The Werewolf of Bamberg

1

AFEW MILES FROMBAMBERG, OCTOBER 26, 1668 AD

MORE THAN FORTY YEARS LATER

Damn it! If those people up front don’t start moving their asses, I’ll grab them by the scruff of the neck and whip them all the way to Bamberg myself.”

With a strong curse on his lips, Jakob Kuisl rose from his seat in the oxcart and stared ahead angrily. An entire caravan of all kinds of carts and wagons blocked the narrow pass through the hills and, after a number of sharp turns, ended in a riverbed. The rain was pouring down, and the trees in the dark forest of firs all around were just barely visible. Water dripped from the low-lying branches, and the constant drumbeat of the rain mixed with the many other sounds down at the ford in the river. Pigs squealed, men shouted and cursed, and somewhere a horse whinnied. The muffled roar of the river and the rain overwhelmed most other sounds.

Magdalena frowned as she looked at her father, who was spewing his anger like a volcano. More than six feet tall, he stood out above the carts like a church steeple above a nave.

“Damn it all to hell. I-”

“Can’t you see there’s something wrong up in front at the ford in the river?” interrupted Magdalena, who was sitting between sacks of grain. She yawned and stretched her back, which ached after she’d had to sit so long. The cold rain had drenched her woolen shawl, and she felt a chill. “Do you think we’re sitting here in this mess just for fun?”

The Schongau executioner cleared his throat and spat with disgust into the swampy ground surrounding the wagon. “These damn Franks are capable of anything,” he growled, now somewhat more calmly. “I keep wondering what hole in the ground all these people come from. There’s more turmoil in this goddamned forest than at a proper execution. Where are we, anyway? Didn’t they say we’d get to Bamberg before sundown?”

“Well, this ford is the only place you can get across the river in such weather. And, as you see, we’re certainly not the only ones.”

Peeved, Magdalena turned around. The traffic both in front of and behind them was the worst she’d ever seen in their region, the quiet “Priests’ Corner” in the Alps. It had been three weeks since she and her family had left Schongau to pay a visit to her uncle Bartholomäus in Bamberg. Since their stop the day before in Forchheim, in Franconia, the muddy road had been getting busier and busier. Wandering journeymen traveled from town to town; stooped peddlers struggled under the weight of backpacks full of rudely carved wooden spoons, grinding stones, and cheap knickknacks; other riders on horseback, dressed in fancy clothing, hurried by silently in the rain. Most of the vehicles making their way through the forest along the crowded road were simple, canvas-covered two-wheeled carts without springs.

“Hey, what’s wrong there up front?” the Schongau executioner called out again, cupping his huge hands to form a mouthpiece. “Are you idiots sleeping up there?”

Now the wagon drivers in front and behind them began to grumble, too, and here and there someone cursed loudly. Magdalena noticed the worried, anxious glances on the faces of some of the men looking into the forest, which, despite the early-afternoon hour, was beginning to look threatening-as if behind the first few rows of trees night was already falling. A shiver passed reflexively up Magdalena’s spine.

“Probably a wagon got stuck in the mud of the river, that’s all. Or a few calves were spooked and didn’t want to go on,” she said, trying to comfort herself as she tugged on her father’s dirty linen shirt. “So you’d better sit down before you start an argument with someone.”

“It can’t be that hard to cross such a narrow part of the river,” Jakob replied, shaking his head. “These Franks are simply too stupid, that’s all there is to it. These stupid drunks would probably get stuck even in a dry riverbed.”

The hangman grumbled a little while longer, then finally sat down again and started puffing morosely on the long, cold stem of his pipe. Jakob had used up all his tobacco just as they were leaving Nuremberg, which didn’t do anything to improve his mood. The other members of the Kuisl clan were huddled together between the sacks of grain. Magdalena’s younger sister, fifteen-year-old Barbara, stared blankly into the steady downpour. Magdalena’s boys, Peter and Paul, were scuffling farther back in the wagon, in danger of falling backward into the swamp at any moment. As he did so often, the younger boy, Paul, had the upper hand; he was holding his five-year-old brother in a headlock, and Peter was gasping for air.

“Damn it, can’t you just once stop fighting?” scolded Simon, who was sitting up front on the coachbox alongside the wagon’s owner, a humpbacked old farmer. The long wait had clearly gotten on Magdalena’s husband’s nerves, as well. Until then, the Schongau medicus had been trying to read a book on medicine for midwives. Though the volume was bound in leather and wrapped in an oilcloth, rain kept dripping onto the pages. Now he put aside the tattered, drenched book and cast a severe glance at his two sons.

“You’ve been fooling around like that for hours. If you don’t stop right away, I’ll tell your grandfather and he’ll stretch your ears out on the rack. You know he can do that.”

“I could also put you both in a shrew’s fiddle,” Jakob chimed in ominously. “Then you’ll probably scratch each other’s eyes out and we’ll finally have some peace and quiet.”

“Stop this nonsense, you hooligans.” Magdalena pointed at the two boys, who finally now stopped fighting. “Just see the look in their eyes. I think you really scared them.”

The children stared at their grandfather for a moment, baffled, then shouted at one another and went right on brawling. A moment later, Paul, the smaller one, triumphantly held up a handful of his brother’s hair. His older, far gentler brother Peter, almost a head taller, started crying and sought protection behind his father.

“Maybe we should try the shrew’s fiddle, after all?” Simon asked hopefully.

Magdalena glared at her husband. “Perhaps for a change you should stop reading so much and pay more attention to your sons. It’s no wonder they are always fighting. They’re boys, have you forgotten? They’re not made for sitting calmly on a wagon.”

“Let’s just be happy we found someone to take us part of the way,” Simon replied. “I myself don’t especially want to go to Bamberg on foot. We surely have more than five miles to go, and we don’t have enough money to pay for a trip on the Regnitz River.”

He stretched and sighed, then grabbed the two boys by the scruffs of their necks and climbed down from the wagon with them.

“But, as almost always, you are right,” Simon mumbled. “This long wait can drive you crazy.” He nodded toward the dark forest on the other side of the narrow pass, where the branches and boughs of the pine trees formed a dense barrier. “I’ll take these two little devils for a walk over to the edge of the forest, where they can climb and run around a little. It looks like you’ll have to wait here a bit longer.”

He gave the two boys a friendly slap, and they started whooping and running up the steep side of the pass. In no time the three had disappeared in the forest, while Magdalena remained behind with her father and bored-looking younger sister.

“Simon is much too easy on the boys,” Jakob grumbled. “The little brats deserve a good spanking now and then. When I was a kid, children weren’t allowed to misbehave like that.”

“How can you say that, when you’re always giving them candy and putting them up to all kinds of mischief?” Magdalena laughed and shook her head. “You’re the biggest kid of all. I can’t wait to hear what your brother is going to tell us about you and what a rascal you were as a child.”

“Hah! What is there to tell? The blood, filth, and death, and all those beatings from my father, the old drunk. That’s about all I remember. One minute you’re pooping in your pants and sucking your thumb, and the next minute you get chewed up by the war.”

The Schongau hangman stared into space, and Magdalena’s smile froze. As so often happened when she asked her father about his past, he became even more silent than usual. He hardly ever spoke about his brother, Bartholomäus, who was two years younger than he; it was only a few years ago that Magdalena had even learned she had an uncle who made his living as the executioner of Bamberg. The letter the Kuisl family had received more than two months ago consisted of just a few prosaic words and had come as a surprise to all of them. Bartholomäus’s wife had died some time ago, and now he was thinking about marrying again and, to celebrate this upcoming event, had invited all his relatives in Schongau.

The only reason the Kuisls considered taking such a voyage-almost two hundred miles-was that Magdalena’s younger brother, Georg, had been apprenticed to his uncle in Bamberg over two years ago, and since then, neither Magdalena nor the rest of the family had seen him. This was particularly troubling to Jakob, though he never came out and said so, and it was the main reason he’d decided to go.

Out of the corner of her eye, Magdalena looked at her father as he sat there drawing on his cold pipe. He was now in the autumn of his life. With his wet gray hair, bloodshot eyes, hooked nose, and scraggly beard, he exuded an aloofness that had only increased in recent years. Which did nothing to harm his reputation as the executioner of Schongau. On the contrary, now more than ever, Jakob Kuisl was regarded as a perfect hangman: strong, quick, experienced, and blessed with an insight that was as sharp as the blade of his executioner’s sword.

And yet, he’s gotten old, Magdalena thought to herself, old and careworn, especially since the death of his wife. And he misses Georg, as I do. They’re alike in so many ways.

“Damn it, if those people up there in front don’t get their carts moving soon, there will be another accident.”

The wagon began to rock again when the hangman jumped down from the sacks of grain. The rat-faced old farmer, who had been sitting patiently on the coachbox until then, cast an anxious, sidelong glance at the huge, angry giant. He mouthed a silent Ave Maria, then turned to Magdalena.

“Good God, tell your father please to sit down,” he whispered. “If he keeps raving like that, he’ll scare the oxen.” The farmer gave a disparaging wave of his hand. “Maybe it would be better for you to continue to Bamberg on foot, since it’s not very far now.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll calm down. I know him. He’s basically a kind, peaceful man.” Magdalena lowered her voice and continued in a conspiratorial tone. “At least, until he runs out of tobacco. Is it possible you have a few leaves of it?”

The farmer frowned. “Do I look like someone who’d inhale that devilish smoke? The church has condemned it, and for good reason. The stuff comes straight from hell-at least it stinks like it does.” He crossed himself and scrutinized the Schongau executioner suspiciously.

With a sigh, Magdalena leaned back and bit her lip. In Forchheim, where she’d given the old man a few kreuzers to take them along, she’d prudently mentioned nothing of her father’s trade-and she had remained silent on other topics, as well. As the daughter of a hangman, she knew that if the pious old farmer had ever learned he was carrying a real live executioner and his family, he’d probably run for the nearest church and say a thousand rosaries.

The trip had taken the Kuisls on a large river ferry, first down the Lech to Augsburg and then on a smaller river to Nuremberg. Because they ran out of money there, they continued the journey on foot. But now they were only a few miles from Bamberg, so the delay was even more annoying.

“Shouldn’t we first check to see why the wagon train has stopped?” said Barbara from atop one of the grain sacks farther back. With a bored expression, the fifteen-year-old girl dangled her legs over the side of the wagon. “That would be better than sitting around here listening to Father cursing.” She made a face as she played with her hair, which was just as black as Magdalena’s. In fact, she bore a striking resemblance to her older sister. Barbara had the same bushy eyebrows and dark eyes that seemed to gaze out sardonically at the world around her. She had inherited both from her mother, Anna-Maria, who had died several years ago of the Plague.

Magdalena nodded. “You’re right. Why don’t we walk on ahead and see what’s happening down at the ford? Let the grumpy old guy sit here and grumble to himself,” she replied, winking at her father. “Perhaps we can even find a little tobacco for you.”

But Jakob had closed his eyes and seemed to be listening to another, inner melody. His lips formed sounds that Magdalena couldn’t understand.

She suspected that it was, as usual, some long-forgotten war song.

Soon after Simon and his two sons had disappeared into the dense pine forest on the other side of the pass, the shouts of the wagon drivers became faint and muffled. The ground was strewn with damp, musty needles that swallowed up even the slightest sound. Somewhere nearby, a jay called out, but otherwise a silence prevailed that seemed almost surreal after the noisy wagon train. Even the patter of the rain in the dense forest of firs seemed strangely distant. The boys, too, seemed to notice the almost-solemn atmosphere. They had stopped quarreling and held their father’s hand tightly.

Simon smiled. There were often times when he wanted to beat the daylights out of the two little pests, but for now his heart was overwhelmed by an ocean of love.

“Tonight you’ll finally see your uncle Georg again,” he said cheerfully. “The one who always whittled swords for you from oak wood. Do you remember? Perhaps he’ll whittle some for you this time, as well.”

“Yes! Yes! An executioner’s sword,” little Paul cried. “I want an executioner’s sword so I can cut the chickens’ heads off, just like Stechlin did in the garden. May I, Father, please?”

“Don’t you dare!” Simon looked crossly at Paul. He couldn’t help thinking of the horrible bloodbath that Paul had inflicted a few months ago on the chickens belonging to Martha Stechlin, the Schongau midwife. What disturbed him more than anything else was the grin on the face of the child, who had obviously had a grand time slaughtering the animals, celebrating his first execution like a church mass.

“Is Uncle Georg now a hangman, too?” asked Peter, who was calmer and more thoughtful than his younger brother. Sometimes he seemed far older than his five years. Simon assumed that was due mainly to his tousled black hair and his serious, always attentive gaze whenever he spoke.

Simon nodded, happy for the diversion. “You’re right, Peter. Georg is apprenticed to your great-uncle in Bamberg, and when Grandfather gets too old, he will no doubt become the new Schongau executioner.”

“And then I’m next, am I?” Paul asked excitedly. “I’ll be an executioner someday, too.”

“Uh. . perhaps,” Simon replied hesitantly.

Suddenly, Peter clutched his father’s hand tightly and stopped. “I don’t want to be a hangman. Everybody’s afraid of Grandfather, and I don’t want that. They say he’s in league with the devil and brings misfortune.” Stubbornly, he stamped the ground with his foot. “I want to run a bathhouse, like you, Father, and be someone who helps people.”

He squeezed his father’s hand, and without realizing it, Simon returned the gesture. In fact, Peter was already observing his grandfather in executions and could recite the first words in Latin. Unlike his brother Paul, he was fond of poring through the colorful engravings in the Kuisl family library. He could sit there for hours, passing his little fingers back and forth over the drawings.

He’s like me, Simon thought. But they’ll never allow him to become a doctor, not as the son of a hangman’s daughter, not in times like these.

“I smell death, Father. Up there is death.”

Paul’s thin, bright voice interrupted his daydreams. As usual, when Paul said something horrible, it sounded strangely detached.

“Do you smell death, too?”

“What do you mean by-” Simon started to say, but Paul had already let go of his hand and raced off deeper into the forest.

“Hey, damn it, stop!” Simon called after him. But Paul had disappeared among the trees, paying no attention to him. The medicus cursed, put his older son on his shoulders, and ran with him through the damp undergrowth, stumbling and almost falling several times. Branches struck him in the face, tearing at his leggings.

After a while, Simon heard the gurgling sound of flowing water. The pine trees thinned, and he found himself in a low marshland with occasional birch trees and a dark channel of water running through it. Paul stood alongside the channel, pointing proudly at a huge, swollen carcass partially submerged in the water.

“Here, here!” he shouted excitedly. “I found it!”

When Simon got closer, he saw it was the cadaver of a large stag. Its throat had been cut so deeply that the head, with its huge, sixteen-point antlers, hung down into the water and was oscillating back and forth in the current. Its belly had been slit open, as well, and beneath the wet fur he saw deep, bloody gashes, like those that might be inflicted by a sickle or a rake.

“What in God’s name. .”

Simon set Peter down carefully and walked slowly toward the cadaver. The sweet odor of decay lay in the air. Simon assumed the stag had been dead just a few days, but the worms, beetles, and insects had already begun their work. Paul pulled so hard on the antlers that it appeared the head might separate entirely from the body.

“Stop that,” Simon snapped at him. “We don’t know if the animal was sick. Maybe he’s giving off poisonous fumes and you could be infected.” But even as he said that, he felt foolish. Certainly the stag hadn’t died of an illness; it had been ripped apart. The only question was what animal would be able to inflict such a deadly wound.

A pack of wolves? A bear?

Simon looked around, trying to think. The silence that just a few moments earlier had seemed so pleasant had now suddenly turned ominous. Even if it had been a huge predator, it was strange that it hadn’t devoured its prey at once, or at least dragged it off to hide it.

Perhaps because the predator is still around here somewhere?

Nearby there was a sound of a snapping branch, as if something large had stepped on it, and suddenly, the trees around the clearing seemed to have moved a bit closer. Simon had an uneasy feeling that he couldn’t explain-as if the forest around them had stopped to hold its breath.

“Peter, Paul,” he said, “we’ve got to go back now. Mama is no doubt worried about us. Come.”

“But the antlers,” Paul whimpered, tugging again at the decaying carcass. “I want to take the antlers back with us.”

“Forget that.” The father seized the two boys by the hand and pulled them away from the brook. A trail of blood, slender as a thread, curled through the water. Suddenly the father was overcome by a wave of fear, like a raging storm bearing down on them with thunder and lightning.

Up there is death. . it smells sweet, like a decaying plum.

“I said we’re leaving.” Simon forced a smile. “If you behave, I’ll tell you what kind of sweets you’ll find at the markets in Bamberg. And who knows, maybe Uncle Georg will buy you a few candied apples tomorrow. So let’s go.”

Grumbling, Paul backed off and followed his father, leaving the rotted carcass behind. The three of them stomped through the wet marshland, and soon the gurgling of the brook was barely audible in the distance.

A couple of times Simon thought he heard steps behind him like those of a large animal, but every time he turned around, there was nothing there but the dense wall of pines and the rain dripping from their branches. When they finally got back to the pass among the wagons and noisy peasants, his fear was nothing but a slightly queasy memory.

And the stench of putrefaction that clung to his clothing.

Full of curiosity, Magdalena and Barbara walked along the pass down to the ford in the river, with the wagons forming a long line on either side. Mud and feces spattered their clothing, and several times they had to dodge grunting pigs or anxiously bellowing cattle. There seemed to be no end to the long line of wagons.

“I wonder how all of this will manage to squeeze inside the walls of Bamberg,” Barbara sighed.

“Don’t forget that this is not Schongau,” Magdalena reminded her sister. “You should have been with me and Simon in Regensburg, where even the alleys are as wide as the market square at home.” She frowned. “But you’re right. If things don’t get moving soon, we’ll never reach Bamberg before dark, and the farmers will have to spend the night outside the walls. Tomorrow is butchering and market day, and everyone wants to get there first. It’s no wonder people are angry and impatient.”

The two sisters hurried past grumbling old women with huge piles of cabbages, apples, and pears; young men staring straight ahead while driving their horses forward; and noisy farm owners, bringing cartloads of grain to the town market. More than once, a little lost goat or calf scurried by.

Finally they reached the ford, where the water, roiled by the rain and the many people passing through, was brown and muddy. A large group of wagon drivers and farmers had gathered there, standing in a half circle and staring down at something lying on the ground in front of them. Curious, Magdalena and Barbara pushed their way forward until they reached the shore.

Magdalena held her breath in astonishment.

“For heaven’s sake,” she finally gasped. “What in the world happened here?”

Lying in the mud in front of them was a severed human arm with shreds of what must have once been a white shirt. A few of the fingertips showed little bite marks, presumably from fish, and some strands of torn muscles hung from the forearm, but otherwise the arm was still in relatively good condition. Magdalena surmised that it had been lying in the water for a few days, but certainly no longer than two weeks.

“And I’m telling you again, it was this beast,” one of the wagon drivers in the group was heard to say. “This arm is a warning. It eats anyone trying to cross the river.”

“A. . a beast?” Barbara asked, wide-eyed. “What kind of beast?” She had difficulty diverting her eyes from the grisly discovery.

“You haven’t heard of it?” Another wagon driver, with a slouch hat and torn jacket, spat in the muddy water alongside the two young women. “They say a monster is loose here in the Bamberg Forest and has already killed a large number of people. We can count ourselves lucky if we manage to get to town unscathed.”

The first wagon driver, a tall, broad-built man of about fifty, resignedly shook his head. “In the city you’re not safe, either,” he growled. “My brother-in-law lives in Bamberg. He saw with his own eyes how the bailiffs fished an arm and a foot from the Regnitz, next to the Great Bridge. And now this. By all the saints, God protect us and our children!” He crossed himself, and an old woman next to him hastily began to pray her rosary.

“Ah, that is surely very bad,” Magdalena began cautiously, “but all the more reason we should move on before it gets dark.” She looked over at the treetops, which were already in the shadows. Her thoughts turned to Simon and their two sons, who were undoubtedly still back in the forest. “So what are we waiting for?”

The tall wagon driver looked at her and explained slowly, as if speaking to a small child. “Don’t you understand? We cannot cross the ford.” He trembled as he pointed at the severed arm. “Can’t you see the hand is pointing in our direction, as if trying to warn us? Anyone crossing the river here is marked for death.”

“Near Munich there was once a hand alongside the bridge,” the other driver said, pointing with his slouch hat and rubbing his unshaved chin pensively. “It was attached with a lead coffin-nail to the railing, and a few men made fun of it. They tore the hand off, threw it in the river, then started across the bridge. It collapsed, the river carried the men away, and they were never seen again.”

“But. . but we can’t all just stand here simply because of an arm!” Magdalena said, shaking her head. “The wagons are backed up behind us.” Nevertheless, she, too, began to tremble when she looked down again at the severed arm, already decaying, lying in the mud. What in God’s name had happened to the man?

“We are all lost,” murmured an old woman standing next to Magdalena and Barbara. “This is the only place for miles around where you can cross the river. If we have to spend the night here, then God help us. The beast will come to fetch us all.” She crossed herself again and looked across to the forest, which in the meantime had grown somewhat darker. The pouring rain showed no sign of stopping.

“Maybe you should go and look for Simon and the children,” Barbara whispered to her older sister. “If there really is something on the prowl around here, it’s certainly better to stay near the wagon.”

Magdalena nodded. “You’re right. In just a minute, I’m going to-”

Just then they heard familiar voices behind them, and when Magdalena turned around, she saw, to her great relief, Simon and the two boys making their way through the crowd. The short medicus looked pale, and there was a slight quiver on his lips.

“Your father said you were down below at the river crossing,” he said, pointing behind him as the huge figure of Jakob Kuisl approached. “He’s cursing like the driver of a beer wagon because nothing is moving.”

“Well, at least we now know the cause for the delay,” Magdalena replied. She pointed at the arm on the ground. “People take it for a sign they are not supposed to cross the river, and. .” She was going to tell Simon the rest, but at that moment her father arrived. Jakob Kuisl paid no heed to those standing around, but glanced down and frowned at the severed arm. Then he bent over to have a better look.

“Don’t touch it,” snarled the wagon driver with the slouch hat. “It will bring misfortune to us all.”

“Just because I touch a moldy arm?” Kuisl still had his cold pipe in his mouth, so his words were hard to understand. “If that’s the case, then bad luck would follow me like it did Job.” Carefully, he picked up the arm and examined it.

“My God, what’s he doing?” gasped the second, heavily built wagon driver. “It looks like he is going to smell it.”

“Ah, not exactly,” Magdalena replied. “It’s just that-”

Kuisl interrupted, finally taking the pipe out of his mouth. “This arm belonged to a man who was old and feeble, around sixty, I would say, or perhaps seventy. He was an aristocratic gentleman, or in any case he signed and sealed a large number of documents. Hm. .” He held the arm right up to his face, as if about to take a bite out of it. “Yes, no doubt a nobleman whose wife died some time ago and who was looking around for a younger partner. He was probably on a trip in search of a woman. But why? He didn’t have long to live, in any case. He’d been suffering badly from gout, and he had at most one or two years to live.” Kuisl nodded, trying to think what it all meant. “By God, this arm can serve as a warning to us not to eat too much fatty meat. Nothing more and nothing less. So now, it’s served its purpose.”

The hangman threw the arm in a wide arc into the swirling, foaming river, where it quickly sank. The crowd let out a collective shout, as if Kuisl had murdered one of them.

“What. . what did you do?” sputtered the man with the slouch hat. “The sign. .”

“What sign? It was just an arm, nothing more. Now let’s get moving before I turn really nasty in this awful weather.”

The men along the river stared at him, dumbfounded, and Kuisl, without another word, took his place in line again behind the wagons.

“For God’s sake, who was that?” one of the wagon drivers finally asked. “A magician? A demon? How can he know exactly who the arm belonged to?”

“Let’s just say he’s seen a number of severed body parts,” Magdalena replied as she turned around. “He has. . uh. . some experience in this area. So you can believe him.” Then she hurried back with Barbara and the other Kuisls to join her father.

They quickly caught up with him as he walked back along the muddy path through the pass, grimly and in haste. Simon had left the two boys in the care of his sister-in-law, Barbara, and now he turned to his father-in-law with an inquisitive expression.

“My compliments, that was very impressive,” he said, as both he and Magdalena struggled to keep up with Jakob. “How did you know so much about that arm?”

“Good God, because the Lord gave me eyes to see,” Kuisl grumbled. “That’s all there is to it. You don’t need any witchcraft for that, so you can spare yourself all that hooey.”

“Come on, tell us,” Magdalena begged him. She knew how much her father loved stringing people along, and she, too, was curious. “Just tell us before Simon starts losing sleep over it.”

Kuisl grinned. “I guess I owe him that.” As the others walked ahead, he explained.

“The skin was wrinkled like that of an old man, but there were no calluses on his hands-on the contrary, they were soft as a baby’s bottom. In addition, the remaining fingertips showed spots of ink that had eaten their way deep into the body. Ah, yes, and on one of the well-manicured fingernails there was still a tiny speck of sealing wax. As I said, I have eyes. That’s all you need.”

“But all that stuff you said about looking for a bride, and gout,” Simon persisted, “what’s that all about?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, what are you? A bathhouse owner or a quack? Didn’t you notice the gnarled joints and the white spots? If you can read books, why can’t you read people?” Jakob Kuisl spat on the ground, disgusted. “The joints were so enlarged that I almost didn’t see the pale, whitish circle on the ring finger. The man had worn his wedding ring a long time, probably several decades, but had taken it off recently. That’s something a man does only when he’s out looking for someone else. He was traveling and probably looking for another woman. But. .”

Kuisl stopped to think as the wagons in front of them slowly started moving again. Their own wagon, steered by the old peasant, approached, rattling and squeaking.

“What else did you learn?” Magdalena asked. “Is there perhaps something you’ve kept from us and the others?”

Jakob Kuisl shrugged. “Well, actually, there is something that puzzles me. You could assume the man was murdered-and that his murderers left his body in the forest where wild animals finally found him and ripped him apart. He came to rest with his arm in the water and was washed ashore today by the rain.”

“But that’s not what happened,” Simon said softly. “Right?”

“No, that isn’t what happened. I took a close look at the joint, and there are no bite marks. The arm was severed cleanly. It was no animal; only a person makes a clean cut like that. This poor devil was slaughtered like a piece of meat-but why, and by whom? I have no explanation for that.”

The hangman shook the rain out of his hair and pulled himself back up onto the coachbox, where the farmer, who had heard the last part of what he’d said, stared at him and trembled like he was looking at a nightmare incarnate.

They arrived in Bamberg shortly before dusk, entering through the Tanggass Gate. In the last few hours they’d heard wolves howling several times, though very far away in the forests. Nevertheless, after the events at the river, the sounds had been enough to make Barbara, in particular, turn white. Was that perhaps the beast the people were talking about?

At least the rain had finally stopped, though the road was still as muddy and full of puddles as before, so the progress of the wagons was very slow. The whole area surrounding the city was swampy and full of small rivers, brooks, and canals, especially in the southern part, which was an almost impenetrable wilderness. In the east there were fields and farmland, though now, at the end of October, they were barren and fallow.

Magdalena turned up her nose in disgust; the odor with which the city greeted them was so pungent it made them gag. Along the right-hand side of the street was a wide ditch that dried up just before reaching the gate, forming a thick, foul-smelling morass. Rotten fruit and the carcasses of small animals floated in the puddles. A wide, moldering walkway led across the swamp toward the city wall, where now, shortly before it was time to close the gates, the wagons were backing up. Surely a good number of people in the wagons would have to spend the night in the fallow fields outside of town, a prospect that caused Magdalena to shudder, after hearing the wagon drivers’ gloomy accounts of their strange finding down at the river. What in God’s name was lurking in the forests around Bamberg?

Hastily the Kuisls bade farewell to the old farmer, who was visibly relieved to finally be rid of them, then made their way toward the narrow pedestrian gate next to the vehicle entrance, arriving none too soon. Some time had passed since the bells in the clock towers had signaled the end of the day for the Bambergers, many of whom had been working their little vegetable patches outside of town. The night watchman with his key to the city was standing by the gate, beckoning the last of them to hurry. He looked concerned, almost anxious. He asked the Kuisls briefly why they were there, then quickly closed the gate behind them.

“Get moving,” he shouted at Barbara, who was at the end of the procession of wagons, giving her a shove. At the same time he pointed at the sun, which had just set behind the western part of the city wall. “Soon it will be as dark here as in hell.” He shivered and rubbed his hands together. “Damned autumn nights-the daylight fades faster than you can say amen.”

“If it makes you shiver so much you shit in your pants, perhaps you should have become a baker and not a watchman,” Kuisl replied with a grin as he passed under the archway, which was much too low for him. “Then you’d already be in bed with your wife, kneading her fat behind.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t shoot off my mouth like that, big fellow. What do you know about this damned city?” The watchman seemed to want to say something else, but then he just shrugged and shuffled up the steep stairway to his room in the guardhouse to begin his regular nightly duties.

Magdalena peered ahead at the dark forms where the first houses began. The last time she’d been in a large city was some years ago in Regensburg. At that time, the sun had been shining, it was midsummer, and the size and splendor of the buildings had nearly taken her breath away. On the other hand, there was something depressing about their arrival in Bamberg. It might have been the time of year; with the arrival of autumn, the nights had suddenly turned cool, and mist was rising from the moors and settling like a heavy blanket over the roofs of the town, first in little wisps, then in larger and larger clouds. The wide road leading up to the gate quickly branched into a labyrinth of unpaved, winding alleys.

With dark fingers, dusk reached out toward the crooked half-timbered houses, so that Magdalena could only imagine the size of the city. It was said that Bamberg, like Rome, was built on seven hills, and in fact Magdalena could see three dark hills in the southwest of the city, with the cathedral, the landmark of the city, standing majestically on the one in the middle. Atop the hill on the right, the outline of a large monastery was visible in the fading light of day, and a bit farther away, engulfed in mist, the ruins of a castle. In front of her, Magdalena could hear the rushing of water in a canal or river. At least the stench here was not as overwhelming as by the city gate.

The many carts and wagons that had just a short while ago been backed up behind the city gate were now clattering toward their destinations, finally disappearing in the growing darkness. While Magdalena wandered through the filthy, stinking alleys with her family, she heard occasional laughter, hasty footsteps, or squeaky wagon wheels, but otherwise everything was quiet. The hangman’s daughter was familiar with such quiet nights in Schongau, but for some reason she had imagined that Bamberg would be livelier and happier. The loneliness in the dark lanes had something oppressive about it, something sinister.

Like in a cemetery, she thought, tying her scarf more tightly. I wonder if the others feel the same way?

She looked around at Simon and the other members of her family, who were following her sullenly. Peter and Paul in particular were dead tired and whined softly as they gripped their father’s hand. Jakob Kuisl stomped ahead of them silently.

“Do we still have far to go?” Magdalena asked after a while in a tired voice. “The children are hungry, and my feet hurt. Besides, I don’t like walking for hours through a strange city after nightfall. All sorts of riffraff are wandering about.”

The hangman just shrugged. “Executioners don’t live in the central market square, and since my last visit a lot has changed.” He looked around. “Damned fog. We should just head north here and follow the city wall.”

“The wall is behind us,” Simon interrupted, pointing back over his shoulder into the darkness. “I just saw it a moment ago by the little square with the fountain-”

“Aha, Herr Son-in-Law will now tell me, perhaps, where I can find my own brother?”

“Herr Son-in-Law is just trying to help you, that’s all,” Magdalena replied. “But, as always, you know better.” She sighed. “Why do you men have to be so stubborn when you’ve made a mistake?”

“I didn’t make a mistake-it’s just dark and foggy,” Kuisl grumbled as he hurried along. “You could have stayed at home. I’m just doing this so I can see Georg again, and certainly not because of my brother, the old stinker. I wonder why he’s even inviting us to his wedding.” He spat in the dirt. “When I think about how the Steingaden executioner is taking over my work in Schongau in the meantime, it makes me sick. It will be a real mess.”

As Magdalena walked along behind her father, her vague feeling of anxiety grew. In the narrow, unlit lanes it was already so dark and foggy she could hardly see to the next intersection. Occasionally she heard a whooshing, scraping sound as if someone or something was following her through the little alleys. She turned around to look at the others and could see that Simon and Barbara were also looking around anxiously. She couldn’t help but think of the ashen-faced watchman at the tower, and his final words.

What do you know about this damned city?

Did the watchman have something to hide? Something that had to do with this beast that the wagon drivers had told them about? The severed arm had belonged to a wealthy citizen. Perhaps a nobleman from Bamberg?

When Magdalena looked once more into the darkness, she suddenly understood where her strange feeling was coming from. It was so obvious, yet she’d not really noticed it until now.

The houses, she suddenly realized. Many of them are empty.

And in fact, the windows on many of the buildings they passed were boarded up. Other houses were missing a door, or there were black holes where there once had been bull’s-eye windows. Frowning, Magdalena examined the abandoned buildings more closely. They were clearly not the shabby houses of the poor but were the homes of those who’d once been patricians and wealthy citizens. Some of the houses were now nothing but ruins, though some had been rebuilt or renovated. Magdalena remembered all the cranes, pulleys, and sacks of mortar they had passed on their way through the little streets. Simon, too, now seemed to take note of the empty buildings.

“What’s going on with all these houses here?” he asked, addressing his father-in-law. “Why are so many of them unoccupied?”

“Well, the war was fought here in Bamberg, as well,” Jakob replied, stopping at the next fork, trying to get his bearings. “And it was pretty bad. The city was attacked by soldiers more than a dozen times. That may have been twenty years ago, but many Bambergers fled then and didn’t return. When I was here some years ago, things looked even worse. It takes a while for a city to recover from something like that. Some never do, and all that remains of them are a few abandoned ruins with the wind whistling through them.”

“But Schongau quickly got over it,” Magdalena replied. “Besides, it’s mostly the homes of the patricians that are empty.”

“I don’t care what happened here long ago,” wailed Barbara, who was shuffling along slowly at the end of the line. “I’m just tired. Hopefully, Uncle Bartholomäus’s house is not a ruin, too. I should have stayed home, where the town fair is going on now, with dancing and-”

“I fear the houses were abandoned for another reason,” interrupted her father, who was paying no attention to his younger daughter’s whining. “A reason even more dreadful than the war, if such a thing is possible. I heard about it even far away in Schongau. A grim story.”

Magdalena looked at him, puzzled. “And what was that?”

“I think Bartholomäus should tell you. I suspect he knows more about it than he wants to.” The hangman started walking faster. “Now hurry up and come along before your sister’s whining gets the guard’s attention.”

Silently, he plodded on through the fog, while somewhere beyond the city walls, the wolves continued their howling.

Adelheid Rinswieser paused for a moment and listened. The howling of the wolves grew louder, like cries of children, long and shrill. The silver disk of an almost-full moon was just rising over the pine trees.

The howls of the animals were still far off, deep in the forest. Nevertheless, Adelheid’s heart beat faster as she crept through the dense forest of pines and birches outside the walls of Bamberg. It was not at all unusual for wolves to be found in this area. Even twenty years after the Great War, many parts of the country were still devastated and villages abandoned by their residents, and only wild animals remained among the ruins. But no wolves had been seen in the Bamberg Forest. Their fear of people with clubs, swords, and muskets was just too great, and they preferred to relieve their hunger with a sheep or two grazing in the meadows south of the old castle.

Unless their hunger was greater than their fear.

Trembling, Adelheid pulled her coat tightly around her and kept walking farther into the forest. Now, at the end of October, it was already miserably cold at night. If her husband had learned of this nighttime adventure, he surely would have forbidden it. It had been hard enough for her to convince the watchman at the Tanggass Gate to open the door for her at this time of night. But what the apothecary’s wife was searching for could also help the watchman’s wife-and hence, grumbling, he had finally allowed Adelheid to pass.

Branches snapped beneath her feet as she passed gnarled pines reaching out for her like fingers. In the distance, she could see the watch fires at the city wall, but otherwise it was pitchdark among the trees. Only the moon showed her the way. Once again she heard the howling of the wolves and instinctively hastened her pace.

She was searching for the fraxinella plant-Dictamnus albus, a rare, lily-like flower considered a sure method for aborting unwanted pregnancies. Often young women came in secret to see her or her husband at the court pharmacy near the great cathedral on the hill, pleading for a medicine to save them from shame and public humiliation in the stocks at the Green Market. Her husband usually turned away the poor things or sent them to a midwife outside the city gates, as abortion-or even assistance with an abortion-in the Bamberg Bishopric, as elsewhere, was punishable by death. But Adelheid always felt pity for the poor women. Before her marriage to the honorable pharmacist Magnus Rinswieser, she, too, had had a few affairs and had gotten into trouble. The old midwife Frau Traudel, over in Theuerstadt, had helped her then with fraxinella, and she felt an obligation now to help others.

The old woman had also revealed to her that fraxinella should be picked only when the moon was full. The flower was also called witch’s flower or devil’s plant, and it was very rare in this area. But Adelheid knew a secret clearing where she’d picked some of the flowers the year before. Now she hoped to find a few despite the late-autumn season.

Again she heard the howling of the wolves and realized, with a trembling heart, that it was closer this time. Did wolves really venture so close to town? Adelheid couldn’t help but think of the people reported as missing in Bamberg over the last few weeks. Two women had disappeared without a trace, and old Schwarzkontz had not returned from a trip to Nuremberg. All that had been found so far was a severed arm and a leg gnawed on by rats that showed up in the Regnitz River. Rumors were already going around that the devil was at work in Bamberg, especially since someone recently had seen a hairy creature in the alleyways at night. Until now, Adelheid had always dismissed these reports as exaggerated horror stories, but out here in the dark forest, she began to think there might be some truth to them.

Firmly grasping the straps of her wicker backpack, where she’d already collected some other herbs, she started to run. She didn’t have much farther to go. On her left she could already see the moss-covered fallen oak that served to mark her way, and a few hawthorn bushes glimmered reassuringly in the moonlight. Brushing the thorny branches to one side, Adelheid caught sight of the clearing. She took a deep sigh of relief.

Finally. Thank God.

In the silvery moonlight she soon discovered the plants she was looking for on the opposite side of the clearing. The fruit capsules had already burst open, but they still exuded a faint odor, like exotic spices. As Adelheid approached the medicinal plants, she quickly put on the thin linen gloves that she’d brought in her backpack along with a leather pouch. The seeds of the fraxinella, she knew, were so poisonous that one must wear gloves to pick them. The oil that dripped from them in midsummer could easily catch fire, which is why fraxinella was also called burning bush. In late autumn only bits of the fruit capsule remained on the withered stalks, but Adelheid didn’t want to take any chances. Carefully she picked the few remaining seeds and put them in the little pouch, whispering a few Ave Marias, as old Frau Traudel had instructed her.

“. . and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. .”

The apothecary’s wife made one last quick sign of the cross and stood up. She was about to close the pouch when she heard the howling again.

This time it was very close.

Shocked, Adelheid looked around. Something dark was lurking right behind the hawthorn bushes, which were trembling in the autumn wind. It was an indistinct form close to the ground, pulsating slightly, with a pair of red eyes shining in the darkness.

What in the world. .

The woman wiped the sweat from her brow, and suddenly the red eyes disappeared. Was her imagination playing tricks on her?

“Is someone there?” she asked hesitantly, peering into the darkness. When there was no answer, Adelheid mumbled another prayer, then, holding tightly on to the purse, ran across the clearing, making a wide detour around the hawthorn bush. The Tanggass Gate in the east wall was more than a mile away, but long before that the trees thinned out and there were little villages. If Adelheid hurried she could quickly reach the partial safety of the road, where perhaps there might be some travelers even at this late hour. Everything would be fine.

For a moment she thought she heard panting and growling, but when she reached the deer path leading toward the road, all she could hear were the sounds of her own hurried footsteps. In the distance an owl was screeching, sounding almost as if it were laughing at her. Angrily, Adelheid shook her head.

Silly, superstitious woman! If your husband saw you like this. .

As she ran along, she felt angry at herself for being so foolish. How could she have been scared so easily? No doubt it was only a deer hiding behind the bushes, a wild pig, or a single wolf, certainly nothing to frighten a grown person. Wolves were dangerous only in packs; when they were alone they didn’t dare-

Adelheid stopped short. Suddenly her own steps sounded strangely loud to her. The sound was delayed, almost like an echo. She stopped again and noticed that the sound stopped as well.

Tap. . tap. . tap. .

Terrified, Adelheid put her hand to her mouth, realizing what that meant.

Tap. . tap. . tap. . Someone was running alongside her.

Suddenly, the sounds stopped, and right after that she heard branches snapping nearby.

“Whoever you are out there. . come forward!” Adelheid demanded in a choked voice. “If this is supposed to be a joke, it’s not funny. This-”

At that moment something came crashing through the undergrowth.

The apothecary’s wife was frozen with fear as the creature knocked her down and cast himself on top of her. She smelled animal sweat and the stench of wet fur, and she began to scream. Her shouts died on her lips, however, as something large and heavy panted and rolled over her.

Oh God! Help me! This cannot be. . This is impossible. . This. .

A merciful loss of consciousness took her. A few moments later the howling of the wolves resumed as a dark shadow pulled its lifeless prey into the forest.

Tap. . tap. . tap. .

A gasping sound, a last death rattle in her throat. . and then all that remained of the apothecary’s wife was the gentle fragrance of fraxinella.