The Hangman’s Daughter

CHAPTER 8

FRIDAY APRIL 27, A.D. 1659 TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

The court clerk sat at the big council table in the town hall drumming his fingers to the rhythm of some military march whose melody kept going through his mind. His gaze passed over the pudgy faces of the men sitting in front of him. Red, sagging cheeks, watery eyes, thinning hair…Even the modish cut of the coats and the carefully starched lace neckerchiefs could not disguise the fact that these men had passed their prime. They clung to their power and their money because, in Lechner’s opinion, nothing else was left for them. In their eyes was a helplessness that made him almost pity them. In their small, beautiful town the devil was loose, and they could do nothing about it. The Stadel had burned down, some of them had lost a lot of money, and something out there was taking their children from them. The servant girls and laborers, the peasants and the simple people, expected that they, the masters of the town, would do something about it. But they were all at a loss, and so they looked at Lechner as if he could do away with the disaster with a snap of his fingers or a scratch from his quill pen. Lechner despised them, even if he would never let it show.

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

He rang his handbell and opened the meeting.

“Many thanks for having come on such short notice and interrupting your business, which is doubtlessly important, to attend this shortly convened meeting of the inner council,” he began. “But I believe it is necessary.”

The six aldermen nodded eagerly. Burgomaster Karl Semer passed his lace kerchief over his sweaty forehead. The deputy burgomaster Johann Puchner wrung his hands and muttered agreement. Otherwise there was silence. Only Wilhelm Hardenberg, the old superintendent of the almshouse, pursed his lips and uttered a curse toward the ceiling. He had just been calculating how much the fire at the Stadel would cost him. Cinnamon, sweetmeats, bales of high-quality cloth, all reduced to ashes.

“God in heaven, someone will have to pay for it!” he whined. “Someone must pay!”

The blind Matthias Augustin struck his stick impatiently on the oaken floor. “Cursing won’t get us anywhere,” he said. “Let Master Lechner tell us what the questioning of the wagon drivers has revealed.”

The court clerk looked at him thankfully. At least there was one beside himself who was keeping a clear head. Then he continued. “As you all know, yesterday evening little Clara Schreevogl was abducted by an unknown person. Like the other two dead children, she used to visit the Stechlin woman. People maintain they’ve seen the devil on the street.”

A whispering and murmuring went through the council chamber, and many crossed themselves. Johann Lechner held up his hands to calm them. “People see a lot, even things which don’t exist,” he said. “I hope that we will be able to say more after the examination of the Stechlin woman this afternoon.”

“Why didn’t you put the witch on the rack long ago?” grumbled old Augustin. “There was time enough all night.”

Lechner nodded. “If it were up to me, we would be further along,” he said. “But the witness Schreevogl asked for a postponement. His wife is not well. Anyway, first we wanted to ask the wagon drivers about the fire.”

“Well then?” Almshouse superintendent Hardenberg looked up, his eyes flashing with anger. “Who was it? Who is the swine? He should be dancing at a rope’s end by the end of the day!”

The court clerk shrugged. “We don’t know yet. The watchman from the bridge and Georg Riegg both said the fire spread very quickly. Someone did more than just set the fire, but nobody saw any of the Augsburgers. They came later to rescue their goods.”

“They came very quickly,” said third burgomaster Matthias Holzhofer, a corpulent bald-headed man, who had made a fortune with gingerbread and sweets. “They got all their bales out and lost hardly anything. They did it all right.”

Burgomaster Semer tugged at his thinning hair. “Would it have been possible for the Augsburgers to start the fire and then rush all their goods to safety?” he asked. “If they really want to set up a new trade route, they have to make sure that people can no longer store their goods here with us. And they have succeeded.”

Puchner, the second burgomaster, shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “All it would have taken would be the wind coming from the wrong direction, or a burning beam, and they’d have lost their goods just as we did.”

“What if they did?” said Karl Semer. “What are a few bales and barrels for the Augsburgers? If they get their trade road, then those are worth their weight in gold. First it’s the leper house in front of the town wall, now it’s the burning of the Stadel. They’re cutting the ground from under our feet!”

“Speaking of the leper house,” the court clerk broke in. “It wasn’t just the Stadel that was destroyed yesterday, but someone also vandalized the site where they are building the leper house. The priest told me that the scaffolding was torn down and parts of the foundation were destroyed. Mortar has been stolen, building wood splintered…and weeks of work gone down the drain.”

Burgomaster Semer nodded thoughtfully. “I have always said that the building of such an establishment for lepers is not welcome here. Quite simply, people here are afraid that traders will stay away if we set up an asylum directly in front of the gates. And who can guarantee that the disease will stop outside the town? Such diseases can spread!”

Wilhelm Hardenberg, the gray-headed almshouse superintendent, agreed with him. “This destruction is certainly reprehensible, but on the other hand…you can understand that people want to protect themselves. Nobody wants this institution, but in spite of that it’s being built. And all because of a mistaken concept of compassion!”

Burgomaster Semer took a big gulp from his lead-crystal glass before speaking. “Compassion has to stop when the interests of the town are endangered, that’s what I think.”

Blind Augustin pounded the table with his stick, so that the expensive port wine in the carafes swished dangerously back and forth.

“Absolute rubbish! Who cares about the leper house at a time like this! We have bigger problems. When the Augsburgers find out we have locked up one of their head wagon drivers, and one of the Fuggers to boot…I tell you, let the wagon drivers go and burn the witch, and then we’ll have peace again in Schongau!”

The second burgomaster Johann Puchner shook his head again. “None of this makes any sense,” he said. “The fire, the murders, the kidnapping, the damage to the leper house…The Stechlin woman has been locked up for quite a time, and it still goes on nevertheless!”

The others, too, began to speak up, talking loudly all at the same time.

Court clerk Johann Lechner had been listening calmly to the dispute, occasionally taking notes. Now he cleared his throat. Immediately the aldermen fell silent and looked at him expectantly. He took his time before answering.

“I am not quite persuaded that the Augsburgers are innocent,” he said finally. “I therefore propose that we have the Stechlin woman tortured today. If she confesses to causing the fire as well as to the murder of the children, we can still release the Augsburger wagon driver. If not, I shall not hesitate to question him as well.”

“And the Fuggers?” asked burgomaster Semer.

Lechner smiled. “The Fuggers were a powerful clan before the war. But now nobody really pays them much attention. If the Augsburg wagon driver really confesses to arson under torture, then that’ll be trouble for the Fuggers.”

He rose and rolled up the handwritten parchment. “And then we have a good case against the Augsburgers, don’t we?”

The aldermen nodded. It was good to have a court clerk. One like Lechner. He gave you the feeling that there was a solution for everything.

The devil’s white bony hand grabbed at the girl’s throat and closed its grasp slowly. Clara felt how he was cutting off her air, her tongue swelled to a fleshy lump, her eyes bulged out of her head, and she looked into a face that she could only see unclearly, as if in a fog. The devil was as hairy as a goat, and out of his forehead grew two twisted horns. His eyes burned like glowing coals and now the appearance of the face started to morph into a distorted mask of the midwife clutching her hands round the girl’s neck, with a gaze that seemed to beg for forgiveness. It seemed that she whispered something, but Clara could not catch the meaning of the words.

White as snow, red as blood…

Once more the face changed. Her foster father Jakob Schreevogl knelt over her, his mouth twisted into a crooked grin, still pressing harder and harder. Clara felt her life ebbing away; from a distance she heard children’s voices, the voices of boys. With horror she realized that they were the voices of her dead playmates, Peter and Anton, crying for help. The face changed again. It was Sophie, who was shaking her wildly and trying to speak to her. Now she raised her hand and gave Clara a resounding slap.

The slap brought her back to reality.

“Wake up, Clara! Wake up!” Clara shook herself. The world around her came into focus. She saw Sophie bending over her, stroking her burning cheek. The damp rock wall that surrounded them, smeared with ash-colored signs, crosses, and formulas, lent her a feeling of security. It was quiet and cool, and from a distance the rustling of the trees could be heard. Near her lay her wooden doll, dirty and torn but still a reminder of home. Clara leaned back, relieved. Down here the devil would never find her.

“What…what happened?” she whispered.

“What happened?” Sophie could laugh again. “You were dreaming, and you frightened me with your shouting. I was outside and suddenly I heard you scream. I thought they had found us.”

Clara tried to sit up. When she put weight on her right foot, a stab of pain went up her leg to the hip.

Panting, she had to lie down again. The pain went away only slowly. Sophie, worried, looked down.

When Clara looked also, she could see that her right ankle was as big as an apple. The foot was covered with blue spots, and the shin above also seemed swollen. Her shoulder hurt when she turned her body. She was shivering. Her fever had returned.

Suddenly she remembered how she had run from the devil: the jump from the window, the panic-stricken rush through the streets of the town, the second jump from the oak by the city wall into the bushes below. She knew she had landed badly, but fear had driven her on, through the fields and into the woods. Branches slapped like hands across her face, once or twice she fell, but she forced herself to get up again and kept running. At last she reached the hiding place. Like a sack of grain she collapsed on the ground and fell asleep at once. It was not until the next morning that Sophie awakened her.

The red-haired girl had slipped out of the town just as Clara had. Clara was so happy that her friend was with her. Sophie was thirteen years old and seemed almost grown-up. She was like a mother to Clara when they played together out here in their hiding place. In fact, without Sophie their group would not even exist, and she would still be a lonely orphan, teased by her foster brothers and sisters, hit, pinched, and kicked, and the whole time her foster parents noticing nothing.

“Just keep still now.”

Sophie took some oak bark and linden leaves, smeared with an ointment she had brought with her, and began to wrap Clara’s ankle with them. Then she tied it up firmly with bark fibers. Clara felt a pleasant coolness on her foot, and the ankle did not seem quite so painful. While she was admiring the neatly applied bandage her blood sister had made, Sophie reached behind her.

“Here, drink. I brought it for you.” Her friend held out an earthenware bowl containing a grayish liquid.

“What is it?”

Sophie grinned. “Don’t ask, just drink. A…an elixir. I learned it from Mother Stechlin. It’ll make you sleep again, and when you wake up your foot will be much better.”

Clara looked rather skeptically at the brew, which smelled strongly of nettles and mint. Sophie had always been very attentive when she was with the midwife; nothing had escaped her sharp notice when Martha Stechlin had told them about women’s mysteries. She had told them about poisons and potions and warned that only a few drops could sometimes make all the difference between the two.

Finally Clara made up her mind and drank the bowl in one gulp. It tasted hot and horrible, like liquid snot, as it went down her throat. But a short time later she felt warmth pulsing in her stomach, waves of pleasant feelings spreading through her body. She leaned back against the rocky wall behind her and suddenly nothing seemed so hard anymore. It seemed that nothing was out of reach.

“What…what do you think will happen? Will they find us?” she asked Sophie, who was suddenly surrounded by a halo of warm light.

The older girl shook her head. “I don’t think so. We were already too far away from our hiding place. But maybe they will search nearby. In any case you should stay inside here.”

Clara’s eyes filled with tears. “People think we are witches!” she sobbed. “They found this accursed sign, and now they think we are witches! They’ll burn us alive when we come back. And if we stay here the men will find us! The…the devil was close behind me, he grabbed me…” Her words were lost in sobs. Sophie took Clara’s head and laid it in her lap to comfort her.

All at once Clara felt an infinite weariness. She felt that feathers were growing on her arms, wings that would carry her away from this vale of tears to a distant, warm land…

With her last bit of strength she asked, “Did they really kill Peter and Anton?”

Sophie nodded. Suddenly she seemed to be a long way away.

“And Johannes?” asked Clara again.

“Don’t know,” said Sophie. “I’ll have a look for him while you sleep.” She stroked Clara’s hair. “Don’t think about it. You are quite safe.”

With her newly grown wings Clara soared upward toward heaven.

“I…I can never go back home again. They’ll burn us,” she muttered, almost asleep.

“Nobody will be burned,” said a voice from far away. “There’s somebody who will help us. He’ll catch the devil, and then everything will be as it was, I promise…”

“An angel?”

“Yes, an angel. An angel with a huge sword. An avenging angel.”

Clara smiled. “Good,” she whispered. Then the wings carried her away.

About eleven o’clock in the morning Jakob Kuisl knocked at the door of the keep. From inside he heard a key turn in the lock, the heavy door opened, and the surprised bailiff Andreas looked him directly in the eye.

“You, here already?” he asked. “I thought the questioning wouldn’t begin until midday-”

Kuisl nodded. “You’re right, but I have to do some things to get ready. You know…” He gestured as if pulling at his own arm. “Today we begin with the pinching and pulling. I need a hot fire. And the ropes are worn out.”

He held a coil of new rope under the chalk-white nose of the bailiff and pointed to the interior.

“I suppose it will be all right,” Andreas muttered and stepped aside for the hangman to enter. Then he seized him by the shoulder.

“Kuisl?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t hurt her, will you? No more than you must. She brought my children into the world.”

The hangman looked down at the young man, who was a good head shorter. A smile came to his lips.

“What do you think I’m here for?” he asked. “To cure somebody? To set limbs? No. I unset them. You folks want me to do that, so that’s what I do.”

He pushed the bailiff aside and entered the dungeon.

“I…I didn’t want that to happen, no, I didn’t!” Andreas called after him.

Awakened by the shouting, Georg Riegg scrambled to his feet. As an instigator of the fight down at the Stadel he was still keeping the watchman company in the cell on the left.

“Ah, now we have important visitors!” he cried. “Now it’s going to start! Hey, Kuisl, you’ll do it nice and slowly, won’t you, so that we can have some fun when we hear the witch whimper!”

The hangman walked up to the cell and looked thoughtfully at the bridge watchman. Then suddenly he reached through the bars and grabbed him firmly by the crotch. He squeezed hard, so that the eyes of the man on the other side stood out of his head and he gasped for breath.

“You just watch it, Riegg,” whispered Jakob Kuisl. “I know your dirty secrets. I know all of you. How often have you come to me for some herb to give you a hard-on or a bottle of angel’s bane, so that the wife can abort another kid? How often have you fetched the midwife to your house? Five times? Six times? And now she’s the witch, and you’re doing just fine. Bah, you make me sick!”

The hangman let his prisoner go and hurled him backward. He slid slowly down the wall of the cell, whimpering. Then Kuisl went across to the other cell, where Martha Stechlin was already awaiting him with frightened eyes, her fingers clutching the iron bars of the cell.

“Give me back my coat, I’ve brought you a blanket,” said Jakob Kuisl loudly. He passed a woolen blanket in, while the midwife, shivering, took off his coat. As she reached for the rolled-up blanket, he whispered to her, almost inaudibly.

“Unroll the blanket in the dark at the back. There’s a little bottle there. Drink it.”

Martha Stechlin looked at him questioningly. “What is-?”

“Don’t talk, drink,” he whispered again. The bailiff Andreas had meanwhile taken a seat again on a stool near the door. Leaning on his pike, he watched them with interest.

“The important gentlemen are coming when the bell rings at midday,” Jakob Kuisl continued loudly. “You had best begin saying your prayers.”

And quietly he added, “Don’t be afraid. It’s all the best for you. Trust me. But you must drink that bottle now.”

Then he turned and descended the damp stairs down to the torture chamber to get things ready.

The two men sat together over a glass of port wine, but for one of them drinking was difficult. His pain caused him to tremble, so that drops of the precious liquid fell on his gold-brocaded coat. Spots like bloodstains spread over the garment. Since yesterday it had become worse, even though he had still been able to conceal it from the others.

“They got away from you,” he said. “I knew that you’d just make things worse. You can’t do anything by yourself, absolutely nothing!”

The other man sipped absently at his wine. “They’ll get them all right,” he said. “They can’t be far away. They’re children.”

Once again a wave of pain flooded the body of the older man. Only with difficulty could he regain the mastery of his voice.

“This is getting out of control!” he groaned. His right hand clutched the cut-glass crystal goblet. He must not give up now, not relax, so near to the goal…

“This can be our ruin, not only yours or mine but the whole family, don’t you understand? Our name will be disgraced forever after!”

“Oh, nonsense,” said the other as he leaned back in his chair. “They are children. Who’s going to believe them? It’s good that the matter of the witch is dragging on. First the children must go, then the witch can be burned. Then no suspicion will fall on us.”

He stood up and went to the door. Business was waiting; things had been neglected for too long. Someone like himself had been lacking, someone who would take the reins in his hand. They had all misjudged him.

“And what about the actual job you have to do?” the older man asked, as he tried to rise, holding on to the table.

“We paid them well to pull that off!”

“Don’t you worry, that’ll be taken care of. Perhaps even today.” He pushed down the door handle and turned to go out.

“I’ll give you another five days,” the older man shouted after him. “Five days! If the matter isn’t taken care of by then, I’ll send our men to take care of the murderers. And don’t think that you’ll get one single penny!”

While he was still speaking, the other man left, shutting the heavy oaken door behind him, which made the shouted threats hardly audible anymore.

“In five days you’ll be dead,” he mumbled, knowing well that the older man inside couldn’t hear him. “And if the devil doesn’t take you, I’ll send you to hell myself.”

As he walked across the balcony with its elaborately decorated balustrade, his gaze wandered over the roofs toward the black, silent forest that stood just beyond the gates of the town. He felt a short thrill of fear. The man out there was unpredictable. What would happen when the children were out of the way?

Would he ever stop? Would he himself be next?

They came punctually with the midday pealing of the bells. An escort of four town bailiffs led the way, with the court clerk and the three witnesses following. Jakob Schreevogl’s face was pale; he had slept badly. His wife kept waking up with nightmares and calling for Clara. Furthermore, he was still suffering from a hangover from drinking with the physician. He could no longer remember exactly what he had said to young Fronwieser. But he had the feeling he had been a better talker than listener.

In front of him walked Michael Berchtholdt. The baker had a bunch of herbs with mugwort hanging at his belt, which was supposed to protect him from witchcraft. He was softly reciting his prayers and fingering a rosary. When he entered the prison, he crossed himself. Jakob Schreevogl shook his head. No doubt the baker had blamed Martha Stechlin for all the times he had burned the bread and for the hordes of mice in his bakery. After the Stechlin woman was reduced to ashes and the bread was still burned, he would presumably seek a new witch, thought Schreevogl, and he wrinkled his nose in disdain. The sharp smell of mugwort wafted over to him.

Immediately behind him, Georg Augustin entered the prison. The son of the powerful wagon drivers’ family reminded Schreevogl a bit of the young physician. Like him, the young patrician liked to dress in the latest French fashions. His beard was freshly trimmed, his long black hair carefully combed, the calf-long trunk hose perfectly tailored. His ice-blue eyes took in the prison with disgust. The son of a powerful wagon drivers’ family was not used to such surroundings.

When the two Schongau prisoners noticed the arrival of the distinguished visitors, they began to rattle the bars of their cell. Georg Riegg still looked pale; he no longer felt like scolding.

“Your Excellency,” cried the wagon driver as he turned toward the court clerk. “May I just have a word with you…”

“What’s up, Riegg? Have you a declaration to make?”

“Let us out, please. My wife has to look after the cattle by herself, and the children-”

“You’ll stay in here until your case comes up,” Lechner interrupted him without looking at him. “And that goes for your comrade here, too, and the Augsburg wagon driver over there in the Ballenhaus. One law for everyone.”

“But, Your Excellency…”

Johann Lechner was already descending the stairs. In the torture chamber it was warm, almost hot. In the corner, red-hot charcoal glowed in a brazier standing on a tripod. In contrast to the last time, the chamber had been tidied up. Everything was ready: a new rope dangled from the ceiling, and the thumbscrews and pincers lay, sorted and oiled, on the chest. On a stool in the middle of the room sat Goodwife Stechlin, shaved bald, in a torn dress, her head bowed. The hangman positioned himself behind her, his arms crossed.

“Ah, I see, Kuisl, all is prepared. Good, very good,” said Lechner, rubbing his hands together as he sat down at the writing desk. The witnesses took their places on his right. “Then we can begin.” He turned to the midwife, who up to now had taken no notice of her visitors. “Can you hear me, Stechlin?”

The midwife’s head remained bowed.

“Can you hear me? I want to know.”

There was still no reaction from Martha Stechlin. Lechner went over to her, raised her face with two fingers under her chin, and gave her a box on the ear. Now at last she opened her eyes.

“Martha Stechlin, do you know why you are here?”

She nodded.

“Good. I’ll explain it to you again anyway. You are suspected of having caused the death of the children Peter Grimmer and Anton Kratz in a most disgraceful way. In addition, of having abducted, with the assistance of the devil, Clara Schreevogl and at the same time of having set fire to the Stadel.”

“And the dead sow in my sty? What about my dead sow?” Michael Berchtholdt had jumped up from his seat. “Just yesterday she was rolling about in the mud, and now-”

“Witness Berchtholdt,” Lechner snapped at him. “You will only speak when you are required to do so. We are now concerned with more than a dead sow; this concerns our dear children!”

“But…”

One glance from the court clerk silenced Berchtholdt.

“Well then, Stechlin,” continued Lechner. “Do you admit having committed the crimes of which you are accused?”

The midwife shook her head. Her lips were narrowed, tears flowed down her face, and she wept silently.

Lechner shrugged his shoulders. “Then we must proceed to the interrogation. Executioner, begin with the thumbscrews.”

Now it was Jakob Schreevogl who couldn’t keep his seat any longer. “But all this is nonsense!” he cried. “Goodwife Stechlin had already been in prison a long time when the little Kratz boy was killed. And it would have been equally impossible for her to have had anything to do with kidnapping my Clara and the fire at the Stadel!”

“Didn’t people say that the devil himself abducted your Clara?” asked young Augustin, who was seated alongside Schreevogl. His blue eyes looked the merchant’s son up and down, and he almost seemed to be smiling. “Couldn’t it be that the Stechlin woman asked the devil to do all this, after she was locked up here?”

“Why, then, didn’t she ask him to fetch her out of the prison? That doesn’t make sense!” cried Jakob Schreevogl.

“The torture will lead us to the truth,” the court clerk resumed. “Executioner, continue.”

The executioner reached out and took a thumbscrew from the chest. It consisted of an iron clamp, which could be closed with a screw at the front. He took the midwife’s left thumb and introduced it into the clamp. Jakob Schreevogl was surprised at the hangman’s apparent indifference. Only yesterday Jakob Kuisl had spoken out forcefully against the torture, and also the young physician had told him, over a few glasses of schnapps, that the hangman was not at all in agreement with the imprisonment of Martha Stechlin. And now he was applying thumbscrews to her.

But the midwife, too, seemed to have accepted her fate. She gave her hand to the hangman almost with indifference. Jakob Kuisl turned the screw. Once, twice, three times…A brief shudder ran through her body, nothing more.

“Martha Stechlin, do you now confess the crimes with which you are charged?” the clerk inquired in a monotone singsong.

She still shook her head. The hangman turned the screw still tighter. No movement, only her lips became narrower, a pale red streak like a closed door.

“Damn it, are you screwing it up properly?” Michael Berchtholdt asked the hangman. Jakob Kuisl nodded. As proof, he opened the screw and held the tortured woman’s arm up. Her thumb was one blue bruise, and blood seeped out from under the thumbnail.

“The devil is helping her,” whispered the baker. “Lord God, protect us…”

“We shan’t get any further like this.” Johann Lechner shook his head and put the quill, with which he intended to make notes, back on the table. “Bailiffs, bring me the chest.”

Two of the town watchmen handed the clerk a small chest, which he lifted to the table and opened.

“Look here, witch,” he said. “All these are things we found in your house. What have you to say about them?”

To the astonishment of Jakob Schreevogl and the others he produced a small bag out of the chest, poured some dark brown seeds into his hand and showed them to the witnesses. The stovemaker’s son took a few between his fingers. They smelled slightly of rotting flesh and their shape somewhat resembled caraway seeds.

“Henbane seeds,” said the court clerk, as if he was delivering a lecture. “An important ingredient of the flying salve that witches spread on their broomsticks.”

Jakob Schreevogl shrugged. “My father also used it to flavor his beer, and you aren’t going to describe him, God rest his soul, as a sorcerer.”

“Are you blind?” hissed Lechner. “The proof is clear. Here!” He held up a spiny capsule that looked something like a chestnut. “A thorn apple! Also an ingredient for the witches’ salve, and also found at Stechlin’s house. And here!” He showed them a bunch of small white flowers. “Hellebores! What they call Christmas roses! Freshly gathered. Also a witches’ herb!”

“Excuse me for interrupting you,” Jakob Schreevogl broke in again. “But isn’t the Christmas rose a plant that is supposed to protect us from evil? Even our reverend parish priest recently praised it in his homily as a sign of new life and resurrection. Not for nothing does it bear the name of our Savior…”

“What are you, Schreevogl?” Georg Augustin interjected. “A witness or her advocate? This woman was with the children, and the children are dead or have disappeared. In her house we find the most devilish herbs and mixtures. She is scarcely imprisoned when the Stadel burns down and the devil stalks through our town. It all began with her, and with her it will come to an end.”

“Exactly, you’ll see in a minute,” Berchtholdt scolded. “Turn the screw tighter, then she’ll confess. The devil himself is holding his protecting hand over her. I have an elixir made from Saint-John’s-wort here…” He produced a small bottle containing a bright, blood-red liquid and held it up triumphantly. “This’ll drive the devil out. Just let me pour it down her gullet, the witch!”

“God Almighty! I don’t know who is the biggest witch here,” cried Jakob Schreevogl. “The midwife or the baker!”

“Quiet!” thundered the clerk. “It can’t go on like this. Executioner, pull her up on the rope. Let’s see if the devil will help here there too.”

Martha Stechlin appeared increasingly apathetic. Her head nodded again and again to the front and her eyeballs seemed to be turned strangely inward. Jakob Schreevogl asked himself if she was actually aware of what was happening around her. Without attempting any resistance, she let herself be pulled to her feet by the hangman and dragged to the rope that was dangling from an iron ring in the ceiling further in the rear of the cell. At the end of the rope there was a hook. The hangman attached this to the manacles with which the midwife’s arms were tied behind her back.

“Shall I tie a stone to her underneath?” Kuisl asked the court clerk. His face was remarkably pale, but otherwise he appeared calm and collected.

Johann Lechner shook his head. “No, no, we’ll try it as it is at first, then we’ll see later.”

The hangman pulled on one end of the rope, so that the ground slipped from under the midwife’s feet. Her body bent forward a little and began to bob up and down. Something cracked. She moaned quietly. The court clerk recommenced his questions.

“Martha Stechlin, I ask you once more. Do you confess to having taken the poor lad Peter Grimmer and…”

At this moment a shudder went through the midwife’s body. She began to twitch and to shake her head wildly back and forward. Saliva flowed from her mouth; her face was turning blue.

“My God, look,” cried baker Berchtholdt. “The devil’s in her! He wants to get out!”

All the witnesses, even the clerk, had jumped up to see the spectacle close up. The hangman had lowered the woman to the ground again, where she writhed in cramps. She reared up one more time, then she collapsed completely, her head turned to one side at an odd angle.

For a moment nobody said anything.

At last young Augustin spoke. “Is she dead?” he asked, intrigued.

Jakob Kuisl bent over her and put his ear to her breast. He shook his head.

“Her heart’s still beating.”

“Then wake her up again, so that we can continue,” said Johannn Lechner.

Jakob Schreevogl was very near to hitting him in the face.

“How dare you!” he cried. “This woman is ill, can’t you see that? She needs help!”

“Nonsense! The devil has gone out of her, that’s all!” said baker Berchtholdt and fell to his knees. “He’s surely still here in this room somewhere. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”

“Executioner! You will wake this woman up again! Do you understand?” The clerk’s voice had taken on a rather shrill tone. “And you…” He turned to the frightened bailiffs behind him. “You fetch me a physician, and quickly!” The bailiffs ran upstairs, relieved to be able to escape from this hellish place.

Jakob Kuisl took a bucket of water that was standing in the corner and dashed it in the midwife’s face. There was no movement. Then he began to massage her chest and pat her cheeks. When all this proved of no avail, he reached into the chest behind him and brought out a bottle of brandy, some of which he forced her to swallow. The rest he poured on her chest and began to knead it.

Only minutes later steps were heard on the stairs. The bailiffs were returning with Simon Fronwieser, whom they had met outside on the street.

Standing alongside the hangman, he bent down to the midwife and pinched her on the upper arm. Then he took out a needle and thrust it deep into her flesh. When she still didn’t move, he held a small mirror to her nose. The glass clouded over.

“She’s alive,” he told Johann Lechner. “But she’s in a deep swoon, and heaven alone knows when she’ll wake up from it.”

The court clerk let himself fall back in his chair and rubbed his graying temples. Finally he shrugged. “Then we can’t examine her further. We’ll have to wait.”

Georg Augustin looked at him in amazement. “But the Elector’s secretary…He’ll be here in a couple of days and we have to present him with a culprit!”

Michael Berchtholdt, too, was pleading with the clerk: “Don’t you know what’s going on out there? The devil is about. We’ve seen it for ourselves. People want us to finish…”

“Damn it!” Johann Lechner pounded the table with his hand. “I know that myself! But at the moment we just can’t continue with the questioning. Not even the devil will get a word out of her! Do you expect an unconscious woman to confess? We’ll have to wait. And now everybody, up and out, all of you!”

Simon and Jakob Kuisl carried the unconscious midwife back to her cell and covered her up. Her face was no longer blue but chalk-white, her eyelids fluttered, and her breath came steadily. Simon looked at the hangman from one side.

“That was you, wasn’t it?” he asked. “You gave her something to stop the torture and to give us more time. And then you told your wife to ask me to wait outside after midday so that the bailiffs would fetch me and not my father, who perhaps might have noticed something…”

The hangman smiled. “A few plants, a few berries…She knew them all, she knew what she was letting herself in for. It could have gone wrong.”

Simon looked at the pallid face of the midwife. “You mean?”

Jakob Kuisl nodded. “Mandrake roots, there’s nothing better. I…we found some, luckily. They are very rare. You don’t feel pain, the body relaxes, and the sufferings of this world are only shadowy figures on a distant shore. My father used to give this drink to poor sinners. However…”

He rubbed his dark beard thoughtfully.

“I put in perhaps almost too much monkshood this time. I wanted it to look real, right to the end. Just a bit more of it and the Lord God would have taken her. Now, good. We have at least gained a little time.”

“How long?”

The hangman shrugged. “After one or two days, the paralysis will disappear and she can open her eyes again. And then…” He stroked the face of the sleeping Martha Stechlin once more before leaving the keep.

“And then, I fear, I shall have to hurt her very much,” he said. His broad back filled the entire door frame.