Death and the Devil

St. Mary Magdalene’s was, indeed, not a particularly impressive example of ecclesiastical architecture. It even looked somewhat dilapidated. The priests, canons, and suffragans of the city complained often enough that they could not manage on their tithes, so where should they find money for the upkeep of buildings? That was an exaggeration, at least to the extent that, thanks to substantial donations from tradesmen, merchants, and patricians, the big churches were resplendent and there was, after all, sufficient money for a new cathedral. Small parish churches like St. Mary Magdalene’s, however, were dependent on their own congregation and funds were naturally not so abundant.

St. Mary Magdalene’s looked all the more shabby as it stood opposite St. Severin’s, whose imposing stone spire made it clear where God would spend the night if He should happen to be in the district.

Modest as it was, however, the little church was a feast for the eyes compared with the box where Richmodis’s uncle lived. It was one of a row of a dozen or so crooked little houses that looked like a line of drunks about to collapse. Her father and uncle, Richmodis told Jacob, would swear blind the houses all stood as upright as the emperor’s bodyguard, but that was an optical illusion resulting from the fact that as often as not they were inclined at a similar angle to their architectural environment themselves.

While Jacob was trying to puzzle this out, Richmodis knocked at the door.

“No one at home again?” She strode in. Jacob followed somewhat reluctantly, wishing he wasn’t decked out in her father’s clothes. If the old man was here, he was in for a hard time.

All there was in the downstairs room, however, was a gray cat. They looked around the back room and in the tiny yard, then went back inside. Richmodis called out a few times, went up to the first floor and then to the attic. She was soon back with a knowing smile on her face.

“Found him?” asked Jacob.

“No. But my father’s coat is here, therefore so is my father. And where the one is, the other won’t be far away.”

She pulled Jacob out into the yard and pointed at a wooden hatch with a rusty ring attached. “What do you think that might be?”

“A cellar?” Jacob conjectured.

“Oh, no. In normal houses there might be a cellar under that. Here it leads straight down to hell. Watch.”

She bent down, grasped the ring, and pulled up the hatch. Steep, slippery steps led down. Together with a gust of stale air came some angry words.

“—that in the future I refuse to associate with a man who drinks other people’s piss!”

“But I don’t, you misbegotten lump,” another voice replied. “I’m tasting the urine, something quite different from drinking. Can’t you understand that?”

“Piss is still piss.”

“Not piss, urine, you piece of excrement. A tiny drop to tell me whether the patient has diabetes mellitus. I can taste it, here, on the tip of my tongue, d’you see? Here.”

“Yeuch. Take that yellow pig’s tongue out of my sight.”

“Oh? A yellow tongue, you say? Then how do you explain that this pig’s tongue has a larger and more learned vocabulary than your whore-mongering mind could get together in a hundred years?”

“I’m no whoremonger. But what I do know is that last St. David’s Day you went to that house in Schemmergasse and sent for those two silk-spinner girls. Sixteen tuns of wine you drank, you and your herd of unwashed students.”

“That is not true.”

“Oh, yes, it is true. And the way you all lay with the women, I’m surprised to find you still fit and well. One would have thought your instrument of pleasure ought to have rotted and dropped off long ago.”

“What would you know about instruments of pleasure, you bloated tub of dye? You can’t even distinguish between a fart and a sigh.”

“Between wine and piss I can.”

“Ha! Prove it. As long as someone doesn’t tell you it’s wine—talking of which, shall we have another one?”

“Why not? Let’s have another one.”

“What’s all that?” asked a bewildered Jacob.

Richmodis stared grimly down at the candlelit cellar. “That? That’s my father and uncle.”

“What are they doing?”

“They call it learned disputations, though the only thing in dispute is who can finish his glass quickest.”

“Do they do it often?”

“Whenever they can find a suitable topic.” Richmodis sighed. “Come on, we’d better go down and join them. They’d have difficulty getting up the steps.”

“But it’s early!” exclaimed Jacob incredulously.

She gave him a scornful look. “So what? I just thank the Holy Apostles they don’t drink in their sleep.”