Death and the Devil

“No, goddammit! Because he had no choice! Don’t you see? All his attempts to get those who know about Gerhard’s murder out of the way have failed. Even if he were to kill Richmodis and the two of us, and Goddert into the bargain, he still wouldn’t know who else we’d told. He’s losing already. He’s lost track of the number of people who might be in the know. So he’s had to find a way of silencing us all at once; he’s had to go on the defensive. He’s made mistakes. Perhaps we can get him to make another.”

“We can’t.” Jacob waved the suggestion away. “We don’t know his name, nor where to find him.”

“We know he was a crusader.”

“Thousands were. Thousands and thousands.”

“Yes, I know. But this one is special. Probably a noble, a former knight or cleric, since he can write. Though I’m not too keen on his taste in ink. Studied in Paris.”

“How do you make that out?”

Jaspar pulled a face. “From Rolof, unfortunately. I told you, our murderer is starting to make mistakes. Over the years each university developed its own style of writing. The Bolognese, the English, the Parisian, to name but a few. The letters on Rolof ’s forehead are pure Paris school.”

“So what? You’re forgetting the patricians. Whatever we find out about him, they’re the ones we’re up against.”

“Or not. Why did they hire a murderer, eh? To do the work they don’t want to—or can’t—do themselves. Including murder, abduction, and torture. I can even imagine they might have given him a free hand to a certain extent.”

“Still,” objected Jacob, “what does it help, knowing about him?”

“Know your opponent, you know his plan.”

“And who was it said that?”

“Me. Well, no, the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. But it could have been me. Doesn’t matter anyway.”

Jacob sighed. “That’s all well and good, but I can’t think of a way to find out anything about him.”

“Of course you can’t. You’re the Fox while I’m a—what did you call me?”

“Capon.”

“A capon, yes, a capon who’s wide awake and doesn’t intend to get slaughtered. A capon who intends to win this battle. And he will.”

“I suspect the capon’s got it wrong there,” said Jacob.

“No, that’s not what he’s got.”

“What has he got then?”

“An idea!”

KUNO

The old warehouse…

Kuno was sitting in his dining room, trying to work out which warehouse Daniel had been talking about. He may have been half drunk, but on that point he was presumably to be trusted. A woman was being held prisoner there. Who she was Kuno did not know. Much of what Daniel had thoughtlessly let slip was a mystery to him. The inference, however, was crystal clear. People were once more under threat because of the accursed alliance, the redhead they called the Fox and a woman, perhaps others.

The woman was in the old warehouse. But which warehouse?

He leaned back and feverishly racked his brains.

He knew quite a lot about the Overstolz’s properties. His parents had been frequent guests of Johann Overstolz. And of his mother, Blithildis, the old despot, as people called her behind her back, for she had come to dominate the Overstolz household more and more. There was something uncanny about the blind old woman. Years ago she had mistakenly been declared dead. For three days she had given no sign of life, then had woken up, helpless, tied to a chair. She, even more than old Gottschalk Overstolz, was the one who pulled the strings in the most powerful patrician family of Cologne, and Kuno knew that it was only hatred that kept her alive. Hatred of all who had harmed the house of Overstolz without having been made to pay for it.

Since the death of his father two years ago—long after his mother—Kuno had lived in the large family residence with his brothers, Bruno and Hermann, and their wives. It had been a short period of happiness before the fateful blow struck.

His brothers’ wives, Margarethe and Elizabeth, were now living with their relatives, out of fear of reprisals from the Cologne authorities. Bruno and Hermann were in hiding at the court of the count of Jülich, leaving Kuno alone in the family house.