Death and the Devil

At that moment Jaspar muttered something incomprehensible and dashed off. Jacob stared at him, openmouthed, swore softly, and hurried after him.

“Jaspar,” he hissed.

The dean didn’t hear. He had obviously discovered something that made him ignore his own advice. He was heading straight for the procession.

“Jas—”

The bells rang out. At once the procession began to move. Jacob ran on for a few more steps, then stopped. Jaspar had vanished among the people standing around. He probably assumed Jacob was following him.

But something rooted Jacob to the spot and forced him to turn around to look at the cathedral again.

It was the same as ever. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it. Nothing at all. The light-colored stone of the chancel. The scaffolding. No one on it. Of course not, it was too early. And, anyway, it was Sunday. Nobody would be up there today.

The sound of a hymn came from the procession, but Jacob wasn’t listening. A feeling of apprehension had taken hold of him. What was wrong with the church?

Gerhard on the scaffolding. Then suddenly the Shadow. The Shadow that had appeared out of nowhere. But the Shadow had not been the Devil, it had been Urquhart, and he was a man.

Out of nowhere—

A man did not appear out of nowhere.

Undecided about what to do, Jacob looked across at the procession, trying to find Jaspar, but he had vanished. More and more people were coming out of the nearby houses, gentlemen and their wives, many in fine clothes, while others came riding up singly or in small groups to follow the procession. There were simple tradesmen there as well, maids and servants, pilgrims and peasants who had arrived in the city the previous day to take part in the celebration, sick people, layabouts, beggars, everyone.

Jacob walked slowly back past the palace, continuing until he was almost at the river, then turned left. A few steps took him to the Franks Tower, where suspects were questioned under torture and criminals handed over to the warden of the archbishop’s palace.

He was to the east of the cathedral, separated from it by a large square and the smaller church of St. Mary’s-on-the-Steps. Again he looked up and studied the mighty facade with its incredibly high, slender windows. He could get there from the Franks Tower without having to pass through a gate with guards.

As he crossed the square, walking at an unhurried pace, apparently deep in prayer, he suddenly knew where the Shadow had appeared from.

All at once he knew.

All at once he knew.

He had hurried along behind the procession because he had suddenly had the idea Urquhart might have joined it, disguised as a priest, a monk, or even a horseman in armor. His progress was followed by irritated glances from those who had felt the sharpness of his elbow as he quickly made his way through the singing and praying throng. Some way ahead of him Conrad was riding underneath the baldachin, two men in armor behind, beside, and before him. His hair fluttered in the wind. His lively, bright blue eyes surmounted a nose which gave him something of the animal dignity of a falcon. The archbishop was neither tall nor strongly built, but he had a presence that dominated everything and everyone.

Urquhart was not in the procession. Jaspar felt foolish at the idea of running on in front, like a court jester, to gawp at the buildings. He looked around. It was getting more and more crowded. He tried to find Jacob.

What a fool he’d been to trot off like that, following a stupid idea. Annoyed with himself, he pushed his way through the onlookers to get back to Jacob.

“Listen,” he heard a ragged woman say to the girl she was carrying, “listen to the holy men singing. That’s the choir.”

“The choir,” the girl repeated.

The choir—

The cathedral choir! It struck Jaspar like a bolt from the blue.

He groaned. He felt a surge of nausea. Using fists and elbows this time, he started to force his way back through the crowd.

THE CATHEDRAL

Compared with what was supposed to become the most sublime church in Christendom, the choir appeared fairly modest. Gerhard had only been able to complete the ground floor with the ring of chapels around the apse and a large part of the adjoining sacristy to the north.

Compared, however, with all the other buildings in Cologne, the result was already colossal. The gigantic semicircle of the chancel joined onto what was left of the old cathedral, so that one had to pass through it to get to the interior of the new building. It made a curious picture. A few months before the foundation stone for the new cathedral had been laid, the old one, a massive basilica over a hundred yards long with chancels and transepts to the east and west, had burned down. Only the western half had been temporarily rebuilt, so that the old church looked as if it had been cut right through the middle with a blow from a huge sword. What began beyond it was not only a new house of God, but a new age.