Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  Evensong was over and the church was deserted. The faint and familiar smell of incense reached my nostrils. Dipping my fingers absently into the holy-water font I crossed myself and then began to walk down the centre aisle, my footsteps on the marble flagstones causing a hollow sound that matched my sense of all-aloneness. I knelt before the statue of our Lord, intending to pray for guidance. But no words came. Not even the familiar Latin prefaces to praising God that little children can recite with alacrity. It was as if I was suddenly struck dumb, all sensibility having deserted. My spirit emptied. Then rising from deep within me, as if the first trickle of a stream or drops of sudden rain, rose the notion of a song. At first, it was only the tremulous sounds where I didn’t recognise words. Then, all at once, they flooded into my mind and possessed my heart. It was a hymn composed by the Abbess Hildegard, whose beautiful Gloria I had been forbidden to sing while at the convent, but which I had stored silently contained within my very being. As the folded song arrived and opened upon my tongue I felt myself lifted from my knees and looking into Christ’s glorious face, my hands clasped in prayer to glorify His image, I stood before His holy presence and began to sing.

  I cannot say how long I stood and sang in praise, but only that I was transported and, as if imagined, I could clearly hear the sound of a heavenly flute, more beautiful than ever I had heard before. It lifted my voice and carried the notes forward and each phrase seemed to accentuate the beauty of the hymn. When at last I could sing no more I opened my eyes and turned to see that the entire church was now filled with children and that the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the erstwhile ratcatcher, stood directly to my front. He smiled and brought his pipe to his lips, turned and with a cheeky nod bade me follow him. Then he piped a tune I did not know, no doubt one he’d learned in France, most beauteous and haunting in its sound. As we passed each pew the children rose and followed us silently into the square outside, enchanted by the ratcatcher’s magic flute.

  All the doubts in my heart and mind disappeared. Christ Jesus, the blessed Saviour of mankind, had answered my silent cry of despair. I now knew that He intended that there should be a Children’s Crusade and, moreover, I knew as well its sacred purpose. With children there would not be slaughter, greed or avarice, no jealousy, nor rape or pillage justified in the name of a God who watched and wept for man’s inhumanity to man. Not even the vainglorious and presumptuous papal promise of sins forgiven would be needed to set our feet and will our hearts for the Holy Land. Only the true spirit of love, as only a child may love, without guile or thought of gain or promise of redemption.

  With Reinhardt back I no longer felt alone and my spirits soared. He was a great organiser and fell to the task with alacrity. I had no need to ask him to accompany us, for he seemed immediately to act as if such an event as a crusade would be impossible to accomplish without his presence. When I asked him about his French lover he shrugged. ‘C’est la vie, it lasted long enough so that I might take lessons on the flute with his elderly uncle, a grand master of France, and, as well, learn their mannered ways. Their court is influenced by the Italian way,’ he explained. ‘In decorum it contains many niceties I shall teach you. My dear, you shall be as well tutored in the ways of society as any princess in Germany.’

  I laughed, glancing down at my coarsely woven linen shift and rough boots. ‘I doubt I’ll need these dainty manners where we’re going, ratcatcher. I see you still wear high heels?’

  ‘I confess, you look frightful, Sylvia. What on earth have you done to your hair! Rats’ tails and knots and dull as dishwater!’ he exclaimed, then added gallantly, ‘But still somehow you remain the very prettiest of maids. To answer your question, heels were my contribution to the French culture and with them buckles.’ He pointed to his pointy-toed boots. ‘See!’ I saw that they each contained a square silver buckle. ‘They are all the rage in the court of France and I am much admired there and nicknamed “The Royal Boots ’n’ Buckles”,’ he boasted, then laughed as if at this absurdity.

  ‘If you are not careful, they will soon enough be admired equally here and you will promptly be up-ended in a muddy street in Cologne and your pretty boots with silver buckles stolen from your feet while you rub your silly ratcatcher’s head. If you were so well regarded by the King of France, why then did you come back to Germany?’ Nothing had changed, it was still the old ratcatcher, ever posing as the pretty knight or attempting to seem a high-lofty, someone of a status birth had not granted him, yet all the while still capable of laughing at himself.

  He looked suddenly serious, a very serious condition for someone who seldom looked serious. ‘Not Germany, Sylvia. I came back to you. I love you the most of all. Now that you are no longer Christ’s bride I have returned to be at your side. My flute has never played as well as it did in St Martin’s square. Without your voice it lacks the magic touch.’

  It was my turn to be serious. ‘Reinhardt, we do not share the same proclivity. I cannot be your mistress when you have no need for one.’ I smiled. ‘I am now grown up and I have needs of my own.’

  ‘Nay, nay, nay! You get me wrong, my dear,’ he cried out in alarm. ‘I am much too much the scallywag and not to be trusted in such connubial matters. Every day I see a new bottom and think it tops.’

  ‘On tops!’ I corrected, laughing.

  He clapped his hands in delight. ‘See! That’s just it! With you I am myself. It is you, our music and the comfort of your company I crave. Oh, how very much I have missed these three things.’

  ‘Then you may have them with pleasure,’ I said laughing, knowing that I had greatly missed the same three things. ‘I too have missed you, ratcatcher. Missed you very much.’

  ‘Then you will let me come?’

  ‘To Jerusalem?’

  ‘Aye, my faith is poor but my flute is rich with the encouragement of hymns of praise, and my tongue is no less lively and can tell a tale that will soften any heart and open the most reluctant purse on behalf of this holy venture.’

  ‘Thank you. I need you for more than just piping as right now we’re in a dreadful mess,’ I confessed. ‘The bishop hates us. Nicholas, our fiery leader, sits helpless and forlorn staring at the wall. Father Hermann is forbidden to accompany us. We lack the two wagons we must have for transport, the food we have will last less than two days and more children are arriving every day from all over Germany.’

  ‘Hmm! My instinct tells me to run away at once.’ He smiled. ‘I can see I have arrived just in time. May I sojourn with you tonight? Do you still stay with the wrestler’s widow?’

  ‘Aye, there is room enough.’

  ‘Then let us depart and on the morrow, I promise, things will be better and we shall, as of old, begin together to untie the calamitous knots in this hangman’s rope of circumstance.’

  I sighed. ‘If this is how the French speak, can you not simply say in the plain-speaking German way, tomorrow will be better?’

  But the following day proved, if anything, to be worse. I awoke well rested and with my spirits lifted. With the Pied Piper of Hamelin (as Reinhardt again insisted he be termed) at my side I felt much more confident. It was wonderful to have someone whom I could trust and talk to. For all his frippery, buckled boots and nonsense, he was a born organiser and never short of ideas. On the way to St Mary’s to meet Father Hermann and get the carts, I informed him of our progress. Or perhaps – a better description – our lack thereof, showing him the few bags of corn and racks of salted fish and a small pile of blankets we’d been given and had stored for us in a pious merchant’s yard. ‘It is not enough to feed them for a single day,’ I said, laughing to hide my anxiety.

  ‘Sylvia, there are twenty granaries along the Rhine, all within this city. If each give six bags of corn or barley . . .?’

  ‘And why would they do that?’ I asked.

  ‘Simple. Rats!’

  ‘You would return to being ratcatcher?’ I asked, amazed.

  ‘For thee, my pretty maid, for thee!’ he laughed. �
�In a few days it will be done and my noble flute can then return to better things.’

  I did not tell him they were among the words for a song I’d written, but knew that at some later time I would sing it for him. I did a quick calculation. ‘That’s one hundred and twenty bags of corn and barley! But we shall have no wagons to transport it!’

  Reinhardt shrugged. ‘None needed,’ he replied. ‘Each child shall carry their own, perhaps two weeks supply with a little dried or smoked fish. The rest of their food we, they, will have to beg or scavenge.’

  So that he didn’t think me entirely senseless, I laughingly said, ‘Ah, I had already thought of doing that! But thinking, as there would not be enough to give every child a portion it would cause great resentment among those who went without. It would also encourage bullying, the strong taking from the weak. That will still remain a problem for us. Street children do not show charity towards each other and they will be constantly hungry. I fear for the smaller ones.’

  I then told Reinhardt about Nicholas’s moods and the need from time to time for him to be alone. ‘We must have one wagon – there is almost half enough saved from the alms box. Master Israel has promised me canvas for a canopy where Nicholas may go when his moods overtake him.’ I mimicked the voice of the wonderful old man I so loved. ‘“I am meshugga! If the rabbi knows of this donation,”’ – I slapped my forehead as he would do, ‘“Oi vey! I should be expelled from the synagogue.”’ Then waving my arms in the air, ‘“You know nussing from Jerusalem. Listen to me, Sylvia. From Jerusalem children should be goink out, not goink in!”’

  We arrived at St Mary’s at the usual time, half an hour after the Angelus and Lauds, to wait for Father Hermann. The four church carts stood ready in the square to do the rounds of the markets, the children harnessed and chattering happily among themselves. Then a cleric I had not seen before came out of the church and walked towards us. He didn’t offer his name or even greet us and sought no introduction. ‘Father Hermann has been forbidden to see you and has already left for the Cistercian convent at Hoven where he is to be the priest.’

  ‘Did he not leave a message?’ I asked, shocked. ‘This is his church, his beloved Virgin Mary and her Child Jesus live here! He is Father Hermann Joseph, her earthly husband!’ I cried out.

  ‘It is at the instruction of the bishop and you are forbidden to contact him at the convent,’ the cleric said spitefully, clearly enjoying the task of bearing bad tidings.

  ‘And you’re absolutely sure he left no message?’ I asked once again, still shocked. I simply could not believe Father Hermann would leave without some sort of explanation or attempt to contact me.

  ‘None. It was expressly forbidden.’ The cleric’s chin lifted indignantly and his small mouth pulled into a rosebud of pique. He handed me a small brass key. ‘It is the key to the alms box. You may have what it contains, but from today it is no longer for your benefit. Please leave the key near the screen to the chancel, place it under the alms box.’ He pointed to the carts. ‘They may not be used – it is forbidden, Church property. You must ask the children to take them back to the stables at once.’

  ‘But how will the children eat? We must have them! The carts are needed to collect our food!’

  The cleric shrugged. ‘I am only following orders.’ He turned and walked away, then stopped as if suddenly remembering, and turning to face me he said, ‘Oh, and you will no longer sing at Holy Communion, Sylvia Honeyeater.’ Why is it that some people seem to take great pleasure in the discomforting of others?

  We watched silently as the cleric walked back into the church. ‘Well!’ Reinhardt exclaimed, then drew a deep breath before expostulating, ‘Well, well, well! Now the cat is truly set among the pigeons!’

  I started to cry as I watched the chastened, silent children begin to pull the carts back to the church stables. ‘Whatever will become of us?’ I wept.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Rock of God’s Wrath

  REINHARDT AND I SCROUNGED all morning for food for the children, having persuaded a peasant to lend us the use of his cart for a few hours. The ratcatcher played and I sang, but without a priest to lend us authority or to shame the peasants and townsfolk into donating in the form of a tithe, it proved a difficult task. Most would simply shrug and say, ‘I gave last week,’ or more shamelessly, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Some of the men leered at me, their randy looks suggesting that a quick knee-trembler behind a stall would soon enough open their hearts. Folk were growing weary of the constant need to give, and with the fear of God removed were now openly reluctant. It was rapidly becoming time to move on, but Nicholas still sat staring at the wall waiting for the world to end. By mid-afternoon, when we needed to return the cart, we had not near sufficient food to feed the multitudinous children.

  ‘We leave on the day of Pentecost yet ten days hence and even then it will depend if Nicholas is no longer beset. Whatever shall we do?’ I said disconsolately.

  Reinhardt, new to the unrewarding task of gathering food, smiled. ‘Tomorrow I shall visit Master Solomon – his rats will once again be numerous. I shall make him an offer too good to refuse. On the morrow he will deliver six bags of corn, three to St Martin’s square, the other three to St Mary’s, in return for a rat-ridding.’

  ‘But he is a Jew! He will not aid a Christian crusade,’ I said, thoroughly down-hearted. We had played and sung our hearts out and yet our flock would go hungry.

  ‘Well, did not Master Israel give you canvas for a cart we don’t have?’

  ‘He is my friend.’

  ‘He is also a Jew. Cheer up, Sylvia, let us have faith one day at a time, eh? I am not sufficient Christian to think beyond one small step in the many that will take us to Jerusalem. The reason Master Solomon will agree and, as well, the city’s corn merchants is that it is a bargain. A thousand rats will eat a bag of corn a day. The value of a merchant’s conscience is always negotiable and a bag of corn lost to rats each day is a solid reason to discount its value.’

  ‘You would rid the city of twenty thousand rats?’ I asked, amazed.

  ‘Aye, there are many more than that – for every person dwelling in a city there be ten rats. Of mice,’ he gave a low whistle, ‘a great many more and only fleas and lice surpass the number.’ He took up his flute and played a silly little nonsense song children sing when they skip or play ‘Hop-along Tom’.

  Rats and mice

  and fleas and lice

  We wish them all

  gone in a trice.

  But if we didn’t

  itch and scratch

  We’d use our hands

  to steal and snatch.

  If rats and mice

  were never born

  How fat we’d grow

  on all that corn.

  Reinhardt’s promise to see Master Israel’s cousin on the morrow considerably cheered me. We would at least have gruel to give the children, if not tonight, then tomorrow. His advice that we have faith only unto the day was well reminded. I recalled Brother Dominic’s words: ‘If we attempt to understand God’s glory all at once, we will be blinded by His infinite light and so see nothing. But taken one sunrise at a time, by sunset our eyes will have been opened to all things wise and wonderful.’ It was a reminder to regard each day as a small part of His glory, a task given to me, so that I might earn my faith and know a small portion of His love.

  It was near sunset and we were in St Martin’s square to apportion half of the meagre rations we had gathered to the good, pious, ever-cheerful waiting cooks, when a horseman arrived, his mount carrying a saddlecloth showing the bishop’s colours with the mitre embroidered upon it. He dismounted and walked over to where we were standing and drew me aside.

  ‘Fräulein Sylvia, His Lordship the Bishop summons you to his palace. We have a cart standing by.’

  ‘Nay, I will not go!’ I protested.

  Reinhardt, watching, came over. ‘What is it, Sylvia?’

  ‘The bishop. He wishes m
e to return to his palace.’

  Reinhardt looked at the horseman, who was a small thickset man of mid-years, judging from his good hose and neat dress perhaps a trusted manservant. ‘Do you know what happened to her yesterday?’ the ratcatcher asked.

  ‘Aye, it was a mistake. His Lordship meant only to frighten her. No harm was to come of it.’

  ‘Then you may tell the bishop he succeeded exceedingly well,’ I interjected.

  He shook his head and smiled, speaking softly, ‘Nay, nay, fräulein. His Lordship apologises and wishes me to tell you he meant you no harm. It will be to your great advantage if you should come.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  He smiled again. He had been well chosen for this task and would not easily be drawn to anger. ‘It is not a consequence we have contemplated,’ he said calmly. We both knew that I had no choice – a peasant and at that a woman might not disobey a Prince of the Church and hope to survive the experience. The very least I might expect was a public flogging and it could be worse – he could declare me a heretic.

  As if he read my thoughts, not smiling, he said, ‘The cross of crows, might that not easily be seen as the work of a witch?’

  ‘But it is the raven and the jackdaw, not the crow, that are the devil’s birds,’ Reinhardt exclaimed. ‘Sylvia’s way with birds is well-known to all! The bishop has already been petitioned by two priests and asked to pronounce this gift of summoning the birds of the air as an act divinely inspired.’

  ‘Aye, but not the crow! The crows of Cologne are long known for their satanic powers. They are the third of the devil’s birds, the carrion bird that eats gallows’ flesh and, like the raven and the jackdaw, is a harbinger of misfortune. To cause one of these satanic birds to fashion the holy cross, the very birds that were present with the Jews at Golgotha when they crucified our Saviour, is that not the work of a witch? What think you if a bishop should call a convocation of priests to bear judgement upon this heinous cross of crows?’