The Fifth Servant (5 page)

           
I wondered how many depraved crimes the man had seen for him to have no visible reaction to such a scene.

           
Kromy said, “Somebody want to tell me what happened here?”

           
The woman with the blue kerchief said, “I found her. Oh, it was horrible. I made that woman come down and open the door, and there—”

           
Freyde Federn said, “I’ve never seen this child before. When I came downstairs to open the door, the lock was broken.”

           
“Which stairs did you use?”

           
“There’s only one set of stairs, Mr. Kromy, the ones outside the house.”

           
Kromy said, “Let’s see this broken lock.” He waved a couple of dumbfounded observers aside, and examined the main lock.

           
“Doesn’t look broken to me,” he declared.

           
Freyde fumbled for the words. “I mean that the door was unlocked, and I’m sure I locked it when I closed up last night.”

           
“Then why did you say the lock was broken?”

           
“Because they’re all liars,” said a woman with bright red lips.

           
“Hang the bloody lot of them.”

           
Jacob spoke up. “I opened the shop later on to get something. I might not have closed the latch properly.”

           
“
Ach!
What Jew wouldn’t make sure his gold was safely locked up for the night?” said the woman with the kerchief.

           
Kromy’s lip slowly curled into a lopsided smile. “Trouble always seems to find you, Federn,” he said.

           
“He knows something about this,” said the woman.

           
“Anybody know who the girl is?” said Kromy.

           
One of the house wives crept in close enough to get a good look at the victim’s face. “
Pane bože!
It’s Gerta Janek!”

           
“Who’s that?”

           
“Viktor Janek’s little girl.”

           
“Oh my God, they’ve been looking for her all morning,” said one of the women.

           
“Janek the apothecary?”

           
“Yes.”

           
The house wife said, “I saw Janek and the Jew arguing the day before yesterday in front of this very shop. But I never thought—”

           
“What were they arguing about?”

           
“What do all businessmen argue about?”

           
Kromy nodded. He looked around the shop, taking stock and fingering the fine goods.

           
“Getting back at the competition, Federn?”

           
“It wasn’t me, I swear,” said Jacob.

           
“You just said you were the last one in here, Federn,” said Kromy.

           
“Enough talk. My dagger’s hungry for blood.” The dark-eyed mercenary evidently had a flair for the poetic. The other two raised their weapons again.

           
I said, “Remember what I told you about the Jews being under the direct protection of the emperor?”

           
“Oh, yeah,” said the dark-eyed one. It had slipped his mind.

           
“Who’s this fellow?” said Kromy.

           
“The new shammes,” said Jacob.

           
“Nobody’s asking you.”

           
“Come on, Kromy,” said the woman with the red lips. “Everybody knows the Jews kill a Christian every year so they can mix the blood with their filthy Passover bread. All we want’s a good hanging out of it.”

           
“Upside down, with dogs,” said the one with the mace. An ugly laugh escaped from his throat.

           
Kromy said, “My orders are that all criminals are to be arrested and held until a proper trial. Don’t worry about the ladies while you’re in the stocks, Federn. I’ll keep a close watch on them for you.”

           
He eyed the women hungrily.

           
I said, “This is a matter for the imperial guards, not the municipal guards.”

           
“That’s for the sheriff to decide, Jew.”

           
“Then, by all means fetch the sheriff.”

CHAPTER 4

           
JANOŠ K OPECKY’S LOWEST KITCHEN MAID, Erika Lämmel, was washing her hands when the soap slipped from her fingers and dropped into the basin.

           
“Oh, no. That means death,” she said.

           
“Silly girl,” said one of the older maids. “How could something that happens all the time mean death?”

           
Erika muttered under her breath, “People are dying all the time.”

           
Two cavalrymen came in by the kitchen entrance. The maids rushed to get food and drink ready for them, but they demanded bread and salt first. Erika served it to them on a wooden tray.

           
“So how’s about a kiss for a couple of gallant heroes heading back to the front?”

           
She blushed. They were such dashing knights, defenders of the land and faith. Exciting, and just a little scary, like all the
Reiters
.

           
The cook interrupted with the master’s orders. Erika was to buy fresh eels at the fish market, the choicest meat from the butcher shop, and stop off at the apothecary’s for a packet of medicinal herbs.

           
Erika was confused. Why the eels? Only the Papists had to obey the restriction against meat today.

           
“Nobody asked for your opinion. He feels like having eels today,” the cook said.

           
The other maids snickered. The fish market was the lowliest duty imaginable at this hour of the morning.

           
Erika hurried through the dim streets, sidestepping boisterous soldiers with uniforms still stained from the battlefield, who laughed about how skittish she was. She passed the day laborers from the countryside gathering at
Haštal Square
without a word, and headed up
Kozí Street
to the waterfront. She could already hear the ferrymen hawking driftwood for heating and cooking fires, and smell the river.

           
The Jews sold fish cheaper, since the Christian merchants always raised the price on Good Friday. But despite her mistress’s kind feelings toward the Jews, Erika wasn’t about to brave the foul streets of the Jewish ghetto to save a few pfennigs. Her master could afford it.

           
The river was high with the early spring flood, and the waterfront was busy. She worked her way past a barge unloading cattle and barrels of wine, gave a wide berth to the longshoremen hauling crates of Italian figs, and paused for a moment at bins of Flemish brocade and cheap gray cloth from
Poland
. At the fish dock, heaps of carp wriggled hopelessly, mouths agape, still alive after many hours out of water.

           
The big man unloading a crate of eels looked her over. His eyes were cold, emotionless, like an eel himself. He could see that there was a female body under those gray skirts as she walked toward him. Erika was nearly seventeen, but she looked about twelve. Thin and mousy, with stringy brown hair as dull and coarse as a straw broom. His thick lips curled up into that half-smile that some paintings are famous for. He’d have whistled at her, but the seamen would have blackened his eye for raising ill winds.

           
Erika asked about the eels.

           
The man said, “I’ve got a big, slippery eel for you, honey. Come into the shed and I’ll show it to you.”

           
Eww
. She found another merchant to buy eels from. Men were such…

           
The sound of iron-rimmed wheels ringing on stone caught her attention. A gilded carriage clattered across the square, a coat of arms ennobling its polished doors, accompanied by four mounted escorts, two in front, two behind. No doubt about the position and privilege of the person inside
that
vehicle. She pictured him as young and handsome, naturally. Unmarried. Rich. Clever. Able to see the true value of a woman despite her outward appearance as a lowly kitchen maid.

           
In a moment the carriage was gone.

           
Her basket got much heavier at Cervenka’s butcher shop. She struggled to carry it, and counted the steps to the apothecary’s shop and back to Master Kopecky’s town house on the Langergasse.

           
A traveling preacher who called himself Brother Volkmar stood on a corner near the Old Town Square preaching in plain German, instead of the stupid old Latin the priests used, which nobody understood. Erika put down her basket and rested her arms.

           
The preacher earnestly berated the passersby. He said the correct reading of Scripture showed that Jesus stood with the powerless against the oppressive lords, the rack-renters who loaded poor peasants and bondsmen with bridge tolls, highway tolls, tithes, clerk’s fees, city taxes, imperial taxes, war taxes—in return for what?

           
His hair was long and dark, his speech fiery and passionate. Don’t believe what the Papists say about the Jews, either, he said. Every Easter they remind us how the fiendish Jews killed our Savior, to keep us angry and afraid, to keep us divided, so we won’t join with the Jews against our common oppressor, the Roman Church. We must reach out and enlist the Jews in our battle. Dr. Martin Luther said that Christ Himself was born a Jew, so we must deal kindly with them and instruct them in Scripture. (He was beginning to sound like her mistress.)

           
Of course the Jews refuse to embrace a Church wallowing in the filth and stink of corruption, from the selling of offices and indulgences, to the slanderous blood libels against the Jews, and the arrogance and obstinacy of its clergy, when any common Bohemian peasant woman knows her Bible better than the most pompous Papist priest.

           
He spoke with such conviction that Erika almost forgot how evil the Jews were, but she had to lift up her heavy basket and trudge back to work before she got another scolding. Which is how she happened to be walking past the Geistgasse when the screaming started.

CHAPTER 5

           
THE MUNICIPAL GUARDS PRESSED the unruly crowd back, and none of them were happy about it. Sheriff Vratislav Zizka ordered one of the guards to light a lantern as he stooped to enter the gloomy shop. Once inside, he straightened up. He was a tall Slav with a broad forehead and prominent nose passed down through generations of Hussite warriors. The flickering oil flame chased the shadows from the splayed-out corpse in the middle of the floor. The city guard who should have been standing watch over the victim was fumbling with something behind the counter.

           
“Got something to report, Kromy?” said Zizka.

           
“I thought I might have to impound the cash box as evidence, sir,” said Kromy.

           
“There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”

           
“Yes, sir.”

           
“It’s empty anyway,” said Julie. She got a sharp stare from her father Jacob.

           
“Is that so? Where’s the money?” asked Zizka.

           
I watched the family closely. They were accused criminals now, and it was best for them to say as little as possible under the circumstances.

           
“We just opened up,” said Freyde. “I didn’t sell anything yet.”

           
“Do you always open so early?”

           
“She was pounding on the door—”

           
“Besides, it’s a
mitsveh
to get up early on Friday to get ready for Shabbes,” said Julie.

           
“What the hell is that? Some kind of Jewish magic?” said Zizka.

           
“No, it’s a good deed,” said Jacob.

           
“Black magic is a good deed?”

           
“No, no, no. It’s not black magic—”

           
“They’ve been making contradictory statements like that all morning, sir,” said Kromy.

           
“She means that it’s a religious obligation to serve God on the Sabbath,” I said.