Death and the Devil

“Really? Not that I’ve noticed.”

Goddert took a deep breath, thought for a moment, then let it out slowly. “Errrm,” he said.

Jaspar furrowed his brow. “You’re surely not going to suggest we have a drink?”

“All right. Shall we have a drink?”

“Let’s have a drink.”

“No,” said Jacob.

Jaspar stared at him in amazement. “Why ever not?”

“Because you haven’t gotten to the end.”

“Near enough.”

“Nothing you’ve said tells us what the patricians have planned. I’m—I’m still afraid.”

Jaspar blinked, but said nothing for a while. “So am I.” He glanced at Kuno, who was lying on the bench by the fire, his chest faintly rising and falling. “Richmodis,” he said quietly, “you looked into this Urquhart’s eyes. Will he come?”

Richmodis nodded.

“Well, then. Everything bolted and barred, Goddert?”

“With these very hands.”

“Good. We ought to be fairly safe until the morning and then there’ll be enough people out in the streets.” He paused.

“So. The end. At the beginning of the year all hell was let loose in the city. In the church of the White Sisters a butcher mocked a patrician, Bruno Hardefust, because Conrad had removed him from the council of magistrates. There was an argument; Bruno drew his dagger and killed the butcher. It was a spark to a powder keg. The butchers’ guild screamed for vengeance. Hordes gathered at the Hardefust house and set it on fire. Riot, pillage, you name it. Hardefust drummed up a posse of patrician friends and they laid into the craftsmen. Countless wounded, some dead. The magistrates took their time, giving the patricians plenty of opportunity to commit more murders, presumably hoping to increase the seriousness of the charges against them. They only stepped in toward evening and asked Conrad to adjudicate. He had cleverly kept out of it.”

Jaspar gave a grim laugh. “His hour had come. He fined both sides, but in addition he decreed that the patricians were to kneel before him barefoot and beg forgiveness with the whole city looking on. Ha! What a humiliation! Most submitted, if reluctantly, and paraded to the howls of delight of twenty thousand people. Some fled the city; three were captured the same day, dragged back, and beheaded on the spot.”

“I remember,” Goddert almost purred. “It was a day of rejoicing.”

“Then, Fox-cub,” Jaspar went on, unmoved, “in May, shortly before you came back, the patricians brought charges against the new magistrates, demanding they be removed from office. Conrad was diplomatic. He promised justice, convened a hearing, and tried to reach a compromise. But the patricians insisted on a clear verdict. In the meantime the guilds had gathered, armed to the teeth. The patricians responded immediately. Banners unfurled, they marched to the archbishop’s palace because they suspected Conrad—possibly with justification—of inciting the craftsmen against them. They set up two barricades, one in Rheingasse and another outside St. Columba’s. Conrad called out his armed guard and it almost came to a pitched battle. Thank God it didn’t. Conrad sent envoys to the Rheingasse barricade offering an unarmed meeting in the palace to discuss terms and claiming those at the St. Columba barricade had accepted. They used the same ploy at St. Columba’s.”

“Not exactly honest.”

“But it worked. Conrad promised the patricians safe conduct. The patricians, in good faith, appeared unarmed and were immediately fallen upon by Conrad’s men. Twenty-four were arrested and imprisoned, others fled the city. Conrad invited them to a meeting, but of course they weren’t so stupid as to believe him a second time. Nor did he want them to. It gave him a good reason to outlaw them. Which he did, with the pope’s blessing. And that is the situation at the moment.”

Jacob went through it in his mind. A thought occurred to him. “Can the patricians expect Conrad to pardon them?”

Jaspar shook his head. “Unlikely. A few weeks ago I heard that the prisoners in Godesberg Castle had laid their distress before him and begged him to free them. His response was to impose stricter conditions of imprisonment. I believe Conrad receives almost daily pleas from the patricians to pardon those banished or imprisoned, but the failure of the request from those in Godesberg seems to have disheartened them.”

“Or not, as the case may be,” said Jacob deliberately.

Jaspar’s head came up and he gave him a keen look. “The alliance?”

“Yes. Kuno didn’t say when the meeting at which they formed the alliance was, but it must have been soon after the failure of the appeal from Godesberg.”

“Well, well, well, is this my Fox-cub who knows nothing?”

Jacob shrugged his shoulders. “You’ve been going on about history so much, you’ve missed the answer to the question. I’ve just seen it.”

“What do you mean?”

Jacob couldn’t repress a smug grin. His little triumph of having beaten Jaspar to the solution was all he had at the moment, but he was determined to make the most of it. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked.

Jaspar put his head on one side. “I assume it ought to be obvious.”