The Dark Monk

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Magdalena boarded one of the little boats that ferried people over a canal to the Red Gate. It was a rough trip, and passengers were pressed close together. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the two men had boarded the boat as well, but she decided to ignore them for the time being.

  Shortly thereafter, she arrived, freezing and hungry. The Red Gate would be closing punctually when the six o’clock bell rang, and merchants dressed in furs, as well as ragged day laborers and wagon drivers, were crowding into the city. Magdalena jumped aside to let a horse-drawn coach pass, and promptly tripped over a street vendor behind her, holding a sales tray around his neck.

  “Can’t you watch where you’re going?” the man snapped at her as he picked his tinderbox, shears, and whetstone up off the street.

  “I’m…I’m dreadfully sorry,” Magdalena stuttered. Feeling something tug at her, she turned around just in time to see a boy, about ten years old, trying to cut off the strap to her purse with a little knife.

  Magdalena slapped him so hard that he fell back into filthy slush.

  “You’d better not try that again!” she growled at him, grabbing the purse even tighter, and hurrying through the slowly closing gate. When Magdalena turned around again to look at the boy, she was shocked to see the two men from the landing just a few steps away, carefully observing her.

  “What’s the rush, dear?” one of them growled. He was wearing a tattered overcoat and a patch over one eye. “Let’s look for a place to stay together tonight. We’d be warmer together.” A gust of wind blew his coat open a bit, revealing a heavy dagger about a foot long. The other man, who was as fat as a wine barrel, was swinging a big polished stick.

  Without waiting to hear what the other might have to say, Magdalena raced off. She slipped into the crowd, then gradually worked her way through it. Behind her, she could hear suppressed cursing. The crowd in front of her was so dense that it was hard to make progress. She knocked down a few day laborers, bumped into some peddlers, and tipped over a basket of firewood.

  Finally, she had worked her way through most of the crowd, and the street grew markedly quieter. Just as she was about to breathe a sigh of relief, she heard the hurried footfalls of someone behind her. She looked back as she ran and caught a glimpse of her pursuers, who had been able to slip through the crowd as well. The fat man waved his cudgel in the air and panted. The man with a patch over one eye was faster, and gaining ground. Magdalena looked around, desperate for help. Why hadn’t she stayed hidden in the crowd? The men would never have dared to attack her in public. But here? Night had fallen and the houses and streets were just barely visible. There were hardly any people in this part of town, and the few who saw the men pursuing Magdalena ducked into entryways or anxiously peered out at the pursuers from behind tiny recessed windows.

  Thinking fast, Magdalena turned into a narrow side street. Perhaps she could shake off her pursuers in a labyrinth of little lanes. She ran past clattering millwheels, over rickety bridges, and through tiny cobblestone squares, but the two men were right on her heels. She was a good runner and, in the forest or fields, probably could have shaken off the two easily, but here, in the streets and alleys, the men had an advantage. They knew the location of every stairway, every row of parked wagons that she would have to run around.

  Coming around the next corner, she was suddenly confronted with a wall. Frost-covered ivy spiraled down from the top of the ten-foot-high wall, and a pile of fetid garbage lay in one corner. Bare walls rose up to the left and right. Seized with panic, Magdalena looked for a way out.

  She had run into a cul-de-sac.

  Her two pursuers caught up with her. She felt like a trapped animal as the men slowly approached her, smiling.

  “You see, you little tart, now we’ve found a place all to ourselves,” the man with the eye patch said. He looked around as if he were inspecting a room at an inn. “Maybe it’s not so comfy, but I do like it. How about you?”

  The fat man with the cudgel now approached from the left. “Don’t make it harder than necessary,” he growled. “If you scratch and bite, it’s just going to hurt more.”

  “Oh, let her go ahead,” the other said. “I like it when they scratch and bite.” He swung his saber through the air. “Hainmiller gave us a tidy sum so you wouldn’t forget him so soon. Just what did you do to his face, girl? Did you give him a bad shave? Well, in any case, we’re going to shave you now.”

  The fat man looked at her almost sympathetically. “It’s really too bad; you have such pretty lips. But what can we do? Let’s get it over with.” He moved closer.

  Magdalena scrutinized the men, considering her options. She was alone, and this didn’t look like the kind of area where anyone would come running out to help if she shouted. On the contrary, people would probably close their shutters and hope to steer clear of trouble themselves. Both thugs were powerfully built and looked like seasoned street fighters. It was clear that she had no chance for a fair fight.

  But perhaps there was a way to trick them.

  She dropped her arms, lowering her head meekly as if resigned to her fate, just waiting for the men to attack her. “Please don’t hurt me…” she whimpered.

  “You should have thought about that before, slut,” said the man with the eye patch as he approached her with his sword raised. “Now it’s a little too—”

  With a sweeping gesture, Magdalena took aim at the thug, flinging a handful of the quicklime at him that she had been keeping in her jacket pocket. The powder formed a cloud in front of the man’s eyes. He screamed and rubbed his face, trying to wipe away the lime with the arm he was using to hold the sword, but managed only to rub it deeper into his eyes. Shrieking loudly, he fell to the ground.

  “You damned whore! I’ll make you pay for that!”

  He crawled toward her on his knees, swinging the sword wildly through the air, while the fat man with the cudgel approached. Magdalena reached into her jacket pocket again. Even though she knew it was empty now, she held her arm up again as if about to throw the next handful at the fat man’s face.

  “What do you say, fatso?” she snarled. “Do you want to go blind like your friend?”

  The fat man stopped and looked down at his comrade moaning on the ground.

  At that moment, Magdalena pretended to fling the powder in his face. The man ducked, and the hangman’s daughter ran toward the pile of garbage.

  Her feet sank into the slimy half-frozen garbage and feces, but she was able to jump up and get a handhold on the top of the wall. Her fingers dug into the ice and snow as she pulled herself up.

  She had almost reached the top when she felt something pulling her back down again. The fat man was tugging on her shoulder bag, and the strap was tightening like a noose around her neck, cutting off her breath. She had just two choices: surrender and fall back down or be choked to death.

  Of course, there was a third option—to let go of the bag—but she didn’t even want to think about that.

  As the strap tightened around her neck, Magdalena couldn’t help but think of the people sentenced to die on the gallows. Is this how it felt when one was hanged? Dark clouds passed before her eyes, and she began to lose consciousness.

  The third possibility…

  She ducked suddenly, slipping the strap over her head, and the fat man fell back with a groan into the pile of garbage. She was free!

  Ignoring the curses and cries of pain behind her, she jumped down the other side of the wall and ran along the street ahead, struggling to catch her breath. She ran through icy alleys and over slippery bridges, fell once or twice in muddy slush, and finally, gasping for air, came to a stop at a street corner.

  She leaned against the wall of a house, sobbing, then collapsed on the cold ground. She had lost everything. Twenty guilders! Money that Stechlin and her father had entrusted to her, money only borrowed by the midwife from a patrician woman! She could never return to Schongau—the shame was too great—and she didn’t eve
n have a few coins for shelter that night. She was completely alone.

  Magdalena was crying when she sensed someone standing nearby.

  She looked up to see a young man leaning against the side of a house a few feet away. It was the little pickpocket who had tried to steal her purse. He watched her silently.

  Finally, Magdalena lost her patience. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she shouted. “Mind your own business, and get out of here!”

  The boy shrugged and turned to leave.

  Suddenly, Magdalena remembered that there was, indeed, someone who might help her. She could at least get shelter for the night, and perhaps he would have a suggestion about getting the money back. Magdalena had hoped she wouldn’t have to go there, but as things stood now, it was her last chance.

  “Wait!” she called to the boy, who turned around with a questioning look.

  “Take me to Philipp Hartmann,” she whispered.

  “Who?” the boy asked, anxious. Faint light fell on his face from a window nearby, and he suddenly looked as white as a sheet. “I don’t know any—”

  “You know exactly who I mean.” Magdalena stood up and wiped the saliva and tears from her face. “I want to go and see the Augsburg hangman—and hurry up about it, or I’ll see that he strings you up by the Red Gate. I swear I will, as sure as my name is Magdalena Kuisl.”

  8

  AT SIX O’CLOCK the next morning, Jakob Kuisl headed up to town. At this time of year very few people were out and about so early in the day, even on the busy Münzgasse. The few wine and cloth merchants he did meet crossed to the other side of the street when they saw him coming or made the sign of a cross. It was never good news when the hangman came up the hill from the Lech to Schongau. People tolerated him as long as he stuck to executions and carting away dead animals, but otherwise, they preferred that the executioner stay down below in the stinking Tanners’ Quarter.

  Jakob Kuisl could sense the townspeople watching. Word had gotten around that he’d smoked out the Scheller Gang, and no doubt his dispute with the young patricians was no longer a secret. Without paying any attention to the whispers behind him, he headed to the tower dungeon—a squat, three-story tower with soot-stained walls situated right along the city wall—where the watchmen had locked up the bandits the night before. Wrapped tightly in a coat that was much too thin, a bailiff stood guard in front of a heavy wooden door. He had propped his spear against the wall in hopes of warming his frozen hands in his pockets. He looked astonished as the hangman approached with a broad smile.

  “Here, Johannes,” Jakob Kuisl said, handing the bailiff a few warm chestnuts he’d been concealing under his coat. “My wife put a few of these aside for you and sends her best wishes.”

  “Well…thank you…” The bailiff sneezed and rubbed the warm chestnuts between his frozen fingers. “But you didn’t come here just to bring me something to eat, did you?” he asked, peering out from under his rabbit-fur hood. “I know you, Kuisl.”

  The hangman nodded. “I’ve got a score to settle inside there with Scheller. Just let me in for a moment. I’ll be right back.”

  “But what if Lechner hears about it?” Johannes muttered as he hungrily shelled the warm chestnuts. “He’ll give me hell.”

  Jakob Kuisl dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. “Oh, Lechner, he’s turning over in his bed right now and going back to sleep. Go down to see my wife today after the noon bells, and she’ll give you a pine liniment for your cold.”

  The bailiff grinned, popped a steaming chestnut between his rotten yellow teeth, took out a large rusty key, and opened the door to the dungeon.

  “But don’t rough up Scheller,” he called to the hangman with a full mouth, “or he’ll keel over before we have a chance to break him on the wheel, and that would be a pity.”

  Jakob Kuisl didn’t answer but headed to the cells in back. The men and women had been split into two groups. Some of the robbers lay around listlessly on the cold stone floor, their wounds largely untreated. The six-year-old boy Kuisl had noticed the day before seemed to suffer from a high fever. His whole body trembling, he looked toward the ceiling vacantly while his mother rocked him in her lap. As Kuisl approached, some of the men who could still stand started rattling the rusty bars of their cells.

  “So soon, Hangman?” one of them shouted. “Just when it’s getting comfy here! Didn’t you at least bring along a last meal for us?”

  Others laughed. The air was filled with the stench of excrement and damp straw.

  “Goddamn you!” one of the two women prisoners shouted, holding a screaming child out to him. “Who will take care of my little boy when I’m no longer here? Who? Or do you want to string him up along with us?”

  “Oh shut up, Anna!” said a voice from the adjacent cell. “If the kid survives, they’ll give him to the church. The boy is better off than any of us. If you didn’t live with dignity, you can at least die with some.”

  Hans Scheller struck a defiant posture in the middle of the cell, his muscular arms folded across his chest. He looked like a rough-hewn, immovable block with facial features chiseled out of hard walnut. His cheeks were black and blue and swollen from being struck, and his left eye was glued shut with dried blood. With his right eye, however, he stared Jakob Kuisl down attentively and proudly.

  “What do you want, Kuisl?” he asked. “You’re not coming to take us to the gallows. You’ll make a big deal out of that, with wine, dancing, and laughing, and if Scheller screams loud enough when you break him on the wheel, you’ll get an extra guilder. But I won’t scream; you can count on it.”

  “There’s never been anyone who didn’t scream,” the hangman growled. “You’ve got my word on that.”

  Jakob Kuisl noticed a flash of fear in Scheller’s eyes. The wheel was one of the cruelest forms of execution. After the executioner broke every bone in the condemned man’s body with an iron bar, he tied him to a wagon wheel. If the prisoner was lucky, the executioner was merciful and broke his neck. If the prisoner wasn’t, the executioner set the wheel up outside and let him die a slow miserable death in the blazing sun. That could take several days.

  Jakob Kuisl winked at Scheller. “But we’ll see. Perhaps it will be very different this time.”

  “Ha-ha!” jeered a neighbor in the next cell. “The hangman will let us go when the Pope wipes his ass with leaves!”

  “Shut up, Springer!” Hans Scheller shouted. “Or I’ll cut off your nose even before the hangman gets around to it.”

  The robber fell silent, and the others slowly moved back from the bars, too, settling down in the filthy, damp straw.

  “So, Kuisl, what do you want?” the robber chief whispered.

  The hangman was close enough to the bars now that he could smell the robber’s foul breath. Hans Scheller’s stubbled face was scarred, black and blue, and coated with dried blood.

  “If you tell me where you’ve stashed your loot, I might be able to arrange a more lenient punishment,” Kuisl said softly.

  “Loot?” Hans Scheller feigned surprise and stared at him innocently. “What loot?”

  In a lightning-fast motion, Jakob Kuisl reached through the bars to grab the robber chief’s hand, bending his fingers back until they cracked. Hans Scheller turned white in the face.

  “Let’s not play games, Scheller,” Kuisl growled. “This is just a little foretaste of what you can expect if you keep this up. Tongs, thumbscrews, the rack—I can show it all to you today. So what do you say?”

  Hans Scheller tried to pull his hand back, but the hangman just applied more pressure. The cracking was now quite audible.

  “The loot…is buried near the cave, over by the dead beech tree…” he groaned. “I would have told you, anyway.”

  “Excellent.” Kuisl grinned and let go. Hans Scheller pulled his hand back and looked at his little finger, which was bent away from his hand at an odd angle.

  “Go to hell, Hangman,” he whispered. “I know people like you
. You’ll grab the loot for yourself and let us all suffer a long time before we die.”

  Jakob Kuisl shook his head. “I’m serious, Scheller. I’ll appeal to the town for you. No torture, no wheel. A nice, clean hanging. I promise.”

  “And the children and women?” Scheller asked. There was almost a look of hope in his face.

  The hangman nodded. “I can’t promise anything, of course, but I’ll do my best. But in return, you have to tell me a few things.”

  Hans Scheller looked at him suspiciously. “What?”

  “First, this attack a few days ago on our medicus and his companion. Was that you?”

  Scheller hesitated for a moment. Finally, he replied, “Not me personally, but a few of my men. They were getting bored, so they ambushed him, and then the woman blew them away.” He grinned. “She must have been a hell of a woman, according to what I’ve heard.”

  The hangman grinned back. “I’d say so, too, if a woman beat me to the draw in a gunfight. But I have something else here—this bag.” From under his overcoat, Kuisl pulled out the embossed leather satchel he had found in the robbers’ hideout. “Where did you get this?”

  The robber chief hesitated. “Let’s see…We took that from some other bandits.”

  “Other bandits?”

  Scheller nodded. “They were tough customers. We surprised them some time ago sitting around their campfire at night, but they fought back like the Swedes. Before they fled, they slit open the bellies of two of my men. They’re a really bad bunch—be careful before you get mixed up with them. They left the bag behind.” Hans Scheller looked surprised. “But why do you want it? There’s nothing of value there. We went through it twice.”

  The hangman didn’t answer but continued his questioning. “What did the men look like? Were they wearing black cowls, like monks? Were they carrying curved daggers?”