The Beggar King hd-3

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Kuisl looked up to see a figure standing in the burned-out window of the ruined tower. The man, tall and broad, held a crossbow in his hands like a toy. This was the stranger he’d seen almost two weeks ago on the raft heading for Regensburg, his face deeply pitted and scarred.

  It took Kuisl a while to realize that one of the scars was in fact his grinning mouth.

  Simon struggled to breathe. The dirty rag Silvio Contarini had stuffed in his mouth stank of mold and mouse droppings, and his nose was congested with flour, causing him to sneeze over and over. Only with great effort was he able to turn his head enough to see what was happening around him.

  Beside him lay Magdalena, also bound and gagged. A ways off, through clouds of chaff and flour, he saw the Venetian’s five helpers loading sacks onto a wagon parked in front of the mill. They’d spent the past few hours grinding the rest of the ergot to destroy all the evidence. Now, in the early afternoon, it was an oven inside the mill and the men’s shirts were soaked through with sweat. Clean and sharp in his red doublet, jacket, and hat, only Silvio seemed not to be sweating. He sat on a millstone biting his lip, looking increasingly nervous.

  “I’m starting to think you’re right, Fronwieser,” Silvio said as he chewed thoughtfully on a piece of straw. “Even a clever little quack such as yourself couldn’t possibly have divined my plans, certainly not in so much detail. Gessner must have blabbed. Why in the world did I ever get involved with such an idiot! I curse the day I met him on my way to Vienna!” He turned his head to make sure none of the raftsmen were listening, then he whispered, “These freemen are nothing but a pack of crazy jackasses! And Gessner is the craziest of them all.”

  All of a sudden the damp flour blocked Simon’s nostrils. Struggling for air, he drew frantic shallow breaths. He twitched and floundered until a sack of flour fell to the ground beside him. Surprised by the noise, Silvio glanced over at him but didn’t seem in any hurry to remove the gag. Instead, he sat still, observing Simon’s struggle with interest.

  “How long can a man get by without air? What do you think, hmm? I should just let you suffocate here like a fish on dry land. Ever since you and la bella signorina came to town, everything’s been going to pieces. But I won’t allow you to destroy my plan!” He pounded on one of the sacks, sending up a white cloud around him. “Not you, and not that crazy Gessner, either!”

  Simon couldn’t get any air at all now-the flour had completely plugged his nose. His eyes bulging, he started to turn blue while the Venetian stared off into the distance, seeming to have forgotten all about his prisoner for the moment.

  “Gessner’s greatest achievement was talking that bathhouse owner, Hofmann, into joining in our cause,” he muttered. “A brilliant alchemist! He’d been studying poisonous plants for years, and without him we never could have produced such pure ergot!” The ambassador was almost gushing now. “Somehow that modest little bathhouse owner managed to get the fungus to coat almost the entire head of each plant. It was fantastic! But Hofmann’s conscience suddenly got the better of him, and he was about to spill the whole story to the city council.” Silvio took the straw from his mouth and ripped it into pieces. “We should have just slaughtered him like a dog in an alley! Quick and painless. A robbery that turned into a murder-no one would ever have suspected anything! But no, it had to be something elaborate…”

  The medicus felt himself slowly losing consciousness as iridescent vapors swirled through his head. He could comprehend only fragments of the Venetian’s speech now.

  “Gessner only learned by chance that Hofmann’s wife was the sister of his archenemy,” Silvio continued. “After that it was like he became a different person. He insisted that we write a letter to lure Kuisl to Regensburg, that we forge a will and pin the murder on him. God knows what the Schongau hangman did to Gessner during the war, but it was certainly enough to have turned him into a raging angel of vengeance all these years later. He talked me into it, spoke of his ingenious plan, but then the two of you showed up and-oh, is something wrong?”

  “Mmmmmmmhhhhhh…”

  As his consciousness faded, Simon tipped over onto a pile of flour alongside him, enveloping himself and Magdalena in plumes of dust that rose toward the ceiling. Silvio, irritated at first, stood up, sighing, and walked over to his captives.

  “What do you think?” he said, turning to the hangman’s daughter, who stared up at him, her eyes wide with fear. “Shall we rid the world of this green-eyed little smart aleck? Or shall we allow him to pester us a bit longer?”

  Magdalena writhed wildly. Gagged as she was, she seemed to be cursing fiercely.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Silvio said, gingerly removing the cloth from Simon’s mouth. Immediately the medicus gasped like a man saved from drowning, inhaling huge quantities of air. As the color slowly returned to his face, he lay on the floor, wheezing and unable to speak a word.

  “Don’t think for a minute that you’ve thwarted my plans, Fronwieser!” the Venetian snarled. “A man like Silvio Contarini always has another card up his sleeve. Now I’ll just have to go back to my original plan. I didn’t care for it so much at first because it seemed it would call for many more lives to be lost, but now, unfortunately, I see no other choice.” He pointed to the five raftsmen, who had now loaded almost all the sacks onto the wagon. “At least Gessner left his men for me. We’ll take the ergot to a safe place until we can find a way to use it. And we’ll take la bella signorina along with us and destroy the remaining evidence.” Silvio smiled. “I’m sorry to say, you’re a piece of evidence. Arrivederci!”

  He clapped his hands and turned to his helpers. “Hurry, before the guards show up! Aren’t you finished yet?”

  The men nodded respectfully. Evidently the ignorant raftsmen were still convinced by Silvio’s plan. Simon assumed the Venetian had promised each a seat on the city council and at least his weight in gold.

  “Now let’s bring this show to a close, il grande finale!”

  Gesturing dramatically, Silvio approached a large wooden box attached to the wall at eye level and filled with flour. He slid open the bottom panel, emptying flour onto the floor and sending up an enormous cloud of dust that soon engulfed the entire mill. Simon could see only the Venetian’s shadowy outline next to the box, like a ghost enshrouded in fog. Two raftsmen grabbed Magdalena’s flailing form and carried her outside.

  “Flour is wonderful stuff,” Silvio gushed. “You can bake bread with it, poison people, and even turn it into a bomb. The tiniest spark will cause this dust to explode. What you see here should be enough to blow up half the island. But, little bookworm that you are, you surely already knew that, didn’t you?”

  Through the cloud of dust Simon watched the Venetian fetch a small trunk from behind a millstone. After opening it, he pulled out what at first glance looked like a long rope, but only after Silvio unrolled it did Simon realize what it really was.

  A fuse.

  “I found this thing right here, a while back,” Silvio said as he slowly laid the cord out along the floor and backed toward the door. “Along with a whole trunk of gunpowder and a dozen muskets. I assume soldiers must have left them here during the Great War. How nice that I’ve finally found a good use for them.”

  From the doorway the Venetian looked back at his prisoner a last time.

  Simon, meanwhile, had regained his speech. “Where-where are you taking Magdalena?” he gasped. “Where are you… taking all those sacks?”

  Silvio smiled. “Well, man lives not by bread alone, isn’t that so? But I’m afraid you have other more pressing concerns at the moment.”

  He fetched a box of matches from his pocket and shook it gently.

  “At least you won’t suffer,” he said. “I can promise you that. The instant the spark touches this dust, the whole place will go up with a bang. And with all the gunpowder, it should put on a fireworks show for all of Regensburg.” He bowed slightly. “Enjoy your flight.”

  Stepping outside, he
gave the raftsmen the order to depart. The wagon groaned under its weight as it began to move forward. And as the sound of the wagon faded away, a softer sound reached Simon’s ears.

  The hiss of the burning fuse.

  14

  REGENSBURG

  NOON, AUGUST 26, 1662 AD

  The Raftmaster’s attack was so sudden that Kuisl didn’t turn aside until the last moment. The sun was shining straight into his eyes, forcing him to squint and rely on instinct alone. As Kuisl dodged to the left, he felt the katzbalger whiz by just inches from his face. At his feet lay Teuber, the bolt through his chest, his shirt soaked in blood, staring glassy-eyed at the two combatants.

  Kuisl reached for the old, beat-up rapier on his belt. From the corner of his eye he could see Lettner preparing for another attack. The hangman unsheathed his weapon just as the raftmaster came at him from the left, where Kuisl was exposed. The rapier and the katzbalger met with a loud clatter in the air, and the battle raged back and forth.

  Kuisl could feel sweat streaming down his back, fever pulsing through his body, and his left arm hanging down like a dead tree branch. Had he been in better condition, he might have been a match for Philipp Lettner. Kuisl had always been the stronger of the two, but his former second in command was known to compensate for this deficiency with excessive cruelty. Now, weakened from torture, however, the hangman was hopelessly outmatched. The last twenty-five years hadn’t softened or fattened Philipp but had made him as sinewy and hard as a polished walnut. To make matters worse, his brother was still lingering up in the steeple, his eyes flashing down on the two opponents. His crossbow lay in arm’s reach on the windowsill, and Kuisl assumed the enormous man could load it again in no time.

  “Does my brother frighten you?” Philipp Lettner bared his white teeth. Relentlessly he forced Kuisl toward the church with his katzbalger. “Don’t forget, Friedrich is a monster of your own creation. You thought he’d burned to death back then in that farmhouse, didn’t you? But my brother is strong-strong and tough, just like all Lettners. He fought his way out of the smoking ruins and pulled me down from the tree, after your hasty departure, that is. But for Karl, our youngest, help came too late. This is for Karl.”

  Kuisl didn’t notice Lettner draw a dagger from his belt and prepare to strike the hangman’s stomach. Only at the last moment did Kuisl knock the blade aside with his left arm, causing severe pain to return to his shoulder. When Kuisl’s vision went black, he had to kick blindly at his opponent, striking him in the stomach. Moaning, Lettner staggered backward, stumbling over the crumbling ruin of a farmhouse wall.

  Without pausing, the hangman took advantage of the unexpected reprieve and ran toward the ruined church. If he was to stand any chance at all against the mercenary, it would be with a surprise attack. Perhaps there was a hiding place in the church ruins, somewhere he could seek cover.

  The ruins were enveloped in a muted light that filtered through partially collapsed roof beams, where swallows and pigeons had come to nest. Ivy wound like a venomous snake around what remained of the nave’s left aisle. The right wing was in better shape; a charred, life-size wooden cross still hung on the wall there. But there, too, the church windows were like lifeless black eyes, overgrown with blackberry bushes that allowed only a glimmer of light to penetrate. Moldy leaves fluttered down from the ceiling, and Kuisl could hear bees buzzing about somewhere.

  Toward the front Kuisl discovered a stone altar that, absent its altar cloth, Eucharist monstrance, and gilded finery, looked like the sacrificial stage for some pagan rite. The hangman ran and crouched behind it to catch his breath, his back tucked against the side facing away from the pews.

  Soon Kuisl heard footsteps, though he didn’t realize at first that they came not from the entrance but from the church spire. Pressed tight against the altar’s edge, he peered into the right aisle, toward the crumbling door of the steeple ruins, just as an enormous figure emerged from behind a pile of moss-covered rocks.

  It was Friedrich Lettner.

  The man aimed his loaded crossbow straight at the altar. Kuisl ducked as a bolt whizzed within millimeters of his nose, boring into the wall next to him and sending shards of stone flying in all directions.

  “You know something, Kuisl? My brother shouldn’t get to have all the fun for himself, now should he?” Friedrich’s deep voice echoed through the ruined church. “I’ll nail you to the cross with these bolts, then burn the eyes out of your head. Too bad the Regensburg executioner won’t be able to watch. I’ll bet he’s never seen a torture technique like that.” Kuisl heard a soft creak-one he’d heard many times before-the sound of the crossbow crank as Friedrich Lettner loaded a new bolt.

  “How long I’ve waited for this moment, Kuisl!” Friedrich said as he casually turned the crank. “Philipp didn’t think I should take the raft back to Regensburg with you; he thought you might recognize me. But someone had to deliver the letter, after all. And besides…” His laughter was harsh, almost a rattle, as if the flames from that farmhouse long ago had scarred his throat as well. “The way I look, my own mother wouldn’t even recognize me.”

  “Shut your mouth, Friedrich! You talk too much!” It was the voice of Philipp Lettner, who had entered the church in the meanwhile. He held his hand to his hip, and his face was contorted with pain; he’d apparently injured himself falling over the wall outside. “Load your crossbow. The dog may be cornered, but he’s still dangerous.”

  Grumbling something incomprehensible, Friedrich began to crank the crossbow again.

  As another wave of fever washed over him, Kuisl considered his options here behind the altar. He’d run straight into their trap! Once Friedrich’s bow was readied-no more than a few moments from now-Philipp would flush him out from behind the altar like a rat. The hangman had no doubt the bolt would hit its mark this time. Friedrich made quite clear with his first shot that he hadn’t forgotten how to wield a crossbow. Kuisl bit his lip; the fever had made him very agitated. He had little time before his fate would be sealed, by either the crossbow or the katzbalger.

  Is this the end? he thought. Here, where my new life began, will it also come to an end?

  Again he risked a glance from behind the altar. Philipp Lettner waited at the church door with sword raised. Friedrich, still cranking his crossbow, would be ready in a matter of moments. Kuisl studied Friedrich’s face, ravaged by fire, a face he last saw on the trip to Regensburg. The skin had congealed into a hard mass like the burned, cracked bark of an oak, but the eyes behind it remained the same-cold, blue, evil. All around Friedrich wasps were buzzing, evidently disturbed by the commotion in the ruin. They were exceptionally large, black and yellow, and their wings shimmered in the midday sun.

  Wasps?

  Only now did Kuisl realize these weren’t wasps at all but mean-looking hornets, each grown to nearly the length of a man’s finger. They buzzed about Friedrich’s scabby nose, and again and again the mercenary had to interrupt his cranking to swat them away. Where were they all coming from?

  Kuisl’s gaze wandered along the wall, over the ivy- and moss-covered stones, until he spotted the nest. It hung from the ceiling, hidden among charred beams and blackberry bushes.

  Directly above Friedrich.

  “Goddamn it, how long is that going to take?” Philipp Lettner said angrily. “Can’t you see we’ve got him holed up behind the altar like a wounded boar? We’ve got to drive him out of there together.”

  “Just one second,” Friedrich replied. “The bowstring is so taut the bolt could pass straight through three men like a knife through butter. I just have to-”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. Like an avenging angel, Kuisl rose up behind the altar and hurled a fist-size rock at the hornets’ nest. The stone made a direct hit, and the nest swayed and finally fell to the ground at Friedrich’s feet, where it burst open like a full wine pouch.

  Hundreds of furious hornets swarmed out and enveloped Friedrich Lettner in a dark, tremulous lethal cloud.
With a shout he dropped the crossbow and raised his hands to cover his face, but the hornets were already busily exploring his scars.

  The seething black-and-yellow mass stung the man’s face over and over.

  Simon heard the fuse crackle as it burned inexorably toward the entrance to the mill. Through a crack in the door he thought he could see the gleam of gunpowder about to ignite. Having reached the door, the spark traveled now along the fuse toward the pile of flour, wood shavings, and small boards Silvio had positioned at the end of the cord.

  In desperation the medicus thrashed about, but his bonds wouldn’t give a fraction of an inch. He tried to slither to the door, only to find the Venetian had also tethered him to a beam. The rope jerked him back, and he collapsed, exhausted. Flour drifted like a white fog among the remaining barrels, sacks, and crates, one of which-Simon was painfully aware-contained several pounds of gunpowder just waiting to explode.

  “Help! Doesn’t anyone hear me?” he croaked hoarsely, though he knew it was pointless. The rumbling and pounding of the Wohrd mill wheels would drown out even the loudest shout. Though the huge grain mill still ground away, in just a few moments it would burst with a single thunderous clap-likely the last sound the medicus would ever hear.

  But maybe it won’t explode at all, Simon thought. Maybe it will just catch fire and I’ll burn to death, slowly. If I don’t suffocate first, that is… Good Lord, at least let the mill blow up and spare me the longer agony.

  By now sparks had eaten their way along the fuse into the mill proper. The dust was so thick Simon could hear the crackling flame better than he could see it.

  Now… The time is at hand.

  With a loud crash the door swung open. The air was too thick to see exactly who was there, but Simon could make out an oddly familiar figure through the haze.