Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street Read Free Page A

innocent did not have the right to live here. If someone kills, they will do it again. It starts to seem simple and convenient; their fear of God becomes a sham, and, worst of all, killing becomes a habit. Melchior feared a town where a murderer goes unpunished, and all those he had accused had killed out of greed, viciousness or avarice and had taken upon themselves the divine right to make decisions over the life and death of others.
    The town had gathered within the shadow of its walls people who wanted to live there safely, to breathe, think and strive for their own happiness without anyone snuffing out the candle of their lives through malice. Those people had agreed to respect each other’s lives and rights, and the Council was in place to see to it that no one regarded their own rights as greater than those of others.
    Melchior’s father, who was now buried in the graveyard of St Barbara’s Chapel behind the Seppade Gate, taught him this, and Melchior always did everything as his father had taught. ‘Poisonlurks in the soul of a murderer. A murderer is a person who has stepped over a boundary set by God. Fear the murderer and regard him as your own and God’s enemy, and may all the saints give you aid.’ Those had been Melchior’s father’s words, and he had lived by that teaching. He had never accused the innocent or the weak or the poor who had killed only to defend the rights God had given them. He had not accused women who had killed a rapist to defend their honour; he had not accused those who had killed robbers to protect their property; and he had not accused those who had had to kill in revenge for injustice. As well as the human court there is also the court of the forces of Heaven, and before that we will all appear one day.
    On this fresh August morning Melchior learned with distress that the soul of the merchant Laurentz Bruys had departed from his body the day before at Marienthal and was probably flying with the angels to God. This had been announced to Rataskaevu Street by Michel – the apprentice gunsmith of the
marstall,
the town stables – who had just heard the news. The stables housed the town’s horses, but the foals were taken to an estate on the edge of the town lands, and it was near there that the building of St Bridget’s Convent had recently commenced. It was at the convent that the respected merchant Bruys had died yesterday. The news was brought early in the morning by the stablehand, who had been leading two foals from the manor to the stables.
    Melchior should not have been surprised, because if any revered townsman had time on earth to gather all the signs around him it was Laurentz Bruys. Still, he felt it was sad. He made the sign of the cross and muttered to himself, ‘May the saints bless him, now that he stands at the threshold of Heaven. God will see that this man has suffered much injustice in this life.’
    Laurentz Bruys had been old, very old. He was so old that he could no longer walk properly on his own legs and often let himself be carried by servants through the town on a sedan chair. And speech had deserted him a few months before, which Melchior knew to be a sure sign of approaching death. But that was not whythis man was so well known in the town. Several scoffingly referred to him sometimes as Saint Laurentius behind his back, and other members of his trading fraternity in Lübeck were said to be downright angry with him, because his business methods were ruining them.
    But Melchior’s train of thought was interrupted by the arrival of the Magistrate, Court Vogt Wentzel Dorn, who was walking from St Nicholas’s to the Apothecary’s pharmacy and responding to the respectful greetings of the passers-by with a surly nod. With his greying hair, Dorn was, in many people’s eyes, the symbol of justice in Tallinn, for he had been in that post body and soul, loyally and faithfully carrying out his duties to