The Play of Death

by Oliver Pötzsch

  The crowd began to grumble loudly, and some of the spectators who had evidently come from their work in the fields held up their rakes and hoes like weapons.

  “Damned foreigners!” someone shouted. “The devil take them all, and also Faistenmantel, the greedy traitor.”

  Franz Würmseer nodded approvingly. “In earlier times these filthy, dishonorable immigrants were simply expelled from the country,” he added in a loud voice. “They were chained to wagons, hauled down to the Loisach, and put on river rafts. Today the law is much too lenient in these matters, and we can only hope all that will soon change. But until then, we must defend ourselves.”

  This time there was a loud murmur of approval. Würmseer raised his hands again, and the crowd immediately fell silent.

  “Many of you know we have tried everything to stop the decline of our valley,” he continued. “We were making progress, even if we broke certain laws. What else could we do if these laws limited our ancient, guaranteed rights? But just as our success seemed at hand, envious people arose who wanted to report us to the authorities because they feared the loss of their own benefits. You all know who I am speaking of.” Würmseer pointed at Konrad Faistenmantel, who was still hanging on the cross upside down, lifeless. “Some of you may have sympathy for the fat merchant, but I ask you, hasn’t he bullied you and sucked you dry for all these years? Tell me yourself, hasn’t your venerable council chairman gotten fatter and fatter while we suffer want and deprivation? You were all at the last rehearsal, and you heard how he threatened us. So shall we continue to bow down and humble ourselves before him?”

  “Never!” roared old Adam Göbl, raising his fist. “We’ll put an end to that. The fellow had my son locked up in a dungeon, and now he will pay for that, and for everything else, too. Let’s show that greedy dog no mercy—he has tormented us long enough.”

  Franz Würmseer lowered his hands to quiet the crowd. “We all have various reasons to hate Konrad Faistenmantel, it’s not just this last stupid threat. Some of us were bought out, some were paid far too little for our carvings, and still others were cheated in cattle trading or in a thousand other ways.” Würmseer’s voice lowered almost to a whisper, but with an even more urgent tone. “In ancient times, sacrifices were made here on the Döttenbichl. Some of us still observe this practice in the form of food or precious little objects. But I fear in dark times like these, a greater sacrifice is called for . . .” Again the second burgomaster paused dramatically. Simon could see how all eyes sparkled with anticipation in the light of the torches.

  They’re really going to kill the old man.

  Simon’s thoughts were racing. It was probable that here, in this very place, the two immigrant children, Markus and Marie, were sacrificed by Würmseer and some other xenophobic madmen. Konrad Faistenmantel had probably been a witness then and had threatened to expose those responsible. And for that reason he had to die. Simon wondered if young Dominik and Urban Gabler had been murdered for the same reason. Had Sebastian Sailer killed himself because he could no longer live with the guilt?

  “We citizens of Oberammergau were always a free and proud people who took orders from no one,” Würmseer continued. “We always made our decisions together, and that’s what we will do this time. All who agree that Konrad Faistenmantel deserves the death sentence and wish to ward off further trouble, raise your hands.”

  First hesitantly, then in increasing numbers, hands shot up in the air.

  “Kill him!” someone shouted. Another joined in. “Kill!” And then as if in a demonic chorus, “Kill, kill, kill!”

  Franz Würmseer raised his hand again to quiet the crowd, then he nodded solemnly. “So shall it be.” He pulled out a long dagger and slowly approached the cross.

  At that moment there was a faint sound behind Simon. Trembling, he turned around and saw Judge Johannes Rieger along with four of his guards coming out of the forest and striding toward him.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Thank God you’ve come,” Simon gasped. A wave of relief came over him. Apparently the judge had learned of the horrible plan at the last moment and was coming now to stop it. There was law and order in this valley, after all.

  “This wild mob is about to sacrifice Konrad Faistenmantel,” he whispered as Rieger stepped up to him. “It seems that Würmseer and a few others have done something dreadful to the immigrant children and the council chairman knew about it. You must immediately—”

  “There’s a spy here!” Rieger shouted, pointing his walking stick at the astonished Simon. “The fellow was hiding and heard everything. I knew it was a good idea to post guards around the forest.” With a thin smile, the judge turned to his guards. “Well done, men—now take the fellow up the hill. It appears the Kofel will have yet another sacrifice today.”

  Rieger leaned down to Simon, who was frozen with fear. The judge’s voice was soft, almost apologetic. “I told you not to get involved in things that are none of your business, Herr Fronwieser. Now it’s too late.”

  Simon shouted as the guards seized him and dragged him up the front as the crowd parted, leaving a path for them. His hat fell off and was trampled in the mud by the mob. The guards pulled the defenseless medicus up the hill, like a sheep to the slaughter, toward the crackling flames and the cross bearing the bloody Konrad Faistenmantel, hanging head down.

  Würmseer was still standing at the top, holding the long dagger in his hand.

  “Friends! I’m afraid we’ll have to vote again,” he shouted.

  Simon closed his eyes. This is a nightmare, he thought. Dear God, let me wake up!

  As he opened his eyes again briefly, hands were starting to rise.

  He could guess what the vote would be.

  When Magdalena finally arrived in Oberammergau, it was snowing hard, as if it were again the middle of winter. A thin white layer covered the houses and roads, and the wind howled down from the mountains. She was still holding the ring of salt in front of Franziskus’s nose, and he was snapping at it with increasing impatience.

  In the last half hour, Magdalena had gotten increasingly annoyed by her own stupidity. She really should have figured out much earlier what was going on in that shed in Soyen. Her fear of death had obviously clouded her thinking, but this awareness made no change in her present situation. She had to find Johann Lechner as fast as possible—that was all that counted. She had to save Barbara. At present she had no idea where the secretary was, except that he’d gone to Oberammergau with her father. Now surely Simon could help her find him. She was still angry at him for having extended his stay without discussing it with her, but she felt a deep longing nevertheless to see her husband again—him, and her elder son, Peter, and perhaps there would be an opportunity soon to tell them about her pregnancy. She ran her hand over her abdomen, and her face darkened.

  Hopefully Brother Konstantin was right and nothing happened to the child while I was unconscious, she thought. At least there was no bleeding.

  Magdalena looked around the dark street covered with drifts of snow in hopes of finding someone she could ask about Simon, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. Strangely, there were no lights in any of the houses, and the large tavern on the right appeared closed. Had all the Oberammergauers gone to evening mass? Magdalena decided to ride over to the church, whose steeple stood out darkly in the gathering gloom. Here, too, everything seemed forsaken. In the cemetery stood some strange scaffolding and beneath it a sort of stage. Only one man was there, his hands folded in prayer, walking back and forth through the drifting snow.

  “Hey! You there!” Magdalena called, waving to him from atop her donkey. “Can you hear me?”

  The man looked up, shocked. Magdalena recognized him now by his robe as the village priest.

  “Good Lord in heaven,” the priest gasped, falling to his knees. “The Savior has come to Oberammergau.”

  “I’m not—” Magdalena started to say, but the man interrupted her.

  “Oh, I know I have sinned,” he
whined. “I never should have permitted it. I’m weak, O Lord, and was fearful for my own wretched life. O Lord, forgive me!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Magdalena muttered, but then she realized what the priest meant. With her hood and long hair she really looked a bit like Jesus in the mural paintings in the Schongau church as He rode into Jerusalem on His donkey.

  The only things missing are the waving palm branches and the cheering crowd, she thought.

  She dismounted and entered the cemetery, her legs trembling slightly as the priest remained on the stage, kneeling and praying.

  “Eh, I can give you some solace, Excellency,” she said. “I am not the Savior but only Magdalena Fronwieser from Schongau, the wife of the bathhouse keeper. I’m looking urgently for my husband. Do you perhaps know where I can find him?”

  The priest looked up, perplexed, and now Magdalena could see he was as pale as a shroud and trembling all over. Something seemed to be making him very anxious, and she could feel the anxiety coming over her now, as well.

  What happened here?

  “Not . . . the Savior?” he stammered. He got to his feet and shook his head, as if awakening from a bad dream.

  “My husband, the bathhouse keeper and medicus,” she began slowly and gently, as if speaking to a child. “Where is he?” When she received no answer she continued. “Then do you know where the Schongau secretary is? Or my father, the Schongau executioner?”

  The priest let out a shrill laugh, and Magdalena was starting to think he was not all right in the head.

  “Ha! An executioner is someone we could put to good use here,” he said with a giggle. “So many dead, so many culprits. I suspected it from the beginning, but I was silent. This is my sin, my great sin.”

  Nervously Magdalena looked around the deserted cemetery. Little drifts of snow covered the graves, and the wind whistled through the open church portal. A strange feeling came over her.

  “Where are all the people?” she asked. “There are no lights in the houses.”

  The priest pointed to the west toward the outline of the mighty Kofel that had caught her eye earlier. “The mountain has called them,” he mumbled. “They do evil things there, and I couldn’t stop them. As God is my witness I tried to change their minds, but they . . . they wouldn’t listen. Only a few have remained here. The play could have united us, but now that it has been called off . . .”

  Completely wrapped up in his thoughts, the priest babbled on, but he’d already turned away and was pacing like an animal in a cage, shaking his head over and over. Magdalena realized she could expect no help from him.

  “Eh, thank you, Excellency,” she said politely. “I must go on. As I said, it’s urgent.”

  She hurried out through the cemetery gate, mounted Franziskus, and gave him a slap on the backside. “Sorry, old fellow, but it seems we have to make another trip,” she whispered in his ear. “Later you’ll get the biggest ring of salt in all the Priest’s Corner, I promise.”

  Unexpectedly, Franziskus at once started moving, as if he’d understood Magdalena.

  As the babbling of the priest behind her faded into the distance, she rode through the dark, abandoned lanes of Oberammergau, squinting in order to see through the blinding snow. The Kofel was on the other side of the Ammer, and if there was any truth in the priest’s frenzied prattle, many of the inhabitants of Oberammergau were up there, perhaps even Simon and her father. At least one of them should be able to tell her what had happened and where Johann Lechner was. She’d have to go back over the bridge again, across the pasture, and head for this strange mountain. Sooner or later she’d have to come upon some people. This valley was so strange.

  Magdalena turned right onto the main road that led through the deserted village, but suddenly Franziskus froze, as if he’d seen a ghost. In front of them, three riders entered the village, all dressed in black. It made them seem even weirder that their horses were also as black as night. Leading them was a single man on a dapple-gray horse with his hood pulled far down over his face.

  The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Magdalena thought at once. Am I dreaming?

  The riders approached with infinite slowness, and Franziskus’s flanks trembled, possibly because of the cold, but perhaps, too, because the donkey sensed, as did Magdalena, that something unspeakably evil had taken possession of this valley.

  Twenty miles away, Barbara crouched down in her hideaway as the wind shook the shutters.

  Ever since the previous afternoon she’d been huddled down in a storeroom hewn out of the rock in Martha Stechlin’s cellar. It was so cold that even three thick woolen blankets weren’t enough to keep her warm. Along the walls of the tiny recess were jars of pickled gherkins and sauerkraut, withered apples from the previous autumn, and other odds and ends. Sausages and hams hung from the shoulder-high ceiling. The strong odor of smoked meat, so tempting at first, made Barbara feel now as if she were choking. At the moment, she couldn’t imagine she’d ever again have any appetite for sausage and sauerkraut, until then among her favorite foods.

  Several times she’d pleaded with Martha Stechlin to let her out, but each time the midwife declined. Guards had come to search Martha’s house twice, as they knew she and the escaped hangman’s daughter were good friends, but they hadn’t found Barbara, possibly because the entrance hatch to the storeroom was hidden beneath a shabby, moldy, stinking sheepskin. Nevertheless, Martha didn’t want to take any chances.

  The wind moaned, and from somewhere far off Barbara heard something groaning and cracking. Barbara assumed it was a shingle that had come loose. A violent storm seemed to be raging outside. She couldn’t help thinking of her sister, Magdalena, who was presumably somewhere in the Ammer Valley, where a May storm like this could easily usher in a wintery blast. Was that perhaps the reason Magdalena still had not returned with Johann Lechner?

  Shivering, she wrapped the blankets the old midwife had given her more tightly around herself and brooded. Basically, she was still a prisoner. Would she have to spend her entire life in a hole like this? It all depended on whether Jakob Schreevogl could prove that the Schongau burgomaster was guilty of some wrongdoing. Only then would the dignitaries perhaps realize that Barbara’s execution was intended to silence her. But for now it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Ever since the day before, Paul had been watching the old cemetery in hopes that Melchior Ransmayer and Burgomaster Buchner would show up there again. But perhaps they suspected they might be under surveillance, and they did not appear. Secretly, Jakob Schreevogl had arranged for an inspection of the sacks at the building site, but had found nothing. Buchner would dissolve the town council at their meeting that night, and they still had no evidence against him.

  Above her, the front door of the house flew open with a crash, and she shuddered. Had the guards come back again? Had someone disclosed where she was hiding? She could hear steps moving across the floor, then the hatch opened. She held her breath.

  They are coming to get me! This time there is no way out.

  But it was the almost toothless face of Martha Stechlin that appeared in the opening above her.

  “I have some news,” the old woman whispered. “Ransmayer is back at the cemetery—Paul just saw him there, along with a fellow in a tall, bell-shaped hat. It appears they’re unloading something from a wagon there.”

  “The Tyrolean!” Barbara gasped. “So they’re meeting again. You’ve got to tell Jakob Schreevogl right away.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t—the council meeting has already begun.”

  “The council meeting?” Barbara blanched. “Does that mean it’s already evening?” Down in the cellar she had lost all track of time. If the meeting had already begun, it was almost too late.

  “Listen, Martha,” Barbara whispered after a brief pause. “You must go to the Ballenhaus and try to speak with Jakob Schreevogl under some pretext. He’s got to learn about what’s happening there.”

  “You wan
t me to go and speak with the second burgomaster during a council meeting where all the fine gentlemen are present in velvet and silk?” Martha laughed bitterly. “You forget I’m just a simple midwife. They’ll never let me speak with the master Schreevogl.”

  “But you have to figure out how, and in the meantime I’ll go to the cemetery and try to learn what’s going on there.”

  “And I’m coming, too.” Paul appeared alongside Martha, grinning. He’d evidently been standing there listening the entire time. “And I have my slingshot with me,” he boasted. “With this we can make things really tough for that stupid doctor.”

  “You won’t do any such thing,” Barbara replied. “That’s much too dangerous, and you’re going to stay here.”

  Paul pouted. “But you said yourself I should keep my slingshot handy.”

  “I meant if I was in danger, or if you were, then perhaps . . .”

  “But we are in danger!” Paul stamped the ground furiously. “I have to protect you, because Father and Grandfather aren’t here. I’m the man here now. If you don’t let me, I’ll scream.”

  “For God’s sake,” Martha Stechlin groaned. “Don’t do that.”

  “All right then, come along,” Barbara said, trying to calm him down, “if that’s what you really want to do, but don’t shoot until I say so. Promise?”

  Paul grinned mischievously, pulling the leather sling out of his pants pocket and swinging it around so it whizzed through the air. “I promise. But in return I get some candied plums, just like the fat noblemen in the tavern down by city hall.”