Cacao or Joseph Ermeler's Travels
Copyright© 2026 by Argon
Chapter 10: A Dare Gone Wrong
A loud banging on their door woke Joseph and Ursula whilst it was still dark, and Joseph felt his way to the stairs to see who was demanding entry. Opening the door, he found his mother-law, her hair dishevelled and her face showing anguish.
“Quick Joseph, wake up Ursula and bid her to come over!”
“What’s afoot, Mother?” Joseph asked, nonplussed.
“It’s Barbara, she’s unconsolable. The young men got drunk and did reckless dares. Poor Lukas was skipping on the battlements of the town wall, and he missed his step and fell into the moat. He broke his neck and Barbara’s heart.”
“I’ll be over, Mother!” that was Ursula, having followed Joseph downstairs. “Poor Barbara!”
Whilst Joseph busied himself lighting an oil lamp, Ursula dressed in haste, and then crossed the narrow alley into her father’s house. In the meantime, Joseph put on his clothes and left the house, to find out more. He found the coopery and saw a throng of people assembled outside whilst crying women could be heard from within. He only stayed long enough to ascertain what Elsa had reported. The young cooper had perished from a fall whilst trying to fulfil a wager with his drunk friends. Joseph returned to his house, shaking his head over the senseless death. He also thought of Ursula’s sister and the anguish she had to feel. She was a sweet girl, and he knew how much she had looked forward to her wedding.
At Hubert’s house, he entered, to find his father-in-law at the table, shaking his head in dismay.
“What folly!” he exclaimed seeing Joseph. “What reckless folly!”
“A true tragedy, too. Lukas’s parents are devastated,” Joseph answered. “I liked the lad. It is so sad to lose one’s life in a stupid dare. Life holds enough perils as it does. How does Barbara fare?”
“She’s shaken, of course, but Ursula is with her now. We’ll have to see.”
When Joseph and Ursula paid their respects to Lukas’s parents on the following Monday, they had already spoken about the matter, and after they had expressed their sympathy and offered their help, Joseph offered to forget the arrangement they had made with Lukas’s uncle, the carpenter Erwin.
“It would be wrong to insist on the work being for free. Please let your brother know that we’ll pay for the work,” he told Bartholomæus.
“You show yourself as an honourable man, Joseph,” the cooper answered heavily, shaking his head. “He ... he was so eager to finally wed his Barbara. How is the poor maid?”
Joseph let Ursula answer. “Barely consolable,” she said. “She, too, feels the loss and cries all the time.”
“She would have made Lukas happy,” the cooper answered, barely suppressing the sobs.
Shortly after they left the mourning house, Erwin, the carpenter, came to their house and asked to speak to Joseph.
“Spice trader, you and I shook hands over the deal, and I feel honour-bound by it,” he said simply. “What happened to my godson was not your fault and the wedding betwixt him and Hubert’s daughter was not part of our deal.”
Joseph thought quickly, realising that the carpenter would not be swayed.
“I have to bow to your strong sense of honour and righteousness. How about this: my goods shed is in a poor shape, too, and it was not part of the deal. You do what your heart tells you to do, but if you will build me a new and larger shed, I shall pay for it in full.”
In spite of his deep mourning, the carpenter gave Joseph a weak smile. “Give me a week and then tell me what you want built. I see now why Ursula Bohne chose you for her husband. Shall we see you two days hence, at Lukas’s burial?”
Joseph nodded solemnly. “Of course we shall show our support for your family and for the mourning bride.”
As the coffin with Lukas’s remains was carried from the cooper’s house to the church, the four other participants in the fatal, drunk dare, were leading the procession, their hair shorn and wearing only coarse shirts on their bodies. The Schultheiss had ordered them to do severe penance, and they scurried along the cobbled street on their knees, two of them even weeping, for they were well aware of their role in their friend’s senseless death. Their parents, too, were feeling the shame, although Bartholomæus and Sina, his wife, had formally forgiven the young men.
In his sermon, Father Anselm used the tragedy to warn men and lads against the dangers of over-imbibing whilst the four young men lay face-down in front of the coffin, their honest tears wetting the stone floor.
Meanwhile, Barbara sat forlornly between her parents, her life suddenly upended, for Lukas had been dear to her, and no other young man in Heidingsfeld had ever caught her fancy. She would also be seen as unlucky by the more superstitious townspeople, as Ursula feared, who had been the object of malignant rumours herself.
Coffin and parishioners then left the church and congregated around the gravesite. Lukas’s former friends had dug the grave, and they also lowered the coffin into it, before standing aside. Bartholomæus and Sina let Barbara be the first to say farewell.
“May God receive you into his Mercy,” she sobbed, dropping her precious silk scarf onto the coffin, before Ursula led her away. The parents were next, of course, followed by his uncle. Hubert and Elsa came next, before it was Joseph and Ursula’s turn to say a short prayer over the open grave.
In solemn mood, the mourners congregated at the tavern where a deeply apologetic landlord offered food and drink in the memory of his former patron. Making the rounds with Ursula on his arm, Joseph learned that Lukas had a younger brother who was still a journeyman on the waltz1, who would hopefully return and fill the void in the coopery and his parents’ hearts.
Soon, the mourners and their friends and neighbours returned to their homes and their trades, with Ursula staying in Hubert’s house and with her sister.
For a week and more, Ursula spent most of her days with her grieving sister. Joseph understood the reasons, and he did not begrudge Barbara the consolation of having her sister close by. Ursula was quite distraught, too, and one evening, she told Joseph the reason, swearing him to secrecy.
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