Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (8 page)

‘Does it mean his death?' repeated Melchior thoughtfully. ‘Evidently it
did
mean his death.'

‘I wasn't able to say. I asked why he came to me, and he told me they were saying in town that Brother Hinric knows how to drive evil spirits out.'

Yes, thought Melchior, they do say that. They said that Hinric had been summoned four or five years ago by the Bishop of Tartu, where he was supposed to have carried out a rite, as prescribed by the Pope, to drive a demon out of a person's soul. That Canon of Tartu was still alive and well today. Hinric never spoke of such things, because the holy rite of exorcism has the same secrecy as that of the confessional, but still the word had spread. So who else would the poor Tower-Master turn to if he genuinely believed he had seen a ghost?

‘His story was confused,' Hinric repeated thoughtfully. ‘He asked for advice and guidance and he was really afraid. He said, “It came to me, there at the end of Rataskaevu Street. It came from the realm of the dead to bring a message. It was the voice of Death”, and would I please tell him what to do now and how he could defend himself.'

‘And Master Bruys,' insisted Melchior, ‘what did he say about Master Bruys?'

‘Something cryptic,' replied Hinric. ‘He sort of mentioned Master Bruys in passing – and you understand that he was also drunk at the time and must have had a few beers on top of your apothecary's dram – and I know from experience that that on its
own can make a man pretty groggy. I recall that he mumbled something along the lines of “May Heaven have mercy on Bruys; may the angels be merciful to him.”'

‘May Heaven have mercy on Master Bruys?'

‘Yes, I think so. And then he said he had to go, yes, he had to go and talk … Forgive me, I didn't understand him exactly, but he said, “I saw the face of Death, and the shadows swallowed it”, and then again said something about Bruys, but I don't remember what exactly. I told him what I really thought was true, that people talk too much about ghosts and see them where they really are not. There is only one man who has risen from the dead, but he did it through the Holy Spirit.'

‘And yet the saints can appear to people,' said Melchior.

‘Yes, the church investigates all these apparitions in great detail, because you cannot be careless about them. Saints are people marked out by God, who were born through His will to announce His word, and he has given them the power to work miracles. The appearance of a saint and a miracle are thus things that really may happen, but only a few of them have happened. Some people are inclined to be too keen to see saints and angels, and the church cannot allow that … But death, Melchior, death is final. One does not come back from death.' But something in the monk's words forced Melchior to look straight at him seriously and to ask him to explain further. ‘My people believe – still now, even after they have heard the word of God – that the spirits of their ancestors can come back,' explained Hinric, speaking in a measured voice, but Melchior perceived irritation behind his words. ‘As a learned man and a servant of God I must consider it to be empty superstition. The death of the body is also the death of the soul on earth, and the soul lives on in God's realm. The soul of a sinner dies completely in hell.'

‘But a soul is not a ghost,' observed Melchior. ‘Tobias Grote said he
saw
a ghost.'

‘He believed what he had seen,' said Hinric with certainty. ‘He believed he had seen a spirit, and my words didn't make him think differently. I remember that in the village where I was born and
lived, before Brother Arnulf took me away with him to bring me to the Dominicans, there in the village, Melchior, they believed firmly in ghosts haunting the living. There was a man living there who died – and he was a Christian – and his wife came to complain to the village elder that the man was haunting the house after his death. I saw and overheard how the wise men of our village cast spells and curses like the heathens do on the house and the wife. I heard their incantations, and I saw what they did and how they cast spells. And I saw how that woman fretted and cried out in terrible pain because her husband was holding on to her as the only thread connecting him to his earthly life. And the wise men visited this woman and cast spells on her and drove the evil spirit back. They made her drink potions boiled up from roots and chanted heretical words. That must definitely have been more than twenty years ago, but I remember it still, and I saw …'

‘Did you see the ghost?'

‘I … I don't know
what
I saw, but if I had then been able to, I would have prayed and cried to the Virgin Mary and St Catherine for help and put my hope in their power and blessing. I remember I was afraid, but my parents forced me to look because they had recognized in me that power which might have made a sorcerer out of me, too. And when Brother Arnulf came visiting they let me go with him because, according to those people's understanding, monks were men with the same power as their wise men had. But, Melchior, their charms helped, and that woman was freed from her tormentor. They said that after death some people don't get the correct guidance and remain stranded between two worlds, trying to get back home. I've always wanted to think that that can only happen with people who have not accepted God's love into their own souls, but … but sometimes I even think that the heathens, too, will get to know the difference between the Kingdom of Heaven and hell, and they will know what God's guidance really is, but they don't know how to find the right path to get there. Demons, though, can torment both Christians and heathens, only the heathen's soul is an easier catch for them. That woman
regained her health, but otherwise, without the wise men's help, she would have died at the hands of her persecutor.'

‘And Tobias Grote died shortly after complaining that he'd seen a ghost,' said Melchior. ‘Yet I don't want to believe that ghosts can kill.'

‘Tobias Grote fell to his death from his tower,' replied Hinric. ‘He'd had too much to drink and didn't know where to draw the line.'

‘He might have been so frightened by the apparition that …' said Melchior with a sigh, and didn't finish the sentence. They both drank a decent draught of ale. Hinric would soon have to start the lunchtime prayers, and Melchior didn't want to detain him long. Yet he still had something to ask.

‘When I came here,' he said, ‘I couldn't have guessed that there could be any connection between the death of Grote and pious Master Bruys. Now I'm confused. Friend, surely you can guess my question without my asking it. Master Bruys went on a pilgrimage to the future convent, and on the same day Tobias Grote saw a ghost – on Rataskaevu Street, he said. Some sort of ghost that made him say the words “May Heaven have mercy on Bruys; may the angels be merciful to him.” The next day Master Bruys died at Marienthal, and Tobias Grote died that same night, his face distorted with horror as if at the moment of death he'd seen … what?'

Hinric closed his eyes and rapidly uttered a prayer.

‘You want to ask', said the monk finally, ‘whether it is possible that Grote saw the ghost of Master Bruys? That he saw his angel of death?'

‘I have heard of such things,' said Melchior gravely. ‘Before death, a person's death-double has been seen, their soul shadow. I know that the Scriptures and the canonical books don't speak of such things, and even the saints don't protect us from such demons, but still …'

Hinric was silent, his gaze far away, as if he were wondering whether, as a holy man, he should say aloud the words he wished to. ‘I have also heard that a person can foresee the death of
someone close, even when that other person is far away. Didn't that happen with one woman who lived with the holy sisters at the Convent of Esswein, and she went there when her husband died and all their sons were spread around the world. She hadn't seen her youngest for over ten years when, one morning, she started weeping and praying to St Michael to defend and bless her youngest son. She prayed until she lost consciousness, and when she recovered, she didn't eat a single morsel for several days, spending all her days fasting and praying in the chapel, until word reached the convent that her son Michel had been killed by an arrow during the siege of a fortress. That woman herself died a few days later, and the night she died they say that tears flowed from the eyes of a wooden image of St Michael.'

They were silent for a few moments, until finally Melchior blinked rapidly and asked, ‘You said that a person can foresee the death of someone close. Were Grote and Bruys friends then? Bruys was about twenty years older than Grote.'

‘They had become close,' said the monk. ‘Someone was talking about that today, and I'm sure I'd heard it before. That was when Grote was a simple soldier travelling the seas. He was on the ship that carried Bruys's goods, and on that ship was Bruys's youngest son, the one who later perished in the fire, as well as his wife. The son was still just a boy, and their ship was attacked by the Victual Brothers. Thanks to Grote's bravery the attack was repelled and Bruys's wife and son spared. The Victual Brothers might not have killed them, but they certainly would have abused them and demanded a ransom.'

‘Not that God would have spared their lives anyway,' muttered Melchior to himself.

Probably everyone in Tallinn knew the story of Laurentz Bruys. He was thought to have been from somewhere near Bremen, but he had come to Tallinn when still a young man. His business prospered, he became powerful, a respected citizen of the town, a distinguished patron of St Nicholas's Church and, of course, a guildsman of the Great Guild. Out of an old house on Lai Street he
built a new and bigger one. At one stage he was bookkeeper to the Council, and everyone praised his upright nature and moderation. He required law and order to be maintained by himself as well as others – in fact, he was severe, that you could say of him. His wife was also a respected and virtuous lady, who bore her husband seven children, but three of them died in their infancy.

Melchior recalled that Master Bruys had not been lucky in his children. The story that somehow involved Arend Goswin, the merchant, had taken place when Melchior must have been about fifteen, when he was an apprentice apothecary in Riga. He had heard it later through rumours, but he did know that Bruys was very angry with his eldest son Thyl, had disowned him and sent him off to Germany. That had been a reckless and impetuous decision, because at that time Bruys still didn't have an heir. True, Melchior had once heard someone whispering something about Bruys's bastard child, but that must have been just a wicked rumour. But when Bruys had driven his son away, it seemed that God had approved of his decision because the following year Bruys had a son, who was given the name Johan. Melchior calculated that the merchant himself must have been forty-five years old and his wife a little younger. But no further children were born into the Bruys family, and the patience of the heavenly powers came to an end.

A dozen or so years ago Master Bruys's barn caught fire, and even the nunnery suffered a little damage. Several houses burned, but the townspeople managed to contain the fire. By that time most of the houses in that part of town were already built of stone, the wells were full of water and people were alerted early. All the same, a number of sheds and barns fell victim to the fire, and several people were lost in the ruins. One of the victims was Johan Bruys, who was one of the last to be found under the burned-out ruins of Master Bruys's barn. That was a blow from which Laurentz Bruys's wife never recovered; she was overcome by grief and depression and some time later took her own life.

Bruys was left alone in the world. This fateful blow changed the man drastically. The respected, yet in every sense ordinary,
merchant became an extremely pious merchant who regarded the destiny he had been dealt as a punishment from God for his excessive meanness and selfishness, although he could hardly have been accused of that. Since then Laurentz Bruys had become a saintly man who cared for his own soul more than anything in the world. He donated generously to the church altars and for the poor, he ordered masses to be said, he had prayers read, he even set off on a pilgrimage to Rome, although he did not get very far. On the way he was struck down by an illness. He was said by then to have reached far into the Habsburg lands, as far as the Monastery of Mariazell, which made him the only man from Tallinn who had been a pilgrim there. He was nursed for several months at the monastery, and when he recovered he returned to Tallinn to devote himself to more pious works, supporting churches and monasteries with the income from his trading. And he became one of those who, with the approval of the Order, began advocating the foundation of a new religious community. This made him plenty of secret enemies, because several men spoke openly of their opposition to the plans, but few dared to say anything bad about Laurentz Bruys.

In recent years his health had again become poor, and he moved around little on his own legs. The Lord had deprived him of the power of speech as well. Three days ago Bruys had had himself carried in a cart to Marienthal, where work had begun on the new convent. He wanted to go on a final pilgrimage, and this was the final excursion of his life, for Laurentz Bruys came back in a funeral carriage.

And Melchior now felt compelled to ask Hinric, ‘Tell me, friend, do you know how Master Bruys died?'

‘No, Melchior, no,' the monk replied rapidly. ‘I know what you're getting at. You see murderers everywhere, I know. But, no, Master Bruys died of old age. God was calling him to himself, for his time had come. He knew long before that he was dying. He went to the convent and once more read to himself the book on the art of dying because he wanted to die in accordance with those wise teachings.'

‘I know,' Melchior nodded. ‘No doubt it is a wise book and
contains lessons on how a dying man can console himself and prepare for transition to the next world.'