The Wandering Harlot (The Marie Series) (37 page)

“Bailiff, do your duty!” the count ordered, and steered his horse away from the flames. Hunold had carried out punishments for many people, but mostly they consisted of floggings of prostitutes and petty crooks. He had never burned anyone before, and he believed that tossing that torch into the pyre was the high point of his career. Now he was an important person who would be treated with respect by patricians and wealthy merchants.

As the flames rose higher, Jan Hus continued to sing. Moved by the sound, some people joined in, without paying attention to the cardinals and bishops who shifted restlessly in their seats and didn’t seem to know whether to order the soldiers to drive the people away or let them continue. Marie looked away to avoid seeing the pyre. She wanted to escape, but being so boxed in by the crowd, she could scarcely breathe, let alone walk away.

Eventually, Hus’s voice died away, and only the crackling of the flames and the restlessness in the silent crowd were audible. Marie looked at the clergymen’s bench and could see that not everyone there looked satisfied. Even in death, Jan Hus stood taller than the church towers and had publicly branded Kaiser Sigismund as a perjurer.

People stayed and stared until the fire had burned out. The count then ordered the bailiffs to douse the smoldering embers and collect the ashes in a large iron bucket. A man standing near Marie told the bystanders that the remains of the heretic would be thrown in the Rhine.

“The bishops no doubt fear that a bird could carry a beakful of Hus’s ashes to Bohemia and give them to his followers,” he added with a smirk, and turned to leave.

Most people shook off their discomfort quickly and were able to laugh again as soon as they’d entered the city, but Marie remained near the blackened execution place, deeply mired in her gloomy thoughts.

Hiltrud had also left the field but returned from the city gate when she noticed that her friend was missing. Seeing Marie’s stony face, she tugged gently at her sleeve. “Wake up, Marie! You can’t remain standing here where every passerby will stare at you and wonder. Come on, let’s go home.”

Startled out of her reveries, Marie nodded. Hiltrud pulled her along and made sure they passed through the Scottish Gate hidden in a crowd of people. The guards paid no attention and didn’t stop them as they entered the city.

Hurrying toward the Ziegelgraben, Marie was still preoccupied with the Bohemian preacher’s execution. Never before had it been so clear that justice on earth was the justice of the powerful or, as Lady Mechthild would say, the law of the jungle. She felt completely dejected. Was it even possible that someone as weak and insignificant as she could get her just revenge on someone like Counselor Rupert Splendidus?

Approaching their house, they found the door ajar and assumed that Kordula had arrived ahead of them, but it was Wilmar who was sitting on a chair in Hiltrud’s room and holding Hedwig by the hand. Next to him a boy was tied up, and he stared at the two women defiantly as they entered. Perhaps only sixteen years old, the boy was clearly frightened, and Marie saw that his jaw was trembling. If he hadn’t been gagged, he probably would have screamed in fear.

Wilmar was hugging a visibly upset Hedwig, and he greeted the two women cheerfully. “There you are, finally! What do you think about this? I caught Melcher. I looked for him for weeks without finding the slightest clue and was almost ready to give up when I noticed him boarding a ship in Lindau, headed for Constance. Like so many others, he wanted to watch the Bohemian master burn at the stake. I found him sitting in a tree not far from the field, and I shook the tree so hard, he fell to the ground like ripened fruit.”

Marie stared at Wilmar in amazement. “How did you get him into the city?”

“I tied him up, gagged him, and stuck him in a sack. I was going to tell the gate watchmen that I’d bought a pig, but there was no one there—they had all run off to Brüel Field to see the execution. So I didn’t even have to pay customs’ duty for my little pig.” It was clear that Wilmar was overjoyed with his success.

Hedwig beamed at Wilmar. “Now we’ll be able to prove my father’s innocence, won’t we?”

Wilmar nodded enthusiastically, but Marie tried to restrain his exuberance. “It’s not going to be as easy as that. We’ll have to hide the boy with Michel’s soldiers until the trial begins. Wilmar, make sure that Michel picks him up tonight, and have Michel also find you a place to stay. Hedwig, go back to my room. It was foolish of you to come down here where passersby might look through the window and recognize you.”

The two young people looked so alarmed that Marie almost laughed out loud. As she watched Wilmar helping Hedwig up the ladder, she could feel her anxiety gradually giving way to elation. Now that the kaiser was no longer busy dealing with the Bohemian preacher, he might be more inclined to fulfill the Württemberg count’s request for a just trial against the real murderer of Squire Steinzell.

Throwing a shawl around her shoulders for warmth, Marie ran to Eberhard’s house to tell him of Melcher’s capture.

V.

Eberhard von Württemberg was not at home when Marie arrived. The friendly doorman informed her that the kaiser had summoned all the noblemen of the Reich to discuss the next steps and asked her to return the following morning. Marie felt as if she had hit a stone wall. All the strength she had mustered to convince the count to act slowly ebbed away. Despondently, and with sagging shoulders, she returned to her little house, wanting only to find a place to hide and go to sleep.

But when she climbed the ladder to her room, she found Hedwig and Wilmar sitting on the floor and holding hands. Such mutual affection was something Marie had never been allowed to experience, and envy sprang up inside her. Instead of following her first impulse to throw Wilmar out and shoo Hedwig back to her straw sleeping sack beneath the eaves, she climbed back down to the first floor and helped Hiltrud in the kitchen.

As she approached the count’s house the next morning, the doorkeeper tore open the door even before she arrived at the threshold, clearly relieved to see her at that early hour.

“Thank God you’ve come, Marie. My lord is unbearable today.”

Indeed, the count’s angry voice could be heard from the street. The moment she stepped in the house, she heard footsteps hurrying down the stairs, followed by a loud crash. A servant had dashed down, barely dodging a chair the count had thrown after him in a fit of rage. Marie wondered uneasily what might have caused his anger and was about to return later, but she set her jaw firmly and went upstairs.

Count Eberhard von Württemberg was standing in the doorway to his room, holding a silver platter in his hand, evidently preparing to toss it at the next person who came in. When he saw Marie, he dropped the plate, and pulled her toward him in a wild gesture. His sour breath and flashing eyes told her he had had too much to drink. His shirt was open, and a button on his pants had been ripped off. It was clear to Marie that something unexpected had happened, and she looked at him questioningly.

“To hell with the kaiser,” he said as a greeting.

“Did you quarrel with him over something?”

“Quarrel? If I’d dared to speak a single contradicting word, he would have declared me an outlaw, stubborn as he is. Ever since he sent the Bohemian preacher to the stake, he can’t stand being in this city and wants to leave for Spain as soon as possible to come to an agreement with the monarchs there concerning Pedro de Luna, or shall we say His Holiness Benedict the Thirteenth. That’s currently more important to Kaiser Sigismund than anything else. When I asked him about some outstanding matters he should have taken care of long ago, including that of Squire Stenzell’s murder, he rudely cut me off. In the course of our argument, it was revealed that he had already referred your uncle’s case to the episcopal court in Constance on the advice of the honorable Counselor Rupert von Keilburg. I had to struggle to control myself. He actually referred to him by the name Rupert von Keilburg, the wretched bastard. May he roast in hell. Now all that’s missing is for Sigismund to declare Konrad von Keilburg the Duke of Swabia. He’s powerful enough already.”

Marie clenched her fists in helpless fury. “I’m starting to think the devil is helping Rupert and his brother to gain power through their treachery. In the eyes of the episcopal court, my uncle will be a dead man even before the trial starts.”

Pulling her to him, the count stroked her hair and tried to console her. Marie wanted to push him away at first, as she was too agitated, but she gave in and leaned against him. “I had hope again, because Wilmar found the apprentice Melcher who could prove my uncle’s innocence.”

The count waved her off wearily. “That would help us only if the kaiser himself were the judge and we could present to him all the other evidence against Rupert Splendidus. But to change Sigismund’s mind, God himself would have to come down from heaven.”

Eberhard released her and walked to the window as he often did when he was at odds with himself.

Marie walked over to him, helplessly clinging to his arm as if he were the only person who could sustain her in a world in which all her wishes and hopes had been dashed. Staring down at the throng of passersby, she caught sight of a group of prostitutes she knew who were talking animatedly as they turned the corner heading toward the Ziegelgraben. For a minute she wondered in annoyance if there was going to be another meeting at her house, as she was getting tired of the senseless whining and complaining. But then it came to her. She took a deep breath, collecting her thoughts. Only after Eberhard had released his arm from her fingers and playfully kissed her did she realize she’d been rigidly standing there for quite a while, digging her fingernails into the count’s arm.

Patting his arm apologetically, she gave him a mischievous smile. “As of yet the kaiser has not left the city. Come to early Mass at the cathedral tomorrow and bring some of your people along. I will see to it that a miracle occurs.”

The count frowned, looked at her closely, and realized that she was serious.

“Very well, girl, if you gain the attention of the kaiser and interest him in our concern, you’ll be worth your weight in gold.”

“I’ll do my part.” Marie curtsied and was about to say good-bye, but noticing his disappointed expression, she pulled off her dress and fell onto the bed. It was better for him to face the next day relaxed and happy.

VI.

As Kaiser Sigismund and his retinue rode to Mass the following morning, a number of harlots streamed toward the cathedral and gathered in the two church courtyards. At first no one paid the women any attention, but as they began blocking the church doors with their growing numbers, the city guards became restless. Their commander, the knight Bodman, ordered some servants to clear the prostitutes from the main entrance.

Madeleine stood in front of the men, placing her hands on her hips. “We want to speak with the kaiser.” Cursing and gesturing angrily, the soldiers tried to force them to move, but the women crowded even closer together with such determined looks that one of the men returned to his commander.

When he reported Madeleine’s words and asked for further orders, Bodman’s face flushed dark red. Spurring his horse up the steps, he then quickly withdrew when he realized he would be hemmed in by the now-constant flow of women entering the square. He shouted angrily, but the women knew he didn’t have enough men to deal with them. One man suggested getting help from the foot soldiers of the palatine guards, but the messengers who were sent to find the guards came back empty-handed.

One of the women giggled and tapped Marie on the shoulder. “I saw your friend moving out with his entire company earlier. It’s nice of him to stay out of this.”

Marie nodded happily, for Michel had been able to keep his promise. He would act when the time came, but not the way Bodman expected. Marie knew that her friend was taking a great risk, since if something went wrong here and Rupert won, it would cost him his head.

When another large group of penny whores started marching up the street toward the cathedral, Bodman ordered his guards to bar their way. Some of the courtesans standing on the church steps ran down to block the guards’ advance, showering them with obscenities and curses. Some of the women even raised their skirts and bared their backsides at the men.

As the stunned commander watched helplessly, the new arrivals slipped through the ranks of the city guards to join their friends. Bodman became visibly nervous; judging from the singing inside the church, the Mass was coming to an end. He turned his horse toward the whores once again, stood up in his stirrups, and raised his arms to get their attention.

“What’s the reason for all this uproar? The kaiser will be leaving the cathedral soon. Do you want him to think you are all mad and drive you from the city?”

Madeleine smiled sweetly, but her words made a mockery of her expression. “We’ll stay here until the kaiser has heard us.”

The knight swallowed hard. “But you can’t block the kaiser’s way. Be reasonable and leave, or I’ll have the guards chase you away.”

Madeleine laughed in his face. “If there were no whores here, you and your men would be in sad shape. You can tell your people that anyone who beats or harms any one of us will find our doors closed to him in the future.”

“Are you trying to extort me, woman?” Bodman raised his fist as if about to strike Madeleine, but lowered it again feebly. The knight wanted to order his men to drive the women away with spears and halberds, but he knew he would then forever be the laughingstock of his colleagues. Furthermore, after Madeleine’s loud pronouncement, he could no longer rely on his men.

“I warn you, the kaiser will be very angry,” he pleaded, but all he got in reply was a scornful giggle.

Just then, the mighty cathedral doors swung open and young squires exited, followed by six soldiers of the imperial guard in gleaming armor. Arriving at the bottom of the church steps, they found themselves facing the dense crowd of harlots. Helplessly they turned to the kaiser, who was just leaving the church at the head of a procession of noblemen and dignitaries.

Kaiser Sigismund first looked astonished, then annoyed. He was accustomed to seeing many people in the cathedral square, but until now everyone had bowed reverently before him and formed a path for his procession. This time he found himself confronted by a woman who neither greeted him in his accustomed way nor made any signal to retreat and open a lane through which he could pass. Looking at the seething crowd, he stared accusingly at Bodman. The knight gestured helplessly toward his men and shouted that the crowd of whores could only be driven away by a force of arms.

Meanwhile, Madeleine had pushed her way through the throng to stand directly in front of the kaiser. Curtsying daintily, she looked at him with a smile that was half-apologetic and half-provocative. “Your Majesty, we must speak with you.”

The kaiser glanced at her open cleavage with a look of revulsion and passed his hand over his royal robe, its purple material adorned with golden embroidery. Standing up straight, he stared at Madeleine as if she were a repulsive insect that had dared to crawl across his path.

“What do you want, woman?” Madeleine noted with a faint smile that Sigismund’s question suggested he was ready to make some small concessions in order to be permitted through.

“We courtesans have a number of justifiable complaints. Your governor refused to hear our concerns, and so we must trouble Your Majesty in person.”

“If you have reason to complain, you may go ahead and plunder the money from my loyal vassals.” The kaiser had listened to the satiric verses of Oswald von Wolkenstein often enough and therefore couldn’t take Madeleine seriously.

The French harlot looked at the kaiser with a piercing gaze. “We have reasons to complain. You probably think we’d take all that money out of pure greed, but that’s not the case . . .”

“Oh no? It has come to my attention that you’re behaving like harpies and aren’t even content with double the established city price!” The city councilman Alban Pfefferhart stepped between Madeleine and the kaiser, interrupting them heatedly. Evidently he wanted to spare the kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire any further embarrassment of having to speak with a whore.

Madeleine cast a disdainful look at the man. Though dressed in his best finery, Pfefferhart looked like a common partridge among the golden pheasants of the magnificently clothed nobility. “Your bakers and butchers don’t stick to the established prices when they see a prostitute coming, but instead demand four times as much for a loaf of bread or a sausage. The prices you’ve set ensure a decent life for the noble class while we courtesans must pay whatever is demanded if we don’t wish to go hungry.”

Pfefferhart bit his lip. “I will see to it that from now on people don’t take advantage of you.” He thought that would be enough to mollify her, but she turned to the kaiser again.

“That was just the first item on our list of complaints, and one of the least. We courtesans are also troubled by the unfair competition from local women who lift their skirts for council attendees and their retinues, and ruin our prices. Most courtesans have been declared dishonorable for the slightest offense and condemned to a life of whoring. Others have been sold to brothels like a sack of flour while they were still children and pay for it the rest of their lives with society’s scorn. Yet, we ask ourselves why Constance maids can do the same work we do to put together a dowry for themselves and why middle-class women can profit from fornication and still be considered honorable.”

The kaiser looked at Pfefferhart as if considering him personally responsible for this embarrassing state of affairs. “Is this the truth?”

The councilman turned pale. “Well, surely there are a few kitchen maids who sell themselves to a monk or a soldier for a few pennies. There’s not much we can do about that.”

Madeleine laughed scornfully in Pfefferhart’s face. “A few maids, you say? There are more Constance residents who go whoring than there are courtesans in all the bordellos of the city, and they do it mostly with the knowledge and approval of their husbands and fathers. Since their costs are less than ours, they undercut our prices and steal our men.”

An old penny whore who had pushed her way through the crowd to Madeleine pulled her dress over her head so the kaiser could see her back scarred by lashes. “That’s what they did to me when they caught me in bed with someone other than my husband! After that, I was driven out of town without a coin in my pocket and nearly died in a ditch at the side of the road. If the ever-so-honorable women of Constance take my living away from me now, I won’t survive the next winter.”

The kaiser stared at her unsightly back, and, judging from his irate tone, seemed to be blaming the councilman for this complaint, too. “Is it true that honorable citizens and virgins are engaged in fornication here?”

Pfefferhart raised his hands in exasperation. “Excuse me, Your Majesty. I know nothing about such things.”

“Then perhaps you should keep your ears open, Councilman,” Madeleine told him. “Look in Balthasar’s house in Ringwilgasse Lane. A lot of interesting things are going on there.”

Pfefferhart snorted. “The citizen Balthasar Rubli runs a completely legal bordello there.”

“Where he employs his wife, his daughters, and his maids!” one of Madeleine’s people called from the back of the crowd.

“Anyone who is a harlot can no longer be considered honorable.” The kaiser’s words displayed a nobleman’s complete contempt for the dregs of society. “I have taken note of your complaint and order forthwith that any women or girls in Constance convicted of prostitution, whether citizens or maids, must be treated as prostitutes. They will be whipped and driven from the city, forbidden to ever set foot in it again.”

Even before Sigismund had finished speaking, the prostitutes burst into cheers, extolling his wisdom. Since local women and girls now had more than just their reputation to lose, they would think twice before spreading their legs again. Though the chance to turn a quick trick might be appealing, the wretched life of a wandering whore was not.

In the meantime, other attendees at the Mass had exited the cathedral, wondering why the kaiser was taking so long to leave. Marie recognized Lütfried Muntprat, the city’s richest man, and Rupert Splendidus and Abbot Hugo von Waldkron at his side. Rupert seemed amused at how the kaiser gave in to the harlots’ demands, but the abbot clearly wished he could order the soldiers to undress the women and whip them.

Marie shuddered, realizing how close her cousin had come to falling into this man’s hands. She knew it was time to carry out her plan if she wanted to take advantage of the commotion she had helped arrange. As the women started moving aside to make way for the kaiser, she stepped alongside Madeleine and raised her hand.

“But how about the girls who have fallen into the hands of evil men and lost their virginity by force?” At the sound of Marie’s voice, the crowd surged forward again.

Seeing a crowd of curious and expectant eyes upon her, she straightened up and climbed the cathedral stairs. She also saw her former fiancé, and he looked as if the earth had spewed out a demon in front of him. Her first accusation, however, was for someone else.

Turning her back to Rupert Splendidus, she stood in front of Alban Pfefferhart. “I want information on the whereabouts of my cousin Hedwig Flühi, daughter of the master cooper Mombert Flühi.”

“What’s this girl’s problem, Master Alban?” the kaiser asked abruptly.

Alban Pfefferhart chewed on his lip nervously. “Your Majesty, that’s a story almost as puzzling as it is unpleasant. A few weeks ago, Hedwig Flühi was arrested for possible complicity in a murder and thrown into the tower, but she disappeared without a trace that same evening. It’s all a great mystery.”

“Really?” Marie pulled Abbot Hugo’s scroll out from under her dress and held it out for Pfefferhart to see. “You no doubt know more about this matter than you care to admit.”

While Pfefferhart stared at the document in confusion, Abbot Hugo let out a surprised shout and pressed his way through the crowd of men in front of him, trying to seize the paper. Just then, however, he was surrounded and stopped in his tracks by Count Eberhard’s bodyguards. Meanwhile, a bewildered Pfefferhart passed the document back to Marie.

“I didn’t write this! Someone has played a dirty trick and signed my name.” He was so agitated, his voice almost broke.

Swallowing hard, Marie wasn’t sure how to proceed. It seemed that Pfefferhart had indeed not prepared the order to extradite the girl. But before she could respond, the kaiser beckoned her over, taking the document from her hand and giving it to the bishop of Constance, who then read it aloud and looked questioningly at Pfefferhart.

“That’s a vile counterfeit,” the councilman said again, holding his hand up to his throat as if his collar had suddenly become too tight.

Marie glanced over at Waldkron, who had gotten himself under control again and was now wearing a placid expression. He was evidently certain that no one would connect him with the document.

Throwing back her head, Marie smiled at Pfefferhart. “Perhaps I can jog your memory. A friend of mine took this document from Abbot Hugo von Waldkron’s personal servant, a fellow by the name of Selmo, after he had taken my cousin Hedwig from the tower.”

“So the girl is still alive and unharmed?” When Marie nodded, Pfefferhart breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Abbot Hugo shook his fist at Marie and bellowed, “Slander!”

Marie was about to ask Pfefferhart to interrogate the tower guard, when a group of Michel’s palatine foot soldiers came marching toward the cathedral. In their midst was Selmo, shackled and screaming, and with them the tower guard, waving his arms as he ran alongside Michel. When the tower guard caught sight of Pfefferhart, he ruthlessly shoved his way through the prostitutes, who let out a torrent of curses. As soon as he reached the councilman and pointed at Selmo, however, the crowd fell silent.

“Sir, that fellow in the cassock is the monk who took the girl. I recognize him with absolute certainty.”

Pfefferhart looked Selmo over as the soldiers escorted him through the crowd of women, who backed away to make a clear path; he then turned to Michel, puzzled. “Who is he?”

Marie answered for Michel. “That is the man I have just accused. He calls himself Selmo and is the servant of Abbot Hugo von Waldkron.”