Apothecary Melchior and the Mystery of St Olaf's Church (18 page)

‘That is false talk,' Freisinger said to the mason. ‘Tallinn is a prosperous town, and a peril such as a shortage of coins has never nipped at the Brotherhood of Blackheads' heels. We Blackheads have always had quite sufficient funds for maintaining our dignity and significance, as ours is the oldest guild in Tallinn – no matter what the men of St Canute's and St Olaf's may believe.'

Just then Dorn tapped Melchior on the shoulder and quipped that Pastor Rode seemed once again to have some exceedingly jolly stories to
tell. At the other end of the table several men were leaning close to the Pastor as he spun some yarn and then broke out into fits of laughter. Melchior nodded and raised his eyebrows. Pastor Rode was not a tonguetied man and was actually a very skilled storyteller, yet when one mentioned women to him while he was in a beer-infused state it was not unheard of for his speech to be peppered with words that would certainly not be fitting if proclaimed from his pulpit. Several Tallinn guildsmen were, however, quite adept at stirring the Pastor up with their tales during his drinking bouts, so that by the end of the evening he would give a sermon that would provoke laughter around the town months afterwards.

While some had already begun to goad the Pastor, saying they wished to hear again whatever it was that had caused the others to laugh so much, Melchior listened as Freisinger related to Gallenreutter the many virtues of the Blackheads.

‘The Brotherhood of Blackheads was already in this town when one still had to fight the pagans for every square foot of land. They helped to dedicate this town's holy sanctuaries to the Lord Christ, and the fortunes both of Tallinn and the Blackheads have grown since then. When death dances around the town it is the Blackheads who are the first to reach for their arms.'

‘Are the Blackheads then so warlike that they go for their weapons straight away? If they are so wealthy that –' Gallenreutter marvelled.

‘
Absolutely
correct, Master Mason, absolutely correct,' the Blackhead's Alderman agreed with gusto. ‘The good Lord has bestowed great wealth upon the Blackheads. One often accomplishes more with good counsel and a barrel of silver Riga marks than with a halberd.'

At the other end of the table the men were demanding, with increasingly volume, that the Pastor give his enlightening sermon about a nun at the Heisterbach Abbey, which all had heard was quite an diverting tale. Only Prior Eckell protested, angrily cautioning against giving a homily in such a place and at such a time. Rode reared up from his seat in spite of this, knocking over a tankard of beer in the process, and not even Freisinger insisted that the Pastor measure the spot with his sleeve – the customary way to determine the amount of the offender's fine.

‘Good friends, “The Sermon of Heisterbach Abbey”. No one tells it better than the honourable Pastor Rode,' Freisinger announced. Rode
had already started to slur his words a little, but he spoke so expressively and with such emphasis that all fell silent to listen.

‘I wish to tell you a holy and illuminating story that took place at the abbey at Heisterbach, and it is a tale as true as that fact that I am standing here before you. A young maiden named Beatrixa lived amongst all the other pious womenfolk at Heisterbach, and this young maiden had a figure that was very – how should I put it? – pleasing to the eye. However, Beatrixa was also devout in her beliefs and faithfully served the Holy Mother of God, before whose altar she prayed whenever she had any time – and after she became the oratory supervisor she prayed there even more. Now, there was also a cleric at the abbey, and he observed the devout Beatrixa, admiring her figure, and this man began to covet the pious maiden and lead her into temptation, may the Lord have mercy on her. The more this man spun his carnal seductions to her the more that she rejected his advances, but the evil words had already done their work, and the old serpent – the very same that led Eve on to the path of sin – had already begun to coil around the maiden's chest so tightly that she could no longer resist, and …'

Rode paused, sipped the beer a servant had just placed before him and then continued, as the men were shouting, demanding to know what happened next.

‘So then Beatrixa went before the altar to St Mary, the Mother of God, and said this, “Oh, benevolent queen, I have served you in truth and in spirit and with deep belief, but look, I now place my keys before you because I am no longer able to withstand the temptations of the flesh.” Saying this, Beatrixa put her gate keys on the altar and went after that man who had tempted her on to the path of sin, because the minds of womankind are weak. And then that man took her back to his own home, ordered her to take off her nun's habit, and then …'

Rode faltered as the rolling thunder of laughter burst from the guildsmen's mouths.

Even the Commander shouted, ‘Yes, what did that man do then?'

‘Do not hide the facts, Pastor. Tell us everything just as it happened,' other voices also insisted.

Rode inhaled deeply, and fumbling for support with his hand on the table, blurted out, ‘And then that unholy man tempted her on to the path to sin and had his way with her.'

Laughter detonated like a cannon shot again, and someone shouted, ‘But I don't understand. What did that man do with her then?'

‘That man deflowered her,' Rode proclaimed even more loudly.

The crowd of guildsmen was not satisfied with this response, however, and continued to demand the Pastor articulate in detail what had come about there.

‘That cleric performed a carnal sin with the dishonoured woman, just as men do with women –'

‘Oh, come now, Pastor,' Casendorpe's voice could be heard through the laughter, ‘that was not the word you used before. If you truly recall what happened there, then say it as such.'

‘That man lay down with her –' Rode began again, but even this did not satisfy the guildsmen, who knew very well the kind of words that the Pastor loved to use when as soused as a herring. The men banged their tankards on the table, stamped their feet and shouted, ‘Pastor, don't hold back. We don't understand.'

Rode took a drop of courage from his beer stein once again and declared, ‘The plague take you all. That man fucked that woman –'

Deafening laughter cut the Pastor off mid-sentence, and he shouted even louder, ‘Fucked her in a way that no man had ever fucked anything before. And then he fucked, and he banged –'

None could contain his laughter any longer – some men lay flat on the table with their faces lodged in the meat platter; others thumped their tankards and howled. Only Prior Eckell shook his head.

‘Fucked our devout maiden for a full day,' Rode roared, ‘and then he fucked her a second day, and then a third, just for good measure. But then, when his filthy itch had been satisfied and he no longer cared for the woman, then he deserted Beatrixa and threw her out into the street.' The Pastor then calmed somewhat, sipped his beer and continued, ‘Since Beatrixa no longer had anywhere to live and had no money and was too ashamed to return to the other pious sisters, she became a whore on the town's streets – for fifteen years. Beatrixa prostituted herself for fifteen years, screwing men and performing all kinds of sins with them. And then one day after fifteen years had passed she went back to the door of the abbey, dressed in her lay habit and asked the doorkeeper, “Did you know Beatrixa who was the oratory supervisor here some time ago?” The doorkeeper replied, “Indeed I know her very well, as she is an honest and holy woman who has lived here entirely free from sin since she was a child.” When Beatrixa heard this she was confused and made to leave in a hurry. But the Mother of God herself then appeared before her, saying,
“For the fifteen years you have been away I have undertaken your duties in your own guise and clothing, and now you may return to your place and repent your sins, as not a soul knows that you have been away.” The Holy Mother of God herself had taken Beatrixa's place in the abbey for that entire time, taking on Beatrixa's own form. This very same Beatrixa went back straight away and prayed before a statue of the Virgin Mary, and only during confession did she reveal the miracle that had happened to her.'

The men demanded another sermon from Rode, but Melchior did not stay to listen. He wanted to go home, where Keterlyn was waiting. He left the guildhall along with Prior Eckell, Hinricus and Wunbaldus somewhat before midnight.

M
ELCHIOR HAD A
splitting headache the following morning, so he concocted a strong, bitter drink made from spirits, herbs, currant juice, mead and raw egg, according to a recipe his father had passed on to him. He drank the mixture and left the pharmacy in the care of his wife.

When he stepped outside Melchior saw that, even at this early hour of the day, he was far from being the first person to have overcome his exhaustion from the previous night's merriment. Kilian sat on the rim of the well, playing a dirge-like tune on his lute and from time to time toying with a loose stone at the base of the wall. The clanging of blacksmiths' hammers and whinnying of horses already sounded from the workshops at the town stables, which were located just a couple buildings down from the pharmacy. Thick soot rose from the town mint's chimney, and men at the arsenal were arguing loudly over some cannon.

On this day of the week Melchior usually went out of the town, beyond the Seppade Gate windmill to St Barbara's Chapel where his father had purchased a small plot of land for the pharmacy garden. There Melchior grew medicinal plants according to his father's teachings, plants that did not grow wild in Estonia's fields and forests. The Apothecary and his wife planted the seeds together in spring and weeded and watered the plants throughout the summer. Melchior would normally tend for the sprouting vegetation for the better part of the day, but he limited himself to a short visit just to see if the tiny green buds – mallow, celery, cress, camomile, valerian, endive and others – had duteously reared themselves up out of the earth. His garden was set alongside the main road leading south. On one side stretched the farmlands that bordered the suburbs and on the
other one could see the town gallows looming beyond Tõnismägi. Melchior quite often had business to conduct at the town's execution site, as his father had bought permission from the Council to be the first to be allowed to cut open the corpses of executed criminals to acquire body parts that might be used for medicines.

Melchior had been ten years old the first time his father had taken him to Võllamägi; an apothecary must become accustomed to death. Moreover, there are many parts of a dead person's body that help to heal the living. On that first occasion the condemned had been some young, strong man – a fisherman from near the village of Viimsi – who had stolen from the Town Council. A body's organs still function for some time after he or she suffers a sudden death, and parts can be cut from it to be used for medicinal remedies. For example, human fat can be boiled to produce an effective salve for aching bones, and a young maiden's kidney is a good antidote to poisoning from forest berries. Or when thin fillets are cut from the muscles in a young man's thighs, are spiced with myrrh and aloe, soaked in wine, hung in a dry, dark place and finally bathed in the light of a full moon, they can become a remedy for sicknesses of the liver. Melchior's father had also received permission from the Council to dig beneath the gallows to search for mandrake root, which holds great power. When a person is hanged all the liquids once contained within the body flow out and into the ground, including a man's sperm, which germinates into a mandrake root in the soil. This tuber resembles the shape of a human body and helps with a number of sicknesses when ground into a fine powder, and it also restores virility when boiled and the liquid is drunk. Tallinn's town doctor had prescribed very few such medicines as of late, however, and it had been over a year since Melchior had last cut the liver out from a fisherman's corpse on Võllamägi.

Melchior watered the rows of plants, exchanged a few words with the beadle of St Barbara's Chapel and then turned back towards the town. His route led him west along the cart road leading to Karja Mill, near Karja Gate, and past the cluster of shacks that formed the village of Pleekmäe. The south road was lined with goods-laden carts, herds of livestock and wagons transporting logs and broken slate. Tallinn was growing so fast; with every passing year the wall was built higher and thicker. There was always some new tower or a gate being widened somewhere. Tallinn was stunningly beautiful when approaching from
the south: the grey stripe of the wall, the windmills spinning lazily, the drawbridges and gates cast against a green backdrop, the steeple of St Olaf's Church and Toompea Castle cutting across the line that marked where sea and sky met. The air carried a fresh scent, and a warm sea breeze carried moisture inland. The weather was gorgeous, and Melchior decided to take a circuit around the town to clear his head a bit and think.

He strolled from the Karja Gate weir onwards in the direction of Savi Gate, from which both the sea and the port could be seen. Water was channelled along an aqueduct from Lake Ülemiste, Härjapea River and smaller brooks into the moat that surrounded the wall, which was then dammed into small ponds. The weirs thereby created pools before three of the town's gates, pools that were also enclosed by defensive embankments. One had to climb a flight of steps and then cross a bridge in order to reach the mill and the gate. If an enemy were to attack from the south they would find it so difficult to negotiate that even if they did reach the gate the crossbowmen, cannons and harquebuses would have already sent half the marauders on their way to the next world. There was a place for watering horses near the weir from which the water flowed out towards the sea. The banks along the channel were good for fishing, which was another skill that Melchior's father had taught him. The pair had come there to catch food appropriate for the fasting table only a short time before his father's death …