Whereupon Dorothea again set her mouth on the bias and established a connection between her "brestkins twain" and "Jesues body of pain." As for the pus she had taken from the lepers of Corpus Christi Hospital, she called it "honey from Jesues iniurees," which just happened to rhyme with "heavens littul bees." She dissociated herself from Satan, whom she reviled as "the Lord of Lies," which she rhymed with a reference to the shifty look of a tasty flatfish—"the Flunderes skemy eyes."
In the end the doctor of canon law declared himself satisfied. Commander Walrabe von Scharfenberg, a man disinclined to open his mouth, sent Dorothea off to the kitchen to prepare (at last) the promised and so charmingly rhymed Scania herrings.
As Dorothea of Montau withdrew her eyes from one and
the other window, turned, and walked the length of the room to the door, the four dignitaries behind the table had the impression that she was gliding along two hands' breadth above the floor.
Alone again, they relaxed in their chairs. Roze, fired with enthusiasm, was first to say the word: "A saint. She is a saint." The others agreed. But the considerations that suddenly made Commander Walrabe eloquent were of a more practical character. Though perhaps a shade too somber — he began — the prophecy of the politically ignorant Dorothea would be fulfilled, but not to the disadvantage of the Teutonic Order. War with the now united kingdoms of Lithuania and Poland was imminent. Just because the Polish Jadwiga had succeeded in converting the pagan Jagello and metamorphosing him into the Christian Wladislaw, the people, even in Teutonic territory, were calling this power-hungry female a saint. Countermeasures were imperative. Dangerous, dangerous, the way those Polacks kept turning out picturesque miracles, whereas the piety of the honest, simplehearted Germans was too dull for words, and as for the Hanseatic shopkeepers, before they'd buy a miracle they'd count up the costs. "In short," he concluded, "I, Walrabe von Scharfenberg, will bear witness to this woman's holiness and pledge the support of the Teutonic Order, which rules this territory in the name of the Blessed Virgin. We must act quickly. War is hard upon us. In addition to arms and supplies, our imperiled country needs the protection of a tutelary saint. What's more, the man whose sword is guided by such wheaten-haired beauty will fight better."
Johannes Marienwerder sighed and threw up his hands. Though for less warlike motives, the abbot agreed with the commander, but how were canonization proceedings to be initiated? The dignitaries could see no way, for there was one little difficulty: Dorothea was alive. And despite the many hardships endured on her pilgrimages, despite her racking penitential exercises, convulsive ecstasies, other kinds of absence, migraines, and protracted periods of insomnia, she was in excellent health; her strength was in no wise impaired by her frequent nosebleeds, which on the contrary seemed to purify her humors.
When Walrabe termed Dorothea's demise conducive to the welfare of the Teutonic Order and therefore a necessity, and offered in hardly veiled language to promote said demise, possibly with Dominican help, the monk Nikolaus managed a show of indignation: No no no! Out of the question! In a pinch Dorothea could be sent on a pilgrimage to Rome, where the Swedish Birgitta had met her death and been promptly canonized. The soil of the Eternal City, drenched as it was with martyrs' blood, and the unhealthy climate both gave ground for hope. And besides, the papal canonization commission tended to be favorably impressed when prospective saints chose Rome as their last dwelling place. Of course it would be necessary to wait for a jubilee year. And as far as the Dominican knew, there mightn't be one for some time.
The commander refused to be put off. Apparently, he remarked, the monk had no objection to being ruled by Polacks. The war, in any case, would not wait. And what if this indestructible Dorothea went to Rome and survived the feverish climate? No, not at all. He didn't suspect the Dominican brothers' loyalty to the Teutonic Order. Not for the moment, at least.
After a long enough pause to conjure up a more favorable view of the commander's project — the tin-jangling bucket makers could be heard again — Abbot Johannes promised to do his utmost. Since, as they all knew, Dorothea desired a hermit's existence and looked upon withdrawal from the world as freedom, it might, he thought, be possible to accommodate her in Marienwerder Cathedral. True, it was not the custom of the country to immure pious hermits and lady penitents, and elsewhere as well the custom was falling more and more into disuse, but with the support of the bishop it would no doubt be possible to make an exception. And once immured, her mortal envelope was bound to dissolve soon enough.
The four dignitaries had hardly finished discussing the possibilities and possible setbacks — What if she's caught practicing witchcraft? — when Dorothea, now properly setting one foot in front of the other on the floor boards, entered carrying the Scania herrings on a platter.
They can be used fresh, salted, smoked, or marinated. They can be boiled, baked, fried, steamed, filleted, boned and stuffed, rolled around gherkins, or placed in oil, vinegar, white wine, and sour cream. Boiled with onions in salt water, they went well with Amanda Woyke's potatoes in their jackets. Sophie Rotzoll laid them on strips of bacon, sprinkled them with bread crumbs, and popped them into the oven. Margarete Rusch, the cooking nun, liked to steam sauerkraut with juniper berries and throw in small, boned Baltic herrings toward the end. Agnes Kurbiella served tender fillets steamed in white wine as diet fare. Lena Stubbe rolled herrings in flour, fried them, and set them before her second husband. But when Dorothea had the four dignitaries at her table, she prepared Scania herrings salted down and shipped in crates from the Danzig trading post in Fal-sterbo-for which reason the crate makers and the sailors of the Scania fleet, though belonging to separate guilds, had joined forces to provide Saint John's with a Lady altar and silver utensils — in accordance with her usual Lenten rules. After carefully washing them in fresh water, she bedded twelve Scania herrings on ashes strewn over the coals, so that without oil, spices, or condiment of any kind, their eyes whitened and they took on the taste of cooked fish. Before setting the herrings down on the platter-side by side, alternating head and tail-she blew the bulk of the ashes off each one, but a silvery-gray film remained, so that no sooner had Dorothea left the room than the four gentlemen could not help asking what kind of wood the Lenten cook had burned to ashes.
After a short prayer, spoken at Johannes's request by Dorothea's Dominican confessor, the four gentlemen hesitated briefly and fell to. All agreed that Scania herring prepared in this way was singularly tasty. Not one of them wished to look more deeply into the origin of the ashes. All four, even the refined Roze, propped their elbows on the table, held their herrings by the head and tail, and ate them — the monk Nikolaus with rotting teeth-off both sides of the backbones, which they then set down in the original order, head beside tail, whereupon each one took his second and then his third herring off the platter. Only Commander Wal-