The Poisoned Pilgrim_A Hangman's Daughter Tale

by Oliver Pötzsch

  The thunder overhead was so loud that Kuisl imagined God himself was pounding against the monastery walls with a hammer. In the next instant there was a brilliant flash, another clap of thunder, and hail as large as quail eggs came pounding down on the roofs. The thunderstorm had to be directly over the Holy Mountain now.

  For a while the hangman remained indecisively under the archway of the monastery, looking out at the impenetrable wall of rain. From the buried chamber under the keep, Kuisl had first made his way into the monastery beer cellar with the count. The entrance to the catacombs beneath the castle had been concealed hurriedly behind some barrels; the counterfeiters had made little effort to hide the hole in the wall. Since Brother Eckhart was the cellarer, he also was responsible for the monastery’s beer supply, and rarely did anyone else enter this cellar.

  As Kuisl continued standing at the entrance to the monastery, he wondered whether his suspicions were correct. The rain and wind were so strong that it would be suicide to go out into this storm and expose himself to lightning—especially since he didn’t yet know where to go next. Was Virgilius somewhere in the forest? In his house? Atop a hill? Kuisl knew from experience that lightning always struck the highest point, and the highest point here was…

  The steeple.

  He slapped his forehead for not having thought of it before. His fear for the safety of his grandchildren must have frazzled his brain. Virgilius was certainly up in the steeple. That’s where Nepomuk had set up his lightning rod, and that, too, is where the crazy watchmaker had been carrying on his experiments since then. Surely Virgilius was up there.

  Just as Kuisl was about to leave the church portal, he heard hurried footsteps and could just make out in the darkness and pouring rain a group of men rushing toward the tavern: the count returning with his soldiers. They were soaked through and through; water flowed in streams from their sleeves and trousers, but Leopold von Wartenberg tried to preserve decorum in spite of it all. He was walking quickly, not running, and once he arrived beneath the archway, he looked the hangman up and down suspiciously, as if not yet sure what to do about him.

  “I’ve just gone to check myself that those two miscreants were put under lock and key in the monastery dungeon,” he finally said. “The matter is concluded, and the elector can be reassured. As far as you are concerned,” he continued after wringing out his long black hair and wiping his beard, “give me one reason, hangman, why I shouldn’t have you locked up as well. Just one.”

  Kuisl grinned. “Perhaps because Your Excellency will soon be in need of a good executioner?”

  “I have Master Hans in Weilheim for that. An excellent man. He would break his own mother on the wheel if she was guilty and if he was paid well enough.” A thin smile crossed his face. “Perhaps I should ask him to take care of you, as well. After all, you’re clearly responsible for the death of one of the Andechs guards. I’ve been lenient because you’re the father-in-law of the bathhouse surgeon who’s been caring for my son. And because your daughter seems to be one hell of a woman. But my patience has its limits.”

  The hangman nodded. “So does mine,” he growled. “Listen, the real sorcerer is out there somewhere with my grandchildren. I’ve got to find them, and now. After that, you can do whatever you want with me.” Without another word, he turned to leave.

  Stunned, Leopold von Wartenberg stood as if rooted under the archway. Finally he pulled himself together and cast an angry glance at his soldiers, who prudently held their heads down.

  “One hour, Kuisl!” he shouted into the howling wind. But the hangman was now no more than a shadowy figure in the darkness. “I’ll give you an hour to bring me the real witch. And don’t think you can count on my help. One minute longer, and I’ll give Master Hans a nice reward for your head. Understand?”

  But Kuisl could no longer hear him. As hail drummed down from the sky, he turned right at the church square, where just that noon hundreds of pilgrims had assembled. Now the area looked forsaken. Puddles the size of small ponds had formed on the hard-packed ground, and a few remaining sacks of limestone stood out of the watery scene like little islands. The pilgrims were waiting out the storm in local farmhouses and barns, praying the lightning would spare them.

  Kuisl stomped through the ankle-deep water, casting an occasional glance up at the steeple, but he couldn’t make out anything suspicious behind the wall of rain. Had he been mistaken? Was Virgilius perhaps still down in the catacombs, lying in wait for Magdalena? Why did his daughter always have to be so stubborn and have things her way? As so often in matters concerning his daughter, Kuisl was torn between fear and anger. In any case, when all this was over, he’d give his daughter a good thrashing.

  If she was still alive.

  The hangman tried to suppress these gloomy thoughts, once again directing his gaze at the steeple housing the belfry. Carpenters had installed a new roof and patched up porous masonry damaged by lightning, but on one side, a new wall hadn’t yet been constructed, leaving only a knee-high truss there as reinforcement.

  Just above the truss, Kuisl spotted a shadow scurry by and then vanish in the gloom. Still, this brief moment was long enough to convince the hangman his suspicions were correct.

  Someone was up in the tower.

  Breathlessly he splashed the last few yards through puddles to the church entrance. The double doors stood wide open, and rain, leaves, and dirt had blown onto the pews. Wind had partially ripped away the makeshift canopy, leaving shreds fluttering like flags in the storm. Water streamed down over the altars, statues, and weathered tombstones in the nave.

  The hangman looked around, perplexed. He thought at least a few Benedictines would be here to keep order, but the church was deserted. Were the monks frightened by the storm? Or had they learned that three of their members had been arrested for counterfeiting relics? In the latter case, it was quite possible the Brothers had retreated to their cells lest they themselves be questioned or arrested.

  After hesitating briefly, Kuisl hurried past the wet, mud-spattered pews as the wind continued to howl above him. He had no time for idle speculations. If his assumptions were right, his two beloved grandchildren were up above, at the mercy of the hail, lightning, and rain. Virgilius would wish he’d never been born.

  Kuisl ran up the stairs to the balcony and, from there, up another stairway into the tower. Even now, after a full two weeks, work was far from finished. The storm whistled through the open windows, and the narrow, newly built stairs up to the belfry were steep, slippery, and groaning in the wind. The higher Kuisl climbed, the more the entire tower seemed to sway back and forth.

  When he got just a few yards beneath the belfry, he stopped and listened. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed, but amid the constant drumming of the rain, he thought he heard a shrill voice. Indeed, as he climbed higher, he could hear it more clearly.

  “Hurry up,” a man screeched directly above him. “Before the storm passes. Didn’t I tell you yesterday to nail the device down? Now the storm has blown it over, and we’re losing valuable time.”

  The only answer was a deep grumble, followed by the sound of a hammer pounding and a child crying.

  Kuisl winced. His grandchildren were up there, and the second man was evidently Virgilius’s assistant. Cautiously, he crept up the last few steps and stuck his head through the opening into the floor of the belfry.

  At first, all he could see were three bronze bells hanging between the iron-clad beams of the belfry. Fresh, new spruce flooring had been put down, but the walls were still covered with soot from the disastrous fire a few weeks before. Behind a knee-high railing on the east side, rain blew into the room through a gaping hole.

  Once Kuisl had finally hoisted himself all the way through the opening, he could just barely make out behind the bells the back of a broad-shouldered man who was nailing a sort of bier upright against the wall. The wooden board was fitted with metal clamps like the ones Kuisl knew from torture racks, and a heavy wire dang
led from the ceiling, connected with clamps to smaller wires.

  To the left of the bier stood three people looking like a surreal caricature of a family in the raging wind: alongside the hunchback Virgilius was a distinguished looking lady with a red cape and blond hair blowing beneath a lopsided bonnet. She seemed strangely stiff, and it took Kuisl a moment to realize she was actually a life-size puppet.

  Paul was clinging to the watchmaker’s arms, sobbing.

  At first Kuisl wanted to rush out onto the platform screaming, but then he stopped to think this through. The risk was simply too great that Virgilius would harm the child, even throw him off the tower. The hangman decided therefore to sneak up close to the group and wait for a better opportunity. Cautiously he crept behind the belfry cage to watch.

  After the broad-shouldered man finished his work, he hooked the hammer onto his belt and turned to Virgilius. Kuisl bit his lip when he finally saw the man’s face.

  It was the knacker’s assistant, Matthias.

  What a dirty trick these rascals played on you, involving you in this mess, young fellow, the hangman thought grimly. It would have been better if the Croatian mercenaries had killed you—it would have spared me the job now.

  But Kuisl was astonished by what he saw on Matthias’s face. The young man’s eyes were strangely empty and red. It almost seemed that what was running over his cheeks were not raindrops but tears.

  “What are you waiting for?” shouted Virgilius now against the storm. “Place Aurora in the bier as we discussed.” Then he lowered his voice and attempted a smile. “You do want your tongue back, don’t you? I can get it back for you. Just as I can breathe life into this puppet, I can give you back your voice, as well. Believe me! If you start doubting now that we are so close to our goal, all will be in vain.”

  As Matthias approached the automaton hesitantly, he continued to look back at Paul. The boy stretched out his little arms toward the mute assistant, and his cries turned into screams that even drowned out the thunder.

  “Damn it, I tell you nothing will happen to the boy,” Virgilius shouted when he saw the anxious expression on Matthias’s face. He was rocking the child mechanically, but the motion didn’t calm the boy down. “He’s only my hostage. As soon as all this is over, you can have the brat again. I promise. Now get to work quickly, before the lightning strikes.”

  Matthias grumbled and nodded, then picked up the puppet with his powerful arms and leaned her against the bier. The clamps snapped shut around her stiff arms and legs; then the assistant attached the thin wires to the clamps and placed another wire around Aurora’s porcelain neck like a noose.

  Evidently Virgilius had applied makeup to the automaton in preparation for its last great scene, because black and red trickles of makeup ran down her waxen face. Grinning, she looked out at a storm raging in full fury over the church steeple.

  “Now all we need to do is wait for the right moment,” Virgilius shouted over the noise, dancing wildly like a dervish. “The lightning will enter the wire, pass through my beloved Aurora, and then—”

  A loud crack was followed by an earsplitting rumble. The strike, which must have hit very nearby, was so powerful that Kuisl instinctively jumped to one side. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Virgilius, his eyes wide with hatred, had spotted him behind the bells.

  “Aha, do you see now why I need the child as a hostage?” he screamed, turning to Matthias. “This hangman and his whole damned family. When you first told me about them, I knew they would give me trouble. Didn’t I tell you a dozen times to get rid of that inquisitive woman?”

  Now Matthias had seen the hangman, as well. He stood uncertainly in the middle of the platform, surrounded by the raging storm like a rock in the sea. He seemed paralyzed with indecision.

  “Get him, Matthias,” Virgilius roared. “He wants to destroy our plan. Don’t you understand? Think about your voice.”

  Kuisl stood up behind the belfry, looking calmly into the tearful eyes of the knacker’s boy, raising his hands in a gesture of friendship. “You know this is wrong, don’t you, Matthias?” Kuisl said. “You can’t fool me. I’m a hangman. I’ve seen many murderers, but you are not one—at least not a murderer of children.” Cautiously, he advanced toward the silent assistant, who was still frozen in place. “If you overcome me in a fight, this madman will make short work of the boy—he will throw him from the tower. The boy means something to him only as long as he can use him to blackmail me. And you mean nothing to him, either.”

  “That’s… that’s not true, Matthias,” Virgilius interrupted. “Think how I cared for you when you were young. Haven’t I taught you everything, the writing, the experiments, the apparatuses? Haven’t I given you a language to use for making yourself understood even without a tongue?”

  The watchmaker clung tightly to the screaming and struggling Paul. “Yes, he’s crying now,” he continued unctuously. “He’s afraid—that’s understandable—but you, too, were afraid when you came to my laboratory the first time. Do you remember? You were a small, mute child without parents, an outcast, ridiculed by others, and I was the first to give you something that makes you a better person than all these boors. Knowledge. And if you’re patient just a while longer, I’ll give you back your voice. Aurora, you, and I will be a family. We’ll adopt this boy and—”

  “Where’s my second grandchild, you monster?” the hangman shouted, approaching Virgilius with a menacing look. Paul saw his grandfather now and tried to squirm out of the grip of the hunchback, but Virgilius held him in a vicelike grip.

  “Speak up, you crippled scum. What did you do to him?” Kuisl shouted again.

  Matthias looked at Virgilius as if he, too, expected an answer.

  “He… he’s with his father,” the watchmaker stammered. “He’s safe and sound…”

  There was a growling sound like that of an angry bear as Matthias shook his head wildly. Kuisl could see how the journeyman was struggling with himself. Virgilius, too, seemed to notice it. With the boy twisting in his arms, he approached Matthias, keeping a suspicious eye on Kuisl. For a moment the hangman considered throwing himself at the watchmaker and seizing the boy, but the risk of something happening to Paul was still too great, especially since Kuisl still didn’t know what Matthias would do.

  “Come and look,” Virgilius said to his servant, putting his hand solicitously on the young man’s broad shoulder and leading him over to the knee-high barrier above the yawning abyss. “Can you see Erling over there?” he asked, pointing into the raging storm. “The little cemetery at the edge of the village? That’s where your parents are buried. Do you remember how often you cried in the years after their deaths? That miserable knacker Graetz paid you and fed you, but a clever boy like you is destined for greater things. You will be a witness to how man creates life. Look at the cemetery.”

  Virgilius nudged Matthias even closer to the barrier. Something in the watchmaker’s voice seemed to reassure him, and reluctantly the servant moved closer, bending over the edge and staring out at the little cemetery that was almost invisible now in the streaming rain.

  “All the dead lying there,” Virgilius continued gently. “We can bring them back—your parents, too. What do you think? Do you know what would be even better? You could simply go and… visit them now. Farewell.”

  The hunchback gave the strapping youth a sudden shove, and Matthias flailed his arms around wildly as he tottered like a mighty oak in the storm. Kuisl could see the watchmaker’s hate-filled eyes flashing through the darkness, but before the hangman could react, Virgilius gave his servant another push. Astonished, Matthias grunted, turning his head briefly one more time toward his master, as if expecting an explanation. Then he fell through the flimsy wooden barrier. Without another sound, he plunged toward the roof of the church, landing on a temporary canvas cover which slowed his fall just slightly before it ripped and the journeyman fell with a loud impact onto the floor of the nave.

  In the belfry, th
e only sounds were the wailing child and the steady drumbeat of the rain. With an exhausted expression, Virgilius stared down at the damaged roof while Paul continued struggling in his arms.

  “A shame, really a shame,” Virgilius said finally, stepping back from the splintered railing. “He was a good pupil, and so… closed-mouthed.” He smiled weakly and looked up at the lightning that flashed through the darkened sky. “But you’re right, hangman. In the end he really didn’t mean anything to me; he was a hindrance, just as all the others were hindrances.” Suddenly he looked straight at Kuisl, his eyes reduced to narrow slits. “And if you move a single step, your grandson will be such a hindrance, too. Do you understand me?”

  The hangman nodded grimly and raised his hands again. “I understand,” he said softly. “And what do you intend to do now? Are you going to wait forever for a bolt of lightning? It isn’t going to strike just because my friend Nepomuk hung a little bit of wire up here. It could happen today, or in the next storm, or in a few years—your automaton will simply rust away up here.”

  “Ha! You don’t understand anything,” Virgilius hissed. “Do you think I would have gone to all this trouble if I hadn’t seen that it really works?” He extracted a little bottle from under his jacket and approached the smiling puppet in the upright bier.

  “Your simple-minded Nepomuk told me about his experiments with lightning,” he continued with a laugh. “I was the only one who knew he’d hung up one of his so-called lightning rods in the tower. And then the lightning actually hit here. Quod erat demonstrandum. From that point on, I knew I was on the right path. The only thing I lacked was the aqua vitae…” He pulled the cork out of the bottle with his teeth and began pouring the liquid carefully into a hole in the puppet’s back.