Q by Luther Blissett (most recommended books txt) 📖

In the month since we’ve been here I’ve come to appreciate how the spectre of agitation is an extra inhabitant of the town. Nonetheless, I still can’t understand why people are reacting like this to an arrest that doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. They don’t even know who’s ended up inside. It seems to revolve around one detail common to all the rumours: the unfortunate man has been locked up in the Rathaus dungeon, when they should have used the tower of the same building.

‘What’s this about the tower and the dungeon?’ I ask an old man standing beside me observing the scene.

‘Eighth article of our municipal ordinance: no more incarcerations in the dungeons, only in the tower. If you saw what sewers those dungeons were, you’d understand it’s not just a matter of government codes!’

I look up above our heads: Magister Thomas is already standing on a bollard at the side of the road. He is railing against the abuse of power and scorn for the people. Below him there is a continuous coming and gong of people running to get others and picking up tools and stones. Through the middle of the crowd, Elias is making his way towards me. When he sees me, he cries louder than all the rest, ‘Go and get Pfeiffer! Tell him we’ll soon be under the windows of the Rathaus, and tell him to bring as many people as he can.’

I run to the walls. I am recognised by a sentry: not a problem, clearly they’re not expecting any reaction. Still running, I find myself in the Kilansgasse. There’s a clamour at the end of the street, towards the Church of St Blaise, and I find out that Pfeiffer hasn’t wasted any time.

I turn the corner and find myself standing right in front of him. He too is standing on an improvised pulpit. He interrupts his harangue and, pointing at me, starts shouting, ‘Here, here, we’ve got a messenger from the suburb of St Nicholas. Doubtless he is coming to tell us that Thomas M�ntzer and his people are furious about the decision of that pig of a burgomaster… Isn’t that so, brother?’

The heads of the audience turn towards me like a field of sunflowers.

‘Of course, brother Pfeiffer! The people of St Nicholas are already making their way from the Felchta gate to the Rathaus.’

As I approach the little crowd, Pfeiffer jumps down from his bollard and runs towards me. He throws an arm around my shoulders and whispers, ‘Tell me, brother, how many of you are there?’

I exaggerate. ‘You could count on two hundred.’

He grips my shoulder-blade. ‘Fine, this time we’re going to fuck them over.’ Then, louder: ‘They’ll regret this affront, believe me. To the Rathaus, brothers, to the Rathaus!’

His words are already battle-cries.

I don’t know how the pitchforks, torches and iron bars have started springing up. But at a certain point, they suddenly appear above the forest of heads, much more frightening than the halberds of the police closing the entrance to the building. One of them dashes up the stairs to ask for instructions. He comes back with about fifteen fellow-officers behind him.

There is a heated discussion between the advanced lines of both groups. The news goes around that the precise insult directed by Willi Pimple at burgomaster Rodemann was ‘kiss my arse’, accompanied by a display of his posterior. For many, this was a very explicit invitation to repeat the gesture, and dozens of arseholes peer up at the Rathaus.

All of a sudden, right at the front, there is a roar. I push my way through and clutch at people to see better, already anticipating the scene of Rodemann’s definitive humiliation. Instead I see Elias lifting high above his shoulders, a tiny middle-aged man, almost bald, his purple nose covered with blotches. He is shouting with joy, and the outstretched hands receive him and roll him around above their heads: ‘It’s Willi! Long live Willi! Fucking shitheads! Long live Willi! Sewer rats! Willi the great!’�

The crowd carries him in triumph across the square, a girl on someone’s shoulder bares her tits, and Willi hurls himself on them like a man brought back from the dead. The people throw him vegetables and sweets that daub him from head to foot. Laughing, I shout: ‘Long live king Willi! Long live the hero of the people of M�hlhausen!’

And the drunk, as though he has heard me, turns in my direction and makes a sign of benediction in the air, a moment before a cauliflower catches him right in the face.

Chapter 18�

Eltersdorf, Easter 1526

I remember that on the night of the coronation of King Willi few people in M�hlhausen slept a wink. Without a doubt, the people who didn’t included Rodemann and Kreuzberg, the two burgomasters, beneath whose windows there raged an extraordinary tournament, dedicated to them, of insults, curses and violent slogans. The crowds of tramps couldn’t have had much sleep, either. Eager for possible plunder, they filled the streets until the following morning.

Unfortunately, Morpheus embraced the two sentries posted at the rear of the Rathaus, so the burgomasters had little difficulty fleeing in the direction of Salza, with the town banner rolled up under their arms.

By the time we awoke, fresh news was spreading, there were fresh upsets and fresh assemblies beneath the windows of the Rathaus, demanding that the Council intervene. The eight delegates of the people, already elected before our arrival, tried to convince the head of the guards of the seriousness of the gesture of the two burgomasters, and the need to erase that disgrace as soon as possible. But he replied that he didn’t take orders from anyone but the legitimate representatives of the townspeople. And while we set about reordering our thoughts in our suburb of St Nicholas, he managed to gather a considerable proportion of the population around him, putting them all on their guard against anyone who might want to take advantage of this difficult situation in the town in order to organise forces as they pleased.

It wasn’t long before comments along the lines of THE COPS NEVER CHANGE were flourishing on the city walls. Meanwhile, tired of waiting for events to explode, many practised plunderers were speedily going about their business, sowing terror within the walls of the town and among the lines of the palace defenders. For our part, we tried to assess as precisely as possible whether there was room for violent action. A messenger was sent to Salza to ask some of Magister Thomas’ followers if we couldn’t intervene directly there, so as to make the two fugitives pay, and create a situation favourable to revolt in that town. The reply was a cordial invitation to mind our own business.

M�hlhausen was preparing for a second sleepless night. Groups of townspeople patrolled the town with torches in their hands while the guards crowded around the entrance to the Felchta gate and the palace. A pointless precaution: from our point of view it wouldn’t have been difficult to break through that picket, but once we were inside the town could be turned into a trap, boiling oil could fall from any window, death could come from any doorway. Furthermore, it had to be borne in mind that they had at least a hundred hackbuts in there, while we had five at the most.

So we waited. And the halo of twilight slowly enveloped the faces of this band of humble people, busy learning the art of throwing stones and sticks, knocking their enemies down, sleeping on cobblestones, eating rye-bread and goose-fat, listening with one ear to the Magister’s sermon and the other to the erotic enterprises of their neighbour.

The following day, some hours after dawn, Ottilie and the Magister, seeing that long-distance confrontation was weakening most people, and that many of them were insisting on returning to their business, sought help from the Bible. ‘When God supported his people, the city walls crumbled at the sound of trumpets. Remember the end of Jericho. Since we are his elect, the Lord God will grant us just as easy a victory. But we must have faith and trust that God will not abandon his troops.’

Magister Thomas was a persuasive speaker, and this speech was received literally by about fifty of the comrades. Armed with seven imposing hunting horns, all with metal mouthpieces, they walked along the path flanked by the bastions, singing and playing as loudly as their lungs would let them. If nothing else the scene filled everyone with enthusiasm, and it certainly impressed many of the wealthy brewers who thronged the Rathaus square.

These fifty soldiers of Joshua never made their seventh circuit of the walls. They were just completing the fifth, and yelling at the tops of their voices ‘Shit-eating lackeys!’ at the guards lined up beneath the arch of the Felchta gate, when something that would finally dissolve the tension of those days appeared in the distance. A very large number of men, with a forest of long sticks growing above their heads, was advancing towards the town at great speed. Had they been reinforcements on their way from Salza, M�hlhausen would have fallen into our hands by evening. But brother Leonard, whom we had sent to meet them, returned with the information that they were peasants from the surrounding district, and they were coming to the aid of the town Council. Within a short while this news reached the people within the walls, and we soon found ourselves between the devil and the deep blue sea: on one side the peasants, already marching up the cobblestones, and on the other the townspeople, enjoying the scene as they peered out from behind the first row of sentries. Too many people, in short.

That’s what happens when you ignore the peasants just to capture the town cannons. The council promises them a reduction in taxes on incoming foodstuffs, and in a flash you find you’re up against them.� On a day like that one, with the peasants on our side… Instead of which the troop of the humble quickly disperses, with no blood shed, like butter in an oven. The peasants shook hands with the townspeople, smashing our hunting horns to smithereens, and got home in time for dinner.

So the Council’s resolution to elect two new burgomasters felt like a concession, an easy way to get rid of two idiots and reinforce control over the town.

The following morning, the town square was filled once again with a great crowd of people waiting to know the names of the new burgomasters. One of those elected, the producer of the best beer in the city, immediately celebrated by giving the population two enormous casks. Then it was the turn of the second man, who ran a textile shop. He said that thanks to the great foresight of the Council, a situation of serious confusion had been resolved, that Rodemann and Kreuzberg had justly paid for their gesture and would not return to the town. Nonetheless they were not alone in having acted against the interests of the citizenry; as might be expected from an outsider, Thomas M�ntzer had done everything in his power to throw the town into chaos, and Heinrich Pfeiffer had followed him blindly in his plan to incite rebellion. M�hlhausen had no need of such people to improve their own council ordinances. Thomas M�ntzer and Heinrich Pfeiffer were therefore invited to abandon the city within two days. If they remained beyond that date they would deserve to be incarcerated in the Rathaus tower.

Even today I wonder what strange alchemies had been generated during the previous night, and what paralysing fluid flowed at that movement over the pavement of the square. Certainly, the arrival of the peasants was