The Beggar King: A Hangman's Daughter Tale

by Oliver Pötzsch

  “If it’s true what they say about ergot,” he growled, “then over the next few weeks we’ll have a lot of fun, you and—”

  Disgusted, Magdalena spat the rest of the ergot still stuck between her teeth and to. the roof of her mouth right into the raftman’s face. Mid-sentence, Jeremias’s lips were wide open, and the sticky little lumps flew straight into his mouth. He coughed, gagged, and flailed about, apparently fearing he’d been poisoned.

  “You whore! You’ll pay for that!”

  Magdalena rolled off the ledge, disappearing into the dark ice-cold water and out of Jeremias’s reach. When she ran out of breath, she resurfaced to see that two more figures had arrived in the meantime. With relief she recognized Hans Reiser and Brother Paulus, who were beating the raftsman with sticks and forcing him, step by step, against the wall.

  When she turned around again, Simon and Silvio had disappeared.

  It took her a while to locate them in the darkness further back in the vault. In near silence they were fighting in waist-deep water as torches on the walls cast them in long, distorted shadows. Magdalena couldn’t tell which shadow belonged to which man—they merged into one monstrous silhouette that had sprung to life and, freed of its earthly form, now stalked ghostlike up and down the dark corridor. The slender shadow of a sword rose up, then lunged, yet the other part of the shadow retreated. The second part shoved the first part, and the shadow split in two again, one half stumbling and falling underwater and, a moment later, rising to the surface and attacking. For a brief moment the shadows merged again into a single dense tangle, only to fly back apart and then merge once more.

  “Simon! Don’t give up! I’m coming to help!”

  Magdalena waded through waist-high icy water, which felt like a deep morass, an endless swamp separating her and her beloved. Through the powerful sound of many rushing streams she could hear the muted shouts of the beggars and raftsmen behind her. Frantically she fumbled with the rope around her wrists. It was loosening, and after a while she was able to slip her hands free at last.

  Meanwhile one of the two combatants seemed to have gained the upper hand. He held the other underwater until the latter’s movements grew erratic and devolved into wild convulsions. Now Magdalena was close enough to make out the face of the victor.

  It was Silvio, grinning scornfully, his pale face framed by wet, stringy hair. He wore the concentrated, impassive expression of a professional killer. In a few seconds the Venetian would strangle Simon to death.

  “Nooooo!” Magdalena shrieked, her voice echoing off the walls. “Simon! My God, Simon!”

  “In the name of the city, I order you to stop!”

  The hangman’s daughter flinched. Turning around, she saw only the raftsman Jeremias, who lay face-down in the water, blood forming a halo on the surface around him and a finger-length bolt protruding from his back. The two beggars alongside him lowered their clubs and stared down the long corridor. There, in the dim torchlight, stood a high official in a fur-trimmed cloak, his thinning hair hidden beneath a red hat.

  Paulus Mämminger.

  The Regensburg treasurer gave a sign to two guards at his side to lower their crossbows. Then he gazed reproachfully at the violent disarray in the well chamber. His voice resounded through the vaulted room like a clap of thunder.

  “The game is up, Silvio Contarini! We know about your scheme. Come out now and surrender!”

  “Never!” The Venetian, who like everyone else was bewildered by the new arrival, turned from Simon and retreated a few paces. He was immediately swallowed up in darkness. “A Contarini doesn’t surrender so easily! We’ll meet again, Mämminger, on the floor of the Reichstag, if not before!”

  Silvio’s laughter mingled with the noise of the rushing water, which, as the many individual streams merged into one, generated an infernal uproar. For a moment they heard splashing in the distance; then the insane laughter that echoed back to them suddenly broke off.

  In the meantime Simon had hoisted himself up onto the ledge, where, panting and gasping, he coughed up water and bile. Magdalena waded over and wrapped her arms around him.

  “Simon, my God, Simon!” she whispered. “I thought you were dead.”

  “And I thought this madman had actually poisoned you,” Simon gasped.

  Magdalena wiped the last bits of ergot from the corners of her mouth. “I really made an effort not to swallow that stuff,” she said. “I guess we’ll find out in the next few hours whether I was successful. But for now let’s get out of this frigid water before you catch a chill and die on me.”

  Supporting Simon, she waded through the pool toward Paulus Mämminger. The old treasurer blinked. It took him a while to recognize who stood before him—but then his face lit up.

  “Ah, the mysterious beautiful woman from Heuport House!” he cried. “Tell me, how are you liking Regensburg?”

  Magdalena wrung out her hair. “Too many lunatics in one place, if you ask me. And it’s too wet here.”

  Paulus Mämminger laughed and handed her his cloak. “I’m certain you have some stories for me.” Then he turned to leave. “But I suggest we save that for the open air. It smells too much of death and madness down here.” A slight smile twitched on his lips. “Besides, I have to express my thanks to a loyal servant up there. I hope he’s satisfied with his reward.”

  It was late afternoon when Jakob Kuisl returned to the raft landing in the little rowboat, knowing he wouldn’t be able to escape his fate this time.

  A carnival-like atmosphere prevailed on the landing. A huge crowd had gathered, and guards were running about, trying in vain to shoo people back into the city. From the Wöhrd a huge column of smoke rose into the sky, and piles of charred beams, some still smoldering, littered the ground. The sheds and mill wheels looked like bonfires among towering piles of collapsing boards, and the large grain mill seemed to have been swallowed up by the earth. Now the fire had spread to surrounding buildings, and the entire island was one raging inferno.

  Spectators on the raft landing gawked at the scene as they would at a public execution. They cheered whenever a building collapsed and pointed excitedly at embers blowing their way. The watchmen, having already given up on saving the island, were now busy trying to keep the fire from spreading to the bridge, the other islands, and the city wharf.

  When the guards finally noticed the small rowboat with its two passengers, they hesitated, whispered to one another, and pointed anxiously at the Schongau hangman tying the boat to a post on the wharf. Kuisl seemed as disinterested in the spectacle as any old fisherman from out of town. Finally the guards approached cautiously with pikes raised.

  “The… monster!” one stammered. “Now we’ve got him! We must stay together! Or he’ll rip our throats right open.”

  “He probably blew up the mill,” the second man whispered. “Ever since he’s been here, misfortune has come over this city like the Plague.”

  Kuisl raised his hands to ward off the guards, but he was much too tired to resist them. He’d been racing so long now—first lugging the deathly pale Teuber almost two miles from Weidenfeld to the rowboat, then rowing back from Donaustauf against the current. The Regensburg executioner hadn’t regained consciousness after speaking his last words in the ruined village. Throughout the boat trip Kuisl watched blood seeping slowly through the moss, herbs, and bandages. Teuber’s face was waxy like a corpse’s, so Kuisl repeatedly checked to make sure his friend was still breathing.

  “He needs help,” the Schongau hangman pleaded in a hoarse voice as he climbed out of the rowboat. Almost unconscious himself, he offered no resistance as the guards seized him and bound his hands and feet. “Bring Teuber to a surgeon,” he muttered, “a real one, or I’ll wring your necks. Do you understand?”

  “Hold your tongue, monster!” one guard shouted, punching him so hard his upper lip split open and he fell to the ground. “Your game is over; you won’t get away from us again. That was you who did that to the mill, wasn’t i
t?”

  As other Regensburgers began to recognize the man being led away, a murmur went up that gave way to cheers and shouting.

  “The werewolf!” an old woman shouted. “The werewolf’s back! And look, he’s in league with our executioner! Throw them both on the mill—into the fire with them!”

  “By Saint Florian, they should burn!”

  “No, hang them instead! Right here!”

  “Hold on, people!” one of the guards interjected. “We can’t say whether the Regensburg hangman—”

  But his voice was drowned out by the crowd. People were already down by the great crane on the raft landing, tossing boat ropes over the crossbeams. They tied the rope into a noose and began to fashion a makeshift gallows. The first sticks and stones flew through the air now, and the guards, silent and pale, formed a circle around Kuisl and the Regensburg executioner, who was lying unconscious on the pier. They couldn’t hold off the crowd for long.

  “Go get a city official!” a high-ranking officer shouted at the other guards as he braced himself against two farm workers who’d already drawn their knives. “If you can, bring Mämminger! Right away! Before they kill Teuber. Run! Get going, damn it!”

  As one of the guards broke from the circle and ran toward town, the crowd amassed into one enormous, furious, screaming creature that charged the desperate bailiffs behind him. Kuisl looked out on the riotous mob, registering a cold, bestial look in their eyes.

  Predators, he thought. This is what they always look like at an execution.

  This time the execution was his own.

  “Nathan!” Simon cried as he stumbled out of the dark well chamber and into the bright daylight. “I should have known!”

  The beggar king was counting out and distributing shiny coins to the beggars standing around him. Only reluctantly did he look up.

  “Beg your pardon?” he mumbled.

  “You told the treasurer we were here!” the medicus cried, kicking the beggar in the shins. “Who else do you work for? The kaiser? The pope? The Virgin Mary?”

  Grimacing in pain, Nathan rubbed his shins. “If the price is right.” Finally, he grinned. “Be happy. Without the esteemed treasurer, you’d be fish food now. And your little sweetheart would no doubt be trapped in a fit of hysterical laughter, trying to claw her own eyes out, having gone stark mad. So don’t make such a fuss.”

  “Great,” Simon muttered. “So we’ve been rescued from the well chamber only to be burned at the stake for arson and God knows what else. Thank you very much.”

  Suddenly he felt the treasurer’s hand on his shoulder.

  “We’ve been working with Nathan a long time,” said Mämminger, who’d emerged from the well chamber right after Simon. “He’s been keeping us up to date on what’s happened since you first sought refuge with the guild.”

  “So it’s true,” Simon whispered.

  But the treasurer seemed not to have heard him. “I just didn’t know what role you were playing in all this,” Mämminger continued. Removing his official red hat, he passed a hand over his sweaty forehead. “So I had Nathan keep an eye on you. When it became clear you had nothing to do with the powder, it was unfortunately too late. You had sought amnesty in the bishop’s palace, and as long as you were there, there was nothing I could do to help you.”

  “You knew about the powder?” asked Magdalena, her clothes and hair dripping in the bright light. She eyed the treasurer suspiciously. “Then why didn’t you just put a stop to Silvio Contarini and his game?”

  Paulus Mämminger shook his head slowly, deep in thought. “We only suspected the freemen were planning something for the coming Reichstag, but we had no real evidence. When we heard that Hofmann was experimenting somehow with alchemy, I asked Heinrich von Bütten to find out more.”

  “The kaiser’s agent,” Simon added softly. “We thought for a long time he was trying to kill us.”

  Mämminger shook his head. “His job was only to learn more about you two. Later, he wanted to warn you about Contarini, but the Venetian somehow always managed to distract you.” Mämminger removed his sweaty pince-nez to clean them. “Heinrich von Bütten was the kaiser’s best agent,” he continued. “A brilliant swordsman—inconspicuous, intelligent, and incorruptible. Leopold I wanted him to serve as a spy at the Regensburg Reichstag. His Excellency won’t be happy to hear he’s dead.” Mämminger sighed. “Von Bütten had long suspected that Contarini was working for the Grand Vizier. When he saw the Venetian in the company of a beautiful woman, a stranger, we started to snoop around. And lo and behold…!” He smiled at Magdalena. “It just so happened that beautiful stranger was the niece of the bathhouse owner under suspicion of plotting against the kaiser. Naturally, this gave us more than a moment’s pause, especially when it turned out her father was said to have killed the very same bathhouse owner.”

  “Did you really think my father killed his sister and brother-in-law?” asked Magdalena, tying her wet hair into a bun. “Even a blind man could have figured out he walked right into a trap!”

  The treasurer frowned. “Don’t judge too quickly, young lady. Your father was the brother-in-law of a leading freeman—an insurgent. For that reason alone he came under suspicion. We had to subject him to some pretty severe interrogation just to find out whether he knew anything about this powder.” He shrugged. “Your father is a tough nut to crack. We aldermen therefore reached the decision, after long discussions in my house, to suspend the torture for the time being. The following night I left a note in the cathedral for Heinrich von Bütten, telling him to see whether he could find some connection between Contarini and the freemen—and exonerate your father.” Mämminger put his pince-nez back in place. “Unfortunately Kuisl fled the very same night, thus renewing suspicions. It’s too bad; we very much wanted him to identify the true leader of the free-men for us.”

  “I think we can help you in that regard,” Simon said. “It’s the raftmaster, Karl Gessner. He also set the trap for Jakob Kuisl.”

  The treasurer’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Gessner? But why…?”

  “Revenge,” Magdalena chimed in. “Gessner and my father knew each other from the war. But that the raftmaster was the leader of the freemen you could have also learned from this gentleman.”

  She pointed at Nathan, who only smiled back innocently and continued counting coins into a pouch. Mämminger raised his eyebrows and scowled at the beggar king, who had turned to pick his nose.

  “I really don’t know what the two of you are talking about,” Nathan replied. “I would never—”

  “What’s going to happen with Contarini now?” Simon asked. “Has he escaped?”

  The treasurer squinted, irritated, and turned back to the medicus. “To date no one has ever explored all the caves the water carved through the rock down there,” he explained earnestly. “It’s a wet, dark labyrinth, and no one can really say how far down it goes. Maybe the Venetian will find the entrance to hell down there, but he might also get lost or eventually return to the well chamber. Just in case, we sealed the exit. No one can get out. And now—”

  Just then they heard the sound of someone approaching through the field. A watchman, drenched with sweat, came running up to Mämminger. He whispered something in Mämminger’s ear, and the treasurer frowned, placing his official red hat back on his head, hurrying down the path, and beckoning to the others to follow.

  “We hope your father will soon be able to answer all the outstanding questions in person,” he said as he hastened toward the city with the watchmen and the beggars. “They caught him down at the raft landing, and if we don’t hurry, there won’t be much of him left.”

  Jakob Kuisl barely felt the cabbage stalks, stones, and rotten fish that hailed down on his body and face. The shouts of the crowd, too, echoed strangely, as if they came from the end of a long tunnel. Straining to turn his head, he saw Philipp Teuber next to him, his consciousness quickly fading again and, like himself, with a noose around his neck. The Rege
nsburgers had finished erecting a gallows on the harbor crane high above the raft landing now, and both hangmen stood on crates piled high to form a makeshift scaffold. Leering and smirking at the hangmen, a few carpenters waited beside a crank that would eventually hoist the ropes and, with them, the men high in the air. Kuisl let his gaze wander along the rotten wooden structure that rose at least twenty feet above them.

  Must at least be a great view of Regensburg from up there, he thought.

  Kuisl’s fever had returned now in full force, and despite the midsummer temperatures, Kuisl was freezing. Even if he weren’t in pain and dizzy, though, there was no possibility of escape now. He was shackled, and when he looked out over the crowd, he saw several hundred pairs of angry eyes, all eager for a summary execution. A few guards were scattered among them, but they’d abandoned their official duty now to join the onlookers. After a brief and futile resistance, most bailiffs had withdrawn and given the two prisoners over to the screaming mob. Kuisl counted himself lucky that the Regensburgers hadn’t stoned him to death yet.

  Another clod of dirt hit Kuisl on the head so hard his gaze went black. Still, he was able to remain upright. Next to him, however, Philipp Teuber was close to losing consciousness again, and, because he was no longer able to support himself, his body weight tightened the noose around his neck like a garrote cutting off his air supply. Teuber’s eyes were closed, his face chalky except where blood vessels had burst, and his mouth open like a carp gasping for air.

  “Monster! Monster!”

  All around him Kuisl heard the roar of the crowd as if through a wall, a seething mass of high-pitched screams and shrill laughter rising and falling. Blood dripping from his forehead, he blinked, blinded by the sun; still, he had the impression he could clearly see each individual in the crowd below—bull-necked raftsmen and carpenters, snotty-nosed children and journeymen bare to the waist, but also fishwives. Even a few fine ladies looked on from the rear with their finely powdered male companions, whispering and pointing at the two figures on the makeshift gallows. For all these people the two hangmen were a marvelous spectacle, an experience they could share with their children and grandchildren. Unleashed, the people’s anger demanded a blood sacrifice.