“What do you say to that?” Goddert wrung his hands in despair. “Other children talk respectfully to their parents. Well, then, Jaspar, you’re the physician, do something.”
Jaspar Rodenkirchen gave Jacob a severe look from under his knitted brows.
“Pain?” he asked.
Jacob nodded. “In my shoulder. It’s getting worse all the time.”
“What happened?”
“I ran into a wall.”
“Makes sense. Can you move your arm?”
Jacob tried, but the only result was a further wave of pain.
“Right.” Jaspar stood up. “Richmodis, help him get his coat and jerkin off. I need to take a look at it.”
“With pleasure.” Richmodis grinned and immediately started fiddling with Jacob’s clothes.
“Can I help?” asked Goddert, making an attempt to get up.
“Better not. We want to make him better, not kill him.”
Not kill him? thought Jacob as he took off the coat with Richmodis’s help. Don’t worry, there are others who want to take care of that. Laboriously he managed to peel off his jerkin.
Jaspar gave his shoulder and arm a close examination. “Hm,” he said. His fingers felt Jacob’s shoulder blade and explored the back of his neck and his collarbone. “Hm, hm.”
He examined his armpit, then the shoulder again. “Hm.”
“Is it serious?” asked Richmodis with concern.
“Leprosy’s serious. Come here a minute, Richmodis.”
Jacob saw him whisper something to her, but couldn’t hear anything. She nodded and went back to him. “Would you have any objection,” she asked with a coquettish smile, “if I embraced you?”
“Er—” Jacob gave Goddert a questioning look, but he just shrugged his shoulders. “No, of course not.”
Richmodis grinned. Jacob felt her soft arms around him. She held him tight and pressed him so close he could hardly breathe. She was warm. He felt the first stirrings of arousal and forgot the pain for a moment. He didn’t notice that his injured arm had been left out of the embrace, hardly noticed even when Jaspar grasped his hand.
Richmodis looked at him.
Her lips parted slightly and Jacob—
“Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!”
For a second everything went black. He felt like being sick. Without warning, Jaspar had almost torn his arm out, while Richmodis pulled with all her might in the opposite direction. Now she let go. His knees almost gave way, but he managed to stop himself and staggered over to the bench.
“What was all that about?” he panted.
“Move your arm,” said Jaspar calmly.
“I think I deserve some explan—What’s this?” Jacob rubbed his shoulder and stretched out his arm. It still hurt, but nothing like as much as before.
“What did you do?” he asked, uncertain.
“Nothing. I just put the joint back in place. It was slightly out. Not completely, the pain would have been too much to bear, but it wasn’t quite the way the good Lord intended. Do you feel better now?”
Jacob nodded. The feeling of wretchedness had vanished. With his arm, his mind was back in working order, too. “Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t mention it,” bellowed Goddert in his genial manner.
“What have you got to do with it?” cried Jaspar in annoyance. “If you’d helped, we’d have been burying him now.”
Richmodis slapped the table again. “Do you think you could stop quarreling for a moment? Jacob has something to tell us.”
Goddert raised his hand. “I do have a question.”
“What?”
“Who is this Jacob, actually?”
“Correct,” Jaspar broke in. “That’s a damned good question. Whom have I been treating?”
“He’s a—” But Richmodis got no further. Jacob had raised his hand and was astonished when all three fell silent.
He told them his story.
FROM THE LIFE OF A FOX
It was a quiet year.
The emperor issued an unpopular edict against the autonomy of cathedral cities, especially Cologne. The archbishop of Cologne confirmed the consecration of the Church of the Maccabees. A preaching order took over a building in Stolkgasse and a priest was convicted of murder. Otherwise nothing much happened.
Jacob was born.
He very quickly lost count of the number of his birthdays. There was nothing unusual in that. Very few knew exactly how old they were. His parents were peasants, taciturn folk who farmed a hide of land on the estates of the cathedral chapter in Worringen, a village outside Cologne. Their annual rent was two pfennigs. They weren’t married, since that would have required a further payment of six pfennigs, which they could ill afford.
Jacob’s earliest memory was of a hollow in the clay floor. He was put there when his parents and older brothers and sisters were out in the fields, or doing their labor on the home farm. Over the edge he could see the fire in the middle of the floor and steam rising from the large earthenware pot above it. At first he was too small to get out of the hollow on his own, but as he grew bigger, he kept on going off. When they found him in the plowed field or among the pigs, they would put him back in, until there was no point and, anyway, the hollow was occupied by his successor.
He didn’t know how many brothers and sisters he had either. His mother used to talk of a blasted army, but she smiled as she did so. She had problems counting, especially since some died soon after birth and she was constantly pregnant. His father beat her for that, but he also beat her when she refused to let him have his way with her. Jacob could never remember her rebelling against this treatment. She always tried to smile, while the look in her eyes became sadder and sadder.
That was the way things were.
Just when he could walk and therefore, according to his father, also work, several of his brothers and sisters all died of some fever. He did not have the impression his father was particularly sorry. His mother cried, but that was probably more for the pain she herself had had to endure. Then she apologized to God for succumbing to such unrestrained grief and stared into space. A priest came and the bodies were removed.
That didn’t make the helpings at mealtimes any bigger. They ate gruel and gruel and gruel. By this time Jacob had learned that there were much better-off peasants with farms belonging to the chapter estates. They got on well with the steward and some even had good Sunday clothes. His father, who, day in, day out, wore the same homespun, moaned about them at every opportunity, calling them crawling lickspittles. It made no difference to his fortunes. Jacob did not know why his father was poor. In fact, he knew nothing except that he wanted to get away and see the world.
He must have been three or four when his mother took him to Cologne one day. She had to deliver some hose she had made to order for the cathedral chapter and Jacob went on and on at her until he was allowed to go, too. One of the steward’s men happened to be going and took the pair of them in his cart, which was at least better than having to walk.
And that was how he came to fall in love for the first time.
It was a chilly May day, but the whole city was thronging the streets, while thousands of burghers in their finery were streaming out of the gates bearing flowers and branches. The people had come, they were told, to see Isabella of England, who was to stay in the city before going on her way to marry the emperor, Frederick II. The archbishop of Cologne was accompanying her to Worms, where the wedding was to take place. To the glory of the city, which for the archbishop was basically the same as his own, he had arranged for her to stay in Cologne for six weeks. The citizens were beside themselves. Isabella in Cologne! The emperor’s bride was said to be more beautiful than the sun, more delectable than the morning dew! Arnold, the prior of St. Gereon, was overwhelmed to be allowed to welcome her in his house for the duration of her stay and shower her with luxury. Arnold, whose pride was only exceeded by his garrulousness, went on to everyone about it. His boasting became so outrageous that the archbishop considered withdrawing the privilege, at which Arnold quieted down somewhat and awaited Isabella’s arrival with the same quivering impatience as all the other inhabitants of the city.