The Hangman’s Daughter

CHAPTER 5

THURSDAY APRIL 26, A.D. 1659 SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Magdalena was lost in thought as she walked along the muddy road across the Lech Bridge and toward Peiting. In the bag she had slung across her shoulder she was carrying some dried herbs and the quantity of Our Lady’s Powder she had ground yesterday. A few days ago she had promised to deliver the powder to midwife Daubenberger. The old woman was past her seventieth year and not very steady on her feet. Still, in Peiting and its surroundings she was the village midwife whom one called upon for help with difficult deliveries. Katharina Daubenberger had helped hundreds of children into this world. She was famous for her hands, with which she’d pull the most stubborn little imp into the light of day, and she was regarded as a wise woman, a healer, eyed suspiciously by priest and physician alike. But her diagnoses and her treatments were usually correct. Magdalena’s father had often sought her counsel. His gift of Our Lady’s Powder was a token of gratitude; and he was soon going to need one herb or another from her.

When Magdalena passed by the first houses in Peiting, she noticed that the peasants turned around to look at her and were whispering. Some crossed themselves. She was the hangman’s daughter, and the villagers feared her. Many of them suspected she was having it off with Beelzebub. And they had heard that her beauty was based solely on a bargain with the prince of darkness. What he had received in return for it was nothing less than her immortal soul. She let people hold on to their illusions. At least it kept away obnoxious suitors…

Without a second thought for the peasants, she turned into a lane on the right and soon stood before the small, ramshackle house of the midwife.

At once she noticed that something was wrong. The shutters were closed despite the beautiful sunny morning, and some of the herbs and flowers in the little garden in front of the house were trampled. Magdalena approached the door and pushed the latch. The door was locked.

By now she had realized that something was fishy. Goodwife Daubenberger was known for her hospitality. Magdalena had never found her door locked. All of the women in the village could call upon the old midwife anytime.

She knocked vigorously on the heavy wooden door.

“Are you in, Goodwife Daubenberger?” she asked. “It’s me, Magdalena from Schongau! I brought you Our Lady’s Powder.”

After quite a while, the gable window was opened. Katharina Daubenberger looked down at her with a suspicious eye. The old woman looked worried. There were more furrows on her face than ever. She looked pale and tired. When she recognized Magdalena, she forced herself to smile.

“Oh, Magdalena, it’s you,” she called. “That’s kind of you to come. Are you alone?”

Magdalena nodded. Cautiously, the midwife looked in all directions, then she disappeared inside the house. Footsteps could be heard on the stairs and a bolt was pushed back. Finally the door opened. Hurriedly, Goodwife Daubenberger waved her in.

“What’s the matter?” asked Magdalena as she entered. “Did you poison the burgomaster?”

“You ask what’s the matter, you silly goose?” she snapped, stirring the fire in the hearth. “They waylaid me at night, the village lads did. They wanted to burn down my house. If it hadn’t been for the farmer Michael Kossl, I’d be stone dead! He brought them back into line.”

“It’s because of Martha Stechlin, isn’t it?” asked Magdalena as she sat down on a rickety chair near the fireplace. Her legs were weary from the walk. Katharina Daubenberger nodded.

“Now all midwives will be witches again,” she murmured. “Like in my grandmother’s day. Nothing ever changes.”

She sat down beside Magdalena and poured her a cup of something dark and fragrant.

“Drink it,” she said. “Honey water with beer and aqua ephedrae.”

“Aqua what?” asked Magdalena.

“Essence of ephedra. That’ll get you back on your feet again.”

Magdalena sipped the hot liquid. It was sweet and invigorating. She felt the strength returning to her legs.

“Do you know what exactly happened in the town?”

Katharina Daubenberger wanted to know.

Magdalena gave the midwife an outline of what she knew. The night before last, as they were walking along the Lech, Simon had told her of the dead boy with the witches’ mark on his shoulder. She also had been able to overhear most of the conversation between her father and the physician through the thin wooden wall of his room on the previous night.

“And now it seems another boy’s been killed, and he had the same sign on his shoulder,” she concluded. “Simon went to see him last night. I haven’t heard from him since then.”

“Elderberry juice scratched into the skin, you say?” asked Goodwife Daubenberger, deep in thought. “That’s strange. You’d think the devil would’ve used blood, wouldn’t you? On the other hand-”

“What?” Magdalena interrupted impatiently.

“Well, the sulfur in the boy’s pocket, and then this sign…”

“Is it really a witches’ sign?” asked Magdalena.

“Let’s say it’s a wise woman’s sign. An ancient sign. As far as I know, it shows a hand mirror, the mirror of a very old and powerful goddess.”

The old midwife rose to her feet and walked to the fireplace to put on another log.

“At any rate it’s going to cause us a great deal of trouble. If matters go on like this, I’ll move in with my daughter-in-law in Peissenberg until this nightmare’s over.”

Suddenly she stopped in her tracks. She had caught sight of a tattered calendar lying on the mantel.

“Of course,” she murmured. “However could I forget that?”

“What is it?” asked Magdalena, moving closer to her. Meanwhile the midwife had picked up the calendar and was leafing through it frantically.

“Here,” she said finally, pointing at a faded image of an abbess holding a pitcher and a book. “Saint Walburga. Patron of the sick and of women in childbed. Her day is next week.”

“So?”

Magdalena had no idea what the midwife was trying to say. Puzzled, she looked at the stained print. The page was charred in one corner. The woman in the picture had a halo; her eyes were cast down modestly.

“Well,” Goodwife Daubenberger began her lecture. “The day of Saint Walburga is May first. The night preceding it is therefore called Walpurgis Night…”

“Witches’ night,” Magdalena whispered.

The midwife nodded and continued.

“If we want to believe the peasants of Peiting, that’s the night when the witches meet in the forest up at Hohenfurch to woo Satan. The sign right at this time may just be a coincidence, but it is strange in any case.”

“You think?”

Katharina Daubenberger shrugged.

“I don’t think anything. But it’s just one week till Walpurgis Night. And didn’t you find another dead boy with just the same mark only yesterday?”

She hurried to the room next door. When Magdalena followed her she saw how the midwife hurriedly shoved some garments and blankets into a knapsack.

“What’re you doing?” she asked in surprise.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” the old woman wheezed. “I’m packing. I’m going to my daughter-in-law’s in Peissenberg. If the killing continues, I don’t want to be around. On Walpurgis Night at the very latest the lads will set my house on fire. If there’s really a witch around here, I don’t want anyone to think it’s me. And if there isn’t one, there’ll always be the need for a culprit.”

She looked at Magdalena and shrugged.

“And now get out of here. Better for you to be gone. You’re the hangman’s daughter, and in their eyes you’re just as loathsome as a witch.”

Without turning around, Magdalena hurried out. On her way down to the Lech, past the barns and farms, she felt that there was a pair of suspicious eyes staring at her from every window.

It was about ten o’clock in the morning. Simon was sitting at one of the tables in the back of the Stern Inn, lost in thought and stirring a stew of mutton and carrots. He didn’t really have much of an appetite, although he hadn’t eaten anything since last night. But the memories of that night-the sight of young Kratz, his parents’ tears, and the turmoil in the neighborhood-had turned his stomach into a tight lump that wouldn’t accept any food whatsoever. However, in the Stern he at least had some peace to think through everything that had happened yesterday.

The physician let his eyes roam through the lounge. There were over a dozen inns in Schongau, but the Stern was doubtlessly the best in town. The oaken tables were clean and smoothly planed, and chandeliers with fresh candles hung from the ceiling. Several maids watched over the few wealthy patrons, continually filling their goblets with wine from glass decanters.

At this time of day, the inn was frequented by only a few wagon drivers from Augsburg who had dropped off their cargo at the Ballenhaus early in the morning.

From Schongau, they would continue their journey to Steingaden and Fussen and across the Alps to Venice.

The drivers were smoking their pipes and had already drunk their fair fill of wine.

Simon could hear their loud laughter.

Seeing the drivers, Simon remembered the brawl the raftsmen on the Lech had told him about. Josef Grimmer had started an argument with some of his competitors from Augsburg. Was it because of this that his son had to die? But what about the other dead boy, then? And that man with the hand of bone whom Sophie had spoke of?

Simon sipped at his mug of weak beer, thinking. For a long time now, the Augsburgers had been planning a new trading route on the Swabian side of the Lech to avoid Schongau’s transportation monopoly. So far, the Duke had always thwarted their plans. But there was no doubt that in the long run things were in their favor. If Schongau were avoided on account of diabolical activities, more and more merchants would be in favor of a new route. Furthermore, Schongau was currently planning a leper house. Not a few of the aldermen believed that it could frighten away merchants.

Was the man with the bony hand perhaps an emissary sent by Augsburg to spread fear and chaos?

“This one’s on the house.”

Awakened from his thoughts, Simon looked up. Burgomaster Karl Semer himself was standing before him. He plunked down a tankard of bock beer on the table so that the foam splattered. Simon eyed the landlord. It was not a regular occurrence that the presiding burgomaster of Schongau visited the lounge of his inn in person. Simon couldn’t remember if he’d ever been addressed by Semer, except that one time when Semer’s son had been in bed with a fever. But then the burgomaster had treated him condescendingly, like a vagrant barber, and had rather reluctantly handed him a couple of hellers. Now, however, he smiled in a friendly way and took a seat at his table. He beckoned to one of the maids with his chubby ringed fingers and ordered another beer. Then he raised his tankard to Simon.

“I’ve heard of the Kratz boy’s death. Nasty business, that. Looks like the Stechlin woman has an accomplice here in town. But we’ll find that out soon enough. Today we’re going to show her the instruments.”

“How can you be so sure it was really the Stechlin woman?” asked Simon without raising his tankard.

Semer took a hearty swig of the dark beer and wiped his beard.

“We have witnesses who’ve seen her celebrate satanic rites with the children. And on the rack at the very least she’ll confess her sins, I’m sure of that.”

“I hear there was a brawl with the Augsburgers in your inn,” Simon replied. “Old man Grimmer supposedly gave a few of them a good beating…”

For a moment, Karl Semer looked irritated, then he snorted disdainfully.

“Nothing special. Happens every day. You can ask Resl here. She was waitressing that day.”

He beckoned to the girl to come to the table. Resl was about twenty and not really a stunning beauty with her big round eyes and her crooked nose. She lowered her head bashfully. Simon knew that she had often looked at him dreamily. The maids still considered him one of the most desirable men in town. Besides, he was still a bachelor.

Karl Semer invited the maid to sit down at the table with them.

“Tell us about that brawl with the Augsburgers the other day, Resl.”

The maid shrugged. Then she produced a shy smile, while she regarded Simon from the side.

“It was a couple of men from Augsburg. They were drinking too much and started criticizing our raftsmen. That they didn’t tie down the goods properly and damaged them. That they drink liquor while they’re working, and that Grimmer lost an entire cargo owing to that.”

“Well, and what did Grimmer say to that?” asked Simon.

“He kicked up a fuss and whacked one of the Augsburgers right in the face. And then the dust started flying here. Our men threw them all outside. Then there was order again.”

Karl Semer smirked at the physician and took another swig.

“As you see, nothing special.”

Suddenly Simon had an idea. “Resl, on that day, did you happen to see a tall man with a feather in his hat and a scar on his face?”

To his astonishment the maid nodded.

“Yes, there was such a one. He was sitting back there in the corner with two others. Gloomy-looking men. I think they were soldiers. They had sabers, and the tall one, he had a long scar that went all across his face. And he limped a little. He looked like the devil had sent him here…”

“Were they involved in the brawl?”

The maid shook her head.

“No, they only watched, they did. But after the fight they left pretty quickly. They did-”

“That’ll do, Resl. You may go back to work,” the burgomaster intervened.

When the maid had left, he looked at Simon angrily.

“What sort of questions are those? Where does that get us? It was the Stechlin woman, and that’s that. What we need is peace and quiet back in our town, and you and your questions will only cause further anxiety. Keep your hands off that business, Fronwieser. That’ll only lead to more problems.”

“But we can’t even be certain-”

“I said, keep your nose out of it.” Karl Semer tapped Simon’s chest with a plump index finger. “You and the hangman, you are only causing unrest with your questions. Drop it, do you understand?”

With these words the burgomaster rose to his feet and, without a farewell, withdrew to the upstairs rooms. Simon finished his beer and made ready to leave.

As he was about to step outside, someone tugged at his overcoat. It was Resl, the maid. She looked around anxiously to see if they were being watched.

“I have to tell you one more thing. The three men…” she whispered.

“Well?”

“They didn’t leave. They just went upstairs. They must’ve met someone up there.”

Simon nodded. Anyone in Schongau who had business to discuss would go to the Stern. And anyone who wanted to do that unseen would rent a room on an upper floor. There were side doors that saved one from even having to set foot in the bar. But whom could the three men have met up there?

“Thank you, Resl.”

“There’s something else…” The maid looked around furtively. Her voice was barely audible as she continued, her lips almost touching Simon’s ear.

“Believe me or not, but when the tall one with the scar paid for his drinks, I saw his left hand. It was just bones. I swear to God, the devil is here in Schongau, and I’ve seen him.”

The maid jumped when she heard her name called from the bar. With a last yearning glance at the young physician she turned away.

When the girl left, Simon’s eyes wandered up the magnificent facade of the inn with its glass windows and painted stucco.

Who had the men met here?

Simon couldn’t suppress a shudder. It looked as if Sophie had told the truth with her story after all. Maybe the devil really had come to Schongau.

“It’s time now, Martha. You’ve got to get up.”

Unnoticed, the hangman had stepped into the little cell. He was pulling at her coat, which she had thrown over herself as a blanket. Martha Stechlin had her eyes closed and was breathing quietly. A smile was on her lips. She seemed to be in a world that was free of fear and pain. Jakob Kuisl was sorry he had to call her back to this grim reality. Here, there was going to be a great deal of pain very soon. She had to remain strong.

“Martha, the aldermen will arrive soon.”

This time he shook her. The midwife opened her eyes and looked around in bewilderment for a moment. Then she remembered where she was. She brushed her matted hair from her face, and looked around like a hunted beast.

“My God, it’s going to start now…” She began to cry.

“You needn’t be afraid, Martha. Today I’ll only show you the tools. You’ve got to hold out. We’ll find the murderer, and then-”

He was interrupted by a squeaking sound. The gate of the keep was opening and the light of a late afternoon sun came in. Four jailers entered and took their places along the walls. They were followed by the emissaries of the council and Johann Lechner, the court clerk. With consternation Kuisl saw the three aldermen. The prisoner was only to be shown the torture instruments today. The torture to follow needed approval from Munich, and the Elector’s secretary had to be present. What if the court clerk really dared to commence the painful interrogation on his own?

Johann Lechner seemed to notice the hangman’s hesitation. He nodded at him encouragingly.

“Everything’s in order,” he said. “The three aldermen will appear as witnesses. The faster we get this matter taken care of, the faster peace will return to our town. His Excellency, Count Sandizell, will be grateful for that.”

“But…” Jakob Kuisl began. The court clerk’s eyes made it quite clear that there was no point in protesting. What should he do? If nothing unexpected happened, he’d have to torture Martha Stechlin today. Unless…

Unless the witnesses arrived at a different verdict.

Kuisl knew from experience that aldermen, when they were invited to interrogations, often couldn’t refrain from intervening themselves. Occasionally they cut short the interrogation if they had the feeling that there was no result to be expected in spite of the torture.

He glimpsed at the three aldermen. He knew the baker Michael Berchtholdt and young Schreevogl as well. But who was the third man?

Johann Lechner, the clerk, followed the hangman’s eyes. “Alderman Matthias Augustin, the third witness, is sick,” he remarked casually. “He’s sending his son Georg.”

Kuisl nodded as he eyed the three witnesses carefully.

Michael Berchtholdt was a great zealot before the Lord. He loved to see people tortured and was convinced that Martha Stechlin was a witch who should be burned at the stake. He was already looking her up and down with eyes full of hate and fear, as if the midwife could cast a spell over him even from a distance and turn him into a rat. The hangman grinned inwardly as he contemplated the small, wizened man, whose eyes were red-rimmed from all the brandy he drank. With his gray overcoat and rumpled fur cap he did resemble one of the mice that scurried through his bakery at night.

Young Schreevogl, who had entered the dungeon behind the baker, was considered a worthy successor to his father in the council, though he was somewhat rash at times.

Kuisl had heard from other members of the council that he did not believe Martha Stechlin was guilty.

One point for us…

Jakob Kuisl eyed this scion of Schongau’s foremost family of stovemakers. With his slightly aquiline nose, domed forehead, and pale face, he looked just like the hangman’s idea of a true patrician. Stovemakers produced earthenware as well as tiled stoves. The Schreevogls owned a small manufactory in town where seven journeymen made pitchers, plates, and tiles. Old Ferdinand Schreevogl had worked his way from rags to riches and always had a reputation for being a little odd. He was famous for the caricatures that adorned his tiles and that ridiculed the church, the town council, and the landowners.

After his death a year ago, his son seemed to purposefully invest his inheritance rather than wasting it. Only a week ago he had hired a new man. And only reluctantly had young Schreevogl accepted the fact that his father had bequeathed his property on Hohenfurch Road to the church. It was there that the leper house was to be built.

The young stovemaker was one of the few men in town who occasionally exchanged a few words with the hangman. Now, too, he nodded at him briefly and gave him a tight-lipped but encouraging smile.

The third witness, Georg Augustin, was more difficult for Kuisl to judge. Young Augustin was known to be a rake and so far had spent most of his time in distant Augsburg and Munich, where, according to his father, he was doing business with the electoral court. The Augustins were an influential dynasty of wagon drivers in Schongau, and Georg certainly looked the part. He dressed as a dandy with a plumed hat, baggy breeches, and boots, and his gaze went right through the hangman. With obvious interest he looked at the midwife, who was huddled up in her overcoat, shivering and rubbing her toes, which were blue with frost. It was April, but the stone walls of the prison were as cold as ice.

“Let’s start.” The court clerk’s voice cut through the silence. “Let’s go to the cellar.”

The bailiffs opened a trapdoor on the ground floor. From there, stairs led down to a sooty room with coarse stone walls. In the corner to the left there was a stained rack with a wooden wheel at the head. Next to that sat a brazier in which several pairs of pincers had been rusting away for years. Here and there, stone blocks with iron halter rings lay on the floor. A chain with a hook dangled from the ceiling. Yesterday a bailiff had brought thumbscrews and more pincers from the Ballenhaus and thrown them in a corner. In another corner there was a stack of rotting wooden chairs. The torture chamber looked neglected.

Johann Lechner looked around the room with the torch. Then he regarded the hangman reproachfully.

“Well, you could’ve tidied up a little in here.”

Jakob Kuisl shrugged. “You were in such a great hurry.” Stoically, he began to distribute the chairs. “And it’s been a while since the last interrogation.”

The hangman remembered it well. It had been four years since he had tied the forger Peter Leitner’s hands behind his back and fastened them to the hook in the ceiling. They had tied forty-pound boulders to his feet, and then his arms broke and he whimpered his confession. Previously, Kuisl had tortured him with thumbscrews and red-hot pincers. The hangman had been convinced from the start that Leitner was guilty, just as now he was convinced that Martha Stechlin was innocent.

“Goddamn you, get moving! We don’t have all day!”

The clerk slouched down in one of the chairs and waited for Jakob Kuisl to find seats for everyone present. With his two enormous hands the hangman struggled to lift up a heavy oaken table and put it down hard in front of Lechner. The clerk gave him another look of disapproval, then he took out his inkwell and quills and spread a parchment scroll before him.

“Let’s get started.”

Meanwhile, the witnesses had taken their seats. Martha Stechlin cowered against the far wall, as though looking for a mouse hole through which to make her escape.

“Let her undress,” said Johann Lechner.

Jakob Kuisl looked at him with surprise.

“But didn’t you first-”

“I said, let her undress. We want to search her for witches’ marks. If we find any, we’ll have proof she’s guilty and the interrogation can proceed all the more swiftly.”

Two bailiffs approached the midwife, who was huddled in a corner, her arms crossed in front of her. The baker Michael Berchtholdt licked his thin lips. He was going to get his show today.

Jakob Kuisl swore silently. He hadn’t expected that. Searching for witches’ marks was a common way of hunting down witches. If there were strangely shaped birthmarks on a suspect’s body, that was taken as a sign from the devil. Often the hangman would then perform the needle test and push a needle into the putative witch’s suspicious birthmark. If no blood came out, she was certain to be a witch. Kuisl knew that his grandfather had ways to avoid bleeding during the needle test. That way, the trial was over sooner, and the hangman got his pay sooner.

The sound of ripping fabric interrupted his thought. One of the bailiffs had torn off Martha’s stinking, soiled garment. Underneath, the midwife was pale and skinny. Bruises on her thighs and forearms bore witness to yesterday morning’s fight with Josef Grimmer. She pressed back against the cellar wall, trying to cover her breasts and genitals with her hands.

The bailiff pulled her up by her hair. She screamed. Jakob Kuisl saw how Michael Berchtholdt’s little red eyes groped the midwife’s body like fingers.

“Is that really necessary? At least give her a chair!” Jakob Schreevogl had jumped to his feet and tried to restrain the bailiffs, but the clerk pulled him down again.

“We want to discover the truth. And for that we have to do it. And well, all right, let the Stechlin woman have a chair.”

Reluctantly, the bailiff pushed a chair to the center of the room and sat the midwife down on it. Her frightened eyes darted back and forth between the clerk and the hangman.

“Cut off her hair,” said Lechner. “We want to look for witches’ marks there as well.”

As the bailiff was stepping toward her with a knife, Kuisl quickly grabbed the weapon from his hand.

“I’ll do that.”

Cautiously he cut off the midwife’s straggly hair. Tufts of it fell to the ground around the chair. Martha Stechlin wept softly.

“Don’t be afraid, Martha,” he whispered into her ear. “I won’t hurt you. Not today.”

Johann Lechner cleared his throat. “Hangman, I want you to search this woman for witches’ marks. Everywhere.”

The baker Berchtholdt leaned over toward the clerk.

“You don’t really believe he’s going to find anything,” he muttered. “He’s hand in glove with the Stechlin woman. I’ve seen it myself how she slips him herbs and goodness knows what else. And Keusslin’s milkmaid told me that-”

“Master Berchtholdt, we really haven’t got the time for your explanations.” Johann Lechner turned away in disgust to avoid the baker’s foul breath. He considered Berchtholdt a drunkard and a braggart, but at least he could trust him in this matter. He wasn’t that certain, though, about his second witness…Therefore he turned to Berchtholdt again.

“If it helps us establish the truth, however, we will heed your counsel,” he said encouragingly. “Master Augustin, will you kindly assist the hangman in his search?”

Contently, the baker leaned back in his chair as he kept eyeing the prisoner. Meanwhile the powerful wagon driver’s son rose with a shrug and slowly strolled toward the midwife. His countenance was finely chiseled and pale, as if he had seen little sun. His eyes sparkled icy blue. He looked upon Martha Stechlin almost with disinterest. Then his index finger softly moved over her skinny body, circling each breast, and finally stopped above her navel.

“Turn around,” he whispered.

Trembling, the midwife turned around. His finger glided across the nape of her neck and her shoulders. It paused on the right shoulder blade and tapped on a birthmark that actually seemed larger than the others.

“What do you think of this?”

The wagon driver looked straight in the eyes of the hangman, who had been standing alongside him the whole time.

Jakob Kuisl shrugged. “It’s a birthmark. What am I supposed to think?”

Augustin wouldn’t give up. Kuisl had the feeling that there was a slight smirk on his lips. “Didn’t the two dead children bear this kind of mark on their shoulders as well?”

The clerk and the baker sprang to their feet, and even young Schreevogl came closer, curious to inspect the mark.

Jakob Kuisl blinked and looked more closely. The brown spot was indeed larger than the other birthmarks and tapered to a fine line at the bottom. A few black hairs grew out of it.

The men stood in a circle around Martha Stechlin. The midwife seemed to have given in to her fate and allowed herself to be inspected like a calf at the slaughterhouse. A few times she whimpered softly.

“So they did,” whispered the clerk as he stooped over the mark. “It does resemble the devil’s sign…” The baker Berchtholdt nodded eagerly and crossed himself. Only Jakob Schreevogl shook his head.

“If this is a witches’ mark, you have to burn me along with her.”

The young patrician had unbuttoned his shirt and pointed to a brown spot on his chest, which was covered with downy hair. Indeed this birthmark too was shaped rather strangely. “I’ve had this thing since the day I was born, and nobody has yet called me a sorcerer.”

The clerk shook his head and turned away from the midwife. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Kuisl, show her the instruments. And explain what we’re going to do if she doesn’t tell us the truth.”

Jakob Kuisl looked deep into Martha Stechlin’s eyes. Then he took the pincers from the brazier and approached her. The miracle had not occurred, and he would have to begin the torturing.

At this very moment, the great bell in the tower started ringing the alarm.