The Hangman’s Daughter

CHAPTER 13

MONDAY APRIL 30, A.D. 1659 EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Magdalena was striding up the steep road from the Lech to the market square with a basket in hand. She could think of nothing but the events of the previous night. She hadn’t slept a wink, and yet she was wide awake.

When Johann Lechner saw that the midwife was indeed unconscious and severely injured, he had dismissed the hangman and the physician, cursing violently. Now they were sitting in the hangman’s house, tired, hungry, and at their wit’s end. Magdalena had volunteered to go to the market to buy beer, bread, and smoked meat to help to revive them. After she had purchased a loaf of rye bread and a good cut of bacon in the market square, she turned to the inns behind the Ballenhaus. She avoided the Stern since Karl Semer, its landlord and the town’s presiding burgomaster, was currently on bad terms with her father. Everyone knew that the hangman had taken the side of the witch. So she went over to the Sonnenbrau to get two mugs of beer.

When she stepped back into the street with the foaming tankards, she heard whispering and giggling behind her. She looked around. A group of children clustered around the door of the inn, eyeing her, partly out of fear, partly out of curiosity. Magdalena was making her way through the throng of children when she heard several voices strike up a little song behind her. It was an insulting rhyme with her name in it.

“Magdalena, hangman’s cow, bears the mark upon her brow!

Beckons all young men to play, ’cept for those who run away!”

Angrily, she turned around.

“Who was that? Speak, if you dare!”

Some of the children ran away. Most, however, remained and looked at her, smirking.

“Who was that?” she asked again.

“You’ve put a spell on Simon Fronwieser, so that he follows you everywhere like a puppy, and you’re hand in glove with the Stechlin woman, that witch.”

A boy with a crooked nose, approximately twelve years old, had spoken. Magdalena knew him. He was the son of Berchtholdt, the baker. He looked her in the eye defiantly, but his hands were shaking.

“Is that so. According to whom?” Magdalena asked calmly, attempting a smile.

“According to my father,” the Berchtholdt boy hissed. “And he says you’ll be next to end up burning at the stake.”

Magdalena gave him a provocative stare. “Anybody else who believes this sort of rubbish? If so, shove off now, or else you’ll get one behind the ears.”

Suddenly she had an idea. She reached into her basket and took out a handful of candied fruit. Actually, she had bought it at the market for her siblings. She smiled as she spoke on.

“For everybody else, I might have some candy, if they want to tell me a thing or two.”

The children pushed closer to her.

“Don’t take anything from the witch!” Berchtholdt’s son yelled. “There’s sure to be a spell on the fruit that’ll make you sick!”

Some of the children looked frightened, but their appetite was stronger. With big eyes they followed all of her movements.

“Magdalena, hangman’s cow, bears the mark upon her brow,” the Berchtholdt boy repeated. But nobody sang along.

“Oh, shut up,” another boy interrupted him. He was missing most of his front teeth. “Your father stinks of brandy every morning when I go to get bread. God knows all the crazy things he thinks up when he’s drunk. Now shove off.”

Crying and hollering, the baker’s son ran off. Some followed him; the others crowded around Magdalena and stared at the candied fruit in her hand as if in a trance.

“Well, then,” she began. “About the murdered boys, Clara, and that Sophie girl. Who knows what they did at the midwife’s? Why didn’t they play with you?”

“They were buggers, real pests,” the boy in front of her said. “Nobody here misses them. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with them.”

“Why would that be?” Magdalena asked.

“’Cause they were bastards, weren’t they? Wards and orphans,” a little blonde girl piped up, as if the hangman’s daughter were a bit slow on the uptake. “And besides, they didn’t want to have anything to do with us. They always hung around with that Sophie. And one time she beat my brother black-and-blue, that witch!”

“But Peter Grimmer wasn’t a ward at all. He still had his father,” Magdalena objected.

“He got bewitched by Sophie,” the boy with the missing teeth whispered. “He was totally different since they met! They kissed and showed each other their bare arses. Once he told us that all the wards had entered a compact together and that they could cast a spell on other children to put warts on their faces and even smallpox, if they wanted to. And just a week later little Matthias died of smallpox!”

“And they learned their witchcraft from the Stechlin woman!” a little boy shouted from farther back in the group.

“They used to sit in her house, and now the devil has taken away his disciples,” another one hissed.

“Amen,” Magdalena murmured. Then she gave the children an enigmatic look.

“I know witchcraft as well,” she murmured. “Do you believe me?” Frightened, her audience backed away a little.

Magdalena put on a conspiratorial face, waving her hands mysteriously. “I can make candied fruit rain from the sky.”

She tossed the sweet candies high up in the air. As the children screamed and scrambled to get the fruit, she disappeared around the nearest corner.

She didn’t notice that a figure was following her at a safe distance.

“I guess today I’ll take a cup of your devil’s brew.” The hangman pointed at the small pouch dangling at Simon’s side. The physician nodded and poured the coffee grounds into the pot of boiling water that was hanging above the fire. A strong, invigorating fragrance filled the air. Jakob Kuisl breathed it in and nodded appreciatively. “Doesn’t smell bad at all. Considering it’s supposed to be the devil’s piss.”

Simon smiled. “And it’ll clear our minds, believe me.”

He filled a pewter mug for the hangman. Then he sipped cautiously at his own mug. Every sip helped dispel the tired feeling in his head.

The two men were sitting across from each other at the large, worn table in the main room of the hangman’s house, brooding over the previous night’s events. Anna Maria, Kuisl’s wife, had sensed that the two needed to be alone, so she went down to the Lech to do her laundry and took the twins with her. Silence engulfed the room.

“I bet my behind that Clara and Sophie are still at that building site,” the hangman growled after a while, drumming his fingers on the table. “There has to be a hideout there, and a good one at that. Otherwise we or the others would have found it long ago.”

Simon winced. He’d scalded his lips with his hot mug.

“That’s certainly possible, but there’s no way of finding that out now,” he said finally, running his tongue over his lips. “At daytime, the workmen are at the site, and at night there are the guards that Lechner dispatched. If they find out anything concerning those children, they’re sure to inform Lechner…”

“And Sophie will end up at the stake together with Martha,” the hangman concluded. “Jesus Christ, there’s a jinx on all of this!”

“Don’t say such a thing,” Simon grinned. Then he turned serious again.

“Let’s recapitulate,” he said. “The children seem to be hiding somewhere at the building site. And there’s something else hidden there as well. Something that a rich man would like to have. That’s why he has hired a handful of soldiers. Resl from Semer’s inn told me that these soldiers were meeting with somebody in the upstairs room last week.”

“That would’ve been the mastermind, the patron.”

The hangman lit his pipe on a chip of pinewood. Like a tent, the tobacco smoke billowed over the two men, mingling with the fragrance of the coffee. Simon had to cough briefly before he went on.

“The soldiers are vandalizing the building site for the leper house, so that they’ll have more time for their search there. That makes sense to me. But why, in the name of God, does one of them slaughter the orphans? There’s no sense in that!”

Thoughtfully, the hangman sucked on his pipe. His eyes were staring at a point in space. Finally, he spoke. “They must have seen something. Something that mustn’t be brought to light under any circumstances.”

Simon slapped his forehead, spilling the remainder of his coffee, which formed a brown puddle that spread across the table. But he didn’t care about that.

“The patron!” he shouted. “They have seen the patron who is behind the destruction?”

Jakob Kuisl nodded.

“That would also explain why the Stadel had to be burned down. The devil had an easy time getting his hands on most of the eyewitnesses. He got Peter out there on the river. Anton and Johannes were unwanted orphans and therefore easy prey. But Clara Schreevogl was well protected as a patrician’s child. The devil must somehow have found out that she was sick and in bed…”

“And then his cronies set fire to the Stadel to distract her family and the servants, so that he could get the child,” Simon groaned. “There was a lot at stake for Schreevogl. He had his stock of merchandise down at the Stadel. Of course he’d rush down to the river.”

The hangman relit his pipe. “Clara was home alone, sick in her bed. But she did get away from him somehow. And so did Sophie-”

Simon jumped to his feet. “We have to find the children at once, before the devil gets them. The building site…”

Jakob Kuisl pulled him back on his chair.

“Calm yourself. Take one thing at a time. We have to save not just the children, but Martha as well. And it is a fact that there was a witches’ mark on each of the dead children. And that all of them had previously been at the midwife’s. It’s possible that the Elector’s secretary will arrive as early as tomorrow, and Lechner wants to have the confession by then. I can actually understand why: if the secretary begins meddling in the matter, then one witch just won’t do. That’s exactly how it was with the last great witch hunt here in Schongau. In the end they burned more than sixty women in these parts.”

The hangman looked deep into Simon’s eyes.

“First we have to find out about these signs. And we have to do so very soon.”

Simon groaned. “Damn these signs. There’s nothing but one riddle after the other here.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Who’s there?” the hangman growled.

“It’s me, Benedict Cost,” came a frightened voice from the other side of the door. “Lechner’s sent me to fetch you. You’re supposed to be attending to the witch. She won’t say a thing, and she’s supposed to confess today. So now you’ve got to heal her again. You’ve got medicines and books that the old physician doesn’t have, Lechner says.”

Jakob Kuisl laughed.

“First I’m supposed to hurt her, then heal her again, and in the end burn her. You’re completely crazy, you lot.”

Benedict Cost cleared his throat.

“Lechner says it’s an order.”

Jakob Kuisl sighed.

“Wait there. I’m coming.”

He went over to his spare chamber, grabbed a few bottles and jars, packed everything into a sack, and set out on his way.

“You come along,” he said to Simon. “Time for you to learn something proper, not just those scribblings from university, from those buffoons who break up a man into four humors and think that’s that.”

He slammed the door behind them and stomped ahead. The bailiff and Simon followed.

Slowly, Magdalena walked past the Ballenhaus and across the market square. Around her, market women were loudly hawking the first vegetables of the spring: onions, cabbages, and tender little turnips. The fragrance of oven-warm bread and freshly caught fish was in the air, yet she heard and smelled nothing. Her thoughts were still focused on her conversation with the children. On a sudden impulse she turned around and headed westward to the Kuh Gate. Soon she had left the shouting and the noise behind her, and only a few people were coming her way. A short time later she had reached her destination.

The midwife’s house was in a terrible state. The windows were shattered and hung crooked on their hinges. Someone had forced the door open. In front of the entrance, pottery shards and splintered wood were lying about. It was obvious that the small home had been a repeated target of looters. Magdalena was certain that nothing of any value was left in there, let alone any hint at what had happened a week ago. Nonetheless, she stepped into the main room, looking around.

The room had been turned upside down. The kettle, the poker from the fireplace, the chest, and also the handsome pewter cups and plates that Magdalena had seen on previous visits were gone. Someone had pried open the chicken cage beneath the bench and made off with the chickens. Even the little house altar with its crucifix and statue of the Blessed Virgin had been stripped bare. All that was left off Martha Stechlin’s possessions was a smashed table and countless pottery shards, which were scattered across the floor. Some were adorned with alchemistic signs. Magdalena remembered having seen those symbols on the jars that the midwife had kept on a shelf next to her stove.

Standing in the middle of the room, the hangman’s daughter tried to imagine, despite the emptiness, how only a week ago the children had played with the midwife. Maybe Martha Stechlin had told them ghost stories, but maybe she had also shared her secret knowledge with them and shown them herbs and medicines. Sophie in particular seemed to be interested in those sorts of things.

Magdalena walked down the hallway and out into the yard. The midwife had been arrested only a few days before, but it seemed to Magdalena that the garden was already growing wild. The looters had yanked the tender shoots of early vegetables from the beds and had attacked the magnificent herbal garden. Magdalena shook her head. So much hatred and greed, so much senseless violence.

Suddenly she caught her breath and hurried back to the main room to look for something. It immediately met her eye.

She almost laughed at not having noticed earlier. She stooped down, picked it up, and rushed outside. In the street she actually did start to giggle, so that several burghers turned around and gave her a startled look.

They had long suspected that the hangman’s daughter was hand in glove with the witch. Now here was the final proof!

Magdalena didn’t let their looks intimidate her. Still laughing, she decided on a whim not to go home through the Lech Gate but rather through the Kuh Gate. She knew a narrow, unfrequented path, little more than a trail, that followed along the base of the town wall and descended to the Lech. The April sun was warm on her face as she passed the gate. She greeted the sentry and ambled along between the beeches.

It was all so simple. Why hadn’t they thought of it earlier? It had been there before their eyes the whole time, and they simply hadn’t seen it. Magdalena pictured herself conveying the news to her father. Her fist was clutched around the object she was holding. The midwife might go free today. Well, not free, perhaps, but the torture would be suspended, and the trial would be reopened. Magdalena was convinced that now all would change for the better.

The branch hit her right on the back of her head, so that she fell forward into the mud.

She tried to push herself up, when suddenly she felt a fist grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and pushing her back into the mud. Her face lay in a puddle. When she tried to breathe, she tasted only dirt and muddy water. She struggled like a fish out of water, but her attacker kept pushing her head down. As she was losing consciousness, the hand suddenly yanked her up again. She heard a voice right in her ear.

“Let’s see what I can do with you, hangman’s wench. Once, in Magdeburg, I cut off a girl’s breasts and made her eat them. Would you like that? But first I need your father, and you, you’re going to help me with that, sweetheart.”

A second blow made her skull explode. She could no longer feel how the devil pulled her out of the water and dragged her over the embankment down to the river.

The object slipped from her hand and sank to the bottom of the puddle, where mud slowly settled on it.

Jakob Kuisl was struggling for the life of the midwife he had previously tortured. He had cleaned her head wound and applied a bandage of oak bark. Her swollen fingers were covered with a thick yellow ointment. The hangman kept dripping some tincture from a small vial into her mouth, but Martha Stechlin had difficulty swallowing. The reddish-brownish liquid oozed over her lips and trickled to the ground.

“What is that?” Simon asked, pointing at the vial.

“It’s an extract of Saint-John’s-wort, nightshade, and several other herbs that you don’t know. It’ll calm her down, but that’s all. Damn it, they should have cleaned the head wound right away. It’s already getting inflamed. Your father is a confounded quack!”

Simon swallowed, but he couldn’t argue with that.

“Where did you gather all that knowledge? I mean, you’ve never studied…”

The hangman laughed out loud as he examined the countless bruises on the midwife’s legs.

“Studied! Nonsense! You silly physicians think you’re finding the truth at your cold-blooded universities. But there’s nothing there! Nothing but wise books written by wise men who copied from other wise men. But real life, real diseases, that’s what you’ll find out here. Learn from those, not from your books! That’ll teach you more than the entire university library at Ingolstadt!”

“But you have books in your house as well,” Simon protested.

“Yes, but what kind of books? Those books that you physicians have banned or chosen to ignore because they don’t fit in with your dusty doctrines. Scultetus, Pare, or old Dioscorides! These are truly learned men! But, no. You prefer to bleed patients, look at piss, and believe in your stinking humors. Blood, phlegm, and bile, that’s all that constitutes the human body in your eyes. If only I got to take a medical exam at one of your universities…”

He broke off, shaking his head. “But why should I get upset? I’m just supposed to heal the midwife and then kill her, and that’s that.”

At long last, Jakob Kuisl had finished his examination of the tortured woman. Finally, he tore some linen rags in strips, soaked them in the yellow ointment, and wrapped them around her legs, which looked like one large bruise. All the while he was shaking his head.

“I only hope I wasn’t too rough with her. But the worst by far is the head injury. We’ll see in the next few hours if her fever goes down or if it rises. If it does rise, then tonight will be Martha’s last night on this earth, I’m afraid.”

He rose to his feet.

“At any rate we have to tell Lechner that he won’t get his confession tonight. That buys us time.”

Jakob Kuisl stooped down to the midwife one more time to place her head on a fresh bale of straw. As he turned toward the door, Simon was still standing hesitantly at the sick woman’s side, and Kuisl impatiently motioned to him to leave.

“There’s nothing else we can do now. You may speak a prayer in church or say your rosary, if you wish. I for one will take my pipe, have a good smoke in my own backyard, and attempt to think things through. That will be of more help to Martha Stechlin.”

Without so much as looking back he left the keep.

When Simon arrived home, his father was sitting in the main room with a goblet of wine, looking quite content. He even managed a smile as his son entered. Simon noticed he was a bit drunk.

“It’s good you are back again. I’ll need your help. Dengler’s little Maria seems to have a skin disease, and Sepp Bichler-”

“You haven’t been able to help her,” Simon cut in abruptly.

Bonifaz Fronwieser looked at him in bewilderment.

“What’s that you say?”

“You haven’t been able to help her. You messed up, and as you were at your wit’s end, you called for the hangman.”

The old physician’s eyes became narrow slits.

“I didn’t call him, so help me God,” he hissed. “Lechner wanted it. If I had my way, that quack would have been reined in a long time ago! It can’t be tolerated that charlatans like that man are allowed to bring shame upon our trade. A man without university schooling. How ridiculous!”

“Quack? Charlatan?” Simon found it difficult to keep his voice from breaking. “This man has more knowledge and reason than your entire Ingolstadt crowd! If Martha Stechlin survives, it’s due to him alone and not to you bleeding her, as you did, or sniffing her urine!”

Bonifaz Fronwieser shrugged and took a sip from his goblet. “Anyhow, Lechner didn’t let me have my way. Imagine him even paying attention to that charlatan. Who’d have guessed…” Then a smile spread across his face. It was meant to appear conciliatory.

“Anyway, I got paid for it. And believe me, if the midwife croaks now, it’s best for her. She’ll have to die at any rate. This way she can avoid more torture and the stake.”

Simon raised his hand as if to deal him a blow and had difficulty restraining himself.

“You goddamned…”

Before he could continue there was a pounding at the door. Outside stood Anna Maria Kuisl. She was breathing hard, and her face was pale. She looked as if she had run the entire way from the Lech Gate quarter.

“Jakob…Jakob,” she stammered. “He needs you. You have to come at once. When I returned from the river with the children, he was sitting on the bench like a stone statue. I’ve never seen him like that. Gracious God, I hope it’s nothing serious…”

“What’s happened?” Simon cried out, grabbing for his coat and hat as he rushed out the door.

“He won’t tell me. But it’s got to do with Magdalena.”

Simon ran. He didn’t see his father shake his head and carefully close the door. Bonifaz Fronwieser sat down again and continued drinking his pint of wine. You didn’t really get the best quality for three pennies, but at least the stuff helped you forget.

Deep in thought Jakob Kuisl had walked homeward through the tanners’ quarter down by the river. It was just a few hundred yards more along the main road to his house. Shortly before, he had informed Lechner that the midwife was unable to be questioned. The court clerk had stared at him blankly and then nodded. He wasn’t accusatory, and Jakob Kuisl almost got the impression Lechner had expected as much.

At last, however, he gave the hangman a piercing glare.

“You know what comes next, Kuisl, don’t you?”

“I don’t understand, Your Excellency.”

“When the Elector’s secretary arrives, you’ll have busy days. Keep yourself ready.”

“Your Excellency, I trust that we are quite close to the solution…”

But the clerk had already turned away. He seemed to have lost all interest in the man facing him.

As the path took a turn around the last few blackberry bushes, Jakob Kuisl could see his backyard, which stretched from the lane all the way down to the pond. The meadow by the pond was heavy with pussy willows. Wolfsbane and daisies were sparkling in the damp meadows and the herbal garden, recently turned over, was steaming in the sun. For the first time this day, a smile played about the hangman’s lips.

Suddenly his features froze.

A man was sitting on the bench in front of the hangman’s house. His face was turned toward the sun, and his eyes were closed. When he heard Jakob Kuisl at the garden gate, he blinked as if waking up from a beautiful dream. He was wearing a hat with roosters’ feathers and a bloodred doublet. The hand he used for keeping the sun from his face was bright white.

The devil looked at Jakob Kuisl and smiled.

“Ah, the hangman! What a wonderful garden you have here! I’m sure your wife takes good care of it, or little Magdalena, if I’m right.”

Jakob Kuisl remained motionless at the garden gate. Casually, he picked up a rock from the wall, weighing and hiding it in his hand. One well-aimed throw…

“Ah, yes, little Magdalena,” the devil continued. “A sprightly lass, ravishingly beautiful. Just like her mother. I wonder if her nipples get hard when one whispers cruel words in her ear. I’ll have to try.”

Jakob Kuisl clenched his fist around the rock so hard that the edges cut into his flesh.

“What do you want?” he murmured.

The devil rose and walked over to the windowsill, where a jug of water was standing. Slowly he put it to his lips and drank in deep gulps. Drops ran down his beard and dripped to the ground. Only when he had emptied the jug did he set it down, wiping his mouth with his hand.

“What do I want? The question is rather, what do you want? Do you want to see your daughter again, and in one piece? Or perhaps rather in two halves, like a carcass, after I’ve cut off her chattering lips?”

Jakob Kuisl raised his hand and hurled the rock directly at the devil’s forehead. In a movement almost too quick to be seen, the devil ducked to the side, and the rock hit the door without doing him any harm.

For a brief moment the devil appeared startled. Then he smiled again.

“You’re fast, hangman. I like that. And you’re good at killing. Just like myself.”

Suddenly his face contorted into a hideous grimace. For a moment Jakob Kuisl thought the man in front of him was going stark mad. But then the devil got a hold of himself again. His face became blank.

Kuisl took a long look at him. He…knew that man. He just didn’t remember from where he knew him. He racked his brain, searching it for that face. Where had he seen the man before? In the war? On a battlefield?

The sound of the breaking ceramic jug startled him from his thoughts. The devil had casually thrown it behind himself.

“Enough small talk,” he whispered. “This is my offer. You show me where the treasure is, and I return your daughter. If not…” He slowly licked his lips.

Jakob Kuisl shook his head. “I don’t know where the treasure is.”

“Then find out,” the devil hissed. “You’re usually so smart. Think of something. We dug up the entire building site and didn’t find anything. But the treasure has to be there.”

Jakob Kuisl’s mouth was dry. He tried to remain calm. He had to stall the devil. If only he could get closer…

“Don’t even think of it, hangman,” the devil whispered. “My friends are taking good care of the little hangman’s daughter. If I’m not back within the next half hour, they’re going to do to her precisely what I told them to do. There are two of them, and they will have great fun.”

Jakob Kuisl raised his hands to calm him.

“What about the bailiffs?” he asked, trying to buy time. His throat was hoarse. “There are sentries at the building site both day and night.”

“That’s your problem.” The devil turned to go. “Same time tomorrow I’ll be back. By then you have the treasure or else…”

He shrugged, almost apologetically. Then he ambled off toward the pond.

“What about your patron?” the hangman shouted after him. “Who is behind all this?”

The devil turned around one more time. “You really want to know? There’s enough trouble in your town as it is, don’t you think? Maybe I’ll tell you once you hand me the treasure. Maybe the man will be dead by then, however.”

He strode off across the damp green meadows, leaped over a wall, and soon vanished in the thick forest by the river.

Jakob Kuisl fell onto the bench and stared into space. It took him some time to notice the blood that was dripping from his hand. He had clenched the rock so hard that its edges had dug into his flesh like knives.

Johann Lechner arranged the papers on his desk on the upper floor of the Ballenhaus. He was preparing for the upcoming meeting of the council, which he assumed was to be the last for quite a while. The clerk wasn’t going to kid himself. The upcoming arrival of His Excellency, Count Sandizell, the Elector’s secretary, would spell the end of Johann Lechner’s influence. He was merely acting as a proxy here. Count Sandizell would start all over and certainly not content himself with one single witch. There was unrest in the streets already. Lechner had been told by a number of people that they would take sacred oaths that the Stechlin woman had jinxed their calves, brought hailstorms down upon their crops, and made their wives barren. Only this morning, Agnes from Steingaden had grabbed him by the sleeve in the street and whispered in his ear, her breath reeking of wine, that her neighbor Maria Kohlhaas was also a witch. She herself had seen her fly across the sky on a broomstick the night before. Johann Lechner sighed. If worse came to worse, the hangman would indeed have busy days.

The first aldermen were arriving in the well-heated council chamber. Richly dressed in their robes and fur caps they took their assigned seats. Karl Semer gave Lechner an inquisitive glance. He might have been the town’s presiding burgomaster, but in official business he fully relied on the clerk. This time, however, it seemed that Lechner had failed. Semer pulled him by the sleeve.

“Any news of the Stechlin woman?” he asked. “Has she finally confessed?”

“Just a moment.” Johann Lechner pretended he was signing an important document. The clerk hated these stuffed moneybags, these puppets, who only held their office by virtue of their birth. Lechner’s father had been a court clerk as well and so had his great uncle, but no court clerk before him had ever been that powerful. The post of the district judge had long been vacant, and the Elector’s secretary came to the town only occasionally. Johann Lechner was smart enough to let the patricians keep the illusion that it was they who ruled the town. Who really ruled was he, the clerk. Now, however, his power seemed to be wavering, and the aldermen sensed it.

Johann Lechner continued to arrange his papers. Then he looked up. The patricians looked at him expectantly. To his left and right were the seats of the four burgomasters and the superintendent of the almshouse, and farther on were those of the other members of the inner and outer council.

“Let me get right to the heart of the matter,” Lechner began. “I have called this council meeting because our town is in a state of emergency. Unfortunately we have not so far been able to make the witch Martha Stechlin talk. Only this morning the witch fell back into a swoon. Georg Riegg hit her on the head with a rock and-”

“How is that possible?” old Augustin interrupted, turning toward Lechner, his blind eyes glistening. “Riegg was in jail himself on account of the fire at the Stadel. How can he throw a rock at the Stechlin woman?”

Johann Lechner sighed. “Well, it happened, so let’s leave it at that. Anyway, she hasn’t regained consciousness yet. It’s possible the devil will take her before she can confess her crimes to us.”

“Why can’t we just tell the people that she’s confessed?” burgomaster Semer murmured, mopping his sweaty pate with a silk kerchief. “She’s dying, and so we burn her for the welfare of our town.”

“Your honor,” Johann Lechner hissed. “That would be a lie before God and His Serene Highness, the Elector himself. We have witnesses present at every interrogation. Shall they all swear false oaths?”

“No, no, not at all. I was only thinking…as I said, for the benefit of Schongau…” The first burgomaster’s voice grew fainter and finally trailed off.

“When can we expect the Elector’s secretary to arrive?” old Augustin queried.

“I have sent messengers,” Lechner said. “The way things look, His Excellency Count Sandizell will give us the pleasure of his presence as early as tomorrow morning.”

A groan passed through the council chamber. The patricians knew what was in store for them. The Elector’s secretary complete with his entourage would settle in the town for many days, if not weeks. It would cost the town a fortune! Not to mention the endless interrogations of suspicious burghers concerning witchcraft, and until the true perpetrators had been found, anyone here could really be in league with the devil. Even the aldermen and their wives…During the last great witch hunt, a number of respected burghers’ wives had been among the victims. The devil drew no distinction between a servant girl and a landlady or a midwife and a burgomaster’s daughter.

“What about that Augsburg wagon driver we arrested on account of the fire at the Stadel?” the second burgomaster Johann Puchner asked, nervously drumming his fingers on the table. “Is he involved in the matter at all?”

Johann Lechner shook his head.

“I interrogated him myself. He’s innocent. Therefore I released him this morning after giving him a severe warning. At least the Augsburgers won’t give us trouble anytime soon. They got what was coming to them. But the Augsburg wagon driver did see that soldiers were fooling around at the Stadel…”

“Soldiers? What kind of soldiers?” old Augustin asked. “This story is getting more confusing by the minute. Please explain yourself, Lechner.”

Johann Lechner briefly contemplated telling the aldermen about his discussion with the hangman down by the building site. Then he decided against it. Matters were complicated enough. He shrugged.

“Well, it seems as though a gang of marauding rogues have set fire to our storage shed. The same rogues also destroyed the building site for the leper house.”

“And now they’re roaming around killing little children and painting a witches’ mark on their shoulders,” old Augustin interrupted, impatiently rapping his stick on the expensive cherrywood floor. “Is this what you’re trying to tell us? Lechner, pull yourself together. We have the witch! All we need now is her confession!”

“You’re misunderstanding me,” the court clerk said, trying to calm the irate patrician. “These soldiers most likely caused the fires. But of course it’s the devil and his helpmate who are responsible for the death of our children. The evidence is clear. We have found magic herbs in the Stechlin woman’s house, the children frequently called on her, and there are burghers who will testify that she introduced the children to the art of sorcery…All we need is her confession. And you know as well as I that the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina stipulates that only someone who confesses may be sentenced.”

“You need not lecture me on the Criminal Code of Emperor Charles. I know it sufficiently well,” Matthias Augustin murmured, his blind eyes roaming in the distance and his nostrils dilating, as though he could perceive a distant stench. “I smell it again, the flesh of the burning women, just like it was seventy years ago. By the way, a district judge’s wife died at the stake then…”

Hawklike, the blind man swung suddenly around toward the court clerk. Lechner turned to his documents again and replied quietly, “As you know, my wife died three years ago, and she is beyond all suspicion. If that’s what you’re alluding to.”

“And what if we subject the witch to the water test?” suggested the superintendent of the almshouse, Wilhelm Hardenberg. “They did that in Augsburg a few years ago. The witch’s thumbs are tied to her toes and then she’s thrown into the water. If she floats to the surface, it’s because the devil is helping her, and she’s a witch. If she sinks, she’s innocent, but you’re rid of her anyway.”

“Damn it, Hardenberg,” old Augustin yelled. “Are you deaf? The Stechlin woman’s unconscious! She’ll sink like a stone! Who’s going to believe in this water test? Certainly not the Elector’s secretary!”

For the first time, young Jakob Schreevogl spoke now. “Why do you consider it such a bizarre idea, Augustin, that the soldiers might have murdered the children? Several witnesses observed a person leaping out of a window of my house at the time my Clara vanished. The man was wearing a bloodred doublet and a feathered hat, such as soldiers often wear. And he had a limp.”

“The devil!” Berchtholdt the baker started up, crossing himself. So far, it seemed, he had been sleeping off last night’s brandy. “Holy Virgin Mary, help us!”

Some other aldermen murmured quick prayers and crossed themselves.

“You’re just taking the easy way out blaming it all on that devil of yours,” said Jakob Schreevogl amid the general grumbling. “He’s a solution for it all,” he interjected. “But one thing I know for certain!” He rose to his feet and looked around angrily. “My Clara wasn’t abducted by a monster with cloven feet but by a flesh-and-blood human being. The devil wouldn’t be stopped by a locked door, nor does he jump out of windows. He doesn’t wear a cheap soldier’s hat, and he doesn’t meet soldiers in Semer’s inn for a mug of beer.”

“Whatever gives you the idea that the devil frequents my house?” cried burgomaster Semer, jumping up. His face had turned bright red, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. “That is an insolent lie, and you’re going to pay for it!”

“The young physician told me. He saw the man who abducted my Clara going up the stairs in your establishment and into one of the conference rooms.” Jakob Schreevogl looked the burgomaster calmly in the eye. “He met someone there. Might that have been you?”

“I’ll shut that Fronwieser up, and you at the same time!” shouted Semer, slamming his fist on the table. “I won’t have my inn reviled in such cock-and-bull stories.”

“Pull yourself together, Karl, and sit down again.” Blind Augustin’s voice was low and yet quite cutting. Stunned, Semer resumed his seat.

“And now tell us,” Matthias Augustin continued. “Is there any truth in these…insinuations?”

Burgomaster Semer rolled his eyes and took a deep swig from his wineglass. He was obviously struggling for words.

“Well, is it true?” the second burgomaster Johann Puchner insisted. And Wilhelm Hardenberg, the superintendent of the almshouse, now turned to the respected landlord of the Stern Inn. “Karl, tell us the truth! Were there meetings of soldiers under your roof?”

There was a general murmuring at the council table. Some members of the outer council on the back benches began talking.

“This is a perfidious lie,” burgomaster Semer finally snapped. Sweat was streaming down his face and into his lace collar. “It’s possible that a few former soldiers were at the Stern. I have no way of checking that. But none of them went upstairs, and they certainly didn’t meet anyone there.”

“Well, that settles it,” Matthias Augustin said. “Let’s therefore turn to more important things again.” His blind eyes turned toward the clerk. “What are you going to do now, Lechner?”

Johann Lechner looked at the undecided faces of the aldermen to his right and his left.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know. Count Sandizell will arrive here tomorrow morning. If the midwife hasn’t talked by then, may God have mercy on us all. I fear…we should pray tonight.”

He rose, packing away his quill and ink. The others rose, too, hesitantly.

“I’ll go now and prepare everything for the count’s arrival. Each of you will have to contribute. And as for the trial of the witch…we can only hope.”

Lechner hurried out without a goodbye. The aldermen, talking animatedly, followed in groups of two and three. Only two patricians remained in the council chamber. They still had some urgent matters to clear up.

Slowly, the devil ran his bony hand over Magdalena’s dress, brushing over her breasts and following the line of her neck up to her slender chin. As he reached her lips, she turned away, rolling her eyes. The devil smiled and pulled her head toward him again. The hangman’s daughter was lying in front of him on the ground, tied up and gagged with a dirty rag. Her eyes flashed angrily at the man above her. The devil blew her a kiss.

“Very well. Very well. Just carry on being fresh, and we’ll both have more fun later on.”

A man appeared in the clearing behind them. He stood there for a moment, cautiously, then cleared his throat. It was the soldier Hans Hohenleitner.

“Braunschweiger, we should get out of here. Christoph was over in the town. People say the count’s going to show up in person tomorrow on account of the witch. Then the place’s going to be crawling with troops. Let’s have some fun with the girl, and then off we go. It’s enough that Andre is dead.”

“And the treasure? What about the treasure?”

The devil whom they called Braunschweiger turned around. The corners of his mouth were twitching, as if he hadn’t got full control of his face.

“You seem to have forgotten the treasure! Besides, Moneybags still owes us a whole lot of money!”

“To hell with the money. He gave us another twenty-five guilders yesterday for the destroyed building site and the Stadel fire. That’s more than enough. There’s nothing more to be gotten here.”

Christoph Holzapfel, the third soldier, approached them. Long, shaggy black hair hung in his face. Furtively, he glanced at Magdalena, who was lying on the ground, struggling with her shackles. “Hans is right, Braunschweiger. Let’s go. There is no treasure. We’ve searched the entire damned building site, we’ve turned over every single rock, and by tomorrow the count’s men may be combing the forest here.”

“Let’s move on,” Hans Hohenleitner said again. “My head’s more important to me than a handful of guilders. They got Andre, and that’s not a good sign, may his damned soul rest in peace. But beforehand, let’s have a little fun…” He stooped down to Magdalena. When his pockmarked face appeared right above her mouth, she could smell brandy and beer on his breath. His lips were distorted into a sardonic grin.

“Well, sweetheart, do you feel a little twitching in the loins too?”

Magdalena’s head shot forward. Her forehead hit Hans right on the nose, which exploded like a ripe fruit. Blood spurted forth.

“You damned filthy slut!” Whimpering, the soldier held his nose, then he kicked the girl in the stomach. Magdalena doubled up, trying to choke back the pain. They mustn’t hear her scream. Not yet.

As Hans was about to kick her a second time, the devil restrained him.

“Cut it out. You’re ruining her pretty face. And then we’ll have only half as much fun with her later on, eh? I promise I’ll show you things that are too dirty even for the Prince of Darkness.”

“Braunschweiger, you’re a sick man.” Christoph Holzapfel shook his head in disgust. “All we want is some fun with the girl. I’ve had enough with the bloody mess you left behind in Landsberg.” He turned away. “Just have your fun with her, and then let’s clear out of here.”

Magdalena doubled up, ready for the next blow.

“Not yet,” the devil mumbled. “First let’s get the treasure.”

“Damn it, Braunschweiger!” Hans Hohenleitner said, holding his bleeding nose. “There is no treasure. Can’t you get that inside your sick head?”

The corners of the devil’s mouth started to twitch again, and his head moved in a wide circle, as if he was trying to release some internal tension.

“Don’t you ever call me…sick again, Hohenleitner. Never again…” His eyes darted from one soldier to the next. “And now I’ll tell you something. We’ll stay here one more night, just one more. You take the girl to a safe place, and I’ll get you the treasure by tomorrow morning. You’ll have ducats coming out of your arse. And then we’ll see to the girl, all of us.”

“One more night?” Hans Hohenleitner asked. The devil nodded.

“And how are you going to find that treasure?”

“Leave that to me. You just take care of the girl.”

Christoph Holzapfel stepped closer again.

“And where are we supposed to hide, huh? The place will be crawling with troops tomorrow.”

The devil smiled.

“I know an absolutely safe place. They won’t find you there. And you’ll have a great view.”

He told them the place. Then he set out for the town. Magdalena bit her lips. Tears were streaming over her cheeks. She struggled to turn her face away from the soldiers. They mustn’t see her cry.

The two men were standing near the building site watching the workmen. Some of the bricklayers and carpenters waved to them. Perhaps they were wondering what business the two men had here, but they didn’t harbor the slightest suspicion. The two men there were respected burghers. Presumably they just wanted to see for themselves how the construction was proceeding.

There wasn’t much left to see of the last day’s damage. The walls of the leper house were being raised again, and there was a new roof truss on the walls of the chapel. Two bailiffs were sitting at the edge of the well in the middle of the clearing, killing time by playing dice. The court clerk had ordered the entire area to be guarded day and night, and his orders had been quite precise, as usual. They had nailed together a wooden shelter for the bailiffs, where they could get cover from the rain. There were lanterns hanging on the outer wall of the shelter, and two halberds were leaning next to them.

“And you have really searched the entire place?” the older man was now asking.

The younger man nodded. “Everything. And several times. I really don’t know where else we could look. But it has to be here somewhere!”

The other man shrugged. “Maybe the old miser was lying. Maybe he was delirious on his deathbed. An old man’s feverish ravings, and we fell for them…”

He groaned loudly and held his side. He had to bend over briefly for the pain to subside. Then he turned to walk away.

“One way or another, the matter is over and done with.”

“Over and done with?” The younger man ran after him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and turned him around. “What do you mean, over and done with? We can still keep looking. I haven’t paid the soldiers in full yet. For just a few more guilders they’ll raze everything to the ground here and root about like hogs. The treasure is somewhere here. I…I can feel it!”

“Damn it, it’s over and done with!” The older man pushed the younger man’s hand off his shoulder almost in disgust. “The area is under surveillance. Besides, you’ve stirred up enough dirt as it is. Lechner knows about your soldiers, and the hangman and that Fronwieser fellow are on your heels. They stick their noses into everything. They even went to see the priest. It’s too much of a risk for us. The matter is over and done with, once and for all!”

“But…” The younger man held him back another time.

Indignantly, the older man shook his head, holding his side once more. He gave a loud groan.

“I have plenty of other things to think about now. Thanks to your soldiers we’ll have the count and his men in this town tomorrow. And presumably we’ll have a big trial, people will be dragged off to the stakes again, and Schongau will go to the dogs. And all because of you, you damned idiot! I’m ashamed. For you and for our family. And now let go of me. I wish to go.”

The older man stomped off, leaving the younger man behind at the building site in the mud. Mud was all over his shiny leather boots, but he wouldn’t give up! He was going to show the others! A wave of anger came over him.

Some of the workmen waved at him, and he waved back, but they couldn’t see his face, which hatred had turned to stone.