The Beggar King

3

SCHONGAU

AUGUST 13–14, 1662 AD

Late in the night Simon was awakened by noises outside the Fronwieser home. He reached for a stiletto he always kept in the trunk next to his bed. But judging from the pounding on the door and the crude cursing that followed, it could only be his father, who, no doubt, was staggering home from some tavern out behind the Ballenhaus.

Simon rubbed his eyes and stretched. Ever since that afternoon he had wanted to speak with his father about the ergot, but Bonifaz Fronwieser had disappeared without a trace. That was no cause for concern, as in recent months the old man had often vanished for days, boozing his way through the taverns of Schongau, Altenstadt, and Peiting. Once he finally ran out of money, he’d find a barn, sleep it off, and return home the next day, disheveled and hung-over. After a few weeks’ respite, he would start up all over again. Simon guessed that at the local taverns his father had already freely distributed the two guilders he’d fetched for the ergot.

The young medicus sighed and reached for a cold cup of coffee on the trunk next to his bed. The bitter brew helped him to bear his father’s increasingly erratic moods. In recent years their quarreling had escalated. Bonifaz Fronwieser had been an army surgeon before he found a position as doctor in Schongau. Simon’s mother had died long ago, and his father wanted nothing more than to see his son better off in this life than he’d been. So, he’d sent Simon to the university in Ingolstadt, where the latter spent less energy on his studies than he did money on clothes, card games, and pretty women. Around the time Simon returned from Ingolstadt without a diploma, his father started drinking.

His father’s loud singing interrupted Simon’s thoughts. The young medicus listened as his father threw his boots in the corner, then promptly collapsed. With a loud crash, a few dishes fell to the floor and shattered. Blinking, Simon noticed the first light of day filtering through the shutters. He got up and started to dress. It was probably pointless to speak with his father now, but anger was rising in Simon, and he couldn’t go back to sleep.

As he started down the steep staircase, he could see his father sitting on a bench downstairs. With a vacant look, old Fronwieser pushed a few rusty coins across the table, apparently all that remained from his drinking spree. Alongside him was a cup half full of brandy. Without saying a word, Simon picked it up and poured the contents onto the floor. It was only then that his father seemed to notice him.

“Stop that!” the father said angrily. “I’m still your father.”

“You sold ergot to Berchtholdt,” Simon said in a flat voice.

His father stared at him with small, tired eyes. For a moment it seemed he was going to deny it, but finally he shrugged. “And if I did… what business is it of yours?”

“The baker gave the ergot to his maid, Resl, and she died yesterday from taking it.”

There was a long pause, and Bonifaz appeared unwilling to reply.

Finally, Simon continued, “She screamed so loud that all of Schongau could hear it-like a pig being slaughtered. But you were out carousing and didn’t hear a thing, I’m sure.”

Old Fronwieser folded his arms over his chest and threw his head back defiantly. “I gave the stuff to Berchtholdt because he positively begged for it. What he did with it is his business and doesn’t concern me. If his maid-”

“You told him it would be better to take too much than too little!” Simon interrupted, his voice quivering. “You gave him the ergot as if it were herbal tea or arnica, but it’s poison! Deadly poison! You’re nothing but a charlatan, a quack!”

The last words, which slipped out by accident, sent his father over the edge.

“Quack?” he growled, digging his fingernails into the tabletop. “You call me a goddamned quack? Let me tell you who’s a quack in this town. It’s your damned hangman! Folks are always begging him for their elixirs and their salves. Now that he’s away, I finally have a chance to make a little money, and you make me out to be a murderer! My own son!” The old man stood up and pounded the table so hard the cups on the wall started rattling. “The damned hangman! That quack! That devil! I’ll burn his house down.”

Closing his eyes, Simon turned his face toward the ceiling. Bonifaz’s jealousy had been a thorn in his side for years, a thorn tipped in poison. Many Schongauers preferred to take their sicknesses and little aches and pains secretly to the hangman rather than to the town doctor. This was, of course, far cheaper, and moreover executioners were considered better not only at treating the broken bones and external injuries they had often themselves inflicted but also at healing internal diseases. By virtue of their experience with torture and executions, they had a more thorough understanding of the human body than any doctor with a university diploma.

What angered old Fronwieser most, however, was that his son was a good friend of the executioner. The young medicus had learned more from Kuisl than from his own father and the entire faculty of Ingolstadt University put together. The hangman owned books on medicine that couldn’t even be found in most libraries. He knew every poison and medicinal herb and had studied writings that traditional scholars considered the work of the devil. Simon idolized the hangman and was in love with his daughter-two things that got under Bonifaz’s skin and made him seethe with rage.

As the old man continued his rant about the hangman and the hangman’s family, Simon walked over to a pot of hot water that had been standing on the hearth all night. He knew he would need some coffee if he hoped to withstand the next few minutes.

“I’m not going to be scolded by the likes of someone who’d go to bed with the hangman’s daughter.” His father’s tirade was approaching its climax. “It’s a wonder, in any case, that you’re at home and not out with that little harlot of yours.”

Simon’s hands curled around the hot rim of the pot. “Father… I beg you!”

“Ha! You’re begging me!” his father said, mocking him. “How often have I begged you-how often? — to put an end to this shameful affair, to help me here in my work, and to marry Weinberger’s daughter or even Hardenberg’s niece, who at least does decent work at the hospital. But no, my son carries on with the hangman’s daughter, and the whole town gossips!”

“Father, stop it! At once!”

But by now Bonifaz had worked himself into a frenzy. “If only your dear mother knew!” he scoffed. “It’s just as well the reaper carried her off so long ago-it would have broken her heart. For years we tramped along behind the military, serving them as field surgeons, saving every last kreuzer I could so that our son might attend the university and have a better life someday. And what did you do? You squandered the money in Ingolstadt and wasted your time loafing around with riffraff.”

Simon was still clutching the pot by its rim. Although it had become painfully hot from the fire, he seemed barely to notice the heat, and his knuckles turned white with the force of his grip.

“Magdalena is not riffraff,” he said slowly. “Nor is her father.”

“He’s a damned quack and a murderer, and his daughter is a whore.”

Without a second thought, Simon flung the pot against the wall. With a loud hiss, the near-boiling water splashed over the shelves, table, and chairs, filling the room with a cloud of steam. Dumbfounded, Bonifaz looked back at his son. The pot had just barely missed his face.

“How dare you…” he began.

But Simon was not listening anymore. He dashed out the door into the early-morning light with tears streaming down his face. What had gotten into him? He’d almost killed his own father!

Distraught, Simon tried to pull his thoughts together. He had to get out of here, away from this stifling town that was making a recreant of him, a town that forbade him to marry the woman he loved, a town that tried to prescribe everything he did or thought.

He stepped out into the narrow street where foul-smelling garbage was pushed into huge piles. All of Schongau smelled that way-like muck, feces, and urine. Simon staggered through the empty streets, past the closed shop doors and bolted shutters. Another sweltering day had dawned in town.

The mouse was close to Jakob Kuisl’s ear. He could feel it brush past his hair, its tiny nose grazing his cheek. The hangman tried to breathe as softly as possible so as not to frighten the little creature. It sniffed his beard where tiny bits of yesterday’s stew still clung.

In a single, rapid motion, the hangman reached up and nabbed the rodent by the tail. The mouse dangled in front of his face, squeaking and flailing its legs in the air as Kuisl calmly examined it.

Trapped, just like me. Thrashing around and getting nowhere…

He’d spent the night locked in this hole in the Jakob’s Gate Tower in Regensburg: a little room in the cellar that was apparently most often used for storage. Surrounded by rusty cannons and disassembled matchlock guns, the hangman awaited his fate.

Could he just be imagining it, or was somebody really out to get him? Some of the guards had whispered among themselves when they took him into custody, pointing at him as if they somehow already knew who he was. Kuisl thought about the leering grimace of the raftsman who’d watched him for days. And what about the farmer he’d met while waiting outside the city gate? Had he been trying to pump him for information, too? Was it possible they’d each played a part in some conspiracy against him?

Is it possible I’m just losing my mind?

Again he tried to remember where he had seen the raftsman before. It must have been long ago. In battle? A tavern brawl? Or could he be one of the many whom, in the course of his life, Kuisl had put in the stocks, beaten with whips, or tortured? Kuisl nodded. That seemed most likely. Some minor offender who had recognized the Schongau executioner. The guards had him arrested because he’d assaulted one of their colleagues. And the curious farmer-well, he’d been just a curious farmer.

So there was no conspiracy, just a series of coincidences.

Kuisl set the mouse down carefully on the ground and let go of its tail. The animal scampered off toward a hole in the wall and disappeared. And just a few moments after that, the hangman was startled by a noise. The door to his cell opened with a creak and a narrow gap appeared, letting in the dazzling morning light.

“You are free to go, Bavarian.” It was the captain of the guards at Jakob’s Gate, with his twirled mustache and gleaming cuirass. He held the door open wide, gesturing for the hangman to leave. “You’ve had enough lolling around on your ass at the city’s expense.”

“I’m free?” Kuisl asked with surprise, getting up from his bedraggled sheets.

The captain nodded impatiently, and in his eyes Kuisl noticed a peculiar nervous flicker that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“I hope you’ve cooled down a bit. Let it be a lesson to you not to tangle with the Regensburg city guards.”

With a face as impassive as a rock, Kuisl pushed past the captain, headed up the stairway, and stepped outside. It was early morning, but another long line of people had already formed in front of Jakob’s Gate, and merchants and farmers were streaming into the city with their full packs and carts.

I wonder if the scar-faced raftsman is among them, the hangman thought, casually observing the faces. But he couldn’t see anything that looked suspicious.

Stop thinking about it and concern yourself with your little sister!

Looking straight ahead, Kuisl left the dungeon and started out through the city. From the few letters he had had from her, he knew that Lisbeth, along with her husband, ran a bathing establishment near the Danube, right alongside the city wall. As the hangman plodded along the broad paved avenue that led away from the gate, he was now no longer certain his directions would suffice, and amid the bustling crowd he soon lost his way. Houses four stories high rose up along both sides of the road, casting their shadows on the narrow, winding streets that branched off the main road at regular intervals. Sometimes the buildings stood so close together there was barely a patch of sky visible between them. From far off Kuisl could hear bells tolling in innumerable church spires. It was only six o’clock in the morning, yet there were more people out and about on the main road than on a Saturday afternoon in Schongau. Kuisl saw many richly clothed citizens but also countless poor, among them beggars and wounded veterans of the war, holding out their hands for alms at every other street corner. Barking dogs tore past his legs and down the street, as did two little piglets, squealing loudly. Towering up into the sky to his right was an enormous church whose stone portal, adorned with columns, arches, and statues, looked as if it were the entrance to a castle. Day laborers and derelicts loitered or lay dozing on the broad stone steps. Kuisl decided to ask one of them for directions.

“The Hofmann bathhouse, eh?” The young fellow grinned, revealing two remaining teeth. When Kuisl addressed him in his broad Schongau dialect, the young man sensed a chance to make some easy money. “You’re not from around here, are you? Don’t worry, I can take you there, but it will cost you a couple of kreuzers.”

The hangman nodded and handed the derelict a few old coins. Then he quickly seized the beggar’s wrist and twisted it until it cracked softly. “If you cheat me or run off,” the Schongau executioner whispered, “or mislead me or tip off your buddies and try to ambush me, or if you even think about doing any of that, I will find you and I will break your neck. Do you understand?”

The fellow nodded anxiously and swiftly decided against his original plan.

Together they turned left, away from the stone portal and onto the next major thoroughfare. Once more Kuisl was astonished at how many people were bustling about in Regensburg at this hour of the day. They all seemed to be in a hurry, as if the day itself were somehow shorter here than the days in Schongau. The hangman had trouble keeping up with the beggar through the labyrinth of the busy little streets. A few times he felt a hand reaching for his purse, but a severe glance or a well-aimed shove sufficed to dissuade the would-be pickpocket each time.

Finally, they seemed to be nearing their destination. This lane was wider than the preceding ones, and a tiny brook polluted with excrement and dead rats flowed languidly down the middle of it. Kuisl sniffed the air-sharp and rotten, an odor that the hangman knew only too well. Strips of leather hung like flags from balconies and windows. It was clear he was in the Tanners’ Quarter.

The beggar pointed to a large building at the end of a row of houses on the left, where an opening in a narrow gate led down to the Danube. The house looked neater than the others, freshly plastered, its trim painted bright red. The bathhouse coat of arms, a tin banner depicting a green parrot in a golden field, hung above the entryway, squeaking in the wind.

“Bathhouse Hofmann,” the man said. “As promised, bone cruncher.” He bowed and stuck his tongue out at the hangman before disappearing into a little side street.

As Kuisl approached the bathhouse, he again had the unmistakable feeling of being watched, perhaps from one of the windows across the way. But when he turned around, he couldn’t see anything behind the leather hides covering each window.

Damned city crowds! They’re driving me crazy!

He knocked on the solid wooden door in front of him, only to discover it was already open. With a loud creak, it swung slowly inward, opening on a dimly lit room.

“Lisl!” Kuisl called into the darkness. “It’s me, Jakob, your brother! Are you home?”

A strange feeling of homesickness came over him, memories from his childhood when he’d looked after his little sister. Lisbeth had been so happy to escape Schongau, to get away from the place where she had always been-just like Kuisl’s own daughter now-the free-spirited hangman’s daughter. She really seemed to have made it in the city, but now she was deathly ill and far from home…

Kuisl stood in the doorway, his heart pounding.

Cautiously he entered the room. It took some time for his eyes to adjust to the dim light of the large, long room that extended the length of the house. Fragrant reeds had been spread over the smoothly planed wooden floors, and from somewhere in the house he heard the steady sound of water dripping-a gentle, steady tapping.

Tap… tap… tap.

Kuisl slowly stepped further into the house. Wooden partitions divided the room into private niches at regular intervals along either side. The hangman could see that each contained a bench and, next to it, a large wooden tub.

In the last tub on the left he found his little sister alongside her husband.

Elisabeth Hofmann and her husband, Andreas, lay with their heads tilted back and their eyes open wide, as if they were watching some invisible spectacle play out across the ceiling. For a brief moment the hangman thought the couple was taking their morning bath; only then did he notice that both were fully clothed. Lisbeth’s right arm hung over the edge of the tub, and something dripped from the tip of her index finger to the floor like heavy melted wax.

Tap… tap… tap.

Kuisl bent over the tub and passed his hand through the lukewarm water.

It was deep red.

He jumped back, the hair on the back of his neck standing up straight. His little sister and her husband were bathing in their own blood! Now Kuisl saw the slit across Lisbeth’s throat, grinning up at him like a second mouth. Her black hair floated like a matted net on the surface of the bloody water. The slit in Andreas Hofmann’s neck was so deep that his head was almost severed from his body.

“Oh, God, Lisl!” Kuisl cradled his little sister’s head in his arms and passed his hand gently through her hair. “What happened? What’s happened to you?” He clenched his jaw as his eyes filled with tears, the first tears he’d shed in years.

Why? Why didn’t I get here sooner?

His sister’s face was as white as chalk. He held her in his arms and rocked her back and forth, stroking the hair from her forehead as he’d always done when she was a child in bed, restless with fever. In a deep, faltering voice he began to sing an old nursery rhyme.

Maikafer flieg, dein Vater ist im Krieg, deine Mutter ist im… May bug fly, your father’s gone to die, your mother is in…

A sound made him pause.

He turned around to find a contingent of at least five guards quietly entering the room. Two had crossbows trained on him and stood poised to shoot as a third slowly approached him with his sword drawn.

It was the captain from that morning.

The man twirled his mustache and smiled at Kuisl as he pointed at the two corpses. “Looks as if you have a problem on your hands, country boy.”

“But not all of the St. John’s Wort! Good Lord, girl! Pay attention!”

Magdalena was startled by the voice of Martha Stechlin shouting right into her ear. The hangman’s daughter, who had been busy spooning herbs into a pot, knew how important it was to use just the right quantities of ingredients. But her thoughts were far, far away. When the midwife shouted at her, Magdalena couldn’t say for the life of her how much St. John’s Wort she’d already put in the copper kettle over the fire. The strange aroma coming from the green liquid bubbling in the pot distracted her even further.

“How often must I tell you: follow the recipe!” Stechlin grabbed the spoon from her hand and began stirring the remaining ingredients into the kettle herself. “You might get away with that when you make green oil,” she mumbled, “but if that were to happen with belladonna or lily of the valley, we’d be convicted for brewing poison and end up burned at the stake. So please, do pay attention!”

“I’m… I’m terribly sorry,” Magdalena whispered. “I’m not quite myself today.”

“I’ve noticed,” the midwife replied. “But there’s nothing you can do for Resl anymore. We can only hope people will come back to us midwives now when they need ergot. Those doctors with their university diplomas don’t know a thing about it.”

Sighing, the hangman’s daughter put the crucibles and glasses back in the drawers. She had gone to Stechlin first thing in the morning to tell her about the baker’s maid who had met such a horrible death the day before. In the last two years a genuine friendship had developed between Magdalena and the midwife, even though Stechlin was older by almost twenty years. Neither was thought of very highly in town, even if people kept calling on them secretly for their aid. The townfolk whispered behind their backs; the men especially gave them a very wide berth, convinced that the women meddled too much in what they believed should be the dear Lord’s work.

Nevertheless, Magdalena took great pleasure in her vocation, probably because, as the daughter of a hangman, she’d been dealing with herbs almost all her life. Magdalena knew that hops dampened sexual desire in men and that lady’s mantle helped during pregnancy. She knew the preparations that made a woman fertile-as well as those that would promptly abort an unwanted fetus. Since the moment she’d learned to walk, her father had been introducing her to medicinal and toxic plants alike, and as time went on, new ones were always being discovered. By now she was almost more of an expert in the subject than the hangman himself. More than once Magdalena had spared a young maid the disgrace of raising a fatherless child by selecting the appropriate herb. The hangman’s daughter had likely saved some of those girls from murdering their own children, and from execution at the hands of Magdalena’s own father.

She’d arrived too late to save Resl Kirchlechner, however.

“The flask, quick!”

Once again Martha’s voice tore Magdalena from her gloomy thoughts. She hurried to the cabinet, found the tall flask, and set it down carefully on the table. The midwife took the pot from the hearth and poured a fine stream of the bubbling green liquid into the flask.

As the hangman’s daughter held the flask upright and watched the green liquid slowly filter to the bottom of the container, she couldn’t help thinking of the master baker’s maid. What cruel injustice that Michael Berchtholdt was still walking around, a free man, while a woman had died by his hand! Women had to bear all the shame while high and mighty, privileged men could do as they pleased! Vividly, Magdalena imagined her father with a switch in his hand, driving Berchtholdt from town. But, of course, this wasn’t realistic. Should she appeal to the town council? Tell court clerk Johann Lechner about it? No doubt she’d be laughed out of town herself. Besides, Michael Berchtholdt was dangerous, and his parting words no idle threat.

Go on, go and tell people, and I promise I’ll make your life hell!

At that moment a fist-size rock, followed by a second and a third, flew in through an open window. The women heard a crash as the flask burst, and hot oil splashed Stechlin in the face. The midwife staggered backward, bumped into the table, and finally collapsed onto the ground, screaming and covering her eyes with her dirty apron. More stones came crashing in, shattering the pots and phials on the shelves where they landed.

Magdalena ran to the window and peered warily over the sill. Outside, in the middle of the lane, stood a group of smirking young men, apprentices and journeymen, none of them older than twenty. The hangman’s daughter immediately recognized three of Michael Berchtholdt’s sons among them.

“Brew your stinking potions down in the Tanners’ Quarter, hangman hussy!” spluttered a lanky, pimply boy making an obscene gesture. Peter Berchtholdt was no more than sixteen years old. “Father says you’re responsible for what happened to our maid! You gave her the draught that turned her into a witch. Now she’s gone, and you’re to blame, you pernicious, murdering witch!”

Magdalena seethed with rage as never before. She burst out the door into the street and, after running up to the group of boys, kicked young Berchtholdt in the groin. He folded up like a jackknife as he fell with a groan to the ground, his face flushed, unable to speak, much less defend himself. Everything happened so fast that none of the other boys had been able to intervene.

Arms akimbo, Magdalena looked down at the master baker’s son. “I’ll tell you who the murderer is,” she shouted, turning her fury to the two other Berchtholdt boys standing uncertainly off to one side. “Your father gave Resl the poison himself because it was he who fathered the child, and now he wants to blame it on me. Believe it or not, your father is a dirty liar and a murderer! Now get out of here, all of you, or I’ll scratch your eyes out before you can say hallelujah.”

She raised her right hand, showing off her long, dirty fingernails. Peter was still lying on the ground in front of her. The boy hesitated-for a brief moment Magdalena thought she recognized something like doubt in his eyes-but then he pulled himself together, struggled to his feet, and staggered back to his brothers.

“You’ll be sorry for what you said about our father,” shouted the eldest Berchtholdt. “I will tell him, and then he’ll see to it that Kuisl has to chase his own daughter with a whip through town and throw her in the stocks.” He spit on the ground and made the sign of the cross with his right hand.

As the boys turned to leave, Magdalena shouted after them. “Wipe your own ass first, mama’s boys! You Berchtholdts are nothing but cowards and loafers!”

She looked up; several windows had opened now and a dozen pairs of eyes stared down at the ruckus.

“And all you up there are not one bit better! Not one bit! To hell with you all!”

Cursing loudly, she stomped back into the midwife’s house, where Stechlin now sat at the large table holding a damp cloth to her scalded face. Magdalena was relieved to see that apart from a few red blotches on her skin, no real damage had been done. The midwife’s eyes had thankfully escaped injury, but the broken glass and the green puddle on the floor showed the stones had shattered more than just a flask and a few phials. Magdalena felt as if a stone had struck her straight in the heart.

Only now did she break down, leaning on the midwife and sobbing, as wave after wave of grief and pain surged through her body. Stechlin whispered softly to her, stroking the young girl’s hair as if she were a child. Finally the midwife whispered, “They will never accept us; it’s like a law of nature, like budding, blooming, and dying. You must try to live with this.”

Magdalena rose. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, but her gaze was firm and unyielding. “To hell with the laws,” she whispered. “I’ll never accept them-never. I’ll do what suits me, now more than ever!”

Stechlin moved away a bit and cast a furtive glance at Magdalena. There was no doubt about it-the girl really was the Schongau hangman’s daughter.

A few hours later Magdalena’s anger had subsided a bit. She and her mother were busy getting the twins ready for bed, a job that always occupied her so completely she had no time left for gloomy thoughts.

“Just one more story, Magda,” little Barbara pleaded. “Just one more! Tell us the one about the queen and the house in the forest! You haven’t told us that one for a long time!”

Magdalena laughed and carried her nine-year-old sister up the narrow stairs to the bedroom. Her back ached under the weight of the squirming child. The twins had grown an astonishing amount in the last year, and soon she wouldn’t be able to lift Barbara anymore. Clearly they took after their father.

“Oh, no, it’s time to go to bed,” Magdalena said with feigned severity as she put her little sister in bed, covered her up, and blew out a smoking pine chip standing on a stool in the corner. “Look, your brother’s eyes are already closed.”

She pointed at Georg, Barbara’s twin brother, who in fact seemed to be asleep in his narrow little bed.

“Then at least sing something for me,” Barbara pleaded, trying hard not to yawn.

With a sigh, Magdalena began to sing a soft lullaby. Her little sister closed her eyes, and soon her breathing was regular and calm and she seemed to drift off to sleep.

The hangman’s daughter looked down at Barbara, stroking her cheek tenderly. She loved her younger brother and sister, even if they sometimes got on her nerves. To Georg and Barbara their father was a growling bear who fought off bad men but was loving and tender with them, his own children. It almost made Magdalena a bit jealous that the hangman seemed to develop a kindlier attitude as he grew older. When she’d misbehaved as a little girl, she’d received a good spanking, but with the twins, her father usually just growled his displeasure-which didn’t necessarily achieve the desired effect.

Magdalena was thinking about her father in faraway Regensburg when she heard footsteps behind her. Her mother smiled as she entered the room.

Anna-Maria Kuisl had the same long, black locks as her daughter, the same bushy eyebrows, and the same temper, as well. Jakob Kuisl had often complained he was married to two women, both of whom had a tendency to flare up. When they both were angry with him, he would often go and brood over the medical books that he kept in his pharmaceutical closet.

“Well?” Anna-Maria asked softly. “Are the children finally asleep?”

Magdalena nodded and stood up from the bed, exhausted. “A dozen stories and certainly a hundred rounds of bouncing up and down on my knees playing horsie! That should be enough.”

“You spoil them too much.” The hangman’s wife shook her head. “Just like your father. He was like that with his little sister.”

“Lisbeth?” Magdalena asked. “Did you know her well?”

Anna-Maria bit her lip, and Magdalena sensed that her mother really didn’t want to talk about Magdalena’s aunt, certainly not on such a beautiful summer evening. Just the same, she persisted with her question until her mother was finally persuaded to tell the story.

“After Lisbeth and Jakob’s mother died, she lived here in the house with us,” Anna-Maria said. “She was so young-almost a child-but then this owner of a bathhouse came along and took her back to Regensburg with him. Your father cursed and scolded, but what could he do? She didn’t care a whit what her big brother thought-she was just as stubborn as he was. She just packed up her things and left. For Regensburg, of course…”

She stared blankly into space for a while, as if some macabre image had arisen from the past like a monster emerging from a dark abyss. She remained silent for a long while.

“Why?” Magdalena finally asked, breaking the silence.

Anna-Maria merely shrugged. “Love, perhaps? But to tell you the truth, I think she just couldn’t stand it here anymore. The constant whispering, the evil glances, how people would make the sign of the cross whenever she passed by.” She sighed. “You know yourself it takes a thick hide to be a hangman’s daughter and stay in a place like this.”

“Or maybe just stupidity,” Magdalena said softly.

“What did you say?”

Magdalena shook her head. “Nothing, Mama.” She sat down on a stool in the corner and looked at her mother in the moonlight that fell through the open shutters.

“You never told me how you met Papa for the first time,” she said finally. “I know so little about you. Where did you grow up? Who are my grandparents? You must have had a life before Father came along.”

In fact, her mother had always kept silent about her past. Father, too, never spoke about his time as a mercenary. Magdalena could vaguely remember Mother crying a lot, and in her mind’s eye Magdalena could still see her father rocking her mother gently in his arms to console her. But this was a very distant memory, and in listening to her parents speak, it almost seemed as if their life hadn’t begun until Magdalena was born. Everything before that was darkness.

Anna-Maria turned away and glanced out the window and across the river. Suddenly she looked very old.

“Much has happened since I was a child,” she said. “Much that I don’t want to be reminded of.”

“But why?”

“Let’s leave it at that, child. We’ll save the rest for another day, perhaps when your father returns from Regensburg. I don’t have a good feeling about this trip.” She shook her head. “I dreamed of him just last night, and it wasn’t a nice dream but a bloody one.”

Anna-Maria stopped speaking and laughed. But it sounded like a tormented laugh.

“I’m already behaving like a silly old woman,” she said finally. “It must have something to do with that accursed Regensburg. Believe me, a curse lies over this region, a bloody curse…”

“A curse?” Magdalena frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

Her mother sighed. “As a child I went to Regensburg often. I went to the market there with your grandmother, as we lived not far from the city. Whenever we passed by the city hall, Grandma said that the noblemen inside were plotting wars.” She closed her eyes briefly, then continued in a soft voice. “It made no difference whether it was against the Turks or the Swedes; it was always the little people on the anvil who had to suffer the blows. Why did your father have to go to Regensburg, of all places?”

“But the war ended long ago,” Magdalena interrupted with a laugh. “You’re seeing ghosts!”

“The war may be over, but the scars remain.”

Magdalena didn’t get to ask her mother what she meant, because at that moment they heard footsteps and whispers in front of the house.

And in the next moment chaos broke out.

Simon washed the sweat from his face at a little washbasin in the consulting room, then buttoned his jacket and stepped warily out of the house.

All day the young medicus had been treating consumptive farmers, feverish children, and old women covered in boils. Since the hangman had been away, over a week now, more patients than ever had visited the Fronwieser house in the Hennengasse. Simon’s father had retired upstairs to his room with a terrible hangover and needed treatment himself. Simon had his hands full. Only now, after sundown, did he find the time to visit Magdalena down in the Tanners’ Quarter. He needed to speak with her, alone, to discuss Michael Berchtholdt’s threats. Just the day before he’d agreed with Magdalena that she should enter an official complaint against the master baker, but in the course of the day he’d begun to wonder whether that really was such a sensible idea. Berchtholdt still held a seat in the city’s Outer Council, and his voice carried weight-in stark contrast to Simon’s, and especially Magdalena’s as the eldest daughter of the dishonorable Schongau hangman.

In the meanwhile night had fallen. With lantern in hand, the medicus crept through the pitch-black streets of Schongau. At every corner he paused and listened for the footsteps of the night watchmen. Only when the streets were completely silent did he dare proceed, always on the lookout for curious neighbors who might happen to be watching from their windows. No one in Schongau was permitted out after nightfall, and anyone the constables caught would face a hefty fine. On account of an occasional late night of drinking and his frequent visits to Magdalena, Simon had already parted with a not insignificant amount of money. If he was caught just once more, he ran the risk of being put in the stocks or having to wear the scold’s bridle. The medicus shuddered at the thought of being punished by none other than Magdalena’s father-and of being the laughingstock of the entire town.

When Simon noticed light flickering down by the Lech Gate, he quickly covered his lantern with his jacket. Relieved, he then realized that the light was coming from the gatekeeper, Josef. The old constable had often let him pass through the narrow one-man door so he might visit the Kuisls. A modest bribe of brandy or watered-down theriaca was cheaper for Simon than the punishment for being caught leaving the city at night. As he drew closer, however, he noticed something odd. Josef’s face was as white as chalk, and his lips were pinched tightly together.

“Where-where are you going at this late hour?” the old man stammered, clutching his halberd tightly as if he might fall over without it.

“Oh, come now, Josef.” He raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “You know I’m going to see Magdalena. How about a nightcap, as usual?” He pulled a little corked bottle out from under his jacket.

The constable shook his head nervously. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea tonight. It would be better for you to stay in town.”

“Why…” Simon began. At that moment he heard sounds down below, a rattling and howling, all to the accompaniment of an out-of-tune fiddle. The medicus didn’t bother finishing his sentence, pushed the watchman aside, and ran to the doorway.

“Fronwieser, no!” Josef shouted after him. “You’re going to regret it!”

Simon wasn’t listening anymore. He unhooked the rusty latch, ducked through the shoulder-high door, and ran down the street toward the raft landing. As he ran, he saw bright lights flickering in the Tanners’ Quarter. The noise was coming from that direction, and the sound was getting louder, swelling to a thunderous beat that reminded him of the Swedes’ drumming just before they set fire to the town long ago. One man appeared to be shouting, and a chorus of voices answered-then the drumming continued. Simon could at last identify the lights as hand-held torches and lanterns, little points of light all in a row, advancing like a glittering snake toward its goal.

The hangman’s house.

Simon stumbled more than he ran-the cobblestones by the raft landing were still slick from the thunderstorm earlier that night-but finally he arrived at the Tanners’ Quarter and ducked behind a cart laden with sweet-smelling hay to watch what was unfolding.

Two or three dozen young men had gathered there, journeymen from Schongau and a few farmhands from the surrounding villages. They had blackened their faces with soot, and some of them wore sacks over their heads, their eyes peering out through slits and flashing white in the light of the torches. Despite their disguises Simon recognized a number of them by their voices and their gaits. In their hands they held threshing flails, rattles, and scythes with little bells attached in places. One of the journeymen had donned a hairy devil mask and leaped about in a sort of wild, demonic dance.

In the middle of the mob stood a man with a blackened face, a black coat, and a hat adorned with two white rooster feathers. It took the medicus a moment to realize that this was in fact Michael Berchtholdt. With his long, flowing robe and painted face, the lean master baker appeared bigger and more menacing. The others fell silent as Berchtholdt began to speak in a steady, strident singsong.

“The hangman girl, this Kuisl whore, she practices on you, and more. The belly swells, all plump and round, but her physician makes her sound. ’Tis true, my friends?”

The chorus of masked faces roared its reply in one voice: “’Tis true!”

“Then now you know just what to do!”

The rattling and stomping resumed once more, swelling now to an infernal racket. Meanwhile, in the nearby houses shutters had opened, but the faces that peered out seemed more amused than frightened by the clamorous, bloodthirsty mob below. How often, after all, did they get to see such a spectacle in sleepy little Schongau?

Simon crouched even lower behind the cart, trying desperately to figure out what to do. He’d heard of Vehmic tribunals and their secret vigilante proceedings, though never in Schongau. Their victims were often loose women or other members of society who had in some way offended the moral order: village drunks, lecherous priests, greedy estate farmers, or millers who had defrauded their customers. The medicus had heard that the accused were sometimes whipped and chased through the fields, but in most cases they suffered only the humiliation of public ridicule delivered in lines of satirical verse. Just last year in Kinsau, a few towns away, the young men of the village had smeared human waste all over the walls of the building belonging to the bathhouse owner and hoisted a manure cart up onto his roof. The victim had watched the spectacle in silence, knowing there wasn’t much he could do against the majority of villagers.

This last thought worried Simon. He couldn’t imagine Magdalena would ever tolerate such abuse without fighting back. Would she physically assault her accusers? Claw at their sooty faces with her nails? How would the men react? The physician looked uncertainly at the shuttered windows of the hangman’s house, just as Michael Berchtholdt started to declaim another satirical verse.

“She gives the maids her witches’ brew and turns them into demons, too. And takes them off to live in hell. ’Tis true, my friends? Do tell, do tell!”

“’Tis true!”

“Then now you know just what to do!”

Simon’s anger was rising, and his ears started to hum. Michael Berchtholdt was trying to turn the tables on her, to make it look as if Magdalena was responsible for what happened to Resl-and the others actually seemed to believe him! Simon knew he didn’t stand a chance, but someone had to try to stop this.

Prepared for a fight, he pulled out his knife and was about to jump out from behind the cart when the shutters on the second floor of the hangman’s house flew open with a bang. There stood Magdalena in a white linen nightdress, her hair disheveled, her teeth clenched, her eyes ablaze. Simon shuddered. For a moment he believed the vision standing before him was not his beloved Magdalena but an avenging angel straight out of the Old Testament. The boisterous men below were also apparently so astonished by her appearance that absolute silence prevailed for a moment.

“Lies!” she shouted out into the night. “Filthy, cowardly lies! You all know what happened! Each and every one of you! And still you stand there like asses playing along with Berchtholdt and his ridiculous masquerade!”

She pointed at the master baker, who raised his right hand in a sign meant to ward off the devil. “You, Berchtholdt, got your maid pregnant and administered the poison yourself, not I! I’m going to Secretary Lechner, and I’ll tell him everything. When my father, the hangman, is through with you, you’ll want to hide your face behind that mask. He’ll cut your nose off and throw it to the dogs!”

“Hold your tongue, hangman’s girl!” Michael Berchtholdt’s voice trembled with hatred and anger. “It’s about time someone muzzled that impertinent mouth of yours. You’ve been whoring around this town far too long. And as for your father…” He looked around, waiting for signs of approval. “Court Clerk Lechner will see to it that Kuisl is forced to chase his own daughter through the streets with a whip. Lewd woman! Isn’t it so, my friends?”

“’Tis true!” The voices were not as loud as the last time, but the young fellows seemed to have regained their confidence.

Simon, still standing behind the cart, noticed Anna-Maria now, standing a ways back from the window alongside the frightened twins, who had apparently been awakened by the noise. The mother turned to her daughter, trying to coax her away from the window, but Magdalena remained adamant.

“Lewd woman?” she shouted over the din of the mob and pointed at their leader. “Who is lewd here, Berchtholdt? Didn’t my father brew you a potion just last year to keep your rod nice and stiff? You dirty, lying sack of shit! And haven’t you all come by at least once seeking ivy and stoneseed for your barnyard liaisons with your sweethearts? I could sing a verse about every last one of you. Listen up, Berchtholdt…” She paused for a moment to concentrate before hurling her curse at the mob’s leader.

“The wife of Berchtholdt has gone dry. The baker’s got a wandering eye… He mounts his maid, the lewd old steed, and poisons her to hide the deed!”

“Lies, lies! I’ll put a gag in your damned mouth, Kuisl girl!” Michael Berchtholdt ran to the door of the hangman’s house and, finding it locked, kicked at it like a madman. When the heavy oak boards wouldn’t budge, he swung his lantern in a wide arc up onto the roof.

“Burn down the hangman’s house!” he screamed. “Go to it, friends! We won’t take that kind of talk from a whore!”

Hesitantly at first, but then faster and faster, the young men rushed forward to toss their torches against the walls and onto the roof. Soon some of the shingles caught fire, and a thin column of smoke began to rise up into the sky like a slight, black finger. The roof smoked and the shingles crackled as the first flames licked at the timbers, rising ever higher until finally engulfing the entire roof.

“Get out of here, fast!” Anna-Maria shouted, pulling the tearful children away from the window, “before we’re burned alive!”

She ran down the stairway with the children and out the door, where a hail of stones, rotten vegetables, and stinking dung awaited them. Magdalena followed close behind. Defiantly, she stood in the doorway a moment and allowed herself to be pummeled with filth and malice.

A stone struck her forehead, and she staggered backward as a thin trickle of blood ran down her right temple, dripping onto her bodice. For a moment it seemed she was preparing to fight off the entire mob of farm boys and journeymen by herself. She clutched the door frame with both hands, cursing softly. But reason soon prevailed, and she ran off after her mother and the twins, who had sought refuge behind a woodpile.

The flames rose toward the ridge of the roof, and at first Simon just stood there in his hiding place behind the cart, immobilized with terror, but as the fire started to consume the house, he couldn’t stand by any longer. Without a further thought, he ran out from behind the cart directly into the mob.

“You dogs!” he roared. “Setting fire to a house with a mother and her children inside! Is that all you know how to do?” The young men turned around, astonished. When they saw Simon, hatred flared in their eyes. At once three rushed the medicus, who tried to hold them off with his knife. The razor-sharp blade whistled through the air in a semicircle as the men stepped back.

“Not one step closer,” Simon snarled. “This stiletto’s done the work of an army surgeon; it’s amputated fingers and arms. A few more won’t make any difference!”

He heard the sound of feet running behind him, but before he could turn around, a heavy, powerful body struck him and pinned him to the ground. At once all the other men were on top of him. One of the Berchtholdt boys drew back his arm and laid into Simon’s face with his fist, over and over, as if he were nothing more than a bag of flour. The medicus could taste his own blood, and after the fourth blow the world went black. The shouts and noise of the brawl sounded strangely distant, and acrid black smoke wafted across his face.

They’re beating me to death. Like a rabid dog, they’re beating me to death! If this is the end…

As if in a dream, he heard a sudden clap of thunder, then felt something cold drip onto his upturned face. It took him a few moments to realize they were raindrops-thick, heavy drops falling harder and harder. Then a proper downpour was pelting him and his enemies, turning the ground beneath them into a muddy morass.

“Stop! In the name of His Majesty the Prince, I order you to stop at once!”

The voice boomed so loud that even in the torrential rain the command was clear. Turning his battered head from where he lay on the ground, Simon could make out in a haze a figure astride a horse. The medicus blinked several times before realizing through a veil of blood that it was the secretary, Johann Lechner. The rain streamed down his black coat, his hair clung to his forehead, and yet despite the storm the Elector’s representative looked like an enraged and awesome deity. As the supreme authority in Schongau, he commanded a dozen city watchmen, who stood beside him now, their loaded muskets pointed at the mob. Their expressions made plain their displeasure at being awakened in the middle of the night only to stand here in the rain. And the secretary, too, was clearly annoyed he’d been called from his ducal residence, where he represented the electoral prince in matters of government.

“I shall give you exactly one minute to clear out of here,” Lechner said in a soft voice. “After that I will give the order to shoot. Is that clear?”

Simon could hear whispering and the patter of running feet as cloaked figures fled into the darkness. In a matter of moments the area in front of the hangman’s house was empty, except for a handful of cast-off flour sacks and extinguished torches that bore witness to the nightmare-these and a devil’s mask that leered up at Simon maliciously from a puddle of mud and horse piss. A few flames still spluttered on the roof, but otherwise the heavy downpour had quenched the fire.

“For God’s sake, see to it at once that the fire doesn’t flare up again!” the secretary shouted to the city guards. “Accursed vigilantes! A plague on all those farmers!”

The guards filled buckets with water at a nearby well and ran up into the attic to put out what remained of the fire. Some of the men helped Anna-Maria to let the cows out of the barn, where they’d been lowing anxiously and beating their hooves against the boards of their stalls. Meanwhile, Magdalena contemplated the smoking roof from a safe distance. Speaking softly, she tried to soothe the children, who were weeping and burying their heads in her lap. The face of the hangman’s daughter was vacant.

“They’ll pay for this!” Magdalena seethed at last, rubbing the blood from her forehead. “Father will string them up for this, I swear!”

By now Simon had struggled to his feet and hobbled over to Magdalena. Bending down over the twins, he gave them a quick once-over, especially little Georg, who was having a coughing fit, apparently suffering from a mild case of smoke inhalation.

A few last drops fell from the sky before the rain ceased altogether. The thunder sounded far off now, like the drums of a slowly retreating army.

“Fronwieser, Fronwieser…” With a mixture of amusement and sympathy, Johann Lechner looked down on Simon from atop his horse. “You bring me nothing but grief. And now I’m awakened in the middle of the night to save your miserable life.” He pointed to the smoking roof. “If it hadn’t been for the rain, all of Schongau could have gone up in flames. And all because of a stubborn woman.”

“Your Excellency-” the medicus began, but Lechner waved him off.

“I know what happened, and I know who’s behind it, too.” He leaned down in the saddle and regarded Simon as he might a disobedient child. “But believe me, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. Haven’t I told you several times you ought to put an end to your little affair with Kuisl’s daughter? If you don’t, people will never quit hounding you.” Lechner sighed. “This time I came to your aid, Fronwieser, because the city’s welfare was also at stake. But next time you’re on your own. May God have mercy on you then.”

Simon was too weak to reply. Blood had congealed in his mouth, his left eye was already swollen shut, and the right half of his face would probably be shining all shades of the rainbow in the next half-hour. His whole body felt as if it had passed through a grain mill. Shock and fear for Magdalena’s safety had made him forget his pain at first, but now it rolled over him like a surging storm. He searched in vain for a suitable response.

“Is that all?” It was the voice of Magdalena, who had planted herself in front of the secretary’s horse in the meantime. Her face was crimson with anger. “This rabble almost burns our house down, they beat Simon half to death, Berchtholdt poisons his maid, and you are scolding us?”

Lechner shrugged. “What should I do, lock them all up? Harvest is approaching, and I can’t let the crops wither in the fields with no one to work them. Perhaps I should put Berchtholdt in the stocks… perhaps, yes.” He shook his head, thinking. “But to do that I’ll first have to present some evidence. He was disguised just like the others, and none of those farmers will snitch on the master baker. After all, he’s the man who buys their grain year after year. Believe me, that would be an endless trial that wouldn’t help anyone at all. Besides, the people are right.” He turned his horse around and started back toward town, throwing one last glance behind him and shaking his head almost regretfully. “A medicus and a hangman’s daughter… That won’t do. We have to have rules, after all. Believe me, Magdalena, your father would see things in exactly the same light.”

The secretary disappeared into the night with his guards, leaving the small, sodden group alone in the dark. A breeze blew across the courtyard and carried the last of the smoke away. Now that the fire was out, it felt as quiet as a cemetery. Anna-Maria rocked the children silently in her lap.

“Looks as if we’ll have to spend the night in the barn,” she said. “We can start cleaning up tomorrow. The whole attic is black with soot.”

Magdalena stared at her in disbelief. “Pardon me? They set your house on fire and all you think of is cleaning up?”

Her mother sighed. “What else is there to do? You heard what Lechner said. None of those men will be held accountable.” Angrily she tapped her daughter on the chest. “And don’t think for another moment that you can keep playing the hero. That’s over and done with! This time we were lucky, but the next time it could be the children burned to death in their beds. Is that what you want?” She looked intently at her daughter, who pursed her lips. “I’ll ask you again: Is that what you want?”

“Your mother is right,” Simon said. “If we go after Berchtholdt, then next time they just may burn your house to the ground. The man is an alderman, after all, and has the people on his side.”

Looking up into the overcast night sky, Magdalena took a deep breath of the fresh air the rain had brought. For a while no one spoke a word. “You don’t really think they’ll leave us be, do you?” she whispered at last. “For them I’m fair game, now more than ever.”

Her mother looked at her crossly. “Because you take it too far! Lechner is right. A hangman’s girl and a medicus-it isn’t proper. You’ve got to quit carrying on, or else it’ll come to an even worse end. You can’t marry; that’s against the law. And after what happened tonight, you know they won’t leave you in peace until you start keeping your hands off each other.” Anna-Maria stood up, brushing the soot from her dress. “For far too long your father has just stood by and watched, Magdalena. But this is the end. As soon as he returns, we’ll send a letter to the executioner in Marktoberndorf. I heard his wife died in childbirth, and he would be a good match for you, with a big house and-”

Magdalena leaped up in a rage. “So you want to hide me away, so I don’t give you any more trouble. Is that right?”

“Suppose it is?” her mother answered. “It’s only to protect you and everyone else. You’re obviously incapable of doing that yourself.”

Without another word, Anna-Maria took the twins by the hand and went to the barn, where she made up straw beds for them. For a moment it appeared that Magdalena was about to call after her, but then Simon put his arm around her shoulder from behind. Her whole body started to tremble as she began to cry silently.

“She surely doesn’t mean it that way,” Simon whispered. “Let’s go to sleep now. Tomorrow when the sun comes up-”

Suddenly Magdalena wrapped her arms around Simon as if she would never let him go. She clung so fiercely to him that he could feel the firmness of her body through their wet garments, and she kissed him long and passionately on his bloodied lips.

“This very night,” she whispered finally.

Simon looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”

Magdalena put her finger to his lips. “Mother is right. As long as we’re here, they’ll hound us. Too much has happened already, and the next time it might not just be us who get hurt; something could happen to the children. We can’t allow that.” She looked deep into Simon’s eyes. “Let’s get away from here, this very night. I mean it.”

Before Simon could reply, she went on hastily: “Berchtholdt will never leave us in peace. If the matter with Resl gets out, he’ll be thrown off the council. He won’t risk that, so he’ll do anything in his power to see that I keep my mouth shut. One way or another.”

“You mean, we should leave Schongau… for good?” Simon held her tightly. “Do you know what that means? We’ll have nothing, nobody will know us, we’ll-”

Magdalena stopped him with another kiss. “Stop your blathering,” she whispered. “Don’t think I don’t know myself that it will be hard. But it’s obvious we can’t stay here any longer. You heard what Lechner said. A medicus and a hangman’s daughter… ‘that will never do’…”

“And where shall we go?”

Magdalena hesitated only briefly before answering. “Regensburg. Anything is possible there.”

A roll of thunder signaled another rain shower passing over the town. Simon pulled Magdalena close and kissed her until, locked in a tight embrace, they sank to the ground in a puddle of blood, mud, and horse piss.

A small bundle of humanity in the midst of the thundering downpour.