With her hands still bound, Magdalena turned her head from side to side. Nevertheless, Jeremias held her in his viselike grip while Silvio maneuvered the cup.
“Oh, by the way…” Silvio was speaking almost directly into her ear now. “I do hope very much that your visions are not all gloomy and gruesome. I’ve heard ergot can stimulate physical desire. If that’s the case, do let me know. I’d be glad to share a few dreams with you.”
The cup had reached Magdalena’s lips.
Screaming, Friedrich Lettner writhed on the floor of the ruined church as hornets swarmed over his face and upper body. He thrashed about as if possessed, crushing dozens of the insects in his swollen hands, even as new ones kept coming.
Meanwhile Kuisl sought shelter behind the altar, out of sight of the angry hornets. Leaning against the huge stone slab, he peered out to observe an utterly bewildered Philipp Lettner. Only after a few moments did the raftmaster run toward Friedrich and attempt to swat the hornets away from his brother’s shirt collar. But in doing so he was stung several times himself.
“Damn you, Kuisl!” Philipp Lettner shouted, waving his katzbalger through the air as if warding off invisible ghosts. “Damn you and your whole clan! Damn you forever!”
Kuisl had no time to waste now. Sword raised, he ran toward his opponent, who was still preoccupied with the hornets circling around him while trying to help his brother. The raftmaster cast an irritated sidelong glance at Kuisl, then, with a growl, left Friedrich to his own devices as he prepared himself for battle. A cloud of hornets circled his head and clouded his vision.
“You damned son of a whore!” Lettner shouted, brushing away a few angry buzzing insects with his left hand. “For this, Jakob, I’ll slit your belly open and hang your entrails from the church steeple.”
“Spare the talk and fight, will you?”
Without another word, Kuisl lunged at his enemy. He felt the hornets sting his arms, face, and back, but the pain was eclipsed by his fever and the excitement of battle. The hangman was horrified to realize that the clanging swords aroused something like lust in him.
Just as before… the smell of blood, the screams of dying men. It’s like a fog that suddenly engulfs a man-only much clearer…
He could see Philipp Lettner clearly in front of him now, but the former mercenary’s movements seemed strangely slow. Kuisl lunged with his sword, flailing away at his opponent, who continued to retreat, for the first time with fear in his eyes. Finally Lettner’s back was to the wall, and the two warriors stood face-to-face, less than an inch apart, with crossed swords.
“The letter in the bishop’s palace,” Kuisl gasped. “What was that sentence supposed to mean? Did you really think I would believe such utter nonsense?”
Philipp Lettner’s eyes lit up as he flashed his wolfish grin again.
“It’s the truth, just as sure as I’m standing here before you!” With great effort the raftmaster forced Kuisl’s sword a hand’s width to the side. “I had to make only a few quick calculations. I learned from the Venetian how old your daughter is-twenty-four! Barely a year before that, late in the fall, we were here in Weidenfeld. Your Anna had screamed at the time, but believe me, Jakob, they were screams of desire.”
“You dirty lying bastard!” Anger blinded Kuisl like a corrosive poison. Over and over a line flashed through his mind, a line from the letter slipped into his pocket just the night before in the bishop’s palace… That one line hurt more than all the torture he’d experienced in the Regensburg dungeon.
Kiss my daughter Magdalena for me… her mother tasted like a sweet ripe plum…
“Bastard!”
Kuisl shoved Lettner so hard he cried out in surprise as he staggered back to the wall. This put the raftmaster just beyond Kuisl’s reach, so Lettner took a deep breath, planted his feet firmly, and braced himself for the next attack. Scornfully he spat on the ground and swung the katzbalger through the air while his brother still rolled around on the ground, howling.
“I may be a dirty bastard,” Philipp Lettner whispered, “but I’m not a liar. I took Anna-Maria like a steer takes a cow. And what do I learn all these years later? That shortly after our rendezvous pretty little Anna was pregnant. What a coincidence!” He licked his lips and giggled. “Take another look at your daughter, Jakob! How could she not be mine? Her soft eyes; her matted, always-snarled hair; her full lips. She doesn’t take after you at all, does she?”
“She takes after her mother,” Kuisl said between clenched teeth as doubts started to grow in his mind. Anna-Maria never told him the name of the village she came from, and that was likely why he’d forgotten the name Weidenfeld completely. He knew she’d experienced horrible things there, but just what and how horrible these things were she’d never said.
She tasted like a sweet ripe plum…
Blood-red spots appeared before Kuisl’s eyes and his head began to spin.
I can’t let him get to me, he thought. He wants me to lose control… But why else would Anna have never spoken about it? Her sad face, when I took my baby girl in my arms and sang her to sleep… I can’t let him get to me…
“She’s my daughter,” the hangman replied flatly. “My daughter, my-”
“Maybe you’re right,” Lettner interrupted. “Perhaps she isn’t mine after all. Or maybe she is.” He chuckled. “You know something funny? A while ago, in the bathhouse, I very nearly burned her alive, along with that little quack. I was there just to cover my own tracks. When someone came in, I hid up in the attic but later ran down to smoke the intruders out of the cellar. By God, I didn’t know it was Magdalena at the time, but when the Venetian told me about it the next morning, I really did feel bad.” The raftmaster laughed loudly. “Whether you believe me or not, I like the girl; I feel close to her. I could have killed her a dozen times, but I didn’t. And do you know why? Because I know I’m her father.”
“Never!” the hangman yelled. “You-you damned liar!”
Philipp Lettner sighed theatrically. “Oh, Jakob, why must you be so pigheaded? Let’s agree that Magdalena has two fathers. That’s more than fair, isn’t it?” He snickered when he saw Kuisl clutching his sword so hard the blood drained from his fingers.
“I’ve sown doubt in your mind, haven’t I?” the raftmaster said. “I’ve given you a wound that will never heal. From now on, whenever you look at your daughter, you’ll see my face, too. That’s my revenge. Now, fight!” Philipp Lettner rushed the hangman like a man possessed, his teeth bared, holding the katzbalger out in front of him.
Kuisl lowered his sword feebly to the ground and, with a vacant look in his eyes, awaited the final blow.
“How long will it take us to get to this damned wellspring?” Simon asked Nathan, gasping as they hurried along the low corridor. “That madman may already be forcing ergot down Magdalena’s throat!”
Just as they had the last time they visited the Wohrd together, the beggar and the medicus made their way through the underwater tunnel connecting the city with the island. Foul water stood knee-deep in places in the muddy passageway, and falling bits of stone kept reminding Simon that only a thin wall of rock, clay, and dirt separated them from the Danube. And the decrepit bricks and beams of the ceiling weren’t reassuring.
Stooping, the beggar king ran ahead, carrying a lantern that bobbed like a will-o’-the-wisp lighting the way. Nevertheless, Simon managed to stumble several times. At one point his boot stuck on a half-submerged stone, toppling him over into cold brown muck. Grinning, Nathan held the lantern up to the medicus’s mud-splattered face.
“If you keep doing that, we’re never going to get there,” he squawked, his voice still hoarse from all the smoke at the mill. “The wellspring and the new chamber they’ve built around it lie to the south of the city, in the fields near the gallows hill. We still have quite a ways to go.”
“Near the gallows hill?” Simon asked as he stood up again and wiped off his jacket as best he could. “Not exactly the ideal place for a
freshwater spring, is it? Are you really certain we’ll find them there?”
Nodding, Nathan marched ahead with the lantern. “Quite sure. The well chamber at Pruller Heights was built only a few years ago. It feeds into the fountain on Haid Square, as well as the bishop’s palace, but most importantly, it feeds into city hall. If someone wishes to poison the Reichstag, that’s where he’ll be. Ouch!” He bumped his head on a jagged rock on the low ceiling. “Moreover, our dear Venetian friend will be absolutely undisturbed there. Except for a fountain guard, no one has access to the chamber. As far as I know, it’s under lock and key. And because it lies deep underground, Silvio can store the stuff there for months and simply pour his poison slowly into the spring.”
“A perfect place to imprison and poison someone with ergot over the coming days and weeks,” Simon mused. “Come, we must hurry!”
“Don’t worry. And if you didn’t have to lie down and take your mud baths all the time, we’d be there faster,” Nathan replied.
Finally they reached the end of the tunnel. As before, they climbed a matted fishnet like a rope ladder to a hole in the ceiling. They emerged at last into the roomy trunk that smelled as badly of fish now as it had a few days ago.
When Nathan opened the lid, fresh air rushed in. Simon eagerly took several deep breaths before he ventured a look outside. Barrels, bales, and crates towered all around them, and in the distance they could hear shouting. Every now and again it sounded as though someone passed close by.
Nathan whistled between his fingers, and shortly thereafter they heard a whistled reply. The beggar king nodded contentedly.
“Good fellows,” he said. “Told them to wait here for me. The men will be glad to see you again-most of them, in any case.”
Simon swallowed hard. Soon Hans Reiser, Brother Paulus, and two other beggars emerged from behind the barrels, waving and grinning when they caught sight of Simon. Hans Reiser, whose eyes were apparently fully healed now, spread his arms wide to welcome the medicus.
“Simon!” he cried out. “You just up and left us and knocked out the king’s teeth to boot! That’s no way to behave! And where have you left Magdalena?”
“This isn’t the time for long explanations,” Nathan said. “I’ve forgiven Simon and his girl. Everything else I’ll tell you along the way.” He looked around. “Where are Trembling Johann and Lame Hannes?”
“Down at the tavern by the Stone Bridge,” Hans replied. “A great day for thieves. The mill on the Wohrd is burning, and everyone’s standing there gawking at it and-”
“I know,” the beggar king snapped. “Quit blathering and get the others. We’ll all meet outside Peter’s Gate. Now, get moving.”
Hans headed off with a shrug, while Simon hurried through the city with the other four. As word spread around town that the Wohrd was on fire, people came running from every direction to congregate on the raft landing, making it difficult for the ragged band of beggars to navigate the narrow streets. But no one stopped them, and not a single person wasted so much as a glance on Simon.
How comforting! I look just like one of them, he thought as he glanced down at his wet, mud-stained jacket and sighed. When this is all over, I’ll be lucky if the beggars let me sleep at Neupfarr Church Square and maybe bring me a piece of stale bread now and then.
Soon they arrived on the other side of the city at Peter’s Gate, where guards were still searching farmers’ wagons. By now Nathan had told the other beggars all that had happened at the mill. Whistling cheerfully, he turned left toward a tumbledown shed that leaned against the city wall, looking as if it might collapse at any moment.
Carefully the beggar king opened its rotten wooden door and motioned to the others to follow. Inside, Simon was astonished to find a narrow door in the city wall just wide enough for one man to pass through. Nathan tapped on the door-two long knocks and three short-and soon a bearded, boozy-eyed guard appeared.
“So many of you?” the man asked, assessing the group with bloodshot eyes. “This will cost you extra.” Suspiciously he eyed Simon, who just stood there, soaking wet and trembling. “You look somehow familiar to me. Where-”
“This is Quivering August,” Nathan interjected, pressing a few dirty coins into the hand of the confused guard. “He just joined us, the poor old dog. He has the English sweating sickness and probably won’t last long.”
The guard stepped back a pace in horror. “Good Lord, Nathan! Couldn’t you have told me that sooner? Get out of town, and take your infected friends with you!”
The man crossed himself and spat. Giggling, the beggars stepped out into the turnip and wheat fields that bordered the city wall. The door slammed shut behind them.
“These one-man doors are a wonderful invention!” Nathan gushed, as they turned southward onto a broad highway. When they spotted Hans and two other beggars waiting for them in a radiant field of wheat, Simon assumed they’d made it out of the city through a similar door.
“Anyone can leave the city, any time of day or night, if he pays enough,” the beggar king told Simon as they continued on. “That is, if he’s not wanted for murders or intending to poison the Reichstag. But even then, if the price is right-I love this city!”
He spread his arms to heaven and, still whistling, set out at the head of the strange retinue-a dirty, ragged band of men, some hobbling, some babbling, but all determined to save the great city of Regensburg from destruction.
It seemed as if Philipp Lettner had pronounced a curse on Jakob Kuisl that made his arms and legs as heavy as lead.
The pain returned to the hangman’s left shoulder, compounded by the hornet stings on his back and face. He staggered backward, raising his right hand mechanically to ward off his opponent’s blows, but it was only a matter of time before Lettner would find an opening and deal him a coup de grace.
Friedrich Lettner still lay on the floor in the middle of the church, gasping for air. The hornet stings seemed to affect the broad-shouldered giant much more than his slender brother. Friedrich’s hands had swollen to twice their normal size, and he was vomiting saliva and bile, his breath constricted, as if someone had clamped iron buckles across his chest and was pulling them tighter and tighter. The worst, however, was his bloated, scarred face, which glistened bright red from the stings, like the head of a freshly slaughtered pig. Out of the corner of his eye Kuisl noticed the man had started to twitch and seemed to be growing weaker. Once more Friedrich arched his back as if he’d been struck, then collapsed like a monstrous doll.
“For Friedrich, you scoundrel!”
With a shout, Philipp Lettner lunged, his katzbalger cutting through the air toward Kuisl’s head. The hangman ducked this blow only to be faced with yet another.
“For Karl!”
Again Kuisl stepped aside just in time, but his movements were slower now and he was tiring. The fever came and went in waves-the ground beneath his feet as soft as butter-and he sensed he might not be able to fend off the next blow. Then his legs gave out beneath him, and he fell to his knees. Raising his head with great effort, he found Lettner standing over him, gloating, his sword held high in both hands. Lettner drew his hands back and to the right to get a good angle on Jakob’s neck. Spellbound, the hangman stared back at his enemy; Lettner was about to do to Kuisl what Kuisl had been perfecting his whole life.
A clean decapitation.
“You don’t really deserve such a merciful death, Kuisl,” Philipp Lettner growled. “I’m doing this only for old times’ sake. Well, that and-” He bared his fanglike teeth. “How many people can say they’ve beheaded an honest-to-God executioner? I’m sure the devil himself would have a laugh at this. So off to hell with you!”
Kuisl lowered his head, closed his eyes, and waited for the blow that would end it all.
It didn’t come.
Instead, an almost ethereal silence prevailed, one interrupted only by a loud metallic whir. When Kuisl looked up, he was astonished to find Philipp Lettner standing before him, w
ide-eyed and dazed. The katzbalger lay on the church floor. Lettner clutched desperately at a charred, splintered beam that protruded from his stomach, staring down in disbelief, as if he just couldn’t comprehend he might really be dying-as if, up until this moment, he’d never imagined his own death could be part of some divine plan.
He slowly toppled over and didn’t stir again. Once the light left his eyes, they stared blankly at the collapsed roof of the church, where two swallows chirped furiously at each other, then flew off.
Behind Lettner stood Philipp Teuber. Although the Regensburg executioner swayed, he was still standing. He wiped his hands on his bloodstained jacket with care, hands that had wielded the charred wooden cross only moments ago.
“Let’s hope that old thing was consecrated,” he said, tapping his foot against the raftmaster, who lay impaled on the floor in front of him. Teuber had gored Lettner using the tip of the crucifix like a spear. “Perhaps that will drive the evil out of him,” he said.
“For a bastard like that, you’d have to douse him in holy water, then dunk him in the baptismal font-and even that might not do any good,” Kuisl answered hoarsely.
Still swaying, the Regensburg executioner smiled. With a stony gaze he regarded the bolt in his chest.
“I… don’t… feel… very well,” he spluttered. “The bolt…”
Kuisl pointed at Friedrich Lettner’s corpse where a few hornets still circled about. “At least there won’t be another bolt,” he said. “Every villain has his weakness, and for this one it wasn’t the big arrow but countless little stings. I hope the poison doesn’t-”
He broke off as Teuber crashed to the ground like a tower collapsing. He didn’t move again.
“My God, Teuber!” Kuisl shouted as he ran over to kneel down alongside his friend. Kuisl tried to concentrate despite his fever. “Don’t do this to me! Not now, not after it’s all over! What will I tell your wife?” He shook the executioner, but there was no response. “She’s going to kill me if I carry you back home like this!”
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