Q by Luther Blissett (poetry books to read txt) 📕

appointed court theologian. Knipperdolling, Kibbenbrock and Krechting received the title of count. The king says he will soon lead the chosen people across the Red Sea of the enemy armies, and conquer the whole of Germany. He’s already assigned the principalities to his most loyal followers.’

Anger and fear are becoming a dead weight that drags me down. I’m exhausted, but there’s more, I can read it in that steadfast expression, in that proud, tired beauty.

‘Rothmann said we had to follow the customs of the patriarchs of the Scriptures. Go forth and multiply, he said, and let every man take as many wives as he can satisfy, to increase the number of the elect. The king has fifteen wives, none of them much more than children. Rothmann has ten, and so have the others. If my husband hadn’t come back within a month I’d have been assigned to one of them.’

Adrian’s hands, white with tension, want to smash the fireplace to pieces.

‘Oh, we shouted, yes we did, we said it wasn’t right. Margaret von Osnabr�ck said that if the Lord wanted procreation, then women should be allowed to choose more than one husband as well.’

She swallows back her compassion with a sigh. ‘She spat in the face of the preachers and pissed on the heads of the ones who came to get her. She knew what awaited her, but she wouldn’t keep quiet. She shouted to the whole city as they dragged her away, that the women of M�nster hadn’t fought side by side with their men only to become common concubines.’

Another pause, holding back her tears of hate. There’s an infinite dignity in those words, the dignity of someone who has shared in the extreme gesture of a brother or a sister.

‘She died killing them with her words. Many women followed her example, preferring to die insulting the tyrants rather than accept their laws. Elisabeth H�lscher, who dared to leave her busband. Katharina Koekenbecker, who lived with two men under the same roof. Barbara Butendieck, denounced by her husband because she dared to contradict him. They didn’t execute her, no. She was pregnant, that was why she got away.’

Nothing but the crackling of the fire. The deep breathing of little Hans in his cot. The drumming of the rain on the roof.

‘Didn’t anyone rebel?’

She nods: ‘The blacksmith Mollenhecke. Along with another two hundred of them. They managed to lock the king and his followers in the Rathaus, but then… What could they do? Open the gates to the bishop? That would have meant condemning the city to death. They couldn’t imagine doing that. Someone freed the king and two hours later their heads rolled into the square.’

Peter Adrianson picks up the old sword he fought with on the barricades in February. Exhaustion on the furrows of his face.

‘Let me kill him, Captain.’

I get to my feet. What remains to be done.

‘No. A martyr wouldn’t be much use to your wife and son.’

‘He’ll have to pay for it.’

I turn back to Greta: ‘Get your things. You’re going tonight.’

Adrianson clutches blindly at the hilt of his sword. ‘He’s got us fucked, he can’t get away with it.’

‘Take your family far away from here. That’s my final order, Peter.’ He’s about to cry, he looks around: the house, the objects. Me.

‘Captain…’

Greta is ready, her son in her arms, wrapped in a blanket. I wish Adrianson had her strength right now.

‘Let’s go.’ I pull him by one arm, we walk out into the deluge, I let her pass. We keep close to the walls, along a route that seems interminable.

All of a sudden Adrianson’s wife gives a start.

Instinctively I put my hand on my sword. Two short, hooded silhouettes.

One holds a lantern. They approach, small footsteps in the mud.

The light is raised towards our faces. I glimpse young eyes, smooth cheeks. Not more than ten years old.

A shiver.

The little girl points her finger at the bundle that Greta is holding pressed to her chest. A small, white finger.

Terror in the woman’s eyes. She lifts the corner of the blanket and reveals Hans, stiff with cold.

The girl doesn’t take her eyes off my face.

Blue eyes. Blond curls dripping with rain.

The lofty indifference of a fairy.

Pure horror.

The instinct to crush her. To kill.

My heart beating like a drum.

They pass on.

At the Ludgeritor.

They’ve unloaded our carts, the animals have been lodged under a canopy.

‘Halt! Who goes there?’

‘Captain Gert from the Well.’

I come forward so that he can recognise me. Hansel, his face spectral with hunger.

‘Harness the horses up to one of the carts.’

Uncertainly: ‘Captain, I’m sorry, no one can leave.’

I point to the bundle that Greta is pressing to her chest.

‘The little one has cholera. Do you want an epidemic to break out?’

Terrified, he runs to call his companions. The horses are hitched up again.

‘Open the gate, quickly!’

I push Adrianson on to the cart, putting the reins into his hand. ‘Get as far as you can.’

His tears mix with the rain dripping from his hood. ‘Captain, I can’t leave you here…’

I grip the collar of his coat: ‘Never deny yourself what you have fought for, Peter. Defeat doesn’t make a cause unjust. Always remember that. Go now.’

I strike the horse hard on its rear.

*

I can no longer feel the rain. My breath precedes me along the street leading to the cathedral square. No one. As though they were all dead: a single silent cemetery.

The stage is still set up against the church, but now it’s topped by a heavy canopy that covers the throne. Beneath it, carved in clear letters, is the name of the place to which the minds of these people have decided to migrate: THE MOUNT OF ZION.

I go on, until the sound and the light of the party reach me from above, from the windows of the house that used to belong to the gentleman Melchior von B�ren.

I’ve found the court of the Jester King.

He is wearing a crown on his head.

He is wearing a velvet cloak.

He is holding a sceptre in his hand, an orb topped by a crown and two swords dangles from his neck. He has a ring on each finger, his beard combed and curly, his cheeks rouged and unnatural, like those of a beautified corpse.

He is sitting at the centre of the table, arranged in a horseshoe shape, covered with piles of bones that have been sucked dry, bowls of goose-fat, glasses and beakers holding dregs of wine and beer. The motionless grin of a suckling pig on a spit stands in the middle of the hall. To the right of the king, Queen Divara, dressed in white, more beautiful that I remembered, a garland of wheat wrapped around her hair. To the left a tiny pug-faced man: must be the famous Duesentschnuer. The wives are seated beside the courtiers, serving wine to their lords and masters.

At the end of the hall, on the throne of David, a little boy sits awkwardly, his legs on either side of the arms. Bored, he is playing with a coin. His outfit, too big for him, is covered with gold necklaces, his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. I barely recognise Shear-Jashub, Bockelson’s favourite, dragged from the fate of the old believers one winter’s day.

The king puts his hands on the table and gets up from the chair. He cranes his head in search of an eye to catch. Unease among the diners. Eyes lowered.

‘Krechting!’

The minister gives a start. Everyone else heaves a sigh. The king begins: ‘For the Dukedom of Saxony, Krechting!’

Imitating a broad peasant accent: ‘“Now why dost thou cry out aloud? Is there no king in thee? Is thy counsellor perished? For pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail. Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.” Who am I? Who am I?’

Krechting blushes and stares at the gnawed drumstick beneath his nose, he nudges his neighbour, in hope of a suggestion.�

The king, bitterly: ‘So, you don’t know…’

His eye studies the people around the table.

‘Knipperdolling! For the Electorate of Mainz!’

He taps the jug with the tip of his sceptre. Then he shatters it to pieces with a clean blow. Water flows on to the table.

‘“Is the Lord among us, yes or no?”’

The burgomaster quickly answers, ‘Yes, yes!’

‘No! You’ve got to tell me who am I, who am I!’

Wrapped in a brocade housecoat, probably made from the von B�ren household’s tapestry collection, Knipperdolling fiddles nervously with his beard. His belly, imposing a little while ago, has drooped flaccidly along with his double chin. His black hat falls limply on either side of his head, like the ears of a hound. He wears the defeated expression of a beaten dog. An old animal, grown soft and tired. He tries to brighten up with an answer: ‘Isaiah?’

‘Nooooo!’

He’s nervous. He climbs on to the table. ‘Palck! For Gelderland and Utrecht!’

He approaches the head of the piglet, and struggles desperately, amidst much shouting and roaring, until he has torn it in two. He drops the pieces and suddenly turns around: ‘Who am I, who am I?’

The deacon is clearly drunk, he has started rocking in his seat and has to lean on the table. A satisfied smile. ‘Yes, yes, that’s easy: Simeon!’

‘Wrong answer, fool.’

He takes a rib of pork and throws it at him. He sighs deeply and turns towards Rothmann, almost hidden at the end of the table.

‘Bernhard…’

A little thin body, wrapped in filthy clothes, death painted on its face, tiny eyes. Years seem to have passed since an affable preacher welcomed the disciples of Matthys in M�nster, and as many since the convent of �berwasser was emptied by his words.

‘Micah, Moses and Samson.’

The king applauds, immediately followed by everyone else.

‘Fine, fine. And now Divara, my queen, do Salome. Go on, go on, Salome! Music, music!’

Divara jumps onto the table and begins to spin and sway sinuously to the sound of the lute and the flute. Her dress slips to her shoulders, her legs are revealed. She whips the air with her hair and brings her hands together above her head, her back arched.

Salome’s dance for the head of John.

The head of Jan Bockelson, tailor and pimp of Leyden, actor, apostle of Matthys, prophet and king of M�nster.

Of Jan and all the rest.

A pile of corpses. She knows.

I watch death dancing, choosing them one by one, until I decide to leave the shadows and allow her to notice me.

She’s the first to stop, all of a sudden, as though she’s seen a ghost. Everyone else at the table, petrified, mouths open as they watch me come back to life, seeing themselves for a moment with my eyes: limp, mad, goddamned wretches.

And then there’s Divara: she gives me a cheerful smile, as though we two were the only people here.

Take them away, the lot of them

Carafa’s eye

(1535)

Letter sent to Rome from the city of M�nster, addressed to Gianpietro Carafa, dated 30th June 1535.

To the most illustrious and reverend Giovanni Pietro Carafa, in Rome.

My most honourable lord, by the time you take these pages between your hands, the news will already have reached Your Lordship’s ears of