Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  Why now this terrible transgression? I had murdered my father, now this. My debts of sinning were accumulating to the point where I must surely be declared a lost soul. Why was it so hard to be good? It must be my contrary and vainglorious nature and the evil within me, for the devil was becoming my frequent tormentor and the godliness I thought I possessed when challenged was seen to constantly fail. And so I prayed for redemption, full knowing that I had little reason to expect God’s tender mercy.

  I was not aware how long I knelt beside the fallen tub before I heard a raspy voice command, ‘Get up, fräulein!’

  I rose slowly to my feet and wiped the tears from my face. The pockfaced attendant stood before me, a kettle of boiling water held in each hand, a smile upon her poor deformed lips. ‘Come now, fräulein, it is time to bathe thyself,’ she rasped.

  ‘Nay! They will return!’ I cried. ‘I must away!’

  ‘Forsooth,you have seen them off!Three caterwauling whores all a-wobble and in a frightful funk! They will not return,’ she laughed.

  I glanced over to the furthermost wall to see that their garments still hung from the wooden pegs. ‘But they have left behind their gowns and slippers.’

  ‘Aye, they ran naked through the market crying out that they had been attacked by a demon angel, an imp of Beelzebub!’

  ‘Whatever shall I do?’ I cried.

  She pointed to the dagger I still held. ‘You will place that back within the stave, for if it is known you possessed and used it, the bailiffs would arrest you. Then you shall have a bath,’ she said firmly. ‘If those three whores should concoct a tale to make trouble, I will bear witness for thee as I saw all that took place. Those three are well-known for their cantankerous natures and are not well liked.’

  ‘But the dagger, they will tell of it?’ I cried hastily, replacing it within my stave.

  ‘What dagger? I saw no dagger. What be thy name, fräulein?’

  ‘Sylvia . . . Sylvia Honeyeater.’

  ‘I am Gilda.’ She moved over to a barrel and commenced to add water to it from the steaming kettle.

  ‘Nay, I think it best I should be gone,’ I said, reaching down for my gown, only to discover it sodden from the contents of the fallen barrel. Then I saw the sheep’s-wool interior of my coat carried puddled water and was soaked through to the leather outer skin.

  Gilda placed the first kettle down and lifted the second to the tub. ‘Folk are gathered at the door to see this demon angel. I have bolted it against their entry. If you should leave now, what then shall they see? A ragamuffin!’ She lifted her hand to her head indicating the hair beneath her wimple and rasped, ‘Your hair is all in rat’s tails and your legs and feet are soiled. They will think you a common street brat who entered the bathhouse to rob those three fat whores while they soaked, and perchance believe their malevolent story.’

  Still frightened at the prospect of the crowd outside and the return of the three women, I commenced to bathe. Gilda, as attentive as a mother, fussed over me, helping me to use Frau Sarah’s rosemary wash and thereafter to rinse my hair in chamomile. She fetched a length of old linen from a locked box to dry me, then rubbed my back with oil of lavender.

  I had not, since my mother’s death, felt more cared for and clean, but remained all the while anxious, as the noise of the crowd outside the bathhouse seemed to be growing. Dressed only in the white petticoat and slippers, I went to place my soiled wimple upon my head when Gilda stayed me. ‘Nay, Sylvia, thy hair shines golden, let your prettiness be seen by all.’ Then she took my hand and led me to the door. ‘Come, I am well-known here and while at your side no one will harm you. But now you must appear for all to see that you are but a slight and comely maiden, white and blushing, face fresh as an apple, with eyes the colour of the summer sky and hair of ripened corn, neither Beelzebub’s imp nor demon angel.’

  Trembling I allowed her to lead me to the door that she now unlocked and swung open so that we might stand on the topmost step to face the crowd. A great shout went up from the assemblage, a mob of at least a hundred market folk, while more still were coming. Standing on the steps above the crowd I could see them running from the street stalls, the cathedral and the riverbank.

  A woman’s voice shouted out, ‘Demon!’ and, at once, a male replied, ‘Nay, Angel!’ Then, as if by some silent instruction, they began to chant, ‘Demon! Angel! Demon! Angel! Demon! Angel!’ To my great relief, Reinhardt broke from the crowd and leaping up the steps came to stand beside me. He lifted his hand to command the crowd to silence.

  As the noise abated he took from his belt his flute and, playing a mixture of softly sustained notes and dazzling roulades, finally found his way to a phrasal pattern I knew as the opening of the Gloria in Excelsis. With a nod of his head he bade me sing. I sang this hymn and then some plainsong and the crowd grew to complete silence and many of the women knelt.

  ‘We are here not only to praise our Creator but on such a pretty day let us make merriment in praise of life!’ Reinhardt shouted, smiling at the silent crowd. Then he lifted his flute and I sang several folksongs, ending some time later with a merry jig that set the older folk within the crowd to clapping and bakers’ maids, wine sellers and many of the peasant lads and city wenches to dance together.

  At last Reinhardt held up his hand. ‘Now, who among you would call her “demon”?’ he boldly challenged the crowd.

  ‘Nay, none!’ they chorused.

  ‘And who would call her “angel”?’ he shouted out triumphantly.

  A roar of approval issued from the assembled folk. ‘Angel! Angel! Angel!’ they chanted.

  And again the ratcatcher held up his hand calling for silence and when the crowd had finally ceased to chant he shouted out, ‘Good folk of Cologne, I bring thee . . . the Petticoat Angel!’

  A second roar rose, greater even than the first and it seemed quite certain that they much liked this name. ‘Petticoat Angel! Petticoat Angel! Petticoat Angel!’ they chanted. Eventually they grew still and Reinhardt addressed them for the final time. ‘Good folk of Cologne, we cannot tarry now, but tomorrow afternoon at the ringing of the third bell we will entertain you in St Martin’s square. Come all who would hear the divine and enchanted singing of the Petticoat Angel to be accompanied by the Pied Piper of Hamelin and his magic flute!’

  When we returned to Frau Sarah, having tarried first to take sustenance, we told her the tale of the bathhouse. But to our surprise she knew it all.

  ‘How know you so soon?’ Reinhardt asked. ‘Did thee follow us?’

  Frau Sarah laughed. ‘Do not flatter thyself, ratcatcher. I went to see a silk merchant who has his warehouse near the river and on my return I chanced among the throng gathered outside the bathhouse.’ She looked at me. ‘Sylvia, it is not in my nature to flatter, but your voice deserves a choir of angels – it has a quality of purity I have not previously heard. Where did you learn to sing?’

  ‘At first my mother and then the birds,’ I replied. ‘I try to emulate their tone and pitch.’

  She looked at me and frowned. ‘The birds? But they have simple tones, straightforward, purposeful, they possess no clever tricks of sound.’

  ‘Nay, you are wrong!’ I laughed. ‘Their tricks abound. Now listen to the nightingale.’ Whereupon I emulated the song of this beautiful sounding bird. ‘See how it challenges the human throat and requires practice to emulate. I do not have it yet, although I have worked to perfect it countless hours.’

  ‘Aye, the flute, with all its cunning, cannot make so pure a sound,’ Reinhardt added, then placing his flute to his mouth did a most amazing impression of the song of the nightingale.

  ‘How good be that!’ I exclaimed, clapping my hands together.

  ‘You are a worthy duo,’ Frau Sarah said crisply, though I felt her reluctant to praise the ratcatcher for fear that he would become too overweening. I smiled inwardly, for it was true and not in his nature to be modest, yet concerning music he was always humble. ‘And what hear I of pied?
’ Frau Sarah said to change the subject. ‘Would you then truly wish a suit of many colours?’

  Reinhardt grew at once excited. ‘Aye, stockings of the boldest-coloured diamond shapes and a coat of all the colours as you may, but with ruffs of velvet black with inserts of yellow and so also the cap, but black alone, this offset with a peacock’s feather!’

  Frau Sarah smiled. ‘And you thought all this spontaneously,’ she teased. ‘Sylvia, how would you like your gown?’

  ‘I have not thought upon it, Frau Sarah. I would accept your choice.’

  ‘White!’ Reinhardt cried, clapping his hands. ‘She must have a gown of the purest white, no wimple to be worn, so her golden hair doth shine like a glorious halo, and dainty slippers, worked with silver thread so they will seem as if she is as an angel shod.’

  ‘White?’ Frau Sarah frowned. ‘Nay, she is an entertainer in a winkelhaus; she must wear a gown bold and definite to the eye, so men are at all times aware of her presence. You in pied and she in crimson velvet or the like.’

  ‘Nay, nay, nay!’ Reinhardt insisted. ‘Today she was named the Petticoat Angel and seen wearing a simple white petticoat, that is what folk will from her expect.’

  ‘Folk! You mean commonfolk? Tut! They are of little concern. We wish to please a more worthy class and mostly men,’ Frau Sarah insisted.

  ‘It is but early afternoon and already you may wager that all the market folk know of the Petticoat Angel,’ Reinhardt insisted. ‘How she sent three notorious whores fleeing naked for their lives and then emerged from the bathhouse white and sprightly, a golden-haired angel to sing Gloria in Excelsis. You may be sure that the crowd will later tell how it was a voice that could only come from heaven and she an angel dressed in purest white. This will spread and grow and the gentlefolk will hear the tale and wish to see this vision. Men love such purity and women will protect it, thinking she has powers to cast out demons. But if she should wear some rich garment fit for a princess, men will wish to take her for themselves and ravish her and women bring her down and show her for a peasant, unworthy of their pleasant company.’

  Frau Sarah nodded, no doubt thinking this reasoning sound. ‘How did you put those whores to flight, Sylvia?’ she now asked.

  I was about to explain the dagger contained in the handle of my stave when Reinhardt once again took voice. ‘It is a power she has contained within her that can summon the birds from the trees. But if she has been wronged, she will use it in a different way to strike the fear of God’s wrath into the breasts of those who would do her harm,’ he proclaimed, without a trace of shame and to my astonishment.

  Frau Sarah looked doubtful. ‘I am not a Christian, so am not so easily confounded by such augury.’

  ‘Aye, but as a Jew you well know the power of an angry God. Would you doubt His wrath and so cause Sylvia to bring it down upon thee?’ Before she could answer the ratcatcher, smiling, said, ‘Nay, she would not do that to you who have shown us kindness. But if you wish to test her powers, we will go to the woods and you shall see the good side of her power. How she can charm the birds from the very trees.’

  I did not know it then, but only later, that the Jews possess as many devils and demons in their religion as in the Christian and believe that some have supernatural powers. Also, that God’s wrath is not to be provoked by mortals, and so his bluff was in good standing with her faith. Perhaps I should have chastised him for his lies, but knew that should Frau Sarah think I was of uncertain temperament and possessed a sharp dagger that might at some stage harm her, she would be reluctant to continue with our partnership. Also, Gilda, the bathhouse attendant, had warned me that such a weapon found in my possession might bring me swiftly to the attention of the city court. Prudence forbade me confess and I told myself that I would at some later time, if Frau Sarah proved a trustworthy partner, confess the truth to her.

  ‘The songbirds in these woods are wary of being trapped by the street urchins who sell them to the merchants to hang in cages at their shopfronts,’ Frau Sarah declared. ‘Even the cathedral pigeons, knowing they may end their lives within a pie, are ever flighty.’ She laughed. ‘I know this because oft times when gathering herbs and mushrooms I come upon a sweet-singing bird trapped to a branch rubbed with a sticky substance and hasten to release it. I do not think the birds in yonder woods will come to thy beckoning, Sylvia.’

  I felt she said this so that I might not be caught out for a fraud and must now concoct a reason to retract the ratcatcher’s claim. ‘Aye, perhaps not, it is but a trick of voice,’ I replied. ‘I have not yet encountered birds that dwell in woods adjacent to a city.’

  Upon Frau Sarah’s lips there played a knowing smile. ‘Perhaps on the morrow in the morning when I go to gather herbs you will accompany me?’

  ‘Thank you, I should like that,’ I said, knowing at once that she wished to test me and that I should not avoid her challenge, even if she were proved correct about the city birds.

  ‘Then it is a simple gown in white for tomorrow at St Martin’s square?’ Reinhardt asked.

  Frau Sarah nodded her agreement. ‘We shall see what we shall see.’

  The Jewess was not a woman easily gulled and the ratcatcher would need to watch his slippery ways and forwardly tongue lest he trap us both within a nest of lies and deceit. Once again I found myself in a situation beyond my control and felt myself perplexed that I seemed to attract attention and trouble without having sought it in the first place.

  Frau Sarah was now all of a business. ‘Israel will measure you and cut a pattern and I shall sew a simple white gown for you to wear tomorrow, Sylvia.’ Then she turned to Reinhardt. ‘If we are to make you a suit of pied it will take a week, the hose alone will take a day, so while you wait we will dress you as a knave, but you shall have the velvet cap you so desire.’

  ‘With a peacock feather?’ Reinhardt asked anxiously. He was truly obsessed with his adornment and there was no modesty to his demeanour, except for his music, which, if the truth be told, was ever a more worthy reason to be vain.

  Frau Sarah sighed. ‘Aye, I will obtain one for thee.’

  Reinhardt thanked her profusely but then added, ‘Perhaps a pair of red hose to the knave’s attire and bright buttons to the jerkin?’

  Master Israel, as we grew to call him, measured me for a gown and informed the ratcatcher that a deal had been made with his cousin Solomon for a rat-riddance ceremony the following morning.

  ‘He must be alone with no servants or workmen present and the path to the river clear with no people or impediment,’ Reinhardt instructed. ‘I wish no others to know I am returned or I shall be called upon for rat riddance by all the corn merchants on the river.’

  ‘Nay, he will not talk of it. He will see the advantage to him of wheat and barley free of rat droppings. Also the greater share he will save of each commodity,’ Master Israel declared.

  ‘But you would make a pretty penny doing this for all the corn merchants?’ Frau Sarah suggested.

  ‘Aye, but who would wish a ratcatcher’s flute to accompany the Petticoat Angel?’ Reinhardt said. ‘Folk would not perceive it well and we would be the lesser for it. I wish henceforth to be known only as a musician.’

  For all his conceit Reinhardt was blessed with a shrewd head and I could see Frau Sarah thought the same but wished only to ensure our partnership was not sullied, as rats and music are not a pretty combination.

  ‘Sylvia and I shall depart to the woods to gather herbs while you are at your final task as ratcatcher,’ Frau Sarah decided. ‘You with rats and she with the birds.’ She grinned wickedly. ‘I daresay, tomorrow morning both your reputations will be tested.’ Then sensing my concern she added, ‘Fear not, Sylvia, thy voice is not in dispute, nor is the ratcatcher’s flute.’

  With a small expulsion of air Reinhardt drew himself up to his full height. ‘Frau Sarah, I beg you, call me Reinhardt and when in public, the Pied Piper of Hamelin.’

  Frau Sarah laughed her nice laugh. ‘Of al
l this pied I am not sure at all. Too much colour in a pretty lad’s cloth doth cheapen the look, but then again thou art an entertainer where a suit of pied is not unusual.’ She paused then, looking most sincerely into his eyes, she said, ‘Reinhardt it shall be, the Pied Piper of Hamelin otherwise.’

  Reinhardt, pleased, then turned to me. ‘And thou, Sylvia, what say you?’

  I laughed and thought a moment. ‘No, I cannot promise. When I am angry with you I shall call you ratcatcher. Otherwise, I promise, it will be Reinhardt.’

  ‘And with strangers?’

  ‘Very well,’ I sighed. ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin, even though I think it too toplofty.’

  ‘Especially with a peacock’s feather,’ Frau Sarah added archly. But all this risibility had no sway with Reinhardt, who, I could see, delighted in this new appellation.

  That night we sojourned with a good Christian woman of Frau Sarah’s acquaintance who fed us well and gave us two pallets of clean straw to sleep on. ‘It will be accounted and deducted from your earnings,’ the Jewess informed us. ‘But she is a good, clean and honest woman who, I am told, keeps the rats and mice, fleas and lice mostly in control and who does not charge much. We cannot feed you here, as our food is kosher.’ I would only later understand that a Jew could not partake of food prepared by a Christian or sup together with such as us.