Chapter 21
Archie
Füssen
I reached down and gave Cortana a couple of solid pats on his shoulder. I’d pushed him harder the last couple of days than I had earlier in the trip, but he’d done well, and we were now just outside the walls of Füssen. “Good lad,” I murmured. “Some extra grain for you tonight, I believe, yes.” His right ear swiveled back to catch my voice. “Smart lad, braw lad.”
After a moment, he looked back at me, as if wondering when I would produce that grain. I chuckled and nudged him with my heels. He moved into a brisk walk, and so we approached the city.
Füssen was higher up than I had expected. Not so high as to make it hard to breathe, but high enough that even in full summer sun it was definitely cool.
The city was dominated first by the Hohes Schloss, the high castle that had at one time been the summer residence of the prince-bishops of Augsburg. From the sight of the banner waving from the pinnacle of the gate tower, they still possessed, although they no longer ruled over Augsburg.
Slightly below that was the complex of the Benedictine Monastery of St. Mang, also known as St. Magnus of Füssen. The walled city itself was on high ground near the River Lech. Even I, Philistine as I am often accused of being, could appreciate the beauty of the setting and wish for an artist to capture it.
I had no issues entering the city. I had bought a cloak in one of the towns along the way, paying more than I should have, but it was good wool and well-made for all that it was not new and a rather plebeian grayish color. That allowed me to roll up my buff coat and strap it on behind my saddle so that I looked less like a soldier and more like a slightly scruffy man of business, of which there were more than a few about.
I found a room at an inn with the elegant name of Caesar’s Cup. I’m sure there was a story behind it, and perhaps I’d find out what it was some time during my stay. Alas, the establishment was not the equal of the name, but it was fairly clean and had a drinkable beer, so it fit my needs at that moment. I wanted to be a mouse now and not a tom-cat. It was quiet, low to the ground, not noticed that I needed to be as I looked for Master Titus’ prize, if it was here at all, and the inn was part of that design.
The next few days I wandered around the city. It wasn’t a lot larger than Jena, perhaps as large as the Old City of Magdeburg. So by the evening of the second day I had learned the major streets, where the inns and taverns were, the market and the main buildings of the monastery and the basilica, and had ideas as to the worth of the city watch—not very, as one would have it. Jena’s watch was better, and Magdeburg’s Polizei would have them for breakfast without salt.
That was the easy part of the load. Now came the part that would challenge the wisest of men—learning the people.
The next day was a market day. I parked myself on a bench outside a tavern called The Spotted Hound, and gave myself up to watching the people.
If you want to know the state of a town or city, watch the market. Not just what is being marketed, or the prices, but the people. How they act, and just as importantly, how they bargain will tell you more about the health and well-being of the city than any amount of discussions with the burghers ever will. Smiles, jokes, spirited bargaining, all is well. Lack of foodstuffs, panicked buying, or frequent fights, time to leave town.
The sun was shining, there was a very light breeze off the river, and all the wives and their eldest daughters were out picking over the fruits and vegetables, chaffering with one another and with the farmers’ wives and daughters who were doing the selling. The farmers and their sons were all busy with the wheat harvest that week, trying to get it in before the fall storms started.
The women wandered and mingled, most of them sooner or later stopping by a peddler who had bright ribbons and threads for sale, along with pins. Bright colors always attracted women’s eyes, it seemed.
Nothing caught my eye. People—mostly women—came, mingled, left. The flow was fairly constant. When the sun reached its zenith, I betook myself to another tavern not far away, that had proved to have an edible lunch, where I had a bowl of fairly fresh fish soup and some warm barley bread. Afterward, still watching the market, I wandered through it myself. I paused at a table where an older woman had some hats. Not new, of course, but in good condition. She had a dark green hat that I liked, and miracle of miracles, when I tried it on my head, it fit! So we bargained back and forth, finally agreeing on a sum that wasn’t an outrage to the soul of my sainted mother Caitriona MacDonald.
I passed her the coins, she gave me a few back in exchange, and I placed the hat on my head, grinning in my most fetching way. “Tell me, Mistress Gruber, do I look distinguished?”
She cackled a bit, then said, “Like a very rogue, you look. I need to tell the wives to watch their daughters with you around.” That was followed by a bawdy wink.
I looked around, and asked her the question that had been preying on my mind since before my nooning, “I’ve not seen any of the monks today. Do they not frequent the market?”
“Them?” She spat to one side, missing my boots but not by much. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
I smiled at her and said in my broadest Scots voice, “And what would be telling you that, now, mistress?”
She barked a laugh, then sobered and said, “They’ve no use for the likes of us. They have their own farms where they raise their own food which they share not, and those few things they need they summon the makers or merchants to their halls. We get more custom from the caretakers of the prince-bishop’s schloss than we do from the monks.” She spat again.
A robed figure caught my eye. “What about him, then?”
She followed my nod. “Brother Wilhelm Schneider? He’s not one of them Benedictine fellows. He’s a Franciscan who ministers to the poor in the town. Has a small house—not much more than a hut, really. He’s usually got a sick one there being tended to. Got one now, for that matter. A good man, Brother Wilhelm is.”
I followed the monk with my eyes for a short while as he traveled through the crowd, stopping often to exchange a few words with people. After he passed out of sight, I looked around some more, surveying everything in sight, then came back to Mistress Gruber. “Do you get many strangers in Füssen?”
‘You mean besides yourself?” Another bark of a laugh. “We get more than you might think. The monastery draws some, the luthiers’ guild draws more than a few, especially now that the up-timers have started buying violins here, and anyone coming from or going to the pass almost has to pass by here. So, ja, there’s new folk in or going through town every week, even in winter. Unless there’s a blizzard, mind you. Then things get quiet.”
“I’d wager on that,” I murmured.
So, lots of strangers…enough that one more might not be so noticed. How to find that one, though?
A woman walked up to Mistress Gruber and started talking, so I wandered on, holding my old hat behind my back. I went back to The Spotted Hound, bought another mug of beer, and resumed my place on the bench, watching the day pass and the folk move. Sometimes life is good to an old soldier.
***
The next morn, after breaking my fast with some broth and rye bread—despite its poor man’s reputation, I like the flavor of rye—I put my new hat on my head and wandered out into the city again. Market was over, but there were still enough people on the streets the town felt comfortable—like the world was there, and they had their share of it. More men than women today. It being Friday in a predominantly Catholic city might have had something to do with it.
I saw the monk again, the Franciscan, Brother Wilhelm it was. Unlike yesterday when he strolled through the market greeting everyone and being stopped by all and sundry for loose conversation, today he strode down the street like a man with a charge from a superior officer and an understanding of what would happen if he failed. Eyes straight ahead, mouth in a tight line, arms swinging like swift pendulums, he was the very picture of duty, he was. Intrigued, I followed him just to see what could draw him so strongly.
After down the street and around two corners he ducked into the low doorway of a very narrow little shop that according to its sign was an apothecary’s shop. I eased up to the doorway and leaned back against the side of the building. The door wasn’t a good fit in the frame, and I could actually hear most of the conversation because whoever Brother Wilhelm was talking to wasn’t keeping his voice down, so neither was the monk.
“The willow bark tea isn’t working,” I assumed that was Brother Wilhelm. “I need those blue pills, Master Besler. They’re the best febrifuge I have found.”
“You know the price,” the other voice said. That had to be the apothecary, and he had an amazingly deep voice. “Ten pfennigs apiece for a Sal Vin Betula pill, or a hundred pfennigs for a box of twelve.”
“That’s over half a gulden,” the monk protested.
“I am sorry,” the apothecary said. “The city regulates what we have to charge for these imported medicines.”
“Can I go to another apothecarist?”
“There’s only one other approved apothecary in Füssen, and he has to follow the same rules.” The apothecary paused a moment, then said, “Even if I wanted to charge less, the city tariffs them such that I would lose money if I did.”
“Fine. I will take two of the blue pills, please.”
I decided it was time for me to move, and when Brother Wilhelm threw open the door of the little shop and emerged from under the low door frame I was back toward the corner from which he had come. A moment later he was past me, moving even quicker than he had been when he came down. I watched him until he had turned the corner and was out of sight, then turned back and made my way to the apothecary shop myself.
The light in the shop was dim, despite the sun shining outside. The small panes of glass in the front window were made of glass that was a bit cloudy, in addition to being just a bit on the grimy side. The store keeper had been heading through a door into a back room, but he turned and retraced his steps to the counter.
“Yes? Do you need something? Nostrums, pills, poultices, tonics? I have some of everything, and all warranted to be of the finest quality.” He was a short older man who was lean as a walking stick, and that voice was even more remarkable given his size, or lack thereof.
I laid three groschen and a ten pfennig coin on the counter. “Sell me the rest of that box of Sal Vin Betula that you took those two pills from for the Franciscan for eighty pfennigs. And there had best be ten of those pills in that box when you hand it to me.”
His hand paused for just a short moment as it reached to a stack of small boxes on a shelf behind him, before it settled on one box and brought it forward to the counter. He set it down, then held it with both hands.
“I’m only supposed to sell a full box of twelve pills for a hundred pfennigs. Once a box is broken, it’s supposed to be ten pfennigs a pill.”
“Well, friend,” I said as I leaned forward on the counter, “my aim is to take that box along and give it to Brother Wilhelm as an offering, a donation to his work. So in just a few minutes one person will have all twelve of the pills that were in that box. And you can write it down in your account book as a single sale of a full box for one hundred pfennigs, and no one will know differently, now will they? I won’t tell anyone, and I’m certain that Brother Wilhelm will not be shouting it in the streets. So unless you open your mouth to someone else, no one will know.”
I moved the silver a little farther across the counter, but still kept my fingers on the coins while I stared the old man in the eyes. I saw his jaw clench and his eyes narrow a bit, saw his nostrils flare, but then his shoulders sagged and he sighed.
“Well enough,” he said. “Your word that it goes to Brother Wilhelm, and I’ll do it. But mind you both keep this behind your teeth! I do not need the city bookkeepers to start inquisiting me about my practices!”
“Show me what’s in the box, and you have my word on it.”
He slid the small box open. Inside were ten small blue pills. He closed it again and pushed it toward me. I pushed the silver coins toward him. He opened a drawer and took out two single pfennig coins which he pushed across the counter to me.
“You could have kept that,” I said, not taking the coins. “I’d not have complained.”
“Another time I might have,” he said as he put the silver I had given him in the drawer, “but not in a deal for Brother Wilhelm. He does good work among the poor, and I’ll not cheat him or those who help him.”
I took the single pfennigs and put them in one pocket, put the pills in another, touched the brim of my hat with a couple of fingers, and walked out of the shop.
It wasn’t long and I was standing before The Spotted Hound again, facing the door, trying to figure out what I wanted to do next—or rather, what I needed to do next. Want and need aren’t the same thing, I knew well, having learned that the hard way in the horse troop more than a few years ago.
As I was continuing to ponder on what to do, I saw a couple of riders approaching out of the corner of my right eye. They were riding nice horses, but there wasn’t anything to really catch my attention about them—until they were a step past me, and I heard this from their conversation: “…find Gottesfreund…”
I froze for an instant, then slowly turned my head to the left to get a view of them…or their backsides, anyway. A couple of solidly built men, no obvious arms about them. Competent riders, from the way they sat their saddles. Not wearing fancy dress, from what I could see, but good quality clothing and not noticeably worn. They both wore wide-brimmed hats not too different from what I normally wore. Again, nothing unusual, but nonetheless what Ma called my Scots blood ran cold and the hair on my neck started standing up. They were trouble. I’d wager every guilder I still had in my pockets and purse on it, and give odds for it as well.