up. It patters on the roof. I imagine rats running for shelter into every home and every business.
Father’s still talking. He says that Bertram slipped. Großmutter happened to be in the way. It was an accident. He says Ludolf and Melis were witnesses too.
I knew he’d say this, of course. This is the pact they’ve sworn to.
The judge calls out Ludolf’s name.
Ludolf confirms Father’s story.
The judge calls out Melis’s name.
Melis does the same.
The judge says, “I have one more name to call.”
I lean against Pater Michael. Could Bertram’s life really be at stake? Would they give him the gallows, when Großmutter was such an old woman? My chest is full of mucus. I can hardly breathe.
“Bertram, the prisoner,” says the judge.
So he hasn’t called me. I cough in my relief. How little I know of things. I’ve studied theology, geography, architecture—nothing that seems to matter now, nothing that helps me understand. Of course Bertram has to be called, of course, of course. And he will give himself up; that burden is rightly his.
Bertram stands before the judge. People in the crowd make faces at him, sticking out their tongues and crossing their eyes. They act like he’s already been found guilty. He keeps his own eyes on the judge, though.
“You confessed that you killed your grandmother,” says the judge.
“I did,” says Bertram.
“Was this murder or accident?” asks the judge.
“Accident.”
“Because of the rats?” asks the judge.
“Rats?” says Bertram. “No.”
“Yes,” shouts Father. “You went after the rats. Don’t you remember? He’s tired, Your Honor. He’s been in the dungeon. He can’t remember.”
“Do you remember, Bertram?” asks the judge.
“Yes,” says Bertram.
“No!” shouts Father. “He’s still not in his right mind. It was rats.”
“It wasn’t rats,” says Bertram in a level voice. “It was Saint Michael.”
The room goes totally silent. All of us in Hameln town and the area around feel a special bond with Saint Michael, for our own church priest has taken on the saint’s name.
“What do you mean?” asks the judge.
“I was following Saint Michael’s orders.”
“Saint Michael told you to kill your grandmother,” says the judge very loudly “Why?”
But Bertram can’t answer because everyone’s talking at once. They’re saying Saint Michael is an angel, with a sword and scabbard. He’s the avenging angel. He could tell someone to kill, yes, he could do something like that.
And now they’re saying the potions Großmutter gave them against this terrible illness haven’t helped in the least. Maybe they’ve even made it worse. Yes, they’ve surely made it worse.
Then I hear it: “She must have been a witch.”
My throat constricts so hard it hurts. It’s unfair to malign the dead, who cannot even defend themselves.
But they’ve taken it up, like a flame passing quickly from candle to candle at a festival, illuminating the night. They think they understand: She must have been doing the devil’s work. Why else would Saint Michael have told Bertram to kill her?
“Quiet,” says the judge. “Bertram needs to speak.”
The crowd hushes.
“Did Saint Michael tell you to kill your grandmother because she was a witch?”
“No,” says Bertram. “Saint Michael didn’t tell me to kill Großmutter.”
“What did Saint Michael tell you to do?” asks the judge.
“Kill Salz.”
The room goes wild again.
My guts constrict. I’m in agony. It’s all I can do to stay standing. I knew Bertram was coming at me with the scythe, not her—what else could he have wanted but to kill me? Still, hearing him say it is so much more awful.
“Quiet!” shouts the judge. “Who is this Salz?”
“My brother,” says Bertram.
“Where is he?” asks the judge.
Someone spies me at the back of the room and points, and then lots of people are pointing and talking.
“Come forward, Salz,” says the judge.
Pater Michael pushes me ahead of him to the front of the crowd. I can’t feel Ava behind me. Where is she? I stumble. My gut pain is the scythe that killed Großmutter.
“This is your brother?” asks the judge.
Bertram turns to me and I can see immediately that he’s not clearheaded. His eyes look like Melis’s when the ghost comes. Or when we used to think it was a ghost. Before Großmutter told us we were all sick. “Yes,” he says.
“Why would Saint Michael want you to kill your brother?”
“Killing the sick is an act of mercy,” says Bertram.
“Who’s sick?” asks the judge.
“Salz. He has the rat illness. Killing him is the only responsible thing to do.”
I wipe the sweat from my brow. I try to look healthy.
But the eyes of the crowd aren’t on me. They stare at Bertram; they grow glittery.
“Many are sick,” says the judge. “Does Saint Michael tell you to kill all the sick?”
The judge is right. Bertram has boxed himself in. No one can sympathize with what he said.
“No,” says Bertram, “just Salz. Salz is sicker than everyone else. Salz coughs. That’s the next stage in this illness. We’ve all heard about it. Pater Frederick came and told us. We’ll get sores on our bodies and heads, and we’ll cough like Salz. If he lives, we’ll all die.”
Now, inevitably, everyone’s eyes turn to me. Bertram’s words make a twisted sense. They corrupt ordinary thought. Corruption again, confusion again.
I press both fists into my belly to curb the pain. My body wants to double over, but I have to stand tall. I will myself not to cough. I must not cough. Do they remember that I coughed before—when the judge called Bertram to be interrogated? I want to scream. It’s my fault Pater Frederick was called to town to inform us about the rat disease. It’s my fault they know about coughing.
It’s raining harder and harder. The room grows dark. Men hurry to light the candles in the wall sconces.
“This is an unacceptable defense,” says the judge at last.
“A boy can’t b
e found guilty for following the orders of Saint Michael,” says Father.
Someone agrees with him. And another.
“If everyone who killed could claim a saint made him do it, we’d have chaos,” says the judge.
Hope comes again to my chest. This judge is fair minded. He reminds me of Pater Frederick, talking of the principle of order.
“Chaos,” moans a woman. “We can’t ward off chaos. We have it every night in every home.”
Others agree.
The judge raises one hand high and shakes his head. For an instant he poses like Jesus in the middle stained-glass window of the lords and ladies’ church. “Whatever problems we have in our homes, in this room we must rise above them.” He lowers his arm and points at the crowd, moving his finger in an arc across them. “All of you know the law must stand firm against chaos.”
“But this was not murder; it was an accident,” says Father. “He meant to kill Salz.”
“Exactly. The Magdeburg city codes don’t allow such a defense. So neither should we. Bertram intended death, and he brought about death.”
Magdeburg has such codes? If I really do live to my birthday, Ava and I must go to that rational place.
“He intended life,” says Father. “Saint Michael made him do it. Hameln is in danger.” He turns to the crowd. “We’re all in danger. Bertram tried to save us.”
I hear Father’s words and I realize he’s saying I’m a danger. Does he realize he’s saying that? Is he willing to trade one son for another?
Voices of agreement come from all around the room. People move restlessly. They’ve heard enough.
“Saint Michael is going to arm the healthy,” says Bertram. He looks across the crowd and his eyes fix on Johannah.
She hangs from one of her brother’s shoulders. She can’t stand alone, her feet are so swollen. I’ve heard the stories, but seeing it like this is different. I had no idea, not really. A quarter of the people in this room are as lame as Johannah. I shake. This is what Ava’s mother must have looked like.
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