“Please make sure,” he said in his usual grating voice, “that the site of the fire is thoroughly tidied and raked. All the remains—even the smallest—are to be gathered and tossed into the river. There has been an increase in the gathering of charred bones and the worshipping of them as relics. Honourable councillors, please take good care. And Brothers, see that they do.”
The Strzelin councillors present in the castle chamber bowed their heads in silence, and the Dominicans and the Friars Minor lowered their tonsured pates. Everyone present knew that the canon usually made requests rather than giving orders. They also knew the difference was only a formality.
“I ask the Predicant Friars,” continued Otto Beess, “to please continue, in keeping with the directives of the Inter cunctas bull, to monitor all symptoms of heresy and the activities of Taborite emissaries, and to report the smallest, even apparently insignificant details involved with those activities. I am also counting on help from the secular arm, which I ask of you, noble Sir Henryk.”
Henryk of Reideburg bowed his head, but only slightly, then immediately straightened up his mighty frame, resplendent in a chequered paltock. The Starosta of Strzelin didn’t conceal his pride or disdain, made no pretence at being humble or compliant. It was clear that he tolerated the visit of the Church hierarchy because he had to, but couldn’t wait for the canon to finally leave his territory.
Otto Beess was aware of that.
“Also, noble Starosta Henryk,” he added, “please take greater pains than hitherto in solving the murder of Sir Albrecht of Bart committed in Karczyn. The chapter is anxious to identify the perpetrators of that crime. Lord Bart, in spite of a certain peevishness and some controversial views, was a noble gentleman, a vir rarae dexteritatis, a great benefactor of the Henryków and Krzeszów Cistercians. We demand that his murderers be suitably punished—by which I mean the actual murderers. The chapter will not be content with blame being placed on a scapegoat. We do not believe that Lord Bart died at the hands of those heretics burned today.”
“Those Hussites may have had accomplices—” Reideburg said, clearing his throat.
“We do not rule that out,” said the canon, staring fixedly at the knight. “We aren’t ruling anything out. Sir Henryk, impart greater urgency to the investigation. Request, if necessary, the help of the Starosta of Świdnica, Lord Albrecht of Kolditz. Indeed, ask anyone you wish for aid, as long as there are results.”
Henryk Reideburg bowed stiffly. The canon returned the bow, but carelessly.
“Thank you, noble knight,” he said in a voice like a rusty cemetery gate creaking open. “I shan’t keep you any longer. I also thank you, gentle councillors, and you venerable friars. I won’t interfere with your duties, of which, I imagine, you have plenty.”
The starosta, councillors and monks exited, shuffling their poulaines and sandals.
“You, worthy seminarists and deacons, are also aware of your duties, I don’t doubt,” the Canon of Wrocław Cathedral added a moment later, “so please attend to them. Forthwith. Our brother secretary and father confessor will remain. As will…”
Otto Beess raised his head and fixed Reynevan with a piercing gaze.
“As will you, my lad. We have something to discuss. But first of all, I will receive the supplicants. Please call the parish priest from Oława.”
Father Granciszek entered, his face paling and flushing by turns in an extraordinary fashion, and immediately genuflected. The canon didn’t ask him to get up.
“Your problem, Father Filip,” he began, his voice grinding, “is a lack of respect and trust towards your superiors. To possess individuality and one’s own opinion is, indeed, laudable, considerably more praiseworthy than dull, ovine obedience. However, there are certain matters where one’s superiors are absolutely right and infallible. Some believe they can interpret the Holy Father’s decisions according to their own whims. But that is not the way! Roma locuta, causa finita. Which is why, my dear Father Filip, if the Church superiors tell you what you should preach, you are to comply. Even if your individuality protests and screams, you are to comply. I see you wish to speak. So speak.”
“Three-quarters of my parishioners,” mumbled Father Granciszek, “are rather slow-witted, I’d say, pro maiori parte illiterati et idiote. But to the other quarter, I cannot say what the Curia instructs in my sermons. I do say that Hussites are heretics, murderers and degenerates, and that Žižka and Koranda are devils incarnate, criminals, blasphemers and iconoclasts who face eternal damnation and infernal agony. But I can’t say they eat babes in arms, or that they share their wives among them. Or that—”
“Do you not understand?” the canon interrupted him sharply. “Do you not understand my words, Father? Roma locuta! And for you, Wrocław is Roma. Preach what you are told to, about their common wives and their sodomy, how they eat babes and boil monks alive, and tear out the tongues of Catholic priests. If you receive such a directive, you will teach that when Hussites take communion from a goblet, hair sprouts from the roofs of their mouths and dogs’ tails from their backsides. I’m not joking—I’ve seen the relevant documents in the bishop’s chancel. As a matter of fact,” he added, looking with slight sympathy at Granciszek cowering before him, “how do you know they don’t grow tails? Have you been to Prague? To Tábor? To Hradec Králové? Have you received communion sub utraque specie?”
“No!” The parish priest almost choked on his breath. “The very thought!”
“Excellent. Causa finita. And this audience. In Wrocław, I’ll say that a reprimand sufficed, that you won’t cause any more problems. And now, so you won’t have the impression of a vain peregrination, you will say confession and do the penance the confessor demands of you. Father Felicjan!”
“Yes, Reverend?” replied the canon’s secretary.
“Prostration before the high altar in Saint Gotthard’s Church for the entire night, from Compline to Prime. The rest I leave to your own discretion.”
“May God keep you—”
“Amen. Farewell, Father.”
Otto Beess sighed and held out an empty goblet towards a seminarian, who immediately poured claret into it.
“No more petitioners today. Come with me, Reinmar.”
“Reverend Father… Before… I have a request…”
“Yes?”
“I was accompanied on my journey by a rabbi from Brzeg—”
Otto Beess gestured an instruction. A moment later, a seminarian led in Hiram ben Eliezer. The Jew bowed low, sweeping the floor with his fox-fur cap. The canon scrutinised him attentively.
“What can the representative of the Brzeg Qahal want from me?” he grated. “What brings him here?”
“You ask what brings him here, Reverend Father?” Rabbi Hiram lifted his bushy eyebrows. “And I answer: the truth. The evangelical truth.”
“The evangelical truth?”
“And no other.”
“Speak, Rabbi Hiram. Don’t make me wait.”
“When the Reverend Father commands, why then would I not speak? I say: various noble gentlemen walk around Brzeg, Oława, Grodków and the neighbouring villages, calling for the reprehensible murderers of Jesus Christ to be beaten, in order to plunder their homes and outrage their wives and daughters. Those ruffians quote prelates to prove that the beatings, pillage and rape are the will of God and the bishops.”
“Go on, friend Hiram. I am a patient man.”
“What else can I say? I, Rabbi Hiram ben Eliezer from the Brzeg Qahal, entreat you, Reverend Father, to observe evangelical truths. If you must beat and pillage the murderers of Jesus Christ, please do so! But, by Father Moses, beat the ones who actually crucified him—by which I mean the Romans!”
Otto Beess said nothing for a long time, scrutinising the rabbi through half-closed eyes.
“Yeees,” he finally said. “And do you know, friend Hiram, that you can be locked up for talk like that? I speak, naturally, of the secular authorities. The Church is forbearing, but th
e brachium saeculare can be harsh when it comes to blasphemy. No, no, don’t say anything, friend Hiram. I shall speak now.”
The Jew bowed. The canon didn’t change his position on his chair, didn’t move a muscle.
“Holy Father Martin, the fifth of that name, following his enlightened predecessors, has deigned to declare that Jews, in spite of appearances, were created in God’s image and some of them, albeit a small number, will attain salvation. In that case, persecution, discrimination, victimization, oppression and all other mistreatment, including forced baptism, are improper. You surely cannot doubt, friend Hiram, that the Pope’s wishes are considered commands for every priest. Or perhaps you do?”
“How can I doubt it? Why, he’s probably the tenth pope in a row to say the same thing… Thus it doubtless is the truth—”
“If you don’t doubt,” interrupted the canon, pretending not to hear the mockery, “you must understand that accusing clergymen of inciting attacks on Israelites is calumny. Unforgivable calumny.”
The Jew bowed in silence.
“Of course,” Otto Beess narrowed his eyes slightly, “the laity knows little or absolutely nothing about papal directives. And they’re pretty ignorant about the Bible, too, since they are, as somebody quite recently said, pro maiori parte illiterati et idiote.”
Rabbi Hiram didn’t even budge.
“While your Israelite tribe, Rabbi,” continued the canon, “stubbornly and with great pleasure, lavishes the rabble with pretexts. Here you start an epidemic of the plague by poisoning wells; there you torture an innocent little Christian girl to death; there you let a child’s blood to make matzoh. You steal and desecrate sacramental bread. You engage in shameful usury and cut hunks of raw flesh from debtors who cannot afford your outrageous interest. And you earn your living from diverse other vile practices, I believe.”
“What should one do, I ask you, Reverend Father?” said Hiram ben Eliezer after a tense moment. “What to do, to avoid such things? I mean poisoning wells, torturing little girls, letting blood and desecrating the host? What, I ask, to do?”
Otto Beess said nothing for a long time.
“Any day now,” he finally said, “a special tax payable by all will be proclaimed, to raise funds for an anti-Hussite crusade. Every Jew will have to pay one guilder. Beyond what the Brzeg commune must give, it will also freely add… A thousand guilders. Two hundred and fifty grzywna.”
The rabbi nodded, making no attempt to haggle.
“That money will serve our common good,” the canon said, without special emphasis, “and, I would say, a common cause. The Czech heretics endanger us all. Mainly righteous Catholics, of course, but you Israelites have no reason to love the Hussites, either. On the contrary, in fact. It will be an opportunity, Hiram, to play a part in the vengeance, at least by making a donation.”
“Vengeance is mine,” replied Hiram ben Eliezer a moment later. “Thus says the Lord, Adonai. Recompense to no man evil for evil, says the Lord. And our Lord, as the prophet Isaiah testifies, is generous in forgiving.
“Besides,” the rabbi added quietly, seeing that the canon had fallen silent, hands pressed against his forehead, “the Hussites have only been murdering Jews for six years. What is six against a thousand?”
Otto Beess raised his head. His eyes were as cold as steel.
“You’ll come to a sticky end, friend Hiram,” he said, grinding his teeth. “I fear for you. Go in peace.
“Now,” he said after the Jew had closed the door, “it’s finally your turn, Reinmar. Let us talk. You mustn’t worry about the secretary or the seminarian. They can be trusted. They are present, but it’s as if they weren’t.”
Reynevan cleared his throat, but the canon didn’t let him speak.
“Duke Konrad Kantner arrived in Wrocław four days ago, on Saint Lawrence’s Day, with an entourage of ghastly gossip-mongers. Nor is the duke himself especially discreet. Hence, not only me, but almost the whole of Wrocław is aware of the intricacies of your affair with Adèle, Gelfrad of Stercza’s wife.”
Reynevan cleared his throat again and lowered his head, unable to endure the piercing look. The canon put his hands together in prayer.
“Reinmar, Reinmar,” he said, with exaggerated dismay. “How could you? How could you so offend the law of God and man? For, after all, it is said: marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled, but God will judge whoremongers and adulterers. All too often, however, betrayed husbands consider God’s justice to be too tardy and mete it out themselves—and viciously.”
Reynevan cleared his throat even louder and lowered his head even more.
“Aha,” guessed Otto Beess. “Are they after you already?”
“They are.”
“Are they hard on your heels?”
“They are.”
“O, young fool!” said the priest a moment later. “You ought to be locked away at once in the Narrenturm, the Tower of Fools! You would fit in perfectly with its residents.”
Reynevan sniffed and made a face which he hoped was remorseful. The canon nodded, sighed deeply and interlaced his fingers.
“You couldn’t resist temptation?” he asked with the tone of an expert. “And you dreamed about her at night?”
“I could not,” admitted Reynevan, blushing. “And I did.”
“I know, I know.” Otto Beess licked his lips and his eyes suddenly flared wide. “I know that forbidden fruit is sweet, as is the desire to experience a stranger’s embrace. I know that the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But in the end, the Proverbs of Solomon teach us wisely: she is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword. Beware, my son, that you don’t burn up like a moth in a flame. That you do not follow her to death and fall into the Abyss. Listen to the wise words of the Bible: remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house.
“Come thee not nigh to her door,” repeated the canon, and then the preacher’s exultant cadence vanished from his voice as though blown away by the wind. “Listen carefully, Reinmar of Bielawa. Note well the words of the Bible and mine. Etch them into your memory. Listen to my advice: stay well away from the person concerned. Don’t do what you intend or what I read in your eyes, young man. Stay well away from her.”
“Yes, Reverend Father.”
“The scandal will somehow ease with time. The Sterczas will be threatened with the Curia and the Landfriede, placated with the customary fee of twenty grzywna, and the standard penalty of ten grzywna will also have to be paid to Oleśnica town council. All told, it’s little more than the price of a good thoroughbred horse—you’ll manage to raise that with your brother’s help, and if necessary, I’ll pay the rest. Your uncle, the scholaster Henryk, was a good friend and teacher of mine.”
“May my thanks—”
“But I’m helpless,” the canon interrupted sharply, “if they catch you and club you to death. Do you understand, you hot-headed fool? You must get Gelfrad of Stercza’s wife out of your head once and for all, along with any thoughts of clandestine visits, letters, messengers and the like. You are to vanish. Leave the country at once. I recommend Hungary. Do you understand?”
“First I’d like to go to Balbinów… To visit my brother—”
“I absolutely forbid it,” Otto Beess cut him off. “The men who hunt you no doubt expect that, as they did your visit here. Remember: when you flee, flee like a wolf. Never along well-trodden paths.”
“But my brother… Peterlin… If I really must flee—”
“I myself will inform Peterlin about everything using trusted envoys. But I forbid you from going there. Do you understand, madcap boy? You may not travel roads that your enemies know. You may not appear in places where they may be waiting for you. Which means under no circumstances go to Balbinów. Or Ziębice.”
Reynevan sighed, and Otto Beess swore.
“You didn’t know,” he drawled. “You didn’t know she was in Ziębice. And I, old fool that I
am, have revealed it to you. Oh well, it has happened. But it means nothing. It matters not where she is—be it Ziębice, Rome, Constantinople or Egypt, you will not go near her, son.”
“I shall not.”
“You cannot even know how much I’d like to believe you. Listen to me, Reinmar, and listen carefully. You will receive a letter; I shall ask my secretary to write it in a moment. Fear not, the document will be written in such a way that only the addressee will understand it. You will take the letter and conduct yourself like a hunted wolf. You will travel by roads you have never trodden, on which you will not be sought, to the Carmelite priory in Strzegom. You will give my letter to the prior, and he will introduce you to a certain individual. And you will say to him, when you find yourselves alone together: the eighteenth of July, 1418. He will then ask you: where? You will reply: Wrocław, the New Town. Have you got that? Repeat it.”
“The eighteenth of July, 1418. Wrocław, the New Town. What’s it all for? I don’t understand.”
Ignoring his question, the canon explained calmly, “If it becomes truly dangerous, I will not save you. The only way I could protect you for certain would be to shave you a tonsure and lock you up in a Cistercian monastery, hidden from sight. But that, I expect, you would prefer to avoid. In any case, I’m unable to spirit you off to Hungary. The man I’m commending to you can. He will guarantee your safety and, if necessary, defend you. He is a fellow of quite dubious character, oftentimes of rude manner, but you must suffer it, because in certain circumstances he is indispensable. Thus, remember: Strzegom, the priory of the friars of the Order of Beatissimae Virginis Mariae de Monte Carmeli, outside the town walls, on the road to the Świdnica Gate. Have you got that?”
“Yes, Reverend Father.”
“You will set off without delay. Too many people have already seen you in Strzelin. As soon as you receive the letter, you will be gone.”
Reynevan sighed, for he still had a heartfelt desire to chat with Urban Horn somewhere over a mug of beer. Horn aroused great esteem and admiration in Reynevan, and had grown in his eyes at least to Sir Yvain, the Knight of the Lion. Reynevan was absolutely itching to ask Horn for his assistance in a knightly quest—the freeing of a certain oppressed maiden. He was also thinking about saying goodbye to Dorota Faber. But one didn’t treat the advice and orders of Canon Otto Beess lightly.
The Tower of Fools Page 12