Magdalena sighed. “Well, there’s only one way to find out whether you’re right,” she said, standing up from the table.
“And what would that be?”
The hangman’s daughter grinned. “We’ve got to go back to the bathhouse tonight and take a closer look.”
“But the house was completely destroyed in the fire,” Nathan said. “How can you expect to find anything there?”
“I hardly believe the fire made its way into the well,” Magdalena said. “And the fire does give us one advantage. This time we don’t need to worry about being locked inside a burning building. Thanks, by the way, for the meal.”
An apple in hand, she returned to the makeshift ward to treat the next patient.
Jakob Kuisl lay on the wood floor of his cell and tried to forget his pain.
The Schongau hangman had retreated to his innermost being, where a bright sun sent its warming rays into the very tips of his fingers, filling him with pleasant thoughts.
A meadow of spring flowers, lilies of the valley with dew on their leaves, the bright laughter of the twins and Magdalena…
Kuisl knew from his own agonizing interrogations that people could bear a lot of pain if only their beliefs were strong, if they felt close to God, or if, like Kuisl, they were firmly convinced of their own innocence. His father once told him about an elderly woman who was tortured more than sixty times in the notorious Schongau witch trial. The stubborn old God-fearing midwife denied the accusations against her until she was finally released. Jakob Kuisl wondered how many sessions he could endure. Thirty? Forty?
The hangman groaned, trying to find a position that would minimize his pain. It was impossible for him to lie on his back because it was there the spikes had rolled through his flesh on the rack. Gaping black and red burn wounds covered his thighs, and he could scarcely move his arms. For over half an hour Teuber had turned the screws, and his thumbs, index fingers, and both shinbones had turned blue and pulsed in pain as if an iron hammer were pounding them still.
Kuisl knew this was just the first stage of his torture. Early the next morning they would start with stretching by ropes. They would tie his arms behind his back and raise him from the ground this way, attaching weights of as much as a hundred pounds to his legs. The third voice behind the lattice had demanded all through the last session that they start the stretching as soon as possible. Kuisl sensed the two other Regensburg aldermen were rather put off by their colleague’s blatant hatred, but they didn’t interfere as the third man kept issuing increasingly brutal orders.
The third man…
Kuisl had been racking his brain the last few hours trying to remember where he’d heard that voice before, and though the pain made it almost impossible to concentrate, he continued to rummage through his memory. He recalled the hateful look of the stranger on the raft. Could the third voice belong to him? Something deep inside Kuisl told him he’d known the raftsman long ago. But he couldn’t possibly be an inquisitor. Teuber told Kuisl that those selected to oversee the torture were always rich, respected citizens; this raftsman, on the other hand, was a simple man and probably not even from Regensburg.
Kuisl blinked and tried to guess the time. From far off he could hear cries and laughter, and a dim light fell through the hatch, causing the dust in the air to shimmer. Probably early afternoon.
At that moment he heard footsteps in the corridor outside the cell. The bolt slid aside, and the Regensburg executioner entered. He carried a flickering torch and a linen sack, which he opened now, arranging its contents on the floor. In the dim light Kuisl could make out a few clay vessels, some rags, bouquets of dried herbs, and a large bottle of brandy.
“Kuisl, Kuisl,” Teuber muttered, handing the Schongau hangman the uncorked bottle. “One thing is clear; the Regensburg aldermen tried everything: burning sulfur, the rack, thumb screws, and Spanish boots—all in one day! I’ve never seen anything like that before.” He shook his head. “They want to see you hang, and sooner rather than later.”
Kuisl nodded and took a deep swig of brandy. The alcohol seemed to wash through his entire body, rinsing away the worst of the pain.
“Well? Do you still believe I killed my own sister?” he asked, wiping his bloody, swollen hand across his lips.
Teuber opened one of the pots and spread a cooling ointment over a burn on Kuisl’s thigh where, just a few hours before, he had applied burning sulfur.
“What I think is of no importance,” he replied. “They told me to get you ready for tomorrow, and then we’ll proceed. They don’t trust the quack doctor to do it right, so it’s up to me. Those damned patricians! Now turn around.”
Kuisl rolled on his side so the Regensburg executioner could treat the wounds on his back. He had to hand it to Teuber—he was a master of his craft. He knew how to harm, but he knew how to heal as well. Years of experience working with burns, dislocated shoulders, and broken bones had made the Regensburg hangman an excellent doctor.
“You know, it’s funny, Teuber,” Kuisl said with his eyes closed. “First we hurt the people, then we nurse them back to health…”
“And in the end we kill them.” Teuber nodded. “I’ve given up thinking about it. I do my work; that’s all there is to it. Now your fingers.”
Kuisl held his swollen blue thumbs out to the Regensburg executioner, who had crushed them only a few hours before. Now the executioner rubbed them with a fragrant yellow ointment that smelled of marigold and arnica. When he finished, he repeated this on Kuisl’s legs, where Spanish boots—with iron uppers and spikes inside—had left colorful, shiny bruises.
“You know that I’m innocent,” Kuisl whispered, clenching his fists to better endure the pain in his legs. “I’ve seen it in your eyes. You also believe that something’s not right with one of the inquisitors. Admit it.”
Pausing, Teuber stared at the man across from him for a long time. “Damn, you’re right,” he said at last. “The one alderman is spewing vitriol the way some people breathe fire and brimstone. Almost as if it was his sister whose throat you slit.”
“For God’s sake, I didn’t…” Kuisl burst out, but he calmed down again, as there was no point in arguing now. The Regensburg executioner was his only ear to the outside world.
After a few deep breaths Kuisl asked, “Do you know the three aldermen?”
Teuber shrugged. “One of them is probably the president of the council, Hieronymus Rheiner. As far as I know, he’s the oldest member of the council. Rheiner is also the president of the court that tried your case.”
“Of course!” Kuisl interrupted. “The president at my trial the day before yesterday. How could I have forgotten?”
“The youngest one I recognized by his voice,” Teuber continued. “That’s Joachim Kerscher from the tax office, a little braggart whose father bought him the position.”
Kuisl nodded. The chief of the tax office was responsible for municipal taxes and thus an extremely powerful man. Of course, the hangman was interested in someone else. “What about the third man?”
There was a long pause.
“Who is the third man?” Kuisl grew impatient.
Teuber shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve heard that voice somewhere before, but I can’t say where.”
“Can you find out for me who he is?”
By now the Regensburg executioner had bandaged Kuisl’s back with clean cloth.
“Not even if I wanted to,” Teuber replied. “The identity of the third inquisitor always remains secret, to ensure impartiality. He won’t be named in any document, or found in any record either. So, that’s the end of that.”
He patted Kuisl lightly on the shoulder and started to pack the clay pots back into his bag.
“We’ll see each other again tomorrow morning when I resume your torture,” he said with a sigh, and turned to leave. “I’ll leave the torch for you, since it’s so gloomy down here.”
“Teuber,” Kuisl whispered. “Damn it, I’ve got to know w
ho the third man is! I’m absolutely certain he has something to do with the murder. If I knew his name, I could send Magdalena to find out more about him, then maybe everything would end well after all. The judgment may not be passed until I confess under torture, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. So don’t let me down!”
“Hang it! I tell you I can’t do it!” Teuber wrung his callused hands, unable to look Kuisl in the eye. “I have five children, and they all need their father. If I start poking around now, I’ll end up on the scaffold right there with you. But in chains and minus my sword. Don’t you get it?”
“I have children, too, Teuber,” the Schongau hangman answered calmly. “Young twins, beautiful children. And my eldest daughter is somewhere out there trying to save my life.”
Standing in the doorway, Teuber pressed his lips tightly together and clutched his linen sack as if trying to wring blood out of it.
“We’ll see each other again in the morning,” he said finally. “Try to get some sleep.”
He slammed the door behind him and slid the bolt closed. Kuisl could hear his rapid footsteps retreat down the passageway. It almost seemed he wanted to run.
Kuisl stared pensively at the grimy cell wall in front of him. The torch Teuber left hanging on a ring was half burned down now, but by its light the Schongau hangman was able to get a clear look around his cell for the first time. The stinking chamber pot, the wedge of wood that served as his pillow, the scribbling on the wall… Kuisl studied the strange script that had troubled him so greatly the day before. It still glared out at him in the very middle of the back wall, directly under the line from the mercenary’s song, which he’d carefully scratched out.
P.F.K. Weidenfeld, anno domini 1637…
That was a quarter of a century ago. The hangman tried to remember what was going on back then, what the name and date brought to mind. Had he ever known anyone by that name?
P.F.K. Weidenfeld…
Back then Kuisl’s colonel had already promoted him to sergeant, and even though he was only twenty-two years old, he commanded a large number of mercenaries. Many of the older, more seasoned soldiers objected on account of his youth, but after the first battle most didn’t say another word. Kuisl taught them discipline and respect, two virtues the lansquenets knew about only through stories. Kuisl lived with the horror and terror of war, the nightmares of murder, robbery, and rape, all those years, but the memories grew within him like a poisonous mushroom. At least he had done what he could to stanch senseless bloodshed by his own men.
But what bloodshed was sensible?
P.F.K. Weidenfeld…
With torch in hand, Kuisl walked along the wall, trying to decipher the rest of the scribblings.
All of a sudden he noticed something.
The Weidenfeld inscription as well as some of the others were new! They had been carved into the wooden wall with a sharp knife, and they shone in a much lighter color than the older ones—so someone must have carved them just recently.
Just for him.
Softly the hangman began murmuring the names he’d been trying to forget all these years.
Magdeburg, Breitenfeld, Rain on the Lech, Nördlingen…
Familiar names from the Great War, battlefields where Kuisl served as a mercenary and where he pillaged, blasphemed, whored, and murdered. Images and smells came back to him now like dark storm clouds.
Good God!
The torch smoked in front of him, and another greater torture began.
This time it penetrated to his innermost being.
“Lord Almighty! Just look at what the fire has done here!” Simon whispered, pointing to what was left of the bathhouse, which had collapsed in a smoldering heap. A thunderstorm overnight had transformed much of the ruin into a muddy mountain of black, splintered beams. The walls had fallen in on three sides. Shattered tiles, scorched window frames, scraps of cloth, and broken pots were scattered all over the street, evidence that scavengers had already helped themselves. Only the chimney still rose up out of the devastation as a reminder that a stately building had once stood on this spot.
The medicus shook his head. “We certainly won’t find anything here. Let’s just go back.”
Magdalena, too, looked sadly at the ruins. While she had to admit she hadn’t expected to find her aunt’s house so completely destroyed, she didn’t want to give up so easily.
“How much time do we have?” she asked Nathan, who stood beside her now, gnawing on an old chicken bone.
The beggar king picked at something stuck between his gold teeth. “My boys will signal me when the guards return to patrol this area,” he said. “At the moment the bailiffs are down at St. Emmeram’s Square, so it will probably be a while before they come back. I’ll whistle when they do.”
Magdalena nodded. She was happy to have Nathan and a dozen beggars along. The beggar king had advised her to wait to visit the ruin until the early-morning hours because the city guards would be nearing the end of their shifts, eager to be relieved, and thus patroling only halfheartedly. Although Simon had been against involving the beggars in their plans at first, it hadn’t been hard to convince him: in a city like Regensburg it was never a good idea to wander about alone at night, but in the company of Nathan’s colleagues they were as safe in the streets as Lazarus in the lap of Abraham. Here again it was evident how helpful the beggars guild could be. All along the Weißgerbergraben they posted lookouts to send word at the slightest sign of danger.
“Then let’s not waste any time,” Magdalena whispered.
With a lantern in hand, the hangman’s daughter searched the pile of charred beams for an opening she could slip through.
“Magdalena,” Simon whispered. “The place will collapse and bury you. Perhaps it would be better if we—”
“Just come along,” she interrupted Simon curtly. “I, at least, am not going to let my father down.”
She nudged a beam to one side, setting off a chain reaction that ended with a portion of the mountain of debris collapsing with a great crash. She jumped aside as a cloud of ash rained down on them.
“What did I tell you?” Simon whispered. “You’re digging your own grave!”
Magdalena pointed to a new opening in the debris. “At least now we’ve found a way in,” she said. “This is about where the boiler chamber with the well must have been.”
She crouched down and crawled into the ruin, holding the lantern in front of her, and in just a few moments disappeared inside. Simon murmured a quick prayer and crawled in after her. If they were going to die, then at least they would die together.
“Good luck,” he could hear Nathan call after him. “Don’t worry. If the whole thing collapses, we’ll dig you out, dead or alive.”
“Thanks, that’s very kind of you,” Simon scoffed, though he knew the beggar king could no longer hear him.
The medicus could feel his back scrape against the charred beams, and a muddy layer of ash and dirt clung to his knees. They were making their way through a tunnel of masonry stones and large pieces of rubble when Magdalena’s lantern brightened in front of him and the space around him opened up.
He rose to his feet carefully, realizing they’d in fact made it back into the bathhouse boiler room. Most of the equipment here was unrecognizable, though: the brick oven had burst into pieces, and the copper kettle used to heat bath water seemed to have completely disappeared. It took a while for Simon to notice shiny black pieces on the floor that reminded him of slag. The kettles had melted! What hellish temperatures must have prevailed here!
Meanwhile, Magdalena pushed aside a pile of bricks and gazed into a black hole directly beneath her.
“The well shaft,” she said. “The rungs are still here. Now it gets interesting.”
With these words she began her descent. Before long the medicus heard her call again. “Simon, you were right! This—this is unbelievable!”
When she fell silent, Simon leaned over the hole. “Magdalena, wh
at’s wrong?” he whispered. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here in the back.” The voice of the hangman’s daughter echoed strangely, as if she were now much farther away.
“Is there really a secret passageway?” Simon asked excitedly.
“It’s best you come down and see for yourself.”
Simon reached for the iron rungs, casting a quick glance at the splintered beams and loose stones above him. If the roof caved in now, they’d either drown or starve to death down in the well. He couldn’t imagine Nathan and his beggars taking up shovels and digging them out.
Hand over hand, the medicus climbed down the rungs into the shaft until he reached the opening. The flames had gutted the hidden storage room, and the sacks and boxes they found there on their last visit were reduced to ash. But Simon discovered something else now.
Farther back there was yet another entryway, this one only waist-high. Simon ducked into the low opening. The ground was strewn with charred wood, some of it still marked with whitewash. He had to smile.
A secret wooden door painted white and hidden behind the sacks. Hofmann was a clever fellow!
Carefully he peered inside. In the large room before him the fire had left its mark, though not so thoroughly as in the first room. In one corner stood a charred table; a blackened shelf that had fallen from the wall now lay on the floor. In the middle of the room the chimney of a huge stone furnace rose up to the ceiling, and all around it were smashed pots and splinters of glass that he suspected were once polished lenses.
Simon stepped over the broken glass and ran his hand along the balance bar of a scale: still warm, scorched and twisted almost beyond recognition by the heat.
“I’ll be damned if this wasn’t an alchemist’s workshop,” he whispered. “Your uncle is looking stranger and stranger by the minute.”
“I wonder whether Hofmann’s murderer searched this room,” Magdalena said.
The Beggar King: A Hangman's Daughter Tale Page 21