So the good burghers of Cologne had a bully as archbishop. But Conrad was not stupid. He knew that the citizens had more than once made their opinion of their archiepiscopal lords crystal clear. Just under two hundred years ago they had thrown Archbishop Anno out because he had commandeered a ship for his guest, the bishop of Münster. Christ Almighty, what was a ship and a bit of cargo that had been thrown into the Rhine so that Münster would not have to sit among flax and cheese! But Anno had been forced to flee, slipping out by a tunnel like a rat, otherwise the citizens would probably have killed him.
And then Philip von Heinsberg, who had left the city, only to find they had immediately started building a wall behind his back. Fine to have a wall, but shouldn’t the bastards have asked first?
Finally Engelbert von Berg. He had been stabbed in the back by his own nephew. The nephew didn’t come from Cologne, true, but that was irrelevant. Engelbert had been the city’s lord and master, and that was why he had been killed. The citizens of Cologne had blood on their hands, sacred blood!
And Conrad’s predecessor? He had made debts. Of course he had! What was money in the fight against the Devil? What in Christ’s name was it that made the Cologne merchants insist on repayment of their loans, as if the archbishop were a common debtor, at the same time denouncing him to the pope as a libertine who committed fornication with the wives of German knights and squandered their money on feasting and orgies?
Impudent, ungrateful rabble!
But the city was also the leading trading power in the empire and enjoyed privileges that made it as good as a free imperial city, such as the right to levy dues and mint coins. To make an enemy of the city would only bring problems. Better to acknowledge their rights.
For the moment at least.
The journeyman had also heard that the people in Cologne did not really trust Conrad. Everyone knew that the new archbishop’s cleverness was only surpassed by his unscrupulousness. For the moment he appeared as meek as a little lamb, though in the opinion of the citizens he was anything but meek and bore no resemblance whatsoever to a harmless grass-eater. Things were bound to get lively at some point, that was for sure.
Conrad was simply too crafty.
For the moment, though, no one had any complaints. On the contrary. He had opened two ale houses, the Medehuys in Old Market Square and the Middes in Follerstraße. That had meant a beer tax, but as long as they had plenty to drink, the burghers of Cologne were not too worried about taxes. No one had forgotten that terrible time, in 1225, when Archbishop Engelbert had briefly forbidden the brewing of beer.
The journeyman had been in the Medehuys and it had been to his taste. He went into raptures about the beer, praising every bubble in the foaming head. The way he talked about the effect of drinking this, for him unknown, liquid made Jacob feel like a dusty mug.
He listened, fascinated.
And with every word the tattered journeyman uttered, stuffing pieces of bread into his mouth so greedily he bit his own fingers, Jacob’s dreams took him farther and farther away from the farm and his father, and into the city, even if he had no idea what a provost, a papal legate, or an archbishop was. In his mind’s eye he kept on seeing Isabella’s pure, white face, kept on reliving that one day he had spent in Cologne, and more than ever the city came to represent the true life his mother had told him about when the warmth of her smile still brightened his life.
His father cursed Cologne. Otherwise he said nothing.
The journeyman left and Jacob was slaving away in the fields once more. Another brother died, leaving only him and an elder brother. Their father drove them like draft oxen. The weeks passed with agonizing slowness, one day the same as the next. Summer came, and still he saw the image of Isabella, still Cologne called. He was infected with love and the longing for a different world.
One very hot, very restless night, he got up quietly from his bed of straw, took a hunk of bread, and went out, away from their shack, across their fields until he could no longer see the small, squat hovel.
Then he started to run.
After a while he had to rest. The cathedral estates lay far behind him, the sun was about to rise above the horizon. Hungrily he bit off a piece of bread, decided to stretch out for a while, and fell asleep in the middle of the meadow.
It was the humming of the bees that woke him.
He leaped up, rubbing his eyes to clear them. At first he had no idea where he was, nor how he came to be there. The sun was right overhead; nowhere was there any sign of human habitation, just gently rolling meadows with bushes and tall shrubs. Only a few steps away was the edge of a wood.
Then he remembered. He had run away.
Suddenly he felt small and shabby. He hardly dared look up; he felt God’s eye resting on him with the weight of a death sentence. You have deserted your father and brother, the farm, everything, said God. You are a coward and a traitor, Jacob. You don’t deserve to live. Repent.
Turn back.
For a moment he hesitated. Isabella. The city. Pulsating with life like the heart in his chest. Then he picked up what was left of the bread, turned around dejectedly, and tried to work out which direction he had come from. After casting around for a while, he found the path that led back to the farms. He had run quite a way, he realized, and set off as fast as his legs would carry him.
It was late afternoon when, with a heavy heart, but ready to take his deserved punishment like a man, he came around the hedge bordering the land his father leased. Their hovel could be seen from here and, despite his fear, he was almost glad to be back. He would think up some explanation, perhaps he’d even tell the truth. His father wouldn’t kill him; after all, he needed him in the fields. Perhaps he’d have to go hungry for a day, but he’d survive. Or perhaps he’d have to herd the pigs when it was his brother’s turn. He could live with that, too. Or he’d have to—
His musing came to a sudden halt.
There, some way in front of him, where his home was, a column of dirty brown smoke rose up into the blue sky.
At first he thought his father must be burning some rubbish. It must be a big fire he’d lit. Too big. There was no reason for such a big fire, nothing he could think of, anyway. He looked again.
Their hovel had disappeared.
Jacob felt his limbs go numb and a lock seemed to snap shut in his mind. He felt he couldn’t breathe. His reason pointed out that there ought to be a shack there and demanded that reality go back to the former, accustomed version immediately.
The column of smoke stayed.
Jacob dropped the bread. With a cry he set off running, stumbling over the furrows, waving his hands around wildly, until he was close enough to the dark smoke to see clearly the charred beams that were the remains of his home.
His eyes burned. His mind refused to comprehend, but gradually the terrible truth crept into his mind like a spider.
He went closer.
And closer still.
One more step.
And saw—
—saw—
What?” Richmodis asked softly.
Jacob stared into space. He felt he had fallen backward through time. With difficulty he forced himself to return to the present.
“Yes, what?” Jaspar Rodenkirchen leaned forward. “What was it you saw?”
Jacob was silent.
“Nothing,” he said eventually.
“Nothing? What do you mean, nothing?” exclaimed Goddert, clearly dissatisfied with the answer.
Jacob shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing. There was nothing there. Just charred wood and smoking lumps of peat.”
“What then? What did you do next?”
“What I had intended to do anyway. I went to Cologne.”