Q - Luther Blissett (interesting novels to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Luther Blissett
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‘You’re right. We’d have to make contact with the Dutch and German brethren. M�nster could be the example. We’ve shown that it can be done. But why not Amsterdam, or Emden…?’
We return to the horses and set off to complete our mission.
I decide to tell him. I’ve got to know who I can depend on.
‘Matthys is dangerous, Heinrich. He could destroy everything we’ve done in a single day.’
The former mercenary looks at me strangely, something’s bothering him.
Again: ‘I don’t want things to end up this way. I knew Melchior Hofmann, he’d established a date for the end of the world as well. The day came, nothing happened and his reputation evaporated.’
We ride on ahead of the others, they can’t hear what we’re saying.
‘That man has balls, Gert: he’s abolished money, and since the day I was born I’d never thought such a thing could be done. And he did it with a click of his fingers…’
‘And he’s shutting up anyone who opens his mouth.’
‘Tell me. What do you plan to do?’
I’ve got to tell him.
‘I want to stop him, Heinrich. I want to stop him becoming the new bishop of M�nster, or dragging us all into a fearsome bloodbath. I’m the one who’s got to do it. Rothmann is ill, he’s weak. Knipperdolling and Kibbenbrock would never attack the authority of the prophet, they’re shitting themselves.’
We fall silent for a moment, listening to the hoofs ringing on the ground, the horses panting.
It’s his turn to speak. ‘Nothing’s going to happen on Easter day.’
Maybe it’s a statement of intent on his part.
‘That’s exactly the problem. What plans does Matthys have for that day? He’s a madman, Heinrich, a dangerous madman.’
It seems incredible: just over a month ago we were in charge of M�nster; now we’re talking in whispers, far from the ears of everyone, as if doubt were a mortal crime.
‘He gave a date, and on the basis of that date he has assumed absolute power. We can get him.’
‘Run him down in front of everyone?’
I swallow hard: ‘Or kill him.’
My bones are chilled the minute the words are uttered, as though winter wanted to freeze them with an icy bite.
A few yards more in silence. It’s as though I can hear the hubbub of his thoughts.
His eyes remain fixed towards the end of the road: ‘There would be a war in the city. Those people who have come from elsewhere, they all love him. The M�nsterites might follow you, but with every passing day they’re becoming more of a minority.’
‘You’re right. But we can’t just stand and watch as something we’ve fought for goes up in smoke.’
Once more, the sound of his thoughts.
‘Anyone who’s tried to challenge him has left his blood on the cobbles of the square.’
I nod. ‘Exactly. And that wasn’t what you were fighting for when you used your pistols against the Lutherans and the bishop’s men.’
*
The city seems deserted. Silence, no one in the streets. We look at each other anxiously, like people who scent that a disaster has taken place; but we don’t speak, we leave the horses and set off together, as though drawn by a magnet towards the central theatre, the great Cathedral square. With each step we take we sense the mounting anxiety of some menacing disaster, unknown but clear and present, that has fallen upon the city and engulfed the inhabitants. Where is everyone? There’s nobody there, not even a flea-ridden dog. We all quicken our pace.
The whitish cloud puffs above the row of buildings along the narrow street leading to the square.
It is full.
The noise of a crowd arranged, rapt and respectful, around its centre, where there stands a pyre shooting tongues of flame. An obscene altar raised to oblivion, the word of God erasing that of men, spewing forth its triumph over our bent backs, burying our eyes beneath an impenetrable blanket of smoke; its breath pouring out above our heads; its implacable eye fixed upon us, hunting us down to where we cannot hide, within our own thoughts, within the desire to be, one day, wiser. Stifling all curiosity, all brilliance.
The smoke rises gently from the pile of books. They’re picking up armfuls of the volumes loaded on the backs of the carts, and throwing them into the bonfire; a column of fire rises until it licks at the sky, to attract the angels with the smoke of Pierre Lombard, Augustine, Tacitus, Caesar, Aristotle…
The Prophet, standing bolt upright on the stage, clutches a Bible. I am sure he sees me. Mumbled syllables which do not rise above the exalted cheering of the people or the crackling of the fire, but are uttered for my benefit by those thin lips.
‘Vain words of men, you won’t see the day of thunder. The Word, and it alone, will sing the Lord’s judgement.’
The pile grows and is consumed, it rises and turns to ash, I spot a copy of Erasmus, showing that this God no longer needs our language, and will not give us peace. The old world is consumed like parchment in the flames…
By my side, the pale face of Gresbeck, furious and strong: ‘I’m on your side.’
M�nster, Easter 1534
I wake with a start from agitated sleep, drenched in cold sweat despite the rain hammering furiously against the shutters, throbbing with ancestral fear, I catch my breath with a dull, hoarse wheeze. I narrow my eyes, defenceless.
Yellow lights pierce the gloom of early morning.
Day of Resurrection.
Scenario number one: at sunset the square is full, everyone’s there, waiting for a speech from the Prophet. Matthys comes out on to the stage, addresses the crowd, gives some kind of explanation of the non-existent Apocalypse, probably attributing blame to those members of the elect who are not yet pure. The stage is erected to the south of the Cathedral. Twenty men, including myself, enter by the western fa�ade and leave by the transept window right behind the Prophet. The other ten are in the first few rows. The guards haven’t time to react. Gresbeck grabs Matthys by the shoulder and puts his blade to his throat. Captain Gert explains why Enoch must die.
Scenario number two: Enoch guides the people of the saints to the final battle. Let him. Von Waldeck’s ragbag of troops can be defeated. Twenty of my men in the key battle positions. The rest are arranged around the Prophet, keeping an eye on his personal guard. In the confusion of battle, find the right moment. Captain Gert’s pistol leaves Enoch dead in the field.
The Cathedral spreads wide its jaws.
Four broad and shallow steps, each one a span across, lead up to the two supporting pillars of the arch that precedes and dominates the portal; pointed at the top, the underside jagged with thirteen stone protrusions like sharpened fangs. Two steps, then four more, narrower and steeper, up to the two doors. In the middle, a kind of uvula formed by a statue supported on a slender column. On either side of the second staircase three niches gradually restrict the opening. All the way from the arch that forms the lips and teeth to the dark throat in the depths of the building, a host of statues clusters on the palate like the souls of the damned swallowed by the monster.
Above the entrance are the huge eyes of a window with fine lattice-work, flanked on either side by two smaller, coarser windows. The face is finished off with a triangular forehead, topped by three pinnacles: its horns.
The fa�ade is enclosed by the massive square towers, outlined by two orders of hanging arches, the first order simple, the second double, opened up by two orders of mullioned windows, growing progressively larger. On either side, the two wings of the transept are claws planted heavily on the ground.
Rain-drenched, I am swallowed up.
Almost half the present population of M�nster has been gathered between these three imposing naves since vespers on Saturday. On their knees, hands clasped together, they wait, chanting quietly, for the event that the Prophet has predicted for today.
‘Today everything will vanish from the earth, says the Lord. I will destroy men and beasts. I will exterminate the birds from the sky and the fishes from the sea, I will smite the wicked. I will exterminate man from the earth. The final day will be like a flood. This city of ours is the ark, built with the wood of penitence and righteousness. It will float upon the waters of the final retribution.
‘God did not ask Noah to tell the world what was about to happen. And when the waters withdrew, he promised that he would never again smite all living creatures as he had done that day. From that point onwards, every time the Lord intends destruction, he chooses a prophet to instruct his fellow men in the ways of conversion. Jeremiah spoke to the King of Judaea, Jonah crossed Niniveh, Ezekiel was sent to the Israelites, Amos travelled through the desert.
‘If I send my sword to destroy a country and the people of that country choose a sentry, and the sentry, seeing the sword fall upon the country, sounds the trumpet and gives the people an alarm; and if he who hears the sound of the trumpet pays no attention and the sword reaches him and takes him by surprise, he is responsible for his own destruction. If, on the other hand, the sentry sees the sword coming and does not sound the trumpet and the sword reaches a man and takes him by surprise, that man will be surprised because of his own iniquity: but for his death I will demand an answer from the sentry.
‘I do not enjoy the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, I want the wicked to cease their evil ways and go on living. If God wanted to judge the word as it is, he would not send prophets. If God wanted to convert all the godless, he would instil his Spirit in them, but he would not use prophets.
‘Jan Matthys of Haarlem was called to spread the word of God as far as his voice could reach. Beyond these borders the Lord must have appointed other prophets to himself: in Turkey, the New World, Cathay.
‘Outside these walls, where death is sharpening its scythe, there are men who were deaf to the trumpet, and not because they were careless. The mercenaries in the pay of the princes, the desperate men forced by hunger to fight wars that have nothing to do with them, those who have heard only lies about us. How many of them would enter the ark if they were told that money had been abolished, that all goods have been placed in common ownership, that the only erudition is that of the Bible and the only law the law of God?
‘If the Prophet of the New Jerusalem does not speak to them, does not dissuade them from conduct dictated by their poverty of spirit, then he is the one the Lord will hold to account for their destruction.
‘There is a time and a place for all things with a beginning and an end. Our time is at an end. The Lord is coming, and his prophet will be as nothing. The doors of the Kingdom are open wide. He will fulfil his mandate, as it is written in the Plan.’
Knipperdolling doesn’t understand. With an incredulous expression he follows Matthys’s steps to the door. He tries to ask Rothmann something, but gets no reply. The preacher’s ravaged face betrays no emotions, his lips are moved by the trembling of a prayer. Perhaps knowledge
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