The Poisoned Pilgrim

3

THE TANNERS’ QUARTER, SCHONGAU. THE MORNING OF SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 1666, AD.

Jakob Kuisl caught the men in the zimmerstadl warehouse not far from the river.

They were about a dozen young punks, pimply, broad-shouldered, and practically bursting with strength and cockiness. The hangman recognized two or three carpenter’s journeymen from Altenstadt and naturally the three Berchtholdt brothers. The oldest Berchtholdt boy was, as so often, the leader.

“Well, just look at that,” growled Hans Berchtholdt. “The hangman’s taking his little brats for a walk.” He straightened up and puffed out his chest, pointing to the two children Kuisl was carrying in his huge arms. The boys were sucking sleepily on their thumbs, eyeing the angry young men as if hoping for some candy or a shiny toy.

“Leave my grandkids out of this,” said Kuisl, glancing around furtively for a way to escape. But by now the youths had formed a circle around him.

The hangman had wanted to spend the morning with the children down at the river, whittling wooden boats and water-wheels. When he entered the narrow path behind the storage building, though, he noticed at once that one of the loading hatches was open. A few men were sitting there on top of stolen sacks of grain with devious expressions on their faces, while others were climbing down from the hatch on a ladder they’d nailed to the side of the building. Two lookouts approached him from the front and back, each with a glint in his eyes that reminded the hangman of hungry wolves. Apparently, Kuisl’s last warning had had no effect. Berchtholdt and the others in the gang had broken into the warehouse again to steal grain.

“Just get out of here, and I won’t have seen a thing,” he grumbled. “I’m in a good mood today, and this time I’ll let you go.”

But a short look at Hans Berchtholdt told Kuisl things wouldn’t be so easy this time. The young man still had his hand with two broken fingers in a sling, and his lips quivered with anger and excitement.

“I’m afraid we can’t let you off so easily,” Berchtholdt snarled. “It was a really stupid idea of yours to come by at this moment. Who’s to say you won’t report us to the council?”

“You have my word.”

“The word of a hangman? To hell with that.”

Laughter broke out, and the baker looked around confidently at his companions.

“So whaddya want? Maybe a sack of grain from the warehouse for your little brats, Kuisl?” Berchtholdt sneered, pointing at the grandchildren. “So maybe someday they’ll become fat, filthy executioners just like their grandfather?”

“You mean so they can one day string up thieves and hoodlums like you and watch them dangle on gallows hill?” Kuisl replied calmly. “This is the second time I’ve caught you stealing, Berchtholdt. That’s a hanging offense. Go home, all of you, or there’s going to be big trouble. If the secretary learns of this, he’ll make short work of you.”

Hans Berchtholdt bit his lip. This wasn’t the answer he expected. Clearly, this old goat was being insolent.

“And who would testify against us, eh?” he growled. “Maybe you, hangman?” His laughter sounded like a bleating goat. “A dishonorable man testifying before the city council? Do you really think the secretary would believe you? Or the whining, babbling little brats?” Again he started bleating as the other men joined in. “Where is their lousy mother, huh?” he continued in a hoarse voice. “She and that quack doctor. Shouldn’t they be minding their brats themselves so that nothing happens to them? Where are they?”

“You know exactly where they are,” Kuisl murmured. “So now let me through, and-”

“The whole city was against a dishonorable person going on a pilgrimage,” screeched the second oldest of the Berchtholdts. At nineteen, he was bigger than most of the others and his angry red face shot forward like that of a snake. “A hangman’s daughter on a pilgrimage with honorable citizens to the Holy Mountain. That’s unheard of! Now look what the Lord God sent us as punishment: rain and hail and destroyed fields. And mice that eat up our seed corn.”

“That doesn’t give you any right to break into the warehouse and steal the grain.”

“The grain belonging to those rich moneybags in Augsburg? The devil take them all. By all the fourteen saints, we’re only taking what belongs to us anyway.”

Kuisl sighed softly. Josef Berchtholdt had learned such narrow-mindedness from his late father. It was true that in recent days bad storms had swept over Schongau and mice had become a real plague. The vermin had practically stripped bare many of the fields. The hangman had warned his daughter about going on a pilgrimage with the other citizens-he knew it would be the subject of gossip. But as so often, she didn’t want to listen. Now Kuisl was standing down here on the Lech with his grandsons, facing a mob that would have liked nothing better than to start a fight.

“Where is your hangman’s sword, Kuisl?” one of the boys taunted. “Did you forget and leave it at home? Or are you going to carve yourself one here?” Again this was followed by loud, gloating laughter. Mumbling and hissing, the mob moved toward the hangman, who stood with his back to the warehouse.

“I would never have thought you’d get involved with a group like this, Berchtholdt,” Kuisl growled. “Your father would turn over in his grave.”

“Shut up, hangman,” the baker’s son shouted. “If my father were still alive he’d whip the whole Kuisl gang and drive them out of town.”

“I’m the one here who whips people and drives them out of town, Berchtholdt. Don’t forget that.”

The hangman tried to size up the group of young men blocking his path. Kuisl was fifty-four now, no longer a spring chicken, but people still feared his anger and strength. They’d seen how he broke the bones of a bandit chief, one by one, and how he cut off the heads of condemned murderers with a single blow. Kuisl had a bloody reputation all over the region; nevertheless he could sense that his authority was beginning to crumble. Today loud words or a quick blow would no longer suffice to drive away this mob.

Especially not with two babbling, thumb-sucking kids on his arm.

“Let me tell you, Kuisl,” Hans Berchtholdt hissed as a mean smile spread across his lips. “You bow your head and ask humbly for forgiveness for your daughter, that good-for-nothing hangman’s girl, and we’ll let the three of you go.”

As raucous laughter broke out, little Peter began to cry, and it wasn’t long before his younger brother joined in. Kuisl closed his eyes and tried to breathe calmly. They wanted to anger him, but he couldn’t endanger the children. What could he do? He didn’t want to risk a brawl because of his grandsons. Should he call for help? It was a long way up to town, and the rushing water would no doubt drown out any sound. Should he accept Berchtholdt’s demand?

Remorsefully, Kuisl bowed his head. “I plead-” he began softly.

Hans Berchtholdt grinned, his eyes glistening like two pieces of ice. “Humbly,” he snarled. “You plead humbly.”

“I plead humbly,” the hangman continued. He paused, then he continued in a monotone: “I plead humbly that God will give me the strength to endure such a big mob of stupid, blockheaded, low-down bastards like this without bashing their heads in. Now for the sake of the Holy Virgin let me through before I smash the nose of the first one of you.”

A horrified silence ensued. It seemed the young journeymen couldn’t believe what they’d just heard. Finally Hans Berchtholdt got control of himself again. “You’ll… you’ll regret that,” he said softly. “There are a dozen of us, and you’re an old man with two children in his arms. Now the little bastards will learn how their grandfather can put up with-”

He stopped suddenly, screamed, and put his hand to his forehead where blood was pouring out. Now other boys were howling and wailing as they sought refuge behind carts and barrels while a hail of stones fell down on them. Kuisl looked around, puzzled. Finally, up on the roof of the warehouse he spied a crowd of children and young people tossing stones and clumps of dirt down on the gang.

At the crest of the ridge up front stood Kuisl’s thirteen-year-old son, Georg, with a slingshot in hand.

The hangman was shocked. What was that snotty little brat doing down here? Wasn’t he supposed to be cleaning the knacker’s wagon in the barn? Wasn’t it enough for the two grandchildren to be in danger?

Kuisl was about to give the boy a good tongue-lashing when he realized the possibility that his son might just have saved his life. Again he looked up at the roof. Georg Kuisl looked very big for his age; everything about him seemed to have been hewn out of solid rock. A little fuzz was starting to form around his lips and his shirt and trousers looked much too small for his hefty body.

Just like me once, Kuisl thought. He’s almost as old as I was then in the war. My God, now my own boy has to get me out of this jam. Jakob, you’re getting old…

“Run, Father,” Georg shouted. “Now!”

Jakob shook off his gloomy thoughts, clasped his grandchildren, and ran off. All around him the stones were still raining down. When he saw a shadowy form lunge at him, he picked up his foot and kicked his attacker, a young carpenter’s journeyman, with full force in the groin. The man collapsed, groaning, just as another attacker raced toward Kuisl. The two young children in his arms were screaming now like stuck pigs. Kuisl hugged them tightly, bent down, and butted the journeyman right in the stomach; then he stood up again and ran. Behind him Hans Berchtholdt shouted as he was struck by another stone. “You’ll pay for that, Kuisl,” Berchtholdt shouted furiously. “You and your whole clan! Just one word to the city council, and I’ll take care of your two snotty little brats.”

In just a few minutes the hangman had left the dock area and arrived at the Lech Bridge, where two unsuspecting Schongau guards were standing, halberds in hand. They turned to watch the fast-approaching hangman; it appeared they had no idea of the fight going on behind the warehouse.

“My God, Kuisl,” one of them cried. “You’re running like the devil is on your heels.”

“Not the devil, just the Berchtholdt gang,” the hangman panted. “You’d better have a quick look at what’s going on behind the warehouse, before the Augsburgers start asking where their wheat is.”

Then and there, Kuisl decided not to let his grandchildren out of his sight again.

As Simon left the Andechs Monastery, he remembered with a start the herbs for Magdalena. He fumbled for the full leather pouch on his belt with the medicinal plants inside, then he hurried as fast as he could down to the village. He only hoped Magdalena hadn’t notice how long he’d been away or he could no doubt expect trouble.

When he got to the knacker’s house, he was surprised to find it empty. Only a few ragged goats were grazing in the little yard in front of the cabin, and the door stood wide open. Neither Michael Graetz, his helper, nor Magdalena was anywhere in sight.

“And I told her three times to lie down and rest,” Simon muttered, perplexed. “Stubborn woman.” Inwardly he prepared for a strong tongue-lashing.

After hesitating briefly, he decided to go back up to the monastery, where he might find Magdalena in the church or at the building site. Looking up, he saw a new group of pilgrims just arriving at the gate, where they were greeted by one of the monks and given a blessing. Singing and praying loudly, the pilgrims slowly made their way up to the monastery with their candles, where they no doubt planned to visit the church first. Because the Festival of the Three Hosts was only a week away, some people had already arrived and were crowding the narrow roadway.

To avoid them, Simon hurried along the wall until he found another open gate closer to the forest. Here, too, there were a number of barns-cows mooed, somewhere a pig grunted, and everywhere there was an odor of manure and beer mash. To the left of a well-worn path stood a neat little stone house that, with its freshly whitewashed walls and quaint garden of poppies and daisies, seemed out of character with the dirty farm buildings. Behind it, a steep stairway led up to the monastery.

Just as Simon was about to start up the stairs, a loud crash made him turn quickly and he saw a cloud of smoke emerge from behind one of the shutters of the stone house. Something must have exploded inside.

Without hesitating, the medicus ran toward the front door and pushed it open. Black sulfurous clouds billowed toward him, making it impossible to see.

“Is… is everything all right?” he called uncertainly.

He heard coughing, followed by a grating voice. “It’s nothing to worry about,” came the reply. “I probably used a pinch too much gunpowder, but as far as I can see, no harm is done.”

When the smoke drifted out the door, what emerged was the strangest room Simon had ever seen. Along the sides were rough-hewn tables with all kinds of strange instruments piled on them. On the left, Simon saw a silver chest with a number of gear wheels turning inside it. Alongside it was the arm of a white porcelain doll, whose head at that moment was rolling across the table, bumping finally into a ticking pendulum clock decorated with tiny silver nymphs. The doll’s face glared at Simon wryly; then its eyelids closed and it seemed to fall asleep. Dozens of strange metal parts lay on the tables farther back, their nature and purpose a mystery. Though it was broad daylight outside, the closed shutters allowed not a ray of sun into the room, which stank of sulfur and burned metal. Large parts of the room were still obscured by the smoke.

“Step right in,” said a voice from the midst of the cloud. “There is nothing to be afraid of in this room, not even the stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling-a genuine rarity from the land of the pyramids, by the way.”

The medicus looked up to see a wingless green dragon with a long tail hanging from a cord and turning slowly in a circle. The monster’s glass eyes looked down at him indifferently.

“My God,” Simon mumbled. “Where are we? At the entrance to hell?”

Someone laughed. “Rather to paradise. Science opens doors undreamt of by those who don’t close their eyes to them. Come a bit closer so I can see with whom I have the pleasure of speaking.”

Simon groped his way forward in the dim light until he saw the outline of a person on his right. Glad to have finally found the strange owner of the house, he turned and reached out his hand.

“I must say, you gave me quite a shock…” he started. But suddenly he stopped and his heart skipped a beat.

The figure in front of him was a woman. She was wearing a red ball gown, and had put up her blond hair in a bun as had been the fashion at court several hundred years before. Though she smiled at Simon with her full red lips, her face seemed lifeless and as white as a corpse. Suddenly her mouth opened wide and from somewhere inside her body came a soft, tinny melody.

It took Simon a while to realize what he heard was a glockenspiel. Tinkling and jingling, invisible hammers played the notes of an old love song.

“You… you… are…” he stammered.

“An automaton, I know. I’m sorry I can’t offer you the company of a real woman. On the other hand, Aurora will never turn into a cranky old shrew; she’ll remain forever young and beautiful.”

At this point a little man stepped out from behind the life-size doll. Startled, Simon realized this was the same crippled monk who’d been arguing with Brother Johannes just a few hours ago. Simon tried to remember the monk’s name. The abbot had mentioned it in the abbot’s study. “What was it? Brother…?”

“Brother Virgilius,” the little hunchbacked man replied, reaching out one hand while supporting himself with the other on a walking stick decorated with ivory and a silver knob. A shy smile passed over his face. “Haven’t we met before?”

“This morning in front of the apothecary’s house,” Simon murmured. “I was there to pick up some herbs for my wife: anise, artemisia, and silverweed for stomach pains.”

A shadow passed over the face of the wizened little man. He was probably over fifty, but everything about him seemed as delicate as a child. “I remember,” he said in a monotone. “I hope Brother Johannes was able to help your wife. He’s no doubt a good apothecary, just a bit… short-tempered.” Again a smile spread over his face. “But let’s talk about something more pleasant. Do you speak Latin? Are you perhaps a friend of the sciences?”

Simon introduced himself in a few words, then pointed to the strange devices all around. “This room is the most fascinating place I’ve ever seen. What is your profession, if I may ask?”

“I’m a watchmaker,” Brother Virgilius replied. “The monastery gives me the option of pursuing my profession and at the same time… uh… experimenting a bit.” He winked at Simon. “A few moments ago you were the unintentional witness of a reenactment of von Guericke’s Magdeburg hemispheres experiment.”

“Magdeburg hemispheres?” Simon looked at the little monk, puzzled. “I fear I don’t quite understand.”

Casually, Brother Virgilius pointed to a soot-stained copper globe the size of a child’s head resting on a charred table behind him. “The fascinating power of a vacuum,” he started to explain. “In an experiment carried out at the Reichstag in Regensburg, the inventor Otto von Guericke put two halves of a hemisphere together and pumped the air out, forming a vacuum. Sixteen horses weren’t able to pull the hemispheres apart again. It’s not even possible with the destructive force of gunpowder.” He sighed. “Quod erat demonstrandum. My lily-livered assistant fled up to the attic before the explosion. Vitalis? Viiitaaalis!” The little monk pounded his cane impatiently on the floor until a shy young man appeared from an adjacent room. He was probably not even eighteen yet and so delicate in stature that Simon at first took him to be a girl.

“This is Vitalis, a novitiate at the monastery,” Brother Virgilius introduced him brusquely. “He seldom says a word, but his fingers are so slender he can place even the smallest gear in a clock mechanism. Isn’t that right, Vitalis?”

Shyly, with downcast eyes, the novitiate bowed. “I do my best,” he whispered. “Is there something I can do, master?”

“If you weren’t here to observe the experiment, then at least make yourself useful afterward,” Virgilius growled. “I’m afraid we’ll need a new table. Go and see if Brother Martin has another in his carpentry shop.”

“Very well, master.”

With a final bow, Vitalis left, and the monk turned again to Simon. “What do you think of my Aurora?” He pointed at the automaton. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

Simon furtively eyed the doll still standing motionless beside him and smiling. Only now did he notice little wheels under the dress where feet should have been. “Indeed, a… a miracle of technology,” he murmured, “even though I must confess I still prefer real people.”

“Balderdash! Believe me, the day will come when we won’t be able to distinguish between real people and automata.” Brother Virgilius hobbled around the doll and turned a screw in Aurora’s back, until the soft melody returned. The automaton opened its mouth and rolled through the room as if drawn by invisible threads. In the darkened room, it looked in fact like a refined lady dressed for a fancy ball in Paris.

“The glockenspiel, the mouth, and the wheels are driven by watch springs and cylinders,” the monk declared proudly. “At present I’m working on making the hands moveable, as well, so Aurora can dance a bourree. Who knows, maybe someday she’ll be able to write letters and play the spinet.”

“Who knows?” Simon whispered. The longer he looked at the automaton, the more sinister it seemed. As if he were watching a vengeful spirit floating through the dark room.

“And the monastery?” he asked hesitantly. “What does the church say about your experiments?”

Brother Virgilius shrugged. “Abbot Maurus is an enlightened man who can easily distinguish between faith and science. Besides, the monastery benefits from my abilities.” With a blissful smile he watched the doll make a wide circle through the room, bells tinkling. “But of course, there is also resistance.”

“Brother Johannes, I assume?” asked Simon curiously.

“Brother Johannes?” The little monk turned away from his automaton and stared at Simon in disbelief.

“My apologies,” replied the medicus, raising his hand, “I saw you both engaged in that violent dispute this morning.”

After a moment, Virgilius’s face brightened. “Of course. Johannes. You’re right. As I’ve already said, he’s an impulsive man who sometimes lacks the necessary vision. We’ve argued frequently in the past,” he continued, lowering his eyes, “but this time I almost feared for my life. Johannes can be very hot-tempered, you know, which may have something to do with his past.”

“What kind of past?” Simon inquired. At this moment the glockenspiel stopped. An ugly squeal came from inside the automaton, and Brother Virgilius rushed over to it.

“Curses,” he hissed. “Probably a loose screw again in the clockwork. Can’t you just for once run smoothly without breaking down, you stubborn woman?”

He undid the back of Aurora’s red dress, revealing an iron plate. Mumbling softly to himself, he extracted a tiny screwdriver from beneath his robe and began to unscrew the plate on the doll’s back. He seemed to have completely forgotten Simon in an instant.

“It… it was nice to have met you,” Simon mumbled, smoothing his jacket with his hand. “I’ll probably have to…”

“What?” Virgilius looked Simon up and down as if he were a stranger who’d just entered the room. “Oh, naturally. The pleasure was all mine, but now please excuse me; I have a lot to do. Damn!” Again he bent to inspect the automaton’s back, and Simon turned to leave.

Stepping outside into the blinding bright sunlight, the medicus had to shield his eyes. He could still hear the mumbling watchmaker inside.

Moments later the soft melody of the glockenspiel began again.

Magdalena sipped on a cup of mulled wine and tried to come to grips with the terror of the last hour. Still trembling slightly, she leaned back on the hard corner bench and from there observed everything going on in the monastery tavern, which she’d entered on a whim.

At the noon hour, the inn at the foot of the Holy Mountain was packed: A few richly clad merchants had ordered a boar’s leg with white bread, and its fatty juice dribbled down their beards and chins. A group of pious pilgrims sat together in one corner over a steaming bowl of stew. Smoke from tobacco and a wood fire hung heavily over the tables, and the air was full of the humming and buzzing of many conversations.

After her fall from the tower, Magdalena had to first answer worried questions from Jakob Schreevogl, the carpenter Hemerle, and a few other workers. The unexpected ringing of the bells had upset everyone on the building site, among them Brother Johannes, who eyed the hangman’s daughter distrustfully. For that reason, she told the astonished men she had just climbed the tower out of curiosity and had slipped. She still didn’t know whether the ugly monk had anything to do with the incident in the tower. Was it possible Johannes himself was the hooded stranger who had pushed her off the belfry?

As she came staggering down the hill from the monastery, Magdalena saw a sign over the tavern door painted invitingly with a wine glass and entered without hesitation. Just as she was about to pour herself another cup of wine, she spied Simon in the doorway. The medicus looked around until he spotted Magdalena in the crowd.

“So this is where you’re hiding out,” he cried with relief when he reached her table. “I’ve looked for you everywhere. Weren’t you going to wait at the knacker’s house until I came back with the herbs?”

“Aha, and when was that going to be?” she replied angrily. “When pigs fly? I waited, but you never came back.” She pointed to the pitcher of mulled wine on the table. “In any case, this medicine does more good than all the marjoram, vervain, and mint in the Priests’ Corner put together. They put so many herbs in the wine here that you get better just smelling it. Now sit down and listen to what happened to me.”

She briefly told him of the bizarre things she saw up in the tower and the stranger who had pushed her off the platform.

“A stretcher with metal clamps along the side and a thick wire?” Simon replied. “What in God’s name could that be?”

“I have no idea. In any case, nothing that anyone’s supposed to find out about-or this fellow in the robe wouldn’t have tried to throw me from the belfry.”

“How do you know he really wanted to throw you from the belfry?” Simon asked. “Maybe you just startled him up there, and he was trying to flee.”

“Are you telling me I just imagined all that?”

Simon raised his hands apologetically. “I just don’t want us to jump to any false conclusions, that’s all.”

Magdalena lowered her voice and looked around furtively. “If you ask me, that ugly monk Johannes has something to do with it. Do you remember the strange look he gave us yesterday when I told him about the light up in the tower? And do you remember the large sack he was carrying?”

Simon frowned. “Yes, why?”

“There were iron rods inside just like the ones I saw up in the tower, only a bit smaller.”

“That’s right.” The medicus tapped the table nervously. “There’s something fishy about that monk, but he can’t have been the man in the tower. Johannes was with me and the abbot at that time.”

“You went to see the abbot?”

Simon sighed. “You’re not the only one who saw some strange things. If we keep going like this we’ll get involved in another messy story and your father will give me a talking-to for not keeping a better eye on you. In any case, by tomorrow the bishop wants a report from me about a possible murder.”

Excitedly he told Magdalena of his experiences in the apothecary’s house, the abbot’s study, and the house of the strange watchmaker. After he finished, the hangman’s daughter just sat there silently for a long time, then picked up the clay pitcher and poured herself another cup of wine.

“An automaton that’s a woman and has a glockenspiel instead of a heart.” She shuddered. “You’re right-this watchmaker Virgilius is really a strange character. An atrocious idea that one can make a doll come to life.”

“It’s not really so strange,” replied Simon. “I’ve heard that in Paris and Rotterdam there are a lot of automata like that-singing birds, life-size drummer boys, tiny black men who strike the bells… In the Hanseatic City of Bremen, they say there’s even an iron watchman who raises his visor to the merchants and salutes.”

“Just the same, I prefer real people.” Magdalena suddenly frowned and nodded toward the door. “Well, in most cases.”

At that moment, the Schongau burgomaster Karl Semer and his son strode into the tavern with haughty looks on their faces. At their side was a gentleman with a Van Dyke beard wearing a white collar, a huge, wide-brimmed hat, and an ornamental sword on his belt. Coldly he eyed the guests as if they were annoying insects. When he snapped his finger, the innkeeper approached, bowing deeply.

“Oh, God, the Semers,” Simon groaned. “We’re not being spared anything today. It looks as if they’ve found a friend.”

In the meantime, the innkeeper had approached the new guests. “Ah, Count von Wartenberg,” he murmured, bowing so deeply it looked as if he was about to polish his guest’s shoes. “What an honor to be able to greet a representative of the House of Wittelsbach in my modest tavern. It’s been a long time since-”

With an impatient wave of his hand, the man with the Van Dyke silenced the stout innkeeper. “Stop buttering me up and get me a private room,” he growled. “I have something important to discuss with these two gentlemen.”

“As you wish, as you wish.” Bowing deeply again, the innkeeper led the count and the two Semers into a separate area of the tavern. As young Sebastian Semer strode past Magdalena and Simon, he gave them a fleeting, disgusted glance.

“Look, Father,” he whined. “Even lowlife bathhouse surgeons and hangman’s women patronize the Andechs tavern nowadays. The Holy Mountain is not what it used to be.”

Karl Semer looked down at the two Schongauers and frowned. “I don’t think the tavern keeper knows everyone patronizing his establishment, my son. In my tavern something like that wouldn’t happen. Dishonorable people have no place there.” Impatiently he took his son by the shoulder. “But come now, we have more important things to do. I hear they serve an exquisite, though expensive Tokay here-just the right thing for concluding our business.”

The two disappeared into the side room with the distinguished gentleman. Simon looked over at Magdalena, who had turned white as chalk and was biting her lip.

“This pompous Semer clan,” she hissed. “Jakob Schreevogl told me the two plan to make a killing here during the Festival of the Three Hosts. The very sight of them makes me sick.”

“Don’t always get so worked up.” Simon passed his hand through her hair sympathetically. “In any case, there’s nothing you can do to change it. I’d just like to know what the Semers have to do with a genuine nobleman from the House of Wittelsbach. If it’s true they have really arrived-anyone doing business with the family of the Bavarian elector is very well-off.”

Magdalena blew her nose loudly and took a last deep gulp of wine. “I expect they’ll palm some cheap pilgrim’s candles and prayer books off on the count, which the fine gentleman will dispose of for even more money,” she murmured. She stood up, stretched, and tossed a few coins on the table. “And now, let’s go. The Semers have spoiled this tavern for me, and you still have your damned report to write, too.” She sighed and turned toward the door. “Damn, all I really wanted to do in Andechs was pray.”

Outside, in a dark corner of the monastery garden, a figure in a black robe crouched down, observing the couple from Schongau with suspicion as they strolled down the steep pathway toward Erling. The man uttered a curse just as he had learned to do in the war. Even though God forbade it, it always made him feel better and helped to drive away the bloody scenes. Nevertheless, he remained anxious.

Ever since this bathhouse surgeon and his girl had appeared, things had been going badly. First the failed experiment, then the dead assistant and the argument with Virgilius-and what, for God’s sake, was the curious woman up to in the tower? Had she become suspicious? Had she discovered something up there?

The man smiled and waved casually as a few singing pilgrims passed by, but the pilgrims drew away from him as if they could sense that nothing good would come from him. He was accustomed to people reacting fearfully when they saw him. Striking fear in the hearts of men used to be his calling, but now his face did the work. The contorted grimace of the devil in the garb of a monk. That’s what they said about him when he took the vows many years ago and cast aside his old life. But he could not cast away his face.

Or his past.

Grumbling furiously to himself like a fat blowfly, Brother Johannes reentered the apothecary’s house, where worry, stench, and a decomposing corpse awaited him.

He didn’t know this was just the beginning.

In the meantime, Jakob Kuisl sat alongside the city moat, not far from his house, cutting little whistles out of the reeds for his grandchildren.

He’d bought some dried fruit and a few candied nuts for the children, which they were now devouring with great appetite. Their mouths were sticky with honey and their hands filthy with grime. The hangman grinned-it was good their mother couldn’t see them this way.

At the thought of the children, his face suddenly darkened again. It wasn’t just that his wife was sick; his grandchildren were now in danger, too. The warning from Hans Berchtholdt had been unmistakable: if Kuisl reported the warehouse theft to the Schongau secretary, the children would be in real danger. And even if he did nothing, Hans Berchtholdt was burning for revenge. Who was to say he wouldn’t be lying in wait for the two little ones here along the moat or down by the river? It would just take one push, and they would disappear beneath the waves in an instant.

Grimly, the hangman took out his tobacco pouch and began stuffing his pipe. As always when he was thinking, he needed that heavenly weed, which a few friends, wagon drivers from Augsburg, brought him every month. As the first puffs of smoke rose up, he was already feeling noticeably more relaxed, but in the next moment the sound of footsteps interrupted his reveries.

“Confound it! Can’t one ever get a moment’s peace around here?” Kuisl grumbled.

As he turned around, he saw his son Georg emerge from willow trees. The boy was carrying the slingshot he had used just a few hours ago to drive away the Berchtholdt brothers. And behind him came his sister Barbara, with her dark, tangled, shoulder-length locks, wearing a white blouse that barely concealed the first signs of her changing figure.

Georg and Barbara were twins, but as different as they could be. Barbara was chatty, with the same impudent tongue as her older sister, Magdalena, and promised to be just as beautiful. Georg, on the other hand, was as hefty as an unhewn piece of wood and as silent as his father. As an executioner’s apprentice, the thirteen-year-old boy helped from time to time at executions and could look forward to his examination and certificate in a few years-a proper beheading.

“When Mama learns you bought candy for the two little ones again, she’s going to scold,” Barbara warned him, smiling as she drew closer.

“Watch out or I’ll give you a proper thrashing, rascal,” the hangman mumbled. “Didn’t I tell Georg to clean out the knacker’s wagon? And then I find him down at the warehouse with a slingshot in his hand. What were you doing down there?”

“I was going to shoot sparrows with the others,” Georg replied tersely. His voice wasn’t as deep as his father’s, but it already sounded just as grim. “But then all I met were a few gallows birds.”

“You ought to be glad he was down there, Father,” Barbara interrupted. “They could hear Berchtholdt screaming way up in the Tanners’ Quarter. I can’t imagine what he would have done with the children if Georg hadn’t come along with the others.”

“Oh, nonsense. I could have handled them easily enough,” the hangman grumbled.

“Twelve men?” Georg laughed. “Father, don’t overdo it. You’re not getting any younger.”

“Young enough to deal with the Berchtholdt gang, though. In the war I killed small fry like that by the dozens. I wasn’t much older than you back then, but strong enough for two. What it takes is strength and smarts.”

Kuisl took a drag on his pipe and watched the smoke ascend. While Barbara went down to the moat with the two children, his son sat down alongside him on a rock and stared into the swirling water. After a while, Jakob silently handed him the pipe. Georg grinned. He knew his father would never say thank-you for anything, but this gesture was more thanks than a thousand words-it was the first time the old man had offered him a drag on his pipe. Georg closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet smoke, then puffed it out again like a little dragon.

“How’s Mother?” Kuisl finally grumbled.

Georg shrugged. “She sleeps a lot. Martha made her a potion of linden blossoms and willow bark and is with her now.”

“Willow bark is good; it reduces the fever.”

There was another long pause before Georg finally cleared his throat. “You said before I’m just as old now as you were in the war…” he began, haltingly. “What did you mean by that? You never told me much about what happened then.”

“Because there’s nothing to tell except slashing, stabbing, and killing.” The hangman spat brown tobacco juice into the meadow. “And anyone who comes back can only hope the war doesn’t haunt his dreams. What is there to tell?”

“At least you got to meet Mother there,” Georg interjected. “And you saw the world.” He turned and pointed toward the walls of the city, visible through the trees, adding sarcastically, “Not just little stinking Schongau.”

“Believe me, the world stinks just the same everywhere: it smells of death, disease, and horseshit, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re in Paris or in Schongau.” The hangman looked earnestly at his son. “We can only see to it that it smells a little better. Put your nose in a book, boy. It always smells better there.”

Georg sighed. “You know I’m not very keen on reading. It’s different with Barbara-she reads Pare and Paracelsus as if she’d written them herself. And I stutter even when I read the Lord’s Prayer.”

“Nonsense,” Jakob hissed. “You’re just lazy. A hangman who can’t read isn’t any better than a knacker. What are you going to live on? We hangmen don’t just kill; we cure, as well. That’s how we earn most of our money. And how can you heal if you can’t read books?”

“I think I’m better suited for killing than for healing, Father.”

The slap hit the boy so hard his lip broke open and drops of blood fell on his leather vest. Stunned, he rubbed his face; the pipe lay in front of him in the grass.

“How can you talk such nonsense?” his father growled, his face white with fury. “What do you want to do with the rest of your life-just break bones and chop off heads? Do you want to remain an outcast whom people run from and only dare to visit at night to buy a piece of hangman’s rope or a little bottle of blood?” Kuisl picked up the pipe from the ground and knocked out the ashes. “Is that what you want? To sweep up other people’s shit and do their dirty work? I thought I had taught you better than that.”

“But… but what else can we do?” Georg stuttered. “We’re not allowed to learn any other vocation. Hangmen remain hangmen-isn’t that the way it always was? Did you ever hear of anyone who became something different?”

Suddenly Kuisl’s eyes went blank, as if he were looking far back into the past. “Perhaps…” he murmured. “Yes, perhaps I knew someone.”

The bodies twitching up in the branches of the oak… The young regimental hangman walks down the rows of the outlaws; one after the other, he lays nooses around their necks and pulls the whimpering young men up into the treetop with his strong arms… Only Jakob sees the tears streaming down the hangman’s cheeks, the tremble coursing through his powerful, hulking body, the silently mumbled curses… Jakob knows the man’s fears all too well, for they are his own… At night, his friend lies next to him, staring into the starless heavens, and swears an oath that Jakob himself made many years before… In the morning, his friend is gone, and only his weapons are left behind, still lying by the fire. The captain curses like the devil and sends a search party out after the deserter, Jakob among them. At noon, when the men return shaking their heads, Jakob silently thanks God. He sharpens his sword and tries to forget…

“By God, yes,” Kuisl murmured after an eternity. “I knew someone like that, someone who tried. Heaven knows what he’s doing now, but at least he tried. It’s just me, stupid bastard that I am, who returned from the war to keep hanging people.”

He laughed softly. Then he dragged on his pipe until a small ember began to glow bright red again.

“Damn,” he finally continued, pointing with the stem of his pipe to his two grandchildren frolicking around and shouting cheerfully with Barbara in the shallow water.

“If I weren’t here, then you wouldn’t be, either, would you? And neither would the little bed wetters. For that alone I’ll be glad to chop off a few more heads.”