Death and the Devil

He squeezed his way between groups of chattering maids and nuns haggling at the tops of their voices over the price of pumpkins, almost drowned out by the melodious cries of the vendors, bumped into a richly clad merchant, and stumbled, gabbling his excuses, against a stall with carrots and celery. The stratagem brought him three oaths, one of which, surprisingly enough, he had never heard before, and a couple of lovely, smooth carrots, bursting with juice. Not a bad haul.

He looked around and thought for a minute. He could go via the crates of apples the farmers sold in Old Market Square. That was the sensible route. Carrots and apples—hunger stilled and thirst quenched.

But it was one of those days. Jacob wanted more. And unfortunately that “more” was on the southern, less safe side of Haymarket, at the part indicated by a higher percentage of clerics among the jostling crowd. On the meat stalls.

The meat stalls…

Only last week a thief had been caught there. He had been caught before, and this time the angry butcher chopped one of his hands off, comforting him with the thought that now he had his piece of flesh. The authorities later expressed their disapproval of this act of retribution but that didn’t make his hand grow back. Anyway, it was his own fault. Meat was not for the poor.

And yet had not the dean of St. Cecilia’s recently explained that only those among the poor who combined their poverty with honesty enjoyed God’s favor? Did that mean Jacob belonged to the ungodly? And could the ungodly be condemned for not resisting the temptations of the flesh? The temptation of St. John was nothing compared to the way the flesh was tempting him at the moment.

But dangerous it certainly was.

There was no crush he could disappear into, as on the north side. Fewer alleyways. After the meat and smoked ham stalls there was nothing but the horse troughs and then that damned square where they’d caught the poor fellow last week.

Apples after all, then? Meat lay heavy on the stomach anyway. On the other hand, better on his stomach than on that of some fat priest, in Jacob’s humble opinion.

He cast a look of longing at the stalls where the red slabs with their collars of yellow fat were being sold. He just had to accept that Providence had decreed he would not be a rich patrician. On the other hand Providence had surely not decreed he should die of unsatisfied yearning!

With a heavy heart, if not a heavy stomach, he watched as the objects of his desire briskly changed hands. Among the crowd of burghers’ wives in their burgundy dresses with golden clasps and richly embroidered silk bonnets he could see Alexian Brothers, Franciscans and Conradines, Crutched Friars, and Augustinians in their black habits.

Since the archbishop had granted the city the right of staple the previous year, there was no more sumptuous market than that of Cologne. People of every degree met there, no one felt it was beneath them to display their wealth openly by buying up the contents of the stalls. To add to the confusion, the whole square was swarming with children fighting their own private battles or combining to chase pigs across the trampled clay. On the eastern side where the fleshmarket began, opposite the linen-weavers’ hall with its ring of beggars, hung sausages, and Jacob would have dearly loved to be able to hop in with the round dozen that were just disappearing into the basket of an expensively dressed old man with a pointed hat.

Or not quite completely disappearing. As the man shuffled on his way one was left dangling enticingly.

Jacob’s eyes popped.

It was looking back at him. It promised a foretaste of paradise, the New Jerusalem, heavenly bliss here on earth. Hundreds of tiny lumps of white fat were winking at him from the reddish brown of the smoked flesh under the bulging skin. It seemed to be calling on him to take his courage—and the sausage—in both hands and run for it. He could just picture himself sitting in his lean-to by the city wall gorging on it. The picture became more and more vivid, more and more real, until his legs began to move of their own accord. Danger and fear were forgotten. The world was reduced to one sausage.

Like an eel Jacob weaved his way between the people until he was behind the old man, who had stopped to examine a haunch of horseflesh. His eyesight must have been poor, he had to bend right over the counter.

Jacob came up close behind him, let him poke and sniff for a few seconds, then shouted at the top of his voice, “Thief! Look! Over there! Making off with a fillet of beef, the bastard!”

The people craned their necks. The butchers, naturally assuming the miscreant was behind them, turned around and, there being nothing to see, stood there looking baffled. It was the work of a second for Jacob’s fingers to transfer the sausage to his jerkin. Time for a quick exit.

The display on the counter caught his eye. Chops within easy reach. And the butchers still staring at nothing.