Apothecary Melchior and the Mystery of St Olaf's Church

by Indrek Hargla

  Melchior shrugged. ‘Of course, Gerdrud’s parents did not care enough for their daughter to have paired her with some young, skilled apothecary, but if you consider the dowry that old Mertin bequeathed to Gerdrud’s father and mother and then at what I had to hand over to yours …’

  ‘My father was not of German descent, merely a simple stonecutter and, what’s more, from the country,’ Keterlyn said pointedly.

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose I did get a good deal. I looked for the most splendid young lass for whom the tiniest dowry had to be offered …’

  Keterlyn erupted into laughter. ‘What a greedy fox you are.’

  ‘I complain not. Come now, the thought never crossed my mind. The money was not great – but such a lass. Furthermore, I took a look at my star chart earlier to find what has been promised for witty apothecaries today, and there was something quite gladdening there,’ Melchior declared, winking slyly at his wife.

  Keterlyn caught his eyes roving across her body and asked with feigned severity, ‘Interesting. What was it, I wonder?’

  Melchior winked again and spread his star chart out upon the table. ‘But come closer, my lovely wife, and see for yourself.’

  ‘All that astrological hocus-pocus is plain nonsense, and I do not believe in it. What am I to see from this?’

  If Keterlyn held a serious belief in anything then it was her womanly intuition, which carried a mixture of ancient ancestral Vironian wisdom and contemporary townswoman caution. All the same, Melchior chuckled and bent over his star chart. An apothecary’s wife is not an apothecary, he mused.

  ‘If I understand correctly, then Sagittarius shows with great precision that this morning one fine and intrepid apothecary will – right here and post haste – receive a sweet kiss from his lovely young beauty,’ he said. Melchior spun around quickly and drew Keterlyn into his embrace. If she made any show of resistance then it was only for appearance. Her suggestion that someone could walk in at any moment fell upon deaf ears. Melchior thrust her gently against the pharmacy counter, pressed his lips against hers, slipped his hand down along her dress and caressed her gently arched thigh.

  ‘You see, my love. It happened just as Sagittarius promised: one sweet kiss to begin the day. Hence, it is for naught that you do not believe in star charts,’ he whispered into Keterlyn’s ear after a few moments.

  And it was only after Keterlyn had readily accepted the star chart’s divination that Melchior Wakenstede heard the news that a high-ranking Knight of the Order had been killed the previous day on Toompea. Keterlyn had gone to the market in the morning, and, as Melchior often noted, the market was the only place in the town where news could be heard earlier than at the pharmacy.

  ‘Have the knights let a bit of each other’s blood?’ he asked inquisitively – apothecaries are very inquisitive.

  ‘I know not. Clingenstain or something like that. They say his head was chopped off as he slept.’

  ‘Holy Christ on the cross,’ Melchior exclaimed. ‘What dreadful games our noble knights play. Who, then, was the slayer?’

  ‘Oh, there are all sorts of tales, but no one knows for certain. Neither does the Commander. No one witnessed the act. His head was chopped off, and that’s all we know. The murderer was not to be found. Some knights’ pages were seen this morning near the Town Hall, and they were properly bad-tempered and irritable. Tell me, Melchior, what has our world come to when members of the Order squabble amongst themselves and carry out atrocious murders?’

  ‘I know not,’ Melchior conceded, staring out the window. ‘And I know not whether I even want to know – yet I think we will hear of this in greater detail very soon because here comes our dear Magistrate.’

  The town had awoken, and the daily throng was bustling along Rataskaevu Street, but from the sea of familiar faces Melchior could easily pick out that of his good friend Wentzel Dorn, Magistrate of the town of Tallinn. Melchior knew what sorts of messages his friend would bring even before Dorn stepped into the pharmacy. The Magistrate appeared morose and ill-tempered; he had forgotten his livery collar and was itching for a couple of cups of elixir and good advice.

  This is not the first time, Melchior said to himself. The Magistrate might have a thorough knowledge of Lübeck law and able assistants, yet when he was in need of good advice then the pharmacy was the first place he came to seek it. Melchior had come to the Council’s aid in solving murders on three previous occasions. The last time, the summer before, when Melchior worked out who had choked that Flemish heretic to death, the two men had discovered that they very much enjoyed spending time in one another’s company discussing world affairs and drinking beer. And that is perhaps what most call friendship.

  Dorn was nearly ten years older than the Apothecary. He was a stout, robust man with red hair and a slight limp in his right leg. The hobble came from an old injury that Dorn had sustained in his youth when fighting the Lithuanians as a member of the town’s army. Wentzel Dorn, who was a native of Tallinn, had been Court Magistrate for six years already. He was one of the fourteen town councilmen – although, in truth, the position of Magistrate was also referred to as the ‘little councilman’, since he lacked a strong voice in the town’s affairs. The Magistrate’s task was to seek out criminals and punish them for lesser crimes according to Lübeck law. He was in charge of overseeing craftsmen to ensure they fulfilled the Council’s dictates and did not swindle the townsfolk. The full Council – all of the councilmen together – presided over trials for more serious crimes. Melchior believed Wentzel Dorn to be a good magistrate and a good judge, as his heart was in the right place. As it was written in Lübeck law, a judge must not allow himself to be influenced by anger, favour or bribery, nor may he fear anyone other than the Lord God – and Wentzel Dorn was that sort of man. When it was necessary to torture someone, then Dorn ordered that the person be tortured. When a case involved justice and judgement, then Dorn was neither exceedingly strict nor cruel. He would hear out each side’s account and impose a fine that the accused was capable of paying and which did not render the individual’s family destitute. Yet, when a clever mind was needed or a criminal had to be tracked or if a thief denied everything and no one testified against him, then Dorn sometimes fell short on ingenuity. But that is what friends are for.

  Yes, this was not the first time Melchior would provide his friend Dorn with good advice. He entered the pharmacy with the exact sort of furrowed brow that he usually displayed on such occasions. The Magistrate greeted Keterlyn politely and flopped heavily into a chair.

  ‘The Lord’s peace be with you, Sire Wentzel,’ said Keterlyn.

  ‘Things are far from peaceful,’ the Magistrate retorted gloomily.

  ‘Then I will not begin to enquire at length,’ said Melchior, ‘as to the state of the Magistrate’s stomach this morning. Better I pour him a curative spiced wine straight away.’

  ‘Oh,’ Keterlyn exclaimed, feigning surprise. ‘Is the Magistrate’s stomach grumbling again? Just as every morning?’

  ‘A small curative drink would do no harm, no. Something is grinding and cramping up inside,’ Dorn growled.

  Melchior already had the clay bottle ready. ‘And I can see the Magistrate’s stomach pains are absolutely frightful this morning, as he has even forgotten his livery collar,’ he remarked as he poured the drink. ‘Good health to you.’

  ‘Obliged, Melchior, and good health.’ The Magistrate downed the goblet of spiced pharmacy wine in a single gulp then exhaled. Keterlyn watched him and giggled furtively. The Magistrate, as she was well aware, was plagued somehow too frequently by stiff stomach pains, and a stronger sort of elixir seemed to be the only thing that helped.

  Dorn groaned meanwhile, ‘Like old Beelzebub himself, just churning and churning. As for my livery collar, well, yes … I likely won’t be holding that much longer. But, Melchior, if by any chance you have not yet heard …’

  ‘There is a good chance I have, as my dear wife has already managed to visit the market t
his morning,’ said Melchior.

  ‘In that case, you already know more than I,’ Dorn speculated.

  Melchior fell silent for a moment and then spoke in a more serious tone, ‘Only a little more, Magistrate. Only that yesterday eventide the former Commander of the Order in Gotland was decapitated on Toompea and that the murderer escaped to the Lower Town.’

  ‘To the town?’ Keterlyn gasped. ‘That was certainly not said at the market. How do you know this?’

  ‘Well, it is not at all difficult to work out that if bloodshed has taken place on Toompea and no one has yet been put into chains then the murderer will have fled. And if the murderer fled and members of the Order were seen near the Town Hall in the morning, and the Magistrate is very grim afterwards, then it is obvious that the killer escaped to the Lower Town.’

  Dorn nodded and took another swig from the goblet that Melchior had already refilled.

  ‘The murderer is in the town? Oh great heavens, Melchior, the murderer is in the town? I dare not go out on the streets now,’ Keterlyn moaned.

  ‘All the better,’ said Melchior. ‘I told you earlier what the star chart promised fine apothecaries for the morning hours, although now that I think about it there was also a thing or two written about the noon hours, thus it is surely best that you do not go out into town.’

  ‘Melchior, have some shame,’ Keterlyn said, blushing.

  Dorn wondered aloud what the star chart had in mind for magistrates that day.

  ‘Three steins of spiced wine to treat stomach troubles,’ Melchior replied and nodded cheerfully. Keterlyn, however, bade Dorn good day, as she did not wish to hear any further dreadful talk about murder.

  It was a serious matter that the killer of such an elevated member of the Order had escaped below into town jurisdiction. The Order would certainly demand the culprit be handed over to Toompea, and the Council would certainly give him up, yet what then followed would depend on who the killer was and why the act had been committed. Members of the Order were not permitted to enter the town of Tallinn to exercise their supremacy. Melchior loved Tallinn; it was his town. He wanted Tallinn to be healthy, that sickness not spread here, that life be secure and that the town might be a safe place for his children to grow up. Tallinn was built on lands that belonged to the Teutonic Order, but Lübeck law prevailed within its boundaries, and the Order could not dictate town affairs. If, however, the Commander’s murderer was a citizen of Tallinn then the Order’s revenge could beset the entire town. No one from Tallinn had ever chopped off the head of a knight before. It was unheard of. It was appalling …

  ‘Did anyone see the murderer?’ Melchior asked suddenly. ‘Did any member of the Order see who did it?’

  ‘I know not what or whom they saw there. The Knights’ eyes can still barely discern anything at all – they have been downing tankards with the men from Gotland for a number of days,’ the Magistrate snorted.

  ‘Yes, yes. Now that I think of it, then was that Clingenstain – may he rest in peace, of course – not the very same Henning von Clingenstain of Gotland who commanded the Order’s forces under the honourable Grand Master von Jungingen when they took Gotland and drove the Victual Brothers from the island?’ Melchior asked.

  ‘One and the same,’ Dorn confirmed. ‘As the Council was informed, members of the Order are travelling from Gotland through Tallinn back to Marienburg to appear before the Grand Master now that the Teutonic Order has conceded Gotland to the Danish Crown.’

  ‘That very same Clingenstain – the Butcher of Gotland, as he was called. It is said that Knights of the Order burned the Victual Brothers alive in Gotland, chopped off their hands and left them on the beach to die. Some were skinned alive, and the victors made themselves gloves out of their skin. Rivers of blood flowed there.’

  ‘And rightfully so,’ the Magistrate sputtered. ‘Did the Victual Brothers show mercy to anyone? Did they not once rob every ship, whether Hanseatic, Danish or Swedish? Were they not the greatest scourge of the North Sea, a band of scoundrels and tempestuous raiders, accursed slaughterers and beasts detested by God himself? All those names, such as Störtebecker, Gödeke Michels and Magister Wigbold and who else have you … ?’

  Yes, Melchior knew those names, just as every citizen of every seaport on the Baltic Sea probably did. These were the names from his youth that had elicited fear and horror. The Victual Brothers showed mercy to none, and none showed them mercy. Victual Brothers who were taken prisoner were brought to land and executed publicly. Melchior had personally witnessed one of those events nearly ten years earlier. Three Victual Brothers were decapitated in Tallinn’s harbour and their heads nailed to mooring posts. Hundreds and hundreds of men perished during those wars, and the Victual Brothers even carried out raids in Livonia. They sacked Haapsalu and burned the town to its very foundations. The Teutonic Order had put an end to all that. Melchior thought back on these tales, listened to the Magistrate’s expostulations and gazed out the window from time to time. He noticed amongst the regular townsfolk Master Blackhead Clawes Freisinger and the Maiden Hedwig passing beneath the window and whispering secretively. He saw Pastor Rode of the Church of the Holy Ghost stroll past. Then there was the cobbler’s apprentice and other familiar faces who evidently had no idea that the Toompea Murderer might be walking alongside them.

  ‘Did they not nail prisoners into herring barrels and cast them into the sea?’ the Magistrate continued angrily. ‘And did they not take my son-inlaw captive, and then, after we paid the ransom, we received no reply? Only later did we hear he had already been impaled long before on the beaches at Stralsund. Curses, it was as if the town of Tallinn were under siege because of them. Not one honest captain braved going to sea without soldiers on board, and even they sometimes lost their nerve and sold the ship to the Victual Brothers. It was like a blessing from Heaven when the Order drove them from Gotland, Melchior.’

  ‘A blessing from Heaven, that it was,’ Melchior concurred. ‘The air at sea is truly purer now, although piracy will continue for as long as goods are carried by ship. As I’ve heard, the Vogts in Vyborg and Turku still allow the men along their coasts to take hold of vessels from Tallinn. All the same, it is odd that Clingenstain met his end now, just after he left Gotland.’

  ‘What do you mean by that, my friend?’

  ‘Nothing more than that it is odd. He was alive and well for as long as he was overlord of Gotland, and it was after he became free from that post is when he met his maker. And, what’s more, it happened in Tallinn, where Clingenstain probably never stepped foot previously and where no one could have borne enmity against him.’

  The Magistrate sighed deeply. ‘Right here in Tallinn, yes. You rub salt deeper into the wound.’

  ‘I suppose it is an apothecary’s responsibility to rub remedies on all types of wounds. Not that I would wish to jest at your expense, my dear friend, but I do say that if I can in any way help you pass between the boulders of the Order and the Council so that they might not grind you into dust –’

  Melchior was interrupted by a high-pitched screech from outside. He turned to look and saw that it had apparently been the Maiden Hedwig Casendorpe, who, upon hearing Master Freisinger’s words, had become thoroughly exhilarated and had then nearly run into Pastor Rode. The Blackhead Freisinger was now attempting to explain something apologetically to the priest while Hedwig joyfully flitted off back towards the market.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Melchior replied. ‘Only the Master Blackhead and his bride-to-be. They just bade one another farewell rather sweetly. What a wonder. The Master Blackhead even has time to involve himself in affairs of the heart before such an important evening.’

  ‘Evening? What evening?’ Dorn asked.

  ‘My good friend, today is the first day of the beer-tasting festival at the Brotherhood of Blackheads, to which both the Sire Apothecary and the Magistrate have been warmly invited. Yesterday I saw those casks of spring brew being rolled from
the Dominican Monastery straight towards the Blackheads’ guildhall.’

  ‘Oh, devils,’ Dorn cursed. ‘How could I have forgotten? You don’t suppose the festivities will be cancelled, now that … ?’

  ‘A murderer is running about the town? We can ask Master Freisinger right now.’

  Melchior poked his head out the window and shouted down to Freisinger, who was standing with his gaze fixed longingly on the Maiden Hedwig.

  ‘And a fine day to you, Master Blackhead. Don’t just stand there in my doorway. Come into the pharmacy, seeing as you are in this part of town.’

  ‘With pleasure,’ the merchant answered from below. He glanced towards the Town Hall, his eyes following the bounding Hedwig, and then blinked rapidly. Freisinger opened the pharmacy door wide and stepped in; Melchior was already pouring him a tall cup of elixir.

  ‘And the Magistrate here as well … A good morning to you,’ Freisinger said, nodding.

  Melchior would not say that Freisinger was a friend, exactly – the men were too different in character and in their spheres of operation – but the Apothecary did regard this lofty, tawny man with respect and not only because Melchior, as town apothecary, was invited to sessions of food and drink at the Brotherhood of Blackheads. Indeed not. Melchior believed Clawes Freisinger was a just-minded fellow with a grand and knightly air that somehow seemed to lift him above the level of the other town merchants. Freisinger encompassed an inexplicable dignity, as if he were nobleman or chivalrous trader. The Alderman of the Brotherhood of Blackheads also had a touch of mystery and an enigmatic force to him that Melchior had never quite pinned down.

  Melchior filled a small stein of elixir while the Magistrate expressed his interest in who had just shouted out there on the street.

  ‘The Maiden Hedwig Casendorpe almost ran down Pastor Rode of the Church of the Holy Ghost,’ Freisinger replied.