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Death and the Devil

In the year 1260, under the supervision of the architect Gerhard Morart, the most ambitious ecclesiastical building in all of Christendom is rising above the merchant city of Cologne: the great cathedral. Far below the soaring spires and flying buttresses, a bitter struggle is underway between the archbishop of Cologne and the ruling merchant families to control the enormous wealth of this prosperous commercial center--a struggle that quickly becomes deadly.Morart is the first of many victims, pushed to his death from the cathedral's scaffolding by a huge man with long hair, clad all in black. But hiding in the branches of the archbishop's apple orchard is a witness: a red-haired petty thief called Jacob the Fox, street-smart, cunning, and yet naive in the ways of the political world. Out of his depth and running for his life, he soon finds himself engaged in a desperate battle with some very powerful forces.Most dangerous of all is the killer himself--a mysterious man with remarkable speed, strength, and intelligence, hiding dark secrets that have stripped away his humanity and turned him into a cruel, efficient hired assassin who favors a miniature crossbow as his weapon of choice. But who is he killing for?Jacob the Fox--uneducated and superstitious--fears the killer is the Angel of Death himself. But the wily Fox makes an alliance with some of the strangest of bedfellows: a beautiful clothes dyer, her drunken rascal of a father, and her learned uncle, who loves a good debate almost as much as he loves a bottle of wine.Can this unlikely foursome triumph against the odds and learn the truth of the evil conspiracy before their quest leads to their death at the end of a crossbow arrow?Readers who loved the richly textured setting and historical accuracy of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" will thrill to discover a new novel through which they can vicariously enter the medieval world. With its vivid evocation of both the rich and powerful and those struggling to survive another day at the bottom of society's rungs in the Cologne of 1260, "Death and the Devil," the first novel by Frank Schatzing, sends a clear announcement to the literary world that an important new voice in fiction is here.

DEATH AND THE Devil

FRANK SCHATZING

TRANSLATED BY MIKE MITCHELL

Epigraph

Language does not veil reality, but expresses it.

—PETER ABELARD

Prologue

The wolf stood on the height, its gaze fixed on the ring of the great wall bathed in the gold of the evening sun.

Its breathing was steady. Its powerful flanks quivered slightly. It had been running all day from the castles of Jülich over the hills and down to this spot where the trees ended, giving a clear view of the distant city. Despite that, it felt no tiredness. As the sun behind it slipped below the horizon in a ball of fire, it threw back its muzzle to take stock of its surroundings.

The odors were intense: the river water, the mud of the banks, the rotting wood of ships’ hulls. It sucked in the scent of animals mingling with the smells given off by humans and their artifacts: fragrant wines and excrement, incense, peat and flesh, the salt on sweaty bodies and the fragrance of expensive furs, blood, honey, herbs, ripe fruit, leprosy, and mold. It smelled love and fear, terror, weakness, hatred, and power. Everything down there spoke its own pungent language, telling the wolf of life inside the stone walls, and of death.

It turned its head.

Silence. The only sound the rustling of leaves.

It waited, motionless, until the gold had gone from the walls and all that was left was a shimmer on the topmost battlements of the gate towers. In a short while that would be gone as well, leaving the day to oblivion. Night would come, clothing the valley in new, dull colors until those too gave way to a darkness in which the gleam of its eyes was the only light.

The time was close when wolves would appear in the dreams of men, a time of change, a time of hunting.

With lithe steps the wolf padded down the slope and disappeared in the tall, dry grass.

Here and there a bird started singing again.

10 September

OUTSIDE THE GATES

“I’m cold.”

“You’re always cold. You’re an arrant coward, that’s your problem.”

Heinrich drew his cloak tighter around him and shot his companion an angry glance. “You don’t really mean that, Matthias. It is cold.”

Matthias shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, then. If you insist—it’s cold.”

“You don’t understand. I feel cold inside.” Heinrich threw his hands out in a theatrical gesture. “That we have to stoop to such means! As God’s my witness, there’s no man less inclined to violence, but—”

“God’s not your witness,” Matthias interrupted.

“What?”

“Why should God waste his precious time on your whining and moaning? To tell the truth, I’m surprised you managed to get on your horse at this time of the night.”

“Now you’re going too far,” Heinrich hissed. “Show a little respect, if you please.”

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