The Poisoned Pilgrim_A Hangman's Daughter Tale

by Oliver Pötzsch

  A slight premonition came over her. “And… what would my sentence mean?” she asked softly.

  The hangman picked at his teeth for a while. He loved to torture people by drawing out his answers. He’d been doing it to Magdalena since she was a child.

  “Magdalena, Magdalena,” he grumbled finally. “I thought I had taught you a little Latin. ‘Hic est porta ad loca inferna’ means Here is the gateway to hell.” Once more he passed his hand through his scraggly beard, before continuing smugly. “And as the good Lord will have it, I think I know where this gate to hell is.” He smiled. “What do you say, hangman’s daughter? Are you ready to descend into the underworld with me?”

  For what felt like the tenth time, Simon slipped on wet leaves, skidding down one of the innumerable slopes in the Kien Valley.

  He felt like a bug in a sandpit. Wherever he looked, huge boulders towered up behind the beeches and firs, and between them thickets of thorny shrubs barred the way. Slopes that at first appeared gentle suddenly turned into deep morasses. Simon’s jacket as well as his expensive petticoat breeches from Augsburg were torn in several places, and his boots oozed with mud. No doubt they were ruined, just like the rest of his expensive clothing. But that was the least of his problems.

  The medicus was lost.

  He’d intended to go just a bit farther down the valley and then make a wide circle back to the knacker’s house in Erling, but again and again, his way was blocked by boulders, steep slopes, and swampland, and he was forced to make detour after detour. Now he had completely lost his bearings in the dark forest.

  Simon looked around in despair. Somewhere high above, he could hear the faint sound of bells ringing; that had to be the monastery, but the direct path up the slope was too steep. Moreover, Simon was trying to avoid running into the guards again. On his left, Kien Brook plunged into a natural basin and, from there, farther down into the valley. On the right, cliffs rose up, and the longer Simon looked at them, the more they seemed to be man-made. The walls were too smooth; some of the rocks near the top resembled battlements, staircases, and walkways. The whole formation reminded him of a huge, ancient castle, or perhaps the remains of a castle that had long fallen to ruin.

  The castle of the Andechs-Meranier?

  Simon shook his head. In the gloomy light of the forest, his imagination was already playing tricks on him. Some of the boulders had seemed like petrified gnomes, towers, or dragons. Exhausted, he passed his hand over his dirty brow, cursed, then moved on.

  Why did he have to get lost? By now the bailiffs had surely reached the knacker’s house and found Magdalena. What would they do with the daughter of a man wanted for burglary and possibly murder? Surely the men had more in mind than to politely ask questions and let her go. The two Semers, in any case, were itching for revenge after the knacker and the hangman’s daughter had shown them the door during their recent visit.

  Simon hurried along, turning southward where he suspected Erling had to be. Unfortunately progress along the path in this direction was especially difficult, and he often had to fight his way through knee-deep piles of leaves, bushes, and dead wood. It almost seemed the thorny branches of the thistles and blackberry bushes were reaching out to grab him and hold him back.

  Simon cursed and was trying to tear himself once more from thorns when he looked up and suddenly saw an especially impressive boulder towering above him. The huge stone was at least forty feet high with a gnarled linden tree growing on top. Not far from it was a circle of stones looking almost like the remains of a huge castle stronghold. There was a faint odor of smoke in the air.

  The medicus held his breath. Fire meant that people were nearby—perhaps the Andechs hunters or highwaymen looking for an easy target to rob here near the monastery. In any case, Simon hoped to avoid them.

  He listened intently but couldn’t hear anything suspicious, just the twittering of the birds and the constant rustling of the treetops.

  He was about to move on when he suddenly heard a strange noise that sounded neither human nor animal in origin.

  It was a sad melody coming from a music box, a long-forgotten love song echoing strangely from the cliffs in the middle of the forest.

  Astonished, the medicus stopped in place. This was the same sound he’d first heard a week ago in the watchmaker’s house, the same song Magdalena had told him about. She’d heard it while walking along the path in the forest below the monastery just before she’d been shot at. It was the sound of the automaton.

  Simon stood still for a while before daring to move. The soft sound seemed to coming from behind the column of rock. With bated breath, he crept along the wall until he finally came to an entrance to a cave. In front of the cave were the smoking remains of a fire, a dirty wooden bowl, and a clay cup, but nothing more. Simon listened.

  The sound clearly came from inside the cave.

  His heart began to race. Was it possible? Had he in fact found the entrance to the subterranean passageways beneath the castle? And what should he do now? He was on the way to warn Magdalena, but this was presumably the hiding place they’d been seeking for so long: the sorcerer’s hiding place.

  The hiding place where Brother Laurentius was turned into a piece of charred flesh.

  Simon hesitated. He was alone; if anything happened to him, there would be no one to help. Certainly it would be better to go to Erling first and look for his father-in-law. They could come back here together and…

  And if I can’t find the hiding place again?

  Simon stared ahead, weighing the options. The fire had burned down and seemed not to have been stoked for several hours. The person guarding the cave must have left some time ago. This would probably be a good time to at least have a quick look.

  Carefully Simon pulled a half-burned branch from the fire to light his way into the cave. The entrance wasn’t large, just a yard or so wide, and empty except for a few piles of dirty, smelly straw. He stooped down and stepped inside for a closer look.

  He groped his way through a corridor, damp and blackened by smoke, looking for anything suspicious. In one corner lay a crumpled and tattered woolen blanket, and on his right, at eye level, there was a small, faded picture of the Virgin Mary. Finally, on one of the piles of straw, Simon found a crucifix made of two twigs tied together and a chain with shimmering pearls, which seemed strangely out of place in this squalid setting. Was this cave a sort of chapel? Who lived here? In the darkness before him, he heard the sad melody of the music box again, much closer now than just a few minutes ago.

  As he held his makeshift torch out in front of him, he could make out the entrance to a tunnel through the rock in the back wall.

  That’s where the melody was coming from.

  With a pounding heart, he entered the narrow passageway. There was no straw underfoot now, just hard-packed soil, and the ceiling was so low he had to stoop. Soon he came to a place where worn steps led downward. Simon decided to go only a few more yards and then turn around and look for Kuisl. His assumption had been correct—this was in fact the entrance to the ancient castle catacombs.

  He couldn’t resist a smile. The hangman had cursed him for falling asleep at the bedside of the dying Laurentius, but now he could show his father-in-law that he was useful after all. He would guide him down here, and together they would—

  It took Simon a moment to realize what had interrupted his stream of thought.

  The music had stopped.

  Now, he heard shuffling footsteps approaching from down below.

  “Is… someone there?” he called hesitantly into the dark passageway.

  For a while there was only silence, then a hoarse laugh. Simon squinted, trying to make out something. He realized too late that, even though he was blinded by the light of his torch and couldn’t see more than about fifteen feet in front of him, he himself was quite visible.

  At that moment, there was a whirring sound and something bored into his neck. Horrified, the medicus dropped the torc
h, but before he could pick it up again, he felt the ground give way beneath him like quicksand. The corridor expanded into some enormous space, and his legs collapsed beneath him like thin, rotted twigs.

  He didn’t even feel the back of his head hit the hard ground, though from the corner of his eye, he could see two mud-spattered leather boots walking toward him. The stranger kicked him hard in the head, opening a large wound over his eyebrow. The world slowly closed in around him as blood ran down over his eyes like a red curtain.

  Behind that curtain was nothing but darkness.

  The sorcerer bent over his victim and tested the artery in his neck. Hearing the calm heartbeat, he stood up, astonished at how differently people reacted to poison. Judging from the medicus’s small stature, he’d expected the man to die at once, but this sliver of a man from Schongau had an astonishing constitution. The stranger knew now he’d need at least twice this dose for the hangman.

  But perhaps that wouldn’t even be necessary.

  The sorcerer smiled. The medicus falling into his trap hadn’t been part of his plan, but he was glad that from now on he would have to deal only with the executioner and his daughter. And he’d already made sure those two wouldn’t get in his way any longer. His helper had set the plan in motion.

  Stepping out in front of the cave, he looked up at the heavens. On the western horizon, clouds towered up, forming gigantic castles in the sky. Then there was a vibrant whirring sound in the air that he knew only too well.

  The right moment was at hand; now his waiting would finally be over.

  Humming softly, he returned to the cave and cast a curious glance at the motionless figure of the medicus staring up at him with glassy eyes.

  Did he recognize him?

  Learned men had told him long ago that the poison he used made the body rigid, hardened it without interrupting the thought processes. Though the medicus’s face was just a frozen grimace, the victim was screaming and raging inside.

  Still humming to himself, the sorcerer tied a rope around the medicus’s feet and pulled him behind him down the dark corridor like a piece of dead meat.

  Surely the children would be happy to see their father, even though in his present condition he was nothing but a stuffed doll.

  An automaton, just like the other.

  The sorcerer chuckled. Perhaps he would try out a little experiment on the bathhouse doctor.

  16

  LATE AFTERNOON ON SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 1666 AD

  DON’T YOU THINK it’s high time to tell me where we’re going?” Magdalena gasped as she ran behind her father through the forested Kien Valley. They had been underway now for more than an hour, but Jakob Kuisl still hadn’t told her where they were headed. They had first made a wide circle around the monastery, slid down a slope covered with wet leaves, then continued running through the forest. Fear for her children had released a strength in Magdalena that allowed her to run like a young deer through the underbrush, without stopping. Her skirt was tattered, branches had scratched her face, and for these reasons, she was all the angrier about not knowing where they were headed.

  “Be patient just a bit longer,” the hangman grumbled without slowing his pace. He’d left his black coat back at the knacker’s cabin, but his shirt was bathed in sweat. “It can’t be much farther.”

  With his huge hands, he shoved a dead tree trunk aside like a blade of grass, then jumped over a small brook. When Magdalena tried to follow, she sank knee-deep in the mud.

  “You didn’t have to come along,” he told her impatiently, reaching out to help her. “I have no idea what a helpless woman—”

  “This helpless woman just happens to be the mother of two abducted children,” she growled. “So stop this nonsense and tell me where we’re going.”

  Kuisl smiled wanly, then with a single powerful movement, pulled her out of the mud and hurried on in silence.

  Magdalena followed, grumbling. Her father could be so stubborn! Ever since he’d made that curious remark on gallows hill about the “underworld,” they had hardly exchanged a dozen words. First they ran to the knacker’s house, but Simon wasn’t there, and Graetz didn’t know what had become of the medicus. After a long conversation with the knacker in the next room, Kuisl finally decided to go looking for the children without Simon.

  At first he wanted to go alone, but Magdalena quickly made clear she’d never forsake her children, so the father and daughter ran through the forest together looking for the madman who had kidnapped the boys. Magdalena was also worried about Simon. Was he lying injured in the forest somewhere? Had the guards picked him up and taken him to Weilheim to be tortured into telling them where the wanted hangman of Schongau was hiding out?

  Several times a dreadful thought passed through her mind, as painful as a poison arrow boring slowly but inexorably into her subconscious: Suppose the children are no longer alive? Suppose the sorcerer has already killed them?

  As she choked up, she ran faster and faster, trying to drive away her terrible premonition.

  Suddenly her father stopped, put his finger to his lips, and pointed to a tall rock standing in the trees a stone’s throw away.

  “We’re here,” he whispered. “This is the rock I’ve been looking for. I asked Graetz about it. Since ancient time, the natives have referred to it as Devil’s Rock.”

  Magdalena turned and looked at him, confused. “Devil’s Rock? But…”

  “Porta ad loca inferna,” he whispered. “The door to hell. Don’t you understand? This is the place where Satan enters and leaves. It wasn’t the name that made me think of it, but something else.” Kuisl lowered his voice even more and Magdalena almost thought she detected a trace of fear in him. “I was here once,” the hangman said.

  “Here?” Magdalena looked around. Suddenly the area looked strangely familiar—the trees, the rocks, and farther off, a few large boulders arranged in a circle. She knew this place as well. But in her fear, she’d paid no attention to it.

  The remains of a ring of boulders…

  “Of course,” she exclaimed. “The ring of boulders where the children were playing a few days ago. I saw the tall boulder from there.”

  Kuisl seemed not to have heard her. He looked up toward the top of the steep rock, lost in thought. “I was here with the children when we came to Andechs,” he continued softly. “I took a shortcut, and suddenly we were standing in front of this huge rock. There was a cave with an old woman sitting in front, spouting all sorts of gibberish…”

  Magdalena felt her mouth go dry. “The hermit woman,” she exclaimed. “I met her, too, as did Matthias and the children. She was crazy, talking some nonsense about how my children were in danger, and saying this was…” Her voice trailed off as she remembered the old woman’s words.

  I’m guarding the entrance to hell…

  “My God,” she gasped. “The door to the underworld. She talked about it and even warned the children to stay away. But I didn’t take her seriously.”

  The hangman paused for a moment, then nodded. “She told me about the entrance to hell, as well. Like you, I dismissed it as the babbling of an old fool and finally forgot it—until today, up on gallows hill.”

  He laughed briefly, then picked up the bundle he’d brought along and pulled out a hunting knife more than a foot long. With a practiced eye, he looked around in the underbrush for a suitable branch and began to carve one into a club.

  “No doubt the locals knew about this entrance long ago,” he ruminated as he shaved the wood. “Later, long after the destruction of the castle, its actual purpose was forgotten and all that remained were the names—Devil’s Rock, Door to Hell, names that can now be found only on faded maps…”

  He spat angrily onto the ground, weighing the finished cudgel in his hands. “That’s the way people are: what they don’t understand is the work of the devil.”

  Once more his gaze wandered up to the tip of the strange rock. Suddenly he sniffed, and his huge nostrils flared. “Can you
smell that?” he asked softly. “There’s a fire burning somewhere. Let’s be careful—who knows whether the old woman is making her porridge right now and will scream so loud that half the Kien Valley will know we’re here.”

  Magdalena took one last deep breath, then darted toward the rock through the dry underbrush and across a small open area. Finally, she and her father moved cautiously along the cold rock face until they could see the entrance.

  No one was in sight. A thin column of smoke rose over a cold fire, but not a sound came from inside the cave.

  Magdalena relaxed and stepped into the clearing in front of the rock. “The coast is clear,” she said, relieved. “So now let’s—”

  “Woe to you! Woe!”

  The shrill voice came from the bushes on the left. Now the haggard figure of an old woman struggled to her feet in the underbrush—the same old woman Magdalena had met just a few days earlier not far from here. Her tattered dress fluttered like the wings of a moth, and her hands reached threateningly to heaven.

  “Satan has risen,” the old woman screeched wildly. “He’s left the underworld, and now along with Beelzebub is searching for innocent children whose guts he can suck out. Repent, by God, repent!”

  For a few moments Magdalena stood there petrified; then she rushed up to the old woman and shook her by the shoulders.

  “You’re talking about children,” she shouted. “My children? Tell me, has that madman dragged my children into this cave? Say something!”

  The blind old woman looked back at her with milky, empty eyes. “Your children are both good and evil,” she mumbled. “Heaven and hell, Jehovah and Lucifer. Beware, hangman’s daughter.”

  “Who… Who told you who I am?” Astonished, she took her hands off the old woman’s shoulders and stepped back a pace. Was the woman really a prophet? People said hermits got their inspiration from God. But what did these words have to do with her children?

  Good and evil … Your children are both…