The Beggar King: A Hangman's Daughter Tale

by Oliver Pötzsch

  The fragrance of malt and hops made his thirst almost unbearable. He had to free himself at once! He could just dunk his head into one of the beer tubs and take a long draught. He could—

  The hangman stopped short. In the moonlight it looked as though someone else had the same idea. Directly in front of Kuisl, in one of the large brewing kettles, he could just make out the figure of a man pitched head over heels into one of the vats, with only his legs sticking out—looking for all the world like an enormous stirring spoon. His brown cassock had slipped open, revealing two pale, massive thighs.

  Kuisl could only stand there with his mouth open in a grimace. In a moment all thoughts of thirst and hunger had vanished. The man in the beer kettle had clearly drowned in the brew.

  There are worse ways to die, the hangman thought regretfully.

  A sound from behind caused him to wheel around. Only a few steps away Simon and Magdalena stood, fully dressed, though their faces were dirty and sweaty, as if moments before they’d been hard at work.

  “Papa!” Magdalena scolded. “What’s all this noise? You mustn’t…”

  Then her eyes happened upon the corpse in the beer vat. She froze. Simon, too, was at a loss for words.

  “My God, that’s Brother Hubertus!” the medicus shouted finally, raising his hand to his mouth in horror. After a moment of silence he looked suspiciously at Kuisl, still staggering around with the bed on his back. “Did you do anything to…?”

  “You fool!” Kuisl spit. “How could I have done anything like that with forty pounds of wood on my back!”

  And for the first time the couple noticed the bed tied to the hangman’s back. Despite the dead monk in the vat, Magdalena had to bite her lips to keep from laughing out loud.

  “For heaven’s sake, Father! When Simon told you to stay in bed he didn’t mean for you to carry the bed around with you.”

  “Be still, silly woman, and help me cut off these straps,” Kuisl said. “There’s a dead man in front of you, so please pull yourself together.”

  Simon hurriedly cut through the leather bands with his stiletto. Careful not to make a sound, they lowered the bed to the floor before turning to deal with the corpse whose head was still submerged in the mash. With their combined strength they pulled the monk from the vat.

  Brother Hubertus’s eyes were frozen open in horror. Slimy green catkins stuck to the fringe of hair that ringed his tonsure, and his face was even more bloated now than it had been in life. Magdalena pulled the wet cassock, which reeked of stale beer, over his ankles while Simon mouthed a silent prayer. Kuisl nudged him, pointing to a purple bruise that ringed the brewmaster’s neck.

  “He was strangled,” he concluded. “No easy task, especially considering what an ox of a man the clergyman was. A strong man did this, one who knew how exactly how to go about it.” He peered down into the brown liquid sloshing around in the vat. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it must have been two men. One to hold him over the edge while the other strangled him.”

  “Good Lord!” Simon closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m sure it was on account of the powder. The good monk wanted to make some more inquiries, and he clearly went to the wrong person!”

  “The baldheaded murderer!” Magdalena whispered. “I bet he bribed the guards to get in. We’ve got to get out of here as quickly as possible!”

  Kuisl frowned. “Powder? Murderers? What the hell is going on here, for Christ’s sake?”

  “That’s what we’d like to know.” Simon gave the dead Franciscan monk at their feet a look of pity. Then he explained to the hangman in brief, halting words all that had happened the past few days.

  Kuisl listened in silence and finally shook his head. “What a cesspool of iniquity we’ve gotten ourselves mired in! The story gets more colorful by the minute!” On his fingers he ticked off what he’d learned: “We have a secret alchemical workshop where you find a strange powder. My brother-in-law gets himself killed for producing it, and in addition he’s supposedly a member of this secret freemen group.” He shook his head incredulously. “And who are they anyway?”

  “They’re a secret affiliation of tradesmen opposing the patricians,” Simon explained. “The raftmaster, Karl Gessner, is their leader, and your brother-in-law was his deputy. At first we thought the patricians wanted to make an example of him, as a warning to others. But that can’t be the answer. There’s more behind it than that…” He drew his finger absently through the brown beer suds. “Gessner told me yesterday that Andreas Hofmann was apparently seeking something like the philosopher’s stone in his secret workshop. Whether that’s true or not, I believe this powder goes right to the heart of the matter. That would explain why the culprit was so intent on covering up his motive in the bathhouse murders.”

  “Philosopher’s stone? Bah!” Kuisl spat into the vat. “I always knew my brother-in-law was an idle dabbler. But that’s complete nonsense! Alchemy is just a hobby for bored noblemen and the pampered sons of the patricians. And even if there’s anything to it, it can’t be motive enough for the murders—or the third inquisitor wouldn’t have been so aggressive. That wasn’t any decent kind of torture; it was revenge, pure and simple.” He pointed his finger at Magdalena, who looked back at him with wide eyes. “The dirty bastard knew the name of your mother, and he knew about you. Philosopher’s stone or not, someone’s out for revenge. But I’ll give him so much to chew on he’ll choke!”

  “For heaven’s sake, not so loud!” Simon whispered. “There have to be guards out front, and if they hear us, we might as well just hop into the kettles and boil ourselves to save them the trouble!”

  Kuisl bit his lip and kept quiet.

  “What happened with my letter, by the way?” he asked finally, in a markedly softer voice. “The message I sent you through Teuber? I asked you to find out more about this Weidenfeld fellow. And—did you find anything?”

  Magdalena shrugged. “I received a letter, but it wasn’t from you. Best wishes from Weidenfeld is all it said. I imagine the third inquisitor must have intercepted the message and had a little fun at our expense.”

  “Damn it!” Kuisl kicked the brew kettle so hard that brown liquid splashed over the side. “If only I had something to smoke, I’m sure I’d remember where I know that name.”

  He searched frantically in his linen shirt and pants pockets for a few buds of tobacco. Then he froze, pulling out a little roll of paper tucked in his breast pocket. He apprehensively unrolled the soiled scrap of paper and had to squint to read the words.

  In the next moment he turned as white as a sheet.

  “Father, what’s wrong?” Magdalena asked anxiously. “What’s on the paper?”

  Slowly, as if in a trance, Kuisl shook his head.

  “It’s nothing.” He crumpled the paper and returned it to his breast pocket. “Just a scrap of paper, nothing more.”

  His daughter gave him skeptical look. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, for God’s sake!” he snapped. “Don’t give me any backtalk. I’m still your father.”

  Magdalena raised her hands in appeasement. “Of course. Everyone has his secrets. I only wonder—”

  “Let’s deal with that later,” Simon interjected. “First we have to dispose of the dead monk. If the guards find him, they’re going to blame us.”

  Kuisl nodded, though his expression had since turned stony. He absent-mindedly stroked his breast pocket. “Very well,” he announced. “Let’s get to it.”

  Together they lifted the fat monk’s corpse, carried it back to the beer kettle, and watched as his body sank, gurgling, into the brown brew. But his head kept bobbing to the surface, dotted with hops catkins. Only after Kuisl dumped a few bags of grain on top of him did the monk disappear in the brew.

  Satisfied, Kuisl used his trousers to dry his hands, which were by now so bloodstained and dirty it looked as though he’d just dragged a dead cow to the knacker. Simon shuddered. He kept forgetting his future father-in-law was a master of killing.
As a hangman, Kuisl had probably seen more corpses than there were apples on any given apple tree. And the vacant look in Kuisl’s eyes continued to trouble Simon. Just what was written on that piece of paper he’d so hurriedly hidden away in his pocket?

  The medicus suddenly recalled why they were awake at this hour of the night in the first place.

  “We have to get away from here as quickly as possible,” he whispered. “At once, if we can. I suggest we leave the bishop’s palace and find a place to hide in the ruins in the west of the city; they look as if they’ve been abandoned since the Great War. When things have calmed down, we’ll try to get out of town.”

  “The bishop’s guards will hardly see us off with a party,” Kuisl mused. His face was still pale and his mind in some faraway place.

  Simon grinned. “Well, I do have some good news, for a change. Magdalena and I spent the past day exploring the bishop’s palace in search of escape routes. In the back of the brew house we came upon a walled-up door that evidently dates from Roman times.” He pointed to the rear of the vault, where beer kegs were stacked almost to the ceiling. “The door directly borders the main road north of the bishop’s palace. We removed a few of the stones and felt a draft come through. It looks as if this door just may lead out of the compound.”

  “Show me,” Kuisl said.

  Magdalena and Simon led him into a corner of the brew house behind a stack of barrels, where they saw the outline of a doorway barely wide enough for a man to pass through. Some stones had been removed, and through the tiny opening a faint stench of garbage and excrement wafted in. Never in his life would Simon have imagined he’d find such a stink so pleasant.

  The smell of the city.

  “Get your things together,” Kuisl said. “Meanwhile, I’ll remove these stones, one at a time so nobody will hear a thing.”

  “Will that be too much of a strain, Father?” Magdalena asked anxiously. “Simon thinks you should take care of yourself and—”

  “When I need a nursemaid, I’ll let you know,” the hangman groused. “As long as I’m able to break a man’s bones, I can break down a little wall.”

  Magdalena grinned. Her father was clearly well on his way to recovery.

  “I was just asking,” she said. “We’ll be right back. Don’t be too hard on the stones, all right?”

  Together she and Simon hurried through the vaulted room and slipped through a small passage into the brewmaster’s kitchen. Outside, the moon shone brightly enough that Magdalena could see a guard leaning wearily on his pike. But the guard was thankfully too far from the kitchen window to recognize her. Smoked sausages and fragrant legs of pork hung from the ceiling on hooks, and baskets of fresh fruit and bread lined the windowsills alongside handwritten cookbooks and an old book on herbs.

  “The fat brewmaster must have been a gourmand; he really seems to have known his way around a kitchen.” Magdalena nodded approvingly as she plucked a few sausages from a hook. “I’m really sorry about what happened to him; I’m sure he was a really decent fellow.”

  Simon sighed. “He was. I regret having gotten him mired in this. I should never have—”

  “We haven’t got time for regrets right now,” Magdalena interrupted in a whisper. “Save your prayers until we get to Saint Michael’s Basilica in Altenstadt, or light a votive at church back in Schongau, if you prefer. Right now, though, this is a matter of life and death for us and for my father, and that’s my first concern.”

  “You’re right.” Simon filled a wineskin with dark Malvasian wine from a little keg next to the hearth. “Right now what worries me most is your father. What in the world was on that piece of paper? When he read it, it was as if someone had whitewashed his whole face.”

  “Who can tell what’s going on with my father?” Magdalena replied softly. “Sometimes I think not even Mother knows all his secrets. He’s never once spoken of his experiences in the war, even though that’s when the two met.”

  “Wait, your mother isn’t from Schongau?” asked Simon, astonished. “I always thought—”

  Magdalena shook her head. “She comes from around here. But whenever I’ve asked about my grandparents, or the time before I was born, she just falls silent.”

  “Do you think that damn Weidenfeld fellow dates back to that time, too?”

  “Maybe, but that’s just a hunch.” Magdalena shouldered her bundle. “We’ll probably never know for sure. You’re right, you know. We’ve got to get out of this loathsome city as fast as we can. My mother even said that Regensburg is cursed. Let’s forget about all these secrets and just get back home to Schongau.”

  Without another word, she hurried out into the brew house. Simon packed one more wedge of cheese in his bundle and followed. As he left, he took a last look into the kettle, but Brother Hubertus hadn’t resurfaced; his body was still drifting somewhere down below in the cloudy brew.

  Drowned in his drink, Simon thought. A fitting grave for a brewmaster.

  When the medicus arrived back at the walled-up doorway, he stopped short. Magdalena, too, stood there looking around helplessly.

  A good portion of the stones had been cleared away and stacked neatly along the wall, leaving a dark hole just large enough for a man to pass through.

  There was no trace of Jakob Kuisl.

  For several minutes neither of them budged. Then Magdalena started running among the barrels, calling out her father’s name in a tense, frantic voice. But there was no response.

  “Forget it!” Simon whispered. “He’s gone; he’s taken off—can’t you see that?”

  “Yes, but to where?” Magdalena asked in despair. “Why did he leave us behind?”

  The medicus knit his brow. “It must have something to do with that paper in his pocket. After reading it, he was like a different person.”

  “That may very well be,” Magdalena said, “but that’s no cause for him to abandon us. What are we supposed to do now?”

  “We’ll just leave without him,” Simon suggested. “It’s possible he didn’t want to put us in danger unnecessarily. For the guards we’re small fry. He’s the one they’re really after.”

  “But if that was the case, he would have told us.” Magdalena stared vacantly into the darkness. “To just up and disappear like that is not his way.”

  “Be that as it may, we’ve still got to get out of here ourselves. It’ll be morning soon, and the guards will be making their rounds.” Simon began removing more stones from the entry. “Come on, help me!” When no answer came, he turned around angrily.

  Magdalena just stood there, her arms folded and her lips clenched in defiance. “My father’s in trouble, and all you’re concerned with is saving your own hide!” she scolded. “You’re nothing but a coward!”

  “But Magdalena, that’s not the least bit true!” Irritated, Simon put down a stone and straightened up. “Your father clearly didn’t want our help. Believe me—he’ll make out just fine by himself. And what we have to do now is get out of here as fast as we can. If you have something else in mind, please tell me.”

  “I do in fact have something in mind,” she replied stubbornly. “We’ll hide out at Silvio’s place.”

  Simon’s face fell. “At the house of the Venetian dwarf? Why there, for heaven’s sake?”

  “He likes me, and he has influence. We can hide there until the coast is clear. We’ll be better off there than in some stinking barn or pigsty,” she added smugly, “and from there we can keep up our search for my father.”

  “And who’s to guarantee your beloved Silvio won’t immediately turn us over to the city guards, huh?” Wiping the dust from his hands with his jacket, he narrowed his eyes. “Has the smart mademoiselle considered that possibility?”

  “Silvio would never do that. He’s Venetian. City affairs don’t concern him. Anyway, he fancies me.”

  “Aha, so that’s how the wind is blowing!” Simon was annoyed. “You’re flattered by the attention.”

  “He’s a gentl
eman. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Well, if that’s how you feel, let your gentleman go out and buy you a new wardrobe.” Exasperated now, Simon struggled to control his voice. “Should the opportunity arise, you two might take a nice coach ride to the Piazza San Marco in Venice, or maybe even to Paris. Just don’t expect me to play the part of your footman!”

  “Don’t get yourself all worked up, you old goat. Remind me, way back when, who was it who fell all over that Benedikta woman? You bowed and scraped so foolishly you were an embarrassment to behold!”

  Simon rolled his eyes. “That was almost two years ago, and I don’t know how many times I’ve apologized for that—”

  “Forget it,” Magdalena interrupted gruffly. “Your brilliant rescue plan is dead in the water, or shall we say dead in the beer tub? Your brewmaster is dead, so let’s give my Venetian a try. It’s as simple as that.”

  “‘My Venetian’?” said Simon mimicking her. “Do you think I don’t notice that dwarf fawning over you? You women are all the same—give a woman a new dress and she can’t tell up from down anymore.”

  Her palm met his face so hard the slap echoed through the domed vault.

  “Do as you please, you wretch,” Magdalena shouted. “Go sleep in a pigsty or boil yourself in beer suds, for all I care. I, for my part, am going to Silvio’s. He at least has manners and can probably help my father somehow.” She cast him an angry glance. “More than you, at any rate.”

  Without another word, she pushed her bundle through the hole in the wall, heaved herself through it, and, within moments, disappeared into the darkness.

  The dark space behind the door smelled of mildew and damp wood. Under her breath Magdalena cursed herself for not bringing a torch, but she could hardly turn back now. How would that look to Simon? Just thinking of him made her blood boil. What a jealous, self-absorbed little toad! Why couldn’t he see that her plan was better, plain and simple? At Silvio’s house they’d be safe, at least for the time being, and they might even be able to keep an eye out for her father. Magdalena sensed he was in danger. Never in her life had she seen her father turn so pale and shaken as just a short while ago. He needed her help, even if he’d never admit it.