Death and the Devil

Gerhard had patiently tried to explain that having a chancel with five aisles gave him no choice but to set out the whole massive church in one single design, following the precedent of Paris and Bourges. Even if he didn’t fully understand, Matthias took the architect at his word. His journeyman years had taken him to the scaffolding of Troyes and the new churches in Paris, including the much-praised Sainte Chapelle rising up in the courtyard of the Palace of Justice. By the time the choir of Amiens cathedral was being built his opinion was valued more highly than that of many a French colleague. Pierre de Montereau, the builder of the abbey church of Saint-Denis, had been his teacher and he was in constant contact with Jean de Chelles, who was supervising the construction of Notre Dame.

Oh, yes, Gerhard Morart had been through a good school, the very best, and above all he had managed to bring together a team of master craftsmen who were familiar with the new style.

For one brief moment he wished he could turn around and forget everything, but it was too late for that now. It had already been too late when the group met for the first time.

He cast his doubts aside and felt his usual calm return. His stoicism was his great virtue. Neither Johann nor Daniel was sufficiently pragmatic to carry their plan through in a businesslike manner. They were liable to outbursts of rage, pangs of conscience, and indecisiveness. The only one he felt at all close to was the old woman. Not emotionally close—God forbid!—but close in their attitude to life.

The bell of St. Mary’s-by-the-Steps beyond the cathedral building site struck five.

He quickened his pace, left the chancel of the new cathedral and the old Roman wall behind him, turned right opposite Priest Gate into Marzellenstraße and, after a few hundred yards, left up the lane to the Ursulines’ convent.

There was hardly anyone about. The convent grounds were surrounded by a twelve-foot-high wall and had only one narrow entrance, which was usually left open. Matthias went through the low arch into the long courtyard. The rather modest but pretty convent church on the right with its one spire corresponded more to Matthias’s own conception of what a church should be like. He knew that, as a person who relied on cold reason, he lacked the imagination to visualize the new cathedral in its completed state. It was a blind spot he at times regretted. At others, however, he saw the titanic enterprise as a symbol of his own ambitions. He would marvel at the way one stone fitted in with the next, obedient to the almost magic power of ruler, square, and plumb line, and watch how the windlasses allowed human muscle to raise a block of Drachenfels stone weighing tons high into the air for the masons to set it precisely edge-to-edge with its neighbor. The cathedral seemed to grow like a living organism, filling him with a sense of his own power and pride at what the future would bring.

Then the image of the old woman suddenly reappeared in his mind, replacing the cathedral with the vision of a gigantic ruin.

He leaned back against the wall, staring at the empty courtyard. Opposite the spire was a well. After some time two nuns came out of the convent building to draw water. They gave him a cursory glance.

If the man he had come to meet did not turn up soon he would have to go. A waste of time.

He swore to himself.

“Fiat lux,” said Urquhart.

Matthias gave a violent start and scanned the courtyard. No one.

“Up here.”

His eye slowly traveled up the wall. Urquhart was sitting on the top, directly above, smiling down at him.

“What the devil are you doing up there?”

“Waiting for you,” Urquhart replied with his habitual mixture of politeness and gentle mockery.

“And I for you,” Matthias replied sharply. “Perhaps you would have the goodness to come down.”

“Why?” Urquhart laughed. “You can come and join me up here, if you like.”

Matthias’s face was expressionless. “You know very well—” He stopped as he suddenly registered the height of the wall. “How on earth did you manage to get up there?”

“I jumped.”

Matthias started to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. What was there to say? No man could jump twelve feet.

“Do you think we could talk?” he asked instead.

“Of course.” With a supple twist of his body Urquhart swiveled around and landed on his toes beside Matthias. He had put up his long blond hair in a kind of helmet shape, making him seem taller than ever.

“We’d better wait till those women have gone,” Matthias growled. He was irritated that Urquhart had kept him waiting longer than necessary.