Apothecary Melchior and the Mystery of St Olaf's Church Read online

  Praise for APOTHECARY MELCHIOR

  ‘Hargla’s brilliant realism brings medieval Tallinn vividly to life.’ – Le Figaro

  APOTHECARY MELCHIOR

  From medieval Estonia a new hero in detective fiction

  The acclaimed ‘Apothecary Melchior’ series plunges the reader into fifteenth-century Tallinn, a fast-growing Hanseatic town at the furthest reaches of the Christian world dominated by the mighty Toompea Castle, stronghold of the Teutonic Order, and St Olaf’s Church, the tallest building in the world.

  Melchior Wakenstede, the town’s apothecary, is respected for his arcane scientific knowledge and his wisdom. When a Teutonic Knight is gruesomely murdered Melchior is called in to help find the killer, revealing a remarkable talent for detection. But it seems Tallinn has a serial killer in its midst, and he is tested to the limit in a plot with as many twists and turns as the turreted castle. He uncovers a mystery surrounding St Olaf’s and an influential secret society that has been controlling the town for years, revelations that spell danger for all.

  Indrek Hargla has created an unusual sleuth who battles ignorance and superstition as well as murderers and villains in an atmospheric setting during a fascinating period of history. Gripping and dark, these books have taken Europe by storm and are essential reading for fans of suspense and historical fiction.

  INDREK HARGLA is one of the most prolific and bestselling Estonian authors working today – mostly in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and crime. He is best known internationally for his ‘Apothecary Melchior’ series, which now runs to six volumes with film adaptations currently in preparation.

  FOREWORD

  TALLINN

  AD 1409

  AT NO TIME, before or since, has Estonia been so closely connected with Western Europe as it was during the fifteenth century. It was a time when the Teutonic Order’s power was finally consolidated in the region, when towns and bastions were constructed, when guilds and monasteries flourished. A constant influx of colonizers during what was the golden age of the Hanseatic League saw the sea traffic between Estonia and German and Scandinavian ports grow to unprecedented levels. Never before had Estonia been so closely involved in the wars waged by European rulers for dominance on the Baltic Sea. The Victual Brothers – a loosely organized band of pirates that grew powerful during the disputes between the German dukes and the Kingdom of Denmark – plundered the coast of Estonia mercilessly yet were also allies of the Tartu bishops in their internal quarrels with the Teutonic Order. The Victual Brothers conquered Visby in Gotland and made it their base until a fleet of the Teutonic Order, commanded by Ulrich von Jungingen, retook Gotland in 1398 and drove the Victual Brothers from the island. Visby was pillaged and lost its position in trading on the Baltic Sea. Every Victual Brother that had not managed to escape was executed in the same gruesome manner in which the pirates themselves had killed their prisoners. The Teutonic Order sold the island back to the Danish King in 1409. A year later the Order was dealt a crushing blow by the Poles near Tannenberg.

  Tallinn during the year 1409 in no way resembled what we might imagine, based on the current appearance of its Old Town. Tallinn was just being built. A town plan was indeed in place – the street pattern had been laid and plots divided out, and the Town Hall had been built, but the wall, the towers and churches were not yet complete. Nevertheless, the streets were paved, the Order’s castle on the hill known as Toompea was one of the mightiest in Northern Europe and Tallinn’s sewage system – comprising a canal dug from Lake Ülemiste, a moat and three mills – was a massive, groundbreaking engineering achievement for its time. The town’s distinct architectural style was still in development, and a great many foreign master builders walked the streets. Tallinn was becoming one of the Teutonic Order’s most important harbours, supplying Livonia with goods and trade. While the wealth of Tallinn and Livonia certainly could not be compared with that of towns in Germany or the Low Countries, the town nevertheless grew and moved forward.

  Tallinn was surrounded by suburbs and a wider administrative region where the laws of the city of Lübeck were enforced; power was thus held by the citizens – that is, the merchants. The Teutonic Order’s laws and land rights were enforced from Toompea Castle, and its authority was represented there by a commander. Relations between the town and the Order were often complicated, but one could not survive without the other. The Order guaranteed peace in the region of which Tallinn was the centre of economic activity.

  Surviving records of Tallinn’s Town Council inform us that in 1409 a high-ranking Knight of the Teutonic Order, travelling from Gotland to the Order capital of Marienburg, was murdered on Toompea in mysterious circumstances. But this was not the only murder to shock the residents of Tallinn that fine spring. Both the Order and the Council searched for the Toompea Murderer yet failed to apprehend the killer, and the reasons behind these acts of bloodshed remained a mystery.

  Nevertheless, Tallinn’s court records show that an apothecary by the name of Melchior entered the Town Hall one day and announced that he knew the identity of this mysterious murderer and why the crimes had been committed. The Town Council did not grant him an audience and sent him away – although not empty-handed. Melchior was given ten marks for his troubles. Was this fee paid for his silence? Was the apothecary’s story just too sensitive and so the Council preferred not to jeopardize relations between the town merchants, the Order, the clergy and foreign wielders of power? We do not know, and we never will. Nor will we ever know what drove a Council secretary to inscribe the words that, to this very day, have remained a puzzle to all who research these records:

  The Lord’s peace be with those who have wished good upon our town. They, who lived before us, have been closer to the Lord. May their graves remain undisturbed and that which is supreme endure.

  We do not know whom Melchior accused or what became of the apothecary himself. Apothecary Melchior is never mentioned again in the Council records.

  1

  TOOMPEA

  15 MAY, LATE EVENING

  HENNING VON CLINGENSTAIN, former Commander of the Teutonic Order in Gotland, was roaring drunk. Truth be told, he was roaring drunk for the fifth day in a row, and if the local commander had not fed him generously – food had been brought out from the kitchen of Toompea Small Castle from morning to evening – he would already have collapsed from a beer-induced stupor and blacked out long ago. Yet Tallinn appeared to be a prosperous and good-natured town, not like Visby. Here people enjoyed eating and drinking. It was customary in Tallinn to make merry just as the people in Clingenstain’s home town of Warendorf once had. And Spanheim, the local commander, seemed to be this town’s king of merrymaking. For five consecutive days and nights the table had been groaning under the weight of beer, wine and more of the town’s best and finest. It would have been a sin to turn it all down, just as it was actually a sin to quaff and gorge it all down – but Clingenstain had already taken care of that earlier in the day by having his confession heard by the Dominican Prior. Needless to say, forgiveness had been bestowed for his overeating and excessive drinking. Naturally.

  Clingenstain now felt, however, that he might have had enough – his innards churned, his head buzzed and his thoughts were muddled. Only now did he begin to make sense of what was reality and what was just an intoxicated illusion, now that, after a few blunders, he finally found the side portal from the northern wing of the castle that passed above the moat, straight from one fortress to the other – from the Small Castle of the Order to the Great Castle, or Toompea, as it was also known. Some attendant opened the door for him, and t
he Knight staggered towards his lodgings. Curses, I am seeing devils, he thought. A soldier of Christ shouldn’t see devils.

  He stepped out into the mild May night and filled his lungs with fresh air. The darkly glimmering walls of Toompea resembled shadows of a palace of darkness closing in around him. The jolly songs of the Commander’s musicians still sounded in his ears, and, truth be told, the festivities at the castle were probably still under way. The cobblestones, however, rose up from the ground and scuffed against his foot. He stumbled and fell. If he wished to reach his dwelling without incident he would require assistance.

  ‘Jochen, you son of a whore,’ he roared. Where was his squire now? He should be at his master’s side like a loyal dog, not doing the town in the company of wenches.

  ‘Jochen,’ he bellowed again, ‘I am blind drunk, and you have climbed up into an attic with some washerwoman. Jochen, you knave!’

  The page did not appear. Commander Clingenstain stood in the middle of Toompea, alone except for some attendants of the Teutonic Order who were tending a fire near the stables on the other side of the moat. The walls of St Mary’s Cathedral, the Dome Church, loomed over the castle.

  ‘I’ll have you skinned tomorrow,’ vowed Clingenstain, and he lurched ahead. Pages be damned. He wasn’t so helpless at all; he could make it by himself. He definitely remembered where he was lodged; it was not far from here, a house that butted up against the stronghold wall. He could do it alone.

  The Commander did not notice a solitary figure breaking away from the dark castle wall, trailing him stealthily as he stumbled towards his residence. He did not notice that the dark form followed him up to the door of the house, carefully keeping to the shadows. He did not even notice that the figure stood beside him when he, after several clumsy attempts, at last managed to unbolt the main door. The dark figure held the door open with his foot after Clingenstain had made his way inside. Clingenstain stood in the spacious entry hall and squinted against the light. Someone, probably Jochen, had lit the candles on the candelabra, and the bright light almost blinded him at first. He leaned against the mantelpiece and picked the candelabra up from the table. There should be a door here somewhere that led to the bedroom, if he remembered correctly, and in that room was a bed. He attempted to shrug off his coat but became entangled and almost fell. If only that slave were here to help him undress.

  ‘Jochen,’ he yelled again. ‘Aha, there you are, you lout.’

  He glimpsed hazily from the corner of his eye that someone had entered through the front door. It had to be Jochen, of course – who else? – but his eyes were not yet accustomed to the light.

  ‘I’ll slice your ears off from your head next time. Where’ve you been, dog?’

  The dark figure approached the Commander, who, squinting, had just managed to form the thought that Jochen should really be of shorter stature and did not usually wear such a coat. Yet this was all he to think before the stranger grabbed him suddenly by his shirt and shoved him with great force. Clingenstain fell, as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning.

  ‘Thief, burglar,’ he sputtered. ‘How dare you, you dog. I am a Knight of the Teutonic Order.’

  The stranger kicked him in the chest, and the Commander doubled over from the pain. The intruder pulled out a sword from beneath his coat.

  Clingenstain felt that he was incapable of standing up and much less of fighting, but the abrupt sense of danger and pain sobered him up instantly. He could almost make out the features of the stranger’s face from beneath his hood.

  ‘Who … who are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘Someone who has prayed that he might take your filthy soul,’ the stranger replied.

  ‘Jochen! Help!’ Clingenstain tried to shout, but the cry came out weakly and could not be heard in the street through the thick stone walls.

  With his sword in one hand the stranger again grabbed the Commander by his shirt and heaved him on to the table. The Knight tried to struggle and fight, but he was no match for the intruder.

  ‘What do you want?’ Clingenstain finally managed to say.

  ‘Justice,’ came the reply. The unknown man forced him against the table with one hand and clenched his sword more steadily with the other. ‘This is precisely how it must unfold – with you writhing on the ground, terrified and crying for help. You will die without making peace with the Lord, and all your sins will go with you to the grave. It is the road straight to hell, Clingenstain.’

  Death? Is this really my death? The thought flashed through the Commander’s mind. Such a death, and in Tallinn not on the battlefield; not holding a sword in his hand but here in some burgher’s house in Tallinn, drunk, and by the blade of a thief. Virgin Mary, it was not supposed to happen this way. Not here and not now. I do not deserve this. His thoughts were sober but his body unresponsive.

  ‘Who are you?’ he enquired again.

  Instead of replying the stranger raised something up before Clingenstain’s eyes. He could not make out what it was at first, but his eyes finally focused. He also saw the stranger push the hood back from his face. That face … that face … and that object in his hand, that was … It was impossible. He recognized that face. Yes, now he recognized it.

  Yet Clingenstain’s time was up. He understood this unequivocally. He perceived it clearly through his weakness and his helplessness. For an instant he even saw in his mind’s eye the saints looking down at him from the heavens with pity and indifference. Yes, said the saints’ gaze, here and now, Henning von Clingenstain, right here and right now your end has come, and we cannot prevent it.

  A strong hand seized Clingenstain by the jaw and forced his mouth open. One more powerful burst of pain shot through the Commander’s body as the stranger stuffed the item that had been held before his eyes into his mouth.

  ‘This is exactly how it will unfold,’ said the man. ‘Even begging for mercy will not do you any good. Until we meet in hell.’

  He rammed the Knight’s head against the table, raised his sword with both hands and slashed downwards.

  Henning von Clingenstain felt how the sword ground against his neck. He even felt how the strong blow sliced through his spine. It was painful, unbearably painful, but that pain was nothing compared with what awaited him.

  2

  MELCHIOR’S PHARMACY, RATASKAEVU STREET

  16 MAY, MORNING

  MELCHIOR WAKENSTEDE, APOTHECARY of the town of Tallinn, had just risen from the breakfast table where his dear Keterlyn had stuffed him full of freshly baked bread and a generous slice of rich lard and entered the front room of his living quarters – Tallinn’s pharmacy – where the most ordinary of workdays should await him. He would hear about the townspeople’s recent illnesses and old pains; he would hear dozens of rumours; and he would sell some medicinal treatments and sweets and a few flagons of his own fine pharmaceutical elixir. He would see ailments and diseases; he would also see the healthy and the strong, who would step into the pharmacy simply to gossip and swap news, purchase strong elixirs and chew on sweet cakes or aniseed sweets. He would fulfil his duties and be satisfied and happy in doing so, just as he probably still should be, on the threshold of his thirty-first year of life, by the blessing of his patron saint and to the joy of his noble father – may he rest in peace at the right hand of the Virgin Mary.

  Melchior Wakenstede was born in the city of Lübeck, whence his father had relocated to Tallinn more than twenty years ago. Melchior the Elder came to this new land where everything was being built, to a land that had not long ago been won from the grip of pagans and which had been dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Melchior even remembered from his boyhood the stories of those old warriors who had entered his father’s pharmacy from time to time to buy ointments for their aching joints. They spoke of how they had battled against the local pagans when their forces surrounded Tallinn. This all seemed hard to believe now, because the grandchildren of many of these so-called pagans visited his pharmacy each and every day. Even his beloved
wife Keterlyn was of the same lineage, descended from the tribes that had lived here since ancient times, and, no matter that they did not bake bread or brew beer as it was done in Thuringia or Westphalia, these people now went to church every Sunday, as did all proper Christians.

  Melchior Wakenstede considered Tallinn to be his home, as he could barely remember Lübeck. He was the town’s sole apothecary, just as his father had been. Melchior loved Tallinn. He had grown up here and vowed to treat the populace with his medications, to help those who suffered and to ease their afflictions. People referred to his profession as being simply that of a doctor’s cook, but it was actually much more than that. Melchior was equal to merchants in status, on a par with clergy or city officials in education, was a respected man in the town and was regarded highly by town councilmen, nobles and knights alike.

  Now, on this fine spring morning, he passed from the kitchen into the pharmacy, thrust the front door open wide and let in the fresh sea air. His house was small, but it was the only one his father had had the means to purchase. In the entryway on the ground floor in the entry hall of the building was the pharmacy, comparable to a merchant’s shop, and to the rear of this were his living quarters. A small passageway led from there to the kitchen, which his father had rebuilt into a pharmacist’s ‘witch’s kitchen’, as people called it. Around the fireplace stood levered presses and burners: this was where Melchior boiled and brewed his potions. On the upper floor were storage rooms filled with wooden crates in which he stored dried medicinal herbs. In the pharmacy were a large table and shelves along the walls bearing extracts, oils and mixtures in glass vessels as well as mortars and pestles. Since every apothecary needed to appear slightly mysterious and display his countenance to the townspeople, Melchior had hung a small stuffed crocodile from the ceiling above his table. It had cost ten marks and, as the sly merchant assured him, was supposed to be a genuine Egyptian crocodile. Whether true or not the townspeople seemed to believe it was.