The Hangman's Daughter (41 page)

He shot a glare at Sophie before he spoke again.

“Little Anton and Johannes Strasser might have been saved, if only you hadn’t been so pigheaded. What in the world were you thinking, you brats? There’s a lunatic at large, and you just keep playing your games.”

“We shouldn’t scold the children,” said Simon. “They’re young, and they were scared. It’s more important that we get the murderers. Two of them seem to have kidnapped Magdalena! And their chief’s still down there in the tunnels with the hangman!”

He looked over at the well, where smoke was rising from below. What was going on down there? Was Jakob Kuisl dead? Simon suppressed the thought. Instead, he turned to the patrician again.

“I wonder who was the mastermind, the patron. Who is so intent on preventing the leper house from being built that he will even kill children for that?”

Jakob Schreevogl shrugged.

“Well, until a short while ago you even suspected me…Other than that I can only repeat what I told you. Most patricians in the town council, including the burgomasters, were opposed to the building because they were afraid of financial losses. That’s ridiculous, if you remember that even Augsburg has a leper house like that.”

He shook his head and then turned contemplative again.

“But would they destroy the building site and kill witnesses, let alone children? I can’t imagine that in my wildest dreams…”

They were both startled by the sound of loud coughing and turned around.

A pitch-black form emerged from the well, pulling itself up on a rope. The bailiffs picked up their weapons and headed for the well, clutching their halberds in fear. The figure that pulled itself over the edge of the well looked like the devil himself. It was black with soot from head to toe, and only the eyes were shining white. His clothes were singed and bloodstained in many places, and between his teeth he was holding a larchwood cudgel, the tip of which was glowing red. Now he threw it out onto the ground.

“Jesus bloody Christ! Don’t you know your own hangman? Quick, get me some water before I’m completely burned to a crisp.”

The bailiffs withdrew, frightened, while Simon hurried to the well.

“Kuisl, you’re alive! I thought the devil…God, I’m so happy!”

The hangman hoisted himself over the edge of the well.

“Don’t waste your words. The damned swine is where he should’ve been long ago. But my Magdalena is still in the hands of those cutthroats.”

He limped to a water trough to wash himself off. It took some time for the hangman’s face to appear beneath thick layers of soot. He cast a glance at Jakob Schreevogl and the children, and nodded approvingly.

“You saved her. Well done,” he growled. “Go back to Schongau now with them and the alderman, and we’ll meet at my house. I’m going to look for my daughter.”

He picked up his cudgel and headed for the Hohenfurch Road.

“You know where she is?” Simon called after him.

The hangman nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“He told me. Toward the end. Eventually you can get anyone to talk…”

Simon gulped.

“What about the bailiffs?” he called after Jakob Kuisl, who had already reached the road that led to Hohenfurch. “Won’t you take them to…help you?”

The last words he said only to himself. The hangman had already disappeared around the corner. He was very, very angry.

Magdalena was stumbling along the road to Schongau. Her clothes were torn and wet, and she was shaking violently. Her head was still aching, too, and she was tormented by thirst and the fact that she hadn’t slept all night. Again and again she kept looking around to see if the second soldier might be following her after all, but there was no one on the road—not even a peasant who could have given her a ride on his oxcart. Ahead of her, Schongau with its protecting walls sat proudly on its hill. To her right was the gallows hill, now deserted. Soon, very soon, she’d be home.

Suddenly she saw in front of her a small dot in the distance, a person with a limp hurrying toward her. The form grew larger, and when she blinked she realized that it was her father.

Jakob Kuisl ran the last few yards, even though it was difficult for him. He had a deep cut in the right side of his chest and one in his left upper arm. He had lost a good deal of blood, and he had twisted his right ankle during the struggle down in the tunnel. But considering all that, he was feeling remarkably well. The hangman had sustained graver injuries during the Great War.

He wrapped his arms around his daughter and patted her head. She almost disappeared within his broad chest.

“The things you do, Magdalena!” he whispered almost tenderly. “Getting yourself caught by a dumb soldier…”

“I won’t do it again, Father,” she answered. “Promise.”

For a while they held each other in silence. Then she looked him in the eyes.

“Father?”

“Yes, Magdalena?”

“About me marrying Hans Kuisl, the Steingaden hangman, you know…Are you going to think that over again?”

For a moment Jakob Kuisl was silent, and then he smiled.

“Yes, I’m going to think that over. But now let’s go home.”

He wrapped his massive arm around his daughter again, and then side by side they walked toward the town, which was just awakening to a new day as the sun rose above it in the east.

CHAPTER
16

T
UESDAY
M
AY
1,
A.D
. 1659
S
IX O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

F
ROM A WINDOW IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER THE
court clerk Johann Lechner was looking down on the colorful scene in the market place below. He could hear the bells from the town parish church pealing the six o’clock hour. It was already dusk, and small fires were burning in braziers set up on tripods around the sides of the square. Children were dancing around them, and in front of the Ballenhaus the youngsters had erected a maypole, adorned with colored ribbons and a wreath of green boughs. A few minstrels were standing on a newly built pinewood stage still smelling of resin, tuning their fiddles and lutes. There was a whiff in the air of things boiling and frying.

Lechner’s gaze wandered over the tables that had been put out for the May Day celebration. Burghers in their holiday attire were sitting around and enjoying the bock beer provided free by burgomaster Karl Semer. There was singing and laughter, but in spite of it all, the clerk could feel no holiday mood.

That damned witch was still unconscious, and the Landgrave was expected this very evening. Johann Lechner was horrified at the thought of what would happen then. Investigations, torturing, spying, suspicions…If only the Stechlin woman had confessed, everything would have been all right. They could have had their trial and sent her to the stake. My God, she was as good as dead anyway! Death at the stake would have been a happy release for her and for the town as well!

Johann Lechner leafed through the old documents about the witch hunt of two generations ago. He had taken them down again from the archives near the council chamber. Eighty arrests, countless torturings…sixty-three women burned! The great wave of persecution had begun when the district judge had taken the matter into his hands and then finally the Duke himself had spoken. Then there was no more holding back. Lechner knew that witchcraft was a smoldering fire that would eat its way through society if not stopped in time. Now, presumably, it was too late.

The door squeaked on its hinges and he turned around. Jakob Schreevogl, his face red, was standing in the council chamber. He addressed the clerk with a trembling voice.

“Lechner, we must speak. My daughter has been found!”

The court clerk jumped up. “She’s alive?”

Jakob Schreevogl nodded.

“I’m very happy for you. Where was she found?”

“Down at the building site for the leper house,” the alderman said, still gasping for breath. “But that isn’t all…”

Then he told the court clerk what Simon had told him. After hearing just a few words, Johann Lechner had to sit down. The young patrician’s story was simply too unbelievable.

When Schreevogl had finished, Lechner shook his head.

“Even if it’s true, nobody is going to believe us,” he said. “Least of all the Landgrave, the Elector’s representative.”

“If we have the inner council behind us,” the patrician broke in, “and we plead unanimously for the release of the Stechlin woman, then the Landgrave must also agree. He can’t go above our heads. We are free burghers, established by the town laws. And the Landgrave signed the laws himself at the time.”

“But the council will never vote for us,” Johann Lechner reminded him. “Semer, Augustin, Holzhofer—they are all convinced that the midwife is guilty.”

“Unless we present them with the name of the person who really did order the murder of the children.”

The court clerk laughed.

“Forget that! If he really belongs to the inner council of the town, then he is powerful enough to keep his activities secret.”

Jakob Schreevogl buried his face in his hands and rubbed his temples.

“Then I can see no hope any more for the Stechlin woman…”

“Or you sacrifice the children,” the court clerk added, as if in passing. “Tell the Landgrave about the true origin of the witches’ signs, and perhaps he’ll let the midwife go. But the children? They’ve dabbled in witchcraft, and I don’t think the Landgrave will let them off so easily.”

There was silence for a short time.

“The midwife or your daughter. It’s your choice,” Johann Lechner said.

Then he went over to the window. From the north the call of a horn could suddenly be heard. The court clerk stuck his head out in order to hear exactly where it was coming from. He blinked.

“His Excellency, the Landgrave,” he said, turning toward the patrician, who sat as if turned to stone at the council table. “It looks as if you’ll have to make your decision quickly.”

The boys playing down by the Hof Gate were the first to see the Landgrave. The Elector’s deputy arrived by way of the Altenstadt Road traveling in a magnificent coach drawn by four horses. On each side rode six soldiers in full armor, with open helmets, pistols, and swords. The first soldier was carrying a horn, with which he announced the arrival of the Landgrave. Behind the coach came a second carriage, which was used for transporting the servants and the chests with the necessities that His Excellency required for the trip.

The gate had already been closed at this hour, but now it was quickly reopened. The horses’ hooves clattered over the cobblestones, and most of the burghers who had gathered on the market square for the feast now ran down to the gate to see the arrival of the highborn man with a mixture of admiration and skepticism. Only rarely did such distinguished gentlemen come to visit little Schongau. Previously the Landgrave had visited the town more often, but that hadn’t happened for a long time. Nowadays, any aristocrat who visited the town was a welcome spectacle and a change from the daily routine. At the same time the burghers were aware that the Landgrave and his soldiers would eat up their meager provisions. In the Great War, hordes of mercenaries had more than once descended on the town like locusts. But perhaps the Landgrave wouldn’t stay all that long.

Crowds lined the streets, through which the procession advanced slowly toward the marketplace. The people chatted and whispered and pointed to the silver-bound chests in which the Landgrave, no doubt, carried his valuable household goods. The twelve soldiers looked straight ahead. The Landgrave himself was invisible behind a red damask curtain that covered the coach door.

Once they had arrived at the marketplace, the coach stopped directly in front of the Ballenhaus. Dusk had already fallen over the town, but the birch logs were still glowing in the braziers, so that bystanders could see a form in a green doublet descending from the coach. At the Landgrave’s right dangled a dress sword. His beard was neatly trimmed, his long silky hair combed, and his high leather boots were brightly polished. He glanced briefly at the crowd, then strode toward the Ballenhaus, where the aldermen were already assembled at the entrance. Only a few of them had managed to don appropriate attire for the occasion on such short notice. Some had the corner of a shirt sticking out from under their doublet, and the coat buttons had been put in the wrong buttonholes. More than one passed his fingers through his untidy hair.

Burgomaster Karl Semer stepped forward to greet the Landgrave and offered his hand rather hesitantly.

“It is with—um—joyous anticipation that we have so long awaited your arrival, Your Excellency,” he commenced, stuttering slightly. “How nice that your arrival coincides with the May Day festival. Schongau is proud to be permitted to celebrate the beginning of summer with you, and—”

The count interrupted him with a brusque gesture and surveyed, in a rather bored way, the coarsely made tables, the maypole, the little fires, and the wooden stage. It was obvious that he had experienced more splendid feasts than this.

“Well, I am also pleased to see my Schongau once more,” he said finally. “Even if the occasion is a sad one…Anyway, has the witch confessed?”

“No, unfortunately she very cleverly fell into a swoon at the last questioning,” the court clerk Johann Lechner replied. With Jakob Schreevogl he had just emerged from the door of the Ballenhaus to join the group. “But we are quite confident that she will come to before tomorrow. Then we can proceed with the questioning.”

The count shook his head disapprovingly.

“You are no doubt aware that the use of torture in your questioning requires approval from Munich. You had no right to begin before you have it.” He waved a threatening finger, half seriously, half playfully.

“Your Excellency, we thought we could speed up the procedure by—” the court clerk began, but he was immediately interrupted by the Landgrave.

“No, you may not! First the approval. I’m not getting mixed up in arguments with the Munich court council! I’ll send a messenger as soon as I’ve seen for myself what the situation is. But tomorrow…” He looked up at the clear, starry sky. “Tomorrow I should first like to go hunting. The weather looks promising. I’ll see about the witch later.”

The count chuckled.

“She’s not going to fly away in the meantime, hey?”

Solicitously, burgomaster Semer shook his head. Johann Lechner’s face became pale. He rapidly calculated the expenses that the town would incur if the count really intended to wait for the approval from Munich. The soldiers would stay for a good month, perhaps longer…That meant board and lodging for a month, and also inquiries, suspicion, spying! And the matter would not stop with one witch.

“Your Excellency,” he began. But Count Sandizell had already turned to his soldiers.

“Unsaddle!” he commanded. “And then enjoy yourselves! We’ll join in the feast. Let us greet the summer. I can see that fires are already burning. Let us hope that here in a few weeks a much larger fire will burn, and that the devilry in this town will at last come to an end!”

He clapped his hands and looked up at the stage.

“Play up, musicians!”

The minstrels strummed nervously at a country dance. At first hesitantly, but then more confidently, the first pairs stepped out to dance. The celebrations began. Witches, witchcraft, and murder were temporarily forgotten. But Johann Lechner knew that all this would drive the town to its ruin before many days had passed.

The hangman knelt down before Martha Stechlin and changed the bandage on her forehead. The swelling had gone down. Where Georg Riegg’s stone had struck her, there was an ugly black-and-blue bruise. And the fever seemed to have gone down. Jakob Kuisl nodded, satisfied. The brew of linden flowers, juniper, and elderberries that he had given her that morning seemed to help.

“Martha, can you hear me?” he whispered and patted her cheek. She opened her eyes and looked at him vacantly. Her hands and feet were swollen like balloons from the torture. Everywhere dried blood covered her body, which was only barely concealed by a dirty woolen blanket.

“The children are…innocent,” she croaked. “I know now how it was. They…”

“
Shhh,
” said the hangman, laying a finger on her dry lips. “You shouldn’t talk so much, Martha. We know it too.”

The midwife looked astonished.

“You know that they had looked at the sign at my house?”

Jakob Kuisl grunted in agreement. The midwife raised herself from her reclining position.

“Sophie and Peter were always interested in my herbs. Especially the magic ones. They wanted to know everything. I showed the mandrake to Sophie once, but that’s as far as it went! I swear it to God! I know what can happen. How quickly the gossip spreads. But Sophie wouldn’t leave me alone, and then she must have had a closer look at the signs on the jars…”

“The bloodstone. I know,” the hangman interrupted her.

“But that is really quite harmless,” the midwife began to sob. “I give the red powder to women when they bleed down there, infused in wine, nothing evil in it, by God…”

“I know, Martha, I know.”

“The children drew the sign on their own bodies! And as to the murders, by the Holy Virgin Mary, I have nothing to do with them!”

Her body shook as she broke into a fit of sobbing.

“Martha,” Jakob Kuisl said, trying to calm her down. “Just listen. We know who killed the children. We do not know who gave the murderer his orders, but I’m going to find him, and then I’ll come and fetch you out of here.”

“But the pain, the fear, I can’t stand it anymore,” she sobbed. “You’ll have to hurt me again!”

The hangman shook his head.

“The Landgrave has just arrived,” he said. “He wants to wait for approval from Munich before they question you any further. That’ll take time. Till then you are safe.”

“And then?” asked Martha Stechlin.

The hangman remained silent. Almost helplessly he patted her shoulder before going out. He knew that unless a miracle occurred, the death sentence was now only a formality. Even if the mastermind could be discovered, the fate of the midwife was sealed. Martha Stechlin would burn in a few weeks at the latest, and it was he, Jakob Kuisl, who would have to lead her to the stake.

When Simon arrived at the market square, the feast was already in full swing. He had been resting at home for a few hours, and now he wanted to see Magdalena again. He gazed over the square looking for her.

Couples were dancing arm in arm around the maypole. Wine and beer were flowing from well-filled jugs. Some drunken soldiers were already staggering around the edge of the fires or chasing screaming maidens. The Landgrave was sitting at the aldermen’s table, obviously in high spirits. Johann Lechner must have just told him a funny story. The clerk knew how to keep the bigwigs in a good mood. They were all having a grand time. Even the parish priest, sitting a little to one side, sipped calmly on a half pint of red wine.

Simon looked over at the stage. The minstrels were playing a country dance that became faster and faster until the first dancers, laughing, fell to the ground. The squealing of women and the deep laughter of the men mixed with the music and the clinking of mugs to form one single sound ascending into the starry night sky.