The Beggar King

9

REGENSBURG

NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, AUGUST 22, 1662 AD

This morning they began with the rack straightaway.

In silence the Regensburg executioner removed Kuisl’s bandages and bound his arms behind his back. Perceiving shadows behind the wooden lattice, Kuisl knew the doctor and the three inquisitors were already present. He fixed his eyes on the lattice as if by sheer force of will he might see through it to finally get a look at the man who’d set this awful trap for him.

Since Teuber had visited the cell to care for his wounds, only a single, agonizing night had passed and Kuisl had slept little. Instead, he’d spent the whole time brooding over the name Weidenfeld and where he might have heard it before. It was clear now that the third man whose face was hidden behind the lattice was an avenging angel risen out of his past. The same stranger had made all the inscriptions on the cell wall to remind the hangman of a time he’d long ago banished to the remote corners of his memory. The ghosts of the war had risen again, and the worst among them was hiding here, in the torture chamber in Regensburg behind a wooden lattice. Who was it? And why was he pursuing him?

P.F.K. Weidenfeld…

Kuisl moaned softly as the executioner strapped him to a modified ladder rack. The herbal ointment Teuber had spread on his wounds was a blessing but in no way a cure. Now Teuber tied Kuisl’s hands, already bound together behind his back, tightly to an upper rung of the rack. Sharply filed wood pyramids bored into his wounded flesh while the weight of his body pulled him inexorably downward along the rungs, prying his shoulder joints apart as he slid. Still, that wasn’t the worst: Teuber tied a noose around Kuisl’s legs, then attached it to a roller at the bottom of the instrument. When the executioner turned the roller, the victim’s arms would be pulled farther and farther upward, behind his back, until his shoulders would at last rip from their sockets.

“We begin the second interrogation,” the older man intoned from behind the lattice, a voice Kuisl now knew belonged to the president of the council, Hieronymus Rheiner. “Kuisl, you can save yourself a lot of pain if you simply confess that-”

“To hell with you, you dirty bastards!” Kuisl shouted. “Even if you cut me to pieces and throw me into boiling water, it wasn’t me!”

“It’s quite possible we’ll do just that,” the third voice replied sardonically. “But first we’re going to try the rack. Teuber, turn the crank.”

Drops of sweat appeared on Teuber’s brow, and his lips pressed into a thin line. Nevertheless, he moved the roller about a quarter turn, just enough for Kuisl’s bones to crack audibly.

“Don’t make this unnecessarily hard on yourself,” admonished the youngest inquisitor, presumably Joachim Kerscher from the Regensburg tax office. “The evidence is overwhelming. We all know you committed the murder, but by Carolingian Law we need your confession.”

“It wasn’t me,” Kuisl muttered.

“Blast it, we caught you red-handed! Right alongside the two corpses!” Hieronymus Rheiner fumed. “God knows you are guilty! He’s looking down on you now!”

Kuisl laughed softly. “God isn’t here. Only the devil’s present in this room.”

“This isn’t working,” the third man said icily. “Teuber, keep turning. I want to hear his bones break.”

“But Your Honors,” Teuber spoke up cautiously. His face looked pale and bloated in the torchlight. The merry sparkle in his eyes had disappeared, and he seemed to have suddenly aged by years. “Were I to proceed too quickly, Kuisl might pass out, and then-”

“Who asked your opinion, hangman?” the third inquisitor snarled.

Doctor Elsperger, who until that point had been sitting silently on the wooden bench, now stood up and cleared his throat.

“Teuber isn’t entirely mistaken,” he said. “From appearances the accused may indeed become unconscious. Then we’d have to terminate the procedure prematurely.”

“Elsperger, you’re right,” old Rheiner responded from behind the lattice. “We must proceed slowly. Teuber, just a quarter turn again, no more.”

The Regensburg executioner, who was leaning silently against the rack, didn’t seem to hear the inquisitor at first.

“Pardon, Your Honor. A quarter turn, as you command.”

As Teuber cranked the roller, Kuisl could feel his arms about to be wrenched from their sockets. This pain only intensified as the pyramid-shaped wedges dug ever deeper into his back. Kuisl closed his eyes and hummed the old nursery rhyme he’d first heard in an army encampment outside Breitenfeld long ago. Soldiers’ wives hummed it in their children’s ears to soothe them while villages burned on the horizon. Kuisl himself had sung it to send his little sister, as well as his own children, off to the land of dreams.

“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home…”

“Kuisl, stop this foolishness and confess!” young Kerscher warned him. “It’s over for you.”

“Your house is on fire…”

“Good Lord, confess!” Rheiner shouted.

“Your children will burn…”

“Confess!”

Kuisl spat at the lattice. “Go to hell, you potbellied little pricks.”

For a moment everyone fell silent, and the only sound was Kuisl’s labored breathing.

“A lovely song,” the third inquisitor said finally in a malevolent tone. “Unfortunately you’ll never again sing it to your children. You do have children, don’t you? And a beautiful wife, as well. What’s her name? Anna-Maria, I believe.”

He repeated the name, pronouncing each syllable slowly, almost lustfully. “An-na-Ma-ri-a.”

The Schongau hangman struggled to get up, while his bones cracked and his left shoulder snapped out of its socket. This devil knew his wife? And his children, too? What did he have planned for them? Had he already taken out his vengeance on them for some crime their husband and father committed decades ago? Though the pain almost caused Kuisl to faint, he spat a stream of bile in the direction of the wooden lattice.

“You goddamned swine!” he screamed. “Come out here and show me your goddamned face so I can rip the skin off it!”

“You’re a bit confused,” the third man calmly replied. “You’re the one whose face we’re going to tear to shreds in a little while.”

“I implore you to show a bit more respect, colleague,” Rheiner scolded. “This is an interrogation. One might almost think the accused has somehow wronged you personally… Elsperger?”

The gaunt surgeon sprang up from the bench. “Your Honor?”

“Is the subject still fit for interrogation?”

Elsperger approached the Schongau hangman and examined his crippled arm in the dim torchlight.

“His left shoulder seems to be dislocated,” he said finally, “but the right one still looks in good shape.”

“Respiration?”

Elsperger nodded. “He’s still breathing. This man is as strong as an ox, if I may say so. I’ve never seen-”

“Nobody asked for your opinion,” Rheiner said. “Esteemed colleagues, may I suggest the left arm be untied and we continue with the right? And as far as I’m concerned, we might as well get started with the hot poker. I’m certain we’ll have our confession soon. Teuber, take down the left arm, and we’ll continue with the right. For God’s sake, Teuber, what’s the matter with you?”

The Regensburg executioner wiped the sweat from his brow as his gaze went blank. “Pardon, once more,” he stammered. “But I believe the man has had enough for today.”

“Another person determined to have his say!” the older councilman groused. “Where are we? In a ship of fools? Now hurry up and do as we’ve ordered, or I’ll cancel the two guilders you’re to be paid for the day’s work.”

When Teuber loosened the shackles, Kuisl’s arm collapsed like an empty wineskin. Then the executioner reached again for the crank.

“Good Lord, confess, will you!” Teuber whispered in Kuisl’s ear. “Confess, and it will be over!”

“My dear, sweet twins…” Kuisl whispered, on the verge of passing out. “Lisl, my Lisl, come and I’ll sing you to sleep…”

“Teuber, crank the damned roller at once,” the third man snarled. “Or must I come out and do it myself?”

With a clenched jaw, the Regensburg executioner once again began turning the crank, as Kuisl continued singing the nursery rhyme over and over.

The melody would echo in Teuber’s mind the entire night.

Simon and the beggar carried Crazy Johannes through the dark, deserted streets toward Neupfarr Church Square while Magdalena scouted ahead to make sure their strange ensemble didn’t encounter any watchmen who might have some unpleasant questions to ask. Having finally arrived back in the catacombs, they bedded the injured man down in the niche they were using as a sick bay.

Just as the medicus had assumed, the blow hadn’t pierced the lungs. And though the blade had passed straight through his shoulder, the wound was clean. After Simon applied some moss to stanch the bleeding, he treated it with an ointment of arnica and chamomile.

“You’ll have to dispense with your crazy Saint Vitus’ dances for a while,” he told Johannes as he tentatively pressed the edge of the wound, whereupon the beggar let out a shout of pain. “How about trying to earn some honest money the next few weeks?” Simon continued. “Just lie down by the cathedral and hold out your hand.”

“That’s not half as much fun,” Johannes said, trying to grin despite the pain.

In the meantime Magdalena handed Simon clean water, cloths, and bandages, always keeping an eye on the ragged bunch crowded behind the dirty sick-bay curtain. By now she’d come to know some of the beggars: the crippled and sick, the disbanded mercenaries, stranded pilgrims, cast-off wives, prostitutes, and abandoned orphans-a motley mix of outcasts just like Magdalena. Looking over their faces, she felt a strange bond with them all.

I’m one of them, she thought. A city within a city, and I’m part of it.

The previous night she and Simon had gone for a walk through the winding subterranean passageways, counting almost forty cellars all connected to one another. Many were empty, but the beggars had stashed food and furnishings in some. Musty drapes and trunks, even a child’s toy here and there, all suggested whole families called these damp, dark vaults home. Beneath some of the cellars Simon and Magdalena came upon even deeper cellars by way of staircases or narrow, winding corridors. Here they found Latin inscriptions on the walls, and tucked away in one corner they even discovered a small bronze pagan statue. Were these the remains of an even older Roman settlement predating the Jewish ghetto above?

Here, deep in the bowels of the city, far from the beggars, they found themselves alone together for the first time in a long while. They made love in the dim, sooty glow of a lantern and promised each other not to give up. Magdalena still believed they could save her father. What might come next, though, she refused to consider now. Would she return with Simon to Schongau, where she could expect nothing but mockery and shame? Where Alderman Berchtholdt and his cronies would make their life hell? And where they could never expect to build a life together?

In spite of it all, Magdalena missed her mother and the twins desperately. Perhaps the little ones were ill or her mother was spending sleepless nights worrying over the disappearance not only of her husband but of her eldest daughter as well. Wasn’t it Magdalena’s duty to return to report her father’s fate?

A sharp cry brought her back to the present, where Simon had just finished sewing up Johannes’s wound and given the beggar a friendly slap.

“That’s it!” he said, helping the beggar back to his feet. “As I said, no tricks for the next few weeks. And lots of wine; you’ve got to get your strength back.”

Despite his pain, Johannes forced a smile. “Now that’s a medicine to my liking. Is there an illness for which peach brandy is the cure?”

Smiling, Magdalena packed the bandages and salves into a leather bag. She found it hard to imagine she’d ever feared the beggars. For a while now they’d felt to her like one big family.

At that moment she remembered the letter from her father that the hangman’s son had given her. She hadn’t even gotten around to opening it! So once she’d helped Simon wipe the bloodstains from the sickbed, she retired to a quieter niche and with trembling fingers unfolded the crumpled piece of paper. What did her father have to tell her? Had he found a way to escape?

Looking down at the letter, she stopped short. The faded note consisted of a single line:

GREETINGS FROM WEIDENFELD…

Magdalena held the paper close enough to the candle that its edges slowly started to curl, but there was nothing else legible in the note.

GREETINGS FROM WEIDENFELD…

Was her father trying to tell her something that no one else was supposed to know? Was this a secret clue, something only she was meant to understand?

Then Magdalena realized this letter couldn’t possibly be from her father.

It was in someone else’s handwriting.

The boy had told her the letter came from her father, so someone was lying. Deep in thought, Magdalena folded it up and returned it to her skirt pocket.

“What’s wrong?” Simon, who had returned to her side, looked at her with surprise.

“The letter from my father…” she began hesitantly. “Someone else wrote it.” She told Simon about the mysterious text.

“Well?” Simon asked. “Do you know anyone by that name?”

Magdalena shook her head. “Unfortunately no.” She bit her lip, thinking. “This letter must have come from the man who’s out to get my father. I’m pretty sure there’s more behind this than the patricians retaliating against the freemen.” Magdalena collapsed onto the straw, rubbing her temples. “Someone has it in for my father-maybe someone he crossed a long time ago, someone who is sparing no pains to pay him back now.”

“Does your father have lots of enemies?” Simon asked hesitantly.

Magdalena laughed. “Enemies? My father is the hangman. He has more enemies than the kaiser has soldiers.”

“So the murderer could be a relative of someone he once executed?” the medicus persisted.

Magdalena shrugged. “Or someone he broke on the rack until he got the truth out of him, or someone he whipped or whose ear he cut off, or someone he put in the stocks or banished from town… Just forget about that! It won’t lead anywhere.”

“What bad luck that the bathhouse ruins collapsed!” Simon said. “Now we’ll probably never learn what was going on in that secret alchemist’s workshop.”

“But the stranger who’s apparently on our trail won’t learn anything, either,” Magdalena replied. “And don’t forget, we have an advantage: we know what was down there.”

“Though we can’t make any sense of it.” Sighing, Simon sank down in the straw beside Magdalena and stared off into the gloomy hall. Nathan sat at the massive table amid a number of other beggars and sipped from a mug of watery beer. Though the beggar king seemed to watch them out of the corner of his eye, he made no attempt to approach them.

“Let’s go over what we know again,” Magdalena said, chewing on a piece of straw. “The bathhouse owner, Andreas Hofmann, and his wife, my aunt, were killed. They were members of the freemen, who are rebelling against patrician rule and whose leader is the Regensburg raftmaster, Karl Gessner. Hofmann was Gessner’s second in command, and when his cover got blown, he had to die-the patricians’ act of revenge and a deterrent to the other revolutionaries.”

“Your father was the scapegoat,” Simon added. “He received a forged letter about his oh-so-sick sister, traveled to Regensburg, where he was arrested at the scene of the crime to divert suspicion from the patricians. So far, so good. But in the bathhouse cellar there was a secret alchemist’s workshop, and apparently someone was looking for it-the stranger with the rapier who tried to kill us and who, it seems, is taking orders from none less than the Regensburg city treasurer.”

Magdalena nodded. “Paulus Mamminger. He must be at the center of everything. And he’s the only lead we really have. We’ll have to follow him.”

“And how do you intend to do that?” Simon inquired. “Shadow one of the most powerful patricians in Regensburg around the clock? It won’t be easy. You’d need an army.”

Magdalena grinned. “You forget we have one.” She pointed at the beggars Nathan was now toasting jovially with his mug of beer. “They’re just itching for someone to send them into battle.”

Philipp Teuber shuffled home from the torture chamber as if he were on his way to his own execution. He’d spent the entire morning torturing Jakob Kuisl and in the afternoon was to begin again. Teuber felt as if he’d aged years in a matter of hours, and not even the prospect of a hot dinner at home could change that.

The Regensburg executioner’s house was located on Henkersgasschen, Hangman’s Lane, in a rundown part of town south of the old grain market. Amid muddy roads, crooked, warped roofs, and dilapidated houses the tidy property seemed a bit out of place. It was freshly whitewashed, the well-tended garden behind it was full of fragrant roses and lavender blossoms, and a newly renovated barn next door housed cattle and carts. Teuber wasn’t poor; in a Free Imperial City like Regensburg, the hangman made a decent living. And almost every day people came to him to purchase some medicine or talisman, among them well-to-do citizens who hid their faces as they passed through the rank lanes of this part of town.

The hangman, stooped and pale, opened the door to his home and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of cheerful children. Under normal circumstances he would lift his five little children high into the air one by one and hug them against his broad chest, but today he quietly pushed the rambunctious group aside and sat down at the table, where his wife, Caroline, had already set down a steaming bowl of bone-marrow broth and tripe. As usual, everyone waited for the hard-working father to take the first spoonful; only after he had taken an unenthusiastic taste did the five children pounce on the food like hungry wolves. Lost in thought, Teuber watched his family eat, while he himself could only stir his spoon around in the bowl.

“What’s wrong, Philipp?” his wife asked, holding the bawling youngest child on her lap as she fed him. “If you keep this up, you’ll be nothing more than skin and bones. You haven’t eaten a thing for days. Is it because of this hangman from Schongau?”

Teuber nodded and stared vacantly at the wooden spoon in his bowl, where a gleaming glob of fat floated on the surface. He remained silent.

“Papa, can I have your tripe?” his oldest son asked. It was the redheaded Benjamin who’d taken the letter to Magdalena early that morning. When his father didn’t answer, the boy pointed to the few gray scraps floating in the soup and repeated his question. “Papa, can I-”

“For God’s sake, leave me alone, all of you!”

Teuber pounded the table so hard with his fist that the bowls clattered and the startled youngsters fell silent. “Can’t we just once have peace and quiet in this house!”

He got up from the table and stomped into the main room, slamming the door behind him. Alone at last, Teuber bent over a wash basin and splashed cold water on his face, as if that could wash away his worries. He shook himself off like a dog and slumped onto a rickety stool in a corner. Then, folding his hands across his broad chest, he stared at a long executioner’s sword on the wall in front of him.

Fitted with a leather grip, its blade was nearly as long as a man is tall. Regensburgers had gruesome stories to tell about it. Market women whispered that the sword quivered for three days before every execution and could be appeased only with blood. Others claimed the steel rattled whenever a death sentence was pronounced. Teuber knew all this was nonsense. It was a good sword, passed down through many generations and carefully forged by human hands to bring a quick and painless death. It was solid handiwork; there was nothing magical about it. Engraved on the blade was a saying the Regensburg executioner often repeated quietly to himself:

ABIDE WITH ME, ALMIGHTY GOD

Although this line was intended for the condemned man, Teuber had the feeling it referred to him now, as well.

After a while his wife opened the door cautiously and sat down beside him. Outside, the children could be heard giggling and roughhousing. They seemed to have gotten over the incident.

“Would you like to talk?” Caroline asked after a while. Silence fell over the room, and only the children’s muffled laughter could be heard from outside.

“He’s just like me,” her husband finally said. “He has a wife and a few children, he does his job, he’s a damn good executioner, and he’s innocent.”

Caroline gave him a skeptical sidelong look. Her once-delicate face was gaunt now, fine lines spread from the corners of her eyes and mouth, and her blond hair had turned gray in many places. Together the Teubers had seen their fair share of hard times. Countless sleepless nights before executions, the screams of the tortured, the disapproving looks of narrow-minded citizens in the street-over a lifetime all this had left its mark, not just on the Regensburg executioner but on his wife as well.

“How do you know he’s innocent?” the executioner’s wife asked finally. “Doesn’t every petty thief claim that?”

Teuber shook his head. “He really is innocent. Someone set him up. The third inquisitor…” He hesitated briefly before continuing. “The dirty swine insists I torture Kuisl more mercilessly than I’ve ever done. He seems to know things about Kuisl that he couldn’t reasonably know. The fiend wants him dead, not because Kuisl has broken the law but because of something that happened between them long, long ago. And I’m his instrument.”

His wife smiled. “Aren’t you always? The instrument, I mean?”

Teuber slapped his broad, muscular thigh in frustration. “Don’t you understand? This time is different! By torturing an innocent man, I’m assisting in someone else’s revenge while the real murderer runs around free! And even more men may die because of it!”

Caroline sighed. “What can you do? If you refuse to torture him, they’ll only replace you with another executioner. The knacker’s son has been waiting for his chance a long time now. And they’ll drive us out of town. Is that what you want?”

Teuber shook his head. “God, no! But maybe there’s another way.”

His wife looked at him sharply. “What do you mean? Tell me!” A light flashed in her eyes, even as they narrowed to little slits. “You don’t intend to…?”

Without a word, Teuber headed for a huge pharmacy cupboard, which was as tall as a man and took up half the back wall. He opened it, pulled a rusty bunch of keys from a hidden drawer, and held the ring out like a monstrance, letting the keys jangle softly.

“The key to the cells in the city hall,” he said softly. “The late mayor, Bartholomaus Marchthaler, God rest his soul, had them made for me many years ago because he was too lazy to accompany me to the torture chamber each time. Since Marchthaler is long gone now, it’s unlikely anyone knows about this set of keys except me-and now you.”

Caroline stood up and took the keys from her husband’s hand. “Do you know how dangerous this is?” she asked. “There are still the guards to consider. If even the slightest suspicion falls on you, they’ll hang you, whip the children and me, and drive us right out of town.”

The Regensburg executioner took his wife by the shoulders, then stroked her cheek clumsily with his huge hand. “We’ve always made our decisions together,” he whispered. “I would never do this if you were against it.”

For a long time all was silent except for the crying of the youngest child, on the other side of the door, who obviously wanted his mother.

“The children adore you,” his wife said abruptly. “If something were to happen to you, they would never forgive you.”

Teuber brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “They would also never forgive me for being an unconscionable, cowardly dog.” He smiled awkwardly. “And you? Could you love a man like that?”

Caroline gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Be quiet, you silly old bear. Is he really innocent?”

Teuber nodded. “As innocent as you and I.”

Caroline closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Then do it quickly. The sooner we get this behind us, the better. Now let me go back to the children.”

As she pulled herself from his embrace and left the room, Philipp Teuber watched her brush away a single tear on her cheek. Moments later he heard her in the kitchen scolding the children, who had apparently raided the honeypot.

Teuber stood motionless, turning the keys over in his sweaty palm and balling his fist so hard around them he almost bent the rusty key ring in half. He loved his wife and his children more than anything in the world, but this time he had to follow his conscience.

Once more he glanced at the inscription on the sword:

ABIDE WITH ME, ALMIGHTY GOD

Reciting the words like an incantation, he turned back to the cupboard, where bunches of herbs and aromatic pouches hung along shelves overflowing with little clay pots. He scrutinized the inventory. He’d need some additional ingredients and would have to speak with a few people. There were bribes to be paid and tracks to be covered. All this would take at least a day or two, perhaps even longer if his plans didn’t work out at first.

Teuber hoped fervently that he could finish his work before the Schongau hangman finally broke.

The eye stared at the nearly lifeless body of the prostitute who had spent so many days in the basement of this house. Katharina hadn’t moved for hours; her breathing, spasmodic at first, had become weaker; and now her chest scarcely moved. Her head lay framed in a pool of blood, drying shiny like sealing wax.

The experiment was coming to an end.

The eye had recorded in great detail the decline of Katharina Sonnleitner, veteran Regensburg prostitute and the daughter of a linen dyer. After exactly seven days and four hours of torment, she at last began to tear the clothing from her body and scratch at her skin until she exposed the underlying flesh in places. Katharina had examined the bruises all over her body with fascination, and then she’d tried to bite her fingers off. She’d run from one corner of the room to the other, banging her forehead against the wall and flailing her arms about, as if trying to drive off invisible spirits. She’d screamed and cursed and, in the very next moment, nearly choked in a sudden fit of laughter. Katharina had whirled through her little cell like a gyroscope until, finally, she smashed head-on into the wall and fell motionless and bleeding onto the ground.

At that moment the eye had blinked almost imperceptibly.

He ought to have suspected it! How aggravating! This was the fifth time now that something had gone wrong! Usually the doses were simply too high. Once a girl had thrust a fork into her chest and bled to death, and another time a prostitute had thought she could fly and fell to her death from the second-story window. Thank God it had been night and he was able to hide the battered body without being seen. Aggravating, very aggravating…

The eye turned away.

Next time he would pad the walls with fabric and cut back the dosage a bit. The only thing still missing was the girl.

Fortunately, he already had an idea. Why hadn’t he thought of her sooner?

In the two days that followed, Magdalena and Simon saw just how well organized the ostensibly lazy guild of beggars really was. Nathan was willing to set his spies on Paulus Mamminger, provided Simon would continue caring for the sick and injured in the catacombs.

Mamminger’s house, located on the wide, paved Scherergasse where many patricians had their mansions, was an aweinspiring building complete with a seven-story tower with embrasures on top. The beggars kept the house under surveillance by hobbling up and down the well-traveled road and loitering across the street behind a manure cart until a bailiff inevitably came to drive them off. In this way a dozen of them took shifts every day.

Magdalena was amazed to learn all the vocations represented in the brotherhood. The Stabuler, along with their ragamuffin children, begged for alms; the Klenkner crawled about on their knees, pretending to be cripples; the Fopper were allegedly insane; the Clamyrer dressed as pilgrims stranded on their way to Rome; and the Grantner, who claimed to be epileptics, chewed on soap so that foam would run from their mouths. All had practiced and played these roles as well as any actor, and they were proud when their performances brought them even a few rusty kreuzers. Some beggars endlessly fine-tuned the details: the right accent for a pilgrim who’d traveled the world, for example; or an especially miserable facial expression; or the perfect, most gruesome color to paint the fake stump of a limb. Especially ambitious beggars rubbed their underarms with clematis juice to cause inflammation and blisters and thus inspire compassion.

While Simon was caring for his patients, Magdalena would often stroll down the Scherergasse to watch the beggars pass secret signs back and forth and converse in a strange language she couldn’t understand. They called their pidgin Beggars’ Latin, a hodgepodge of German, Yiddish, and incomprehensible scraps of words. So far Magdalena had been able to glean only that bock meant hunger, behaime idiot, and baldowern, apparently, to scope out the house of a patrician. Whenever the beggars spotted Magdalena, they just nodded to her, then continued harassing passersby who atoned for their sins by offering small gifts and hurrying off ashamed and disgusted.

At first it seemed nothing would come of all this watching and waiting. On the first day Mamminger did nothing remarkable whatsoever. He attended church with his wife and grown children and went to one of the bathhouses around midday. Otherwise he remained in his mansion and didn’t venture out again. On the second day, however, the beggars reported that several aldermen, one after the other, visited the patrician. Behind the panes of bull’s-eye glass on the second floor the merchants were engaged in rather heated debate, apparently in disagreement over one particular point. Though the beggars couldn’t understand what was being said, the men’s violently shaking heads and wild gesticulations made at least this much clear.

Not until early evening of the second day did the last of the aldermen leave the house, whispering to one another. Unfortunately neither one-legged Hans nor Brother Paulus, who was disguised as a mendicant monk, got close enough to understand what they were saying. And as night fell rapidly over the city, it seemed nothing else unusual would happen for a while.

Then, long after midnight, the securely locked massive portal of the patrician’s mansion suddenly opened and Mamminger himself scurried out into the street, wearing a cape and a hat drawn down so far over his face the dozing beggars almost didn’t recognize him.

But once they did, they promptly notified Simon and Magdalena. It was clear even to the most dimwitted vagabond that a patrician sneaking through Regensburg in the dead of night, and without a guard, must have something to hide.

And soon enough they’d find out what.

Kuisl, confess!.. One more turn of the crank… Confess!.. Put more sulfur matches under him… Confess!.. Tighten the screws… Let him feel the lash… Confess! Confess! Confess!

Jakob Kuisl tossed and turned as pain surged through his body in waves. Whenever pain subsided into a dull ache in one place, it resurfaced somewhere else with a vengeance: an all-consuming fire that ate away at him, wormed its way into his dreams even now, in the middle of the night, as he lay in a stupor in his cell.

The Schongau hangman knew all methods of torture and had applied most of them himself at one time or another. He’d seen pain flash in hundreds of pairs of eyes, but now he felt that pain in his very own body.

He thought he would have been able to endure more.

He’d suffered three days of torture now. On the second day they stopped just before his right arm was wrenched from its socket-not to spare him, Kuisl was certain, but to let his body recover for the torture yet to come. This morning they began with the Spanish Donkey, a vertical board whose sharp upper edge he had to straddle while his legs were weighted with stones. In the afternoon the Regensburg executioner repeatedly applied thumb and leg screws and forced burning matches under Kuisl’s fingernails.

Kuisl had remained silent. Not a whimper crossed his lips, not even once; he threw all his strength into the curses he shouted at his prosecutors. And from behind the lattice the voice of the third man could still be heard, taunting him.

You have children, don’t you? And a beautiful wife as well… Tighten the screws… Confess!

The man knew about Kuisl’s family; he knew the name of his wife. He knew all about him. And yet he remained a mere shadow behind the wooden lattice, a monster from the past that Kuisl couldn’t place.

Who was this man? Who was Weidenfeld?

On the morning of the third day they introduced the Maiden’s Lap, a chair covered with sharpened wooden spikes on which the victim had to sit for hours with bare buttocks while the spikes dug into his flesh. In the afternoon Teuber put him back on the rack and almost finished the work of dislocating his right shoulder.

It was during this part of the torture that the unknown third man delivered his next blow. So casually that the two other inquisitors didn’t notice, he whispered a few words, more pointed than any of the rest, that cut Kuisl to the quick.

Don’t believe for a second that your daughter can help you now…

These words pulled the ground out from under Kuisl’s feet. The third man not only knew his wife; he also knew his daughter! And he knew she was here in Regensburg! Had he intercepted the letter? Had he already abducted her?

Despite the fetters, Kuisl almost succeeded in breaking himself free of the rack now. The combined strength of four city guards was needed to force him back down on the board and tie him up again. Kuisl didn’t speak another word, and the bailiffs finally took him back to his cell. It took three men to do so since, with his shins crushed, Kuisl could no longer walk. His left arm hung limp at his side, and his hands, bright purple now, had swollen up like pig bladders.

As he lay there in his cell and drifted off into a half sleep, an endless nightmare played over and over in his mind. When the pain woke him again-as had so often been the case in the last few days and nights-it took him a while to get his bearings again. To judge by the darkness, it was already night. Moaning, he pulled himself up to a wall until he crouched in a halfway bearable position on the floor.

All of a sudden he heard a soft scraping sound. It took a while for him to realize it was the bolt to the cell door sliding back slowly. Silently, the door swung open and a dark figure stood in the entry.

“Have you come to get me again, you wretched swine?” the Schongau hangman rasped. “The sun isn’t even up yet. Decent people are asleep at this hour. Be so good as to come back in an hour or so.”

“Hurry up, you blockhead,” the figure in the door whispered. Only now did Kuisl realize this was no bailiff but Teuber. “We don’t have much time!”

“What in the world…?” Kuisl started to straighten up, but as soon as he got to his feet, he collapsed again like a sack of grain. Pain surged once more through his swollen legs, and despite the cool night air he was feverish and bathed in sweat.

Cursing softly, Teuber bent down to the injured man. He pulled a long set of pliers from his bag and, with one vigorous snap, cut through the rusty chain.

“Keep still now.”

He struggled to pull the Schongau hangman back to his feet again, laid Kuisl’s good arm over his own shoulder, wrapped his own arm tight against Kuisl’s chest, and dragged the heavy body into the hall.

“What-what are you doing?” Kuisl said, shivering. “Where are the damned guards?” He winced as a fresh wave of pain rolled through his body.

“I sent them off to dream for a while,” Teuber whispered. “It took me two days to make the potion, but the virtue of that patience is that they won’t taste it in the wine now, especially with just a few drops in each gallon.” He grinned as he continued to lug Kuisl toward the exit. “And in case you’re wondering about the bailiff in the corridor, he’s shitting and vomiting up everything in his body as we speak. That’s what good old Christmas rose can do. Oh, well, he’ll survive.”

They arrived at the low vaulted room where five soldiers lay snoring among two empty wine jugs. With only a few torches flickering dimly on the walls, the room was blanketed in near total darkness. Along one side cannons and coaches were dimly visible.

“Why… are you… doing this?” Kuisl stammered, clinging tightly to the Regensburg executioner who, despite his powerful arms, struggled to keep Kuisl on his feet. “They’ll… flay you alive when they find out what you’ve done.”

“If they find out.” Teuber pulled a large bunch of keys from his jacket and opened the door leading out into the city hall square. He pointed to the guards snoring behind them. “I prepared the sleeping potion so that it would look as if a heavy bout of drinking knocked them out. The guard in the hall got a bad tummy ache, and a stupid bailiff must have been so drunk he didn’t close the door to your cell properly. I certainly had nothing to do with it.” He smiled coolly as he steered the nearly unconscious Kuisl toward a cart nearby, but Kuisl sensed a slight trembling in his colleague’s voice.

“But in case any of them become suspicious, they’re welcome to put me on the rack,” he said softly. “The fine patricians can dirty their own hands for once.”

By this point Kuisl was lying in a cart that smelled of decay and human excrement. Teuber spread a few old rags and a load of damp straw over the Schongau hangman, then took his seat on the coach box and clicked his tongue. His old gray mare set off, pulling the cart into a nearby lane.

“I hope the stench doesn’t kill you before your wounds,” Teuber said. Grinning, he cast a backward glance at his load of animal carcasses, rotten vegetables, and excrement. “But I can carry you safely through town on the knacker’s wagon. I hardly think the city guards are interested in what exactly is rotting under there.”

“Where… are we going?” Kuisl groaned. He saw dark roofs and facades pass by overhead while the wagon rumbled over the cobblestones-a jolting reminder of the innumerable contusions, broken bones, and burned flesh he’d suffered in recent days.

“We can’t go to my house,” Teuber said. “That’s the first place they’d think to look for you. Besides, my wife’s against sheltering a murderer. But I know a good hiding place. You’ll like it there. The proprietress of the inn takes good care of…” He hesitated before going on. “Let’s say she keeps a very close eye on her guests, most of them men.”

Simon and Magdalena slunk from house to house, always keeping their distance from the hooded figure in front of them. Nathan was by their side, as well as Hans Reiser, who had since recovered. The four followed Mamminger’s small lantern through little back alleys until he turned off Scherergasse and headed south. At one point they encountered a foul-smelling cart with a sinister broad-shouldered man sitting on the coach box, but both Mamminger and his pursuers retreated into dark doorways as the phantom passed.

Simon sensed Mamminger intentionally chose a roundabout way to avoid pursuit. Only after a full quarter-hour did the treasurer arrive at the cathedral square. Mamminger’s steps echoed across the pavement as he hurried along the right side of the church, turning at last into a graveyard behind the cathedral. Simon and the others ducked behind a cluster of weathered headstones and watched the patrician make his way cautiously down a row of freshly dug graves, cursing softly whenever his leather boots stuck in mud left by the recent thunderstorm. On a column at the edge of the graveyard a light flickered, and in its faint glow Simon saw Mamminger climb over another burial mound and sneak toward a low back door that led into the rear of the cathedral. Within moments he’d disappeared inside.

“It will attract too much attention if all four of us follow him,” Magdalena whispered from behind one of the gravestones. “I suggest Simon and I go in after him. Hans can wait here while Nathan creeps around to the main portal, in case Mamminger tries to escape that way.”

The beggar king frowned. “Not a bad plan… for a woman. But I’d like very much to know what His Excellency the treasurer expects to find in there. So Simon and I will go and-”

“Oh, no you won’t,” Magdalena interrupted. “It’s my father’s life at stake, so I will go.”

“We’ll tell you all about it later over a nice glass of wine, Nathan. I promise,” Simon added. “Now let’s go, or Mamminger will slip through our fingers.”

Nathan was about to protest, but then he waved his agreement and disappeared among the gravestones. Simon and Magdalena approached the little door and opened it quietly. Inside, under an enormous cupola, a few flickering candles provided as much light as they did shadow, and except for a bit of moonlight falling in through the stained-glass windows, it was almost completely dark inside.

They entered the cathedral from the right of the apse. From there Simon and Magdalena could make out the huge columns of the nave, which rose straight up to disappear in the darkness of the cupola. From altars on all sides saints glowered down at them, and from a stone arch on their left a silver chain dangled over a well. An immense bronze sarcophagus stood in the center of an aisle ahead of them, and a life-size statue of a cardinal knelt before the crucifix on top.

Simon, who noticed that every step they took was echoing from the walls, signaled to Magdalena to stop moving and remain still beside the altar.

Soon, from the south aisle, they heard a soft creaking sound of iron scraping on iron. A moment passed; then they heard the shuffle of leather-soled shoes receding. To the west, where the main portal was located, a small crack appeared and a narrow bar of light shone in, contrasting with the deep darkness of the interior.

“Damn!” Simon whispered. “He’s escaping through the main entrance! He must have a key, and now we can only hope that Nathan’s following him.”

“Shouldn’t we go after him?” Magdalena asked.

Simon shrugged. “I think there’s no point. If we leave through the main portal, he’ll be able to see us from the square or he’ll have disappeared already. What luck!”

He stamped his foot angrily. The sound carried through the vault like a thunderclap, startling the medicus.

“We can at least try to find out what he was doing here,” Magdalena consoled him. “Come, let’s have a look.”

They ran to the south aisle, from where the rasping sound had come, Simon lighting the way with a votive candle he’d taken from a side altar.

“Look!” he whispered after a short while, pointing to muddy footprints on the floor. “This is where Mamminger must have walked. You can still see the tracks!” Unsure what to do next, he scanned the chapel. “But what, for heaven’s sake, was he doing here?”

His glance landed on a small recessed altar displaying a triptych dedicated to Saint Sebastian. A middle panel showed the martyr lashed to a tree and pierced with arrows. And on the altar stood a gilded statuette holding a purse in one hand and an arrow in the other.

It took Simon a while to notice what was strange about the figure.

While all the other proportions were correct, the arrow was much too long and too thick, looking more like a spear or a silver tube. Bending down to examine the arrow in the candlelight, Simon noticed the arrow wasn’t firmly attached to the hand, and in the top third there was a groove, as if the spear consisted of two parts screwed together.

Screwed together?

Simon turned to Magdalena. “The scraping sound!” he exclaimed. “I think I now know what-”

Once again a small strip of light shone through the crack at the main portal, and shortly after, they could hear the door close softly. Magdalena pulled Simon away from the altar and behind a column.

“It looks like Mamminger’s come back,” she whispered excitedly. “Do you think he forgot something?”

Simon shook his head. “I think someone is coming to pick up the message.”

“The message?” Magdalena asked. “What message?”

Simon put his finger to his lips, silencing her as they observed a dark figure tiptoe down the center aisle and approach the niche. When the stranger reached the altar, Magdalena had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. It was the man who had tried to kill her! At his side he still carried the deadly rapier, but now that he’d taken off his hood, she was able to see his face-narrow and ferret-like with tiny eyes that nervously darted back and forth and just faint thin lines for eyebrows. His head was like an enormous balloon, its size emphasized by his baldness and disproportionate atop an otherwise small frame. He was dressed inconspicuously in knee breeches, leather boots, and a short coat over a mouse-gray shirt. He looked around in every direction, his gaze passing over the very column behind which Magdalena and Simon were hiding. The hangman’s daughter quickly drew back, hoping the man hadn’t seen her.

When they heard the scraping sound again, Magdalena looked out from behind the column to witness the stranger unscrewing the little silver arrow. He removed a thin, rolled-up document, smiling briefly as he unfolded the letter and began to read.

A hiding place for messages! Magdalena realized. Mamminger leaves notes in the cathedral for his hired assassin!

She remembered how indignant the treasurer had been when the stranger had asked to speak with him in Silvio’s garden. What had Mamminger said to him then?

What’s so urgent that we can’t communicate in the usual way?

This was the usual way. A brilliant hiding place! No honorable city financier had to dirty his hands in direct contact with less reputable personages. Presumably they could exchange messages in the dark niche even during the day.

And presumably the stranger would now place his response to Mamminger in the tube. Then she and Simon could quite easily-

Something startled her out of her thoughts. At first she couldn’t figure out what, but then she was conscious of a soft sound-more the hint of a sound than anything. The stranger seemed to notice it as well. Again he turned his monstrous, hairless head in all directions like some kind of snake, but when he detected nothing suspicious, he held the note over an altar candle, and a blue flame shot up, reducing the secret message to ashes.

Suddenly Simon seized Magdalena by the shoulder. She turned around, terrified, while the medicus pointed frantically at a shadow cast against the cathedral wall. Enlarged to gigantic proportions, the form scurried from column to column, but as it moved farther from the altar and out of range of the candlelight, the shadow disappeared as quickly as it had come. It was a while before Simon and Magdalena noticed the man just a few steps away, lurking behind the pews with a drawn dagger. He was far smaller than the shadow suggested. It was Silvio Contarini.

The trip in the knacker’s cart through the city’s back streets seemed endless. The Regensburg executioner kept stopping to shovel more feces, dead rats, and garbage onto his cart. Even though it was against the law to be out on the street in Regensburg after dark, an exception was clearly made for the hangman. The few night watchmen they encountered looked aside and made the sign of the cross once the wagon had rumbled by. It brought misfortune to look a hangman in the eye, especially at night when people said the souls of the damned he’d executed accompanied him through the streets.

When they finally reached their destination, Kuisl struggled to raise his head. Before them stood a fortress-like building consisting of three towers and a courtyard at the center. In contrast to the surrounding houses, light still burned in the windows of the tower to the right, and Kuisl could hear the distant laughter of women.

“Peter’s Tower,” Teuber whispered. “The city guard has a garrison of a dozen soldiers billeted here.” He winked at the hangman. “If you want to hide someone, the best place is where the enemy least expects. That’s an old mercenary saying. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Kuisl watched Teuber approach the tower on the right and pound on the door. The Schongau hangman was seized by momentary panic. Did Teuber intend to hand him over to the soldiers? Didn’t he just say a garrison was billeted here? And now this idiot was knocking at the door of the lion’s den!

Then he noticed a woman in a bright dress in the open doorway. On her head was a red and yellow cap just like those the mercenaries’ whores used to wear. He estimated she was about fifty years old, even though her broad hips and full breasts made her look considerably younger. Though she was overweight and her hair graying, she was strangely attractive, and Kuisl supposed she must have been stunning in her day.

The woman spoke briefly with the Regensburg executioner; she then cast a glance at Kuisl, who tried to sit up a bit amid the piles of rags and manure. Only now did he notice she wore a patch over one eye. With the other eye she squinted at him suspiciously.

“A stinking excuse for a man you’re bringing me,” she said loud enough for Kuisl to hear. Her voice had something sharp to it, like that of one accustomed to giving orders. “Not worth much more than the carcasses lying next to him in the cart. You know that if the bailiffs catch me with this monster, they’ll put the shrew’s fiddle on me and chase me out of town-but only if I’m lucky. If I’m not so lucky, well…” She sighed. “But for the Holy Virgin and because it’s you, Teuber, bring the poor fellow in. Just make sure my guests don’t get wind of it.”

“I… can walk… by myself,” Kuisl grunted. “I… can do it.”

He slid off the cart and staggered toward the doorway. Kuisl hated it when women caught him in weak moments. And this woman didn’t look as if she’d have much sympathy for whiners.

When he arrived at the door, the woman looked up at him disdainfully. Kuisl was almost three heads taller than she.

“So this is the devil of Regensburg?” she said. “If you ask me, he looks more like an abused circus bear who’s had his claws ripped out. How tall are you anyway, eh? Six feet?” she asked in a snide tone and laughed. “Be careful you don’t bash your forehead when you enter my modest home. By the looks of you, a whore’s fart would blow you over right now.”

“It wasn’t him, Dorothea,” Teuber replied. “I had to torture him until the blood came out of his ears. I swear by God he’s not the one.”

“Leave God out of this”-Dorothea had already turned to go back inside-“or lightning will strike the tower.”

They entered a low, dark anteroom illuminated by a single torch. A winding staircase led down to a cellar and up to the floors above. From here Kuisl heard laughter and voices and, now and then, a sharp cry followed by a deep masculine groan.

“You see, my honorable guests are enjoying themselves splendidly tonight,” Dorothea said to the Regensburg executioner as they walked down the spiral stone staircase together. “I wouldn’t want to disturb them, above all because among them are a few aldermen who really mustn’t know about our surly murderer here. I have a nice hiding place down in the basement storage room, and he can stay there for the time being.”

“That’s fine, Dorothea,” Teuber replied. “We won’t bother you anymore, I promise.”

After a few more steps they reached the cellar, where sacks and crates were scattered around several large wine barrels. Dorothea hurried over to a barrel in the middle.

“Push that out of the way, Teuber,” she said, “or is that too much for you? You look a bit worn out. Won’t your wife let you into bed anymore?”

Silently the executioner placed his arms around the wine barrel and, straining, moved it a bit to the left. Behind it a low doorway led into another dank storage room not much bigger than the cell where Kuisl had spent the last few days.

“He can stay here for the time being,” Dorothea said. “And now excuse me. Upstairs I’m entertaining a close confidant of the bishop, and I don’t like to keep the church waiting.”

Without another word, she winked briefly with her good eye and left Kuisl and the Regensburg executioner alone. Once the sound of her footsteps died away, Kuisl finally collapsed, sliding down the wall and rolling into himself like a sick animal.

“Can… we… trust her?” he wondered, half asleep.

“Dorothea?” Teuber nodded. “Fat Thea is the procuress of the whorehouse here at Peter’s Gate. Actually, such houses are illegal, but-oh, the flesh is weak. Even the honorable aldermen’s…” Grinning, he lit another torch and spread out some wool blankets he’d brought along on the floor of the tiny room. “The patricians know about this place, but they leave Thea alone, and in return they get special favors. The soldiers garrisoned next door are of course regular guests, and for a few hellers I make sure the guests don’t get out of line and hurt the girls. If the fellows misbehave, all I have to do is grab them by the scruff of the neck, and the next morning they’re bowed over in church saying the Lord’s Prayer a hundred times because they think my touch has brought an evil spell on them.” He bent down to Kuisl, who was still doubled over on the floor. “Do you need anything else?”

“Why?” Jakob Kuisl asked, half asleep.

“Why what?”

“You didn’t have to help me. It’s… dangerous. Your family…”

Teuber was silent a long time before replying. “You’re one of us, Kuisl,” he said at last. “Just as much an outcast as I am. You have family, just as I do, and I know you’re innocent. Someone’s out to get you, some rotten bastard of an alderman got it into his head to do this, and now I’m supposed to carry out his dirty work for him. They think I’m stupid, but we hangmen aren’t stupid, are we, Kuisl? We may not have honor, but we’re not stupid.”

The Schongau executioner had already dozed off.

Teuber spread a blanket over him, ducked through the low entryway, and pushed the wine barrel in front of the opening again. He would return early in the morning with herbs and medicines that would help Kuisl bear at least the worst of the pain.

Teuber stomped up the steps and out into the cool night air. A moment later Dorothea appeared beside him and squeezed his hand; her cold, calculating manner seemed to have vanished now as they looked up into the clear, starry sky together.

“So you really believe he’s innocent?” Dorothea finally asked.

Teuber nodded. “I’ve never before been so sure of anything. He doesn’t have to stay long, I promise. Perhaps only a few days, until he’s able to take a few steps again.”

Fat Thea sighed. “Do you realize what you’re saddling me with? Tomorrow half the council will be here, to say nothing of the soldiers at Peter’s Gate. If just one of them catches sight of this monster-”

“Thea, I beg you.” Teuber brushed a gray lock out of his friend’s face and looked at her earnestly. “Just this once.”

The Regensburg executioner knew he could count on Dorothea, but it was also clear just how dangerous the matter was for them both. Teuber had known Fat Thea for almost twenty years. She started out as a simple streetwalker but for the last few years had run this house at Peter’s Gate, becoming the most powerful prostitute in the city. Nevertheless, it would take just one word from the aldermen, one slip-up, one false accusation, to send her back to where she came from.

Back to the gutter.

“How’s your daughter?” Teuber asked abruptly, trying to change the subject. “Is she still as beautiful as I remember?”

Dorothea smiled. “More so, and she knows it. I have to hide her from her suitors, or they’ll drive me crazy.” Her face became serious again. “I want Christina to have it better than I did. Tomorrow, when the councilors come here, their purses will be jangling. Who knows, maybe I’ll just up and quit, marry a good-looking bookbinder, and spread my legs for him alone after that.”

Teuber grinned. “Consider that carefully. In a few months the Reichstag is coming to Regensburg, and the ambassadors will be pounding at your door. You’ll earn so much you’ll be shitting gold.”

All at once he had an idea. “Tomorrow when the aldermen visit, can you do a little snooping for me?”

Dorothea eyed him crossly. “Don’t you think one favor is enough? What else do you want?”

“There were three inquisitors present when Kuisl was being tortured,” Teuber mused, “and all three are members of the council: Rheiner, the president of the court; young Kerscher from the tax office; and a third one I don’t know. Can you find out who that was?”

Dorothea shrugged. “If it was an alderman, it’s possible he’ll be with the group tomorrow night as well. Almost all of them intend to come. I even had to bring a few girls in off the street, since at least two of the noble gentlemen will most certainly want to be whipped…” She made a disgusted face. “It will be a tough job, but I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Thanks, Thea, I don’t know how-”

“One of my girls missed her monthly menstruation,” she interrupted crossly. “Take care of her and give her a few of your herbs. I have no use for a child around here.”

Teuber nodded. “I’ll see what I can do-”

“And find the madman who’s been killing my girls out in the streets these last few weeks,” Dorothea interrupted again. “He’s knocked off half a dozen already. Something’s not right. Someone’s lurking around out there, and I can only hope it isn’t the monster I’ve got in my cellar now.”

Without another word, she disappeared into the tower, where giggles and an occasional moan could still be heard. Alone now, Teuber stood outside the door and watched a falling star shoot across the sky.

Dear God, see that my family gets through this unharmed…

He took a deep breath, trying to shake the fear that had been raging inside him like a wild beast since the previous night. If the aldermen could find even the slightest piece of evidence against him, a new hangman would drag the old one off to the scaffold, and his wife and children would be driven from town to live out the rest of their days in the forest. The little ones would slowly die of hunger, asking their mother again and again why their father had done this to them.

The Regensburg executioner climbed into his wagon and set out for home. Dense fog crept in through the city streets and beneath his coat and trousers, causing a shiver to run up and down his spine.

He knew the shaking didn’t come from the cool night air alone.

“Do you know what your little Venetian friend might be looking for here?” Simon whispered, pointing to Silvio Contarini, who still crouched behind the pews.

“First, he’s not my little Venetian, and second, I have no idea,” Magdalena replied in a low voice. “But if you absolutely have to-”

“Shh!” Simon put his finger to her lips, but it was too late. The stranger by the Saint Sebastian altar seemed to have heard something, for he quickly screwed the secret tube together and placed it back in the statue’s right hand. Then he reached for his rapier and tensed up. Step by step, holding the blade in front of him, he approached the column behind which Simon and Magdalena hid. Beads of sweat broke out on Simon’s brow, and he held his breath, hoping the intruder wouldn’t see them. The footsteps paused, and just when the medicus thought perhaps the man had turned to look elsewhere, the stranger’s monstrous head darted out from behind the pillar.

The stranger seemed just as surprised as Simon and Magdalena. For a moment it looked as if he wanted to say something, but before he could, a shadow rushed toward them from the left. Silvio Contarini leaped over several pews, knocked over a few chairs, and finally threw himself at the intruder. Their blades clashing, Silvio drove his opponent farther and farther back toward the sarcophagus.

In a movement so fast it was nearly imperceptible, the stranger feinted to the side and then struck Silvio’s upper torso, ripping the entire length of his velvet coat from top to bottom. The attacker thrust his rapier a second time, and the little Venetian foundered and fell to his knees. A cold smile spread over the stranger’s face as he raised his weapon to deliver a coup de grace to the heart. The blade sloped down like the head of a venomous snake.

“No!” Magdalena screamed. “You-you monster!”

Instinctively the hangman’s daughter grabbed the silver statuette of Saint Sebastian from the altar and flung it toward the stranger.

With a dull thud the heavy figurine struck him on the back of the head.

The man reeled, flailing his arms, then crashed to the floor like a fallen angel. He lay there so long Magdalena thought he might even be dead, but moments later he struggled to his feet again, breathing heavily. Like a drunk, he reached for his rapier, staggered, and tried to find something to hold on to. In this manner he made his way step by step down the center aisle. Even disoriented he somehow seemed as dangerous as ever.

Simon and Magdalena were about to run after him when they heard someone moaning nearby. Silvio. The Venetian seemed more seriously injured than it first appeared. He was bleeding from his left arm and chest, and a bright red gash ran across his right cheek. He struggled to get up, panting, but then tipped back over on his side and lay motionless on the floor.

“My God, Silvio!” Magdalena rushed to the ambassador. For a moment Simon was tempted to pursue the stranger, but the man had already disappeared, and all Simon could see was the fog creeping in through the open church portal.

“Grazie,” Silvio gasped. He leaned against the sarcophagus, breathing heavily. “If you hadn’t thrown that statue, then…”

“I owed you a dress,” Magdalena said, inspecting the Venetian’s wounds. “Let’s just call it even.”

“What kind of a dress?” Simon asked with some irritation as he stepped out from behind the column. “What’s this Venetian got to do with your dress?”

Magdalena sighed. “It’s not what you think. He gave me-”

“I lent her a gown from my dressing room to wear to the ball,” Silvio interrupted, struggling to his feet and wiping blood from his face with a white lace handkerchief. “She looked positively charming in it, a real principessa!”

Simon raised his eyebrows. “A gown to wear to the ball. I see. You didn’t tell me about that, principessa.”

“Damn it all,” Magdalena cursed. “Because it wasn’t important!” Her voice was so loud it echoed throughout the cathedral. “There are murderers running around in here, my father will probably be drawn and quartered, and you have nothing better to do than act like a spoiled, jealous child!”

“Me, jealous? Ridiculous.” Simon, affecting a hurt expression, ran his hand through his hair. “A man should at least be allowed a question when he learns his girl has been out tarting herself up for strangers in some foreigner’s dressing room.”

That was the last straw. “Tarting?” she snapped. “You’re one to talk, you dandy!” Her voice cracked with emotion. “And just what do you mean by girl? Not once have I heard a proposal from you. Only excuses, excuses! When have you ever given me a dress, or even a lousy engagement ribbon, huh? I’d let that pass, but now, you little overeducated wimp, you want to tell me-me-how to live my life! Get away, you wretch!”

Her final words echoed through the cathedral, then faded into an awkward silence.

Simon bowed stiffly. “I understand. I wish you both a pleasant good evening.” He turned on his heels and headed toward the main portal, where the priest had just arrived to prepare for morning prayers. Leaving the cathedral with his head held high, Simon stumbled on the door frame and had to grab the astonished priest to keep from falling.

“Someone back there is in need of confession, Father,” the medicus said. “Pride and wrath, two mortal sins. Don’t let the lady go until she recites the Lord’s Prayer a hundred times.”

Before the startled priest could reply, Simon disappeared into the foggy night.

Back in the niche, Silvio sighed and looked up to the ceiling. “O Invidia!” he lamented. “Your amico is jealous. That’s not what I intended.”

“Oh, don’t worry; he’ll come back down from his high horse,” Magdalena said, but there was a twinge of doubt in her voice. Perhaps she’d gone a bit too far. She knew that Simon suffered from not being able to offer her the life they both longed for.

“He’s probably waiting for us right outside the door,” she said, trying to console herself. “Why don’t you tell me what in the world you came looking for here in the church? You haven’t been stalking me, have you?”

Silvio shook his head in horror. “Madonna! Never would I do anything like that! I was following that man! I was coming home from the Whale when I saw him sneak across the square in front of the cathedral-the same man who ambushed us before! So I followed him and-well, you know the rest.” He smiled. “You see, it’s really up to you to explain what you’re doing here. By the way, it was disgraceful how you abandoned me at that boring soiree. In return you should at least offer me another invitation.” His eyes started to glaze over and he reached for his left arm. Only now did Magdalena notice that Silvio’s shirt was drenched in blood.

“Oh, God, with all this fuss, I completely forgot you’re injured!” she exclaimed. “Quick, I’ll take you to Simon. He’ll-”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Silvio lamented as he leaned against a column for support. His face was as pale as a ghost. “No doubt your amico would let enough blood from me to paint the whole cathedral.”

Magdalena smiled. “You might be right about that. Well, then, I’ll have to see to your wounds myself. Let’s go-fortunately your house is just across the way.”

She supported Silvio under his arms as they left.

“What a wonderful feeling to be carried by you,” the little Venetian rejoiced. “I hope to require your help a long time.”

“Stop talking such nonsense,” Magdalena replied sharply. “A few bandages and herbs from the market to stanch the bleeding, and you’ll be your old self again. The wounds aren’t as bad as I thought. Now quit making such a fuss and try walking a bit. You men are all such sissies!”

Cursing under his breath, Simon stomped across the cathedral square, nearly swallowed up in the fog that had descended over the city in the last hour. In vain he looked for Nathan, who was supposed to have been waiting there for them. Had the beggar king secretly run off?

Simon didn’t dare call out, so he just quietly looked about the square, then slipped away into the first small street he came to. He had to clear his head! Just what was the matter with him? He’d lost control of himself, and now Magdalena really believed he was jealous.

And worse: this Venetian fool thought so as well.

With a deep sigh, Simon had to admit that his jealousy was not entirely imagined. Contarini had more possessions than Simon could ever dream of as a poor medicus-money, fine clothes, influence, power… things Simon would never be able to offer Magdalena. Without a single certificate from a recognized university, he was just an insignificant quack. And now that he’d fled Schongau, he’d lost whatever respectability he had left!

Simon looked down at himself. His jacket and shirt were mud-stained and torn; he had no money and was sleeping in dank basements with beggars; and his girl was spending her time in the dressing rooms of foreign men to whom he’d never be able to hold a candle.

This was the end.

Simon was so distressed he didn’t notice the two guards armed with spears until he literally stumbled into them.

“Well, well, who do we have here?” one guard sneered, grabbing Simon by the scruff of the neck like a naughty child. “A night owl, eh? Don’t you know it’s forbidden to go out in the streets at night? And right now I think it’s about…” He and his colleague pretended to look up in the sky for the moon. “Well, let’s just say it’s not a good time for you to be out here, eh?”

Simon nodded respectfully, trying desperately to think of a way out of this situation. He had to assume all the guards had received descriptions of the alleged arsonists. And though this pair hadn’t recognized him yet, that could change at any moment.

“Went down by the river for a drink,” he slurred, in the hope the two guards would be fooled by his affectation. “It jush got a lil bit late…”

“Speak up,” the second night watchman said threateningly as he held a lantern in his face and sized him up distrustfully. “For people like you we have a nice little pub room. A bit drafty, but it’ll clear your head fast.”

He gave Simon a shove, and they all set out toward city hall square, the medicus attempting to stumble along appropriately. After a short while they arrived in the square, which looked quite different in the early-morning hours than during the typical daytime hustle and bustle.

The fatter of the two men pointed his spear at a rusty cage sitting on the ground and chained to the wall of city hall. It looked like a gigantic birdcage.

“The House of Fools,” the night watchman said. “You’ll stay here for the next few hours. You should have lots of fine company.”

“But everyone will see me in there!” Simon croaked, temporarily forgetting his role as a drunk and falling out of character.

The tall, thin night watchman holding the lantern nodded. “Correct. The people need something to gawk at. Everyone we pick up at night winds up in the House of Fools-drunks and drifters, but also honorable citizens and men of the church. Once we even locked up an alderman, since the fine gentleman couldn’t pull together the money to buy himself out. Oh, and don’t you try to hide in a corner or we’ll chain you to the bars up front where it’s hard to dodge the rotten vegetables that’ll come flying at you.”

Simon’s heart began to race.

When morning comes, all of Regensburg will see me in there. If even one person takes a close look, I’ll be keeping Kuisl company on the scaffold, as an arsonist.

“Can’t we perhaps… come to some other arrangement?” Simon simpered.

The fat night watchman nodded, thinking. “Do you have money?”

The medicus shook his head silently.

“Then I have good news for you,” the bailiff responded. “Food and lodging are free at the House of Fools.”

He poked Simon in the back with the point of his spear and pushed him along toward city hall.