The Werewolf of Bamberg

PROLOGUE

SCHONGAU, FEBRUARY 16, 1626 AD

On the day his father died in great agony, Jakob Kuisl resolved to turn his back forever on his hometown.

It was the coldest February anyone could remember. Three-foot-long icicles hung from the rooftops, and the old beams in the half-timbered houses creaked and groaned from the frost as if they were alive. But nonetheless, hundreds of people had gathered in Schongau along the Marktgasse, which led from the city hall down to the town gates. Everyone was heavily wrapped in scarfs and furs; the wealthier wore warm caps of bear or squirrel skin, while many of the poorer had frostbite on their faces or feet, wrapped in rags, which offered only scanty protection from the cold. Silently, but with beady, eager eyes, the residents of Schongau stared as the small group made its way past from the northern town gate on the wide, slush-covered road toward the execution site. Like hunting dogs who had picked up a scent of blood, the crowd followed the condemned man, the four bored-looking bailiffs with the halberds, and the hangman with his two helpers.

At the head of the procession were Jakob and his father-who kept stumbling and had to catch himself on his tall, almost fourteen-year-old son. As usual, the Schongau executioner had been drinking far into the morning hours of the execution date. Several times in recent years his hand had quivered while carrying out a beheading, but it had never been as bad as it was today. Johannes Kuisl’s face was ashen, he stank of brandy, and he had trouble putting one foot ahead of the other. Jakob was glad his father had to perform only a relatively simple strangulation that day. Jakob and his brother, Bartholomäus, two years younger, could, if necessary, light the fire around the stake.

Jakob cast a furtive glance at the convicted man, who, with his torn clothing and battered face, looked more like a creature from a dark cave than a human being. In recent years, Hans Leinsamer had lived like an animal, and today he would die like one. Most of the Schongauers had seen the old shepherd one time or another while gathering wood or looking for herbs in the forest. Hans was as dumb as his sheep, bordering on feebleminded, but until recently was considered harmless. Only the children had been afraid of him when he approached with his toothless grin, muttering as he passed his hand through their hair, or handing them a sticky piece of candy. Jakob, too, had met Hans a few times in a clearing while walking through the woods around Schongau with his two younger siblings, Bartholomäus and Elisabeth. Lisl, who had just turned three, always held her brother’s hand tightly then, while Bartholomäus threw pine-cones at Hans until he ran away, whining. Their mother had often warned the three about the homeless tramp, but Jakob always felt pity when he saw him, while the twelve-year-old Bartholomäus wanted nothing more than to string him up from the next tree as a feast for the ravens. Ever since Jakob could remember, animals had been more important to Bartholomäus than people. He would lovingly care for a sick hedgehog while at the same time Jakob was helping his father break the bones of a man suspected of stealing from the offertory box.

Jakob cast a sad glance at the simpleminded shepherd limping along beside them toward the execution site, tied up like a beast. Hans gaped, cow-like, at the Schongauers, some of whom jeered and pelted him with snowballs and clumps of dirt. He babbled on, whining and sobbing. Jakob suspected Hans was not even aware of why he had to die that day. It had been shortly after Epiphany when eight-year-old Martha, the youngest daughter of the Schongau burgomaster, had come upon the old man while sledding in the forest. He had pounced upon her like a wolf, and no explanation had ever emerged. Had he wanted to play with her? Had the speeding sled frightened him? Martha had screamed like a stuck pig. When the other children came running, he had already taken off her clothes. Finally, woodcutters in the forest heard the cries, seized Hans, and hauled him off to the Schongau dungeon; after torture on the rack, he confessed to the most heinous crimes. Everyone knew that for many years he’d lived like an animal, copulating with his sheep, and now he reportedly confessed he meant to drag Martha into his wagon, rape her, and kill her.

Jakob looked at the mumbling old man and couldn’t imagine how he could have come up with a story like that. And even less, that there was any truth to it.

In the meantime, they had prepared the execution site outside of town in a large clearing, where, the day before, Jakob and Bartholomäus had gathered a large pile of wood and placed it under the scaffold. A ladder led up to a post in the middle of the scaffold, to which the convict was chained. Out of the corner of his eye, Jakob observed how Bartholomäus admired the execution site, and a feeling of disgust came over him. For the first time, Bartl had been allowed to help his older brother prepare for an execution, and for him it was a great day when Hans was sentenced and the punishment was prescribed. Finally the younger boy’s dream of following in the footsteps of his father and his brother would be realized.

Jakob couldn’t understand why Bartholomäus admired him so much. Sometimes he teased his slow-witted younger brother, and in secret he even despised him, but that never kept Bartl from following him around like a puppy. Bartholomäus watched Jakob when he cleaned up the torture chamber, knotted the ropes used in hangings, or sharpened the hangman’s sword because once again their father was too drunk to do it. And Jakob knew deep down that someday Bartholomäus would be a better hangman than himself.

Jakob, for his part, had decided years ago not to practice this profession when he grew up-but did he have any choice? Executioners’ sons, if they didn’t want to hire themselves out as knackers or work in a slaughterhouse, became executioners. By law, the dishonorable vocations were clearly separated from the others. Their only way out was the Great War that had been raging in the Reich for years and was desperate for soldiers, honorable or not.

“What’s wrong with Father, anyway?” whispered Bartholomäus, beside Jakob. The question interrupted his thoughts. They were standing close to the wood piled around the stake, and the crowd stared at them in anticipation. With a worried look, Bartholomäus pointed to his father, who, despite the cold, was wiping the sweat from his brow as he struggled to keep his balance. “Our dear father can barely stand on his two feet. Is he ill?”

Meanwhile, the four burgomasters and other high dignitaries had arrived at the execution site. Along with the court clerk and a few hundred spectators, they formed a circle around the three Kuisls and the condemned man. Not for the first time, Jakob had the uncomfortable feeling that his own execution was close at hand.

“There’s nothing wrong with Father,” Jakob replied in a loud whisper, trying to remain calm while a soft murmur went through the crowd. “He’s drunk again. We can only pray he won’t set himself on fire by accident.”

Bartholomäus shrugged skeptically. “Maybe he has the Plague,” he mumbled. “That’s going around now. Just look at Mother back home. She’s caught it, too.”

Jakob rolled his eyes. He hated it when his brother wrote off, as he so often did, all their father’s faults. But perhaps, too, he felt disdain because Father had turned away from Jakob long ago, after realizing that his eldest son didn’t care to follow in his footsteps. Jakob wished fervently that he could love his father-but he couldn’t. Johannes was a drunk and a failure. Long ago, he’d been a great executioner, feared almost as much as his father-in-law, Jörg Abriel, who more than sixty years ago had tortured, beheaded, and burned women in the famous Schongau witch trials. The Kuisl brothers had inherited from their grandfather those strange, evil books that Bartholomäus loved almost more than his sick animals. Nearly every week he would go to his father’s room, and the two would take them out of the chest to read. The books reminded the family of the great bloody times when their name was known and feared. But those days were long gone, and in the meantime Johannes Kuisl had become a wreck. People made fun of him behind his back. They were no longer afraid of him, and that was the worst thing that could happen to an executioner.

Unless he was feared, he was nothing.

Now Jakob saw contempt flaring up in the eyes of many spectators as they looked disapprovingly at the trembling, sweating drinker. Fear gripped Jakob. Twice already his father had almost botched an execution, and the people would not tolerate that again. A bungling executioner quickly landed on the gallows himself.

And with him, sometimes, the entire family.

“Hurry up and be done with it, Kuisl,” cried the fat baker, Korbinian Berchtholdt, whose son Michael had sometimes brawled with Jakob and Bartholomäus. Berchtholdt pointed at the trembling shepherd-who was still standing there muttering to himself-and then at the stake. “Hey, do you want us to do that ourselves, or have your young brats gathered so much wet wood we’ll still be standing around here tomorrow?”

Johannes Kuisl reeled slightly, like a willow branch broken in a storm, but then he pulled himself together, grabbed Hans by the collar, and dragged him over to the ladder. Jakob knew now what would follow. Last year he had been present at the burning of a witch. Often the punishment was mitigated by placing a bag of gunpowder around the condemned person’s neck or strangling him first. Dumb Hans had a few supporters in the town council, and it was agreed that before burning him, the executioner would strangle him with a thin piece of rope-a fast, almost painless way to die if it was done right.

As Jakob watched his father stagger toward the ladder, however, he doubted that this time the strangulation would be as fast and painless as they’d hoped. Bartholomäus, too, was noticeably uncertain. With frozen gazes, the boys watched their father climb the ladder to the scaffold, pushing the blubbering man in front of him.

When the two men had almost reached the top, it happened.

Johannes Kuisl lost his grip, waved his arms around helplessly, and then fell backward into the slushy snow like a sack of flour, and didn’t move.

“My God, the executioner is drunk as a fish!” someone in the crowd shouted.

Some people laughed, but from all sides there was a hostile murmur that made Jakob’s hair stand on end. It sounded like a swarm of angry bees, coming closer and closer.

“Burn him, too, along with the dirty bugger, then we’ll finally have some peace in town!” someone else called. Jakob looked out over the crowd. It was the master baker Korbinian Berchtholdt. He turned around to the spectators, looking for support from his audience. “This hangman’s performance is a disgrace. It’s been like this for years. Even in Augsburg and beyond, people make fun of us. We should have gotten rid of him long ago and taken the Steingaden executioner in his place.”

“To hell with him! To hell with him!” others were shouting now. First snowballs then clumps of frozen sod, pummeled the hangman. Long-pent-up anger suddenly seemed to give way to a single explosion of rage. The court clerk, his face flushed beneath his official headdress, waved his arms ostentatiously, demanding order, but no one seemed to be listening. The four bailiffs who had accompanied the procession stood uncertainly beside the pile of wood.

Up on the scaffold stood Hans, staring down openmouthed at the spectacle below. Now the first of the fine citizens of Schongau attacked the executioner with rocks and knives in their hands, and the crowd closed in around Johannes Kuisl like a huge, dark wave. Someone let out a scream, and for a moment Jakob thought he saw, amid all the arms and legs, a dismembered ear lying on the ground. Red blood flowed like sealing wax across the dirty white snow. Then Jakob caught sight of his father’s crushed face, one dying eye peering toward him, as more rocks rained down on the hangman.

With a pounding heart, Jakob turned to his younger brother, who was staring incredulously at the swirling mob. “We’ve got to get out of here!” he shouted over the noise. “Quick, quick, or we’ll be next!”

“But. . but. . Father. .,” Bartholomäus stammered, “we. . we’ve got to help him. .”

“Jesus Christ, Bartl, wake up! Father is dead, do you understand? We have to save ourselves. Come!”

Jakob was pulling his horrified brother away from the execution pile when suddenly they heard a shrill voice behind them.

“There are his brats, running away! Stop them, stop them!”

Jakob cast a quick glance behind him and saw a crowd of young hooligans storming toward them down the icy street. In the front of the pack was the baker’s son Michael Berchtholdt, whom Jakob had given a good thrashing just a few weeks ago. Now the skinny weakling saw a chance to get his revenge.

“Stop them! Stop them!” he screamed, picking up a piece of wood from underneath the scaffold and sending it sailing through the air. There was no doubt in Jakob’s mind that Michael would beat his head in with it, if he could. This was his chance, and after such an incident no one would ask any inconvenient questions. The life of a hangman’s son wasn’t worth very much.

Bartholomäus just stood there gaping, so Jakob gave him a shove that made him yelp and stumble forward. Now, finally, the younger brother seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. They ran toward the open city gate, pursued by the howling mob.

Jakob turned off into the narrow lane by the city wall and, moments later, realized he’d made a big mistake. Their pursuers had split up, and some of them had already arrived at the gate ahead, blocking it. Grinning and swinging sticks in the air, they approached their victims.

“We already got your father,” Michael Berchtholdt shouted at his archenemy, “and now it’s your turn, Jakob! You and your brother.”

“First you’ve got to catch us,” Jakob answered, panting for air.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a wagon loaded with barrels, standing in front of one of the houses. On a sudden impulse, he grabbed his brother by the hand, climbed on top of the barrels, and pulled himself up onto the low roof. Bartholomäus followed, gasping, and soon they both were standing atop the snow-covered ridge of the roof with a view over the entire town-all the way to the execution site. Jakob realized they weren’t safe yet. Howls, catcalls, and the sound of running feet announced that the others were hot on their trail. At that moment, Michael Berchtholdt’s grinning face appeared above the gutter of the roof.

“And now, you Kuisls?” he snarled. “Where do you think you’re going? Maybe fly away like the birds? Or will Bartl, this idiot, send for an eagle to carry you off?”

Jakob looked around desperately. Of all the rooftops, they’d picked the one farthest from the other buildings on the block. Jakob guessed it was at least three paces-nine feet-to the next house. He himself had a big, athletic build, and he could make it. But what about his younger brother? Bartholomäus was heavier, and besides, he looked worn out. Just the same, they at least had to try.

Without warning Bartholomäus, Jakob jumped. Vaguely he caught a glimpse of the small lane beneath him, covered with snow and garbage, and then he felt solid ground again. He’d made it to the next roof.

Relieved, he looked around at his brother, who was still standing hesitantly on the ridge of the roof. Just as Bartholomäus was about to leap, Michael Berchtholdt appeared alongside him like a ghost and dragged him back down the icy roof. Other boys followed and started beating Bartholomäus, who screamed desperately for his older brother.

“Jakob, Jakob! Help me! They’re killing me!”

Jakob saw the wide eyes of his brother staring back at him. He heard the blows raining down on Bartholomäus-six or maybe seven boys had jumped him. That would be too many-even for Jakob, who, with his strength, could perhaps have taken on three of them. Besides, if he jumped into the fray, there would be no one to warn Mother and little Lisl before even worse things happened. Suppose the unruly mob attacked their house down in the Tanners’ Quarter while he was fighting with the street urchins here? Perhaps they’d already set the house on fire. He couldn’t waste any time.

But there was something else Jakob was reluctant to admit, even to himself-something that spun a fine, sticky web around him.

The zeal Bartholomäus had shown the day before while piling the wood around the stake; his constant praise for their choleric father; his cool, dispassionate curiosity concerning the torture of the old shepherd. . all of that had increased Jakob’s contempt for his brother. It was a palpable disgust that sometimes caused him to gag and even now left a bad taste in his mouth.

At that moment it became painfully clear to Jakob that Bartholomäus was just like his father and the whole goddamned family of executioners. Jakob himself had never been one of them, and he wouldn’t be in the future, either, no matter how much he’d always longed for his father’s acceptance.

Without being aware of it, Jakob had made up his mind.

“Jakob, help me!” Bartholomäus wailed as the blows continued raining down on him. “Please don’t let me die!”

For one last time, Jakob stared into his brother’s wide, terrified eyes. Then he turned away without saying a word and ran across the roofs of Schongau toward the eastern city wall, where the Tanners’ Quarter was located.

Behind him he heard a high-pitched scream, like that of a dying animal.

He ran faster, until he could no longer hear his brother’s cries.