The Beggar King: A Hangman's Daughter Tale

by Oliver Pötzsch

Simon and the beggar carried Crazy Johannes through the dark, deserted streets toward Neupfarr Church Square while Magdalena scouted ahead to make sure their strange ensemble didn’t encounter any watchmen who might have some unpleasant questions to ask. Having finally arrived back in the catacombs, they bedded the injured man down in the niche they were using as a sick bay.

  Just as the medicus had assumed, the blow hadn’t pierced the lungs. And though the blade had passed straight through his shoulder, the wound was clean. After Simon applied some moss to stanch the bleeding, he treated it with an ointment of arnica and chamomile.

  “You’ll have to dispense with your crazy Saint Vitus’ dances for a while,” he told Johannes as he tentatively pressed the edge of the wound, whereupon the beggar let out a shout of pain. “How about trying to earn some honest money the next few weeks?” Simon continued. “Just lie down by the cathedral and hold out your hand.”

  “That’s not half as much fun,” Johannes said, trying to grin despite the pain.

  In the meantime Magdalena handed Simon clean water, cloths, and bandages, always keeping an eye on the ragged bunch crowded behind the dirty sick-bay curtain. By now she’d come to know some of the beggars: the crippled and sick, the disbanded mercenaries, stranded pilgrims, cast-off wives, prostitutes, and abandoned orphans—a motley mix of outcasts just like Magdalena. Looking over their faces, she felt a strange bond with them all.

  I’m one of them, she thought. A city within a city, and I’m part of it.

  The previous night she and Simon had gone for a walk through the winding subterranean passageways, counting almost forty cellars all connected to one another. Many were empty, but the beggars had stashed food and furnishings in some. Musty drapes and trunks, even a child’s toy here and there, all suggested whole families called these damp, dark vaults home. Beneath some of the cellars Simon and Magdalena came upon even deeper cellars by way of staircases or narrow, winding corridors. Here they found Latin inscriptions on the walls, and tucked away in one corner they even discovered a small bronze pagan statue. Were these the remains of an even older Roman settlement predating the Jewish ghetto above?

  Here, deep in the bowels of the city, far from the beggars, they found themselves alone together for the first time in a long while. They made love in the dim, sooty glow of a lantern and promised each other not to give up. Magdalena still believed they could save her father. What might come next, though, she refused to consider now. Would she return with Simon to Schongau, where she could expect nothing but mockery and shame? Where Alderman Berchtholdt and his cronies would make their life hell? And where they could never expect to build a life together?

  In spite of it all, Magdalena missed her mother and the twins desperately. Perhaps the little ones were ill or her mother was spending sleepless nights worrying over the disappearance not only of her husband but of her eldest daughter as well. Wasn’t it Magdalena’s duty to return to report her father’s fate?

  A sharp cry brought her back to the present, where Simon had just finished sewing up Johannes’s wound and given the beggar a friendly slap.

  “That’s it!” he said, helping the beggar back to his feet. “As I said, no tricks for the next few weeks. And lots of wine; you’ve got to get your strength back.”

  Despite his pain, Johannes forced a smile. “Now that’s a medicine to my liking. Is there an illness for which peach brandy is the cure?”

  Smiling, Magdalena packed the bandages and salves into a leather bag. She found it hard to imagine she’d ever feared the beggars. For a while now they’d felt to her like one big family.

  At that moment she remembered the letter from her father that the hangman’s son had given her. She hadn’t even gotten around to opening it! So once she’d helped Simon wipe the bloodstains from the sickbed, she retired to a quieter niche and with trembling fingers unfolded the crumpled piece of paper. What did her father have to tell her? Had he found a way to escape?

  Looking down at the letter, she stopped short. The faded note consisted of a single line:

  GREETINGS FROM WEIDENFELD…

  Magdalena held the paper close enough to the candle that its edges slowly started to curl, but there was nothing else legible in the note.

  GREETINGS FROM WEIDENFELD…

  Was her father trying to tell her something that no one else was supposed to know? Was this a secret clue, something only she was meant to understand?

  Then Magdalena realized this letter couldn’t possibly be from her father.

  It was in someone else’s handwriting.

  The boy had told her the letter came from her father, so someone was lying. Deep in thought, Magdalena folded it up and returned it to her skirt pocket.

  “What’s wrong?” Simon, who had returned to her side, looked at her with surprise.

  “The letter from my father…” she began hesitantly. “Someone else wrote it.” She told Simon about the mysterious text.

  “Well?” Simon asked. “Do you know anyone by that name?”

  Magdalena shook her head. “Unfortunately no.” She bit her lip, thinking. “This letter must have come from the man who’s out to get my father. I’m pretty sure there’s more behind this than the patricians retaliating against the freemen.” Magdalena collapsed onto the straw, rubbing her temples. “Someone has it in for my father—maybe someone he crossed a long time ago, someone who is sparing no pains to pay him back now.”

  “Does your father have lots of enemies?” Simon asked hesitantly.

  Magdalena laughed. “Enemies? My father is the hangman. He has more enemies than the kaiser has soldiers.”

  “So the murderer could be a relative of someone he once executed?” the medicus persisted.

  Magdalena shrugged. “Or someone he broke on the rack until he got the truth out of him, or someone he whipped or whose ear he cut off, or someone he put in the stocks or banished from town… Just forget about that! It won’t lead anywhere.”

  “What bad luck that the bathhouse ruins collapsed!” Simon said. “Now we’ll probably never learn what was going on in that secret alchemist’s workshop.”

  “But the stranger who’s apparently on our trail won’t learn anything, either,” Magdalena replied. “And don’t forget, we have an advantage: we know what was down there.”

  “Though we can’t make any sense of it.” Sighing, Simon sank down in the straw beside Magdalena and stared off into the gloomy hall. Nathan sat at the massive table amid a number of other beggars and sipped from a mug of watery beer. Though the beggar king seemed to watch them out of the corner of his eye, he made no attempt to approach them.

  “Let’s go over what we know again,” Magdalena said, chewing on a piece of straw. “The bathhouse owner, Andreas Hofmann, and his wife, my aunt, were killed. They were members of the freemen, who are rebelling against patrician rule and whose leader is the Regensburg raftmaster, Karl Gessner. Hofmann was Gessner’s second in command, and when his cover got blown, he had to die—the patricians’ act of revenge and a deterrent to the other revolutionaries.”

  “Your father was the scapegoat,” Simon added. “He received a forged letter about his oh-so-sick sister, traveled to Regensburg, where he was arrested at the scene of the crime to divert suspicion from the patricians. So far, so good. But in the bathhouse cellar there was a secret alchemist’s workshop, and apparently someone was looking for it—the stranger with the rapier who tried to kill us and who, it seems, is taking orders from none less than the Regensburg city treasurer.”

  Magdalena nodded. “Paulus Mämminger. He must be at the center of everything. And he’s the only lead we really have. We’ll have to follow him.”

  “And how do you intend to do that?” Simon inquired. “Shadow one of the most powerful patricians in Regensburg around the clock? It won’t be easy. You’d need an army.”

  Magdalena grinned. “You forget we have one.” She pointed at the beggars Nathan was now toasting jovially with his mug of beer. “They’re just it
ching for someone to send them into battle.”

  Philipp Teuber shuffled home from the torture chamber as if he were on his way to his own execution. He’d spent the entire morning torturing Jakob Kuisl and in the afternoon was to begin again. Teuber felt as if he’d aged years in a matter of hours, and not even the prospect of a hot dinner at home could change that.

  The Regensburg executioner’s house was located on Henkersgässchen, Hangman’s Lane, in a rundown part of town south of the old grain market. Amid muddy roads, crooked, warped roofs, and dilapidated houses the tidy property seemed a bit out of place. It was freshly whitewashed, the well-tended garden behind it was full of fragrant roses and lavender blossoms, and a newly renovated barn next door housed cattle and carts. Teuber wasn’t poor; in a Free Imperial City like Regensburg, the hangman made a decent living. And almost every day people came to him to purchase some medicine or talisman, among them well-to-do citizens who hid their faces as they passed through the rank lanes of this part of town.

  The hangman, stooped and pale, opened the door to his home and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of cheerful children. Under normal circumstances he would lift his five little children high into the air one by one and hug them against his broad chest, but today he quietly pushed the rambunctious group aside and sat down at the table, where his wife, Caroline, had already set down a steaming bowl of bone-marrow broth and tripe. As usual, everyone waited for the hard-working father to take the first spoonful; only after he had taken an unenthusiastic taste did the five children pounce on the food like hungry wolves. Lost in thought, Teuber watched his family eat, while he himself could only stir his spoon around in the bowl.

  “What’s wrong, Philipp?” his wife asked, holding the bawling youngest child on her lap as she fed him. “If you keep this up, you’ll be nothing more than skin and bones. You haven’t eaten a thing for days. Is it because of this hangman from Schongau?”

  Teuber nodded and stared vacantly at the wooden spoon in his bowl, where a gleaming glob of fat floated on the surface. He remained silent.

  “Papa, can I have your tripe?” his oldest son asked. It was the redheaded Benjamin who’d taken the letter to Magdalena early that morning. When his father didn’t answer, the boy pointed to the few gray scraps floating in the soup and repeated his question. “Papa, can I—”

  “For God’s sake, leave me alone, all of you!”

  Teuber pounded the table so hard with his fist that the bowls clattered and the startled youngsters fell silent. “Can’t we just once have peace and quiet in this house!”

  He got up from the table and stomped into the main room, slamming the door behind him. Alone at last, Teuber bent over a wash basin and splashed cold water on his face, as if that could wash away his worries. He shook himself off like a dog and slumped onto a rickety stool in a corner. Then, folding his hands across his broad chest, he stared at a long executioner’s sword on the wall in front of him.

  Fitted with a leather grip, its blade was nearly as long as a man is tall. Regensburgers had gruesome stories to tell about it. Market women whispered that the sword quivered for three days before every execution and could be appeased only with blood. Others claimed the steel rattled whenever a death sentence was pronounced. Teuber knew all this was nonsense. It was a good sword, passed down through many generations and carefully forged by human hands to bring a quick and painless death. It was solid handiwork; there was nothing magical about it. Engraved on the blade was a saying the Regensburg executioner often repeated quietly to himself:

  ABIDE WITH ME, ALMIGHTY GOD

  Although this line was intended for the condemned man, Teuber had the feeling it referred to him now, as well.

  After a while his wife opened the door cautiously and sat down beside him. Outside, the children could be heard giggling and roughhousing. They seemed to have gotten over the incident.

  “Would you like to talk?” Caroline asked after a while. Silence fell over the room, and only the children’s muffled laughter could be heard from outside.

  “He’s just like me,” her husband finally said. “He has a wife and a few children, he does his job, he’s a damn good executioner, and he’s innocent.”

  Caroline gave him a skeptical sidelong look. Her once-delicate face was gaunt now, fine lines spread from the corners of her eyes and mouth, and her blond hair had turned gray in many places. Together the Teubers had seen their fair share of hard times. Countless sleepless nights before executions, the screams of the tortured, the disapproving looks of narrow-minded citizens in the street—over a lifetime all this had left its mark, not just on the Regensburg executioner but on his wife as well.

  “How do you know he’s innocent?” the executioner’s wife asked finally. “Doesn’t every petty thief claim that?”

  Teuber shook his head. “He really is innocent. Someone set him up. The third inquisitor…” He hesitated briefly before continuing. “The dirty swine insists I torture Kuisl more mercilessly than I’ve ever done. He seems to know things about Kuisl that he couldn’t reasonably know. The fiend wants him dead, not because Kuisl has broken the law but because of something that happened between them long, long ago. And I’m his instrument.”

  His wife smiled. “Aren’t you always? The instrument, I mean?”

  Teuber slapped his broad, muscular thigh in frustration. “Don’t you understand? This time is different! By torturing an innocent man, I’m assisting in someone else’s revenge while the real murderer runs around free! And even more men may die because of it!”

  Caroline sighed. “What can you do? If you refuse to torture him, they’ll only replace you with another executioner. The knacker’s son has been waiting for his chance a long time now. And they’ll drive us out of town. Is that what you want?”

  Teuber shook his head. “God, no! But maybe there’s another way.”

  His wife looked at him sharply. “What do you mean? Tell me!” A light flashed in her eyes, even as they narrowed to little slits. “You don’t intend to…?”

  Without a word, Teuber headed for a huge pharmacy cupboard, which was as tall as a man and took up half the back wall. He opened it, pulled a rusty bunch of keys from a hidden drawer, and held the ring out like a monstrance, letting the keys jangle softly.

  “The key to the cells in the city hall,” he said softly. “The late mayor, Bartholomäus Marchthaler, God rest his soul, had them made for me many years ago because he was too lazy to accompany me to the torture chamber each time. Since Marchthaler is long gone now, it’s unlikely anyone knows about this set of keys except me—and now you.”

  Caroline stood up and took the keys from her husband’s hand. “Do you know how dangerous this is?” she asked. “There are still the guards to consider. If even the slightest suspicion falls on you, they’ll hang you, whip the children and me, and drive us right out of town.”

  The Regensburg executioner took his wife by the shoulders, then stroked her cheek clumsily with his huge hand. “We’ve always made our decisions together,” he whispered. “I would never do this if you were against it.”

  For a long time all was silent except for the crying of the youngest child, on the other side of the door, who obviously wanted his mother.

  “The children adore you,” his wife said abruptly. “If something were to happen to you, they would never forgive you.”

  Teuber brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “They would also never forgive me for being an unconscionable, cowardly dog.” He smiled awkwardly. “And you? Could you love a man like that?”

  Caroline gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Be quiet, you silly old bear. Is he really innocent?”

  Teuber nodded. “As innocent as you and I.”

  Caroline closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Then do it quickly. The sooner we get this behind us, the better. Now let me go back to the children.”

  As she pulled herself from his embrace and left the room, Philipp Teuber watched her brush away a single tear on her
cheek. Moments later he heard her in the kitchen scolding the children, who had apparently raided the honeypot.

  Teuber stood motionless, turning the keys over in his sweaty palm and balling his fist so hard around them he almost bent the rusty key ring in half. He loved his wife and his children more than anything in the world, but this time he had to follow his conscience.

  Once more he glanced at the inscription on the sword:

  ABIDE WITH ME, ALMIGHTY GOD

  Reciting the words like an incantation, he turned back to the cupboard, where bunches of herbs and aromatic pouches hung along shelves overflowing with little clay pots. He scrutinized the inventory. He’d need some additional ingredients and would have to speak with a few people. There were bribes to be paid and tracks to be covered. All this would take at least a day or two, perhaps even longer if his plans didn’t work out at first.

  Teuber hoped fervently that he could finish his work before the Schongau hangman finally broke.

  The eye stared at the nearly lifeless body of the prostitute who had spent so many days in the basement of this house. Katharina hadn’t moved for hours; her breathing, spasmodic at first, had become weaker; and now her chest scarcely moved. Her head lay framed in a pool of blood, drying shiny like sealing wax.

  The experiment was coming to an end.

  The eye had recorded in great detail the decline of Katharina Sonnleitner, veteran Regensburg prostitute and the daughter of a linen dyer. After exactly seven days and four hours of torment, she at last began to tear the clothing from her body and scratch at her skin until she exposed the underlying flesh in places. Katharina had examined the bruises all over her body with fascination, and then she’d tried to bite her fingers off. She’d run from one corner of the room to the other, banging her forehead against the wall and flailing her arms about, as if trying to drive off invisible spirits. She’d screamed and cursed and, in the very next moment, nearly choked in a sudden fit of laughter. Katharina had whirled through her little cell like a gyroscope until, finally, she smashed head-on into the wall and fell motionless and bleeding onto the ground.