Sylvia (20 page)

‘Aye, but who would wish a ratcatcher's flute to accompany the Petticoat Angel?' Reinhardt said. ‘Folk would not perceive it well and we would be the lesser for it. I wish henceforth to be known
only
as a musician.'

For all his conceit Reinhardt was blessed with a shrewd head and I could see Frau Sarah thought the same but wished only to ensure our partnership was not sullied, as rats and music are not a pretty combination.

‘Sylvia and I shall depart to the woods to gather herbs while you are at your final task as ratcatcher,' Frau Sarah decided. ‘You with rats and she with the birds.' She grinned wickedly. ‘I daresay, tomorrow morning both your reputations will be tested.' Then sensing my concern she added, ‘Fear not, Sylvia, thy voice is not in dispute, nor is the ratcatcher's flute.'

With a small expulsion of air Reinhardt drew himself up to his full height. ‘Frau Sarah, I beg you, call me Reinhardt and when in public, the Pied Piper of Hamelin.'

Frau Sarah laughed her nice laugh. ‘Of all this pied I am not sure at all. Too much colour in a pretty lad's cloth doth cheapen the look, but then again thou art an entertainer where a suit of pied is not unusual.' She paused then, looking most sincerely into his eyes, she said, ‘Reinhardt it shall be, the Pied Piper of Hamelin otherwise.'

Reinhardt, pleased, then turned to me. ‘And thou, Sylvia, what say you?'

I laughed and thought a moment. ‘No, I cannot promise. When I am angry with you I shall call you ratcatcher. Otherwise, I promise, it will be Reinhardt.'

‘And with strangers?'

‘Very well,' I sighed. ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin, even though I think it too toplofty.'

‘Especially with a peacock's feather,' Frau Sarah added archly. But all this risibility had no sway with Reinhardt, who, I could see, delighted in this new appellation.

That night we sojourned with a good Christian woman of Frau Sarah's acquaintance who fed us well and gave us two pallets of clean straw to sleep on. ‘It will be accounted and deducted from your earnings,' the Jewess informed us. ‘But she is a good, clean and honest woman who, I am told, keeps the rats and mice, fleas and lice mostly in control and who does not charge much. We cannot feed you here, as our food is kosher.' I would only later understand that a Jew could not partake of food prepared by a Christian or sup together with such as us.

Reinhardt grumbled that he must be up while the moon still shone and before dawn to expel Master Solomon's rats. Nor could I sleep late for shortly after the morning Angelus, Frau Sarah came to fetch me and I was surprised that she wore a veil to conceal her face. We commenced to walk through the early-morning city streets and up the hill towards the woods. My sheepskin coat had dried beside the fire and I felt warm, though I wore no wimple to my head. I had obtained a pair of stout oft-mended boots that once belonged to Master Israel, now kindly given to me by the Jewess. They fitted well and were most comfortable as we set off to climb the winding path up the steep slope behind the city.

Alas, we were not alone for long. Two street urchins, always early on the prowl, had seen me and both put their fingers to their lips and whistled a long, shrill note that echoed down into the wakening city below. In but a few minutes there were children coming from every direction, though most from the streets around St Martin's church.

I talked to one of these boys who told me his name was Nicholas and said his age was ten or thereabouts.

‘And thy parents, they are dead?'

‘My mother, yes.'

‘And thy father?'

He frowned. ‘He is a drunkard and beats me if I go home,' he said without self-pity. ‘I prefer the streets.' He claimed he lived with lots of other children in one of the narrow alleys behind St Martin's and said that one day he wished to be a monk.

‘You are pious then?' I asked him.

‘Aye, as much as I may be, Fräulein Petticoat. It is not possible to live off one's wits and always follow the ways of God.'

‘I know the problem well,' I laughed. I liked him instantly, not only because he too had endured a cruel father but also because he had a forthright and determined manner about him.

‘I asked to be a choir boy in the church but they would not have it.'

‘You like to sing?'

‘Aye.'

‘Then perhaps one day we can sing together,' I said.

‘Will you sing for us?' he asked.

‘Nay, not today, it is yet too cold.'

‘But they will beg you.'

‘They?'

‘I . . . we have called the others, they will want you to sing.'

‘Come, Sylvia, we mustn't tarry,' Frau Sarah called.

‘They will want you to sing,' he repeated. ‘All the city talks of the Petticoat Angel.'

‘This afternoon, in St Martin's square,' I promised, then asked, ‘Nicholas, can you sing and do you know the words to the Gloria?'

‘Aye, some of it.'

‘This afternoon come to St Martin's and we will sing together,' I promised.

‘Yes, fräulein, we can try,' he said doubtfully. ‘I am not much practised.'

‘Come, Sylvia!' Frau Sarah called, all the while thinking me hindered by the boy.

I bade the boy Nicholas adieu. ‘Until this afternoon then?'

‘I will try, Fräulein Petticoat,' he replied.

By such time as we had scaled the hill and reached the woods there must have been fifty children, ragged, dirty and most cheeky, and as they followed they shouted out, ‘Sing for us, Petticoat Angel!'

Frau Sarah pronounced herself puffed out and bade me wait while she caught her breath. We had reached a grassy glade on the edge of the woods where she rested on a large moss-covered rock. The children now stood at the edge of the glade shouting, ‘Petticoat Angel, sing to us!'

‘Be off!' Frau Sarah cried.

‘Sing!' they chorused back.

‘Nay, it is too early! I am unseemly puffed from climbing,' I called out yet smiling – anger has no place within the woods among the birdsong.

But they would have none of it. Persistence is the beggar's best attack. ‘Sing, sing, sing! Petticoat Angel, sing to us!' they continued to cry out.

‘Nay, I will not, but gather round and I shall tell you a story,' I declared, thinking this might please them just as well.

‘Sing! Sing to us!' they chorused yet.

Then Nicholas shouted for them to cease their shouting and to my surprise they instantly obeyed. I could see then that he had something of the leader about him, for he spoke not in request but in command. ‘The Petticoat Angel will
not
sing!' he announced. Then he turned to me. ‘It will please us well if you should tell us a story, fräulein.'

The ways of children were familiar to me and a story doth often catch and hold their attention more than a song. So they gathered around and I waited until they were all seated in the sunny glade. I felt sure, like most city folk, they did not much notice the birds, but I was amazed at the birdsong coming from the wood and so thought to tell a story concerning these lovely flighty creatures.

‘This is the sad tale of a land not so far away that contained only miserable and selfish people who decided they would banish all the birds so that they might keep every last grain of corn and barley for themselves. And so they sent the birds away across a dark, cold and bitter snow-capped mountain. The land grew silent from that moment on, as all the other animals refused to make their own particular sounds. All in nature is measured and there is a cadence all beasts understand and live by. So, with the banishing of the birds, the cow did not moo, the donkey heehaw or the mule bray, the horses neigh, the pigs snort, the sheep bleat or the dogs bark. Even the cats, of whom, it is well-known, never agree to do anything that others may agree upon, refused emphatically to miaow.

‘There were no ducks or geese or chickens, for the stupid folk had forgotten they were birds and saw them only as possessions to pluck and eat and to lay their ever-willing eggs. Moreover, the knights and noblemen lost their falcons and could not hunt, and there were no owls to kill the mice, or eagles to take the rabbits now feasting on the young corn in broadest daylight. Soon the beasts could not be found, because their cries could not be heard. The dogs slept through the night so thieves came and no alert would sound, their owners snoring through the wicked plunder. Some fields remained unploughed – the ploughman, no longer waking to the sound of the birds, slept blissfully on and much of the land remained unsown by late November.

‘That year, because the birds were gone, the insects had a merry time and devoured all the corn and barley long before it ripened. The whole land seemed filled with green- and yellow- and red-striped caterpillars arching their backs and making tracks and munching to their hearts' content. The greedy, selfish people were now starving and so cried out in despair, “Bring back the birds!
Please
bring back the birds!” But this could not be done unless they could find someone who could talk the language of the birds and cross the dark, cold, bitter snow-capped mountains to the neighbouring country where birds were still welcome and bid them return.

‘Well, they searched and searched all over the land, but the country folk had long since forgotten the language of the birds, being too busy gossiping and meeting, quarrelling and cheating, and the city folk were even less inclined to listen to birdsong for the joy its presence brought. But one day they found a young maid who lived on the streets of the city near a great cathedral who was poor and humble and half-starved, but who oft visited the nearby woods and was said to have once upon a time talked to all the birds. They promised to make her a princess, to dress her in a velvet gown and adorn her with a precious crown of sea pearls and sparkling gems. Upon her dainty feet they'd place slippers spun from a spider's web. They'd feed her with cakes and ale and build her a castle of her own and seat her upon a golden throne and build her a carriage drawn by six white horses with fancy ostrich plumes like fountains spraying upwards from their heads. All this and more if only she would agree to make the arduous journey across the dark, black, silent, bitter, snow-capped mountains and, once arrived, persuade the birds to return.

‘“I do not wish to be a princess and my jewels are dew drops poised upon the morning grass that sparkle just the same,” she said. “How long do you think such silly slippers would last crossing the cold and bitter, silent, snow-capped mountains? You may keep your cakes and ale and I do not need a draughty castle or a lofty throne. As for a golden carriage and horses, white or not, I must needs sit behind their bums and watch them poo a lot? My wish is only that you provide food and warmth and laughter for all the children on the streets, now and forever after.”

‘This they agreed to do forever after and a day, or as long as they remembered, which wasn't very long, as is the human way. So she made the journey over the mountains and through the snow until she reached a great wood of oak and elm, fir and beech and yew that resounded with the most marvellous birdsong. And there she met with all the birds, among them the eagle and the robin, the owl and the talkative jay. Who, by the way, for all his chatter, had much to say and most of it quite wise, so that all the birds gathered there were quite pleasantly surprised.

‘Then took place much parleying and a to-and-fro of arguing and sharpened point of view, with a snigger here and a yawn there and even a quarrel or two. For birds, as you well know, are talkative and simply must each have their say, and some will chat throughout the livelong day.

‘Alas, there were times when the geese had to be hushed so that the proceedings might continue. The ducks and chickens were not far behind in their insistence to be heard all at once and at every moment speaking for their kind. What a mixture of cackling, quacking and a honking their concatenation proved to be.

‘Finally the owl had cause to admonish them most severely. “You have lived too close and much too long with humans and have forgotten how to share a song and so constantly fight among yourselves. You have lost your pretty manners, but instead you strut and waddle like fat hausfraus who speak but never listen and don't know right from wrong! Would you kindly allow this small blue wren to have her say? She speaks more sense from her tiny beak than you lot from the farms and barns a-honking, a-quacking and a-cackling every moment of the day.”

‘There and then and on the spot the wren proposed that they adopt a proposition most seemed instantly to like a lot – to come back if they were guaranteed a fair share of the ripened grain and scattered seed. “In return and true to our belief, we will keep the insects down and snap up every caterpillar that dares to crawl upon a single ear of corn or eat a cabbage leaf,” she added to the brief.

‘“Aye, well and truly said, we birds of the air must earn our bread,” the wise old owl remarked. “But, while I don't give a hoot for things that crawl, we must not really eat them all. It is my bird's eye view that insects too must lay their eggs and breed, for when you think it through, we'd find ourselves in the very same trouble as these silly humans do. Verily I must atone, birds cannot live by corn alone. I have long since learned to leave a mother mouse or two in every barn to breed, so that I might have a meal while passing through.”