The Willow King Read online

  The woman’s eyes are bulging, goggling, as if someone were strangling her. She is struggling to breathe.

  I can see it is the gaze of a dying person, full of horror and pain. She fixes that gaze on me as her last living act, and I know that if I let it go, there will be no turning back. I can see her memories, her whole life there. But the backdrop is pain and fear; there is no longer any trace of the proud madness which so scared everyone, which they were so afraid of.

  The court attendant shuffles his feet uneasily, clearly unhappy that the executioner is unable to perform his duties properly. What kind of executioner is he if he cannot take her head off with one blow?

  “Come on, strike her again, man!” he yells.

  The executioner awkwardly lifts his sword, holds it hesitantly above the woman’s head for a moment, and then strikes again as ordered.

  I can no longer see the woman’s eyes, but the memory of her life suddenly comes to me. Her childhood, her confirmation and her wedding. She is standing in a long white robe in front of the altar, and her groom is tall and handsome. She bears many children, and four of the boys grow up to be adults. They live well at first; they go to church on horseback, wearing their own boots, and there they listen to the rousing word of God. But then her husband falls ill with fever. He is sick for a while, and then dies. After her husband’s death the woman starts paying visits to the forest, and before long she is boasting that she is in cahoots with the Devil, that she is now the Devil’s bride. Her boys start to fear her; they try to restrain her, but she keeps going to the forest, because the Devil shows her people’s souls, and he knows how to read them. The souls are memories, and they are everywhere.

  The executioner smiles in satisfaction as the bones in the woman’s neck crunch. The last tendon in her neck holds fast for a moment, but then her body and head are indeed as separate as required under law. The court attendant grabs hold of the head by the hair and lifts it triumphantly above the crowd, which has already started to thin out.

  There is no exultant baying, just a couple of people shouting taunts at the executioner. The court attendant nods in satisfaction.

  I collapse onto my knees, press my hands against my chest, and cry. I don’t even know why. But I cry out loud, at the top of my voice; I bawl.

  All the people, all their faces, seem somehow distant and distorted. Through my tears they seem as small as children, fuzzy and one-dimensional like stick men drawn with coal on white birch bark.

  A figure dressed in black appears from somewhere. He comes a couple of steps closer and bows.

  I watch him in silence for a while; his eyes are shiny black like coals. He has a crown on his head.

  WEDNESDAY

  LAURENTIUS WAS WOKEN by a clanging coming from somewhere nearby. He soon realized that it must be the bell of the church of John the Baptist right next door, which had a somehow tinny sound to it. The church itself had been built at great expense and with considerable architectural prowess, and was famous for its ornate, red-clay decorative work; it was even mentioned in some of the travel guides. The tinny sound was reportedly the result of the bell being buried underground during the last war, which had caused it some kind of damage. After all the dragging about, burial and unearthing, hairline cracks had appeared in the bronze. They were invisible to the naked eye but they somehow made its chime sound strange and hollow. It may also have been that something went wrong during the bell’s casting, or that repeated ringing during the plague had caused the damage. Church bells tended to crack during traumatic events, and were often impossible to repair. Decades later the cracks would remain as testament to those times. Sometimes they would serve to warn of coming woes as well...

  Laurentius pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked out of the window, but the church tower was not visible from there. All he could see was the blue-grey sky, and rain clouds. It seemed that this day would be just like all the previous ones.

  “Ah,” Laurentius sighed.

  Due to the onset of sickness yesterday he hadn’t yet managed to visit a single church. Normally he would begin his acquaintance with a town by looking at the churches; their state of repair and general appearance usually gave one a pretty accurate idea of how people lived in the city, and what their priorities were. The apodemic guides also advised starting with the town’s main buildings. In some towns, one could find pigs, hens and other animals living right inside the church building, and manure-soiled straw strewn across the earth floors. Often all the pictures had been pulled down during the Reformation, creating a general impression of slovenliness and neglect. But in others there might be a guard who was paid to keep animals out of the house of worship. There would be stone-tiled floors; the rubbish would be cleaned away regularly, and the walls would be painted a puritanical white, creating an impression of order. That said something about the town itself.

  Laurentius counted the peals of the bell, pondering whether he should go to the church straight away. His fever had eased a little and he almost felt well again; just the rotten smell which had fixed itself in his nostrils when he arrived in Dorpat remained, reminding him of the events of the last few days. Yesterday’s events, including the ragamuffin’s death and the strange meeting with the girl on the steps seemed like hazy, distant memories, even stories which someone had once told him. Had that meeting actually happened? He looked down and inspected his muddy legs, and had to conclude that he had indeed gone outside. At least that part had not been a dream. But hadn’t he dreamt something as well?

  Laurentius shook his head—he couldn’t remember exactly. He took a final swig from the bottle of tincture, which still tasted bitter, like wormwood. Wrinkling his nose bad-temperedly he placed the empty bottle back onto the table. His thoughts had still not become any clearer. The memories of the last few days seemed somehow disconnected, displaced, wrapped in darkness and fever, beginning nowhere in particular, ending with nothing much, so that he couldn’t be sure if they were real. He tried to recall the face of the young woman he had seen on the steps: she had been slim, with short, dark hair, and her skin was almost translucent. But he could see nothing clearer than that. The image may have been preserved in his memory from a dream or from real life, but it was weak. Then an image of someone dressed in dark clothes, with a crown on his head, came back to him.

  “The king?”

  He closed his eyes and tried to lie still for a while, as if hoping that that would help him remember what he had seen last night, but the hard bed and the cold seeping in through his cape drove away the last remains of sleepiness. The king, a woman? He couldn’t remember exactly. The unheated room smelt musty; his clothes seemed to have soaked up the dampness from the surrounding air, and the bed boards underneath him were as cold as stone; his back was stiff all over. He remembered that the young woman had told him he should try to recuperate, but now he was sure his sickness could only get worse. And he had used up the last of his tincture.

  He heard a clattering coming up the stairs, followed by a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Laurentius called out, sitting up in bed and glancing round to check that the room was in a presentable state.

  A pleasant-looking, plump-cheeked maid came in and stood there, staring at him. It was clear that she was unhappy about something.

  “Good morning, sir,” she said.

  Laurentius glanced down at his naked legs with an absent-minded expression. This was definitely not the same girl he had met in the yard yesterday. The young woman standing in front of him had a ruddy complexion and puckered lips, and was clearly not yet twenty. Locks of blonde hair peeked out from under a blue, embroidered headscarf, and her white linen dress was held fast over her full, rounded breasts by a bodice. She was holding a clay mug in one hand, and resting on top of it was a breadboard containing half a loaf of bread. She bore no resemblance at all to the girl from yesterday evening.

  “I’m sorry to bother you like this in the morning, to be sure, but circumstances are such
that the landlady has asked me to pass on that we can’t offer the breakfast which was originally agreed. That’s just how things are, I’m afraid. Otherwise I have always made a point of providing meals for my tenants, and it is always decent food, not like elsewhere, where you’ll get just bread and beer, to be sure,” the maid explained to Laurentius.

  She put the bread and beer down on the table with a thud. She was obviously very worked up about something, and her otherwise decent German sounded stiff and unnatural. “But now, I just don’t know, all the prices have risen so much that if we had to cook meals here as well we simply couldn’t manage, God help me. It’s a good thing I got hold of that bread, otherwise we’d starve to death, just like those poor souls out there. I don’t even dare walk down the street with a loaf of bread any more, in case someone nabs it from me. That’s to say nothing of what’s happening beyond the city walls!”

  Laurentius nodded. He had already realized that something was not quite right when he had gone to speak to the rector yesterday morning. The town seemed cheerful enough, but the people he saw were anxious, and even with the constant drizzle of rain there were hunched, hungry-looking peasants loitering about everywhere. Some of them were alone, others in groups, and their faces were stubbly and sullen, their hands clenched into fists. Together, the weather and peoples’ miserable appearance made for a tense, ill-boding atmosphere.

  “I fully understand; don’t you worry on that score. I’ll get hold of something to eat myself. I’m not normally very hungry in the mornings anyway,” Laurentius said, trying to be polite.

  The maid smiled gratefully.

  “But may I have some wood for the fire?” Laurentius asked. “It’s really damp in here.”

  “But of course,” the girl exclaimed happily. “I’ll make up the fire. The landlady will probably add it to your rent. The thing is, we don’t have any spare logs for your room. The landlady did say yesterday that you will have to get hold of them yourself. There’s plenty of people selling them at the Haymarket, down by the river. If you go down there and pay for them, they’ll deliver the logs. Then I’ll show them where to stack them up,” the maid explained.

  Then she started to leave, seeming to be in a hurry.

  “By the way,” said Laurentius, stopping the maid before she had managed to step out of the room. “Is there a daughter in the family, or some other girl living here?”

  The girl raised her eyebrows in surprise. “No there isn’t, there’s no one... no one at all,” she added after a brief pause. “The man of the house left this morning, and the landlady’s children have all been taken by sickness. For goodness’ sake don’t raise that subject with her.”

  She smiled a little awkwardly again, pulled the door shut behind her and clumped down the stairs in her wooden shoes. Laurentius watched her leave and nodded his head. He walked a few paces around the room to stretch his legs, which were stiff from the hard bed and his fever, and performed a couple of practice parries with his sword.

  “Let us pray for a healthy body and a healthy mind,” Laurentius declared.

  Commentators were not unanimous on whether that meant that if the body was healthy then the mind would be too, or whether a good mental condition would ensure that the body was also in good shape. The different schools of medical thought seemed to focus on either curing the body or the mind, seeking to find the root cause of every illness in one or the other. But as far as Laurentius was concerned there was no difference between the body and the mind—the mind was the body’s form, its shape, without which it could not exist. So he had to be sure to keep himself in good shape.

  He put his sword back in its sheath and leant forward to take a slice of bread from the table. He wasn’t very hungry, but he decided he should force himself to eat, since he hadn’t had a single meal for longer than he could remember. He knew that it was important not to let the organism become too weak when ill... Moreover, the bread appeared to have been baked from good-quality flour, and it was still slightly warm, probably straight from the baker’s.

  “Damn!” Laurentius cursed out loud.

  He stood glaring at the slice of bread in dismay. It was unexpectedly bitter and unappetizing, like eating hay or birch leaves, just like his fever tincture.

  “I hope all the food here isn’t like this,” he thought to himself as he washed the bread down with gulps of weak beer. The tough bit of bread slid about inside his mouth as he tried to chew it, just as sodden leaves from a puddle stick to one’s boots and clothes and are impossible to get rid of. It took him several more swigs of beer before eventually he could swallow the two slices of bread.

  “Pah!” he muttered to himself. “It’s a good thing that they don’t provide breakfast here any more.”

  Either they had bought the cheapest bread made from some sort of dross, or the situation in town was already so bad that it was impossible to get hold of decent flour from anywhere. He hoped that it was the former.

  “Now then,” he told himself purposefully. “Time to get a move on.”

  He pulled on his boots, put his sword belt on and went out. There were still a few things he needed to get hold of to set himself up in his lodgings, but first he had to drop in at the academy and find out about the examinations. Otherwise there was no hope of being accepted for matriculation, and he could lose the first part of his stipend. He might also be able to find out if there was any laboratory equipment anywhere, so that he could prepare some proper tincture.

  Laurentius adjusted his sword and took a deep breath of the chill air. His room had been cold and damp, but outside the fresh air had an invigorating and cleansing effect on him. The rainwater was already starting to drain from the pavements and he started to make his way to the academy, trying to step in the gaps between the puddles and glancing hurriedly at the people and houses on either side. He saw only ordinary people and nondescript houses, just like everywhere else he had been. But on the whole Dorpat didn’t make a bad impression at all, if only it weren’t for the constant rain. Walking on in the dim morning light he turned off Broad Street, got almost as far as the door of the academy, and came to a standstill. This was a more open spot, and the light seemed somehow brighter. He smiled to himself, and cocked his head back to view the grand, metal-plated spire. Due to the brownish-green tones of the roof, the church looked quite different to the other buildings, which generally had grey shingle roofs. Laurentius recalled how the innkeeper had spoken about this church spire with pride yesterday. It was indeed quite handsome, although Laurentius couldn’t help feeling that it might be better if it were slightly slimmer.

  He strained to look higher, and he noticed that the cockerel sitting on top of the stubby roof was almost touching the low clouds. The wind blew gusts of fine rain down at him, stinging his face and forcing him to screw up his eyes. As he tried to count the small figures on the facade, moisture collected under his eyelids and everything started to turn hazy. The clay figures started to look diffuse, as if they were papier mâché decorations. The foul taste of that morning’s tough bread started to ooze back onto his tongue with the drops of rainwater, bringing back the rotten stench, the ragamuffin and his sickness with a terrible intensity. The mental images which were hazy and unreal when he woke had unexpectedly returned, and they were now clearer than the faces of the terracotta figures in front of him. His fleeting good mood passed quickly. The church spire now seemed strangely out of proportion and threatening.

  Turning around and spotting a student hurrying in the direction of the academy, he stopped him and asked, “How might I find Professor Dimberg?”

  “Professor Dimberg? If you want to talk with him right away, you’re out of luck. He probably won’t arrive until after lunch. He’s currently receiving visitors at home,” the student replied.

  Laurentius said a quick thank you. By now, the foul smell swirling in his nostrils and the weakness in his legs were warning him that his fever could be flaring up again. Perhaps he shouldn’t have gone outside so
quickly, but lying there in his cold, damp room wouldn’t have been any better for him. There was no sense in going back to his lodgings now, but he didn’t feel like asking for Dimberg to receive him at home either. Unannounced visits like that could sometimes involve a lot of waiting, and he would probably have to exchange gossip and engage in empty conversation too. It was better to wait and see Dimberg at the academy, which meant that he now had at least two hours to spare.

  He shook his head and set course in the general direction of the river, following the route the maid had explained to him. He had plenty of things to fill those spare two hours with. Looking down, he noticed some stone slabs which had been placed along the edge of the road for people to step on. They were poking out of the puddles, somehow contributing to the overall melancholy atmosphere with their distinctly medieval appearance. He started walking, thinking of nothing in particular, and looking at the shoeprints of other people who must have been there just before him. He pondered how these must have been preceded many years previously by Polish soldiers’ boots, little children’s loafers, monks’ sandals, peasant women’s slippers, handicraftsmen’s brogues, paupers’ clogs, beggars’ and peasant folk’s bare heels. So many footprints of differing shapes that now it seemed almost a privilege to be able to tread there in his boots as well. But how often do those very same boots, which wear away at the stones, take control of the person wearing them, determining his direction? For example, when boots start to chafe, and instead of walking one can barely hobble, or when one puts on a fancy pair, and can hardly bring oneself to walk through muddy puddles. Or the opposite situation, when one is clad in soldiers’ boots and it is considered bad form to turn up at the opera. It may seem that the wearer has planned his route himself, but at some point the shoes take control and go exactly where they please, where it is in their nature to go. And then the wearer has no choice but to comply. The soldier goes to war, the peasant to the field, and death awaits them both.